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 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. 
 
 PRINTED BY MACDONALD AiHD TUGWELL, BLENHEIJI UOUSE.
 
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