;*sb»*^ ^ c < « ^■r ^«^ [«rdgo1 <■- ^^--c c tec "•<:_•.«. f '<< . C ( c ^f^ I :- ' c c .' (T C :<c ccTvc c CC c ( . ccc : . cTcc CC ^ c c ce c L ^cci. CC.5: CC ^v c . ccc tC «ccccc > c : ccc -.cjL cxccc < ,, -<!«;■ CSS, K_<,1L'<< < C r T c" - <cc <:(c c<: <- <^ 'c c <c«c crrcc' r.c^. '. /C^C -CC -c < r C^t CC c I ^^C CC C C C«: CCC , < . t ' < r Ct < ''<^ C C( (XC, ::•:< re a, civ.fc ccc V CC«: < . croc CCC < CtT.<t . ccc c^r c *«CL < CC <^ : 1. *., '-<- ^4jc c<< <: -< t f/^ L??.:<:< etc .«CCC ' .CC^'C c^ --'■ c • ccc,v< . 0f <t<:~(c-^ C CCC'((CC Ccc CCiS C CC T CC CC. C CC(^ CC CC c CC. C C«; THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. BY MORTIMER COLLINS. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1876. All rights reserved. LONDON : PRINTED F.Y 3IACD0NALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE. TO THE BIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM JAMES RICHMOND COTTON, M.P., lORD MAYOR OF LONDON. Princeps Muxicipalis : Musis Amicus. le 92439 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. CHAPTER T. A PANE OF GLASS. " In utraque fortuna paratus." "■pEEPARED for either fortune." A grand motto, belonging to a strong race, wlio in their time have shown their right to hold it. Not everyone can bear both forms of mortal chance. Adversity usually strengthens the character : pros- perity softens it in one way, hardens it in VOL. I. B ^ A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. anotlier. lu adverse times you understand the seriousness of life ! You help a friend, or take help from him, loyally ; you eat and drink and toil and have a glass for a friend, though the times are hard, and a kiss for your wife, though it may be to kiss away the tears of trouble. Come the pros- perous breezes of fortunate finance : can you bear them as well? Can you come nobly to the front, and help, in wise fashion, the _ less fortunate ? Or does prosperity harden your heart against penmy, while at the same time it softens your own mental and physical fibre — so that you, once poor, regard poverty as a crime — so that you, once a hard-worker and plain-liver, find a drive in a carriage and pair strong exer- cise, and dismiss your cook because she has not a new entree for every day in the year. A PANE or GLASS. 3 The truth is that few men — I mio-ht ahnost say no men — can use wealth wisely unless they were born to it, or have an hereditary tendency in that direction. ''In utraque fortuna paratus " is a strong motto to as- sume ; as strong- as the famous Forti nihil dijjicile of England's present Premier. Charles Cotton, an orphan, living at Englehurst with a stern kind-hearted uncle who was a Plymouth brother, is the hero of my historiette. His uncle Pichard, an old bachelor, had achieved a bread-and- cheese fortune, and was therewith content. Charlie, son of a younger brother who was drowned at sea, was his chief care. Mas- ter Charles was a tiresome troublesome youngster. Pichard Cotton had appren- ticed him, at the age of fourteen, to Palph b2 4 A EIGHT WITH FOETUNE. Wraugel, plumber and glazier, whose an- cestors had been plumbers and glaziers at Englehurst since the Conquest, according to village tradition. "Wrangel was a plaus- ible fellow, with three daughters, the young- est of them about five years older than young Cotton, and all three ready for what, in village life, reflects the flirtation of the higher classes. Poor Charles Cotton was at a o-reat disadvantao-e. He liked a bit of fun ; he was not stupidly shy ; but what is a boy to do against three young women older than himself ? Old Wrangel tauo'ht him his trade wellenouo-h, swearino- at him fiercely during the process; for this young Cotton cared not. He even preferred Wrangel's strong language to the cynical scoldings of his pious uncle. But he positively preferred either to the A PANE OF GLASS. 5 affectionate allurements of Sarah and Jane and Emily Wrangel. These three village girls were typical. Sarah was tall, thin, demure ; taught a class at the Sunday-school ; never looked at you except aslant, through the corner of her eyes. Jane had long dark eye- lashes, shading dark eyes, and in her earliest youth was j^retty in a way ; but it was a scrofulous prettiness, which in time became uglj- ; and at no period could she walk with anything like grace. Emily was plump as a partridge, and ruddy as a milkmaid ; and, it strikes me, the best of the lot. All three made a dead set at Charles Cotton, the only good-looking boy in Englehurst. All three were foiled by what they decided was his invincible stu- pidity. b A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. Sarali couldn't ^et that boy to the Sun- day school, do what she would. He was such a good-looking boy, and it seemed such a pity he shouldn't be taught what was right. Well, he was good-looking', Miss Sarah. At sixteen, thin as a lath, he had run np to six feet and weighed twelve stone, and his hair curled over his head like vine-blossoms, close and crisp. But he did not care about Sundav school, and Miss Sarah gave him up in disgust. Then Jane tried, with those long dark narrow eyes of hers, and the pouting mouth that conceals unsound teeth, and the general unwholesome prettiness. It was "Xo, thank you," with Charlie. Emil^^ amused him more, for Emily was very plump and very stupid, a combination not altogether unwelcome to certain classes of men. A PANE OF GLASS. 7 But Emily did not detain him lono\ Our unfortunate hero was born with an imagination — the worst faculty in the world, unless you can use it on the Stock Exchange. It is hard to say what a man with an imagination ought to do, in the unimaginative grooves of ordinary English life. Yet is it the man with the imagina- tion who works out the great conquests of England. He annexes empires, and explores continents. Now Charles Cotton's absurd imagination drew him towards a pretty creature far beyond his reach, Squire Engle- hurst's dauofhter Cecilia, whom he saw in church on Sundays, and now and then on week days, walking through the village. There was something indescribable about Miss Englehurst that he could not perceive in either of Wrangel's pretty daughters. 8 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. The FrencTi called it je ne sais quoi ages ago. An Englisliman would probably say of such a woman, " She's a real lady." Mind you, a real lady may be born in a cottage ; it is a mere question of race, I suspect. Any way, Charles Cotton had a kind of repulsion for Wraugel's daughters ; while he never met Miss Englehurst with- out regarding her with an eye of pained deligfht. She was too far above him for any thought of love. Well might Cotton, plumber and glazier, come to that conclu- sion, since Englehurst was about the finest place in the county, and the old Squire was reputed to be worth twenty thousand a year. Is there not something absurd in this girl-worship ? Why, plumber and glazier, handsome and agile though you are, dream for a moment of the child of A PANE OF GLASS. a man wliose house is approaclied througli a long avenue of oaks, and wlio drives liis coach with four horses ? Respect the high strata of society. Sarah, or Jane, or Emily — the demure, the flighty, or the plump — is quite ready for you. Don't waste your time on the impossible. Excellent advice, but not suited to Charles Cotton. He had his ambitions. Among his treasures were a few old books, and in them book-plates of his ancestors, three hanks of cotton on the shield, and the famous defiant motto which is placed at the head of this chapter. He had often questioned his old uncle about the owners of these books. "Who were William and Robert Cotton who had possession of them more than a hundred years ago ? Old Richard Cotton, who had no ambitions, and 10 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. who considered that pride had been the ruin of his family, did not encourage any questions of this sort. " They are dead and gone long ago," he would say to his nephew, "and don't you trouble ^'our head about people who have gone before you, but stick to your Avork, and perhaps in time vou'U have as srood a business as old •J O Wrano-el." Nevertheless Charles Cotton did trouble himself about people dead and gone, and made up his mind that he would become a scholar, and not a plumber and glazier. Not that he despised his work. He felt proud of doing his best in everything, and by the time he had finished his apprenticeship he was certainly the best workman Wraugel had. Amono-sthis old books was Ains worth's Latin Dictionary, a huge volume dedicated A PANE OF GLASS. 11 to Doctor Richard Meade, Ph^^siciau to Geore-e II. It liad been well thumbed in its time, and Charles, when a boy, had often opened it, and wished he could learn Latin. One day it occurred to him that in this book he could find out the meaning of those words with which he was so familiar, j^et which had so often puzzled him : In utraque foriuna paraiiis. When he asked his uncle their meaning, the old man said, " I never meddle with lang^uao-es that don't belong to my country. Good plain English is enough for me. If any of our relations who are dead and gone chose to put that gibberish with their names, it is their affair, not mine." •'But look here, uncle," said Charles, " in this book there is written E libris Ricardi Cotton. Don't you think that must 12 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. mean Ricliard Cotton ? That is the same as your name : you must know something about that." " If that means Richard Cotton, all I can say is that he didn't know how to spell his name, which, thank God, I do. Don't bother yourself with that gibberish, and with people dead and gone." What old Cotton called his "fine rela- tions " was a sore point with him. His own account of the story to his very confidential friends — for he never talked of his affairs in Euglehurst — was that his father was a broken-down gentleman, who had died very much in debt, leaviuQ^ him and his brother Charles at an early age. Their mother had died years before, unable to bear the con- stant worry and trouble that her husband brought her. The children had been neg- A TAXE OF GLASS. 13 lectecl, and had received very little educa- tion. Richard the elder had profited by his father's conduct. He seemed to be exactly opposite to him. When extrava- gance forced the father into extreme poverty, he was always talking of his position, and Richard knew how often he had been refused help by his relations, for they were tired of helping him. There- fore, when he died, Richard determined to cut off all connection with the famil}^, and to work hard and help his younger brother. Unfortunately the younger brother required only too much help ; he could never suc- ceed in anything. " We ought to be gentlemen, Richard, instead of working like this," he would say. "Where's the money to make yoa 14 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. a geutlemau ? " Eicbard would reply. One day Charles made the acquaiutauce of a youug sailor in the merchant service, who persuaded him to go to sea. Richard, with all his sternness, was fond of his young brother, and did not like parting with him ; but he reflected that he would never work on shore, and that, once out at sea, he would be obliged to work. So he "Used the greater part of the money he had already saved by industry and spare living to pay the apprenticeship premium, and to give Charles an outfit. " The lad may do at sea," he said to him- self, " though I should not be surprised to see him turn up any da}", and hear he had deserted the vessel." However, Charles did not turn up unex- pectedly, but made a first-rate sailor ; and A PANE or GLASS. 15 wlien his apprenticeship came to an end, his employers gave him a good berth. Richard always made him welcome when he came home from his jonrncys, which ■was about once in two years. Everything seemed to be going well with, the brothers for many years. But a sailor is sure to do something odd at some time or other. "When Charles came home from one of his journeys he announced to his brother that he should have to be six wrecks on shore, as the vessel was to be repaired. " That won't trouble me, old fellow, so long as you can amuse yourself." But Richard was not j^repared for the 23articular form of amusement that Charles adopted. For the first week that a sailor is on shore he is perfectly happy, looking 16 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. up all liis old friends, and " treating " everyone who wishes to be " treated." So long as a sailor's money lasts he cannot even refuse a beggar. By the end of a week both money and excitement are generally gone, and he longs to be off again. Now Charles had, when home on a previous occasion, become intimate with the family of a brother sailor. His sailor friend had joined another vessel, and was now away. Charles thought he could not do less than pay his respects to his friend's family, so he called on them. Mrs. Mildmay was a widow, with one son and two daughters, the youngest daughter, Alice, being nearly seventeen. When Charles had last seen Alice she seemed quite a little girl, and was in short frocks, but now she had grown much, A PANE OF GLASS. 17 and was very pretty. In fact, Master Charles fell desperately in love with her, and found no difficulty in passing the time. The mother, who was a mild helpless woman, did not seem to understand what caused Charles's frequent visits to the house. The six weeks w^ere lengthened into nine weeks, and Charles, impatient of what appeared to him to be a very long courtship, persuaded Alice to marry him secretly. When at last he went to sea again, he sent the following letter to his brother — '"Dear Richaed, " Don't cut up rough. I had so much time on my hands that I got spliced. Alice is a nice little craft, and I VOL. I. C 18 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. am sure you will take care of lier if slie wants a friend. Next time I come I'll provide for lier, for I'm getting a good screw now. " Charles." But Charles never did come home again. The news of his loss came just before the birth of his son, and caused the mother's death. Hichard was angry enough at his brother's marriage, and had vowed to have nothing more to say to him. But when he heard the sad news he was only too glad that he had the opportunity of offer- ing help to his brother's wife, and when she was gone he determined to devote himself to the child. " I will bring him up," he said to him- self, "in such a way that he shall not have A PANE OF GLASS. 19 any of the mad fancies of his father. They say that sort of thing is in the blood, but I don't beheve it. I'll bring him up to be an honest English tradesman, and he shall have no fine ideas about being a gentle- man." Thus we find our hero had been care- fully trained to be a respectable workman. But why, why, did Richard Cotton pre- serve that old chest full of books ? Was it the books or was it in the blood ? At any rate, Richard Cotton asked himself this question when it was too late to remedy the evil, supposing it was the books. " AYhy did I keep the stupid things ?" he said to himself many a time when he found the boy always poring over them. He had kept them when his father's effects were sold, because he thought he "- c2 20 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. sliould like to have something in remem- brance of his father ; but he did not like to catch himself indulging in sentimental thoughts, for he tried to persuade himself that he was the sternest of men. When the books were being sold for theii' weight in waste paper, for they appeared to be a shabby old lot, he bought up a few without reference to what they were, and put them into an old chest. He never afterwards looked at them, but the chest formed a table in Charles Cotton's bed-room, and when the lad fouiid the books there, he got them all out, and made himself a rough set of bookshelves, and arranged them. When he had done this he took his uncle to see, thinking he had done something clever. "What can you want witb all that rub- bish stuck up on the wall, Charles ?" said A TAKE OP GLASS. 21 the old man. " You'll never read them." '' Oh, won't I, uncle !" said the boy. "You'll have enough to do," said his uncle, " when you leave off schooling, to learn a trade, and it's nigh time you com- menced. When 3^011 get as old as I am you'll not care to read more than your Bible and your Almanac, with just a look at your newspaper now and then." It did not occur to Richard Cotton at this time that his nephew would trouble him- self to read such musty old books. But as time went on he found that he was con- stantly reading them ; and, as the boy earned money of his own, he bought books at a second-hand bookshop in a neighbour- ing town. Not books only did he pick up at this shop, but guidance in his use of books, and help in learning Latin. It was 22 A TIGHT WITH FOETUNE. not often lie could get time to go, for tlie town was eight miles distant, but he never lost a chance. The bookseller was named Ravensbourne, a man of good family, son of a famous mathematician, who had a special theory of his own as to the roots of negative quantities. He was a man of eccentric tendencies, this bookseller, who having inherited a moderate competency, took to bookselling simply because he loved books. He had a brother who wrote books, and very brilliant ones, but he had no am- bition to follow in his track. 'No, his ideal of enjoyment was a second-hand bookshop in a country town, from behind the coun- ter whereof he could study character. His idea of exercise was a bicycle on a country road : his brief holiday usually took him to Italy or Switzerland. His catalogues A PANE OF GLASS. 23 were choice collections of literature : if lie thought a book bad he simply said so in plain terms : also he managed to introduce criticisms on the conduct of the local mae"- nates, which made them very irate. Fancy a second-hand bookseller venturino- in his catalogue to laugh at his Worship the Mayor ! Ravensbourne's knowledge was miscel- laneous ; but what he had picked up him- self he gladly imparted to Cotton, in whom he seemed to recognize a kindred spirit. And if any rare book came in which seemed likely to suit Cotton, Ravensbourne kept it back for him — to read at least, if not to buy. Thus when my story opens, Charles Cotton, the plumber and glazier, was a young man of no ordinary attainments. 24 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. He could put in a pane of glass as well as any glazier in the kingdom, and if lie could not write Latin verse as well as any scliolar, lie was perhaps in a fair way to do so. He was at this time one-and-twenty years old. His coming of age was of no importance to him or anyone else ; for what difference does it make to a plumber and glazier who works hard for his five-and-twenty or thirty shillings a week, whether he is twenty or two-and-twenty years of age? He had, with the help of his friend Ravens- bourne, been trying to form some plan whereby he could give up his trade, and make his small stock of learning of some use. " Suppose you tried to get a place somewhere as a clerk to begin with," said Ravensbourne. A PANE OF GLASS. 25 " Xo," said Charles, " I would ratlier work an a tradesman than be a poor miserable clerk, obliged to keep up an ap- pearance on a labourer's wages." So it was agreed that nothing could be done at present till Charles had money at his command. Therefore must he work patiently for some years and save money. But whatever happened he would keep his motto in front of him, and be prepared for either fortune. Was he so well prepared for good fortune as for evil fortune ? We none of us know whether we are till we are tried. One other fact concerning my hero must I mention before proceeding with his history. He wrote verse, and tried to fancy that he might some day be a poet. Most young men do write verse, and fancy them- 26 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. selves poets ; and why sliouldn't tliey ? It amuses tliem, and doesn't hurt the public so long as they don't publish their pro- ductions. But whether we are scholars or only plumbers and glaziers or bakers or candlestick-makers, we can all put a little poetry into life if we please. A man may be a poet without being able to write verse. There may be a poem in a picture, or in the arrangement of a few flowers, or in the building of a church or a house, even in the putting in of a pane of glass. The whole creation itself is to the poetic mind one grand long poem, of which a fresh piece can be read every day. Amongst the books in Charles Cotton's bedroom was one entitled, " The Genuine Works of Charles Cotton, Esq. ;" its date was 1715. A quaint book, with illus- A PANE OF GLASS, 27 trations even quainter tlian the letter- press ; but our young plumber and glazier was proud of it. He could see it was not the highest form of poetry. He tingled all through to produce something poetic, if only it were a poetic hose for a pump or a poetic pane of glass. He was at the age of inchoate ideas. We all pass through that stage, all of us who are worth any- thing; and then we pass a few years in wondering at our own folly ; and then, ive begin. Experience has taught us, and the world has to listen when we speak. It is a bright May morning. Somebody has managed to break a plate-glass win- dow in Squire Englehurst's library. An imperious message comes to Wrangel, and he sends off Charles Cotton at once. 28 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. " Look alive," he says. " The Squire likes things done prompt." So the young fellow shoulders his glass and off he goes. Just outside the lodge gate he meets the Squire, who is trying a new cob, an Irish one, with a doubtful temper. On goes Cotton through the avenue, arched like the nave of a Gothic Cathedral, and reaches the house. What terraces of floral colour ! "What flashing fountains ! "What a long line of windows, diamond-coloured by the sun ! What grand cedars and oaks, the gift of elder 2:enerations ! He turned to the rear of the house by a wicket gate, but heard a lovely voice singing on the lawn in front of the house, and the sweet song rang in his ears for many a day. A PANE OF GLASS. 29 He heard the song as he went round to the back. He caught just a glimpse of a fairy form upon the lawn. Gowned in, some distractingly delicious attire, she was to him a creature beyond the energy of thought. He felt in another world. He was shown by a footman into the library,, and at once set to work upon the square of glass, anxious rather to escape from the magic influence of this charmins: grirl. A simple child, for all that. Any gentleman of her own rank who saw that she was loveable would gradually bring her to the point at which he might tell her so. Nothing easier. Love rules the world. Cecilia Englehurst was only a girl. But what in the world would that girl have said or done could she have imagined that the young fellow who had 30 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. come in to mend a pane of glass was ■capable of regarding her as a creature of Ms own species ? Charles Cotton put in that pane of glass. Cecilia Englehurst was picking roses meanwhile, to put in a vase for her father's delight. Odd, very odd ; those two young people look at each other, shyl}^, now and then. It occurred to Cecilia that the plumber and glazier was a tall stalwart fellow, with intelligence in his eyes and firmness on his lips. It oc- curred to Charles Cotton that Cecilia Englehurst was the loveliest girl he had ever seen. They exchanged no word with each other. As to Cecilia, she looked at the young glazier, not altogether with an unfriendly glance, and thought that, if he could not help being a glazier, 'twas a A PANE OF GLASS. 31 cruel pity lie couldn't help being so liand- some. That day that pane of plate-glass formed a definite point in the life of Charles Cotton. He thought of it ever after. He thought of the grand library at Engle- hurst, with its big shelves of books from floor to ceiling, bound in vellum and Russia and tree-calf, and its thin librarian (a French abbe and a famous mathematician), seated at a table in a bay "window, so absent from the world that the pane of glass was put in without his knowledge. The librarian was at that moment ex- aminino- a theorem of Sir William Hamil- ton's on Quaternions, with a view to its utter demolition; and had a troop of cavalry charged in at one Avindow and out at the other, he would probably have known 32 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. as little about it as Archimedes knew of the Roman soldier wlio killed him in the middle of a problem. Charles Cotton thouofht of the beautiful ffirl whom he saw upon the lawn among her roses, singing gaily in the sunshine, while a thrush tried vainly to mock her melody. He thought how many a time she would look upon the lovely scene through the clear crystal pane which he had mortised into the lofty case- ment. It was a dream in his brain that day. And Charles Cotton had need of con- solatory visions. Englehurst village yielded him little satisfaction. There were not young fellows enough of the right sort to get up a good game of cricket. They were a lazy loafing lot, encouraged in idleness by the landlord of the principal A PANE OF GLASS. 33 public-house, a porpoise of a man, with bhibber for brain, and a fine idea of en- couraging poaching and theft. His shrift would have been short if the Squire could have had his way; but when Mr. Engle- hurst was travelling abroad a scoundrel steward had given him a long lease. All the Squire could do was to discharge his steward ; and here was this fat ruffian, half a mile from his lods^e orates, demoral- ising the whole population. It is amazing what harm may be done in a country vil- lage by an unscrupulous publican. I, although I am quite against the tyranny of Sir Wilfrid Lawson's proposal, would gladly welcome an Act by which the in- habitants of any city, borough, or parish might limit the number of public-houses it should contain. VOL. I. D 34 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. Charles Cotton liad nothing in common ■with the other young fellows in the village, whose incorrigible indolence disgusted him. He liked work. He liked a loner walk o with his bulldoo^ Holdfast at his heels, a white dog that weighed half a hundred- weight, and was as level as a billiard-table across the shoulders. He liked a swim in the river Engle, which zigzagged pleasant- ly through the Squire's noble demesne. He liked his game of draughts with his uncle Richard on winter evenings, and wished he could have knocked the superior game of chess into that worthy old gentle- man's rather drowsy brain. He liked, when Englefield village was fast asleep, to read over and over again his few quaint books, and dream of the world outside A PvVNE OF GLASS. 35 that village which ns yet he had seen so little. Now, as a result of these likings, Charles Cotton came to be considered in the vil- lage as a "stuck-up young fellow." The dolts who surrounded Jenkins, landlord of the Five Horseshoes, hated him heartily. They did no work. They drank sour beer all day, with salt in it to encourage another glass. Fat floundering Jenkins detested the sight of a well-built and well-set-up young fellow, who never entered his house, and passed it with a certain manifest con- tempt. He used to grumble over this insult of nio-hts with his cronies. Charles Cotton was the only youngster in the vil- lage that he hadn't got under his thumb. Jenkins, who dared not drink beer himself, D 2 36 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. for a glass would have exploded him, treated to unlimited beer anyone who would abuse Cotton and the Squire. But they abused the Squire with bated breath, for it was remembered that once on a time he had so soundly thrashed an impudent fellow with his dog-whip, that the scound- rel had never walked comfortably since. Jenkins's anger against Charles Cotton, simply for being independent of him, grew so strong that two of his pestilent para- sites, Joe Bates and George Bond, both in a chronic state of delirium tremens, thought they w^ould commend themselves to their flabby employer by serving Cotton some rascally trick. Now our hero liked fishing on summer evenings in the river Engle, and had leave to fish the parts best pre- served. Bates and Bond thought they A PANE OF GLASS. 37 would take an opportunity to sTiove him into the river, thereby giving infinite delio-ht to the orbicular Jenkins. Not for a moment did they doubt their power to do it. Cotton was a tall fellow, but thin and weak, they judged ; they were of that stout short build too common in bucolic districts, where dwarfs are quite the ma- jority — dwarfs, I fear, in brain as well as bone. Now it happened one eventide, when Cotton was whipping the stream with scant success, and Holdfast was looking on with that affectionate gravity which only the bull-dog possesses, that a gentleman loitered along the soft green margin of the Engle in an easy observant way. He was a notable man. His dress was perfect ; his linen absolute snow ; the diamond studs in his 38 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. sTiirt-front of the first water. He re- garded Cotton with a curious look. Pre- sently he said, speaking English with a slight alien accent — " The trout are not numerous to-day. There is too much sunshine — too many real flies. But to fish and catch nothiDo; is better than not to fish at all. It is the same all through the world. The poet, whom no one can read, has at least the pleasure of writing." Charles Cotton looked at the stranger with much interest. Not often did he encounter that most delightful product of human thought — a paradox. His surprised gaze was not lost on the stranger, obvious- ly a humorist. "Ha," he said, "let me apologise. I know that one should not speak to an A PANE OF GLASS. 39 English gentleman without an introduc- tion. Thousand pardons. This is my card." Thereon was printed : " The Marquis de Castelcicala.'' " I am not a gentleman," said Charles Cotton, " I am only a workman. It is a pleasure to me to talk with a gentleman." " All gentlemen should also be work- men," said the Marquis, " and fishing is a gentle craft. Can you catch trout without ofentles ? But, mv dear sir, I am one of those who do not think that gentlemen are all of one class. I am free, I fear ; if so, forgive me ; but your face shows you are a gentleman. There are so many like you in England ; it makes the country great. I, alas ! am an Italian ; and we have gentlemanliness, and even manliness, 40 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. cruslied out of us by centuries of tyranny and Popery." *' I am very ignorant, sir," said Cotton, "all I know about Italy I have learnt from Byron's ' Childe Harold,' whicli I picked up at a bookstall one day, at Langford." " You would not get an idea of Italy more perfectly," said the Marquis. " Your Byron understood us. The glory of Italy filled his veins. I think we love him better than you do, for many small poets are named as competitors with him." " I know nothing of the small poets of the day," said Cotton, " I live in a wilder- ness, and am, I fear, lamentably ignorant." " You are too modest," said the Marquis. " A man who is well acquainted with the works of a great poet can hardly be called ignorant." A PANE OP GLASS. 41 After taking a courteous leave of the fisherman the Marquis sauntered home to dinner. He was staying with the Squire, and greatly amused him and Cecilia with an account of his adventure with a philoso- phic angler. They speculated as to who he could be. " A workman, he told me," quoth the Marquis, who was deftly treating a slice of pine with sugar and priceless port. " If you have many such workmen in these parts, you are felicitous. He spoke like a gentle- man. He had a charming easy modesty about him. I wish we had such a breed of workers in Italy." " They're a queer lot about here, thanks to that stupid man, Jenkins," said the Squire. " I shall be glad when I can get rid of that fellow. But I fancy the man 42 A FIGHT WITH FOliTUNE. tlie Marquis saw may liave been that youngster wlio works for old Wrangel, and who often comes up here to do odd things. I've often noticed him, and thought him better than the ordinary lot. At any rate^ he does his work better than the others." Cissy almost blushed. She had thought him a great deal better than the ordinary lot. " Whoever he may be," said the Marquis de Castelcicala, " he is a most remarkable young man for his position in life, and I should predict for him a fortunate career. I think that his modesty was a rarer quality than his cleverness. He is one of those Englishmen of yours, born to make a name. 1^0 other nation breeds such men." "You are apt to over-estimate us," said the Squire, " because by accident we have A PANK OF GLASS. 43- orot a little ahead of other nations. But you also will come to the front by-and-by^ and Italy will equal England again. You have always surpassed us in painting and sculpture, while in poetry Dante and Ariosto are almost equal to Shakespeare and Byron. How much we owe to you Shakespeare, and Milton, and Byron prove. I regard Italy as England's natural ally in all that is grand and good." While the Squire and the Marquis were thus talking, where was the man who started the talk ? Fishing quietly. It was a lovely evening. He stood beneath a noble ash tree, looking on the silver shimmer of water, and throwing his fly dexterously into river ripples likely to tempt a trout. He knew the angling art as well as that earlier Charles Cotton, who was Isaak 44 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. Walton's friend. Holdfast sat by liim on liis liaunclies, calmly surveying the river Engle, and gravely delighted when his master flung a trout ashore with a sudden curve of his wrist. Alas, the calmest enjoyment hath its end. Those ruffians, Jenkins's scoundrels, Bates and Bond, came down to the river's side, and thought they had a good chance of accomplishing the fat fool's behest. Down they came, both overcome with beer. Charles Cotton was skilfully throwing his fly where he saw a trace of a trout, when he felt a hand on his collar. He happened to know how to use his elbows, a piece of knowledgfe sometimes more valuable than even the multiplication-table, and he quietly widened his shoulders. The fellow. Bates, who had taken him on the sly, lay A PANE OF GLASS. 45- on his back ; Cotton caught him np, and threw him into the middle of the shallo\r stream, where he floundered miserably. But the other man, Bond, a big fellow of sixteen stone, thought he could easily put an end to so mere a stripling ; so he rushed at him with vehement vigour, and was rather surprised to get " Long Mel- ford " in upon his right temple. Charles Cotton had an idea of liitting straight from the shoulder. All this time, Holdfast had been quiet. He evidently had much confidence in his master. He looked on. Had unfair advantage been taken of Charles Cotton, Holdfast would quietly have fastened those splendid teeth of his into the calf of the assailant's leg. But he was an impartial dog ; and as it appeared to him that his 46 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. stalwart young master was quite a matcTi for two sucli miserable duffers as Bond and Bates, he utterly disdained to interfere. The rumour of this fracas reached Engle- hurst, where the Marquis de Castelcicala had kudized his riverside acquaintance. Truth was not told. It seldom is. But there was a general report that Cotton had drowned somebody. As a fact, nobody was drowned. Bates was washed, and there can be no doubt he wanted washing. Indeed, I am not at all certain that it would not be well for the School Boards to begin with that important W before com- mencing the three R's. If cleanliness be next to godliness, it must come before mere learning. The failure of this unprovoked attack upon Charles Cotton made those who dis- A PANE OF GLASS. 47 liked him in the village all the angrier. And he was much disliked. Wraugel's three daughters disliked him because they could make no impression upon him. Jenkins and his parasites disliked him be- cause he treated them with manly con- tempt. When the two cowardly scoundrels who had attacked him sneaked back to the Five Horseshoes with a garbled account of their adventure, the bloated landlord at once thought he could carry out his revenge. He sent off to the nearest station of the county police a message to the effect that his man, Joe Bates, was in a very bad state through injuries re- ceived from Charles Cotton, and that it was doubtful whether he would re- cover. Joe, meanwhile, was put to bed, looking 48 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. mucli cleaner, and none the worse for his ducking. Charles Cotton was playing a game of drauQ-hts with his Uncle Richard when a couple of policemen entered and took him into custody, ''Don't be frightened, uncle," said Charles. " You will find it will all come riofht. The fellow I ducked was born to be hanged, so I'll swear he can never be drowned." So poor old Uncle Richard was left alone with no other consolation, and with the thought continually haunting him that " those horrid books " had done it all. 49 CHAPTER II. THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UP. " Stone -walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage ; Minds innocent and quiet take This for a hermitage." TENKINS the hiiore was well pleased with the success of his scheme. Charles Cotton, whom he hated with the stolid hatred of ignorance, was locked up for that nio-ht at least, whatever else mio'ht happen to him. " It will bring down the young black- VOL. I. E 50 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. guard's pride," roared Jenkins to his para- sites of the bar that flattered the old fool for the sake of his salted beer. '• He thinks himself half a gentleman. He won't come here and drink a class of good hon- est ale. Now he's in the lock-up, the young humbug, and I hope they'll give him three months. Poor Joe Bates won't get over it for half a year, I venture to say." " That Cotton's a bad lot," said an old fellow called Spike, who made up Jenkins's books for him, being a broken-down lawyer's clerk. "I don't approve of his conduct at all," remarked a rather affected female, who took the title of Mrs. Jenkins, though she had no definite claim to it. So Charles Cotton got very prettily abused at the Five Horseshoes to-night ; THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UP. 51 and the liiige Jenkins, a man wlio always looked like a toad on his hind legs, waddled off to bed with the happy thought that Charles Cotton was confoundedly uncom- fortable. Strange to say, he was not. The lock- ing up of a prisoner at Englehurst was a very primitive arrangement indeed. Rad- more, the policeman, a stalwart Devonshire man, of six feet four, was married to a pretty little woman, who looked like a baby by his side. It had been a real love- match ; for I can assure you, most courte- ous reader, there are love-matches in all grades of society. It is not absolutely necessary to be able to woo your sweet- heart in canzonets, or o-ive her little dinners at the Star and Garter at Rich- mond. Kissing is not an exclusively E 2 52 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. aristocratic amusement. However, the Engleburst policeman, Radmore, had as srood a risfht to a romantic love affair as most men ; for he was descended lineally from Tom Kadmore, of Exeter, who ran away with Adela Courtenay, daughter of the Earl of Devon, in the sixteenth cen- tury. And our policeman had gone rather above the presumable level of the police ; for his pretty little blue-eyed fair-haired wife was a governess in the family of a Devonshire baronet ; and tall Harry Rad- » more won her heart, though the baronet's eldest son was doing his best in the same direction. Now the Englehurst lock-up, attach- ed to Radmore's cottage, was a kind, of fortified pig-stye. But the policeman had too much courtesy in his nature to THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UP. 53 shove Charles Cotton into this hole, good enough for thieves and scamps, so he asked him to have some supper with him, and put him in his own spare room. Mrs. Radmore gave him supper first, home- cured bacon and fresh eggs, and cider brought specially from the ripe apple- bearing core of Devon. After which Rad- more smoked, and Charles Cotton and Nora Radmore played chess. Could only the flabby Jenkins have seen them ! How indignant he would have been ! AVhen Charles Cotton slipped between the sheets that night, he fell into a happy reverie. He thought much of his position. Since through that pane of glass ho had w^atched the darling daughter of Englehursfc a new dream had come into his life. An idea had stimulated his brain. Hitherto 54 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. Charles Cotton's mind had lain dormant ;, but the thought of a noble and lofty love invigorated it, and he was ready at once for any conceivable adventure. The merry chat of Mrs. Radmore over their chess had enlivened him. She respected Cotton for giving the half-imbecile wretch, Joe Bates, the first thoroug^h washino; he had ever had in his life. Clever women — no, that phrase won't do, for some women are too clever by half — but women with a magnetic sym- pathy can often discover in a young fellow a touch of o:enius before he has found it out for himself. Something of this kind occurred between Mrs. Radmore and Charles Cotton. He lay awake half the night thinking of their conversation, for she had developed his ideas, and caused him to reflect. THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UP. 65 Came tlie morning in due time, and lie snatched an hour or two of wholesome sleep. He did not feel particularly locked up when he looked out on Radmore's trim kitchen-garden. Radmore bragged that he could grow finer asparagus than Squire Englehurst's gardener ; for he was only a Scotchman, don't you see ? and Radmore came from Devon, where asparagus grows wild. Well, our friend Charles had his hearty homely breakfast, and then was marched up to Englehurst Hall, to be taken before the Squire. The court of justice was held in the library, where Cotton had no eyes for anything save that magic pane of glass, which seemed to let in a new light upon his existence. The macilent librarian acted as clerk. The Marquis de Castelci- cala was present, with an amused smile on 56 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. liis face. Cotton took tilings very quietly, knowing tliat lie bad only done what any- one would have done in such circum- stances. Jenkins the huge was there, with his unwashed half-attorney, Spike, and there was fine free swearing to the effect that Joe Bates had been vilely ill-treated. Bates was dying, Jenkins professed to think, and he didn't want to lose such a valuable servant. Charles Cotton began to think he ought to be hanged at least, if half these people said was true. He was thun- derstruck w^hen Squire Englehurst said — " The case is dismissed. It is frivolous, worse than frivolous. One of your hangers- on, Jenkins, attacks this youngster when he is fishing, and gets a ducking for his pains. He deserved it. You deserve THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UP. 57 sharper treatment for encouraging idle scoundrels to get drunk at your house, and it shall not be my fault if you do not get what you deserve. Mr. Cotton, you did what was quite right, and I hope you will do just the same again if the occasion de- mands it. I am sorry you were locked up. Come and have some lunch with me." " I'm only a poor workman, Mr. Engle- hurst," said Cotton. *' I don't wish to be too forward because you are generous and kind." " Pshaw, lad," replied the Squire, " what of that ? You're an Englishman, and speak Shakespeare's language. Come along. I don't believe in half the genealogies of the present day, and I daresay your blood is at least as good as mine." So the late prisoner accompanied the 58 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. magistnite to luncheon — a divine meal, with lobster salad, made with Devonshire cream, and pyramids of prawns, and ham of boar, and a mighty cold baron of ox, uncut, and marvellous contrivances in tartlets and jellies, with pineapple, Beech- wood melon, and wondrous wines to our hero hitherto unknown. And the daughter of Englehurst. Yes, there she was, and Titian was wanted to paint her. Who can put the blush roses of lovely cheeks, the ever varying lights of radiant eyes, the sweet soft graces of form, the music of a merry voice, into this prosaic black and white ? Here's the deliciousest little girl in the world. What do I give you ? Black ink on white paper. She drove Charles Cotton wild that day. What was he, that he should think for an THE HERO IJS THE LOCK-UP. 59 instant of Squire Engleliurst's daughter ? Yet . . . strana;e infatuation . . . the moment he saw her through that pane of glass he felt she was the only woman he could ever marry. Yet how could he, a mere plumber and glazier, draw within admiring distance of the Squire's beautiful daughter ? A manifest absurdity from the very first. Yet now he had actually lunched with her — had actually exchanged gay sayings with her — had seen a bright light in her eyes when he said something that pleased her — had held in his hand her little sweet warm pink shell of a hand. Might he dream of her? He tried. The Marquis de Castelcicala looked on this little comedy with much interest. " These English," thought the aristocratic Italian, descendant of a most ancient race, CO A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE '' are altogether a curious people. Here is Squire Engleliurst, as tliey call him — and I suppose the title of Squire means some- thing or other — inviting a mere tradesman to sit at his table with himself, and his daughter . . . and me'' That last mono- syllable the Marquis soliloquized with a fihudder. As a fact, equality is better understood in England than anywhere else. There is a stronger strain of humanity in us, though the Republican nations boast of a fraternity which they cannot realise. There is no country where a patrician of the highest class would so easily encourage a brilliant plebeian. Moreover, in English society there is one crucial test. Is he a gentle- 2na7i? A man may have a very small income, and few ancestors to speak of, and THE HEEO m THE LOCK-TJP. 61 yet exclusive English society will accept liim if lie has the unmistakeable touch. Sometimes society is even too easy, and admits men who are loud and vulgar — but they don't last. For success in the highest stratum of society, a man must dress well and talk well. The tailor business is easy enough, but to teach a man to talk you must teach him to think, and few things are more difficult. You must first teach him the elementary meanings of words. And here I may pause to talk pedanti- cally for a moment. I think that in modern national education we are missing the most important point. Teach English Our language is worth learning. Few men can either speak or write it. I have com- pared it carefully with Greek, the most musical of languages, with Latin, the most 62 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. logical, with German and French, (this last being the best language in the world for memoirs and mathematics), and I arrive at the conclusion that no language can touch the English. Its metrical powers are not half developed yet ; but we have three octaves — prose, blank verse, and rhyme — and no other nation has more than two. To resume. Charles Cotton enjo3'ed his lunch. A youngster, he was in company difficult for a youngster to understand. Of the lady I say nothing, since Balzac has acutely remarked that the first woman created puzzled her Creator. Never more original creature than Squire Englehurst's pretty daughter looked inquiringly on the surface of things — and she was an oddity, a regular little Tory of course, for she took her father's politics on trust. Yet THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UP. 63 she had that fine honest Liberalism of wo- men which judges a man for what he is, not for what he has. It will be amusing if we should ever o^et female suffras^e — a thins: not impossible, since Disraeli has declared in its favour — to witness the result. Wo- men — the educated portion of them at least — are socially Liberal, yet politically Tory. Their action in the House of Commons, if it should ever take place, will be almost revolutionary. Charles Cotton, having been entertained at the table of the Squire with easy courtesy, and having had the delicious delight of listenino; to Miss Eno^lehurst's merry speeches — airy nothings, all of them, though to him they sounded like the promises made by Aphrodite to Paris, on Mount Ida — took his leave with a grateful 64 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. and excited feeling. Sometliing in the same fashion felt Ixion wlien introduced to Olympus. Not every village workman can be brought into connection with every village Squire ; for often the villager is wholly devoid of courtesy, and often the Squire (judging himself superior to the multitude by reason of his possessions) treats men of a lower order with contempt. In the present case, a gentleman who thought more of mankind than of property, met with a working man who possessed the natural instincts of a gentleman ; they immediately understood each other. As Cotton walked down the avenue, he felt as if he were flying in the air. This delight- ful episode in his life made a new man of him. The Marquis de Castelcicala, a student of THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UP. 65 human character, thought he would have a quiet talk to this young fellow, who seemed to him a novelty. So, knowing his way through the Squire's grounds, he made a short cut, and joined Charles Cotton at the gate. " I should like to walk through the village with you, Mr. Cotton," he said ; "perhaps you could show me anything there is of interest." " I am a poor guide," answered Cotton. " There are strange old houses here in Englehurst, but T am not clever enough to find out their history. People learned in that way would, I don't doubt. Now, there's the Five Horseshoes, which we shall see when we go round the corner of that great walnut tree; it is a very old VOL. I. F 6d A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. house, but I have not been able to learn its history." " Ah ! that is where your large-looking friend lives," said the Marquis, laughing. " I don't think he is a bad sort of fellow in some respects," said Cotton, " but he is by nature a bully, and can't take anything quietly. He thinks he may do just what he likes. He never goes to church, and sneers at the parson ; he lives with a woman who is not his wife ; he encourages poaching and thieving." " Yes, I see ; he defies public opinion. You breed such men in England, Mr. Cotton. They are of some use, these bullies. You would not be persoaified as John Bull but for such men. A few Jenkinses here and there, who swear at the people above them and kick the people THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UP. ^7 below tliem, are not altogether useless. They are a part of that infinite variety of English life which is without parallel in any other country." Charles Cotton, though an unusually clever young fellow, found it hard to follow the vivacious Marquis as closely as he would like. Reading and writing and thinking fast are just like working fast at the forge or the plough — they want prac- tice. The Marquis de Castelcicala and Charles Cotton turned the corner toward the Five Horseshoes. The fat landlord was sitting on the edge of the water-trough in front of his inn, which would have been picturesque if he could have been elimi- nated. There he sat, a heavy dolt, who fell asleep in five minutes if there was no F 2 C8 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. one to wake liim ; and tliere was a young woman w^hose relation to him was dubious, with false ringlets down to her waist. I sketch from absolute observation. I am not a Wilfrid Law son, but I am certain, as was remarked in my first chapter, that much would be gained in morality if the dwellers in every parish could decide how many public-houses it should contain. It is my belief, after walking through the greater part of England, that nine-tenths of the public-houses are unnecessary. I am an advocate for a good glass of ale ; but a good glass of ale is impossible where the public-houses are ten times the number they ought to be. Jenkins, the stout and apoplectic, was lounging against his horse-trough, with dirty parasites around him. When he saw THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UF. 69 the Marquis and Cotton lie began to sliout. Shouting was liis strong point. Stupidity and voice were about equal in quantity witli him. So he shouted, from his horse- trough, some vile impertinence, with which I need not defile my virgin page, and the Marquis of Castelcicala, who had a cane in his hand, walked promptly to where the huge blackguard sat upon his horse- trough, and gave him a sharp cut across the face. " Cochon !" he said. Jenkins, taken by surprise, rushed for- w^ard wildly. The bully of the neighbour- hood did not expect so stern a rebuke. But he had to meet Charles Cotton, who quickly interposed between him and the Marquis, and who, having a long and easy reach, disposed of the fat idiot in about a 70 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. minute and a quarter. He sprawled on tlie ground, a miserable toad-like creature. Let us hope his woman folk consoled him that evening with an abundant supper of tripe and onions, or something equally suitable to his mental calibre. " I suppose we shall both of us be sum- moned before the magistrates now," said the Marquis, laughing. *' No matter, my young friend. I can aif ord to pay the fine, if a fine should be deemed necessary. Yet I suppose the law of England does not allow fellows like that to insult unoffend- ing persons." " The law is curious," said Cotton. " It does not allow you to punish an insolent person, and you can only check him by swearing that he puts you in bodily fear. Now the only fear you have is that his THE HEEO IN THE LOCK-Ur. 71 beliaviour will put you in a rage and make you break the law." " You fear yourself and not liim," said tlie Marquis. "Ah, but what is this?" he asked, pointing to a curious wooden erec- tion, or rather series of erections, which stood under a prodigious elm-tree that overhung a deep pond, and were green with the moss and lichen that show dis- use. " Those are our great antiquities," said Cotton. "Englehurst Manor has some quaint customs, which have gone out of fashion now-a-day. There's the whipping- post for thieves and drunkards, and there are the stocks ; and that thing slung on to a branch of the elm is what they call a ducking-stool. My uncle Richard remembers when they were all three 72 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. used, and says he wishes they were used still." " But the ducking-stool — what does that mean ? AYhat was it used for ?" " I never could quite make out what it meant," said Cotton to the Marquis, who was carefully inspecting the whole appa- ratus, which he had not noticed before, through his eyeglasses. "It was used. Uncle Eichard says, for scolding women, and brewers who sold bad beer, and bakers whose bread was short weight. They were fastened into the stool, and then it was let down into the water several times." " I quite approve that method of punish- ment," said the Marquis. " Why is it not now used ? I know little of your English brewers and bakers, for I never drink ale or eat bread ; but I hear the women scold, THE HEEO IN THE LOCK-UP. 73 and am sure that a cold bath would be of service to many of them." Charles Cotton, who had heard Sarah and Jane and Emily Wran^sfel abuse each other when their father was out of hearing, quite agreed with the ]\Iarquis. Meanwhile the landlord of the Five Horseshoes, fat and fatuous, was holding counsel with his affectionate relations and connexions. He groaned much, as well he might, having fallen heavily, with a blow which would have cracked any except the thickest skull in the count}^ Having been discomfited in his attempt to punish Cot- ton, he saw clearly that it would be useless to try the law against a foreign gentleman who was the Squire's guest. " They're all alike, the damned Harry- stockrats," he said, " the whole sanguinary 74 . A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. gang will have to be shot down, or hung, and I wish old Gany would come and do it." By Garry he meant Garibaldi, whom, for some unintelligible reason, he regarded as the Coming Man, destined to deliver him from squires and excisemen. Spike was there. " It ain't a bit of use to go before the magistrates," said that worthy. " "We might take him to the County Court. Judge Middleton would give damages, for he's clean against gentle- men, and thinks they're always wrong." "No good," groaned Jenkins, vexed with pain and rage. "I want to pay 'em in their own coin. You manage that for me, Spike, and I'll give you a fiver." Spike reflected. He "happened to know" some very queer characters. He had been clerk to a lawyer who successfully defended THE HERO IN THE LOCK-UP. 75' thieves, often getting paid with the very bank-notes which, they had stolen. Spike had been ver}^ intimate with one of his master's best clients, known to the frater- nity as Slippery Jack, so often had he slipped out of prison, and out of the hands of the police. A happy idea occurred to him. " It'll have to cost more than a fiver, Mr. Jenkins," he said; "but I can do what you want." " Right you are !" exclaimed the venge- ful Jenkins, with a gratified roar. " Do it, if it costs fifty." He emphasised his sen- tence by bringing down his hand, upon the table with a mighty thump. Spike went down to the bar-parlour, and put on his horn-rimmed spectacles, and very slowly indited this epistle : 76 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. ''8, 116, 17, 42, 1, 425, 28, 148, 26, 630, 22, 146, 20, 8, 174, 8, 398, 15, 193, 23, 76, 16, 1, 12." And this he addressed to John Clark, at an address in the Seven Dials, and carefully posted it himself. Having done this, and hearing on his return that his patron was asleep, he sat down with a happy mind to a long pipe and an earthenware mug of the wholesome ale for which the Five Horseshoes was famous. 77 CHAPTER III. INVADERS. " 'Tis my delight, of a pitch-dark night, When the rum has ceased to gurgle. To make a hit with my centre-bit, And show folk how I burgle." rriHAT mysterious missive reached its destination, and was read in ratlier less time than it was written. Slippery Jack pondered over it with care, and so- liloquized. He was in a back attic of Seven Dials, with a gin bottle on the table ; and his attire w^as of the most ragged description. He had been out of 7S A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. luck lately, having been foiled by the police in two or three well- planned robberies, and he was now very eager for a chance to change his luck. Spike's letter seemed to let sunshine in to cheer his gloomy prospects. "It'll do," he thought. "Spike's a trump. Diamonds, by George ! I must take the Parson down." He had just risen to go out when a slight scratching at the door served to tell him that there was a crony outside. He opened — to the Parson himself. The contrast between the two men was curious. The new-comer had, to an eye not given to detect hypocrisy, a bland benevolent countenance. He was about six feet high ; dressed in the costume of a digni- tary of the Church, with a looped hat, INVADEES. 79 and knee breeclies and gaiters; a gold chain of massive size meandered across Lis waistcoat, and a single diamond of pure water sparkled on liis Land. He looked at least an archdeacon. Yet Lis first act was to take up tLe gin bottle, and drink a vast drauo;Lt from it witLout usino; tLe intermediate formality of a glass ; and Lis next was to say — " Well, Slip, old boy, anytLing up yet ?" " I was just coming over. Parson. You're tLe very man for a capital job. Diamonds, down at EngleLurst. Old Crake must find some money, and tLen we'll start sLarp. How sLall I dress, now ?" " Get up as my servant. Slip. We'll go to tLe best inn, and soon find out all about the blokes witL tLe diamonds from tLe people about. It's a capital bit of fun for 80 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. this dull season. Let's go to Crake's." They went, but separately, being far too prudent to walk together. Inspector Shore might perchance be loitering that way, and catch a glimpse of them, and draw his own conclusions. The detective police of London are admirably organised, as I have reason to know ; but it is a curious fact that the thieves also have a detective force of their own, who watch the doings of the detectives. Slippery Jack reached Crake's first, for the Parson walked with a dignified gravity which beseemed his position. Now Crake's establishment is modestly hidden down a court that turns out of the Strand — a court lying lower than the next street, so that in the street he has a front door, on what, in regard to the court, is the first INVADERS. 81 floor. There is a brass plate on the street door, with the words, " Mr. Crake, Ac- countant," thereon engraved ; but the door in the court is modestly silent as to the occupation of its owner. It was to the latter entrance that Slippery Jack came ; but the Parson, with proper respectability, rang the bell in the street, and was ad- mitted by a quiet man-servant, one of the astutest rogues in London, and, as a fact, Mr. Crake's junior partner. Mr. Crake, a little broad-shouldered man, with a head disproportionately large for his body, sat at a table in a room on the lower floor of the house. All round this room were safes, such as you see in an ordinary lawyer's ofiice, and on those safes were painted aristocratic names. On the VOL. 1. G 82 A FIGHT WITH FOUTUNE. wall hung a large pliotograpli of Mr. Gladstone. ''Diamonds, eh?" he said in a hissing whisper, after scanning Spike's letter. ^' Yes ; I know something of Spike ; T could give him penal servitude if I liked. And you want money and a suit of clothes. Now, look here, Slip, do you promise to make a job of this ?" . " Yes, Mr. Crake, I'm certain sure." " Well, don't you make mistakes. Don't be in a hurry. Find out where the jewels are before you get in. Leave the plate alone, and on no account go near the wine cellar. Those confounded police nab so many of you because you can't resist a a bottle of fizz ; whereas, if you came off sober and quiet, why, isn't diamonds worth twenty dozen of the best Clicquot ? If you INVADERS. 83 break down in this, Slip, I won't interfere if they try to liang you." " I'll do it, Mr. Crake." " Very well ; go into the other room and see if you can find a suit that will fit you. It ought to be black, and a cockade in the hat." Slippery Jack went into a large room, where he had put on many a disguise, and where both male and female dresses of in- numerable kinds hung from J^egs on the walls, and soon reappeared, looking as irre- proachable a rector's groom as you would find anywhere. " You'll do," said Crake. " Here are twenty couters. That will do for a week at the inn, and by that time you should have done something. Get off as soon as you can." G 2 84 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. Crake, it will be seen, made Slippery Jack the leader of tlie expedition. The Parson, in truth, was ornamental. His career had been a strange one ; he had gone to a public school and a university ; but there was an inveterate antipathy to the eighth commandment implanted in his disposition. The worst of it was that he stole stupidly ; and he would soon have come to utter grief if Crake, a Napoleon among thieves, had not seen his value and utilised him. The Parson always looked like a gentleman and talked like one. In- deed, poor fellow, he had once talked him- self into the affections of a great heiress in the Midland Counties, but Crake would not let him marry her. "No," he said, "I find you useful. If you try it on, I'll have you arrested on INVADEES. 85 your wedding-day. " And the parson, who, like most men of imposing appear- ance, was a thorough coward, gave in most humbly. Crake was (among many rascalities) an organiser of jewel robberies. He had long since grasped the idea that this pays even better than being a stockbroker. Diamonds were his speciality. A diamond of ten carats is worth £200 ; a diamond of one hundred carats is worth £20,000. Mr. Crake knew diamonds well ; could tell the value of a stone at a glance. He had, at an early date, come to the conclusion that they were the best things to steal, being almost imponderable property. Settings melt down, and stones go to Amsterdam. A diamond is easily swallowed, if the thief is caught too promptly to be pleasant. Mr. 86 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. Crake dwelt with tlie question matliematic- ally, tliougli T do not think he had ever been at Cai^abridge ; but he was quite aware that the vahie of diamonds varies as the square of their weights, and that the square of the value of rubies varies as the cube of their weights. Alas, I remember breaking down terribly in a quadratic equa- tion based on this fact. But the switchino* which came as corollary has indubitably fixed the law in my mind. Unluckily, it is not of much use to a fellow who is not a diamond dealer — or a Crake. Slippery Jack and his comrade went straight away to the terminus, calling in at various queer public-houses that were usually in odd corners and blind alleys, and where a wink from landlord, or an ogle from barmaid, indicated recognition. The INVADERS. 87 parson seemed a strange figure in such places; but in our mighty metropolis nothing, however strange, astonishes men. If you were to meet an omnibus drawn by an elephant you would merely recognise a new idea. If a few M.P.s who can't speak English were marched off every day to a School Board School, every reader of the morning papers would be thankful, and willingly acquiesce in so wholesome a despotism. London magnetises the world, and nothing strange is strange in its mar- vellous streets. It has been said that France is a Monarchy, with a Kepublic for its Capital. It may be said that Eng- land, though a small island, is the capital of the world, and has a world for its capital. Years have passed since De Quincey spoke of the Nation of London : 88 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. the World of London is now the true phrase. Scrutton is the nearest railway station to Engiehurst, and the trains that stop there are few ; the district is not populous, and as to Squire Engiehurst, when he does go to London (which is rarely) he sends horses on, and drives four in hand the whole way. The advent of a gentleman who clearly seemed a dignitary of the Church, attended by a servitor in black, with a cockade in his hat, was quite an event on the small village platform. The parson had travelled first-class, and the Slippery one third ; and the latter took the charge of a respectable portmanteau, which looked as if it deserved the title of reverend, even if that prefix be denied to poor Mr. Keet. Joe Bates was at the INVADERS. 89 station witli a trap from Jenkins's and a fast-trottino; mare between the shafts. Away they drove along pleasant green lanes for abont three miles, and then reached the Five Horseshoes at Engle- hurst. Here they were received with much respect by the orbicular Jen- kins and the flaunting females of his establishment. The position of master and servant was maintained throughout by the two fellows ; and Jenkins and his people, who did not understand this kind of thing, regarded the parson with rever- ence, as a clerical gentleman of distinction, who by some modern metaphysical method had reconciled the long-standing hostility between God and Mammon. So the Parson, who called himself the Rev. Nicodemus Hodder, had a duck and 90 A EIGHT WITH FORTUNE. green peas, with a considerable amount of spirits and water, in the parlour, in soli- tary dignity, while Slippery Jack was regaled with tripe and onions in the more social atmosphere of the bar. The stout landlord fell asleep ; but there were a few farmers and c^entlemen's servants there during the evening, and Miss Jane Jenkins, a freckled young woman with false ringlets reaching to her waist, did her best to be agreeable. The Slippery One was in his element. He told the most atrocious anecdotes of the aristocracy, and saug the most ridiculous songs of the Music Halls. He even awoke Jenkins at intervals, and he kept the ringleted bar- maid in a perpetual giggle. As to the farmers and footmen, they simply roared. "Now you know," says the Slippery IXVADEES. 91 One, " you'd hardly believe it, but the Countess of Colchester said to me one day, ' Jack,' says she, ' if my old man dies, you're the young fellow I should fancy. You ain't handsome to speak of, but you're so devilish clever.' So says I, ' My lady, I'm much obligated, but I've made a prior promise to the Princess of Wales, in case H.E.H. should walk his chalks. Of course, I couldn't break my word to a lady ; but I'll consider the question.' And I will, of course ; only I must find out how much money she's got, that Countess." "Nothing under twenty thousand a year would suit you, I suppose," said a quiet man with keen dark eyes, who was evident- ly a footman or valet. "Well, I don't know. My hair's getting grey, and I'm not worth as much to the ■92 A FIGHT WITH FOKTUNE. fair sex as I used to be. 1 tliink I might manage with ten thousand." The farmers looked amazed. The quiet man smiled, and said, " I wish you luck. Your master is a clergyman, I am told. Shall we get a sermon from him while he stays here ?" " I don't believe he ever preached in his life," said the Slippery One. " He's safe to be a bishop before he dies, but not because he preaches." " Ah, because he doesn't preach, but lets great people go to Heaven — or somewhere else — without interfering," said the dark- eyed man. " He is wise. Never do your duty, and you are sure to succeed." "Oh, that's your principle, is it?" said the Slippery One, with a sneer. " I used to learn something in the Catechism about INVADERS. 93- doing your duty in your state of life. That's what I try to do." " I hope we shall all follow your ex- ample," said the other, who evidently was in a mood for chaff. " We're not all perfect, though. Of course it's your duty to be, seeing you're a parson's ser- vant." Slippery Jack did not quite like being chaffed in this way. He did not know his man ; and did not for a moment dream that his man knew him. But he did ; and he took a malicious pleasure in saying things which the SHppery One would not like. For this quiet personage, valet to the Marquis de Castelcicala, was one of the ablest detectives in Europe. The Marquis, though he seemed never to do anything. 94 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. and fluttered from one country-liouse to another, was over here on a secret political mission. His valet was also an Italian ; but he spolie most of the languages of Europe with a perfect accent, and no one could have guessed his nationality. The company at the Five Horseshoes took him for an Englishman. Slippery Jack some- how felt uncomfortable in his presence, and would have felt a thousand times more uncomfortable had he guessed that he was known. The time for closing came, and Redi, the Marquis's man, was one of the first to go. " Who is that chap ?" said Slippery Jack to Spike. " I don't like him much." " Oh, he's only a servant to a foreign gent that's staying with Squire Englehurst. INVADERS. 95 He's a stupid quiet sort of cliap. He won't interfere with us, I'll swear." "He'd better not. Can you and me liave a quiet talk upstairs somewhere, Mr. Spike, over a drop of grog ? I want to knoAv one or two things. You under- stand." Spike and Slippery Jack adjourned to a bedroom upstairs, where the latter was to sleep; there, with the aid of copious draughts of gin-and- water, they worked out their plot. The Parson, mea^^.while, had grown tired of his solitary dignity, and strolled out into the moonliofht to smoke a cio-ar and look for adventures. But Englehurst was a very quiet little village indeed, and but for the burly landlord of the Five Horse- shoes, might have been a model for vil- 96 A FIGHT WITH FOKTDNE. lages. The girls did their work and went to bed early. There was no light in any casement when the Parson went on his stroll ; and he came back disgusted just as Redi left the inn. That quick-sighted per- sonage had a full view of him in the moonlight. *' I know that face," he thought, as he walked toward the Hall. " Who is the man ? Dressed like an English priest, and down here at the same time as that villain Clark. It is strange ; I must speak to the Marquis." The Marquis de Oastelcicala had gone to his own apartment when Redi returned. He gave his valet much liberty, for various reasons. This evening he was in a reverie, as he leaned back in the laziest of loung- ing cliairs, his handsome dark eyes and INVADERS. 97 abundant silky hair lighted bj the lamps above him. He had been trying an experi- ment. It had never till lately occurred to him that he might possibly be a marrying man, some time or other. He had re- garded women either as pretty toys, made to be played with and broken — or as use- ful pieces in that game of chess which is called politics. "Women had amused him, and he had used women ; but that he could, would, or should love a woman, had never struck him. So he was surprised when he found in Cecilia Enp^lehurst a something- or other which he never had found elsewhere. He could not understand it. She was a charming simple-subtle child ; he had seen thousands that would outdo her beauty and wit ; yet there was some magic in ber freshness which entranced him. And this VOL. I. H 98 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. evening he had thrown passion into his talk with her, had made his words signifi- cant, had tried to bring into an Enghsh drawing-room the rose-flushed atmosphere of moonlit Verona, before love was mur- dered in the tomb of all the Capulets. The Marquis had played his part well : his pretty English Juliet had responded, aptly and deftly ; yet was he not quite satisfied. " I suppose I am too old," he soliloquised. ''Youth is the master-key that opens all locks. Pshaw, why should I dream of a mere girl ? Am I not better free ?" He stood up, and looked at himself in the glass. Not a grey streak in the glossy brown hair. Not a darkening touch in the bright clear eye. You might go many leaofues before seeino; such a handsome gentleman as Castelcicala ; and his face and INVADERS. 99 form were the index of his miud. He was as brave aud pure as Bayard — a chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. His soliloquy was interrupted by a knock at the door, and Redi's entrance. That watchful valet came to give his master in- formation of his suspicion concerning the people he had noted at the Five Horse- shoes. " They are London men," he said, " and thieves, I feel sure ; and there have been so many jewel robberies in country houses that I am afraid they may think of trying Englehurst Hall." " Where does Miss Englehurst keep her diamonds, Eedi?" said the Marquis, laugh- ing. " Do you really think these fellows mean mischief ? If so, it would be amus- ing to set a trap for them. You must h2 100 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. watch tliem, Redi ; neitlier you nor I want mucli sleep ; and there is all the day to sleep in when you want to use the night." " They will do nothing to-night," said the valet ; " they have not been here long- enough, and they are not sober. But to- morrow night they are likely to try the ex- periment, and in the interval I may learn more." " If you feel certain nothing will occur to-night you may take off my boots, Eedi," said the Marquis. "And see what those fellows are about to-morrow. I believe them to be in some way associated with that stout landlord, who is evidently a stolid scoundrel. Just give me my dress- ing-gown, and see if you can find a little copy of Catullus that I have laid down somewhere. Thanks. Don't call me till INVADERS. 101 eleven, unless you liear anything. In that case, wake me at once." Eedi, who well knew his master's humours, retired into the ante-room, where he slept. Castelcicala did not go to bed. He lay back in a lounging chair, and read that great poem of the Veronese wherein are the hexameters — Hespere, quis ccelo lucet crudelior ignis ? Hespere, quis coelo lucet jucundior ignis. " Ah," said the Marquis to himself, for he had a habit of soliloquy, " that man was a model of the gentlemanly poet. The star of eventide, cruel yet jocund to the tender bride, is a charming notion. That philosophic prosaic metre-manufacturing Horace, who was evidently born to be quoted in the English House of Commons, 102 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. had no such pure poetry about him." The Marquis disliked the English House of Commons, and regarded representative government as absurd. He was an oligarch. Now, although we firmly believe in our Commons, and laugh at the Prince Con- sort's remark that representative govern- ment is on its trial, we must confess that our method of management is rather odd. The First Lord of the Treasury is for the time Dictator of this pseudo-monarchic Commonwealth of England. But, and this is a very momentous element in the question, we hold to Royalty. Perhaps few things are more worthy of note than the way in which John Bright, a typical Englishman in his love for individual free- dom, holds to Royalty. It looks as if the nation wanted a personal leader. Did the INVADERS. 103 great King Alfred, just a tliousand years ago, impinge upon us that tendency ; or is it tliat since the English came from their earliest home in Asia they have always loved a Herr, a FzV, a Hero to follow — a man who gathered up into himself the in- finite possibilities of his followers, and said — " As I am, so is my army : the meanest man in my army shall be as brave and strong as I." The Marquis had been dreaming over his Catullus for some time in that happy way in which those who comprehend true poetry study it over and over again — aware that in the highest form of verse a mis- placed vowel is murder — when he heard a tapping at the window of his room. " Owls," he thought placidly, and re- 104 A FIGHT WITH TOETUNE. turned to his Catullus, and read, for tlie myriadtli time, the mighty galliambics which Mr. Tennyson, trying to imitate, has shown that he cannot scan. But it was not owls. Owls, indeed, though they can make a noise if they like, are retiring birds, and behave in a respect- able manner. I have for some years had the honour of knowing a pair of owls that were brought to me from the nest, and their behaviour is perfect. They don't even swear when dinner is late, which cannot be said of some human beings. Their worst failing is that they hoot very much when the love-passion troubles them ; but it has been observed that in a similar state of affairs human creatures write vile verse, a worse crime by far. The Marquis continued his reading, INVADERS. 105 noticing witli delight the way in which the most learned, yet the most passionate, of poets put the choicest of words into his verse, and setting his own gems (not another man's) in gold of his own mintage. To understand the supreme beauty of high poetry is next best to the power of pro- ducing it. And few things in literature are so curious as the power of a man to use the very best words in the very best order when he evidently is frightfully in earnest. Whether wooing Lesbia or lampooning CcBsar, he meant what he said; yet the lines that languish with love, and the lines that cut like the rapier, are equally perfect in their music. The tapping continued. " Is it an owl ?" soliloquised the Mar- 106 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. quis. "I£ so, he is very pertinacious. Let us go and see." Thus thinking, he put down his book, and, opening the window, beheld a human head. He was not startled, being much of Lord Lyndhurst's opinion, that in these days it is absurd to be surprised at any- thing. Moreover, he saw in a moment that his unexpected visitor was Charles Cotton, who had reached the only lighted window in the house by clinging to a huge Virginia creeper. The Marquis helped him into the room, saying, with a laugh, "I have had many strange visitors, but you are the strangest I remember. Have you come to the right room, or did you think to play Romeo to Miss Englehurst's Juliet ?" "It is the only lighted window in the INVADEKS. 107 house, and I felt sure it was yours, since no one else would be likely to sit up so late. I want to tell you something which I think important. I was sitting on a stile, thinking about nothing particular, when two men came by. The night is pitch dark ; they did not see me. I re- member most of their talk. " ' We told that fool to-morrow, but we'll do it to-night,' said one, a biggish man, ' and be off with the swag before he's awake.' " ' Right you are, sir. The girl has got a lot of diamonds in a casket — stunners — that would sell for no end of money in Amsterdam. I tipped one of the boys half a quid, and he told me all about it. "We'll just walk quietly in through the window, nab that box, and walk our 108 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. ■clialks. Don't see why old Jenkins sTiould ■have any share of the plunder. We'll be there about two o'clock, and get off with the swag by road. The rail's dangerous.' " The Marquis laughed quietly, as Charles Cotton dramatically repeated this colloquy. Then he looked at his watch, and said : — "It is just one. We have an hour to consider the right thing to do. You and I are more than a match for those two burglars, but perhaps my man Redi had better help, in case of their escape in the darkness. Sit down awhile, and I will think what is best to be done." The Marquis reflected, then struck a silver bell, and in two minutes Redi entered, and received his instructions. '' Now," said Castelcicala, with a gay smile, "comes my greatest difficulty. I INVADERS. 109 must go and talk to a young lady in bed. Follow me silently." They trod quietly along the Turkey- carpeted corridor. The Marquis tried Cecilia's door, and found it unlocked- Why should any trustful innocent child lock her door in her father's house ? The Marquis sat by her bedside, and watched her soft sweet breath, and felt half afraid to awake her. But time was going on, and the necessity grew imperious. " She is fast asleep," he said to E-edi and Cotton, who were standing just outside. " You stay quite quietly here with me, Cotton, in case they come before Eedi can manage to wake the Squire, and we'll not wake Miss Englchurst till we hear what the Squire says. We must not let them see a light — it will frighten them away." 110 CHAPTER IV. CAUGHT IN A TEAP. " If ever the devil forsakes his own, 'Tis because their place is ready." Old Song. " C^ ^ ^^ ^^® Squire, Redi," whispered the Marquis ; '' wake him quietly. Tell him what I have done, and why, and ask him not to call up any of the servants. A lot of men about are sure to alarm the robbers. Ask him to come at once." At once ! The Squire, who loved his after dinner port, slept the sleep of a fine CAUGHT IN A TRAP. Ill old Eno-lish g^entleman. But when Redi did at last contrive to make liim understand tlie situation, he sprang out of bed on the instant, pulled on his breeches, seized a heavy gold-headed riding whip, and was at Cissy's bedside in less time than could easily be imagined. The Marquis could whisper a,rticulately, a rare and often valued art. He made the Squire understand in a few words that he had ventured on this rather irregular move- ment of defence, because he was in imme- diate expectation of the attack. " If you leave these scoundrels to me," he said, " I feel certain we shall take them. "Will you see Miss Englehurst to a safe corner ?" The Squire assented, but grasped his heavy whip with grim resolve to interfere 112 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. with a vengeance if there should be need. Pretty Cis was awakened by her father and carried by him to his own bed. He explained the matter to her as briefly as possible, and assured her there was nothing to fear. It was unlucky for Jenkins's plan of revenge that his intense sleepiness caused him to leave these two London mis- creants to Spike. That worthy had promised his patron that the burglars should inflict some injury on the Marquis, who was sure to be about, as he was known to sit up late ; indeed, the Englehurst villagers were so amazed by this Italian gentleman's eccentric habits, that he was commonly reported to have dealings with the Devil. He was seen wandering in the lonely fields at all hours ; the light burnt always in his window, for he " outwatched CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 115 the Bear ;" it was said tliat sometimes two forms might be seen crossing swords at midnight, throwing their shadows on the blinds, and that it was the Marquis fighting the Devil for his soul. As a fact, Castel- cicala would often have a fencing bout with Redi, to give him a breathing just before he slept. Both were masters of fence, an art which Englishmen neglect. Apart from its beauty and grace, the use of the rapier steadies and strengthens every mus- cle of the body. It gives strength to the lungs, power to the wrist, and quickness to the eye. It is the favourite pastime of men of ofenius. An old friend of mine once went, in his boyhood, with his father, to a Brighton fencing gallery. Two men were fencing, one, he said, of wonderful beauty, but a little lame ; the other quick VOL. I. I 114! A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. as ligliting in his movements, with a face that did not seem the same two instants to- gether. My friend got a sharp pinch from his father, which seems to have been his friendly paternal way of bidding him take notice when it was not suitable to speak. He did take notice, and learned, on leaving the gallery, that he had seen Byron cross rapiers with Edmund Kean — our first poet since Shakespeare with our first actor since Garrick. When Spike came to consider the matter, he thought what he had under- taken too dangerous ; so, very glad that Jenkins was sunken in somnolence, he in- structed the villains as to little Cecilia's diamonds, but said no word about the Marquis. There was just a chance, he argued with himself, that they might meet CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 115 the Marquis and maul him. If so, well ; if not, he could tell Jenkins they had been told to do it : for, whether they got the diamonds or not, they would certainly be off next day, so could not contradict him. And Jenkins would naturally deem the loss of a few thousand pounds' worth of diamonds a heavy blow to the Squire, whom he hated "as the devil hates holy water." So Spike, forgetting the canon that there is honour amona' thieves, sent the fellows oft' with instructions as to the diamonds only. Meanwhile Redi had taken his post at the open window, and the three watchers were still as if they slept. It was a breathless night. Scent of roses and honey- suckle, and a thousand rarer flowers, was heavy in the air. It was silent ; except that I 2 116 A FIGHT vV^TTH FOETUNE. once a uiglitiugale dashed into maddening' throbs of song . . then suddenly broke off, with a startled cry. " That means they are here," whispered the Marquis, just audibly. "Ready!'" Yes, there were muffled steps beneath the window. There were low whispers as the "cracksmen" reconnoitred. The old growth of wistaria made as easy a ladder to Miss Englehurst's room as to the Mar- quis's ; and to Slippery Jack the position looked feasible enough. "I can do it, Parson," he said. "When I'm in through the window, just haul your- self up high enough for me to hand you down the box. Understand ?" " All right," he said. " I may be a bit of time finding the box," said the Slippery One. "Besides, CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 117 whatever Crake says, I sliall just look to see wliether tlie young lady's left her purse or watch about." " Don't hurt the young lady if she wakes," says the considerate Parson. " Lord Mess her pretty heart ! I never hurt a lady in the whole course of my profession." This whispered chaff amused the Mar- quis much. The Slippery One climbed up the creeper like a cat, and got dexterously through the window — to find his legs caught by Cotton, his throat clutched by the Marquis, while Redi clapped a square of plaster on his mouth, so that he could not utter a sound. Finding he was caught in a trap, he made no resistance. In two minutes he was bound hand and foot, a safe prisoner in Redi's room. All the 118 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. while the Squire was in a state of excite- ment, wanting to help in the operations. " How about the other man, Redi ?" said the Marquis. "I can take him, Excellency." " Don't let him slip now." Redi didn't. The Marquis and Cotton watched from the window above. The active Italian darted round a corner, grasped the Parson, who was gazing stolidly at Miss Englehurst's window, and led him off like a lamb. The villanous dolt collapsed at once. In a few minutes he was carefully pinioned beside his com- panion. "Well done!" said the Squire. ''The whole thino- has been well done. I thank you, Castelcicala, though I did think it a bold measure to take possession of my CAUGHT IX A TRAP. 119 little girl's room. What will slie say to yon to-moiTOW, I wonder ?" " I hope she will not be very cruel," he answered. "We shall see. I took it to be a question of time. The diamonds might have slipped away before you could have come." « The Squire laug^hed heartily. " They would have got little. All the village fancies that my Cis keeps thousands of pounds' worth of diamonds in her jewel- case. I don't think there are ten pounds' worth. She has got a nice lot of diamonds, which I let her wear on great occasions, just to gratify her pretty vanity ; but they're in an iron safe let into the wall at the back of my bed, and I pity the scoun- drels who come to try it." The Squire grasped his dog-whip with a 120 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. strong hand as lie spoke, and there was a flash in his eye which showed he meant what ho said. He would have given a good account of any burglars who had reached his bedside. After a sudden excitement it is difficult to sleep. The heroine of the night was far away in the charmed forests of Dream- land, peopled with forms more beautiful than those portrayed by Boccaccio ; but her rescuers found repose as impossible as did the unhappy prisoners, Slippery Jack and the Parson, comfortably pinioned in Eedi's room. The Parson passed the night in swearing at his "pal" for leading him into such a scrape ; while the Slippery One's anguish was envenomed by the fact that the plaster with which Redi had piti- lessly silenced him still remained, and he CAUGHT IN A TEAP. 121 could not hurl fiercer oaths at his com- panion in misery. "We have murdered sleep," said the Squire. "Let us go to the library and have a supper-breakfast. Your man knows the way to the larder and cellar, Marquis." Redi showed his possession of this valuable knowledge by quickly placing on a table in a corner of the large library two or three cokl joints, with champagne, sherry, claret, and the Squire's famous old home- brewed ale. Of this Mr. Englehurst took a noble gulp, and then set to work to cut himself cold round of beef, as tender as a filbert kernel. A fine type of John Bull he looked, wearing only his shirt and breeches, and consuming with a noble ap- petite the staple food of England, beef and beer. 122 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. "What will be doue with these burg- lars ?'■ asked the Marquis, who was con- tenting himself w^ith biscuits and cham- pagne, which he had chosen to drink be- cause he thought Charles Cotton would be profited by a glass or two. " They'll be committed for trial, sent to the assizes, get five years, come out on a ticket of leave, and be diamond-hunting again in a day or two. Tie the rogues up and flog them and send them off, I say. Flogging should be the punishment for a first offence in almost all cases. They don't like it. So you send a boy into a prison, which is a Thieves' University, and he comes out a thief complete. A flogging would have cured him. ' 0, flogging brutalises,' cry the rose-water people. Does it, really ? A good many fine fellows CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 12.S have been floo-o-ed at Eton and elsewhere without beino; brutalised. I believe crime might be stamped out if people were not so idiotically humane." "Yes," said the Marquis, "they regard the murderer as the unfortunate victim of an irresistible impulse, while the murdered man gets no sympathy. Why did he stand in the way of an irresistible impulse ?" The flow of talk went on. Charles Cotton listened. It was not modesty alone that kept him silent. He was thinking that now he had entered the mystic chamber of the lady whom he had watched through that magic pane of glass. Strange privilege ! thus to invade the sweet sanctity of a maiden's bower, while her fair head lay on the pillow, and her eyelids drooped in dreams. He thought too much 124 A PIGHT WITH FOKTUNE. of that wondrous moment to follow clearly the talk of the Squire and the Marquis. He said no word. The first rays of sunlight came aslant upon the lawns. Starlings in the old hall chimney begin to talk very wisely, if one only knew their language. Yes, there's the lark. Earth's matin cry of joy for the coming of the sun. Dawn ! It dawns on the Squire that his costume is careless. It dawns on the Marquis that it would be well to bathe and dress. It ■dawns on Charles Cotton that a dip in the river Engle would do him a power of good. So the supper-breakfast ended, and Cotton goes down to a fine deep pool, and strips, and takes his header, and is home in time for breakfast with his pious uncle — of CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 125 wliicli meal, for obvious reasons, lie eats not much. His uncle Ricliard asks liim, with the longest of sanctimonious faces, why he eats no breakfast, and the wicked youngster replies — " Why, uncle, I've no ajopetite. I've only just finished supj^er with the Squire." The Plymouth Brother collapsed. He had his own private opinion of the Squire's fate in the next world ; but in this world he admitted his supremacy. As Coleridge once remarked, worldliness is bad, but other-worldliness is worse. There was much anxiety at the Five Horseshoes that morning. In case of either success or failure, the Slippery One and the Parson had promised that Spike should have a message. Spike got no message. Jenkins, impatient and afraid 126 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. of what might happen, used strong lan- guage to Spike. The flaunting females of the establishment had a bad time of it. When Jenkins was in a bad temper the neighbourhood knew it. He bellowed his j)assion. He was now atrociously angry, fearing that his scheme might have failed, and that he might be in danger. Spike, puzzled at having no news, conscious of having betrayed his patron, was not at all happy in his mind. Let us return to the Hall. Let us "welcome sweet Cecilia to the breakfast room, after her perilous unique adventure. She comes in blushing, like the sweetest of roses. She kisses her father, who coolly says, " I hope you slept well, Cis ?" There are tears in her pretty eyes as CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 127 she takes the Marquis's hand, for she knows he has dared everj^thiug to save her from dano-er. And when she sits down CD she finds among her letters one in a quaint caligraphy, running thus : — " Strange figures in the silent gloom ! Now what is this That brings such guardians to the room Of charming Cis ? The stars burn bright, the sky sinks blue, The lulled leaves kiss ; Far in the world of dreams are you, Most lovely Cis ! Into the farthest regions stray : For nought amiss Shall trouble you, by night or day, Gay-hearted Cis. By day or night, to play or fight, O take thou this ! One ia your perfect, constant knight. Sweet Lady Cis !" She read it through. She did not quite understand it. The quaint turns of a 128 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. poetry, lialf Italian, lialf English, naturally puzzled a little girl like Cecilia. She thought she would read it again, and again, and again, and try to make out what it meant, after she had read the various letters (all crossed) from her female cor- respondents. Having made this resolve, she suddenly looked up with a gay smile, and met the Marquis de Castelcicala's eyes, full of fun and fire. Young Cotton, the glazier, haunted by the vision which he had beheld through a pane of glass, will surely have no chance against this poetic Italian noble, if he is in real earnest. Hard to say. Souve7it femme varie. Old Wrangel sneered savagely at Cotton that morning. " So you've turned thief-taker up at the Hall, have you?" he said. "Hadn't ye CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 129 better give up the lionest glazier's diamond, and join thera detectives up in London ? What call have jou up at the Squire's, I should like to know ?" Cotton seldom bandied words with his cantankerous master j but on this occasion he said, " I'm proud of my trade, and I wouldn't be a regular thief-taker ; but when I happen to hear men plotting a robbery, it's my duty to stop it. You'd have done the same, I'll swear." "Maybe I might, boy," said Wrangel, somewhat mollified. " You're a good workman, Charlie, but don't you get misled by the gentry's being kind to you. They take up with a lad that's brisk and good- looking, but they soon get tired of him, and then, mayhap, he's spoilt for his VOL. I. K 130 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. proper honest work, and goes all to tlie bad." "The Squire is not like that," said Cotton, ^'and I hope I am not." " The Squire's the Squire. A man must be a fool and a rogue to say anything against him in Englehurst. As to you, wait till you're tried. Now, I want you to ofo over to Scudamore, and do somethino- to that new man, Laing's conservatory. I don't rightly know from his letter what he wants, and I wish he'd pay his bill before he gives me any more orders ; but you may as well take some glass and go over." Cotton shouldered his glass and walked off blithely. A glazier thus occupied is just as fine a sight (although ignorant people cannot see it) as a cavalry soldier CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 131 riding along with the pennon fluttering at his lance point, as a hunting man in scarlet flying over a sunk fence. Each is in his own avocation, and each avocation has its own nobility. Still the man who gives light to our houses has some claim to rank beside the man who kills our foes or our foxes. For the inventor of glass was no common benefactor of mankind. What would the gourmet be without his elegant decanters and thin-blown glasses, the chemist without his retorts and pipettes, the astronomer without lens and speculum. Beauty without her mirror, Age without its spectacles ? Health and science are both indebted to the manipulator of glass. What our an- cestors, up to the fourteenth centur}', did without glass windows, passes myapprehen- k2 132 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. sion. Such of my readers as remember Pitt's window tax, which was really a tax on light and air, wall agree with me as to the uses of glass. Charles Cotton, however, as he walked gaily along the high road, was not reflect- ing upon glass. He was thinking over his relations with the Squire, and Wrangel's remarks thereon. He saw clearly that England is a land of class and caste, but he had not sufficient knowledge, either of history or contemporary life, to understand the way in which society in this country is always changing its aspect. The move- ment of English life, from the time when Wessex became England, is continuous, and the political students who begin their history from the Conquest, or Magna Charta, or the Reformation, or the Com- CAUGHT IN A TRAr. 133 monwealth, miglit just as well begin it from the Reform Act of 1832, or the Re- peal of the Corn Laws. . Cotton strode along, trying, with a rest- less imagination, to realise the w^orld be- yond the limits of his own experience — a thing impossible ! Before he had, through that magic pane of glass, beheld Cecilia among her roses, herself more pure and fragrant than any rose that bloomed be- neath the eyes of Eve in the garden of primeval peace, he had dreamt of going to London and working his own way upward. But now the foolish youth, madly magnetised by an impossibility, feeling what Shelley calls "the desire of the moth for the star," dreaded the thought of leaving Englehurst. So, as he tramped away, heartily wishing it was not the dusty high road he had to 134 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. traverse, but fieldpath or lane, he meditated on liis uncertain future, " And found no end, in wandering mazes lost." Suddenly the sound of a horn smote his ear. Looking round, he saw a four-horse coach coming merrily along, with a good roof load of passengers. It was a new enterprise in those parts. Mr. Stanley Gay, a gentleman who, like the veteran, Mr. Keynardson, took to coaching for the love of it, had just started a coach between two of the principal towns in the neighbour- hood, taking Englehurst in the way. "Now then, glazier," he cried, in a cheery voice, " up with you behind, and don't smash your windows. I'll take you on free, gratis, for nothing. Where do you want to stop ?" " At Scudamore, sir," said Cotton, who CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 135 slung himself up to the hind seat without a smash. "All right! I like to make my coach look respectable." He touched the near side leader under the bar, and away they went at a spanking pace. Cotton found all the cobwebs blown out of his brain by the rapid move- ment, while Mr. Gay's humorous remarks to the passers-by, and the jubilant music of the ofuard's horn, made him feel as if life had a stir in it which he had never yet known. Cotton was set down at the gate of Scudamore Lodge, glass all safe. Mr. Laing, who had lately taken the house in question, was quite unknown to the neigh- bourhood, a circumstance sufficient to cause mysterious rumours to be circulated to his detriment. He had that high off- 136 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. hand manner wliicli your parvenu imagines to be truly aristocratic. Some people are egotists, and doubtless this Laing had a considerable belief in himself ; but, if one may coin an awkward word, he was a meumist. He evidently believed, like the Laureate's Northern Farmer, in "Pro- putty." It was my house with him, my conservatory [greenhouse was too small), my carriages, my wife, my daughter. For he had a wife and daugher, and the wife had always meekly acquiesced in being treated as a chattel ; but Mr. Laing's daughter, when she came well into her teens, de- clined to accept the situation. Mr. Laing, like many of the more aggressive members of the human race, was a short man, with a dignified appearance, who wore gold- rimmed eye-glasses, through which he ex- CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 137 amined people superciliously, and wlio al- ways looked as if lie had just stepped from a baud-box. His daughter, by some hereditary anomaly which I leave to the Darwinists, shot up at seventeen to about five feet eight, and looked as gawky and awkward as a girl could well look. Mr. Laing was disgusted at having to look up at "m?/ daughter;" disgusted also that this young lady laughed at his rights of owner- ship, and would have her own way. He would have locked her up, castigated her, kept her on bread and water, had he dared ; but the young hoyden laughed at him, and my daughter was her own mistress. Leaving Charles Cotton with his shelf of glass to meet and take instructions from the self-important Mr. Laing, I return for 138 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. a moment to Wrangel's. Not long after Cotton liad left, Red! came down in a hurry to say that he was wanted at the Hall. Old Wrangel was in a surly mood, and became surlier when this message came. " Cotton's gone away to do a day's work," he said. " If the Squire's always wanting him, the Squire '11 have to pay his wages." "Pooh, pooh, man," said Redi, "don't talk insolently of Mr. Englehurst. Where is Cotton gone ?" " You may find out for yourself," said Wrangel, " I'm busy." And he resumed his work at the bench in stolid silence. Redi went away in dis- gust. There were reasons for wanting Charles Cotton. CAUGHT IN A TRAP. 139 For, when a ratlier protracted breakfast at the Hall had come to an end, it was resolved to adjourn and examine the burglars, with a view to their committal. Redi and a couple of footmen went to fetch them. They found that their cords had been cut — behind, as they could not themselves have cut them — and that they were clean gone ! And, at the very moment of this dis- covery, a housemaid came shrieking along the corridor that the SquuVs room had been robbed. It was so. That safe by his bedside, which he had boasted of but yesterday, had been opened with perfect ease, as if the robber had used the Squire's own key — and of its priceless contents there was nothing left. 140 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. There were telegrams and messages in .all directions of course ; and among the rest Kedi was sent for Charles Cotton. 141 CHAPTER V. CHAELES cotton's TEIALS. "He saw a cottage ^satli a double coach-house, A cottage of gentihty ; And the devil did grin, for his darling siu Is pride that apes humility." SOUTHET. |l TR. LAING, a gentleman who had. accumulated money no one exactly knew how, and who, though money seemed plentiful with him, took longer credit than the country tradesfolks liked, habituated as they were to Squire Englehurst's system 142 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. of paying on quarter-day sharp, and mak- ing anyone who did not come on quarter- day wait till next quarter (wherein he imitated the Duke of Wellington), was one of those town-bred people who cannot understand English country life. Great towns are great necessities, but also they are great nuisances. Alexander Smith says (I quote from memory) : — " in crowded towns The stars are nearer to us than the fields." On this poetic text 'twere easy to preach a sermon. Great agglomerations of men lead to splendid results ; famous towns are famous things. Yet how many, " in populous city pent," must pine for closer intercourse with nature ! I always deem there is deep significance in the myth of the giant Antaeus, who fought with the CHAELES COTTON. 143 demi-ofod Hercules. When Hercules could lift liim from tlie ground, lie was too mucli for Lim. When Antaeus again touched his mother earth, he got new vigour. Does not Hercules symbolise the antagonist destiny against which every man of us has to strive ? Are we not freshened for the unequal fight when, like Antaeus, we seek the bosom of our gener- ous Mother, and drink the wine of winds, and cool our wearied eyes with the emerald woods, and suffer the laughing river to rock our cradle of a boat ? The loviugness of all wild creatures is delightful to the man who has to live in an atmosphere of suspicion. The robin perches on my knee or my table, as I scribble on the lawn; the nightingale sings, close to my open window, a happy serenade ; it is hard to 144 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. believe tliat flowers and trees do not recognise those wlio love tliem. " And 'tis my faith, that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes," says Wordsworth ; and I am very much of the same faith. Mr. Laing did not take Scudamore Lodge with any of these ultra-sentimental notions, at which no one than myself is more ready to laugh when there is east wind and snow falling thick. He came to Scudamore Lodge to be — a country gen- tleman. Horrific idea ! If there is any English manufacture that requires time, it is your country gentleman. You may make a millionaire in a year ; you may make old port in a week ; but a country gentleman is like an oak — he wants centu- ries. It is odd what a lot of men come to CHARLES COTTON. 145 live in tlie country now, not because tliey love it, but because tliey want to take rank with the county families. Invariably they fail ; and, after exhibiting their unsurpass- able equipages for a year or two, they go somewhere else to learn the same lesson over again. The old-fashioned country gentleman has no pride about liim, but he does not care to know new people. He has his own set — old friends with old houses, and old ideas, and old grievances. Yes, and old port. Can you expect him to be more than coolly civil to the new man who comes into the neighbourhood with plenty of money and no introductions ? It is absurd. Surely the new comer ought to have a society of his own. Why in the world should anv Ens^lishman want to force himself among people who don't VOL. I. L 146 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. want liim ? There are so many strata of vivid intellectual society in this England of ours, now that the minds of all classes are touched by the stimulus of thought, that it is possible to meet real social capacity in places where hitherto it was undreamt of. We are a malleable people — a golden race ; and the homogeneous character of a nation welded into one from such hetero- geneous tribes is the most remarkable phe- nomenon in anthropology. '' Goodness me! get on with your story, and don't use such long words," says a fair reader. Duly obedient, I proceed to say that Mr. Laing did not come to Scudamore Lodge to enjoy nature under the guidance of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Euskin. He came with the notion that he should be a country gentleman in a moderate way, and CHARLES COTTON. 147 possibly find a spouse with title and estate for his daughter Amelia. He was very tired of my daughter. He had been obey- ed all his life, and now his only child was a rebel. Amelia, though a dull girl, had a clear instinct, and saw that her father was a humbug:. This led to her decisive rebel- lion. She saw her mother treated as if she were a slave ; she had herself been frightened into a sad subjection by harsh words and harsher blows. When she felt her strength she amazed her father by turning upon him and attempting to defend her mother from his outbreaks of ill- temper. Being a mere child, she Avas amazed to find that her mother was intensely angry with her for interfering. There is a magic in marriage even when it is an incomplete marriage, like that of l2 148 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. Laing and liis wife ; and the woman who is bullied by a cur will turn on her son or on her daughter for daring to interfere. When Cotton, landed from Stanley Gay's four-in-hand, walked up the back pathway towards the house, he was full of amused thought. It was to him an unknown thing to be behind four horses. The man who remembers His Majesty's mail in its prime, who mayhap has taken the ribbons from Oxford to London, may feel a just superi- orit}^ over modern members of the Road Club and its kindred societies. Ten and a half miles all through, changes included, meant eleven miles on ordinary ground, and twelve wherever the horses could gallop. The contemporary amateur of the ribbons has no such strenuous work : eight miles is for him a fair pace ; but even that, with CHARLES COTTON. 149 a team that does not break, is a very enjoyable thing. Cotton bad enjoyed it, and now walked up to Mr. Laing's back entrance in a very pleasant bumour. AVbicb bumour was soon cbanged. Laing was in bis angriest mood. Tbese cross- grained fellows are usually sufferers from hepatic disease, and are very dependent on what they eat and drink. Through the shortcoming of butcher and cook Laing's lunch had been spoilt ; be immediately revenged himself on his unoffending wife, who certainly could not make a country butcher's cutlet tender, or a plain cook's sauce piquante contain any piquancy. " Keally," he said, " this is too bad. I never get a tolerable meal now. Look at this," he said, almost in tears, exhibiting on bis fork what looked like a clever 150 A FIGHT WITH FOETU^"E. imitation of a cutlet done in leather. " I am expected to eat this — to flourisli on this — to be happy on this ! I should be better off if, instead of keeping up a country gentleman's household, I were to go and live at an hotel." ''I'm sure I wish you would, Papa,'^ said Miss Amelia. " Mamma and I would be much happier without you." " You wicked girl !" shrieked Mrs. Laing, " I would not be separated from your dear Papa on any account. You are ungrateful for the blessings you receive. Why don't you kneel down and beg his pardon at once r " Beg his pardon ! I should like to see him beg yours, Mamma, for his cruelty to you." And therewith the precocious little CHAELES COTTON. 151 vixen flung out througli the open window and was gone. Mr. Laing covered liis face with a white and strongly scented pocket-handkerchief, and remained silent. His wife watched him anxiously. Although he made her life utterly unhappy, she thought him the best of men, from the one Adam who had infinite elbow room, yet contrived to get into a mess, down to the innumerable crowd of poets, philosophers, politicians, millionaires, paupers, English, Irish, Euro- pean, Africans, Brahmans, Pariahs, Pata- gonians. Heathen Chinese, who would much astonish our great forefather. I can imagine him looking at the countless multitude, and decidedly declining to be- lieve that he begot them all. Poor dear old Adam ! that original sin of his has 152 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. been too severely punished, now tliat lie lias become tlie pro_^enitor of an un- countable series of unorisfinal sinners. By-and-by Laino- removed bis scented bandkercbief, and resumed — and as be could not revenge bimself on bis daugbter, be pitcbed into bis wife. "You bave spoilt tbat girl," be said. ^' Sbe is a regular tomboy, vulgar and insolent. I am asbamed to tbink of ber as a daugbter of mine. I sball send ber to school ; there is one at Tunbridge Wells, where they advertise strict discipline for unruly girls. That's the place for ber. I am tired of getting ber into order. She makes my life wretched ; and I came down here to enjoy the beauties of nature and the quietude of the country." In this mood, half lachrymose, half CHAELES COTTON. 153 passionate, Mr. Laing went out and en- countered liis glazier, and he gave his orders in so snarling surly a way that Charles Cotton was intensely amused. He was of too calm a temperament to take offence at Laing's mode of talk. He went to work with a will, making the many alterations which the master of the house required. Laing found that he could not find fault with him, for Cotton knew his business and did it. So, when he had shown him what was needed, and made a series of absurd susfo^estions, which Cotton did not notice, he turned to pursue his favourite amusement — worrying his wife. '' Damned young fool of a glazier that fellow Wrangel has sent over !" he said to her. " One of those opinionated fellows who think they know everything. I've 154 A FIGHT WITH FOKTUNE. done my best to set liim riglit : but I am afraid I shan't get my work properly done. Dear me, how these things fatigue me ! Give me a cigar and some iced soda. I can't stand human stupidity. Mine is too delicate an intellect to be worried by fools." Mrs. Laing, of course, agreed with him, and he lay on a couch, and drank some- thin g* cool, freeing: himself at the same time from his necktie and the troubles of the world. His brain was in a fiery state. He had bullied everybody all through his life, and now he found himself defied by his dauo^hter, a chit in her teens. It was humiliating ! This " chit in her teens," though a gawky ill-grown overgrown creature, had much shyness and much obstinacy about CHAliLES COTTON. ] 55- her. It was bard to say what she might be ill the days to come. An ugly duck may turn out to be a young eagle . . . but such events are rare. Charles Cotton, working away at his glass, received a visit from Amelia Laing, who knew right well that her father would not reappear, but would dose his wife with his grievances. She was accustomed to his ways ; saw through his histrionic hypocrisy; felt a complete contempt for him. This is not a pleasant picture to give of a daughters feelino- towards her father : but the character that is absolutely candid is naturally hostile to the character that is utterly false. Light and darkness cannot occupy the same point in space. Amelia Laing went down to the green- house, curious to see the young glazier 156 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. Tvhom her father had so roundly abused. That her father should abuse anyone was to Amelia a recommendation. Moreover, since they had lived at Scudamore Lodge, she had seen no young people at all, and her father, who was master of the letter- bag, would not allow her to hold corre- spondence with her friends at a distance. Her rebellion, her protest against her mother's ill-treatment, had aroused the whole tyrant, and he was quite resolved to " break her spirit," if the thing was to be ■done. He humiliated her by causing her mother to keep her in a childish form of dress, when she was grown so tall that it simpty looked ridiculous. A girl of five feet eight, in short frocks and pinafores, must be a trouble to herself. Luckily there was no one to see poor Amelia except CHARLES COTTON. 157' the servants, who sympathised with her, hating Mr. Laing heartily. Yet, hke most martinets, he was better served than many masters who prefer to treat their people as if they were human beings. So strict was his rule that not one of them dared post a letter for Amelia, fully as they sympathised with her. Perhaps she might have got that small service done if she could have offered a bribe ; but, since her rebellion, she had not been allowed any pocket- money, and so was powerless. This was one niotive which took her down to the greenhouse where Charles- Cotton was at work. She was a dull child, as I have said ; she liked flowers, but could never remember their names, their form and colour, the way to treat them — this perhaps was a defect in education, for 158 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. tliere liad been no one to answer any questions sbe might ask. The slowest of lis, when we come fresh into this world from some forgotten sphere, have innumer- able questions to ask. Impatient people who snub inquisitive children in such cases, are responsible for not doing their best in aid of the development of the race. However, the majority of them may be forgiven : they simply do not answer the questions of children because they do not know the answers. Miss Laing, at her father's previous place of residence, which was in a south-western suburb, had been sent to a day school of the most exclusive gentility. Of course, it was called a Ladies' College ; and there were masters for every conceivable subject that girls in the present day get a slight CHARLES COTTON. ] 59 smattering of. I am always amused at the amount of science (sliglitly diluted) which you see in the prospectus of a fashionable school for girls ; and I should like to see any young lady, who has learnt what they call the use of the globes, work the terres- trial and celestial globes together, and indicate the precise place in the heavens at sunrise of the planet Jupiter, as seen from Cairo, on any given day. Nothing simpler, with an Ephemeris ; and this is the reason why globes (like encyclopedias) are things "no gentleman's library should be without." But what would the young lady fresh from school think if Papa were to say — "Mary, my dear, look at the globes in the library, and tell me where Venus will be this eveninof at eio^ht." If she were a wise child she would reply, 160 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. " If you call me Venus, Papa, I hope to be at dinner." Miss Amelia Laing, at the fashionable day school heretofore mentioned, had made few intimate friends — in the school-girl sense of that phrase. She was unpopular, being shy and gawky and slow. Only one person took pity on her, and that was a girl a couple of years older than herself, with glossy black hair and keen black eyes, small in figure, by name Jenny Vincent. She would, in ordinary circumstances, have been a powerless ally, for she was nothing more than a pupil teacher, and expected to do work almost menial, and, indeed, doing it cheerfully enough. But her keen wit and her capacity for learning the hardest things and teaching the dullest dunces, had made her a power in the school ; and CHAELES COTTON. 161 stately Mrs. Whitaker, who knew nothing and could teach nothing, but who looked every inch not merely ludimagistra but archididascala, looked forward with dismay to her term of pupilship being over, as she felt that she must be paid to remain. Jenn}^ Vincent had been educated in a keen-witted school. Her father had kept a small shop in the City. He read the newspapers which he sold, and formed his own opinion about them ; and his customers were wont to listen to his judgments upon the various journals with much amusement. He had quite a large number of clients who bought from him for this reason. " Times didl this morning," he would say. "Editor out of town, perhaps. City article stupid, as usual. Good exposure of VOL. I. M 162 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. some scamps in Daily News. Telegraph? Well, I should think Mr. Sala had been down to Richmond. It's what I call effer- vescent, but weak : more ginger beer than Clicquot. Pall Mall ? Right good number, sir ; editor's made up his mind that nobody but Gladstone can save the nation. Globe ? Pinker than usual — capital paper for your housemaid to curl her hair with. Looks like Venus rising from the sea in a red sunrise." Little Tom Vincent criticised weekly papers and magazines with equal imparti- ality. I^obody knew what he had been in his early days, not even his daughter ; but his slang had a gentlemanly cadence, and his friendly customers felt certain that he did not begin his life at so low a level. CHAELES COTTON. 163 Tom was a widower. His daughter had a desire to learn ; so lie sent her as governess-pupil to Miss Whitaker, paying a premium. There was nobody there who could teach her anything ; but there were books, and Jenny squeezed the juice out of a book as fast as her father out of a newspaper. She made herself, without help, and by dint of having to teach others, a linguist and an algebraist. She took a great fancy to poor dull Amelia, which was heartily returned. And to her Amelia longed to send a letter, which she had written weeks before, adding to it afc intervals, till it had become almost a diary. She knew from previous experi- ence that it was vain to ask the servants ; and she thought it just possible that the M 2 164 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. young glazier would post it for her, and not betray her. She felt certain that she could judge for herself when once she saw his face. So she went down to the greenhouse. The gardener was talking to Cotton about the work in hand, and the young glazier was quite able to hold his own, having worked for all the gardeners of the vici- nage, from Squire Englehurst's down- wards. Amelia, loitering around the house, plucked a flower or two. Presently the gardener went off, having other work to do, and Miss Laing, who was nervously clutching her precious letter, looked at Cotton with an investigative glance. He must be all right, she thought ; his bright blue eyes, easy carriage, rapid movement at his work, seemed to show the sort of OHAELES COTTON. 165 man tliat could be trusted. Slie longed to speak to liim, but did not know how to begin. What should she say ? If only she was as clever as Jenny ! Charles Cotton worked away cheerily at his glass, taking slight heed of the female figure that flitted below him. He was not unobservant of girlhood, we know. One glimpse of Cecilia Englehurst had burnt her image indelibly into his brain. He dreamt of her, a pretty picture, in maiden white, with flowers in her hair and in her hand, as graceful as any Greek nymph ; yet with the pretty girlish dignity of the young English lady. He laughed at him- self for being haunted by that fair form. If ho had cared to look much at Amelia Laing, he would merely have noted a commonplace young person, too tall for 1G6 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. Ler frocks, with a freckled countenance and an awkward manner. Professors of tlie cosmetic art assure the ladies that freckles can be removed by their nostrums, just as Mr. Turveydrop could, in his own iudofment, cure awk- wardness. But neither lotion nor lesson would do. Both are signs of an inward malady. To cure freckles, improve the digestion; to cure awkwardness, develop the intellect. The glazier was at his glass ; the young lady professedly looking at flowers. Pre- sently an accident produced a crisis. The step of a very rickety ladder gave way, and down came Charles Cotton on his back upon the brick floor, smashing a good deal of glass. At once Amelia rushed to the rescue ; but Cotton was only a trifle CHARLES COTTON. 167 bruised, and stood erect without help. "I was afraid you were killed," she said. " I am not hurt, thank you. Miss," he replied. " The ladder is quite rotten. I must find another." "You might have had a dreadful acci- dent," said Amelia, sympathisiugly. " Are you sure you are not hurt ? Shall I get you anything ?" " Thank you, no," replied Cotton, though he'd have given a trifle for a drop of spirit. *' It was only a shake." It was, however, rather a severe shake, for Cotton found it requisite to rest on some of the woodwork; and Amelia, Avith woman's apprehension that something was wrong, ran across to the kitchen, and told the cook all about it. Never was good 168 A FIGHT ^^TH FORTUNE. cook without cognac. Amelia came rapidly back with a drop of strong brandy and water, which he drank, and was re- freshed. " I don't know how to thank you for your kindness, Miss Laing," he said. " I wish I could do something to prove my gratitude." " You can do me a kindness," she re- plied. " Will you post a letter for me ?" And she handed him from her pocket a rather crumpled epistle, addressed — ^'' Miss Vincent, Merton Cottage, Wimbledon y " With pleasure," he answered, taking it from her. At that moment who should enter the greenhouse but Mr. Laing, who had re- CHARLES COTTON. 169' covered from his headaclie and lieartaclie by aid of brandy and soda — a respectable dose — and who was infuriated to see Jm daughter talking to a working man ! He did not see the letter pass from one to another, or the fierce little man might have tried to put them both to death on the spot. " Go in, you young hussy !" he cried, almost inarticulate with rage. " If you are left alone an instant, this is the way you go on." She turned and faced him, looking down upon him with indignation. "This man has had an accident," she said, "from a rotten ladder of yours breaking. I got him something from the kitchen, to save him from fainting. Is there any harm in that ?" 170 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. " Anybody can coin an excuse," lie said, angrily but cowardly. " I believe as much as I please. I find a young lady and a working man with a glass o£ spirits and water in a corner of my greenhouse. I draw my own conclusions. If that young lady were not my own daughter, I should still draw my own conclusions. Be good enough to go to your room, Amelia ; as to you, sir, perhaps in future your master w411 send some other workman." Amelia had obeyed orders. Cotton was left alone, a little puzzled by the situation. Being a gentleman by nature, he could not understand any man's treating his daughter as this man Laing had just done. He in- stinctively felt that the honour of one's family ought to be regarded. He could not comprehend a person calling himself a CHAELES COTTON. 171 gentleman, yet beliaving to liis own child in so abominable a way. As to what Mr. Laing had said to him, Charles Cotton cared not ; why should he ? The ground- less displeasure of other people need trouble no man who is master of an honest trade, and can win a fair living whither- soever he goes. Cotton laughed at Laing, but he pitied poor Amelia, who evidently had to fight hard for a barely endurable existence. He took out her letter, and examined it. That letter was just like herself. The ad- dress was written in gawky letters of un- even leno^ths. The seal had a crest and motto on it ; but so badly had the wax been used that it was quite undecipher- able. The stamp was on the wrong corner of the envelope. Altogether it was 172 A FIGHT WITH FOIITUNE. a perfect reflex of its writer. He posted it at a wayside pillar-box, little guessing what the result would be. Our young artist in glass got no lift homewards. He trudged stoutly through the soft sunset air, pondering his adven- ture, wondering what he had better say to Wrangel. His immediate instinct was to tell the whole story ; but he decided to defer it till the morning, when he and his master were alone together, having no wish for a running commentary from the three Miss Wrano^els. So he took what remained of his shelf of glass up to his uncle Richard's ; and he found that worthy old Plymouth Brother had just stepped out. Charles Cotton thereupon stepped out again himself, for he knew a coign of 'vantage in the woods near Englehurst CHARLES COTTON. 173 Park, where sometimes of an evening lie could see the fair Cecilia wandering alone, and singing like a bird. The boy nursed his dream ; drank the passionate poison ; thought of Cecilia Englehurst only. And this night he was rewarded. Her white muslin swept the sward beneath him, just the other side of the park palings ; and she sang a trifle of the day — O swan, float still ! O heron, fly far ! O silver the river, thou evening star ; O river, silently downward pass, Let me hear her footstep over the grass ! The swan was quiet, and far away The heron soared, a wonder of grey ; And the starlit river was hushed and still — But the lady came not, nor ever will. " A bad omen," thought Charlie to him- self. " Yet the lady is here, after all, and I daresay she will come again, and I shall hear her sing. If God gives me no greater 174 A EIGHT WITH EOETUNE. happiness than that, I shall have been happy. Her beautiful voice comes through me as I fancy sunshine goes through a flower. Sunshine kills the roses, though, sometimes." Cecilia ran in, to preside over coffee in the drawing-room. Cotton walked slowly and thoughtfully home. When he reached his uncle Richard's cottage he found that worthy old gentleman leaning over the garden gate. The uncle said : " I don't know what you've been doing, but the Squire says you're to go up to the Hall directly minute you come home." " Supper first, uncle," said Cotton. " Cold roast beef and lettuces, and a pint of beer. Then I'm ready for the Squire." As Charlie's earnings made his uncle's mode of life more comfortable, he generally CHARLES COTTON. 175 had his own way. He ate a grand supper, and then started for the Hall, wondering whether he should see — Cecilia. 176 CHAPTER VI. crake's den. " Will you walk into my parlour? said the spider to the fly." IVTOT all the experience of many genera- tions — how many I leave to the paleontologists — will prevent the human fly from walking into the parlour of the human spider. The cunning insect spreads his net, and its meshes quickly entangle the brilliant dragon-fly of the Guards, the sparkling butterfly of Mayfair, the dangerous wasp of literature, the busy ceake's den. 177 bluebottle of commerce. "Forewarned, forearmed," says the proverb ; but few proverbs ever were so mistaken. If any- body ever was effectually forearmed I wish lie would publish his autobiography ; it might be of some use to the ingenuous and ingenious youth of the day. Mr. Crake was a human spider, and took flies of all kinds. He had many vocations. He promoted companies. He got shady defaulters through the Bankruptcy Court in an easy slippery way. He discounted bills at sixty per cent, for youngsters at college and men in the army. He sold diamonds, and had indeed another address, " The Diamond Fields, South Africa." He got up divorce cases with secresy and despatch. He gave a low price for stolen bank-notes, and got them into circulation VOL. I. N 178 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. quietly. And lately he had been doing a fine trade in diamonds, having found in Slippery Jack a remarkably clever tool. Crake's house, with its double entrance, has already been mentioned. It had many reception rooms, of various grades. A gentleman has just alighted from a hansom at Crake's respectable entrance, and rung the bell, and been admitted by the highl}^ respectable man-servant, who was junior partner. He is shown into a room on the first floor ; there is a cold luncheon on the table, with unopened champagne bottles, and vases of flowers, and much silver plate on the sideboard. The fidgetty little gentleman who is kept waiting in this room some ten minutes, is angry at these signs of a luxury for which he knows he has helped to pay. crake's den. 179 Presently in comes Crake, in a devil of a temper. No wonder. He has just read in his Times a telegram to this effect : — " An attempt has been made to rob Englehurst Hall. The burglars were cap- tured, and will at once be brought before the magistrates." " I didn't think Slippery Jack was such a fool," said Crake to himself. " Idiot !" he exclaimed, and threw the paper down in disgust. Then he went upstairs to his visitor, Mr. Laing, of Scudamore Lodge. " You look unhappy, Crake," said that gentleman. " Never mind, I have brought you a bargain. I want two thousand for a twelvemonth, and I'll give you a first mort- gage on my place in Kent. What can you do it for ?" n2 5> a' 180 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. "I'd rather not toucli it, Mr. Laing. said Crake, " I've lost so mucli lately." " Not by me," interrupted Laing, starply. " Have I not always paid to the day ?" " Well, that's true," repHed Crake ; " and if it's all right I can do it for two five. I suppose you've got the title-deeds ?" " Of course I have," said Laing. He took some antique-looking documents from his breast pocket. " You know the place ; you've been down there with me ; there are eight hundred acres of splendid land. I defy you to find sounder security ; and I shouldn't give the interest, only that I want the money in a hurry, for my daugh- ter is going to marry Lord Bellasys." " The devil !" thought Crake. Crake knew Lord Bellasys, but had never lent him money, for the simple reason that chake's den. 181 Lord Bellasys, tliougli the fastest man in London, had an income too vast for his wildest extravagation. Crake thought, however, that this fat fly might some day or other be tempted into his harbour, with Mr. Laing for decoy ; so he said, " Well, Mr. Laing, I will entertain your proposal. You shall have two thousand as soon as the mortgage deed is ready." *' My solicitors shall draw it at once, and send it you. Meanwhile let me have five hundred on an I U, because Lord Bellasys is in a devil of a hurry, and I must throw away a lot of money just now." Mr. Laing got a cheque for five hundred on the Bank of England, where most bill discounters keep their accounts for the sake of respectability. Then the fly had a 182 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. glass of wine with the spider, and went off to cash his cheque. Crake, his customer gone, sat down to ruminate on the state of affairs. He put a little brandy into the glass of champagne which he was drinking, just to quicken the circulation of his ideas. Many trans- actions had there been between himself and Laing : Laing, though the sources of his income were dubious, borrowed money at sixty per cent., and always paid to the day. It is an expensive way of liv- ing, hardly practicable unless you can get a hundred per cent, from somebody else. " Well," soliloquised Crake, over his alcoholic refresher, " that man is an odd fish. I don't think I remember him in such a deuce of a hurry before. He's paid CEAKT^'S DEN. 183 me a lot of money," lie tliouglit, with a grin of great satisfaction. He struck a hand-bell, and the " junior partner " entered. '' Norris," he said, " I want to look at Laing's account with us. And bring me Debrett's Peerage at the same time." The footman did his bidding rapidly. On his return he said — " I doubt if Laing is very safe. They say he's been let in by Erie. I wouldn't give him anything heavy without sound security." " All right," said Crake, and began to study the little account-book, which was marked with a number that in the ledger corresponded to Mr. Laing's name. " A good customer," quoth old Crake to himself ; " a fine customer. He's had 184 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. eleven thousand of mine in six years, and lie's paid it all back, and about six thousand for the use of it. I wonder what his little game is. I can't afford to borrow money at that rate." Crake thought nothing of his junior partner's warning. A man who could afford to borrow money at such a rate was not the man to speculate in Erie. No ; Crake felt certain that he was master of one of the modern alchymies ; he either went on the Stock Exchange, or kept a hell, or had speculative liaisons with the Foreign Offices of Europe. So he felt quite comfortable about that cheque for five hundred which had just passed from his hands. Then he turned to Debrett. Edgar, 17th Baron Bellasys : crest, the lovely ceake's den. 185 foundress of tlie family ; punning motto, Bella Sis. The Bella sys had been as for- tunate as the House of Hapsburg in marrying heiresses, and young Lord Bella- sys "was generally supposed to be the richest noble in England, except the unhappy few "who are so egregiously opulent they have to be managed by committees and allowed pocket-money, and married by treaty. It is a sad thing for a man to have an unmanageable income; almost as bad as an unmanageable wife. Crake pondered the question. Was Bellasys a marrying man ? He had not thought so from his previous career. Edgar Lord Bellasys was 35 ; he had yacht- ed round the world, won a Derby, broken the bank at Homburg, and been co-re- spondent in a divorce case. He was the 186 A FIGHT \YITH TOETUNE. very last man you would expect to settle down and marry a quiet country girl. And Crake could not remember what manner of young woman Miss Laing was. He could imagine Bellasys set on fire by some wild creature full of amorous passion, just as potassium breaks into flame at toucli of oxygen. He could not imagine the cool plausible imperturbable Laing having such a daughter. Your crafty scoundrel needs to study human nature as keenly as a great dramatist ; and Spider Crake was a careful student and skilful handler of men. Dismissing Mr. Laing with the final conclusion that he was not likely to lose by him, Crake returned to the consideration of that newspaper paragraph which had so startled him. He did not like it at all. He hated failures. Besides, these fellows crake's den. 187 being cauglit, wliat might not a dexterous counsel discover as to the person who employed them ? Crake had no fear of Slippery Jack, but the Parson was such a fool. He did not at all like the situation. He read the paragraph a dozen times, and liked it less each time. He could not know what was going on ; he dared not interfere ; he saw that he must wait — and he abhorred waiting. It was therefore with oTeat satisfaction that he saw the junior partner enter with a message to the , effect that Slippery Jack and the Parson wanted to see him. There was a merry twinkle in the junior partner's eye, whick assured Crake that their news was good. " Why, I thought you were lagged," said Crake, on their entry. The Parson was beginning a pompous yarn ; but the Slippery 188 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. One put his hand on his mouth and said — "We were, Mr. Crake. We shall be again, unless you stow us away, for there's a regular hue and cry. You'll find some stones in that bag, Mr. Crake, and I know you'll do what's right by us ; but the first thing is to make us safe somewhere." Crake put the bag into an iron box, and then touched a spring which opened a secret door in the wall. The Slippery One and the Parson followed him silently down a long dark damp flight of steps, which ultimately landed them in the highest story of a water-side public-house, known ^s the Water Eat, though I forget whether that was its sign. Leaving the new-comers in this quaint old room. Crake went in search of the landlord. He had to do this by descending through a trapdoor, for the crake's den. 189' attic was merely a loft, and the communica- tion witb. it was carefully concealed. In- deed the trapdoor opened into the room oc- cupied by a maidservant, who happened to be washing herself (a thing which even London servant-girls do at intervals) when Crake's legs came through the trapdoor. She was not at all astonished ; she helped' him down with her soapy hands. Slippery Jack and the Parson were taken in at the Water Rat, which in fact was one of several outposts of Spider Crake's cob- web. The servant-girl who dwelt below brought them their food, and would virtu- ously have resisted any attempt on the part of the police to search her rooms as indecent beyond measure. Having got rid of his two inferior scoundrels, Crake opened the bag, and 190 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. poured the jewels out on the table. There were diamonds of the purest water, ori- ental sapphires, rubies redder than the planet Mars, emeralds of the darkest green. He knew the stones pretty well ; it was Crake's business to know where there were diamonds worth stealing. Having looked them through, he missed a famous blue diamond, with a core of golden light in its very centre, which Sir Humphrey Davy had much desired to analyse, in order to discover the cause of a phenomenon so curious. A golden light in the heart of an azure diamond is really strange. We all know that diamond is merely pure carbon, and can be turned into charcoal easily enough. But the formation of this unique gem is still a mystery of creation. Is it the product of ceake's den. 191 some sudden crystallisation under infinite pressure caused by geological change ? The inquisitive intellect of our great chymist, Sir Humphrey Davy, was much employed on this question. He exposed carbon to intense heat, both in vacuo and in condensed nitrogen ; and the lustre of the carbon was much increased, and the carbon was hard enouo'h to cut o-lass. It is curious that no chymical experimenter has followed in this inviting track ; but the truth is that our contemporary men love the lecture-room better than the labora- tory, and that even Faraday was a very bad second to the indefatigable Sir Hum- phrey. " I didn't suppose," soliloquised Crake, " that those fellows would bring me all the stones. Some stick to their finirers. 192 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. naturally. But I can't fancy they've dared to take tliat famous diamond, which nobody who knows anything about stones would venture to buy. Where can it be ? I could get a nice sum of money for it from the Shah or the Khedive ; and a jolly trip it would be to go and negotiate with them." Crake was puzzled and disappointed, and could only suppose that Squire Englehurst had put away the famous dia- mond in some less known place than that where the bulk of his daughter's jewels was kept. However, his myrmidons had brought liim a very valuable haul ; and a descriptive telegram in cypher to a con- fidential friend in Amsterdam was prompt- ly despatched, and answered with equal promptitude. The result was that Crake, CRAKE S DEX. 193 having summoned liis junior partner and given him certain instructions, prepared to make an immediate start for the Conti- nent. When he had a big job on hand, he hked to do it personally. But his day's work at home was not over. Presently he had to give audience to the Honourable Clarence Vere, a younger son of the well-known Lord Vaurien, but with- out the resplendent scampishness of his father. A well-preserved and well-dressed man of forty, Vere got himself put in the Peerage a dozen years younger. He had never had any income, for his worthy old father spent all he received and a great deal more ; so Yere had lived by his wits, with ulterior design to marry an heiress. The particular heiress was not yet found ; but Vere was in no hurry ; he VOL. I. O 194 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. wislied to sow liis wild oats first. More- over, lie had hit upon a rather distinguished mode of making a gentlemanly living, and keeping on the surface of society, swind- ling Lord Verisopht and going very far with Lady Veriphast. "When nobody would lend him any more money, and it was a case of Basinghall Street or Bou- logne, a sudden thought struck him, and he went straight to Crake. "I'm off," he said, "unless I can make an arrangement. Don't know what I owe all round ; dare say you know what I owe you ?" And he leaned back in a chair in Crake's sanctum, smoking a cigarette. "Rather," replied Crake, laconically. " Well, it comes to this. I'm in society, and go with the swim. There's lots of crake's den. 195 meiD, and women too for tliat matter, who'll give any price for ready money at a pinch. You stop these fellows that are bothering me, and I'll send you all the best people, and you'll give me a commis- sion. The idea struck Crake as a good one. He could always pull this scapegrace up by insisting on his money. He employed him in this highly honourable way, and the decoy brought him many clients . . . men reckoning on their fathers' death, and women pledging their bridal diamonds. Fashion flies too fast for all but the men with princely incomes, and even they sometimes find it hard to keep steady in the rapids, as this incident goes to show. " Ha ! Crake," said the Honourable Clarence Vere, in his airiest way, " hope o2 196 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. you're not too busy to give me something effervescent and iced ?" " I'm just off to the Continent," said Crake, drily, " and I fear nothing you have to tell me will pay for the hock and seltzer which is your favourite liquid. Still you shall have it." " Wrong for once," said Clarence Vere, as he slaked his thirst. " Come, I'll bet joii a pony that what I am going to tell you will prevent your journey." " Done," said Crake. " Good !" said Vere, quietly registering the bet. " Listen. Bellasys wants money, and I am going to bring him here to- night." " The devil !" said Crake. " Will you have a cheque, or bank-notes ?" " Cheque, thanks," said Vere, getting up ceake's den. 197 sharply. " We'll be liere at midnight ; I must be off, as we dine together, and go to half a dozen places after." Crake, when his sprightly subaltern had left him, sat for some time in a brown study. Why should Bellasys want money ? Nothing outrageous had been attributed to him of late. He had simply carried out the saying, Noblesse oblige, as too many of our modern patricians choose to read it. He had been lucky on the turf, and in other forms of speculation to which our suckling peers are much addicted. But Crake, whose business it was to know more of people's private affairs than all the Pollakies in Europe, could not guess at a reason for this young noble's being hard up. He would not go to Amsterdam, that 198 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. was certain. Was it safe to keep tlie diamonds in England ? He thought not. The police would be on the track pretty soon. There was but one thing to be done. He would send them out by the junior partner, and instruct him as to the amount he ought to get for them. So he summoned Norris, and explained the whole affair. "Get away early in the morning," h.& said. " I don't know about the steamers, but you had better be out of this before sunrise, in case of accidents ; and you can find out everything at London Bridge. There is a line to Focking; mind you don't take a farthinp- less than the sum in my memorandum : get twice as much if you can. The stones are well worth it. And now have supper laid for three in the ceake's den. 199 blue room at twelve : everything first-rate, for Bellasys is a big fish." This arranged, Crake strolled into Picca- dilly, dined at the Criterion, and passed an hour or two at the Criterion Theatre. He did not care about drama, legitimate or illegitimate ; but he found that light and noise, song and dance, relieved a brain that all day had been set upon intrigue and arithmetic. So he almost always dined at a good place, drank sound stimulant wine, and went into a box or stall there- after. He could not, an hour later, have told you the menu of his dinner or the name of his play ; but he got the distraction he needed. Meanwhile Lord Bellasys and Clarence Yere had dined at the Raleigh. Thence, " just for a breath of air," as Bellasys put 200 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. it (and certes, 'twas a sultry niglit), they drove tandem, a noble pair of roans, down to Caprice Cottage, Fulham. " I suppose the fellow will do it," said Bellasys, flicking his leader, so that he sprang off and set all his warning bells into a tremendous tintinnabulation as they drove back to town. " Of course he will," said Yere, lighting a cigar under difficulties. " Fool if he didn't." "And I suppose you think me a fool too," said Bellasys. " Of course I do, my dear fellow, but you need not press one to say it in so definite a way." " I think I'm right," said Bellasys, and gave his leader another sharp touch, and said no more till he reached the door of crake's den. 201 Mr. Crake's chambers, just as Big Beu was saying Midnight. The door opened as they got down, and the junior partner, in his choicest footman's apparel, showed them into a room where supper was laid for three. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's exclamation — " O wlieu the long hours of the public are past, To meet ■with champagne and a chicken at last," was quite outdone by Crake's suppers. Lord Bellasys and his friend were usher- ed into the room, where Crake received them with infinite servilit}^ Crake, a judge of character by pro- fession, could hardly approximate to a judgment of Lord Bellasys. A man of five feet ten, broad shouldered, the Cornish wrestler's build all through, with brown hair very short, a shaven face, and the 202 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. clearest blue eye Crake liad ever encountered. That eye would liave told Bellasys, if a Lavater had looked at him; but Crake, accustomed to the world's seamiest side, was by no means a Lavater. And the easy style of Lord Bellasys puzzled him even more. " Ah, 3'ou have supper ready, Mr. Crake ; I will just take a biscuit and a glass of noyau, for my horses pulled rather. Then, as to business. Vere tells me you have money, and like to lend it at a profit. I have money, and like to spend it. Now, here is the question, — will you obtain for me, in the course of to-morrow, bank-notes for fifty thousand pounds, if I give you a post-dated cheque on Drummond for sixty thousand. My cheque shall be payable two months hence. I am going to be married, and I want money." ceake's den. 203- Crake hesitated a moment. It was a grand temptation, and all his inquiries about Lord Bellasys had served to show- that he met his engagements. Moreover^ he had been told that Lord Bellasys was about to marry Laing's daughter. What puzzled the usurer was the eccentricity of the proposal. But his hesitation lasted only a moment. " Yes, my lord," he said. " Where shall I send the notes ?" " To Long's. I breakfast at tw^elve. If you or your messenger can be there be- tween twelve and two with the notes, the cheque shall be ready. Don't disappoint me. " Rely on me, my lord," said Crake. Then he went back to where the unused supper was spread, ate some lobster '204 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. salad, and drank some cliampagne. Then lie rang for tbe junior partner, told him he had made a grand coup, and advised him to be off to Amsterdam as soon as possible. Very jolly was Crake that night; a fine burglarious haul of dia- monds, and ten thousand pounds in two months without any risk, were wonderful prizes for a single day. He felt he had done his duty, and Providence had pro- perly rewarded him. As to Lord Bellasys, who was never like other men, he dropt Clarence Vere -at his Jermyn Street rooms, and worked off his excitement by driving his roans a dozen miles out of town, and then back to Long's. London was crimsoned by sun- rise over all its lofty towers and labyrin- thine streets when Bellasys sent his crake's den. 205' sleepy groom off with his horses, and went quietly to bed, telling the night porter to wake him at twelve — and not before, if Doomsday happened to occur. 206 CHAPTER VII. WHO IS THE CEIMIiXAL? -" When life's at the worst, and your brain's in a panic, Don't take refuge in strychnine or hydrocyanic. To leave this our world by an improper portal, Is beneath the high rank of a spirit immortal." Synesius — Be Suicida. TTTHY was Charles Cotton wanted at tlie Hall ? The answer is simple. That shriekino' housemaid who announced o the loss of the jewels, when she was re- duced to comparative calmness and cross- examined, which took a considerable time, WHO IS THE CEDIINAL. 207 stated that she had seen Cotton come out of the Squire's room just before she dis- covered the safe was open. She supposed he had to go and look whether the win- dows were all right. She was quite sure he was there. The Squire and the Marquis were puzzled by this curious bit of evidence. Cotton had professedly gone away to attend to his day's work at that time. He could by no means have any business in Mr. Englehurst's bedroom. They dis- cussed the matter carefully. The house- maid, a simple girl from Englehurst village, of nineteen or twenty, could have no apparent motive for stating an untruth. "I can't understand this," said the Squire. " Cotton seems to me a very honest candid young fellow. I won't be- 208 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. lieve him a thief, in league witli those villains from London. Yet why was he in my room ?" "It is a problem," said Castelcicala, " and we shall have to wait for its solu- tion. I do not believe Cotton was in your room. That girl may have fancied she saw him." " Fancied ? What do you mean ?" " She is at an excitable age. She was frightened when she saw your safe opened and rifled. An attack of the hysterica jMssio may have made her believe she saw Cotton when he was not there. You will find he will deny he was there." "Of course," said the Squire; "guilty or innocent, he'll do that. But who cut the cords of those burglars, and helped them to clear the safe ? And who could WHO IS THE CKIMINAL. 209 have unlocked tlie safe, or picked its lock^ so cleverly ?" " Not Cotton, my friend," said the Mar- quis. " He is not the man for that kind of work. It is one of the most difficult enigmas I have known, and I have passed my life in solving enigmas. I shall find a clue, it is certain. I might almost say I have found a clue, by the Archimedean principle of exhaustion." " "What do you think ?" said the Squire, eagerly. * " I think nothing yet, my friend. I probe the darkness. You may never find your jewels again, but I will find the thief — and he will not be Charles Cotton." Cis Englehurst was of course aware that her diamonds had fled ; but the Squire told her nothing of his suspicions, and when he VOL. I. P 210 A FIGHT WITH FOETONE. found that Cotton would be away till even- ing, ordered out his four in hand, put his daughter on the box, and drove her twenty miles to Garston Mere, where they held an impromptu pic-nic together, on a green promontory which thrust itself defiantly into the lovely lake — a lake where the Fay Morgana might well be seen for an instant, and vanish. The Marquis declined to come ; and father and daughter, who were wondrous good com- rades, enjoyed their time. Cis's young heart was as yet unstirred by the love- trouble ; she loved nobody save her father, and just for the brief time when it is possible for father and daughter thus to love each other, he seeing in the young creature what he saw years ago in her mother, she regarding him as the noblest WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 211 of men and the most loveable, liow great is tlie deliglit ! Two young lovers could not have got more pleasure out of a pic-nic by the solitary mere, watching the heron fishing the pools for lake-trout, and the falcon hovering high above, waiting for the heron to rise with its prey. The heron found its fish and rose : the haAvk fell from the firmament like a flash of lightning, and clutched the luckless bird. " I wonder if the old Augurs could get anything out of that about my diamonds," thought the Squire. The Marquis de Castelcicala had the little housemaid sent to him, and questioned her as to her seeing Cotton in the Squire's room. She adhered to her story. She was quite certain it was he, and no other. Then he made inquiries as to her family. p 2 212 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. Her name was Julia, but the housekeeper insisted on her being called Ann, which she seemed to think a great grievance ; and her family name was Pinnell ; and her only relation was her maiden aunt, as lived at a cottage just opposite Mr. Jenkins's, and the Squire made her comfortable because she had been in his service years ago, and in his father's time as well. Castelcicala went off to see the maiden aunt, who turned out to be a great aunt. She was in a cos}' little cottage with trees in front, and was reading the Bible quietly. In old age people go back to the Bible, and are apt to wonder they ever left it for the sermons of popular preachers. This quiet old lady, who had passed her eightieth year, reading for the thousandth time the ancient idj\ of Ruth amid the WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 213 alien corn, and mingling it with vague tlioughts of the poetic might-liave-been of lier own gay girlhood, was a rare picture. The Marquis, a connoisseur of humanity, enjoyed it. After talk of other matters, he led her to talk of Miss Julia Pinnell. It was clear the old lady did not think much of the generation two stages forward. Certes, that pallid aristocratic face had little in common with the florid countenance of the housemaid. The Marquis, carefully humour- ing the old lady, found out that she considered her great-niece not very much better than she should be. " She's a little hussy," she said. " The girls are all alike now. Father would have whipped me well if I'd done what these young things do. Now here's a bit 214 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. of paper she dropt," slie continued, turning to the beginning of her Bible. " I can't make it out ; but perhaps you can, sir ?" Castelcicala started when he saw it. " Yes," he said, " I think I can make it out. May I take it Avith me ?" " 3^es," said the old lady ; whereupon the Marquis, amazed at having strengthen- ed his clue in a quarter hardly expected, gave her a couple of sovereigns, and walked slowly towards Englehurst Hall, much pondering. The louts at the Five Horseshoes beheld him pass, and made uucomplimentary remarks in a cowardly whisper. I wonder whether Earl Eussell, whose quaint little pamphlet on education has just appeared as I write, could have explained to those bucolic beer-consumers who Wellington was — a fact which he WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 215 seems to think every Englisliman must know. Castelcicala, a subtle Italian, with a somewhat Macchiavellian brain, dimly laboured at his problem as he loitered back towards Englehurst Hall. The solu- tion had suddenly flashed on him, and he now had unexpected corroborative evi- dence ; but he saw clearly that he must wait awhile before acting. There was nothing quite definite enough to satisfy the English magistrate, whose duty it is to give a suspected person the benefit of every doubt. So he kept his opinion to himself, waiting for what might come next. He was standing at the grand entrance of Englehurst Hall, ready to help pretty Cis from her seat, and as she sprang from the wheel, agile as a squirrel, he said, 216 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. " You have enjoyed your day, I am sure." '' Indeed I have," slie replied. "It is always pleasant with papa." At dinner and after nothing was said of the disagreeable affair. They went soon to the drawing-room. Cis Englehurst, after her long drive in open air and the general excitement of the day, was very tired. She leaned back in her chair, a pretty infantile picture, scarce able to keep her soft eyelids from drooping over her opal eyes. "You won't sing to-night," said the Marquis, "I know. Come, shall I sing you a quaint sleepy madrigal that I found in a worm-eaten old music-book in your father's library to-day ?" " do, please," she said, wakening up. WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 217 Castelcicala, iu a tenor almost equal to Mario's, sang, touching the piano deftly — My beauty speaks. Her speech is song ; Her silver-sounding words Out-do the quiring throng Of musical birds. O speak again, my sweet, O speak again ! Silence is pain. . My beauty sings. Heaven's golden sea, And the inaudible spheres Have a new voice for me ; My spirit hears. O sing again, fair minstrel, sing again That strange sweet strain ! My beauty sleeps. I guess her eyes Beneath those lids pearl-white ; Her sweet breasts sink and rise To dream's delight. O dream of me, sweet sleeper, dream again : And not in vain ! The Marquis's song made pretty Cis sleepier than before, as indeed Avas his design. So she tripped away to her (juiet, cool chamber, fearless of burglars this night 218 A FIGHT WITH TOETUNE. at least, since a second attack seemed an impossibility. Ah, but she was a fearless child always, as our story will show. She sent her maid away, and said short prayers, and was soon in a soft calm sleep, dream- ing of nobody. She had not been gone five minutes when Cotton's arrival was notified to the Squire. " Send him here," said Mr. Englehurst. " Note the young fellow as he comes in," said the Marquis. " It is either hangdog or bluster with guilty people ; the innocent are unsuspicious and unconcerned." Cartes, Charles Cotton looked uncon- cerned enough when shown into the Squire's presence ; and to both gentlemen he seemed the unlikeliest of men to be in league with thieves. WHO IS THE CEIMINAL. 219' " Cotton," said the Squire, " before you left the Hall this morning, did you go into my bedroom ?" Cotton, who was quite unable to under- stand the reason of this sudden question, said — " No, sir. I went straight away and bathed, and went to my work." " AVell," said the Squire, " your answer is frank enough, and no doubt the facts can be proved ; but those thieves you helped so well to catch have ' escaped, somebody cutting their cords, and they took thou- sands of pounds' worth of diamonds from a safe in my bedroom." " Who could have cut the cords ?" said Cotton. " I am sure we tied the scoundrels fast enough." He did not see the drift of the conversa* -220 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. tion, and liad not the remotest idea that he could be suspected. "Well, Cotton," said the Squire, "it •comes to this. The housemaid who dis- covered the robbery declared that you were in the room at the time, or just before." " The little liar !" exclaimed Charles Cotton. " I should like to talk to her. May she come up ?" " It is only fair," said the Squire. "Is it wise ?" asked the Marquis. "Fair before wise," said the Squire, innging the bell and ordering her up. She came, a slightly scrofulous doll, of a tj^pe too common where the sins of parents have been visited on their children. Charles Cotton looked at her with an indignant gaze. Knowing himself incap- WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 221 able of theft, he felt a courageous con- tempt for anyone who could think theft possible of him. There are men, and women too, who steal with delighted avidity, thinking they have done something clever ; whereas Charles Cotton liked tO' work for his living, and to feel he was earning it. This Julia Pinnell came in with a false look. She curtseyed humbly to the Squire^ who said, " You are sure you saw Mr. Cotton in my room this morning ?" " Quite sure, sir," she said. " What was he doing ?" " I didn't notice, sir. He had a bunch of keys in his hand." "The Lie Circumstantial," thought the Marquis. 222 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. ''You are perfectly sure it was Cotton ?" " yes, sir, I couldn't mistake him. He said, ' How are you, Julia ?' " "You can go," said tlie Squire. " Mr. Engleliurst," said Cotton, when she was gone, " I can't guess why that wench lies, but she does lie. I have never spoken to her in my life, and hadn't an idea her name was Julia. If a man had been lying about me in that way, I'd have twisted his neck before he left the room." Charles Cotton was moved to tears of wrath. He snatched at the handker- chief in his pocket to hide the mist which seldom comes upon a strong man's eyes, though it hovers over those of women. As he did so, something fell on the floor, and the Marquis said, " What have you drop- ped, Mr. Cotton ?" WHO IS THE CEIMINAL. 223 He took a caudle to find out, and to bis utter amazement the sole thing he could find, buried deep in the soft AYilton carpet, was a small diamond ring that Mrs. Engle- hurst used to wear. Cotton laid it on the oak table. The Squire looked puzzled. Castelcicala laughed. " There's something saved," said the Marquis, "though 'tis only a little ring." "Yes," said the Squire, sorrowfully, " but it is of value to me, and will be to Cis, for it was my first gift to my dear wife. But it looks very strange." The Squire's was a stolid and by no means fast-travelling intellect. Give him time, and he'd come to a just judgment on any question. Unfortunately, the one 224 A FIGHT WITH POKTUNE. thing tliat never is given us in this world is time. " It w strange," said the Marquis. " Now, Englehurst, will you let me carry out this matter in my own way ? You don't be- lieve, I am sure, that Cotton stole that rino-." " I don't," said the Squire, emphatically, " though I'm hanged if I see my way out of it." ''I think I do," said the Marquis. ''Trust both the ring and Cotton to me. Now, Cotton, obey orders. Don't go near your home to-night, but walk to the Scrutton Station straight from here, and take the first train to London. Do you want money ?" " I have plenty for the present," said Cotton. U TT, WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 225 Very well. When you get to Loudon go to this address," he continued, giving- him a card that had Soho as its final word. " The people are old servants of mine. Wait there till you hear from me or see me. Don't be long away from the place. They will make you comfortable." Charles Cotton showed that he mio-ht CD have been a good soldier, by at once obey- ing orders. Off he went ; caught his train ; got to the quaint foreign courtyard in Soho, in time for a late supper of all manner of things never tasted by him before. The Marquis's commands made the owners of the place treat him en Prince. " I don't quite understand your game, Castelcicala," said the Squire; "but I hope it is all right." " I fancy so," he said. " Matters more VOL. I. Q 226 A HGHT \TTTH FORTUNE. important than even your priceless diamonds are involved. Take your rest easily. We'll get at the truth." " And get back some more of the diamonds, I hope. I wonder how Cotton happened to have that ring in his pocket. Do you think somebody put it there ?" "If so, who was somebody? and why should he put it there ?" said the Marquis. " It's a complex puzzle, Englehurst, but we'll solve it." The Squire went to bed. The Marquis did not. He rang for Kedi, stripped to his shirt and trousers, and woke himself up with a fencing bout. Then he sat down to a glass of something iced, and read Byron's Beppo — a poem that it is easy to read many times over. This done, he opened a small antique casket, delicately WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 227 carved by some fine Italian hand, with four ivory chess rooks at each corner, and golden grasshoppers all over it. It con- tained a row of small books, all differently bound, and on each a title in a different cypher. Choosing one of these, the Mar- quis opened its gold clasp with a tiny key of the same metal, looked carefully through a few pages written in cypher, and then added half a page of memoranda, also in cypher, written with a crowquill in the finest conceivable characters. " Now," he said to himself, " I shall checkmate this intriguer, who thinks him- self born to control the policy of Europe." Charles Cotton awoke in the morning in the Soho Court with a half-stifled feeling. He had a clean and airy room on the third floor, for the house was old, and had once q2 228 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. been a stately residence, as the carved cornices and mantelpieces attested. His bed occupied just a corner of tlie large room ; over the rest of it were scattered chairs and tables of many patterns, and on the tables were clocks under glass shades, dagger paj)er knives, quaint candelabra, carved caskets, old miniatures on ivory, books in many languages antiquely bound. The walls, too, were hung with pictures and prints of value for their rarity. Cotton could not make it out ; but he dressed as fast as he could, anxious to get a breath of fresh air, if any such thing existed in London. It was only five o'clock, his watch told him, and he doubted being able to get out, but resolved to try. What with yesterday's excitement and the close atmosphere which seemed so horrible a WHO IS THE CEIMINAL. 229 contrast to the odour of honeysuckles and roses which greeted him through his uncle's cottasfe window, when the s^arrulous star- lings woke him at sunrise, his brain was in a whirl. He had obeyed the Marquis's orders, and come away to London secretly ; but now he wondered whether he ought to have allowed his own will to be thus subjected to the will of another. It was difiB.cult for a youngster like himself to resist the commanding style of the accom- plished diplomatist ; but he began to think of what all the village would say — his uncle, old Wrangel, Wrangel's gossiping daughters; last, and by no means least, Miss Englehurst. "They will all think me a thief," he bitterly reflected. "And that she should think me one, if she condescends to think 230 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. o£ me at all, is intolerable. What strange plot is there against me ? How can I have any enemies ? How came that ring in my pocket ?" Cotton felt desperate. His perplexity was not lightened by the crass London air. He opened his door and descended the broad stone stairs quietly, not desiring to waken any other lodgers. But he was not the first man awake in that house by any means. As he crossed the hall he noticed a small glass enclosure, with shelves to the roof, covered with all sorts of glass and china and plate; and therein stood bald-headed rosy-cheeked Monsieur Dulau, polishing away at glass, and singing in a low voice — " Commissaire ! commissaire ! Colin bat sa menagere." WHO IS THE CEIMINAL. 231 An act of impiety of wliich Acliille Dulau would certainly not have been guilty, since he worshipped Madame, and was also slightly afraid of her. He turned on hearing Cotton's step, and said : — " Ah, monsieur, you are matinal. Nor do you look well. It is migraine. No wonder. London is close you know, thick, epaisseT Dulau had been the Marquis's travelling valet, and his language was in a conglo- merate state. " I want a breath of fresh air," said Cotton. "Fresh air! It shall you have. But first, some medicine 1 will prepare, tisane, excellent for mal de iete. Vois f Charles Cotton with some curiosity be- held the Frenchman put a wine-glass into 232 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. a tumbler, and into the wine-glass pour a greenish fluid. Then he took pure water, and poured it into the wine-glass till all the spirit had flowed over into the tumbler, leaving only clear lymph behind. Then, taking out the wine-glass, he handed the tumbler to Cotton, saying, "Drink!" Cotton drank, and did not like it. But he soon liked the effect. His veins grew warm ; the dull feeling departed from his brain. He had tasted absinthe, the essence of the embittering wormwood (that perilous flower beloved by Artemis), the deadly drink of which Alfred de Musset perished. " One glass medicine," laconically said Achille Dulau, " two, poison. Come. I am away to Billingsgate to buy fish. I WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 233 have a great prince liere, a friend, like you, of his Excellency, who must have fish for breakfast always, always. So I go to Billin2:so^ate." Right glad was Cotton, refreshed by the nepenthe of Paris, to go out and see the unknown city. Dulau took a basket, and started at a brisk pace, chattering all the way. His companion happened to mention the curious things in his room, and Dulau said — " yes. I buy them cheap when I see chance. Gentlemen know me. They come and say, 'Well, Dulau, anything fresh.' I pay shillings. I get pounds by- and-by — livres, you know." The air seemed fresher in Trafalg^ar Square. Cotton stared round him with amazement. He was a born villager, and 234 A FIGHT WITH FOKTUNE. had never entered a town of above twenty thousand people, wliicli seemed immense to him. He was as wonder-struck as was Virgil's shepherd when first he beheld Rome. The great towers of Westminster, as yet clear and bright in the sunny morning air, seemed to him miraculous. Dulau, delighted to act in the new situa- tion of Qfuide to an Eno^lishman who had never seen London, was garrulous and ex- planatory ; but Cotton was a bad listener, and could do nothing but stare at the mighty massive forms around him. They stood on the beautiful bridge of West- minster and looked up and down the stream; and Cotton, who had known no river larger than the lovely flashing Engle, fruitful of trout, trembled at the might of imperial Thames, and remem- WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 235 bered again his passion for seeing the world. " There is air on this bridge," said Dulau, " and on that granite walk : they are almost worthy of Paris. Our river, the Seine — well, it is not like your Tamise, wide, but 0, parbleu, its bridges ! You in London have, like the Pont Neuf, no- thing." Cotton did not listen much to his chattering companion. A man of imagina- tive mind feels his brain open and expand as he gazes for the first time on something noble. The primal sight of a rose-tinged Alp, whose peak pierces the sky — of a wide river with vast ships upon it — of a great city throbbing with the life of millions — is a memory for ever. Cotton was so absorbed with -the sig-ht before him that •^36 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. Dulau had some difficulty in making liim understand that the river steamer was •approaching the pier. They went on board, and Cotton got fresh air enough. The little boat, with waspish energy, flashed down the stream, revealing to Cotton new marvels with every splash of her paddle wheels. Land- ing at London Bridge, Dulau led his com- panion to Billingsgate, there to be astound- ed by the graphic eloquence of the salesmen, ^nd the beauty of the mighty salmon on the cool marble slabs. "Fine fish!" said Dulau to the fish- monger, of whom he was purchasing a lobster for the breakfast, and some red mullet for the dinner of his illustrious incognito. It was a glorious salmon, of •seventy pounds or so. WHO IS THE CRIMINAL. 237 " Yes," said the other. " Grove's mau has bespoke it for the Archbishop of Canterbury, who's got a big dinner at Lambeth to-day — not curates, you know, but Royalty and bigwigs. I'm one of those who object to the Church being, disestablished. It would help to dis- establish me !" Dulau and Cotton took another steamer up the river. The summer morning was still peaceful and beautiful, though already a thin veil of smoke, from myriads of kitchen chimneys, was poised in the air like a giant cobweb. As the steamer shot under Waterloo Bridge, Cotton, standing at the stern, looking backward, was startled by a wild, despairing shriek, such as had never fallen on his ear before. He looked up, and saw a woman falling headlong from 238 A FIGHT WITH FOllTUNB. the parapet into the river. It was the infinite division of an instant, yet her form was burnt on his brain, and he knew what it meant at a glance. He sprang from the deck into the water, and swam to her aid. 239 CHAPTER VIII. VILLAGE GOSSIP. " Jack on his alehouse bench has as many lies as a Czar." Tennyson. rriHE disapppearance of Charles Cotton was a deliglitfiil topic of converse for the people of Englehurst village. His uncle Richard sat up late for him, and at last gave in, and went to bed with a happy conviction that somethinq; terrible had happened. The Plymouth Brother was like a certain famous Irishman — never happy unless he was miserable. He re- 240 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. solved to go and see tlie most eminent Plymouth Brother in the neighbourhood, one Granville, an insolvent linen-draper, the first thing next morning. So he went to bed, and wept himself asleep. When he arose, he walked straight to his erratic nephew's room, and beheld an untouched bed ! Horror of horrors ! Charles Cot- ton had not come home to sleep, which he might have done, as he always carried the key of a back entrance. The Plymouth Brother was paralysed. He sat down to breakfast, ate a yard of bacon and a dozen eggs, drank a quart of weak tea, and then set off, with tears in his eyes, to ask advice of Granville. This Granville was an oddity. After failing conspicuously in many lines of business, he had fallen on his feet by VILLAGE GOSSIP. 241 marrying an elderly spinster who kept a girls' school. Although unsuccessful in matters secular, his fine fluency had made him a great light among the Brethren ; and it was generally supposed that Miss Crowder, the proprietress of Hawker Academy, had accepted him as an adver- tisement. She kept him in perfect order. She curled his hair, limited his diet, told him exactly what to say at Bethesda Chapel. This same chapel, a quiet little building up a lane that seemed not to lead anywhere, was a great sorrow to the Rector (a firm believer in Apostolic Suc- cession), and an immense amusement to the Squire. Mr. Englehurst, though a holder of very strong opinions, had not the slightest desire to force those opinions on other people. Indeed, his wish was VOL. I. R 242 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. rather tlie other way. He preferred being in tlie minority. He had an aristocratic idea that a gentleman ought to have a creed of his own quite different from that of ordinary people. He was the last man in the world to make a proselyte or vote with a party. So, when his good friend the Rector, a kid-gloved Ritualist with a slight tendency towards the confessional, bemoaned the existence in Englehurst of this clique of Plymouth Brethren, the stal- wart Squire laughed at him. The Reverend Yicesimus Wigney was the twentieth child of the Squire's college tutor, a fine old mathematician who married at forty-five, and found himself at seventy with a populous household. The Squire, taking pity on the perplexed old gentleman, did all he could to help him ; and one thing VILLAGE GOSSIP. 243 he did was to give liis son, Yicesimus, the Englehurst living. It was against his conscience, for he saw that Yicesimus Wignej was a weak young fellow, who would blindly follow any leader ; but the Squire, as is too often the case, sacrificed his convictions in his desire to serve a friend. So Vicesimus got the living, which was a good one ; and he played many foolish tricks, which old-fangled Englehurst understood not ; and he was decidedly unpopular with the men, though the young women all adored him. He was fond of seeing his female parishioners in his study, and probing their consciences, and giving them pious advice ; he had, moreover, an intense thirst for gossip, and loved nothing half so well as a cup of tea and a scandalous story. Once or twice he nearly r2 244 A FIGHT WITH FOfiTUNE. got into serious difficulty in consequence of this tendency. Indeed, when he hawked about a villanous rei^ort, entirely untrue, about Mr. Stanley Gay, that impulsive young quadrigarius was with much diffi- culty prevented from horsewhipping him. Old Richard Cotton found his W' ay down to Mrs. Granville's seminary just at the time when all the young female folk of Engiehurst village were demurely tripping in that direction. It was a school for the children of farmers and tradespeople, where the diet was rough, but plentiful, and the teaching quite old-fashioned. There was French, of Stratford-atte-Bow, and Lindley Murray, and good plain needlework. Of course the piano had its way, much dis- turbing the pious lucubrations of Mr. Granville. However, it was a good sort VILLAGE GOSSTP. 245 of school for the class of girls who came there, whether as boarders or day-scholars ; they got no new-fangled notions or ambi- tions, and went home contented to help their fathers in their shops, or their mothers in the dairy and the housework. There are a few country villages in which such schools remain ; but it cannot be long before the rising wave of omniscience, fostered by the School Boards, will wash them away. Richard Cotton was shown in to Mr. Granville. That luminary of theology, who looked very wise indeed, was in dressing-gown and slippers, with a black velvet skull-cap, and sat with pen and ink before him. He looked rather like an elderly magpie. Two books were open be- fore him — Luther's Commentary on the 246 A FIGHT WITH TORTUNE. Galatians and Walker's Dictionary. He was in the highest spirits, for he had just been offered five pounds by a London pubHsher for a telling tract ; and as a con- sequence, Mrs. Granville had been more than usually liberal with the bacon at his breakfast. Like all men of his class, he was fond of heavy eating. It may not be generally known that tracts are a particu- larly remunerative form of literature, both for author and publisher ; and, sad to say, there are a good many fast young literary men who have no particular creed who make a very nice income by tract writing. I recollect Harry Keymer, when he went down to his maiden aunt in Northampton- shire, was moved almost to laughter by finding the dear old lady in tears over a tract called "The Converted Highway- VILLAGE GOSSIP. 247 man," which he had written to pay his holi- day expenses. He was undecided whether to tell her that he wrote the tract or not. If he did the keen old lady might detect his hypocrisy. Unable to decide, he tossed up ; heads, yes ; tails, no. It was tails. So he said no word ; and Miss Theodosia Keymer left all her money to the society which published that tract — with, however, the fortunate provision that they should continue to employ the inspired pen of its gifted author. Harry has made five hun- dred a year out of tracts ever since. " Sit down, Brother Cotton,," said Gran- ville, effusively. He had begun his painful * labours by taking Martin Luther, and diluting him through the medium of Walker, and he was not altogether sorry 248 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. to be interrupted. "You seem to be disturbed." "Ay, indeed," quotli Cotton. "My nephew, Charles, has run away, or some- thing. He was sent for up to the Hall last nio^ht, and he's never been seen since. What had I better do, Brother Gran- ville ? " " Have you inquired at the Hall ? Per- haps he was wanted to do some particu- lar work early this morning, and the Squire kept him there. You know the Squire's always in a hurry." " There now ! What a thing it is to be a man of learning ! My poor old head would never have thought of that! Of course, the boy's up at the Squire's at work." " Better go and satisfy yourself," said ^^LLAGE Gossir. 249 Granville, oracularly ; " tliougli no doubt it IS so. Richard Cotton walked off at a slow pace to Englehurst Hall. He went round by the back entrance, and encountered a foot- man crossing the wide courtyard, on one side of which were the stables and coach- houses, where many grooms were hissing at their work. " Have you got my nephew, Charlie, up here ?" he asked. The footman, a Londoner, who knew nothing of the Englehurst villagers, gave him a supercilious stare, and said, "Really I don't know anything about your nephew, old gent." Just at that moment the Marquis de Castelcicala crossed the yard. Cis Engle- hurst had taken the fancy that hawking 250 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. would be a pleasant amusement ; so tlie Squire had set up a falconer, and bouglit liawks, wliicli were now in course of train- ing. Castelcicala was as fond of the sport as that loyal Italian of Boccaccio's who killed his pet falcon to entertain his lady- love, and it was his matutinal custom to look after the hawks. So he chanced to note the interview between Cotton and the footman, and inquired courteously of the old man w^hat he wanted. Cotton, some- what shy of the brilliant easy Italian, ex- plained rather blunderingly. " 0," said the Marquis, catching his meaning at last ; " young Charles Cotton is your nephew. He was here last night to see Mr. Englehurst, and went away again. Is he not gone to his work at the plumber and glazier's ?" VILLAGE GOSSIP. 251 Ricliard Cotton got more and more puzzled over this business; however, he thought he would go to Wrangel's, hoping to find his runaway nephew there. When he reached the place, he found the old plumber and glazier in a lovely temper, swearing at everybody, and especially at his daughters. He seemed quite delighted to have a new object on which to wreak his wrath, and turned upon poor old Cotton with absolute fury. "Where's that rascally nephew of yours ?" he exclaimed. " Why doesn't he come to his work ? He's a bad lot, Dick Cotton. Here I've got a letter this morn- ing from Mr. Laing, the new man over to Scudamore, saying that he behaved impro- perly to Miss Laing when he was over there to attend to the green-house yester- 252 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. day. Nice tiling for me, wlien I've always been respectable, to liave a journeyman "tliat insults ladies. And now, where is lie ? I should like to know ; and all my •work standing still." " I never thought he would do well, father," said Sarah Wrangel. " He wouldn't go to Sunday-school, you know." " Idle hussy !" cried the fierce old man, turning suddenly on his demure eldest dauo-hter, and boxino- her ears. "Be off with you to your work, you and your two sluts of sisters. How dare you come here talking to me !" The girls hurried off in frightened fashion. Wrangel was excessively angry, because he thoroughly liked Charles Cot- ton, and had always thoroughly trusted him; and now, when Mr. Laing made a VILLAGE GOSSIP. 255- complaint against him, and lie failed to come to work, Wrangel was perfectly puzzled. Cotton was his right hand ; he could not execute half his orders without his help. The frightened girls fluttered their petticoats across the garden, and went quietly to their work. " So he has not been here this morning," said Richard Cotton, timidly. " Here ! Not he. I don't want to see his face again ; and you can tell him so if ever you set eyes on him. Good-bye. I can't stop to talk. I've got to do his work and my own too." Richard Cotton walked off through the old-fashioned archway which led round to "Wrangel's shop, and felt so extremely low that he thought he would have a glass of ale at the Five Horseshoes. It was for 254 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. the worthy old Plymouth Brother an un- usual dissipation ; but there are times when the juice of malt has much to do with quieting the minds of men. He walked into the bar and sat down ; and it was some little time after he had strengthened his soul with beer that he noted who else was in the bar, and what was the conversation. The monstrous Jenkins was listening with a sort of stolid interest to a dapper young fellow, who was Mr. Laing's groom. " She's run away, that's a fact," he said. " The governor's gone off to London to look for her. He suspects a young fellow that came over to mend the greenhouse windows." " Cotton," said Jenkins. " That's your man. He was talking to the girl in the greenhouse, I hear. She's VILLA.GE GOSSIP. 255 a stupid sort of thing, that anybody might get over if he thought it worth while. I don't know whether they're gone off to- gether, but it looks like it. If the glazier thinks he'll get some money from the governor, he's under a mistake The governor wants all he's got, and twice as much more." The groom buried his ruddy countenance in a pewter pot. Jenkins's female folk were listenino^ with intense delight ; Richard Cotton with horror and dismay. His brain was in a whirl. There was the damning^ fact that Charles was nowhere to be found, and now he heard that Miss Laing was missing, and supposed to be in his nephew's company. It was too much for the poor old boy, who could scarcely stag^g^er to the door to walk homeward : 256 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. but Jenkins, who had a sort of rough kindness about him, helped him on his way. The stout landlord was going to his orchard to ofet some oTeeno^ag-es for preserving. The lady by courtesy called Mrs. Jen- kins, and her sister, and her daughter, chattered freely when the busy landlord had departed. " That conceited young upstart will come to no good," said Mrs. Jenkins. " I hate those prim hypocritical people." " 1 never liked him, mamma," said Miss Jane, who was a careful student of the Family Herald. " He is one of those plausible persons who pretend to be vu-tu- ous when they are ready for any criminal action." " Jane is right," said her stout and VILLAGE GOSSIP. 257 sentimental Aunt, enthusiastically. That Aunt was a gushing creature, with the sweet thoughts of seventeen in the palpi- tating bosom of seven and forty, " The wretch has enticed away that poor Miss Laing in the hopes of getting money from her father. 0, it is only too plain ! What a mercenary wretch he must be !" Miss Jane, who at this very moment was doing her utmost to fascinate the Squire's head gardener — a fine fellow in his way, but rather too fast — entirely coincided. Of course, she suggested, no- body would think of that poor Miss Laing except for her money. Alack for luckless Jane ! " wad some power the giftie gi'e us To see oursels as others see us," cries Burns, and if Jane could have seen VOL. 1. S 258 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. herself as tliat handsome wicked gardener saw her, she would have had a severe lesson. " A dumpy freckled little fool," was his confidential verdict upon her when a friend chaffed him about his flirtation. "I wonder what Mr. Laing will do?" said the puffy Miss Sprowl, Mrs. Jenkins's sister. " Of course he will follow his dauo^hter and brins^ her back. How old is the girl, I wonder? She is a gawky- looking thing, and might be any age from fifteen to twenty." " She is nothing like twenty," said the soi-disant Mrs. Jenkins. " Upon my word, I'd no idea that young Cotton was such a scamp. Why, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, you'd have said . And he so high and mighty, never entering a public-house, or standing anybody a glass of beer. It is laughable." VILLAGE GOSSIP. 259 She lauglied an unpleasant half- hysterical laugh. The poor woman, ac- cepting with a brave spirit a miserably false position, had intervals of anguish which were almost too much for her en- durance. I often wonder how it is that women of rather a fine type become the wives (ay, and even the mistresses) of bullies and cads. Is it that their imasfina- tion transforms these men into something wholly different from what they really are ? The man, a mere hulking brute ; the woman, almost a lady, but with just that delicate difference which is so obvious to all true judges. What is it tliat makes these foolish women deliver themselves up, soul and body, for this world and the next, to brutal animals of a type that is swinish ? I am often puzzled by that s 2 260 A "FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. problem. There must be a reason for it, seeing there is a reason for all things in this infinite universe ; but the reason is not easy to find. Englehurst village, not usually a lively corner of the world, was in a great state of excitement over recent events. The buro;- lary at the Hall, the escape of the burg- lars, the double disappearance of Charles Cotton and Miss Laing, furnished fine food for the lovers of gossip. They had not had such delightfully suggestive topics for ages. The tongues of all the villagers, men and women, boys and girls, were loosened ; everybody talked, and no one listened ; the babble of Babel could scarcely have surpassed this village charivari. At twelve sharp, Mr. Stanley Gay's VILLAGE GOSSIP. 261 coacli changed horses at the Five Horse- shoes. You might hear the blast of the guard's horn a couple of miles away, when the wind was south. His route was just twenty miles, from Palmer stown to Castle- ton : a pleasant road all through, with undulating common land, and hills crowned with beech woods, and the river Engle crossing the way at intervals. Mr. Gay drove con amove ; liked horses that could go and passengers that could enjoy their drive ; chaffed the people on the road with a buoyant humour; and kept grooms and ostlers up to the mark by uttering in a sonorous voice what may be called the lout-language of this happy land. Boast as we may of our advanced civilisation, nobody can deny that we have an un- manageable proletariat, to use an expres- 262 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. sive Eomau phrase, which exists p'o- creandae prolis gratia. You give such people s^otes, aud immediately {vide Nor- wich and Boston) they try to sell them ; you give them duties, for doing which they will be paid, and they do their utmost to shirk them. Such people cannot live in large towns where there is immense ac- tivity, without coming in due time into the clutches of the police. But in small towns and country places they are rampant, and live by inexplicable means. Jenkins had a lot of such fellows hanging about his place, and when Mr.' Stanley Gay arranged to change horses there, he carelessly engaged some of those unhelp- ful louts. He soon discovered his mis- take. The coach drove up, a team of bright •V^LLAGE GOSSIP. 263 bays, just as the village clock ( which, kept by the Rev. Vicesimus's watch, was seldom right) struck twelve. It was a very new clock indeed ; and its maker, one Smith, had put his name upon it in ag- gressive brazen letters, and it struck on that bell of the church which was also used for tolling for the dead. " That isn't twelve, it's a funeral," said Gay, as he threw the reins on his leaders' backs, and glanced at the chronometer on the footboard. " That precious clock of Smith's is too fast, like your parson, who writes me letters to say that a four-in- hand coach demoralises his parish. Now, Davis, wheelers. Davis, those oats are not up to sample. Come into Palmers- town to-morrow, and bring the lot." " To-morrow's Sunday," growled Davis ; 264 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. "I'm not paid to work on Sunday." " All right. You can leave this evening. I'll send a man over in a fly to take your place. Leaders ! Hallo, Jenkins, what have you got there ?" The orbicular landlord was waddling down from his orchard with a huge basket of greengages. "Bring 'em here," cried Gay. " Just as you like, sir," said the landlord, calculating how much he should charge for them. "If you'd any sense," said Gay, "you'd bring out some sherry and biscuits. Never mind : fruit's wholesomer. Guard, hand them up to the ladies and gentlemen outside. Pull up /" Away went the coach, to the admiration of the crowd. There was always a crowd. MLLAGE GOSSIP. 265 what with Jenkins's regiment of idlers, and the children just out of school; but on this occasion there was a larger number than usual, for the air was full of rumour and fiction, and all the little Euglehurst world was wondering what next would happen. A good many of the bystanders adjourned to the bar, where Mrs. Jenkins and her sister and daughter were inside, ready to make themselves agreeable, and to supply them with salted beer. Old Spike was there, leaning upon crutches, like the devil on two sticks ; he had grown hoary in iniquity, and seemed to enjoy it. Give him a long clay pipe and a pot of beer, and he was perfectly happy. If he had an immortal soul, he certainly did not know it, and would rather have been without so unmanageable a possession. The same 266 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. may be said of the stout and stolid Jenkins, that man-mountain, in whose vast volume there was not room for a soul as big as a flea. This, by the way, leads to the difficult metaphysical question whether a soul can occupy space — a pro- blem which I leave to the hair-splitting speculators who try to calculate what number of angels can dance on the point of a needle. Jenkins was on this occasion as sulky as a bear with a sore ear — not at all an unusual condition with him. He had lost his greengages ; his ostler, who had acted under his orders in reference to the oats, had received his discharge ; and he, who bullied everybody over whom he had any control, felt a sad loss of personal dignity when treated by Gay as the mere scum of the earth. The sole thing that VILLAGE GOSSIF. 267 gave liim any satisfaction was the dis- appearance of Charles Cotton, whom he hated with an unreasoning hatred. AYrangel, who seldom left his workshop, was among the company in the bar to-day, as savage as possible, since Cotton's sud- den absence had prevented his doing a lot of necessary work. And another visitor was the unfathomable and reticent Redi, who was much amused with the dull scandal- mongers of an English village, wholly devoid of the ready invention of the quick- witted Italians. " I won't have that Gay changing horses here much longer," said Jenkins. " He thinks he's everybody. I'm as good as he is, any day." " I should think so," said Mrs. Jenkins's shrill harsh voice. "He's nobody, that 268 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. ever I heard of, and you're pretty well known in the county. If a man pays his way he's as good as any other man." " Of course he is," said Asmodeus Spike. " These fellows with their four-in-hands want to ride over us. They won't do it, though. Now that Dr. Kenealy has started his Magna Charta, we shall soon be free ; and them aristocrats will have to give up the property that belongs to the people. Why, what's Squire Englehurst ilone that he should own all the land about here ?" "Ay, what indeed?" quoth Jenkins. ■" Much good he does in these parts. 0, that there Doctor Kenealy ! He and old Garry" (affectionate term for Garibaldi) "are the only right good uns now-a-days. Why, •do you know, mates, one evening when VILLAGE GOSSIP. 269^ I was coming down from London tliere were a lot of swells in the carriage that swore T must be Sir Roger. I never felt so proud in my life." At this moment another four-in-hand, passed the bow window of the bar at the Five Horeshoes. It was the Squire, with pretty Cis beside him, and a couple of powdered footmen on the back seat, sitting as immoveable as the Sphinx. " Look at those slaves!" hissed Spike. " Fancy having to wear flour in your hair, and to sit like a wax figure ! Slaves I call them. Suppose they think their master the finest fellow in the world." " They're paid to do it," said the land- lord. " Money goes a long way. I sup- pose that little stuck-up creature on the box '11 marry a lord, or some such thing." 270 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. " Slie isn't at all pretty," said Miss Sprowl. '' I call her ugly," said Jane. Eedi listened to this conversation with much amusement. Presently the talk turned upon Cotton, for whom nobody seemed to have a good word. It was voted at last that he had run away with Mr. Laing's daughter as well as the Squire's diamonds. "He'll be caught," said Spike. "Do you think he will?" asked Redi. " Certain. He can't get away from our detectives. He'll be brought back and tried, you'll see. Serve him right. I hate a thief." Nobody made any comment on this last remark, though all present were aware VILLAGE GOSSir. 271 that no greater thief than Spike could be found in the county. Leaving these gossiping dolts, let us follow Mr. Stanley Gay, who has reached Castleton, seen in the London coach, which is twenty minutes later than his own, and sat down to a well-spread lunch at the Castle Hotel. He was in high spirits, notwithstanding the insubordination of his idiotic stablemen. He has a pleasant epicurism about him, and expatiates elo- quently on the fitness of a glass of Pom- mery and Greno with a slice of ham. One of the passengers is a man with a grievance ; he had taken the box-seat, and was obliged to give way to a lady. Place aux dames was Mr. Stanley Gay's guiding rule ; be- sides, when you are driving four-in-hand, how charming it is to have a lovely lady 272 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. on tlie near side, ready to admire your capital management of the whip, and the delicate way in which you manipulate that off leader with the tender mouth ! So it was scarcely to be expected that Mr. Stanley Gay should allow an elderly duffer to sit by his side when he could be cheered by the companionship of beaut}^ ; and this Palmers- town magnate (I believe he was a grocer and Town Councillor) had to sit behind and look sulky all the time. But he could not help cheering up when luncheon was served at the Castle, and Mr. Gay said — "Very sorry, old fellow, that you couldn't have the box. Ladies must have their way, as I dare say you know, if you're married — and you look married. Let's have a glass of dry champagne together. VILLAGE GOSSIP. 273 And look here, you may have my seat drivino' back. Will that suit vou ?" That highly respectable inhabitant of Palmerstown looked as if he would rather not. And he didn't. VOL. I. 274 CHAPTER IX. THE PURLOINED LETTER. Raphael : How sudden moments spoil the work of centuries ! Do trifles rule the world ? AsTROLOGOS : In faith, they do, my lord. A butterfly may overset a dynasty. A pretty girl may make a realm Republican. Alouette : A pretty girl's no trifle, you must own, papa. The Comedy of Dreams. /^ASTELOICALA, awaking early, order- ed out Red Roland, a noble horse that the Squire had placed at his service, and rode across the fells to Garston Mere. He wanted to think out fully the game he THE PURLOINED LETTEE. 275 was playing ; and lie found tliafc to stimulate thouglit there is nothing like rapid motion through solitary places. Thought of a certain sort comes freely enough in society ; Parliament is the hotbed of eloquence, and the dinner-table of wit ; but the ideas thus generated are not a man's own — they belong to the company. He happens to express what everybody is thinking. If you want to get at your very own ideas, gentle reader — and they are much harder to read than other people s^-linger on lonely moor or in silent wood and question your soul. The Divine Powers shun society ; the music of Apollo's lute is hush- ed when the devil blows the bagpipes of politics, and turns the hurdy-gurdy of scandal. All men who think know this ; men who T 2 276 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. merely tliink they think are ignorant of it. The Marquis rode his horse to the margin of the mere, and left him to graze, knowing that he would come at call, and lay upon the virgin turf, full of thyme and heather, and looked upon the wide calm water. How perfect a calm! Nowindrippled the lake — the trees upon its islets seemed asleep. Wordsworth's vision of the swans on Saint Mary's Lake was reahsed : they scarcely moved upon the water, and their reflex was so clear that the swan of the lake mieht have been mistaken for the swan in upper air. The pendulous silver- rinded birch trees on the margin were mirrored to a leaf ; and if Castelcicala had seen a mermaid combing her hair on one of the islets, or beheld the turrets of a drowned city far down in the depths of THE PURLOINED LETTER. 277 tlie lake, lie was not in the mood to be surprised. However, nothing happened. His horse nibbled the short sweet grass enjoyingly. The Marquis unconsciously thought over the complex business wherewith he was concerned. " Odd," he reflected, " that a kind of electric chain binds the strongest brain in Europe to the brainless flabby landlord of a small village inn, neither knowing it. Odd that the attempt to steal a girl's jewels should give me the key to the mystery that has perplexed me so long. Ah ! I shall now have my revenge — on both." " After all," he thought, having watched a windhover high above the mere, "it is hardly worth while to care for revenge. 278 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. What I do is for Italy. Italy, in its infinite glory of the future, can forget traitors and cowards — can forgive its ene- mies. Still I like the idea of spoiling that fellow's game just as he thought he had checkmated me." In the beauty of the morning the unharmonious topic tired him ; so he closed his eyes to " make pictures," and he opened them to see pictures. That stretch of lovely lake ! Its tranquil beauty gave him strange delight ; and he forgot his enemies and enigmas ; and thought only of Cis Englehurst. She was no "phantom of delight," but the prettiest simplest maiden that ever laughed through life. " She likes my love-songs," thought Castelcicala, " and she likes my talk ; and THE PURLOINED LETTER. 279 she looks at me with pure changeful unawakened eyes, that seem to say, ' Give me a soul, please. I could love you if I had a soul.' Will the right man come to give her a soul ? It seems to me that I have not the magnetic power. Yet is she just the very girl that I could love to death, and beyond. I remember the old West Country ballad on the question of sex I got hold of years ago. It had one good verse ' What's the odds 'twixt we and they ? ' Anybody can tell it thus : We and they each wants our own way ; We loves they, and they laughs at us.' Were I to 2:0 and tell an amorous tale to little Cis, in earnest fashion, she'd laugh in my face. Faith, I won't try. She's as difficult as Horace's Chloe, hinnuleo similis. 280 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. I'll allure her with amorous gaieties, and see what comes thereof : — ' And if she wiU she AviU, you may depend on't, And if she won't she won't, and there's an end on't.' " The Marquis was perfectly right in his judgment of Cecilia Englehurst's character. She was in no way precocious. We are just now in an age of development, notice- able in every region of life. Ben Jonson wrote : — " Ere, cherries ripe! and strawberries ! be gone, Unto the cries of London I'U add one ; Ripe^ statesmen, ripe! They grow in every street, At six-and-twenty, ripe." If we could resuscitate rare Ben Jonson, how amused would he be at the ripeness of our modern state boys ! Why, even the girls in their teens talk politics. Ay, but are they girls ? or tomboys of a new description, developed by laws as yet THE PURLOINED LETTEK. 281 unanalysed by Darwin? The true un- suspicious innocent girl develops into tlie perfect lady, as tlie rose-bud to the rose ; but the girl of coarser growth, who, a generation or two ao-o, would have become an ordinary hoyden, is now a literary, or scientific, or theological hoyden. She rushes madly into the arms of a weak publisher with her silly experiences in the form of a novel ; or of a weak professor with admiration for his hasty intuitions ; or of a weak curate, with a wild eagerness to confess her sins and receive sacerdotal absolution. American writers, as might be expected, accept the theory, that each generation transcends the last, with perfect satisfac- tion. For example, I find Oliver Holmes, the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, in an 282 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. address to a literary society, speaking thus: — "Each generation strangles and devours its predecessor. The young Fee- jeean carries a cord in his girdle for his father's neck; the young American, a string of syllogisms or propositions in his brain to finish the same relation. The old man says : ' Son, I have swallowed and digested the wisdom of the past.' The young man says : ' Sire, I proceed to swal- low and dio^est thee and all thou knowest.' " This is a humorous account of an age whose foible is omniscience ; but both son and sire are mere smatterers, and have no real knowledge after all. For the only real knowledge is from experience. Books and pictures are good as guides merely, showing you where to find the real thing. Much of our modern science is of the same value THE PURLOINED LETTER. 283 as tlie bird-lore of a person who, having been informed that a robin has a red breast, should never trouble himself to look at the bird and verify the fact. Any chemist can tell you how to make that tre- mendous explosive agent, chloride of nitro- gen, but is there one alive who has made it? A man who has thoroughly explored one English county is a better geographer than if his head contained all the facts in M'Culloch's Dictionary. Castelcicala rode home slowly. His horse's hoofs brought fragrance from the trampled thyme, and a myriad larks made music in the air, while now and then there came a plover's cry; but with an unlifted eye, he rode quietly toward Englehurst Hall, with the picture of the glassy un- rippled loch still delighting his mind. The • 284 A FIGHT ^VITH FOETUNE. power of imprinting a beautiful scene on tlie mental retina, so as to recall it in days far remote, is a gift worth having; and not fair landscapes only can be thus traced on the mind's eye, but beautiful faces, made more beautiful by friendship. This is a development of the memory which grows by practice. I have cheered many a sleep- less night and dull journey by conjuring up snowy peaks and shining streams, and dim green valleys — by summoning " old familiar faces " in a mood less melancholy than Charles Lamb's. The scenes pass like a celestial panorama; the faces are those of visitino- angels. The road from the moor to Englehurst crosses that which comes from Scrutton station ; and at the juncture the Marquis's attention was attracted by the trot of a THE PUELOINED LETTEE. 285 pony. It was ridden by a stable-boy from the Hall, who went to and fro for tlie letters. The Marquis hailed him, looked at the bag, which had a lock, but the key had long been lost, saw at a glance that for himself there were three letters, and then returned the bag to the lad without taking his own correspondence. " This will make assurance doubly sure," he said to himself. The stable-boy had cantered on, and the Marquis walked Roland home indolently. When he reached the breakfast-room he found only the Squire. A pleasant room, that summer breakfast-room, with two large bay windows opening on a velvety lawn, and a rose-garden just beyond, with a fountain sparkling in the midst of it. In one of the window bays the table was set, 286 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. and there was a quaint contrast in the arrangement. By the Squire's cover was a silver tankard of the famous Euglehurst ale ; by the Marquis's, a slim bottle of light wine ; by Cis Englehurst's, a delicate tea equipage of eggshell china. " I saw you riding up the avenue, Mar- quis," said the Squire. "You seemed in no hurry." "I had ample time. Eed Roland took me at a grand pace across Garston Moor to the Mere. What a lovely lake that is, in the perfect quiet of such a summer morn- ing as this !" *' Yes, I'm very proud of that beautiful bit of my estate. There are some queer legends about it. They say that on Saint John's Eve, at midnight, a procession of female spectres cross the lake — victims of THE PUELOINED LETTER. 287 some wicked foi^efather of mine. You should ask Lancel about these traditions ; lie lias ferreted out a lot of queer old MSS., that I have never had time to read. It would make him eternally happy if you were to show an interest in his researches." " I have found him rather taciturn." " The Abbe is proud," replied the Squire. " A man of great genius, and a brilliant mathematical discoverer, he is content to be the curator of my library. He is an obsti- nate Legitimist, and would not set foot on French soil unless the white flag floated again. I have been told he is a Jesuit and an intrio-uer, but that is all rubbish. He works at my library and at his own mathe- matics about sixteen hours a day. He can talk well, but he is too proud to talk 288 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. familiarly with auyone whose station is nominally superior to his own, without special in vita Ion." " A man worth intimate knowleda^e. I shall ask him to unlock your historic treasures for my benefit this very morning. But where is Miss Englehurst ?" " Cis, you hussy," cried the Squire from the open window, " where are you ? We want our tea." Ois came tripping over the lawn from the rose-garden, in a simple pink morning dress, with snowy frills about her dainty throat and bosom. Her apron was full of choice roses. Her face was flushed, and her eyes brightened with +he fresh morning air. She looked a daughter of the morn- ing — a happy younger sister of the rosy- fingered Dawn. She flung down her roses, THE PUELOINED LETTER. 289 and kissed her sire, and sliook liands with the Marquis, and exclaimed, " I didn't know I was late. ^ I thought I had only been five minu+es cutting these flowers." ''With all things lovely time flies fast,'^ said the Marquis. " Oh, you may flatter me as much as you please," said Cis, "you can't make me much vainer than I am. I see in my glass a pretty little figure : and I feel that I ought to be pretty ... to please papa." The Marquis laughed. " To please papa ! Mayn't a few other folk be pleased also ?" *'0 dear, yes ''^^'''^'' now have some tea. And try those kidneys ; I assure you our cook does them delightfully. I am sure VOL. I. u 290 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. the kind of breakfast you eat can not be wholesome." The Marquis was eating figs, for which the Squire's gardens were so famous that they often tempted beccaficas across the sea, and drinking Liebfraumilch. The Squire had not yet commenced his break- fast ; he was looking through letters and telegrams which referred to the burglary. He said nothing about them in his daugh- ter's presence, but passed them on to Castelcicala, who discovered soon enough that only one of them contained any in- formation. This was a letter from Scotland- yard, stating that two dexterous thieves had been observed by a detective near Charing Cross, one carrying a bag. They came down through Trafalgar Square, and went over to the railway station. One, THE PURLOINED LETTEll. 291 well-known as the Parson, was dressed in a clerical suit; the other looked like his servant. They walked straight into the Charing Cross Hotel, whither the detective followed them ; but amid the passages o£ the hotel and station he had lost sio^ht of them. That these were the men was clear to the Marquis, from the description ; and he was not at all surprised that, if they noticed a detective following them, they contrived to elude him in that Charing Cross labyrinth. The noble society of thieves keep private detectives of their own, to watch the detectives ; and an officer of police never goes out in plain clothes without an officer of thievery being set to watch him. If Slippery Jack heard a cer- tain shrill whistle as they passed Morley's u2 292 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. Hotel, it would warn tliem of the presence of a detective. To walk boldly into the Charing Cross Hotel would be the Parson's natural tactic ; and anybody who knows the ground will see that there would then be a dozen ways of escape. The Squire, having finished his pile of letters, made a breakfast worthy of a squire of the old type — cold round of beef, cold grouse, a tankard of old ale. As to Cis, well, she breakfasted daintily, in young ladylike fashion — eating some delicate omelet, and drinking the tea of Assam. There was one letter by her plate, but she did not open it. It was from a young "person " — the word lady would not apply — who had been received very kindly at Englehurst Hall, and who had begged Cis Englehurst to help somebody who was in THE PUKLOINED LETTER. 293 distress. This she had asked her father to do, believing the piteous plausible tale ; but accidentally it was discovered that the somebody in distress was the young person herself. Now the young person, to whom it was discovered the game was by no means new, was writing fluent letters to Cis, with a new lie in each letter. Cis Englehurst, shocked to the heart that she had ever given sisterly confidence to a person who, though moving in good society, was an accomplished swindler, opened none of her letters. At the Marquis's right hand lay two letters, also unopened. When he met the stable-boy that morning he had seen three. He smiled quite a pleasant smile when he saw the letters on the white table-cloth ; for he took delight in move and counter- 294 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. move, in all the difficulties of a delicate game of skill. Not till the Squire's corre- spondence had passed through his hands did he take up and scrutinise the two letters which lay beside him; they were both from abroad, and both from ladies. " You do not seem to care much about your letters," said Cis. " I know all that is in them beforehand. They are from ladies." " Do you mean to say," she asked, " that ladies' letters are never worth the trouble of reading ?" " dear, no," he said, with a laugh. " Write me a letter, Miss Englehurst, and I will read it as long as the paper lasts. But one of my correspondents is a scien- tific lady, who has discovered something or other that I cannot understand, and indeed THE PUELOINED LETTEE. 295 would rather not; while the other is a political lady, who thinks the Pope ought to be assassinated. Besides, they both cross." He tore open the envelope, and showed her. They did cross, terrifically. "Read them if you like," he said. "I never shall." As one was in Russian and the other in Danish, Miss Englehurst declined. " I rode over to Garston Mere this morning," he said. " That lake is dehcious in the tranquil majesty of sunrise. Every spray of the woods around was delicately doubled in its unrippled water. I was reminded of some verses by a poet of my country, which I tried to turn into English years ago. 296 A PIGHT WITH FORTUNE. ' What sees the swan in that clear mirror bright ? Another swan as white. What sees the hawk on his aerial throne ? A ha\\'k in deeps unknown. What sees the girl braiding her wave-drench'd hair ? A girl almost as fair. What sees the lover passionate and true ? You, lovely maiden, you.' " " That is very pretty," she said. " I don't think our English poets say anything so elegant as you Italians. But poetry is all nonsense, you know. Good-bye." She went away into the rose garden for more spoils. The Squire followed her with happy eyes. If she had lost her diamonds, was she not queen of the diamonds herself ? A very sunbeam was Cis Englehurst. The Squire and the Marquis had a talk over their correspondence. " Those fellows have been so closely THE PUELOINED LETTER. 297 tracked," said the Marquis, " that they ought now to be run to earth. If you don't think it unwise interference on my part, I'll go up to town to-day, and see if I cannot quicken the intellects of those gentlemen in Scotland Yard. I am far from questioning the capacit}^ of your English detective police, but they generally rise from the ranks by sheer force of genius, and have had no special training. -Hence an unusual case perplexes them. I have had occasion to employ several of them, and uncommonly clever I found them ; regular anthropologists, if they once saw a man they never forgot him. The man who caught the murderer Manning in Jersey, for example — that was real divina- tion. There was a faint trace of Manning 298 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. to Jersey ; this fellow went over, but could get no clue ; till one nigbt, in a public-liouse, a little girl came in for a bottle of brandy. ' AYliat a lot of brandy your lodger drinks !' said the landlady ; ' that's his third bottle to-day.' ' That's my man,' thought the detective — and it was. But in this case of ours there are complications which require delicate treat- ment ; and I am inclined to think that we may not only get hold of the scoundrels and punish them, but also get some of the jewels back. Shall I try ?" " I shall be thoroughly obliged to you if you will. I don't care about the value of the things, but I hate being robbed." " So do I," said the Marquis. " I will go u]3 this afternoon. There is a capital train at four, and I want to go and talk to THE PUELOINED LETTER. 299' the Abbe, whose reticent originality piques me." " All right," said the Squire. "I shall see you again. I am going to take Cis for a gallop." " Then I'll come and put her in her saddle," said Castelcicala. "Which he did : and father and daughter rode off through the sunny air, as fine ex- amples of the English race in two different forms as could be found anywhere. The Squire was as well set up as a colonel of horse ; his daughter was as refined and dauntless as any princess. He was only an English country gentleman : but to be an English country gentleman is, even in these days, something. Meanwhile the Marquis, having gladden- ed his eyes with the beautiful child riding 300 A FIGHT WJTH FORTUNE. away on her bay mare by her father's side, went to see the Abbe. There he sat in the library, tranquil and macilent, poring over papers on which multitudinous alge- braic symbols appeared. He was just on the verge of something that should super- sede Sir William Hamilton's theory of quaternions — but the crystallising inspira- tion was wanting. So the Abbe, waiting for the electric current, was not very ami- able. Castelcicala found him more reticent than usual. The Marquis cared not. He was a san- guine Italian Liberal, with full belief that Italy was the greatest nation in the world. He had once written a pamphlet (worthy of Mr. Gladstone's consideration) to prove that Homer was born in Corsica — and that in Achilles Pelides he prophesied of the THE PURLOINED LETTER. 301 great Corsican, Napoleon Buonaparte. He drew the Abbe out in time ; and they soon fell upon a pleasant discursive talk about the history of the House of Englehurst ; and it was clear the Abbe had made won- derful collections from the forgotten stores in that ancient library. *'Here," he said, "is an old black-letter rhyme, with an illuminated initial. The initial was a green islet on a blue lake, with an ano-el above in menacine' flight through air ; the legend was : — " When an island rises on Garston ^Mere, End of the Englehurst is near." " There was no island there this morn- ing," said the Marquis, laughing, " so the Englehurst will last another day." They had much more chat together, the Marquis wishing to ascertain whether the Abbe was, as rumoured, a Jesuit ; but he -302 A FIGHT WITH FORTUNE. very soon came to the conclusion that tins was quite a mistake, and that Lancel's love for abstract mathematics would keep him quite clear of mystic absurdities. Geome- try brightens the brain ; and Euclid, much as Professor Sylvester hates him, is an author from whom a young lady might learn more than from half-a-dozen young ladyish novels. And one who has once mastered the notion that the three angles of a triangle are always equal to two right angles, would scarce condescend to notice the triangular questions which have recent- ly been puzzling the Old Catholics and their impulsive English allies. After a pleasant chat with the Abbe Lancel, whom he had never before tried to cultivate, Castelcicala went to his own apartment, and rang for Redi. THE PURLOINED LETTER. 303 " I am going to London this afternoon," lie said, " pack just enough for two nights." " You will not require me, Excellency," he said. " No ; I go to a friend, whose house is small. I want to inquire about this robbery, to which we seem to have a clue." " A clue !" said the valet, surprised. "A trifling one, but in such a case trifles must not be lost sight of. Send any letters that may arrive to-day or to- morrow to the hotel. By-the-way, I fully expected one of much importance this morning, but it has not arrived. Be sure to send it on ; it is from Signer Corsi, whose handwriting you know very well." " The Signer is in London ?" " No, at Brighton, whence perhaps the 304 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. delay. I hope he will meet me in town, as he goes back to Italy next week." " To Italy, Excellency ! Then is there anything prepared ? Will there be deci- sive action at last ?" " I hope so, for it is almost time. Corsi goes to Rome, I know, and the letter which I expected was to tell me his plans when there. 'No matter ; doubtless we shall meet in London." The Squire and his daughter returned to lunch with appetites such as a gallop over a breezy moor is apt to produce. " I wouldn't o-ive Garston Moor and Mere for as many acres of the city of London, Marquis. The pure air you breathe there is the best medicine in the world." ''You and Miss Englehurst both show THE PURLOINED LETTEE. 305 it," lie said. " Englaud is a rare place for beautiful complexions, but I know wliere the finest I have seen may be found." "What a flatterer you are. Marquis!' said Cecilia, laughinp^. " Handsome is that handsome does, a governess of mine used to warn me. I am sure it must have been a consolatory proverb, poor thing, for she was one of the plainest persons I ever saw. Wasn't she, papa ?" " She was no beauty, certainly. Her fiofure reminded one of a child's wooden doll. But didn't we hear she got married, Cis ?" " yes, married very well — to a highly respectable grocer in Bridgwater. I'm sure she ought to be able to keep his ac- counts, for she had a perfect mania for teaching me arithmetic, and I never could VOL. I. X B06 A FIGHT WITH FOETUNE. learn the multiplication-table. Now when the Abbe used to give me lessons in geo- metry, I used to see what he meant at once, even though his explanations were all in French, which he said was the lan- guage of mathematics." " Do you think the Abbe, who is so strong a Legitimist, has any political cor- respondence ?" said Castelcicala to the Squire. " I know he has. The Chambord party have great belief in his ability. He writes and receives numerous letters in cypher. It does not concern me, and I suppose it amuses him." "With all this wonderful correspond- ence, why don't you lock your letter-bag ?" asked the Marquis, laughing. " 0, it's no affair of mine ; I never lost THE PUELOINED LETTEPw 307 a letter in my life. But how about your train ? Cis shall drive you to the station in her pony-carriage if you like. I'm obliged to see my bailiff about something." Castelcicala found the arrangement only too pleasant, and would have liked to pro- long the drive behind the lively little chestnuts. When they parted, he said, " Tell your papa I shall bring him a present from town — a new post bag, with a Hobbs lock." END OF THE FIHST VOLUME. 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