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PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. NEW YORK
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
<f.
B¥ PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
% Kouel.
BY SIR E, BBIWER LYTTON BART.
AUTHOE OF
»MY NOVEL; o«, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE," "THE CAXTONS," "PELHAM,"
"NIGHT AND MORNING," "THE LAST OF THE BARONS," &c., &c.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FBANKLIN SQUARE.
1859.
^s
¥HAT ¥ILL HE DO WITH IT?
BOOK I,
CHAPTER I.
In which the Ilistory opens with a description of the So-
cial Manners, Habits, and Amusemonts of tlie English
People, as exhibited in an immemorial National Fes-
tivity. — Characters to be commemorated in the Histo-
ry introduced and graphically portrayed, with a naso-
logical illnstration. — Original suggestions as to the
idiosyncracies engendered by trades and callings, with
other matters worthy of note, conveyed in artless dia-
logue, after the manner of Herodotus, Father of His-
tory (Motlier unknown).
It was a summer Fair in one of tlie prettiest
villages in Surrey. The main street was lined
with booths abounding in toys, gleaming crock-
ery, gay ribbons, and gilded gingerbread. Far-
tiier on, where the street widened into the am-
ple village -green, rose the more pretending fab-
rics which lodged the attractive forms of the Mer- j
maid, the Norfolk Giant, the Pig- faced Lady,
the Spotted Boy, and the Calf with Two Heads ; '
while high over even these edifices, and oc- |
cupying the most conspicuous vantage-ground,
a lofty stage promised to rural play-goers the
" Grand Melodramatic Performance of Tlic ^
Remorseless Baron and the Bandit's Child." ^
Music, lively if artless, resounded on eveiy side ;
drums, fifes, penny-whistles, cat-calls, and a l
hand-organ played by a dark foreigner, from the
height of whose shoulder a cynical but observant
monkey eyed the hubbub and cracked his nuts.
It was now sunset — the throng at the fidlest — |
an animated, joyotis scene. The day had been I
sultry ; no clouds were to be seen, except low I
on the western horizon, where they stretched, in i
lengthened ridges of gold and puqile, like the
border-land between earth and sky. The tall
elms on the green were still, save, near the great
stage, one or two, upon which young urchins had !
climbed ; and their laughing faces peered forth, '
here and there, from the foliage trembling un-
der their restless movements.
Amidst the crowd, as it streamed sauntering-
ly along, were two spectators — strangers to the
place, as was notably proved by the attention
they excited, and the broad jokes their dress
and appearance provoked from the rustic wits
— jokes which they took with amused good-hu-
mor, and sometimes retaliated with a zest wiiicli
had already made them very popular personages ;
indeed, there was that about tliem which projii-
tiated liking. They were young, and the fresh-
ness of enjoyment was so visible in their faces
that it begot a sympathy, and wherever they went
other faces brightened round them.
One of the two whom we have thus individu-
alized was of that enviable age, ranging from
five-and-twenty to seven-and-tweuty, in which,
if a man can not contrive to make life very
j)leasant — pitiable, indeed, must be tne state of
his digestive organs. But you might see by this
gentleman's countenance, that if there were
many like him, it would be a worse world for
the doctors. His cheek, though not highly-col-
ored, was yet ruddy and clear; his hazel eyes
were lively and keen ; his hair, which escaped
in loose clusters from a jean shooting-cap set
jauntily on aAvell-shaped head, was of that deep
sunny auburn rarely seen but in ])ersons of vig-
orous and hardy temperament. He was good-
looking on the whole, and would have deserved
t]ie more flattering epithet of handsome, but for
his nose, which was what the French call "a
nose in the air" — not a nose supercilious, not a
nose provocative, as such noses mostly are, but
a nose decidedly in earnest to make the best
of itself and of things in general — a nose that
would push its way up in life, but so jjleasantly
that the most irritable fingers would never itch
to lay hold of it. With such a nose a man might
play the violoncello, marry for love, or even write
])oetry, and yet not go to the dogs. Never would
he stick in the mud so long as he followed that
nose in the air I
By the help of that nose this gentleman wore
a black velveteen jacket of foreign cut ; a mus-
tache and imjjerial (then much rarer in England
than they have been since the siege of Sebasto-
pol) ; and yet left you perfectly convinced that
he was an honest Englishman, wlio had not only
no designs on your pocket, but would not be eas-
ily duped by any designs upon his omi.
The companion of the personage thus sketch-
ed might be somewhere about seventeen ; but
his gait, his air, his lithe, vigorous frame, showed
a manliness at variance with the boyish bloom
of his face. He struck the eye much more than
his elder comrade. Not that he was regularly
handsome — far from it ; yet it is no paradox to
say that he was beautiful — at least, few indeed
were the women who would not have called him
so. His hair, long like his friend's, was of a
dark chestnut, with gold gleaming through it
where the sun fell, iuGlining to curl, and singu-
larly soft and silken in its texture. His largo,
clear, dark-blue, hap])y eyes were fringed with
long ebon lashes, and set under brows which al-
ready wore the expression of intellectual power,
and, better still, of frank courage and open loy-
alty. His complexion was fair, and somewhat
paie, and his lips in laugliing showed teeth ex-
quisitely white and even. But though his pro-
file was clearly cut, it was far from the Greek
ideal ; and he wanted tlie height of stature
whicli is usually considered essential to the per-
sonal'pretensious of the male sex. Without be-
K;i*2.'yRaH^
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
ing positively short, he was still under middle
height, and, from the compact development of
his jjroportions, seemed already to have attained
liis full growth. His dress, though not foreign,
like his conn-ade's, was peculiar ; a broad-brim-
med straw-hat, with a wide blue ribbon ; shirt-
collar turned down, leaving the throat bare ; a
dark-green jacket of thinner material than cloth ;
whitetrowsers and waistcoat completed his cos-
tume. He looked like a mother's darling — per-
haps he was one.
Scratch across his back went one of those in-
genious mechanical contrivances familiarly in
vogue at fairs, which are designed to impress
upon the victim to whom they are applied the
pleasing conviction that his garment is rent in
twain.
The boy turned round so quickly that he
caught the arm of the offender — a pretty vil-
lage-girl, a year or two younger tlian himself.
"Found in the act, sentenced, ]ninished," cried
he, snatching a kiss, and receiving a gentle slap.
"And now, good for evil, here's a ribbon for
you — choose."
The girl slunk back shyly, but her companions
pushed her forward, and she ended by selecting
a cherry-colored ribbon, for which the boy paid
carelessly, while his elder and wiser friend look-
ed at him with grave, compassionate rebuke,
and grumbled out — " Dr. Franklin tells us that
once in his life he ])aid too dear for a whistle;
but then he was only seven years old, and a
whistle has its uses. But to pay such a price
for a scratchback ! Prodigal ! Come along !"
As the friends strolled on, naturally enough
all the young girls who wished for ribbons, and
were possessed of scratchbacks, followed in their
wake. Scratch went the instruments, but in
vain.
"Lasses," said the elder, turning sharply
upon them his nose in the air, "ribbons are
plentiful — shillings scarce ; and kisses, though
pleasant in private, are insipid in public. What,
still ! Beware ! know that, innocent as we seem,
we are women-eaters ; and if you follow us far-
ther, you are devoured !" So saying, he expand-
ed his jaws to a width so preternaturally large,
and exhibited a row of grinders so formidable,
that the girls fell back in consternation. The
friends turned down a narrow alley between
the booths, and though still pursued by some
advcntin'ous and mercenary spirits, were com-
paratively undisturbed as they threaded their
way along the back of the booths, and arrived
at last on the village-green, and in front of the
Great Stage.
" Oho, Lionel !" quoth the elder friend ;
"Thespian and classical — worth seeing, no
doubt." Then, turning to a grave cobbler in
leathern apron, who was regarding the dramatis
posonfe ranged in front of the curtain with sat-
urnine ii\terest, he said, "You seem attracted,
Sir ; you have probably already witnessed the
performance."
" Yes," returned the Cobbler ; " this is the
third day, and to-morrow's the last. I arn't
missed once yet, and I shan't miss ; but it arn't
what it was a while back."
" That is sad ; but then the same thing is said
of every thing by every body who has reached
your resjiectable age, friend. Summers and
Buns, stupid old watering-places, and pretty
young women * arn't what they were a while
back.' If men and things go on degenerating
in this way, our grandchildren will have a dull
time of it!"
The Cobbler eyed the young man, and nod-
ded, approvingly. He had sense enough to com-
prehend the ironical philosophy of the reply —
and our Cobbler loved talk out of the common
way. " You speaks truly and cleverly. Sir. But
if old folks do always say that things are worse
than they were, ben't there always summat in
what is always said ? I'm for the old times ;
my neighbor, Joe Spruce, is for the new, and
says we are all a-progressing. But he's a pink
— I'm a blue."
"You are a blue!" said the boy Lionel — "I
don't understand."
"Young 'un, I'm a Tory — that's blue; and
Spruce is a Had — that's pink! And, what is
more to the purpose, he is a tailor, and I'm a
cobbler."
"Aha!" said the elder, with much interest ;
" more to the purpose, is it? How so?"
The Cobbler put the forefinger of the right
hand on the foi'efinger of the left ; it is the ges-
ture of a man about to ratiocinate or demon-
strate — as Quintilian, in his remarks on the or-
atory of fingers, ])robably observes ; or, if he has
failed to do so, it is a blot on his essay.
"You see, Sir," quoth the Cobbler, "that a
man's business has a deal to do with his manner
of thinking. Every trade, I take it, has ideas
as belong to it. Butchers don't see life as bak-
ers do ; and if you talk to a dozen tallow-chand-
lers, then to a dozen blacksmiths, you will see
tallow-chandlers are peculiar, and blacksmiths,
too."
" You are a keen observer," said he of the
jean cap, admiringly ; "your remark is new to
me ; I dare say it is true."
"Course it is : and the stars have summat to
do with it ; for if they order a man's calling, it
stands to reason that they order a man's mind
to fit it. Now, a tailor sits on his board with
others, and is always a-talking with 'em, and
a-reading the news ; therefore he thinks, as his
fellows do, smart and sharp, bang up to the day,
but nothing 'riginal and all his own like. But
a cobbler," continued the man of leather, with
a majestic air, " sits by hisself, and talks with
hisseif ; and what he thinks gets into his head
without being put there by another man's
tongue."
"You enlighten me more and more," said
our friend with the nose in the air, bowing re-
spectfully. "A tailor is gregarious, a cobbler
solitary. The gregarious go with the future,
the solitary stick by the past. I understand
why you are a Tory, and perhaps a poet."
" Well, a bit of one," said the Cobbler, with
an iron smile. " And many's the cobbler who
is a poet — or discovers marbellous things in a
crystal — whereas a tailor, Sir" (spoken with
great contempt), " only sees the uiiper-leather
of the world's sole in a newspaper."
Here the conversation was interrupted by a
sudden pressure of the crowd toward the thea-
tre ; the two young friends looked up, and saw-
that the new" object of attraction was a little
girl, who seemed scarcely ten years old, though
in truth she was about two years older. She
had just emerged from behind the curtain,
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
9
made her obeisance to the crowd, and was now
walking in front of the stage with tlie prettiest
possible air of infantine solemnity. " Toor lit-
tle thing!" said Lionel. "Poor little thing I"
said the Cobbler. And had you been there, ray
reader, ten to one but you would have said the
same. And yet she was attired in white satin,
with spangled flounce and a tinsel jacket ; and
she wore a wreath of flowers (to be sure, the
flowers were not real) on her long fair curls,
with gaudy bracelets (to be sure, the stones
were mock) on her slender arms. Still there
was something in her that all this finery could
not vulgarize ; and since it could not vulgarize,
you pitied her for it. She had one of those
charming faces that look straight into the hearts
of us all, young and old. And though she
seemed quite self-possessed, there was no ef-
frontery in her air, but the ease of a little lady,
with the simple unconsciousness of a c'.iild that
there was any thing in her situation to induce
you to sigh, " Poor thing !"
" You should sec her act, young gents," said
the Cobbler. '• She plays uncommon. But if
you had seen him as taught her — seen him a
year ago."
" Who's that ?"
" Waife, Sir. ilayhap you have heard speak
of Waife ?"
" I blush to say, no."
" Why, he might have made his fortune at
Common Garden ; but that's a long story. Poor
fellow I he's broke down now, anyhow. But
she takes care of him, little darling — God bless
thee !" And the Cobbler here exchanged a
smile and nod with the little girl, whose face
brightened A\hen she saw him amidst the
crowd.
" By the brush and pallet of Eafraellc," cried
the elder of the young men, " before I am
many hours older I must have that child's
kead I"
" Her head, man !" cried the Cobbler, aghast.
" In my sketch-book. You are a poet — I a
painter. You know the little girl ?"
" Don't I ! She and her grandfather lodge
with me — her gi-andfather — that's Waife — mar-
bellous man ! But they ill-uses him ; and if it
wasn't for her, he'd starve. He fed them all
once ; he can feed them no longer — he'd starve.
That's the world ; they use up a genus, and
when it falls on the road, push on ; that's what
Joe Spnice calls a-progressing. But there's the
drum ! they're a-going to act. Won't you look
in, gents?"
" Of course," cried Lionel, " of course. And,
hark ye, Vance, we'll toss up v.-hich shall be the
first to take that little girl's head."
"Murderer in eitlier sense of the word!"
said Vance, with a smile that would have be-
come Correggio if a tyro had offered to toss up
which should be the first to paint a cherub.
CHAPTER n.
The Historian takes a view of the British Stage as rep-
resented by the Irregular Drama, the Regular having
(ere the date of tlie events to which this narrative is re-
stricted) disappeared from the Vestiges of Creation.
TuEY entered the little theatre, and the Cob-
bler with them ; but the last retired modestly
to the threepenny row. The young gentlemen
were favored with reserved seats, price one shil-
ling. " Very dear," murmured Vance, as he
carefully buttoned the pocket to which he re-
stored a purse woven from links of steel, after
the fashion of chain mail. Ah, Mes.'iieurs and
Confreres, the dramatic authors, do not flatter
yourselves that we are about to give you a com-
placent triumph over the Grand Melodramc
of "The Remorseless Baron and tiic Bandit's
Child." We grant it was horrible rubbisli, re-
garded in an aesthetic point of view, but it was
mightily effective in the theatrical. Nobodj
yawned ; you did not even hear a cough, nor
the cry of that omnipresent baby who is always
sure to set up a Varjitus inr/ens, or unappeasable
wail, in tiic midmost interest of a classical five-
act piece, represented for the first time on the
metropolitan boards. Here the story rushed on
per fas aut nefas, and the audience went with
it. Certes, some man who understood the stage
must have put the incidents together, and then
left it to each illiterate histrio to find the words
— words, my dear confreres, signify so little in
an acting play. The movement is the thing.
Grand secret ' Analyze, practice it, and restore
to grateful stars that lost Pleiad, the British
Acting Drama.
Of course the Bandit was an ill-used and most
estimable man. He had some mysterious rights
to the Estate and Castle of the Remorseless
Baron. That titled usurper, therefore, did all
in his power to hunt the Bandit out in his fast-
nesses, and bring him to a bloody end. Here the
interest centred itself in the Bandit's child, who,
we need not say, was the little girl in the wreath
and spangles, styled in the playbill " Miss Juliet
Araminta Waife," and the incidents consisted
in her various devices to foil the pursuit of the
Baron and save her father. Some of these in-
cidents were indebted to the Comic Muse, and
kept the audience in a broad laugh. Her arch
playfulness here was requisite. AYith what vi-
vacity she duped the High Sheriff", who had the
commands of his king to take the Bandit alive
or dead, into the belief that the very Lawyer
employed by the Baron was the criminal in dis-
guise, and what pearly teeth she showed when
the lawyer was seized and gagged ; how dex-
terously she ascertained the weak point in the
character of the "King's Lieutenant" (jeunepre-
r/iie)-), who was deputed by his royal master to
aid the Remorseless Baron in trouncing the Ban-
dit ; how cunningly she learned that he was in
love with the Baron's ward (jeune amoreuse),
whom that unworthy noble intended to force
into a maiTiage with himself on account of her
fortune ; how prettily she passed notes to and
fro, the Lieutenant never suspecting that she
was the Bandit's child, and at last got the King's
soldier on her side, as the event proved. And
oh how gayly, and with what mimic art, she stole
into the Baron's castle, disguised herself as a
witch, startled his conscience with revelations
and f)redictions, frightened all the vassals with
blue lights and chemical illusions, and ventur-
ing even into the usurper's own private chamber
while that tyrant was tossing restless on the
couch, over which hung his terrible sword, ab-
stracted from his coff'er the deeds that proved
the better rights of the persecuted Bandit. Then,
when he woke before she could escape with her
10
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
treasure, and pursued lier with his sword, with
what glee she apparently set herself on fire, and
skipped out of the casement in an explosion of
crackers. And when the drama ajjproached its
denouement, when the Baron's men, and the I'oy-
al officers of justice, had, despite all her arts,
tracked the Bandit to the cave, in which, after
various retreats, he lay hidden, wounded bv
shots, and bruised by a fall from a precipice—
witli what admirable by-play she hovered around
the spot, with what pathos she sought to decoy
away the pursuers — it was the sky-lark playing
round the nest. And when all was vain — when,
no longer to be deceived, the enemies sought
to seize her, how mockingly she eluded them,
bounded uj) the rock, and shook her slight finger
at them in scorn. Surely she will save that esti-
mable Bandit still ! Now, hitherto, thougli the
Bandit was the nominal hero of the piece, though
)'ou were always hearing of him — his wrongs,
virtues, hair-breadth escapes — he had never been
seen. Not Mrs. Harris, in the immortal narra-
tive, was more quoted and more mythical. But
in the last scene there 2ras the Bandit, there
in his cavern, helpless with bruises and wounds,
lying on a rock. In rushed the enemies. Baron,
High Sheriff, and all, to seize him. Not a word
spoke the Bandit, but his attitude was sublime
— even Vance cried "Bravo ;" and just as he is
seized, halter round his neck, and about to be
hanged, down from the chasm above leaps his
child, holding the title-deeds, filched from the
Baron, and by her side the King's Lieutenant,
who proclaims the Bandit's pardon, with due
restoration to his honors and estates, and con-
signs, to the astounded Sherifl:', the august person
of the Kemorseless Baron. Then the affecting
scene, father and child in each other's arms ;
and then an exclamation, which had been long
hovering about the lips of many of the audience,
broke out, "Waife, Waife !" Yes, the Bandit,
who appeared but in the last scene, and even
then uttered not a word, was the once great
actor on that itinerant Thespian stage, known
through many a Fair for his exuberant humor,
his impromptu jokes, his arch eye, his redun-
dant life of drollery, and the strange pathos or
dignity with which he could suddenly exalt a
jester's part, and call forth tears in the startled
hash of laughter ; he whom the Cobbler had
rightly said, " might have made a fortune at Cov-
ent Garden." There was the remnant of the old
popular mime ! — all his attributes of eloquence
reduced to dumb show ! Masterly touch of na-
ture and of art in this representation of him —
touch which all, who had ever in former years
seen and heard him on that stage, felt simulta-
neously. He came in for his personal portion
of dramatic tears. "Waife, Waife !" cried many
a village voice, as the little girl led him to the
front of the stage. He hobbled ; there was a
bandage round his eyes. The plot, in describ-
ing the accident that had befallen the Bandit,
idealized the genuine infirmities of the man —
infirmities that had befallen him since last seen
in that village. He was blind of one eye; he
had become crippled ; some malady of the tra-
chea or larynx had seemingly broken up the
once joyous key of the old pleasant voice. He
did not trust hrmself to speak, even on that
stage, but silently bent his head to the rustic
audience ; and Vance, who was an habitual
phiy-goer, saw in that simple salutation that the
man was an artistic actor. All was over, the
audience streamed out affected, and talking one
to the other. It had not been at all like the or-
dinarystage-exhibitionsat a village Fair. Vance
and Lionel stared at each other in surprise, and
then, by a common impulse, moved toward the
stage, pushed aside the curtain, which had fallen,
and were in that strange world which has so
many reduplications, fragments of one broken
mirror, whether in the proudest theatre, or the'
lowliest barn — nay, whether in the palace of
kings, the cabinet of statesmen, the home of do-
mestic life — the world we call "Behind the
Scenes."
CHAPTER in.
striking illustrations of lawless tyranny and infant ava-
rice exemplified in the social conditions of Great Brit-
ain. — Superstitions of the Dark Ages still in force among
the Trading Community, furnishing valuable hints to
certain American journalists, and highly suggestive of
reflections humiliating to the national vanity.
The Eemorseless Baron, who was no other
than the managerial proprietor of the stage, W'as
leaning against a side-scene, with a pot of porter
in his hand. The King's Lieutenant might be
seen on the background, toasting a piece of
cheese on the point of his loyal sword. The
Bandit had crept into a corner, and the little
girl was clinging to him fondly, as his hand was
stroking her fair hair. Vance looked round,
and approached the Bandit — " Sir, allow me to
congratulate you ; your bow was admirable. I
have never seen John Kemble — before my time ;
but I shall fancy I have seen him now — seen
him on the night of his retirement from the
stage. As to your grandchild. Miss Juliet Ara-
minta, she is a perfect chrysolite."
Before Mr. Waife could reply, the Remorse-
less Baron stepped up in a spirit worthy of his
odious and arbitrary character. " What do you
do here, Sir? I allow no gents behind the
scenes earwigging my people."
" I beg pardon respectfully : I am an artist —
a pupil of the Royal Academy ; I should like to
make a sketch of ]\Iiss Juliet Araminta."
" Sketch ! nonsense."
"Sir," said Lionel, with the seasonable ex-
travagance of early youth, "my friend would, I
am sure, pay for the sitting — handsomel}' !"
" Ha !" said the manager, softened, " you
speak like a gentleman. Sir; but. Sir, IMiss Ju-
liet Araminta is under my protection — in fact,
she is my property. Call and speak to me
about it to-morrow, before the first performance
begins, which is twelve o'clock. Happy to see
any of your friends in the reserved seats. Busy
now, and — and — in short — excuse me — servant,
Sir — servant, Sir."
The Baron's manner left no room for further
parley. Vance bowed, smiled, and retreated.
But, meanwhile, his young friend had seized
the opportunity to speak both to Waife and his
grandchild ; and when Vance took his arm and
drew him away, there was a puzzled, musing
expression on Lionel's face, and he remained
silent till they had got through the press of
such stragglers as still loitered before the stage,
and were in a quiet corner of the sward. Stars
and moon were then up — a lovely summer night.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
11
♦'What on earth are vou thinking of, Lionel?
I have put to you three questions, and you have
not answered one."
*' Vance," answered Lionel, slowly, " the odd-
est thing ! I am so disappointed in that little
girl — p-eedy and mercenary !"
'• Precocious villain I how do you know^ that
she is greedy and mercenary ?"
"Listen :' when that surly old manager came
np to you, I said something — civil, of course —
to Waife, who answered in a hoarse, broken
voice, but in very good language. Well, when
I told the manager that you would pay for the
sitting, the child caught hold of my arm hastily,
pulled me down to her own height, and whis-
pered, ' How much will he give ?' Confused by
a question so point-blank, I answered at ran-
dom, 'I don't know; ten shillings, perhaps.'
You should have seen her face !"
"Seen her face! radiant, I should think so.
Too much by halfl" exclaimed Vance. "Ten
shillings I spendthrift I"
" Too much 1 she looked as you might look
if one offered you ten shillings for your picture
of ' Julius Cffisar considering whether he should
cross the Rubicon.' But when the manager had
declared her to be his property, and appointed
you to call to-morrow — implying that he was to
be paid for allowing her to sit — her countenance
became overcast, and she muttered, sullenly,
' I'll not sit ; I'll not !' Then she turned to her
grandfather, and something very quick and close
was whispered between the two ; and she pulled
me by the sleeve, and said in my ear — oh, but
so eagerly 1 — ' I want three pounds ; oh, three
pounds 1 if he would give three pounds I And
come to our lodgings — Mr. Merle, Willow Lane.
Three pounds — three 1' And with those words
hissing in my ear, and coming from that fairy
mouth, which ought to drop pearls and dia-
monds, I left her," added Lionel, as giavely as
if he were sixty, •' and lost an illusion."
"Three pounds!" cried Vance, raising his eye-
brows to the highest arch of astonishment, and
lifting his nose in the air toward the majestic
moon — " three pounds I a fabulous sum ! Who
has three pounds to throw away ? Dukes, with
a hundred thousand a year in acres, have not
three pounds to draw out of their pockets in
that reckless, profligate manner. Three pounds I
what could I not buy for three pounds ? I could
buy the Dramatic Library, bound in calf, for
three pounds; I could buy a dress-coat for three
pounds (silk lining not included) ; I could be
lodged for a month for three pounds! And a
jade in tinsel, just entering on her teens, to ask
three pounds for what ? for becoming immortal
on the canvas of Francis Vance ? bother !"
Here Vance felt a touch on his shoulder. He
turned round quickly, as a man out of temper
does under similar circumstances, and beheld
the swart face of the Cobbler.
"Well, master, did not she act fine? — how
d'ye like her?"
"Not much in her natural character; but
she sets a mighty high value on herself."
"Anan, I don't take you."
"She'll not catch me taking her! Three
pounds I — three kingdoms."
"Stay," cried Lionel to the Cobbler; "did
not you say she lodged with you? Are you
Mr. Merle?"
" Merle's my name, and she do lodge with me
— Willow Lane."
" Come this way, then, a few yards down the
road — more quiet. Tell me what the child
means, if you can ?" and Lionel related the offer
of his friend, the reply of the manager, and the
grasping avarice of Miss Juliet Araminta.
The Cobbler made no answer ; and ■when the
young friends, sui-prised at his silence, turned to
look at him, they saw he was wiping his eyes
with his sleeve.
"Poor little thing!" he said at last, and still
more pathetically than he had uttered the same
words at her appearance in front of the stage ;
" 'tis all for her grandfather, I guess — I guess."
"Oh," cried Lionel, joyfully, "I am so glad
to think that. It alters the whole case, you see,
Vance."
" It don't alter the case of the three pounds,"
grumbled Vance. " What's her grandfather to
me, that I should give his grandchild three
pounds, when any other child in the village
would have leaped out of her skin to have her
face upon my sketch-book and five shillings in
her pocket. Hang her grandfather !"
They were now in the main road. The
Cobbler seated himself on a lonely milestone,
and looked first at one of the faces before him,
then at the other; that of Lionel seemed to
attract him the most, and in speaking it was
Lionel whom he addressed.
"Young master," he said, "it is now just
four years ago when Mr. Rugge, coming here,
as he and his troop had done at Fair-time ever
sin' I can mind of, brought with him the man
you have seen to-night, William Waife ; I calls
him Gentleman Waife. However that man fell
into such straits — how he came to join such a
carawan would puzzle most heads. It puzzles
Joe Spruce uncommon ; it don't puzzle me."
"Why?" asked Vance.
"Cos of Saturn!"
"Satan?"
" Saturn — dead agin his Second and Tenth
House, I'll swear. Lord of ascendant, mayhap
in combustion of the sun — who knows?"
" You're not an astrologer?" said Vance, sus-
piciously edging off.
" Bit of it — no offense."
"What does it signify?" said Lionel, impa-
tiently; "go on. So you called Mr. Waife,
j ' Gentleman Waife ;' and if you had not been
I an astrologer you would have been puzzled to
I see him in such a calling."
"Ay, that's it ; for he wam't like any as we
' ever see on these boards hereabouts ; and yet he
\ warn't exactly like a Lunnon actor, as I've seen
j 'em in Lunnon, either, but more like a clever
fellow who acted for the spree of the thing.
He had such droll jests, and looked so comical,
' yet not commonlike, but always what I calls a
! gentleman — just as if one o' ye two were doing
j a bit of sport to please your friends. Well, he
drew hugely, and so he did, every time be came,
so that the" great families in the neighborhood
would go to hear him ; and he lodged in my
house, and had pleasant ways with him, and
was what I call a scollard. But still I don't
want to deceive ye, and I should judge him to
have been a wild dog in his day. Mercury ill-
aspected — not a doubt of it. Last year it so
happened that one of the ^reat gents who be-
12
so he went. But bad I, rl " " '" ^"^
™s sore and ,pitef„l at iSflea,". I . fir' S"*!''
;; You mean Juliet Araminta?" saiil v,„™
plays for h°e I'dCL "'J' '"S""'" "">
- No^^h! V""^'-^ '^^"^^"^^^ '•" ««id Vance
and heel's i' ''?'•, ^"^ ^'^ ^« ^-^o^t
four shinty gesr'':^' v", T"\^"-' ->^
about the tou2y7hisZnt^'^ '?''''''''''''
and now they be hero ^Tf i^""^ "^""^ ""'^"'
shocking hard to botr'n 'It tl? ^""'^T'
here he has anv ri.rht t ' i •' ,"^ ^ ^o" t be-
tends-only a sort of °,'''' '" ^''''-' ^« ''« pre-
and herSdfather coum'''';"'^-^"S "'^^^^-^^ she
and tha^. what hev" h o'do '\ '"f"^ '^'^''^^'^ '
I'ttle Soph, wants "the Ihke ^S.^ ' '"'^ "^^
three p^u^drcStrel- "T"' •^■- ^^ ^'^-^ '-^
did, how cou d teV 4?' ^r' ''"^ "' ^^^^3^
go?" -^ ^'^^'^ U'here could tliey
-ih?£ St'?!?/'- ^"\J'^°-rJ Waife say
could get li^^f^oSt^^^^^^^^^
beandependentW-'l^e^rJ;^Ta?;;;;Vi:
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
such a wreck. But ho wn. f , ° ^® ^^^n
and so he contrived to\ " up'thft If ^"^ '"'
and appear hisself -.r 1 1,„ ) . • , ''aj-stoiy,
"M>'good'Sni''SiS\:;:^:'i.^^^fi"^''
are greatly obliged to you ^,? " "^'' "'«
^ve should-muclUike to'see H^tir."' T""'^-^"^
grandfatheratyourhou's;^^ 4^^^^^
to-nS;x:;;nii;:".-"-^^-'^epi^:^^^-^
'']\o, to-morrow : yon spo Tn,- a- i • .
tient to get back noJ-Ve 'inL^l^o '' ^P^'
" Tis flip lof 1 "'^ ""' call to-morrow "
Cobblen ''But yl?;''. '•?"•■ ''^y'" ^^-^ the
safely at mytoUZoZV ^' ''r *" '^^ '^'^^
andLardrK5^,r-j;^^^
"goo'^^night'Tyc^r"^"^'^^'" ^^'--^ I^--l;
on'2::3j:i::^^?: Cobbler stil, seated
minating. They walkoA , /^'"' ^'^^ »•«-
,/'it is I ^vi;:^ra.i'tcuh?t'r"'""^°'^^;
I^'onel, in his softest tone H^ . T' '^''^
coaxing three pounds n,.l e , • '""^ ^''''^ on
and that mi'lnreonl "'^'^' ^"^»d,
amonc the w Id v^, "''■ ^^^agement. For
fession, the e tan "i!,°''''' '''■^^'- ^^"^'^'^ P'^O"
with which he .arriS'S-o" f^' "* '^^ ^'^''l
purse; and thL'Sm' n^whh l"'"^^' °" '"«
than usually in the li^.^nv; '"' "°-''^ "^o-'e
such scoffeii '"that ihey ^ "^' ''°'" ""^^^^"'^d ^o
any joke at his l^^J'llZ.Z''V'''r' '">
"At your expens^ Don '?; '! .'^^f ,'"' '™^'^'
worth a farthina vm, ,T^^ n ' ^^ a joke were
mission." "^'°S'>°^^^^oaldneyergiye thatper-
the''°softt"ss'^riL°'t'o'' '''* ^°"°^-* --ark,
somesn^kein tie Jr T?.''^ ^'^^ ^"^^ ^f
mained silent Lif, t] ~''"'' ^" prudently re-
repeated, '•! is I V n ';?"" '^'" ^^^-eeter,
''Naturilly •' fh ^'^''^ '''" ^'^« 'alk now !"
I7 .vou W- for t'is'rT" ^^"^^' "-^-al-
have the intention opi> for it "S "'° ^'"f
appear to be the pricl' D^^l-isll^'lSf^P^-d^
4ushTTnd'^"^^^^^^^'-'^«I-™d;r'
t-e?:.^tS;:crIS;^X—^e young
and reached a smn^? down a green Jane,
Thames. He^eXvb'^'' ''" '^^ *^^"^ °f tl>e
few davi sretcTiinl- ^ ^^Joarned for the last
countr^^om tnrise 1^"' '°""^'"S '''^^"t the
and bed at^. S, ' iT. '?,""'"» ^« ^"PP^^
to theS[:;:::3^^ i;^^*^ -^°^" "ied Vance
-e turn in ^o Sou^ 1 a^d'^^^'lJd f \"'"^
quart jug of that capital Mhisky.t^^ ''"'^"' "
CHAPTER IV.
"■■••'s!::R,:ia;s;si~-...>.
s=SB:S?SS;
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
13
Vance ladled out the toddy and lijjhted his
cisar, then, leaning his head on his hand, and
his elbow on the table, he looked with an artist's
eve alon;!; tiie ^luncin^ river.
" "After all," said he. "I am glad I am a
painter; and I hope I may live to be a great
one."
" No doubt, if you live, you will be a great
one," cried Lionel, with cordial sincerity. "And
if I, who can only just paint well enough to
please myself, find that it gives a new charm to
nature — "
"Cut sentiment," quoth Vance, "and go on."
"What," continued Lionel, unchilled by the
admonitory interruption, "must you feel who
can fix a fading sunsliine — a Heeting face — on
a scrap of canvas, and say, ' Sunshine and Beau-
ty, live there forever!'"
Vance. "Forever! no! Colors perish, can-
vas rots. What remains to us of Zeuxis? Still
it is prettily said on behalf of the ])oetic side of
the profession ; there is a prosaic one — we'll
blink it. Yes ; I am glad to be a painter. But
you must not catch the fever of my calling.
Your poor mother would never forgive me if she
thought I had made you a dauber by my ex-
ample."
Lionel (gloomily). " No. I shall not be a
painter! Bat what can I be ? How shall I ever
build on the earth one of the castles I have built
in the air? Fame looks so far — Fortune so im-
possible ! But one thin 4 1 am bent upon" (speak-
ing with knit brow and clenched teeth), "I will
gain an independence somehow, and support my
mother."
Vance. " Your mother is supported — she has
the pension — "
LiON'EL. "Of a captain's widow; and" (he
adde 1, witii a flushed cheek) "a first floor that
she lets to lodj;ers !"
Vance. "Xo shame in that! Peers let houses;
and on the Continent, princes let not only first
floors, bat fifth and sixth floors, to say nothing
of attics and cellars. In beginning the world,
friend Lionel, if you don't wish to get chafed at
every turn, fold up your pride cai-efully, put it
nnder lock and key, and only let it out to air
upon grand occasions. Pride is a garment all
stiffs brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the
Bide next to the skin. Even kings don't wear
the dalmaticum except at a coronation. Inde-
pendence you desire ; good. But are you de-
pendent now? Your mother has given you an
excellent education, and you have already put
it to profit. My dear boy," added Vance, with
unusual warmth, '' I honor you, at your age, on
leaving school, to have shut yourself up, trans-
lated Greek and Latin per sheet for a bookseller
at less than a valet's wages, and aH for the pur-
pose of buying comforts for your mother ; and
having a few ix)unds in your own pockets, to
rove your little holiday with me, and pay your
share of the costs! Ah, there are energy and
spirit and life in all that, Lionel, which will
found upon rock some castle iis fine as any you
have built in air. Your hand, my boy."
This burst was so unlike the practical dryness,
or even the more unctuous humor, of Frank
Vance, that it took Lionel by suqjrise, and his
voice faltered as he pressed the hand held out
to iiim. He answered, •' I don't desene your
praise, Vance, and I fear the pride you tell me
to put under lock and key, has the larger share
of the merit you ascribe to better motives. In-
dependent? No! I Imve never been so."
Vance. "Well, you depend on a parent —
who, at seventeen, does not ?"
Lionel. " I did not mean my mother ; of
course, I could not be too proud to take bene-
fits from her. But the truth is simjjly this : my
father had a relation, not very near, indeed — a
cousin, at about as distant a remove, I fancy,
as a cousin well can be. To this gentleman my
mother wrote when my poor father died — and
he was generous, for it is he who paid for my
schooling. I did not know this till veiy lately.
I had a vague impression, indeed, that I had a
powerful and wealthy kinsman who took inter-
est in me, but whom I had never seen."
Vance. " Never seen ?"
Lionel. "No. And here comes the sting.
On leaving school last Christmas, my mother,
for the first time, told me the extent of my ob-
ligations to this benefactor, and informed me
that he wished to know my own choice as to a
profession — that if I preferred Church or Bar,
he would maintain me at college."
Vance. " Body o' me! where's the sting in
that ? Help yourself to toddy, my boy, and take
more genial views of life."
Lionel. " You have not heard me out. I
then asked to see my benefactor's letters ; and
my mother, unconscious of the pain she was
about to inflict, showed me not only the last
one, but all she had received from him. Oh,
Vance, they were terrible, those letters ! The
first began by a dry acquiescence in the claims
of kindred — a curt proposal to pay my schooling,
but not one word of kindness, and a stern pro-
nso that the writer was never to see nor hear
from me. He wanted no gratitude — he disbe-
lieved in all professions of it. His favors would
cease if I molested him. ' Molested' was the
word ; it was bread thrown to a dog."
Vance. " Tut ! Only a rich man's eccentric-
ity. A bachelor, I presume ?"
Lionel. " My mother says he has been mar-
ried, and is a widower."
Vance. " Any children ?"
Lionel. "My mother says none living ; but
I know little or nothing about his family."
Vance looked with keen scrutiny into tlie face
of his boy-friend, and, after a pause, said, dryly
— " Plain as a pikestaffs Your relation is one
of those men who, having no children, suspect
and dread the attention of an heir-presumjnive ;
and what has made this sting, as you call it,
keener to you, is — pardon me — is in some silly
words of your mother, who, in showing you the
letters, has hinted to you that that heir you
might be, if you were sufticiently pliant and
subservient. Am I not right ?"
Lionel hung his head, without reply.
Vance (cheeringly). " So, so ; no great harm
as yet. Enough of "the first letter. What was
the" last?"
Lionel. " Still more offensive. He, this kins-
man, this patron, desired ray mother to spare
him those references to her son's ability and
i promise, which, though natural to herself, had
j slight interest to him— him, the condescending
i benefactor ! — As to his opinion, what could I
' care for the opinion of one I had never seen?
All that could sensibly atfect my — oh, but I can
14
_v.i.NCE Cemphaticallv). " wfthonf- k •
to maintain me at college v?h''?-P^ '^," °^'^^-
ter closed. Luckily DAtCir^?'? '^ ^'^'-
ter of my school) ihn\\t '^ ^^^^ head-mas-
tind to me, had ji'st indeml "'^'^ ^^^'^ ^■^••>-
popula. translatiinof^tlfe ciSrc;" ^^l^^^^"^^^ ^
mended mc at mv ^^^ '"<^ "-^assies. He recom-
gaged in thelZtS'\'° ' ^"'"^'^^ ^"■
translating somo of i f' V°' incapable of
thors-sufiec°Tohfs '!^^^'^^ffi^"^t ^^^i" ''^"-
finished the first itt°r'''°"'; ^^'^^^n I had
• intrusted to me m" ' "'I!'"' °^ '^' ''°'^ ^'^"«
mv health liS%^LT ^' ^'*'"' ^^^''med for
reation. Yo weTe fh, T.""''' ''^^^^^ ^°°^« ^-^e-
trian tour iCf ^" /« «^' «"' on a pedes-
™J pocket; and lui \L^^' '""'^ P°™ds in
the merriest davs of ly ife '' ^^'^^^^ ^"^^ ^^'^
your'S^a'lT^o to'l'ir" ""^ ^^"^^'^ ^^en
him ?" SO to college was conveyed to
comS';atiL?to'^ihareVL".'T-n "'-^ ^^^^^^^"'^
left home, and tl en-l ?f ''" J"** ^^^^^'^ I
ter from ^hich reT S T^'"''' "^ ^^^^ let-
tract— no th« / ■'/'^Pe'^ted that wither nc ev-
it -h -j' , '^^'^ ^™s more eallino- still f ■
It he said, that if, in spite of /l o^ i ' ^°'' '"
promise that hirl hpir, ^ ^'^'^ ^^'^i^^ty and
of a collete and ^h^ i'? ''""f "'^' ^^^^ dullness
sions wereno^Sfst2 eSl't; ^^VlieT^l ^^'^^f^"
sire to dictitP tr> r„ , . ^^' "^ had no de-
no. wi,h'„TeVl>o^:;.'''S '"" ""■" •■■' '•' ■!"
blood, .„<1 bore tlMSme of H?"!!""'-'' ""^
.h.t^.jo,p«w:.-'vL'::5ti7-.'"^^^
Liovpr r "^' -^'o*^ fake ?"
■L'IO^EL (iiassionatp]\-> "-iir, . , ,
-M'hich?_ofconre,i;;T. ? '^''' " so oiJered
the tone of myToth • ■'' f"^' ^i^t^^ting
evening beforf iTf ,? '^l''-',' ^ ^^^^^ ^'^wn, the
this cnTel man i1 d nT'^ '^ ^™^*^ ^^-^'^e^f to
niother-did S^t td/licT f1r"|T^"^^^^« -3-
—that, if he ,™i,j,| "^l 2'- , ^ '™te, shortly
would not accent hi^ >° ^'^P* .™>' gratitude, I
might be-pTcl?ock'.t ?'%' '^''' shoeblack J
fearIshoul5Kt?'h"'h/'''/ ^^*^ "^^^ "ot
andthatlwoul^io Jft;n"°'^ °^' "^.>- ^^'^e ,•
had paid him back all thaT'l'°?'''' T ^^^"•' ^
felt relieyed from tho 1 had cost him, and
which-whicl -» Tlie boy r '' ?" ^^^^^ation
face with his hands, and'jbC' '"'""'^^^^
scoiJ'lSSnfCt""^^^'-^^-'^'^'^ to
fairly rose, ."u id L a "Hro 1'^' ^};^f^ctu.l,
him, and drew him fron hi ^'f"''--^^^<^ round
ing margin of the dS "^^'^"' ^'^/'^"^ '^'^^--
the Artitt, almost olcmnl ^°™^°"' then said
inner depths o 1 ^ char" tt' uJ^'' ''"^^"^ *'-
the man came forth iml.,[' ^< ^^-"""^ »^'""s of
look roundrLe wi;,^ th^' 'r ^^'""^^°"' '"'^i
tide, and h'ow '. il in 1 tl ''^'' ^"terrupts the
See,... Where ^fSJ^,:t;^^-^-.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
noTf^^et nir tnr--"^^ ^^^ --, if
miles farther on and the r?r'"^""^ " ^ ^^^
hridge, which bu y ?eet low a ' '' '^'""''^ ^^-^^ ^
side of that bridie nowSn ''°'''"^' b^' the
the men who rule Sn^landr^ " Palace;-aU
palace. At the reai of tW T^ '°°"^ ^" that
old Abbey, where SLk ^T'^'^ soars up the
of the nimlrtheVifiWM ''''"■ ^r^^^"'^ght
have found tombs" th re n,vf^ '^'j ^^ "«
which they made. Thhil rf^ u°^ '^^ names
on that bridge with a w' ^ ^'Z ^\^^ ^'"^ ^tand
man's steadfast courage AiL.t-^'^'^P^' ^^-^tii a
stream, calm with sJariiitfln"™ ''-"'"'" '° ^^^^
the bridge-spite of^S'lSd^pSfs "'^ ^"^'^^''^
i^p^^™;;;:tc^*^~g^his
tened in his ^ye'^'^^^'^''^^^ '^''^' ^ew still glis!
CHAPTER V.
er'sS-::iS;i^i;-r-s^rS:
the dash of he o^rr'Ti^ '^'"'^'^^ ^" time to
bank of garden-lrou ml . ^^' '?° "^"^^ to the
^vhich fahies might h,eT"f^^ ^"^^^ tuif, on
villas neyer seefout " f eXT'^ ' ^^",^^
windows of the vilH thl i; w , -^™tn the
ily; oyer the blnS 7l ^ ^' •^^^'^'"^^ «tead-
hnng large w'Ltt^^a fclf .\T' /'^ "^^^r,
brushed aside their nend«n;>,^ ' ^^'^ ^""^^ g^ntlv
rested in a grassy co4 ^°"S^'' ^^^^ ^"^nce
And "Paith" «mVi +1, . .
. ^-ith,"saidt,]ilh J\\^,^-f' .g-nv-
is time we should bestow nf' '^"^"^^^gaiV '"it
thePvemorsele^s Pnrnr, ^ ^f^^'^™rds more on
What a cock-and a bull s. ''^^^'^^dit's Child!
ns! He must Se thi t"'^' ' ^"'^^^^^ '^^^
Lio.vKL (roused) ^8^^'/^^ precious green."
derful in the ston- „tj'-''^^^e nothing so won-
rou must allow ti'.tr^ ""^^^ that is sad.
good actor-vou beSml f •.°'"-' ^-"^"^ ''^en a
at his attitude and r ^^^"^ ^-^"^^^^ ^^erely
that he s ould haye hi; '^"'"'■^'' ^^^^^fore^,
chance on ?he London st? '""'''''K'^ tiy his
that he mar ha.e ™y b^'~"°*i"-^P^""^''^W
train, and so lo t iS chan . r'" '' ^'' '^^
then, that he shnn Ir • ^oreyer— natural,
little gra?ddind- nf;r-:/°:?4":r". ^"i! p«-
treated, and his nride ,./ i '. ^''^^' ^^^rdly
escape." ^ '^ ^""^' ^^^ should wish to
shouts' w^iitfol,':;"^ T''""' ^''^" ^"' ^^'^^ 1-
pounds-the Band t' ^.^^^^^"r pockets three
-hat is not pr?babt'-th.n1.5"r1'/, '''' ^'^^
posed of that cleycr c i d t, '^'""^^l^"^^ dis-
Ic„n"i;:t,./;-.;bci.„„e,,,,ordi„.„.chiM.
tool- nnt 1 • -^ " has interested me " Hr.
tens:"^.te^--f "^T'^" counting ils con!
X ha>e nearly three pounds left," he
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
15
cried, joyously. " £2 18s. if I give up the
thought of a "lonjrer excursion with you, and
go quietly home."
Vance. '"Aud not pay your share of the bill
yonder';:'"
LioNKL. "Ah, I forgot that! But come, I
am not too proud to borrow from you, and it is
not for a selfish purpose."
Vanck. '• Borrow from me, Cato ! That
comes of falling in with bandits and their chil-
dren. No, but let us look at the thing like
men of sense. One story is good till another is
told. I will call by myself on Kugge to-mor-
row, and hear what he says ; and then, if we
judge favorably to the Cobbler's version, we
will go at nigiit and talk with the Cobbler's
lodgers; and 1 daresay," added Vance, kindly,
but with a sigh — "I daresay the three pounds
will be coaxed out of me ! After all, her head
is worth it. I want an idea for 'J'itania."
Lionel (joyously). "My dear Vance, you are
the best fellow in the world."
Vance. " Small compliment to human-kind.
Take the oars — it is your turn now."
Lionel obeyed ; the boat once more danced
along the tide — thoro' reeds, thoro' waves, skirt-
ing tlie grassy islet — out into pale moonlight.
They talked but by tits and starts. What of?
— a thousand things. Bright young hearts,
eloquent young tongues! No sins in the past;
hopes gleaming through the future. Oh sum-
mer nights, on the glass of starry waves ! Oh
Youth, Youth!
CHAPTER VI.
Wherein the Historian tracks the Public Characters that
fret their hour on the stage, into tlie bosom of private
life. — The reader is invited to arrive at a conclusion
which may often, in periods of perplexity, restore ease
to his mind ; viz., that if man will reflect on all the
hopes he has nourished, all the fears he has admitted,
all the projects he has formed, the wisest thing he can
do, nine times out of ten, with hope, fear, and project,
is to let them end with the chapter — in smoke.
It was past nine o'clock in the evening of the
following day. The exhibition at Mr. Rugge's
theatre liad closed for the season in that village,
for it was the conclusion of the Fair. The final
performance had been begun and ended some-
what earlier than on former nights. The thea-
tre was to be cleared from the ground by day-
break, and the whole comjiany to proceed on-
ward betimes in the morning. Another Fair
awaited them in an adjoining county, and they
had a long journey before them.
Gentleman Waife and his Juliet Araminta
had gone to their lodgings over the Cobbler's
stall. The rooms were homely enough, but had
an air not only of the comfortable, but the pic-
turesque. The little sitting-room was very old-
fashioned— paneled in wood that had once' been
painted blue — with a quaint chimney-piece that
reached to the ceiling. That part o'f the house
sjKtke of the time of Charles I. It might have
been tenanted by a religious Roundhead ; and
framed-in over the low door there was a grim
faded portrait of a pinched -faced saturnine
man, with long lank hair, starched band, and
a length of upper-lip that betokened relentless
obstinacy of character, and might have curled
in sullen glee at the monarch's scaffold, or
preached an interminable sermon to the stout
I'rotector. On a table, under the deej)-sunk
window, were neatly arrayed a few sober-look-
ing old books; you would find among them Col-
lei/'s Astrolof/i/, Owen Kelt/utm^s liesolces, Ulan-
vilk 0)1 Witches, The J'ilijiiiii's J^rvyress, an early
edition of Paradise Lost, and an old Bible ; also
two fiower-pots of clay brightly reddened, and
containing stocks ; also two small woi-sted rugs,
on one of which rested a carved cocoa-nut, on
the other an egg-shaped ball of crystal — that
last the pride and joy of the Cobbler's visionary
soul. A door left wide open communicated with
an inner room (very low was its ceiling), in which
the Bandit slept, if the severity of his persecu-
tors permitted him to sleep. In the corner of
the sitting-room, near that door, was a small
horse-hair sofa, which, by the aid of sheets and
a needlework coverlid, did duty for a bed, and
was consigned to the Bandit's child. Here the
tenderness of the Cobbler's heart was visible,
for over the coverlid were strewed sprigs of lav-
ender, and leaves of vervain — the last, be it
said, to induce hapjn' dreams, and scare away
Avitchcraft and evil spirits. On another table,
near the fire-place, the child was busied in set-
ting out the tea-things for her grandfather. She
had left in the property-room of the theatre her
robe of spangles and tinsel, and appeared now
in a simple frock. Sjhe had no longer the look
of Titania, but that of a lively, active, affection-
ate human child; nothing theatrical about her
now, yet still, in her graceful movements, so
nimble but so noiseless, in her slight fair hands,
in her transparent coloring, there was Nature's
own lady — that something which strikes us all
as well-born and high-bred ; not that it neces-
sarily is so — the semblances of aristocracy, in
female childhood more especially, are often de-
lusive. The souvenance flower wrought into the
collars of princes springs up wild on field and
fell.
Gentleman Waife, wrapped negligently in a
gray dressing-gown, and seated in an old leath-
ern easy-chair, was evidently out of sorts. He
did not seem to heed the little preparations for
his comfort, but, resting his cheek on his right
hand, his left drooped on his crossed knees — an
attitude rarely seen in a man when his heart is
light and his spirits high. His lips moved — he
was talking to himself. Though he had laid
aside his theatrical bandage over both eyes, he
wore a black patch over one, or rather where
one had been ; the eye exposed was of singular
beauty, dark and brilliant. For the rest, the
man "had a striking countenance, rugged, and
rather ugly than othenvise, but by no means
unprepossessing ; full of lines and ^mnkles and
strong muscle, with large lips of wondrous pli-
ancy, and an asjiect of wistful sagacity, that, no
doubt, on occasion could become exquisitely
comic — diT comedy — the comedy that makes
others roar when the comedian himself is as
grave as a judge.
You might see in his countenance, when quite
in its natural repose, that Sorrow had passed by
there ; yet the instant the countenance broke
into play, you would think that Sorrow must
have been sent about her business as soon as
the respect due to that visitor, so accustomed
to have her own way, would permit. Though
the man was old, you could not call him aged.
16
Orie-eyed and crippled, still, marking the rn,«
seal cely tailed him broken or infirm. And hence
there was a certain indescribable pathos n his
Se a,K"""'t' '^ '' ^^-'- I^ad^randJc^ o
reidhe, . .7' ^''^^'^^^^'-^ i" ^'^ch migh be
read liei agencies on career and mind— plucked
?org-e's ?'" "^^^"^^-»f^. ^l^ortened oie linb
for htes progress, ^-et left whim sparklin.r out
H. the eye she had spared, and a iol t Se.rt's
wid spring in the hmb she had maimei no
coaxS'h'' ^/■'"'^^' '°^^'" ^^^'^1 '^' J«tle^i,-1,
coaxingl^ ; 'your tea will get quite cold- vo„ •
S," "''^-'' ''^"'^ ^''^ ''' ^"'^^ '- nice egg-C
Meile says you may be sure it is new laid
Come, don't let that hateful man ft-e you
smde on your own Sophy-come " ^ '
tone '^f'r '^ ^^"- 7""'^^' ^" ^ J^o"o^^ "nder
unu , n ''T^ ^^^^'^ ^" the world."
Un ! Grandy."
Dehghtful prospect, not to be indul-ed • for if
In ?? '^ P^^'^ ^' °"^ end of thefop; whit
wouW chance to my Sophy, left forlor^'at the
" Don't talk so, or I shall think you are sorrv
to have taken care of me." ^ "" aie sorry
. ''^^'■'^ of thee, O child! and what rirp v Tf
IS thou who takest care of me Put tSy hLds
from my mouth; sit down, darlin.. tW on
orten said that thou wouldst be glad to bp n„t
wt."ht,.tif "-^^ f- -e l-mbler^ild
naiuci . tnmk well — is it so ?
II Oh! yes, indeed, grandfather."
Ao more tinsel dresses and flowery wreaths •
no more applause; no more of the dei divin;
stage excitement ; the heroine and fah-y vanish
ed; only a ittle commonplace c Inld [n d"m y
gingham, with a purblind cripple for t"iy sole
ratSr' "'"'""''V J"lieti'raminta ivapt
rated evermore into little Sophy i" ^
Phv. ^;S"i'4te".,f ''""""""' """=^-
"What would make it nice?" asked the come
Jriends, thev were ennnlc ti,-. ■'■ ,
affront you, we should be all by oursel es ^?n
piav in the fields, and gather daisies • nnd T
could run after buttei-flie.^ and when I am t"red
I s ould come here, where I am now, Z t me
P et y vcV: ""'^ 'T ^^'^^'^ *^" ^- storieVand
pretty .erses, and teach me to write a little
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
and oh, would it not be nice t" ' '° '^"^ ''
stars-with all my heait ^?,/t " ^''^
not go to the ^l\ ^ \L l}'^ ^'^^'^ ^i"
of me Anr fj,-^ 1, , ^^"^ workhouse instead
we^o.'" °"^^ '^""^ ^'^^^ "°tl^i"g to eat,
fbr?""! ^'"n"'^-^' ^'""^ ^^^'° ^^^id every day since
t^vn T r^ ■''''' '""'^ "f'er <^oniing heie ha?
you had three pounds, we could get a w and
Ine by ourselves, and make a fortune '^ ^
stand^ Ar^i^e^ttttiir-^^firfh'- ^f ^^
should be free of thifthn-ce' eSb e'Str
aLS^=^^;s;:rS-^^rtKT
dwell in towns, and exhibit -" '''^ ^'^
bvus^on-owfr' """^'^ '" ^"^"^ «°P^>'' --g-d
"No."
;; And we should be quite alone, you and I ?"
. Hum ! there would be a third." '
y^^.^^nkingofjoining\^^;rLt'?;;:
s2t'7^^T ^"^^.-'^ """^^^^ relaxed). " A well-
Sluck th?!''^"^" gentlewoman'. But no
SoPHT UT ^Tf ' ''""^^ "«t buy her."
muchfor'the m'" ^^m "^*'^"* ^ I don't care so
But oh" ^'/i'^^^id-she's dead and stuffed.
sSted Boy!'' "■ ""''"^' " P^^^^^?^ ''- the
Mr. Waife. " Calm your sanc^uine imacinn
ever t ft . '•°™P''^"^o». whatsoever or whoso-
will like " '""^P"^^°^ ™«y be, wiU be one you
head^ '^°"t ^f 'r"; ''" ^""'^ ^«I^'^-^' ^*'^^^"g ^er
. ; , I, °"'^' ^'^e yo"- But who is it V'
Alas ! said Mr. Waife, " it is no use pam-
penng ourselves with vain hopes; the three
irb?uleV°' ^°"'??°T"g- You 'heard wia^
wanted n t^l-?^' '^'^' '^^' '^'^ gentleman who
T^ anted to take your portrait had called on him
his morning, and offered 10s. for a sitting™
that IS, 6s. for you, 5s. for Euffge • and Ruao-P
thought the terms reasonable.'' ^^
" But I said I would not sit."
' And when you did say it, you heard Rugge's
la iguage to me-to you. And now we must
think of packing up, and be off at dawn mih
■ l^ x: "'^'" ^'^^''^ the comedian, color-
ing nigh ' I must again parade, to boors and
c owns, ,h,s mangled form ; again set mvself
out as a spectacle of bodily infirmity-nian's
last degradation. And this I have c'ome to-
will ^l!; ".?' ^'^^'^^y^ it will not last long! we
NMlI i?et the three pounds. We have always
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
17
hoped on I — hope still ! And besides, I am sure
those gentlemen will come here to-night. Mr.
Merle said they would, at ten o'clock. It is
near ten now, and your tea cold as a stone."
Slie hung on his neck caressingly, kissing his
furrowed brow, and leaving a tear there, and
thus coaxed him till he set to quietly at his
meal ; and Sophy shared it, though she had no
appetite in sorrowing for him — but to keep him
company ; that done, she lighted his pipe with
the best canaster — his sole luxury and expense ;
but she always contrived that he should afford it.
Mr. Waife' drew a long whiff, and took a more
serene view of affairs. He who doth not smoke
hath either known no great griefs, or refuseth
himself the softest consolation, next to that
which comes from heaven. " What softer than
woman ?" whispers the young reader. Young
reader, woman teases as well as consoles. Wo-
man makes half the sorrows which she boasts
the privilege to soothe. Woman consoles tis, it
is true, while we are young and handsome ;
when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and
scolds us. On the whole, then, woman in this
scale, the weed in that, Jupiter, hang out thy
balance, and weigh them both ; and if thou give
the preference to woman, all I can say is, the
next time Juno ruffles thee — O Jupiter, try the
weed !
CHAPTER VII.
The Historian, in pursuance of his stern dutie.?, reveals
to the scorn of future ages some of the occult practices
which discredit the March of Light In the Xineteenth
C'entur)-.
"Mat I come in?" asked the Cobbler out-
side the door.
" Certainly come in," said Gentleman Waife.
Sophy looked wistfully at the aperture, and
sighed to see that Merle was alone. She crept
up to him.
"Will they not come?" she whispered.
"I hope so, pretty one; it ben't ten yet."
"Take a pipe, Merle," said Gentleman Waife,
with a grand Comedian air.
"No, thank you kindly; I just looked in to
ask if I could do any thing for ye, in case — in
case ye must go to-morrow."
" Nothing ; our luggage is small, and soon
packed. Sophy has the money to discharge the
meaner pait of our debt to you."
" I don't value that," said the Cobbler, color-
ing.
" But we value your esteem," said Mr. Waife,
with a smile that would have become a field-
marshal. "And so. Merle, you think, if I am
a broken-down vagrant, it must be put to the
long account of the celestial bodies I"
"Not a doubt of it," returned the Cobbler,
solemnly. " I wish you would give me date and
place of Sophy's birth — that's what I want — I'd
»ake her horiyscope. I'm sure she'd be lucky."
" I'd rather not, please," said Sophy, timidly.
"Rather not? — very odd. Why?"
"I don't want to know the future."
"That is odder and odder," quoth the Cob-
bler, staring; "I never heard a girl say that
afore."
"Wait till she's older, Mr. Merle," said
Waife; "girls don't want to know the future
till they want to be married."
B
" Summat in that," said the Cobbler. He
took up the crystal. "Have you looked into
this ball, pretty one, as I bade ye?"
" Yes, two or three times."
"Hal and what did you see?"
"My own face made very long," said Sophy
— " as long as that" — stretching out her hands.
The Cobbler shook his head dolefully, and,
screwing up one eye, applied the other to the
mystic ball.
^Ir. Waife. " Perhaps you will see if those
two gentlemen are coming."
SoPHT. "Do, do! and if they will give us
three pounds!"
The Cobbler (triumphantly). " Then you do
care to know the future, after all ?"
Sophy. " Yes, so far as that goes ; but don't
look any farther, pray."
The Cobbler (intent upon the ball, and
speaking slowly, and in jerks). " A mist now.
Ha! an arm with a besom — sweeps all before it."
Sophy (frightened). — " Send it away, please."
Cobbler. "It is gone. Ha! there's Rugge
— looks verj' angry — savage, indeed."
Waife. " Good sign that I proceed."
Cobbler. "Shakes his fist; gone. Ha! a
young man, boyish, dark hair."
Sophy (clapping her hands). "That is the
young gentleman — the very young one, I mean
— with the kind eves; is he coming? — is he, is
he ?"
Waife. "Examine his pockets! do yon see
there three pounds ?"
Cobbler (testily). "Don't be a interrupting.
Ha ! he is talking with another gentleman,
bearded."
Sophy (whispering to her grandfather). " The
old young gentleman."
Cobbler (putting down the crv'stal, and with
great decision). "They are coming here ; I see'd
them at the corner of the lane, by the pubhc-
house, two minutes' walk to this door." He
took out a great silver watch : "Look, Sophy,
when the minute-hand gets there (or before, if
they walk briskly), you will hear them knock."
Sophy clasped her hands in mute suspense,
half-credulous, half-doubting ; then she went
and opened the room-door, and stood on the
landing-place to listen.
Merle approached the Comedian, and said, in
a low voice, "I wish for your sake she had the
gift."
Waife. " The gift I — the three pounds ! — so
do I !"
Cobbler. "Pooh! worth a hundred times
three pounds ; the gift — the spirituous gift."
Waife. "Spirituous! don't like the epithet
— smells of gin!"
Cobbler. " Spirituotis gift to see in the
crystal : if she had that, she might make your
fortune."
Gentleman Waife (with a sudden change of
I countenance). '• Ah ! I never thought of that.
' But if she has not the gift, I could teach it her
I —eh ?"
I The Cobbler (indignantly). " I did not think
\ to hear this from you, Mr. Waife. Teach her
— you! make her an impostor, and of the wick-
! edest kind, inventing lies between earth and
them as dwell in the seven spheres ! Fie ! No,
: if she hasn't the gift natural, let her alone ;
i what here is not heaven-sent, is devil-taught."
u
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Waife (awed, but dubious). " Then you real-
ly think you saw all that you described, in that
glass egg ?"
Cobbler. "Think! — am I a liar? I spoke
truth, and the proof is there!" — Eat-tat went
the knocker at the door.
" The two minutes are just up," said the Cob-
bler; and Cornelius Agrippa could not have
said it with more wizardly effect.
" They are come, indeed," said Sophy, re-
entering the room softly; "I hear their voices
at the threshold."
The Cobbler passed by in silence, descended
the stairs, and conducted Vance and Lionel
into the Comedian's chamber; there he left
them, his brow overcast. Gentleman Waife had
displeased him sorely.
CHAPTER Vm.
Showing tlie arts by ■vvhicli a man, however high in the
air Nature may have formed his nose, may be led by
that nose, and in directions perversely opposite to those
which, in following his nose, he might be supposed to
take; and therefore, that nations the most liberally
endowed with practical good sense, and in conceit
thereof, cai-rying their noses the most horizontally
aloof, when they come into conference with nations
more skilled in diplomacy, and more practiced in
"stage-play,"' end by the surrender of the precise ob-
ject whicli' it was intended they should surrender be-
fore they laid their noses together.
We all know that Demosthenes said, Every
thing in oratory was acting — stage-play. Is it
in oratory alone that the saying holds good ?
Apply it to all circumstances of life — "stage-
play, stage-pla)-, stage-i)lay !" — only ars est celare
artcm, conceal the art. Gleesome in soul to be-
hold his visitors, calculating already on the
three pounds to be extracted from them, seeing
in that hope the crisis in his own checkered ex-
istence, ]\lr. Waife rose from his seat in superb
upocrisia or stage-play, and asked, with mild
dignity — "To -what am I indebted, gentlemen,
for the honor of yoiu* visit?"
In spite of his nose, even Vance was taken
aback. Pope says that Lord Bolingbroke had
" the nobleman air." A great comedian Lord
Bolingbroke surely was. But, ah, had Pope
seen Gentleman Waife ! Taking advantage of
the impression he had created, the actor added,
with the finest imaginable breeding — "But pray
be seated ;" and, once seeing them seated, re-
sumed his easy-chair, and felt himself master of
the situation.
"Hum !" said Vance, recovering his self-pos-
session, after a pause — "hum!"
" Hem !" re-echoed Gentleman Waife ; and
the two men eyed each other much in the same
way as Admiral Napier might have eyed the
fort of Cronstadt, and the fort of Cronstadt have
eyed Admiral Napier.
Lionel struck in with that youthful boldness
which plays the deuce with all dignified, stra-
tegical science.
" You must be aware why we come, Sir ; IMr.
Merle will have explained. My friend, a dis-
tinguished artist, wished to make a sketch, if
you do not object, of this young lady's verj' — "
" Pretty little face," quoth Vance, taking up
the discourse. " Mr. Rugge, this morning, was
willing — I understand that your grandchild re-
fused. We are come here to see if she will
be more complaisant under your own roof, or
under Mr. Merle's, Avhich, I take it, is the same
thing for the present" — Sophy had sidled up to
Lionel. He might not have been flattered if
lie knew why she preferred him to Vance. She
looked on him as a boy — a fellow-child — and
an instinct, moreover, told her, that more easily
through him than his shrewd-looking, bearded
guest could she attain the object of her cupidity
— "three pounds!"
"Three pounds!" whispered Sophy, ^^ith the
tones of an angel, into Lionel's thrilling ear.
Mr. Waife. " Sir, I will be frank with you."
At that ominous commencement Mr. Vance re-
coiled, and mechanically buttoned his trowsers
pocket. INIr. Waife noted the gesture with his
one eye, and proceeded cautiously, feeling his
way, as it were, toward the interior of the re-
cess thus protected. "My grandchild declined
your flattering proposal with my full approba-
tion. She did not consider — neither did I — that
the managerial rights of Mr. llugge entitled
him to the moiety of her face — off the stage."
The Comedian paused, and Mltli a voice, the
mimic drollery of which no hoarseness could
altogether mar, chanted the old line,
" ' 3Iy face is my fortune, Sir,' she said."
Vance smiled — Lionel laughed; Sophy nes-
tled still nearer to the boy.
Gentleman W-wfe (with pathos and dignity).
" You see before you an old man ; one way of
life is the same to me as another. But she —
do you think Mr. Eugge's stage the right place
for her?"
Vance. " Certainly not. "WHiy did yon not in-
troduce her to the London manager who would
have engaged yourself?"
Waife could not conceal a sliglit change of
countenance. "How do I know she would have
succeeded ? She had never then trod the boards.
Besides, what strikes you as so good in a village
show may be poor enough in a metropolitan the-
atre. Gentlemen, I did my best for her — you
can not think otherwise, since she maintains me!
I am no CEdipus, yet she is my Antigone."
Vance. "You know the classics. Sir. Mr.
Merle said you were a scholar ! — read Sophocles
in his native Greek, I presume. Sir ?"
Mr. Waife. " You jeer at the unfortunate ;
I am used to it."
Vance (confused). "I did not mean to wound
you — I beg pardon. But your language and
manner are not what — what one miglit expect
to find in a— in a — Bandit persecuted by a re-
morseless Baron."
Mr. Waife. " Sir, you say you are an artist.
Have you heard no tales of your professional
brethren — men of genius the liighest, who won
fame which I never did, and failed of fortune
as I have done ? Their own fault, jierhaps —
improvidence, wild habits — ignorance of tlic
way how to treat life and deal with their fellow-
men ; such fault may have been mine, too. I
sufler for it ; no matter — I ask none to save me.
You are a painter — you would place her features
on your canvas- — you would have her rank among
your own creations. She may become a ];art of
your immortality. Princes may gaze on the
effigies of the innocent, happy childhood, to
which your colors lend imperishable glow. They
may ask who and what was this fair creature?
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
19
Will yoa answer, ' One whom I found in tinsel, :
and so left, sore that she would die in rags I' —
Save her 1"
Lionel drew forth his purse, and poured its
contents on the table. Vance covered them
with his broad hand, and swept them into his
own jKJcket I At that sinister action Waife felt
his heart sink into his shoes ; but his face was '
calm as a Roman's, only he resumed his pipe
with a prolonged and testy whiff.
" It is I who am to take the portrait, and
it is I who will pay for it," said Vance. '• I
understand that you have a pressing occasion
for — ■' ''Three jxjunds I" muttered Sophy,
sturdily, through the tears which her grand-
fathers pathos had drawn forth from her
downcast ieyes — "Three pounds — three — '
three." |
"You shall have them. But listen ; I meant
only to take a sketch — I must now have a fin-
ished portrait. I can not take this by candle-
light. Yon must let me come here to-morrow ;
and yet to-morrow, I understand, you meant to
leave?"
Waife. " If you will generously bestow on
us the sum you say, we shall not leave the vil-
lage till you have completed your picture. It is
Mr. Uugge and his company we will leave."
Vance. " And may I venture to ask what you
propose to do toward a new livelihood for your-
self and your grandchild, by the help of a sum
which is certainly much for we to pay — enor-
mous, I might say. quoad me — but small for a
capital whereon to set up a business?"'
Waife. " Excuse me if I do not answer that ,
\er\ natural question at present. Let me as-
sure you that that precise sum is wanted for an
investment which promises her and myself an
easy existence. But to insure my scheme I
must keep it secret. Do you believe me ?" .
'• I do I" cried Lionel ; and Sophy, whom, by
this time he had drawn upon his lap, put her \
arm gratefully round his neck. |
'• There is your money. Sir, beforehand," said
Vance, declining downward his betrayed and '
resentful nose, and depositing three sovereigns
on the table. ;
•'And how do you know," said Waife, smil- j
ing, "that I may not be off to-night with your \
money and your model ?"
"Well," said Vance, curtly, "I think it is on
the cards. Still, as John Kemble said when re-
buked for too large an alms,
' It is not often that I do these things.
But when 1 do, I do them handsomely.' ''
" Well applied, and well delivered. Sir," said '
the Comedian, " only you should put a little
more emphasis on the word rfo."
•• Did I not put enough ? I am sure I felt it
strongly ; no one can feel the do morel"
Waife's pliant face relaxed into genial bright-
ness — the equivoque charmed him. However,
not affecting to comprehend it, he thrust back
the money and said, "No, Sir — not a shilling
till the picture is completed. Nay, to relieve
your mind, I will own that, had 1 no scruple
more deUcate, I would rather receive nothing
till Mr. Rugge is gone. True, he has no right
to any share in it. But you see before you a
man who, when it comes to arguing, could nev-
er take a wrangler's degree — never get over the
Ass's Bridge, Sir. Plucked at it scores of times
clean as a feather. But do not go yet. You
came to give us money ; give us what, were I
rich, I should value more highly — a little of your
time. You, Sir, are an artist ; and you, young
gentleman?" addressing Lionel.
Lionel (coloring). "I — am nothing as yet."
Waife. " You are fond of the drama, I pre-
sume, both of you. Apropos of John Kemble,
yon, Sir, said that you have never heard him.
Allow me, so far as this cracked voice can do
it, to give you a faint idea of him."
"I shall be delighted," said Vance, drawing
nearer to the table, and feeling more at his ease.
" But since I see you smoke, may I take the lib-
erty to light my cigar?"
" Make yourself at home," said Gentleman
Waife, with the good-humor of a fatherly host.
And all the while Lionel and Sophy were bab-
bling together, she still upon his lap.
Waife began his imitation of John Kemble.
Despite the cracked voice it was admirable.
One imitation drew on another ; then succeed-
ed anecdotes of the Stage, of the Senate, of the
Bar. Waife had heard great orators, whom ev-
ery one still admires for the speeches which no-
body, nowadays, ever reads ; he gave a lively
idea of each. And then came sayings of dry
humor, and odd scraps of worldly observation ;
and time flew on pleasantly till the clock struck
twelve, and the young guests tore themselves
away.
•• Merle, iferle !" cried the Comedian, when
they were gone.
Merle appeared.
" We don't go to-morrow. When Rngge
sends for us (as he will do at daybreak), say so.
Y'ou shall lodge us a few days longer, and then
— and then — my httle Sophy, kiss mc, ki?s me ;
You are saved at least from those horrid paint-
ed creatures I"
"Ah, ah," growled Merle from below, "he
has got the money 1 Glad to hear it. But,"
he added, as he glanced at sundrv- weird and
astrological s^-mbols with which he had been
diverting himself, "that's not it. The true ho-
rary question is, Wh-vt avill he do vmu. it ?"
CHAPTER IX.
The Historian shovrs that, notwithstanding the progress-
ive Fpirit of the times, a Briton is not permitted, with-
out an effort, '"to progress" according to his own incli-
nations,
SopHT could not sleep. At first she was too
happy. Without being conscious of any degra-
dation in her lot among the itinerant anists of
Mr. Rugge's exhibition (how could she, when
her beloved and revered protector had been one
of those artists for years ?), yet, instinctively, she
shrunk from their contact. Doubtless, while ab-
sorbed in some stirring part, she forgot compan-
ions, audience, all, and enjoyed what she per-
formed — necessarily enjoyed, for her acting was
really excellent, and where no enjoyment there
no excellence ; but when the histrionic enthusi-
asm was not positively at work, she crept to her
grandfather with something between loathing
and terror of the "painted creatures" and her
own borrowed tinsel.
20
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
But more than all, she felt acutely eveiy in-
dignity 01- affront offered to Gentleman Waife.
Heaven knows these were not few ; and to es-
cape from such a life — to be with her grand-
father alone, have him all to lierself to tend and
to pet, to listen to, and to prattle with, seemed
to her the consummation of human felicity. Ah,
but should she be all alone? Just as she was
lulling herself into a doze, that question seized
and roused her. And then it was not happiness
that ke]3t her waking — it was what is less rare
in the female breast — curiosity. Who was to
be the mysterious third, to whose acquisition
the three pounds were evidently to be devoted?
What new face had she purchased by the loan
of her own ? Not the Pig-faced Lad}-, nor the
Spotted Boy. Could it be the Norfolk Giant,
or the Calf with Two Heads ? Horrible idea !
Monstrous phantasmagoria began to stalk before
her eyes ; and, to charm them away, with great
fervor she fell to saying her prayers — an act of
devotion Avhich she had forgotten, in her excite-
ment, to ]jerform before resting her head on her
pillow — but, could we peep into the soft spirit-
world around us, we might find the omission not
noted down in very dark characters by the re-
cording angel.
That act over, her thoughts took a more come-
ly aspect than had been worn by the preceding
phantasies, reflected Lionel's kind looks, and re-
peated his gentle words. " Heaven bless him !"
she said, with emphasis, as a supplement to the
habitual prayers ; and then tears gathered to her
grateful eyelids, for she was one of those beings
whose tears come slow from sorrow, quick from
affection. And so the gi-ay dawn found her still
wakeful, and she rose, bathed her cheeks in the
cold fresh water, and drew them forth with a
glow like Hebe's. Dressing herself with the
quiet activity which characterized ail her move-
ments, she then opened the casement and in-
haled the air. All was still in the narrow lane,
the shops yet unclosed. But on the still trees
behind the shops the birds were beginning to
stir and chirp. Chanticleer, from some neigh-
boring yard, rung out his brisk reveilke. Pleas-
ant English summer dawn in the pleasant En-
glish country village. She stretched her grace-
ful neck far from the casement, trying to catch
.1 glimpse of the blue river. She had seen its
majestic flow on the day they had an-ived at
the fair, and longed to gain its banks ; then her
servitude to the stage forbade her. Now she
was to be free ! Oh, joy ! Now she might have
her careless hours of holiday; and, forgetful of
Waife's warning that their vocation must be
plied in towns, she let her fancy run riot amidst
visions of green fields and laughing waters, and
in fond delusion gathered the daisies and chased
the butterflies. Changeling transferred into that
lowest world of Art from the cradle of simple
Nature, her human child's heart yearned for the
human childlike delights. All children love the
country, the flowers, the sward, the bii"ds, the
butterflies, or, if some do not, despair, oh. Phi-
lanthropy, of their after-lives !
She closed the window, smiling to herself,
stole through the adjoining door-way, and saw
that her grandfather was still asleep. Then she
busied herself in ])utting the little sitting-room
to rights, reset the table for the morning meal,
watered the stocks, and, finally, took up the
crystal and looked into it ■ndth awe, wondering
\ why the Cobbler could see so much, and she
: only the distorted reflection of her own face.
' So interested, however, for once, did she become
in the inspection of this mystic globe that she
did not notice the dawn pass into broad daylight,
nor hear a voice at the door below — nor, in short,
take into cognition the external world, till a
heavy tread shook the floor, and then, starting,
she beheld the Remorseless Baron, with a face
black enough to have darkened the crystal of Dr.
Dee himself.
" Ho, ho !" said Mr. Eugge, in hissing accents,
which had often thrilled the threepenny gallery
with anticipative horror. "Rebellious, eh?-^
won't come ? Where's your grandfather, bag-
gage ?"
Sophy let fall the crystal — a mercy it was not
broken — and gazed vacantly on the Baron.
"Your vile scamp of a grandfather?''
Sophy (with spirit). " He is not vile. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself speaking so,
Mr. Rugge !"
Here, simultaneously, Mr. Waife hastily, en-
dued in his gray dressing-gown, presented him-
self at the aperture of the bedroom door, and the
Cobbler on the threshold of the sitting-room.
The Comedian stood mute, trusting, perha]js, to
the imposing effect of his attitude. The Cobbler,
yielding to the impulse of untheatric man, put
his head doggedly on one side, and, with both
hands on his hips, said,
" Civil words to my lodgers, master, or out
yon go!"
The Remorseless Baron glared vindictively
first at one, and then at the other; at length he
strode up to Waife, and said, with a withering
grin, " I have something to say to you ; shall I
say it before your landlord?"
The comedian waved his hand to the Cobbler.
"Leave us, my friend ; I shall not require you.
Step this way, ]\Ir. Rugge." Rugge entered the
bedroom, and Waife closed the door behind
them.
"Anan," quoth the Cobbler, scratching his
head. "I don't quite take your gi-andfather's
giving in. British ground here ! But your as-
cendant can not surely be in such malignant
conjunction with that obstreperous tyrant as to
bind you to him hand and foot. Let's see what
the Crystal thinks of it. Take it up gently, and
come down stairs with me."
" Please, no ; I'll stay near grandfather," said
Sophy, resolutely. "He shan't be left helpless
with that rude man."
The Cobbler could not help smiling. "Lord
love you," said he; "you have a spirit of your
own, and, if you were my ^yife, I should bo
afraid of you. But I won't stand here eaves-
dropping ; mayhap your grandfather has secrets
I'm not to hear; call me if I'm wanted." He
descended. Sophy, with less noble disdain of
eaves-dropping, stood in the centre of the room,
holding her breath to listen. She heard no
sound — she had half a mind to put her ear to
the key-hole, but that seemed, even to her, a
mean thing, if not absolutely required by the
necessity of the case. So there she still stood,
her head bent down, her finger raised: oh that
Vance could have so jjuinted her!
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
21
CHATTER X.
Showing the causes why Men and Nation?, when one Man
or Nation wishes to get for its own arbitraiy purposes
what the other Man or Nation does not desire to part
•with, are apt to ignore the mild precepts of Christiani-
ty, shock the sentiments, and upset the theories of Peace
Societies.
" Am I to understand," said Mr. Ragge, in a
whisper, when Waife had drawn him to the far-
thest end of the inner room, with the bed-cur-
tains between their position and the door dead-
ening the sound of their voices — " am I to un-
derstand that, after mv taking you and that
child to my theatre out of charity, and at your
own request, you are going to quit me without
warning — French leave — is that British con-
duct ?"
" Mr. Rugge," replied Waife, deprecatingly,
" I have no" engagement with you beyond an
experimental trial. We were free on both sides
for three months — you to dismiss us any day,
we to leave you. The experiment does not
please us ; we thank you, and depart."
RfGGE. " That is not the truth. I said /was
free to dismiss you both if the child did not suit.
You. poor helpless creature, could be of no use.
But I never heard you say you were to be free,
too. Stand to reason not ! Put my engage-
ments at a Waife's mercy I — I, Lorenzo Rugge !
— stuff 1 But I'm a just man, and a liberal man,
and if you think you ought to have a higher sal-
ary — if this ungrateful proceeding is only, as I
take it, a strike for wages — I will meet you. Ju-
lia Araminta does play better than I could have
supixjsed ; and I'll conclude an engagement on
good terms, as we were to have done if the ex-
periment answered, for three years."
Waife shook his head. " You are very good,
Mr. Rugge, but it is not a strike. My little girl
does not like the life at any price : and since she
supports me, I am bound to please her. Besides,"
said the actor, with a stiffer manner, '• you have
broken faith with me. It was fully understood
that I was to appear no more on your stage ; all
mv task was to advise with you in the perform-
aiices, remodel the plays, help in the stage-man-
agement ; and you took advantage of my penu-
rv, and, when 1 asked for a small advance, in-
sisted on forcing these relics of what I was upon
the public pity. Enough — we part. I bear no
malice."
KcGGE. "Oh, don't you? Xo more do I.
But I am a Briton, and I have the spirit of one.
You had better not make an enemy of me."
W.\iFE. " I am above the necessity of making
enemies. I have an enemv ready made in my-
self."
Rugge placed a strong bony hand upon the
cripple's arm. " I dare say you have I A bad
conscience, Sir. How would yon like your past
life looked into and blabbed out ?"
Gentleman Waife (mournfully). '• The last
four years of it have been spent in your ser\ice,
■ Mr. Rugge. If their record had been blabbed
out for my benefit, there would not have been a
dry eye in the house."
Rugge. " I disdain your sneer. When a scor-
pion nursed at my bosom sneers at me, I leave
it to its own reflections. But I don't speak of
the years in which that scorpion has been en-
joying a salary and smoking canaster at my ex-
pense. I refer to an earlier dodge in its check-
ered existence. Ha, Sir, you wince! I sus-
pect I can find out something about you which
would — "
Waife (fiercely). "Would what?"
Rcgge. -'Oh, lower your tone, Sir — no bully-
ing me. I suspect ! I have good reason for sus-
picion; and if you sneak off in this way, and
cheat me out of my property in Julia Araminta,
I will leave no stone imturned to prove what I
suspect. Look to it. slight man ! Come, I don't
wish to quarrel; make it up, and" (drawing out
his pocket-book) " if you want cash down, and
will have an engagement in black and white for
three years for Julia Araminta, you may squeeze
a good sum out of me, and go yourself where you
please ; you'll never be troubled by mc. What
I want is the girl."
All the actor laid aside, Waife growled out,
"And hang me. Sir, if you shall have the girl !"
At this moment Sophy opened the door wide,
and entered boldly. She had heard her grand-
father's voice raised, though its hoarse tones did
not allow her to distinguish his words. She was
alarmed for him. She came in, his guardian
fairv, to protect him from the oppressor of six
feet high. Rugge 's arm was raised, not indeed
to strike, but rather to declaim. Sophy slid be-
tween him and her grandfather, and clinging
round the latter, flung out her own arm, the
forefinger raised menacingly toward the Re-
morseless Baron. How you would have clapped
if you had seen her so at Covent Garden. But
I'll swear the child did not know she was act-
ing. Rugge did, and was struck with admira-
tion and regretful rage at the idea of losing her.
"Bravo I" said he, involuntarily. "Come —
come, Waife, look at her — she was bom for the
stage. My heart swells with pride. She is my
property, morally speaking ; make her so legal-
ly — and hark, in your ear — fifty pounds. Take
me in the humor. Golgonda opens — fifty
pounds I"
"Xo," said the vagrant.
"Well," said Rugge, sullenly, "let her speak
for herself."
" Speak, child. Yon don't wish to return to
;Mr. Rugge — and without me, too — do you, So-
phv?"
" Without you, Grandy ! Td rather die first."
"You hear her; allis settled between us.
Yon have had our services up to last night ; you
have paid us up to last night ; and so good-
morning to you, Mr. Rugge."
" Mv dear child," said the manager, softening
his voice as much as he could, "do consider.
I You shall be so made of, without that stupid old
I man. You think me cross, but 'tis he who irri-
', tates and puts me out of temper. I'm uncom-
mon fond of children. I had a babe of my own
once — upon my honor I had — and if it had not
been for convulsions, caused by teething, I should
be a father still. Supply to nie the place of that
beloved babe. You shall have such fine dresses ;
all new — choose 'em yourself — minced veal and
raspberr)- tarts for dinner every Sunday. In
three years, under my care, you will become a
great actress, and make your fortune, and marry
a lord — lords go out of their wits for great act-
resses — whereas, with him, what will you do ?
Drudge, and rot, and starve; and he can't live
long, and then where will you be ? 'Tis a shame
. to hold her so, you idle old vagabond."
22
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
" I don't hold her," said Waife, trying to push
her away. "There's something in what the man
says. Choose for yourself, Sophy."
Sophy (suppressing a sob). "How can you
have the heart to talk so, Grandy? I tell you,
Mr. Eugge, you are a bad man, and I hate you,
and all about you — and I'll stay with grand-
father — and I don't care if I do stane — he
shan't 1"
Mr. RuGGE (clapping both hands on the crown
of his hat, and striding to the door). '-William
Waife, beware I 'Tis done ! I'm your enemy !
As for you, too dear but abandoned infant, stay
with him. You'll find out very soon who and
what he is — yoiu' pride will have a fall, when — "
Waife sprang forward, despite his lameness —
both his fists clenched, his one eye ablaze ; his
broad, burly torso confronted and daunted the
stormy manager. Taller and younger though
Rugge was, he cowered before the cripple he had
so long taunted and humbled. The words stood
arrested on his tongue. " Leave the room in-
stantly I" thundered the actor, in a voice no lon-
ger broken. ' ' Blacken my name before that child
by one word, and I will dash the next down your
throat I"
Rugge rushed to the door, and keeping it ajar
between Waife and himself, he then thrust in
his head, hissing forth, " Fly, caitiff", fly ! My
revenge shall track your secret, and place you in
my power. Juliet Araminta shall yet be mine '."
With these awful words the Eemoi-seless Baron
cleared the stairs in two bounds, and was out of
the house.
Waife smiled, contemptuously. But as the
street-door clanged on the form of the angry
manager the color faded from the old man's
face. Exhausted by the excitement he had gone
through, he sank on a chair, and with one quick
gasp as for breath, fainted away.
CHAPTER XI.
Progress of the Fine Arts. — Biographical Anecdotes. —
Fluctuations in the Value of Money. — Speculative
Tendencies of the Time.
Whatever the shock which the brutality of
the Remorseless Baron inflicted on the nenotis
system of the persecuted but triumphant Bandit,
it had certainly subsided by the time Vance
and Lionel entered Waife's apartment, for they
found grandfather and grandchild seated near
the open window, at the corner of the table (on
which they had made room for their operations
by the removal of the carded cocoanut, the cr}"s-
tal egg, and the two flower-pots), eagerly en-
gaged, with many a silvery laugh from the lips
of Sophy, in the game of dominoes.
Mr. Waife had been devoting himself, for the
last hour and more, to the instruction of Sophy
in the mysteries of that intellectual amusement,
and such pains did he take, and so impressive
were his exhortations, that his happy pupil could
not help thinking to herself that this was the
new art upon which Waife depended for their
future livelihood. She sprang up, however, at
the entrance of the visitors, her face beaming
with grateful smiles ; and, running to Lionel,
and taking him by the hand, while she courtesied
with more respect to Vance, she exclaimed,
"We are free! thanks to you — thanks to you
both I He is gone ! Mr. Rugge is gone I"
" So I saw on passing the green ; stage and
all," said Vance, while Lionel kissed the child
and pressed her to his side. It is astonishing
how paternal he felt — how much she had crept
into his heart.
'■Pray, Sir," asked Sophy, timidly, glancing
to Vance, "has the Norfolk Giant gone too?"
Vance. " I fancy so — all the shows were ei-
ther gone or goins."
SopHT. "The Calf with Two Heads?"
Vance. " Do you regret it ?"
Sophy. " Oh, dear, no."
Waife, who, after a profound bow, and a
cheery ''Good-day, gentlemen," had hitherto
I'cmained silent, putting away the dominoes,
now said — "I suppose, Sir, you would like at
once to begin your sketch ?"
Vanxe. "Yes; I have brought all my tools —
see, even the canvas. I wish it were larger,
but it is all I have with me of that material —
'tis already stretched — just let me arrange the
light."
Waife. "If you don't want ine, gentlemen,
I will take the air for half an hour or so. In
fact, I may^ now feel free to look after my invest-
ment."
Sophy (whispering Lionel). "You are sure
the Calf has gone as well as the Norfolk Giant ?"
Lionel wonderingly replied that he thought
so ; and Waife disappeared into his room, whence
he soon emerged, having doft'ed his dressing-
gown for a black coat, by no means threadbare,
and well brushed. Hat, stick, and gloves in
hand, he really seemed respectable — more than
respectable — Gentleman Waife eveiy inch of
him; and saying, "Look your best, Sophy, and
sit still, if you can," nodded pleasantly to the
three, and hobbled down the stairs. Sophy —
whom Vance had just settled into a chair, with
her head bent partially down (three quarters),
as the artist had released
"The loose train of her amber-flowing hair,"
and was contemplating aspect and position with
a painter's meditative eye — started up, to his
great discomposure, and rushed to the window.
She returned to her seat with her mind much
relieved. Waife was walking in an opposite di-
rection to that which led toward the whilome
quarters of the Norfolk Giant and the Two-
headed Calf
"Come, come," said Vance, impatiently,
" you have broken an idea in half. I beg you
will not stir till I have jjlaced you — and then,
if all else of you be still, you may exercise yoar
tongue. I give you leave to talk."
Sophy (penitentially). "I am so sorry — I beg
pardon. Will that do. Sir ?"
Vance. "Head a little more to the right —
so. Titania watching Bottom :.sleep. Will you
lie on the floor, Lionel, and do Bottom ?"
Lionel (indignantly). '-Bottom I Have I an
ass's head ?"
Vance. "Immaterial! I can easily imagine
that you have one. I want merely an outline
of figure — something sprawling and ungainly."
Lionel (sulkily). '-^Much obliged to you —
imagine that too."
Vance. " Don't be so disobliging. It is nec-
essary that she should look fondly at something
— expression in the eye."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH FT ?
23
Lionel at once reclined himself incumbent in
a position as little sprawling and ungainly as he
could well contrive.
Vance. " Fancy, Miss Sophy, that this young
gentleman is ven.' dear to you. Have you got
a brother ?"
Sopnv. " Ah no, Sir,"
Vaxce. " Hum. But you have, or have had,
a doll?"
Sophy. "Oh, yes; grandfather gave me one."
Vaxce. "And you were fond of that doll?"
Sophy. '• Very."
Vance. "Fancy that young gentleman is
your doll grown big — that it is asleei». and you
are watching that no one hurts it — >lr. Kugge,
for instance. Throw your whole soul into that
thought — love for doll, apprehension of Rugge.
Lionel, keep still and shut your eyes — do."
Lionel (grumbling). "I did not come here
to be made a doll of."
Vaxce. "Coax him to be quiet, iliss Sophy,
and sleep peaceably, or I shall do him a mis-
chief. I can be a Rugge too, if I am put out."
Sophy (in the softest tones). "Do try and
sleep. Sir — shall I get you a pillow?"
Lionel. " No. thank you — Fm very comfort-
able now" (settling his head upon his arm, and
after one upward glance toward Sophy, the lids
closed reluctantly over his softened eyes). A
ray of sunshine came aslant through the half-
shut ^\•indow, and played along the boy's clus-
tering hair and smooth pale cheeL Sophy's
gaze rested on him most benignly.
"Just so," said Vance; "and now be silent
till I have got the attitude and fixed the look."
The artist sketched away rapidly with a bold
practiced hand, and all was silent for about
half an hour, when he said, "You m.iy get up,
Lionel ; I have done with you for the present."
Sophy. "And me, too — may I see?"
Vaxce. "No; but you may talk now. So
Tou had a doll ? What has become of it?"
Sophy. "I left it behind. Sir. Grandfather
thought it would distract me from attending to
his lessons, and learning my part."
Vaxce. "You love your grandfather more
than the doll ?"
Sophy. " Oh I a thousand million million
times more."
Vaxce. " He brought you up, I suppose.
Have you no father — no mother ?"
Sophy. "I have only grandfather."
Lionel. " Have you always lived with him ?"
Sophy. "Dear me, no; I was with Mrs.
Crane till grandfather came from abroad, and
took me away, and put me with some ver\- kind
people ; and then, when grandfather had that
bad accident, I came to stay with him, and we
have been together ever since."
Lionel. "Was Mrs. Crane no relation of
yours ?"
SoFFTi". "No, I suppose not, for she was not
kind — I was so miserable ; but don't talk of it —
I forget that now. I only wish to remember
from the time grandfather took me in his lap,
and told me to l>e a good child, and love him;
and I have been happy ever since."
" You are a dear good child," said Lionel,
emphatically, "and I wish I had you for my
sister,"
Vaxce. "TNTien your grandfather has re-
ceived from me that exorbitant — not that I
grudge it — sum, I should like to ask, What will
he do with it? As he said it was a secret, I
must not pump you."
Sophy. " What will he do with it ? I should
hke to know too, bir; but whatever it is, I
don't care, so long as I and grandfather are to-
gether."
Here Waife re-entered. "Well, how goes
on the picture ?"
Vaxce. "Tolerably for the first sitting; I
require two more."
Waife. "Certainly; only — only" (he drew
aside Vance, and whispered;, -only, the day
after to-morrow, I fear I sha// want the money.
It is an occasion that never will occur again — I
would seize it."
Vaxce. "Take the money, now."
Waife. "Well, thank you. Sir; you are sure
now that we shall not run away — and I accept
your kindness ; it will make all safe."
Vance, with surprising alacrity, slipped the
sovereigns into the old man's hand ; for, truth
to say, though thrifty, the Artist was really
generous. His organ of caution was large, but
that of acquisitiveness moderate. 3Ioreover, in
those moments when his soul expanded with his
art, he was insensibly less alive to the value of
money. And strange it is that, though states
strive to fix for that commodity the most abid-
ing standards, yet the value of money, to the
indi\-idual who regards it, shifts and fluctuates,
goes up and down half a dozen times a day.
For my part, I honestly declare that there are
hours in the twenty-four — such, for instance,
as that just before breakfast, or that succeeding
a page of this History in which I have been put
out of temper with my performance and my-
self, when any one in want of five shillings at
my disposal would find my value of that sum
put ii quite out of his reach ; while at other
times — just after dinner, for instance, or whcM
I have efiected what seems to me a happy stroke,
or a good bit of color, in this historical composi-
tion — the value of those five shillings is so much
depreciated that I might be — I think so. at least
— I might be almost tempted to give them away
for nothing. Lender some such mysterious in-
fluences in the money market, Vance, there-
fore, felt not the loss of his three sovereigns ;
and, returning to his easel, drove away Lionel
and Sophy, who had taken that opportunity to
gaze on the canvas.
"Don't do her justice at all," quoth Lionel;
" all the features exaggerated."
"And yon pretend to paint 1" returned Vance,
in great scorn, and throwing a cloth over his
canvas. '• To-morrow. Mr. Waife, the same
hour. Now, Lionel, get your hat, and come
away."
Vance carried off the canvas, and Lionel fol-
lowed slowly. Sophy gazed at their departing
forms from the open window ; Waife stumped
about the room, rubbing his hands — '• He'll do,
he'll do ; I always thought so." Sophy turned
"Who'll do? — the young gentleman. Do
what ?"
Waife. " The young gentleman — as if I was
thinking of him. Our new companion — I hare
been with him this last hour. Wonderful natu-
ral gifts."
Sophy (niefully). "It is alive, then?"
Waife. "Alive '. yes, I should think so.
24
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
SoPHT (half-crving). '-rin very soiTy; I
know I shall hate it."
"Tut, darling — get me my pipe — I'm hap-
py-"
Sophy (cutting short her fit of ill-humor).
"Are you ? — then I am, and I \yill not hate it."
CHAPTER Xn.
In which it is shown that a man does this or declines to
do that for reasons best known to himself — a reserve
which is extremely conducive to the social interests of
a community; since the conjecture into the origin and
nature of those reasons stimulates tlie inquiiing facul-
ties, and furnishes the staple of modern conversation.
And as it is not to be denied that, if their neighbors
left them nothing to guess at, three-fourths of civil-
ized humankind, male or female, would have nothing
to talk about ; so we can not too gratefully encourage
that needful curiosity, termed, by the inconsiderate,
tittle-tattle or scandal, which saves the vast majority
of our species from being reduced to the degraded con-
dition of dumb animals.
The nest day the sitting was renewed ; but
Waife did not go out, and the conversation was
a little more restrained; or rather, Waife had
the larger share in it. The comedian, when he
pleased, could certainly be veiy entertaining.
It was not so much in what he said, as his man-
ner of saying it. He was a strange combination
of sudden extremes, at one while on a tone of
easy but not undignified familiarity with his vis-
itors, as if their eqiyil in position, their superior
in years ; then abruptly, humble, deprecating,
almost obsequious, almost servile ; and then,
again, jerked, as it were, into pride and stiff-
ness, falling back, as if the effort were impossi-
ble, into meek dejection. Still, the prevalent
character of the man's mood and talk was so-
cial, quaint, cheerful. Evidently he was, by
original temperament, a droll and joyous hu-
morist, with high animal spirits ; and, withal,
an infantine simplicity at times, like the clever
man who never learns the world, and is always
taken in.
A circumstance, trifling in itself, but suggest-
ive of speculation either as to the character or
antecedent circumstances of Gentleman Waife.
did not escape Vance's observation. Since his
rupture with Mr. Rugge, there was a considera-
ble amelioration in that affection of the trachea
which, while his engagement Mith Rugge last-
ed, had rendered the comedian's dramatic tal-
ents unavailable on the stage. He now express-
ed himself without the pathetic hoarseness or
cavernous wheeze which had previously thrown
a wet blanket over his efforts at discourse. But
Vance put no very stem construction on the dis-
simulation which this change seemed to denote.
Since Waife was still one-eyed and a cripple,
he might very excusably shrink from reappear-
ance on the stage, and affect a third infirmity to
save his pride from the exhibition of the two in-
firmities that were genuine.
That which most puzzled Vance was that
which had most puzzled the Cobbler — What
could the man once have been ? — how fallen so
low ? — for fall it was ! that was clear. The
painter, though not himself of patrician extrac-
tion, had been much in the best society. He
had been a petted favorite in great houses. He
had traveled. He had seen the world. He had
the habits and the instincts of good society.
Now, in what the French term the beau monde,
there are little traits that reveal those who have
entered it — certain tricks of phrase, certain
modes of expression — even the pronunciation
of familiar words, even the modulation of an ac-
cent. A man of the most refined bearing may
not have these peculiarities ; a man, otherwise
coarse and brusque in his manner, may. The
slang of the beau monde is quite apart from the
code of high-breeding. Now and then, some-
thing in Waife's talk seemed to show that he
had lighted on that beau-world ; now and then,
that something wholly vanished. So that Vance
might have said, "He has been admitted there,
not inhabited it."
Yet Vance could not feel sure, after all ; co-
medians are such takes-in. But was the man,
by the profession of his earlier life, a comedian?
Vance asked the question adroitly.
"You must have taken to the stage young?"
said he.
" The stage !" said Waife ; " if you mean the
public stage — no. I have acted pretty often in
youth, even in childhood, to amuse others, never
professionally to support myself, till 3Ir. Rtigge
civilly engaged me four years ago."
"Is it possible — with your excellent educa-
tion ! But pardon me ; I have hinted my sur-
prise at your late vocation before, and it dis-
pleased you."
" Displeased me !" said Waife, with an abject,
depressed manner ; " I hope I said nothing that
would have misbecome a poor broken vagabond
like me. I am no jjrince in disguise — a good-
for-nothing varlet who should be too grateful to
have something to keep himself from a dung-
hill."
LioxEL. " Don't talk so. And but for your
accident you might now be the great attraction
on the metropolitan stage. Who does not re-
spect a really fine actor ?"
Waipe (gloomily). " The Metropolitan Stage !
I was talked into it ; I am glad even of the ac-
cident that saved me — say no more of that, no
more of that. But I have spoiled your sitting :
Sophy, you see, has left her chair."
" I have done for to-day," said Vance; "to-
morrow, and my task is ended."
Lionel came up to Vance and whispered to
him ; the painter, after a pause, nodded silently,
and then said to Waife —
" We are going to enjoy the fine weather on
the Thames (after I have put away these things),
and shall return to our inn — not far hence — to
sup, at eight o'clock. Supper is our principal
meal — we rarely spoil our days by the ceremo-
nial of a formal dinner. Will you do us the fa-
vor to sup with us ? Our host has a wonderful
whisky, which, when raw, is Glenlivat, but, re-
fined into toddy, is nectar. Bring your pipe,
and let us hear John Kemble again."
Waife's face lighted up. " You are most
kind ; nothing I should like so much. But — "
and the light fled, the face darkened — " but no ;
I can not — you don't know — that is — I — I have
made a vow to myself to decline all such tempt-
ations. I humbly beg you'll excuse me."
Vance. "Temptations! of what kind — the
whisky-toddy ?"
Waife (puffing away a sigh). " Ah, yes ;
whisky-toddy if you please. Perhaps I once
loved a glass too well, and could not resist a
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
flass too much now ; and if I once broke the Cobbler, followed, too, by a thin, gaunt girl,
rule, and became a tipyjler, what would happen ! whom he pompously called his housekeeper, but
to Juliet Araminta ? For her sake, don't press ; who, in sober truth, was sei"vant-of-all-work.
me?" I Wife he had none — his horoscope, he said,
" Oh, do go, Grandy ; he never drinks — never ' having Saturn in square to the Seventh House,
anv thing stronger than tea, I assure you, Sir ; ' forbade him to venture upon matrimony. All
it can't be that." ! gathered round the picture ; all admired, and
" It is, silly child, and nothing else," said ^ with justice — it was a clief-dccuvre. Vance in
Waife positively — drawing himself up. " Ex- , his maturest day never painted more charming-
cuse me." " \ !}'• The three pounds proved to be the best out-
Lionel bef'an brushing his hat with his sleeve, 1 lay of capital he had ever made. Pleased with
and his face worked; at last he said, "Well,
Sir, then may I ask another favor? Mr. Vance
and I are going to-morrow, after the sitting, to
see nam])ton Court ; we have kept that excur-
sion to the last before leaving these parts.
Would you and little Sophy come with us in the
boat ? we will have no whisky-toddy, and we
will bring you both safe home."
Waife. " " What — I — what — 1 1 You are very
young, Sir — a gentleman born and bred, I'll
swear ; and you to be seen, perhaps by some of
your friends or family, with an old vagrant like
me, in the Queen's palace — the public gardens !
I should be the vilest wretch if I took such ad-
vantage of your goodness. 'Pretty company,'
they would say, ' you have got into.' With me
— with me! Don't be alarmed, Sir. Vance —
not to be thought of."
The young men were deeply affected.
"I can't accept that reason," said Lionel,
tremulously. '"Though I must not presume to
derange your habits. But she may go with us,
mayn't she ? We'll take care of her, and she is
dressed so plainly and neatly, and looks such a
little lady" (turning to Vance).
" Yes.let her come with us," said the artist,
benevolently ; though he by no means shared in
Lionel's enthusiastic desire for her company.
He thought she would be greatly in their way.
" Heaven bless you both !" answered Waife ;
"and she wants a holiday; she shall have it."
" I'd rather stay with you, Grandy ; you'll be
so lone."
" No, I wish to be out all to-mon-ow— the in- CHAPTEK XLV.
vestment! I shall not be alone— making friends ^^^ Historian takes advantage of the Bummer hours
with our future companion, Sophy." vouchsafed to the present life of Mr. Waife's grand-
' And can do without me alreadv ? — heigh- child, in order to throw a few gleams of light 01} her
1 y, ' past. He leads her into the Palace of our Kings, and
• r>, 1 , 1 1, X i> moralizes thereon ; and entering tlie Royal Gardens,
VA^•CE. " So that S settled ; gOOd-by to you. shows the uncertainty of Human Events, and the inse-
curity of British Laws, by the abrupt seizure and con-
straiiied deportation of an innocent and unforeboding
Englishman.
Such a glorious afternoon ! The capricious
English summer was so kind that day to the
, ., . . , jfl- ,f child and her new friends ! When Sophv's small
by their exhibition into generous impulses and nights I i i j i i ii
of fancy, checked by the ungracious severities of tlieir j foot once trod the sward, had she been really
superiors, as e.xempiitied in the instance of Cobbler | Queen of the Green People, sward and footstep
Merle and his Seivant-of- All-Work. ! ^.q^i j „q^ u^oj-g j„yously have met together. The
The next day, perhaps with the idea of re- I grasshopper bounded, in fearless trust, upon the
moving all scriiple from Sojihy's mind, Waife hem of her frock ; she threw herself down on
had alreadv gone after his investment when the the gras.«, and caught him, but, oh, so tender-
friends arrived. Sophy at first was dull and dis- ly ; and the gay insect, dear to poet and fairy,
pirited, but by degrees" she brightened up ; and seemed to look at her from that qiiaint, sharp
when, the sitting over and the picture done (save face of his with sagacious recognition, resting
such final touches as Vance reserved for solitarj- calmly on the palm of her jiretty hand ; then
studv), she was permitted to gaze at her own ' when he sprang off, little moth-like butterflies
effie'v, she burst into exclamations of frank de- ' peculiar to the margins of running waters, quiv-
light. "Am I like that! is it possible? Oh, ' ered up from the herbage, fluttering round her.
how beautiful ! Mr. Merle, Mr. Merle, Mr. | And there, in front, lay the Thames, glittering
Merle !" and running out of the room before : through the willows, Vance getting ready the
Vance could stop her, she returned with the i boat, Lionel seated by her side, a child like her-
his work, he was pleased even with that unso-
phisticated applause.
'•You must have Jlercuiy and Venus very
strongly aspectcd," quoth the Cobbler; "and
if you have the Dragon's Head in the Tenth
House, you may count on being much talked of
after you are dead."
"After I am dead! — sinister omen I" said
Vance, discomjiosed. "I have no faith in art-
ists who count on being talked of after they are
dead. Xever knew a dauber who did not ! But
stand back — time flies — tie up your hair — put
on your bonnet, Titania. You have a shawl?
— not tinsel, I hope ! — quieter the better. You
stay and see to her, Lionel."
Said the gaunt servant-of-all-work to ]Mr.
Merle — "I'd let the gentleman paint me, if he
likes it — shall I tell him, master?"
" Go back to the bacon, foolish woman. Why,
he gave £3 for her likeness, 'cause of her Ben-
efics ! But you'd have to give him three years'
wages afore he'd look you straight in the face,
'cause, you see, your Aspects are crooked.
And," added the Cobbler, philosophizing,
" when the Malefics are dead agin a girl's mug,
man is so constituted by natur tliat he can't take
to that mug unless it has a gold handle. Don't
fret, 'tis not your fault : born imder Scorpio —
coarse-limbed — dull complexion — Head of the
Dragon aspected of — In fortunes iu all four an-
gles!"
CHAPTEK XHI.
Inspiring effect of the Fine Arts : the Vulgar are moved
26
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
self, his pride of incipient manhood all forgotten ;
happy in her glee — she loving him for the joy
she felt — and blending his image evermore in
her remembrance with her first summer holiday
— with sunny beams — glistening leaves — warb-
ling birds — fairy wings — sparkling waves. Oh
to live so in a child's heart — innocent, blessed,
angel-like — better, better than the troubled re-
flection upon woman's later thoughts ; better
than that mournful illusion, over which tears so
bitter are daily shed — better than First Love I
They entered the boat. Sophy had never, to
the best of her recollection, been in a boat be-
fore. All was new to her ; the life-like speed of
the little vessel — that world of cool, green weeds,
with the fish darting to and fro — the musical
chime of oars — those distant, stately swans. She
was silent now — her heart was very full.
"What are you thinking of, Sophy?" asked
Leonard, resting on the oar.
/'Thinking — I was not thinking."
"What then?"
"I don't know — feeling, I suppose."
"Feeling what?"
"As if between sleep and waking — as the
■water perhaps feels, with the sunlight on it !"
" Poetical," said Vance, who, somewhat of a
poet himself, naturally sneered at poetical tend-
encies in others. "But not so bad in its way.
Ah, have I hurt your vanity ? there are tears in
your eyes."
"No, Sir," said Sophy, falteringly. "But I
was thinking then."
"Ah," said the artist, "that's the worst of
it ; after feehng ever comes thought — what was
yours?"
" I was sorry poor grandfather was not here,
that's all."
" It was not our fault ; we pressed him cor-
dially," said Lionel.
"You did, indeed, Sir — thank you! And I
don't know why he refused you." The young
men exchanged compassionate glances.
Lionel then sought to make her talk of her
past life — tell him more of Mrs. Crane. Who
and v.hat was she?
Sophy could not, or would not, tell. The re-
membrances were painful ; she had evidently
tried to forget them. And the people with
whom Waife had placed her, and who had been
kind?
The iliss Burtons — and they kept a day-
school, and taught Sophy to read, -vn-ite, and
cipher. They lived near London, in a lane
opening on a great common, with a green rail
before the house, and had a good many pupils,
and kept a tortoise-shell cat and a canary. Xot
much to enlighten her listener did Sophy impart
here.
And now they neared that stately palace, rich
in associations of storm and splendor. The
grand Cardinal — the iron-clad Protector ; Dutch
William of the immortal memory, whom we try
so hard to like, and, in spite of the great Whig
historian, that Titian of English prose, can only
frigidly respect. Hard task for us Britons to
like a Dutchman who dethrones his father-in-
law and drinks schnaps. Prejudice, certainly ;
but so it is. Harder still to like Dutch William's
unfilial Frau I Like Queen Mary ! I could as
soon like Queen Goneril ! Romance flies from
the prosperous, phlegmatic .-Eneas; flies from
his plump Lavinia, his "fidus Achates," Ben-
tinck, flies to follow the poor, deserted, fugitive
Stuart, with all his sins upon his head. Kings
have no rights divine, except when deposed and
fallen ; they are then invested with the awe that
belongs to each solemn image of mortal vicissi-
tude — Vicissitude that startles the Epicurean.
'■ '■ insanientis sapienticE consultns" and strikes from
his careless lyre the notes that attest a God I
Some proud shadow chases another from the
throne of Cyrus, and Horace hears in the thun-
der the rush of Diespiter, and identifies Provi-
dence with the Fortune that snatches off the
diadem in her whirring swoop.* But fronts
discrowned take a new majesty to generous na-
tures; — in all sleek prosperity there is some-
thing commonplace — in all grand adversity,
something royal.
The boat shot to the shore ; the young people
landed, and entered the arch of the desolate
palace. They gazed on the great hall and the
presence-chamber and the long suite of rooms,
with faded portraits — Vance as an artist, Lionel
as an enthusiastic, well-read boy, Sophy as a won-
dering, bewildered, ignorant child. And then
they emerged into the noble garden, with its re-
gal trees. Groups were there of well-dressed
persons. Vance heard himself called by name.
He had forgotten the London world — forgotten,
amidst his midsummer ramblings that the Lon-
don season was still ablaze — and there, strag-
glers from the great Focus, fine people, with
languid tones and artificial jaded smiles, caught
him in his wanderer's dress, and walking side
by side with the infant wonder of Mr. Rugge's
show, exquisitely neat indeed, but still in a col-
ored print, of a jiattern familiar to his observant
eye in the windows of many a shop lavish of
tickets, and inviting you to come in by the as-
surance that it is "selling oft'." The artist
stopped, colored, bowed, answered the listless
questions pitt to him with shy haste ; he then
attempted to escape — they would not let him.
" You must come back and dine with us at the
Star and Garter," said Lady Selina Vipont. "A
pleasant party — you know most of them — the
Dudley Slowes, dear old Lady Frost, those pret-
ty ladies Prymme, Janet and Wilhelmina."
"We can't let you oft'," said sleepily Mr.
Crampe, a fashionable wit, who rarely made
more than one bon-mot in the twenty-four hours,
and spent the rest of his time in a torpid state.
Vance. " Really you are too kind, but I am
not even dressed for — "
Lady Selixa. " So charmingly dressed — so
picturesque ! Besides, what matters ? Every
one knows who you are. Where on earth have
you been?"
Vaxce. " Rambling about, taking sketches.""
Lady Selixa (directing her eye-glass toward
Lionel and Sophy, who stood aloof). " But your
■ Valet ima summis
Mutare, et insignia attenuat Deus,
Obscura proraens. Hinc apicem rapax
Fortuna cum stridore acuto
Sustulit, — hie posuisse gaudet."
— HoEAT. Carm., lib. i. ixsiv.
The concluding allusion is evidently to the Parthian
revolutions, and the changeful fate of Phraates IV. ; and
I do not feel sure that the preced^g lines upon the phe-
nomenon of the thunder in a serene sky have not a latent
and half-allegorical meaning, dimly applicable, through-
out, to the historical reference at the close.
VniAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
companions, your brother ? — and that pretty lit-
tle girl — vour sister, I suppose ?'*
" His father was a captain, but I don't know
whether he was a Charlie."
Vance' (shuddering). •'No, not relations. I\ Mr. Crami-e; (the Wit). "Charlies are ex-
took charize of the boy — clever young fellow; | tinct ! I have the la.st in a fossil — box and alll"
and the little girl is — "
Lady ^elina. '* Yes. The little girl is — "
Vance. '• A little girl as you sec ; and very
pretty, as you say — subject for a picture."
Lady Selina (indifferently). " Oh, let the
children go and amuse themselves somewhere.
Xow we iiave found you — positively you arc our
prisoner."
General laugh. Wit shut uj) again.
Lady Selina. " He has a great look of Char-
lie Ilaughton. Do you know if he is connect-
ed with that extraordiuary man, Mr. DarrcU ?"
V^NXE. " Upon my word, I do not. What
Mr. Darrell do you mean ?"
Lady Selina, with one of those sublime looks
of celestial pity with which personages in the
Lady Selina Vipont was one of the queens of ! great world forgive ignorance of names and gen
London, she had with her that habit of com- j ealogies in those not born within its orbit, re-
mand natural to such royalties. Frank Vance i plied, " Oh, to be sure ; it is not exactly in the
was no tuft-hunter, but once under social influen-
ces, thcv had their effect ou him, as on most men
who are blessed with noses in the air. Those
great ladies, it is true, never bought his pictures,
but they gave him the position whicli induced
others to buy them. Vance loved his art; his
art needed its career. Its career was certainly
brightened and quickened by the help of rank
and fashion.
In short. Lady Selina triumphed, and the
painter stepped back to Lionel. '* I must go to
Kichmond with these people. I know you'll
excuse me. I shall be back to-night somehow.
By-the-by, you are going to the post-office here
for the letter you expect from your mother ; ask
for mine too. You will take care of little Sophy,
and (in a whisper) hurry her out of the garden,
or that Grand Mogul feminine. Lady Selina,
whose condescension would crush the Andes,
will be stopping her as my protegee, falling in
raptures with that horrid colored print, saying,
' Dear what pretty sprigs I where can such things
be got ?' and learning, perhaps, bow Frank Vance
saved the Bandit's Child from the Remorseless
Baron. 'Tis your turn now. Save your friend.
The Baron was a lamb compared to a fine lady."
He pressed Lionel's unresponding hand, and
•was off to join the polite merrj'-making of the
Frosts, Slowes, and Brymmes.
Lionel's pride ran up to the fever heat of its
thermometer ; more roused, though, on behalf
of the unconscious Sophy than himself.
"Let us come into the town, lady-bird, and ;
way of your delightful art to know Mr. Darrell,
one of the fii-st men in Parliament, a connec-
tion of mine."
Lady Frost (nippingly). "You mean Guy
Darrell, the lawyer."
Lad\' Selina. "Lawyer — true, now I think
of it, he was a lawjer. But his chief fame was
in the House of Commons. All parties agreed
that he might have commanded any station; but
he was too rich, perhaps, to care sufficiently
about office. At all events. Parliament was dis-
solved when he was at the height of his reputa-
tion, and he refused to be re-elected."
One Sir Jasper STOLLHEAD(amemberof the
House of Commons, young, wealthy, a constant
attendant, of great promise, with speeches that
were filled with facts, and emptied the benches).
"I have heard of him. Before my time; law-
yers not much weight in the House now."
Lady Selina. "I am told that Mr. Darrell
did not speak like a lawyer. But his career is
over — lives in the country, and sees nobody — a
thousand pities — a connection of mine, too —
great loss to the country". Ask your young friend.
iMr. Vance, if Mr. Darrell is not his relation. I
hope so, for his sake. Now that our party is in
power, Mr. Darrell could command any thing
for othei-s, though he has ceased to act with us.
Our party is not forgetful of talents."
Lady Frost (with icy crispness). " I should
think not ; it has so little of that kind to remem-
ber."
Sir Jasper. "Talent is not wanted in the
choose a doll. You may have one now without i House of Commons now — don't go down, in fact,
fearof distracting you from — what I hate to Business assembly."
think you ever stooped to perform." j Lady Selina (suppressing a yawn). "Beau-
As Lionel, his crest erect, and nostril dilated, ' tiful day ! We had better think of going back
and holding Sophy firmly by the hand, took his to Richmond.
way out from the gardens, he was obliged to
pass the patrician party of whom Vance now
made one.
His countenance and air, as he swept by, struck
them all, especially Lady Selina. "Avery dis-
tinguished-looking boy," said she. " What a
fine face ! Who did you say he was, Mr.
Vance ?"
Vance. "His name is Ilaughton — Lionel
Haughton ?"
General assent, and slow retreat.
CHAPTER XV.
The Historian records the attachment to public business
which distinguislios the British Lefrislator.— Touching
instance of tlie regret which ever iu patriotic bosoms
attends the neglect of a public duty.
^ From the dusty height of a rumble-tumble
L.toY Selina. '-Haughton! Haughton! Any affixed to Lady Selina Vipont's barouche, and
relation to poor, dear Captain Haughton— Char- by the animated side of Sir Jasper StoUhead,
lie Haughton, as he was generally called?" Vance caught sight of Lionel and Sophy at a
Vance, knowing little more of his young corner of the spaciotis green near the Palace,
friend's parentage than that his mother let lodg- He sighed, he envied them. He thought of the
ings, at which, once domiciliated himself, he had boat, the water, the honey-suckle arbor at the
made the boy's acquaintance, and that she en- little inn — pleasures he had denied himself—
joved the pension of a captain's widow, replied pleasures all in his own way. They seemed still
carelessly : more alluring by contrast with the prospect be-
28
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
fore him ; formal dinner at the Star and Gar-
ter, with titled Prj'mmes, ISlov/es, and Frosts, a
couple of guineas a-head, including light wines,
which he did not drink, and the expense of a
chaise back by himself. But such are life and
its social duties — such, above all, ambition and
a career. Who, that would leave a name on his
tombstone, can say to his own heart, "Perish,
Stars and Garters ; my existence shall pass from
day to day in honey-suckle arbors?"
Sir Jasper Stollhead interrupted Vance's rev-
erie by an impassioned sneeze — " Dreadful smell
of hay !" said the legislator, with watery eyes.
"Are you subject to the hay fever ? I am ! A —
tisha — tisha — tisha (sneezing) — country fright-
fully unwholesome at this time of year. And to
think that I ought now to be in the House — in
my committee-room — no smell of hay there —
most important committee."
Va>-ce (rousing himself). " Ah ! — on what ?"
Sm Jasper (regretfully). " Sewers 1"
CHAPTER XVL
Signs of an impending revolution, which, like all revo-
lutions, seems to come of a sudden, though its causes
have long been at work; and to go off in a tantrum,
though its effects must run on to the end of a history.
LioxEL could not find in the toyshops of the
village a doll good enough to satisfy his liberal
inclinations, but he bought one which amply
contented the humbler aspirations of Sophy. He
then strolled to the post-office. There were sev-
eral letters for Vance — one for himself in his
mother's handwriting. He delayed opening it
for the moment. The day was far advanced —
Sophy must be hungry. In vain she declared
she was not. They passed by a fruiterer's stall.
The strawberries and cherries were tempting!)^
fresh — the sun still very powerful. At the back
of the fruiterer's was a small garden, or rather
orchard, smiling cool through the open door —
little tables laid out there. The good woman
who kept the shop was accustomed to the wants
and tastes of humble metropolitan visitors. But
the garden was luckily now empty — it was be-
fore the usual hour for tea-parties ; so the young
folks had the pleasantest table under an apple-
tree, and the choice of the freshest fruit. Milk
and cakes were added to the fare. It was a
banquet, in Sophy's eyes, worthy that happy
day. And when Lionel had finished his share
of the feast, eating fast, as spirited impatient
boys, formed to push on in life and spoil their
digestion, are apt to do ; and while Sophy was
still lingering over the last of the strawberries,
he threw himself back on his chair, and drew
forth his letter. Lionel was extremely fond of
his mother, but her letters wei'e not often those
which a boy is over eager to read. It is not all
mothers who understand what boys are — their
quick susceptibilities, their precocious manli-
ness, all their mystical ways and oddities. A
letter from Mrs. Haughton generally somewhat
fretted and irritated Lionel's high-strung nerves,
and he had instinctively put oft' the task of read-
ing the one he held, till satisfied hunger and
cool-breathing shadows, and rest from the dusty
road, had lent their soothing aid to his undevel-
oped philosophy.
He broke the seal slowly ; another letter was
inclosed within. At the first few words his coun-
tenance changed ; he uttered a slight exclama-
tion, read on eagerly; then, before concluding
his mother's epistle, hastily tore open that which
it had contained, ran his eye over its contents,
and, dropping both letters on the turf below,
rested his face on his hand, in agitated thought.
Thus ran his mother's letter :
"My Dear Boy, — How could you? Do it
slyly ! ! Unknown to your own mother ! ! ! I
could not believe it of you ! ! ! ! Take advantage
of my confidence in showing you the letters of
your father's cousin, to write to himself — clan-
destinely ! — you, who I thought had such an open
character, and who ought to ajipreciate mine.
Every one who knows me says I am a woman in
ten thousand — not for beauty and talent (though
I have had my admirers for them too), but for
GOODNESS ! As a wife and mother, I ma)' say I
have been exemplary. I had sore trials with the
dear captain — and immense temptations. But
he said on his death-bed, ' Jessica, you are an
angel.' And I have had offers since — immense
offers — but I devoted myself to my child, as you
know. And what I have put up with, letting the
first floor, nobody can tell ; and only a widow's
pension — going before a magistrate to get it paid.
And to think my own child, for whom I have
borne so much, should behave so cruelly to me !
Clandestine! 'tis that which stabs me. Mrs. In-
man found me crying, and said, ' What is the
matter? — you, who are such an angel, crying
like a baby !' And I could not help saying, ' 'Tis
the serpent's tooth, Mrs. I.' What you wrote to
your benefactor (and I had hoped patron) I don't
care to guess; something very rude and impru-
dent it must be, judging by the few lines he ad-
dressed to me. I don't mind copying them for
you to read. All my acts are above board — as
often and often Captain H. used to say, ' Your
heart is in a glass-case, Jessica ;' and so it is '
but my xon tcrjis his under lock and key.
" ' Madam' (this is what he writes to me), ' your
son has thought fit to infringe the condition upon
which I agreed to assist you on his behalf. I
inclose a reply to himself, which I beg you will
give to his own hands without breaking the seal.
Since it did not seem to you indiscreet to com-
municate to a boy of his years letters written
solely to yourself, you can not blame me if I take
your implied estimate of his capacity to judge
for himself of the nature of a correspondence,
and of the views and temper of. Madam, your
vcrj' obedient servant.' And that's all, to me.
I send his letter to you — seal unbroken. I con-
clude he has done with you forever, and your
CAREER is lost ! But if it bo so, oh, my poor,
poor child ! at that thought I have not the heart
to scold you farther. If it be so, come home to
me, and I'll work and slave for you, and you shall
keep up your head and be a gentleman still, as
you are, every inch of you. Don't mind what
I've said at the beginning, dear — don't! yon
know I'm hasty, and I was hurt. But you could
not mean to be sly and underhand — 'twas only
your high spirit — and it was my fault ; I should
not have shown you the letters. I hope you are
well, and have quite lost that nasty cough, and
that Jlr. Vance treats you with proper respect.
I think him rather too pushing and familiar,
though a pleasant young man on the whole.
WHAT -WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
29
But, after all, he is only a painter. Bless you,
niv child, and don't have secrets a^jain from
vour poor mother, Jessica Haugutos."
The inclosed letter was as follows :
"Lionel Haughton, — Some men might be
displeased at receiWnp such a letter as you have
addressed to me; I am not. At your years,
and under the same circumstances, I mij;ht
have written a letter much in the same spirit.
Relieve your mind — as yet you owe me no obli-
jrations ; vou have only received back a debt due
Sophy's tears flowed softly, noiselessly.
" Cheer up, lady-bird ; I wish you liked me
half as much as I like you !"
" I do like you — oh, so much !" cried Sophy,
passionately.
" Well, then, vou can write, you say ?"'
"A little."
'* You shall write to me now and then, and I
: to you. I'll talk to your grandfather about it.
\ Ah, there he is, surely !"
I The boat now ran into the shelving creek,
and bv the honev-suckle arbor stood Gentleman
to you. My father was poor ; your grandfather, -^'aife. leaning on his stick
Robert Haughton, assisted him in the cost of my
education. 1 have assisted your father's son ;
we are quits. Before, however, we decide on
having done with each other for the future. I
suf f'cst to vou to pay me a short visit. Probably
I shall not like you, nor you me. But we are
both gentlemen, and need not show dislike too
ccarselv. If you decide on coming, come at
once, or possibly you may not find me here. If
~ shall have a poor opinion of your
'■You are late," said the actor, as they land-
ed, and Sopky sprang into his arms. " I began
to be imeasy, and came here to inquire after
you. You have not caught cold, child?"
Sophy. " Oh, no."
Lionel. '• She is the best of children. Pray,
come into the inn, Mr. Waife; no toddy, but
some refreshment."
Walfe. " I thank you — no, Sir ; I wish to get
I walk slowly ; it will be dark
you refuse, I snaii nave a poor opmiou oi ^ our , jjQjjjg ^t once,
sense and temper, and in a week I shall have goon."
forgotten your existence. I ought to add that | Lionel tried in vain to detain him. There
your father and I were once wai-m friends, and ; ^^^^^ ^ certain change in Mr. Waiie"s manner to
that by descent I am the head not only ot my : j^;^ . jj ^^.^ jj^^^}^ ^^^.^ distant— it was even
own race, which ends with me, but of the Haugh- j pe^ijii^ jf n^t surlv. Lionel could not account
ton family, of which, though your line assumed j f^j. jt_thought it mere whim at first, but 'as he
the name, it was but a vounser branch. Now-
walked part of the way back with them toward
the village, this asperity continued, nay, in-
creased. Lionel was hurt ; he arrested his
steps.
"I see you wish to have your grandchild to
yourself liow. May I call early to-morrow?
Sophy will tell you that I hope we may not al-
together lose sight of each other. I will give
adays young men are probably not brought up
to care for these things — I was. Yours,
" Gtrr Hacgutox Daeeell.
*' Manor House, Fawley."
Sophy picked up the fallen letters, placed
them on Lionel's lap, and looked into his face
wistfuUv. He smiled, resumed his mother's _
epistle, 'and read the concludintj passages which ; you my address when I call."
he had before omitted. Their sudden turn from j " What time to-morrow. Sir ?"
reproof to tenderness melted him. He bcjan "About nine." , ,, , .
to feel that his mother had a right to blame I Waife bowed his head and walked on, but
him for an act of concealment. Still she never , Sophy looked back toward her boy fnend, sor-
wonli have consented to his writing such a let- \ rowfully, gratefully— milight in the skies that
ter • and had that letter been attended with so , had been so sunny— twilight in her face that
ill a result ? Aaain he read Mr. Darrell's blunt had betiQ so glad '. She looked once, twice,
bat not offensive lines. His pride was soothed thrice, as Lionel halted on the road and kissed
— whv should he not now love his father's his hand. The third time "S\ aife said, with un-
friend ? He rose brisklv, paid for the fruit, and wonted crossness-
went his wav back to the boat with Sophy. As | " Enough of that, Sophy ; looking after young
his oars cut" the wave he talked gayly, but he I men is not proper
ceased to interrogate Sophy on her past. Ener
petic, sanguine, ambitious, his o\\"n future en-
tered now into his thoughts. Still, when the
sun sunk as the inn came partially into view from
the winding of the banks and the fringe of the
willows, his mind again settled on the patient
What does he mean about
•seeing each other, and giving me his ad-
dress ?' "
'• He wished me to write to him sometimes,
and he would write to me."
Waife's brow contracted ; but if, in the excess
of grandfatherly caution, he could have sup-
quiet little eirl, who had not ventured to ask posed that the bright-hearted boy of seventeen
him one question in return for all he had put meditated ulterior ill to that fairj- child m such
BO unceremoniously to her. Indeed, she was si- a scheme for correspondence, he must have been
lently musing over words he had inconsiderately \ in his dotage, and he had not hitherto evinced
let fall — •• What I hate to think vou had ever any signs of that.
stooped to perform." Little could Lionel guess | Farewell, pretty Sophy! the evening star
the unquiet thoughts which those words might , shines upon yon elm-tree that hides thee from
hereafter call forth from the brooding, deepen- ' '-"- ^'"''="^ — f^-iir,^ nr,v^^-« th^ si.mmer land-
ing meditations of lonely childhood I At length, i
said the boy, abruptly, as he had said once be- j
fore— ' i
'• I wish, Sophy, you were my sister." He
aided, in a saddened tone, '• I never had a sister
— I have so longed for one ! However, surely
we shall meet ag^^. You go to-morrow — so
must I."
riew. Fading — fading prows the summer land-
scape; faded already from the landscape thy
gentle image ! So ends a holiday in life. Hal-
low it, Sophy ; hallow it, Lionel. Life's holi-
days arc not too manv !
g^-
30
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
CHAPTER XVII.
By this chapter it appeareth that he who sets out on a ca-
reer can scarcely expect to walk in perfect comfort, if
he exchange liis own thiclc-soled shoes for dress-boots
■which M-ere made for another man's measure, and that
the said hootj may not the less pinch for being brilliant-
ly varnished. — It also showeth for the instruction of Men
and States, tlie connection between democratic opinion
and wounded self-love ; so that, if some Liberal states-
man desire to rouse against an aristocracy the class
just below it, he has only to persuade a fine lady to be
exceedingly civil "to that sort of people."
Vance, returning late at night, found liis
friend still up in the little parlor, the windows
open, pacing the floor with restless strides, stop-
ping now and then to look at the moon upon the
river.
" Such a day as I have had ! and twelve shil-
lings for the fly, 'pikes not included," said Vance,
much out of humor.
" ' I fly from plate, I fly from pomp,
I fly from falsehood's specious grin;'
I forget the third line ; I know the last is,
' To find my welcome at an inn.'
You are silent : I annoyed you by going — could
not help it — pity me, and lock up your pride."
" No, my dear Vance, I was hurt for a mo-
ment — but that's long since over !"
" Still you seem to have something on your
mind," said Vance, who had now finished read-
ing his letters, lighted his cigar, and was lean-
ing against the window as the boy continued to
walk to and fro.
"That is true — I have. I should like your
advice. Read that letter. Ought I to go ? —
wotild it look mercenary — grasping ? You know
what I mean."
Vance approached the candles, and took the
letter. He glanced first at the signature. "Dar-
rell !" he exclaimed. " Oh, it is so, then !" He
read with great attention, put down the letter,
and shook Lionel by the hand. " I congratu-
late you ; all is settled as it should be. Go ? of
course— you would be an ill-mannered lout if
you did not. Is it far from hence — must you
return to town first ?"
Lionel. "No! I find I can get across the
country — two hours by the railway. There is a
station at the town which bears the postmark
of the letter. I shall make for that, if you ad-
vise it."
" You knew I should advise it, or you would
not have made those researches into Brad-
shaw."
" Shrewdly said," answered Lionel, laugh-
ing ; " but I wished for your sanction of my
crude impressions."
"You never told me yotir cousin's name was
Dan-ell — not that I should have been much
wiser, if you had, but, thunder and lightning,
Lionel, do you know that your cousin Darrell
is a famous man ?"
Lionel. "Famous! — nonsense. I suppose
he was a good lawyer, for I have heard my
mother say, with a sort of contempt, that he
had made a great fortune at the bar I"
Vance. "But he was in Parliament."
Lionel. "Was he? I did not know."
Vance. "And this is senatorial fame! You
never heard your school-fellows talk of Mr. Dar-
rell? — they would not have known his name if
yoti had boasted of it!"
Lionel. " Certainly not."
Vance. " Would your school-fellows have
known the names of Wilkie. of Landseer, of
Turner, Maclise — I speak of Painters!"
Lionel. " I should think so, indeed."
Vance (soliloquizing). " And yet Her Serene
Sublimityship, Lady Selina Vipont, says to me
with divine compassion, ' Not in the way of your
delightful art to know such men as Sir. Dar-
rell !' Oh, as if I did not see through it — oh,
as if I did not see through it too when she said,
apropos of my jean cap and velveteen jacket,
' What matters liow you dress ? Every one knows
who you are !' Would she have said that to the
Earl of Dunder, or even to Sir Jasper Stoll-
head ? No. I am the painter Frank Vance —
nothing more nor less ; and if I stood on my
head in a check shirt and a sky-colored apron,
Lady Selina Vipont would kindly murmur,
' Only Frank Vance the painter — what does it
signify ?' Aha ! — and they think to put me to
use ! — puppets and lay figures ! — it is I who put
them to use! Harkye, Lionel, you are nearer
akin to these fine folks than I knew of. Promise
me one thing : you may become of their set, by
right of your famous Mr. Darrell ; if ever you
hear an artist, musician, scribbler, no matter
what, ridiculed as a tuft-hunter — seeking the
great — and so forth — before you join in the
laugh, ask some great man's son, with a pedi-
gree that dates from the Ark, ' Are you not a
toad-eater too? Do you want political influ-
ence? — do you stand contested elections? — do
you curry and fawn upon greasy Sam the butch-
er, and grimy Tom the blacksmith for a vote ?
Why ? useful to your career — necessary to your
ambition !' Aha ! is it meaner to curry and
fawn upon whitehanded women and elegant
coxcombs? Tut, tut! useful to a career — nec-
essary to ambition?" Vance paused, out of
breath. The spoiled darling of the circles — he
— to talk such radical rubbish ! Certainly he
must have taken his two guineas' worth out of
those light wines. Nothing so treacherous !
they inflame the brain like tire, while melting
on the palate like ice. All inhabitants of light-
wine countries are quarrelsome and democratic.
Lionel (astounded). " No one, I am sure,
could have meant to call you a tuft-hunter —
of course, every one knows that a great paint-
er — "
Vance. " Dates from Michael Angelo, if not
from Zeuxis! Common individuals trace their
pedigree from their own fathers ! — the children
of Art from Art's founders !"
Oh Vance, Vance, you are certainly drunk !
If that comes from dining with fine people at
the Star and Garter, you would be a happier
man and as good a painter if you sipped your
toddy in honey-suckle arbors.
"But," said Lionel, bewildered, and striving
to turn his friend's thoughts, " what has all this
to do with Mr. Darrell?"
Vance. "i\Ir. Darrell might have been one
of the first men in the kingdom. Lady Selina
Vipont says so, and she is related, I believe, to
every member in the Cabinet. Mr. Darrell can
push you in life, and make your fortune, with-
out any great trouble on your own part. Bless
your stars, and rejoice that you are not a paint-
er!"
Lionel flung his arm round the artist's broad
breast. " Vance, you are ^ael !" It was his
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
31
turn to console the painter, as the painter had
three nights before (apropos of the same Mr.
Darrell) consoled him. Vance gradually so-
bered down, and the young men walked forth
in the moonlight. And the eternal stars had
the same kind looks for Vance as they had
vouchsafed to Lionel.
" When do you start?" asked the painter, as
they mounted the stairs to bed.
" To-morrow evening. I miss the early train,
for I must call first and take leave of Sophy. I
hope I may see her again in after-life."
'• And i hope, for your sake, that if so, she
may not be in the same colored print with Lady
Selina Vipont's eyeglass upon herl"
"Whatl" said Lionel, laughing; "is Lady
Selina Vipont so formidably rude ?"
•• Kude I nobody is rude in that delightful set.
Lady Selina Vipont is excruciatingly — civil."
due vibration by free air in warm daylight, or
sink it down to the heart of the ocean, where
the air, all compressed, fills the vessel around
it,* and the chime, heard afar, starts thy soul,
checks thy footstep — unto deep calls the deeiJ —
a voice from the ocean is borne to thy soul.
Where, then, the change, when thou sayest,
" Lo, the same metal — why so faint-heard the
ringing?" Ask the air that thou seest not, or
above thee in the sky, or below thee in ocean.
Art thou sure that the bell, so faint-heard, is
not struck underneath an exhausted receiver ?
CHAPTER XVHL
Being devoted exclusively to a reflection, not inapposite
to the events in this history, nor to those in any other
which chronicles the life of man.
Theke is one warning lesson in life which
few of us have not received, and no book that I
can call to memory has noted down with an ade-
quate emphasis. It is this, '"Beware of part-
ing!"' The true sadness is not in the pain of
the parting, it is in the When and the How
you are to meet again with the face about to
vanish from your view ! From the passionate
farewell to the woman who has your heart in
her keeping, to the cordial good-by exchanged
with pleasant companions at a watering-place,
a countiy-house, or the close of a festive day's
blithe and careless excursion — a cord, stronger
or weaker, is snapped asunder in every parting,
and Time's busy fingers are not practiced in re-
splicing broken ties. Meet again you may :
will it be in the same way? — with the same
sympathies? — with the same sentiments? Will
the souls, burning on in diverse paths, unite
once more, as if the intenal had been a dreara?
Rarely, rarely I Have you not, after even a
year, even a month's absence, returned to the
same place, found the same groups reassem-
bled, and yet sighed to yourself, '• But where
is the charm that once breathed from the spot,
and once smiled from the faces ? A poet has
said — " Eternity itself can not restore the loss
struck from the minute." Are you happy in
the spot on which you tany with the persons
whose voices are now melodious to your ear ? —
beware of parting ; or, if part you must, say not
in insolent defiance to Time and Destiny —
" What matters? — we shall soon meet again."
Alas, and alas I when we think of the lips
which murmured, " Soon meet again," and re-
member how, in heart, soul, and thoi^ht, we
stood forever divided the one from the other,
when, once more face to face, we each inly ex-
claimed — "Met again!"
The air that we breathe makes the medium
through which sound is conveyed ; be the in-
Btniment unchanged, be the force which is ap-
plied to it the same, still, the air that thou seest
not, the air to thy car gives the music.
King a bell und^peath an exhausted receiver,
thou wilt scarcdl^ar the sound; give a bell
CHAPTER XIX.
The irandering inclinations of Xomad Tribes not to b«
accounted for on the principles of action peculiar to
civ.lized men, who are accustomed to live in good
houses and able to pay the income-tax. — When the
money that once belonged to a man civilized vanibbes
into the pockets of a nomad, neither lawful art nor oc-
cult ccience can, with certainty, discover what he will
do with it. — Mr. Vance narrowly escapes well-merited
punishment from the nails of the British Fair. — Lionel
Haughton, in the temerity of youth, braves the dangers
I of a British railway.
I The morning was dull and overcast, rain
gathering in the air, when Vance and Lionel
walked to Waife's lodging. As Lionel placed
his hand on the knocker of the private door,
: the Cobbler, at his place by the window in the
stall beside, glanced toward him, and shook his
; head.
i '' No use knocking, gentlemen. Will you
kindly step in? — this way."
I "Do you mean that your lodgers are out?"
I asked Vance.
I "Gone!" said the Cobbler, thrusting his awl
with great vehemence through the leather des-
tined to the repair of a plowman's boot.
"Gone — for good!" cried Lionel; "you can
not mean it. I call by appointment."
" Som', Sir, for your trouble. Stop- a bit ; I
have a letter here for you." The Cobbler dived
into a drawer, and, from a medley of nails and
thongs, drew forth a letter addressed to L.
Haughton, Esq.
" Is this from Waife ? How on earth did he
know my surname? you never mentioned it,
Vance?"
' "Not that I remember. But you said you
found him at the inn, and they knew it there.
: It is on the brass plate of your knapsack. No
. matter — what does he say ?" and Vance looked
! over his friend's shoulder and read :
I " Sir, — I most respectfully thank you for your
' condescending kindness to me and my grand-
child ; and your friend, for his timely and gen-
' erous aid. You will pardon me, that the neces-
sity which knows no law obliges me to leave this
' place some hours before the time of your pro-
posed visit. My giandchild says you intended
I to ask her sometimes to write to you. Excuse
• me. Sir: on reflection, you will perceive how
I diftcrent your ways of life are from those which
' she must'tread with me. You see before you a
I man w ho — but I forget — you see him no more,
j and probably never will. Your most humble and
: most obliged obedient sonant, W. W."
• The bell in a sunk diving-bell, where the air is com-
pressed, sounds with increa.'ed power. Sound travels
1 four times quicker in water than iu the upper air.
32
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
Vance. "Who never more may trouble you,
trouble you ! Where have they gone ?"
Cobbler. " Don't know ; would you like to
take a peep in the crystal ? perhaps you've the
gift, unbeknown."
Vanck. "Not I — Bah! Come awaj', Lionel."
"Did not Sophy even leave any message for
me?" asked the boy, sorrowfully.
" To be sure she did ; I forgot — no, not ex-
actly a message, but this — I was to be sure to
give it to you." And, out of his miscellaneous
receptacle the Cobbler extracted a little book.
Vance looked and laughed — " The ButterjUes'
Bull and the Grasshoppers' FeastJ"
Lionel did not share the laugh. He plucked
the book to himself, and read on the fly-leaf, in
a child's irregular scrawl, blistered too with the
unmistakable trace of fallen tears, these words :
" Do not Scorn it. I have nothing else I can
think of which is All Mine. Miss Jane Burton
gave it me for being Goode. Grandfather says
you are too high for us, and that I shall not see
you More ; but I shall never forget how kind you
were — never — never. — Sophy."
Said the Cobbler, his awl upright in the hand
which rested on his knee, " What a plague did
the 'Stronomers discover Herschell for? You
Bee, Sir," addressing Vance, " thiitgs odd and
strange all come along o' Herschell."
" What !— Sir John ?"
"No, the star he poked out. He's a awful
Star for females ! — hates 'em like poison ! I sus-
pect he's been worriting hisself into her nativi-
ty, for I got out from her the year, month, and
day she was born — hour unbeknown — but, cal-
kelating by noon, Herschell was dead agin her
in the Third and Ninth House — voyages, travels,
letters, news, church matters, and sichlike. But
it will all come right after he's transited. Her
Jupiter must be good. But I only hope," added
the Cobbler, solemnly, " that they won't go a
discovering any more stars. The world did a
deal better without the new one, and they do
talk of a Neptune — as bad as Saturn !"
"And this is the last of her!" said Lionel,
sadly putting the book into his breast-pocket.
"Heaven shield her wherever she goes !"
Vance. " Don't you think Waife and the
poor little girl will come back again ?"
Cobbler. " P'raps ; I know he was looking
hard into the county map at the stationer's over
the way; that seems as if he did not mean to
go very far. P'raps he may come back."
Vance. "Did he take all his goods with
him?"
Cobbler. "Barrin' an old box — nothing in
it, I expect, but theatre rubbish — play-books,
paints, an old wig, and sichlike. He has good
clothes — always had; and so has .she, but they
don't make more than a bundle."
Vance. "But surely you must know what the
old fellow's project is. He has got from me a
great sum — what will he do with it ?"
Cobbler. "Just what bas been a bothering
me. What will he do with it? I cast a figure
to know — could not make it out. Strange signs
in Twelfth House. Enemies and big animals.
Well, well, he's a marbellous man, and if he
warn't a misbeliever in the crystal, I should say
he was under Herschell ; for you see. Sir" (lay-
ing hold of Vance's button, as he saw that gen-
tleman turning to escape) — "you seo Herschell,
though he be a sinister chap eno', specially in
aflf'airs connected with 'tother sex, disposes the
native to dive into the mysteries of natur. I'm
a Herschell man, out and outer! Born in March,
and — "
"As mad as its hares," muttered Vance,
wrenching his button from the Cobbler's gi'asp,
and impatiently striding off. But he did not ef-
fect his escape so easily, for, close at hand, just
at the corner of the lane, a female group, head-
ed by Merle's gaunt housekeeper, had been si-
lently collecting from the moment the two
friends had paused at the Cobbler's door. And
this petticoated divan suddenly closing round
the painter, one pulled him by the sleeve, anoth-
er by the jacket, and a third, with a nose upon
which somebody had sat in early infancy, whis-
pered, " Please, Sir, take my picter fust."
Vance stared aghast — "Your picture, you
drab !" Here another model of rustic charms,
who might have furnished an ideal for the fat
scullion in Tristram Shandy, bobbing a courtesy,
put in her rival claim.
" Sir, if you don't objex to coming in to the
hitching, after the family has gone to bed, I
don't care if I lets you make a minnytur of me
for two pounds."
" Miniature of you, porpoise !"
" Polly, Sir, not Porpus — ax pardon. I shall
clean myself, and I have a butyful new cap —
Honej'tun, and — "
"Let the gentleman go, will you?" said a
third; "I am supprised at ye, Polly. The
hitching unbeknown ! Sir, I'm in the nussary
— yes. Sir — and missus says yon may take me
any time, purvided you'll take the babby, iu the
back parlor — yes, Sii'. No. 5 in the High Street.
Mrs. Spratt — yes, Sir. Babby has had the small-
pox — in case you're a married gentleman with
a family — quite safe there — yes. Sir."
Vance could endure no more, and, forgetful
of that gallantry which should never desert the
male sex, burst tlirough the phalanx with an
anathema, blackening alike the beauty and the
virtue of tlaose on whom it fell — that would have
justified a cry of shame from every manly bo-
som, and at once changed into shrill wrath the
sujjplicatory tones with which he had been hith-
erto addressed. Down the street he hurried,
and down the street followed the insulted fair.
"Hiss — hiss — no gentleman, no gentleman!
Aha — skulk oft' — do — low blaggurd !" shrieked
Polly. From tlieir counters shop-folks rushed
to their doors. Stray dogs, excited by the clam-
or, i-an wildly after the fugitive man, yelping
"in madding bray!" Vance, fearing to be
clawed by the females if he merely walked, sure
to be bitten by the dogs if he ran, ambled on,
strove to look composed, and carry his nose high
in its native air, till, clearing the street, lie saw
a hedgerow to the riglit — leaped it with an agil-
ity wliich no stimuhis less preternatural than
that of self-preservation could have given to his
limbs, and then shot oft' like an arrow, and did
not stop till, out ot breath, he dropped upon the
bench in the sheltering honey-suckle arbor. Here
he was still fanning himself with his cap, and
muttering unmentionable expletives, when he
was joined by Lionel, who had tarried behind
to talk more about Sophy to the Cobbler, and
who, unconscious that the din which smote his
ear was caused by his ill-starred friend, had
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
33
been enticed to go up stairs and look after
8ophy in the crystal — vainly. When Vance had '
recited his misadventures, and Lionel had surti- |
ciently condoled with him, it became time for
the latter to pay his share of the bill, pack up
his knapsack, and start for the train. Isow the
station could only be reached by penetrating the
heart of the village, and Vance swore that he
had had enough of that. ''Pester said he;
"I should pass right before No. 5 in the High
Street, and the nuss and the babby will be there
on the threshold, like Virgil's picture of the in-
fernal regions —
•Iiifaiitumque animaj flente-s in limine prime'
We will take leave of each other here. I shall
go by the boat to Chertsey whenever I shall have
sutHciently recovered my shaken nerves. There
are one or two picturesque spots to be seen in
that neigliborhood. In a few days I shall be in
town ; write to me there, and tell me how you
get on. 8hake hands, and Heaven speed you.
But, ah, now you have paid your moiety of the
bill, have you enough left for the train?"
" Oh, yes, the fare is but a few shillings ; but,
to be sure, a fly to Fawley ? I ought not to go
on foot" (proudly) ; " and, too, supposing he af-
fronts me, and I have to leave iiis house sudden-
ly? May I borrow a sovereign? my mother
will call and repay it."
Vaxck (magnificently). " There it is, and not
much more left in my pui-se — that cursed Star
and Garter! and those three pounds I"
Lionel (sighing). " Which were so well spent!
Before you sell that picture, do let me make a
copy."
Vance. "Better take a model of your own.
Village full of them ; you could bargain with a
porpoise for half the money which I was duped
into squandering away on a chit ! But don't
look so gi'ave ; you may copy me if j'ou can I"
"Time to- start, and must walk brisk, Sir,"
said the jolly landlord, looking in.
" Good- by, good-by."
And so departed Lionel Haughton upon an
emprise as momentous to that youth-errant as
C
I'erilous Bridge or Dragon's Cave could have
been to knight-errant of old.
" Before we decide on having done with each
other, a short visit" — so ran the challenge from
him who had every thing to give unto him who
had every thing to gain. And how did Lionel
Haughton, the ambitious and aspiring, contem-
plate the venture in which success would admit
him within the gates of the golden Carduel an'
equal in the lists with the sons of paladins, or
throw him back to the anns of the widow who
let a first floor in the back streets of Timlico?
Truth to say, as he strode musingly toward the
station for starting, where the smoke-cloud now
curled from the wheel-track of iron — truth to
say, the anxious doubt which disturbed him was
not that which his friends might have felt on
his behalf. In words, it would have shaped it-
self thus, " Where is that poor little Sophy ! and
what will become of her — what?" But, when,
launched on the journey, hurried on to its goal,
the thought of the ordeal before him forced it-
self on his mind he muttered inly to himself,
'•Done with each other; let it be as he pleases,
so that I do not fawn on his pleasure. Better a
million times enter life as a penniless gentle-
man, who must work his way up like a man,
than as one who creeps on his knees into for-
tune, shaming birthright of gentleman, or soil-
ing honor of man." Therefore taking into ac-\
count the poor cousin's vigilant pride on the qui
vive for oflense, and the rich cousin's temper (as
judged by his letters) rude enough to present it,
we must own that if Lionel Haughton has at this
moment what is commonly called " a chance,"
the question as yet is not, what is that chance,
but u-hat u-ill lie do with it f And as the reader
advances in this history, he will acknowledge
that there are few questions in this world so fre-
quently agitated, to which the solution is more
important to each puzzled mortal, than that upon
which starts every sage's discovery, ever}- novel-
ist's plot — that which applies to man's life,
from its first sleep in the cradle, " What will
HE DO WITH IT ?"'
34
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
BOOK II,
CHAPTER I.
Primitive character of the country in certain districts of
Great Britain. — Connection bttween the features of
surrounding scenery and the mental and moral in-
clinations of man, after the fashion of all sound Eth-
nological Historians. — A charioteer, to whom an expe-
rience of Briti.sh Laws suggests an ingenious mode of
arresting the progress of Roman Papacy, carries Lionel
Haughton and his fortunes to a place which allows of
description and invites repose.
Is safety, but with naught else rare enough,
in a railway train, to deserve commemoration,
Lionel reached the station to which he was
bound. He there inquired the distance to Faw-
ley Manor House ; it was five miles. He order-
ed a fly, and was soon wheeled briskly along a
rough "parish-road, through a country strongly
contrasting the gay Kiver Scenery he had so
lately quitted. Quite as English, but rather the
England of a former race than that which spreads
round our own generation like one vast suburb
of garden-ground and villas — Here, nor village,
nor spire, nor porter's lodge came in sight. Rare
even were the corn-fields — wide spaces of unin-
closed common opened, solitary and primitive,
on the road, bordered by large woods, chiefly of
beech, closing the horizon with ridges of undu-
lating green. In such an England, Ivnights-
Templars might have wended their way to scat-
tered monasteries, or fugitive partisans in the
bloody Wars of the Roses have found shelter
under leafy coverts.
The scene had its romance, its beauty — half-
savage, half-gentle — leading perforce the mind
of any cultivated and imaginative gazer far back
from the present day — waking up long-forgotten
passages from old poets. The stillness of such
wastes of sward — such deeps of woodland — in-
duced the nurture of reverie, gravely soft and
lulling. There, Ambition might give rest to the
wheel of Ixion, Avarice to the sieve of the Dana-
ids; there, disappointed Love might muse on
the brevity of all human passions, and count
over the tortured hearts that have found peace
in holy meditation, or are now stilled under
grassy knolls. See where, at the crossing of
three" roads upon the waste, the landscape sud-
denly unfolds — an upland in the distance, and
on the upland a building, the first sign of social
man. What is the building? only a silenced
wind-mill — the sails dark and sharp against the
dull, leaden sky.
Lionel touched the driver — "Are we yet on
Mr. Darrell's property?" Of the extent of that
property he had involuntarily conceived a vast
idea.
"Lord, Sir, no ; we be two miles from Squire
Darrell's. He han't much property to speak of
hereabouts. But he bought a good bit o' land,
too, some years ago, ten or twelve mile t'other
side o' the county. First time you are going to
IFawlev, Sir ?"
"Yes."
"Ah ! I don't mind seeing you afore — and I
should have known you if I had, for it is seldom
indeed I have a fare toFawley old Manor House.
It must be, I take it, four or five year ago sin" I
wor there with a gent, and he went away while
I wor feeding the horse — did me out o' my back
fare. What bisness had he to walk when he
came in my fly? — Shabby."
"Mr. Darrell lives very retired, then — sees
few persons ?"
" 'Spose so. I never see'd him, as I knows
on ; see'd two o' his bosses though — rare good
uns;" and the driver whipped on his own
horse, took to whistling, and Lionel asked no
more.
At length the chaise stopped at a carriage-
cate, receding from the road, and deeply shad-
owed by venerable trees — no lodge. The driv-
er, dismounting, opened the gate.
"Is this the place?"
The driver nodded assent, remounted, and
drove on rapidly through what might, by court-
esy, be called a park. The inclosure was indeed
little beyond that of a good-sized paddock — its
boundaries were visible on every side- — but swell-
ing uplands, covered with massy foliage, sloped
down to its wild, irregular turf soil — soil poor
for pasturage, but pleasant to the eye ; with dell
and dingle, bosks of fantastic pollards — dotted
oaks of vast growth — here and there a weird
hollow thorn-tree — patches of fern and gorse.
Hoarse and loud cawed the rooks — and deep,
deep as from the innermost core of the lovely
woodlands, came the mellow notes of the cuckoo.
A few moments more a wind of the road brought
the house in sight. At its rear lay a piece of
water, scarcely large enough to be styled a lake :
— too winding in its shagg}- banks — its ends too
concealed by tree and islet to be called by the
dull name of pond. Such as it was, it arrested
the eve before the gaze turned toward the house
— it had an air of tranquillity so sequestered, so
solemn. A lively man of the world would have
been seized with spleen at the first glimpse of
it. But he who had known some great grief —
some anxious care — would have drunk the calm
into his weary soul like an anodyne. The house
— small, low," ancient, about the date of Edward
VI., before the statelier architecture of Ehza-
beth. Few houses in England so old, indeed,
as Fawley Manor House. A vast weight of roof,
with high gables — windows on the upper stoiy
projecting far over the lower part — a covered
porch with a coat of half-obliterated arms deep
panneled over the oak door. Nothing grand,
yet all how venerable! But what is this? Close
beside the old, quiet, unassuming Manor House,
rises the skeleton of a superb and costly pile-^
a palace uncompleted, and the work evidently
suspended — perhaps long since, perhaps now
forever. No busy workmen nor animated scaf-
folding. The perforated battlements roofed
over with visible haste — here with slate, there
with tile ; the Elizabethan mullion casements
unglazed ; some roughly boarded across — some
with staring, forlorn apertures, that showed
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
35
floorless chambers — for winds to whistle through
:ind rats to tenant. Weeds and long grass were
.TOwing over blocks of stone that lay at hand.
A wallHower had forced itself into root on the
sill of a giant oriel. The eftect was startling.
A fabric which he who conceived it must have
founded for posterity — so solid its masonry, so
thick its walls — and thus abruptly left to mould-
er — a palace constructed for the reception of
crowding guests — the jjomp of stately revels —
abandoned to owl and bat. And the homely
old house beside it, which that lordly hall was
doubtless designed to replace, looking so safe
and tranquil at the batfled presumption of its
spectral neighbor.
The driver had rung the bell, and now, turn-
ing back to the chaise, met Lionel's inquiring
eye, and said — " Yes ; Squire Darrell began to
build that — many years ago — when I was a boy.
I heerd say it was to be the show-house of the
whole county. Been stojiped these ten or a
dozen years."
•' Why ? — do you know ?"
" No one knows. Squire was a laryer, I b'leve
— perhaps he put it into Chancery. My wife's
grandfather was put into Chancery jist as he
was growing up, and never grew afterward —
never got out o' it — nout ever does. There's our
churchwarden comes to me with a petition to
sign agin the Pope. Says I, ' Tliat old Pojje is
always in trouble — what's he bin doiu' now?'
Sayshc, ' Spreading ! He's got into Parlyment,
and he's now got a colledge, and we pays for it.
I doesn't know how to stop him.' Saysl. ' Put
the Pope into Chancery along with wife's grand-
father, and he'll never hold up his head agin.' "
The driver had thus just disposed of the Pa-
pacy wiien an elderly servant, out of livery,
opened the door. Lionel sprung from the
chaise, and paused in some confusion — for then,
for the first time, there darted across him the
idea that he had never written to announce his
acceptance of Mr. Darrell's invitation — that he
ought to have done so — that he might not be ex-
pected. Meanwhile the senant surveyed him
with some surprise. " Mr. Darrell?" hesitated
Lionel, inquiringly.
" Not at home, Sir," replied the man, as if
Lionel's business was over, and he had only to
re-enter his chaise. The boy was naturally
rather bold than shy, and he said, with a certain
assured air, '"My name is Haughton. I come
here on Mr. Darrell's invitation."
The ser\'aut's face changed in a moment — he
bowed respectfully. " I beg pardon. Sir. I will
look for my master — he is somewhere on the
grounds." The servant then approached the
fly, took out the knapsack, and observing Lionel
had his purse in his hand, said — "Allow me to
save you that trouble. Sir. Driver, round to
the stable-yard." Stepping back into the house,
the servant threw open a door to the left, on
entrance, and ailvanced a chair — "If you will
wait here a moment, Sir, I will see for my
master."
CHAPTER n.
Guy Darrell— and Still'd Life.
The room in which Lionel now found him-
self was singularly quaint. An antiquarian or
architect would have discovered at a glance
that, at some period, it had formed part of the
entrance-hall ; and when, in Elizabeth's or
James the First's day, the refinement in man-
ners began to penetrate from baronial mansions
to the homes of the gentry-, and the entrance-
hall ceased to be the common refectory of the
owner and his dependents, this apartment had
been screened off by ])crforated panels, which,
for the sake of warmth and comfort, had been
filled up into solid wainscot by a succeeding
generation. Thus one side of the room was
richly carved with geometrical designs and ara-
besque pilasters, while the other three sides
were in small simple panels, with a dcej) fan-
tastic frieze in plaster, depicting a deer-chase
in relief, and running between woodwork and
ceiling. The ceiling itself was relieved by long
pendants without any apparent meaning, and
iiy the crest of the ])arrels, a heron, wreathed
round with the family motto, " Anlua jutlt Ar-
dca/' It was a dining-room, as was shown by
the character of the furniture. But there was
no attempt on the part of the present owner,
and had clearly been none on the part of his
predecessor, to suit the furniture to the room.
This last was of the heavy graceless taste of
George the First — cumbrous chairs in walnut-
tree — with a worm-eaten mosaic of the heron
on their homely backs, and a faded blue worsted
on their seats — a marvelous ugly sideboard to
match, and on it a couple of black shagreen
cases, the lids of which were flung open, and
discovered the pistol-shaped handles of silver
knives. The mantle-piece reached to the ceil-
ing, in paneled compartments, with heraldic
shields, and supported by rude stone Caryatides.
On the walls were several pictures — family por-
traits, for the names were inscribed on the
frames. They varied in date from the reign of
Elizabeth to that of George I. A strong family
likeness pervaded them all — high features, dark
hair, grave aspects — save indeed one, a Sir
Kal])h Haughton Darrell, in a dress that spoke
him of the hoHday date of Charles II. — all
knots, lace, and ribbons ; evidently the beau of
the race ; and he had bine eyes, a blondo per-
uke, a careless profligate smile, and looked al-
together as devil-me-care, rakehelly, handsome,
good-for-naught, as ever swore at a drawer,
beat a watchman, charmed a lady, terrified a
husband, and hummed a song as lie pinked his
man.
Lionel was still gazing upon the effigies of
this airy cavalier, when the door behind him
opened very noiselessly, and a man of imposing
presence stood on the threshold — stood so still,
and the carved mouldings of the door-way so
shadowed, and, as it were, cased round his fig-
ure, that Lionel, on turning quickly, might have
mistaken him for a portrait brought into bold
relief, from its frame, by a sudden fall of light.
We hear it, indeed, familiarly said that such a
one is like an old picture. Never could it be
more appositely said than of the face on which
tlie young visitor gazed, much startled and some-
what awed. Not such as inferior limners had
painted in the portraits there, though it had
something in common with those family linea-
ments, but such as might have looked tranquil
power out of the canvas of Titian.
The man stepped forward, and the illusion
3G
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
passed. "I thank you," he said, holding out: "Vance — who is Vance?"
his hand "for taking me at my word, and an- i "The artist — a gi-eat friend of mine. Sure-
swerino- me thus in person." He paused a mo- ly, Sir, you have heard of him, or seen his pic-
ment, Purveying Lionel's countenance with a tures?"
keen but not vmkindly eye, and added softly,
"Very like your father."
At "these words Lionel involuntarily pressed
the hand which he had taken. That hand did
not return the pressure. It lay an instant in
Lionel's warm clasj^ — not repelling, jiot respond-
ing — and was then very gently withdrawn.
"Did you come from London?"
" Himself and his pictures arc since my time.
Days tread down days for the Recluse, and he
forgets that celebrities rise with their suns, to
wane with their moons —
' Triiditur dies die,
Xovicque pergunt interire lun.'e.'"
"All suns do not set — all moons do uotwanel"
cried Lionel, with blunt enthusiasm. " When
"No Sir, I found your letter yesterday at Horace speaks elsewhere of the Julian star, he
Hampton Court. I had been staying some days
in that neighborhood. I came on this morn-
ing — I was afraid, too unceremoniously; your
kind welcome reassiires me then."
The words were well chosen, and frankly said.
Probably they pleased the host, for the expres-
sion of his countenance was, on the whole, pro-
pitious ; but he merely inclined his head with a
kind of lofty indifference, then, glancing at his
watch, he rang the bell. The servant entered
promptly. "Let dinner be served within an
hour."
"Fray, Sir," said Lionel, "do not change
your hours on my account. "
Mr. Darrell's brow slightly contracted. Lio-
nel's tact was in fault there ; but the great man
answered quietly, "All hours are the same to
me ; and it were strange if a host could be de-
ranged by consideration to his guest — on the
first day too. Are you tired ? Would you like
to go to your room, or look out for half an hour ?
The sky is clearing."
" I should so like to look out. Sir."
"This way, then."
Mr. Darrell, crossing the hall, threw open a
door opposite to that by which Lionel entered,
and the lake (we will so call it) lay before them.
Separated from the house only by a shelving,
gradual declivity, on which were a few beds of
flowers — not the most in vogue nowadays — and
disposed in rambling, old-fashioned parterres.
At one angle a quaint and dilapidated sun-dial ;
at the other a long bowling-alley, terminated by
one of those summer-houses which the Dutch
taste, following the Revolution of 1G88, brought
into fashion. Mr. Darrell passed down this alley
(no bowls there now), and, observing that Lionel
looked curiously toward the summer-house, of
^vhich the doors stood open, entered it. A lofty
room, with coved ceiling, painted with Roman
trophies of helms and fasces, alternated with
crossed fifes and fiddles, painted also.
"Amsterdam manners," said Mr. Darrell,
slightly shi-ugging his shoulders. " Here a for-
mer race heard music, sung glees, and smoked
from clay pipes. That age soon passed, unsuit-
ed to English energies, which are not to be united
with Holland phlegm ! But the view from the
window — look out there. I Monder whether men
in wigs and women in hoops enjoyed that. It
is a mercy they did not clip those banks into a
straight canal!"
The view was indeed lovely ; the water look-
ed so blue, and so large, and so limpid, woods
and curving banks reflected deep on its peace-
ful bosom.
" How Vance would enjoy this !" cried Lio-
nel. "It would come icto a picture even better
than the Thames."
compares it to a moon — ' xnterignes minores-
and surely Fame is not among the orbs which
'■pergunt interire' hasten on to perish !"
"I am glad to see that you retain your recol-
lection of Horace," said Mr. Darrell, frigidly,
and without continuing the allusion to celebri-
ties, " the most charming of all poets to a man
of my years, and" (he very dryly added) "the
most useful for popular quotation to men at any
age."
Then sauntering forth carelessly, he descend-
ed the sloping turf, came to the water-side, and
threw himself at length on the grass — the wild
thyme which he crushed sent up its bruised fra-
grance. There, resting his face on his hand,
Darrell gazed along the water in abstracted si-
lence. Lionel felt that he was forgotten ; but
he was not hurt. By this time a strong and
admiring interest for his cousin had sprung u]i
within his breast — he would have found it difli-
cult to explain why. But whosoever at that mo-
ment could have seen Guy Darrell's musing
countenance, or whosoever, a few minutes be-
fore, could have heard the very sound of his
voice — sweetly, clearly full — each slow enunci-
ation unaftectedly, mellowly distinct — making
musical the homeliest, roughest word, would
have understood and shared the interest which
Lionel could not explain. There are living hu-
man faces which, independently of mere phys-
ical beauty, charm and enthrall us more than the
most perfect lineaments which Greek sculptor
ever lent to a marble face : there are key-notes
in the thrilling human voice, simply uttered,
which can haunt the heart, rouse the passions,
lull rampant multitudes, shake into dust the
thrones of guarded kings, and effect more won-
ders than ever yet have been wrought by the
most artful chorus or the deftest quill.
In a few minutes the swans from the farther
end of the water came sailing swiftly toward the
bank on which Dafrell reclined. He had evi-
dently made friends with them, and they rested
their white breasts close on the margin, seeking
to claim his notice with a low hissing salutation,
which, it is to be hoped, they change for some-
thing less sibilant in that famous song with
which they depart this life.
Darrelllooked up. "They come to be fed,"
said he, "smooth emblems of the great social
union. Affection is the oftspring of utility. 1
am useful to them — they love me." He rose,
uncovered, and bowed to the birds in mock
courtesy: "Friends, I have no bread to give
you."
Lionel. " Let me run in for some : I would
be useful too."
Mk. Dakkell. " Rival ! useful to my swans ?"
Lionel (tenderly). " Or to you, Sir."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
37
He felt as if lie had said too inucli, and with-
out waitinj; for permission, ran in-doors to find
some one wlicmi he could ask for the bread.
"Sonless, childless, hopeless, objectless!"
said Darrell, luurnuiringly, to himself, and sunk
again into reverie.
°Bv the time Lionel returned with the bread, '
another petted friend had joined the master. A
tame doe had caught sight of him from her cov-
ert far away, came in light bounds to his side,
and was pushing her delicate nostril into his
drooping hand. At the sound of Lionel's hur-
ried step she took Hight, trotted oft" a few paces,
then turned, looking wistfully.
" I did not know you had deer here."
*' Deer ! in this little paddock ! of course not ;
only that doe. Fairthorn introduced her here.
By-the-by," continued Darrell, who was now
throwing the bread to the swans, and had re-
sumed his careless, unmeditative manner, "you
were not aware that I have a brother hermit —
a companion besides the swans and the doe.
Dick Fail-thorn is a year or two younger than
myself, the son of my father's bailiff. He was
the cleverest boy at his grammar-school. Un-
luckily he took to the flute, and unfitted himself
for the present century. He condescends, how-
ever, to act as my secretary — a fair classical
scholar — plays chess — is useful to me — I am
useful to him. We have an aft'ection for each
other. I never forgive any one who laughs at
him. The half-hour bell, and you will meet
him at dinner. Shall we come in and dress ?"
They entered the house — the same man-serv-
ant was in attendance in the hall. " Show Mr.
Haughton to his room." Darrell inclined his
head — I use that phrase, for the gesture was
neither bow nor nod — turned down a narrow
passage, and disappeared.
Led up an uneven stair-case of oak, black as
ebony, with huge balustrades, and newel-posts
supporting clumsy balls, Lionel was conducted to
a small chamber, modernized a century ago by a
faded Chinese paper, and a mahogany bedstead,
which took uj) three-fourths of the sjjuce, and
was crested with dingy plumes, that gave it the
cheerful look of a hearse ; and there the attend-
ant said, " Have you the key of your knapsack.
Sir? shall I put out your things to dress?"
Dress! Then for the first time the boy remem-
bered that he had brought with him no evening-
dress — nay, evening-dress, properly so called, he
))0ssessed not at all in any corner of the world.
It had never yet entered into his modes of ex-
istence. Call to mind when you were a boy of
seventeen, "betwixt two ages hovering like a
star," and imagine Lionel's sensations. He felt
his cheek burn as if he had been detected in a
crime. " I have no dress things," he said, pit-
cously; "only a change of linen, and this,"
glancing at the summer jacket. The servant
was evidently a most gentlemanlike man — his
native sphere that of groom of the chambers.
•'I will mention it to Mr. Darrell; and if you
will favor me with your address in London, I
will send to telegraph for what you want against
to-morrow."
" Many thanks," answered Lionel, recovering
his presence of mind ; " I will speak to ^Ir. Dar-
rel myself."
"There is the hot water. Sir ; that is the bell.
I have the honor to be placed at your com-
mands." The door closed, and Lionel unlocked
his knapsack — other trowsers, other waistcoat,
had he — those worn at the fair, and once white.
Alas I they had not since then passed to the care
of the laundress. Other shoes — double-soled, for
walking. There was no help for it, but to ap-
pear at dinner attired as he had been before, in
his light iiedcstrian jacket, morning waistcoat
flowered with sprigs, and a fawn-colored nether
man. Could it signify much — only two men ?
Could the grave Mr. Darrell regard such trifles ?
Yes, if they intimated want of due respect.
Dnnim ! si'd fit levins Paticntia
Quicquiil coi'rigere est nel'as.
On descending the stairs, the same high-bred
domestic was in waiting to show him into the
library. Mr. Darrell was there already, in the
simple but punctilious costume of a gentleman
who retains in seclusion the habits customary in
the world. At the flrst glance Lionel thought
he saw a slight cloud of displeasure on his host's
brow. He went up to Mr. Darrell ingenuously,
and apologized for the deficiencies of his itiner-
ant wardrobe. " Say the truth," said his host;
"you thought you were coming to an old churl,
with whom ceremony was misplaced."
"Indeed, no!" exclaimed Lionel. "But —
but I have so lately left school."
"Your mother might have thought for you."
"I did not stay to consult her, indeed, Sir; I
hope you are not offended."
" No, but let me not oft'end you if I take ad-
vantage of my years and our rclationshi]) to re-
mark that a young man should be carefid not to
let himself down below the measure of his own
rank. If a king could bear to hear that he was
only a ceremonial, a private gentleman may re-
member that there is but a ceremonial between
himself and — his hatter !"
Lionel felt the color mount his brow; but
Dan-ell, pressing the distasteful theme no far-
ther, and seemingly forgetting its purport, turned
his remarks carelessly toward the weather. "It
will be fair to-morrow ; there is no mist on the
hill yonder. Since you have a painter for a
friend, perhaps you yourself are a draughtsman.
There are some landscape-effects here which
Fairthorn shall point out to you."
"I fear, I\Ir. Darrell," said Lionel, looking
down, " that to-morrow I must leave you."
' ' So soon ? Well, I suppose the place must
be very dull."
"Not that — not that; but I have offended
you, and I would not repeat the offense. I have
not the ' ceremonial' necessary to mark me as a
gentleman, either here or at home."
"So! Bold frankness and ready wit com-
mand ceremonials," returned Darrell, and for
the first time his lip wore a smile. " Let riic
jiresent to you Mr. Fairthorn," as the door open-
ing showed a shambling, awkward figure, with
loose black knee-breeches and buckled shoes.
The figure made a strange sidelong bow, and
hurrying in a lateral course, like a crab sudden-
ly alarmed, toward a dim recess ])rotccted by a
long table, sunk behind a curtain-fold, and seem-
ed to vanish as a crab docs amidst the shingles.
" Three minutes yet to dinner, and two before
the letter-carrier goes," said the host, glancing
at his watch. " Mr. Fairthorn, will you write a
note for me ?" There was a mutter from behind
the curtain. Dan-ell walked to the place, and
?
38
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
whispered a few words, returned to the hearth,
rang the bell. "Another letter for the post,
Mills : Mr. Fairthorn is sealing it. You are
looking at my book-shelves, Lionel. As I un-
derstand that j-our master spoke highly of you,
I presume that you are fond of reading."
"I think so, but I am not sure," answered
Lionel, whom his cousin's conciliatory words
had restored to ease and good-humor.
"You mean, perhaps, that you like reading,
if you may choose your own books."
'" Or rather if I may choose my own time to
read them, and that would not be on bright
summer days."
"Without sacrificing bright summer days, one
finds one has made little progi-ess when the long
winter nights come."
" Yes, Sir. But must the sacrifice be paid in
books ? I fancy I learned as much in the play-
ground as I did in the school-room, and for the
last few months, in much my own master, read-
ing hard, in the forenoon, it is true, for many
hours at a stretch, and yet again for a few hours
at evening, but rambling alsothrough the streets,
or listening to a few friends whom I have con-
trived to make — I think, if I can boast of any
progress at all, the books have the smaller share
in it."
"You would, then, prefer an active life to a
studious one ?"
" Oh, yes — yes."
"Dinner is served," said the decorous Mr.
Mills, throwing open the door.
CHAPTER m.
In our happy countrj- every man's house is his castle.
But'however stoutly he fortify it, Care enters, as sure-
ly as she did, in Horace's time, through the porticoes
of a Roman'd villa. Nor, whether ceilings be fretted
with gold and ivory, or whether only colored with
■whitewash, does it matter to Care any more than it
does to a house-fly. But every tree, be it cedar or
blackthorn, can harbor its singing-bird ; and fev>- are
the homes in which, from nooks least suspected, there
Btarts not a music. Is it quite true that " non avium
cithara?que cantus somnura reducent?" AVould not
even Damocles himself have forgotten the sword, if the
lute-player had chanced upon the notes that lull?
The dinner was simple enough, but well-
dressed and wcU-sei-ved. One footman, in plain
livery, assisted Mr. Mills. Darrell ate sparing-
ly, and drank only water, which was placed by
his side, iced, with a single glass of wine at the
close of the repast, which he drank on bending
his head to Lionel with a certain knightly grace,
and the j)refatory words of "Welcome here to
a Haughton." Mr. Fairthorn was less abstemi-
ous — tasted of every dish, after examining it
long through a ])air of tortoise-shell spectacles,
and drank leisurely through a bottle of port,
holding up every glass to the light. Dai-rell
talked with his usual cold but not uncourteous
indifference. A remark of Lionel's on the por-
traits in the room turned the conversation
chiefly upon pictures, and the host showed him-
self thoroughly accomplished in the attributes
of the various schools and masters. Lionel,
who was very fond of the art, and, indeed,
painted well for a youthful amateur, listened
with great delight.
"Surely, Sir," said he, struck much with a
verj' subtle observation upon the causes why
the Italian masters admit of copyists with great-
er facilitj' than the Flemish — ''surely. Sir, you
must yourself have practiced the art of paint-
ing ?"
"Not I; but I instructed myself as a judge
of pictures, because at one time I was a collect-
or."
Fairthorn, speaking for the first time : " The
rarest collection — such Albert Durers! such
Holbeins ! and that head by Leonardo da Vin-
ci !" He stopped — looked extremely frightened
— helped himself to the port — turning his back
upon his host, to hold, as usual, the glass to the
light.
"Are they here, Sir?" asked Lionel.
Darrell's face darkened, and he made no an-
swer; but his head sank on his breast, and he
seemed suddenly absorbed in gloomy thought.
Lionel felt that he had touched a wrong chord,
and glanced timidly toward Fairthorn, but that
gentleman cautiously held up his finger, and
then rapidly put it to his lip, and as rapidly
drew it away. After that signal the boy did not
dare to break the silence, which now lasted un-
interruptedly till Darrell rose, and with the form-
al and superfluous question, "Any more wine?"
led the May back to the librarj'. There he en-
sconced himself in an easy chair, and saying,
"Will you find a book for yourself, Lionel?"
took a volume at random from the nearest shelf,
and soon seemed absorbed in its contents. The
room, made irregular by bay-windows, and
shelves that projected as in public libraries,
abounded with nook and recess. To one of
tiiese Fairthorn sidled himself, and became in-
visible. Lionel looked round the shelves. No
be//es kttres of our immediate generation were
found there — none of those authors most in re-
quest at circulating libraries and literary insti-
tutes. The shelves could discover none more
recent than the Johnsonian age. Neither in
the lawyer's library were to be found any law-
books — no, nor the pamphlets and parliament-
ary volumes that should have spoken of the once
eager politician. But there were superb copies
of the ancient classics. French and Italian au-
thors were not wanting, nor such of the English
as have withstood the test of time. The larger
portion of the shelves seemed, however, devoted
to philosophical works. Here alone was novel-
ty admitted— the newest essays on science, or
the best editions of old works thereon. Lionel
at length made his choice — a volume of the
"Faerie Queen." Coft'ee was served ; at a later
hour, tea. The clock struck ten. Darrell laid
down his book.
"Mr. Fairthorn — the Flute!"
From the recess a mutter, and presently — the
musician remaining still hidden — there came
forth the sweetest note — so dulcet, so plaintive !
Lionel's ear was ravished. The music suited
well with the enchanted page through which his
fancy had been wandering dream-like — the flute
with' the "Faerie Queen." As the air flowed
liquid on Lionel's eyes filled with tears. He did
not observe that Darrell was intently watching
him. When the music stopped he turned aside
to wipe the tears from his eyes. Somehow or
other, what with the poem, what with the flute,
his thoughts had wandered far, far hence to the
green banks and blue waves of the Thames — to
Sophy's charming face, to her parting childish
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
89
"ift ! And where was she now? Whither pass- in his own words," said Darrell, with a coldness
fno- away, after so brief a holiday, into the shad- almost icy. He then seated himself at the
ows of forlorn life ?
Darrell's bell-like voice smote his ear.
"Spenser! You love him! Do you write
poetry?"
"No, Sir, I only feel it!"
" Do neither !" said the host, abruptly, llien
turning away, he lighted his candle, nuirmurcd
a
breakfast-table ; Lionel followed his example,
and Mr. Fuirthovn, courageously emerging, also
took a chair and a roll. "You were a true di-
viner, Mr. Darrell," said Lionel; "it is a glori-
ous day."
" But there will be showers later. The fish
are at play on the surface of the lake," Darrell
a quick good-night, and disajipcared through a added, with a softened glance toward Fairthorn,
side-door wliiclAcd to his own rooms. who was looking the picture of misery. "After
Lionel looked round for Fairtliorn, who now
emerged nl> aixju/o — from his nook.
"Oh, I\Ir. Fairthorn, how you have enchant-
ed me ! I never believed the flute could have
been capable of such effects !"
Mr. Fairthorn's grotesque face lighted up.
lie took oft' his spectacles, as if the better to
contemplate the face of his eulogist. " So you
were pleased! really?" he said, chuckling a
s<;range, grim chuckle, deep in his inmost self.
" Pleased ! it is a cold word ! Who would not
be more than pleased?"
"You should hear me in the open air."
"Let me do so — to-morrow."
" My dear young Sir, with all my heart.
Hist!" gazing round as if haunted — "1 like you.
I wish /liiii to like you. Answer all his tpies-
tions as if you did not care how he turned you
inside out. Never ask him a question, as if you
sought to know what he did not himself confide.
So there is something, you think, in a flute, after
all? There are people who prefer the fiddle."
"Then they never heard your flute, Mr. Fair-
thorn." The musician again emitted his dis-
cordant chuckle, and, nodding his head ner-
vously anil cordially, shambled away without
lighting a candle, and was ingulfed in the shad-
ows of some mysterious corner.
CHAPTER IV.
The Old World, and the New.
It was long before Lionel could sleep. What
with the strange hoiu^c, and the strange master
— what with the magic flute, and the musician's
admonitory caution — wluit with tender and re-
gretful reminiscences of Sojihy, his brain had
enough to work on. When he slept at last, his
slumber was deep and heavy, and he did not
wake till gently shaken by the well-bred arm of
Mr. Mills. " I humbly beg pardon — nine o'clock.
Sir, and the breakfast-bell going to ring." Li-
onel's toilet was soon hurried over; Mr. Darrell
and Fairthorn were talking together as he en-
tered the breakfast-room — the same room as that
in whicli they had dined.
" Good-morning, Lionel, "said the host. "No
leave-taking to-day, as you threatened. I find
you have made an ajjpointment with Mr. Fair-
thorn, and I shall place you under his care. You
may like to look over the old house, and make
yourself" — Darrell paused — "At home," jerked
"out Mr. Fairthorn, filling up the hiatus. Dar-
rell turned his eye toward tlie speaker, who evi-
dently became nmch frightened, and, after look-
ing in vain for a corner, sidled away to the win-
dow, and poked himself behind the curtain.
"Mr. Fairthorn, in the capacity of my secretary,
has learned to lind me thoughts, and put them
twelve, it will be just tlic weather for trout to
rise ; and if you fish, Mr. Fairthorn will lend
you a rod. He is a worthy successor of Izaak
Walton, and loves a comjianion as Izaak did, but
more rarely gets one."
"Are there trout in your lake. Sir?"
" The lake ! You must not dream of invading
that sacred water. The inhabitants of rivulets
and brooks not within my boundary are beyond
the pale of Fawley civilization, to be snared and
slaughtered like Caftres, red men, or any other
savages, for whom we bait witii a missionary,
and whom we impale on a bayonet. But I re-
gard my lake as a political community, under
the protection of the law, and leave its denizens
to devour each other, as Eurojieans, fishes and
other cold-blooded creatures wisely do, in order
to check the overgrowth of population. To fat-
ten one pike it takes a great many minnows.
Naturally I sui)port the vested rights of pike. I
have been a lawyer."
It would be in vain to describe the manner in
which Mr. Darrell vented this or similar re-
marks of mocking irony, or sarcastic spleen.
It was not bitter nor sneering, but in his usual
mellifluous level tone and passionless tranquil-
lity.
The breakfast was just over as a groom passed
in front of the windows with a led horse. " I
am going to leave you, Lionel," said the host,
"to make — friends with Mr. Fairthorn, and I
thus complete tlie sentence which he diverted
astray, according to my own original intention."
He passed across the hall to the open house-
door, and stood by the horse stroking its neck
and giving some directions to the groom. Lio-
nel and Fairthorn followed to the threshold,
and the beauty of the horse provoked the boy's
admiration : it was a dark muzzled brown, of
that fine old-fashioned breed of English roadster
whicli is now so seldom seen ; showy, bow-
necked, long-tailed, stumbling reedy hybrids,
born of bad barbs, ill-mated, having mainly sup-
plied their place. This was, indeed, a horse of
great ])Ower, immense girth of loin, high shoul-
der, broad hoof; and such a head! the ear, the
frontal, the nostril ! you seldmn see a human
physiognomy half so intelligent, half so express-
ive of that high spirit and sweet generous tem-
])er, which, when united, constitute the ideal
of thorough-breeding, whether in horse or man.
The English rider was in harmony with the
English steed. Darrell at this moment was
resting his arm lightly on the animal's shoulder,
and his head still uncovered. It has been said
before that he was of ini])osing presence; the
striking attribute of his person, indeed, was
that of unconscious grandeur ; yet, though above
the ordinary height, he was not very tall — fivo
feet eleven at the utmost — and far from being
very erect. On the contrary, there was that
40
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
habitual bend in his proud neck which men who
meditate much and live alone almost invariably
contract. But there was, to use an expression
common with our older writers, that " great
air" about him which filled the eye. and gave
him the dignity of elevated stature, the com-
manding aspect that accompanies the upright
carriage. His figure was inclined to be slender ;
though broad of shoulder and deep of chest ; it
was the figure of a young man, and probably
little changed from what it might have been at
five-and-twenty. A certain youthfulness still
lingered even on the countenance — strange, for
sorrow is supposed to expedite the work of age ;
and Darrell had known sorrow of a kind most
adapted to harrow his peculiar nature, as great
in its degree as ever left man's heart in ruins.
Xo gray was visible in the dark brown hair, that,
worn short behind, still retained in front the
large Jovelike curl. Xo wrinkle, save at the
corner of the eyes, marred the pale bronze of
the firm cheek ; the forehead was smooth as
marble, and as massive. It was. that forehead
which chiefly contributed to the superb expres-
sion of his whole aspect. It was high to a fault ;
the perceptive organs, over a dark, strongly-
marked, arched eyebrow, powerfully developed,
as they are with most eminent lawyers : it did
not want for breadth at the temples; yet on the
whole, it bespoke more of intellectual vigor and
dauntless will than of serene philosophy or all-
embracing benevolence. It was the forehead
of a man formed to command and awe the pas-
sions and intellect of others by the strength of
passions in himself, rather concentred than
chastised, and an intellect forceful from the
weight of its mass rather than the niceness of
its balance. The other features harmonized
with that brow ; they were of the noblest order
of aquiline, at once high and delicate. The lip
had a rare combination of exquisite refinement
and inflexible resolve. The eye, in repose, was
cold, bright, unrevealing, with a certain absent,
musing, self-absorbed expression, that often
made the man's words appear as if spoken me-
chanically, and assisted toward that seeming of
listless indiflerence to those whom he addressed,
by which he wounded vanity, without, perhaps,
any malice prepense. But it was an eye in
which the pupil could suddenly expand, the hue
change from gray to dark, and the cold still
brightness flash into vivid fire. It could not
have occurred to any one, even to the most
commonplace woman, to have described Dar-
rell's as a handsome face ; the expression would
have seemed trivial and derogatory ; the words
that would have occurred to all, would have
been somewhat to this effect — '"What a mag-
nificent countenance ! What a noble head !"
Yet an experienced physiognomist might have
noted that the same lineaments which bespoke
a virtue bespoke also its neighboring vice ;
that with so much will there went stubborn ob-
stinacy ; that with that power of grasp there
would be the tenacity in adherence which nar-
rows in astringing the intellect ; that a preju-
dice once conceived, a passion once cherished,
would resist all rational argument for relin-
quishment. When men of this mould do re-
linquish prejudice or passion, it is by their own
impulse, their own sure conviction that what
they hold is worthless : then they do not yield
it graciously; they fling it from them in scorn,
but not a scorn that consoles. That which they
thus ^vrench away had grown a living part of
themselves ; their own flesh bleeds — the wound
seldom or never heals. Such men rarely fail in
the achievement of what they covet, if the gods
are neutral ; but adamant against the world, they
are vulnerable through their affections. Their
love is intense, but undemonstrative ; their ha-
tred implacable, but unrevengeful. Too proud
to revenge, too galled to pardon.
There stood Guy Darrell, to whom the bar had
destined its highest honors, to whom the Senate
had accorded its most rapturous cheers ; and the
more you gazed on him as he there stood, the
more perplexed became the enigma, how with a
career sought with such energy, advanced with
such success, the man had abruptly subsided into
a listless recluse, and the career had been vol-
untarily resigned for a home without neighbors,
a hearth without children.
" I had no idea," said Lionel, as Darrell rode
slowly awaj', soon lost from sight amidst the
thick foliage of summer trees — '"I had no idea
that my cousin was so young 1"
" Oh, yes I" said Mr. Fairthorn ; '"he is only
a year older than I am I"
" Older than you !" exclaimed Lionel, staring
in blunt amaze at the elderly-looking pereonage
beside him ; " yet true — he "told me so himself."
"And I am fifty-one last birthday."
" ^Ir. DaiTcll fifty-two ! Incredible !"
" I don't know why we should ever grow old,
the life we lead,'' observed Mr. Fairthorn, re-
adjusting his spectacles. '• Time stands so still !
Fishing, too, is very conducive to longevity. If
you will follow me we will get the rods ; and
the flute — you are quite sure you would like the
flute ? Yes I thank you, my dear young Sir.
And yet there are folks who prefer the fiddle I"
"Is not the sun a little too bright for the fly
at present ? and will you not, in the mean while,
show me over the house?"
"Very well; not that this house has much
worth seeing. The other, indeed, would have
had a music-room I But, after all, nothing like
the open air for the flute. This way."
I spare thee, gentle reader, the minute inven-
tory of Fawley Manor House. It had nothing
but its antiquity to recommend it. It had a great
many rooms, all, except those used as the din-
ing-room and library, very small and very low —
innumerable closets, nooks — unexpected cavi-
ties, as if made on purpose for the venerable
game of hide-and-seek. Save a stately old
kitchen, the offices were sadly defective, even
for Mr. Dan-ell's domestic establishment, which
consisted but of two men and four maids (the
stablemen not lodging in the house). Draw-
ing-room, properly speaking, it had none. At
some remote period a sort of gallery under the
gable roofs (above the first floor), stretching
from end to end of the house, might have served
for the reception of guests on grand occasions.
For fragments of mouldering tapestry still, here
and there, clung to the walls ; and a high chim-
ney-piece, whereon, in plaster relief, was com-
memorated the memorable fishing-party of An-
tony and Cleopatra, retained patches of color
and gilding, which must, when fresh, have made
the Egv'ptian queen still more appallingly hide-
ous, and the fish at the end of Antony's hook
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
41
still less resembling any creature known to ich-
thyologists.
The" library had been arranged into shelves
from floor to roof by Mr. Darrell's father, and
subsequently, for the mere purpose of holding
as many volumes as possible, brought out into
projecting wings (college-like) by DaiTell him-
self, without any pretension to mediaeval char-
acter. With this room communicated a small
reading-closet, which the host resened to him-
self ; and this, by a circular stair cut into the
massive wall, ascended first into Mr. Darrell's
sleeping-chamber, and thence into a gable re-
cess that adjoined the gallery, and which the
host had fitted up for the purpose of scientific
experiments in chemistry, or other branches of
practical philosophy. These more private rooms
Lionel was not permitted to enter.
Altogether the house was one of those cruel
tenements which it would be a sin to pull down
or even materially to alter, but which it would
be an hourly inconvenience for a modern fam-
ily to inhabit. It was out of all character with
Mr. DaiTcU's former position in life, or with the
fortune which Lionel vaguely sup])Osed him to
possess, and considerably underrated. Like Sir
Nicholas Bacon, the man had grown too large
for his habitation.
'' I don't wonder," said Lionel, as, their wan-
derings over, he and Fairthorn found themselves
in the library, '• that INIr. Darrell began to build
a new house. But it would have been a great
piry to pull down this for it."
" Pull down this ! Don't hint at such an idea
to Mr. Darrell. He would as soon have pulled
down the British monarchy! Kay, I suspect,
sooner."
" But the new building must surely have swal-
lowed up the old one."
" Oh, no ; Mr. Darrell had a ]>]an by which he
would have inclosed this separately in a kind of
court with an open screen work or cloister ; and
it was his intention to appropriate it entirely to
mediasval antiquities, of which he had a wonder-
ful collection. He had a notion of illustrating
every earlier reign In which his ancestors flour-
ished — difterent apartments in correspondence
with different dates. It would have been a chron-
icle of national manners."
" But, if it be not an impertinent question,
v.'here is this collection ? In London ?"
" Hush ! hush ! I will give you a peep of some
of the treasures, only don't betray me."
Fairthorn here, with singular rapidity, consid-
ering that he never moved in a straightforward
direction, undulated into the open air in front
of the house, described a rhomboid toward a
side-buttress in the new building, near to which
was a postern door ; unlocked that door from a
key in his pocket, and, motioning Lionel to fol-
low him, entered within the ribs of the stony
skeleton. Lionel followed in a sort of super-
natural awe, and beheld, Avith more substantial
alarm, Mr. Fairthorn winding up an inclined
plank which he embraced with both arms, and
by M-hich he ultimately ascended to a timber
joist in what should have been an upper floor,
only flooring there was none. Perched there,
Fairthorn glared down on Lionel through his
spectacles. "Dangerous," he said, whispering-
ly; " but one gets used to every thing ! If you
feel afraid, don't venture !"
Lionel, animated by that doubt of his cour-
age, sprang up the plank, balancing himself,
school-boy fashion, with outstretched ai-ms, and
gained the side of his guide.
" Don't touch me," exclaimed Mr. Fairthorn,
shrinking, " or we shall both be over. Now ob-
serve and imitate." Dropping himself then care-
fully and gradually, till he dropped on the tim-
ber joist as if it were a velocipede, his long legs
dangling down, he with thigh and hand impelled
himself onward till he gained the ridge of a wall,
on which he delivered his person, and wijjed his
spectacles.
Lionel was not long before he stood in the
same place. "Here we are 1' said Fairthorn.
" I don't see the collection," answered Lionel,
first peering down athwart the joists upon the
rugged ground overspread with stones and rub-
bish, then glancing up, thi-ough similar intei--
stices above, to the gaunt rafters.
" Here are some — most precious," answered
Fairthorn, tapping behind him. "Walled up,
except where these boards, cased in iron, are
nailed across, with a little door just big enough
to creep through ; but that is locked — Chubb's
lock, and I\Ir. Darrell keeps the key I — treasures
for a palace ! No, you can't peep through here
— not a chink ; but come on a little further, —
mind your footing."
Skirting the wall, and still on the perilous
ridge, Fairthorn crept on, formed an angle, and,
stopping short, claj)ped his eye to the crevice of
some planks nailed rudely across a yav.ning ap-
erture. Lionel found another crevice for him-
self, and saw, piled up in adniired disorder, pic-
tures, with their backs turned to a desolate wall,
rare cabinets, and articles of curious furniture,
chests, boxes, crates — heaped pell-mell. This
receptacle had been roughly floored in deal, in
order to support its miscellaneous contents, and
was lighted from a large window (not visible in
front of the l^ousc), glazed in dull rough glass,
with ventilators.
"These are the hea^y things, and least cost-
ly things, that no one could well rob. Tiie pic-
tures here are merely curious as early speci-
mens, intended for the old house, all spoiling
and rotting ; Jlr. DaiTell wishes them to do so,
I believe! What he wishes must be done! my
dear young Sir — a prodigious mind^ — it is of
gi'anite."
"I can not understand it," said Lionel, aghast.
" The last man I should have thought capricious-
ly whimsical."
" Whimsical ! Bless my soul ! don't say such
a word — don't, pray, or the roof will fall dovra
u])On us ! Come away. You have seen all you
can see. You must go first now — mind that
loose stone thei'e !"
Nothing further was said till they were out of
the building; and Lionel felt like a knight of
old who had been led into sepulchral halls by a
wizard.
CHAPTER V.
The annals of empire are briefly chronicled iu family
records brought down to the present day, showing that
the race of men is indeed "like leaves on trees, now
green in youth, now withering on the ground." Yet
to the branch the most b.<ire will green leaves return,
60 long as the sap can remount to the branch from the
root ; but t!ie branch whicli l-.as ceased to take life from
42
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
the root— bang it liigh, hang it low — is a prey to the
wind and the woodnuin.
It was mid-day. The boy and his new friend
were standing apart, as becomes silent anglers,
on the banks of a narrow brawling rivulet, run-
ning tlnough green pastures, half a mile from
the house. The sky was overcast, as Darrell had
predicted, but the rain did not yet fall. The
two anglers were not long before they had filled
a basket with small trout.
Then Lionel, who was by no means fond of
fishing, laid his rod on the bank, and strolled
across the long grass to his companion.
"It will rain soon," said he. "Let me take
advantage of the present time, and hear the flute,
while we can yet enjoy the open air. No, not
by the margin, or you will be always looking
after the trout. On the rising-ground, see that
old thorn-tree — let us go and sit under it. The
new building looks well from it. What a pile it
would have been ! I may not ask you, I sup-
j)0se, why it is left incompleted. Perhaps it
would have cost too much, or would have been
disproportionate to the estate."
"To the present estate it would have been
disproportioned, but not to the estate Mr. Dar-
rell intended to add to it. As to cost, you don't
know him. He would never have undertaken
what he could not afi:brd to complete ; and what
he once undertook, no thoughts of the cost
would have scared him from finishing. Prodig-
ious mind — granite ! And so rich !" added Fair-
thorn, with an air of great pride.- "I ought to
know ; I write all his letters on money matters.
How much do you think he has, without count-
ing land ?"
" I can not guess."
"Nearly half a million — in two years it will
be more than half a million. And he had not
three hundred a year when he began life; for
Fawley was sadly mortgaged."
" Is it possible ! Could any la\\<yer make half
a million at the bar ?"
" If any man could, he would, if he set his
mind on it. But it was not all made at the bar,
though a great part Qf it was. An East Indian
old bachelor of the same name, but who had
never been heard of hereabouts till he wrote
from Calcutta to Mr. Darrell (inquiring if they
were any relations — and Mr. Darrell referred
him to the College-at-Arms, which proved that
they came from the same stock ages ago) — left
him all his money. Mr. Dairell was not de-
pendent on his profession when he stood up in
Parliament. And since we have been here, such
savings! Not that Mr. Darrell is avaricious,
but how can he spend money in this place ?
You should have seen the servants we kept in
Carlton Gardens. Such a cook too — a French
gentleman — looked like a marquis. Those were
happy days, and proud ones ! It is true that I
order the dinner here, but it can't be the same
thing. Do you like fillet of veal ? we have one
to-day."
" We used to have a fillet of veal at school on
Sundays. I thought it good then."
"It makes a nice mince," said Mr. Fairthorn,
v.ith a sensual movement of his lips. "One
must think of dinner when one lives in the coun-
tiy — so little else to think of! Not that Mr.
Darrell does, but then lie is — granite !"
"Still," said Lionel, smiling, "I do not get
my answer. Why was the house uncomi)leted ?
and why did Mr. Darrell retire from public
life?"
"He took both into his head; and when a
thing once gets there, it is no use asking why.
But," added Fairthorn, and his innocent ugly
face changed into an expression of earnest sad-
ness — "but no doubt he had his reasons. He
has reasons for all he does, only they lie far far
away from what appears on the surface — far as
that rivulet lies from its source ! My dear young
Sir, Mr. Darrell has known griefs "on which it
does not become you and me to talk. He never
talks of them. The least I can do for my bene-
factor is not to pry into his secrets, nor babble
them out. And he is so kind — so good — never
gets into a passion ; but it is so awful to wound
him — it gives him such pain ; that's why he
frightens me — frightens me horribly ; and so he
will you M'hen you come to know him. Prodig-
ious mind ! — granite — overgrown with sensitive
])lants. Yes, a little music will do us both
good."
Mx. Fairthorn screwed his flute — an exceed-
ingly handsome one. He pointed out its beau-
ties to Lionel — a present from Mr. Darrell last
Christmas — and then he began. Strange thing,
Art! especially music. Out of an art a man
may be so trivial you would mistake him for an
imbecile — at best, a grown infant. Put him into
his art, and how high he soars above you ! How
quietly he enters into a heaven of wliich he has
become a denizen, and, unlocking the gates with
his golden key, admits you to follow, an humble,
reverent visitor.
In his art Fairthorn was certainly a master,
and the air he now played was exquisitely soft
and plaintive ; it accorded with the clouded yet
quiet sky, with the lone but summer landscape,
with Lionel's melancholic but not afflicted train
of thought. The boy could only murmur, "Beau-
tiful !" when the musician ceased.
"It is an old air," said Fairthorn ; "I don't
think it is known. I found its scale scrawled
down in a copy of the Eikon Basilike, with the
name oi Joannes Dan-ell, Kq. Aurat, written un-
der it. That, by the date, was Sir John Dar-
rell, the cavalier who fought for Charles I., fa-
ther of the graceless Sir llalph, who flourished
under Charles II. Both their portraits are in
the dining-room.
"Tell me something of the family; I know
so little about it — not even how the Haughtons
and Darrells seem to have been so long con-
nected. I see by the portraits that the Ilaugh-
ton name was borne by former Darrells, then
apparently dropped, now it is borne again by
my cousin."
" He beai-s it only as a Cliristian name. Your
grandfather was his sponsor. But he is, never-
theless, the head of your family."
"So he says. How ?"
Fairthorn gathered himself up, his knees to
his chin, and began in the tone of a guide who
has got his lesson by heart, though it was not
long before he warmed into his subject.
" The Darrells are supposed to Jiave got their
name from a knight in the reign of Edward III.,
who held the lists in a joust victoriously against
all comers, and was called, or called himself,
John the Dare-all ; or, in old spelling, the Dei'-
all ! They were among the most powerful £am-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
43
ilies in the country ; their alliances were with
the highest houses — Montfichets, Nevilles, Mow-
brays ; they descend through such marriages
from the blood of Plantagenct kings. You'll
find their names in Chronicles in the early
French wai-s. Unluckily, they attached them-
selves to the fortunes of Earl Warwick, the
King-maker, to whose blood they were allied;
their representative was killed in the fatal field
of Barnet ; their estates were, of course, confis-
cated; the sole son and heir of that ill-fated
politician passed into the Low Countries, where
he served as a soldier. His son and grandson
followed the same calling under foreign banners.
But they must have kept up the love of the old
land ; for, in the latter part of the reign of Hen-
ry VIII., the last male Darrell returned to En-
gland with some broad gold pieces, saved by
himself or his exiled fathers, bought some land
in this county, in which the ancestral possessions
had once been large, and built the present house,
of a size suited to the altered fortunes of a race
that had, in a former age, manned castles with
retainers. The baptismal name of the soldier
who thus partially refounded the old line in En-
gland was that now borne by your cousin Guy
— a name always favored by Fortune in the
family annals ; for, in Elizabeth's time, from
the rank of small gentry, to which their fortune
alone lifted them since their return to their na-
tive land, the Darrells rose once more into wealth
and eminence under a handsome young Sir Guy
— we have his picture in black Howered velvet —
who married the heiress of the Haughtons, a
family that had grown rich under the Tudors,
and in high favor with the ]Maiden-Queen. This
Sir Guy was befriended by Essex, and knighted
by Elizabeth herself. Their old house was then
abandoned for the larger mansion of the Haugh-
tons, which had also the advantage of being
nearer to the Court. The renewed prosperity
of the Darrells was of short duration. The
Civil Wars came on, and Sir John Darrell took
the losing side. He escaped to France with his
only son. He is said to have been an accom-
plished, melancholy man ; and my belief is, that
he composed that air which you justly admire
for its mournful sweetness. He turned Komau
Catholic, and died in a convent. But the son,
Ralph, was brought up in France with Charles
II. and other gay roisterers. On the return of
the Stuart, Ralph ran oft" with the daughter of
the Roundhead to whom his estates had been
given, and, after getting them back, left his
wife in the country, and made love to other
men's wives in town. Shocking profligate ! no
fruit could thrive upon such a branch. He
squandered all he could squander, and would
have left his children beggars, but that he was
providentially slain in a tavern brawl for boast-
ing of a lady's favors to her husband's face. The
husband suddenly stabbed him — no fair duello,
for Sir Raljjh was invincible with the small
sword. Still the family fortune was much di-
lapidated, yet still the Darrells lived in the fine
house of the Haughtons, and left Fawley to the
owls. But Sir Ralph's son, in his old age, mar-
ried a second time, a young lady of high rank,
an earl's daughter. He must have been very
much in love with her, despite his age ; for, to
win her consent or her father's, he agreed to
settle all the Ilaughton estates on her and the
children she might bear to him. The smaller
Darrell property had already been entailed on
his son by his first mamage. This is how the
family came to split. Old Darrell had children
by his second wife ; the eldest of those children
took the Ilaughton name, and inherited the
Ilaughton property. The son by the first mar-
riage had nothing but Fawley, and the scanty
domain round it. You descend from the second
marriage, Mr. Darrell from the first. You un-
derstand now, my dear young Sir?"
" Yes, a little ; but I should like very much to
know where those fine Ilaughton estates are
now ?"
" W^here they are now ? I can't say. They
were once in Middlesex. Probably much of the
land, as it was sold piecemeal, fell into small al-
lotments, constantly changing hands. But the
last relics of the property were, I know, bought
on speculation by Cox the distiller ; for, when
we were in London, by Mr. Darrell's desire I
went to look after them, and inquire if tliey
could be repurchased. And I found that so
rapid in a few years has been the prosperity of
this great commercial country, that if one did
buy them back, one would buy twelve villas,
several streets, two squares, and a paragon!
But as that symptom of national advancement,
though a proud thought in itself, may not have
any pleasing interest for you, I return to the
Darrells. From the time in which the Ilaughton
estate had parted from them, they settled back >
in their old house of Fawley. But tb.ey could
never again hold up their heads with the noble-
men and great squires in the county. As much
as they could do to live at all upon the little
patrimony ; still the reminiscence of what they
had been made them maintain it jealously, and
entail it rigidly. The eldest son would never
have thought of any profession or business ; the
younger sons generall}'- became soldiers, and
"being always a venturesome race, and having
nothing particular to make them value their ex-
istence, were no less generally killed oft' betimes.
Tiie family became thoroughly obscure, slipped
out of place in the county, seldom rose to be
even justices of the peace, never contrived to
marry heiresses again, but only the daughters
of some neighboring parson or squire as poor
as themselves, but always of gentle blood. Oh,
they were as proud as Spaniards in that respect.
So from father to son, each generation grew
obscurer and poorer ; for, entail the estate as
they might, still some settlements on it were
necessary, and no settlements were ever brought
into it; and thus entails were cut oft' to admit
some new mortgage, till the rent-roll was some-
what less than £300 a year when Mr. Darrell's
father came into possession. Yet somehow or
other he got to college, where no Darrell had
been since the time of the Glorious Revolution,
and was a learned man and an antiquary — a
GREAT antiquary! You may have read his
works. I know there is one copy of them in
the British Museum, and there is anotlier here,
but that copy Mr. Darrell keeps under lock and
kev."
'" I am ashamed to say I don't even know the
titles of those works."
"There were 'Popular Ballads on the Wars
of the Roses ;' ' Darrelliana,' consisting of tra-
ditional and other memorials of the Darrell
44
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
family ; ' Inquiiy into the Origin of Legends
connected with Dragons ;' ' Hours among Mon-
umental Brasses,' and other ingenious lucubra-
tions above tiie taste of the vulgar ; some of
them -were even read at the Royal Society of
Antiquaries. They cost much to print and pub-
lish. But I have heard my father, who was his
bailiff, say that he was a pleasant man, and was
fond of reciting old scraps of poetry, which he
did with great energy ; indeed, Mr. Darrell de-
clares that it was the noticing, in his father's
animated and felicitous elocution, the effects
that voice, look, and deliverj' can give to words,
which made Mr. Darrell himself the fine speak-
er that he is. But I can only recollect the An-
tiquary as a very majestic gentleman, with a
long pigtail — awful, rather, not so much so as
his son, but still awful — and so sad-looking ;
you would not have recovered your spirits for a
week if you had seen him, especially when the
old house wanted repairs, and he was thinking
how he could pay for them !"
" Was ilr. Darrell, the present one, an onlv
child ?"
"Yes, and much with his father, whom he
loved most dearly, and to this day he sighs if he
has to mention his father's name ! He has old
Mr. DarreU's portrait over the chimney-piece
in his own reading-room ; and he had it in his
own library in Carlton Gardens. Our Mr. Dar-
reU's mother was veiy pretty, even as I remember
her ; she died when he was about ten years old.
And she too was a relation of yours — a Haugh-
ton by blood ; but perhaps you will be ashamed
of her, "when I say she was a governess in a rich
mercantile family. She had been left an or-
phan. I believe old Mr. Dan-ell (not that he
was old then) married her because the Haugh-
tons could or would do nothing for her, and be-
cause she was much snubbed and put upon, as
I am told governesses usually are — married her
because, poor as he was, he was still the head
of both families, and bound to do what he could
for decayed scions ! The first governess a Dar-
rell ever married, but no true Darrell would
have called that a mesalliance, since she was still
a Haughton, and 'Fors non mutat genus,'
Chance does not change race."
" But how comes it that the Ilaughtons — my
grandfather Haughton, I suppose, would do no-
thing for his own kinswoman?"
"It was not your grandfather, Robert Haugh-
ton, who was a generous man — he was then a
mere youngster, hiding himself for debt — but
your great-grandfather, who was a hard man,
and on the turf. He never had money to give
— only money for betting. He left the Haugh-
ton estates sadly dipped. But when Robert suc-
ceeded, he came forward, was godfather to our
Mr. Darrell, insisted on sharing the expense of
sending him to Eton, where he became greatly
distinguished; thence to Oxford, where he in-
creased his reputation ; and would probably
have done more for him, only Mr. Darrell, once
his foot on the ladder, wanted no help to climb
to the top."
"Then my grandfather, Robert, still had the
Haughton estates? Their last relics had not
been yet transmuted by Mr. Cox into squares
and a paragon ?"
" No ; the grand old mansion, though much
dilapidated, with its park, though stripped of
salable timber, was still left, with a rental from
farms that still appertained to the residence,
which would have sufficed a prudent man for the
luxuries of life, and allowed a reserve fund to
clear off the mortgages gradually. Abstinence
and self-denial for one or two generations would
have made a property, daily rising in value as
the metropolis advanced to its outskirts, a prince-
ly estate for a third. But Robert Haughton,
though not on the turf, had a grand way of liv-
ing ; and while Guy Darrell went into the law
to make a small patrimony a large fortune, your
father, my dear young Sir, was put into the
Guards to reduce a large patrimony — into Mr.
Cox's distillery."
Lionel colored, but remained silent.
Fairthorn, who was as unconscioiis, in his zest
of narrator, that he was giving pain as an ento-
mologist, in his zest for collecting, when he pins
a live moth into his cabinet, resumed: ''Your
father and Guy Darrell were warm friends as
boys and youths. Guy was the elder of the two,
and Charlie Haughton (I beg your pardon, hc
was always called Charlie) looked up to him as
to an elder brother. ]\Iany's the scrape Guy got
him out of; and many a pound, I believe, when
Guy had some funds of his own, did Guy lend
to Charlie."
" I am very sorry to hear that," said Lionel,
sharply.
Fairthorn looked frightened. "I'm afraid I
have made a blunder. Don't tell Mr. Dan-ell."
" Certainly not ; I promise. But how came
my father to need this aid, and how came they
at last to quarrel?"
" Your father, Charlie, became a gay young
man about town, and very much the fashion. He
was like you in person, only his forehead was
lower and his eye not so steady. Mr. Danell
studied the law in Chambers. When Robert
Haughton died, what with his debts, what with
his father's, and what with Charlie's post-obits
and I O U's, there seemed small chance indeed
of saving the estate to the Haughtons. But
then Mr. Darrell looked close into matters, and
with such skill did he settle them that he re-
moved the fear of foreclosure ; and what with
increasing the rental here and there, and re-
placing old mortgages by new at less interest,
he contrived to extract from the property an in-
come of nine hundred pounds a year to Charlie
(three times the income Darrell had inherited
himself), where before it had seemed that the
debts were more than the assets. Foreseeing
how much the land would rise in value, he then
earnestly imjjlored Charlie (who unluckily had
the estate in fee-simple, as Mr. Darrell has this,
to sell if he pleased), to live on his income, and
in a few years a part of the property might be
sold for building purposes, on terms that would
save all the rest, with the old house in which
Darrells and Haughtons lioth had once reared
generations. Charlie promised, I know, and
I've no doubt, my dear young Sir, quite sincere-
ly — but all men are not granite ! He took t(5
gambling, incurred debts of honor, sold the farms
one by one, resorted to usurers, and one night,
after playing six hours at picquet, nothing was
left for him but to sell all that remained to Mr.
Cox the distiller, unknown to Mr. Darrell, who
was then married himself, working hard, and
living quite out of the news of the fashionable
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
45
world. Then Charlie Ilaughton sold out of the
Guards, spent whiit he got for his commission,
went into the line ; and finally, in a country
town, in which I don't think he was quartered,
hut having gone there on some sporting sjjecu-
lation, was unwillingly detained — married — "
"My mother I" said Lionel, haughtily ; ''and
the best of women she is. What then ?"
♦' Nothing, my dear young Sir — nothing, ex-
cept that ^Ir. Darrell never forgave it. lie has
his prejudices ; this marriage shocked one of
them."
'•Prejudice against my poor mother! I al-
ways supjjoscd sol I wonder why ? The most
simple-hearted, inotfeusive, aftectionate wo-
man."
" I have not a doubt of it ; but it is beginning
to rain. Let us go home. I should like some
luncheon ; it breaks the day."
" Tell me first why Mr. Darrell has a preju-
dice against my mother. I don't think that he
has even seen her. Unaccountable caprice !
Shocked him, too — what a word I Tell me — I
beg — I insist."
"But you know," said Fairthorn, half pite-
ously. half snappishly, " that ]Mrs. Ilaughton
was the daughter of a linen-draper, and her fa-
ther's money got Charlie out of the county jail ;
and Mr. Darrell said, ' Sold even your name I'
My father heard him say it in the hall at Faw-
ley. ^Ir. Darrell was there during a long vaca-
tion, and your father came to see him. Your
father fired up. and they never saw each other,
I believe, again."
Lionel remained still as if thunder-stricken.
Something in his mother's language and man-
ner had at times made him suspect that she was
not so well born as his father. But it was not
the discovery that she was a tradesman's daugh-
ter that galled him ; it was the thought that his
father was bought for the altar out of the county
jail I It was those cutting words, " Sold even
your name!" His face, before very crimson,
became livid; his head sunk on his breast. lie
walked toward the old gloomy house by Fair-
thorn's side, as one who, for the first time in life,
feels on his heart the leaden weight of an here-
ditary shame.
CHAPTER VI.
Showing how sinful it is in a man who does not care for
his honor to beget children.
When Lionel saw Mr. Fairthorn devoting
his intellectual being to the contents of a cold
chicken-pie, he silently stepped out of the room,
and slunk away into a thick copse at the far-
thest end of the paddock. He longed to be
alone. The rain descended, not heavily, but in
I)enetrating drizzle : he did not feel it, or rath-
er, he felt glad that there was no gaudy, mock-
ing sunlight. He sate down forlorn in" the hol-
lows of a glen which the copse covered, and
buried his face in his clasped hands.
Lionel Haughton, as the reader may have
noticed, was no i)remature man — a manly bov,
but still a habitant of the twilight, dreamy shad-
ow-land of boyhood. Noble elements were stir-
ring fitfully within him, but their agencies were
crude and undeveloped. .Sometimes, through
the native acuteness of his intellect, he appre-
hended truths quickly and truly as a man ; then,
again, through the warm haze of undisciplined
tenderness, or the raw mists of that sensitive
pride in which object.';, small in tliemselves,
loom large witli undetected outlines, he fell
back into the passionate dimness of a child's
reasoning. He was intensely ambitious ; Quix-
otic in the point of honor; dauntless in peril;
but morbidly trembling at the very shadow of
disgrace, as a foal, destined to be the war-horse
and trample down leveled steel, starts in its
tranquil pastures at the rustling of a leaf. Glow-
ingly romantic, but not inclined to vent romance
in literary creations, his feelings were the more
high-wrought and enthusiastic because they had
no outlet in jioetic cliannels. Most boys of great
ability and strong passion write ver=es — it is na-
ture's relief to brain and heart at the critical
turning-age. Most boys thus gifted do so ; a
few do not, and out of tliose few Fate selects
the great men of action — those large, luminous
characters that stamp poetry on the world's pro-
saic surface. Lionel had in him the pith and
substance of Fortune's grand %iobodies, who
become Fame's abrupt somebodies when the
chances of life throw suddenly in their way a
noble something, to be ardently coveted and
boldly won. But, I repeat, as yet he was a boy
— so he sate there, his hands before his face, an
unreasoning self-torturer. He knew now why
this haughty Darrell had WTitteu with so little
tenderness and respect to his beloved mother.
Darrell looked on her as the cause of his igno-
ble kinsman's "sale of name ;" nay, most ])rob-
ably ascribed to her, not the fond, girii<li love
which levels all disjjarities of rank, but the vul-
gar, cold-blooded design to exchange her fa-
ther's bank-notes for a marriage beyond her
station. And he was the debtor to this super-
cilious creditor, as his father had been before
him ! His father ! — till then he had been so
proud of that relationship. ]Mrs. Ilaughton had
not been happy with her captain ; his confirmed
habits of wild dissipation had embittered her
union, and at last worn away her wifely afl:ec-
'tions. But she hatl tended and nursed him, in
his last illness, as the lover of her youth ; and
though occasionally she hinted at his faults, she
ever spoke of him as the ornament of all socie-
ty ; poor, it is true, harassed by unfeeling cred-
itors, but the finest of fine gentlemen. Lionel
had never heard from her of the ancestral es-
tates sold for a gambling debt ; never from her
of the county jail nor the mercenary mesalliance.
In boyhood, before we have any cause to be
proud of ourselves, we arc so proud of our fa-
thers, if we have a decent excuse for it. Of his
father could Lionel Ilaughton be proud now ?
And Darrell was cognizant of his paternal dis-
grace, had taunted his father in yonder old hall
— for what? — tlie marriage from which Lionel
sprung? The hands grew tighter and tighter
before that burning face. He did not weep, as
he had done in Vance's presence at a tliought
much less galling. Not that tears would have
misbecome him. Shallow judges of human na-
ture are they who think that tears in themselves
ever misbecome boy or even man. Well did
the sternest of Roman writers place the arch
distinction of humanity, aloft from all meaner
of heaven's creatures, in the prerogative of tears 1
46
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Sooner mayest thou trust thy purse to a profes-
sional pickpocket than give loyal friendship to
the man who boasts of eyes to which the heart
never mounts in dew ! Only, when man weeps
he should be alone — not because tears are weak,
but because they should be sacred. Tears are
akin to prayers. Pharisees parade prayer : im-
postors parade tears. O Pegasus, Pegasus —
softly, softly! — thou hast hurried me off amidst
the clouds: drop me gently down — there, by the
side of the motionless boy in the shadowy glen.
CHAPTER Vn.
Lionel Haiighton, having hitherto much improved his
oliance of fortune, decides the question, "What -Hill
he do witla it?"
" I HAVE been seeking you every where," said
a well-known voice ; and a hand rested lightly
on Lionel's shoulder. The boy looked up, start-
led, but yet heavily, and saw Guy Darrell, the
last man on earth he could have desired to see.
"Will you come in for a few minutes? you are
wanted."
" What for ? I would rather stay here. Who
can want me ?"
Darrell, struck by the words, and the sullen
tone in which they were uttered, surveyed Lio-
nel's face for an instant, and replied in a voice
involuntarily more kind than usual —
" Some one very commonplace, but, since the
Picts went out of fashion, very necessary to mor-
tals the most sublime. I ought to apologize for
his coming. You threatened to leave me yes-
terday because of a defect in your wardrobe.
Mr. Fairthorn wrote to my tailor to hasten hith-
er and repair it. He is here. I commend him
to your custom ! Don't despise him because he
makes for a man of my remote generation.
Tailors are keen observers, and do not grow out
of date so quickly as politicians."
The words were said with a playful good-
humor very uncommon to Mr. Darrell. The
intention was obviously kind and kinsmanlike.
Lionel sprang to his feet ; his lip curled, his eye
flashed, and his crest rose.
"No, Sir; I will not stoop to this! I will
not be clothed by j-our cliarity — yours ! I will
not submit to an imjilied taunt upon my poor
mother's ignorance of the manners of a rank to
which she was not born ! You said we might
not like each other, and if so, we should part
forever. I do not like you, and I will go !"
He turned abruptly, and walked to the house —
magnanimous. If Mr. Darrell had not been the
most singular of men he might well have been
offended. vVs it was, though none less accessi-
ble to surprise, he was surprised. But offended ?
Judge for yourself. " I declare," muttered Guy
Darrell, gazing on the boy's receding figure-^
"I declare that I almost feel as if I could once
again be capable of an emotion ! I hope I am
not going to like that boy! The old Darrell
blood in his veins, surely. 'l might have spoken
as he did at his age, but I must have had some
better reason for it. What did I say to justify
such an explosion ! Qiiid fecA f — ubi lapsus ?
Gone, no doubt, to pack up his knapsack, and
take the Road to Ruin! Shall I let him go?
Better for me, if I am really in danger of liking
him; and so be at his mercy to sting — what?
my heart ? I defy him ; it is dead. No ; he
shall not go thus. I am the head of our joint
houses. Houses! I wish he Aarf a house, poor
boy! And his grandfather loved me. Let him
go ! I will beg his pardon first ; and he may
dine in his drawers if that will settle the mat-
ter!"
Thus, no less magnanimous than Lionel, did
this misanthropical man follow his ungracious
cousin. " Ha !" cried Darrell, suddenly, as, ap-
pi'oaching the threshold, he saw Mr. Fairthorn
at the dining-room window occupied in nibbing
a pen upon an ivory thumb-stall — " I have hit
it ! That abominable Fairthorn has been shed-
ding its prickles ! How could I trust flesh and
blood to such a bramble? I'll know what it
was, this instant !" Vain Menace ! No sooner
did Mr. Fairthorn catch glimpse of Dan-ell's
countenance within ten yards of the porch than,
his conscience taking alarm, he rushed inconti-
nent from the window — the apartment — and
ere Darrell could fling open the door, was lost
in some lair — " nullis penetrabilis astris" — in
that sponge-like and cavernous abode, where-
with benignant Providence had suited the local-
ity to the creature.
CHAPTER YIII.
New imbroglio in that ever-recurring, never-to-be-settled
question, "What will he do with it?"
With a disappointed glare, and a baffled
shrug of the shoulder, Mr. Darrell turned from
the dining-room, and passed up the stairs to
Lionel's chamber, opened the door quickly, and
extending his hand, said, in that tone which
had disarmed the wrath of ambitious factions,
and even (if fame lie not) once seduced from
the hostile Treasury-bench a placeman's vote,
" I must have hurt your feelings, and I come to
beg your pardon !"
But before this time Lionel's proud heart, in
which ungrateful anger could not long find room,
had smitten him for so ill a return to well-meant
and not indelicate kindness. And, his wounded
egotism appeased by its very outburst, he had
called to mind Fairthoi'n's allusions to Darrell's
secret griefs — griefs that must have been indeed
stormy so to have revulsed the currents of a life.
And, despite those griefs, the great man had
spoken playfully to him— playfully in order to
make light of obligations. So when Guy Dar-
rell now extended that hand, and stooped to that
apology, Lionel was fairly overcome. Tears,
before refused, now found irresistible way. The
hand he could not take, but, yielding to his
yearning impulse, he threw his arms fairly round
his host's neck, leaned his young check upon
that granite breast, and sobbed out incoherent
words of passionate repentance — honest, vener-
ating affection. Dai-rell's face changed, looking
for a moment wondrous soft — and then, as by
an effort of supreme self-control, it became se-
verely placid. He did not return that embrace,
but certainly he in no way repelled it ; nor did
he trust himself to speak till the boy liad ex-
hausted the force of his first feelings, and had
turned to dry his tears.
Then he said, with a soothing sweetness :
" Lionel Haughton, you have the heart of a gen-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
47
tleman that can never listen to a frank apolopy
for unintentional wrong, but what it sprin_c;s |
forth to take the blame to itself, and return apol-
ogv ten-fold. Enough I A mistake, no doubt, !
on" both sides. More time must elapse before '
either can truly say that he does not like the
other. Meanwhile," added Darrell, with almost
a laugh — and that concluding query showed that
even on trifles the man was bent upon either
forcing or stealing his own will upon others —
'•meanwhile, must I send away the tailor?"
I need not repeat Lionel's answer.
CHAPTER IX.
Darrell: mystery in hU past life. What has he done
with it?
Some days passed — each day varying little
from the other. It was the habit of Darrell, if
he went late to rest, to rise early. He never
allowed himself more than five hours' sleep. A
man greater than Guy Darrell — Sir Walter
Raleigh — carved from the solid day no larger a
slice for Morpheus. And it was this habit, per-
haps, yet more than temperance in diet, which
preserved to Darrell his remarkable youthful-
ness of aspect and frame, so that at fifty-two he
looked, and really was, younger than many a
strong man of thirty- five. For, certain it is,
that on entering middle life, he who would keep
his brain clear, his step elastic, his muscles from
fleshiness, his nerves from tremor — in a word,
retain his youth in spite of the register — should
beware of long slumbers. Nothing ages like
laziness. The hours before breakfast Darrell
devoted first to exercise, whatever the weather
— next to his calm scientific pursuits. At ten
o'clock punctually he rode out alone, and seldom
returned till late in the afternoon. Then he
would stroll forth with Lionel into devious
woodlands, or lounge with him along the margin
of the lake, or lie down on the tedded grass,
call the boy's attention to the insect populace
which sports out its happy life in the summer
months, and treat of the ways and habits of each
varying species, with a quaint learning, half
humorous, half grave. He was a minute ob-
server and an accomplished naturalist. His
range of knowledge was, indeed, amazingly
large for a man who has had to pass his best
years in a dry and absorbing study : necessarily
not so profound in each section as that of a
special professor, but if the science was often
on the surface, the thoughts he deduced from
what he knew were as often original and deep.
A maxim of his, which he dropped out one day
to Lionel in his careless manner, but pointed
diction, may perhaps illustrate his own practice
and its results: "Never think it enough to
have solved the problem started by another
mind, till you have deduced from it a corollary
of your own."
After dinner, which was not over till past
eight o'clock, they always adjourned to the li-
brary, Fairthom vanishing into a recess, Darrell
and Lionel each with his several book, then an
air on the flute, and each to his own room be-
fore eleven. No life could be more methodical ;
yet to Lionel it had an animating charm, for
his interest in his host daily increased, and
varied his thoughts with perpetual occupation.
Darrell, on the contrary, while more kind and
cordial, more cautiously on his guard not to
wound his young guest's susceptibilities than he
had been before the quarrel and its reconcilia-
tion, did not seem to feel for Lionel the active
interest which Lionel felt for him. He did not,
as most clever men are apt to do in their inter-
course with youth, attempt to draw him out,
plomb his intellect, or guide his tastes. If he
was at times instructive, it was because talk fell
on subjects on which it pleased himself to touch,
and in which he could not speak without invol-
untarily instructing. Nor did he ever allure the
boy to talk of his school-days, of his friends, of
his predilections, his hopes, his future. In
short, had you observed them together, you
would have never sujjposed they were connec-
tions — that one could and ought to influence
and direct the career of the other. You would
have said the host certainly liked the guest, as
any man would like a promising, warm-hearted,
high-spirited, graceful boy, under his own roof
for a short time, but who felt that that boy was
nothing to him — would soon pass from his eye
— form friends, pursuits, aims — with which he
could be in no way commingled, for which he
should be wholly irresponsible. There was also
this peculiarity in DaiTell's conversation : if he
never spoke of his guest's past and future,
neither did he ever do more than advert in the
most general terms to his own. Of that grand
stage, on which he had been so brilliant an
actor, he imparted no reminiscences ; of those
great men, the leaders of his age, with whom
he had mingled familiarly, he told no anecdotes.
Equally silent was he as to the earlier steps in
his career, the modes by which he had studied,
the accidents of which he had seized advantage
— silent there as upon the causes he had gained,
or the debates he had adorned. Never could
you have supposed that this man, still in the
prime of public life, had been the theme of
journals, and the boast of party. Neither did
he ever, as men who talk easily at their o\vn
hearths are prone to do, speak of projects in the
future, even though the projects be no vaster
than the planting of a tree or the alteration of a
parterre — projects with which rural life so copi-
ously and so innocently teems. The past seemed
as if it had left to him no memory, the future
as if it stored for him no desire. But did the
past leave no memory ? Why then at intervals
would the book slide from his eye, the head
sink upon the breast, and a shade of unuttera-
ble dejection darken over the grand beauty of
that strong stern countenance? Still that de-
jection was not morbidly fed and encouraged,
for he would fling it from him with a quick im-
patient gesture of the head, resume the book res-
olutely, or change it for another which induced
fresh trains of thought, or look over Lionel's
shoulder, and make some subtle comment on
his choice, or call on Fairthom for the flute;
and in a few minutes the face was severely
serene again. And be it here said, that it is
only in the poetry of young gentlemen, or the
prose of lady novelists, that a man in good
health, and of sound intellect, wears the livery
of unvarj-ing gloom. However great his causes
of sorrow, he does not forever parade its osten-
tatious mourning, nor follow the hearse of hLs
48
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
hopes with the long face of an undertaker. He
will still have his gleams of cheerfulness — his
moments of good-humor. The old smile will
sometimes light the eye, and awake the old
playfulness of the lip. But what a great and
critical sorrow does leave behind is often far
worse than the sorrow itself has been. It is a
chance in the inner man, which strands him, as
Guv Darrell seemed stranded, upon the shoal
of the Present ; which, the more he strive man-
fully to bear his burden, warns him the more
from dwelling on the Past ; and the more im-
pressively it enforce the lesson of the vanity of
htmian wishes, strikes the more from his reck-
oning illusive hopes in the Future. Thus out
of our threefold existence two parts are annihi-
lated — the what has been — the what shall be.
We fold our arms, stand upon the petty and
steep cragstone, which alone looms out of the
Measureless Sea, and say to ourselves, looking
neither backward nor beyond, "Let us bear
what is ;" and so for the moment the eye can
lighten and the lip can smile.
Lionel could no longer glean from ]Mr. Fair-
thorn any stray hints upon the family records.
That gentleman had endently been reprimanded
for indiscretion, or warned against its repetition,
and he became reser\-ed and mum as if he had
just emerged from the cave of Trophonius. In-
deed he shunned trusting himself again alone to
Lionel, and, aftecting a long arrear of corre-
spondence on behalf of his employer, left the lad
during the forenoons to solitary angling, or social
intercourse with the swans and the tame doe.
But from some mystic concealment within doors
would often float far into the open air the melo-
dies of that magic flute ; and the boy would glide
back, along the dark-red mournful walls of the
old house.or the futile pomp of pilastered ar-
cades in the uncompleted new one, to listen to
the sound : listening, he, blissful boy, forgot the
present ; he seized the unchallenged royalty of
his yeai-s. For him no rebels in the past con-
spired with poison to the wine-cup, murder to
the sleep. No deserts in the future, arresting
the march of ambition, said, " Here are sands
for a pilgrim, not fields for a conqueror."
CHAPTER X.
In which chapter the History quietly moves on to the
next
Thus nearly a week had gone, and Lionel be-
gan to feel perplexed as to the duration of his
visit. Should he be the first to suggest depart-
ure? !Mr. Darrell rescued him from that em-
barrassment. On the seventh day, Lionel met
him in a lane near the house, returning from his
habitual ride. The boy walked home by the
side of the horseman, patting the steed, admir-
ing its shape, and praising the beauty of another
saddle-horse, smaller and slighter, which he had
seen in the paddock exercised by a groom.
"Do you ever ride that chestnut? I think it
even handsomer than this."
'•Half our preferences are due to the vanity
they flatter. Few can ride this horse — any one,
perhaps, that."
"There speaks the Dare-all 1" said Lionel,
laughing.
The host did not look displeased.
'• Where no difficulty, there no pleasure," said
he, in his curt laconic diction. " I was in Spain
two years ago. I had not an English horse there,
so I bought that Audalusian jennet. What has
served him at need, no preux chevalier would
leave to the chance of ill-usage. So the jennet
came with me to England. You have not been
much accustomed to ride, I suppose ?"
"Not much; but my dear mother thought I
ought to learn. She pinched for a whole year
to have me taught at a riding-school during one
school vacation."
"Your mother's relations are, I believe, well
off". Do they suffer her to pinch ?"
"I do not know that she has relations living ;
she never speaks of them."
"Indeed I" This was the first question on
home matters that Darrell had ever directly ad-
dressed to Lionel. He there dropped the sub-
ject, and said, after a short pause, "I was not
aware that you are a horseman, or I -nould have
asked you to accompany me ; v>-ill you do so to-
morrow, and mount the jennet?"
"Oh, thank you; I should like it so much."
Darrell turned abruptly away from the bright
grateful eyes. "I am only sorry," he added,
looking aside, " that our excui-sions can be but
few. On Friday next I shall submit to you a
proposition ; if you accept it, we shall part on
Saturday — hking each other, I hope ; speaking
for myself, the experiment has not failed ; and
on yours?"
"On mine I oh, Mr. Darrell, if I dared but
tell you what recollections of yourself the ex-
periment will bequeath to me 1"
" Do not tell me, if they imply a compliment,"
answered Darrell, with the Ioav silvery laugh
which so melodiously expressed indifference,
and repelled affection. He entered the stable-
yard, dismounted ; and on returning to Lionel,
the sound of the flute stole forth, as if from the
eaves of the gabled roof. " Could the pipe of
Horace's Fauuus be sweeter than that flute ?"
said Darrell,
"' Utcxinqiin dulci, Tyndare, fistula,
ValUs,' etc.
■Wliat a lovely ode that is ! What knowledge of
town life ! what susceptibility to the rural ! Of
all the Latins, Horace is the only one with whom
I could \vish to have spent a week. But no ! I
could not have discussed the brief span of hu-
man life with locks steeped in ^lalobathran balm,
i and wreathed with that silly myrtle. Horace
' and I would have quarreled over the first heady
bowl of Massic. We never can quarrel now I
Blessed subject and poet-laureate of Queen Pro-
serpine, and, I dare swear, the most gentleman-
like poet she ever received at court, henceforth
his task is to uncoil the asps from the brows of
Alecto, and arrest the ambitious Orion from the
chase after visionary lions."
CHAPTER XL
Showing that if a good face is a letter of recommenda-
tioR, a good heart is a letter of credit.
The next day they rode forth, host and guest,
and that ride proved an eventful crisis in the
I fortune of Lionel Haughton. Hitherto I have
"WHAT WILL UE DO WITH IT?
49
elaborately dwelt on the fact that, whatever the
regard Danell mifilit feel for him, it was a re-
gard apart from that interest which accepts a
responsibility, and links to itself a fate. And
even if, at moments, the powerful and wealthy
man had felt that interest, he had thrust it from
him. That he meant to be generous was indeed
certain, and this he had typically shown in a
very trite matter-of-fact way. The tailor, whose
visit had led to such perturbation, had received
instructions beyond the mere su])ply of the rai-
ment for which he had been summoned; and a
large patent portmanteau, containing all that
might constitute the liberal outfit of a young
man iu the rank of a gentleman, had arrived at
Fawley, and amazed and moved Lionel, whom
Dan-eil had by this time thoroughly reconciled
to the acceptance of benefits. The gift denoted
this, '■ In recognizing you as kinsman, I shall
henceforth provide for yon as gentleman." Dar-
rell indeed meditated applying for an appoint-
ment in one of the pubhc othces, the settlement
of a liberal allowance, and a parting shake of
the hand, which should imply, " I have now be-
haved as becomes me ; the rest belongs to you.
We may never meet again. There is no reason
why this good-by may not be forever."
But in the course of that ride Darrell's inten-
tions changed. Wherefore? You will never
guess ! Nothing so remote as the distance be-
tween cause and effect, and the cause for the
effect here was — poor little Sophy.
The day was fresh, with a lovely breeze, as
the two riders rode briskly over the turf of roll-
ing common-lands, with the feathen,- boughs of
neighboring woodlands tossed joyoitsly to and
fro by the sportive summer wind. The exhila-
rating exercise and air raised Lionel's spirits,
and released his tongue from all trammels ; and
when a boy is in high spirits, ten to one but he
grows a frank egotist, feels the teeming life of his
individuality, and talks about himself. Quite
unconsciously Lionel rattled out gay anecdotes
of his school-days ; his quarrel with r. demoni-
acal usher ; how he ran away ; what befell him ;
how the doctor went after, and brought him
back; how splendidly the doctor behaved — nei-
ther flogged nor expelled him, but after patient
listening, while he rebuked the pupil dismissed
the usher, to the joy of the whole academy ; how
he fought the head bo}' in the school for calling
the doctor a sneak ; how, licked twice, he yet
fought that head boy a third time, and licked
him ; how, when head boy himself, he had roused
the whole school into a civil war, dividing the
boys into Cavaliers and Koundheads ; how clay-
was rolled out into cannon-balls and pistol-shot,
sticks shaped into swords ; the play-ground dis-
turfed to construct fortifications ; how a sloven-
ly stout boy enacted Cromwell ; how he himself
was elevated into Prince Rupert ; and how, re-
versing ail history, and infamously degi'ading
Cromwell, Rupert would not consent to be beat-
en ; and Cromwell at the last, disabled by an
untoward blow across the knuckles, ignomini-
ously yielded himself prisoner, was tried by a
court-martial, and sentenced to be shot ! To all
this rubbish did Darrell incline his patient ear
— not encouraging, not interrupting, but some-
times stifling a sigh at the sound of Lionel's
merry laugh, or the sight of his fair face, with
heightened glow on its cheeks, and his long
D
silky hair, worthy the name of love-locks, blown
by the wind from the open loyal features, which
might well have graced the portrait of some
youthful Cavalier. On bounded the Spanish
jennet, on rattled the boy rider. He had left
school now, in his headlong talk ; he was de-
scribing his first friendship with Frank Vance,
as a lodger at his mother's ; how example fired
him, and he took to sketch-work and painting ;
how kindly Vance gave him lessons ; how at
one time he wished to be a painter; how much
the mere idea of such a thing vexed liis mother,
and how little she was moved when lie told her
that Titian was of a very ancient family, and
that Francis I., archetype of gentlemen. Visited
Leonardo da Vinci's sick-bed ; and that Henry
VIII. had said to a pert lord who had snubbed
Holbein, " I can make a lord any day, but I can
not make a Holbein ;" how Mrs. Haughton still
confounded all painters in the general image of
the painter and plumber who had cheated lier
so shamefully in the renewed window-sashes and
redecorated walls, which Time and the four chil-
dren of an Irish family had made necessarj' to the
letting of the first floor. And these playful allu-
sions to the maternal ideas were still not irrever-
ent, but contrived so as rather to prepossess Dar-
rell in Mrs. Haughton's favor, by bringing out
traits of a simple natural mother, too proud, per-
haps, of her only son, not caring what she did,
how she worked, so that he might not lose caste
as a born Haughton. Darrell undei-stood, and
nodded his head approvingly. "Certainly," he
said, speaking almost for the first time, ''fame
confers a rank above that of gentlemen and of
kings ; and as soon as she issues her patent of
nobility, it matters not a straw whether the re-
cipient be the son of a Bourbon or of a tallow-
chandler. But if Fame withhold her patent —
if a well-born man paint aldermen, and be not
famous (and I dare say you would have been
neither a Titian nor a Holbein), why, he might
as well be a painter and plumber, and has a
better chance, even of bread and cheese, by
standing to his post as gentleman. ]Mrs. Haugh-
ton was right, and I respect her."
" Quite right. If I lived to the age of Me-
thuselah, I could not paint a head like Frank
Vance."
'• And even he is not famous yet. Never heard
of him."
"He will be famous — I am sure of it; and
if you lived in London, you would hear of him
even now. Oh, Sir! such a portrait as he paint-
ed the other day ! But I must tell you all about
it." And therewith Lionel plunged at once,
medias res, into the brief broken epic of little
Sophy, and the eccentric infirm Belisarius for
! whose sake she first toiled and then begged ;
' with what artless eloquence he brought out the
colors of the whole story — now its humor, now
its pathos ; with what beautifying sympathy he
adorned the image of the little vagrant girl, with
■ her mien of gentlewoman and her simplicity of
I child ; the river-e.xcursion to Hampton Court ;
I her still delight ; how annoyed he felt when
I Vance seemed ashamed of her before those fine
I people ; the orchard scene in which he had read
: Darrell's letter, that, for the time, drove her
from the foremost place in his thoughts ; the
return home, the parting, her wistful look back,
[ the visit to the Cobbler's next day — even her
60
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
farewell gift, the nursery poem, with the lines
written on the fly-leaf, he had them by heart!
Darrell, the grand advocate, felt he could not
have produced on a jury, with those elements,
the effect which that boy-narrator produced on
his granite self.
"And, oh, Sir!" cried Lionel, checking his
horse, and even arresting Darrell's with bold
right hand, "oh!" said he, as he brought liis
moist and pleading eyes in full battery upon tlie
shaken fort to which he had mined his way —
"oh. Sir! you are so wise, and rich, and kind,
do rescue that poor child from the penury and
liardships of such a life ! If you could but have
seen and heard her! She could never have
been born to it ! You look away — I offend you.
I have no right to tax your benevolence for oth-
ers ; but, instead of showering favors upon me,
so little would suffice for her, if she were but
above positive want, with that old man (she
would not be happy without him), safe in such
a cottage as you give to your own peasants ! I
am a man, or shall be one soon ; I can wrestle
with the world, and force my way somehow ;
but that delicate child, a village show, or a beg-
gar on the high-i-oad ! no mother, no brother, no
one but that broken-down crii)ple, leaning upon
her arm as his crutch. I can not bear to think
of it. I am sure I shall meet her again some-
where ; and when I do, may I not write to you,
and will you not come to her hfelp ? Do sjieak
— do say ' Yes,' Mr. Darrell."
The rich man's breast heaved slightly; he
closed his eyes, but for a moment. There was
a short and sharp struggle with his better self,
and the better self conquered.
" Let go my reins — see, my horse puts down
his ears — he may do you a mischief. Now can-
ter on — j'ou shall be satisfied. Give me a mo-
ment to — to unbutton my coat — it is too tight
for me."
CHAPTER Xn.
Guy Barrel gives way to an impulse, and quickly decides
what he will do with it.
"Lionel Haug-hton," said Guy Darrell, re-
gaining his young cousin's side, and speaking in
a firm and measured voice, " I have to thank
you for one very happy minute ; the sight of a
heart so fresh in the limpid purity of goodness
is a luxuiy you can not comprehend till you
have come to my age ; journeyed, like me, from
Dan to Beersheba, and found all barren. Ilecd
me ; if you had been half a dozen years older,
and this child for whom you plead had been a
fair young woman, perhaps just as innocent, just
as charming — more in peril — my benevolence
would have lain as dormant as a stone. A young
man's foolish sentiment for a pretty girl. As
your true friend, I should have shrugged my
shoulders, and said, 'Beware!' Had I been
your father, I should have taken alarm, and
frowned. I should have seen the sickly ro-
mance, which ends in dupes or deceivers. But
at your age, you hearty, genial, and open-heart-
ed boy — you caught but by the chivalrous com-
passion for helpless female childhood — oh, that
you were my son — oh, that my dear father's
blood were in those knightly veins ! I had a
son once! God took him;" the strong man's
lips quivered — he humed on. " I felt there was
manhood in you when you wrote to fling my
churlish favors in my teeth — when you would
have left my roof-tree in a burst of passion
which might be foolish, but was nobler than the
wisdom of calculating submission — manhood,
but only perhaps man's pride as man — man's
heart not less cold than winter. To-day you
have shown me something far better than pride ;
that nature which constitutes the heroic tem-
perament is completed by two attributes — un-
flinching purpose, disinterested humanity. I
know not yet if you have the first ; you reveal
to me the second. Yes ! I accept the duties you
propose to me ; I will do more than leave to you
the chance of discovering this poor child. I will
direct my solicitor to take the right steps to do
so. I will see that she is safe from the ills you
fear for her. Lionel ; more still, I am impa-
tient till I write to Mrs. Haughton. I did her
wrong. Remember, I have never seen her. I
resented in her the cause of my quarrel with
your father, who was once dear to me. Enough
of that. I disliked the tone of her letters to
me. I disliked it in the mother of a boy who
had Darrell blood ; other reasons too — let them
pass. But in providing for your education, I
certainly thought her relations provided for her
support. She never asked me for help there ;
and, judging of her hastily, I thought she would
not have scru])led to do so it my help there had
not been forestalled. You have made me un-
derstand her better; and at all events, three-
fourths of what we are in boyhood most of us
owe to our mothers! You are frank, fearless,
affectionate — a gentleman. I respect the moth-
er who has such a son."
Certainly praise was rare upon Darrell's lips,
but, when he did praise, he knew how to do it !
And no man will ever command others who has
not by nature that gift. It can not be learned.
Art and experience can only refine its expres-
sion.
CHAPTER XIIL
He who sec3 his heir in his own child, cames his eye
over hopes and possessions lying far beyond his grave-
stone ; viewing his life, even here, as a period but
closed with a comma. He wlio sees his heir in anoth-
er man's child, sees the full stop at the end of the sen-
tence.
Lionel's departure was indefinitely post-
poned; nothing more was said of it. Mean-
while Darrell's manner toward him underwent
a marked change. The previous indifference
the rich kinsman had hitherto shown as to the
boy's past life, and the peculiarities of his intel^
lect and character, \vholly vanished. He sought
now, on the contrary, to plumb thoroughly the
more hidden depths which lurk in the nature of
every human being, and which, in Lionel, were
the more difficult to discern from the vivacity
and candor which covered with so smooth and
charming a surface a pride tremulously sensi-
tive, and an ambition that startled himself in
the hours when solitude and reverie reflect upon
the visions of Youth the giant outline of its own
hopes.
Darrell was not dissatisfied with the results
of this survey ; yet often, when perhaps most
pleased, a shade would pass over his counte-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
51
nance • and, had a woman who loved him been
bv to listen, she would have heard the short,
slight sigh which came and went too quickly for
the duller sense of man's friendship to recog-
nize it as the sound of sorrow.
In Darrell himself, thus insensibly altered,
Lionel daily discovered more to charm his in-
terest and deci)en his affection. In this man's
nature there were, indeed, such wondrous un-
der-currents of sweetness, so suddenly gushing
forth, so suddenly vanishing again ! And ex-
quisite in him were the traits of that sympathet-
ic tact which the world calls fine breeding, but
which comes only from a heart at once chival-
rous and tender, the more bewitching in Darrell
from their contrast with a manner usually cold,
and a bearing so stamped with masculine, self-
willed, haughty power. Thus days went on as
if Lionel had become a verj- child of the house.
But his sojourn was in truth drawing near to a
close not less abrupt and unex]iected than the
turn in his host's humors to which he owed the
delay of his departure.
Oiie bright afternoon, as Darrell was standing
at the window of his private study, Fairthorn,
who had crept in on some matter of business,
looked at his countenance long and wistfully,
and then, shambling up to his side, put one hand
on his shoulder with a light, timid touch, and,
pointing with the other to Lionel, who was ly-
ing on the grass in front of the casement, read-
ing the Faerie Queen, said, "Why do you take
him to your heart if he does not comfort it ?"
Darrell winced, and answered gently, " I did
not know you were in the room. Poor Fair-
thorn ! thank you !"
" Thank me ! — what for?"
" For a kind thought. So then you like the
boy ?"
'"Mayn't I like him?" asked Fairthorn, look-
ing rather frightened ; '-■ surely you do !"
" Yes, I like him much ; I am trying my best
to love him. But, but — " Darrell turned quick-
ly, and the portrait of his father over the man-
tle-piece came full upon his sight — an impress-
ive, a haunting face — sweet and gentle, yet with
the high, narrow brow and arched nostril of
pride, with i-estless, melancholy eyes, and an ex-
pression that revealed the delicacy of intellect,
but not its power. There was something forlorn,
yet imposing, in the whole ethgy. As you con-
tinued to look at the countenance the mournful
attraction grew upon you. Truly a touching and
a most lovable aspect. Darrell's eyes moistened.
"Yes, my father, it is so!" he said, softly.
" All my sacrifices were in vain. The race is
not to be rebuilt ! No grandchild of yours will
succeed me — me, the last of the old line ! Fair-
thorn, how can I love that boy ? He may be my
heir, and in his veins not a drop of my father's
blood !"
" But he has the blood of your father's ances-
tors ; and why must you think of him as your
heir? — you, who, if you would but go again into
the world, might yet find a fair wi — "
With such a stamp came Darrell's foot upon
the floor that the holy and conjugal monosylla-
ble dropping from Fairthorn's lips was as much
cut in two as if a shark had snapped it. Un-
speakably frightened, the poor man sidled away,
thrust himself behind a tall reading-desk, and,
peering aslant from that covert, whimpered out,
"Don't, don't now — don't be so awful; I did
not mean to offend, but I'm always saying some-
thing I did not mean ; and really you look so
young still (coaxingly), and, and — "
Darrell, the burst of rage over, had sunk upon
a chair, his face bowed over his hands, and his
breast heaving as if with suppressed sobs.
The musician forgot his fear ; he sjn-ang for-
ward, almost upsetting the tall desk; he flung
himself on his knees at Darrell's feet, and ex-
claimed, in broken words, " Master, master, for-
give me! Beast that I was! Do look up — do
smile, or else beat me — kick me."
Darrell's right hand slid gently from his face,
and fell into Fairthorn's clasp.
" Ilush, hush," muttered the man of granite ;
"one moment, and it will be over."
One moment? That might be but a figure of
speech ; yet before Lionel had finished half the
canto that was jtlunging him into fairy-land,
Darrell was standing by him witli his ordinary,
tranquil mien : and Fairthorn's Hute from be-
hind tlie boughs of a neighboring lime-tree was
breathing out an air as dulcet as if careless
Fauns still pijjcd in Arcady, and Grief were a
far dweller on the other side of the mountains,
of whom shejiherds, reclirting under summer
leaves, speak as we speak of hydras and uni-
corns, and things in fal)le.
On, on swelled the mellow, mellow, witching
music ; and now the worn man with his secret
sorrow, and the boy with his frank, glad laugh,
are passing away, side by side, over the turf,
with its starry and golden wikl-flowers, under
the boughs in yon Druid copse, from which they
start the ringdove — farther and farther, still side
by side, now out of sight, as if the dense gi'een
of the summer had closed around them like
waves. But still the flute sounds on, and still
they hear it, softer and softer, as they go. Hark !
do you not hear it — you ?
CHAPTER XIV.
Tlicre are certain events which to each man's life arc
as comets to the earth, seemingly strange and erratic
poiteuts; distinct from the ordinarj' lights which guide
our course and mark our seasons, yet true to their own
laws, potent in their own influences. I'hilosopliy spec-
ulates on their effects, and di?putes upon their uses;
men who do not philosophize regard them as special
messengers and bodes of evil.
TiiEY came out of the little park into a by-
lane ; a vast tract of common land, yellow with
furze, and undulated with swell and hollow
spreading in front ; to their right the dark beech-
woods, still beneath the weight of the July noon.
Lionel had been talking about the Faerie Queen,
knight-errantry, the sweet, impossible dream-
life that, safe from Time, glides by bower and
hall, through magic forests and by witching
caves, in the world of poet-books. And Diu-rcU
listened, and the flute-notes mingled with the
atmosphere faint and far off, like voices from
that world itself.
Out then they came, this broad waste land
before them ; and Lionel said, merrily:
" But this is the very scene ! Here the young
knight, leaving his father's hall, would have
checked his destrier, glancing wistfully now over
that gieen wild which seems so boundless, now
52
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
to the ' umbrageous horror' of those breathless !
woodlands, and questioned himself •which way I
to take for adventure." l
"Yes," said Darrell, coming out from his'
long reserve on all that concerned his past life |
" Yes, and the gold of the gorse-blossoms
tempted me ; and I took the waste land." He !
paused a moment, and renewed : " And then, j
when I had known cities and men, and snatched ,
romance from dull matter-of-fact, then I would
have done as civilization does with romance it- ;
self — I would have inclosed the waste land for
mv own aggrandizement. Look," he continued,
with a sweep of the hand round the width of
prospect, "all that you see to the verge of the
horizon, some fourteen years ago, was to have |
been thrown into the petty paddock we have just j
quitted, and serve as park round the house I was
then building. Vanity of human wishes I Wliat I
but the several proportions of their common fol- :
ly distinguishes the baffled squire from the ar-
rested conqueror ? Man's characteristic cere-
bral organ must certainly be acquisitiveness."
"Was it his organ of acquisitiveness that!
moved Themistocles to boast that ' he could
make a small state great ?' " I
'•Well remembered — ingeniously quoted,"!
returned Darrell, with the polite bend of his ,
statelv head. " Yes, I suspect that the coveting |
organ had much to do with the boast. To build j
a name was the earliest dream of Themistocles, '
if we are to accept the anecdote that makes him j
say, ' The trophies of jNIiltiades would not suf-
fer him to sleep.' To build a name, or to cre-
ate a fortune, are but varying applications of
one human passion. The desire of something
v,-e have not is the first of our childish remem-
brances ; it matters not what form it takes, what
object it longs for ; still it is to acquire ; it nev-
er deserts us while we live."
*'And yet, if I might, I should like to ask,
what vou now desire that you do not possess I"
'■ I-^nothing ; but I spoke of the living '. I am
dead. Only," added Darrell, with his silvery
laugh, '-I say, as poor Chesterfield said before
me, 'it is a secret — keep it.' "
Lionel made no reply ; the melancholy of the
words saddened him ; but Darrell's manner re-
pelled the expression of sympathy or of inter-
est ; and the boy fell into conjecture — what had
killed to the world this man's intellectual life ?
And thus silently they continued to wander
on till the sound of the flute had long been lost
to their ears. Was the musician playing still ?
At length they came round to the other end
of Fawley village, and Darrell again became
animated.
"Perhaps," said he, returning to the subject
of talk that had been abruptly suspended —
"perhaps the love of power is at the origin of
each restless courtship of Fortune ; yet, after all,
who has power with less alloy than the village
thane? With so little effort,' so little thought,
the man in the manor-house can make men in
the cottage happier here below, and more fit for
a hereafter yonder. In leaving the world I come
from contest and pilgrimage, like our sires the
Crusaders, to reign at home."
As he spoke he entered one of the cottages.
An old paralytic man was seated by the tire,
hot though the July sun was out of doors; and
his wife,"of the same age, and almost as help-
less, was reading to him a chapter in the Old
Testament — the fifth chapter in Genesis, con-
taining the genealogy, age, and death of the
patriarchs before the Flood. How the faces of
the couple brightened when Darrell entered.
"Master Guyl" said the old man, tremulously
rising. The world-weary orator and lawyer
was still Master Guy to him.
"Sit down Mathew, and let me read you a
chapter." Darrell took the Holy Book, and read
the Sermon on the ilount. Never had Lionel
heard any thing like that reading ; the feeling
which brought out the depth of the sense, the
tones, sweeter than the flute, which clothed the
divine words in music. As Darrell ceased, some
beauty seemed gone from the day. He lingered
a few minutes, talking kindly and familiarly,
and then turned into another cottage, where lay
a sick woman. He listened to her ailments,
promised to send her something to do her good
from his own stores, cheered up her spirits, and,
leaving her happy, turned to Lionel with a glo-
rious smile, that seemed to ask, "And is there
not power in this ?"
But it was the sad peculiarity of this remark-
able man, that all his moods were subject to
rapid and seemingly unaccountable variations.
It was as if some great blow had fallen on the
mainspring of his organization, and left its orig-
inal harmony broken up into fragments, each
impressive in itself, but running one into the
other with an abrupt discord, as a harp played
upon by the winds. For, after this evident ef-
fort at self-consolation or self-support in sooth-
ing or strengthening others, suddenly Darrell's
head fell again upon his breast, and he walked
on, up the village lane, heeding no longer either
the open doors of expectant cottagers, or the sal-
utation of humble passers-by. "And I could
have been so happy herel" he said suddenly.
" Can I not be so yet ? Ay, perhaps, when I
am thoroughly old — tied to the world but by
the thread of an hour. Old men do seem hap-
py ; behind them all memories faint, save those
of childhood and sprightly youth ; before them,
the narrow ford, and the sun dawning up the
clouds on the other shore. 'Tis the critical de-
scent into age in which man is surely most troub-
led ; griefs gone, still rankling ; nor, strength yet
in his limbs, passion yet in his heart, recon-
1 ciled to what loom nearest in the prospect — the
j arm-chair and the palsied head. Well ! life is
' a quaint puzzle. Bits the most incongruous
! join into each other, and the scheme thus grad-
; ually becomes symmetrical and clear; when, lo!
! as the infant claps his hands, and cries, ' See,
see I the puzzle is made out I' all the pieces are
swept back into the box — black box with the
gilded nails. Ho I Lionel, look up ; there is our
village Church, and here, close at my right, the
Church-yard !"
Now while Darrell and his young companion
were directing their gaze to the right of the vil-
lage lane, toward the small gray church — toward
the sacred burial-ground in which, here and
there among humbler graves, stood the monu-
mental stone inscribed to the memory of some
former Darrell, for whose remains the living sod
had been preferred to the family vault; while
both slowly nearcd the funeral spot, and leaned,
silent and musing, over the rail that fenced
it from the animals turned to graze on the
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
58
sward of the surrounding frreen, a foot-traveler, ' His dress bespoke pretension to a certain
a stran'^er in the place, loitered on the thresh- rank ; but its component parts were strangely
old of The small wayside inn, about fifty yards ill-assorted, out of date, and out of repair:
oft" to the left of the lane, and looked hard at pearl-colored trowsers, with silk braids down
the still ficrures of the two kinsmen. t their sides ; brodequins to match — Parisian
Turnin<i then to the hostess, who was stand- fashion three years back, but the trowsers shab-
ino' somewhat within the threshold, a glass of , by, the braiding discolored, the brodequins in
brandv-and-water in her hand (the third glass holes. The coat — once a black evening-dress
that stranger had called for during his half- coat — of a cut a year or two anterior to that of
hour's rest in the hostelr}-), quoth the man — the trowsers ; satin facings — cloth napless, satin
" The taller gentleman yonder is surely your stained. Over all, a sort of summer traveling-
Squire, is it not ? but who is the shorter and cloak, or rather large cape of a waterproof silk,
younger person ?" ] once the extreme mode with the Lions of the
The landlady put forth her head. j Chaussee d'Antin whenever they ventured to rove
" Oh ! that is a relation of the Squire's down to S^iss cantons or German spas ; but which,
on a visit. Sir. I heard coachman say that the from a certain dainty effeminacy in its shape
Squire's taken to him hugely ; and they do think and texture, required the minutest elegance in
at the hall that the young gentleman will be his the general costume of its wearer as well as the
lieir." ' i cleanliest purity in itself. "Worn by this trav-
'* Aha:— indeed — his heir? "What is the lad's el«r, and well-nigh worn out too, the cape be-
name ? "What relation can he be to :Mr. Dar- • came a finery, mournful as a tattered pennon
rell V' I over a wreck.
'• I don't know what relation exactly. Sir ; but j Yet in spite of this dress, however nnbecom-
he is one of the Haughtons. and they're been ing, shabby, obsolete, a second glance could
kin to the Fawlev folks time out of m'ind." scarcely fail to note the wearer as a man won-
" Haughton ! — aha ! Thank you, ma'am. | derfully well shaped— tall, slender in the waist,
Changclf you please."' ' [long of limb, but with a girth of chest that
The stranger tossed off his dram, and stretch- j showed immense power — one of those rare fig
ed his hand for his change
"Beg pardon, Sir, but this must he forring
money,^' said the landlady, turning a five-franc
piece on her palm with suspicious curiosity.
"Foreign! is it possible?" The stranger
dived again into his pocket, and apparently with
some ditficultT,- hunted out half a crown.
'• Sixpence" more, if you please. Sir ; three
brandies, and bread-and-cheese, and the ale
too, Sir.
ures that a female eye would admire for gi-ace
— a recruiting sergeant for athletic strength.
Bat still the man's whole bearing and aspect,
even apart from the dismal incongruities of his
attire, which gave him the air of a beggared
spendthrift, marred the favorable effect that
physical comeliness in itself produces. Diffi-
cult to describe how — difficult to say why — but
there is a look which a man gets, and a gait
which he contracts, when the rest of mankind
How stnpid I am ! I thought that French ^ cut him ; and this man had that look and that
coin was a five-shilUns piece. I fear I have no gait.
English monev about^me but this half-crown ; i '"So, so," muttered the stranger. "That boy
and I can't ask you to trust me, as you don't ^ his heir I — so, so. How can I get to speak to
know me." ' ^^ ? I^ bis own house he would not see me :
" Oh, Sir, 'tis all one if you know the Squire, it must be as now, in the open air ; but how
You mav be passing this wav again." j catch him alone ? and to lurk in the inn, in his
'• I shall not forset mv debtVhen I do, you '' own village— perhaps for a day — to watch an
may be sure," said the" stranger ; and, wit"h a occasion; impossible! Besides, where is the
nod, he walked awav in the same direction as money for it ? Courage, courage !" He quick-
Darrell and Lionel had already taken — through ened his pace, pushed back his hat. " Courage !
a turn-stile bv a pubUc path that, skirting the ; Why not now ? Xow or never !"
church-vard and the neighboring parsonage, led While the man thus mutteringly soliloquized,
along a"corn-field to the demesnes of Fawley. ! Lionel had reached the gate which opened into
The path was narrow, the corn rising on eit"her the grounds of Fawley, just in the rear of the
side, so that two persons could not well walk little lake. Over the gate ha swung himself
abreast. Lionel was some paces in advance, lightly, and, turning back to Darrell, cried,
Darrell walking slow. The stranger followed '• Here is the doe waiting to welcome you !"
at a distance ; once or twice he quickened his \ Just as Darrell, scarcely heeding the excla^
pace, as if resolved to overtake Darrell ; then, mation, and with his musing eyes on the ground,
apparently, his mind misgave him, and he again approached the gate, a respectful hand opened it
fell back.' I wide, a submissive head bowed low, a voice art-
There was something furtive and sinister ificially soft faltered forth words, broken and in-
about the man. Little could be seen of his [ distinct, but of which those most audible were
face, for he wore a large hat of foreign make, ' — '-Pardon me — something to communicate —
slouched deep over his brow, and his lips and ! important — hear me."
jaw were concealed by a dark and full mustache j Darrell started— just as the traveler almost
and beard. As much of the general outline of i touched him — started — recoiled, as one on
the countenance as remained distinguishable ; whose path rises a wild beast. His bended head
was, nevertheless, decidedly handsQme ; but a became erect, haughty, indignant, defying ; but
complexion naturally rich in color, seemed to j his cheek was pale, and his lip quivered. " Yon
have gained the heated look which comes with here ! You in England — at Fawley ! You pre-
the earlier habits of intemperance, before it sume to accost me ! You, Sir, you — "
fades into the leaden hues of the later. I Lionel just caught the sound of the voice as
oi
WHAT WILL HE DO WLTR IT ?
the doe had come timidly up to him. He turned
round sharply, and beheld Darrell's stern, im-
perious countenance, on which, stern and im-
perious though it was, a hasty glance could dis-
cover, at once, a surprise, that almost bordered
upon fear. Of the stranger still holding the gate
he saw but the back, and his voice he did not
hear, though by the man's gesture he was evi-
dently replying. Lionel paused a moment irres-
olute ; but as the man continued to speak, he
saw Darrell's face grow paler and paler, and in
the impulse of a vague alarm he hastened to-
ward him ; but just within three feet of the spot,
Darrell arrested his steps.
" Go home, Lionel ; this person would speak
to me in private." Then, in a lower tone, he
said to the stranger, "Close the gate. Sir; you
are standing upon the land of my fathers. If
you would speak with me, this way ;" and brush-
ing through the corn, Darrell strode toward a
patch of waste land that adjoined the field : the
man followed him, and both passed from Lio-
nel's eyes. The doe had come to the gate to
greet her master ; she now rested her nostrils
on the bar, with a look disappointed and plaint-
ive.
"Come," said Lionel, "come." The doe
would not stir.
So the boy walked on alone, not much occu-
pied with what had just passed. ''Doubtless,"
thought he, " some person in the neighborhood
upon country business."
He skirted the lake, and seated himself on a
garden bench near the hotise. AVhat did he
there think of? — who knows ? Perhaps of the
Great World ; perhaps of little Sophy I Time
fled on : the sun was receding in the west, when
Darrell hurried past him without speaking, and
entered the house.
The host did not appear at dinner, nor all
that evening. Mr. Mills made an excuse — 3Ir.
Darrell did not feel very well.
Fairthorn had Lionel all to himself, and hav-
ing within the last few days reindulged in open
cordiality to the young guest, he was especially
communicative that evening. He talked much
on Darrell, and with all the affection that, in
spite of his fear, the poor flute-player felt for
his ungracious patron. He told many anecdotes
of the stern man's tender kindness to all tliat
came within his sphere. He told also anecdotes
more striking of the kind man's sternness where
some obstinate prejudice, some ruling passion,
made him "granite."
"Lord, my dear young Sir," said Fairthorn,
"be his most bitter open enemy, and fall down
in the mire, the first hand to help you would be
Guy Darrell's ; but be his professed friend, and
betray him to the worth of a straw, and never
try to see his face again if you are wise — the
most forgiving and the least forgiving of human
beings. But — "
The study door noiselessly opened, and Dar-
rell's voice called out,
"Fah-thorn, let me speak with you."
CHAPTEE XV.
Every street has two sides, the shady side and the sunny.
■SVhen two men shake hands and part, mark which of
the two takes the sunny side; he will be the younger
man of the two.
The next morning, neither Darrell nor Fair-
thorn appeared at breakfast ; but as soon as
Lionel had concluded that meal, Mr. Mills in-
formed him, with customary politeness, that Mr.
Darrell wished to speak with him in the study.
Study, across the threshold of which Lionel had
never yet set footstep ! He entered it now with
a sentiment of mingled curiosity and awe. No-
thing in it remarkable, save the portrait of the
host's father over the mantle-piece. Books
strewed tables, chairs, and floors in the disor-
der loved by habitual students. Near the win-
dow Avas a glass bowl containing gold fish, and
close by. in its cage, a singing-bird. Darrell
might exist without companionship in the hu-
man species, but not without something which
he protected and cherished — a bird — even a
fish.
DaiTell looked really ill ; his keen eye was
almost dim, and the lines in his face seemed
deeper. But he spoke with his visual calm pas-
sionless melody of voice.
"Yes," he said, in answer to Lionel's really
anxious inquiry ; " I am ill. Idle persons like
me give way to illness. When I was a busy
man, I never did ; and then illness gave way to
me. My general plans are thus, if not actually
altered, at least huiried to their consummation
sooner than I expected. Before you came here,
I told you to come soon, or you might not find
me. I meant to go abroad this summer ; I shall
now start at once. I need the change of scene
and air. You will return to London to-day."
" To-day I You are not angry with me ?"
"Angry! boy and cousin — no!" resumed Dar-
rell, in a tone of unusual tenderness. "Angry
— fie I But since the parting must be, 'tis well
to abridge the pain of long farewells. You must
■nish, too, to see your mother, and thank her for
rearing you up so that you may step from pov-
erty into ease with a head erect. You will give
to Mrs. Haughton this letter : for yotirself, your
inclinations seem to tend toward the army. But
before you decide on that career, I should like
you to see something more of the world. Call
to-morrow on Colonel ]Morley, in Curzon Street :
this is his address. He will receive by to-day's
post a note from me, requesting him to advise
you. Follow his counsels in what belongs to the
world. He is a man of the world — a distant
connection of mine — who will be kind to you
for my sake. Is there more to say? Yes. It
seems an ungracious speech ; but I should speak
it. Consider yourself sure from me of an inde-
pendent income. Never let idle sycophants lead
you into extravagance, by telling you that you
will have more. But indulge not the expecta-
tion, however plausible, that you wUl be my
heir."
"Mr. Darrell— oh. Sir—"
" Hush — the expectation would be reasonable ;
but I am a strange being. I might marry again
— have heirs of my own. Eh, Sir — why not?"
Darrell spoke these last words almost fiercely,
and fixed his eyes on Lionel as he repeated —
"why not?" But seeing that the boy's face
evinced no surprise, the expression of his own
relaxed, and he continued calmly — "Eno';
what I have thus rudely said was kindly meant.
It is a treason to a young man to let him count
WHAT WILL HE DO WITU IT?
55
on a fortane which at hist is left away from him.
Now, Lionel, go ; enjoy your spring of life I Go,
hopeful and light-hearted. If sorrow reach you,
battle with it ; if error mislead you, come fear-
lessly to me for counsel. Why, boy — what is
this — tears ? Tut, tut."
'•It is your goodness," faltered Lionel. "I
can not help it. And is there nothing I can do
for you in return?"
" Yes, much. Keep your name free from
stain, and your heart open to such noble emo-
tions as awaken leai-s like those. Ah, by-the-
by, I lieard from my lawyer to-day about your
poor little protigi. Not found yet, but he seems
sangniue of quick success. You shall know the
moment I hear more."
"You will write to me then. Sir, and I may
write to you?"
" As ot'tcn as you please. Always direct to
me here."
'•Shall you be long abroad?"
Darrells brows met. "I don't know," said
he, curtly. ••Ailieu."
He opened the door as he spoke.
Lionel looked at him with wistful yearning.
filial affection, through his swimming eves.
'■God bless you, Sir," he murmured simply,
and passed away.
" That blessing should have come from me !"
said Darrcll to himself, as he turned back, and
stood on his solitary hearth. "But they on
whose heads I once poured a blessing, where
are they — where ? And that man's taJe, reviv-
ing the audacious fable which the other, and I
verily believe the less guilty knave of the two,
sought to palm on me years ago ! Stop ; let me
weigh well what he said. If it were true ! if it
were true ! Oh, shame, shame I"
Folding his arms tightly on his breast, Dar-
rell paced the room with slow measured strides,
pondering deeply. He was, indeed, seeking to
suppress feeling, and to exercise only judgment;
and his reasoning process seemed at length fully
to satisfy him, for his countenance gradually
cleared, and a triumphant smile passed across
it. "A lie — certainly a palpable and gross lie;
lie it must and shall be. Never will 1 accept it
as truth. Father" (looking full at the portrait
over the mantle-shelf), "father, fear not — never
— never!"
BOOK III,
CHAPTER I.
Certes, "Ihe Lizard is a shy and timorous creature. He
runs into chinks and crannies if you come too near to
him, and sheds his very tail for fear, if you catch it by
the tip. He has not his being in good society — no one
cages him, no one pets. He is an idle vagrant. But
■when he steals thi-ough the green herbage, and basks
unmolested in the sun, he crowds perhaps as much en-
joyment into one summer hour as a parrot, however
pampered and erudite, spreads over a whole drawing-
room life spent in saying, " How d'ye do ';" and " Pretty
PoU."
On" that dull and sombre summer morning in
which the grandfather and grandchild departed
from the friendly roof of Mr. Merle, very dull
and very sombre were the thoughts of little
Sophy. Slie walked slowly behind the gray crip-
ple who had need to lean so heavily on his stall',
and her eye had not even a smile for the golden
buttercups that glittered on dewy meads along-
side the barren road.
Thus had they proceeded apart and silent till
they had passed the second milestone. There,
Waife, rousing from his own reveries, which
were perhaps yet more dreary than those of the
dejected child, halted abruptly, passed his hand
once or twice rapidly over his forehead, and
turning round to Sophy, looked into her face
with great kindness as she came slowly to his
side.
"You are sad, little one?" said he.
"Very sad, Grandy."
" And displeased with me ? Yes, displeased
that I have taken you suddenly away from the
pretty young gentleman who was so kind to you,
without encouraging the chance that you were
to meet with him again."
"It was not like you, Grandy," answered
Sophy; and her under-lip shghtly pouted, while
the big tears swelled to her eye.
"True," said the vagabond; "any thing re-
sembling common-sense is not like me. But
don't you think that I did what I felt was best
for you ? Must I not have some good cause for
it, whenever I have the heart deliberately to vex
you ?"
Sophy took his hand and pressed it, but she
could not trust herself to speak, for she felt that
at such effort she would have burst out into
hearty crying. Then Waife proceeded to utter
many of those wise sayings, old as the hills, and
as high above our sorrows as hills are from the
valley in which we walk. He said how foolish
it was to unsettle the mind by preposterous fan-
cies and impossible hopes. The pretty young
gentleman could never be any thing to her, nor
she to the pretty young gentleman. It might
be very well for the pretty young gentleman to
promise to con'espond with her, but as soon as
he returned to his friends he would have other
things to think of, and she would soon be for-
gotten; while she, on the contrary, would be
thinking of him, and the Thames, and the but-
terflies, and find hard life still more irksome.
Of all this, and much more, in the general way
of consolers who set out on the principle that
grief is a matter of logic, did Gentleman Waife
deliver himself with a vigor of ratiocination
which admitted of no re])ly, and conveyed not
a particle of comfort. And feeling this, that
great Actor — not that he was acting then — sud-
denly stopped, clasped the child in his arms,
j and murmured in broken accents — "But if I
I see you thus cast down, I shall have no strength
I left to hobble on through the world ; and the
I sooner I lie down, and the dust is shoveled over
' me, why, the better for you ; for it seems that
1 Heaven sends you friends, and I tear you from
I them."
',6
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
And then Sophy fairly gave way to her sobs ;
she twined her little arms round the old man's
neck convulsively, kissed his rough face with
implorin.c; pathetic fondness, and forced out
through her tears, "Don't talk so! I've been
ungrateful and wicked. I don't care for any
one but my own dear, dear Grandy."
After this little scene they both composed
themselves, and felt much lighter of heart.
They pursued their journey — no longer apart,
but side by side, and the old man leaning, though
very lightly, on the child's arm. But there was
no immediate reaction from gloom to gayety.
Waife began talking in softened under-tones,
and vaguely, of his own past afflictions; and
partial as was the reference, how vast did the
old man's sorrows seem beside the child's re-
grets ; and yet he commented on them as if
rather in pitying her state than grie%-ing for his
own.
"Ah ! at your age, my darling, I had not your
troubles and hardships. I had not to trudge these
dusty roads on foot with a broken-down, good-
for-nothing scatterling. I trod rich carpets, and
slept under silken curtains. I took the air in
gay carriages — I such a scape-grace — and you,
little child — you so good ! All gone I all melt-
ed away from me, and not able now to be sure
that you will have a crust of bread this day
week."
"Oh, yes I I shall have bread, and you, too,
Grandy !" cried Sophy, with cheerful voice. "It
was you who taught me to pray to God, and said
that in all your troubles God had been good to
you; and He has been so good to me since I
prayed to Him ; for I have no dreadful jNIrs.
Crane to beat me now, and say things more
hard to bear than beating — and you have taken
me to youi-self. How I prayed for that ! And
I take care of you, too, Grandy, don't I? I
prayed for that, too; and as to carriages," add-
ed Sophy, with superb air, "I don't care if I am
never in a carriage as long as I live ; and you
know I have been in a van, Mhicli is bigger than
a carriage, and I didn't like that at all. But how
came people to behave so ill to you, Grandy?"
" I never said people behaved ill to me, So-
phy."
" Did not they take away the carpets and silk
curtains, and all the fine things you had as a
little boy ?"
"I don't know exactly," replied Waife, with
a puzzled look, " that people actually took them
away — but they melted away. However, I had
much still to be thankful for — I was so strong,
and had such high spirits, Sophy, and found
people not beha\-ing ill to me — quite the con-
trarj- — so kind. I found no Crane (she monster)
as you did, ray little angel. Suoh prospects be-
fore me, if I had walked straight toward them !
But I followed my own fancy, which led me
zigzag ; and now that I would stray back into
the high-road, you see before you a'man whom
a Justice of the Peace could send to the tread-
mill for presuming to live without a liveli-
hood."
Sophy. " Xot without a livelihood ? the what
did you call it I independent income — that is,
the Three Pounds, Grandy ?"
Waife (admiringly). " Sensible child ! That
is true. Yes, Heaven is very good to me still.
Ah ! what signifies fortune ? How happy I was
with my dear Lizzy, and yet no two persons
could live more from hand to mouth."
SoPHT (rather jealously). "Lizzy?"
Waife (with moistened eyes, and looking
down). "My wife. She was only spared to me
two years — such sunny years I And how grate-
ful I ought to be that she did not live longer.
She was saved — such — such — such shame and
miser}- 1" A long pause.
Waife resumed, with a rush from memory, as
if plucking himself from the claws of a harpy —
"What's the good of looking back! A man's
gone self is a dead thing. It is not I — now tramp-
ing this road, with you to lean upon — whom I
see when I would turn to look behind on that
which I once was — it is another being, defunct
and buried ; and when I say to myself, ' That
being did so and so,' it is like reading an epi-
taph on a tombstone. So, at last, solitary and
hopeless, I came back to my own land; and I
found you — a blessing greater than I had ever
dared to count on. And how was I to maintain
you, and take you from that long-nosed alliga-
tor called Crane, and put you in womanly, gen-
tle hands, for I never thought then of subjecting
you to all you have since undergone with me.
I who did not know one useful thing in life by
which a man can turn a penny. And then, as
I was all alone in a village ale-house, on my
way back from — it does not signify from what,
or from whence, but I was disappointed and de-
spairing — Providence mercifully threw in my
way — ^Ir. Rugge — and ordained me to be of
great service to that ruffian — and that ruffian
of great use to me."
Sophy. "Ah! how was that?"
Waife. "It was Fair-time in the village where-
in I stopped, and Rugge's principal actor was
taken off by delirium tremens, which is Latin for
a disease common to men who eat little and
drink much. Rugge came into the ale-house,
bemoaning his loss. A bright thought struck
me. Once in my day I had been used to act-
ing. I offered to tr}- my chance on Mr. Rugge's
stage ; he caught at me — I at him. I succeed-
ed ; we came to terms, and my little Sophy was
thus taken from that ringleted crocodile, and
placed with Christian females who wore caps
and read their Bible. Is not Heaven good to
us, Sophy — and to me, too — me, such a scamp?"
" And you did all that — suffered all that for
me?"
"Suffered — but I liked it. And, besides, I
must have done something ; and there were rea-
sons — in short, I was quite happy — no, not act-
ually happy, but comfortable and merry. Prov-
idence gives thick hides to animals that must
exist in cold climates ; and to the man whom it
reserves for sorrow. Providence gives a coarse,
jovial temper. Then, when by a mercy I was
saved from what I most disliked and di'caded,
and never would have thought of but that I fan-
cied it might be a help to you — I mean the Lon-
don stage — and had that bad accident on the
railway, how did it end ? Oh ! in saving you
(and Waife closed his eyes and shuddered)— in
saving your destiny from what might be much
worse for you, body and soul, than the worst
I that has happened to you with me. And so we
have been thrown together; and so you have
supported me ; and so, when we could exist
I without Mr. Rugge, Providence got rid of him
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
57
for us. And so we are now walking along the
high-road ; and through yonder trees you can
catch a peep of the roof under which we are
about to rest for a while ; and there you will
learn what I have done with the Tliree Pounds !"
" It is not the Spotted Boy, G randy ?"
" No," said Waife, sighing ; " the Spotted Boy
is a handsome income ; but let us only trust in
Providence, and I should not wonder if our new
acquisition proved a monstrous — "
"Monstrous!"
" Piece of good fortune."
CHAPTER n.
The Inrestmeut revealed.
Gentleman Waife passed through a turnstile,
down a narrow lane, and reached a solitary
cottage. He knocked at the door ; an old peas-
ant woman opened it, and dropped him a civil
courtesy. " Indeed, Sir, I am glad you are
come. I'se most afeard lie be dead."
" Dead !" exclaimed Waife. '• Oh, Sophy, if
he should be dead !"
"Who?"
Waife did not heed the question. "What
makes you think him dead ?" said he, fumbling
in his pockets, from which he at last produced
a key. "You have not been disobeying my strict
orders, and tampering with the door ?"
"Lor' love ye, no. Sir. But he made such a
noise a fust — awful I And now he's as still as
a cor])se. And I did peep through the keyhole,
and he was stretched stark."
"Hunger, perhaps," said the Comedian ; " 'tis
his way when he has been kept fasting much
over his usual hours. Follow me, Sophy." He
put aside the woman, entered the sanded kitch-
en, ascended a stair that led from it ; and Sophy
following, stopped at a door and listened : not
a sound^ Timidly he unlocked the portals and
crept in, when, suddenly, such a rush — such a
spring, and a mass of something vehement yet
soft, dingy yet whitish, whirled past the Actor,
and came pounce against Sophy, who therewith
uttered a shriek. " Stop him, stop him, for
Heaven's sake I" cried Waife. " Shut the door
below — seize him 1" Down stairs, however, went
the mass, and down stairs after it hobbled Waife,
returning in a few moments with the recaptured
and mysterious fugitive. "There," he cried,
triumphantly, to Sophy, who, standing against
the wall with her face buried in her frock, long
refused to look up — " there — tame as a lamb,
and knows me. See" — he seated himself on the
floor, and Sophy, hesitatingly opening her eyes,
beheld gravely gazing at her from under a pro-
fusion of shaggy locks an enormous —
Poodle !
Cn.cVPTER m.
UC-nouement.
CHAPTER IV.
Zoology in connection with History.
" Walk to that young lady, Sir — walk, I say."
The poodle slowly rose on his hind-legs, and,
with an aspect inexpressibly solemn, advanced
toward Sophy, who hastily receded into the
room in which the creature had been confined.
" Make a bow — no — a bou; Sir ; that is right :
you can shake hands another time. Run down,
Sophy, and ask for his dinner."
" Yes — that I will ;" and Sophy flew down
the stairs.
The dog, still on his hind-legs, stood in the
centre of the floor, dignified, but evidently ex-
pectant.
" That will do ; lie down and die. Die this
moment, Sir." The dog stretched himself out,
closed his eyes, and to all a]»])earauce gave up
the ghost. " A most splendid investment," said
Waife, with enthusiasm ; " and, upon the whole,
dog-cheap. Ho ! i/ou ai-e not to bring up his
dinner ; it is not you who are to make friends
with the dog ; it is my little girl ; send her up ;
Sophy, Sophy."
" She be fritted. Sir," said the woman, hold-
ing a plate of canine comestibles ; " but lauk,
Sir ; ben't he really dead ?"
"Sophy, Sophy."
"Please let me stay here, Grandy," said
Sophy's voice from the foot of the stairs.
" Nonsense ! it is sixteen hours since he has
had a morsel to eat. And he will never bite
the hand that feeds him now. Come up, I say."
Sophy slowly reascended, and Waife, summon-
ing the poodle to life, insisted ujion the child's
feeding him. And indeed, when that act of
charity was performed, the dog evinced his
gratitude by a series of unsophisticated bounds
and waggings of the tail, which gradually re-
moved Sophy's ajiprehensions, and laid the
foundation for that intimate friendship, which
is the natural relation between child and dog.
"And how did 3-ou come by him?" asked
Sophy; "and is this really the — the in-\'est-
MENT ?"
" Shut the door carefully, but see first that
the woman is not listening. Lie down, Sir,
there, at the feet of the young lady. Good dog.
How did I come by him ? I will tell you. Tlie
first day we arrived at the village which we have
just left, I went into the tobacconist's. While I
was buying my ounce of canaster, that dog en-
tered the shop. In his mouth was a sixpence
wrapped in paper. He lifted himself on his
hind-legs, and laid his missive on the counter.
The shopwoman — you know her, INIrs. Traill —
unfolded the pajier and read the order. ' Clev-
er dog that, Sir.' said she. ' To fetch and car-
ry ?' said I, iudiftcrently. ' More than that. Sir ;
you shall see. The order is for two-penn'orth
"of snuff. The dog knows he is to take back
fouqience. I will give him a penny short.' So
she took the sixpence and gave the dog three-
pence out of it. The dog shook his head and
looked gravely into her face. ' That's all you'll
get,' said she. The dog shook his head again,
and tapped his paw once on the counter, as much
as to sav, ' I am not to be done — a penny more,
if vou please.' ' If you won't take that, you shall
have nothing,' said Mrs. Traill, and she took
back the threepence."
" Dear ! and what did the dog do then— snarl
or bite ?"
"Not so; he knew he was in his rights, and
did not lower himself by showing bad temper.
The dog looked quietly round, saw a basket
58
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
which contained t^vo or three pounds of candles
lying in a corner for the shopboy to take to some
customer ; took up the basket in his mouth, and
turned tail, as much as to say, ' Tit for tat
then.' He understood, you see, what is called
the ' law of reprisals.' ' Come back this mo-
ment,' cried Mrs. Traill. The dog walked out
of the shop ; then she ran after him, and counted
the fourpence before him, on which he dropped
the basket, picked up the right change, and went
off demurely. ' To whom does that poodle be-
long r" said I. ' To a poor drunken man,' said
Mrs. Traill ; ' I wish it was in better hands.'
' So do I, ma'am,' answered I. ' Did he teach
it ?' ' Xo, it was taught by his brother, who was
an old soldier, and died in his house two weeks
ago. It knows a great many tricks, and is quite
young. It might make a fortune as a show,
Sir.' So I was thinking. I inquired the own-
er's address, called on him, and found him dis-
posed to sell the dog. But he asked £3, a sum
that seemed out of the question then. Still I
kept the dog in my eye ; called every day to
make friends with it, and ascertain its capacities.
And at last, thanks to you, Sophy, I bought the
dog ; and what is more, as soon as I had two
golden sovereigns to show, I got him for that
sum, and we have still £1 left (besides small
savings from our lost salaries) to go to the com-
pletion of his education, and the advertisement
of his merits. I kept this a secret from Merle —
from all. I would not even let the drunken o\vn-
er know where I took the dog to yesterday. I
brought it here, where, I learned in the village,
there were two rooms to let — locked it up — and
my story is told."
" But why keep it such a secret?"
" Because I don't want Rugge to trace us.
He might do one a mischief; because I have a
grand project of genteel position and high prices
for the exhibition of that dog. And why shoidd
it be kno^\-n where we come from, or what we
were ? And because, if the owner knew where
to find the dog, he might decoy it back from us.
Luckily, he had not made the dog so fond of
him but what, unless it be decoyed, it will ac-
custom itself to us. And now I propose that we
should stay a week or so here, and devote our-
selves exclusively to developing the native powers
of this gifted creature. Get out the dominoes."
" What is his name ?"
"Ha ! that is the first consideration. What
shall be, his name ?"
" Has not he one already ?"
" Yes — trivial and unattractive — Mop ! In
private life it might pass. But in pubUc life —
give a dog a bad name, and hang him. Mop,
indeed!"
Therewith Mop, considering himself appealed
to, rose and stretched himself.
"Right," said Gentleman Waife ; "stretch
yourself; you decidedly require it."
CHAPTER V.
Mop becomes a Personage. Much thought is bestowed
on the verbal dignities, without which a Personage
■would become a Mop. The importance of names is
apparent in aU history. If Augustus had called him-
self king, Rome would have risen against him as a
Tarquin; so he remained a simple equestrian, and
modestly called himself Imperator. Mop chooses his
own title in a most mysterious manner, and ceases to
be Mop.
" The first noticeable defect in your name of
Mop," said Gentleman Waife, " is, as yoit your-
. self denote, the want of elongation. Moiiosyl-
I lables are not imposing, and in striking com-
; positions their meaning is elevated by periphra-
I sis ; that is to say, Sophy, that what before was
a short truth, an elegant author elaborates into
a long stretch."
"Certainly," said Sophy, thoughtfully; "I
don't think the name of Mop would draw ! StUl
he is verv' like a Mop."
" For that reason the name degrades him the
more, and lowers him from an intellectual jjhe-
nomenon to a physical attribute, which is vul-
gar. I hope that that dog will enable us to rise
in the Scale of Being. For whereas we in act-
ing could only command a threepenny audience
— reserved seats a shilling — he may aspire to
half-crowns and dress-boxes, that is, if we can
hit on a name which inspires respect. Jsow, al-
though the dog is big, it is not by his size that
he is to become famous, or we might call him
Hercules or Goliah ; neither is it by his beauty,
or Adonis would not be unsuitable. It is by his
superior sagacity and wisdom. And there I am
puzzled to find his prototype among mortals ;
for, perhaps, it may be my ignorance of history — "
"You ignorant, indeed, grmdfather !"
"But considering the innumerable millions
who have lived on the earth, it is astonishing
how few I can call to mind who have left behind
them a proverbial renown for wisdom. There
is, indeed, Solomon, but he fell oft' at the last ;
and as he belongs to sacred history, we must
not take a liberty with his name. Who is there
very, very, verv" wise besides Solomon ? Think,
Sophy — profane history."
Sophy (after a musing pause). " Puss in
Boots."
"Well, he u-as wise; but then he was not
human ; he was a cat. Ha ! Socrates. Shall
we call him Socrates, Socrates, Socrates ?"
Sophy. " Socrates, Socrates."
Mop yawned.
Waife. ' ■ He don't take to Socrates — prosy I"
Sophy. " Ah, Mr. Merle's book abotit the
Brazen Head, Friar Bacon .' He must have been
very wise."
Waife. "Not bad; mysterious, but not re-
condite ; historical, yet familiar. What does
Mop say to it? Friar, Friar, Friar Bacon, Sir
— Friar."
Sophy (coaxingly). "Friar."
Mop, evidently conceiving that appeal is made
to some other personage, canine or human, not
present, rouses up, walks to tlie door, smells at
the chink, returns, shakes his head, and rests
on his haunches, eying his two friends super-
ciliously.
Sophy. " He does not take to that name."
Watfe. "He has his reasons for it ; and. in-
deed, there are many worthy persons who disap-
prove of any thing that savors of magical prac-
tices. Mop intimates that, on entering public
life, one should beware of offending the respect-
able prejudices of a class."
Mr. Waife then, once more resorting to the
recesses of scholastic memory, filucked there-
from, somewhat by the head and shoulders, sun-
dry names reverenced in a by-gone age. He
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
59
thought of the seven wise men of Greece, but
could only recall the nomenclature of two out
of the seven — a sad proof of the distinction be-
tween collegiate fame and popular reno'wn. He
called Thales; he called Biou. Mop made no re-
sponse. "Wonderful intelligence;"' saidWaife;
"he knows that Thales and Bion would not draw I
— obsolete."
ilop was equally mute to Aristotle. He
pricked up his ears at Plato, perhaps because
the sound was not wholly dissimilar from that
of Pouto — a name of which he might have had
vague reminiscences. The Eomans not having
cultivated an original philosophy, though they
contrived to produce great men without it, Waife
passed by that perished people. He crossed to
China, and tried Confucius. Mop had evident-
ly never heard of him. '• I am at the end of my
list, so far as the wise men are concerned," said
Waife, wiping his forehead. '• If Mop were to
distinguish himself by valor, one would find he-
roes by the dozen — Achilles, and Hector, and
Julius C*sar. and Pompey, and Bonaparte, and
Alexander the Great, and the Duke of Marl-
borough. Or, if he wrote poetry, we could fit
him to a hair. But wise men certainly are
scarce, and when one has hit on a wise man's
name, it is so little known to the vulgar that it
would carry no more weight with it than Spot
or Toby. But necessarily some name the dog
must have, and take to, sympathetically."
Sophy meanwhile had extracted the dominoes
from Waife 's bundle, and with the dominoes an
alphabet and a multiplication-table in printed
capitals. As the Comedian's one eye rested
upon the last, he exclaimed, '• But after all,
Mop"s great strength will probably be in arith-
metic, and the science of numbers is the root of
all wisdom. Besides, every man, high and low,
wants to make a fortune, and associations con-
nected with addition and multiplication are al-
ways pleasing. Who, then, is the sage at com-
putation most universally known ? Unquestion-
ably Cocker.' He must take to that — Cocker,
Cocker (commandingly). C-o-c-k-e-r," with per-
suasive sweetness.
Mop looked puzzled ; he put his head first on
one side, then the other.
SoPHT (with mellifluous endearment). "Cock-
er, good Cocker; Cocker dear."
Both. '"Cocker, Cocker, Cocker!"
Excited and bewildered, Mop put up his head,
and gave vent to his j)erplexities in a long and
lugubrious howl, to which certainly none who
heard it could have desired addition or multi-
plication,
•• Stop this instant. Sir — stop : I shoot you !
You are dead — down !"' Waife adjusted his staff
to his shoulder gun-wise ; and at the word of
command, Down, Mop was on his side, stifi' and
lifele--s. •• Still," said Wait'e, "• a name con-
nected with profound calculation would be the
most appropriate ; for instance. Sir Isaac — "
Before the comedian could get out the word
Newton, Mop had sprung to his four feet, and,
with wagging tail and ^vriggling back, evinced a
sense ot beatified recognition.
" Astounding 1' said Waife, rather awed.
'■ Can it be the name? Impossible. Six Isaac,
Sir Isaac I"
"Bow wow I" answered Mop, joyously.
" If there be any truth in the doctrine of me-
tempsychosis I" faltered Gentleman Waife, " if
the great Newton could have transmigrated into
that incomparable animal. Newton, Newton."
To that name Mop made no obeisance, but. evi-
dently still restless, walked round the room,
smelUng at every corner, and turning to look
back with inquisitive earnestness at his new
master.
"He does not seem to catch at the name of
Newton," said Waife, trying it thrice again, and
vainly, "and yet he seems extremely well
versed in the principle of gravity. Sir Isaac I"
The dog bounded toward him, put his paws on
his shoulders, and licked his face. "Just cut
out those figures carefully, my dear, and see if
we can get him to tell us how much twice ten
, are — I mean by addressing him as Sir Isaac."
Sophy cut the figures from the multiplication-
table, and arranged them, at Waife's instruction,
in a circle on the floor. " Now, Sir Isaac." ^lop
lifted a paw, and walked deliberately round the
letters. " Now, Sir Isaac, how much are ten
times two ?" 3Iop deliberately made his survey
and calculation, and pausing at twenty stooped,
and took the letters in his mouth.
I "It is not natural," cried Sophy, much alarm-
ed. "It must be wicked, and I'd rather have
I nothing to do with it, please."
I " Silly child. He was but obeying my sign.
I He had been taught that trick already under the
I name of Mop. The only strange thing is, that
I he should do it also under the name of Sir Isaac,
! and much more cheerfully too. However, wheth-
er he has been the great Newton or not, a live
dog is better than a dead Uon. But it is clear
that, in acknowledging the name of Sir Isaac,
he does not encourage us to take that of New-
j ton — and he is right"; for it might be thought
I unbecoming to apply to an animal, however ex-
I traordinarv", who, by the severity of fortune is
! compelled to exhibit his talents "for a small pe-
' cuniary reward, the family name of so great a
philosopher. Sir Isaac, after all, is a vague ap-
. pellation — any dog has a right to be Sir Isaac
— Newton may be left conjectural. Let us see
if we can add to our arithmetical information.
Look at me, Sir Isaac." Sir Isaac looked, and
grinned aflectionately ; and under that title
learned a new combination with a facility that
might have relieved Sophy's mind of all su-
perstitious belief that the philosopher was re-
suscitated in the dog, had she kno\vn that in
life that great master of calculations the most
abstruse could not accurately cast up a simple
sum in addition. Nothing brought him to the
end of his majestic tether like dot and carry
one. Notable type of our human incomplete-
ness, where men might deem our studies had
made us most complete. Notable t%"pe, too, of
that grandest order of all human genius which
seems to arrive at results by intuition, which a
child might pose by a row of figures on a slate
— while it is solving the laws that link the stars
to infinity. But revenons a nos moutons, what
the astral attraction that incontestably bound
the reminiscences of Mop to the cognominal
distinction of Sir Isaac ? I had prepared a very
erudite and subtle treatise upon this query, en-
livened by quotations from the ancient Mystics
— such as lambhchus and Proclus, as well as by
a copious reference to the doctrine of the more
modem Spiritualists, from Sir Kenelm Digbj
CO
WHAT "WILL HE DO TVITH IT?
and Swedenborg, to Jlonsieur Cahagnet and
Judge Edmonds: it was to be called Inquiry
into the Law of AiRnities, by Fhilomopsos :
when, unluckily for my treatise, I arrived at the
knowled,a;e of a fact which, though it did not
render the treatise less curious, knocked on the
head the theory upon which it was based. The
baptismal name of the old soldier, flop's first
proprietor and earliest preceptor, was Isaac ;
and his master being called in the homely
household by that Christian name, the sound
had entered into Mop's youngest and most en-
deared associations. His canine affections had
done much toward ripening his scholastic edu-
cation. " Where is Isaac ?" " Call Isaac I"
'•Fetch Isaac his hat," etc., etc. Stilled was
that name when the old soldier died ; but when
heard again, Mop's heart was moved, and in
missing the old master, he felt more at home
with the new. As for the title, " Sir," it was a
mere expletive in his ears. Such was the fact,
and such the deduction to be drawn from it.
Not that it will satisfy every one. I know that
philosophers who deny all that they have not
witnessed, and refuse to witness what they re-
solve to deny, will reject the storj' in toto ; and
will prove, by reference to their own dogs, that
a dog never recognizes the name of his master
■ — never yet could be taught arithmetic. I know
also that there are ilystics who will prefer to
believe that Mop was in direct spiritual commu-
nication with unseen Isaacs, or in a state of
clairvoyance, or under the influence of the odic
fluid. But did we ever yet find in human rea-
son a question with only one side to it ? Is not
truth a polygon? Have not sages arisen in our
day to deny even the principle of gravity, for
which we had been so long contentedly taking
the word of the great Sir Isaac ? It is that
blessed spirit of controversy which keeps the
world going ; and it is that which, perhaps, ex-
plains why 3Ir. Waife, when his memory was
fairly put to it, could remember, out of the his-
tory of the myriads who have occupied our plan-
et from the date of Adam to that in which I now
write, so very few men whom the world will
agree to call wise, and out of that verv' few so
scant a percentage with names sufiiciently known
to make them more popularly significant of pre-
eminent sagacity than if they had been called
— Mops.
CHAPTER VI.
The Vagrant having got his dog, proceeds to hunt For-
tune with it, leaving behind him a trap to catch rats.
What the trap does catch is "just like his luck!"
Sir Isaac, to designate him by his new name,
improved much upon acquaintance. He was
still in the ductile season of youth, and took to
learning as an amusement to himself. His last
master, a stupid sot, had not gained his affec-
tions — and perhaps even the old soldier, though
gratefully remembered and mourned, had not
stolen into his innermost heart, as Waife and
Sophy gently contrived to do. In short, in a
very few days he became perfectly accustomed
and extremely attached to them. When Waife
had ascertained the extent of his accomplish-
ments, and added somewhat to their range in
matters which cost no great trouble, he applied
himself to the task of composing a little drama,
which might bring them all into more interest-
ing play, and in which, tliough Sophy and him-
self were performers, the dog had the premkr
role. And as soon as this was done, and the
dog's performances thus ranged into methodical
order and sequence, he resolved to set oflp to a
considerable town at some distance, and to which
Mr. Rugge was no visitor.
His bill at the cottage made but slight inroad
into his pecuniary resources ; for in the inter-
vals of leisure from his instructions to Sir Isaac,
Waife had performed various little ser\-ices to
the lone widow with whom they lodged, which
Mrs. Saunders (such was her name) insisted
upon regarding as money's worth. He had re-
paired and regulated to a minute an old clock
which had taken no note of time for the last
three years ; he had mended all the broken
crockery by some cement of his own invention,
and for which she got him the materials. And
here his ingenuity was remarkable, for when
there was only a fragment to be found of a cup,
and a fragment or t^vo of a saucer, he united
them both into some pretty form, which, if not
useful, at all events looked well on a shelf. He
bound, in smart, showy papers, sundry tattered
old books which had belonged to his landlady's
defunct husband, a Scotch gardener, and which
she displayed on a side-table, under the Japan
tea-tray. Jlore than all, he was of senice to
her in her vocation ; for ilrs. Saunders eked
out a small pension — which she derived from
the affectionate providence of her Scotch hus-
band, in insuring his life in her favor — by the
rearing and sale of poultry; and Waife saved
her the expense of a caqienter by the construc-
tion of a new coop, elevated above the reach of
the rats, who had hitherto made sad ravage
among the chickens ; while he confided to her
certain secrets in the improvement of breed and
the cheaper processes of fattening, which ex-
cited her gratitude no less than her wonder.
"The fact is," said Gentleman' Waife, ''that
my life has known make-shifts. Once, in a for-
eign country, I kept poultiy upon the principle
that the poidtrj- should keep me."
Strange it was to notice such versatility of in-
vention, such readiness of resource, such famil-
iarity with divers nooks and crannies in the
practical experience of life, in a man now so
hard put to it for a livelihood. There are per-
sons, however, who might have a good stock
of talent, if they did not turn it all into small
change. And you, reader, know as well as I do,
that when a sovereign or a shilling is once bro-
ken into, the change scatters and dispends itself
in a way quite unaccountable. Still coppers are
useful in household bills ; and when Waife was
really at a pinch, somehow or other, by hook or
by crook, he scraped together intellectual half-
pence enough to pay his way.
Mrs. Saunders grew quite fond of her lodg-
ers. Waife she regarded as a prodigy of gen-
ius ; Sophy was the prettiest and best of chil-
dren; Sir Isaac, she took for gi-anted, was wor-
thy of his owners. But the Comedian did not
confide to her his dog's learning, nor the use to
which he designed to put it. And in still great-
er precaution, when he took his leave, he ex-
tracted from Mrs. Saunders a solemn promise
that she would set no one en his track, in case
of impertinent inquiries.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
CI
"You see before you," said he, '"a man who
has enemies — such as rats are to your chickens :
chickens despise rats when raised, as yours are
now, above the reach of claws and teeth. Some
day or other I may so raise a coop for that little
one — I am too old for coops. Jleanwhile, if a
rat comes sneaking here after us, send it oil" the
wrong way, with a flea in its ear."
Mrs. Saunders promised, between tears and
langliter; blessed Waife, kissed So))hy, patted
Sir Isaac, and stood long at her threshold watch-
ing the three, as the early sun lit their forms
receding in the green, narrow lane — dew-drops
sparkling on the hedgerows, and the sky-lark
springing upward from the young corn.
Then she slowly turned in-doors, and her
home seemed very solitary. We can accustom
ourselves to loneliness, but y,e should beware of
infringing the custom. Once admit two or three
faces seated at your hearthside, or gazing out
from your windows on the laughing sun, and
when they are gone, they caiTv off the glow
from your grate and the sunbeam from your
panes. Poor Jlrs. Saunders ! in vain she sought
to rouse herself, to put the rooms to rights, to
attend to the chickens, to distract her thoughts.
The one-eyed cripple, the little girl, the shaggy-
faced dog, still haunted her; and when at noon
she dined all alone off the remnants of the last
night's social supper, the very click of the reno-
vated clock seemed to say, "Gone, gone;" and
muttering, "Ah! gone," she reclined back on
her chair, and indulged herself in a good wo-
manlike ciy. From this luxury slie was startled
by a knock at the door. " Could they have come
back?" No; the door opened, and a genteel
young man, in a black coat and white neckloth,
step]ied in.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am — your name's
Saunders — sell poultry ?"
"At your service, Sir. Spring chickens I"
Poor people, whatever their grief, must sell their
chickens, if they have any to sell.
"Thank you, ma'am; not at this moment.
The fact is, that I call to make some inquiries.
Have not you lodgers here?"
Lodgers ! at that word the expanding soul of
]Mrs. Saunders reclosed hermetically ; the last
warning of Waife revibi-ated in her ears : this
whitQ-neckclothed gentleman, was he not a rat?
" No, Sir, I han't no lodgers."
"But you have had some lately, eh? a crip-
pled elderly man and a little girl."
"Don't know any thing about them; least-
ways," said ^Irs. Saunders, suddenly remember-
ing that she was told less to deny facts than to
send inquirers upon wrong directions — "least-
ways, at this blessed time. Pray, Sir, what
makes you ask?"^
" Why, I was instructed to come down to ,
and find out where this person, one William
Waife, had gone. Arrived yesterday, ma'am.
All I could hear is, that a person answering to
his description left the place several days ago,
and had been seen by a boy, who was tending
sheep, to come down the lane to your house, and
you were supposed to have lodgers (You take
lodgers sometimes, I think, ma'am) ; because
you had been buying some trifling articles of
food not in your usual way of custom. Circum-
stantial evidence, ma'am — you can have no mo-
tive to conceal the truth."
"I should think not indeed, Sir," retorted Mrs.
Saunders, whom the ominous words "circum-
stantial ertdence" set doubly on her guard. " I
did see a gentleman such as you mention, and
a pretty young lady, about ten days agone, or
so, and they did lodge here a uight or two, but
they are gone to — "
" Yes, ma'am — gone where ?"
"Lunnon."
By the train or on
" Really — very likely,
foot?"
"On foot, I s'pose."
"Thank you, ma'am. If you should see them
again, or hear where they are, oblige me by con-
veying this card to i\Ir. "Waife. JSIy employer,
ma'am, JMr. Gotobed, Craven Street, Strand —
eminent solicitor. He has something of im-
portance to communicate to ^Mr. Waife."
" Yes, Sir — a lawyer ; I understand." And as
of all rat-like animals in the world Mrs. Saun-
ders had the ignorance to deem a lawyer was
the most emphatically devouring, she congratu-
lated herself with her whole heart on the white
lies she had told in favor of the intended victims.
The blackcoated gentleman having thus obeyed
his instructions, and attained his object, nodded,
went his way, and regained the fly which he had
left at the turnstile. " Back to the inn," cried
he — "quick — I must be in time fur the three
o'clock train to London."
And thus terminated the result of the gi-eat
barrister's first instructions to his eminent solic-
itor to discover a lame man and a little girl.
No inquiiy, on the whole, could have been more
skillfully conducted. Mr. Gotobed sends his
head clerk — tlie head, clerk employs the police-
man of the village — gets upon the right track —
comes to the right house — and is altogether in
the wrong — in a manner highly creditable to his
researches.
"In London, of course — all people of that
kind come back to London," said Mr. Gotobed.
"Give me the heads in writing, that I may re-
port to my distinguished client. Most satisfac-
tory. That young man will push his way —
business-like and methodical."
CHAPTER VII.
The cloud has its silver lining.
Tnus turning his back on the good fortune
which he had so carefully cautioned IMrs. Saun-
ders against favoring on his behalf, the vagrant
was now on his way to the ancient municipal
town of Gatesborough, which being the nearest
place of fitting opulence and population, Mr.
Waife had resolved to honor with tlie dciiit of
Sir Isaac as soon as he had appropriated to him-
self the services of that promising quadruped.
He liad consulted a map of the county before
quitting Mr. Merle's roof, and ascertahied tliat
he could reach Gatesborough by a short cut for
foot-travelers along fields and lanes. He was
always glad to avoid the high-road: doubtless
for such avoidance he had good reasons. But
prudential reasons were in this instance suj)-
ported by vagrant inclinations. High-roads are
for the prosperous. By-i)aths and ill-luck go
together. But by-patlis have their charm, and
ill-luck its pleasant moments.
C2
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
They passed, then, from the high-road into a
long succession of green pastures, through which
a straight public path conducted them into one
of those charming lanes never seen out of this
boweiy England — a lane deep sunk amidst high
banks, with overhanging oaks, and quivering
ash, gnarled witch-elm, vivid holly, and shaggy
brambles, with Avild convolvulus and creeping
woodbine forcing sweet life through all. Some-
times the banks opened abruptly, leaving patches
of greensward, and peeps through still seques-
tered gates, or over moss-grown pales, into the
park or paddock of some rural thane. New
villas or old manor-houses on lawny uplands,
knitting, as it were, together, England's feudal
memories with England's free-born hopes — the
old land with its young people ; for England is
so old, and the English are so young ! And the
gray cripple and the bright-haired child often
paused, and gazed upon the demesnes and homes
of owners whose lots were cast in such pleasant
places. But there was no grudging envy in their
gaze ; perhaps because their life was too remote
from those grand belongings. And therefore
they could enjoy and possess every banquet of
the eye. For at least the beauty of what we
see is ours for the moment, on the simple con-
dition that we do not covet the thing which
gives to our eyes that beauty. As the measure-
less sky and the unnumbered stars are equally
granted to king and to beggar — and in our wild-
est ambition we do not sigh for a monopoly of
the empyrean, or the fee-simple of the planets
— so the earth too, with all its fenced gardens
and embattled walls — all its landmarks of stern
property and churlish ownership — is ours too by
right of eye. Ours to gaze on the fair posses-
sions with such delight as the gaze can give ;
grudging to the unseen owner his other, and it
may be more troubled rights, as little as we
grudge an astral proprietor his acres of light in
Capricorn. Benignant is the law that saith,
" TIiou shall not covet."
When the sun was at the higliest, our way-
farers found a shadowy nook for their rest and
repast. Before them ran a shallow limpid trout-
stream ; on the otlier side its margin, low grassy
meadows, a farm-house at the distance, backed
by a still grove, from which rose a still church-
tower and its still spire. Behind them a close-
shaven sloping lawn terminated the hedgerow
of the lane ; seen clearly above it, with parterres
of flowers on the sward — drooping lilacs and
laburnums farther back, and a pervading fra-
grance from the brief-lived and rich syringas.
The cripple had climbed over a wooden rail that
separated the lane from the rill, and seated him-
self under the shade of a fantastic hollow thorn-
tree. Sophy, reclined beside him, was gather-
ing some pale scentless violets from a mound
which the brambles had guarded fi'om the sun.
The dog had descended to the waters to quench
his thirst ; but still stood knee-deep in the shal-
low stream, and appeared lost in philosophical
contemplation of a swarm of minnows which his
immersion had disturbed ; but which now made
itself again visible on the further side of the
glassy brook, undulating round and round a tiny
rocklet which interrupted the glide of the waves,
and caused them to break into a low melodious
murmur. "For these and all thy mercies, O
Lord, make ns thankful," said the Victim of Ill-
luck, in the tritest words of a pious custom.
But never, perhaps, at aldermanic feasts, was
the grace more sincerely said.
And then he untied the bundle, which the
dog, who had hitherto carried it by the way, had
now carefully deposited at his side. " As I live,"
ejaculated Waife, "Mrs. Saunders is a woman
in ten thousand. See, Sophy, not contented
with the bread and cheese to which I bade her
stint her beneficence, a whole chicken — a little
cake too for you, Sophy ; she has not even for-
gotten the salt. Sophy, that woman deserves
the handsomest token of our gratitude ; and we
will present her with a silver tea-pot the first mo-
ment we can atFord it."
His spirits exhilarated by the unexpected good
cheer, the Comedian gave Avay to his naturally
blithe humor; and between every mouthful he
rattled or rather drolled on, now infant-like,
now sage-like. He cast out the rays of his lib-
eral humor, careless where they fell — on the
child — on the dog — on the fishes that jilayed
beneath the Avave — on the cricket that chirped
amidst the grass: the woodpecker tapped the
tree, and the cripple's merry voice answered it
in bird-like mimicry. To this riot of genial
babble there was a listener, of whom neither
grandfather nor grandchild was aware. Con-
cealed by thick brushwood a few paces fiirther
on, a young angler, who might be five or six
and twenty, had seated himself, just before the
arrival of our vagrant to those banks and waters,
for the purpose of changing an imsuccessful fly.
At the sound of voices, perhaps suspecting an
unlicensed rival — for that part of the stream
was pjreserved — he had suspended his task, and
noiselessly put aside the clustering leaves to
reconnoitre. The piety of Waife's simple gi-ace
seemed to surprise him pleasingly, for a sweet
approving smile crossed his lips. He continued
to look and to listen. He forgot the fly, and a
trout sailed him by unheeded. But Sir Isaac,
having probably satisfied his speculative mind
as to the natural attributes of minnows, now
slowly reascended the bank, and after a brief
halt and a snifl', walked majestically toward the
hidden observer, looked at him with great so-
lemnity, and uttered an inquisitive bark — a bark
not hostile, not menacing; purely and dryly in-
teiTOgative. Thus detected, the angler rose ;
and Waife, whose attention was attracted that
way by the bark, saw him, called to Sir Isaac,
and said politelv, " There is no harm in my dog,
Sir."
The young man muttered some inaudible reply,
and, lifting up his rod, as in sign of his occupa-
tion or excuse for his vicinity, put aside the in-
tervening foliage, and stepped quietly to Waife's
side. Sir Isaac followed him — sniffed again —
seemed satisfied ; and, seating himself on his
haunches, fixed his attention upon the remains
of the chicken which lay defenseless on the
grass. The new-comer was evidently of the
rank of gentleman ; his figure was slim and
graceful, his face pale, meditative, refined. He
would have impressed you at once with the idea
of what he really was — an Oxford scholar ; and
you would, perhaps, have guessed him designed
for the ministry of the Church, if not actually
in orders.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
63
CHAPTER VIII.
3tr. Waife excites the admiration, and benignly pities
the inlirmity of an Oxford scholar.
" You are str — str — strangers ?" said the Ox-
onian, after a violent exertion to express him-
self, caused by an impediment in his speech.
Waife. "Yes, Sir, travelers. I trust we are
not trespassing : this is not private ground, I
think?"
OxoxiAX. "And if — f— f— f it were, my f—
f — father would not war — n — n you off — If — f."
"It is your father's ground then? Sir, I beg
vou a thousand pardons."
The apology was made in the Comedian's
grandest style — it imposed greatly on the young
scholar. Waife might have been a duke in dis-
guise ; but I will do the angler the justice to say
that such discovery of rank would have impress-
ed him little more in the vagrant's favor. It
had been that impromptu "grace" — that thanks-
giving which the scholar felt was for something
more than the carnal food — which had first
commanded his respect and wakened his inter-
est. Then that innocent, careless talk, part ut-
tered to dog and child — part soliloquized — part
thrown out to the cars of the lively teeming
Nature, had touched a somewhat kindred chord
in the angler's soul, for he was somewhat of a
poet and much of a soliloquist, and could confer
with Nature, nor feel that impediment in speech
which obstructed his intercourse with men. Hav-
ing thus far indicated that oral defect in our new
acquaintance, the reader will cheerfully excuse
me for not enforcing it overmuch. Let it be
among the things sttb audita, as the sense of it
gave to a gifted and aspiring nature, thwarted
in the sublime career of preacher, an exquisite
mournful jjain. And I no more like to raise a
laugh at his infirmity behind his back, than I
should before his pale, powerful, melancholy
face — therefore I suppress the infirmity in giv-
ing his reply.
Oxonian. " On the other side the lane where
the garden slopes downward is my fathers
house. This ground is his property certainly,
but he puts it to its best use, in lending it to
those who so piously acknowledge that Father
from whom all good comes. Your child, I pre-
sume, Sir?"
"My grandchild."
" She seems delicate ; I hope you have not
far to go?"
" Not veiy far, thank you, Sir. But my little
girl looks more delicate than she is. You are
not tired, darling?"
"Oh, not at all!" There was no mistaking
the looks of real love intei'changed between the
old man and the child : the scholar felt much
interested and somewhat puzzled. "Who and
what could tiicy be? so unlike foot wayfarers !"
On the other hand, too, Waife took a liking to
the courteous young man, and conceived a sin-
cere pity for his piiysical affliction. But he did
not for those reasons depart from the discreet
caution he had prescribed to himself in seeking
new fortunes and shunning old jierils, so he
turned the subject.
" You are an angler. Sir ? I suppose the trout
in this stream run small."
"Not very — a little higher up I have caught
them at four pounds weight."
Waife. " There goes a fine fish yonder — see !
balancing himself between those weeds."
Oxonian. "Poor fellow, let him be safe to-
day. After all, it is a cruel sport, and I should
break myself of it. But it is strange that what-
ever our love for Nature, we always seek some
excuse for tnisting ourselves alone to her. A
gun — a rod — a sketch-book — a geologist's ham-
mer — an entomologist's net — something."
AVaife. " Is it not because all our ideas would
run wild if not concentrated on a definite pur-
suit? Fortune and Nature are earnest females,
though popular beauties; and they do not look
upon coquettish trificrs in the light of genuine
wooers."
The Oxonian who, in venting his previous re-
mark, had thought it likely he should be above
his listener's comprehension, looked surjiriscd.
What pursuits, too, had this one-eyed pliiloso-
pher !
"You have a definite pursuit, Sir?"
"I — alas — when a man moralizes, it is a sign
that he has known eiTor: it is because I have
been a trifler that I rail against triflers. And
talking of that, time flies, and we must be oft'
and away."
Sophy rctied the bundle. Sir Isaac, on whom,
meanwhile, she had bestowed the remains of
the chicken, jumped up and described a circle,
" I wish you success in your pursuit, whatever
it be," stuttered out the angler.
" And I no less heartily. Sir, wish you success
in yours."
" jNIine ! Success there is beyond my power."
"How, Sir? Does it rest so much with
others?"
"No, my failure is in myself. My career
should be the Church, my pursuit the cure of
souls, and — and — this pitiful infirmity ! How
can I speak the Divine Word — I — I — a stutter-
er!"
The young man did not pause for an answer,
but plunged through the brushwood that be-
spread the banks of the rill, and his hurried
path could be traced by the wave of the foliage
through which he forced his way.
" We all have our burdens," said Gentleman
Waife, as Sir Isaac took up the bundle, and
stalked on, placid and refreshed.
CHAPTER IX.
The Notnad, entering into civilized life, adopts its arts,
fhaves his poodle, and puts on a black coat. Hints at
the process by which a Cast-off exalts himself into a
Take-in.
At twilight they stopped at a quiet inn within
eight miles of Gatesboro'. Sophy, much tired,
was glad to creep to bed. Waife sat up long
after her ; and, in preparation for the eventful
moiTow, washed and shaved Sir Isaac. You
would not have known the dog again ; he was
dazzling. Not Ulysses, rejuvenated by Pallas
Atliene, could have been more changed for the
better. His flanks revealed a skin most daintily
mottled; his tail became leonine with an impe-
rial tuft ; his mane fell in long curls, like the
beard of a Ninevite king ; his boots were those
of a courtier in the reign of Charles II. ; his
eyes looked forth in dark splendor from locks
white as the driven snow. This feat performed.
64
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Waife slept the peace of the righteous, and Sir
Isaac stretched on the floor beside the bed,
licked his mottled flanks and shivered — '■'■Ilfaiit
soitffrlr })our itrc beau." Much marveling, So-
phy the next morn beheld the dog ; but before
she was up Waife had paid the bill and was
waiting for her on the road, impatient to start.
He did not heed her exclamations, half compas-
sionate, half admiring ; he was absorbed in
thought. Thus they proceeded slowly on till
within two miles of the town, and then Waife
turned aside, entered a wood, and there, with
the aid of Sophy, put the dog upon a deliberate
rehearsal of the anticipated drama. The dog
was not in good spirits, but he went through his
part with mechanical accuracy, though slight en-
thusiasm.
" He is to be relied npon, in spite of his
French origin," said Waife. " All national
prejudice fades before the sense of a common
interest. And we shall always find more gen-
eral solidity of character in a French poodle
than in an English mastiff, whenever a poodle
is of use to us, and a mastiff is not. But oh,
waste of care! oh sacrifice of time to empty
names I oh emblem of fashionable education !
It never struck me before — does it not, child
though thou art, strike thee now — by the ne-
cessities of our drama, this animal must be a
French dog?"
"Well, grandfather?"
"And we have given hiiji an English name !
Precious result of our own scholastic training ;
taught at preparatory academics jn-ecisely that
which avails us naught when we are to face the
world ! What is to be done ? Unlearn him his
own cognomen — teach him another name ; too
late, too late! We can not afford the delay."
"I don't see why he should be called any
name at all. He observes your signs just as
well without."
"If I had but discovered that at the begin-
ning. Pity ! Such a fine name, too ! Sir Isaac !
Vaititas, ranitatum I What desire chiefly kindles
the ambitious ? To create a name — perhaps be-
queath a title — exalt into Sir Isaacs a progeny
of Mops ! And after all, it is possible (let us
lu)pe it in this instance) that a sensible young
dog may learn his letters and shoulder his mus-
ket just as well though all the appellations by
which humanity knows him be condensed into
a pitiful monosyllable. Nevertheless (as you
will find when you are older), people are obliged
in practice to renounce for themselves the ap-
plication of those rules which they philosophic-
ally prescribe for others. Thus, while I grant
that a change of name for that dog is a question
belonging to the policy of Ifs and Puts, common-
ly called tlie policy of Expediency, about which
one may difter with others and one's own self
every quarter of an hour — a change of name for
me belongs to the policy of Must and Shall,
viz., the policy of Necessity, against which let
no dog bark, though I have known dogs howl at
it ! William Waife is no more ; he is dead —
he is buried ; and even Juliet Aramiuta is the
baseless fabric of a vision."
Sophy raised inquiringly her blue, guileless
eyes.
" You see before you a man who has used up
the name of Waife, and who, on entering the !
town of Gatesboro', becomes a sober, staid, and I
respectable personage, under the appellation of
Chapman. You are Miss Chapman. Rugpe and
his exhibition 'leave not a wrack behind.' "
Sophy smiled and then sighed — the smile for
her grandfather's gay spirits ; wherefore the
sigh ? Was it that some instinct in that fresh,
loyal nature revolted from the tliought of these
aliases, which, if requisite for safety, were still
akin to imposture. If so, poor child, she had
much yet to set right with her conscience ! All
I can say is, that after she had smiled she sighed.
And more reasonably might a reader ask his au-
thor to subject a zephyr to the microscope than
a female's sigh to analysis.
" Take the dog with you, my dear, back into
the lane ; I will join you in a few minutes. You
are neatly dressed, and if not, would look so. I,
in this old coat, have the air of a peddler, so I will
change it, and enter the town of Gatesboro' in
the character of — a man whom you will soon see
before you. Leave those things alone, de-Isaac-
ized Sir Isaac ! Follow your mistress — go "
Sophy left the wood, and walked on slowly
toward the town, with her hand pensively rest-
ing on Sir Isaac's head. In less than ten min-
utes she was joined by Waife, attired in respect-
able black ; his hat and shoes well brushed ; a
new green shade to his eye ; and with his finest
air oi Pere Noble. He was now in his favorite
element. He avas acting — call it not impos-
ture. Was Lord Chatham an impostor when he
draped his flannels into the folds of the toga, and
arrayed the curls of his wig so as to add more
sublime efi'ect to the majesty of his brow and
the terrors of its nod? And certainly, consid-
ering that Waife, after all, was but a ])rofessional
vagabond — considering all the turns and shifts to
which he has been put for bread and salt — the
wonder is, not that he is full of stage tricks and
small deceptions, but that he has contrived to
retain at heart so much childish simplicity.
When a man for a series of years has only had
his wits to live by, I say not that he is neces-
sarily a I'ogue — he may be a good fellow; but
you can scarcely expect his code of honor to
be precisely the same as Sir Philip Sidney's.
Homer expresses, through the lii>s of Achilles,
that sublime love of truth, which, even in those
remote times, was the becoming characteristic of
a gentleman and a soldier. But, then, Achilles
is well oft' during his whole life, which, though
distinguished, is short. On the other hand,
Ulysses, who is sorely put to it, kept out of his
property in Ithaca, and, in short, living on his
wits, is not the less befriended by the immacu-
late Pallas, because his wisdom savors somewhat
of stage trick and sharp practice. And as to
convenient aliases and white fibs, where would
have been the use of his wits, if Ulysses had
disdained such arts, and been magnanimously
munched up by Polyphemus ? Having thus
touched on the epic side of ilr. Waife's char-
acter with the clemency due to human nature,
but with the caution required by the interests
of society, permit him to resume a " duplex
course," sanctioned by ancient precedent, but
not commended to modern imitation. Just as
our travelers neared the town, the screech of a
railway whistle resounded toward their right —
a long train rushed from the jaws of a tunnel,
and shot into the neighboring station.
" How lucky I" exclaimed Waife ; " make
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
65
haste, my dear!" Was he going to take the
train? Pshaw! he was at his journey's end.
lie was going to mix with the^hrong that would
soon stream through those white gates into the
town ; he was going to purloin the respectable
appearance of a passenger by the train. And
so well did he act the part of a bewildered
stranger just vomited forth into unfamiliar
places by one of those panting steam monsters,
so artfully amidst the busy competition of nudg-
ing elbows, overbearing shoulders, and the im-
pedimenta of carpet-bags, portmanteaus, babies
in arms, and shin-assailing trucks, did he look
round consequentially on the qiii vive, turning
his one eye now on Sophy, now on Sir Isaac,
and griping his bundle to his breast as if he
suspected all his neighbors to be Thugs, condot-
tieri, and swell-mob, that in an instant fly-men,
omnibus-drivers, cads, and porters, marked him
for their own. "Gatesboro' Arms," "Spread
Eagle," " Royal Hotel," " Saracen's Head," —
very comfortable, centre of High Street, oppo-
site the "Town Hall," — were shouted, bawled,
wMspered, or whined into his ear. "/s there
an honest porter?" asked the Comedian, pite-
ously. An Irishman presented himself. " And
is it meself can ser\e your honor?" — "Take
this bundle, and walk on before me to the High
Street." — "Could not I take the bundle, grand-
father? The man will charge so much," said
the prudent Sophy. "Hush I you indeed I"
said the Phe Aoble, as if addressing an exiled
Altesse royale — "you take a bundle — Miss —
Chapman I"
They soon gained the High Street. Waife
examined the fronts of the various inns which
they passed by, with an eye accustomed to de-
cipher the physiognomy of hostehies. " The
Saracen's Head" pleased him, though its impos-
ing size daunted Sophy. He arrested the steps
of the porter, "Follow me close," and stepped
across the open threshold into the bar. The
landlady herself was there, portly and impos-
ing, with an auburn tovpet, a silk gown, a cameo
brooch, and an ample bosom.
" You have a private sitting-room, ma'am ?"
said the Comedian, lifting his hat. There are
so many ways of lifting a hat — for instance, the
way for which Louis XIY. was so renowned.
But the Comedian's way on the present occasion
rather resembled that of the late Duke of Beau-
fort — not quite royal, but as near to royalty as
becomes a subject. He added, re-covering his
head — " And on the first floor ?" The landlady
did not courtesy, but she bowed, emerged from
the bar, and set foot on the broad stairs ; then,
looking back graciously, her eyes rested on Sir
Isaac, who had stalked forth in advance, and
with expansive nostrils sniffed. She hesitated.
" Your dog, Sir ! shall boots take it round to the
stables?"
"The stables, ma'am — the stables, my dear,"
turning to Sophy, with a smile more ducal than
the previous bow ; " what would they sav at
home if they heard that noble animal was con-
signed to — stables ? Ma'am, my dog is my com-
panion, and as much accustomed to drawing-
rooms as I am myself." Still the landlady
paused. The dog might be accustomed to draw-
ing-rooms, but her drawing-room was not accus-
tomed to dogs. She had just laid down a new
carpet. And such are the strange and erratic
E
affinities in nature — such are the incongmoos
concatenations in the cross-stitch of ideas, that
there are associations between dogs and carpets,
which, if wrongful to the owners of dogs, beget
no unreasonable apprehensions in the proprie-
tors of carpets. So there stood the landlady,
and there stood the dog ! and there they might
be standing to this day had not the Co'median
dissolved the spell. "Take up my eflfccts again,"
said he, turning to the porter ; " doubtless they
are more habituated to distinguish between dog
and dog at the Boyal Hotel."
^ The landlady was mollified in a moment.
Nor was it only the rivalries that necessarily
existed between the Saracen's Head and the
Royal Hotel that had due weight with her. A
gentleman who could not himself deign to car-
r}- even that small bundle, must be indeed a
gentleman l Had he come with a portmanteau
— even with a carpet-bag — the porter's senice
would have been no evidence of rank, but, ac-
customed as she was chiefly to gentlemen en-
gaged in commercial pursuits, it was new to her
experience a gentleman with effects so light and
hands so aristocratically helpless. Herein were
equally betokened the two attributes of birth and
wealth — viz., the habit of command, and the
disdain of shillings. A vague remembrance of
the well-known stoiy how a man and his dog
had an-ived at the Granby Hotel, at HaiTogate,
and been sent away roomless to the other and
less patrician establishment, because, wliile he
had a dog, he had not a senant ; when, five
minutes after such dismissal, came can-iages
and lackeys, and an imperious valet, asking for
his grace the Duke of A , who had walked
on before with his dog, and who, oh evei'lasting
thought of remorse ! had been sent away to
bring the other establishment into fashion*! — a
vague reminiscence of that stor\-, I say, flashed
upon the landlady's mind, and she exclaimed,
" I only thought, Sir, you might prefer the sta-
bles; of coui-se, it is as you please — this way,
Sir. He is a fine animal, indeed, and seems
mild."
"You may bring up the bundle, porter," quoth
the J^ere Noble. " Take my arm, my dear ;
these steps are very steep."
The landlady threw open the door of a hand-
some sitting-room — her best : she pulled down
the blinds to shut out the glare of the sun, then,
retreating to the threshold, awaited further or-
ders.
"Rest yourself, my dear," said the Actor,
placing Sophy on a couch with that tender re-
spect for sex and childhood which so especially
belongs to the high-bred. '• The room will do,
ma'am. I will let you know later whether we
shall require beds. As to dinner, I am not par-
ticular — a cutlet — a chicken — what you ]Jeasc
— at seven o'clock. Stay, I beg your pardon for
detaining you ; but •where does the JNIayor live ?"
"His private residence is a mile out of the
town ; but his counting-house is just above the
Town Hal! — to the right. Sir I"
"Name?"
"Mr. HartoppI"
" Hartopp 1 Ah ! to be sure, Ilartopp. His po-
litical opinions, I think are (ventures at a guess)
enlightened I"'
Landlady. "Very much so, Sir. Mr. Har-
topp is highly respected."
66
WHAT WELL HE DO WITH IT?
Waife. "The chief municipal officer of a
town so thriving — fine shops and much plate-
glass— must march with the times. I think I
have heard that Mr. Hartopp promotes the
spread of intelligence and the propagation of
knowledge."
Landlady (rather puzzled). "I dare say,
Sir. The Mayor takes great interest in the
Gatesboro' Athenreum and Literary Institute."
Waife. "Exactly what I should have pre-
sumed from his character and station. I will
detain you no longer, ma'am" (Duke of Beau-
fort bow). The landlady descended the stairs.
Was her guest a candidate for the representa-
tion of the town at the next election ? March
with the times — spread of inteUigence! All
candidates she ever knew had that way of ex-
pressing themselves — "March" and "Spread."
Not an address had parliamentary aspirant put
forth to the freemen and electors of Gatesboro',
but what "March" had been introduced by the
candidate, and " Spread" been siiggested by the
committee. Still she thought that her guest,
upon the whole, looked and bowed more like
a member of the Upper House. Perhaps one
of the amiable though occasionally prosy peers
who devote the teeth of wisdom to the cracking
of those very hard nuts — " How to educate the
masses," "What to do with our criminals," and
such like problems, upon which already have
been broken so many jawbones tough as that
with which Samson slew the Philistines.
" Oh, grandfather," sighed Sophy, "what are
you about? We shall be ruined — you too, who
are so careful not to get into debt. And what
have we left to pay the people here ?"
" Sir Isaac ! and this !" returned the Come-
dian, touching his forehead. " Do not alarm
yourself — stay here and repose — and don't let
Sir Isaac out of the room on any account !"
He took off his hat, brushed the nap carefully
with his sleeve, replaced it on his head — not
jauntily aside — not like a jetine pretnier, hnt
with equilateral brims, and in composed fashion,
like a pcre noble — then, making a sign to Sir
Isaac to rest quiet, he passed to the door ; there
he halted, and turning toward Sophy, and meet-
ing her wistful eyes, his own eye moistened.
"Ah!" he murmured, "Heaven grant I may
succeed now, for if I do, then you shall indeed
be a little lady !"
He was gone.
CHAPTER X.
Showing witli what success Gentleman Waife assumes
the pleasing part of Friend to the Enlightenment of
the Age and the Progress of the People.
On the landing-place Waife encountered the
Irish porter, who, having left the bundle in the
drawing-room, was waiting patiently to be paid
for his trouble.
The Comedian surveyed the good-humored,
shrewd face, on every line of which was writ
the golden maxim, " Take things asy." " I beg
your pardon, my friend ; I had almost forgot-
ten you. Have you been long in this town?"
"Four years — and long life to your honor!"
"Do you know Mr. Hartopp, the ]\Layor?"
"Is it his worship the Mayor? Sure and it
is the Mayor as has made a man o' Mike Cal-
laghan."
The Comedian Evinced urbane curiosity to
learn the history of that process, and drew forth
a grateful tale. Four summers ago Mike had
resigned the " first gem of the sea" in order to
assist in making hay for a Saxon taskmakcr.
Mr. Hartopp, who farmed largely, had employ-
ed him in that rural occupation. Seized by a
malignant fever, Mr. Hartopp had helped him
through it, and naturally conceived a liking for
the man he helped. Thus, as Mike became
convalescerjt, instead of passing the poor man
back to his own country, which at that time
gave little em]jloyment to the surplus of its
agrarian population beyond an occasional shot
at a parson, an employment, though animated,
not lucrative, exercised Mike's returningstrength
upon a few light jobs in his warehouse ; and,
finally, Mike marrying imprudently the daugh-
ter of a Gatesboro' operative, Mr. Hartopp set
him up in life as a professional messenger and
porter, patronized by the corporation. The nar-
rative made it evident that IMr. Hartopp was a
kind and worthy man, and the Comedian's heart
warmed toward him.
" An honor to our species, this Mr. Hartopp !"
said Waife, striking his staff upon the floor; " I
covet his acquaintance. Would he see you if
you called at his counting-house ?"
Mike replied in the atfirmative, with eager
I pride, " i\Ir. Hartopp would see I'.im at once.
Sure, did not the Mayor know that time was
money? Mr. Hartopp was not a man to keep
the poor waiting."
"Go down and stay outside the hall door;
you shall take a note for me to the Mayor."
Waife then passed into the bar, and begged
the favor of a sheet of note-paper. The land-
lady seated him at her own desk, and thus ^vrote
the Comedian :
" Mr. Chapman presents his compliments to
the Mayor of Gatesboro', and requests the hon-
or of a vei-y short interview, ftlr. Chapman's
deep interest in the permanent success of those
literary institutes which are so distinguished a
feature of this enlightened age, and Mr. May-
or's well-known zeal in the promotion of those
invaluable societies, must be Mr. Chapman's ex-
cuse for the liberty he ventures to take in this
request. Mr. C. may add that of late he has
earnestly directed his attention to the best means
of extracting new uses from those noble but un-
developed institutions. — Saracen's Head, etc."
This epistle, duly sealed and addressed, Waife
delivered to the care of jMike Callaghan — and
simultaneously he astounded that functionary
with no less a gratuity than half a crown. Cut-
ting short the fervent blessings which this gen-
erous donation naturally called forth, the Co-
median said, with his happiest combination of
suavity and loftiness, " And should the Mayor
ask you what sort of person I am — for I have
not the honor to be known to him, and there
are so many adventurers about, that he might
reasonably expect me to be one — perhaps you'
can say that I don't look like a person he need
be afraid to admit. You know a gentleman by
sight ! Bring back an answer as soon as may
be ; perhaps I shan't stay long in the town. You
will find me in the High Street, looking at the
shops."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
67
The porter took to his legs — impatient to vent
his overflowing heart upon the praises of this
munificent stranger. A gentleman, indeed —
jMike should think so. If Mike's good word
with the Mayor was worth money, Gentleman
Waife had put his half-crown out upon famous
interest.
The Comedian strolled along the High Street,
and stopped before a stationer's shop, at the win-
dow of which was displayed a bill, entitled,
GATESBOEO' ATIIEXiECJI AND LITEKAEY
INSTITLTK.
LECTLTiE OX COXCHOLOGY,
By Professor Losg,
Author of " Kesearclies into the Natural History of
Limpets."
Waife entered the shop, and lifted his hat — |
•'Permit me, Sir, to look at that hand-bill." j
" Certainly, Sir ; but the lecture is over — you
can see by the date ; it came oft' last week. We |
allow the bills of previous proceedings at our
AtheniEum to be exposed at the window till the ',
new bills are prepared — keeps the whole thing ,
a\ive. Sir." i
" Conchology," said the Comedian, " is a sub- I
ject which requires deep research, and on which '
a learned man may say much without fear of i
contradiction. But how far is Gatesboro' from
the British Ocean ?"
"I don't know exactly. Sir — a long way."
" Then, as shells are not familiar to the youth-
ful remembrances of your fellow-townsmen, pos-
sibly the lecturer may have found an audience
rather select than numerous."
" It was a very attentive audience. Sir — and
highly respectabie — ^liss Grieve's young ladies
(the genteelest seminary in tlie town) attended."
Waife. "Highly creditable to the young la-
dies. But, pardon me, is your Athenaum a
Mechanics' Institute?"
Shopman'. "It was so called at first. But,
somehow or other, the mere operatives fell oft",
and it was thought advisable to change the word
'Mechanics' into the word 'Literary.' Gates-
boro' is not a manufacturing town, and the
mechanics here do not realize the expectations
of that taste for abstract science on which the
originators of these societies founded their — "
Waife (insinuatingly interrupting). " Their
calculations of intellectual progress and their
tables of pecuniary return. Few of these soci-
eties, I am told, are really self-supporting — I
suppose Professor Long is! — and if he resides
in Gatesboro', and writes on limpets, he is prob-
ably a man of independent fortune."
Shopman. " Why, Sir, the Professor ■was en-
gaged from London — five guineas and his trav-
eling expenses. The funds of the society could
ill artbrd such outlay ; but we have a most wor-
thy Mavor, who, assisted by his foreman, Mr.
Williams, our treasurer, is, I may say, the life
and soul of the institute."
"A literary man himself, your Mayor?"
The shopman smiled. "Not much in that
wav. Sir ; but any thing to enlighten the work-
ing classes. This is Professor Long's great work
upon limpets, 2 vols, post octavo. The Mayor has
just presented it to the library of the Institute. I
was cutting the leaves when you came in."
"Very prudent in you, Sir. If limpets were
but able to read printed character in the En-
glish tongue, this work would have more inter-
est for them than the ablest investigations upon
the political and social condition of man. But,"
added the Comedian, shaking his head mourn-
fully, " the human species is not testaceous —
and what the history of man might be to a lim-
pet, the history of limpets is to a man." So say-
ing, Mr. Waife bought a sheet of card-board and
some gilt-foil, relifted his hat, and walked out.
The shopman scratched his head thoughtful-
ly; he glanced from his window at the form of
the receding stranger, and mechanically re-
sumed the task of cutting those leaves, which,
had the volumes reached the shelves of the li-
brary uncut, would have so remained to the
crack of doom.
Mike Callaghan now came in sight, striding
fast. " Mr. Mayor sends his love — bother-o"-
me — his respex ; and will be happy to see your
honor."
In three minutes more the Comedian was
seated in a little ])arlor that adjoined Mr. Har-
topp's counting-house — Mr. Hartopp seated also,
vis-d-vis. The Maj'or had one of those coun-
tenances upon which good-nature throws a sun-
shine softer than Claude ever shed upon can-
vas. Josiah Hartopp had risen in life by little
other art than that of quiet kindliness. As a
boy at school, he had been ever ready to do a
good turn to his school-fellows ; and his school-
fellows at last formed themselves into a kind of
police, for the purpose of protecting Jos. Har-
topp's pence and person from the fists and fin-
gers of each other. He was evidently so anx-
ious to please his master, not from fear of the
rod, but the desire to spare that worthy man the
pain of inflicting it, that he had more trouble
taken with his education than was bestowed on
the brightest intellect that school ever reared;
and where other boys were roughly flogged, Jos.
Hartopp was soothingly patted on the head, and
told not to be cast down, but try again. The
same even-handed justice returned the sugared
chalice to his lips in his apprenticeship to an
austere leather-seller, who, not bearing the
thought to lose sight of so mild a face, raised
him into partnership, and ultimately made him
his son-in-law and residuary legatee. Then Mr.
Hartopp yielded to the advice of friends who de-
sired his exaltation, and from a leather-seller
became a tanner. Hides themselves softened
their asperity to that gentle dealer, and melted
into golden fleeces. He became rich enough to
hire a farm for health and recreation. He knew
little of husbandry, but he won the heart of a
I bailift' who might have reared a turni]) from a
deal table. Gradually the farm became his fee-
' simple, and the farm-house expanded into a villa.
Wealth and honors flowed in from a brimmed
horn. The surliest man in the town would have
been ashamed of saying a rude tiling to Jos.
Hartopp. If he spoke in public, though he
hummed and hawed lamentably, no one was so
respectfully listened to. As for the parliament-
ary representation of the town he could have re-
! turned himself for one seat and Mike Callaghan
for the other, had he been so disposed. But he
was too full of the milk of humanity to admit
into his veins a drop from the gall of party. He
suffered others to legislate for his native land,
and (except on one occasion, when he had been
68
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
persuaded to assist in canvassing not indeed the
electors of Gatesboro' but those of a distant
town in which he possessed some influence, on
behalf of a certain eminent orator), Jos. Har-
topp was only visible in politics whenever Par-
liament was "to be petitioned in favor of some
humane measure, or against a tax that would
have harassed the poor.
If any thing went wrong with him in his busi-
ness, the whole town combined to set it right
for him. Was a child born to him, Gatesboro'
rejoiced as a mother. Did measles or scarlatina
afflict his neighborhood, the first anxiety of
Gatesboro' was for Mr. Hartopp's nursery. No
one would have said Mrs. Hartopp's nursery;
and when in such a department the man's name
supersedes the woman's, can more be said in
proof of the tenderness he excites ? In short,
Jos. Hartopp was a notable instance of a truth
not commonly recognized, viz., that aflection is
})0wer, and that, if you do make it thoroughly
and unequivocally clear that you love your neigh-
bors, though it may not be quite so well as you
love yourself — still, cordially and disinterestedly,
vou will find your neighbors much better fellows
"than Mrs. Grundy gives them credit for — but
always provided that your talents be not such as
to excite their envy, nor your opinions such as
to offend their prejudices.
Mr. Hartopp. "You take an interest, you
say, in literary iustitutes, and have studied the
subject?"'
The Comediax. "Of late, those institutes
liave occupied my thoughts as presenting the
readiest means of collecting liberal ideas into a
profitable focus."
Mr. Hartopp. " Certainly it is a great thing
to bring classes together in friendly union."
The Comedian-. "For laudable objects."
Mr. Hartopp. "To cultivate their under-
standings."
The Comedian. " To warm their hearts."
Mr. Hartopp. "To give them useful knowl-
edge."
The Comedian. "And pleasurable sensa-
tions."
Mr. Hartopp. " In a word, to instruct them."
The Comedian. "And to amuse."
" Eh I" said the Mayor — " amuse !"
Now, every one about the person of this ami-
able man was on the constant guard to save him
from the injurious effects of his own benevo-
lence ; and accordingly his foreman, hearing
that he was closeted with a stranger, took alarm,
and entered on pretense of asking instructions
about an order for hides — in reality, to glower
upon the intruder, and keep his master's hands
out of imprudent pockets.
Mr. Hartopp, who, though not brilliant, did
not want for sense, and was a keener observer
than was generally supposed, divined the kindly
intentions of his assistant. "A gentleman in-
terested in the Gatesboro' Athenajum. My fore-
man, Sir — ilr. Williams, the treasurer of our
Institute. Take a chair, Williams."
"You said to amuse, Mr. Chapman, but — "
"You did not find Professor Long on con-
chology amusing?"
"Why," said the Mayor, smiling blandly, "I
myself am not a man of science, and therefore
his lecture though profound, was a little dry to
me."
" Must it not have been still more dry to your
workmen, ]\Ir. Mayor?"
" They did not attend," said WilUams. " Up-
hill task Me have to secure the Gatesboro' me-
chanics, when any thing really solid is to be ad-
dressed to their understandings."
"Poor things, they are so tired at night," said
the Mayor, compassionately ; "but they wish to
improve themselves, and they take books from
the library."
" Novels," quoth the stern Williams — " it will
be long before they take out that valuable ' His-
tory of Limpets.' "
" If a lecture was as amusing as a novel,
would not they attend it?" asked the Come-
dian.
"I suppose they would," returned Mr. Will-
iams. "But our object is to instruct; and in-
struction. Sir — "
" Could be made amusing. If, for instance,
the lecturer could produce a live shell-fish, and
by showing what kindness can do toward devel-
oping intellect and aflection in beings without
soul, make man himself more kind to his fellow-
man ?"
Mr. Williams laughed grimly. "Well, Sir."
"This is what I should propose to do."
" With a shell-fish I" cried the Mayor.
" No, Sir ; with a creature of nobler attributes
A DOG I"
The listeners stared at each other like dumb
animals as Waife continued :
" By winning interest for the individuality of
a gifted quadruped, I should gradually create
interest in the natural histon.- of its species. I
should lead the audience on to listen to compar-
isons with other members of the great family
which once associated with Adam. I should
lay the foundation for an instructive course of
natural history, and from vertebrated mammi-
fers who knows but we might gradually arrive
at the nervous system of the molluscous division,
and produce a sensation by the production of a
limpet I"
"Theoretical," said Mr. Williams.
" Practical, Sir ; since I take it for granted
that the Athenceum, at present, is rather a tax
upon the richer subscribers, including Mr. May-
or."
" Nothing to speak of," said the mild Hartopp.
Williams looked toward his master with un-
speakable love, and groaned. " Nothing indeed
—oh !"
"These societies should be wholly self-sup-
porting," said the Comedian, " and inflict no pe-
cuniary loss upon ilr. [Mayor."
" Certainly," said Williams, " that is the right
principle. Sir. ]\Ii-.yor should be protected."
" And if I show you how to make these soci-
eties self-supporting — "
" We should be very much obliged to you."
" I propose, then, to give an exhibition at your
rooms."
Mr. Williams nudged the Mayor, and coughed,
the Comedian not appearing to remark cough
or nudge.
" Of course gratuitously. I am not a profes-
sional lecturer, gentlemen."
Mr. Williams looked charmed to hear it.
" And when I have made my first effort suc-
cessful, as I feel sure it will be, I will leave it to
you, gentlemen, to continue my undertaking.
WHAT WILL HE DO WTTK IT ?
69
But I can not stay long here. If the day after
to-morrow — "
"That is our ordinary soirie night," said the
Mavor. "But you said a dog, Sir — dogs not
admitted — Eh, Williams ?"
Mr. Williams. '"A mere by-law, which the
sub-committee can suspend if necessary. But
would not the introduction of a live animal be
less dignified than — "
" A dead failure," put in the Comedian, grave-
ly. The Mayor would have smiled, but he was
afraid of doing so lest it might hurt the feelings
of Mr. Williams, who did not seem to take the
joke.
"We are a purely intellectual body," said
that latter gentleman, " and a dog — "
"A learned dog, I presume?" observed the
Mayor.
Mr. Williams (nodding). "Might form a dan-
gerous precedent for the introduction of other
quadrupeds. We might thus descend even to
the level of a learned pig. We are not a men-
agerie, i\Ir. — Mr. — "
"Chapman," said the Mayor, urbanely.
" Enough," said the Comedian, rising, with
his gi-and air : " if I considered myself at liberty,
gentlemen, to say who and what I am, you would
be sure that I am not trifling with what /con-
sider a very grave and important subject. As to
suggesting any thing derogatory to the dignity
of science, and the eminent repute of the Gates-
boro' Athena?um, it would be idle to vindicate
myself. These gray hairs are — "
He did not conclude that sentence, save by a
slight wave of the hand. The two burgesses
bowed reverentially, and the Comedian went
on:
" But when you speak of precedent, Mr. Will-
iams, allow me to refer you to precedents in
point. Aristotle wrote to Alexander the Great
for animals to exhibit to the Literary Institute
of Athens. At the colleges in Egypt lectures
were delivered on a dog called Anubis, as in-
ferior, I boldly assert, to that dog which I have
referred to, as an Egyptian College to a British
Institute. The ancient Etrurians, as is shown
by the erudite Schweighaeuser, in that passage
— you understand Greek, I presume, Mr. Will-
iams?"
Mr. Williams could not say he did.
The Comedian. "Then I will not quote that
passage in Schweighteuser upon the Molossian
dogs in general, and the dog of Alcibiades in
particular. But it proves beyond a doubt that,
in every ancient literary institute, learned dogs
were highly estimated ; and there was even a
philosophical academy called the Cynic — that
is, Doggish, or Dog-school, of which Diogenes
was the most eminent professor. He, you know,
went about with a lantern looking for an honest
man, and could not find one ! Why ? Because
the Society of Dogs had raised his standard of
human honesty to an impracticable height. But
I weary you ; otherwise I could lecture on in
this way "for the hour together, if you think the
Gatesboro' operatives prefer erudition to amuse-
ment."
"A great scholar," whispered Mr. Williams
aloud. "And I've nothing to say against j-our
precedents. Sir. I think you have made out
that part of the case. But, after all, a learned
dog is not so very uncommon as to be in itself
the striking attraction which you appear to sup-
pose."
"It is not the mere learning of my dog of
which I boast," replied the Comedian. "Dogs
may be learned, and men too ; but it is the way
that learning is imparted, whether by dog or
man, for the edification of the masses, in order,
as Pope expresses himself, 'to raise the genius
and to mend the heart,' that alone adorns the
possessor, exalts the species, interests the pub-
lic, and commands the respect of such judges as
I see before me." The grand bow.
" Ah 1" said Jlr. Williams, hesitatingly, " sen-
timents that do honor to your head and heart ;
and if we could, in the first instance, just see the
dog privately."
"Nothing easier !" said the Comedian. "Will
you do me the honor to meet him at tea this
evening?"
"Rather will you not come and take tea at
my house ?" said the Mayor, with a shy glance
toward Mr. Williams.
The Comedian. " You are very kind ; but my
time is so occupied that I have long since made
it a rule to decline all private invitations out of
my own home. At my years, Mr. Slayor, one
may be excused for taking leave of society and
its forms ; but j^ou are comparatively young
men. I presume on the authority of these gray
hairs, and I shall expect you this evening — say
at nine o'clock." The Actor waved his hand
gi'aciously and withdrew.
"A scholar and a gentleman," said Williams,
emphatically. And the Mayor, thus authorized
to allow vent to his kindly heart, added, "A hu-
morist, and a pleasant one. Perhaps he is right,
and our poor operatives would thank us more
for a little innocent amusement than for those
lectures, which they may be excused for think-
ing rather dull, since even you fell asleep when
Professor Long got into the multilocular shell
of the very first class of cephalous moUusca ;
and it is my belief that harmless laughter has a
moral effect upon the working class — only don't
spread it about that I said so, for we know excel-
lent persons of a serious turn of mind, whose
opinions that sentiment might shock."
CHAPTER XI.
HiSTOEiCAi Teoblem. " Is Gentleman W'aife a swin-
dler or a man of genius?" Akswee — '"Certainly a
swindler, if he don't succeed." Julius Ciesar owed
two millions when ho risked the experiment of being
general in Gaul. If Julius Cassar had not lived to cross
the Rubicon and pay off his debts, what would his
creditors have called Julius Casar?
I need not say that Mr. Hartopp and his fore-
man came duly to tea, but the Comedian ex-
hibited Sir Isaac's talents veiy sparingly — ^just
enough to excite admiration without sating cu-
riosity. Sophy, whose pretty face and well-bred
air were not unappreciated, was dismissed early
to bed by a sign from her grandfather, and the
Comedian then exerted his powers to entertain
his visitors, so that even Sir Isaac was soon for-
gotten. Hard task, by writing, to convey a fair
idea of this singular vagrant's pleasant vein. It
was not so much what he said as the way of say-
ing it, which gave to his desultory talk the charm
of humor. He had certainly seen an immense
70
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
deal of life somehow or other ; and without ap-
pearing at the time to profit much by observation,
without perhaps being himself conscious that
he did profit, there was something in the very
enfantillage of his loosest prattle, by which, with
a glance of the one lustrous eye, and a twist of
the mobile lip, he could convey the impression
of an original genius playing with this round
world of ours — tossing it up, catching it again —
easily as a child plays with his party-colored ball.
His mere book-knowledge was not much to boast ]
of, though early in life he must have received a
fair education. He had a smattering of the an-
cient classics, sufficient, perhaps, to startle the
unlearned. If he had not read them, he had
read about them ; and at various odds and ends
of his life he had picked up acquaintance with
the popular standard modern writers. But lit-
erature with him was the smallest stripe in the
party-colored ball. Still it was astonishing how-
far and wide the Comedian could spread the
sands of lore that the' winds had drifted round
the door of his playful, busy intellect. Where,
for instance, could he ever have studied the na-
ture and prospects of Mechanics' Institutes? and
yet how well he seemed to understand them.
Here, perhaps, his experience in one kind of
audience helped him to the key to all miscella-
neous assemblages. In fine, the man was an
actor: and if he had thought fit to act the part
of Professor Long himself, he would have done
it to the life.
The two burghers had not spent so pleasant an
evening for many years. As the clock struck
twelve, the Mayor, whose gig had been in wait-
ing a whole hour to take him to his villa, rose
reluctantly to depart.
"And," said Williams, " the bills must be out
to-morrow. What shall we advertise ?"
" The simpler the better," said Waife ; " only
pray head the performance with the assurance
that it is imder the special patronage of his
worship the Mayor."
The Mayor felt his breast swell as if he had
received some overwhelming personal obligation.
" Suppose it runs thus," continued the Co-
median :
'•Illustrations from Domestic Life and Nat-
ural Historv, with live examples, Part Fikst —
The Dog T'
"It will take," said the Mayor; "dogs are
such popular animals !"
" Yes," said Williams ; " and though for that
very reason some might think that by the ' live
example of a dog' we compromised the dignity
of the Institute — still the importance of Nat-
ural History — "
"And," added the Comedian, "the sanctify-
ing influences of domestic life — "
" May," concluded Mr. Williams, " carry off
whatever may seem to the higher order of
minds a too familiar attraction in the — dog!"
"I do not fear the result," said Waife, "pro-
vided the audience be sufficiently numerous ;
for that (which is an indispensable condition to
a fair experiment), I issue handbills — only
where distributed by the ilayor."
"Don't be too sanguine. I distributed bills
on behalf of Professor Long, and the audience
was not numerous. However, I will do my best.
Is there nothing more in which 1 can be of use
to you, Mr. Chapman ?"
"Yes, later." Williams took alarm and ap-
proached the Mayor's breast-pocket protecting-
ly. The Comedian drew him aside and whis-
pered, "I intend to give the Mayor a little out-
line of the exhibition, and bring him into it, in
order that his fellow-townsmen may signify
their regard for hira by a cheer ; it will please
his good heart and be touching, you'll see —
mum 1" Williams shook the Comedian by the
hand, relieved, aftected, and confiding.
The visitors departed ; and the Comedian
lighted his hand-candlestick, whistled to Sir
Isaac, and went to bed, without one compunc-
tious thought upon the growth of his bill and
the deficit in his pockets. And yet it was true,
as Sophy implied, that the Comedian had an
honest horror of incurring debt. He generally
thought twice before he risked owing even the
most trifling bill ; and when the bill came in, if
it left him penniless, it was paid. And now,
what reckless extravagance! The best apart-
ments ! dinners — tea — in the first hotel of the
town! half a crown to a porter! That lavish
mode of life renewed with the dawning sun ! —
not a care for the morrow ; and I dare not con-
jecture how few the shillings in that purse.
What aggravation, too, of guilt ! Bills incurred
without means under a borrowed name! I
don't pretend to be a lawyer; but it looks to
me very much like swindling. Yet the wretch
sleeps. But are we sure that we are not shal-
low moralists ? Do we cany into account the
right of genius to draw bills upon the Future ?
Does not the most prudent general sometimes
biu'n his ships? Does not the most upright
merchant sometimes take credit on the chance
of his ventures ? May not that peaceful slum-
berer be morally sure that he has that argosy
afloat in his own head, which amply justifies his
use of " the Saracen's ?" If his plan should
fail ? He will tell you that is impossible ! But
if it should fail, you say. Listen ; there runs a
story — (I don't vouch for its truth. I tell it as
it was told to me) — there runs a story, that in
the late Eussian war a certain naval veteran,
renowned for professional daring and scientific
invention, was examined before some great of-
ficials as to the chances of taking Cronstadt.
" If you send me," said the admiral, " with so
many ships-of-the-line, and so many gun-boats,
Cronstadt, of course, wiU be taken." " But,"
said a prudent lord, " suppose it should net be
taken?" "That is impossible — it must be tak-
en!" "Yes," persisted my lord, "you think
so, no doubt ; but still, if it should not be taken
— what then ?" " What then ! — why, there's an
end of the British fleet !" The great men took
alarm, and that admiral was not sent. But they
misconstrued the meaning of his answer. He
meant not to imply any considerable danger to
the British fleet. He meant to prove that one
hypothesis was impossible by the suggestion of
a counter impossibility more self-evident. " It
is impossible but what I shall take Cronstadt I"
"But if you don't take it?' "It is impossible
but what" I shall take it ; for if I don't take it,
there's an end of the British fleet ; and as it is
impossible that there should be an end of the
British fleet, it is impossible that I should not
take Cronstadt I" — Q.E.D.
"«aiAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
71
CHAPTER XII.
In -n-hich every thing depends on Sir Isaac's success in
discovering the Law of Attraction.
On the appointed evening, at eight o'clock,
the great room of the Gatesboro' Athenreum was |
unusually well tilled. Not only had the Mayor
exerted himself to the utmost for tliat object,
but the handbill itself promised a rare relief
from the jjrosiness of abstract enlightenment
and elevated knowledge. Moreover, the stran-
ger himself had begun to excite speculation and
curiosity. He was an amateur, not a ciit-and-
dry professor. The Mayor and Mr. "Williams
had both sj^read the report that there was more
in him than appeared on the surface : prodig-
iously learned, but extremely agreeable — fine
manners, too ! Who could he be ? Was Chap-
man his real name? etc., etc.
The Comedian had obtained permission to
arrange the room beforehand. He had the
raised portion of it for his stage, and he had
been fortunate enough to find a green curtain
to be drawn across it. From behind this screen
he now emerged, and bowed. The bow re-
doubled the first conventional applause. He
then began a very short address — extremely
well delivered, as you may suppose, but rather
in the conversational than the oratorical style.
He said it was his object to exhibit the intel-
ligence of that Universal Friend of Man — the
Dog — in some manner approjniate, not only
to its sagacious instincts, but to its affectionate
nature, and to convey thereby the moral that
talents, however great, learning, however deep,
were of no avail, unless rendered serviceable to
Man. (Applause.) He must be pardoned, then,
if, in order to effect this object, he was com-
pelled to borrow some harmless effects from the
stage. In a word, his Dog would represent to
them the plot of a little drama. And he, though
he could not say that he was altogether unac-
customed to public speaking (here a smile, mod-
est, but august as that of some famous parlia-
mentan,- orator who makes his first appearance
at a vestry), still wholly new to its practice in
the special part he had undertaken, would rely
on their indulgence to efforts aspiring to no oth-
er merit than that of aiding the Hero of the
piece in a familiar illustration of those qualities
in which Dogs might give a lesson to Human-
ity. Again he bowed, and retired behind the
curtain. A pause of three minutes ; the cur-
tain drew up. Could that be the same Mr.
Chapman whom the spectators beheld before
them? Could three minutes suflSce to change
the sleek, respectable, prosperous-looking gen-
tleman who had just addressed them, info that
image of threadbare poverty and hunger-pinch-
ed dejection? Little aid "from theatrical cos-
tume : the clothes seemed the same, only to
have grown wondrous aged and rusty. The
face, the figure, the man — these had utidergone
a transmutation beyond the art of a mere stage
wardrobe, be it ever so amply stored, to eftect.
But for the patch over the eye you could not
have recognized Mr. Chapman. There was. in-
deed, about him still an air of dignity; but it
was the dignity of woe — a dignity, too, not of
an affable civilian, but of some veteran soldier.
You could not mistake. Though not in uni-
form, the melancholy man must have been a
warrior ! The way the coat was buttoned across
the chest, the black stock tightened round the
throat, the shoulders thrown back in the disci-
plined habit of a life, though the head bent for-
ward in the despondency of an eventful crisis —
all spoke the decayed, but not ignoble, hero of a
hundred fields.
There was something foreign, too, about the
veteran's air. Mr. Chapman had looked so
thoroughly English — that tragical and meagre
personage, which had exfoliated an arid stem
from Mr. Chapman's buxom leaves, looked so
unequivocally French. Not a word had the
Comedian yet said; and yet all this had the
first sight of him conveyed to the audience.
There was an amazed murmur, then breathless
stillness. The story rapidly unfolded itself,
partly by words, much more by look and action.
There sate a soldier who had fought under Na-
poleon at Marengo and Austerlitz, gone through
the snows of ISIuscovy, escaped the fires ( f Wa-
terloo — the soldier of the Empire ! Wondrous
ideal of a wondrous time ! and nowhere win-
ning more respect and awe than in that land of
the old English foe, in which, with slight knowl-
edge of the Beautiful in Art, there is so rever-
ent a sympathj- for all that is giand in ]\Ian !
There sate the soldier, penniless and friendless
— there, scarcely seen, reclined his grandchild,
weak and slowly dying for the want of food;
and all that the soldier possesses wherewith to
buy bread for the day is his cross of the Legion
of Honor. It was given to him by the hand of
the Emperor — must he pawn or sell it ? Out on
the pomp of decoration which we have substi-
tuted for the voice of passionate nature, on our
fallen stage 1 Scenes so faithful to the shaft of
a column — dresses by which an antiquary can
define a date to a year ! Is delusion there ? Is
it thus we are snatched from Thebes to Athens?
No; place a really fine actor on a deal-board,
and for Thebes and Athens you may hang up a
blanket! Why, that very cross which the old
soldier holds — away from his sight — in that
tremulous hand, is but patched up from the foil
and card-board bought at the stationer's shop.
You might see it was nothing more, if you tried
to see. Did a soul present think of such minute
investigation ? Not one. In the actor's hand
that trumpery became at once the glorious thing
by which Napoleon had planted the sentiment
of knightly heroism in the men whom Danton
would have launched upon earth ruthless and
bestial, as galley-slaves that had burst their
chain.
The badge wrought from foil and card-board
took life and soul ; it begot an interest, inspired
a pathos, as much as if it had been made — oh,
not of gold and gems, but of flesh and blood.
And the simjile broken words that the old ^lan
addressed to it ! The scenes, the fields, the
hopes, the glories it conjured up! And now to
be WTenched away — sold to supply Man's hum-
blest, meanest wants — sold — the last symbol of
such a past! It was indeed ^'propter vilam vi-
vendi perdere causas." He would have star\-ed
rather — but the Child? And then the child
rose up and came into play. She would not
suffer such a sacrifice — she was not hungry —
she was not weak; and when voice failed her,
she looked up into that iron face and smiled —
nothing but a smile. Out came the pocket-
72
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
handkerchiefs ! The soldier seizes the cross
and turns away. It shallhe sold ! As he opens
the door, a dog enters gravely — licks his hand,
approaches the table, raises itself on its hind-
legs, surveys the table dolefully, shakes its head,
whines, comes to its master, pulls him by the
skirt, looks into his face inquisitively.
What does all this mean ? It soon comes out,
and very naturally. The dog belonged to an
old fellow-soldier, who had gone to the Isle of
France to claim his share in the inheritance of
a brother who had settled and died there, and
who, meanwhile, had confided it to the care of
our veteran, who was then in comparatively easy
circumstances, since ruined by the failure and
fraud of a banker to whom he had intrusted his
all ; and his small pension, including the yearly
sum to which his cross entitled him, had been
forestalled and mortgaged to ])ay the petty debts
which, relying on his dividend from the banker,
he had innocently incurred. The dog's owner
had been gone for months ; his return might be
daily expected. Meanwhile the dog was at the
hearth, but the wolf at the door. Now this sa-
gacious animal had been taught to perform the
duties of messenger and major-domo. At stated
intervals, he a])plied to his master for sous, and
brought back the supplies which the sous pur-
chased. He now, as usual, came to the table for
the accustomed coin — the last sou was gone —
the dog's occupation was at an end. But could
not the dog be sold? Impossible — it was the
property of another — a sacred deposit; one
would be as bad as the banker if one could ap-
ply to one's own necessities the property one
held in trust. These little l)iograpliical particu-
lars came out in that sort of bitter and pathetic
humor which a study of Shakspeare, or the ex-
perience of actual life had taught the Comedian
to be a natural relief to an intense sorrow. The
dog meanwhile aided the narrative by his by-
play. Still intent upon the sous, he thrust his
nose into his master's pockets — he appealed
touchingly to the child, and finally put back his
head and vented his emotion in a lugubrious
and elegiacal howl. Suddenly there is heard
without the sound of a showman's tin trumpet !
Whether the actor had got some obliging per-
son to perform on that instrument, or whether,
as more likely, it was but a trick of ventrilo-
quism, we leave to conjecture. At that note,
an idea seemed to seize the dog. He ran first
to his master, who was on the threshold about
to depart ; pulled him back into the centre of the
room ; next he ran to the child, dragging her
toward the same spot, though with great tender-
ness, and then, uttering a joyous bark, he raised
himself on his hind-legs, and, with incompara-
ble solemnity, performed a minuet step! The
child catches the idea from the dog. " Was he
not more worth seeing than the puppet-show in
the streets ? might not people give money to see
him, and the old soldier still keep his cross?
To-day there is a public Jete in the gardens yon-
der ; that showman must be going thither ; why
not go too?" What! he, the old soldier — he
stoop to show off a dog ! he ! he ! The- dog look-
ed at him deprecatingly, and stretched himself
on the floor — lifeless !
Yes, that is the alternative — shall his child
die too, and he be too proud to save her? Ah !
and if the cross can be saved also ! But pshaw !
what did the dog know that people would care
to see? Oh, much, much. When the child
was alone and sad, it would come and play with
her. See these old dominos ! She ranged them
on the floor, and the dog leaped up and came
to prove his skill. Artfully, then, the Comedian
had planned that the dog should make some sad
mistakes, attended by some marvelous surprises.
No, he would not do; yes, he would do. The
audience took it seriously, and became intense-
ly interested in the dog's success ; so sorry for
his blunders, so triumphant in his lucky hits.
And then the child calmed the hasty, irritable
old man so sweetly, and corrected the dog so
gently, and talked to the animal ; told it how
much they relied on it, and produced an infant
alphabet, and spelled out " Save us." The dog
looked at the letters meditatively, and hence-
forth it was evident that he took more pains.
Better and better; he will do, he will do! The
child shall not starve, the cross shall not be sold !
Down dro]is the curtain. — End of Act I.
Act II. opens with a dialogue spoken off the
stage. Invisible dramatis persona, tliat subsist,
with airy tongues, upon the mimetic art of the
Comedian. You understand that there is a ve-
hement dispute going on. The dog must not be
admitted into a part of the gardens where a
more refined and exclusive section of the com-
pany have hired seats, in order to contemplate,
without sharing, the rude dances or jostling
promenade of the promiscuous meny-makers.
Much hubbub, much humor; some persons for
the dog, some against him ; privilege and deco-
rum here, equality and fraternity there. A Bo-
napartist colonel sees the cross on the soldier's
breast, and, yni/le tonnerres, he settles the point.
He pays for three reserved seats — one for the
soldier, one for the child, and a third for the
dog. The veteran enters ; the child, not strong
enough to have pushed through the crowd, raised
on his shoulder, Eolla-like ; the dog led by a
string. He enters erect and warrior-like ; his
spirit has been roused by contest ; his struggles
have been crowned by victory. I3ut (and here
the art of the drama and the actor culminated
toward the highest point) — but he now at once
includes in the list of his dramatis 'persona the
whole of his Gatesboro' audience. They are that
select company into which he has thus forced
his way. As he sees them seated before him,
so calm, orderly, and dignified, inauvaise lionte
steals over the breast more accustomed to front
the cannon than the battery of ladies' eves. He
places the child in a chair, abashed and hum-
bled ; he drops into a seat beside her shrinking-
]y ; and the dog, with more self-possession and
sense of his own consequence, brushes with his
paw some imaginary dust from a third chair, as
in the superciliousness of the well-dressed, and
then seats himself, and looks round Mith serene
audacity.
The chairs were skillfully placed on one side
of the stage, as close as possible to the front row
of the audience. The soldier ventures a furtive
glance along the lines, and then speaks to his
grandchild in whispered, bated breath: "Now
they are there, what are they come for? To
beg ? He can never have the boldness to ex-
hibit an animal for sous — impossible ; no, no,
let them slink back again and sell the cross."
And the child whispers courage ; bids him look
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
73
again along the rows ; those faces seem very |
knid. He again lifts his eyes, glances round,
and with an extemporaneous tact that completed
the illusion to which the audience were already
wentlv lending themselves, made sundry com-
plimentary comments on the different faces
actualiv before him, selected most felicitously.
The audience, taken by surprise, as some fair
female, or kindly burgess, familiar to their
associations, was thus pointed out to their ap-
plause, became heartily genial in their cheers
and laugliter. And the Comedian's face, un-
moved by such demonstrations — so shy and sad
— insinuated its pathos underneath cheer and
laugh. You now learned through the child that
a dance, on which the company had been sup-
posed to be gazing, was concluded, and that
they would not be displeased by an interval of
some other diversion. Now was the time ! The
dog, as if to convey a sense of the prevalent
ennui, yawned audibly, patted the child on the
shoulder, and looked up in her face. " A game
of dominos," whispered the little girl. The dog
gleefully grinned assent. Timidly she stole forth
the old' dominos, and ranged them on the
ground; on which she slipped from her chair;
the dog slipped from his; they began to play.
The experiment was launched ; the soldier saw
that the curiosity of the company was excited —
that the show would commence — the sous fol-
low ; and as if he at least would not openly
shame his service and his Emperor, he turned
aside, slid his hand to his breast, tore away his
cross, and hid it. Scarce a murmured word
accompanied the action — the acting said all;
and a noble thrill ran through the audience.
Oh, sublime art of the mime !
The JIayor sat very near where the child
and dog were at play. The Comedian had (as
he before implied he would do) discreetly pre-
pared that gentleman for direct and personal
appeal. The little girl turned her blue eyes in-
nocently toward Mr. Hartopp, and said, "The
dog beats me, Sir ; will you try what you can
do?"
A roar, and universal clapping of hands,
amidst which the worthy magistrate stepped on
the stage. At the command of its young mis-
tress, the dog made the magistrate a polite bow,
and straiglit to the game went magistrate and
dog. From that time the interest became, as
it were, personal to all present. "Will you
come, Sir ?" said the child to a young gentleman,
who was straining his neck to see how the
dominos were played ; " and observe that it is
all fair. You too, Sir?" to Mr. Williams. The
Comedian stood beside the dog, whose move-
ments he directed with undetected skill, while
appearing only to fix his eyes on the ground in
conscious abasement. Those on the rows fronr
behind now pressed forward ; those in advance
either came on the stage, or stood up intently
contemplating. The Mayor was defeated, the
crowd became too thick, and the caresses be-
stowed on the dog seemed to fatigue him. He
rose and retreated to a corner haughtily. " Man-
ners, .Sir," said the soldier ; " it is not for the like
of us to be proud ; excuse him, ladies and gen-
tlemen." — " He only wishes to please all," said
the child, deprecatingly. " Say how many would
you have round us at a time, so that the rest
may not be prevented seeing you ?" She spread
the multiplication figures before the dog ; the
dog put his paw on 10. "Astonishing I" said
the Mayor; "Will you choose them yourself,
Sir?" The dog nodded, walked leisurely round,
keeping one eye toward the one eye of his mas-
ter, and selected ten pcrsous, among whom
were the Mayor, Mr. Williams, and three jiretty
young ladies, who had been induced to ascend
the stage. The others were chosen no less judi-
ciously.
The dog was then led artfully on from one
accomplishment to another, much within the
ordinary range which bounds the instruction of
learned animals. He was asked to say how
many ladies were on the stage ; he sjiclt three.
What were their names? "The Graces." Then
he was asked who was the first magistrate in
the town. The dog made a bow to the Mayor.
"Wliat had made that gentleman first magis-
trate?" The dog looked to the alphabet and
spelt " Worth." " Were there any jjcrsons pres-
ent more powerful than the Mayor?" The dog
bowed to the three young ladies. " What made
them more powerful ?" The dog spelt " Beau-
ty." When ended the applause these answers
received, the dog went through the musket ex-
ercise with the soldier's staff"; and as soon as he
had j)erformed that, lie came to the business part
of the exhibition, seized the hat which his mas-
ter had dropped on the ground, and carried it
round to each person on the stage. They looked
at one another. " He is a poor soldier's dog,"
said the child, hiding her face. "No, no; a
soldier can not beg," cried the Comedian. The
Mayor dropped a coin in the hat ; others did
the same, or aflfected to do it. The dog took
the hat to his master, who waved him aside.
There was a pause. The dog laid the hat soft-
ly at the soldier's feet, and looked up to the
child beseechingly.
"_What," asked she, raising her head proud-
ly — " what secures Worth and defends Beau-
ty ?" The dog took up the staff' and slioulder-
ed it. And to what can the soldier look for
aid when he starves, and will not beg ? The
dog seemed puzzled — tlie suspense was awful.
" Good Heavens," thought the Comedian, " if
the brute should break down after all ! — and
when I took such care that the words should lie
undisturbed — right before his nose !" With a
deep sigh the veteran started from his despond-
ent attitude, and crept along the floor as if for
escape — so broken down, so crest-fallen. Ev-
ery eye was on that heart-broken face and re-
ceding figure ; and the eye of that heart-broken
face was on the dog, and the foot of that reced-
ing figure seemed to tremble, recoil, start, as it
passed by the alphabetical letters which still lay
on the ground as last arranged. " Ah ! to what
should he look for aid?" repeated the grand-
child, clasping her little hands. The dog had
now caught the cue, and put his paw first upon
" Worth," and then upon Beatty. " Worth !"
cried the ladies — "Beauty!" exclaimed the
INIayor. " Wonderful, wonderful !" " Take up
the" hat," said the child, and turning to the
Mayor— "Ah! tell him, Sir, that what Worth
and Beauty give to Valor in distress is not alms,
but tribute."
The words were little better than a hack clap-
trap ; but the sweet voice glided through the
assembly, and found its way into every heart.
74
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
"Is it so ?" asked the old soldier, as his hand
hoveringly paused above the coins. " Upon my
honor, it is. Sir," said the Mayor, with serious
emphasis. The audience thought it the best
speech he had ever made in his life, and cheered
him till the roof runs; again. "Oh! bread,
bread, for you, Darling !" cried the veteran, bow-
ing his head over the child, and taking out his
cross and kissing it with passion; "and the
badge of honor still for me!"
While the audience was in the full depth of
its emotion, and generous tears in i^any an eye,
Waife seized his moment, dropped the actor, and
stc]iped forth to the front as the man — simple,
quiet, earnest man — artless man !
" This is no mimic scene, ladies and gentle-
men. It is a tale in real life that stands out be-
fore you. I am here to appeal to those hearts
that are not vainly open to human sorrows. I
plead for what I have represented. True, that
the man wlio needs your aid is not of that sol-
diery which devastated Europe. But he has
fought in battles as severe, and been left by foi--
tune to as stern a desolation, True, he is not a
Trenchman : he is one of a land you will not
love less than France, — it is your own. He, too,
has a child whom he would save from famine.
He, too, has nothing left to sell or to pawn for
bread — except — oh, not this gilded badge, see,
this is only foil ami card-board — except, I say,
the thing itself, of which you respect even so
poor a symbol — nothing left to sell or to ])awn
but Honor ! For these I have pleaded this night
as a showman ; for these, less haughty than the
^Frenchman, I stretch my hands toward you
without shame; for these I am a beggar."
He was silent. The dog quietly took up the
hat and approached the Mayor again. The
Mayor extracted the half-crown he had pre-
viously deposited, and dropped into the hat two
golden sovereigns. Who does not guess ^the
rest ? All crowded forward — youth and age,
man and woman. And most ardent of all were
those whose life stands most close to vicissitude
— most exposed to beggary — most sorely tried
in tlie alternative between bread and honor.
Not an operative there but spared his mite.
CHAPTER XHL
Omne ignotnm pro Magnifico — Rumor, knowing nothing
of his antecedents, exalts Gentleman Waife into Don
Magnifico.
The Comedian and his two coadjutors were
followed to the Saracen's Head Inn by a large
crowd, but at a respectful distance. Though I
know few things less pleasing than to have been
decoyed and entrapped into an unexpected de-
mand upon one's purse — when one only count-
ed, too, upon an agreeable evening — and hold,
therefore, in just abhorrence the circulating
plate which sometimes follows a popular ora-
tion, homily, or other eloquent appeal to British
liberality ; yet I will venture to say there was
not a creature whom the Comedian had sur-
prised into impulsive beneficence who regretted
his action, grudged its cost, or thought he had
paid too dear for his entertainment. All had
gone through a series of such pleasurable emo- i
tions, that all had, as it were, wished a vent for i
their gratitude — and when the vent was found
it became an additional pleasure. But, strange
to say, no one could satisfactorily explain to
himself these two questions — for what, and to
whom, had he given his money? It was not a
general conjecture that the exhibitor wanted
the money for his own uses. No, des])ite the
evidence in favor of that idea, a person so re-
sj)ectable, so dignified — addressing them, too,
with that noble assurance to which a man who
begs for himself is not morally entitled — a per-
son thus cliaracterized must be some high-heart-
ed philanthropist who condescended to display
his powers at an institute purely intellectual,
perhaps on behalf of an eminent but decayed
author, whose name, from the respect due to
letters, was delicately concealed. Mr. Williams
— considered the hardest head and most practi-
cal man in the town — originated and maintained
that hypothesis. Probably the stranger was an
author himself — a great and atliucnt author.
Had not great and atHuent authors — men who
are the boast of our time and land — acted, yea,
on a common stage, and acted inimitably, too,
on behalf of some lettei-ed brother or" literary
object? Therefore in these guileless minds,
with all the pecuniary advantages of extreme
penury and forlorn position, the Comedian ob-
tained the resjiect due to prosperous circum-
stances and high renown. But there was one
universal wish expressed by all who had been
present, as they took their way homeward — and
that wish was to renew llie pleasure they had
experienced, even if they paid the same price
for it. Could not the long-closed theatre be re-
ojjened, and the great man be induced by phil-
anthropic motives, and an assured sum, raised
by voluntary subscriptions, to gratify the wliole
town, as he had gratified its selected intellect?
Mr. Williams, in a state of charitable thaw, now
softest of the soft, like most hard men when once
softened, suggested this idea to the Mayor. The
Mayor said, evasively, that he would tliink of it,
and that he intended to pay his respects to Mr.
Chapman before he returned home — that very
night — it was proper. Mr. Williams and many
others wished to accompany his worship. But
the kind magistrate suggested that Mr. Chapman
would be greatly fatigued ; that the presence of
many might seem more an intrusion than a com-
pliment ; that he, the Mayor, had better go alone,
and at a somewhat later hour, when Mr. Chap-
man, though not retired to bed, might have had
time for rest and refreshment. This delicate
consideration had its weight ; and the streets
were thin when the Mayor's gig stopped, in its
way villa-ward, at the Saracen's Head.
CHAPTER XIV.
It is the intei-val between our first repinings and our final
resignation, in which, both with individuals and com-
munities, is to be found all that makes a History worth
telling. Ere yet we yearn for what is out of our reach,
we are still in the cradle. When wearied out with our
yearnings, Desire again falls asleep — we are on the
death-bed.
Sophy (leaning on her grandfather's arm, as
they ascend the stair of the Saracen's Head).
"But I am so tired, grandy — I'd rather go to
bed at once, please."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
75
Gentleman Waife. " Surely you could take
something to eat first — something nice, Miss
Chapman? (whispering close) We can live in
clover now" — a phrase which means (aloud to
the landlady, who crossed tlie landing-place
above) '• grilled chicken and mushrooms for
supper, ma'am ! Why don't you smile, Sophy ?
Oh, darling, you are ill I"
'■ No, no, grandy dear — only tired — let me go
to bed. I shall be better to-moiTow — I shall
indeed I"'
Waife looked fondly into her face, but his
spirits were too much exhilarated to allow him
to notice the unusual flush upon her cheek, ex-
cept with admiration of the increased beauty
which the heightened color gave to her soft
features.
" Well," said he, " you are a pretty child ! —
a very pretty child — and you act wonderfully.
You would make a fortune on the stage, but — "
Sophy (eagerly). " But no, no, never ! — not
the stage !"
Waife. " I don't wish you to go on the stage,
as you know. A private exhibition — like the
one to-night, for instance — has (thrusting his
hand into his pocket) much to recommend it."
Sophy (with a sigh). •' Thank Heaven, that
is over now, and you'll not be in want of money
for a long, long time ! Dear Sir Isaac !"
She began caressing Sir Isaac, who received
her attentions with solemn pleasure. They were
now in Sophy's room; and Waife, after again
pressing the child in vain to take some refresh-
ment, bestowed on her his kiss and blessing,
and whistled Malbrook s'en va-t-cn guerre to Sir
Isaac, who, considering that melody an invita-
tion to supper, licked his lips, and stalked forth,
rejoicing, but decorous.
Left alone, the child breathed long and hard,
pressing her hands to her bosom, and sunk
wearily on the foot of the bed. There were no
shutters to the window, and the moonlight came
in gently, stealing across that part of the wall
and floor which the ray of the candle left in
shade. The girl raised her eyes slowly toward
the window — toward the glimpse of the blue
sky, and the slanting lustre of the moon. There
is a certain epoch in our childhood when what is
called the romance of sentiment first makes itself
vaguely felt. And ever with the dawn of that
sentiment the moon and the stars take a strange
and haunting fascination. Few persons in middle
life — even though they be genuine poets — feel
the peculiar spell in the severe stillness and
mournful splendor of starry skies which im-
presses most of us, even though no poets at all,
in that mystic age when childhood nearly touch-
es upon youth, and turns an unquiet heart to
those marvelous riddles within us and without,
which we cease to conjecture when experience
has taught us that they have no solution upon
this side the grave. Lured by the light, the
child rose softly, approached the window, and
resting her upturned face upon both hands,
gazed long in the heavens, communing evident-
ly with herself, for her lips moved and murmur-
ed indistinctly. Slowly she retired from the
casement, and again seated herself at the foot
of the bed, disconsolate. And then her thoughts
ran somewhat thus, though she might not have
shaped them exactly in the same words : " Xo !
I can not understand it. Whv was I contented
and happy before I knew him f Why did I see
no harm, no shame in this way of life — not even
on that stage with those people — until he said,
' It was what he wished I had never stoojied to.'
And grandfather says our paths are so difl'crent,
they can not cross each other again. Tiiere is
a path of life, then, whidi I can never enter;
there is a path on which I must always, always
walk — always, always, always that path — no es-
cape ! Never to come into that other one where
there is no disguise, no hiding, no false names
— never, never I" She started impatiently, and
with a wild look, '"It is killing me!"
Then, terrified by her own impetuosity, she
threw herself on the bed, weeping low. Her
heart had now gone back to her grandfather ;
it was smiting her for ingratitude to him. Could
there be shame or wrong in what he asked — in
what he did ? And was she to murmur if she
aided him to exist ? AVhat was the ojjinion of
a stranger boy, compared to the approving, shel-
tering love of her sole guardian and tried, fos-
tering friend? And could people choose their
own callings and modes of life ? If one road
went this way, another that ; and they on the
one road were borne farther and farther away
from those on the other — as that idea came,
consolation stopped, and in her noiseless v.eep-
ing there was a bitterness as of despair. Bat
the tears ended by relieving the grief that caused
them. Wearied out of conjecture and complaint,
her mind relapsed into the old native, childish
submission. With a fervor in which there was
self-reproach, she repeated her meek, nightly
prayer, that God would bless her dear grandfa-
ther, and suffer her to be his comfort and sup-
port. Then mechanically she undressed, extin-
guished the candle, and crept into bed. The
moonlight became bolder and bolder; it ad-
vanced up the floors, along the walls; now it
floods her very pillow, and seems to her eyes to
take a holy, loving kindness, holier and more
loving as the lids droop beneath it. A vague
remembrance of some tale of " Guardian spir-
its," with which Waife had once charmed her
wonder, stirred through her. lulling thoughts,
linking itself with the presence of that encirchng
moonlight. There ! see, the eyelids are closed
— no tear upon their fringe. See the dimples
steal out as the sweet lips are parted. She
sleeps, she dreams already ! Where and what
is the rude world of waking now? Are there
not guardian spirits? Deride the question if
thou wilt, stern man, the reasoning and self-
reliant ; but th(^, fair mother, who hast mark-
ed the strange happiness on the face of a child
that has wept itself to sleep — what sayest thou
to the soft tradition, which surely had its origin
in the heart of the earliest mother?
CHAPTER XV.
There is no man eo friendless but what he can find a
friend sincere enough to tell hira disagreeable truths.
Mean-while the Comedian had made him-
self and Sir Isaac extremely comfortable. No
unabstemious man by habit was Gentleman
Waife. He could dine on a crust, and season
it with mirth ; and as for exciting drinks, there
was a childlike innocence in his humor never
76
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
known to a brain that has been washed in alco-
hol. But on this special occasion, "VVaife's heart
was made so bounteous by the novel sense of
prosperity that it compelled him to treat him-
self. He did honor to the grilled chicken, to
which he had vainly tempted Sophy. He or-
dered half a pint of port to be mulled into negus.
He helped himself with a bow, as if himself were
a guest, and nodded each time he took off his
glass, as much as to say, "Your health, I\Ir.
Waife I" He even offered a glass of the exhil-
arating draught to Sir Isaac, who, exceedingly
offended, retreated under the sofa, whence he
peered forth through his deciduous ringlets, with
brows knit in grave rebuke. Nor was it with-
out deliberate caution — a whisker first, and then
a paw — that he emerged from his retreat, when
a plate, heaped with the remains of the feast,
was placed upon the hearth-rug.
The supper over and the attendant gone, the
negus still left, Waife lighted his pipe, and
gazing on Sir Isaac, thus addressed that canine
philosopher: "Illustrious member of the Quad-
rupedal Society of Friends to Man, and as pos-
sessing those abilities for practical life which but
few friends to man ever display in his service,
promoted to high rank — Commissary General of
the Victualing Department, and Chancellor of
the Exchequer — I have the honor to inform you
that a vote of thanks in your favor has been pro-
posed in this House, and carried unanimously."
Sir Isaac, looking shy, gave another lick to the
plate, and wagged his tail. "It is true that
thou wert once (shall I say it?) in fault at
* Beauty and Worth ;' thy memory deserted
thee ; thy peroration was on the verge of a
break-down ; but ' Nemo mortalium omnibus
horis sajjit,' as the Latin gi-ammar philosophic-
ally expresseth it. Mortals the wisest, not only
on two legs, but even upon four, occasionally
stumble. The greatest general, statesman, sage,
is not he who commits no blunder, but he who
best rejjairs a blunder, and converts it to success.
This was thy merit and distinction 1 It hath
never been mine I I recognize thy superior
genius. I place in thee unqualified confidence ;
and consigning thee to the arms of Morpheus,
since I see that panegyric acts on thy nervous
system as a salubrious soporific, I now move that
this House do resolve itself into a Committee of
Ways and Means for the Consideration of the
Budget 1"
Therewith, while Sir Isaac fell into a profound
sleep, the Comedian deliberately emptied his
pockets on the table ; and arrajiging gold and
silver before him, thrice carefully counted the
total, and then divided it into sundry small
heaps.
" That's for the bill," quoth he—" Civil List !
— a large item. That's for Sophy, the darling I
She shall have a teacher, and learn French —
Education Grant. Current Expenses for the
next fortnight; Miscellaneous Estimates — to-
bacco — we'll call that Secret Service Money.
Ah, scamp, vagrant 1 is not Heaven kind to thee
at last ? A few more such nights, and who
knows but thine old age may have other roof
than the work-house ? And Sophy? Ah, what
of her? Merciful Providence, spare my life till
she has outgrown its uses !" A tear came to his
eye ; he brushed it away quickly, and re-count-
ing his money, hummed a joyous tune.
The door opened ; Waife looked up in sur-
prise, sweeping his hand over the coins, and re-
storing them to his pocket.
The ilayor entered.
As Mr. Hartopp walked slowly up the room,
his eye fixed Waife's; and that eye was so search-
ing, though so mild, that the Comedian felt him-
self change color. His gay spirits fell — falling
lower and lower, the nearer the Mayor's step
came to him ; and when Hartopp, without speak-
ing, took his hand — not in compliment — not in
congratulation, but pressed it as if in deep com-
passion, still looking him full in the face, with
those pitying, penetrating eyes, the Actor ex-
perienced a sort of shock, as if he were read
through, despite all his histrionic disguises —
read through to his heart's core ; and, as silent
as his visitor, sunk back on his chair abashed —
disconcerted.
Me. Hartopp. " Poor man !"
The Comedian (rousing himself with an ef-
fort, but still confused). "Down, Sir Isaac,
down ! This visit, Mr. Mayor, is an honor
which may well take a dog by surprise ! For-
give him !"
Mr. Hartopp (patting Sir Isaac, who was in-
quisitively sniffing his garments, and drawing a
chair close to the Actor, who thereon edged his
own chair a little away — in vain ; for, on that
movement, Mr. Hartopp advanced in propor-
tion). "Your dog is a very admirable and clever
animal ; but in the exhibition of a learned dog,
there is something which tends to sadden one.
By what privations has he been forced out of
his natural ways "/ By what fastings and severe
usage have his instincts been distorted into
tricks ? Hunger is a stern teacher, Sir. Chap-
man ; and to those whom it teaches, we can not
always give praise unmixed with pity."
I The Comedian (ill at ease under this alle-
I gorical tone, and surprised at quicker intelli-
gence in Mr. Hart0]>p than he had given that
person credit for) — " You speak like an oracle,
Mr. Mayor ; but that dog, at least, has been
j mildly educated, and kindly used. Inborn gen-
ius. Sir, will have its vent. Hum ! a most in-
' telligent audience honored us to-night ; and our
I best thanks are due to you."
Mk. Hartopp. "Mr. Chapman, let us be
' frank with each other. I am not a clever man
j — perhaps a dull one. If I had set up for a
clever man I should not be where I am now,
I Hush I no compliments. But my life has brought
I me into frequent contact with those v.-ho suffer;
I and the dullest of us gain a certain sharpness in
' the matters to which our obsen-ation is habitu-
: ally drawn. You took me in at first, it is true.
I I thought you were a philanthropical humorist,
' who might have crotchets, as many benevolent
men, with time on their hands and money in
I their pockets, are apt to form. But when it came
to the begging hat (I ask your pardon — don't let
j me offend you) — when it came to the begging
' hat, I recognized the man who wants philan-
thropy from others, and whose crotchets are to
be regarded in a professional point of view. Sir,
I have come here alone, because I alone per-
haps see the case as it really is. Will you con-
; fide in me ? you may do it safely. To be plain,
who and what are you ?"
The Comedian "(evasively). "What do you
. take me for, Mr. Mavor? What can I be other
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
77
tlian an itinerent showman, who has had resort
to a harmless stratagem in order to obtain an
audience, and create a surprise that might cov-
er the naked audacity of the ' begging hat?' "
Mk. Hartopp (gravely). "When a man of
your ability and education is reduced to such
stratagems, he must have committed some great
faults. Pray Heaven it be no worse than faults I"
The Comedian (bitterly). ''That is always
the way with the prosperous. Is a man unfor-
tunate — they say, ' Why don't he help himself?'
Does he try to help himself — they say, ' With
so much ability, why does not he help himself
better?' Ability and education! Snares and
springes, Mr. Mayor ! Ability and education !
the two worst man-traps that a poor fellow can
put his foot into ! Aha ! Did not you say if
you had set up to be clever, you would not be
where 3"ou now are? A wise saying; I admire
you for it. Well, well, I and my dog have
amused your townsfolk ; they have amply repaid
us. We are public sen-ants; according as we
act in public — hiss us or applaud. xVre we to
submit to an inquisition into our private charac-
ter? Are you to ask how many mutton bones
has that dog stolen I how many cats has he wor-
ried! or how many shirts has the showman in
his wallet ! how many debts has he left behind
him ! what is his rent-roll on earth, and his ac-
count with heaven! — go and put those questions
to ministers, philosophers, generals, poets. When
they have acknowledged your right to put them,
come to me and the other dog!"
Mr. Haktopp (rising and drawing on his
ploves). '■ I beg your pardon ! I have done. Sir.
And yet I conceived an interest in you. It is
because I have no talents myself that I admire
those who have. I felt a mournful anxiety, too,
for your poor little girl — so young, so engaging.
And is it necessaiy that you should bring up
that child in a course of life certainly equivocal,
and to females dangerous?"
The Comedian lifted his eyes suddenly, and
stared hard at the face of his visitor, and in that
face there was so much of benevolent humanity
— so much sweetness contending with authori-
tative rebuke — that the vagabond's hardihood
gave way ; he struck his breast and groaned
aloud.
Mr. Haetopp (pressing on the advantage he
had gained). "And have you no alarm for her
health? Do you not see how delicate she is?
Do you not see that her very talent comes from
her susceptibility to emotions, which must wear
her away ?"
Waife. "No, no! stop, stop, stop! you ter-
rify me, you break my heart. Man, man I it is
all for her that I toil, and show, and beg — if you
call it begging. Do you think I care what be-
comes of this battered hulk ? Not a straw.
What am I to do ? What ! what ! You tell me
to confide in you — wherefore? How can you
help me? Who can help me? Would you
give me employment? ^\^lat am I fit for? No-
thing! You could find work and bread for an
Irish laborer, nor ask who or what he was ; but
to a man who strays toward you, seemingly from
that sphere in which, if Poverty enters, she
drops a courtesy, and is called ' genteel,' you crj-,
' Hold, produce your passport ; where are your
credential^— references?" I have none. I have
slipped out of the world I once moved in. I
: can no more appeal to those I knew in it than
if I had transmigrated from one of yon stars,
, and said, ' See there what I was once !' Oh, but
I you do not think she looks ill! — do vou? do
you ? Wretch that I am ! And I thought to
save her!"
The old man trembled from head to foot, and
, his cheek was as jjale as ashes.
I Again the good magistrate took his hand, but
■ this time the clasp was encouraging. ''Cheer
I tip ; where there is a will there is a way ; you
i justify the opinion I formed in your favor, de-
spite all circumstances to the contrary. When
I asked you to confide in me, it was" not from
I curiosity, but because I would serve you, if I
can. Reflect on what I have said. True, vou
can know but little of me. Learn what is said
of me by my neighbors before you trust me fur-
ther. For the rest, to-morrow you will have
many proposals to renew your performance.
Excuse me if I do not actively encourage it. I
; will not, at least, interfere to your detriment ;
\ but — "
j "But," exclaimed Waife, not much heeding
, this address — "but you think she looks ill? you
j think this is injuring her ? you think I am mur-
i dering my grandchild — my angel of life, my
, aU !"
I " Not so ; I spoke too bluntly. Y'et still — "
I "Yes, yes; yet still — "
I "Still, if you love her so dearly, would you
I blunt her conscience and love of truth ? Were
I you not an impostor to-night ? Would you ask
her to reverence, and imitate, and pray for an
impostor?"
" I never saw it in that light !" faltered Waife,
struck to the soul; "never, never, so help me
Heaven !"
"I felt sure you did not," said the Mayor;
" you saw but the sport of the thing ; you "took
to it as a school-boy. I have known many such
men, with high animal spirits like yours. Such
men err thoughtlessly; but did they ever sin
consciously, they could not keep those hiu'h spir-
its ! Good-night, Mr. Chapman, I shall hear
from you again."
The door closed on the form of the visitor;
Waife's head sunk on his breast, and all the
deep lines upon brow and cheek stood forth,
records of mighty griefs revived — a countenance
so altered, now that its innocent arch play was
gone, that you would not have known it. At
length he rose very quietly, took up the candle,
and stole into Sophy's room. Shading the light
with careful hand, he looked on her face as she
slept. The smile was still upon the parted lip
— the child was still in the fairj- land of dreams.
But the cheek was thinner than it had been
weeks ago, and the little hand that rested on
the coverlet seemed wasted. Waife took that
hand noiselessly into his own ; it was hot and
dry. He dropped it with a look of unutterable
fear and anguish ; and shaking his head jiite-
ously, stole back again. Seating himself by the
table at which he had been caught counting his
gains, he folded his arms and rooted his gaze
on the floor; and there, motionless, and as if
in stupefied suspense of thought itself, he sate
till the da^n crept over the sky — till the sun
shone into the windows. The dog, crouched at
his feet, sometimes started up and whined as to
attract his notice: he did not heed it. The
78
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
clock struck six, the house bescan to stir. The
chambermaid came into the room ; Waife rose
and took his hat, brushing its nap mechanically
with his sleeve. " Who did you say was the
best here ?" he asked with a vacant smile,
touchincc the chambermaid's arm.
"Sir! the best— what ?"
" The best doctor, ma'am — none of your par-
ish apothecaries — the best physician — Dr. Gill
— did you say Gill? Thank you; his address,
High Street. Close by, ma'am." With his
grand bow, such is habit I — Gentleman Waife
smiled graciously, and left the room. Sir Isaac
stretched himself, and followed.
CHAPTER XVL
In every civilized society there is found a r.ice of men
who retain the instincts of the aboriginal cannibal,
and live upon their fellow-raen as a natural food.
These interesting but formidable bipeds, having caught
their victim, invariably select one part of his body on
which to fasten their relentless grinders. The part
thus selected is peculiarly susceptible, Providence hav-
ing made it alive to the least nibble ; it is situated just
above the hip-joint, it is protected by a tesuraent of
exquisite fibre, vulgarly called " the Breeches pock-
et." The thoroughbred .Anthropophagite usually be-
gins with his own relations and friends; and so long
a-i he confines hia voracity to the domestic circle, the
Laws interfere little, if at all, with his venerable pro-
pensities. But when he has exhausted all that allows
itself to be edible in the bosom of private life, the Man-
eater falls loo.se on Society, and takes to prowling^
then " Saitre qui pent!" the Laws rouse themselves,
put on their spectacles, call for their wigs and gowns,
and the Anthropophagite tuined prowler is not always
sure of his dinner. It is when he has arrived at this
stage of development that tlis Man-eater becomes of
importance, enters into the domain of History, and
occupies the thoughts of Moralists.
On' the same morning in which Waife thus
went forth from the " Saracen's Head" in quest
of the doctor, but at a later hour, a man, who,
to judge by the elaborate smartness of his attire,
and the jaunty assuranc-e of his saunter, must
have wandered from the gay purlieus of Regent
Street, threaded his way along the silent and
desolate thoroughfares that intersect the re-
motest districts of Bloomsbury. He stopped at
the turn into a small street still more seques-
tered than those which led to it, and looked up
to the angle on the wall wliercon the name of
the street should have been inscribed. But the
wall had been lately whitewashed, and the white-
wash had obliterated the expected epigraph.
The man muttered an impatient execration ;
and turning roimd as if to seek a passenger of
whom to make inquiry, beheld, on the opposite
side of the way, another man apparently engaged
in the same research. Involuntarily each crossed
over the road toward the otlier.
"Pray, Sir," quoth the second wayfarer in
that desert, "can you tell me if this is a street
that is called a Place— Poddon Place, Upper?"
"Sir," returned the sprucer wayfarer, "it is
the question I would have asked of you."
" Strange !"
"Very strange indeed that more than one
person can, in this busy age, employ himself in
discovering a Poddon Place ! Not "a soul to in-
quire of — not a shop that I see — not*an orange
stall !"
" Ha!" cried the other, in a hoarse sepulchral
voice — "Ha! there is a pot-boy! Boy — boy —
boy! I say; Hold, there! hold! Is this Pod-
don Place — Upper?"
"Yes, it be," answered the pot-boy, with a
sleepy air, caught in that sleepy atmosphere ;
and chiming his pewter against an area rail
with a dull clang, he chanted forth " Pots oho !"
with a note as dirge-like as that which in the
City of the Plague chanted "Out with the
dead!"
Meanwhile the two wayfarers exchanged bows
and parted — the sprucer wayfarer, whether from
the indulgence of a reflective mood, or from an
habitual indifterence to things and persons not
concerning him, ceased to notice his fellow-
solitary, and rather busied himself in sundry
little coquetries appertaining to his own person.
He passed his hand through his hair, rearranged
the cock of his hat, looked complacently at his
boots, which still retained the gloss of the morn-
ing's varnish, drew down his wristbands, and,
in a word, gave sign of a man who desires to
make au et!'ect, and feels that he ought to do it.
So occupied was he in this self-commune, that
when he stopped at length at one of the small
doors in the small street, and lifted his hand to
the knocker, he started to see that Wayfarer the
Second was by his side.
The two men now examined each other
briefly but deliberately. Wayfarer the First
was still young — certainly handsome, but with
an indescribable look about the eye and lip,
from which the other recoiled with an instinct-
ive awe — a hard look, a cynical look — a side-
long, quiet, defying, remorseless look. His
clothes were so new of gloss, that they seemed
put on for the first time, were shaped to the pre-
vailing fashion, and of a taste for colors less
subdued than is usual with Englishmen, yet still
such as a person of good mien could wear with-
out incurring the charge of vulgarity, though
liable to that of self-conceit. If you doubted
that the man were a gentleman, you would have
been puzzled to guess what else he could be.
Were it not for the look we have mentioned,
and which was perhaps not habitual, his appear-
ance might have been called prepossessing. In
his figure there was the grace, in his step the
elasticity, which come from just proportions and
muscular strength. In his hand he carried a
supple switch stick, slight and innocuous to ap-
pearance, but weighted at the handle after the
fashion of a life-preserver. The tone of his
voice was not displeasing to the ear, though
there might be something artificial in the swell
of it — the sort of tone men assume when they
desire to seem more frank and oflf-hand than
belongs to their nature — a sort of rollicking
tone which is to the voice what swagger is to the
gait. Still that look ! — it produced on you the
effect which might be created by sume strange
animal, not without beauty, but deadly to man.
Wayfarer the Second was big and burly, middle-
aged, large-whiskered, his complexion dirty.
He wore a wig — a wig evident, unmistakable
— a wig curled and rusty — over the wig a dingy
white hat. His black stock fitted tight round
his throat, and across his breast he had thrown
the folds of a Scotch plaid.
Waitarer the First. " You call here, too
— on Mrs. Crane?"
Wayf.\rer the Second. "Mrs. "Crane? —
you too ? Strange !"
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
79
Wattaekr the FmsT (with constrained ci-
vilitv). " Sir, I call on business — private busi-
ness."
Watfaeek the Second (with candid surli-
ness). " So do I."
WaTFAKER THE FlKST. "Oh!"
Wayfarer the Secosd. '• Ha I the locks un-
bar I"'
The door opened, and an old meagre woman-
sen-ant presented herself.
Wayfarer the First (gliding before the big
man with a serpent's undulating celerity of
movement;. " ilrs. Crane lives here?" — " Yes."
" She's at home, I suppose ?"' — '• Yes I" "Take
up my card ; say I come alone — not with this
gentleman."
Wavfarer the Second seems to have been
rather put out by the manner of his rival. He
recedes a step.
"You know the ladv of this mansion well,
Sir?"
" Extremely well."
" Ha I then I yield you the precedence ; I
yield it, Sir, but conditionally. Y'ou will not be
long?"
" Not a moment longer than I can help ; the
land will be clear for you in an hour or less."
"Or less, so please you, let it be or less.
Servant, Sir."
"Sir, yours. — Come, my Hebe; track the
dancers, that is, go up the stairs, and let me re-
new the dreams of youth in the eyes of Crane !"
The old woman, meanwhile, had been turning
over the card in her ^vithered palm, looking from
the card to the visitor's face, and then to the
card again, and mumbling to herself. At length
she spoke :
"Y'^ou, Mr.' Losely — you I — Jasper Losely!
how you be changed I what ha' ye done to your-
self? where's your comeliness ? where's the look
that stole ladies' hearts ? — you, Jasper Losely !
you are his goblin I"
" Hold your peace, old hussey I" said the visit-
or, evidently annoyed at remarks so disparaging.
"I am Jasper Losely, more bronzed of cheek,
more iron of hand." He raised his switch with
a threatening gesture, that might be in play;
for the lips wore smiles, or might be in eJhiest,
for the brows were benf ; and pushing into the
passage, and shutting the door, said — "Is your
mistress up stairs ? show me to her room, or — "
The old crone gave him one angry glance, which
sunk frightened beneath the cruel gleam of his
eyes, and hastening up the stairs with a quicker
stride than her age seemed to warrant, cried out
— "Mistress, mistress I here is Mr, Losely! —
Jasper Losely himself 1" By the time the visit-
or had reached the landing-place of the fii^st
floor, a female form had emerged from a room
above ; — a female face peered over the banisters.
Losely looked up and started as he saw it. A
haggard face — the face of one over whose life
there has passed a blight. When last seen by
him it had possessed beauty, though of a mas-
culine rather than womanly character. Now of
that beauty not a trace 1 the cheeks sunken and
hollow, left the nose sharp, long, beaked as a
bird of prey. The hair, once glossy in its ebon
hue, now grizzled, harsh, neglected, hung in
tortured tangled meshes — a study for an artist
who would paint a fury. But the eyes were
bright — brighter than ever ; bright now with a
glare that lighted up the whole face bending
over the man. In those burning eyes was there
love ? was there hate ? was there welcome ? was
there menace ? Impossible to distinguish ; but
at least one might perceive that there was joy.
"So," said the voice from above, "so we do
meet at last, Jasper Losely ; you are come !"
Drawing a loose kind of dressing-robe more
closely round her, the mistress of the house now
descended the stairs— rapidly, flittingly, with a
step noiseless as a spectre's, and, grasjiingLose-
ly firmly by the hand, led him into a chill, dank,
sunless drawing-room, gazing into his face fix-
edly all the while.
He winced and writhed. "There, there, let
us sit down, my dear Mrs. Crane."
" And once I was called Bella,"
"Ages ago! Basta! All things have their
end. Do take those eyes of yours off my face ;
they were always so bright I — and really now
they are perfect burning glasses ! How close it
is. Peuh ! I am dead tired. ^lay I ask for a
glass of water — a drop of wine in it — or — bran-
dy will do as well ?"
" Ho ! yon have come to brandy, and morning
drams — eh, Jasper?" said Mrs. Crane, with a
strange, dreary accent. "I too once tried if
fire could bum up thought, but it did not suc-
ceed with me ; that is years ago ; — and — there
— see, the bottles are full still !"
While thus speaking, she had unlocked a
chiffonier of the shape usually found in "gen-
teel lodgings," and taken out a leather spirit-
case containing four bottles, with a couple of
wine-glasses. This case she placed on the table
before Mr. Losely, and contemplated him at leis-
ure while he helped himself to the raw spirits.
As she thus stood, an acute student of Lava-
ter might have recognized, in her harsh and
wasted countenance, signs of an original nature
superior to that of her visitor ; on her knitted
brow, a sense higher in quality than on his
smooth, low forehead; on her straight, stem
lip, less cause for distnist than in the false good-
humor which curved his handsome mouth into
that smile of the fickle, which, responding to
mirth but not to affection, is often lighted and
never warmed. It is true that in that set press-
ure of her lip there might be cruelty, and, still
more, the secretiveness which can harbor de-
ceit ; and yet, by the nenous workings of that
lip, when relieved from such pressure, you would
judge the woman to be rather by natural tem-
perament passionate and impulsive than sys-
tematically cruel or deliberately false — false or
cruel only as some predominating passion be-
came the soul's absolute tvrant, and adopted the
tyrant's vices. Above all, in those very lines de-
structive to beauty, that had been plowed, not
by time, over her sallow cheekS, there was writ-
ten the susce])tibility to grief, to shame, to the
sense of fall, which was not visible in the unre-
flective reckless aspect of the sleek human ani-
mal before her.
In the room, too, there were some evidences
of a cultivated taste. On the walls, book-
shelves, containing volumes of a decorous and
severe literature, such as careful parents allow
to studious daughters — the stately master-pieces
of Fenelon and Racine — selections, approved by
boarding-schools, from Tasso, Dante, Metasta-
sio ; — among English authors, Addison, John-
80
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
son, Blair (his lectures as well as sermons) — ; bounding all return for loval sacrifice to the
elementary works on such sciences as admit fe- honor you vouchsafed in accepting it !"
male neophytes into their porticoes if not into Uttering this embittered irony, which never-
their penetralia — botany, chemistry, astronomy, theless seemed rather to please than to offend
Prim as soldiers on parade stood the books — not ^ her guest, she kept moving about the room, and
a gap in their ranks — evidently never now dis- i (whether from some drawer in the furniture, or
placed for recreation — well bound, yet faded, : from her own person, Losely's careless eye did
dnsty . — relics of a by-gone life. Some of them not observe) she suddenly drew forth a minia-
miglit' perliaps have" been prizes at school, or ture, and, placing it before him, exclaimed,
birth-dav gifts from proud relations. There, : " Ah, but you are altered from those days — see
too, on the table, near the spirit-case, lay open what you then were I" Losely's gaze thus abrupt-
a once handsome work-box — no silks now on ly invited, fixed itself on the effigies of a youth
the skeleton reels— discolored, but not by use, eminently handsome, and of that kind of beauty
in its nest of tarnished silk, slept the golden which, without being effeminate, approaches to
thimble. There, too, in the corner, near a mu- the fineness and brilliancy of the female coun-
sic-stand piled high with musical compositions tenance — a beauty which renders its possessor
of various schools and graduated complexity, inconveniently conspicuous, and too often, by
from ''lessons for beginners" to the most ardu- winning that ready admiration which it costs no
ous gamut of a Gerroan oratorio, slunk pathet- effort to obtain, withdraws the desire of applause
ically a poor lute harp, the strings long since from successes to be achieved by labor, and hard-
broken. There, too, by the window, hung a ens egotism by the excuses it lends to self-es-
wire bird-cage, the bird' long since dead. In a teem. It is true that this handsome face had
word, round The woman gazing on Jasper Losely, not the elevation bestowed by thoughtful ex-
as he' complacently drank his brandy, grouped pression : but thoughtful expression is not the
the forlorn tokens of an early state — the lost attribute a painter seeks to give to the abstract
golden age of happy girlish studies, of harmless comeliness of early youth — and it is seldom to
■■•irlish taltes. ' ■ be acquired without that constitutional wear and
" Basta — eno','' said Mr. Losely, pushing aside tear which is injurious to mere physical beauty,
the glass which he had twice filled and twice And over the whole countenance was diffused a
drained — " to business. Let me see the child — \ sunny light, the freshness of thoughtless health,
I feel up to it now."
A darker shade fell over Arabella Crane's
face as she said :
"The child — she is not here! I have dis-
posed of her long ago."
"Eh I disposed of her! what do you mean?"
of luxuriant vigor, so that even that arrogant
vanity which an acute observer might have de-
tected as the prevailing mental characteristic,
seemed but a glad exultation in the gifts of be-
nignant nature. Not there the look which, in
the matured man gazing on the briglit ghost of
Do you ask as if you feared I "had put her his former self, might have daunted the timid
out of the world? No"! Well, then — you come and warned the wise. "And I was like this,
to England to see the child ? You miss — you , True I I remember well when it was taken, and
love, the child of that — of that — " She paused, ' no one called it flattering," said Mr. Losely, with
checked herself, and added in an altered voice pathetic self-condolence. " But I can't be very
— "of that honest, high-minded gentlewoman, much changed," he added, with a half laugh,
whose memory must be so dear to me — you love "At my age one may have a manlier look,
that child; very natural, Jasper."
" Love her! a child I have scarcely seen since
she was born ! — do talk common sense. No.
But have I not told you that she ought to be
money's worth to me — ay, and she shall be yet,
despite that proud man's disdainful insolence
yet —
"Yet still be handsome, Jasper," said Mrs.
Crane. ' ' You are so. But look at me — what
am I ?"
'• Oh, a yen,' fine woman, my dear Crane —
always were. But you neglect yourself; you
'That proud man — what ! you have ventured should not do that ; keep it up to the last. Well,
to address him — visit him — since your return to but to return to the child. You have disposed
England ?" of her without my consent, without letting me
" Of course. That's what brought me over, i know."
I imagined the man would rejoice at what I told | "Letting you know ! How many years is if
him — -open his purse-strings — lavish blessings since you even gave me your address? Never
and bank-notes. And the brute would not even fear, she is in good hands."
believe me — all because — " i "Whose? At all events I must see her."
"Because you had sold the right to be be- "See her! "VMiat for?"
lieved before." I told you, when I took the child, , " 'SMiat for ! Hang it, it is natural that, now
that you w^ould never succeed there — that I I am in England, I should at least wish to know
would never encourage you in the attempt. But , what she is like. And I think it very strange
you had sold the futtu-e, as you sold your past
— too cheaply, it seems, Jasper."
"Too cheaply, indeed. Who could ever have
supposed that I should have been fobbed off with
such a pittance ?"
"Who, indeed, Jasper! You were made to
spend fortunes, and call them pittances when
spent, Jasper ! You should have been a prince,
Jasper — such princely tastes! Trinkets and
dress, horses and dice, and plenty of ladies to
look and die! Such princely spirit too! —
that you should send her away, and then make
all these difficulties. "SMiat's your object? I
don't understand it."
"My object! What could be my object but
to serve you ? At your request I took, fed, rear-
ed a child, whom you could not expect me to
love, at my own cost. Did I ever ask you for a
shilling ? ' Did I ever suffer you to give me one ?
Never ! At last, hearing no more from you, and
what little I heard of yon, making me think that
if any thing happened to me (and I was very ill
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
81
at the time), you could only find her a burden ; " Hanged!" said Mrs. Crane,
at last, I sav, the old man came to me — you had " Of course, hanged," returned Losely, re-
given him my address — and he oftered to take suming the reckless voice and manner in which
her, and I consented. She is with him." there was that peculiar levity which comes from
"The old man! She is with him! And hardness of heart, as from the steel's hardness
where is he ?"
"I don't know."
" Humph ! How does he live ?
got any money ?"
"I don't know."
" Did any old friends take him up ?"
Would he go to old friends
comes the blade's play. "But if a man did not
sometimes forget consequences, there would be
Can he have , an end of the gallows. I am glad that his eye
j never left mine." And the leaden head of the
, switch fell with a dull, dumb sound on the floor.
Mrs. Crane made no immediate rejoinder, but
fixed on her lawless visitor a cazc in which there
Mr. Losely tossed off two fresh glasses of | was no womanly fear (though Loscly'sasiiect and
brandy, one after the other, and, rising, walked | gesture might have sent a thrill tlnough the
to and fro the room, his hands buried in his \ nerves of many a hardy man), but wiiich was not
pockets, and in no comfortable vein of reflec- without womanly compassion, her countenance
tion. At length he paused, and said, "Well, ! gradually softening more and more, as jf under
upon the whole, I don't see what I could do the influence of recollections mournful but not
with the girl just at present, though, of course, hostile. At length she said, in a low voice,
I ought to know where she is, and with whom. "Poor Jasper! Is all the vain ambition that
Telline, Mrs. Crane, what is she like — pretty made you so false shrunk into a ferocity that
or plain ?" finds you so powerless ? Would your existence,
" I suppose the chit would be called pretty — after all, have been harder, poorer, meaner, if
by some persons at least." , your faith had been kept to me !"
' " T'f ''3/ pretty ? handsome ?" asked Losely, ab- I Evidently disliking that turn in the conversa-
ruptlv. ' tion, but checking a reply that might have been
" Handsome or not, what does it signify ? rude had no visions of five pounds — ten pounds
what good comes of beauty ? You had beauty — loomed in the distance, Mr. Losely said,
enough ; what have you done with it ?" ' i " Pshaw ! Bella, pshaw ! I was a fool, I dare
At that question Losely drew himself up with ! say, and a sad dog — a very sad dog ; but I had
a sudden loftiness of look and gesture, which, always the greatest regard for you, and always
though prompted but by oflended vanity, im- shall! Hillo, what's that? A knock at the
proved the expression of the countenance, and door ! Oh, by-the-by, a queer-looking man, in
restored to it much of its earlier character. ' a white hat, called at the same time I did, to
Mrs. Crane gazed on him, startled into admira- I see you on private business — gave way to me —
tion, and it was in an altered voice, half re- j said he should come again ; may I ask who he
proachful, half bitter, that she continued — is ?"
"And now that you are satisfied about her, "I can not guess; no one ever calls here on
have vou no questions to ask about me — what business, except the tax-gatherer."
I do— ^how I live?" The old woman-servant now entered. "A
"ily dear :Mrs. Crane, I know that you are i gentleman, ma'am— says his name is Rugge."
comfortably ofi", and were never of a mercenary | "Rugge — Rugge— let me think."
temper. I trust you are happy, and so forth —
I wish I were ; things don't prosper with me.
If you could conveniently lend me a five-pound
note — "
* ' You would borrow of me, Jasper ? Ah !
you come to me in your troubles. You shall
have the money — five pounds — ten pounds —
what you please, but you will call again for it ?
you need me now — you will not utterly desert
me now?"
' ' Best of creatures ! never !" He seized her
hand, and kissed it. She withdrew it quickly
from his clasp, and, glancing over him from
head to foot, said, "But are you really in need?
you are well-dressed, Jasper; that you always
were."
"Xot always; three days ago very much the
reverse ; but I have had a trifling aid, and — "
"Aid in England? from whom? where? Not
from him whom, you say, you had the courage
to seek ?"
"From whom else? Have I no claim? A
miserable alms flung to me. Curse him ! I tell
you that man's look and language so galled me
— so galled," echoed Losely, shifting his hold
from the top of his switch to the centre, and
bringing the murderous weight of the lead down
on the palm of his other hand, " that, if his eye
had quitted me for a moment, I think I must
have brained him, and been — "
I am here, Mrs. Crane," said the manager,
striding in. "You don't perhaps call me to
mind by name ; but — oho — not gone, Sir ! Do
I intrude prematurely?"
"Xo, I have done; good-day, my dear Mrs.
Crane."
"Stay, Jasper. I remember you now, Mr.
Rugge ; take a chair."
She whispered a few words into Losely's ear,
then turned to the manager, and said aloud,
" I saw you at ^Ir. Waife's lodging, at the time
he had that bad accident."
"And I had the honor to accompany you
home, ma'am, and — hut shall I speak out be-
fore this gentleman?"
" Certainly ; you see he is listening to you
with attention. This gentleman and I have no
secrets from each other. What has become of
that person ? Tiiis gentleman wishes to know."
Losely. "Y'es, Sir, I wish to know— particu-
larly."
RcGGE. " So do I ; that is partly what I came
about. You are aware, I think, ma'am, that I
engaged him and Juliet Araminta — that is,
Sophy."
Losely. "Sophy— engaged them. Sir — how?"
Rugge. "Theatrical line. Sir— Rugge's Ex-
hibition ; he was a great actor once, that fellow
Waife."
Loselt. "Ob, actor! — well, Sir, go on."
82
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
RuGGE (who in the course of his address turns
from the lady to the gentleman, from the gentle-
man to the lady, with appropriate gesture and
appealing look). "But he became a wreck, a
block of a man ; lost an eye and his voice too.
However, to serve him, I took his grandchild and
him too. He left me — shamefully, and ran off
with his grandchild, Sir. Now, ma'am, to be
plain with you, that little girl I looked upon as
my property — a very valuable property. She is
worth a great deal to me, and I have been done
out of her. If you can help me to get her back,
articled and engaged say for three years, I am
willing and happy, ma'am, to pay something
handsome — uncommon handsome."
Mrs. Ckane (loftily). " Speak to that gentle-
man — he may treat with you."
LosELT. " Whatdo you call uncommon hand-
some, Mr. — Mr. Tugge?"
RuGGE. "Rugge! Sir; we shan't disagree, I
hope, provided you have the power to get Waife
to bind the girl to me."
LosELY. "I may have the power to transfer
the young lady to your care ; young lady is a
more respectful phrase than girl ; and possibly
to dispense with Mr. Waife's consent to such ar-
rangement. But excuse me if I say that I must
know a little more of yourself before I could
promise to exert such a power on your behalf."
Rugge. "Sir, I shall be proud to improve
our acquaintance. As to Waife, the old vaga-
bond, he has injured and alfronted me. Sir. I
don't bear malice, but I have a spirit — Britons
have a sjjirit, Sir. And you will remember,
ma'am, tluit when I accompanied you home, I
observed that Mr. Waife was a mysterious man,
and had apparently known better days, and that
when a man is mysterious, and falls into the
sear and yellow leaf, ma'am, without that which
should accompany old age. Sir, one has a right
to suspect that some time or other he has done
something or otiier, ma'am, which makes him
fear lest the very stones prate of his where-
abouts. Sir. And you did not deny, ma'am,
that the mystery was suspicious, but you said,
with uncommon good sense, that it was nothing
to me what Mr. Waife had once been, so long
as he was of use to me at that particular season.
Since then, Sir, he has ceased to be of use —
ceased, too, in tlie unhandsomest manner. And
if you would, ma'am, from a sense of justice,
just unravel the mystery, put me in possession
of the secret, it might make that base man of
use to me again — give me a handle over him.
Sir, so that I might awe him into restoring my
property, as, morally speaking, Juliet Araminta
most undoubtedly is. That's M'hy I call — leav-
ing my company, to which I am a father, or-
phans for the present. But I have missed that
little girl — that young lady. Sir. I called her a
phenomenon, ma'am — missed her much — it is
natural. Sir ; I appeal to you. No man can be
done out of a valuable property and not feci it,
if he has a heart in his bosom. And if I had
her back safe, I should indulge ambition. I have
always had ambition. The theatre at York, Sir
— that is my ambition; I had it from a child,
Sir; dreamed of it three times, ma'am. If I
had back my property in that phenomenon, I
would go at the thing, slap bang, take the York,
and bring out the phenomenon, with a claw !"
LosELY (musingly). "You say the young
lady is a phenomenon, and for this phenomenon
you are willing to pay something handsome — a
vague expression. Put it into £ s. d."
RcGGE. " Sir, if she can be bound to me le-
gally for three years, I would give £100. I did
oti'er to Waife £50— to you. Sir, £100."
Losely's eyes flashed and his hands opened
restlessly. "But, confound it, where is she?
have you no clew ?"
Rugge. "No, but we can easily find one;
it was not worth my while to hunt them up be-
fore I was quite sure that, if I regained my
property in that phenomenon, the law would
protect it."
Mrs. Crane (moving to the door). "Well,
Jasper Losely, you will sell the young lady, I
doubt not ; and when you have sold her, let me
know." She came back and whispered, "You
will not perhaps now want money from me, but
I shall see you again ; for, if you would find the
child, you will need my aid."
" Certainly, my dear friend, I will call again ;
honor bright."
Mrs. Crane here bowed to the gentlemen, and
swept out of the room.
Thus left alone, Losely and Rugge looked at
each other with a shy and yet cunning gaze —
Rugge's hands in his trowsers pockets, liis head
thrown back — Losely's hands involuntarily ex-
panded, his head bewitching'}' bent forward, and
a little on one side.
"Sir," said Rugge at length, "what do you
say to a chop and a pint of wine ? Rerhajis we
could talk more at our ease elsewhere. I am
only in town for a day — left my company thirty
miles off — orphans, as I said before."
" Mr. Rugge," said Losely, " I have no desire
to stay in London, or indeed in England ; and
the sooner we can settle this matter the better.
Grant that we find the young lady, you provide
for her board and lodging — teach her your hon-
orable profession — behave, of course, kindly to
her — "
" Like a father."
"And give to me the sum of £100?"
" That is, if you can legally make her over to
me. But, Sir, may I inquire by what authority
you would act in this matter?"
"On that head it will be easy to satisfy you;
meanwhile I accept your proposal of an early
dinner. Let us adjourn — is it to your house ?"
"I have no exact private house in London;
but I know a public one — commodious."
" Be it so. After you. Sir."
As they descended the stairs, the old woman-
servant stood at the street door. Rugge went
out first — the woman detained Losely.
"Do you find her altered?"
"Whom? Mrs. Crane? — why, years Avill tell.
But you seem to have known me — I don't re-
member you."
"Not JBridgett Greggs?"
" Is it possible ? I left you a middle-aged,
rosy-faced woman. True, I recognize you now.
There's a crown for you. I wish I had more to
spare !"
Bridgett pushed back the silver.
"No — I dare not! Take money from you,
Jasper Losely ! Mistress would not forgive
me!"
Losely, not unreluctantly, restored the crown
to his pocket ; and, with a snort, rather than sigh,
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
83
of relief, stepped into open daylight. As he "They have not gone to London. What could
crossed the street to join Rugge, who was wait- they do there ? Any man with a few stage,
ing for him on the shady side, he mechanically juggling tricks can get on in country villages,
turned to look back at the house,. and, at the but would be lost in cities. Perhaps, as it seems
open window of an upper story, he beheld again he has got a dog — we have found out that from
those shining eyes which had glared down 'on Jlrs. Saunders — he will make use of it for an
him from the stairs. He tried to smile, and itinerant puppct-sliow."
waved his hand feebly. The eyes seemed to re- j " Punch 1" said ^Ir. liuggc — " not a doubt of
turn the smile; and as he walked down tlie it."
street, arm in arm with the ruffian manager, " In that case," observed Mrs. Crane, " they
slowly recovering his springy step, and in the , are jirobably not far off. Let us print handbills,
gloss of the new garments that set forth his still ] offering a reward for their clew, and luring the
symmetrical proportions, the eyes followed him | old man himself by an assurance that the in-
watchfully — steadfastly — till his form had van- quiry is made in order that he may learn of
ished, and the dull street was once more a soli- something to his advantage."
tude. I In the course of the evening the handbills
Then Arabella Crane turned from the window. | were printed. The next day they were posted
Putting her hand to her heart, " How it beats !" i up on the walls, not only of that village, but oa
she muttered ; " if in love or in hate, in scorn [ those of the small towns and hamlets for some
or in pity, beats once more with a human emo- , miles round. The handbills ran invitingly thus:
tion. lie will come again — whether for money ] '"If William Waife, who left on the 20th
or for woman's wit, what care I — he will come. ' ult., will apply at the Red Lion Inn at , for
— I will hold, I will cling to him, no more to part X. X., he will learn of something greatly to his
— for better, for worse, as it should have been ' advantage. A reward of £o will be given to
once at the altar. And the child ?" she paused ; any one who will furnish information where the
was it in compunction ? '• The child I" she con- i said William Waife, and the little girl who ac-
tinued, fiercely, and as if lashing herself into , companies him, may be found. The said Will-
rage, "The child of that treacherous, hateful iam Waife is about sixty years of age, of middle
mother — yes! I will help him to sell her back stature, strongly built, has lost one eye, and is
as a stage-show — help him in all that docs not lame of one leg. The little girl, called Sophy,
lift her to a state from which she may look down is twelve years old, but looks younger ; has blue
with disdain on me. Revenge on her, on that i eyes and light brown hair. They had with them
cruel house — revenge is sweet. Oh ! that it , a white French poodle dog. This bill is printed
were revenge alone that bids me cling to him by the friends of the missing party." The next
who desen"es revenge the most." She closed day passed — no information ; but on the day
her burning eyes, and sat down droopingly, rock- following, a young gentleman of good mien,
ing herself to and fro like one in pain.
dressed in black, rode into the town, stopped at
the Red Lion Inn, and asked to see X. X. The
two men were out on their researches — Mrs.
Crane staid at home to answer inquiries.
The gentleman was requested to dismount,
and walk in. Mrs. Crane received him in the
inn parlor, which swarmed with flies. She stood
in the centre — vigilant, gi-im spider of the place.
" I ca-ca-call," said the gentleman, stammer-
ing fearfully, " in con-con-sequence of a b-b-bill
• — I — ch-chanced to see in my ri-ri-ri-ride yes-
terday — on a wa-wa-wall : — You — you, I — sup-
CHAPTER XVII.
In life it is diflBcult to say who do you the most mischief,
enemies with the worst intentions, or friends with the
best.
The conference between Mr. Rugge and Mr.
Losely terminated in an appointment to meet,
the next day, at the village in which this story
opened. Meanwhile Mr. Rugge would return
to his "orphans," and arrange performances in sup-
which, for some days, they might dispense with ! " Am X. X.," put in Mrs. Crane, growing im-
a Father's part. Losely, "on his side, undertook ' patient, '-one of the friends of Mr. Waife, by
to devote the intervening hours to consultation whom the handbill has been circulated; it will
with a solicitor, to whom Jlr. Rugge recom- indeed be a great relief to us to know where they
mended him, as to the prompt obtaining of legal are — the little girl more especially."
powers to enforce the authority he asserted him- ! Jlrs. Crane was respectably dressed — in silk,
self to possess. He would also persuade Jlrs. i iron-gray; she had crisped her flaky tresses into
Crane to accompany him to the village, and aid stiff, hard ringlets, that fell like long screws
in the requisite investigations — entertaining a from under a black velvet band. Mrs. Crane
tacit but instinctive belief in the superiority of never wore a caji — nor could you fancy her in a
her acuteness. " Set a female to catch a fe- cap ; but the velvet band looked as rigid as if
male," quoth Mr. Rugge. gummed to a hoop of steel. Her manner and
On the day and in the place thus fixed, the tone of voice were those of an educated pei-son,
three hunters opened their chase. They threw not unused to some society above the vulgar ;
off at the cobbler's stall. They soon caught the and yet the visitor, in whom the reader recog-
same scent which had been followed by the law- nizes the piscatorial Oxonian, with wliom Waife
yer's clerk. They arrived at Mrs. Saunders's — had interchanged philosojihy on the marge of
there the two men would have been at fault like ' the running brooklet, drew back as she advanced
their predecessor. But the female was more and spoke ; and, bent on an errand of kindness,
astute. To drop the metaphor, Mrs. Saunders he was seized with a vague misgiving,
could not stand the sharp cross-examination of i Mrs. Craxe (blandly). " I fear they must be
one of her own sex. "That woman deceives badly off. I hope they are not wanting the
us," said Jlrs. Crane, on leaving the house, necessaries of life. But pray be seated, Sir."
84
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
She looked at him again, and with more respect
in her address than she had before thrown into
it, added, with a half courtesy, as she seated
herself by his side, " A clergyman of the Estab-
lished Church, I presume. Sir?"
Oxonian (stammer, as on a former occasion,
respectfully omitted). "With this defect, ma'am !
But to the point. Some days ago I happened
to fall in with an elderly person, such as is de-
scribed, with a very pretty female child, and a
French dog. Tlie man — gentleman, perhaps, I
may call him, judging from his conversation —
interested me much ; so did the little girl. And
if I could be the means of directing real friends
anxious to serve them — "
Mrs. Ckane. "You would indeed be a bene-
factor. And where are they now. Sir?"
Oxonian. " That I can not positively tell you.
But before I say more, will you kindly satisfy
my curiosity ? He is perhaps an eccentric per-
son — this Mr. Waife ? — a little — " The Oxonian
stopped, and touched his forehead. ]\Irs. Crane
made no prompt reply — she was musing. Un-
warily the scholar continued : " Because, in that
case, I should not like to interfere. So many
persons are shut up, where there is no insanity ;
but where there is property — "
Mrs. Crane. " Quite right. Sir. His friends
would not interfere with his roving ways, his lit-
tle whims, on any account. Poor man, why
should they? No property at all for them to
covet, I assure you. But it is a long story. I
had the care of that dear little girl from her in-
fancy ; sweet child !"
Oxonian. " So she seems."
Mrs. Crane. " And now she has a most com-
fortable home provided for her; and a young
girl, with good friends, ought not to be tramp-
ing about the country, whatever an old man
may do. You must allow that. Sir ?"
Oxonian. " Well — yes, I allow that ; it oc-
curred to me. But what is the man ? — the gen-
tleman ?"
Mrs. Crane. "Very ' eccentric,' as you say,
and inconsiderate, perhaps, as to the little girl.
We will not call it insane. Sir ; we can't bear to
look at it in that light. But — are you married ?"
Oxonian (blushing). "No, ma'am."
Mrs. Crane. "But you have a sister, per-
haps ?"
Oxonian. "Yes; I have one sister."
Mrs. Crane. " Would you like your sister to
be running about the country in that way — car-
ried oft' from her home, kindred, and friends?"
Oxonian. "Ah ! 1 understand. The poor lit-
tle girl is fond of the old man — a relation, grand-
father perhaps ? and he has taken her from her
home ; and though not actually insane, he is
still—"
Mrs. Crane. " An unsafe guide for a female
child, delicately reared, /reared her; of good
prospects too. Oh, Sir, let us save the child!
Look — " She drew from a side-pocket in her
stiff' iron-gray apron a folded paper ; she placed
it in the Oxonian's hand ; he glanced over and
returned it.
" I see, ma'am. I can not hesitate after this.
It is a good many miles off' where I met the per-
sons whom I have no doubt that you seek ; and
two or three days ago my father received a let-
ter from a very worthy, excellent man, with
whom he is ofte'n brought into communication
upon benevolent objects — a Mr. Ilartopp, the
Mayor of Gatesboro', in which, among otlier
matters, the mayor mentioned briefly that the
Literary Institute of that town had been much
delighted by the performance of a very remark-
able man with one eye, about whom there seem-
ed some mystery, with a little girl and a learn-
ed dog ; and I can't help thinking that the man,
the girl, and the dog must be those whom I saw
and you seek."
Mrs. Crane. "At Gatesboro'? — is that far?"
" Some way ; but you can get a cross train
from this village. I hope that the old man will
not be separated from the little girl ; they seem-
ed very fond of each other."
" No doubt of it — very fond ; it would be cru-
el to separate them. A comfortable home for
both. I don't know, Sir, if I dare oft'er to a
gentleman of your evident rank the reward —
but for the poor of your parish."
" Oh, ma'am, our poor want for nothing. My
father is rich. But if you would oblige me by a
line after you have found these interesting jjcr-
Rons — I am going to a distant part of the coun-
try to-morrow — to Montford Court, in
shire."
Mrs. Crane. " To Lord Montfort, the head
of the noble family of Vipont ?"
Oxonian. " Yes. You know any of the fam-
ily, ma'am? If you could refer me to one of
them, I should feel more satisfied as to — "
Mrs. Crane (hastily). "Indeed, Sir, every
one must know that great family by name and
repute. I know no more. So you are going to
Lord Montford's ! The Marchioness, they say,
is very beautiful !"
Oxonian. " And good as beautiful. I have
the honor to be comiected both with her and
Lord Montfort ; they are cousins, and my grand-
father was a Vipont. I should have told you
my name — Morley ; George Vipont Morley."
]Mrs. Crane made a profound courtesy, and,
with an unmistakable smile of satisfaction, said,
as if half in sohloquy, " So it is to one of that
noble family — to a Vipont — that the dear child
will owe her restoration to my embrace ! Bless
you, Sir!"
" I hope I have done right," said George Vi-
pont Morley, as he mounted his horse. " I
must have done right, surely !" he said, again,
when he was on the high-road. " I fear I have
not done right," he said, a third time, as the
face of Mrs. Crane began to haunt him; and
when, at sunset, he reached his home, tired out,
horse and man, with an unusually long ride,
and the green water-bank on which he had
overheard poor Waife's simple grace and joyous
babble came in sight, " After all," he said, dole-
fully, " it was no business of mine. I meant
well, but — " His little sister ran to the gate to
greet him. " Yes, I did quite right. How should
I like my sister to be roving the country, and
acting at Literary Institutes with a poodle dog ?
Quite right. Kiss me, Jane !"
CHAPTER XVHL
Let a king and a beggar converse freely together, and it
is the beggar's fault if he does not say something which
makes the king lift his hat to him.
The scene shifts back to Gatesboro', the fore-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
noon of the day succeeding the memorable Ex-
hibition at the' Institute of that learned town.
Mr. Hartopp was in the little parlor behind his
countrv-house, his hours of business much
broken into by those intruders who deem no
time unseasonable for the indulgence of curios-
itv, the interchancje of thought, or the interests
of general humanity and of national enlighten-
ment. The excitement produced on the pre-
vious evening by Mr. Chapman, Sophy, and Sir
Isaac, was preatly on the increase. Persons who
had seen them naturally called on the Mayor to
talk over the Exhibition. Persons who had not
seen them stilL more naturally dropped in just
to learn what was really llr. Mayor's private
opinion. The little parlor was thronged by a
regular levee. There was the proprietor of a
dismal building, still called "The Theatre,"
which was seldom let except at election-time,
when it was hired by the popular candidate for
the delivery of those harangues upon liberty and
conscience", tyranny and oppression, which fur-
nish the staple of declamation equally to the
dramatist and the orator. Tliere was also the
landlord of the Royal Hotel, who had latch-
built to his house " The City Concert-room" —
a superb apartment, but a losing speculation.
There, too, were three highly respectable per-
sons, of a serious turn of mind, who came to
suggest doubts whether an entertainment of so
frivolous a nature was not injurious to the mo-
ralitv of Gatesboro'. Besides these notables,
there were loungers and gossips, with no partic-
ular object except that of ascertaining who Mr.
Chapman was by birth and parentage, and sug-
gesting the expediency of a deputation ostensi-
bly for the purpose of asking him to repeat his
pe'rformance, but charged with private instruc-
tions to cross-examine him as to his pedigree.
The gentle Mayor kept his eyes fixed on a
mighty ledger-book, pen in hand. The attitude
was a rebuke on intruders, and in ordinary times
would have been so considered. But mildness,
however majestic, is not always effective in pe-
riods of civic commotion. The room was ani-
mated by hubbub. You caught broken sen-
tences here and there crossing each other, like
the sounds that had been frozen in the air, and
set free by a thaw, according to the veracious
narrative of Baron Munchausen.
Plat-hocse Peopeietoe. " The theatre is
the—"
Seeious Gen-tlemak. "Plausible snare by
which a population, at present grave and well-
disposed, is decoyed into becoming — "
Excited Admieee. "A French poodle, Sir,
that plays at dominoes like a — "
Cbedclocs Cokjectueer. "Benevolent phil-
anthropist, condescending to act for the benefit
of some distressed brother who is — "
Pkofrietoe of City Coxcekt-Room. "One
hundred and twenty feet long by forty, Mr.
Mayor ! Talk of that damp theatre, Sir I — you
might as well talk of the — "
Suddenly the door flew open, and, pushing
aside a clerk who designed to announce him, in
burst Mr. Chapman himself.
He had evidently expected to find the Mayor
alone, for at the sight of that throng he check-
ed himself, and stood mute at the threshold.
The levee, for a moment, was no less surprised,
and no less mute. But the good folks soon re-
covered themselves. To many it was a pleas-
ure to accost and congratulate the man who, the
night before, had occasioned to them emotions
so agreeable. Cordial smiles broke out — friend-
ly hands were thrust forth. Brief but hearty
compliments, mingled with entreaties to renew
the performance to a larger audience, were
showered round. The Comedian stood, hat in
hand, mechanically passing his sleeve over its
nap, muttering, half inaudibly, " You see before
you a man" — and turning his single eye from
one face to the other, as if struggling to guess
wliat was meant, or where he was. The Mayor
rose and came fonvard. " My dear friends,"
said he, mildly, " Mr. Chapman calls by appoint-
ment. Perhaps he may have something to say
to me confidentially."
The three serious gentlemen, who had hither-
to remained aloof, eying Mr. Chapman much
as three inquisitors might have eyed a Jew,
shook three solemn heads, and set the example
of retreat. The last to linger were the rival
proprietors of the theatre and the city concert-
room. Each whispered the stranger — one the
left ear, one the right. Each thrust into his
hand a printed paper. As the door closed on
them the Comedian let fall the papers ; his arm
drooped to his side ; his whole frame seemed to
collapse. Hartopp took him by the hand, and
led him gently to his own arm-chair beside the
table. The Comedian dropped on the chair,
still without speaking.
Me. H.4.ETOPP. " SVhat is the matter ? "What
has happened?"
Waife. " She is very ill — in a bad way ; the
doctor says so — Dr. Gill."
Me. Hartopp (feelingly). "Your little girl in
a bad way I Oh, no. Doctors always exagger-
ate, in order to get more credit for the cure.
Not that I would disparage Dr. Gill — fellow-
townsman — first-rate man ; still, 'tis the way
with doctors to talk cheerfully if one is in dan-
ger, and to look solemn if there is nothing to
fear."
Waife. " Do you think so — you have chil-
dren of vour own, Sir? — of her age, too? — Eh!
eh !"
Mr. Haetopp. "Yes ; I know all about chil-
dren — better, I think, than ;Mrs. H. does. What
is the complaint?"
Waife. " The doctor says it is low fever."
ilR. Hartopp. " Caused by nervous excite-
ment, perhaps."
Waife (looking up). "Yes — that's what he
savs — nervous excitement."
Mr. Hartopp. "Clever, sensitive children,
subjected precociously to emulation and emo-
tion, are always liable to such maladies. 3Iy
third girl, Anna Maria, fell into a low fever,
caused by nervous excitement in trjing for
school prizes."
Waife. "Did she die of it. Sir?"
Me. Haetopp (shuddering). "Die — Xo ! I
removed her from school — set her to take care
of the poultrj- — forbade all French exercises,
made her take English exercise instead — and
ride on a donkey. She's quite another thing
now — cheeks as red as an apple, and as firm as
a cricket-ball."
Waife. "I will keep poultry; I will buy a
donkey. Oh, Sir! you don't think she will go
to heaven yet, and leave me here ?"
86
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Me. HLvrtopp. ' ' Not if vou give her rest and j forlorn creature, who could give no reason why
quiet. But no excitement — no exhibitions." he should not be rather in the Gatesboro' Parish
— ' • '■ 1 . .1.1-1 -\ Stocks than in its chief magistrate's easv-chair.
Yet were the Major's sympathetic liking and
respectful admiration whollv unaccountable ?
Euns there not between one warm human heart
and another the electric chain of a secret un-
derstanding? In that maimed outcast, so stub-
bomlv hard to himself — so tremulouslv sensitive
Walfe (emptring his pockets on the table).
'•Will vou kindlv count that monev, Sir?
Don't vou think that would be enough to find
her some prettv lodging hereabouts till she gets
quite strong again? With green fields — she's
fond of green fields, and a farm-vard with
ponltrv — though we were lodging a few davs ago
with a good woman who kept hens, and Sophv i for his sick child— was there not the majestv to
did not seem to take to them much. A canary ' which they who have learned that Nature has
bird is more of a companion, and — '
Haetopp (interrupting). " Ay — ay — and you I
what would yon do ?"
Waife. '-Why, I and the dog would go away
for a little while about the country."
Haetopp. ' ' Exh ibiting ?"
Waite. "That money wiU not last forever,
and what can we do — I and the dog — in order
to get more for her ?"
Haetopp (pressing his hand warmly). "Ton
are a good man, Sir. I am sure of it : you can
not have done things which you should be afraid
to tell me. Make me your confidant, and I may
then find some employment fit for yon, and
her nobles reverently bow the head I A man,
true to man's grave religion, can no more de-
spise a life wrecked in all else, while a hallow-
ing afi"ection stands out subhme through the
rents and chinks of fortune, than he can profane
with rude mockery a temple in ruins — if still
left there the altar.
CH.VPTEK XIX.
Xerr well so far as it goes.
_ Me. Haetopp. " I can not presume to ques-
you need not separate yoorself from jonr little I tion you further, ilr. Chapman. But to one of
girl." " your* knowledge of the world, I need not say
Waife. " Separate from her .' I should only that your silence deprives me of the power to
leave her for a few davs at a time till she gets . assist yourself. We'll talk no more of that."
well. This monev wi'll keep her— how long ? i Waife. " Thank you gratefully, Mr. Mayor."
Two months— three ? — how long? — the Doctor Me. Haetopp. " Bat for the little girl, make
would not charae much." I your mind easy — at least for the present. I
Haetopp. '"You will not confide in me, then ? ; "will place her at my farm cottage. My bailiff's
At your age — have vou no friends — no one to , wife, a kind woman, wiU take care of her, while
speak a gw>d word for you?" | you pursue your calling elsewhere. As for this
Does she want a good word spoken for her ? \ bit of a doctor myself. Every man blessed with
Heaven has written it in her face." \ a large family, in whose house there is always
Hartopp persisted no more ; the excellent some interesting case of smaU-pox, measles,
man was sincerely grieved at his visitor's oh- hooping-cough, scarlarina, etc., has a good pri-
stinate avoidance of the true question at issue; vate practice of his own. I'm not brilliant in
for the Mavor could have found employment for ; book-learning, 3Ir. Chapman, but as to chil-
a man of Waife's evident education and talent. ', dren's complaints in a practical way" (added
But such employment would entail responsibil- : Hartopp. with a glow of pride), "Mrs. H. says
itics and trtist. ' How recommend to it a man she'd rather trust the little ones to me than Dr.
of vshose life and circumstances nothing could GiU. ITl see your child, and set her up, I'll be
be known — a man without a character? — And bound. But now I think of it,"' continued Har-
Waife interested him deeply. We have all topp, softening more and more, " if exhibit you
felt that there are some persons toward whom must, why not stay at Gatesboro' for a time ?
we are attracted bv a peculiar sympathy not to More may be made in this to^-n than else-
be explained — a something in the manner, the where."
cut of the face, the tone of the voice. If there ; "Xo, no; I could not have the heart to act
are fiftv applicants for a benefit in otir gift, one , here again without her. I feel at present as if
of the fiftv -n-ins his way to oar preference at ^ I can never again act at all I Something else
first sight,'though with no better right to it than ; will turn up. Providence is so kind to me, >Ir.
his fellows. We can no more say why we like Mayor."
the man than we can say why we faU in love \ Waife turned to the door — "You wiU come
with a woman in whom no one else would dis- soon ?" he said, anxiously,
cover a charm. " There is," says a Latin love- \ The ^Mayor, who had been locking up his
poet, "no why or wherefore in liking." Har- ledgers and papers, replied, "I will but stay to
topp, therefore, had taken, from the first mo- ' give some orders ; in a quarter of ar hour I shall
ment, to Waife — the staid, respectable, thriving be at your hotel"
man, all mtiffled up from head to foot in the
whitest lawn of reputation — to the wandering,
shifty, tricksome scatterling, who had not seem-
inglv secured, through the course of a life bor- CHAPTEPw XX.
denng upon age, a single certificate for good ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^,
conduct. On his hearthstone, beside his ledger-
book, stood the Mavor, looking with a respect- Sopht was lying on a sola
fol admiration that puzzled himself upon the window in her own room, and on her lap was
tirav.-n near tue
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
87
the doll Lionel had given to her. Carried with
her in her wanderings, she had never played
■n-ith it ; never altered a ribbon in its yellow
tresses ; but at least once a day she had taken
it forth and looked at it in secret. And all that
morning, left much to herself, it had been her
companion. She was smoothing down its frock,
which she fancied had got ruffled — smoothing it
down with a sort of fearful tenderness, the doll
all the while staring her full in the face with its
blue bead eyes. Waife, seated near her, was
trying to talk gayly ; to invent tairy tales blithe
with sport and fancy, but his invention tlagged,
and the fairies prosed awfully. He had placed
the dominoes before Sir Isaac, but Sophy had
scarcely looked at them, from the languid, hea-
vy eyes on which the doll so stupidly fixed its
own. 8ir Isaac himself seemed spiritless ; he
was aware that something was wrong. Xow and
then he got up restlessly, sniffed the dominoes,
and placed a paw gently, very gently, on Sophy's
knee. Not being encouraged, he lay down again
uneasily, often shifting his position as if the floor
was grown too hard for him. Thus the Mayor
found the three. He approached Sophy with
the step of a man accustomed to sick rooms and
ailing children — step light as if shod with felt
— put his hand on her shoulder, kissed her fore-
head, and then took the doll. Sophy started,
and took it back from him quickly, but without
a word ; then she hid it behind her pillow. The
Mayor smiled — "My dear child, do you think
I should hurt your doll ?"
Sopliy colored, and said murmuringly, "No,
Sir, not hurt it, but — " she stopped short.
' • I have been talking to your grandpapa about
you, my dear, and we both wish to give you a
little holiday. Dolls are well enough for the
winter, but green fields and daisy-chains for the
summer."
Sophy glanced from the Mayor to her grand-
father, and back again to the Mayor, shook her
curls from her eyes and looked seriously inquis-
itive.
The Mayor, observing her quietly, stole her
hand into his own, feeling the pulse as if mere-
ly caressing the tender wrist. Then he began
to descrihe his bailifl's cottage, with woodbine
round the porch, the farm-yard, the bee-hives,
the pretty duck-pond with an osier island, and
the great China gander who had a pompous
strut, which made him the drollest creature pos-
sible. And Sophy should go there in a day or
two, and be as happy as one of the bees, but not
so busy.
Sophy listened very earnestly, very gravely,
and then sliding her hand from the flavor,
caught hold of her grandfather's arm firmly,
and said, " And you, Grandy — will you like it ?
won't it be didl for you, Grandy, dear?"
"Why, my darling," said Waife, "I and Sir
Isaac will go and take a stroll about the coun-
try for a few weeks, and — "
SoPJiY (passionately). " I thought so ; I thought
he meant tliat. I tried not to believe it ; go
away — you ? and who's to take care of you ?
who'll understand you ? I want care ! I — I !
No, no ,• it is you — you who want care. I shall
be well to-morrow — quite well, don't fear. He
shall not be sent away from me ; he shall not.
Sir. Oh, grandfather, grandfather, how could
you ?'' She flung herself on his breast, clinging I
there, clinging as if infancy and age were but
parts of the same whole.
"But," said the Mayor, "it is not as if you
were going to school, my dear ; you arc going
for a holiday. And your grandfather must
leave you — must travel about — 'tis his calling.
If you fell ill and were with him, think how
much you would be in his way. Do you know,"
he added, smiling, "I shall' begin to fear that
you are selfish."
" Seltish !" exclaimed Waife, angi-ily.
" Selfish 1" echoed Sophy, with a melancholy
scorn that came from a sentiment so deep that
mortal eye could scarce fatliom it. " Oh, no,
Sir ! can you say it is for his good, not for, what
he supposes, mine, that you want us to part ?
The pretty cottage — and all for me — and what
for him? — tramp, tramp along the hot, dusty
roads. Do you see that he is lame ? Oh, Sir,
I know him — you don't. Selfish! he would
have no merry ways that make you laugh with-
out me; would you, Grandy, dear? Go away,
you are a naughty man — go, or I shall hate you
as much as that dreadful Mr. Rugge."
"Rugge — who is he?" said the Mayor,«curi-
ously, catching at any clew.
"Hush, my darling! — hush!" said Waife,
fondling her on his breast. "Hush! What is
to be done. Sir?"
Hartopp made a sly sign to him to say no
more before Sophy, and then replied, address-
ing himself to her —
"What is to be done ? Nothing shall be done,
my dear child, that you dislike. I don't wish
to part you two. Don't hate me — lie down
again — that's a dear. There, I have smoothed
your pillow for you ■ oh, here's your pretty doll
again."
Sophy snatched at the doll petulantly, and
made what the French call a 7/ioue at the good
man, as she suff'ered her grandfather to replace
her on the sofa.
" She has a strong temper of her own," mut-
tered the Mayor • " so has Anna Maria a strong
temper!"
Now, if I were any^vay master of my own pen,
and could write as I pleased, without being hur-
ried along, helter-skelter, by the tyrannical ex-
actions of that "young Rapid" in buskins and
chiton, called "The Historic IMuse," I would
break ofi" this chapter, open my window, rest
my eyes on the green lawn without, and indulge
in a rhapsodical digression upon that beautifier
of the moral life, which is called "Good Tem-
per." Ha! — the Historic Muse is dozing. By
her leave I — Softly.
CHAPTER XXL
Being an Essay on Temper in general, and a hazardous
experiment on the reader's in particular.
There, the window is open ! how instinctive-
ly the eye rests upon the green I liow the calm
color lures and soothes it ! But is there to the
green only a single hue ? See how infinite the
variety of its tints ! What sombre gravity in
yon cedar, yon motionless pine-tree ! What
lively but unvarying laugli in yon glossy laurels!
Do those tints charm us like the play in the
young leaves of the hlac — lighter here, darker
88
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
there, as the breeze (and so slight the breeze !)
stirs them into checker — into rijiple ? Oh sweet
green, to the world what sweet temper is to
man's life! Who would reduce into one dye
all thy lovely varieties? who exclude the dark
steadfast verdure that lives on through the win-
ter day ; or the mutinous caprice of the gentler,
vounger tint that came fresh through the tears
of Ajn-il, and will shadow with sportive tremor
the blooms of luxuriant June?
Happy the man on whose marriage-hearth
temper smiles kind from the eyes of woman !
"No deity present," saith the heathen proverb,
"where absent — Pnidence" — no joy long a
guest where Peace is not a dweller. Peace, so
like Faith, that they may be taken for each
otlier, and poets have clad them with the same
vail. But in cliildhood, in early youth, expect
not the changeless green of the cedar. Wouldst
thou distinguish fine temper from spiritless dull-
ness, from cold simulation — ask less what the
temper, than what the disposition.
Is the nature sweet and trustful, is it free from
the morbid self-love which calls itself "sensitive
feeli»g," and frets at imaginary offenses ; is the
tendency to be grateful for kindness — yet take
kindness meekly, and accept as a benefit what
the vain call a due? From dispositions thus
blessed, sweet temper will come forth to glad-
den tliee, spontaneous and free. Quick witii
some, witli some slow, word and look emerge
out of the lieart. Be thy fi.rst question, " Is tlie
heart itself generous and tender?" If it be so,
self-control comes with deepening afl:ection.
Call not that a good heart which, Imstening to
sting if a fibre be ruffled, cries, " I am no hypo-
crite." Accept that excuse, and revenge be-
comes virtue. But where the heart, if it give
the offense, pines till it win back the pardon ; if
offended itself, bounds forth to forgive, ever
longing to sootlie, ever grieved if it wound ; tlien
be sure that its nobleness will need but few
trials of pain in each outbreak, to refine and
chastise its expression. Fear not then ; be but
noble thyself, thou art safe !
Yet what in childhood is often called, rebuk-
ingly, " temper," is but the cordial and puissant
vitality which contains all the elements that
make temj^r the sweetest at last. Who among
us, how wise soever, can construe a child's
heart? who conjecture all the springs that se-
cretly vibrate within, to a touch on the surface
of feeling ? Eacli child, but especially the girl-
child, would task the whole lore of a sage, deep
as Shakspeare, to distinguish those subtle emo-
tions which we grown folks have outlived.
" She has a strong temper," said the JNtayor,
when Sophy snatched the doll from his hand a
second time, and pouted at him, spoiled child,
looking so divinely cross, so petulantly pretty.
And how on earth could the Mayor know what
associations with that stupid doll made her
think it profaned by the touch of a stranger?
Was it to her eyes as to his — mere wax-work
and frippery, or a symbol of holy remembrances,
of gleams into a fairer world, of " devotion to
something afar from the sphere of her sorrow?"
Was not the evidence of " strong temper" the
very sign of aff'ectionate depth of heart ? Poor
little Sophy. Hide it again — safe out of sight —
close, inscrutable, unguessed, as childhood's
first treasures of sentiment ever are !
CHAPTER XXIL
The object of Civilization beinjj always to settle people
one way or tlie other. Hie Mayor of Gatesboro' entertains
a statesmanliice ambition to settle Gentleman Waife:
no doubt a wise conception, and in accordance with the
genius of the Nation. — Every Session of Parliament,
England is employed in settling folks, whether at home
or at the Antipodes, who ignorantly object to be settled
in her way ; in short, " I'll settle them," has become a
vulgar idiom, tantamount to a threat of uttermost ex-
termination or smash. — Therefore the Jlayor of Gates-
boro', harboring that benignant idea with reference to
"Gentleman A\'aife," all kindly readers will exclaim,
"Dii, Meliora! What will he do with it?"
The doll once more safe behind the pillow,
Sophy's face gradually softened ; she bent for-
ward, touched the Mayor's hand timidly, and
looked at him with pleading, penitent eyes, still
wet with tears — eyes that said, though the lips
were silent — " I'll not hate you. I was ungrate-
ful and peevish ; may I beg pardon?"
"I forgive you with all my heart," cried the
Mayor, interpreting the look aright. ' ' And now
try and compose yourself and sleep while I talk
with your grandpapa below."
" I don't see how it is possible that I can leave
her," said Waife, when the two men hud ad-
journed to the sitting-room.
"I am sure," quoth the Mayor, seriously, "that
it is the best thing for her ; her pulse has much
nervous excitability ; she wants a complete rest ;
she ought not to move about with you on any
account. But come — though I must not know,
it seems, who and what you arc, Mr. Chapman
— I don't tliiuk you will run oft" with my cows,
and if you like to stay at the Bailitt"'s Cottage
for a week or two with your grandchild, you
shall be left in peace, and asked no questions.
I will own to you a weakness of mine — I value
myself on being seldom or never taken in. I
don't think I could forgive the man who did
take me in. But taken in I certainly shall be,
if, despite all your mystery, you are not as hon-
est a fellow as ever stood upon shoe-leather!
So come to the cottage."
Waife was very much aff'ectcd by this confid-
ing kindness ; but he shook his head despond-
ently, and that same abject, almost cringing hu-
mility of mien and manner which had pained,
at times, Lionel and Vance, crept over the whole
man, so that he seemed to cower and shrink as
a Pariah before a Brahman. "No, Sir; thank
you most humbly. No, Sir — that must not be.
I must work for my daily bread, if what a poor
vagabond like me may do can be called work.
I have made it a rule for years not to force my-
self to the hearth and home of any kind man,
who, not knowing my past, has a right to sus-
pect me. Where I lodge, I pay as a lodger ; or
whatever favor shown me spares my purse, I try
to return in some useful, humble way. Why,
Sir, how could I make free and easy with an-
other man's board and roof-tree for days or
weeks together, when I would not even come to
your hearthstone for a cup of tea ?" The Mayor
remembered, and was startled. Waife hurried
on. " But for my poor child I have no such
scruples — no. shame, no false pride. I take what
you off'er her gratefully — gratefully. Ah, Sir,
she is not in her right place with me ; but
there's no kicking against the pricks. Where
was I? Oh! well, I tell you what we will do,
Sir. I will take her to the Cottage in a day or
two — as soon as she is ■well enough to go — and
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
89
spend the dar Ti^ith her, and deceive her, Sir!
yes, deceive, cheat her, Sir! I am a cheat — a
plaver — and she'll think I'm goinci to stay with
her; and at night, when she's asleep, I'll creep
off, I and the other dog. But I'll leave a letter
for her — it will soothe her, and she'll be patient
and wait. I will come back again to see her in a
week, and once every week till she's well again."
" And what will you do ?"
"I don't know" — but, said the actor, forcing
a laugh — " I'm not a man likely to starve. Oh,
never fear. Sir I"
So the Mayor went away, and strolled across
the fields to his Bailiff's cottage, to prepare for
the guest it would receive.
" It is all very well that the poor man should
be away for some days," thought Mr. Hartopp. I
"Before he comes again, I shall have hit on ;
some plan to ser\"e him ; and I can learn more |
about him from the child in his absence, and j
see what he is really fit for. There's a school-
master wanted in ilorley's village. Old ilorley |
vrrote to me to recommend him one. Good j
salary — pretty house. But it would be wrong
to set over young children — recommend to a |
respectable proprietor and his parson — a man
whom I know nothing about. Impossible ! that
will not do. If there was any place of light
service which did not require trust or responsi-
bility — but there is no such place in Great Brit-
ain. Suppose I were to set him up in some
easy way of business-^a little shop, eh? I don't
know. What would Williams say ? If, indeed,
I were taken in I — if the man I am thus credu-
lously trusting turned out a rogue" — the Mayor
paused and actually shivered at that thought —
" why then, I should be fallen indeed. 3Iy wife
would not let me have half-a-croT\-n in my
pockets ; and I could not walk a hundred yards
but AVilliams would be at my heels to protect
me from being stolen by gipsies. Taken in by
him! Xo, impossible ! But if it turn out as I
suspect — that contrary to vulgar pritdence. I am
divining a really great and good man in difficul-
ties — Aha, what a triumph I shall then gain
over them all. How Williams will revere me !"
The good man laughed aloud at that thought,
and walked on with a prouder step.
CHAPTER XXm.
A pretty trifle in its ■waj-, no doubt, is the love between
youth and youth — Gay varieties of the bauble spread
the counter of the Great Toy-Shop — But thou, courte-
ous Dume Nature, raise thine arm to yon shelf, some-
what out of everyday reach, and bring me down that
obsolete, neglected, unconsidered thing, the Love be-
tween Age and Childhood.
The next day Sophy was better — the day
after, improvement was more visible — and on
the third day AVaife paid his bill, and conducted
her to the nirnl abode to v.'hich, credulous at
last of his promises to share it with her for a
time, he enticed her fated steps. It was little
more than a mile beyond the suburbs of the
town, and though the walk tired her, she con-
cealed fatigue, and would not suffer him to car-
ry her. The cottage now smiled out before
them — thatched gable roof, with fancy barge
board — half Swiss, half what is called Eliza-
bethan — all the fences and sheds round it, as
only your rich traders, condescending to ttim
farmers, construct and maintain — slieds and
fences, trim and neat, as if models in wax-
work. The breezy air came fresh fro^i the new
haystacks — from the woodbine round the porch
— from the breath of the lazy kine, as tliey stood
knee-deep in the pool, that, belted with weeds
and broad-leaved water-lilies, lay calm and
gleaming amidst level pastures.
Involuntarily they arrested their steps, to gaze
on the cheerful landscape and inhale the balmy
air. Meanwhile the Mayor came out from the
cottage porch, his wife leaning on his arm, and
two of his younger children bounding on before,
with joyous faces, giving chase to a gaudy butter-
fly which they had started from the woodbine.
Mrs. Hartopp had conceived a lively curi-
osity to see and judge for herself of the ob-
jects of her liege lord's benevolent interest.
She shared, of course, the anxiety which formed
the standing excitement of all those who lived
but for one godlike purpose — that of preserv-
ing Josiah Hartopp from being taken in. But
whenever the Mayor specially wished to se-
cure his wife's countenance to any pet project
of his own, and convince her either that he was
not taken in, or that to be discreetly taken in is,
in this world, a very popular and sure mode of
getting up, he never failed to attain his end.
That man was the cunningest creature ! As
full of wiles and stratagems in order to get his
own way — in benevolent objects — as men who
set up to be clever are for selfish ones. ]\Irs.
Hartopp was certainly a good woman, but a
made good woman. Married to another man, I
suspect that she would have been a shrew. Ve-
trnchio would have tamed her, I"ll swear. But
she, poor lady, had been gradually, but complete-
ly subdued, subjugated, absolutely cowed beneath
the weight of her spouse's despotic mildness ;
for in Hartopp there icas a v.eight of soft quiet-
ude, of placid oppression, wholly irresistible. It
would have buried a Titaness under a Pelion of
moral feather-beds. Mass upon mass of downy
influence descended upon you, seemingly yield-
ing as it fell, enveloping, overbearing, stifling
you ; not presenting a single hard point of con-
tact ; giving in as you pushed against it ; sup-
pleing itself seductively round you, softer and
softer, heavier and heavier, till, I assure you,
ma'am, no matter how high your natural wifely
spirit, you would have had it smothered out of
you, your last rebellious murmur dying languidly
away under the descending fleeces.
" So kind in yon to come with me, JIary,"
sa^d Hartopp. "I could not have been hap-
' py without your approval : look at the child —
I something about her like Mary Anne, and Mary
Anne is the picture of you !"
I Waife advanced, uncovering; the two chil-
dren, having lost trace of the butterfly, liad run
up toward Sophy. But her shy look made them-
selves shy — shyness is so contagious — and they
' stood a "little aloof, gazing at her. Sir Isaac
stalked direct to the Mayor, sniffed at him, and
wagiied his tail.
Mrs. Hartopp now bent over Sophy, and ac-
knowledging that the face was singularly prett}',
glanced "graciouslv toward her husband, and
said, '•! see the likeness!" then to Sophy, "I
fear you are tired, my dear ; you must not over-
, fatigue yourself— and you must take milk fresh
• I t
VTHAT WILL HE DO WITH FT ?
« e oo«M •■>« a att^ I
■:rr
tmjimgJ I kA««
tad TOO, b« f i r
rtiper boM, wbere jv^
OM who. »f he |Je«^
ay dtr. c(Mja uV - •
,aad ros oat — *
^. a«aU Boc'be above IS afar,
. > .:««i oa — rrfiili far famcj-wtA» m
ware Ak: bstfaniODe— todkaadtaUca
— laoatfvoat dear.
•• CJb oa, TCTT litxle voaU do a> i«."
Ivct M coaat tW mocct ve kare kft,' caid
throviaf kiaaeif do«a oa a |«ece «f
.:iaS«adrckda»kadTaaftcfTTtree. OU
sa^ ud ckOd coasted tka ■oty. W >y ki^
I fiUrtHuaaJamij — > * fcMi»t , imati m j f ti u g tad
.d M«MM at andi a> i» artiaj fla^*— ik^
en akeorted ia tke f ale m iaai*<a T
I U
.tm%i immuttmt m tke fatan jdaaaed by
6«ak teM Rabimmm Crwoc or :
iVr— I
r a», cr:
. i
ft.
cr kefeaiw Twa mn p ^ trnt m'. -» atat
.a r,f aie.-
- e xywin a of K
relaxed iato ic
jMJar kit ana idi<> r.rr«. k^-i
. aak owe wn ia*a tke Wokea
- '-»U Mr^oft, ko drew ker
^ yaeed tka Iktk ordea
;,-r,,t!i U tecaed to te-
liaarj ckecrfal
Mcabcr; jart tke fkme
addealT. '^It » saaj
IvMtkcrc; Ivaecoafi
rn ^ Utfj »: 'te ti — e h t a ta t! ta i
m1 tko^ku ao« ! jan tke ptaee, aear a lani
/VB. kA ta a preny Tina^ qaata reciied fhii
.. Twat tkcta I kafwd to aake bat^^
jd baokea "-^ ^r — f^D fireea a korte — aockn
,^ II AS oU batkd-makjer : 1
^1 » rii JUrmki at tke back oi k
.X Mten. finu'ol- l»aetke«BW
«s fiwB aij littk ca t erat wto
B, kdL »*» teaiac. Aad Liny a«d to '
to ae wck dear kocr* ; nj batkett «<
for ker. We kad baekcu cMa«k to kair
aitked a ko«a vitk batkctt :
■a»»b «r c
abatkett,ta»iakat fcrf t.tfai»iaba.to». •
>fe« lenoM leoatdtooa recover tke kaack
tkewQck. Iikoakifikeloteetke|daeea«ai
is voaU be tkakia< kaadt vitk mj joatk «■
^tan. Noaa -fco «*■" I«""J lecopiJ* «
eoaU be ao« Iniac i^,»«» «^*^J^ "
ceoa. tke batket-aaker. aad bit vrfe ; all to a
^g^j • »- In-*' aaM ntkered to tkeir I
tkert.
trade ».»- • - — .- - - - - . „ »_
mt^lf; perkaia tke cottage ittelf ■a* be e«
iuied.- That.eTerdi.|««ltobetaa«aiaej
„«boai ckawered oa, SofAy bMeaaac fc^
.rTTmrna ♦ ap to kit face. -Aadafaeki
ihcovaert p«a« lordt, deter
-. it b detcfted tCilL Toaai|
1^ tiaiirt ■e^rr aad bit wile ; all to a
mmt be hiaic liace fatkered to «k«r (
pcrkasa bo oae earnca oa tke bad
mam.ltmtr nrif U aad kata it aO
•0&3
.Ai si'^ti A r^wJ ur '."'J ot garvKa ^--
♦ — tack (reea
,r.r zjkm raaaiag acro at tke W
'c«r too ! We aill aafce frieads a
...^ keepet*, aad we wiB eaU tke r
- SoiAt; a»dItkallbeaseaia«wkow«a
iJilAet^ ««l ,« tkaU be Ike eacfcaa
^.e coaccaled frtaa afl eril ere*, k
,, of peari aader karee "(^mt'^
^rZami (nm the worii <^/^^
; * a. tke boa«kt wkiH*r aad the hi
l>car ae, here Toa are—wa ihoa^t
io- - Mid the baiUrt wife ; "tea u w
ilU «id there . ^'-^T^'J^IL?!^
uhiw«k; beTlbeproaUaadtladtoki
9f
WHAT WILL HE IK) WITH IT?
-n out. bat with
joo. Sir, and joa too, mr dear ; we bare no | raprant, will not gradge the uriog band
ebiidrcn of our own.**
It is past elcren. ^
emotions far more pi
known, is fust asleep,
looking at her. lie
and soft—-' ' •
bend-t ovt.
tear ; lie -
At t'.. •
harmle&s child.'
The letter to Snphr ran tha« :
' me ; I have
r a few dnv*.
drar. I shall be «.
and not feel an achc
- Isaac.
h. 'Ir. Gooch.
'^You'll Dul know Lcr an^nuu wLeu vou come not keep up with mc — \<,a Lnv>a \ui.
bark." I So think c>\cr the roitac-p and the !•
W.. I the band of bis grandchild's and ;
bost. : speak. it i>
bean.
. Sir? It
. awav at t!
liut 1 uuU«.r!>tand you
—we men d"n't ; and ronr
1. 1 dare sav, wt ■ ' "
if she knew, i
;' ■ on. And 1 -.i'. <i ii i nv; iiiA.nu mi .
children dcArlr — so do I. Good-
Un wer.'
slowlv — '
.rt. lo tliC
. under ibii
Ijj" dj a u bu rest.
■il lukllt* ilk i.u.^ii,,^ \
«hnll never «t.nnil o; h
.... i -.- ...,. 1, h
fancy I <ic*ert w
! . ^ . quite well ; I i
• >i you on my k
The letter ui _• were taken ot«
•unrise, to Mr. llar^'^'p" vilhs. Mr. Ha ^
«-•• nn earlv man. Siiphv rnvr«lept hei f
■ ■• . •.■ . },
- of the »t I
.r early. 1'.
I fri>m the window, s^a il.
• ••n*. ami. a.<hamcd uf her
■ ■ ■ ■ letter on i! • i
licr ; Uic tr ■ 1
r
CHAITKR XXIV.
Laa gDK:iorebodia(B of eril, bat trembta after (U7-4reaias f
w<
_• . J'liM.(^U UU
«he
[laie. It was
Mkc up the lctt(
ilic hcal. Wh< ■
y, her tears dn ] .
t cHort or sob. Sin- l,:i
•V, no ^.Ticf in bcinj; k-fi ;
" 1 trust, dear and honored Sir, that I shall
come back safc-ly ; and w hen I do, I mar have
found, jicrhaps, a home for her, and some way
of life such as yon would not blame. But. in
case of accident, I hare left with Mr. G'«
sealed up, the money we made at Gate*!-
„.-. ... . , ,._, the iiK) ' ' ; . . . .
mere tri;!
1 • J support ' ... i
ly take care of it. I should not feel safe with
more money about me, an old man. I might
be robbed ; besides, I am careless. I never can
keep money ; it slipa out of my hands like an
( ' " en bless you. Sir; your kindness
a miracle vouchsafed to me for that
c... . -.^ar sake. No oil can chance to her
with you ; and if I should fall ill and die, even
then you, who would have aided the tricksome
fice — this it was that .••titluf^cd her v
with unutterable yearning.* of tcndcrir
tude. pity, veneration. But when she liuJ
(iilently for wimf* timf . «he kissed the leitpr
■ 1 to that I!
j'lt her fir-"
— she would trj' and get well and stronp.
would feci, at the distance, that she was tr
his wishes — that she was fitting herself i
again his companion; seven days would
7)a's. Hope, that can never long fjuit '
of fhildhood, brightened over her ni'
as the morning sun over a land.sca|>c ;
bcfurc, had lain sad amidst twilight and i.
rains.
lT will he DC) WITH IT ?
Wheal ^e • .:
pleased aiwi sur"
npon her face
af"-"' -
go* - "
TcrK .-- - — - — -- — - ,
'cinrr£!iei:^:i-r :'--'-'i-~ — .---inDosea. eneemu.
" ■• I X31 ~-^ -;^-i '^ ^^- "-''^ don": pine s&sr
Tonr iood grandpapa- as we feared joa wouiiL''
' -He raid me not id pine.'' aaswered Sophy,
smpi^. but -snta. a aui^ermc Up.
Waea The noon deepened, and k became ido
^-^ - -rr::ise. Sotiiij nmidlv asked if Mzs.
^2_ - •cvcrsteda and kniEiing-needlea.
an _ romodaied vrixh. zhose impleniHns
^-- .. siie -vriiiidrew u) me arbat and
3^; -_o wQik — soiiraiy and xranqniL
TTij.: ziaae. perhaiH. die chief scren^th in
liui :?ocr child's namre. was iis imense umsifn^-
3iess" a 'larr. perhaps, cf its insiincrive appretna-
uon of Emm. She Lruited 'J. "Waife — a._^*ie
■p., _--, '/- ^ ;ence — in her own ehilaish.
-, Already, as her siiiihi nn-
(Tw ■ -sreds. and her graceful laste
shaaeu m^eir hues inro blended harmonv. hsr
mind was weariii;:. not less harmoTiiotisiv_ tae
hues in die woof of dreams : the .• _ - -e
— die harmless tasks — 'Waife. witn a
the arm-chair, n-niipr some perch. j--
thai one ■wonder — wiyncuP — wi3±Lr:2.r"— ■ >^-
bine. ^nd life, if Imadde, lifwiffst, U'lii.liriil. net
" n i ni r^** dsv. 90 ^ac i£ Ttifmftl ma
ho' again, she ahonid not blmiL bbt he he bodi-
ed. And if zsi-'- ^-'-^ -"HB SB ^SexBB. as hia
crrandfather s:- '' wu(^t cwbbb, as 'siter
had crosed be ^ — die wui. ^do^n her
hand, die sweet uus parfiPii. saaBa^ a pacsoEe
came beibre her eves — her wT«n<ifiB4n»r T.tonBl,
herself ; all three, fi w^niit lai. L_ , —sam.
ruir as the Thames haaLaeeaaec — tis all
"r^artifM j m summer — ""•" ■^"•■- - n mai
boaz they three, acri — — "'sj —
■what Tn*"^-^^^ wq^TTv" . . — :i ti ;
fiaH-ng h^ the boy s m^'jnr- KUIC eves. She
started, ^e heard noises — a SH-iigni^ gare —
Sjoisie^b. She started — she rtjse — Toice* : ne
soance to her. a man's vcdce. then the Mj^ - 5.
A third -njice. mr'Z. " ' ""ie -^caL-j^
_ _ — impossi-
.-~e tne looisiEps. Seized
- -_:ht. she sprang to the
TTrnTt rTTUT her srlarec two
She stood — airested — speH-
hearo. ni mranLy —
cmeiiy. Tmser^ '^'"'^
biel year — -•. ..:vr
with die impTi-^-
■mr mrri of die ^lOOT.
na-nz baletni eves.
boraid — as a bird &Lsd ngid by die gaze of a
sarient.
-Yes. ^'- ^^ "" --'- ■ "^ ■^■~ "'8
giri — on;
Sach a . . -.~
lore I" ^a Mis. Crane.
BOOK IV.
CHAPTES L
esi aatttres diere is a ceradn aenalii cness.
: Ttnmded. occasions tne same pain. »nd
:.a same resennnfint. as mornned. vajuiv
iziood man bankrupr : 5^0 — n.- -iS
, ,„,>.. can it be ? Seader. that fat^ . -y
Vis esacdv diai da-r week, toward die honr who love Josiah Harropp are ever it u-^i..:.. to
of five in me eVemn- : Mr. Hortopp. alone in die prevent, despite aH dieir vig-„ance. has occnrreO.
parlor behind his warehouse, is locking up his Joaai Harropp has Deen x^-t- . -:rmen
books and ledgers preparuEorv ro the i^mrn ro mav be occasionai^v :a^en :n. .. ""^^
his villa. Tha^ is a certain -_ _.-,-.. ,^, „ ... ^
pression of his countenance - -_
snocK.
Icr
gnaa.
eflWT>
or ax. ;
ooold
Hare
>.w — .
ouu a yoa will j;m;;v:c biivjcu. ^c pur-
^i•r_ "aniliams giving orders in dje ware-
.r-^bousemen
Tiin-vard —
-i in me
wear a
'<n^h aU
;e was never
<.:. Thus the ~
imrrancadc ox' uie basie acdon un.:
■"^*^ was sc ■'^sll^'n. "^srr^d oti qis '*
-e;- and
-rtn carrv vcmr jaze
gcn«:i"aa. ■
.e occasiLi;.
94
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
and Virtue indeed a name I" Mr. Hartopp felt
not only mortified but subjugated — he who had
hitherto been the soft subjugator of the hardest.
He felt not only subjugated, but indignant at the
consciousness of being so. He was too meekly
convinced of Heaven's unerring justice not to
feel assured that the man who had taken him
in would come to a tragic end. He would not
have hanged that man with his own hands — he
was too mild for vengeance. But if he had seen
that man hanging, he would have said, piously,
"Fitting retribution!" and passed on his way
soothed and comforted. Taken in I — taken in
at last ! — he, Josiah Hartopp, taken in by a fel-
low with one eye !
CHAPTER II.
The Mayor is so protected that he can not help himself
A COMMOTION" without — a kind of howl — a
kind of hoot. Mr. Williams — the warehouse-
men, the tanners, Mike Callaghan, share be-
tween them the howl and the lioot. The May-
or started — is it possible ! His door is burst
open, and, scattering all who sought to hold him
back — scattering them to the right and left from
his massive torso, in rushed the man who had
taken in the IMayor — the fellow with one eye,
and with that fellow, shaggy and travel-soiled,
the other dog !
"What have you done with the charge I in-
trusted to you? My child — my child — where is
she ?"
Waife's face was wild with the agony of his
emotions, and his voice was so sharply terrible
that it went like a knife into the heart of the
men, who, thrust aside for the moment, now fol-
lowed him, fearful, into the room.
" ]\Ir. — Mr. Chapman, Sir," faltered the
Mayor, striving hard to recover dignity and
self-possession, "I am astonished at your —
your — "
"Audacity!" interposed Mr. Williams.
"My child — my Sophy — my child! answer
me, man !"
"Sir," said the Mayor, drawing himself up,
"have you not got the note which I left at my
bailiff's cottage in case you called there?"
" Your note — this thing !" said Waife, strik-
ing a crumpled paper with his hand, and run-
ning his eye over its contents. "You have ren-
dered up, you say, the child to her la^^-ful pro-
tector? Gracious Heavens ! did 7 trust her to
you or not?"
" Leave the room all of you," said the Mayor,
with a sudden return of his usual calm vigor.
"You' go — you. Sirs; what the deuce do you
do here?" growled Williams to the meaner
throng. "Out! — I stay; never fear, men, I'll
take care of him !"
The by-standers surlily slinked off, but none
returned to their work ; they stood within reach
of call by the shut door. AYilliams tucked up
his coat-sleeves, clenched his fists, hung his head
doggedly on one side, and looked altogether so
pugnacious and minatory, that Sir Isaac, who,
though in a state of great excitement, had hith-
erto retained self-control, peered at him under
his curls, stiffened his back, sliowed his teeth
and growled formidably.
" My good Williams, leave us," said the May-
or ; "I would be alone with this person."
" Alone — you ! out of the question. Xow you
have been once taken in, and you own it — it is
my duty to protect you henceforth ; and I will
to the end of my days."
The IMayor sighed heavily — "Well, Williams,
well I — take a chair, and be quiet. Xow, Mr.
Chapman, so to call you still ; you have de-
ceived me."
" I— how ?"
The Mayor was puzzled. "Deceived me,"
he said at last, " in my knowledge of human
nature. I thought you an honest man. Sir.
And you are — but no matter."
Waife (impatiently). " ^ly child, my child !
you have given her up — to — to — "
Mayor. "Her own father. Sir."
Waife (echoing the words as he staggers
back). " I thought so — I thought it !"
Mayor. " In so doing I obeyed the law — he
had legal power to enforce his demand." The
Mayor's voice was almost apologetic in its tone,
for he was afl'ected by Waife's anguish, and not
able to silence a pang of remorse. After all, he
had been trusted ; and he had, excusably per-
haps, necessarily perhaps, but still he had failed
to fulfill the trust. "But," added the INIayor,
as if reassuring himself — " But I refused at "first
to give her uj), even to her own father ; at first
insisted upon waiting till your return ; and it
was only when I was informed what you your-
self were that my scruples gave way."
Waife remained long silent, breathing very
hard, and passing his hand several times over
his forehead ; at last he said more quietly than
he had yet spoken, "Will you tell me where
they have gone ?"
"I do not know, and if I did know I would
not tell you ! Are they not right when they say
that that innocent child should not be tempted
away by — by — a — in short, by you. Sir?"
^''They said! Her father— said that! — he
said that! Did he — did he say it? Had he
the heart?"
IMayor. " Xo, I don't think he said it. Eh,
Mr. Williams ? He spoke little to me !"
Mr. Williams. " Of course he would not ex-
pose that person. But the woman — the lady, I
mean."
Waife. " Woman ! Ah, yes. The bailiff's
wife said there was a woman. What woman ?
What's her name ?"
Mayor. " Eeally you must excuse me. I can
say no more. I have consented to see you thus,
because whatever you might have been, or may
be, still it was due to myself to explain how I
came to give up the child ; and, besides, you left
money with me, and that, at least, I can give to
your own hand."
The iVIayor turned to his desk, unlocked it,
and drew forth the bag which Waife had sent
to him.
As he extended it toward the Comedian, his
hand trembled and his cheek flushed. For
Waife's one bright eye had in it such depths of
reproach, that again the Mayor's conscience was
sorely troubled, and he would have given ten
times the contents of that bag to have been alone
with the vagrant, and to have said the soothing
things he did not dare to say before Williams,
who sate tliere mute and grim, guarding him
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
95
from being Once more "taken in/' "If you
had confided in me at first, Mr. Chapman," he
said, pathetically, " or even if now, I could aid
vou in an honest way of life I"
"Aid him — nowl" said Williams, with a
snort. " At it again I you're not a man, you're
an angel I"
"But if he is penitent, Williams."
"So! so! so!" murmured Waife. "Thank
Heaven it was not he who spoke against me — it
was but a strange woman. Oh I" he suddenly
broke otf with a groan. " Oh— hut that strange
woman — who, what car^ she be? and Sophy
with her and him. Distraction ! Yes, yes, I
take the money. I shall want it all. Sir Isaac,
pick up that "bag. Gentlemen, good-day to
Tou!" He bowed; such a failure that bow!
Kothing ducal in it ! bowed and turned toward
the door; then, when he gained the threshold,
as if some meeker, holier thought restored to
him dignity of bearing, his form rose, though
his face softened, and stretching his right hand
toward the ^Mayor, he said: "You did but as all
perhaps would have done on the evidence before
you. Y'ou meant to be kind to her. If you
knew all. how you would repent ! I do not blame
— I forgive you."
He was gone ; the Mayor stood transfixed.
Even Williams felt a cold, comfortless chill.
" He does not look like it," said the foreman.
" Cheer up. Sir, no wonder you were taken in —
who would not have been?"
"Hark! that hoot again. Go, Williams,
don't let the men insult him. Do, do. I shall
be grateful."
But before Williams got to the door, the crip-
ple and his dog had vanished ; vanished down a
dark narrow alley on the opposite side of the
street. The rude" workmen had followed him to
the mouth of the alley, mocking him. Of the
exact charge against the Comedian's good name
they were "not informed: that knowledge was
confined to the Mayor and Mr. Williams. But
the latter had drop"ped such harsh expressions,
that, bad as the charge might really be, all in
Mr. Hartopp's employment probably deemed it
worse, if possible, than it really was. And
wretch indeed must be the man by whom the
^Mayor had been confessedly taken in, and whom
the Mayor had indignantly given up to the re-
proaches of his own conscience. But the crip-
ple was now out of sight, lost amidst those laby-
rinths of squalid homes which, in great towns, are
thrust beyond view, branching oft" abruptly behind
High Streets and Market-places ; so that stran-
gers passing only along the broad thoroughfares,
with glittering shops and gas-lit causeways, ex-
claim, "^^^le^e do the Poor live?"
CHAPTER m.
Ecce iterum Crispinns!
It was by no calculation, but by involuntary
impulse, that Waife, thus escaping from the
harsh looks and taunting raurmui-s of the gos-
iips round the ^Layor's door, dived into those
sordid devious lanes. Vaguely he felt that a
ban was upon him; that the covering he had
thrown over his brand of outcast was lifted up;
that a sentence of expulsion from the High
Streets and Market-places of decorous life was
passed against him. He had been robbed of his
child, and Society, si>eaking in the voice of the
Mayor of Gatesboro', said, " Rightly ! thou art
not fit companion for the innocent I"
At length he found himself out of the town,
beyond its straggling suburbs, and once more on
the solitary road. He had already walked far
that day. He was thoroughly exhausted. He
sate himself down in a dry ditch by the hedge-
row, and taking his head between his hands,
strove to re-collect his thoughts, and rearrange
his plans.
Waife had returned that day to the bailiffs
cottage joyous and elated. He had spent the
week in traveling — partly, though not all the
way on foot, to the distant village in which he
had learned in youth the basket-maker's art!
He had found the very cottage wherein he had
then lodged, vacant, and to be let. There
seemed a ready opening for the humble but
pleasant craft to which he had diverted his am-
bition.
The bailiff intrusted with the letting of the
cottage and osier-ground, had, it is true, re-
quested some reference — not, of course, as to all
a tenant's antecedents, but as to the reasonable
probability that the tenant would be a quiet,
sober man, who would pay his rent, and abstain
from poaching. Waife thought he might safely
presume that the Mayor of Gatesboro' would
not, so far as that went, object to take his past
upon trust, and give him a good word toward
securing so harmless and obscure a future.
Waife had never asked such a favor before of
any man ; he shrunk from doing so now ; but
for his grandchild's sake he would waive his
scruples or humble his pride.
Thus, then, he had come back, full of Elysian
dreams, to his Sophy — his Enchanted Princess.
Gone — taken away, and with the flavor's con-
sent — the consent of the very man upon whom
he had been relying to secure a livelihood and
a shelter! Little more had he learned at the
cottage, for Mr. and Mrs. Gooch had been cau-
tioned to be as brief as possible, and give him
no clew to regain his lost treasure, beyond the
note which informed him it was with a lawful
possessor. And, indeed, the worthy pair were
now prejudiced against the vagrant, and were
rude to him. But he had not tan-ied to cross-
examine and inquire. He had rushed at once
to the Mayor. Sophy was with one whose legal
' right to dispose of her he could not question.
• But where that person would take her — where
■ he resided — what he would do with her — he had
no means to conjecture. Most probably (he
thought and guessed) she would be canied
abroad — was already out of the countn". But
the woman with Losely, he had not heard her
described ; his guesses did not turn toward ]\Irs.
Crane; the woman was evidently hostile to him
— it was the woman who had spoken against
him — not Losely ; the woman whose tongue had
poisoned Hartopp's mind, and turned into scorn
all that admiring respect which had before greet-
ed the great Comedian. Why was that woman
his enemv? AMio could she be? What had
she to do with Sophy ? He was half beside him-
self with terror. It was to save her less even
from Losely than from such direful women as
Losely made his confidants and associates that
96
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Waife had taken Sophy to himself. As for
Mrs. Crane, she had never seemed a foe to hun
— she liad ceded the child to him willingly — he
had no reason to believe, from the way in which
she had spoken of Losely when he last saw her,
that she could henceforth aid the interests, or
share the schemes, of the man whose pei'fidies
she then denounced ; and as to Eugge, he had
not appeared at Gatesboro'. Mrs. Crane had
prudently suggested that his presence would not
be propitiatory or discreet, and that all refer-
ence to him, or to the contract with him, should
be suppressed. Thus Waife was M-holly with-
out one guiding evidence — one groundwork for
conjecture — that might enable him to track the
lost; all he knew was, that she had been given
up to a man whose whereabouts it was ditticult
to discover — a vagrant, of life darker and more
hidden than his own.
But how had the hunters discovered the place
where he had treasured up his Sophy — how
dogged that retreat ? Perhaps from the village
in which we first saw him. Ay, doubtless,
learned from Mrs. Saunders of the dog he had
purchased, and the dog would have sened to di-
rect them on his path. At that thought he
pushed away Sir Isaac, who had been resting
his head on the old man's knee — pushed him
away angrily ; the poor dog slunk otf in sorrow-
ful surprise, and whined.
"Ungrateful wretch that I am," cried Waife,
and he ojiened his arms to the brute, who
bounded forgivingly to his breast !
"Come, come, we will go back to the village
in Surrey. Tramp, tramp!" said the cripple,
rousing himself. And at that moment, just as
he gained his feet, a friendly hand was laid on
his shoulder, and a friendly voice said —
"I have found you! the crystal said so!
Marbellous !"
"Merle," faltered out the vagrant — " Jlerle,
you here I Oh, perhaps you come to tell me
good news: you have seen Sophy — you know
Avhere she is !"
The Cobbler shook his head. " Can't see her
just at present. Ciystal says nout about her.
But I know she was taken from you — and — and
— you shake tremenjous! Lean on me, Mr.
Waife, and call otf that big animal. He's a
suspicating my calves, and circumtittyvating
them. Thank ye. Sir. You see I was born
with sinister aspects in my Twelfth House,
which appertains to big animals and enemies ;
and dogs of that size about one's calves are —
malefics !"
As Merle now slowly led the cripple, and Sir
Isaac, relinquishing his first suspicions, walked
droopingly beside them, the Cobbler began a
long story, much encumbered by astrological
illustrations and moralizing comments. The
substance of his narrative is thus epitomized :
Rugge, in pursuing AVaife's track, had naturally
called on ^lerle in company with Losely and
Mrs. Crane. The Cobbler had no clew to give,
and no mind to give it if clew he had pos-
sessed. But his curiosity being roused, he had
smothered the inclination to dismiss the in-
quirers with more speed than good-breeding,
and even refreshed his slight acquaintance with
Mr. Rugge in so well simulated a courtesy, that
that gentleman, when left behind by Losely and
Mrs. Crane in their journey to Gatesboro', con-
descended, for want of other company, to drink
tea with Mr Merle ; and tea being succeeded
by stronger potations, he fairh' unbosomed him-
self of his hopes of recovering Sophy, and his
ambition of hiring the York theatre.
The day afterward, Hugge went away seem-
ingly in high spirits, and the Cobbler had no
doubt, from some words he let fall in passing
Merle's stall toward the railway, that Sophy was
recaptured, and that Rugge was summoned to
take possession of her. Ascertaining from the
manager that Losely and Mrs. Crane had gone
to Gatesboro', the Cobbler called to mind that
he had a sister living there, married to a green-
grocer m a very small way, whom he had not
seen for many years ; and finding his business
slack just then, he resolved to pay this relative
a visit, with the benevolent intention of looking
up Waife, \\'hom he expected, from Rugge 's ac-
count, to find there, and offering him any con-
solation or aid in his power, should Sophy have
been taken from him against his will. A con-
sultation with his crystal, which showed him the
face of ISIr. Waife alone, and much dejected,
and a horary scheme which promised success to
his journey, decided his movements. He had
arrived at Gatesboro' the day before, had heard
a confused story about a Sir. Chapman, with his
dog and his child, whom the Mayor had first
taken up, but who afterward, in some myste-
rious manner, iiad taken in the Mayor. Hap-
pilj-, the darker gossip in the Higli Street had
not penetrated the back lane in which Merles'
sister resided. There little more was know^n
than the fact that this mysterious stranger had
imposed on the wisdom of Gatesboro's learned
Institute and enlightened Mayor. Merle, at no
loss to identify Waife with Chapman, could only
suppose that he had been discovered to be a
strolling player in Rugge 's exhibition, after pre-
tending to be some much greater man. Such
an oftense the Cobbler was not disposed to con-
sider heinous. But IMr. Chapman was gone
from Gatesboro', none knew whither ; and Merle
had not yet ventured to call himself on the chief
magistrate of the place, to inquire after a man
by whom that august personage had been de-
ceived. "Howsomever," quotli Slerle, in con-
clusion, "I was just standing at my sister's
dooi', with her last babby in my arms, in Scrob
Lane, when I saw you pass by like a shot. You
were gone while I ran in to give up the babby,
who is teething, with malefics in square — gone
— clean out of sight. You took one turn, I took
another ; but you see we meet at last, as good
men always do in this world — or the other, which
is the same thing in the long-run."
Waife, who had listened to his friend with-
out other interruption than an occasional nod
of the head or iuterjectional expletive, was now
restored to much of his constitutional mood of
sanguine cheerfulness. He recognized Mrs. Crane
in tiie woman described, and if surprised, he was
rejoiced. For much as he disliked that gen-
tlewoman, he thought Sophy might be in worse
female hands. Without much need of sagaci-
ty, he divined the gist of the truth. Losely
had somehow or other become acquainted with
Rugge, and sold Sophy to the manager. Where
Rugge was, there would Sophy be. It could not
be very difficult to find out the place in which
Rugge was now exhibiting ; and then — ah then !
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
97
raife whistled to Sir Isaac, tapped his fore- i
ead, and smiled triumphantly. Meanwhile the :
bbbler had led him back into the suburb, with ;
le kind intention of offerin<j him food and j
ed for the night at his sister's house. But
raife had already formed his plan ; in London,
lid in London alone, could he be sure to learn
here Kugge was now exhibiting; in London
lere were jilaces at which that information
3uld be gleaned at once. The last train to the
letropolis was not gone. He would slink round j
le town to the station ; he and Sir Isaac at that
our might secure places unnoticed.
When jMcrle found it was in vain to press
im to stay over the night, the good-hearted
lobbler accompanied him to the train, and,
hile Waife shrunk him into a dark corner,
ought the tickets for dog and master. As he
as paving for these, he overheard two citizens
liking" of Mr. Chapman. It was indeed Mr.
Villiams explaining to a fellow-burgess just re-
iinied to Gatcsboro', after a week's absence,
ov,- and by what manner of man Jlr. Hartojip
ad been "taken in. At what Williams said,
lie Cobbler's cheek paled. When he joined the
'omcdian, his manner was greatly altered ; he
;ave the tickets without speaking, but looked
iard into Waifc's face, as the latter repaid him
he fares. "No," said the Cobbler, suddenly,
• I don't believe it."
"Believe what?" asked Waife, starlled.
" That you are — "
The Cobbler paused, bent forward, andwhis-
)ered the rest of the sentence close in the va-
grant's ear. Waife's head fell on his bosom, but
le made no answer.
" Speak," cried Merle ; " say 'tis a lie." The
)oor cripple.'s lip writhed, but he still spoke
lot.
Merle looked aghast at that obstinate silence.
\t length, but very slowly, as the warning bell
;ummoned him and Sir Isaac to their several
jlaces in the train, AYaife found voice. '"So
rou too, you too desert and despise me ! God's
.vill be "done!" He moved away — spiritless,
imping, hiding his face as well as he could,
rhe porter took the dog from him, to thrust it
into one of the boxes reserved for such four-
footed passengers.
Waife, thus parted from his last friend — I
mean the dog — looked after Sir Isaac wistfully,
and crejjt into a third-class carriage, in which
luckily there was no one else. Suddenly Merle
jumped in, snatched his hand, and pressed it
tightly. '■ I don't despise, I don't turn my back
on you ; whenever you and the little one want
a home and a friend, come to Kit Merle as be-
fore, and I'll bite my tongue out if I ask any
more questions of you; I'll ask the stars in-
stead."
The Cobbler had but just time to splutter out
these comforting words, and redescend the car-
riage, when the train put itself into movement,
and the lifelike iron miracle, fuming, hissing,
and screeching, bore off to London its motley
convoy of human beings, each passenger's heart
a mystery to the other, all bound the same road,
all wedged close within the same whirling mech-
anism :"what a separate and distinct world in
each! Such is Civilization ! How like we are
one to the other in the mass ! how strangely
dissimilar in the abstract!
CHAPTEK IV.
" If," says a great thinker (Degeeakpo, Du PcrfccHon-
iHcnt Moral, chap, ix., "On the Uifficultits we en-
counter in Self Study") — "If one concentrates reflec-
tion too much on one's self, one ends by wo longer see-
ing any thing, or seeing only what one w ishes. Bv the
very act, as it were, of capturing one's self, the person-
age we believe we have seized, ercapes, disappears.
Nor is it only the complexity of our inner being which
obstructs our examination, but its exceeding variability.
The investigator's regard should embrace all the sides
of the subject, and perseveringly pursue all its phases."
It is the race-week in Humberston, a county
town far from Gatesboro', and in the north of En-
gland. The races last three days ; the first day
is over ; it has been a brilliant spectacle ; the
course crowded with the carnages of jirovincial
magnates, with equestrian bettere of note from
the metropolis ; blacklegs in great muster ; there
have been gaming-booths on the ground, and
gipsies telling fortunes ; much Champagne im-
bibed by the well-bred, much soda-water and
brandy by the vulgar. Thousands and tens
of thousands have been lost and won ; some
paupers been for the time enriched ; some rich
men made poor for life. Horses have won fame;
some of their owners lost character. Din and
uproar, and coarse oaths, and rude passions —
all have had their hour. The amateurs of the
higher classes have gone back to dignified coun-
try-houses, as courteous hosts or favored guests.
The professional speculators of a lower grade
have poured back into the county town, and inns
and taverns are crowded. Drink is hotly called
for at reeking bars ; waiters and chambermaids
pass to and fro, with dishes, and tankards, and
bottles in their hands. All is noise and bustle,
and eating and swilling, and disputation and
slang, wild glee and wilder despair among those
who come back from the race-course to the inns
in the county town. At one of these taverns,
neither the best nor the worst, and in a small
narrow slice of a room that seemed robbed from
the landing-place, sate .Mrs. Crane, in her iron-
gray silk gov.n. She was seated close by the
open window, as carriages, chaises, flies, carts,
vans, and horsemen succeeded each other thick
and fast, watching the scene with a soured,
scornful lock. For human joy, as for human
grief, she had little sympathy. Life had no
Satumalian holidays left for her. Some memory
in her past had poisoned the well-springs of her
social being. Hopes and objects she had still,
but out of the wrecks of the natural and health-
ful existence of womanhood those objects and
hopes stood forth exaggerated, intense, as are
the ruling passions in monomania. A bad wo-
man is popularly said to be worse than a wicked
man. If so, partly because women, being more
solitarv-, brood more unceasingly over cherished
I ideas, "whether good or evil ; partly also, for the
' same reason that makes a wicked gentleman,
who has lost caste and character, more irre-
claimable than a wicked clown, low-born and
' low-bred, viz., that in proportion to the loss of
shame is the gain in recklessness ; but principal-
ly, perhaps, because in extreme wickedness there
[ i"s necessarily a distortion of the reasoning facul-
' ty ; and raaii, accustomed from the cradle rather
to reason than to feel, has that faculty more firm
against abrupt twists and lesions than it is in
I woman ; where virtue may have left him, logic
may still linger, and he may decline to push
98
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
evil to a point at which it is clear to his nnder-
standins that profit vanishes and punishment
rests ; wliile woman, once abandoned to ill, finds
sufficient charm in its mere excitement; and,
recjardless of consequences, where the man asks,
" Can I ?" raves out, " I will !" Thus man may
be criminal through cupidity, vanity, love, jeal-
ousy, fear, ambition, rarely in civilized, that is,
reasoning life, through hate and revenge; for
hate is a profitless investment, and revenge a
ruinous speculation. But when women are
thoroughly depraved and hardened, nine times
out of^teii it is hatred or revenge that makes
them so. Arabella Crane had not, however,
attained to that last state of wickedness, which,
consistent in evil, is callous to remorse ; she was
not yet unsexed. In her nature was still that
essence, "varying and mutable," which dis-
tinguishes woman while womanhood is left to
hen And now, as she sate gazing on the throng
below, her haggard mind recoiled perhaps from
the conscious shadow of the Evil Principle which,
invoked as an ally, remains as a destroyer. Her
dark front relaxed ; she moved in her seat un-
easily. " Must it be always thus !" she muttered
— " always this hell here ! Even now, if in one
large pardon I could include the undoer, the
earth myself, and again be human — human,
even as those slight trifiers or coarse brawlers
that pass yonder"! Oh, for something in com-
mon with common life !"
Her lips closed, and her eyes again fell upon
the crowded street. At that moment three or
four heavy vans or wagons filled with operatives
or laborers and their wives, coming back from
the race-course, obstructed the way ; two out-
riders with satin jackets were expostulating,
cracking their whips, and seeking to clear space
for an open carriage with four thorough-bred im-
patient horses. Toward that carriage every
gazer from the windows was directing eager
eyes ; each foot-passenger on the pavement lifted
his hat — evidently in that carriage some great
person! Like all who are at war with the
world as it is, Arabella Crane abhorred the
great, and despised the small for worshiping the
great. But still her own fierce dark eyes me-
chanically followed those of the vulgar. The car-
riage bore a marquis's coronet on its panels,
and was filled with ladies ; two other carriages
bearing a similar coronet, and evidently belong-
ing to the same party, were in the rear. Mrs.
Crane started. In that first carriage, as it now
slowly moved under her very window, and
paused a minute or more, till the obstructing
vehicles in front were marshaled into order —
there flashed upon her eyes a face radiant with
female beauty in its more glorious prime. Among
the crowd al that moment was a blind man,
adding to the various discords of the street by
a miserable hurdy-gurdy. In the movement of
the throng to get nearer to a sight of the ladies
in the carriage, this poor creature was thrown
forward ; the dog that led him, an ugly brute,
on his own account or his master's, took fright,
broke from the string, and ran under the horses'
hoofs, snarling. The horses became restive;
the blind man made a plunge after his dog, and
was all but run over. The lady in the first car-
riage, alarmed for his safety, rose up from her
seat, and made her outriders dismount, lead
away the poor blind man, and restore to him his
dog. Thus engaged, her face shone full upon
Arabella Crane ; and with that face rushed a
tide of earlier memories. Long, very long
since she had seen that face — seen it in those
years when she herself, Arabella Crane, was
young and handsome.
The poor man — who seemed not to realize
the idea of the danger he had escaped — once
more safe, the lady resumed her scat ; and nov/
that the momentary animation of humane fear
and womanly compassion passed from lier coun-
tenance — its expression altered- — it took the
calm, almost the coldness, of a Greek statue.
But with the calm there was a listless melan-
choly which Greek sculpture never gives to the
Parian stone ; stone can not convey that melan-
choly — it is the shadow which needs for its sub-
stance a living, mortal heart.
Crack went the whips ; the horses bounded on
— the equipage rolled fast down the street, fol-
lowed by its satellites. " Well !" said a voice in
the street below, "I never saw Lady Montfort in
such beauty. Ah, here comes my lord !"
Mrs. Crane heard and looked forth again. A
dozen or more gentlemen on horseback rode
slowly up the street ; which of these was Lord
Montfort ? — not difficult to distinguish. As the
by-standers lifted their hats to the cavalcade, the
horsemen generally returned the salutation by
simjily touching their own— one horseman un-
covered wholly. That one must be the Mar-
quis, the greatest man in those parts, with lands
stretching away on either side that town for
miles and miles ; a territory which, in feudal
times, might have alarmed a king. He, the civ-
ilcst, must be the greatest. A man still young,
decidedly good-looking, wonderfully well-dress-
ed, wonderfully well-mounted, the careless ease
of high rank in his air and gesture. To the su-
perficial gaze, just what the great Lord of JMont-
fort should be. Look again ! In that fair face
is there not something that puts you in mind of
a florid period which contains a feeble jdutitude?
— something in its very prettiness that betrays
a weak nature, and a sterile mind ?
The cavalcade passed away — the vans and the
wagons again usurped the thoroughfare. Ara-
bella Crane left the window, and approached
the little looking-glass over the mantle-piece.
She gazed upon her own face bitterly — she was
comparing it with the features of the dazzling
Marchioness.
The door was flung open, and Jasper Losely
sauntered in, whistling a French air, and flap-
ping the dust from his boots with his kid glove.
'' All right," said ho, gayly. "A famous day
of it."
" You have won," said Mrs. Crane, in a tone
rather of disappointment than congratulation.
'•Yes. That £100 of Rugge's has been the
making of me. I only wanted a capital just to
start with!" Heflunghimself intoachair, open-
ed his pocket-book, and scrutinized its contents.
"Guess," said he, suddenly, "on whose horse I
won these two rouleaux? Lord Montfort's ! Ay,
and I saw my lady !"
"So did I see "her, from this window. She
did not look hajipy !"
"Not happy!— with such an equipage! neat-
est turn-out I ever set eyes on ; not happy, in-
deed ! I had half a mind to ride up to her car-
riage and advance a claim to her gratitude."
WILA.T WILL HE DO ^yITH IT ?
99
" Gratitude ! Oh, for vour part in that mis-
erable affair of which you told me ?"
" Not a miserable affair for her, but certainly
/ never got any good from it — trouble for no-
thing! Basta! No use looking back 1"
"Xo use ; but who can help it I" said Arabel-
la Crane, sighing heavily; then, as if eager to
change the subject, she added, abruptly, "Mr.
Ilugge has been here twice this morning, highly
excited — the child will not act. He says you
are bound to make her do so I"
" Nonsense. That is his look-out. /see aft-
er children, indeed 1"'
Mks. Crane (with a risible effort). " Listen
to me, Jasper Losely, I have no reason to love
that child, as you may suppose. But now that
you so desert her, I think I feel compassion for
her ; and when, this morning. I raised my hand
to strike her for her stubborn spirit, and saw her
eyes unflinching, and her pale, pale, but fearless
face, my arm fell to my side powerless. She
will not take to this life without the old man.
She will waste away and die."
LosELT. " How you bother me ! Are you se-
rious ? What am I to do ?"
Mes. Crake. " You have won money you say;
revoke the contract ; pay Kugge back his £100.
He is disappointed in his bargain; he will take
the money."
LosELY. I dare say he will, indeed. No — I
have won to-day, it is true, but I may lose to-
morrow, and, besides, I am in want of so many
things ; when one gets a little money, one has an
immediate necessity for more — ha I ha I Stiil
I would not have the child die; and she may
grow up to be of use. I tell you what I will do ;
if, when the races are over, I find I have gained
enough to afford it, I will see about buying her
off. But £100 is too much: Rugge ought to
take half the money, or a quarter, because, if
she don't act, I suppose she does eat."
Odious as the man's words were, he said them
with a laugh that seemed to render them less re-
volting — the laugh of a ven.- handsome mouth,
showing teeth still brilliantly white. More
comely than usual that day, for he was in great
good-humor, it was difficult to conceive that a
man with so healthful and fair an exterior was
really quite rotten at heart.
" Your own young laugh I"' said Arabella
Crane, almost tenderly. " I know not how it is,
but this day I feel as if I were less old — altered
though I be in face and mind. I have allowed
myself to pity that child ; while I speak, I can
pity you. Yes I pity — when I think of what you
were. Must you go on thus ? To what I Jas-
per Losely," she continued sharjjly, eagerly,
clasping her hands — " hear me — I have an in-
come not large, it is true, but assured ; you have
nothing but what, as you say, you may lose to-
morrow ; share my income 1 Fulfill your solemn
promises — marry me. I will forget whose daugh-
ter that girl is — I will be a mother to her. And
for yourself, give me the right to feel for you
again as I once did, and I may find a way to raise
you yet — higher than you can raise yourself. I
have some wit, Jasper, as you know. At the
worst you shall have the pastime — I, the toil.
In your illness I will nurse you; in your joys I
will intrude no share. Whom else can you mar-
ry? to whom else could you confide? who else
could — "
! She stopped short as if an adder had stung
1 her, uttering a shriek of rage, of pain ; for Jas-
per Losely, who had hitherto listened to her,
stupefied, astounded, here burst into a fit of mer-
riment, in which there was such undisguised con-
tempt, such an enjoyment of the ludicrous, pro-
voked by the idea of the marriage pressed upon
him, that the insult pierced the woman to her
very soul.
Continuing his laugh, despite that cry of
I wrathful agony it had caused. Jasper rose, hold-
' ing his sides, and surveying himself in the glass,
I with ver}- different feelings at the sight from
' those that had made his companion's gaze there
a few minutes before so mournful.
I "My dear good friend," he said, composing
himself at last, and wiping his eyes, "excuse me,
but really when you said whom else could I mar-
ry — ha I ha I — it did seem such a capital joke!
Marry you, my fair Crane ! No — put that idea
out of your head — we know each other too well
, for conjugal felicity. You love me now ; you al-
ways did, and always will— that is, while we are
not tied to each other. Women who once love
! me, always love me — can't help themselves. I
I am sure I don't know why, except that I am
I what they call a villain! Ha! the clock strik-
: ing seven — I dine with a set of fellows I have
i picked up on the race-ground ; they don't know
me, nor I them ; we shall be better acquainted
after the third bottle. Cheer up. Crane ; go and
scold Sophy, and make her act if you can ; if
not, scold Rugge into letting her alone. Scold
somebody — nothing like it, to keep other folks
^ quiet, and one's self busy. Adieu ! and pray, no
more matrimonial solicitations^they frighten
me I Gad," added Losely, as he banged the
door, " such overtures would frighten Old Nick
himself!''
Did Arabella Crane hear those last words — or
had she not heard enough ? If Losely had tum-
I ed and beheld her face, would it have startled
; back his trivial laugh? Possibly; but it would
; have caused only a momentary uneasiness. If
I Alecto herself had reared over him her brow
j horrent with vipers, Jasper Losely would have
thought he had only to look handsome, and say
coaxingly, "Alecto, my dear!" and the Fury
would have pawned her head-dress to pay his
washing-bill.
1 After all, in the face of the prim woman he
had thus so wantonly incensed there was not so
much menace as resolve. And that resolve was
yet more shown in the movement of the hands
than in the aspect of the countenance ; those
1 hands — lean, firm, nenous hands — slowly ex-
; panded ; then as slowly clenched, as if her own
I thought had taken substance, and she was lock-
j ing it in a clasp — tightly, tightly — never to be
loosened till the pulse was still.
CHAPTER Y.
The most enbmifsive where they love may be the most
Btnbbom where they do not love. — Sophy is situbboni
to Mr. Ragge. — That injured man summons to his side
Mrs. Crane, imiuting the policy of those potentates who
would retrieve the failures of force by the successes of
diplomacy.
5tR. RcGGE has obtained his object. Bat now
comes the question, " What will he do with it?"
100
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Question with as many heads as the Hydra ; and
no sooner does an Author dispose of one head
than up springs another.
Sophy has been bought and paid for — she is
now, lejially, Mr. Rugge's property. But there
was a wise peer who once bought Punch — Punch
became his property, and was brought in triumph
to his lordship's house. To my lord's great dis-
may Punch would not talk. To Rugge's great
dismay Sopliy would not act.
Rendered up to Jasper Losely and Mrs. Crane,
they had not lost an hour in removing her from
Gatesboro' and its neighborhood. They did not,
however, go back to the village in which they
had left Rugge, but returned straight to Lon-
don, and wrote to the manager to join them
there.
Sophy, once captured, seemed stupefied ; she
evinced no noisy passion — she made no vio-
lent resistance. When she was told to love and
obey a father in Jasper Losely, she lifted her
eyes to his face — then turned them away, and
shook her head, mute and incredulous. That
man her father! she did not believe it. Indeed,
Jasper took no pains to convince her of the re-
lationship, or win her attachment. He was not
unkindly rough ; he seemed wholly indifferent —
probably he was so — for the ruling vice of the
man was in his egotism. It was not so much
that he had bad principles and bad feelings, as
that he had no principles and no feelings at all,
except as they began, continued, and ended in
that system of centralization, which not more
paralyzes healthful action in a state than it does
in the individual man. Self-indulgence with
him was absolute. He was not without power
of keen calculation, not without much cunning.
He could conceive a project for some gain far off
in the future, and concoct, for its realization,
schemes subtly woven, astutely guarded. But
he could not secure their success by any long-
sustained sacrifices of the caprice of one hour
or the indolence of the next. If it had been a
great object to him for life to win Sophy's filial
affection, he would not have bored himself for
five minutes each day to gain that object. Be-
sides, he had just enough of shame to render
him uneasy at the sight of the child he had de-
liberately sold. So, after chucking her under
the chin, and telling her to be a good girl and
be grateful for all that Mrs. Crane had done for
her, and meant still to do, he consigned her
almost solely to that lady's care.
When Rugge arrived, and Sojihy was inform-
ed of her intended destination, she broke si-
lence ; her color went and came quickly ; she
declared, folding her arms upon her breast,
that she would never act if separated from her
grandfather. Mrs. Crane, struck by her man-
ner, suggested to Rugge that it might be as well
now that she was legally secured to the manager,
to humor her wish, and re-engage Waife. What-
ever the tale with which, in order to obtain So-
phy from the Mayor, she had turned that worthy
magistrate's mind against the Comedian, she
had not gratified Mr. Rugge by a similar confi-
dence to him. To him she said nothing which
might operate against renewing engagements
vnih Waife, if he were so disposed. But Rugge
had no faith in a child's firmness, and he had a
strong spite against Waife, so he obstinately re-
fused. He insisted, however, as a peremptory
condition of the bargain, that Mr. Losely and
Mrs. Crane should accompany him to the town
to which he had transferred his troop, both in
order by their presence to confirm his authority
over Sophy, and to sanction his claim to her,
should Waife reappear and dispute it. For
Rugge's profession being scarcely legitimate,
and decidedly equivocal, his right to bring up
a female child to the same calling might be
called in question before a magistrate, and ne-
cessitate the production of her father in order
to substantiate the special contract. In return,
the manager handsomely offered to Mr. Losely
and Mrs. Crane to pay their expenses in the ex-
cursion — a liberality "haughtily rejected by l\Irs.
Crane for herself, though she agreed at her own
charge to accompany Losely, if he decided on
complying with the manager's request. Losely
at first raised objections, but hearing that there
would be races in the neighborhood, and having
a peculiar passion for betting and all kinds of
gambling, as well as an ardent desire to enjoy
his £100 in so fashionable a manner, he con-
sented to delay his return to the Continent, and
attend Arabella Crane to the provincial Elis.
Rugge carried off Sophy to her fellow "or-
phans."
And Sophy •would not act !
In vain she was coaxed — in vain she was
threatened — in vain she was deprived of food —
in vain shut up in a dark hole — in vain was the
lash held over her. Rugge, tyrant though he
was, did not suffer the lasli to fall. His self-re-
straint there might be humanity — miglit be fear
of the consequences. For the state of her health
began to alarm him; she might die — there
might be an inquest. He wished now that he
had taken ]\Irs. Crane's suggestion, and re-en-
gaged Waife. But where jfrts Waife? Mean-
while he had advertised the Young Phenome-
non ; placarded the walls with the name of Ju-
liet Araminta ; got up the piece of the Remorse-
less Baron, with a new rock scene. As WaifG
had had nothing to say in that drama, so any
one could act his part.
The first performance was announced for that
night : there would be such an audience — the
best seats even now pre-engaged — first night of
the race week. The clock had struck seven —
the performance began at eight. And Sophy
ATOULD NOT ACT !
The child was seated in a space that served
for the green-room, behind the scenes. The
whole comjiany had been convened to persuade
or shame her out of her obstinacy. The king's
lieutenant, the seductive personage of the troop,
was on one knee to her, like a lover. He was
accustomed to lovers' jiarts, both on the stage
and oft" it. Ofl' it he had one favored phrase,
hackneyed but eft'ective. "You are too pretty
to be so cruel." Thrice he now repeated that
phrase, with a simper that might have melted a
heart of stone between each repetition. Be-
hind Sophy's chair, and sticking calico-fiowers
into the child's tresses, stood the senior matron
of the establishment — not a bad sort of woman
— who kept the dresses, nursed the sick, revered
Rugge, told fortunes on a pack of cards M-hich
she always kept in her pocket, and acted occa-
sionally in parts where age was no drawback
and ugliness desirable — such as a witch, or du-
enna, or whatever in the dialogue was poetic-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
ally called " Hag." Indeed, Hag was the name
she usually took from Rugge — that wliich she
bore from her defunct husband was Gormerick.
This lady, as she braided the garland, was al?o
bent on the soothing system, saying, with great
sweetness, considering that her mouth was full
of pins, "Xow, deai-y — now, dovey — look at
ooself in the glass ; we could beat oo. and pinch
00, and stick pins into oo, dovey, but we won't.
Dovey will be good, I know ;' and a great pat
of rouge came on the child's pale cheeks. The
clo^vn therewith squatting before her with his
hands on his knees, grinned lustily, and shriek-
ed out, "My eyes, what a beauty !"
Rugge, meanwhile, one hand thrust in his
bosom, contemplated the diplomatic efforts of
his ministers, and saw by Sophy's compressed
lips and unwinking eyes, that their cajoleries
were unsuccessful. He approached, and hissed
into her ear, "Don't madden me! don't I — you
Avill act, eh?"
"No," said Sophy, suddenly rising ; and tear-
ing the ■wTcath from her hair, she set her small
foot on it with force. "Xo! not if you killed mel"
"Gods!" faltered Rugge. "And the sum I
have paid! I am diddled I Who has gone for
Mrs. Crane?"
"Tom," said the clown.
The word was scarcely ont of the clown's
mouth ere Mrs. Crane herself emerged from a
side-scene, and, putting off her bonnet, laid both
hands on the child's shoulders, and looked her
in the face without speaking. The child as
firmly returned the gaze. Give that child a
martAT's cause, and in that frail body there
• would have been a martyr's soul. Arabella
Crane, not inexperienced in children, recognized
a power of will, stronger than the power of brute
force, in that tranqtiillity of eye — the spark of
calm light in its tender bine — blue, pure as the
sky ; light, steadfast as the star.
"Leave her to me, all of yon," said Jlrs.
Crane. "I will take her to your private room,
Mr. Rugge ;" and she led the child away to a
sort of recess, room it could not be rightly called,
fenced round with boxes and crates, and con-
taining the manager's desk and two stools.
"Sophy," then said Mrs. Crane, "you say
yon will not act unless your grandfather be ■with
you. Now, hear me. You know that I have
been always stern and hard with you. I never
professed to love you — nor do I. But you have
not found me untruthful. When I say a thing
seriously, as I am speaking now, you may be-
lieve me. Act to-night, and I will promise you
faithfully that I will either bring your grand-
father here, or I will order it so that you shall
be restored to him. If you refuse, I make no
threat, but I shall leave this place ; and my be-
lief is that you will be your grandfather's death."
"Ills death — his death — 11"
" By first dying yourself. Oh, you smile ;
yon think it would be happiness to die. What
matter that the old man you profess to care for
is broken-hearted I Brat, leave selfishness to
boys — you are a girl ! Suffer !"
"Selfish I" murmured Sophy, " selfish ! that
was said of me before. Selfish! — ah, I under-
stand. No, I ought not to wish to die — what
would become of him ?" She fell on her knees,
and, raising both her clasped hands, prayed inly,
silently — an instant, not more. She rose, "if
101
I do act, then — it is a promise — you will keep
it. I shall see him — he shall know where I am
— we shall meet!"
"A promise — sacred. I will keep it. Oh,
girl, how much you will love some day — how
your heart will ache ! and when you are my age,
look at that heart, then at your' glass — perhaps
you may be, within and %\-it'hout, like me."
Sophy— innocent Sophy — stared, awe-strick-
en, but uncomprehending. Mrs. Crane led her
back passive.
"There, she will act. Put on the wreath.
I Trick her out. Hark ye, Mr. Rugge. This is
I for one night. I have made conditions with her :
either you must take back her grandfather, or —
she must return to him."
I "And my £100?"
i " In the latter case ought to be repaid vou."
I "Am I never to have the Royal York theatre?
Ambition of my life, Ma'am !* Dreamed of it
I tbrice ! Ha! but she will act, and succeed.
I But to take back the old vagabond — a bitter
pill ! He shall halve it with me ! Ma'am, I'm
your grateful — "
CHAPTER VI.
Threadbare is the simile which compares the werld to a
stage. Schiller, less complimentary than Shakspeare,
lowers the illustration from a stage to a puppet-show.
Bat ever between realities and shows there is a secret
communication, an undetected interchange — some-
times a stem reality in the heart of the ostensible ac-
tor, a fantastic stage-play in the brain of the unnoticed
spectator. The Bandit's Child on the proscenium is
still poor little Sophy, in spite of garlands and rouge.
But that honest rough-looking fellow to whom, in re-
spect for services to Sovereign and Country, the ap-
prentice yields way — maybe not be — the crafty Come-
dian?
Takak-taraxtaea — rub-a-dub-dub — play up
horn — roll drtim — a quarter to eight ; and' the
crowd already thick before Rugge's Grand Ex-
hibition — "Remorseless Baron and Bandit's
1 Child ! Young Phenomenon — Juliet Araminta
j — Patronized by the Nobility in general, and
expecting daily to be summoned to perform be-
fore the Queen — Vivat RcginaT — Rub-a-dub-
I dub. The company issue from the curtain —
range in front of the proscenium. Splendid
dresses. The Phenomenon ! — 'tis she I
" My eyes, there's a beauty !" cries the clown.
The days have already grown somewhat short-
er; but it is not yet dusk. How charminglv
pretty she still is, despite that horrid paint ; but
how wasted those poor bare sno^^y arms !
A most doleful lugubrious dirge mingles with
the drum and horn. A man has forced his war
close by the stage — a man with a confounded
cracked hurdy-gurdy. Whine — whine — creaks
the hurdy-gurdy, " Stop that — stop that mu-
zeek," cries a delicate apprentice, clapping his
hands to his ears.
"Pity a poor blind — " answers the man with
a hurdy-gurdy.
"Oh you are blind, are you? but we are not
deaf. There's a penny not to play. '\\Tiat black
thing have you got there by a string?"
"My dog. Sir!"
"Devilish ugly one — not like a dog — more
like a bear — with horns !"
"I say, master," cries the clown, "Here's a
blind man come to see the Phenomenon !"
102
WHAT ^VILL HE DO WITH IT ?
The crowd laugh ; they make way for the
blind man's black dog. They suspect, from the
clown's address, that the blind man has some-
thing to do with the company.
You never saw two uglier specimens of their
several species than the blind man and his black
dog. He had rough red hair and a red beard,
his face had a sort of twist that made every feat-
ure seem crooked. His eyes were not bandaged,
but the lids were closed, and he lifted them up
piteously as if seeking for light. He did not
seem, however, like a common beggar; had
rather the appearance of a reduced sailor. Yes,
you would have bet ten to one he had been a
sailor ; not that his dress belonged to that noble
calling, but his build, the roll of his walk, the
tie of his cravat, a blue anchor tattooed on that
great brown hand — certainly a sailor — a British
tar ! poor man.
The dog was hideous enough to have been ex-
hibited as a lusits natures. — evidently very agefl
— for its face and ears were gray, the rest of it
a rusty reddish black. It had immensely long
ears, pricked up like horns. It was a dog that
must have been brought from foreign parts ; it
might have come from Acheron, sire by Cerbe-
rus, so portentous and (if not irreverent the epi-
thet) so infernal was its aspect, with that gray
face, those antlered ears, and its ineilably weird
demeanor altogether. A big dog, too, and evi-
dently a strong one. All prudent folks would
have made way for a man led by that dog.
Whine creaked the hurdy-gurdy, and bow-wow,
all of a sudden, barked the dog. iSophy stifled
a cry, pressed her hand to her breast, and such
a ray of joy flashed over her face that it would
have warmed your heart for a month to have
seen it.
But do you mean to say, Mr. Author, that
that British Tar (gallant, no doubt, but hideous)
is Gentleman Waife, or that Stygiau animal the
snof^y-curled Sir Isaac ?
Upon my word, when I look at them myself,
I, the Historian, am puzzled. If it had not
been for that bow-wow, I am sure Sophy would
not have suspected. " Tara-taran-tara. Walk
in, ladies and gentlemen, walk in, the perform-
ance is about to commence!" Sophy lingers
last.
" Yes, Sir," said the blind man who had been
talking to the apprentice. "Yes, Sir," said he,
loud and emphatically, as if his word had been
questioned. "The child was snowed up, but
luckily the window of the hut was left open :
Exactly at two o'clock in the morning that dog
came to the window, set up a howl, and — "
Sophy could hear no more — led away behind
the curtain by the King's Lieutenant. But she
had heard enough to stir her heart with an emo-
tion that set all the dimples round her lip into
undulating play.
fastidious one than that in the Surrey village,
was amazed, enthusiastic.
"I shall live to see my dream come true ! I
shall have the great York Theatre !" said Rugge,
as he took oft' his wig and laid his head on his
pillow. "Eestore her for the £100! not for
thousands !"
Alas, my sweet Sophy, alas ! Has not the joy
that made thee jierform so well, undone thee ?
Ah ! hadst thou but had the wit to act horribly,
and be hissed !
" Uprose the sun, and uprose Baron Kugge."
Not that ordinarily he was a very early man ;
but his excitement broke his slumbers. He had
taken up his quarters on the ground floor of a
small lodging-house close to his Exhibition ; in
the same house lodged his senior Matron, and
Sophy herself. Mrs. Gormerick being ordered
to watch the child, and never lose sight of her,
slept in the same room with Sophy, in the upper
story of the house. The old woman served
Rugge for housekeeper, made his tea, grilled
his chop, and ft)r company's sake shared his
meals. Excitement as often sharpens the ap-
petite as it takes it away. Rugge had supped
on hope, and he felt a craving for a more sub-
stantial breakfast. Accordingly, when he had
dressed, he thrust his head into the passage, and
seeing there the maid-of-all-work unbarring the
street door, bade her go up stairs and wake the
Hag, that is, Mrs. Gormerick. Saying this, he
extended a key ; for he ever took the precaution,
before retiring to rest, to lock the door of the
room to which Sophy was consigned, on the out-
side, and guard the key till the next morning.
The maid nodded, and ascended the stairs. 4
Less time than he expected jiassed away before
Mrs. Gormerick made her ajipearance, her gray
hair streaming under her nightcap, her fonn
endued in a loose wrapper — her very face a
tragedy.
"Powers above! What has happened?" ex-
claimed Rugge, prophetically.
" She is gone!" sobbed Mrs. Gormerick ; and
seeing the lifted arm and clenched fist of the
manager, prudently fainted away.
CHAPTER VH.
A Sham carries off the Reality.
And she did act, and how charmingly ! with
what glee and what gusto! Rugge was beside
himself with pride and rapture. He could
hardly perform his own Baronial part for ad-
miration. The audience, a far choicer and more
CHAPTER VIIL
Corollaries from the problem suggested in Chapters VI.
and VII.
Broad daylight, nearly nine o'clock indeed,
and Jasper Losely is walking back to his inn
from the place at which he had dined the even-
ing before. He has spent the night drinking,
gambling, and though he looks heated, there is
no sign of fatigue. Nature in wasting on this
man many of her most glorious elements of
happiness, had not forgotten a Herculean con-
stitution — always restless and never tired, al-
ways drinking and never drunk. Certainly it
is some consolation to delicate individuals, that
it seldom happens that the sickly are very wick-
ed. Criminals are generally athletic— constitu-
tion and conscience equally tough ; large backs
to their heads — strong suspensorial muscles —
digestions that save them from the over-fine
nerves of the virtuous. The native animal must
be vigorous in the human being, when the moral
safeguards are daringly overleaped. Jasper was
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
103
not alone, but with an acquaintance he had
made at the dinner, and whom he invited to his
inn to breakfast ; they were walking familiarly
arm in arm. Ver}- unhke the brilliant Losely —
a young man under thirty, who seemed to have
washed out all the colors of youth in dirty wa-
ter. His eyes dull, their whites yellow ; his com-
plexion sodden. His form was thick-set and
heavy ; his features pug, with a cross of the bull-
dog. In dress, a specimen of the flash style of
sporting man, as exhibited on the turf, or more
often, perhaps, in the King; Belcher neckcloth,
with an immense pin representing a jockey at
full gallop; cut away coat, corduroy breeches,
and boots with tops of a chalky white. Yet,
v>'itha], not the air and walk of a genuine born
and bred sporting man, even of the vulgar or-
der. Somethingabout him which reveals the
pretender. A would-be hawk with a pigeon's
liver — a would-be sportsman with a cockney's
nurture.
Samuel Adolphus Poole is an orphan of re-
spectable connections. His future expectations
chiefly rest on an uncle from whom, as godfa-
ther, he takes the loathed name of Samuel.
Ple'prefers to sign himself Adolphus; he is pop-
ularly styled Dolly. For his present existence
he relies" ostensibly on his salary as an assistant
in the house of a London tradesman in a fash-
ionable way of business. Mr. Latham, his em-
ployer, has made a considerable fortune, less by
his "shop than by discounting the bills of his cus-
tomers, or of other borrowers whom the loan
draws into the net of the custom. Mr. Latham
connives at the sporting tastes of Dolly Poole.
Dolly has often thus been enabled to pick up
useful pieces of information as to the names
and repute of such denizens of the sporting
world as might apply to Mr. Latham for tempo-
rary accommodation. Dolly Poole has many
sporting friends ; he has also many debts. He
has been a dupe, he is now a rogue ; but he
wants decision of character to put into practice
many valuable ideas that his experience of dupe
and his development into rogue suggest to his
ambition. Still, however, now and then, when-
ever a shabby trick can be safely done he is
what he calls "" lucky." He has conceived a pro-
digious admiration for Jasper Losely, one cause
for which will be explained in the dialogue
about to be recorded ; another cause for which is
analogous to that loving submission with which
some ill-conditioned brute acknowledges a mas-
ter in the hand that has thrashed it. For at
Losely's first appearance at the convivial meet-
ing just concluded, being nettled at the impe-
rious airs of superiority which that roysterer as-
sumed, mistaking for effeminacy Jasper's elab-
orate dandyism, and not recognizing in the bra-
vo's elegant ijrojjortions the tiger-like strength
of which, in truth, that tiger - like suppleness
should have warned him, Dolly Poole provoked
a quarrel, and being himself a stout fellow, nor
unaccustomed to athletic exercises, began to
spar ; the next moment he was at the other end
of the room, full sprawl on the floor; and, two
minutes afterward, the quarrel made up by con-
ciliating banqueters, with every bone in his skin
seeming still to rattle, he was generously blub-
bering out that he never bore malice, and shak-
ing hands with Jasper Losely as if he had found
a benefactor. But now to the dialogue.
Jasper. "Yes, Poole, my hearty, as you say,
that fellow trumping my best club lost me the
last rubber. There's no certainty in whist, if one
has a spoon for a partner."
Poole. "No certainty in every rubber, but
next to certainty in the long run, when a man
plays as well as you do, Mr. Losely. Your win-
nings to-night must have been pretty large,
though you had a bad partner almost every
hand ; — pretty large — eh ?"
Jasper (carelessly). "Nothing to talk of — a
few ponies I"
Poole. " More than a few ; I should know."
Jasper. "Why? You did not play after the
first rubber."
Poole. " No, when I saw your play on that
first rubber, I cut out, and bet on you ; and very
grateful to you I am. Still you would win more
with a partner who understood your game."
The shrewd Dolly paused a moment, and
leaning significantly on Jasper's arm, added, in
a half whisper, " I do ; it is a French one."
Jasper did not change color, but a quick rise
of the eyebrow, and a slight jerk of the neck,
betrayed some little surprise or uneasiness ; how-
ever, he rejoined without hesitation — "French,
ay ! In France there is more dash in playing
out trumps than there is with English players."
"And with a player like you," said Poole,
still in a half whisper, "more trumps to play
out."
Jasper turned round sharp and short ; the
hard, cruel expression of his mouth, little seen
of late, came back to it. Poole recoiled, and
his bones began again to ache. "I did not
mean to off'end you, Mr. Losely, but to caution."
"Caution!"
"There were two knowing coves, who, if they
had not been so drunk, would not have lest their
money without a row, and they would have seen
how they lost it ; they are sharpers — you served
' them right — don't be angry with me. You want
\ a partner — so do I ; you play better than I do,
but I play well ; you shall have two-thirds of our
winnings, and when you come to town I'll in-
troduce you to a pleasant set of young fellows —
, green." '
j Jasper mused a moment. " Y'ou know a thing
! or two, I see. Master Poole, and we'll discuss
the whole subject after breakfast. Arn't you
hungry ? — No !— I am ! Hillo ! who's that ?"
j His arm was seized by Mr. Rugge. " She's
! gone — fled 1" gasjied the manager, breathless.
"Out of the lattice — fifteen feet high — not
■ dashed to pieces — vanished !"
I " Go on and order breakfast," said Losely to
;Mr. Poole, who was listening too inquisitively,
i He drew the manager away. " Can't you keep
your tongue in your head before strangers ? the
girl is gone !"
! " Out of the lattice, and fifteen feet high !''
" Any sheets left hanging out of the lattice ?"
" Sheets ! No."
" Then she did not go without help — some-
I body must have thrown up to her a rope-ladder
— nothing so easy — done it myself scores of
j times for tlic descent of • maids who love the
moon,' Mr. Kugge. But at her age there is not
' a moon — at least there is not a man in the
I moon ; one must dismiss, then, the idea of a
' rope-ladder — too precocious. But are you quite
I sure she is gone? not hiding in some cupboard?
104
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Sacre .' — very odd. Have you seen Mrs. Crane
about it?"
"Yes, just come from her; she thinks that
villain Waife must have stolen her. But I want
you, Sir, to come with me to a magistrate."
"Magistrate! I — why? — nonsense — set the
police to work."
"Your deposition that she is your lawful
child, lawfully made over to me, is necessary
for the Inquisition — I mean Police."
" Hang it, what a bother ! I hate magistrates,
and all belonging to them. Well, I must break-
fast ; I'll see to it afterward. Oblige me by not
calling Mr. Waife a villain — good old fellow in
his way."
"Good ! Powers above !"
"But if he took her off how did he get at her?
It must have been preconcerted."
"Ha! true. But she has not been suffered
to speak to a soul not in the company — Mrs.
Crane excepted."
" Perhaps at the performance last night some
signal was given?"
" But if Waife had been there I should have
seen him ; my troop would have known him ;
such a remarkable face — one eye, too."
"Well, well, do what you think best. I'll
call on you after breakfast; let me go now.
Basta! basta!"
Losely wrenched himself from the manager,
and strode otf to the inn ; then, ere joining
Poole, he sought Mrs. Crane.
"This going before a magistrate," said Lose-
ly, "to depose that I have made over my child
to that blackguard showman — in this town, too
— after such luck as I have had, and where
bright prospects are opening on me, is most
disagreeable. And supposing, when we have
traced Sophy, she should be really with the old
man — awkward ! In short, my dear friend, my
dear Bella" (Losely could be very coaxing wlien
it was worth his while), "you just manage this
for me. I have a fellow in the next room wait-
ing to breakfast ; as soon as breakfast is over I
shall be oft' to tlie race-ground, and so shirk that
ranting old bore; you'll call on him instead, and
settle it somehow." He was out of the room
before she could answer.
Mrs. Crane found it no easy matter to soothe
the infuriate manager, when he heard Losely
was gone to amuse himself at the race-course.
Nor did she give herself much trouble to pacify
Mr. Rugge's anger, or assist his investigations.
Her interest in the whole affair seemed over.
Left thus to his own devices, Ilugge, however,
began to institute a sharp, and what promised
to be an effective investigation. He ascertained
that the fugitive certainly had not left by the
railway, or by any of the public conveyances ;
he sent scouts over all the neighborhood ; he
enlisted the sympathy of the police, who confi-
dently assured him that they had 'a net-work
over the three kingdoms ;' no doubt they have,
and we pay for it ; but the meshes are so large
that any thing less than a whale must be silly
indeed if it consent to be caught. Rugge's sus-
picions were directed to Waife — he could col-
lect, however, no evidence to confirm them. No
person answering to Waife's description had
been seen in the town. Once, indeed, Rugge
was close on the right scent ; for, insisting upon
Waife's one eye and his possession of a white
dog, he was told by several witnesses that a man
blind of two eyes, and led by a black dog, had
been close before the stage, just previous to t*lie
performance. But then the clown had spoken
to that very man ; all the Thespian company
had observed him ; all of them had known Waife
familiarly for years ; and all deposed that any
creature more unlike to Waife than tlie blind
man could not be turned out of Nature's work-
shop. But where was that blind man? Tliey
found out the wayside inn in which he had taken
a lodging for the night ; and there it was ascer-
tained that he had paid for his room before-
hand, stating that he should start for the race-
course early in the morning. Rngge himself
set out to the race-course to kill two birds with
one stone — catch Mr. Losely — examine the
blind man himself.
He did catch Mr. Losely, and very nearly
caught something else — for that gentleman was
in a ring of noisy horsemen, mounted on a hired
hack, and loud as the noisiest. When Ilugge
came up to his stirrup, and began his harangue,
Losely turned his hack round with so sudden an
appliance of bit and spur that the aniimal lash-
ed out, and its heel went within an inch of the
manager's cheek-bone. Before Rugge could re-
cover Losely was in a hand gallop. But the
blind man ! Of course Rugge did not find him ?
You are mistaken ; he did. The blind man was
there, dog and all. The manager spoke to him,
and did not know him from Adam.
Nor have you or I, my venerated readers, any
riglit whatsoever to doubt whether Mr. Rugge
could be so stolidly obtuse. Granting that blind
sailor to be the veritable William Waife — Will-
iam Waife was a man of genius, taking pains
to appear an ordinary mortal. And the anec-
dotes of Munden, or of Bamfylde Moore Carew,
suffice to tell us how Protean is the power of
transformation in a man whose genius is mimet-
ic. But how often does it ha[)pen to us, vener-
ated readers, not to recognize a man of genius,
even when he takes no particular pains to es-
cape detection ! A man of genius may be for
ten years our next-door neighbor — he may dine
in company with us twice a week — his face may
be as familiar to our eyes as our arm-chair — his
voice to our ears as the click of our parlor-clock
— yet we are never more astonished than when
all of a sudden, some bright day, it is discovered
that our next-door neighbor is — a man of genius.
Did you ever hear tell of the life of a man of
genius, but what there were numerous witnesses
who deposed to the fact, that until, perfidious
dissembler, he flared up and set the Thames on
fire, they had never seen any thing in him — an
odd creature, perhaps a good creature — probably
a poor Creature — But a Man of Genius ! They
would as soon have suspected him of being the
Cham of Tartary ! Nay, candid readers, arc
there not some of you who refuse to the last to
recognize the man of genius, till he has paid his
penny to Charon, and his passport to immortal-
ity has been duly examined by the custom-house
officers of Styx ! When one "half the world drag
forth that same next-door neighbor, place him
on a pedestal, and have him cried, "O yez! O
yez ! Found a man of genius ! Public property
— open to inspection !" does not the other half the
world put on its spectacles, turn up its nose, and
cry, " That a man of genius, indeed ! Pelt him!
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
105
— pelt him !" Then of course there is a clatter,
what the vulgar call " a shindy," round the ped-
estal. Squeezed by his believers, shied at by
his scoffers, the poor man gets horribly mauled
about, and drops from the perch in the midst
of the row. Then they shovel him over, clap a
great stone on his relics, wipe their forelicads,
shake hands, compromise the dispute, the one
half the world admitting that though he was a
genius, he was still an ordinary man ; the oth-
er half allowing that though he was an ordinary
man, he was still a genius. And so on to the
next jjcdestal with its " Ilic stet," and the next
great stone with its "Hie jacet."
The manager of the Grand Theatrical Exhi-
bition gazed on the blind sailor, and did not
know him from Adam !
CHAPTER IX.
The aboriginal Man-cater, or Pocket-Cannibal, is sus-
ceptible of the reiining influences of Civilization. He
decorates his lair with the skins of his victims ; lie
adcrns his person with the spoils of tliose whom lie de-
vours. Mr. Losely introduced to Mr. Poole's friends
— dresses for dinner; and, combining elegance witli
appetite, eats them up.
Elatkd with the success which had rewarded
his talents for pecuniary speculation, and dis-
missing from his mind all thouglits of tlie fugi-
tive Sophy and the spoliated Kugge, Jasper Lose-
ly returned to London in company with his new
t'riend, Mr. Poole. He left Arabella Crane to
perform the same journey, unattended; but that
grim lady, carefully concealing any resentment
at such want of gallantry, felt assured that she
should not be long in London without being hon-
ored by his visits.
In renewing their old acquaintance, Sirs.
Crane had contrived to establish over Jasper
that kind of influence which a vain man, full of
schemes that are not to be told to all the world,
but which it is convenient to discuss with some
confidential friend who admires himself too higli-
ly not to respect his secrets, mechanically yields
to a woman whose wits are superior to his own.
It is true that Jasper, on his return to the
metropolis, was not magnetically attracted to-
ward Podden Place ; nay, days and even weeks
elapsed, and Mrs. Crane was not gladdened by
his presence. But she knew that her influence
was only suspended — not extinct. The body at-
tracted was for the moment kept from the body
attracting by the abnormal weights that had
dropped into its pockets. Restore the body
thus temporarily counterpoised to its former
lightness, and it would turn to Podden Place as
the needle to the Pole. Meanwhile, oblivious
of all such natural laws, the disloyal Jasper had
fixed himself as far from the rca'h of the mag-
net as from Bloomsbury's remotest verge is St.
James's animated centre. The apartment he
engaged was showy and commodious. He add-
ed largely to his wardrobe — his dressing-case —
his trinket-box. iS^or, be it here observed, was
Mr. Losely one of those beauish brigands who
wear tawdry scarfs over soiled linen, and paste
rings u))on unwashed digitals. To do him jus-
tice, the man, so stony-hearted to others, loved
and cherished his own person with exquisite
tenderness, lavished upon it delicate attentions.
and gave to it the very best he could afford. He
was no coarse debauchee, smelling of bad cigars ,
and ardent s])irits. Cigars, indeed, were not
among his vices (at worst the rare peccadillo of
a cigarette) — spirit-drinking was ; but the mon-
ster's digestion was still so strong, that he could
have drunk out a gin palace, and you would only
havcsniffedthe jasmin or heliotrope on the dainty
cambric that wiped the last droj) from his lips.
Had his soul been a tenth part as clean as the
form that belied it, Jasper Losely had been a
saint ! His apartments secured, his appearance
thus revised and embellished, Jasjicr's next care
was an equipage in keeping ; he hired a smart
cabriolet with a high-stepping horse, and, to go
behind it, a groom whose size had been stunted
in infancy by provident parents designing him to
earn his bread in the stables as a light-weight,
and therefore mingling his mother's milk with
heavy liquors. In short, Jasper Losely set up
to be a buck about town ; in that capacity Uolly
Poole introduced him to several young gentle-
men who combined commercial vocations with
sporting tastes ; they could not but participate
in Poole's admiring and somewhat envious re-
spect for Jasper Losely. There was indeed about
the vigorous miscreant a great deal of false brill-
iancy. Deteriorated from earlier youth though
the beauty of his countenance might be, it was
still undeniably handsome; and as force of mus-
cle is beauty in itself in the eyes of young s]jort-
ing men, so Jasper dazzled many a gracilis pver,
who had the ambition to become an athlete, with
the rare personal strength which, as if in the ex-
uberance of animal spirits, he would sometimes
condescend to dis]ilay, by feats that astonished
the curious and frightened the timid — such as
bending a poker or horse-shoe, between hands
elegantly white nor unadorned with rings — or
lifting the weight of Samuel Dolly by the waist-
band, and holding him at arm's-length, with a
playful bet of ten to one that he could stand by
the fire-place and pitch the said Samuel Dolly
out of the open window. To know so strong a
man, so fine an animal, was something to boast
of! Then, too, if Jasper had a false brilliancy,
he had also a false bonliommie ; it was true that
he was somewhat imperious, swaggering, bully-
ing — but he was also oft-hand and jocund ; and
as you knew him, that sidelong look, that defy-
ing gait (look and gait of the man whom^ the
world cuts), wore away. In fact, he had got
into a world which did not cut him, and his ex-
terior was improved by the atmosphere.
Mr. Losely professed to dislike general soci-
ety. Drawing-rooms were insipid ; clubs full of
old fogies. " I am for life, my boys," said Mr.
Losely :
" 'Can sorrow from the goblet f^ow,
Or pain from Beauty's eye '(' "
]\Ir. Losely, therefore, liis hat on one side,
lounged into the saloons of theatres, accompa-
nied by a cohort of juvenile admirers, their hats
on one side also, and returned to the plea.sant-
est little suppers in his own apartment. There
" the goblet" flowed — and after the goblet, cigars
for some, and a rubber for all.
• So puissant Losely's vitality, and so blessed
by the stars his lack, that his form seemed to
wax stronger and his purse fuller by this "life."
No wonder he was all for a life of that kind ;
but the slight beings who tried to keep up with
106
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
him grew thinner and thinner, and poorer and
poorer ; a few weeks made their cheeks spectral
and their pockets a dismal void. Then as some
dropped off from sheer inanition, others whom
they had decoyed by their praises of " Life" and
its hero, came into the magic circle to fade and
vanish in their turn.
In a space of time incredibly brief not a
whist-player was left upon the field ; the victo-
rious Losely had trumped out the last ! Some
few, whom Nature had endowed more liberally
than Fortune, still retained strength enougli to
sup — if asked ;
" But none wlio came to sup remained to play."
"Plague on it," said Losely to Poole, as one
afternoon they were dividing the final spoils.
" Your friends are mightily soon cleaned out ;
could not even get up double dummy, last night ;
and we must hit on some new plan for replen-
ishing the coffers ! You have rich relations ;
can't I help you to make them more useful ?"
Said Dolly Poole, who was looking exceed-
ingly bilious, and had become a martyr to
chronic headache, "My relations are prigs!
Some of them give me the cold shoulder, oth-
ers — a great deal of jaw. But as for tin, I
might as well scrape a flint for it. My uncle
Sam is more anxious about my sins than the
other codgers, because he is my godfather, and
responsible for my sins, I suppose ; and he says
he will put me in the way of being respectable.
My head's splitting — "
" Wood does split till it is seasoned," answer-
ed Losely. "Good fellow, uncle Sam! He'll
put you in tlie way of tin ; nothing else makes
a man respectable."
"Yes — so he says; a girl with money — "
" A wife — tin canister ! Ititroduce me to her,
and she shall be tied to you."
Samuel Dolly did not appear to relish the
idea of such an introduction. " I have not been
introduced to her myself," said he. "But if
you advise me to be spliced, why don't you get
spliced yourself? a handsome fellow like you
can be at no loss for an heiress."
"Heiresses are the most horrid cheats in the
world," said Losely : " there is always some fa-
ther, or uncle, or fusty Lord Chancellor whose
consent is essential, and not to be had. Heir-
esses in scores have been over head and ears in
love with me. Before I left Paris, I sold their
locks of hair to a wig-maker — three great trunks-
ful. Honor bright. But there ^ycre only two
whom I could have safely allowed to run away
with me ; and they were so closely watchccl,
poor things, that I was forced to leave them to
their fate — early graves ! Don't talk to me of
heiresses, Dolly, I have been the victim of heir-
esses. But a rich widow is an estimable creat-
ure.' Against widows, if rich, I have not a word
to say ; and to tell you the truth, there is a widow
whom I suspect I have fascinated, and whose
connection I have a particular private reason for
deeming desirable ! She has a whelp of a son,
who is a spoke in my wheel — were I his father-
in-law, would not I be a spoke in his ? I'd teach
the boy ' /;/e,' Dolly." Here all trace of beauty
vanished from Jasper's face, and Poole, staring
at him, pushed away his chair. " But" — con-
tinued Losely, regaining his more usual expres-
sion of levity and boldness — " But I am not yet
quite sure what the widow has, besides her son,
in her own possession ; we shall see. Mean-
while, is there — no chance of a rubber to-night?"
" None ; unless you will let Brown and Smith
play upon tick."
"Pooh ! but there's Robinson, he has an aunt
he can borrow from ?"
" Robinson ! spitting blood, with an attack of
delirium tremens! — you have done for him."
"Can sorrow from the goblet flow?" said Lose-
ly. " Well, I suppose it can — when a man has
no coats to his stomach ; but you and I, Dolly
Poole, have stomachs thick as pea-jackets, and
proof as gutta percha."
Poole forced a ghastly smile, while Losely,
gayly springing up, swept his share of booty into
his pockets, slapped his comrade on the back,
and said — "Then, if the mountain will not come
to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mount-
ain! Hang whist, and up with ?w/^e-e/-«ow-.' I
have an infallible method of winning — only, it
requires capital. You will club your cash with
mine, and I'll play for both. Sup here to-night,
and we'll go to the hell afterward."
Samuel Dolly had the most perfect confidence
in his friend's science in the art of gambling,
and he did not, therefore, dissent from the pro-
posal made, jasper gave a fresh touch to his
toilet, and stepped into his cabriolet. Poole
cast on him a look of envy, and crawled to his
lodging — too ill for his desk, and with a strong
desire to take to his bed.
CHAPTER X.
' la there a heart that Dever loved
Nor felt soft woman's sigh 1"
If there be such a heart, it is not in the breast of a Pock-
et-Cannibal. Your true Man-eater is usually of an
amorous temperament: he can be indeed sufficiently
fond of a lady to eat her up. Jlr. Losely makes the ac-
quaintance of a widow. For farther jiarticulars inquire
within.
The dignified serenity of Gloucester Place,
Portman Square, is agitated by the intrusion of
a new inhabitant. A house in that faA'ored lo-
cality, which had for several months maintained
"the solemn stillness and the dread rejjose"
which appertaiir to dwellings that are to be let
upon lease, unfurnished, suddenly started into
that exuberant and aggressive life which irri-
tates the nerves of its peaceful neighbors. The
bills have been removed from the windows — the
walls have been cleaned down and pointed — the
street-door repainted a lively green — workmen
have gone in and out. The observant ladies
(single ones) in the house opposite, discover, by
the help of a telescope, that the drawing-rooms
have been new papered, canary-colored grotind
— festoon borders, and that the mouldings of the
shutters have been gilt. Gilt shutters ! that looks
ominous of an ostentatious and party-giving ten-
ant. !l
Then carts full of furniture have stopped at
the door — carjicts, tables, chairs, beds, wardrobes
• — all seemingly new, and in no inelegant taste,
have been disgorged into the hall. It has been
noticed, too, that every day a lady of slight fig-
ure and genteel habiliments has come, seeming-
ly to inspect progress — evidently the new ten-
ant. Sometimes she comes alone ; sometimes
with a dark-eyed handsome lad, probably her
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
107
son. Who can she be ? what is she ? what is her
name ? her history ? has she a right to settle in
Gloncester Place," Portman Square ? The de-
tective police of London is not peculiarly vigi-
lant ; but its defects are supplied by the volun-
tary efforts of unmarried ladies. The new-
coiiier was a widow ; her husband had been in
suddenly blushes and draws in her head. Too
late I the cabriolet has stopped — a gentleman
leans fonvard, takes oft" his hat, bows respectful-
ly. "Dear, dear!" murmurs Mrs. Haughton,
" I do think he is going to call ; some people are
born to be tempted — my temptations have been
immense I He is getting out — he knocks — I
the armv ; of good family ; but a mauvais svjet ; can't say, now, that I am not at home — very
she had been left in straitened circumstances ! awkward I I wish Lionel were here I What
with an only son. It was supposed that she { does he mean — neglecting his own mother, and
had unexpectedly come into a fortune — on the ; leaving her a prey to tempters?"
strength of which she had removed from Pim- While the footman is responding to the smart
lico into Gloucester Place. At length — the knock of the visitor, we will explain how Mrs.
preparations completed — one Monday afternoon Haughton had incuiTcd that gentleman's ac-
the widow, accompanied by her son, came to quaintance. Inoneofherwalkstoher newhouse
settle. The next day a footman in genteel liv- ' while it was in the hands of the decorators, her
ery (brown and orange) appeared at the door, j mind being much absorbed in the consideration
Then, for the rest of the week, the baker and . whether her drawing-room curtains should be
butcher called regularly. On the following Sun- chintz or tabouret — ^just as she was crossing the
day the ladv and her son appeared at church. street, she was all but run over by a gentleman's
No reader will be at a loss to discover in the ' cabriolet. The horse was hard-mouthed, going
new tenant of Xo. — Gloucester Place, the wid- } at full speed. The driver pulled up just in time ;
owed mother of Lionel Haughton. The letter j but the wheel grazed her dress, and though she
for that lady which Darrell had intrusted to his ran back instinctively, yet, when she was safe
voung cousin, had, in complimentary and cor- I on the pavement, the fright overpowered her
dial language, claimed the right to provide for I nenes, and she clung to the street-post almost
her comfortable and honorable subsistence ; and , fainting. Two or three passers-by humanely
announced that, henceforth, £800 a year would
be placed quarterly to her account at Mr. Dar-
rell's banker, and that an additional sum of
£1200 was already there deposited in her name,
in order to enable her to furnish any residence
to which she might be inclined to remove.
gathered round her; and the driver, looking
back, and muttering to himself — "Not bad look-
ing — neatly dressed — lady-like — French shawl
— mav have tin — worth while, perhaps I" gal-
lantly descended and hastened to offer ajjolo-
gies, with a respectful hope that she was not in-
Mrs. Haughton, therewith, had removed to Ijured.
GloucesterPlace. j Mrs. Haughton answered somewhat tartly, but
She is seated by the window in her front being one of those good-hearted women who,
drawing-room — sur^'eying with proud though j apt to be rude, are extremely sorry for it the
grateful heart the elegancies by which she is i moment afterward, she wished to repair any
surrounded. A very winning "countenance — i hurt to his feelings occasioned by her first im-
lively eves, that in 'themselves may be over- { pulse ; and, when, renemng his excuses, he of-
quick and petulant, but their expression is j fered his arm over the crossing, she did not like
chastened by a gentle kindly mouth ; and over to refuse. On gaining the side of the way on
the whole face, the attitude', the air, even the which her house was situated, she had recover-
dress itself, is diffused the unmistakable sim- ed suflaciently to blush for having accepted such
plicitv of a sincere, natural character. No | familiar assistance from a perfect stranger, and
doubt Mrs. Haughton has her tempers, and her i somewhat to falter in returning thanks for his
vanities, and her little harmless feminine weak- | pohtenes
nesses; but you could not help feeling in her
presence that you were with an affectionate,
warm-hearted, honest, good woman. She might
not have the refinements of tone and manner
which stamp the high-bred gentlewoman of con
Our gentleman, whose estimate of his attrac-
tions was not humble, ascribed the blushing
cheek and faltering voice to the natural effect
produced by his appearance ; and he himself
admiring verv much a handsome bracelet on her
vention ; she might e^•ince the deficiencies of wrist, which he deemed a favorable prognostic
an imperfect third-rate education; but she was of "tin," he watched her to her door, and sent
saved from vulgarity by a certain undefinable i his groom in the course of the evening to make
grace of person and' music of voice — even when discreet inquiries in the neighborhood. The re-
she said or did things that well-bred people do suit of the inquiries induced him to resolve upon
not say or do; and there was an engaging in- prosecuting the acquaintance thus begun. He
telligence in those quick hazel eyes that made contrived to learn the hours at which ilrs.
you sure that she was sensible, even when she
uttered what was silly.
Mrs. Haughton turned from the interior of
Haughton usually visited the house, and to pass
bv Gloucester Place at the verj- nick of time,
liis bow was recognizing, respectful, interroga-
the room to the open window. She is on the ' tive — a bow that asked "how much farther?"
look-out for her son, who has gone to call on | But Mrs. Haughton 's bow respondent seemed
Colonel Morley, and who ought to be returned to declare " not at all !" The stranger did not
by this time. She begins to get a little fidgety adventure more that day ; but a day or nvo after-
— somewhat cross. While thus standing and i ward he came again into Gloucester Place on
thus watchful, there comes thundering down the i foot. On that occasion Mrs. Haughton was
street a high-stepping horse — bay, with white i with her son, and the gentleman would not seem
legs — it whirls on a cabriolet — blue, with ver- to perceive her. The next day he returned, she
mTlion wheels — two hands, in yellow kid gloves, was then alone, and just as she gained her door
are just seen under the hood.' Mrs. Haughton 1 he advanced — '•! beg you ten thousand par-
108
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
dons, madam ; but if I am rightly informed, I
have the honor to address ili-s. Charles Haugh-
ton !"
The lady bowed in surprise.
"Ah, madam, your lamented husband was
one of my most particular friends."
"You don't say sol" cried Mrs. Haughton,
and looking more attentively at the stranger.
There was in his dress and appearance some-
thing that she thought very stylish — a particular
friend of Charles Haiighton's was sure to be
stylish — to be a man of the first water. And
she loved the poor Captain's memorv- — her heart
warmed to any " particular friend of his."
"Yes," resumed the gentleman, noting the
advantage he had gained, "though I was con-
siderably his junior, we were great cronies — ex-
cuse that familiar expression — in the Hussars
together — "
''The Captain was not in the Hussars, Sir;
he was in the Guards."
'• Of course he was ; but I was saying in the
Hussars, together with the Guards, there were
some very fine fellows — very fine — he was one
of them. I could not resist paying my respects
to the widowed lady of so fine a fellow. I know
it is a liberty, ma'am, but 'tis my way. People
who know me well — and I have a large acquaint-
ance — are kind enough to excuse my way. And
to think that villainous horse, which I had just
bought out of Lord Bolton's stud — (200 guineas,
ma'am, and cheap) — should have nearly taken
the life of Charles Haughton's lovely relict. If
any body else had been driving that brute, I
shudder to think what might have been the con-
sequences ; but I have a wrist of iron. Strength
is a vulgar qualification — very ^Tilgar — but when
it saves a lady from perishing, how can one be
ashamed of it ? But I am detaining you. Your
own house, ^Irs. Haughton?"
"Yes, Sir, I have just taken it, but the work-
men have not finished. I am not yet settled
here."
" Charming situation ! ^My friend left a son,
I believe ? In the army already ?"
"No, Sir; but he wishes it very much."
" Mr. Darrell, I think, could gratify that wish."
"What ! you know Mr. Danell, that most ex-
cellent, generous man ? All we have we owe to '
him." i
The gentleman abruptly turned aside — wisely '
— for his expression of face at that praise might
have startled Mrs. Haughton. '
" Yes, I knew him once. He has had many '
a fee out of my family. Goodish lawyer — clev-
erish man — and rich as a Jew. I should like to '
see my old friend's son, ma'am. He must be
monstrous handsome with such parents I" I
"Oh, Sir, very like his father. I shall be'
proud to present him to you." i
'•Ma'am, I thank you. I will have the honor ;
to call — " I
And thus is explained how Jasper Losely has I
knocked at Mrs. Haughton's door — has walked ;
up her stairs — has seated himself in her draw- '
ing-room, and is now edging his chair some- '
what nearer to her, and throwing into his voice '
and looks a degree of admiration, which has !
been sincerely kindled by the aspect of her ele-
gant apartments.
Jessica Haughton was not one of tliose wo-
men, if such there be, who do not know when a
gentleman is making up to them. She knew
perfectly well, that, with a very little encourage-
j ment, her visitor would declare himself a suitor.
I Nor, to speak truth, was she quite insensible to
, his handsome person, nor quite unmoved by his
I flatteries. She had her weak points, and vanity
' was one of them. Nor conceived she, poor lady,
' the slightest suspicion that Jasper Losely was not
j a personage whose attentions might flatter any
j woman. Though he had not even announced
a name, but, pushing aside the footman, had
sauntered in with as familiar an ease as if he
i had been a first cousin : though he had not ut-
tered a syllable that could define his station, or
I attest his boasted friendship with the dear de-
j funct, still Mrs. Haughton implicitly believed
j that she was with one of those gay Chiefs of Ton
■ who had glittered round her Charlie in the ear-
lier morning of his life, ere he had sold out of
! the Guards, and brought himself out of jail ; a
I lord, or an honorable at least, and was even (I
i shudder to say) revolving in her mind whether
j it might not be an excellent thing for her dear
I Lionel if she could prevail on herself to procure
I for him the prop and guidance of a distinguish-
: ed and brilliant father-in-law — ricli, noble, evi-
I dently good-natured, sensible, attractive. Oh I
' but the temptation was growing more and more
' IMMENSE ! when suddenly the door opened, and
^ in sprang Lionel, ciying out, " Mother, dear, the
t Colonel has come with me on pui-pose to — "
He stopped short, staring hard at Jasper Lose-
ly. That gentleman advanced a few steps, ex-
tending his hand, but came to an abrupt halt on
I seeing Colonel Morley's figure now filling up the
door-way. Not that he feared recognition — the
I Colonel did not know him by sight, but he knew
by sight the Colonel. In his own younger day,
when lolling over the r^ils of Eotten Row, he had
enviously noted the leaders of fashion pass bv,
and Colonel Morley had not escaped his ob-
servation. Colonel ilorley, indeed, was one of
those men who by name and repute are sure to
be known to all who, like Jasper Losely in his
youth, would fain know something about that
gaudy, babbling, and remorseless world which,
like the sun, either vivifies or corrupts, accord-
ing to the properties of the object on which it
shines. Strange to say, it was the mere sight
of the real fine gentleman that made the mock
fine gentleman shrink and collapse. Though
Jasper Losely knew himself to be still called a
magnificent man — one of royal Nature's Life-
guardsmen — though confident that from top to
toe his habiliments could defy the criticism of
the strictest martinet in polite costume, no soon-
er did that figure — by no means handsome, and
clad in garments innocent of buckram, but guil-
ty of wTinkles — appear on the threshold than
Jasper Losely felt small and shabby, as if he
had been suddenly reduced to five feet two, and
had bought his coat out of an old clothesman's
bag.
Without appearing even to see Mr. Losely,
the Colonel, in his turn, as he glided past him
toward Mrs. Haughton, had, with what is pro-
verbially called the corner of the eye, taken the
whole of that impostor's superb personnel into
calm survey, had read him through and through,
and decided on these two points without the
slightest hesitation — '• a lady-killer and a sharp-
er."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
109
Quick as breathing had been the effect thus j
severally produced on Mrs. Haughton's visitors,
which it has cost so many words to describe, so
quick that the Colonel, "without anv apparent
pause of dialogue, has already taken up the sen-
tence Lionel Icfi uncompleted, and says, as he
bows over Mrs. Haughton's hand, " Come on pur-
pose to claim acquaintance with an old friend's
widow, a young friend's mother."
Mks. IIacghton. " I am sure, Colonel Mor-
ley, I am very much flattered. And you, too,
knew the poor dear Captain ; 'tis so pleasant to
think that his old friends come round us now.
This sentleman, also, was a particular friend of
dear Charles's."
The Colonel had somewhat small eyes, which
moved with habitual slowness. He lifted those
eyes, let them drop upon Jasper (who still stood
in the middle of the room, with one hand still
half-extended toward Lionel), and letting the
eyes rest there while he spoke, repeated,
' -'Particular friend of Charles Haughton's —
the onlv one of his particular friends whom I
never had the honor to see before."
Jasper who, whatever his deficiency in other
virtues, certainly did not lack courage, made a
strong effort at self-possession, and without re-
plving to the Colonel, whose remark had not
been directly addiessed to himself, said, in his
most rollicking tone — " Yes, Mrs. Haughton,
Charles was my particular friend, but" — lifting
his eve-glass — "bufthis gentleman was," drop-
ping the eye-glass negligently, '• not in our set,
I supjiose." Then advancing to Lionel, and
seizini: his hand, '"I must introduce myself — the
image of your father, I declare ! I was saying to
Mrs^ Haughton how much I should like to see
vou — proposing to her, just as you came in, that
we should go to the play together. Oh, ma'am,
Tou may trust him to me safely. Young men
should see life." Here Jasper tipped Lionel
one of those knowing winks with which he was
accustomed to delight and insnare the young
""What, Lionel?" asked the Colonel, blandly
— "was what?"
" Snobbish, Sir."
'•Lionel, how dare you!" exclaimed Mrs.
Haughton. '• What vulgar words boys do juck
up at school. Colonel Morleyl"
"We must be careful that they do not pick up
worse than words when they leave school, my
dear madam. You will forgive me, but Mr.
Darrell has so expressly — of course, with your
permission — commended this young gentleman
to my responsible care and guidance — so openly
confided to me his views and intentions, that
perhaps you would do me the verj- great favor
not to force upon him, against his own wishes,
the acquaintance of — that veiy good-looking
person."
ilrs. Haughton pouted, but kept down her ris-
ing temper. The Colonel began to awe her.
" By-the-by," continued the man of the world,
" may I inquire the name of my old friend's par-
ticular friend?"
"His name — upon my word I really don't
know it. Perhaps he left his card — ring the
bell, Lionel."
"You don't know his name, yet you know
?tiin, ma'am, and would allow your son to see
LIFE under his auspices I I beg you ten thou-
sand pardons ; but even ladies the most cau-
tious, mothers the most watchful, are exposed
to — "
" Immense temptations — that is — to — to — "
" I understand perfectly, my dear Mrs. Haugh-
ton."
The footman appeared. "Did that gentle-
man leave a card?"
"No, ma'am."
"Did not vou ask his name when he enter-
ed?"
" Yes, ma'am, but he said he would announce
himself."
When the footman had withdrawn, Mrs.
Haughton exclaimed, piteously, " I have been
friends of Mr. Poole, and hurried on : " But in to blame, Colonel — I see it. But Lionel will
an innocent way, ma'am, such as mothers would
approve. We'll fix an evening for it, when I
have the honor to call again. Good-morning,
Mrs. Haughton. Your hand again, Sir (to Li-
onel). — Ah, we shall be great friends, I guess !
You must let me take you out in my cab — teach
you to handle the ribbons, eh? 'Gad my old
friend Charles tf as a whip, Hal hal Good-
day, good-day I"
Not a muscle had moved in the Colonel's face
during Mr. Losely's jovial monologue. But when
Jasper had bowed himself out, Mrs. Haughton
courtesving and ringing the bell for the footman
to open the street-door, the man of the world my passport to your confidence, Mrs. Haughton.
(and, as man of the world. Colonel Morley was Charles was my old school-fellow — a little boy
consummate) again raised those small, slow eyes when I and Darrell were in the sixth form : and
—this time toward her face— and dropped the pardon me if I add that if that gentleman were
^■oj-ds ever Charles Haughton's particular frieud. he
" My old friend's particular friend is — not could scarcely have been a ven,- wise one. For,
bad-iooking, Mrs. Haughton!" unless his appearance greatly belie his yera-s, he
"And so livelv and pleasant," returned Mrs. must have been little more than a bov when
Haughton. with a slight rise of color, but no oth- ; Charles Haughton left Lionel fatherless."
tell you how I came to know the gentleman —
the gentleman who nearly run over me. Lionel,
and then spoke so kindly about your dear fa-
ther."
"Oh, that is the person! I supposed so,"
cried Lionel, kissing his mother, who was in-
clined to burst into tears. " I can explain it
all now. Colonel ^lorley. Any one who says a
kind word about my father warms my mother's
heart to him at once. Is it not so, mother
dear ?"
"And long be it so," said Colonel Morley,
with graceful earnestness; "and may such be
Here, in the delic.icy of tact, seeing that Mrs.
Haughton looked ashamed of the subject, and
seemed aware of her imprudence, the Colonel
er sign of embarrassment. "It may be a nice
acquaintance for Lionel."
"Mother!" cried that ungrateful boy, "you
are not speaking seriouslv. I think the man is rose, with a request — cheerfully granted — that
odious. If he were not my father's friend, I Lionel might be allowed to come to breakfast
should sav he was — " ' i with him the next morning.
110
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
CHAPTER XI.
A man of the world, having accepted a troublesome
charge, considers " what he will do with it;"" and hav-
ing promptlj- decided, is sure, first, that he could not
have done better; and, secondly, that much may be
said to prove that he could not have done worse.
Reserving to a later occasion anj more de-
tailed description of Colonel Morley, it suffices
for the present to say that he was a man of a
very fine understanding, as applied to the spe-
cial world in which he lived. Thongh no one
had a more numerous circle of friends, and
though with many of those friends he was on
that footing of familiar intimacy which Dar-
rell's active career once, and his rigid seclusion
of late, could not have established with anv
idle denizen of that brilliant society in which
Colonel Morley moved and had his being, yet
to Alban Morley's heart (a heart not easily
reached) no friend was so dear as Guy Darrell.
They had entered 'Eton on the same day —
left it the same daj" — lodged while there in the
same house ; and thongh of very different char-
acters, formed one of those strong, imperish-
able, brotherly affections which the Fates weave
into the ver'v woof of existence.
Dan'ell's recommendation would have secured
to any young protege Colonel Morley's gracious
welcome and invaluable advice. But both as
Darrell's acknowledged kinsman and as Charles
Haughton's son, Lionel called forth his kindli-
est sentiments, and obtained his most sagacious
deliberations. He had already seen the boy sev-
eral times before waiting on Mrs. Haughton,
deeming it would please her to defer his visit
until she could receive him in all the glories
of Gloucester Place ; and he had taken Lionel
into high favor, and deemed him worthy of a
conspicuous place in the world. Though Dar-
rell, in his letter to Colonel ilorley, had em-
phatically distinguished the position of Lionel,
as a favored kinsman, from that of a presump-
tive or even a probable heir, yet the rich man
had also added — '"But I wish him to take rank
as the representative to the Haughtons ; and,
whatever I may do with tlie bulk of my fortune,
I shall insure to him a liberal independence.
The completion of his education, the adequate
allowance to him, the choice of a profession,
are matters in which I entreat you to act for
yourself, as if you were his guardian. I am
leaving England — I may be abroad for years."
Colonel Morley, in accepting the responsibilities
thus pressed on him, brought to bear upon his
charge subtle discrimination as well as consci-
entious anxiety.
He saw that Lionel's heart was set upon the
military profession, and that his power of appli-
cation seemed lukewarm and desultory when
not cheered and concentred by enthusiasm, and
would, therefore, fail him if directed to studies
which had no immediate reference to the ob-
jects of his ambition. The Colonel according-
ly dismissed tlie idea of sending him for three
years to a University. Alban Jlorley summed
up his theories on the collegiate ordeal in these
succinct aphorisms: '"Nothing so good as a
University education, nor worse than a Uni-
versity without its education. Better throw a
youth at once into the wider sphere of a capital,
provided you there secure to his social life the
ordinary checks of good company, the restraints
imposed by the presence of decorous women,
and men of grave years and dignified repute,
than confine him to the exclusive society of
youths of his own age — tlic age of wild spirits
and unreflecting imitation — unless he cling to
the safeguard which is found in hard reading,
less by the book-knowledge it bestows than by
the serious and preoccupied mind which it ab-
stracts from tlie coarser temptations."
But Lionel, younger in character than in
years, was too boyish as yet to be safely con-
signed to those trials of tact and temper which
await the neophyte who enters on life through
the doors of a mess-room. His pride was too
morbid — too much on the alert for oftense ; his
frankness too crude, his spirit too untamed by
the insensible diseipHne of social commerce.
Qitoth the observant ;Man of the World :
"Place his honor in" his own keeping, and he
will carry it about with him on full cock, to
blow off a friend's head or his own before the
end of the first month. Huffy — decidedly huffy.
And of all causes that disturb regiments, and
induce court-martials, the commonest cause is
a huffy lad! Pity! for that youngster has in
him the right metal — spirit and talent that
should make him a first-rate soldier. It would
be time well spent, that should join professional
studies with that degree of polite culture which
gives dignity and cures hurjiacss. I must get
him out of London, out of England — cut him
off from his mother's aprori-strings, and the par-
ticular friends of his poor father who prowl un-
announced into the widow's drawing-room. He
shall go to Paris — no better place to learn mili-
tary theories, and be civilized out of hufly dis-
positions. No doubt my old friend, the cheva-
lier, who has the art strategic at his finger-ends,
might be induced to take him en pension, direct
his studies, and keep him out of harm's way. I
can secure to him the entree into the circles of
the rigid old Faubourg St. Germain, where man-
ners are best bred, and household ties most re-
spected. Besides, as I am so often at Paris my-
self, I shall have him under my eye ; and a few
years there spent in completing him as man may
bring him nearer to that marshal's baton which
every recniit should have in his eye, than if I
started him at once, a raw boy, unable to take
care of himself as an ensign, and unfitted, save
by mechanical routine, to take care of others,
should he live to buy the grade of a colonel."
The plans thus promptly formed Alban J[or-
ley briefly explained to Lionel, when the boy
came to breakfast in Curzon Street, requesting
him to obtain Jlrs. Haughton's acquiescence in
that exercise of the discretionary powers with
which he had been invested by Mr. Darrell. To
Lionel the proposition that commended the
very studies to which his tastes directed his am-
bition, and placed his initiation into responsible
manhood among scenes bright to his fancy, be-
cause new to his experience, seemed, of course,
the perfection of wisdom.
Less readily pleased was poor Mrs. Haugh-
ton when her son returned to communicate the
arrangement, backing a polite and well-worded
letter from the Colonel with his own more ai-t-
less eloquence. Instantly she flew ofl' on the
wing of her "little tempers." "What! her
only son taken from her — sent to that horrid
Continent, just when she was so respectably set-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Ill
tied ! TMiat was the good of money if she was
to be parted from her boy? Mr. Darrell mijiht
take the money back if he pleased — she would
write and tell him so. Colonel Morley had no
feeljn.ir; and she was shocked to think Lionel
was in such unnatural hands. She saw ver}-
plainly that he no longer cared for her — a ser-
pent's tooth, etc., etc." But as soon as the
burst was over the sky cleared, and Mrs. Ilaugh-
ton became penitent and sensible. Then her
grief for Lionel's loss was diverted by prepara-
tions for his departure. There was his ward-
robe to see to — a patent portmanteau to pur-
chase and to fill. And, all done, the last even-
ing mother and son spent together, though pain-
ful at the moment, it would be happiness for
both herea/ter to recall I Their hands clasped
in each other — her head leaning on his young
shoulder — her tears kissed so soothingly away.
And soft words of kindly, motherly counsel —
sweet promises of filial performance. Happy,
thrice happy, as an after remembrance, be the
final parting between hopeful son and fearful
parent, at the foot of that mystic bridge which
starts from the threshold of Home — lost in the
dimness of the far-opposing shore I — bridge over
■which goes the boy who will never return but as
the man.
CHAPTER XIL
The Pocket-Cannibal baits his woman's trap with love-
letters — And a widow allured steals timidly toward it
from under the weeds.
Jasper Loselt is beginning to be hard up I
The infallible calculation at ronge-et-noir has
carried oft all that cajjital which had accumu-
lated from the savings of the young gentlemen
whom Dolly Poole had contributed to his ex-
chequer. Poole himself is beset by duns, and
pathetically observes "that he has lost three
stone in weight, and that he believes the calves
to his legs are gone to enlarge his liver."
Jasper is compelled to put down his cabriolet
— to discharge his groom — to retire from his
fashionable lodgings ; and just when the pros-
pect even of a dinner becomes dim, he bethinks
himself of Arabella Crane, and remembers that
she promised him £5, nay, £10, which are still
due from her. He calls — he is received like the
prodigal son. Xay, to his own surprise, he finds
Mrs. Crane has made her house much more in-
viting — the drawing-rooms are cleaned up ; the
addition of a few easy anicles of furniture gives
them quite a comfortable air. She herself has
improved in costume — though her favorite color
sfill remains iron-gray. She informs Jasper that
she fully expected him — that these preparations
are in his honor — that she has engaged a very
good cook — that she hopes he will dine with her
when not better engaged ; in short, let him feel
himself at home in Podden Place.
Jasper at first suspected a sinister design, un-
der civilities that his conscience told him were
unmerited — a design to entrap him into that
matrimonial alliance which he had so ungal-
lantly scouted, and from which he still recoiled
with an abhorrence which man is not justified
in feeling for any connubial partner less preter-
naturally terrific than the Witch of Endor or
the Bleeding Nun !
But Mrs. Crane quickly and candidly hastened
to dispel his ungenerous apprehensions. " She
had given up,'" she said, "all ideas so preposter-
ous — love and wedlock were equally out of her
mind. But ill as he had behaved to her, she
could not but feel a sincere regard for him— a
deep interest in his fate, lie oiight still to make
a brilliant marriage — did that idea not occur to
him ? She might help him there with her wo-
man's wit. In short,' said Mrs. Crane, pinch-
ing her lips, " in short, Jasper, I feel for you as
a viotlier. Look on me as such I"
That pure and aftectionate notion \\onder-
fuUy tickled, and egregiously delighted Jasper
Losely, '"Look on you as a mother! I will,"
said he, with emphasis. '"Best of creatures I"
And though in his own mind he had not a doubt
that she still adored him (not as a mother), he
believed it was a disinterested, devoted adora-
tion, such as the beautiful brute really had in-
spired more than once in his abominable life.
Accordingly, he moved into the neighborhood
of Podden Place, contenting himself with a sec-
ond-floor bedroom in a house recommended to
him by Mrs. Crane, and taking his meals at his
adopted mother's with filial famiharity. She
expressed a desire to make Mr. Poole's ac-
quaintance — Jasper hastened to present that
worthy. Mrs. Crane invited Samuel Dolly to
dine one day, to sup the next; she lent him £3
to redeem his dress-coat from pawn, and she
gave him medicaments for the relief of his head-
ache.
Samuel Dolly venerated her as a most supe-
rior woman — envied Jasper such a '"mother."
Thus easily did Arabella Crane possess herself
of the existence of Jasper Losely. Lightly her
fingers closed over it — lightly asthe fisherman's
over the captivated trout. And whatever her
generosity, it was not carried to imprudence.
She just gave to Jasjer enough to bring him
within her power — she had no idea of ruining
herself by larger sujiplies — she concealed from
him the extent of her income (which was in
chief part derived from house rents), the amount
of her savings, even the name of her banker.
And if he carried oflf to the ronge-et-noir table
the coins he obtained from her, and came for
more, Mrs. Crane put on the look of a mother
incensed — mild but awful — and scolded as mo-
thers sometimes can scold. Jasper Losely began
to be frightened at Mrs. Crane's scoldings. And
he had not that pjower over her, which, though
arrogated by a lover, is denied to an adopted
son. His mind, relieved from the habitual dis-
traction of the gambling-table — for which the
resource was wanting — settled with redoubled
ardor on the image of Mrs. Haughton. He had
called at her house several times since the fatal
day on which he had met there Colonel Morley,
but Mrs. Haughton was never at home. And
as, when the answer was given to him In' the
footman, he had more than once, on crossing
the street, seen herself through the window, it
was clear that his acquaintance was not court-
ed. Jas])er Losely, by habit, was the reverse
of a pertinacious aud troublesome suitor — not,
Heaven knows, from want of audacity, but from
excess of self-love. "\Miere a lovelace so su-
perb condescended to make overtures, a Cla-
rissa so tasteless as to decline them deserved and
experienced his contempt. Besides, steadfast
112
WHAT WELL HE DO WITH IT ?
and prolonged pursuit of any object, however
important and atti-active, was alien to the lev-
ity and fickleness of his temper. But in this
instance he had other motives than those on the
surface for unusual perseverance.
A man like Jasper Losely never reposes im-
plicit confidence in any one. He is garrulous,
indiscreet — lets out much that Machiavel would
have advised him not to disclose ; but he inva-
riably has nooks and corners in his mind which
he keeps to himself. Jasper did not confide to
his adoj)ted mother his designs upon his intend-
ed bride. But she knew them through Poole, to
whom he was more frank; and when she saw
him looking over her select and severe libraiy —
taking therefrom the Polite Letter- Writer and
the Elegant Extracts, Mrs. Crane divined at once
that Jasper Losely was meditating the eflect of
epistolary seduction upon the widou- of Glouces-
ter Place.
Jasper did not write a bad love-letter in the
florid style. He had at his command, in espe-
cial, certain poetical quotations, the efl^ect of
which repeated experience had assured him to
be as potent upon the female breast as the in-
cantations or Carmina of the ancient sorcery.
The following in particular :
"Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I ne'er could injure you."
Another — generally to be applied when confess-
ing that his career had been interestingly wild,
and would, if pity were denied him, be pathet-
ically short:
"When he who adores thee has left but the uame
Of his faults and his follies behind."
Armed with these quotations — many a sen-
tence from the Polite Letter- Writer or the Ele-
gant ExtracAs — and a quire of rose-edged paj>er,
Losely sat down to Ovidian composition. But
as he approached the close of Epistle the First,
it occurred to him that a signature and address
were necessary. The address not difficult. He
could give Boole's (hence his confidence to that
gentleman J — Poole had a lodging in Bury Street,
yt. James, a fashionable locality for single men.
But the name required more consideratipn.
There were insuperable objections against sign-
ing his own to any person who might be in com-
munication with Mr. Dan-ell — a pity, for there
was a good old family of the name of Lose-
ly. A name of aristocratic sound might indeed
be readily borrowed from any lordly proprietor
thereof without asking a formal consent. But
this loan was exposed to danger. Mrs. Haugh-
ton might very naturally mention such name, as
borne by her husband's friend, to Colonel Mor-
ley, and Colonel Morley would most probably
know enough of the connections and relations
of any jieer so honored to say, "There is no
such Greville, Cavendish, or Talbot." But Jas-
per Losely was not without fertility of invention
and readiness of resource. A grand idea, wor-
thy of a master, and proving that, if the man
had not been a rogue in grain, he could have
been reared into a very clever politician, flashed
across him. He would sign himself " Smith."
Nobody could say there is no such Smith ; no-
body could say that a Smith might not be a
most respectable, fashionable, highly connected
man. There are Smiths who are millionaires
— Smiths who are large-acred squires — substan-
tial baronets — peers of England, and pillars of
the State — members even of the British Cabi-
net. You can no more question a man's right
to be a Smith than his right to be a Briton;
and wide as the diversity of rank, lineage, vir-
tue, and genius in Britons, is the diversity in
Smiths. But still a name so generic often af-
fects a definitive precursor. Jasper signed him-
self "J. COLRTEXAT SmITH."
He called, and left Epistle the First with his
own kid-gloved hand, inquiring first if Mrs.
Haughton were at home, and, responded to in
the negative, this time, he asked for her son.
" Her son was gone abroad with Colonel Mor-
ley." Jasper, though sorrj- to lose present hold
over the boy, was consoled at learning that the
Colonel was oil' the ground. More sanguine of
success, he glanced up at the window, and, sure
that ilrs. Haughton was there, though he saw
her not, lifted his hat Mith as melancholy an
expression of reproach as he could throw into
his face.
The villain could not have found a moment
in ^Irs. Haughton's widowed life so propitious
to his chance of success. In her lodging-house
at Pimlico, the good lady had been too inces-
santly occupied for that idle train of reverie in
which, the poets assure us, that Cupid finds
leisure to whet his arrows, and take his aim.
Had Lionel still been by her side — had even
Colonel ^lorley been in town — her affection for
the one, her awe of the other, would have been
her safeguards. But alone in that fine new
house — no friends, no acquaintances as yet — no
dear visiting circle on which to expend the de-
sire of talk and the zest for innocent excitement
that are natural to ladies of an active mind and
a nervous temperament, the sudden obtrusion of
a suitor so respectfully ardent — oh, it is not to
be denied that the temptation was immense !
And when that note, so neatly folded — so
elegantly sealed — lay in her in-esolute hand, the
widow could not but feel that she was still
young, still pretty ; and her heart flew back to
the day when the linen-draper's fair daughter
had been the cynosure of the provincial High
Street — when young officers had lounged to and
fro the pavement, looking in at her window —
when ogles and notes had alike beset her, and
j the dark eyes of the irresistible Chr.rlie Haugh-
j ton had first taught her pulse to tremble. And
in her hand lies the letter of Charlie Haughton's
\ particular friend. She breaks the seal. She
' reads — a declaration !
Five letters in five days did Jasper T\Tite. In
! the course of those letters, he explains av,-ay the
I causes for suspicion which Colonel Morley had
so ungenerously suggested. He is no longer
anonymous — he is J. Courtenay Smith. He
I alludes incidentally to the precocious age in
which he had become "lord of himself, that
heritage of M'oe." This accounts for his friend-
ship with a man so much his senior as the late
Charlie. He confesses that, in the vortex of
I dissipation, his hereditary estates have disap-
! peared ; but he has still a genteel independence ;
and with the woman of his heart, etc., etc. He
had never before known what real love was, etc.
" Pleasure had fired his maddening soul ;" " but
the heart — the heart been lonely still." He en-
treated only a personal inteniew, even though
to be rejected — scorned. Still, when "he who
adored her had left but the name," etc., etc.
•WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
113
Alas I alas I as Mrs. Haughton put do^Yn Epistle
the Fifth, she hesitated; and the woman who
hesitates in such a case, is sure, at least — to
^^Tite a civil answer.
Mi-s. Haughton wrote but three lines — still
thev were civil — and conceded an interview for
the' next day, though implying that it was but
for the purjjose of assuring Mr. J. Courtenay
Smith in person, of her unalterable fidelity to
the shade of his lamented friend.
In liigh glee Jasper s-howed Mrs. Haughton's
answer to Dolly Poole, and began seriously to
speculate on the probable amount of the wid-
ow's income, and the value of her movables in
Gloucester Place. Thence he repaired to Mrs.
Crane; and. emboldened by the hope forever to
escape from maternal tutelage, braved her scold-
ings, and asked for a couple of sovereigns. He
was sure that he should be in luck that night.
She gave to him the sum and spared the scold-
ings. But as soon as he was gone, conject-
uring, from the bravado of his manner, what
had really occurred, Mrs. Crane put c*i her bon-
net and went out.
CHAPTER XIII.
fnhappy is the man who puts his trust in — a -n-oman.
Late that evening a lady, in a black vail,
knocked at Xo. — Gloucester Place, and asked
to see Mrs. Haughton on urgent business. She
was admitted. She remained but five minutes.
The next day, when "gay as a bridegroom
prancing to his bride," Jasper Losely presented
himself at the widow's door, the servant placed
in his hand a packet, and informed him bluff-
ly that Mrs. Haughton had gone out of town,
jasper with difficulty suppressed his rage, open-
ed the packet — his own letters returned, with
these words — " Sir, your name is not Courtenay
Smith. If you trouble me again I shall apply
to the police." Never from female hand had
Jasper Loscly's pride received such a slap on its
face. He was literally stunned. Mechanically
he hastened to Arabella Crane ; and having no
longer any object in concealment, but, on the
contrary, a most urgent craving for sympathy,
he poured forth his indignation and wrongs.
No mother could be more consolatory than Mrs.
Crane. She soothed, she flattered, she gave him
an excellent dinner ; after which she made him
so comfortable — what with an easy-cliair and
complimentary converse, that, when Jasper rose
late to return to his lodging, he said: "After
all, if I had been ugly and stupid, and of a
weakly constitution, I should have been of a
verj- domestic turn of mind."
CHAPTER XIV.
No Author ever drew a character, consistent to human
nature, but what he was forced to ascribe to it many
inconsistencies.
WnETiiER moved by that pathetic speech of
Jasper's, or by some other impulse not less
feminine, Arabella Crane seemed suddenly to
conceive the laudable and arduous design of re-
forming that portentous sinner. She had some
distant relations in London, whom she very
rarely troubled with a visit, and who, had she
H
wanted any thing from them, would have shut
their doors in her face ; but as, on the contrary,
she was well otl", single, and might leave her
money to whom she jdeased, the distant rela-
tions were always warm in manner, and prodigal
in their ofters of senice. The next day she re-
paired to one of these kinsfolk — a person in a
large way of business — and returned home with
two great books in white sheepskin. And when
Losely looked in to dine, she said, in the suavest
tones a tender mother can address to an amiable
truant, "Jasper, you have great abilities — at the
gaming-table abilities are evidently useless —
your forte is calculation — you were always very
quick at that. I have been fortunate enough to
procure you an easy piece of taskwork, for w hicli
you will be liberally remunerated. A friend of
minp wishes to submit these books to a regular
accountant ; he suspects that a clerk has cheated
him, but he can not tell how or where. You
know accounts thoroughly — no one better — and
the pay will be ten guineas."
Jasper, though his early life had rendered
familiar and facile to him the science of book-
keeping and double-entry, made a grimace at
the revolting idea of any honest labor, however
light and well paid. But ten guineas were an
immense temptation, and in the evening Jlrs.
Crane coaxed him into the task.
Neglecting no feminine art to make the law-
less nomad feel at home under her roof, she had
provided for his ease and comfort morocco slip-
pers and a superb dressing-robe, in material
i-ich, in color becoming. Men, single or mari-
tal, are accustomed to connect the idea of home
with dressing-gown and slippers, especially if,
after dinner, they apply (as Jasper Losely now-
applied) to occupations, in which the brain is
active, the form in repose. "What achievement,
literaiy or scientific, was ever accomplished by
a student strapped to unyielding boots, and
"cabined, cribbed, confined," in a coat that
fits him like wax? As robed in the cozy gar-
ment which is consecrated to the sacred familiar
Lares, the relaxing, handsome ruffian sate iu
the quiet room, bending his still regular jirofile
over the sheepskin books — the harmless pen in
that strong well-shajied hand, Mrs. Crane watch-
ed him with a softening countenance. To liear
him company, she had actively taken herself to
work — the gold thimble dragged from its long
repose — marking and hemming, with nimble
artistic fingei-s, new cravats for the adopted son !
Strange creature is Woman! Ungrateful and
perfidious as that sleek tiger before her had oft-
en proved himself — though no man could less
deserve one kindly sentiment in a female heart
— though she knew that he cared nothing for
her, still it was pleasing to know that he cared
for nobody else — that he was sitting in the same
room — and Arabella Crane felt that if that ex-
istence could continue she could forget the past,
and look contented toward the future. Again I
say, strange creature is Woman! — and, in this
instance, creature more strange, because so
grim ! But as her eyes soften, and her fingers
work, and her mind revolves schemes for mak-
ing that lawless wild beast an innocuous, tame
animal, who can help feeling for and with grim
Arabella Crane ?
Poor woman ! And will not the experiment
succeed? Three evenings does Jasper Losely
114
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
devote to this sinless life and its peaceful occu-
pation. He completes his task — he receives the
ten guineas. (How much of that fee came out
of Mrs. Crane's privy purse?) He detects three
mistakes, which justify suspicion of the book-
keeper's integrity. Set a thief to catch a thief!
He is praised for acuteness, and promised a still
lighter employment, to be still better paid. He
departs, declaring that he will come the next
day, earlier than usual — he volunteers an eulo-
giura upon work in general — he vows that even-
ings so happy he has not spent for years ; he
leaves Mrs. Crane so much impressed by the
hope of his improvement, that if a good clergy-
man had found her just at that moment, she
might almost have been induced to pray. But —
" lieu quoties fidem
Mutatosque deos flebit!"
Jasper Losely returns not, neither to Podden
Place nor to his lodging in the neighborhood.
Days elapse ; still he comes not ; even Poole
does not know where he has gone ; even Poole
has not seen him! But that latter worthy is
now laid up with a serious rheumatic fever —
confined to his i-oom and water-gruel. And Jas-
per Losely is not the man to intrude himself on
the privacy of a sick chamber. Mrs. Crane,
more benevolent, visits Poole — cheers him up —
gets him a nurse — writes to Uncle Sam. Poole
blesses her. He hopes that Uncle Sam, moved
by the spectacle of his sick bed, will say, "Don't
let your debts fret you — I will pay them !" What-
ever her disappointment or resentment at Jas-
per's thankless and mysterious evasion, Arabel-
la Crane is calmly confident of his return. To
her servant, Bridgett Greggs, who was perhaps
the sole person in the world who entertained
affection for tlie lone, gaunt woman, and who
held Jasper Losely in profound detestation, she
said, with tranquil sternness, " That man has
crossed my life, and darkened it. He passed
away, and left Night behind him. He has dared
to return. He shall never escape me again till
the grave yawn for one of us."
"But, Lor' love you, miss, you would not put
yourself in the power of such a black-hearted
vilHng ?"
" In Ids power ! No, Bridgett ; fear not, he
must be in mine — sooner or later in mine —
hand and foot. Patience !"
As she was thus speaking — a knock at the
door — " It is he — I told you so — quick!"
But it was not Jasper Losely. It was Mr.
Ruggc.
CHAPTEE XV.
""When God ivUls, all winds bring rain." — Ancient Pro-
verb.
The manager had not submitted to the loss
of his property in Sophy and £100, without tak-
ing much vain trouble to recover the one or the
other. He liad visited Jasper while that gentle-
man lodged in St. James's, but the moment he
hinted at the return of the £100, Mr. Losely
opened both door and window, and requested
the manager to make his iininediate choice of
the two. Taking the more usual mode of exit.
Ml-. Rugge vented his just indignation in a law-
yer's letter, threatening Mr. Losely with an ac-
tion for conspiracy and fraud. He had also
more than once visited Mrs. Crane, who some-
what soothed him by allowing that he had been
very badly used, that he ought at least to be re-
paid his money, and promising to do her best to
persuade Mr. Losely to "behave like a gentle-
man." With regard to So])hy herself, Mrs.
Crane appeared to feel a profound indifference.
In fact, the hatred which Mrs. Crane had un-
questionably conceived for Sophy while under
her charge, was much diminished by Losely's
unnatural conduct toward the child. To her it
was probably a matter of no interest whether
Sophy was in Rugge's hands or Waife's ; enough
for her that the daughter of a woman against
whose memory her fiercest passions were enlist-
ed was, in either case, so far below herself in
the grades of the social ladder.
Perhaps of the two protectors for Sophy —
Rugge and Waife — her spite alone would have
given the preference to Waife. He was on a
still lower step of the ladder than the itinerant
manager. Nor, though she had so mortally in-
jured the forlorn cripple in the eyes of Mr. Har-
topp, had she any deliberate purpose of revenge
to gratify against /dm! On the contrary, if she
viewed him with contempt, it was a contempt
not unmixed with pity. It was necessary to
make to the mayor the communications she had
made, or that worthy magistrate would not have
surrendered the child intrusted to him, at least
until Waife's return. And really it was a kind-
ness to the old man to save him both from an
agonizing scene with Jasper, and from tlic moi'c
public opprobrium which any resistance on his
part to Jasper's authority, or any altercation be-
tween the two, Mould occasion. And as her
main object then was to secure Losely's allegi-
ance to her, by proving her power to be useful
to him, so Waifes, and Sophys, and Mayors, and
Managers, were to her but as pawns to be moved
and sacrificed, according to the leading strategy
of her game.
Rugge came now, agitated and breathless, to
inform Jlrs. Crane that Waife had been seen in
London. Sir. Rugge's clown had seen him, not
far from the Tower ; but the cripple had disap-
peared before the clown, M"ho was on t!ie top of
an omnibus, had time to descend. "And even
if he had actually caught hold of Mr. AVaife,"
observed JNIrs. Crane, "what then? You have
no claim on Mr. Waife."
*^ But the Phenomenon must be with that rav-
ishing marauder,'"' said Rugge. "However, I
have set a minister of justice, that is, ma'am, a
detective police, at work ; and what I now ask
of you is simply this — should it be necessary
for JVIr. Losely to appear with me before the
senate, that is to say, ma'am, a metropolitan
police court, iu order to prove my legal ])roperty
in my own bouglit and paid-for Phenomenon,
will you induce that bold, bad man, not again
to return the jjoisoned chalice to my lips?"
" I do not even know where Mr. Losely is —
perhaps not in London."
"Ma'am, I saw him last night at the theatre —
Princess's. I was in the shilling gallery. He who
owes me £100, ma'am — lie in a private box!"
" Ah ! you arc sure ; by himself?"
" Vrith a lady, ma'am — a lady in a shawl from
Ingee. I know them sliawls. My father taught
me to know them in early childliood, for he v,-a3
an ornament to British commerce — a broker,
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
115
ma'am — pawn! And," continued Rugge, with
a withering smile, " that man in a private box,
which at the Princess's costs two pounds two,
and with the spoils of Ingee by his side, lifted
his eye-glass and beheld me ; me in the shilling
gallery, and his conscience did not say ' should
we not change places if I paid that gentleman
i;iOO?' Can such things be, and overcome us,
ma'am, like a summer-cloud, without our spe-
cial — I put it to you, ma'am — wonder?"
♦'Oh, with a lady, was he!" exclaimed Ara-
bella Crane ; her wrath, which, while the man-
ager spoke, gathered fast and full, bursting now
into words — "His ladies shall know the man
who sells his own child for a show ; only find
out wlierc the girl is, then come here again be-
fore you stir further. Oh, with a lady I Go to
your detective policeman, or, rather, send him to
me ; we will first discover Mr. Losely's address.
I will pay all the expenses. Eely on my zeal,
Mr. Rugge."
Much comforted, the manager went his way.
He had not been long gone before Jasper him-
self appeared. The traitor entered with a more
than customary bravado of manner, as if he ap-
prehended a scolding, and was prepared to face
it ; but ^Irs. Crane neither reproached him for
his prolonged absence, nor expressed surprise at
his return. With true feminine duplicity she re-
ceived him as if nothing had happened. Jasper,
thus relieved, became of his own accord apo-
logetic and explanatory; evidently he wanted
something of Mrs. Crane. " The fact is, my dear
friend," said he, sinking into a chair, " that the
day after I last saw you, I happened to go to the
General Post-office to see if there were any let-
ters for me — you smile, you don't believe me.
Honor bright — here they are, " and Jasper took
from the side-pocket of his coat a pocket-book —
a new pocket-book — a brilliant pocket-book —
fragrant Russian leather — delicately embossed
— golden clasps — silken linings — jeweled pencil-
case — malachite penknife — an ai-senal of nick-
nacks stored in neat recesses ; such a pocket-
book as no man ever gives to himself. Sarda-
napalus would not have given that pocket-book
to himself! Such a pocket-book never comes to
you, oh, enviable Lotharios, save as tributary
keepsakes from the charmers who adore you !
Grimly the Adopted ^Mother eyed that pocket-
book. Never had she seen it before. Grimly
she pinched her lips. Out of this dainty volume
— which would have been of cumbrous size to a
slim thread-paper exquisite, but scarcely bulged
into rip{)lc the Atlantic expanse of Jasjjcr Lose-
ly's magnificent chest — the monster drew forth
two letters on French paper — foreign post-
marks. He replaced them quickly, only suffer-
ing her eye to glance at the address, and con-
tinued: "Fancy! that purse-proud Grand Turk
of an infidel, though he would not believe me,
has been to France — yes, actually to * * * * * —
making inquiries evidently with reference to
Sophy. The woman who ought to have thor-
oughly converted him took flight, however, and
missed seeing him. Confound her! I ought
to have been there. So I have no doubt for the
present the Pagan remains stubborn. Gone on
intoltaly, I hear; doing me, violating thclaws
of nature, and roving about the world with his
own solitarv" hands in his bottomless pockets, like
the Wandering Jew! But, as some slight set-
off in my run of ill-luck, I find at the Post-office
a plcasanter letter than the one which brings
me this news : A rich elderly lady, who has no
family, wants to adojit a nice child, will fake
Sophy; make it wortli my while to let her have
Sophy. 'Tis convenient in a thousand ways to
settle one's child comfortably in a rich house —
establishes rights, subject, of course, to cheques
which would not affront nie — a Father ! But the
first thing requisite is to catch Sophy; 'tis in
that I ask j-our help — you are so clever. Best
of creatures ! what could I do without you ? As
you say, whenever I want a friend I come to
you — Bella !"
i\Irs. Crane suiTeyed Jasper'^s face deliberate-
ly. It is strange how much more readily women
read the thoughts of men than men detect those
of women. "You know where the child is,"
said she, slowly.
" Well, I take it for granted she is with the
old man ; and I have seen him — seen him yes-
terday."
" Go on ; you saw him — where?"
"Near London Bridge."
"What business could yoti possibly have in
that direction? Ah! I guess, the railway-sta-
tion — to Dover — you are going abroad?"
"Xo such thing — you are so horridly suspi-
cious. But it is true I had been to the station
inquiring after some luggage or parcels which a
friend of mine had ordered to be left there —
now, don't interrupt me. At the foot of the
bi'idge I caught a sudden glimpse of the old man
— changed — altered — aged — one eye lost. You
had said I should not know him again, but I did ;
I should never have recognized his face. I knew
him by the build of the shoulder, a certain turn
of the arms — I don't know what ; one knows a
man familiar to one from birth without seeing
his face. Uh, Bella ! I declare that I felt as
soft — as soft as the silliest muff who ever — "
Jasper did not complete his comparison, but
paused a moment, breathing hard, and then
broke into another sentence. " He was selling
something in a basket — matches, boot-straps,
deuce knows what. He ! a clever man, too ! I
should have liked to drop into that d — d basket
all the money I had about me."
"\Miy did not you ?"
"Why? How could I? He would have rec-
ognized me. There would have been a scene —
a row — a flare up — a mob round us, I dare say.
I had no idea it would so upset me ; to see him
selling matches, too; glad we did not meet at
Gatesboro'. Kot even for that £100 do I think
I could have faced him. No — as he said when
we last parted, ' The world is wide enough for
both.' Give me some brandy — thank you."
" You did not speak to the old man — he did
not see you — but you wanted to get back the
child ; you felt sure she must be with him ; you
followed him home ?"
"1? No; I should have had to wait for
hours. A man like me, loitering about London
, Bridge ! — I should have been too consj'icuous —
! he would have soon caught sight of me, though
\ I kept on his blind side. I cm]tloyed a ragged
j boy to watch and follow him, and here is the
address. Now, will you get Sophy back for me
! without any trouble to me, without my appear-
ing? I would rather charge a regiment of
; Horse Guards than buUv that old man."
116
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
" Yet you would rob him of that child — his 1
sole comfort?"
"Bother!" cried Losely, impatiently: "the
child can be onl}' a burden to him ; well out of
his way ; 'tis for the sake of that child he is sell-
ing matches ! It would be the greatest charity
w'e could do him to set him free from that child
sponging on him, dragging him down ; without
her he'd find a way to shift for himself. Why,
he's even cleverer than I am ! And there —
there — give him this money, but don't say it
came from me."
He thrust, without counting, several sover-
eigns — at least twelve or fourteen — into Mrs.
Crane's palm ; and so powerful a charm has
goodness the very least, even in natures the most
evil, that that unusual, eccentric, inconsistent
gleam of human pity in Jasper Losely's benight-
ed soul, shed its relenting influence over the an-
gry, wrathful, and vindictive feelings with which
Mrs. Crane the moment befoi-e regarded the per-
fidious miscreant ; and she gazed at him with a
sort of melancholy wonder. What ! though so
little sympathizing with aft'ection that he could
not comprehend that he was about to rob the old
man of a comfort which no gold could rejiay —
what ! though so contemptuously callous to his
own child — yet there in her hand lay the unmis-
takable token that a something of. humanity,
compunction, compassion, still lingered in the
breast of the greedy cynic ; and at that thought
all that was softest in her own human nature
moved toward him — indulgent — gentle. But in
the rapid changes of the heart-feminine, the
very sentiment that touched upon love brought
back the jealousy that bordered upon hate.
How came he by so much money ? more than
days ago, he, the insatiate spendthrift, had re-
ceived for his taskwork? And that Pocket-
book !
" You have suddenly grown rich, Jasper?"
For a moment he looked confused, but re-
plied, as he re-helped himself to the brandy,
" Yes, roufje-et-noir- — luck. Kow do go and see
after this affair, that's a dear, good woman. Get
the child to-day, if you can. I will call here in
the evening."
" Should you take her, then, abroad at once
to this worthy lady who will adopt her ? If so,
we shall meet, I suppose, no more ; and I am
assisting you to forget that I live still."
" Abroad — that crotchet of yours again. You
are quite mistaken — in fact, the lady is in Lon-
don. It was for her effects that I went to the
station. Oh, don't be jealous — quite elderly."
" Jealous, my dear Jasper ; you forget. I am
as your mother. One of your letters, then, an-
nounced this lady's intended arrival. You were
in correspondence with this — elderly lady?"
'" Why, not exactly in correspondence. But
when I left Paris I gave the General Post-office
as my address to a few friends in France. And
this lady, who took an interest in my affairs
(ladies, whether old or young, who have once
known me, always do), was aware that I had
expectations with respect to the child. So, some
days ago, when I was so badly oft', I wrote a line
to tell her that Sophy had been no go, and that
but for a dear friend (that is you) I might be on
the pave. In her answer, she said she should
be in London as soon as I received her letter ;
and gave me an address here at which to learn
■where to find her when amved— ;a good old
soul, but strange to London. I have been very
busy, helping her to find a house, recommend-
ing tradesmen, and so forth. She likes style,
and can afford it. A pleasant house enough ;
but our quiet evenings here spoil me for any
thing else. Now get on your bonnet, and let
me see you oft"."
"On one condition, my dear Jasper; that
you stay here till I return."
Jasper made a wry face. But, as it was near
dinner-time, and he never wanted for appetite,
he at length agreed to employ the iuterval of
her absence in discussing a meal, which experi-
ence had told him Mrs. Crane's new cook would,
not uuskillfully, though hastily, prepare. Mrs.
Crane left him to order the dinner, and put on
her shawl and boimet. But, gaining her own
room, she rung for Bridgett Greggs ; and when
that confidential servant appeared, she said:
"In the side-pocket of I\Ii\ Losely's coat there
is a Pocket-book; in it there are some letters
which I must see. I shall appear to go out,
leave the street-door ajar, that I may slip in
again unobserved. Y'^ou will ser\'e dinner as
soon as possible. And when Jlr. Losely, as
usual, exchanges his coat for the dressing-gown,
contrive to take out that pocket-book unobsenxd
by him. Bring it to me here, in this room : you
can as easily replace it afterward. A niomeut
will suthce to my purpose."
Bridgett nodded, and understood. Jasper,
standing by the window, saw Mrs. Crane leave
the house, walking briskly. He then threw him-
self on the sofa, and began to doze: the doze
deepened, and became sleep. Bridgett, enter-
ing to lay the cloth, so found him. She ap-
proached on tiptoe — sniffed the perfume of the
pocket-book — saw its gilded corners peep forth
from its lair. She hesitated — she trembled —
she was in mortal fear of that truculent slum-
berer; but sleep lessens the awe thieves feel, or
heroes inspire. She has taken the pocket-book
— she has fled with the booty — she is in Mrs.
Crane's apartment, not five minutes after Mrs.
Crane has regained its threshold.
Rapidly the jealous woman ransacked the pock-
et-book — started to see, elegantly worked with
gold threads, in the lining, the words, " Sou-
viExs-Toi DE TA Gabrielle" — BO Other letters,
save the two, of which Jasper had vouchsafed
to her but the glimpse. Over these she huri'ied
her glittering eyes ; and when she restored them
to their place, and gave back the book to Brid-
gett, who stood by, breathless and listening, lest
Jasper should awake, her face was colorless, and
a kind of shudder seemed to come over her.
Left alone, she rested her face on her hand, her
lips moving as if in self-commune. Then noise-
lessly she glided down the stairs, regained the
street, and hurried fast upon her way.
Bridgett was not in time to rest^orc the book
to Jasper's pocket, for when she re-entered he
was turning round and stretching himself be-
tween sleep and waking. But she dropped the
book skillfully on the" floor, close beside the
sofa ; it would seem to him, on waking, to have
fallen out of the pocket in the natural move-
ments of sleep.
xVnd in fact, when he rose, dinner now on the
table, he picked up the pocket-book without sus-
picion. But it was lucky that Bridgett had not
WHAT VTLLL HE DO WITH IT ?
117
waited for the opportnnitv suggested bv her mis-
tress. For when Jasper put on tlie dressing-
gown, he observed that his coat wanted brush-
inf ; and, in giving it to the servant for that
purpose, he used the precaution of taking out
the pocket-book, and placing it in some other
receptacle of his dress.
Mrs. Crane returned in less than two hours
— returned with a disappointed look, which at
once prepared Jasper for the intelligence that
the birds to be entrapped had flown.
"They went away this afternoon," said Mi-s.
Crane, tossing Jasper's sovereigns on the table,
as if they burned her fingers. ''But leave the
fugitives to me. I will find them."
Jasper relieved his angrj- mind by a series
of guilty but meaningless ex])letives ; and then,
seeing no farther use to which ilrs. Crane's wits
could be applied at present, finished the remain-
der of her brandy, and wished her good-night,
with a promise to call again, but without any
intimation of his ovm address. As soon as he
was gone, !Mrs. Crane once more summoned
Bridget t.
" You told me last week that your brother-
in-law, Simpson, wished to go to America, that
he had the offer of employment there, but that
he could not afford the fare of the voyage. I
promised I would help him if it was a senice
to you."
" You are a liangel, iliss !" exclaimed Brid-
gett, dropping a low courtesy — so low that it
seemed as if she was going on her knees. " And
may you have your deserts in the next blessed
world, where there are no black-hearted vil-
lings."
"Enough, enough," said Mrs. Crane, recoil-
ing, perhaps, from that grateful benediction.
"You have been faithful to me, as none else
have ever been; but this time I do not sene
you in return so much as I meant to do. The
service is reciprocal, if your brother-in-law will
do me a favor. He takes with him his daugh-
ter, a mere child. Bridgett, let them enter tlieir
names on the steam-vessel as "William and So-
phy Waife ; they can, of course, resume their
own name when the voyage is over. There is
the fare for them, and something more. Pooh,
no thanks. I can spare the money. See your
brother-in-law the first thing in the morning;
and remember they go by the next vessel, which
sails from Liverpool on Thursday."
CIIAPTER XVJ.
Those poor Pocket Cannibals, how society does persecute
them ! Even a menial servant would give warning if
disturbed at his meals. But your Man-eater is the
meekest of creatures ; he will never give warning, and
— nt t often take it
Whatever the source that had supplied Jas-
per Losely with the money, from which he had
so generously extracted the sovereigns intended
to console Waife for the loss of Sophy, that
source either dried up, or became wholly inade-
quate to his wants. For elasticity was the feli-
citous peculiarity of Mr. Losely's wants. They
accommodated themselves to the state of his
finances with mathematical precision, alwayJ
requiring exactly five times the amount of the
means placed at his disposal.- From a shilling
to a million, multiply his wants by five times
the total of his means, and you arrived at a just
conclusion. Jasper called upon Poole, who was
slowly recovering, but unable to leave his room ;
and finding that gentleman in a more melan-
choly state of mind than usual, occasioned by Un-
cle Sam's brutal declaration, that " if responsible
for his godson's sins, he was not responsible for
his debts ;" and that he really thought " the best
thing Samuel Dolly could do was to go to pris-
on for a short time, and get whitewaslied;" Jas-
per began to lament his own hard fate : " And
just when one of the finest women in Paris has
come here on purpose to see me," said the lady-
killer ; " a lady who keeps her carriage, Dolly !
Would have introduced you if you had been well
enough to go out. One can't be always borrow-
ing of her. I wish one could. There's Jlother
Crane would sell her gown off her back for me,
but, 'Gad, Sir, she snubs, and positively fright-
ens me. Besides, she lays traps to demean me
— set me to work like a clerk (not that I would
hurt your feelings, Dolly. If you are a clerk,
or something of that sort, you are a gentleman
at heart). Well, then, we are both done up and
cleaned out ; and my decided opinion is, that
nothing is left but a bold stroke."
"I have no objection to bold strokes, but I
don't see any; and Uncle Sam's bold stroke of
the Fleet Prison is not at all to mv taste."
" Fleet Prison ! Fleet fiddlestic'k ! No. You
have never been in Russia ? Why should we
not go there both? ^ly Paris friend, Madame
Caumartin, was going to Italy, but her plans are
changed, and she is now all for St. Petersburg.
She will wait a few days for you to get Mell.
We will all go together and enjoy ourselves.
The Russians doat upon whist. AVe shall get
into their swell sets, and live like princes."
Therewith Jasper launched forth on the text of
Russian existence, in such glowing terms, thr.t
Dolly Poole shut his aching eyes, and fancied
himself sledging down the Neva, covered with
furs — a countess waiting for him at dinner, and
counts in dozens ready to offer bets, to a fab-
ulous amount, that Jasper Losely lost the
mbber.
Having lifted his friend into this region of
aerial castles, Jasper then, descending into the
practical world, wound up with the mournful
fact that one could not get to Petersburg, nor,
vv-hen there, into swell sets, without having some
little capital on hand.
"I tell you what we will do. iladame Cau-
martin lives in prime style. Get old Latham,
your employer, to discount her bill at three
months' date, for £500, and we will all be off
in a crack." Poole shook his head. "Old La-
tham is too knowing a file for that — a foreigner I
He'd want security."
" I'll be security."
Dolly shook his head a second time, still more
emphatically than the first.
"But you say he does discount paper — gets
rich on it ?"
" Yes, gets rich on it, which he might not do
if he discounted the paper you propose. No of-
fense."
" Oh, no offense among friends ! You have
taken him bills which he has discounted ?"
" Yes, good paper."
" Any paj'cr signed by good names is good
118
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
paper. We can sign good names if we know
their handwritings."
Dolly started and turned white. Knave he
was — cheat at cards, blackleg on the turf — but
forgery ! that crime was new to him. The very
notion of it brought on a return of fever. And
while Jasper was increasing his malady by ar-
guing with his apprehensions, luckily for Poole,
Uncle Sam came in. Uncle Sam, a sagacious
old tradesman, no sooner clapped eyes on the
brilliant Losely than he conceived for him a
distrustful repugnance, similar to that with
which an experienced gander may regard a fox
in colloquy with its gosling. He had already
learned enough of his godson's ways and chosen
society to be assured that Samuel Dolly had in-
dulged in very anti-commercial tastes, and been
sadly contaminated by very anti-commercial
friends. He felt persuaded that Dolly's sole
chance of redemption was in working on his
mind while his body was still suffering, so that
Poole might, on recovery, break with all former
associations. On seeing Jasper in the dress of
an exquisite, with the thews of a prize-fighter.
Uncle Sam saw the stalwart incarnation of
all the sins which a godfather had vowed that
a godson should renounce. Accordingly, he
made himself so disagreeable, that Losely, in
great disgust, took a hasty departure. And
Uncle Sam, as he helped the nurse to plunge
Dolly into his bed, had the brutality to tell his
nephew, in very plain terms, that if ever he
found that Brummagem gent in Poole's rooms
again, Poole would never again see the color of
Uncle Sam's money. Dolly beginning to blub-
ber, the good man, relenting, patted him on the
back, and said, " But as soon as you are well,
I'll carry you with me to my country box, and
keep you out of harm's way till I find you a
wife, who will comb your head for you !" — at
which cheering prospect Poole blubbered more
dolefully than before. On retiring to his own
lodging in the Gloucester cofit'ee-house. Uncle
Sam, to make all sure, gave positive orders to
Poole's landlady, who respected in Uncle Sam
the man who might pay what Poole owed to
her, on no account to let in any of Dolly's prof-
ligate friends, but especially the chap he had
found there ; adding, " 'Tis as much as my
nephew's life is worth, and, what is more to the
purpose, as much as your bill is." According-
ly, when Jasper presented himself at Poole's
door again that very evening, the landlady ap-
j)rised him of her orders ; and, proof to his in-
sinuating remonstrances, closed the door in his
face. But a French chronicler has recorded
that, when Henry IV. was besieging Paris,
though not a loaf of bread could enter the
walls, love-letters passed between city and camp
as- easily as if there had been no siege at
all. And does not JMercury preside over money
as well as love ? Jasper, spurred on by Ma-
dame Caumartin, who was exceedingly anxious
to exchange London for Petersburg as soon as
possible, maintained a close and frequent cor-
respondence with Poole by the agency of the
nurse, who luckily was not above being bribed
by shillings. Poole continued to reject the vil-
lainy proposed by Jasper; but, in the course of
the correspondence, he threw out, rather inco-
herently — for his mind began somewhat to wan-
der — a scheme equally flagitious, which Jasper,
aided perhaps by Madame Caumartin's yet keen-
er wit, caught up, and quickly reduced to delib-
erate method. Old Mr. Latham, among tlie bills
he discounted, kejit those of such more bashful
customers as stipulated that their resort to tem-
porary accommodation should be maintained a
profound secret in his own safe. Among these
bills Poole knew that there was one for £1000,
given by a young nobleman of immense estates,
but so entailed that he could neither sell nor
mortgage, and therefore often in need of a few
hundreds for pocket-money. The nobleman's
name stood high. His fortune was universally
known ; his honor unimpeachable. A bill of
his any one would cash at sight. Could Poole
but obtain that bill ! It had, he believed, only a
few weeks yet to run. Jasper or Madame Cau-
martin might get it discounted even by Lord
's own banker ; and if that were too bold,
by any professional bill-broker; and all three
be off before a suspicion could arise. But to
get at that safe a false key might be necessary.
Poole suggested a waxen impression of the lock.
Jasper sent him a readier contrivance — a queer-
looking tool that looked an instrument of tor-
ture. All now necessary was for Poole to re-
cover sufficiently to return to business, and to
get rid of Uncle Sam by a promise to run down
to the country the moment Poole had conscien-
tiously cleared some necessary arrears of work.
While this correspondence went on, Jasper
Losely shunned Mrs. Crane, and took his jncals
and spent his leisure hours with Madame Cau-
martin. He needed no dressing-gown and slip-
pers to feel himself at home there. Madame
Caumartin had really taken a showy house in a
genteel street. Her own apjiearance was emi-
nently what the French call distinr/uee. Dress-
ed to perfection, from head to foot ; neat and
finished as an epigram. Her face, in shape like
a thorough-bred cobra capella — low, smooth
frontal, widening at the summit ; chin tapering,
but jaw strong; teeth marvelously white, small,
and with points sharp as those in the maw of the
fish called the " Sea Devil ;" eyes like dark em-
eralds, of which the pupils, when she was angry
or when she was scheming, retreated upward to-
ward the temples, emitting a luminous green
ray that shot through space like the gleam that
escapes from a dark lantern ; complexion su-
perlatively feminine — call it not pale, but white,
as if she lived on blanched almonds, peach-
stones, and arsenic ; hands so fine and so blood-
less, with fingers so pointedly taper there seem-
ed stings at their tips ; manners of one who had
ranged all ranks of society, from highest to low-
est, and dujjcd the most wary in each of them.
Did she please it, a crown prince might have
thought her youth must have passed in the
chambers of porphyry ! Did she i)lease it, an
old soldier would have sworn the creature had
been a vivandicre. In age, perhaps bordering on
forty. Slie looked younger ; but had she been
a hundred and twenty she could not have been
more wicked. Ah ! happy, indeed, for Sophy,
if it were to save her youth from ever being fos-
tered in elegant boudoirs by those bloodless
hands, that the crippled vagabond had borne
her away from Arabella's less cruel unkindness ;
better fiir even Rugge's village stage ; better far
stealthy by-lanes, feigned names, and the eru-
dite tricks of Sir Isaac '
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
119
But Jtill it is due even to Jasper to state here
that in Losely's recent desifjn to transfer Soiihy
from Waife's care to that of iNIadame Caumar-
tin, the 8har{)er harbored no idea of a villainy
so execrable as the character of the Parisienne
led the jealous Arabella to suspect. But his
real object in getting the child, at that time,
once more into his power was (whatever its na-
ture) harmless compared with the mildest of
Arabella's dark doubts. But still, if Sophy had
been regained, and the object on regaining her
foiled (as it probably would have been), what
then might have become of her ? — lost, perhaps,
forever to Waife — in a foreign land, and under
such guardianship ? Grave question, which Jas
he's very anxious to get me out of Lunnon ; and
when I threw in a word about Mr. Losely (slvly,
my good lady — ^just to see its effect), he grew as
white as that paper ; and then he began strut-
ting and swelling, and saying that Mr. Losely
would be a great man, and that he should be a
great man, and that he did not care for my
mone\- — he could get as much money as he
lilced. That looks guilty, my dear ladv. And,
oh," cried Uncle Sam, 'clasping his hands, '-J
do fear that he's thinking of something worse
than he has ever done before, and his brain
can't stand it. And, ma'am, he has a great re-
spect for you ; and you've a friendship for Mr.
Loselv. Now just suppose that ]Mr. Losely
per Losely, who exercised so little foresight in should have been thinking of what vour flash
sporting gents call a harmless spree, and my
sister's son should, being cracky, construe it into
something criminal. Oh, ilrs. Crane, do go and
see Mr. Losely, and tell him that Samuel Dolly
is not safe — is not safe!"
" Much better that I should go to your neph-
ew," said Mrs. Crane; "and with your leave I
will do so at once. Let me see him alone.
the paramount question, viz., what, some day or
other, will become of himself, was not likely to
rack his brains by conjecturing I
Meanwhile Jlrs. Crane was vigilant. The de-
tective police-officer, sent to her by I\Ir. Rugge,
could not give her the information which Eugge
desired, and which she did not longer need.
She gave the detective some information re-
specting Madame Caumartin. One day, toward I Where shall I find you aftenvard ?'
the evening, she was surprised by a visit from | "At the Gloucester Coffee-house. Oh^ my
L'ncle Sam. He called ostensibly to thank her dear lady, how can I thank you enon"-h. The
for her kindness to his godson and nephew; and , boy can be nothing to you; but to me, he's my
to beg her not to be oftejided if he had been | sister's son — the blackguardT'
rude to Mr. Losely, who, he understood from
Dolly, was a particular friend of hers. " You
see, ma'am, Samuel Dolly is a weak young man,
and easily led astray ; but, luckily for himself,
lie has no money and no stomach. So he may
repent in time ; and if I could find a wife to
manage him, he has not a bad head for the
main chance, and may become a fjractical man.
Repeatedly I have told him he should go to
prison, but that was only to frighten him — fact
is, I want to get him safe down into the coun-
try, and he don't take to that. So I am forced
to say, Oly box, home-brewed and south-down,
Samuel Dolly, or a Lunnon jail, and debtors'
allowance.' iMust give a young man his choice,
my dear ladv."
CHAPTER XYIL
Dices laborantes in uno
I'enelopen vitreamque Circen. — IIoeat.
Mbs. Crane found Poole in his little sitting-
room, hung round with prints of opera-dancers,
prize-fighters, race-horses, and the dog Billy.
Samuel Dolly was in full dress. His cheeks,
usually so pale, seemed much flushed. He was
evidently in a state of high excitement, bowed
extremely low to Mrs. Crane, called her Count-
ess, asked if she had been lately on the Conti-
nent, and if she knew Madame Caumartin ; and
3Irs. Crane, obsening that what he said was \ Avhether the nobility at St. Petersburg were jol-
extremely sensible, Uncle Sam warmed in his '. ly, or stuck-up fellows, who gave themselves airs
confidence. ] — not waiting for her answer. In fact his mind
" And I thought I»had him, till I found ]\Ir. \ was unquestionably disordered.
Losely in his sick-room ; but ever since that
day, I don't know how it is, the lad has had
something on his mind, which I don't half like
Arabella Crane abruptly laid her hand on his
shoulder. " You are going to the gallows," she
said, suddenly. " Down on vour knees and tell
— cracky, I think, my dear lady — cracky. I ; me all, and I will keep your secret, and save
suspect that old nurse passes letters. I taxed | you ; lie — and you are lost!"
her with it, and she immediately wanted to take
her Bible-oath, and smelt of gin — two things
which, taken together, look guilty."
"But," said Mrs. Crane, growing much in-
terested, " if ;Mr. Losely iind Mr. Poole do cor-
respond, what then ?"
" That's what I want to know, ma'am. Ex-
cuse me ; I don't wish to disparage Mr. Losely
— a dashing gent, and nothing worse, I dare say.
But certain sure I am that lie has put into Sam-
uel Dolly's head something which has cracked it !
There is the lad now up and dressed, when he
ought to be in bed, and swearing he'll go to old
Latham's to-moiTow, and that long arrears of
work are on his conscience ! Never heard him
talk of conscience before — that looks guilty !
And it does not frighten him any longer wheii I
say he shall go to prison for his debts ; and
Poole bui-st into tears, and dropped on his
knees as he was told.
In ten minutes Mrs. Crane knew all that she
cared to know, possessed herself of Losely's let-
ters, and, leaving Poole less light-headed and
more light-hearted, she hastened to Uncle Sam
at the Gloucester Coft'ee-house. "Take your
nephew out of town this evening, and do not
let him from your sight for the next six months.
Hark you, he will never be a good man ; but
you may save him from the hulks. Do so.
Take my advice." She was gone before Uncle
Sam could answer.
She next proceeded to the private house of
the detective with whom she had before con-
ferred — this time less to give than to receive
information. Not half an hour after her in-
teniew with him, Arabella Crane stood in the
120
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
street wherein was placed the: showy house of
Madame Caumartin. The lamps in the street
were now lighted — the street, even at day, a qui-
et one, was comparatively deserted. All the
windows in the French woman's house were
closed with shutters and curtains, except on the
drawing-room floor. From those the lights
Mitlrin streamed over a balcony filled with gay
plants — one of the casements was partially open.
And now and then, where the watcher stood, she
could just catch the glimpse of a passing form
behind the muslin draperies, or Iiear the sound of
some louder laugh. In her dark-gray dress, and
still darker mantle, Arabella Crane stood mo-
tionless, her eyes fixed on those windows. The
rare foot-passenger who bnislied by her turned
involuntarily to glance at the countenance of
one so still, and then as involuntarily to survey
the house to which that countenance was lifted.
No such observer so incurious as not to hazard
conjecture what evil to that liouse was boded by
the dark lurid eyes that watched it with so fix-
ed a menace. Thus she remained, sometimes,
indeed, moving from her post, as a sentry moves
from his, slowly pacing a few steps to and fro,
returning to the same place, and again motion-
less; thus she remained for hours. Evening
deepened into night — night grew near to dawn ;
she was still there in that street, and still her
eyes were on that house. At length the door
opened noiselessly — a tall man tripped forth
with a light step, and humming the tune of a
gay French chanson. As lie came straight to-
v.'ard the spot where Arabella Crane was at
watch, from her dark mantle stretched forth her
long arm and lean hand, and seized him. He
started, and recognized her.
"You here !" he exclaimed — "you ! — at such
an hour! — ^j'ou!"
"I, Jasper Losely, here to warn you. To-
morrow the officers of justice will be in that ac-
cursed house. To-morrow that woman — not for
her worst crimes, they elude the law, but for
her least, by which tlie law hunts her down-
will be a prisoner. No — you shall not ];ieturn
to warn her as I warn you" (for Jasper here
broke away, and retreated some steps toward
the house) ; "or, if you do, share her fate. I
cast you off."
"What do you mean?" said Jasper, halt-
ing, till with slow steps she regained his side.
"iSpeak more plainly: if poor ^Madame Cau-
martin has got into a scrape, which I don't think
likely, what have I to do with it ?"
"The woman you call Caumartin fled from
Paris to escape its tribunals. She has been
tracked ; the French Government have claimed
her. Ho ! you smile. This does not touch you."
"Certainly not."
"But there are charges against her from En-
glish tradesmen, and if it be proved that you
knew her in her proper name — the infamous Ga-
brielle Desmarets — if it be proved that you have
passed oft' the French billets dc banqne that she
stole — if you were her accomplice in obtaining
goods under her false name — if you, enriched
by her robberies, were aiding and abetting her
as a swindler here, though you may be safe from
the French law, will you be safe from the En-
glisli ? You may be innocent, Jasjier Losely ;
if so, fear nothing. Y'ou may be guilty ; if so,
hide, or follow me 1"
Jasper paused. Ilis first impulse was to trust
implicitly to jNIrs. Crane, and lose not a moment
in profiting by such counsels of concealment or
flight as an intelligence so superior to his own
could suggest. But suddenly rememberiug that
Poole had undertaken to get the bill for £1000
by the next day — that if flight were necessary,
there was yet a chance of flight with booty — his
constitutional hardihood, and the grasping cu-
pidity by which it was accompanied, made him
resolve at least to hazard the delay of a few
hours. And after all, miglit not Mrs. Crane ex-
aggerate ? Was not this the counsel of a jeal-
ous woman ? " Pray," said he, moving on, and
fixing quick keen eyes on her as she walked by
his side, " pray, how did you learn all these par-
ticulars ?"
"From a detective policeman employed to
discover Sophy. In confeiTing with him, the
name of Jasper Losely as her legal protector
was of course stated : that name was already
coupled with the name cf the false Caumartin.
Thus, indirectly, the child you would have con-
signed to that woman, saves you from sharing
that woman's ignominy and doom."
" Stutt"!" said Jasper, stubbornly, though he
winced at her words; "I don't, on reflection,
see that any thing can be proved against me. I
am not bound to know why a lady changes her
name, nor how she comes by her money. And
as to her credit with tradesmen — nothing to
speak of; most of what she has got is paid for —
what is not paid for her, is less than tlie worth
of her goods. Pooh ! I am not so easily fright-
ened — much obliged to you all the same. Go
home now; 'tis horridly late. Good-night, or
rather good-morning."
"Jasper, mark me! if you see that woman
again — if you attempt to save or screen her — I
shall know, and you lose in me your last friend
— last hope — last plank in a devouring sea!"
These words were so solemnly uttered that
they thrilled the hard heart of the reckless man.
" I have no wish to screen or save her," he said,
with selfish sincerity. "And after what you
have said, I would as soon enter a fire-ship as
that house. But let me have some hours to
consider what is best to be done."
"Yes, consider — I shall* expect you to-mor-
row."
He went his way tip the twilight streets to-
ward a new lodging he had hired not far from
the showy house. She drew her mantle closer
round her gaunt figm-e, and, taking the opposite
direction, threaded thoroughfares yet lonelier,
till she gained her door, and was welcomed back
bv the faithful Bridgett.
CHxiPTER XVm.
Hope tells a flattering tale to Mr. Paigge. He is iinde-
Ci-ived by a Solicitor, and left to mourn ; but in turn,
though unconsciously, Mr. Rugge deceives the Solicit,
or, and the Solicitor deceives his client, which is 6s. Si.
iu the Solicitor's pocket.
The next morning Arabella Crane was scarce-
ly dressed before Mr. Rugge knocked at her door.
On the preWous day the Detective had informed
him that William and Sophy Waifs were dis-
covered to have sailed for America. Frantic,
the unhappy manager rushed to the steam-pack-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
121
et office, and was favored by an inspection of
the books, whicli confirmed the hateful tidinjis.
As if in mockery of his bereaved and defrauded
state, on returning home he found a polite note
from Mr. Gotobcd, requestinc; him to call at the
office of that eminent solicitor, with reference
to a younp; actress named trophy Waife, and
hinting " that the visit might jirove to his ad-
vantage !" Dreaming for a wild moment that
Mr. Losely, conscience-stricken, might through
tliis solicitor pay back his £100, he rushed incon-
tinent to ^Ir. Gotobed's othce, and was at once
admitted into the presence of that stately prac-
titioner.
"I i)cg your pardon, Sir," said Mr. Gotobcd,
with formal politeness, "but I heard a day or
two ago accidentally from my head-clerk, who
had learned it also accidentally from a sporting
friend, that you were exhibiting at Humberston,
during the race-week, a young actress named on
the play-bills (here is one) 'Juliet xVraminta,'
and whom, as I am informed, yon had previous-
ly exhibited in Surrey and elsewhere; but she
was supposed to have relinquished that earlier
engagement, and left your stage with her grand-
father, William Waife. I am instructed by a
distinguished client, who is wealthy, and who,
from motives of mere benevolence, interests
himself in the said William and Sophy Waife,
to discover their residence. I'leasc, therefore,
to render np the child to my charge, apprising
me also of the address of her grandfather, if he
be not with you ; and without waiting for fur-
ther instructions from my client, who is abroad,
I will venture to say that any sacrifice in the
loss of your juvenile actress will be most liberal-
ly compensated."
" Sir," cried the miserable and imprudent
Rugge, "I paid £100 for that fiendish child—
a three years' engagement — and I have been
robbed. Restore me the £100, and I will tell
you wliere she is, and her vile grandfather also."
At hearing so bad a character lavished upon
objects recommended to his client's disinterest-
ed charity, the wary solicitor drew in his pecu-
niary horns.
"Mr. Kugge,'' said he, "I understand from
your words that you can not place the child So-
phy, alitis Juliet Araminta, in my hands. You
ask £100 to inform me where she is. Have you
a lawful claim on her?"
" Certainly, Sir ; she is my property."
" Then it is quite clear that though you may
know where she is, you can not get at her your-
self, and can not, therefore, place her in my
hands. Perhaps she is — in heaven!"
" Confound her, Sir! no — in America ! or on
the seas to it."
"Are you sure?"
*' I have just come from the steam-packet of-
fice, and seen the names in their book. Will-
iam and So])hy Waife sailed from Liverpool
last Thursday week."
" And they formed an engagement with you
— received your money ; broke the one, abscond-
ed with the other. Bad characters indeed !"
" Bad ! you may well say that — a set of swin-
dling scoundrels, "the whole kit and kin. And
the ingratitude!" continued Rugge: "I was
more than a fatlier to that child" (he began to
whimiicr) : " I had a babe of my own once —
died of convulsions in teething. I thought that
child would have supplied its place, and I dream-
ed of the York Tlieatre; but" — here his voice
was lost in the fiilds of a marvelously dirty red
pocket-handkerchief.
Mr. Gotobcd having now, however, learned
all that he cared to learn, and not being a soft-
hearted man (first-rate solicitors rarely are),
here pulled out his watch and said,
"Sir, you have been very ill-treated, I per-
ceive, i must wish you good-day ; I have an
engagement in the City. I can "not help you
back to your £100, but accc]it this triHe (a £5
note) for your loss of time in calling" (ringing
the bell violently). "Door — show out this gen-
tleman."
That evening Mr. Gotobed wrote at length to
Guy Darrell, informing him that, after great
jtains and prolonged research, he had been so
fortunate as to ascertain that the strolling play-
er and little girl whom Mr. Darrell had so be-
nevolently requested him to look up, were very
bad characters, and had left the coinitry for the
United States, as, happily for England, bad char-
acters were wont to do.
That letter reached Guy Darrell when he was
far away, amidst the forlorn pomp of some old
Italian city, and Lionel's tale of the little girl not
very fresh in his gloomy thoughts. Naturally, he
supposed that the boy had been duped by a pret-
ty face and his own inexperienced kindly heart.
And so and so — why, so end half the efforts of
men who intrust to others the troublesome exe-
cution of humane intentions I The scales of
earthly justice are poised in their quivering equi-
librium, not by huge hundred-weights, but by
infinitesimal grains, needing the most wary cau-
tion — the most considerate patience — the most
delicate touch, to arrange or readjust. Few of
our errors, national or individual, come from the
design to be unjust — most of them from sloth,
or incapacit}^ to grapple with the difficulties of
being just. Sins of commission may not, per-
haps, shock the retrospect of conscience. Large
and obtrusive to view, we have confessed, mourn-
ed, repented, possibly atoned them. Sins of
omission, so vailed amidst our hourly emotions
— blent, confused, unseen, in the conventional
routine of existence — Alas! could these sud-
denly emerge from their shadow, group togeth-
er in serried mass and accusing order — alas,
alas ! would not the best of us then start in dis-
may, and would not the proudest humble him-
self at the Throne of Jlercy !
CHAPTER XIX.
Joy, nevertheless, doeB return to Mr. Euggc ; and Tlope
riow inflicts herself on Mrs. C'niiie. A very fine-look-
injj Hope, too — six feet one — strong as Arliilles. aud
us lleet of lout!
But we have left !Mr. Rugge at IMrs. Crane's
door ; admit him. He bursts into her drawing-
room, wiping his brows.
" Ma'am, they are off to America — !"
" So I have heard. You are fairly entitled to
the return of your money — "
"Entitled, of course ; but — "
" There it is ; restore to me the contract for
the child's services."
Rugge gazed on a roll of bank-notes, and could
122
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
scarcely believe his eyes. He darted forth his
hand, the notes receded like the dagger in Mac-
beth, "First the contract," said Mrs. Crane.
Rugge drew out his greasy pocket-book, and ex-
tracted the worthless engagement.
"Henceforth, then," said Mrs. Crane, "you
have no right to complain; and whether or not
the girl ever again fall in your way, your claim
over her ceases."
" The gods be praised, it does, ma'am ; I have
had quite enough of her. But you are every
inch a lady, and allow me to add that I put you
on my free list for life."
Rugge gone ; Arabella Crane summoned
Bridgett to her presence.
" Lor, miss," cried Bridgett, impulsively,
" who'd think you'd been up all night raking !
I have not seen you look so well this many a
year."
"Ah," said Arabella Crane, "I will tell you
why. I have done what for many a year I nev-
er thought I sliould do again — a good action.
That child — that SojDhy — you remember how
cruelly I used her ?"
"Oh, miss, don't go for to blame yourself;
you fed her, you clothed her, when her own fa-
ther, the villing, sent her away from hisself to
you— you of all people — you. How could you be
caressing and fawning on his child — their chikl?"
Mrs. Crane hung her head gloomilv. " What
is past is past. I have lived to save that child,
and a curse seems lifted from my soul. Now
listen : I shall leave London — England, proba-
bly this evening. You will keep this house; it
will be ready for me any moment I return. The
agent who collects my house-rents Avill give you
money as you want it. Stint not yourself, Brid-
gett. I have been saving, and saving, and sav-
ing, for dreary years — nothing else to interest
me — ^and I am richer than I seem."
" But where are you going, miss ?" said Brid-
gett, slowly recovering from the stupefaction oc-
casioned by her mistress's announcement.
"I don't know — I don't care."
"Oh, gracious stars! is it with that dreadful
Jasper Losely? — it is, it is. You are crazed,
you are bewitched, miss !"
"Possibly I am crazed — possibly bewitched;
but I take tliat man's life to mine as a penance
for all the evil mine has ever known ; and a day
or two since I should have said, with rage and
shame, ' I can not help it ; I loathe myself that
I can care what becomes of him.' Now, with-
out rage, without shame, I say, ' The man whom
I once so loved shall not die on a gibbet if I can
help it ; and, please Heaven, help it I will.' "
The grim woman folded her arms on her
breast, and raising her head to its full height,
there was in her face and air a stern gloomy
grandeur, which could not have been seen with-
out a mixed sensation of compassion and awe.
" Go, now, Bridgett ; I have said all. He will
be here soon ; he will come — he must come —
he has no choice; and then — and then — " slie
closed her eyes, bowed her head, and shivered.
Arabella Crane was, as usual, right iu her pre-
dictions. Before noon Jasper came — came, not
with his jocund swagger, but with that sideling
sinister look — look of the man whom the world
cuts — triumphantly restored to its former place
in his visage. Madame Caumartin had been
arrested; Poole had gone into the country with
Uncle Sam ; Jasper had seen a police-officer at
the door of his own lodgings. He slunk away
from the fashionable thoroughfares — slunk to
the recesses of Podden Place — slunk into Ara-
bella Crane's prim drawing-room, and said, sul-
lenlv, " All is up ; here I am !"
Three days afterward, in a quiet street in a
quiet town of Belgium, wherein a sharjjer, striv-
ing to live by his profession, would soon become
a skeleton, in a commodious airy apartment,
looking upon a magnificent street, the reverse
of noisy, Jasper Losely sat secure, innocuous,
and profoundly miserable. In another house,
the windows of which, facing those of Jasper's
sitting-room, from an upper story, commanded
so good a view therein that it placed him un-
der a surveillance akin to that designed by Mr.
Bentham's reformatory Panopticon, sat Arabella
Crane. Whatever her real feelings toward Jas-
per Losely (and what those feelings were no
virile pen can presume authoritatively to define
— for lived there ever a man who thoroughl}' —
thoroughly understood a woman ?), or whatever
in earlier life might have been their recijirocated
vows of eternal love, not only from tlic day that
Jasper, on his return to his native shores, pre-
sented himself in Podden Place, had their inti-
macy been restricted to the austerest bounds of
friendship ; but after Jasper had so rudely de-
clined the hand which now fed him, Arabella
Crane had probably perceived that her sole
chance of retaining intellectual power over his
lawless being, necessitated the utter relinquish-
ment of every hope or project that could expose
her again to his contempt. Suiting appear-
ances to reality, the decorum of a separate house
was essential to the maintenance of that author-
ity with which the rigid nature of their inter-
course invested her. The additional cost strain-
ed her pecuniary resources, but she saved in her
own accommodation in order to leave Jasper no
cause to complain of any stinting in his. There,
then, she sate by her window, herself imseen,
eying him in his opposite solitude, accepting
for her own life a barren saci-ifice, but a jealous
sentinel on his. Meditating as she sate, and as
slie eyed him — meditating what employment
she could invent, with the bribe of emoluments
to be paid furtively by her — for those strong
hands that could have felled an ox, but were
nerveless in turning an honest penny — and for
that restless mind, hungering for occupation,
with the digestion of an osti'ich for dice and de-
bauch, riot and fraud, but queasy as an ex-
hausted dyspeptic at the reception of one inno-
cent amusement, one honorable toil. But while
that woman still schemes how to rescue from
hulks or halter that execrable man, who shall
say that he is without a chance ? A chance he
has — WHAT WILL HE DO AVITH IT ?
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
123
BOOK Y
CHAPTER I.
Envy \r\\\ be a science when it learns the use of the mi-
croscope.
WiiF.N leaves fall and flowers fade, great peo-
ple are found in their country seals. Look ! —
that is Montfort Court ! A place of regal mag-
nificence, so far as extent of i)ilc and amplitude
of domain could satisfy the pride of ownership,
or ins]iire the visitor with the respect due to
wealth and ]X)wer. An artist could have made
nothing of it. The Sumptuous every where —
the Picturesque nowhere. The House was built j
in the reign of George I., when first commenced !
that horror of the Beautiful, as something in bad
taste, which, agreeably to our natural love of
progress, progressively advanced through the
reigns of succeeding Georges. An enormous
facade — in dull brown brick — two wings and a
ceiitre, with double flights of steps to the hall
door from the carriage-sweep. No trees allowed
to grow too near the house ; in front, a stately
flatwith stone balustrades. But wherever the
eve turned there was nothing to be seen but
park — miles upon miles of park ; not a corn-
tield in sight — not a roof-tree — not a spire — only
those latasilentta — still widths of turf, and, some-
what thinly scattered and afar, those groves of
giant trees. The whole prospect so vast and so
monotonous that it never tempted you to take a
walk. No close-neighboring ])oetic thicket into
which to plunge, uncertain whither you would
emerge ; no devious stream to follow. The very
deer, fat and heavy, seemed bored by pastures it
would take them a week to traverse. People of
moderate wishes and modest fortunes never en-
vied Montfort Court; they admired it — they
were proud to say they had seen it. But never
did they say,
" Oh, that for me some home' like this would smile !"
Not so, very — very great people ! — they rather
coveted than admired. Those oak-trees so large,
yet so undccayed — that park, eighteen miles at
least in circumference — that solid palace which,
without inconvenience, could entertain and stow
away a king and his whole court — in short, all
that evidence of a princely territory, and a
weighty rent-roll, made English dukes respect-
fully envious, and foreign potentates gratifying-
]y jealous.
But turn from the front. Oj^en the gate in
that stone balustrade. Come southward to the
garden side of the house. Lady Montfort's
flower-garden. Yes ; not so dull ! flowers, even
autumnal flowers, enliven any sward. Still, on
so large a scale, and so little relief; so little
mystery about those broad gravel walks ; not a
winding alley any where. Oh for a vulgar sum-
mer-house ; for some alcove, all honey-suckle
and ivy ! But the dahlias are splendid ! Very
true ; only dahlias, at the best, are such unin-
teresting prosy things. What poet ever wrote
upon a dahlia ! Surely Lady Montfort might
have introduced a little more taste here — shown
a little more fancy ! Lady Montfort ! I should
like to see my lord's face, if Lady Montfort took
anv such liberty. But there is Lady Montfort
walking slowly along that l)road, broad, broad
gravel walk — those s])lendid daiilias, on either
side, in their set parterres. There she walks,
in full evidence from all those si.\ty remorseless
windows on the garden front, each window ex-
actly like the other. There she walks, looking
wistfully to the far end — ('tis a long way otf) —
where, hajipily, tlicre is a wicket that carries a
persevering pedestrian out of sight of the sixty
windows, into shady walks, toward the banks of
that immense piece of water, two miles from the
house. My lord has not returned from his moor
in Scotland — My lady is alone. No company
in the house — it is like saying, " No aciiuaint-
anceinacity." But the retinue in full. Though
she dined alone, she might, had she pleased,
have had almost as many servants to gaze upon
her as there were windows now staring at her
lonely walk, with their glassy spectral eyes.
Just as Lady Montfort gains the wicket she
is overtaken by a visitor, walking fast from the
gravel sweep W the front door, where he has
dismounted — where he has caught sight of her;
any one so dismounting might have caught sight
of her — could not help it. Gardens so tine, were
made on purpose for fine persons walking in
them to be seen.
"Ah, Lady Montfort," said the visitor, stam-
mering painfully, "I am so glad to find you at
home."
"At home, George!" said the lady, extend-
ing her hand; "wiiere else is it likely that I
should be found ? But how pale you are ! What
has happened?"
She seated herself on a bench, under a cedar-
tree, just without the wicket, and George Mor-
ley, our old friend the Oxonian, seated himself
by her side familiarly, but with a certain rever-
ence. Lady ISIontfort was a few years older
than himself — his cousin — he had known her
from his childhood.
"What has happened!" he repeated, "no-
thing new. I have just come from visiting the
I good bishop."
" He does not hesitate to ordain you?"
" No — but I shall never ask him to do so."
"My dear cousin, are you not overscrupu-
lous ? " You would be an ornament to the Church,
' sufficient in all else to justify your compulsory
j omission of one duty, which a curate could per-
I form for vou."
Morlev shook his head sadly. "One duty
omitted!" said he. "But is it not that duty
! which distinguishes the priest from the layman?
' and how far extends that duty ? ^ Wherever
there needs a voice to speak the Word ; not in
' the pulpit only, but at the hearth, by the sick
I bed ; there should be the Pastor ! No— I can
, not, I ought not, I dare not ! Incompetent as
1 the laborer, how can I be worthy of the hire ?"
i It took him long to bring out these words ; his
124
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
emotion increased his infirmity. Lady Mont-
fort listened with an exquisite respect, visible in
her compassion, and paused long before she an-
swered.
Georae Morley was the younger son of a coim-
try gentleman, with a good estate settled upon
the elder son. George's father had been an
intimate friend of his kinsman, the ilarquis of
Montfort (predecessor and gi-andsire of the pres-
ent lord) ; and the Marquis had, as he thought,
amply provided for George in undertaking to
secure to him, when of fitting age, the living of
Humbcrston, the most lucrative preferment in
his gift. The living had been held for the last
fifteen years by an incumbent, now very old,
upon the honorable understanding that it was
to be resigned in favor of George should George
take orders. The young man from his earliest
childhood thus destined to the Church, devoted
to the prospect of that profession all his studies,
all his thoughts. Xot till he was sixteen did
his infirmity of speech make itself seriously
percejHible ; and then elocution masters un-
dertook to cure it — they failed. But George's
mind continued in the direction toward which it
had been so systematically biased. Entering
Oxford, he became absorbed in its academical
shades. Amidst his books he almost forgot the
impediment of his speech. Shy, taciturn, and
solitary, he mixed too little with others to have
it much brought before his own notice. He car-
ried off prizes — he took higli honors. On leav-
ing the university, a profound theologian — an
enthusiastic Churchman — filled with the most
earnest sense of the pastor's solemn calling — lie
was thus complimentarily accosted by the Arch-
imandrite of his college, "What a pity you can
not go into the Church !"
"Can not — but I am going into the Church."
"You, is it possible? But perhajjs you are
sure of a li\'ing — "
" Yes — Humberston."
" An immense living, but a very large popu-
lation. Certainly it is in the bishop's own dis-
cretionary power to ordain you, and for all tlie
duties you can keep a curate. But — " The
Don stopped short, and took snuff.
That ''But" said as plainly as words could
say, "It may be a good thing for you, but is it
fair for the Church ?"
So George Morley, at least, thought that
"But" implied. His conscience took alarm.
He was a thoroughly noble-hearted man, likely
to be the more tender of conscience where
tempted by worldly interests. With that living
he was ricli, without it veiy poor. But to give
up a calling, to the idea of which he had at-
tached liimself with all the force of a powerful
and zealous nature, was to give up the whole
scheme and dream of his existence. He re-
mained irresolute for some time; at last he
wrote to the present Lord Montfort, intimating
his doubts, and relieving the JNIarquis from the
engagement which his lordship's predecessor
had made. The present Marquis was not a
man capable of understanding such scruples.
But, luckily perhaps for George and for the
Church, the larger affairs of the great House of
Montfort were not administered by the Mar-
quis. The parliamentary influences, the ec-
clesiastical preferments, together with the prac-
tical direction of minor agents to the vast
and complicated estates attached to the title,
were at that time under the direction of I\Ir.
Carr Vipont, a powerful member of Parliament,
and husband to that Lady Selina whose conde-
scension had so disturbed the nerves of Frank
A^ance the artist. Mr. Carr Vipont governed
tliis vice-royalty according to the rules and tra-
ditions by which the House of Montfort had be-
come great and prosperous. For not only every
state, but every great seigniorial House has its
hereditary maxims of policy : not less the House
of ]\Iontfort than the House of Hapsburg. Now
the House of Montfort made it a rule that all
admitted to be members of the family should
help each other; that the head of the House
should never, if it could be avoided, suffer any
of its branches to decay and wither into pover-
ty. The House of JNIontfort also held it a duty
to foster and make tlie most of every species of
talent that .could swell the influence, or adorn
the annals of the family. Having rank, having
wealth, it sought also to secure intellect, and to
knit together into solid union, throughout all
ramifications of kinship and cousinliood, each
variety of repute and power that could root the
ancient tree more firmly in the land. Agreea-
bly to this traditional policy, Mr. Carr A'ipont
not only desired that a Vipont ^lorley should
not lose a very good thing, but that a ven,- good
thing should not lose a Vipont Morley of high
academical distinction — a Vipont INIorley who
might be a bishop! He therefore drew up an
admirable letter, which the Marquis signed —
that the INIarquis should take the trouble of
copying it was out of the question — wherein
Lord ilontfort was made to express great admi-
ration of the disinterested delicacy of sentiment,
which proved George Vipont jMorley to be still
more fitted to the cure of souls ; and, placing
rooms at Montfort Court at his service (the
Marquis not being himself there at the mo-
ment), suggested that George should talk the
matter over with the present incumbent of Hum-
berston (tliat town was not many miles distant
from Montfort Court), who, though he had no
impediment in his speech, still never himself
preached or read prayers, owing to an aft'ec-
tion of the trachea, and who was, nevertheless,
a most eificient clergyman. George IMorley,
therefore, had gone down to !Montfort Court
some months ago, just after his interview with
Mrs. Crane. He had then accepted an invita-
tion to spend a week or two with the liev. Mr.
Allsop, the Hector of Humberston — a clergy-
man of the old school, a fair scholar, a perfect
gentleman, a man of the highest honor, good-
natured, charitable, but who took pastoral du-
ties much more easily than good clergymen of
the new school — be they high or low — are dis-
posed to do. Mr. Allsop, who was then in his
eightieth year, a bachelor with a verv good fjr-
tune of his own, was perfectly willing to fulfill
the engagement on M'hich he held his living,
and render it up to George ; but he was touch-
ed by the earnestness with which George as-
sured him that at all events he would not con-
sent to displace the venerable incumbent from
a tenure he had so long and honorably held —
and would wait till the living was vacated in
the ordinary course of nature. Mr. Allsop con-
ceived a warm aft'ection for the young scholar.
He had a grandniece staying with him on a vis-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
it, who less openlv, but not less warmly, shared
that affection; ami with her Geori^c Morlcy fell
shylv and timorously in love. With that livin;j;
he' woiikl be rich enough to marry — without it,
no. Without it he had nothing but a fel-
lowship, which matrimony would forfeit, and
the scanty portion of a country squire's youn-
ger son. Tlie young lady herself was dowerless,
ifor Allsop's fortune was so settled that no share
of it would come to his grandniece. Another
reason for conscience to gulp down that unhap-
py imjicdiment of speech! Certainly, during
this visit, ]\lorlcy's scruples relaxed ; but when
he returned home they came back with greater
force than ever — with greater force, because he
felt that now not only a sjiiritual ambition, but
a human love was a casuist in favor of self-in-
terest, lie iiad returned on a visit to Ilum-
berston Ilectory about a week previous to the
date of this chapter — the niece was not there.
Sternly he had forced himself to examine a lit-
tle more closely into the condition of the flock
which (if he accepted the charge) he would
have to guide, and the duties that devolved ujjon
the chief pastor in a populous trading town.
He became appalled. Iluniberston, like most
towns under the political influence of a Great
House, was rent by parties. One party, who
succeeded in returning one of tlie two members
for rarliament, all for the House of Montfort ;
the otlier party, who returned also tlicir mem-
ber, all against it. By one half the town, what-
ever came from Montfort Court was sure to be
regarded with a most malignant and distorted
vision. Meanwhile, though Mr. Allsop was pop-
ular with the higher classes, and with such of
the extreme poor as his charity relieved, his
pastoral influence generally was a dead letter.
His curate, who preached for him — a good
young man enough, but extremely dull — was
not one of those men who fill a church. Trades-
men wanted an excuse to stay away or choose
another place of worship ; and they contrived
to hear some passage in tl-.e sermons, overwliich,
while the curate mumbled, they habitually slept
^that they declared to be "Puseyite." The
church became deserted : and about the same
time a very eloquent Dissenting minister ap-
peared at Ilumberston, and even professed
churchfolks went to hear him. George Jlorley,
alas! jierccived that at Humberston, if tlie
Church there were to hold her own, a powerful
and i)Opular preacher was essentially required.
His mind was now made up. At Carr Vipont's
suggestion, the bishop of the diocese, being then
at his palace, had sent to see him ; and, while
granting the force of his scru])les, had yet said,
'•Mine is the main responsibility. But if you
ask me to ordain you, I will do so without hes-
itation ; for if the Church wants preachers, it
also wants deep scholare and virtuous pastors."
Fresh from this interview, George IMorley came
to announee to Lady Montfort that his resolve
was unshaken. She, I have said, paused long
balbre she answered. " George," she began at
last, in a voice so touchingly sweet that its very
sound was balm to a wounded s])irit — "I must
not argue with you — I bow before the grandeur
of your motives, and I will not say that you are
not right. One thing I do feel, that if you thus
sacrifice your inclinations and intgrests from
scruples so pure and holy, you will never be to
be pitied — you will never know regret. Poor
or rich, single or wedded, a soul that so seeks
to reflect heaven will be serene and blessed !"
Thus she continued to address him for some
time, he all the while inexpressibly soothed and
comforted ; then gradually she insinuated hojies
even of a worldly and temporal kind — literature
was left to liim — the scholar's pen, if not the
preacher's voice. In literature he might make
a career that would lead on to fortune. There
were jjlaces also in the public service to which
a defect in speech was no obstacle. She knew
his secret, modest attachment; she alluded to
it just enough to encourage constancy and re-
buke despair. As she ceased, his admiring and
grateful consciousness of his cousin's rare qual-
ities changed tiie tide of his emotions toward
her from himself, and he exclaimed with an
earnestness that almost AvhoUy subdued his
stutter,
"What a counselor you are! — what a sooth-
er! If INIontfort were but less prosperous or
more ambitious, what a trcas.urc, either to con-
sole or to sustain, in a mind like yours !"
As those words were said, you might have
seen at once why Lady Montfort was called
haughty and reserved. Her lip seemed sud-
denly to snatch back its sweet smile — her dark
eye, before so purely, softly friend-like, became
coldly distant — the tones of her voice were not
the same as she answered —
"Lord ^lontfort values me, as it is, far be-
yond my merits — far," she added, with a dif-
ferent intonation, gravely mournful.
"Forgive me; I have displeased you. I did
Kot mean it. Heaven forbid that I should jire-
sume either to disparage Lord Montfort — or —
or to — " he stopped short, saving the hiatus by
a convenient stammer. "Only," he continued,
after a pause, " only forgive me this once. Kec-
ollect I was a little boy when you were a young
lady, and I have pelted you with snow-balls,
and called you 'Caroline.'" Lady IMontfort
suppressed a sigh, and gave the young scholar
back her gracious smile, but not a smile that
would have permitted him to call her " Caro-
line" again. She remained, indeed, a little more
distant than usual during the rest of their inter-
view, which was not much prolonged ; for Mor-
ley felt annoyed with himself that he had so in-
discreetly ofi'cnded her, and seized an excuse to
escape. "By-the-by," said he, " I have a letter
from Mr. Carr Vipont, asking me to give him a
sketch for a Gothic bridge to the water yonder.
I will, with your leave, walk down and look at
the proposed site. Only do say that you for-
give me."
" Forgive you, Cousin George, oh yes. One
word only — it is true you were a child still when
I fancied I was a woman, and you have a right
to talk to me ujion all things, cxcejjt those that
relate to me and Lord INlontfort ; unless, in-
deed," she added, with a bewitching half laugh,
"unless you ever see cause to scold me, there.
Good-by, my cousin, and in turn forgive mc, if
I was so petulant. The Caroline you pelted
with snow-balls was always a wayward, impuls-
ive creature, quick to take ofi'ense, to misunder-
stand, and — to repent."
Back into the broad, broad gravel-walk,
walked, more slowly than before. Lady Mont-
fort. Again the sixty ghastly windows stared
126
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
at her with all their eyes — back from the gravel-
walk, through a side-door, into the pompous sol-
itude of the stately house — across long cham-
bers, where the mirrors reflected her form, and
the huge chairs, in their flaunting damask and
flaring gold, stood stiff on desolate floors — into
her own private room — neither large nor splen-
did that ; plain chintzes, quiet book-shelves. She
need not have been the Marchioness of JMont-
fort to inhabit a room as pleasant and as luxu-
rious. And the rooms that she could only have
owned as ^Marchioness, what were those worth
to her happiness? I know not. "Nothing,"
fine ladies will perhaps answer. Yet those same
fine ladies will contrive to dispose their daugh-
ters to answer, " All." In her own room Lady
Montfort sunk on her chair ; wearily ; — wearily
she looked at the clock — wearily at the books
on the shelves — at the harp near the window.
Then she leaned her face on her hand, and that
face was so sad, and so humbly sad, that you
would have wondered how any one could call
Lady ]Montfort proud.
" Treasure ! I — I ! — worthless, fickle, credu-
lous fool I — I — I !"
The groom of tlie chambers entered with the
letters by the afternoon post. That Great House
contrived to worry itself with two posts a day.
A royal command to Windsor —
" I shall be more alone in a court than here,"
murmured Lady Montfort.
CHAPTER H.
Truly Baith the proverb, " Much com lies under the straw
that is not seen."
Meanwhile George Morley followed the long
shady walk — very handsome walk, full of prize
roses and rare exotics — artificially winding, too
— walk so well kept that it took thirty-four men
to keep it — noble walk, tiresome walk — till it
brought him to the great piece of water, which,
perhaps, four times in the year was visited by
the great folks in the Great House. And being
thus out of the immediate patronage of fashion,
the great piece of water really looked natural
— companionable, refreshing — you began to
breathe — to unbutton your waistcoat, loosen
your neckclotii — quote Chaucer, if you could rec-
ollect him, or Cowper, or Shakspeare, or Thom-
son's Seasons ; in short, any scraps of verse that
came into your head — as your feet grew joyously
entangled with fern — as the trees grouped for-
est-like before and round you — trees which there
being out of sight, were allowed to grow too old
to be worth five shillings apiece, moss-grown,
hollow-trunked, some pollarded — trees invalua-
ble ! Ha I tlie hare ! how she scuds ! See, the
deer marching down to the water-side. What
groves of bulrushes- — islands of water-lily ! And
to throw a Gothic bridge there, bring a great grav-
el road over the bridge ! Oh, shame! shame !
So would have said the scholar, for he had a
true sentiment for nature, if the bridge had not
clean gone out of his head.
Wandering alone, he came at last to the most
rmibrageous and sequestered bank of the wide
■water, closed round on every side by brushwood,
or still patriarchal trees.
Suddenly he arrested his steps — an idea struck
him — one of those odd, whimsical, grotesque
ideas which often when we are alone come across
us, even in our quietest or most anxious moods.
Was his infirmity really incurable ? Elocution
masters had said " Certainly not;" but they had
done him no good. Yet had not the greatest
orator the world ever knew a defect in utter-
ance? He too, Demosthenes, had, no doubt,
paid fees to elocution masters, the best in Ath-
ens, where elocution masters must have studied
their art ad unrjiiem, and the defect had baffled
them. But did Demosthenes despair ? No, he
resolved to cure himself — How? Was it not
one of his methods to fill his mouth with peb-
bles, and practice manfully to the roaring sea?
George Morley had never tried the effect of peb-
bles. Was there any virtue in them ? AYhy not
try ? No sea there, it is true ; but a sea was only
useful as representing the noise of a stormy dem-
ocratic audience. To represent a peaceful con-
gregation that still sheet of water would do as
well. Pebbles there were in plenty just by that
gravelly cove, near which a young pike lay sun-
ning his green back. Half in jest, half in earn-
est, the scholar picked up a handful of pebbles,
wiped them from sand and moidd, inserted them
between his teeth cautiously, and, looking round
to assure himself that none were by, began an
extempore discourse. So interested did he be-
come in that classical experiment, that he might
have tortured the air and astonished the magpies
(three of whom from a neighboring thicket list-
ened perfectly spell-bound) for more than half
an hour, when, seized with shame at the ludi-
crous impotence of his exertions — with despair
that so wretched a barrier should stand between
his mind and its expression — he flung away the
pebbles, and, sinking on the ground, he fairly
wept — wept like a baffled child.
The fact was, that JMorley had really the tem-
perament of an orator ; he had the orator's gifts
in warmth of passion, rush of thought, logical
ari'angemcnt ; there was in him the genius of a
great jjreacher. He felt it — he knew it; and in
that despair which only Genius knows, when
some pitiful cause obstructs its energies and
strikes down its powers — making a confidant of
Solitude — he wept loud and freely.
"Do not despond. Sir; I undertake to cure
you," said a voice behind.
George started up in confusion. A man, eld-
erly, but fresh and vigorous, stood beside him,
in a light fustian jacket, a blue apron, and with
rushes in his hands, which he continued to plait
together nimbly and deftly as he bowed to the
startled scholar.
" I was in the shade of the thicket yonder,
Sir ; pardon me, I could not help hearing you."
The Oxonian rubbed his e3"es, and stared at
the man with a vague impression that he had
seen him before — When? Where?
" You can cure me," he stuttered out ; " what
of? — the folly of trying to speak in i)ublic.
Thank you, I am cured."
"Nay, Sir, you see before you a man who c*n
make you a very good speaker. Your voice is
naturally fine. I repeat I can cure a defect
which is not in the organ, but in the manage-
ment."
" You can ! you — who and what are you ?"
" A basket-maker, Sir ; I hope for your cus-
tom."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
127
" Surely this is not the first time I have seen
you?"
"True ; yon once kindly suffered me to bor-
row a restii)<T-place on your father's land. One
good turn deserves another."
At tliat moment Sir Isaac peered through the
brambles, and, restored to his orit^inal white-
ness, and rcHcved from his false, iiorned cars,
marched fjravely toward the water, sniffed at
the scholar, sliglitly wagged his tail, and buried
himself among the reeds in search of a water-
rat he had therein disturbed a week before, and
always exjiected to find again.
Tlie sight of the dog immediately cleared up
the cloud in the scholar's memory ; but witli rec-
ognition came back a keen curiosity and a sharp
pang of remorse.
"And your little girl?" he asked, looking
down abaslied.
" Better than she was when we last met.
Providence is so kind to us."
Poor Waife, he never guessed that to the per-
son he thus revealed himself he owed the grief
for Sophy's abduction. He divined no reason
for the scholar's flushing cheek and embarrassed
manner.
"Yes, Sir, we have just settled in this neigh-
borhood. I have a pretty cottage yonder at the
outskirts of the village, and near the park-pales.
I recogni/cd you at once ; and as I heard you
just now, I called to mind that when we met be-
fore, vou said your calling should be the Church,
were "it not for your difficulty in utterance; and
I said to myself, 'No bad things tliose pebbles,
if his utterance were tiiick, which it is not ;' and
I have not a doubt, Sir, that the true fault of
Demosthenes, whom I presume you were imi-
tating, was that he spoke through his nose."
" Eh !" said the scholar, "through his nose?
I never knew that ! — and I — "
" And you are trying to speak without lungs ;
that is, witlunit air in them. You don't smoke,
I presume?"
"No — certainly not."
"You must learn — speak between each slow
puff of your jiipe. All you want is time, time to
quiet the nerves, time to think, time to breathe.
The niomcut you begin to stammer — stoj) — fill
the lungs thus, then try again! It is only a
clever man who can learn to write — that is, to
compose ; but any fool can be taught to speak —
Courage !"
" If you really can teach me,'" cried the learn-
ed man, forgetting all self-rcjiroach for his be-
trayal of Waife to Mrs. Crane in tlie absorbing
interest of the hope that sprang up within him
— " If you can teach me — if I can but con — con
— con — conq — "
" Slowly — slowly — breath and time ; take a
whiff from my pijjc — that's right. Yes, you can
conquer the im])ediment."
"Then I will be the best friend to you that
man ever had. There's my hand on it."
" I take it, but I ask leave to change the par-
ties in the contract. I don't want a friend — I
don't deserve one. You'll be a friend to my lit-
tle girl instead ; and if ever I ask you to help
me in aught for her welfare and hap])iness — "
"I will help, heart and soul. Slight, indeed,
any senice to her or to you compared with such
service to me. Free this wretched tongue from
its stammer, and thought and zeal will not stam-
mer whenever you say, ' Keep your promise.' I
am so glad your little girl is still with you !"
Waife looked surprised — " Is still with me —
why not?"
The scholar bit his tongue. That was not the
moment to C(nifcss ; it might destroy all Waife "s
confidence in him. He would do so later,
"When shall I begin my lesson?"
" Now, if you like. But have you a book in
your pocket ?"
"I always have."
"Not Greek, I hope, Sir."
" No, a volume of Barrow's Sermons. Lord
Chatham recommended those sermons to his
great son as a study for eloquence."
" Good ! Will you lend me the volume. Sir,
and now for it ; listen to me : one sentence at a
time — draw your breath when I do."
The three magpies pricked up their ears again,
and, as they listened, marveled much.
CHArTER III.
Could we know by what strange circumstances a man's
genius became jireparcd for practical success, we sliould
discover that the most serviceable items in his education
were never entered in the hills which his father paid
fpr it.
At the end of the veiy first lesson George
^lorley saw that all the elocution-masters to
whose skill he had l]een consigned were blun-
derers in comjiarison to the baskct-inakcr.
Waife did not jjuzzle him with scientific the-
ories. All that the groat comedian required of
him was to observe and to imitate. Observation,
imitation, lo ! the ground-work of all art ! the
primal elements of all genius ! Not there, indeed,
to halt, but there ever to commence. AVliat re-
mains to carry on the intellect to mastery ? Two
steps — to reflect, to reproduce. Observation, im-
itation, reflection, rejjroduction. In these stands
a mind complete and consummate, fit to cope
with all labor, achieve all success.
At the end of the first lesson George Morley
felt that his cure was possible. ]\Iaking an ap-
])ointmcnt for the next day at the same place,
lie came thither stealthily, and so on day by
day. At the end of a week he felt that the cure
was nearly sure ; at the end of a month the cure
was self-evident. He should live to preach the
Word. True, that he ])racticcd incessantly in
private. Not a moment in his waking hours
that the one thought, one object, were absent
from his mind ; true, that with all his ]iaticnce,
all his toil, the obstacle was yet serious, might
never be entirely overcome. Nervous hurry — ra-
))idity of action — vehemence of feeling brought
back, might, at unguarded moiuents, always
bring back the gasping breath — the emptied
lungs — the struggling utterance. But the re-
lapse — rarer and rarer now with each trial —
would be at last scarce a drawback. " Nay,"
quoth Waife, " instead of a drawl>ack, become
but an orator, and you will convert a defect into
a beauty."
Thus justly sanguine of the accom]ili>hment
of his life's chosen object, the scholar's gratitude
lo Waife was unspeakable. And seeing the man
daily at last in his own cottage — Sophy's health
restored to her cheeks, smiles to her lip, and
cheered at her light fancy-work beside her
128
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
grandsire's elbo^-chair, with fairy legends in-
stilling perhaps golden truths — seeing Waife
thus, the scholar mingled with gratitude a
strange tenderness of respect. lie knew naught
of the vagrant's past — his reason might admit
that in a position of life so at variance with the
gifts natural and acquired of the singular basket-
maker, there was something mj'sterious and sus-
picious. But he blushed to think that he had
ever ascribed to a flawed or wandering intellect
the eccentricities of glorious Humor — abetted an
attempt to separate an old age so innocent and
genial from a childhood so fostered and so fos-
tering. And sure I am that if the whole world
had risen np to point the finger of scorn at the
one-eyed cripple, George Morley, the well-born
gentleman — the refined scholar — the spotless
Churchman — would have given him his arm to
lean upon, and walked by his side unashamed.
CHAPTER IV.
To judge human character rightly, a man may some-
times have very small experience, provided he has a
very large heart.
NuMA PoMPiLirs did not more conceal from
notice the lessons he received from Egeria than
did George ]Morley those which he received from
the basket-maker. Natural, indeed, must be his
wish for secrecy — pretty stoiy it would be for
Humberston, its future rector learning how to
preach a sermon from an old basket-maker ! But
he had a nobler and more imperious motive for
discretion — his honor was engaged to it. Waife
exacted a promise tliat he would regard the in-
tercourse between them as strictly private and
confidential.
" It is for my sake I ask this," said Waife,
frankly, '• though I might say it was for yours."
The Oxonian promised, and was bound. For-
tunately, Lady I\Iontfort quitting the Great
House the very day after George had first en-
countered the basket-maker, and writing word
that she should not return to it for some weeks
— George was at liberty to avail himself of her
lord's general invitation to make use of ^lont-
fort Court as his lodgings when in the neighbor-
hood, which the proprieties of the world would
not have allowed him to do while Lady ^lontfort
was there without either host or female guests.
Accordingly, he took up his abode in a corner
of the vast palace, and was easily enabled, when
he pleased, to traverse unobserved the solitudes
of the park, gain the water-side, or stroll thence
through the thick copse leading to Waife's cot-
tage, which bordered the park-pales, solitary,
sequestered, beyond sight of the neighboring
village. The great house all to himself, George
was brought in contact with no one to whom, in
unguarded moments, he could even have let out
a hint of his new acquaintance, except the cler-
gyman of the parish, a worthy man, who lived
in strict retirement upon a scanty stipend. For
the I\Iarquis was the lay impropriator ; the liv-
ing was therefore but a very poor vicarage, be-
low the acceptance of a Vipont or a Yipont's
tutor — sure to go to a quiet wortiiy man forced
to live in strict retirement. George saw too lit-
tle of this clergyman either to let out secrets
or pick up information. Fi'om him, however,
', George did incidentally learn that Waife had
i some months previously visited the village, and
proposed to the bailiff to take the cottage and
i osier land, which he now rented — that he rep-
, resented himself as having known an old bask-
et-maker who had dwelt there many years ago,
I and had learned the basket craft of" that long
I deceased operative. As he offered a higher rent
, than the bailitf could elsewhere obtain, and as
the bailiff was desirous to get credit with 3Ir.
Carr \'ipont for improving the property, by re-
viving thereon an art which had fallen into
desuetude, the bargain was struck, provided the
candidate, being a stranger to the ])lace, could
I furnish the bailiff with any satisfactory refer-
1 ence. Waife had gone away, saying he should
shortly return with the requisite testimonial.
In fact, poor man, as we know,, he was then
counting on a good word from .Mr. Hartopp.
He had not, however, returned for some months.
The cottage having been meanwhile wanted for
the temporary occupation of an under game-
keeper, while his own was under repair, fortu-
nately remained unlet. Waife, on returning,
accompanied by his little girl, had referred the
bailiff to a respectable house-agent and collector
of street rents in Bloomsbury, who wrote word
that a lady, then abroad, had authorized him,
as the agent employed in the management of a
house property from which mnch of her income
was derived, not only to state that Waife was a
very intelligent man, likely to do well whatever
he undertook, but also to guarantee, if required,
the punctual payment of the rent for any holding
of which he became the occupier. On this the
agreement was concluded — the basket-maker
installed. In the immediate neighborhood there
was no custom for basket-work, but Waife's per-
formances were so neat, and some so elegant
and fanciful, that he .had no diiliculty in con-
tracting with a large tradesman (not at Hum-
berston, but a more distant and yet more thriv-
ing town about twenty miles oft'), for as much
of such work as he could supply. Each week
the carrier took his goods and brought back the
payments ; the profits amply suflSced for Waife's
and Sophy's daily bread, with even more than
the surplus set aside for the rent. For the rest,
the basket-maker's cottage being at tlie farthest
outskirts of the straggling village inhabited but
by a laboring peasantry, his way of life was not
much known, nor much inquired into. He
seemed a harmless hard-working man — never
seen at the beer-house, always seen with his
neatly-dressed little grandchild in his quiet cor-
ner at church on Sundays — a civil, well-behaved
man too, who touched his hat to the bailift", and
took it oft' to the vicar.
An idea prevailed that the basket-maker had
spent much of his life in foreign parts, favored
partly by a sobriety of habits which is not alto-
gether national, partly by something in his ap-
pearance, which, without being above his lowly
calling, did not seem quite in keeping with it —
outlandish in short — but principally by the fact
that he had received since his arrival two letters
with a foreign jxjstmark. The idea befriended
the old man ; allowing it to be inferred that he
had probably outlived the friends he had for-
merly left behind him in England, and on his
return, been sufficiently fatigued with his ram-
bles to drop contented in any corner of his native
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
129
soil, wherein he could find a quiet home, and
earn by light toil a decent livelihood.
George, though naturally curious to know
what had been the result of his communication
to Mrs. Crane — whether it had led to Waife's
discovery or caused him annoyance, had hither-
to, however, shrunk from touching upon a topic
which subjected himself to an awkward confes-
sion of officious intermeddling, and might ap-
pear an indirect and indelicate mode of prying
into painful family affairs. But one day he re-
ceived a letter from his father which disturbed
him greatly, and induced him to break ground
and speak to his preceptor frankly. In this let-
ter the elder ^•. Morley mentioned incidental-
ly, among other scraps of local news, that he had
seen Mr. Hartopp, who was rather out of sorts,
his good heart not having recovered the shock
of having been abominably " taken in" by an
impostor for whom he had conceived a great
fancy, and to whose discovery George himself
had providentially led (the father referring here
to what George had told him of his first meeting
with Waife, and his visit to Mrs. Crane), the
impostor, it seemed, from what Mr. Hartopp let
fall, not being a little queer in the head — as
George had been led to surmise — but a very bad
character. " In fact," added the elder Morley,
"a character so bad, that Mr. Hartopp was too
glad to give up the child, whom the man ap-
pears to have abducted, to her lawful protectors;
and I suspect from what Hartopp said, though
he does not like to own that he was taken in to
so gross a degree, that he had been actually in-
troducingto his fellow-townsfolk, and conferring
familiarly, with a regular jail-bird — perhaps a
burglar. How lucky for that poor, soft-headed,
excellent Jos Hartopp — whom it is positively as
inhuman to take in as if he were a born natural
— that the lady you saw an'ived in time to ex-
pose the snares laid for his benevolent credulity.
But for that, Jos might have taken the fellow
into his own house — (just like him !) — and been
robbed by this time — perhaps murdered — Heav-
en knows !"
Incredulous and indignant, and longing to be
empowered to vindicate his friend's fair name,
George seized his hat, and strode quick along
the path toward the basket-maker's cottage.
As he gained the water-side he perceived Waife
himself, seated on a mossy bank, under a gnarled
fantastic thorn-tree, watching a deer as it came
to drink, and whistling a soft mellow tune — the
tunc of an old English border-song. The deer
lifted its antlers from the water, and turned its
large bright eyes toward the*o])posite bank,
whence the note came — listening and wistful.
As George's step crushed the wild thyme, which
the thorn-tree shadowed — "Hush," said Waife,
"and mark how the rudest musical sound can
affect the brute creation." He resumed the
whistle — a clearer, louder, wilder tune — that of
a lively hunting-song. The deer turned quickly
round — uneasy, restless, tossed its antlers, and
bounded through the fern. Waife again changed
the key of his primitive music — a melancholy
belling note, like the belling itself of a melan-
choly hart, but more modulated into sweetness.
The deer arrested its flight, and, lured by the
mimic sound, returned toward the water-side,
slow and stately.
" I don't think the story of Orpheus charming
the brutes was a fable — do you, Sir ?" said Waife.
' ' The rabbits about here know me already ; and
if I had but a fiddle I would undertake to make
friends with that reserved and unsocial water-
rat, on whom Sir Isaac in vain endeavoi-s at
present to force his acquaintance. ^lan com-
mits a great mistake in not cultivating more in-
timate and amicable relations with the other
branches of earth's great family. Few of them
not more amusing than we arc— naturally, for
they have not our cares. And such variety of
character, too, where you would least expect it!"
Geougi: Moklet. "Very true: Cowjier no-
ticed marked differences of character in his fa-
vorite hares."
Waife. "Hares! I am sure that there are
not two house-flies on a window-pane, two min-
nows in that water, that would not present to us
interesting points of contrast as to temper and
disposition. If house-flies and minnows could
but coin money, or set up a manufacture — con-
trive something, in short, to buy or sell attractive
to Anglo-Saxon enterprise and intelligence — of
course we should soon have diplomatic relations
with them; and our dispatches and newspapers
would instruct us to a T in the characters and
propensities of their leading personages. But
where man has no pecuniary nor ambitious in-
terests at stake in his commerce with any class
of his fellow-creatures, his information about
them is extremely confused and superficial.
The best naturalists are mere generalizcrs, and
think they have done a vast deal when they
classify a species. What should we know about
mankind if we had only a naturalist's definition
of man ? We only know mankind by knocking
classification on the head, and studying each
man as a class in himself. Compare Buffon
with Shakspeare I Alas ! Sir — can we never
have a Shakspeare for house-flies and min-
nows ?"
George Mokley. " With all respect for min-
nows and house-flies, if we found another Shaks-
peare, he might be better employed, like his
predecessor, in selecting individualities from the
classifications of man."
Waife. " Being yourself a man, you think so
— a house-fly might be of a different opinion.
But permit me, at least, to doubt whether such
an investigator would be better employed in
reference to his own happiness, though I grant
that he would be so in reference to your intel-
j lectual amusement and social interests. Poor
I Shakspeare! How much he must have suf-
j fered!"'
George Morley. " You mean that he must
have been racked by the passions he describes
— bruised by collision with the hearts he dis-
I sects. That is not necessary to genius. The
! judge on his bench, summing up evidence, and
I charging the jury, has no need to have shared
j the temptations, or been privy to the acts, of
the prisoner at the bar. Yet how consummate
; may be his analysis !"'
I "No," cried Waife, roughly. "No. Your
; illustration destroys your argument. The judge
knows nothing of the prisoner! There are the
! circumstances — there is the law. By these he
I generalizes — by these he judges — right or wrong.
But of the individual at the bar — of the world
— the tremendous world within that individual
heart — I repeat — he knows nothing. Did he
130
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
know, law and circumstance might vanish — hu-
man justice would be paralyzed. Ho, there !
place that swart-visajied, ill-looking foreigner in
the dock, and let counsel open the case — hear
the witnesses depose ! Oh, horrible wretch ! — a
murderer — unmanly murderer ! — a defenseless
woman smothered by caitiff hands ! Hang him
up — hang him up ! ' Softly,' whispers the Poet,
and lifts the vail from the Assassin's heart.
'Lo ! it is Othello the Moor!' What jury now
dare find that criminal guilty ? — what judge
now will put on the black cap ? — who now says,
'Hang him up — hang him ui5?"'
With such lifelike force did the Comedian
vent this passionate outburst that he thrilled
his listener with an awe akin to tliat which the
convicted Moor gathers round himself at the
close of the sublime drama. Even Sir Isaac
was startled ; and, leaving his hopeless pursuit
of the water-rat, uttered a low bark, came to
his master, and looked into his face with solemn
curiosity.
Waife (relapsing into colloquial accents).
" Why do we s}'mpathize with those above us
more than with those below ? why with the sor-
rows of a king rather than those of a beggar?
why does Sir Isaac sympathize with me more
than (let that water-rat vex him ever so much)
I can possibly sympathize with him? Whatever
be the cause, see at least, INIr. Morley, one rea-
son why a poor creature like myself finds it bet-
ter employment to cultivate the intimacy of
brutes than to prosecute the study of men.
Among men, all are too high to sympathize with
me ; but I have known two friends who never
injured nor betrayed me. Sir Isaac is one,
Wamba was another. Wamba, Sir, the native
of a remote district of the globe (two friends
civilized Europe is not large enough to afl'ord to
any one man) — Wamba, Sir, was less gifted by
nature, less refined by education than Sir Isaac ;
but he was a safe and trustworthy companion.
Wamba, Sir, v/as — an opossum."
Geokge Morley. " Alas, my dear Mr. Waife,
I fear that men must have behaved very ill to
you."
Waife. " I have no right to complain. I
have behaved very ill to myself. When a man
is his own enemy, he is ver)- unreasonable if he
expect other men to be his benefactors."
George Morley (with emotion). "Listen,
I have a confession to make to you. I fear I
have done you an injurj- — where, officiously, I
meant to do a kindness." The scholar hurried
on to narrate the particulars of his visit to Mrs.
Crane. On concluding the recital, he added —
"When again I met you here and learned that
your Sophy was with you, I felt inexpressibly
relieved. It was clear then, I thought, that your
grandchild had been left to your care unmolested,
either that you had proved not to be the person
of whom the parties were in search, or family
affairs had been so explained and reconciled,
that my interfei'ence had occasioned you no
harm. But to-day I have a letter from my fa-
ther which disquiets me mucli. It seems that
the persons in question did visit Gatesboro' and
have maligned you to Mr. Hartopp. Under-
stand me, I ask for no confidence which you
may be unwilling to give ; but if you will arm
me with the power to vindicate your character
from aspersions which I need not your assur-
ance to hold unjust and false, I will not rest till
that task be triumphantly accomplished."
Waife (in a tone calm but dejected). "I
thank you with all my heart. But there is no-
thing to be done. I am glad that the subject
did not start up between us until such little
service as I could render you, Mr. Morley, was
pretty well over. It would have been a pity if
you had been compelled to drop all communica-
tion with a man of attainted character before
you had learned how to manage the powers that
will enable you hereafter to exhort sinners worse
than I have been. Hush, Sir! you feel that, at
least now, I am an inoft'ensive old man — labor-
ing for a humble livelihood. Ifoa Mill not re-
peat here what you may have heard, or yet
hear, to the discredit of my former life? You
will not send me and my grandchild forth from
our obscure refuge to confront a world with
which Ave have no strength to cope ? And, be-
lieving this, it only remains for me to say Fare-
you-well, Sir."
"I should deserve to lose spe — spe — speech
altogether," cried the Oxonian, gasping and
stammering fearfully as he caught Waife firmly
by the arm, "if I suffered — suit" — suff — sufif — "
"One, two! take time, Sir!" said the Come-
dian, softly. And with a sweet patience he re-
seated himself on the bank.
The Oxonian threw himself at length by the
outcast's side ; and with the noble tenderness of
a nature as chivalrously Christian as Heaven
ever gave to priest, he rested his folded hands
u])on Waife's shoulder, and looking him full and
close in the face, said thus, slowly, deliberately,
not a stammer,
" You do not guess what you have done for
me ; you have secured to me a home and a
career — the wife of whom I must otherwise have
despaired — the divine vocation on which all my
earthly hopes were set, and which I was on tlie
eve of renouncing — do not think these are obliga-
tions which can be lightly shaken off. If there
are circumstances which forbid me to disabuse
others of impressions which wrong you, imagine
not that their false notions will affect my own
gratitude — my own respect for you!"
" Nay, Sir ! they ought — they must. Perhaps
not your exaggerated gratitude for a service
which you should not, however, measure by its
effects on yourself, but by the slightness of the
trouble it gave to me ; not perhaps your grati-
tude — but j'our respect, yes."
" I tell you no ! Do you fancy that I can not
judge of a man's nature without calling on him
to trust me wuh all the secrets — all the errors,
if you will, of his past life ? Will not the call-
ing to which I may now hold myself destined
give me power and commandment to absolve all
those who truly rejient and unfeignedly believe?
Oh, Mr. Waife! if in earlier days you have
sinned, do you not repent? and how often, in
many a lovely gentle sentence dropped unawares
from your lips, have I had cause to know that
you unfeignedly believe! Were I now clothed
with sacred authority, could I not absolve you as
a priest ? Think you that, in the mean while, I
dare judge you as a man ? I — life's new recruit,
guarded hitherto from temptation by careful jjar-
ents and favoring fortune — /presume to judge,
and judge harshly, the gray-haired veteran, wea-
ried by the march, wounded in the battle!"
"WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
131
" You arc a noblc-heartcd human being," said
"Waifp, greatly aflected. ' ' And — mark my words
— a mantle of charity so large you will live to
wear as a robe of honor. But hear me, Sir!
Mr. Hartopp also is a man infinitely charitable,
benevolent, kindly, and, through all his sim-
plicity, acutely shrewd, ilr. Hartopp, on hear-
ing what was said against me, deemed me unfit
to retain my grandchild, resigned the trust I had
confided to him, and would have given me alms,
no doubt, had I asked them, but not his hand.
Take your hands. Sir, from my shoulder, lest the
touch sully you."
George did take his hands from the vagrant's
shoulder, but it was to grasp the hand that
waived them off, and struggled to escape the
pressure. ''You are innocent, you are innocent I
forgive mc that I spoke to you of repentance, as
if you had been guilty. I feel you are innocent
— feel it by my own heart. You turn away. I
defy you to say that you are guilty of what has
been laid to your charge, of wliat has darkened
your good name, of what ^Nlr. Hartopp believed
to your prejudice. Look me in the face and
sav, ' I am not innocent, I have not been be-
lied.' "
Waife remained voiceless — motionless.
The young man, in whose nature lay yet un-
proved all those grand qualities of heart, with-
out which never was there a grand orator, a
grand preacher — qualities which grasp the re-
sults of argument, and arrive at tlie end of elab-
orate reasoning by sudden impulse — here re-
leased "Waife's hand, rose to his feet, and, fac-
ing Waife, as the old man\ate with face avert-
ed, eyes downcast, breast heaving, said, loftily,
"Forget that I may soon be the Christian
minister whose duty bows his ear to the lips of
shame and guilt — whose hand, when it points
to Heaven, no mortal touch can sully — M^hose
sublimest post is by the sinner's side. Look on
me but as man and gentleman. See, I now
extend this hand to you. If, as man and gen-
tleman, you have done that which, could all
hearts be read, all secrets known — human judg-
ment reversed by Divine omniscience — forbids
you to take this hand — the?i reject it — go hence
— we parti But if no such act be on your con-
science — however you submit to its imputation
— THEN, in the name of Truth, as man and gen-
tleman to man and gentleman, I command you
to take this right hand, and in the name of that
Honor which bears no paltering, I forbid you to
disobey."
The vagabond rose, like the dead at the spell
of a magician — tdok, as if irresistibly, the hand
held out to him. Arid the scholar, overjoyed,
fell on his breast, embracing him as a son.
"You know," said George, in trembling ac-
cents, " that the hand you have taken will nev-
er betray — never desert; but is it — is it really
powerless to raise and to restore you to your
place ?"
'•Powerless among your kind for that indeed,"
aHwered Waife. in accents still more tremu-
lous. "All the kings of the earth are not strong
enough to raise a name that has once been
trampled into the mire. Learn that it is not
only impossible for me to clear myself, but that
it is equally impossible for me to confide to mor-
tal being a single plea in defense if I am inno-
cent, in extenuation if I am guilty. And say-
ing this, and entreating yon to hold it more
merciful to condemn than to question me — for
question is torture — I can not reject your pity ;
but it would be mockery to offer me respect !"
" What ! not respect the fortitude which cal-
umny can not crush ? Would that fortitude be
possible if you were not calm in the knowledge
that no false witnesses can mislead the Eternal
Judge ? Respect you ! yes — because I have seen
you happy in despite of men, and therefore I
know that the cloud around you is not the frown
of Heaven."
" Oh," cried Waife, the tears rolling down his
cheeks, " and not an hour ago I was jesting at
human friendship — venting graceless spleen on
my fellow-men! And now — now — Ah! Sir,
Providence is so kind to me! And," said he,
brushing away his tears, as the old arch smile
began to play round the corner of his mouth —
" and kind to me in the very quarter in which
unkindness had most sorely smitten me. True,
you directed toward me the woman who took
from me my grandchild — who destroyed me in
the esteem of good Mr. Hartopp. Well, you
see, I have my sweet Sophy back again ; we are
in the home of all others I most longed for ; and
that woman — yes, I can, at least thus far, con-
fide to you my secrets, so that you may not blame
yourself for sending her to Ga'tesboro' — that veiy
woman knows of my shelter — furnished me with
the very reference necessary to obtain it; has
freed my grandchild from a loathsome bondage,
which I could not have legally resisted ; and
should new persecutions chase us, will watch,
and warn, and help us. And if you as^ me
how this change in her was effected — how, when
we had abandoned all hope of green fields, and
deemed that only in the crowd of a city we could
escape those who pursued us when discovered
there, though I fancied myself an adept in dis-
guise, and the child and the dog were never seen
out of the four garret walls in which I hid them ;
if you ask me, I say, to explain how that very
woman was suddenly converted from a remorse-
less foe into a saving guardian, I can only an-
swer, by no wit, no device, no persuasive art of
mine. Providence softened her heart, and made
it kind, just at the moment when no other agency
on earth could have rescued us from — from — "
" Say no more — I guess ! the paper this wo-
man showed me was a legal form authorizing
your poor little Sophy to be given up to the care
of a father. I guess ! of that father you would
not speak ill to me ; yet from that father you
would save your grandchild. Say no more. And
yon quiet home — your humble employment, re-
ally content you ?"
" Oh, if such a life can but last ! Sophy is so
well, so cheerful, so happy. Did not you hear
her singing the other day ? She never used to
sing ! But we had not been here a week when
song broke out from her untaught, as from a
bird. But if any ill report of me travel hither
from Gatesboro', or elsewhere, we shotdd be sent
away, and the bird would be mute in my thorn-
tree — Sophy would sing no more."
"Do n.ot fear that slander shall drive you
hence. Lady Montfort, you know, is my cous-
in, but you know not — few do — how thoroughly
generous and gentle-hearted she is. I will speak
of you to her — Oh, do not look alarmed. She
will take my word when I tell her 'that is a
132
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
good man ;' and if she ask more, it will be enough
to say, 'those who have known better days are
loth to speak to strangers of the past.'"
" I thank you earnestly, sincerely," said
Waife, brightening up. " One favor more — if
you saw in the formal document shown to you,
or retain on j-our memory, the name of — of the
person authorized to claim Sophy as his child,
you will not mention it to Lady Montfort. I
am not sure if ever she heard that name, but
she may have done so — and — and — " He
paused a moment, and seemed to muse ; then
went on, not concluding his sentence. "You
are so good to me, IMr. Morley, that I wish to
confide in you as far as I can. Now, you see I
am already an old man, and my chief object is
to raise up a friend for Sophy when I am gone
— a friend in her own sex. Sir. Oh, you can
not guess how I long — how I yearn to view that
child under the holy fostering eyes of woman.
Perhaps if Lady iNIontfort saw my pretty Sophy
she might take a fancy to her. Oh, if she did
— if she did I And Sophy," added Waife, proud-
ly, "has a right to respect. She is not like me
— any hovel good enough for me. But for her!
— Do you know that I conceived that hojje —
that the hope helped to lead me back here when,
months ago, I was at Humbesston, intent upon
rescuing Sophy ; and saw, though," observed
Waife, with a sly twitch of the muscles round j
his mouth, " I had no right at that precipe mo-
ment to be seeing any thing — Lady ]\Iontfort's
humane fear for a blind old impostor, who was
trying to save his dog — a black dog, Sir, who
had dyed his hair — from her carriage wheels.
And the hope became stronger still, when, the
first Sunday I attended yon village church, I
again saw that fair — wondrously fair — face at
the far end — fair as moonlight and as melan-
choly. Strange it is. Sir, that I, naturally a
boisterous, mirthful man, and now a shy, skulk-
ing fugitive — feel more attracted, more allured
toward a countenance, in proportion as I read
there the trace of sadness. I feel less abashed
by my own nothingness — more emboldened to
approach and say, ' Not so far apart from me ;
thou, too, hast suffered.' Why is this?"
Geouge Motley. "'The fool hath said in
his heart that there is no God ;' but the fool
hath not said iu his heart that tliere is no sor-
row — pithy and most profound sentence; inti-
mating the irrefragable chain that binds men to
the Father. And where the chain tightens the
children are closer drawn together. But to your
wish — I will remember it. And when my cous-
in returns she shall see your Sophy."
CHAPTER V.
llr. "Waife, being by nature unlucky, considers that, in
proportion as Fortune brings him good luck, Nature
converts it into hzd. He suffers Mr. George Morley to
go away in his debt, and Sophy fears that he will be
dull in consequence.
George Morlet, a few weeks after the con^
versation last recorded, took his departure from
Montfort Court, prepared, without a scruple, to
present himself for ordination to the friendly
bishop. From Waife he derived more than the
cure of a disabling infirmity ; he received those
hints which, to a man who has the natural tem-
perament of an orator, so rarely united with
that of the scholar, expedite the mastery of
the art which makes the fleeting human voice
an abiding, imperishable power. The grateful
teacher exh:iusted all his lore upon the pupil
whose genius he had freed — whose heart had
subdued himself. Before leaving, George was
much perplexed how to offer to Waife any oth-
er remuneration than that which, in Waife's es-
timate, had already overpaid all the benefits he
had received — viz., unquestioning friendship and
pledged protection. It need scarcely be said that
George thought the man to whom he owed for-
tune and happiness was entitled to something
beyond that moral recompense. But he found,
at the first delicate hint, that Waife would not
hear of money, though the ex-Comedian did
not affect any very Quixotic notions on that
practical subject. " To tell you the truth. Sir,
I have rather a superstition against having more
money in my hands than I know what to do
with. It has always brought me bad luck. And
what is very hard — the bad luck stays, but the
money goes. There was that splendid sum I
made at Gainsboro'. You should have seen me
counting it over. I could not have had a proud-
er or more swelling heart if I had been that
great man Mr. Elwes the miser. And what bad
luck it brought me, and how it all frittered it-
self away ! Nothing to show for it but a silk
ladder and an old hurdy-gurdy, and 1 sold t/ietn
at half-price. Then, when I had the accident
which cost me this eye, the railway people be-
haved so generously, gave me £120 — think of
that ! And before three days the money was all
gone !"
"How was that?" said George, half amused,
half pained; "stolen, perhaps?"
"Not so," answered Waife, somewhat gloom-
ily, "but restored. A poor dear old man, who
thought very ill of me — and I don't wonder at
it — was reduced from great wealth to great j)Ov-
erty. While I was laid up my landlady read a
newspaper to me, and in that newspaper was an
account of his reverse and destittition. But I
was accountable to him for the balance of an
old debt, and that, with the doctor's bills, quite
covered my £120. I hope he does not think
quite so ill of me now. But the money brought
good luck to him rather than to me. Well, Sir,
if you were now to give me money I should be
on the look-out for some mournful calamity.
Gold is not natural to me. Some day, however,
by-and-by, when you are inducted into your liv-
ing, and have become a renowned preacher, and
have jdonty to spare, with an idea that you
would feel more comfortable in your mind if
you had done something royal for the basket-
maker, I will ask you to help me to make up a
sum which I am trying by degrees to save — an
enormous sum — as much as I paid away from
my railway com])ensation — I owe it to the lady
who lent it to release Sojihy from an engage-
ment which I — certainly without any remorse
of conscience — made the child break."
" Oh yes ! What is the amount ? Let me at
least repay that debt."
" Not yet. The lady can wait — and she would
be pleased to wait, because she deserves to wait
— it would ha unkind to her to pay it off at once.
But in thx! mean while, if you could send me a
few good books for Sophy ? — instructive ; yet
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
133
not very, very dry. And a French dictionary —
I can teach her French when the winter days
close in. You see I am not above beinj:; j)aid,
Sir. But, Mr. Morlcy, there is a great favor you
can do me."
"What is it? Speak."
"Cautiously refrain from doing mc a great
disservice ! You are going back to your friends
and relations. Never sjicak of me to them.
Never describe me and my odd ways. Name
not the lady, nor — nor — nor — the man who
claimed Sophy. Your friends might not hurt
me, others might. Talk travels. The Hare is
not long in its form when it has a friend in a
Hound that gives tongue. Promise what I ask.
Promise it as 'man and gentleman.'"
" Certainly. Yet I have one relation to whom
I should like, with your ]>crnHssian, to speak of
you — with whom I could wish you acquainted.
He is so thorough a man of the world that he
might suggest some method to clear your good
name, which you yourself would approve. My
uncle, Colonel Morley — "
"On no account!" cried Waife, almost fierce-
ly, and he evinced so much anger and uneasi-
ness that it was long before George could j)aci-
fy him by the most earnest assurances that his
secret should be inviolably kept, and his injunc-
tions faitlifully obeyed. No men of llie world
consulted how to force hini back to the world
of men that he fled from ! No colonels to scan
him with martinet eyes, and hint how to pipe-
clay a tarnish ! Waife's apprehensions gradu-
ally allayed, and his confidence restored, one
fine morning George took leave of his eccentric
benefactor.
Waife and Sophy stood gazing after him from
their garden-gate ; the cripple leaning lightly
on the child's arm. She looked with anxious
fondness into the old man's thoughtful face,
and clung to him more closely as slie looked.
"Will you not be dull, jjoor gi-andy? Will
you not miss him ?"
"A little at first," said Waife, rousing him-
self. " Education is a great thing. An edu-
cated mind, provided that it does us no mischief
— which is not always the case — can not be with-
drawn from our existence without leaving a blank
behind. Sophy, we must seriously set to work
and educate ourselves!"
" We will, grandy dear," said Sophy, with de-
cision; and a few minutes afterward, "If I can
become very, very clever, you will not pine so
much after that gentleman— will you, grandy?"
CHAPTER VL
Being a chapter that comes to an untimely end.
Winter was far advanced when Montfort
Court was again brightened by the presence of
its lady. A polite letter from Mr. Carr Vipont
had reached her before leaving Windsor, sug-
gesting how much it would be for the advantage
of the Vipont interest if she would consent to
visit for a month or two the seat in Ireland,
which had been too long neglected, and at
which my lord would join her on his departure
from his Highland moors. So to Ireland went
Lady Montfort. My lord did not join lier there ;
but Mr. Carr Vipont deemed it desirable for the
Vipont interest that the wedded pair should re-
unite at Montfort Court, where all the Vipont
family were invited to witness their felicity or
mitigate their cmitii.
But, before proceeding another stage in this
history, it becomes a just tribute of respect to
the great House of Vipont to pause and ])lace
its past records and i>rescnt grandeur in fuller
display before the reverential reader. Tke
House of Vipont! What am I about? The
House of Vipont requires a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER VII.
The House op Vipont. — " Majora cayiamus."
The House of Vipont ! Looking back through
ages, it seems as if the House of Vipont were
one continuous, living idiosyncrasy, having in
its progressive development a connected unity
of thought and action, so that through all the
changes of its outward form it had been moved
and guided by the same single spirit — " Le roi
est viort — v'lve le roi T' — A Vipont dies — live the
Vipont ! Despite its high-sounding Norman
name, the House of Vipont was no House at all
for some generations after the Conquest. The
first Vipont who emerged from the obscurity of
time was a rude soldier, of Gascon origin, in the
reign of Henry II. ; one of the thousand fight-
ing men who sailed from Milford Haven with
the stout Earl of Pembroke, on that strange ex-
pedition which ended in the con(}uest of Ire-
land. This gallant man obtained large grants
of land in that fertile island — some Mac or some
O' vanished, and the House of Vipont rose.
During the reign of Richard I. the House of
Vipont, though recalled to England (leaving its
Irish acquisitions in charge of a fierce cadet,
who served as middleman), excused itself from
tiie Crusade, and, by marriage with a rich gold-
smith's daughter, was enabled to lend moneys to
those who indulged in that exciting but costlv
pilgrimage. In the reign of John the House of
Vipont foreclosed its mortgages on lands thus
pledged, and became possessed of a very fair
property in England, as well as its fiefs in the
sister isle.
The House of Vipont took no part in the
troublesome politics of that day. Discreetly
obscure, it attended to its own fortunes, and felt
small interest in Magna Charta. During the
reigns of the Plantagenet Edwards, who were
great encouragers of mercantile adventure, the
House of Vipont, shunning Creci, Bannockburn,
and such profitless brawls, internuxrricd with
London traders, and got many a good thing out
of the Genoese. In the reign of Ilenry IV. the
House of Vipont reaped the benefit of its i)ast
forbearance and modesty. Now, for the first
time, the Viponts appear as belted knights —
they have armorial bearings — they are Lancas-
terian to the back-bone — they are exceedingly
indignant against heretics — they burn the Lol-
lards — they have j)laces in the household of
Queen Joan, who was called a witch, but a
witch is a very good friend when she wields a
sceptre instead of a broomstick. And in i)roof
of its growing importance, the House of Vipont
marries a daughter of the then mighty House
of Darrell. lu the reign of Henry V., during
134
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
the invasion of France, the House of Vipont —
being afraid of the dysentery which carried off
more brave fellows than the field of Agincourt
— contrived to be a minor. The Wars of the
Roses puzzled the House of Vipont sadly. But
it went through that perilous ordeal with sin-
gular tact and success. The manner in which
it changed sides, each change safe, and most
changes lucrative, is beyond all praise.
On the whole, it preferred the Yorkists ; it
was impossible to be actively Lancasterian, with
Henry VI. of Lancaster always in prison. And
thus, at the death of Edward IV., the House of
Vipont was Baron Vipont of Vi]Jont, with twen-
ty manors. Richard IH. counted on the House
of Vipont, when he left London to meet Rich-
mond at Bosworth — he counted without his host.
The House of Vipont became again intensely
Lancasterian, and was among the first to crowd
round the litter in which Henry VII. entered
the metropolis. In that reign it married a re-
lation of Empson's — did the great House of Vi-
pont ! and as nobles of elder date had become
scarce and poor, Henry VII. was pleased to make
the House of Vipont an earl — the Earl of JNIont-
fort. In the reign of Henry VIII., instead of
burning Lollards, the House of Vipont was all
for the Reformation — it obtained the lands of
two priories and one abbey. Gorged Mith that
spoil, the House of Vipont, like an anaconda in
the process of digestion, slept long. But no, it
slept not. Tliough it kept itself still as a mouse
during the reign of bloody Queen Mary (only
letting if be known at court that the House of
Vipont had strong papal leanings) ; though dur-
ing the reigns of Elizabeth and James it made
no noise, the House of Vipont was silently in-
flating its lungs, and improving its constitution.
Slept, indeed ! it was wide awake. Then it was
that it began systematically its grand policy of
alliances ; then was it sedulously grafting its
olive branches on the stems of those fruitful
New Houses that had sprung up with the Tu-
dors ; then, alive to the spirit of the day, prov-
ident of the wants of the mon-ow, over the
length and breadth of the land it wove the in-
terlacing net-work of useful cousinhood ! Then,
too, it began to build palaces, to inclose parks
— it traveled, too, a little — did the House of
Vipont ! It visited Italy — it conceived a taste ;
a very elegant House became the House of Vi-
pont ! And in James's reign, for the first time,
the House of Vipont got the Garter. The Civil
Wars broke out — England was rant. Peer and
knight took part with one side or the other.
The House of Vipont was again perplexed.
Certainly at the commencement it was all for
King Charles. But when King Charles took to
fighting, the House of Vipont shook its saga-
cious head, and went about, like Lord Falkland,
sighing "Peace, peace!" Finally it remem-
bered its neglected estates in Ireland — its duties
called it thither. To Ireland it went, discreet-
ly sad, and, marrying a kinswoman of Lord
Fauconberg — the only popular and safe connec-
tion formed by the Lord Protector's family — it
was safe when Cromwell visited L-eland ; and
no less safe when Charles II. was restored to
England. During the reign of the merry mon-
arch the House of Vipont was a courtier, mar-
ried a beauty, got the Garter again, and, for the
first time, became the fashion. Fashion began I
to be a Power. In the reign of James II. the
House of Vipont again contrived to be a minor,
who came of age just in time to take the oaths
of fealty to William and Mary. In case of ac-
cidents, the House of Vipont kept on friendly
terms with the exiled Stuarts, but it wi-ote no
letters, and got into no scrapes. It was not,
however, till the Government, under Sir R. Wal-
pole, established the constitutional and parlia-
mentary system which characterizes modern
freedom that the puissance accumulated through
successive centuries by the House of Vipont be-
came pre-eminently visible. By that time its
lands were vast, its wealth enormous ; its parlia-
mentary influence, as "a Great House," was
now a part of the British Constitution. At this
period the House of Vipont found it convenient
to rend itself into two grand divisions — the
peer's branch and the commoner's. The House
of Commons had become so important that it
was necessary for the House of Vipont to be
represented there by a great commoner. Thus
arose the family of "Carr Vipont. That division
— owing to a marriage settlement favoring a
younger son by the heiress of the Carrs — car-
ried oif a good slice from the estate of the earl-
dom — uno averso, non deficit alter ; tlie earldom
mourned, but replaced the loss by two wealthy
wedlocks of its own ; and had since seen cause
to rejoice that its power in the L'pper Chamber
was strengthened by such aid in the Lower.
For, thanks to its parliamentary influence, and
the aid of the great commoner, in the reign of
George HI. the House of Vipont became a Mar-
quis. From that time to the present day the
House of Vipont had gone on pi-ospering and
progressive. It was to the aristocracy what the
Times newspaper is to the press. The same quick
sympathy with public feeling — the same unity
of tone and purpose — the same adaptability —
and something of the same lofty tone of superi-
ority to the petty interests of party. It may be
conceded that the House of Vipont was less brill-
iant than the Times newspaper, but eloquence
andwit, necessary to the duration of a newspaper,
were not necessary to that of the House of Vi-
pont. Had they been so, it would have had them !
The Head of the House of Vipont rarely con-
descended to take oSice. With a rent-roll loose-
ly estimated at about £170,000 a year, it is be-
neath a man to take from the public a paltry five
or six thousand a year, and undergo all the un-
dignified abuse of popular assemblies, and "a
ribald press." But it was a matter of course
that the House of Vipont should be represented
in any cabinet that a constitutional monarch
could be advised to form. Since the time of
Walpole, a Vipont was always in the service of
his country, except in those rare instances when
the country was infamously misgoverned. The
cadets of the House, or the senior member of
the great commoner's branch of it, sacrificed
their ease to fulfill that duty. The Montfort
marquises in general were contented with situ-
ations of honor in the household, as of Lord
Steward, Lord Chamberlain, or Master of the
Horse, etc. — not onerous dignities ; and even
these they only deigned to accept on those es-
pecial occasions when danger threatened the
Star of Brunswick, and the sense of its exalted
station forbade the House of Vipont to leave its
country in the dark.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
135
Great Houses like that of Yipont assist the
work of civilization by the law of their exist-
ence. Tiicv arc sure to liave a spirited and
wealthy tenantry, to whom, if but for the sake
of that popular character which doubles politic-
al influence, they are liberal and kindly land-
lords. Under their sway fens and sands become
fertile — agricultural experiments arc tested on
a larijc scale — cattle and sheep improve in breed
— national cajjital augmeuts, and, sjiringing be-
neath the plowshare, circulates indirectly to
speed the ship and animate the loom. Had
there been no Woburn, no Holkham, no Mont-
fort Court, England would be the poorer by
manv a million. Our great Houses tend also
to the relinement of national taste ; they have
their show-i)laces, their picture-galleries, their
beautiful grounds. The humblest drawing-rooms
owe an elegance or comfort — the smallest gar-
den, a Hower or esculent — to the importations
which luxury bon-owed from abroad, or the in-
ventions it stimulated at home, for the original
benefit of great Houses. Having a fair share
of such merits, in common with other great
Houses, the House of Yipont was not without
good qualities peculiar to itself. Precisely be-
cause it was the most egotistical of Houses, fill-
ed with the sense of its own identity, and guided
by the instincts of its own conservation, it was
a very civil, good-natured House — courteous,
generous, hospitable ; a House (I mean the Head
of it — not, of course, all its subordinate mem-
bers, including even the august Lady Selina)
tliat could bow graciously, and shake liands with
you. Even if you had no vote yourself, you
might have a cousin who had a vote. And once
admitted into the family, the House adojjtcd
you ; you liad only to marry one of its remotest
relations, and the House sent you a wedding
present ; and at every general election invited
you to rally round your connection — the JNIar-
quis. Therefore, next only to the Established
Church, the House of Yipont was that British
institution the roots of which v/ere the most
widely spread.
Now the Yiponts had for long generations
been an energetic race. Whatever their de-
fects, they had exhibited shrewdness and vigor.
The late ^larquis (grandfather to the present)
had been, perhaps, the ablest (that is, done most
for the House of Yipont) of them all. Of a
grandiose and superb mode of living — of a ma-
jestic deportment — of princely manners — of a
remarkable talent for the management of all
business, whether private or jjublic — a perfect
enthusiast for the House of Yipont, and aided
by a marchioness in all respects wortliy of him,
he might be said to be the culminating flower
of the venerable stem. But the present lord,
succeeding to the title as a mere child, was a
melancholy contrast, not only to his grandsire,
but to the general character of his progenitors.
Before his time every head of the House had
done something for it — even the most frivolous
had contributed ; one had collected the pictures,
another the statues, a third the medals, a fourth
had amassed the famous Yipont library; while
others had at least married heiresses, or aug-
mented, through ducal lines, the splendor of the
interminable cousinhood. The present marquis
was literally nil. The pith of the Yiponts was
not in him. He looked well, he dressed well ;
if life were only the dumb show of a tableau, he
would have been a paragon of a Marquis. But
he was like the watches we give to little chil-
dren, with a pretty gilt dial-plate, and no works
in them. He was thoroughly inert — there was
no winding him u]j ; he could not manage his
property — he could not answer his letters — very
few of them could he even read through. Pol-
itics did not interest him, nor literature, nor
ficld-sj)orts. He shot, it is true, but mechanic-
ally — wondering, perhaps, why he did shoot. He
attended races, because the House of Yijjont kept
a racing stud. He bet on his own horses, but if
they lost showed no vexation. Admirers (no
Marquis of Jlontfort could be wholly without
them) said, ''What fine temjicr! wluit good-
breeding !"' it was nothing but constitutional
apathy. No one could call hiui a bad man —
he was not a profligate, an ojipressor, a miser, a
spendthrift ; he would not have taken the trou-
ble to be a bad man on any account. Those
who beheld his character at a distance would
have called him an exemplan- man. The more
conspicuous duties of his station, subscriptions,
charities, the maintenance of grand establish-
ments, the encouragement of the fine arts, were
virtues admirably performed for him by others.
But the phlegm or nullity of his being was not,
after all, so complete as I have made it, perhaps,
aj)pear. He had one susceptibility which is
more common with women than with men — the
suscejjtibility to pique. His amour projire was
unforgiving — pique that, and he could do a rash
thing, a foolish thing, a spiteful thing — pique
that, and, prodigious! the watch went ! He had
a rooted pique against his marchioness. Apjjar-
ently he had conceived this pique from the very
first. He showed it passively by supreme ne-
glect ; he showed it actively by removing her
from all the spheres of power which naturally
fall to the wife when the husband shuns the de-
tails of business. Evidently he had a dread lest
any one should say, '"Lady Montfort influences
my lord." Accordingly, not only the manage-
ment of his estates fell to Carr Yipont, but even
of his gardens, his household, his domestic ar-
rangements. It was Carr Yipont or Lady Se-
lina who said to Lady ilontfort, " Give a ball ;"
" You should ask so and so to dinner." " Mont-
fort was much hurt to see the old lawn at the
Tmckenham Yilla broken up by those new bos-
quets. True, it is settled on you as a jointure
house, but for that verj' reason iloutfort is sens-
itive," etc., etc. In fact, they were virtually as
separated, my lord and my lady, as if legally
disunited, and as if Carr Yipont and Lady Se-
lina were trustees or intenm;diaries in any po-
lite approach to each other. But, on the other
hand, it is fair to say that where Lady IMout-
fort"s s])here of action did not interfere with her
husband's plans, habits, likings, dislikings, jeal-
ous ajjprehcnsions, that she should be supposed
to have any ascendency over what exclusively
belonged to himself as Rot faineant of the Vi-
pont's, she was left free as air. No attempt at
masculine control or conjugal advice. At her
disposal was wealth without stint — every luxury
the soft could desire — every gewgaw the vain
could covet. Had her pin-money, which was in
itself the revenue of an ordinary peeress, failed
to satisfy her wants — had she grown tired of
wearing the family diamonds and coveted new
13G
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
gems from Golconda — a single word to Carr Vi-
pont or Lady 8elina would have been answered
by a carte blanche on the Bank of England. But
Lady Montfort had the misfortune not to be ex-
travagant in her tastes. Strange to say, in the
world Lord Montfort's marriage was called a
love match ; ho had married a portionless girl,
daughter to one of his poorest and obscurest
cousins, against the uniform j)olicy of the House
of Vipont, which did all it could for poor cous-
ins except marrying them to its chief. But Lady
Jlontfon's conduct in these trying circumstances
was admirable and rare. Few affronts can hu-
miliate us unless we resent them — and in vain.
Lady Montfort had that exquisite dignity wliich
gives to submission the grace of cheerful acqui-
escence. That in the gay world flatterers should
gather round a young wife so eminently beauti-
ful, and so wholly left by her husband to her
own guidance, was inevitable. But at the very
first insinuated compliment or pathetic condo-
lence, Lady Montfort, so meek in her house-
hold, was haughty enough to have daunted Love-
lace. She was thus very early felt to be beyond
temptation, and the boldest passed on norpre-
sumed to tempt. She was unpopular; called
"proud and freezing;" she did not extend the
influence of The House ; she did not confirm its
fashion — fashion which necessitates social ease,
and which no rank, no wealth, no virtue can of
themselves suffice to give. And this failure on
her part was a great oflTense in the eyes of the
House of Vipont. " She does absolutely nothing
for us," said Lady Selina; but Lady Selina in
her heart was well pleased that to her in reality
thus fell, almost without a rival, the female rep-
resentation, in the great world, of the Vipont
honors. Lady Selina was fiishion itself.
Lady Montfort's social peculiarity was in the
eagerness with which she sought the society of
persons wlio enjoyed a reputation for superior
intellect, whether statesmen, lawyers, authors,
philosophers, artists. Intellectual intercourse
seemed as if it was her native atmosphere, from
which she was habitually banished, to which she
returned with an instinctive 3-earning and a new
zest of life ; yet was she called, even here, nor
seemingly without justice — capricious and un-
steady in her likings. These clever personages,
after a little while, all seemed to disappoint her
expectations of them ; she sought the acquaint-
ance of each with cordial earnestness ; slid from
the acquaintance with weary languor; never,
after all, less a'one than wbcn alone.
And so wondrous lovely ! Notiiing so rare as
beauty of the high type ; genius and beaut}', in-
deed, are both rare ; genius, which is the beauty
of the mind— beauty, which is the genius of the
body. But, of the two, beauty is the rarer. All
of us can count on our fingers some forty or
fifty persons of undoubted and illustrious genius,
including those famous in action, letters, art.
But can any of us remember to have seen more
than four or five specimens of first-rate ideal
beauty ? Whosoever had seen Lady Montfort
would have ranked her among such four or five
in his recollection. There was in her face that
lustrous dazzle to which the Latin poet, jier-
haps, refers when he speaks of the
" Nitor
Splendentis Pario niarmoie purius . . .
Et voltus, nimium lubricus adspici,"
and which an English poet, with the less sensu-
ous but more spiritual imagination of northern
genius, has described in lines that an English
reader may be pleased to see rescued from
oblivion :
'•Her face was like the milky way i' the sky,
A iiieetliig of gentle lights without a name." •
The eyes so ])urely bright, the exquisite har-
mony of coloring between the dark (not too dark)
hair, and the ivory of the skin; such sweet
radiance in the lip when it broke into a smile.
And it was said that in her maiden day, before
Caroline Lyndsay became Marchioness of Mont-
fort, that smile was the most joyous thing im-
aginable. Absurd now; you would not think
it, but that stately lady had been a wild, fanci-
ful girl, with the merriest laugli and the quick-
est tear, filling the air round her witli April sun-
shine. Certainly, no beings ever yet lived the
life Nature intended them to live, nor had fair
play for heart and mind, who contrived, by hook
or by crook — to marry the wrong person !
CHAPTER VIII.
The interior of the Great House. The British Constitu-
tion at home in a Family Party.
Great was the family gathering that Christ-
mas tide at Montfort Court. Thither flocked
the cousins of the House in all degrees and of
various ranks. From dukes who had nothing
left to M'ish for that kings and cousinhoods can
give, to briefless barristers and aspiring cornets,
of equally good blood with the dukes — the superb
family united its motley scions. Such re'unions
were frequent, they belonged to the hereditary
policy of the House of Vipont. On this occa-
sion the muster of the clan was more significant
than usual; there was a "crisis" in the con-
stitutional history of the British empire. A new
Government had been suddenly formed within
the last six weeks, which certainly ])ortended
some direful blow on our ancient institutions,
for the House of Vipont had not been consulted
in its arrangements, and was wholly unrepre-
sented in the Ministry, even by a lordship of
the Treasury. Carr Vipont had therefore sum-
moned the patriotic and resentfid kindred.
It is an hour or so after the conclusion of din-
ner. The gentlemen have joined the ladies in
the state suite — a suite which the last Marquis
had rearranged and redecorated in his old age
— during the long illness that finally conducted
him to his ancestors. During his earlier years
that princely iMarquis had deserted Montfort
Court for a seat nearer to London, and there-
fore much more easily filled with that brilliant
society of which he had been long the ornament
and centre. Railways not then existing for the
annihilation of time and space, and a journey
to a northern county four days with post-horses,
making the invitations even of a Marquis of
Montfort unalluring to languid beauties and
gouty ministers. But nearing the end of his
worldly career, this long neglect of the dwelling
identified with his hereditary titles smote the
conscience of the illustrious sinner. And other
occupations beginning to pall, his lordship, ac-
companied and cheered by a chajdain, who had
a fine taste in the decorative arts, came resolute-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
137
ly to Montfort Court ; and there, surrounded
with architects, and gilders, and upholsterers,
redeemed his errors ; and soothed by the reflec-
tion of the palace provided for his successor,
added to his vaults — a coftin.
The suite expands before the eve. You arc
in the jrrand drawing-room, copied from that
of Versailles. That is the jiicture, full length,
of the late Marquis in his robes ; its pendent is
the late Marchioness, his wife. 'J'hat table of
malachite is a present from the Russian Em-
peror Alexander ; that vase of Sevre which rests
on it was made for ilarie Antoinette — see her
portrait enameled in its centre. Through the
open door at the far end your eye loses itself in
a vista of other pompous chambers — the music-
room, the statue hall, the orangery ; other rooms
there are appertaining to the suite — a ball-room
fit for Babylon, a library that might have adorn-
ed Alexandria — but they are not lighted, nor re-
quired, on this occasion ; it is strictly a family
party, sixty guests and no more.
In the drawing-room three whist-tables carry
oflf the more elderly and grave. The piano, in
the music-room, attracts a youtiger grouj). Lady
Selina Vipont's eldest daughter Ilonoria, a young
lady not yet brought out, but about to be brought
out the next season, is threading a wonderfully
intricate German piece —
" Linked music long drawn out,'
with variations. Iler science is consummate.
No pains have been spared on her education ;
elaborately accomplished, she is formed to be
the sympathizing spouse of a wealthy statesman.
■ Lady Montfort is seated by an elderly duchess,
who is good-natured, and a great talker; near
her are seated two middle-aged gentlemen, who
had been conversing with her till the duchess,
having cut in, turned dialogue into monologue.
The elder of these two gentlemen is iNIr. Carr
Vipont, bald, with clipped parliamentary whis-
kers ; values himself on a likeness to Canning,
but with a portlier presence — looks a large-acred
man. Carr Vipont has about £-10,000 a year ;
has often refused office for himself, while tak-
ing care that other Viponts should have it ; is a
great authority iit Committee business and the
rules of the House of Commons ; speaks very
seldom, and at no great length, never arguing,
merely stating his opinion, carries great weight
with him, and as he votes, vote fifteen other
members of the House of Vipont, besides ad-
miring satellites. lie can therefore turn divi-
sions, and has decided the fate of cabinets. A
pleasant man, a little consequential, but the re-
verse of haughty — unctuously overbearing. The
other gentleman, to whom he is listening, is our
old acquaintance Colonel Alban Vipont Morlev
— DaiTcll's friend — George's uncle — a man of
importance, not inferior, indeed, to that of his
kinsman Carr; an authority in club-rooms, an
oracle in drawing-rooms, a first-rate man of the
beau nioiide. Alban Morlev, a younger brother,
had entered the Guards young; retired, young
also, from the Guards with the rank of colonel,
and on receipt of a legacy from an old aunt,
which, with the interest derived from the sum
at which he sold his commission, allowed him a
clear income of £KMX) a year. This modest in-
come sufficed for all his wants, fine gentleman
though he was. lie had refused to go into Par-
liament — refused a high place in a public de-
! partment. Single himself, he showed his rc-
j spect for wedlock by the interest he took in the
marriages of other iieoj)le — ^just as Earl War-
wick, too wise to set up for a king, gratified his
passion for royalty by becoming the king-maker.
The colonel was exceedingly accomplished, a
very fair scholar, knew most modern languages.
In painting an amateur, in music a connoisseur;
witty at times, and with wit of a high quality,
but thrifty in the exjienditure of it; too wise to
be known as a wit. :Manly too, a daring rider,
who had won many a fox's brush, a famous
deer-stalker, and one of the few English gentle-
men who still keep up the noble art of fencing —
twice a week to be seen, foil in hand, against all
comers in Angelo's rooms. Thin, well-thaped
— not handsome, my dear young lady, far from
it, but with an air so thoroughbred, that, had
you seen him in the day when the ojiera-liousc
had a crush-room and a fops' alley — seen him
in either of those resorts, surrounded by elabo-
rate dandies, and showy beauty-men— ^dandies
and beauty-men would have seemed to you sec-
ond-rate and vulgar; and the eye, fascinated by
that quiet form — j)lain in manner, plain in dress,
jjlain in feature — you would have said, "How
very distinguished it is to be so plain !" Know-
ing the great world from the core to the cuticle,
and on that knowledge basing authority and
position, Colonel Morlev was not calculating —
not cunning — not suspicious. His sagacity the
more quick because its movements were straight-
forward. Intimate with the greatest, but sought,
not seeking. Not a flatterer nor a parasite.
But when his advice was asked (even if advice
necessitated reproof), giving it with military
candor. In fine, a man of such social reputa-
tion as rendered him an ornament and prop to
the House of Vipont ; and with unsuspected
depths of intelligence and feeling which lay in
the lower strata of his knowledge of this world,
to witness of some other one, and justified Dar-
rell in commending a boy like Lionel llaughton
to the Colonel's friendly care and admonitory
counsels. The Colonel, like other men, had his
weakness, if weakness it can be called; he be-
lieved that the House of Vipont was not merely
the Corinthian capital, but the embattled keep
— not merely the du/ce decus, but the presidium
columcnque rerum of the British monarchy. He
did not boast of his connection with the House;
he did not provoke your spleen by enlarging on
its manifold virtues ; he would often have his
harmless jest against its members or even against
its pretensions, but such seeming evidences of
forbearance or candor were cimning devices to
mitigate envy. His devotion to the House was
not obtrusive, it was profound. He loved the
House of Vipont for the sake of England, he
loved England for the sake of the House of Vi-
pont. Had it been possible, by some tremen-
dous reversal of the ordinarj- laws of nature, to
dissociate the cause of England from the cause
of the House of Vipont, the Colonel would have
said, " Save at least the Ark of the Constitution!
and rally round the old House I" •
The Colonel had none of Guy Darrell's in-
firmity of family pride ; he cared not a rush for
mere pedigrees — much too liberal and enlight-
ened for such (Obsolete prejudices. No! He
knew the world too well not to be quite aware
that old family and long pedigrees are of no use
138
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
to a man if he has not some money or some
merit. But it was of use to a man to be a cousin
of the House of Vipont, though without any
money, without any merit at all. It was of use
to be part and parcel of a British institution ; it
was of use to have a legitimate indefeasible right
to share in the administration and patronage of
an empire, on which (to use a novel illustration)
"the sun never sets." You might want nothing
for yourself — the Colonel and the Marquis equal-
ly wanted nothing for themselves ; but man is
not to be a selfish egotist ! Man has cousins —
his cousins may want something. • Demosthenes
denounces, in words that inflame every manly
breast, the ancient Greek who does not love his
PoLis or State, even though he take nothing
from it but barren honor, and contribute toward
it — a gi-eat many disagreeable taxes. As the
PoLis to the Greek, was the House of Vipont to
Alban Vipont Morley. It was the most beauti-
ful touching affection imaginable ! Whenever
the House was in difliculties — whenever it was
threatened by a crisis — the Colonel was by its
side, sparing no pains, neglecting no means, to
get the Ark of the Constitution back into smooth
water. That duty done, he retired again into
private life, and scorned all other reward than
the still whisper of applauding conscience.
"Yes," said Alban Morley, whose voice,
though low and subdued in tone, was extremelv
distinct, with a perfect enunciation, " Yes, it
is quite true, my nephew has taken orders — his
defect in speech, if not quite removed, has ceased
to be any obstacle, even to eloquence ; an occa-
sional stammer may be effective — it increases
interest, and when the right word comes, there
is the charm of surprise in it. I do not doubt
that George will be a very distinguished clergy-
man."
Mr. Carr Vipoxt. "We want one — the
House wants a very distinguished clergyman ;
we have none at this moment — not a bishop —
not even a dean ; all mere parish parsons, and
among them not one we could push. Very odd,
with more than forty livings too. But the Vi-
ponts seldom take to the Church kindly — George
must be pushed. The more I think of it, the
more we want a bishop : a bishop would be use-
ful in the present crisis. (Looking round the
rooms proudly, and softening his voice.)" A nu-
merous gathering, Morley ! This demonstration
will strike teiTor in Downing Street — eh ! The
old House stands firm — never Avas a family so
united; all here, I think — that is, all worth
naming — all, except Sir James, whom Montfort
chooses to dislike, and George — and George
comes to-moiTow."
Colonel Morley. "You forget the most
eminent of all our connections — the one who
could indeed strike terror into Downing Street,
were his voice to be heard again !"
Carr Vipont. " Whom do j-ou mean ? Ah,
I know ! — Guy Darrell. His wife v>as a Vipont
— and he is not here. But he has long since
ceased to communicate with any of us — the
only connection that ever fell away from the
house of Vipont — especially in a crisis like the
present. Singular man ! For all the use he is
to us he might as well be dead ! But he has a
fine fortune — what will he do with it ?"
The Duchess. "IV^- dear lady Montfort,
you have hurt yourself with that paper-cutter."
Lady Montfort. "No, indeed. Hush! we
are disturbing Mr. Carr Vipont."
The Duchess, in awe of Carr Vipont, sinks
her voice, and gabbles on — whisperously.
Care Vipont (resuming the subject). "A
very fine fortune — what will he do with it ?"
Colonel Morley. " I don't know, but I had
a letter from him some months ago."
Care Vipont. "You had — and never told
me!"
Colonel Morley. "Of no importance to
you, my dear Carr. His letter merely intro-
duced to me a channing young fellow — a kins-
man of his own (no Vipont) — Lionel Haughton,
son of poor Charlie Haughton, whom you may
remember."
Carr Vipont. "Yes, a handsome scamp —
went to the dogs. So Darrell takes up Charlie's
son — what! as his heir?"
Colonel Morley. "In his letter to me he
anticipated that question in the negative."
Carr Vipont. " Has Darrell any nearer
kinsmen ?"
Colonel Morley. "Not that I know of."
Carr Vipont. " Perhaps he will select one
of his wife's family for his heir — a Vipont; I
should not wonder."
Colonel Morley (drvly). "I should. But
why may not Darrell marry again? I always
thought he would — I think so still."
Carr Vipont (glancing toward his own
daughter Honoria). " Well, a wife well-chosen
might restore him to society, and to us. Pity,
indeed, that so great an intellect should be sus-
pended — a voice so eloquent hushed. You are
right ; in this crisis, Guy DaiTell once more in
the House of Commons, we should have all we
require — an orator, a debater! Very odd, but
at this moment we have no speakers — we, the
Viponts !"
Colonel Morley. "Yourself?"
Carr Vipont. "You are too kind. I can
speak on occasions ; but regularly, no. Too
much drudgery — not young enough to take to it
now. So you think Darrell will marry again?
A remarkably fine-looking fellow when 1 last
saw him : not old yet ; I dare say, well-pre-
sen-ed. I wish I had thought of asking him
here — Montfort !" (Lord ^lontfort, with one or
two male fi-iends, was passing by toward a bill-
iai'd-room, opening through a side-door from
the regular suite)— " Momfort ! only think, we
forgot to im4te Guy Darrell. Is it too late be-
fore our party breaks up ?"
Lord Montfort (sullenly). " I don't choose
Guy Darrell to be invited to my house."
Carr Vipont was literally stunned by a reply
so contumacious. Lord Montfort demur at
what Carr Vipont suggested ! He could not be-
lieve his senses.
' • Not choose, my dear Montfort ! yon are jok-
ing. A monstrous clever fellow, Guy Darrell,
and at this crisis — "
" I hate clever fellows — no such bores !" said
Lord Montfort, breaking from the caressing
clas]) of Carr Vipont, and stalking away.
"Spare your regrets, my. dear Can-," said
Colonel ^lorley. ■•Darrell is not in England
— I rather believe he is in Verona." Therewith
the Colonel sauntered toward the group gathered
round the piano. A little time afterward Lady
Montfort escaped from the Duchess, and, min-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
139
gling courteously with her livcher guests, found
herself close to Colonel Morley. "Will you
give me my revenge at chess?" slie asked, with
Ler rare smile. The Colonel was charmed.
As they sat down and ranged their men, Lady
Montfort remarked, carelessly —
" I overheard you say you had lately received
a letter from Mr. Darrell. Does he write as if
well — cheerful ? You remember that I was
much with his daughter, mucli in his house,
when I was a child. He was ever most kind to
me." Lady Montfort's voice here faltered.
"He writes with no reference to himself, his
health or his spirits. But his young kinsman
described him to me as in good health — won-
derfully young-looking for his years. But
cheerful — no ! Darrell and I entered the world
together ; we were friends as much as a man so
busy and so eminent as he could be friends with
a man like myself — indolent by habit, and ob-
scure out of ^layfair. I know his nature ; we
botli know something of his family sorrows. lie
can not be happy! Impossible! — alone — child-
less — secluded. Poor Darrell, abroad now ; in
Verona, too ! — the dullest i)lace ! in mourning
still foi- Ivomeo and Juliet! — 'Tis your turn to
move. In his letter Darrell talked of going on
to Greece, Asia — jienetrating into the depths of
Africa — the wildest schemes ! Dear County
Guy, as we called him at Eton ! — what a career
his might have been I Don't let us talk of him,
it makes me mournful. Like Goethe, I avoid
painful subjects upon princiiile."
Lady Moktfokt. "No — we will not talk of
him. No — I take the Queen's pawn. Ko, we
will not talk of him! — no!"
The game proceeded ; the Colonel was with-
in three moves of checkmating his adversary.
Forgetting the resolution come to, he said, as
she paused, and seemed despondently medita-
ting a hopeless defense —
" Pray, my fiiir cousin, what makes Montfort
dislike my old friend Darrell ?"
"Dislike! Does he? I don't know. Van-
quished again. Colonel Morley!" She rose;
and, as he restored the chessmen to their box,
she leaned thoughtfully over the table.
" This young kinsman — will he not be a com-
fort to Mi-. Darrell?"
" He would be a comfort and a pride to a fa-
ther; but to Darrell, so distant a kinsman —
comfort I — why and how ? Darrell \\-ill provide
for him, that is all. A very gentlemanlike
young man — gone to Paris by my advice — wants
polish and knowledge of life. When he comes
back he must enter society ; 1 have put his name
up at Wiiite's ; irtay I introduce him to you?"
Lady Montfort hesitated, and, after a pause,
said, almost rudely, "No."
She left the Colonel, slightly shrugging his
shoulders, and passed into the billiard-room
with a quick step. Some ladies were already
there, looking at the players. Lord Montfort
was chalking his cue. Lady Montfort walked
straight up to him ; her color was heightened ;
her lip was quivering ; she placed her hand on
his shoulder with a wifelikc boldness. It seemed
as if she had come there to seek him from an
impulse of atiection. She asked with a hurried
fluttering kindness of voice, "If he had been
successful?" and called him by his Christian
name. Lord Montfort's countenance, before
merely apathetic, now assumed an expression
of extreme distaste. " Come to teach me to
make a cannon, I suppose!" he said, UKitter-
ingly, and turning from her, contemplated the
balls and missed the cannon.
"Bather in my way. Lady Montfort," said he
then, and retiring to a corner, said no more.
Lady Montfort's countenance became still
more flushed. She lingered a moment, re-
turned to the drawing-room, and for the rest of
the evening was uncommonly animated, gra-
cious, fascinating. As she retired with her ladj
guests for the night, she looked roimd, saw ( "ol-
onel Morley, and held out her hand to him.
"Your nephew comes here to-morrow," said
slie, "my old playfellow; inqiossible quite to
forget old friends — good-night,"
CHAPTER IX.
" Lcs extremes sc tou client."
The next day the gentlemen were dispersed
out of doors — a large shooting party. Those
who did not shoot, walked forth to insjiect the
racing stud or the model farm. The ladies had
taken their walk ; some were in their own rooms,
some in the reception rooms, at work, or read-
ing, or listening to the piano — Honoria Carr Vi-
pont again performing. Lady Montfort was ab-
sent; Lady Selina kindly sup]ilicd the hostess's
place. Lady Selina was embroidering, with great
skill and taste, a pair of slippers for her eldest
bo)', who was just entered at Oxford, having left
Eton with a re]nitation of being the neatest dress-
er, and not the worst cricketer, of that renown-
ed educational institute. It is a mistake to sup-
pose that fine ladies are not sometimes very fond
mothers and affectionate wives. Lady Selina,
beyond her family circle, was trivial, nnsympa-
thizing, cold-hearted, supercilious by tem])era-
ment, never kind but through policy, artificial
as clock-work. But in her own home, to her
husband, her children. Lady Selina was a very
good sort of woman. Devotedly attached to Can*
Vipont, exaggerating his talents, thinking him
the first man in England, careful of his honor,
zealous for his interests, soothing in his cares,
tender in his ailments. To lier girls prudent
and watchful — to her boys indulgent and caress-
ing. INIinutely attentive to the education of the
first, aecording to her high-bred ideas of educa-
tion — and they really were " superior" girls, with
much instruction and w ell-balanced minds. Less
authoritative with the last, because boys being
not under her immediate control, her sense of
responsibility allowed her to display more fond-
ness and less dignity in her intercourse with
them than with young ladies who must learn
from her example, as well as her precepts, the
patrician decorum which becomes the smooth
result of impulse restrained and emotion check-
ed. Boys might make a noise in the world, girls
should make none. Lady Selina, then, was work-
ing the slippers for her absent son, her heart be-
ing full of him at that moment. She was de-
scribing his character, and expatiating on his
promise to two or three attentive listeners, all
interested, as being themselves of the Vipont
brood, in the probable destiny of the heir to the
Carr Viponts.
140
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
" In short," said Lady Selina, winding up, " as
soon as Reginald is of age we sliall get him into
Parliament. Carr has always lamented that he
himself was not broken into office early ; Regi-
nald must be. Nothing so requisite for public
men as early training — makes them practical,
and not too sensitive to what those hoiTid news-
paper men say. That was Pitt's great advant-
age. Reginald has ambition ; he should have
occupation to keep him out of mischief. It is
an anxious thing for a mother, when a son is
good-looking — such danger of his being spoiled
by the women — yes. my dear, it is a small foot,
very small — his father's foot."
"If Lord Montfort should have no family,"
said a somewhat distant and subaltern Yipont,
■whisjieringly and hesitating, " does not the ti-
tle—"
"No, my dear," interrupted Lady Selina;
" no, the title does not come to us. It is a mel-
ancholy thought, but the marquisate, in that
case, is extinct. Xo other heir-male from Gil-
bert, the first Marquis. Carr says there is even
likely to be some dispute about the earldom.
The Barony, of course, is safe ; goes with the
Irish estates, and most of the English — and goes
(don't you know?) — to Sir James Yipont, the
last person who ought to have it ; the quietest,
stupidest creature ; not brought up to the sort
of thing — a mere gentleman farmer on a small
estate in Devonshire."
"He is not here?"
"No. Lord Montfort does not like him.
Very natural. Nobody does like his heir, if not
his own child, and some people don't even like
their own eldest sons ! Shocking ; but so it is.
Montfort is the kindest, most tractable being
that ever was, except where he takes a dislike.
He dislikes two or three people very much."
"True; how he did dislike poor Mrs. Lynd-
say !" said one of the listeners, smiling.
"Mrs. Lyndsay, yes — dear Lady Montfort's
mother. I can't say I pitied her, though I was
sorry for Lady Montfort. How Mrs. Lyndsay
ever took in Montfort for Caroline I can't con-
ceive I How she had the face to think of it !
He, a mere youth at the time ! Kept secret
from all his family — even from his grandmother
— the darkest transaction. I don't wonder that
he never forgave it."
First Listener. " Caroline has beauty enough
to—"
Lady Selina (interrupting). " Beauty, of
course — no one can deny that. But not at all
suited to such a position ; not brought up to the
sort of thing. Poor Montfort I he should have
married a different kind of woman altogether —
a woman like his grandmother, the last Lady
Montfort. Caroline does nothing for the House
—^nothing — has not even a child — most unfor-
tunate affair."
Second Listener. " Mrs. Lyndsay was very
poor, was not she ? Caroline, I suppose, had no
opportunity of forming those tastes and habits
which are necessaiy for — for — "
Lady Selina (helping the listener). "For
such a position and such a fortune. You are
quite right, my dear. People brought up in one
way can not accommodate themselves to anoth-
er; and it is odd, but I have observed that peo-
ple brought up poor can accommodate them-
selves less to being very rich than people brought
up rich to accommodate themselves to being
very poor. As Carr says, in his pointed way,
'it is easier to stoop than to climb.' Yes ; Mrs.
Lyndsay was, you know, a daughter of Seymour
Yipont, who was for so many years in the Ad-
ministration, with a fair income from his salary,
and nothing out of it. She mairied one of the
Scotch Lyndsays — good family, of course — with
a very moderate property. She was left a wid-
ow young, with an only child, Caroline. Came
to town, with a small jointure. The late Lady
IMontfort was ver}^ kind to her. So were we all
— took her up — pretty woman — pretty manners
— worldly — oh, very ! I don't like worldly peo-
ple. Well, but all of a sudden, a dreadful thing
happened. The heir-at-law disputed tlie joint-
ure, denied that Lyndsay had any right to make
settlements on the Scotch property — very com-
plicated business. But, luckily for her, Yi-
pont Crooke's daughter, her cousin and inti-
mate friend, had married Dan-ell — the famous
Darrell — who was then at the bar. It is very
useful to have cousins maiTied to clever people.
He was interested in her case, took it up. I be-
lieve it did not come on in the courts in which
Darrell practiced. But he arranged all the ev-
idence, inspected the briefs, spent a great deal
of his own money in getting up the case — and,
in fact, he gained her cause, though he could
not be her counsel. People did say that she
was so grateful that after his wife's death she
had set her heart on becoming ^Irs. Darrell the
second. But Darrell was then quite wrapped up
in politics — the last man to fall in love — and
only looked bored when women fell in love with
him, which a good many did. Grand-looking
creature, my dear, and quite the rage for a year
or two. However, ^Irs. L}'ndsay all of a sud-
den went off to Paris, and there Montfort saw
Caroline, and was caught. Mrs. Lyndsay, no
doubt, calculated on living with her daughter,
having the run of Montfort House in town and
Montfort Court in the country. But Montfort
is deeper than people think for. No, he never
forgave her. She was never asked here — took
it to heart, went to Rome, and died."
At this moment the door opened, and George
Morley, now the Rev. George Morley, entered,
just arrived to join his cousins.
Some knew him, some did not. Lady Selina,
who made it a point to know all the cousins,
rose graciously, put aside the slippers, and gave
him two fingers. She was astonished to find
him not nearly so shy as he used to be — won-
derfully improved; at his ease, cheerful, ani-
mated. Tlie man now was in his right place,
and following hope on the bent of inclination.
Few men are shy when in their right places.
He asked after Lady Montfort. She was in her
own small sitting-room, writing letters — letters
that Carr Yipont had entreated her to write —
correspondence useful to the House of Yipont.
Before long, however, a servant entered to say
that Lady Montfort would be very happy to see
Mr. Morley. George followed the servant into
that unpretending sitting-room, with its simple
chintzes and quiet book-shelves — room that
would not have been too fine for a cottage.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Ul
CHAI^TER X. I
In every life, go it fast, go it slow, there are critical ;
pausing places. ^Vhen the journey is renewed, the j
face of the country is chimged. j
How well she suited that simple room — her- :
self so simply dressed — her marvelous beauty
so extiuisitely subdued. She looked at home
there, as if all of home that the house could
give wore there collected.
She had finished and sealed the momentous
letters, and had conio. with a sense of relief,
from tiie table at the farther end of the room,
on which those letters, ceremonious and con-
ventional, had been written — come to the win-
dow, which, thousjh mid-winter, was open, and
the red-breast, with whom slie had made friends,
hopped boldly almost within reach, looking; at
her with bright eyes, and head curiously aslant.
By the window a single chair and a small read-
ing-desk, with the book lying open. The short
day was not far from its close, but there was
ample light still in the skies, and a serene if
chilly stillness in the air without.
' Though expecting the relation she had just
summoned to her )>resence, I fear she had half
forgotten him. !She was standing by the win-
dow deep in reverie as he entered, so deep tliat
she started when his voice struck her ear and
he stood before her. 8he recovered herself
quickly, however, and said with even more than
her ordinary kindliness of tone and manner to-
ward the scholar — " I am so glad to see and con-
gratulate you."
" And i so glad to receive your congratula-
tions," answered the scholar, in smooth, slow
voice, without a stutter.
"But, George, how is this?" asked Lady
Montfort. "Bring that chair, sit down here,
and tell me all about it. You wrote me word
you were cured, at least sufficiently to remove
your noble scruples. You did not say how.
Your uncle tells me by patient will and resolute
practice."
" Under good guidance. But I am going to
confide to you a secret, if you will promise to
keep it."
"Oh, you may trust me; I have no female
friends."
The clergyman smiled, and spoke at once of
the lessons he had received from the basket-
maker.
" I have his permission," he said, in conclu-
sion, "to confide the service he rendered me,
the intimacy that has sprung up between us,
but to you alone — not a word to your guests.
When you have once seen him, you will under-
stand why an eccentric man, who has known
better days, would shrink from the impertinent
curiosity of idle customers. Contented with
liis humble livelihood, he asks but liberty and
repose."
"That I already comprehend," said Lady
Montfort, half sighing, iialf smiling. "But my
curiosity shall not molest him, and when I visit
•the village, I will ]iass by iiis cottage."
" Nay, my dear Lady Montfort, that would be
to refuse the favor I am about to ask, which is
that you would come with me to that very cot-
t^e. It would so ])Iea.se him."
" Please him — why?"
"Because this poor man has a young female
grandchild, and he is so anxious that you should
see and be kind to her, and because, too, he
seems most tenacious to remain in his present
residence. The cottage, of course, belongs to
Lord Montfort, and is let to him by tlic bailiff',
and if you deign to feel interest in him, his
tenure is safe."
Lady Montfort looked down, and colored.
She thought, perhajts, how fal.<e a security her
protection, and how slight an influence her in-
terest would be, but she did not say so. George
went on ; and so eloquently and so toucliiiigly
did he describe both grandsire and grandchild,
so skillfully did he intimate the mystery which
hung over them, that Lady Montfort became
much moved by his narrative, and willingly
promised to accompany him across the ])ark to
tlic basket-maker's cottage the first oi)porltinity.
But when one has sixty guests in one's house,
one has to wait for an opportunity to escape
from them unremarked. And the opjiortuuity,
in fact, did not come for many days — not till
the party broke uj) — save one or two dowager
she-cousins who " gave no trouble," and one or
two bachelor hc-cousins whom my lord retained
to consummate the slaughter of pheasants, and
]day at billiards in the dreary intervals between
sunset and dinner — dinner and bedtime.
Then one cheerful frosty noon George Morley
and his fair cousin walked boldly, en evidence,
before the prying ghostly windows, across the
broad gravel-walks — gained the secluded shrub-
bery, the solitary deeps of parkland — skirted the
wide sheet of water — and passing through a
private wicket in the paling, suddenly came
upon the ]natch of osier-ground and humble
garden, which were backed by the basket-mak-
er's cottage.
As they entered those lowly precincts a child's
laugh was borne to their cars — a child's silveiy,
musical, mirthful laugh ; it was long since the
great lady had heard a laugh like that — a happy
child's natural laugh. She paused and listen-
ed with a strange pleasure. "Yes," whispered
George Morley, "stojj — and hush! there they
are."
Waife was seated on the stump of a tree, ma-
terials for his handicraft lying beside, neglected.
Sophy was standing before him — he, raising his
finger as in reproof, and striving hard to frown.
As the intruders listened, they overlicard that
he was striving to teach her the rudiments of
French dialogue, and she was laughing merrily
at her own blunders and at the solemn affecta-
tion of the shocked schoolmaster. Lady INIont-
fort noted with no unnatural surprise the purity
of idiom and of accent with which this singular
basket-maker was unconsciously displaying his
perfect knowledge of a language which the best
educated English gentleman of that generation,
nay, even of this, rarely speaks with accuracy
and elegance. But her attention was diverted
immediately from the teacher to the face of the
sweet pupil. Women have a quick appreciation
of beauty in their own sex — and wo!i:en, who
are themselves beautiful, not the least. In-e-
sistibly Lady Montfort felt attracted towiird that
innocent countenance, so lively in its mirth, and
yet so softly gay. Sir Isaac, who had hitherto
lain perdu, watching the movements of a thrush
amidst a holly-bush, now started up with a hark.
Waife rose— Sophy turned half in flight. The
visitors approached.
142
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
Here, slowly, lingeringly, let fall the curtain.
In the frank license of narrative, years will have
rolled away ere the curtain rise again. Events
that may influence a life often date from mo-
ments the most serene, from things that appear
as trivial and unnoticeable as the gi'eat lady's
visit to the basket-maker's cottage. Which of
those lives will that visit influence hereafter —
the woman's, the child's, the vagrant's? Whose ?
Probably little that passes now would aid con-
jecture, or be a \isible link in the chain of des-
tiny. A few desultory questions — a few guarded
answers — a look or so, a musical syllable or two
exchanged between the lady and the child — a
basket bought, or a promise to call again. No-
thing worth the telling. Be it then untold.
View only the scene itself as the curtain drops
reluctantly. The rustic cottage, its garden-door
open, and open its old-fashioned lattice case-
ments. You can see how neat and cleanly, how
eloquent of healthful poverty, how remote from
squalid penury, the whitewashed walls, the
homely furniture within. Creepers lately trained
around the door-waj^. Christmas holly, with
berries red against tlie window panes ; the bee-
hive yonder ; a starling, too, outside the thresh-
old, in its wicker cage. In the background
(all the I'est of tlie neighboring hamlet out of
sight), the church-spire tapering away into the
clear blue wintry sky. All has an air of re-
pose — of safety. Close beside you is the Pres-
ence of HOME — that ineffable, sheltering, loving
Presence — which, amidst solitude, murmurs
"not solitary;" a Presence unvouchsafed to the
great lady in the palace she has left. And the
lady herself ? She is resting on the rude gnarled
root-stump from which the vagrant had risen ;
she has drawn Sophy toward her ; she has taken
the child's hand; she is speaking now — now
listening ; and on her face kindness looks like
happiness. Perhaps she is happy at that mo-
ment. And Waife ? he is turning aside his
weather-beaten, mobile countenance, with his
hand anxiously trembling upon the young schol-
ar's arm. The scholar whispers, "Are you
satisfied with me ?" and Waife answers in a
voice as low but more broken, " God reward
you ! Oh, joy ! — if my pretty one has found at
last a woman friend !" Poor vagabond, he has
now a calm asylum — a fixed humble livelihood
— more than that, he has just achieved an ob-
ject fondly cherished. His past life — alas !
what has he done with it? His actual life —
broken fragment though it be — is at rest now.
But still the everlasting question — mocking,
terrible question — with its phrasing of farce and
its enigmas of tragical sense — "What avill he
DO ■WITH IT ?" Do with what ? The all that
remains to him — the all he holds ! — the all
which man himself, betwixt free-will and pre-
deci-ee is permitted to do. Ask not the vagrant
alone — ask each of the four there assembled on
that flying bridge called the INIoment. Time
before thee — what Milt thou do with it? Ask
thyself: — ask the wisest! Out of effort to an-
swer that question, what dream-schools have
risen, never wholly to perish ! The science of
seers on the Chaldee's Pur-Tor, or in the rock-
caves of Delphi, gasped after and grasped at by
horn-handed mechanics to-day in their lanes
and alleys. To the heart of the populace sink
down the blurred relics of what once was the
lore of the secretest sages — hieroglyphical tat-
ters which the credulous -N-ulgai attempt to in-
tei-])ret — "What avill he no with it?" Ask
Merle and his Crystal! But the curtain de-
scends ! Yet a moment, there they are — age
and childhood — poverty, wealth, station, vaga-
bondage ; the preacher's sacred learning and
august ambition ; fancies of dawning reason ;
— hopes of intellect matured; — memories of
existence wrecked ; household sorrows — untold
regrets — elegy and epic in low, close, human
sighs, to which Poetry never yet gave voice —
all for the moment personified there before
you — a glimpse for the guess — no more.
Lower and lower falls the curtain! All is
blank!
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
143
BOOK VI.
CHAPTER I. I forethought, and fair opportunity for such revi-
I sions, as an architect, having prepared all his
Being an Address to the Kcader. | plans, must still admit to his building, should
Seeing the length to which this "Work has ^ dithculties, not foreseen, sharpen the invention
already run, and the space it must yet occujiy to render each variation in detail an improve-
in the columns of Maga, it is but fair to the j ment consistent to the original design.
Reader to correct any inconsiderate notion that Secondly. — May the Reader — accepting this
the Author does not know "what he will do | profession of the principles by which is con-
with it." Learn, then, O friendly reader, that structed the history that invites his attention,
no matter the number of months through which ; and receiving now the assurance that the Work
it mav glide its way to thine eyes — learn that : is actually passed out of the Author's hands, is
\vith the single exception of tlie chapter now j as much a thing done and settled as any book
respectfully addressed to thee, tue wnoLE of ; composed by him twenty years ago — banisk all
THIS WORK HAS BEEN LONG SINCE COMPLETED , fear Icst each Is umbcr should depend for its av-
AND TRANSFERRED FROJi THE DESK OF THE Ac- I erage merit on accidental circumstances — such
THOR TO THE HANDS OF THE Plblisher. '■ as impatient haste, or varying humor, or capri-
On the 22d of January last — let the day be ; cious health, or the demand of more absorbing
marked with a white stone I — the Author's la- and practical pursuits, in v.liich, during a con-
bors were brought to a close, and "What he j sidcrable portion of the year, it has long been
will do with it" is no longer a secret — at least to • the Author's lot to be actively engaged. Certes,
the Editor of Maga. I albeit in the course of his life he has got through
May this information establish, throughout ■ a reasonable degree of labor, and has habitually
the rest of the journey to be traveled together, relied on application to supply his defects in
that tacit confidence between Author and Read- I genius ; yet to do one thing at a time is the
crwiiich is so important to mutual satisfaction I | practical rule of those by whom, in the course
Firstly. — The Reader may thus have the com- of time, many things have been accomplished,
plaisance to look at each installment as the com- j And accordingly a work, even so trivial as this
ponent portion of a completed whole ; corapre- i may be deemed, is not composed in the turmoil
bending that it can not be within the scope of | of metropolitan life, nor when other occupations
the Author's design to aim at a separate effect | demand attention, but in the quiet leisure of
for each separate Number; but rather to carry ; rural shades, and in those portions of the year
on through each Number the effect which he ' which fellow-workmen devote to relaxation and
deems most appropriate to his composition when , amusement. For even in holidays, something
regarded as a whole. And here may it be per- ; of a holiday-task adds a zest to the hours of
mitted to dispel an erroneous idea which, to ease.
judge by current criticism, appears to be suffi- j Lastly. — Since this snn-ey of our modem
ciemlv prevalent to justify the egotism of com- i world requires a large and a crowded canvas,
ment." It seems to be supposed that, because I and would be incomplete did it not intimate
this work is published from month to month in ' those points of contact in which the private
successive installments, therefore it is %^Titten ; touches the public life of Social Man, so it is
from month to month, as a newspaper article ] well that the Reader should fully understand
mav be" dashed off from dav to day. Such a that all reference to such grand events, as polit-
sup'position is adverse to all the principles by | ical "crises" and changes of Government, were
which works that necessitate integrity of plan, I written many months ago, and have no refer-
and a certain harmony of proportion, are con- | ence whatever to the actual occurrences of the
structed ; more especially those works which ' passing day. Holding it, indeed, a golden max-
aim at artistic representations of human life ; im that practical politics and ideal art should
for, in human life, we must presume that no- be kept wholly distinct from each other, and
thing is left to chance, and chance must be no seeking in this Narrative to write that which
less rigidly banished from the art by which hu- may be read with unembittered and impartial
man life is depicted. That art admits no hap- pleasure by all classes and all parties—nay, per-
hazard chapters, no uncertainty as to the con- | chance, in years to come, by the children of
sequences that must ensue from the incidents it ! those whom he now addresses — the Author
decides on selecting. Would the artist, on aft- ' deems it indispensable to such ambition to pre-
er-thought, alter a consequence, he must recon- serve the neutral ground of imaginative creation,
sider the whole chain-work of incident which not only free from those personal portraitures
led to one inevitable result, and which would be which are fatal to comprehensive and typical de-
whoUy defective if it could be made to lead to ; lineations of character, but from all intentional
another. Hence, a work of this kind can not be appeals to an interest which can be but moment-
written currente calamo. from month to month ; ar}-, if given to subjects that best befit the lead-
the entire design must be broadly set forth be- ing articles of political journals. His realm, if
fore the first page goes to press ; and large sec- \ it hope to endure, is in the conditions, the hu-
tions of the whole must be always completed in j mors, the passions by which one general phase
advance, in order to allow time for deliberate 1 of society stands forth in the broad light of our
Hi
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
commoa human nature, never to be cast aside,
as obsolete and out of fashion, " into the portion
of weeds and worn-out faces."
Reader! this exordium is intended, by way
of preface to that more important division of
this work, in wliich the one-half the circle
rounds itself slowly on to complete the whole.
Forgive the exordium ; for, rightly considered,
it is but an act of deference to thee. Didst thou
ever reflect, O Reader ! on what thou art to an
Author? Art thou aware of the character of
dignity and power with which he invests thee?
To thee the Author is but an unit in the great
sum of intellectual existence. To the Author,
thou, Reader I art the collective representa-
tive of a multifarious abiding audience. To
thee the Author is but the machine, more or
less defective, that throws oft' a kind of work
usually so ephemeral that seldom wilt thou even
pause to examine why it please or displease, for
a day, the taste tiiat may change with the mor-
row. But to him, the Author, thou art, O Read-
er! a confidant and a friend, often nearer and
dearer than any one else in the world. All
other friends are mortal as himself; they can
but survive for a few years the dust he must
yield to the grave. But there, in his eye, aloof
and aloft forever, stands the Reader, more and
more his friend as Time rolls on. 'Tis to thee
that he leaves his grandest human bequest, his
memory and his name. If secretly he deem
himself not appreciated in his own generation,
he hugs the belief, often chimerical and vain,
but ever sweet and consoling, that in some gen-
eration afar awaits the Reader destined at last
to do him justice. Wit4i thee, the Author is, of
all men, he to whom old age comes the soonest.
How quickly thou hastenest to say, "Not what
he wa5 I Vigor is waning — invention is flagging
— past is his day — push him aside, and make
room for the Fresh and the New." But the Au-
thor never admits that old age can fall on the
Reader. The Reader to him is a being in whom
youth is renewed through all cycles. Leaning
on his crutch, the Author still walks by the side
of that friendly Shadow as he walked on sum-
mer eves, with a school-friend of boyhood —
talking of the future with artless, hopeful lips I
Dreams he that a day may come when he will
have no Reader! O school-boy ! dost thou ever
dream that a day may come when thou wilt
have no friend?
CHAPTER II.
Etchings of Hyde Park in tlie month of June, which, if
this Histoiy escape those villains the trunk-makers,
may be of inestimable value to unborn antiquarians.
— Characters, long absent, reappear and give some ac-
count of themselves.
Five years have passed away since this His-
tory opened. It is the month of June, once
more — June, which clothes our London in all
its glory ; fills its languid ball-rooms with living
flowers, and its stony causeways with human
butterflies. It is about the hour of 6 p.m. The
lounge in Hyde Park is crowded ; along the
road that skirts the Serpentine crawl the car-
riages one after the other; congregate, by the
rails,Hhe lazy lookers-on — lazy in attitude, but
with active eyes, and tongues sharpened on the
whetstone of scandal; the Scaligers of Club
windows airing their vocabulary in the Park.
Slowly saunter on foot-idlers of all degrees in
the hierarchy of London id/esse ; dandies of es-
tablished fame — youthful tyros in their first
season. Yonder, in the Ride, forms less inani-
mate seem condemned to active exercise ; young
ladies doing penance in a canter; old beaux at
hard lalx)r in a trot. Sometimes, by a more
thoughtful brow, a still brisker pace, you rec-
ognize a busy member of the Imperial Parlia-
ment, who, advised by physicians to be as much
on horseback as possible, snatches an hour or so
in the interval between the close of his Com-
mittee and the interest of the Debate, and shirks
the opening speech of a well known bore.
Among such truant lawgivers (grief it is to say
it) may be seen that once model member. Sir
Jasper Stollhead. Grim dyspepsia seizing on
him at last, "relaxation from his duties" be-
comes the adequate punishment for all his sins.
Solitary he rides, and, communing with him-
self, yawns at every second. Upon chairs, be-
neficently located under the trees toward the
north side of the walk, are interspersed small
knots and coteries in repose. There, you might
see the Ladies Prymme, still the Ladies Pnmme
. — Janet and Wilhelmina ; Janet has gi-own fat,
Wilhelmina thin. But thin or fat, they are no
less Prymmes. They do not lack male attend-
ants ; they are pirls of high fashion, with whom
young men think it a distinction to be seen
talking ; of high principle, too, and high pre-
tensions (unhappily for themselves they are co-
heiresses), by whom young men under the rank
of earls need not fear to be artfully entrapped
into " honorable intentions." They coquet ma-
jestically, but they never flirt ; they exact devo-
tion, but they do not ask in each victim a sac-
rifice on the horns of the altar; they will never
give their hands where they do not give their
hearts ; and being ever afraid that they are
courted for their money, they will never give
their hearts save to wooers who have much
more money than themselves. Many young
men stop to do passing homage to the Ladies
Prymme ; some linger to converse — safe young
men, they are all younger sons. Farther on.
Lady Frost and Mr. Crampe the wit, sit amica-
bly side by side, pecking at each other with sar-
castic beaks ; occasionally desisting, to fasten
nip and claw upon that common enemy, the
passing friend I The Slowes, a numerous fam-
ily, but taciturn, sit by themselves — bowed to
much ; accosted rarely.
Xote that man of good presence, somewhere
about thirty, or a year or tn'o more, who, rec-
ognized by most of the loungers, seems not at
home in the lounge. He has passed by the va-
rious coteries just described, made his obeisance
to the Ladies Prymme, received an icy epigram
from Lady Frost, and a laconic sneer from Mr.
Crampe, and exchanged silent bows with seven
silent Slowes. He has wandered on, looking
high in the air, but still looking for some one,
not in the air, and, evidently disappointed in
his search, comes to a full stop at length, takes
oft' his hat, wipes his brow, utters a petulant
•'Prr — r — pshwl" and seeing, a little in the
background, the chairless shade of a thin, ema-
ciated, dusty tree, thither he retires, and seats
himself with as httle care whether there to seat
WHAT AVILL HE DO WITH IT ? .
U5
himself be the right thing in the right place, as
if in the honey-suckle arbor of a village inn.
"It scnes me" right," said he, to himself, "a
precocious villain bursts in upon me, breaks nij
day, makes an appointment to meet here, in
these very walks, ten minutes before six ; de-
coys me with the promise of a dinner at Putney
— ^room looking on the river, and fried Hounders.
I have the credulity to yield ; I derange my
would be a great painter. And in five short
years you have soared high."
" I'ooh ;" answered Vance, indifferently. "No-
thing is pure and unadulterated in London use;
not cream, nor cayenne pepper — least of all,
Fame; mixed up with the most deleterious in-
gredients. Fame ! did you read the Times' cri-
tique on my ])icturcs in the present Exhibition ?
Fame, indeed! Change the subject. Nothing
habits — I leave my cool studio; I put otF my i so good as Hountlers. IIo! is that vour cab?
easy blouse ; I imprison my free-born throat in
a cravat invented by the Thugs ; the dog-days
are at hand, and I walk rashly over scorching
pavements in a black frock-coat, and a brimless
hat ; I annihilate 3s. (id. in a pair of kid gloves ;
I arrive at this haunt of spleen ; I run the gaunt-
let of Frosts, Slowes, and Prymmes ; — and my
traitor fails me! Half past six — not a sign of
him ! and the dinner at Futney — fried floun-
ders ? Dreams ! Patience, hvc minutes more ;
if then he conies not — breach for life between
him and me ! Ah, voild .' there he comes, the
laggard ! But how those fine folks are catching
at him I Has he asked them also to dinner at
Putney, and do they care for fried flounders ?"
The soliloquist's eye is on a young man, much
younger than himself, who is threading the mot-
ley crowd with a light quick steji, but is com-
pelled to stop at each moment to interchange a
word of welcome, a shake of the hand. Evi-
dently he has already a large acquaintance ;
evidently he is popular, on good terms with the
world and himself. What free grace in his
bearing! what gay good -humor in his smile!
Powers above ! Lady Wilhelmina surely blushes
as she retunis his bow. He has passed Lady
Frost unblighted; the Slowes evince emotion,
at least the female Slowes, as he shoots by them
with that sliding bow. He looks from side to
side, with a rapid glance of an eye in which
light seems all dance and sparkle ; he sees the
soliloquist under the meagre tree — the pace
quickens, the lips part, half laughing.
"Don't scold, Vance. I am late, I know;
but I did not make allowance for interceptions."
" Body o' me, interceptions ! For an absentee
just arrived in London, you seem to have no lack
of friends."
"Friends made in Paris, and found again
here at every comer, like jileasant surprises.
But no friend so welcome, and dear, as Frank
Vance."
" Sensible. of the honor, O Lionello the mag-
nificent. Verily you are hon Prince! The
Houses of Valois and of Medici were always
kind to artists. But whither would you lead
me? Back into that tread-mill ? Thank you,
humbly; no. A crowd in fine clothes is of all
mobs the dullest. I can look undismayed on
the many-headed monster, wild and rampant ;
but when the many-headed monster buys its hats
in Bond Street, and has an eye-glass at each of
its inquisitive eyes, I confess I take fright. Be-
sides, it is near seven o'clock ; Putney not visi-
ble, and the flounders not fried !"
"My cab is waiting yonder; we must walk to
it — we can keep on the turf, and avoid the
throng. But tell me honestly, Vance, do you
really dislike to mix in crowds — you, with your
fame, dislike the eyes that turn back to look
again, and the lips that respccifully murmur,
'Vance, the Painter?' Ah, I always said you
K
Superb! Car fit for the 'Grecian youth of
talents rare,' in Mr. Enfield's Speaker ; horse
that seems conjured out of the Elgin marbles.
Is he quiet?"
" Not very ; but trust to my driving. You
may well admire the horse — present from Dar-
rell, chosen by Colonel Morley."
When the young men had settled themselves
in the vehicle, Lionel dismissed his groom, and,
touching his horse, the animal trotted out briskly.
" Frank," said Lionel, shaking his dark curls
*with a petulant gravity, "Your cynical defini-
tions are unworthy that masculine beard. You
despise fame ! what sheer attectation !
" Pulvereni Olymiijcum
Collegissc juvat ; metaque fer\idis
Evitata rotis ."
"Take care," cried Vance; "we shall be
over." For Lionel, growing excited, teased the
horse with his whiji ; and the horse bolting, took
the cab within an inch of a water-cart.
"Fame, Fame!" cried Lionel, unheeding the
interruption. " What would I not give to have
and to hold it for an hour!"
" Hold an eel, less sli])i)ery ; a scorpion, less
stinging ! But — " added Vance, observing his
companion's heightened color. " But," he add-
ed seriously, and with an honest compimction,
" I forgot, you are a soldier, you follow tlie
career of arms! Never heed what is said on
the subject by a querulous painter ! The desire
of fame may be folly in civilians, in soldiers it
is wisdom. Twin-born with the martial sense
of honor, it cheers the march, it warms the bi-
vouac ; it gives music to the whirr of the bullet,
the roar of the ball ; it plants hope in the thick of
peril ; knits rivals with the bond of brothers; com-
forts the survivor when the brother falls ; takes
from war its grim aspect of carnage ; and from
homicide itself extracts lessons that strengthen
the safeguards to humanity, and i)erpetuate life
to nations. Right — pant for fame ; you are a
soldier !"
This was one of those bursts of high sentiment
from Vance, which, as they were veiy rare with
him, had tlie dramatic cftect of surjirise. Lio-
nel listened to him with a thrilling delight. He
could not answer, he was too moved. The art-
ist resumed, as the cabriolet now cleared the
Park, and rolled safely and rajiidly along the
road. "I suppose, during the five years you
have spent abroad, completing your general ed-
ucation, you have made little study, or none, of
what specially appertains to the profession you
have so recently chosen."
"You are mistaken there, my dear Vance.
If a man's heart be set on a thing, he is always
studying it. The books I loved best, and most
pondered over, were such as, if they did not ad-
minister lessons, suggested hints that might turn
to lessons hereafter. In social intercourse, I
never was so pleased as when I could fasten my-
UG
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
self to some practical veteran — question and
cross-examine him. One picks up more ideas
in conversation than from books ; at least I do.
Besides, my idea of a soldier who is to succeed
soma dav, is not that of a mere mechanician at
arms. See how accomplished most gi-eat cap-
tains have been. What obsei-vers of mankind !
— What diplomatists — what reasoners ! what
men of action, because men to whom reflection
had been habitual before they acted! How
many stores of idea must have gone to the judg-
ment which hazards the sortie, or decides on the
retreat !"
" Gently, gently !" cried Vance. '-We shall
be into that omnibus ! Give me the whip — do ;
tliere— a little more to the left — so. Yes : I am
glad to see such euthusiasm in your profession
— 'tis half the battle. Hazlitt' said a capital
thing, ' the 'prentice who does not consider the
Lord Mayor in his gilt coach the greatest man
in the world will live to be hanged !' "
"Pish!" said Lionel, catching at the whip. '
Vance (holding it back). "Xo. I apologize
instead. I retract the Lord Mayor; compari-
sons are odious. I agree with you, nothing like
leather — I mean nothing like a really great sol-
dier — Hannibal, and so forth. Cherish that
conviction, my boy ; meanwhile, respect human
hfe — there is another omnibus !"
The danger past, the artist thought it prudent
to divert the conversation into some channel less
exciting.
"Mr. DaiTell, of course, consents to your
choice of a profession ?"
"Consents — approves, encourages. Wrote
me such a beautiful letter — what a comprehen-
sive intelligence that man has !"
"Necessarily; since he agrees with you.
Where is he now ?"
" I have no notion ; it is some months since
I heard from him. He was then at Malta, on
his return from Asia Minor."
" So! you have never seen him since he bade
you farewell at his old ^Manor-House ?"
"Never. He has not, I believe, been in En-
gland."
■' Nor in Paris, where you seem to have chief-
ly resided?"
"Nor in Paris. Ah, Vance, could I but be
of some comfort to him ! Now that I am older,
I think I understand in him much that perplex-
ed me as a boy, when we parted. Darrell is
one of those men who require a home. Between
the great world and solitude, he needs the inter-
mediate filling up which the life domestic alone
supplies : a wife to realize the sweet word help-
mate — children, with whose future he could knit
his own toils and his ancestral remembrances.
That intermediate space annihilated, the great
world and the solitude are left, each frowning
on the other."
" My dear Lionel, you must have lived with
very clever people ; you are talking far above
your years."
" Am I ? True, I have lived, if not with very
clever people, with people far above my years.
That is a secret I learned from Colonel Morley,
to whom I must present you — the subtlest intel-
lect under the quietest manner. Once he said
to me, 'Would you throughout life be up to the
height of your century — always in the prime of
man's reason — without crudeness and without
decline — live habitually, while young, with per-
sons older, and, when old, with persons younger
than yourself.' "
"Shrewdly said, indeed. I felicitate you on
the e\-ident result of the maxim. And so Dar-
rell has no home ; no wife, and no children?"
"He has long been a widower; he lost his
only son in boyhood, and his daughter — did you
never hear?"
"No — what — ?"
" Married so ill — a runaway match — and died
many years since, without issue."
"Poor man! It was these afflictions, then,
that soured his life, and made him the hermit
or the wanderer ?"
"There," said Lionel, "I am puzzled; for
I find that even after his son's death and his
daughter's unhappy marriage and estrangement
from him, he was still in Parliament, and in
full activity of career. But certainly he did not
long keep it up. It might have been an effort
to which, strong as he is, he felt himself une-
qual ; or, might he have known some fresh dis-
appointment, some new sorrow which the world
never guesses ? what I have said as to his fam-
ily afflictions the world knows. But I think he
will marry again. That idea seemed strong in
his own mind when we parted; he brought it
out bluntly, roughly. Colonel Morley is con-
vinced that he will many, if but for the sake of
an heir."
Vance. " And if so, my poor Lionel, you are
ousted of — "
Lionel (quickly inteirupting). "Hush! Do
not say, my dear Vance, do not you say — you I
— one of those low, mean things which, if said
to me even by men for whom I have no es-
teem, make my cars tingle and my cheek blush.
When I thinkof what Darrell has already done
for me — me who have no claim on him — it seems
to me as if I must hate the man who insinuates,
'Fear lest your benefactor find a smile at his
own hearth, a child of his own blood — ^for you
may be richer at his death in proportion as his
life is desolate."
Vanxe. "You are a fine young fellow, and I
beg your pardon. Take care of that milestone
— thank you. But I suspect that at least two-
thirds of "those friendly hands that detained you
on the way to me, were stretched out less to Li-
onel Haughton — a Cornet in the Guards — than
to Mr. Darrell's heir-presum])tive."
Lionel. "That thought sometimes galls me,
but it docs me good ; for it goads on my desire
to make myself some one whom the most world-
ly would not disdain to know for his own sake.
Oh for active service! — Oh for a sharp cam-
paign ! — Oh for fair trial how far a man in earn-
est can grapple Fortune to his breast with his
own strong hands ! You have done so, Vance ;
you had but your genius and your .painter's
"brush. I have no genius, but I have resolve,
and resolve is perhaps as sure of its ends as
genius. Genius and Resolve have three grand
elements in common — Patience, Hope, Concen-
tration."
Vance, more and more surprised, looked hard
at Lionel, without speaking. Five years of that
critical age, from seventeen to twenty-two, spent
in the great capital of Europe— kept from its
more dangerous vices partly by a proud sense
of personal dignity, partly by a temperament
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
147
which, re^^arding love as an kleal for all tender
and sublime emotion, recoiled from low jiroiii-
gacy as being to Love what tlie Yahoo of the
mocking satirist was to Jlan — absorbed much
by the brooding ambition that takes youtli out
of the frivolous present into the serious future,
and seeking companionship, not with contempo-
rary idlers, but with the highest and niaturest
intellects that the free commonwealth of good
society brought within his reach — Five years so
spent had developed a boy, nursing noble dreams,
into a man fit for noble action — retaining fresh-
est vouth in its enthusiasm, its elevation of sen-
timent, its daring, its energy, and divine credu-
lity in its own unexhausted resources; but bor-
rowing from maturity compactness and solidity
of idea — the link between speculation and jn-ac-
ticc — the power to impress on others a sense of
the superiority which has been scIf-cUiborated
by unconscious culture.
"So!" said Vance, after a prolonged pause,
"I don't know whether I have resolve or genius ;
but, certainly, if I have made my way to some
small reputation, patience, hope, and concentra-
tion of purpose must have the credit of it ; and
pnidcncc, too, which you have forgotten to name,
and certainly don't evince as a charioteer. I
hope, my dear fellow, you arc not extravagant.
No debts, eh? — why do you laugh?"
"The question is so like you, Frank — thrifty
as ever."
"Do you think I could have painted with a
calm mind, if I knew that at my door there was
a dun whom I could not pay ? Art needs seren-
ity ; and if an artist begin his career with as
few shirts to his back as I had, he mi:st place
economy among the rules of perspective."
Lionel laughed again, and made some com-
ments on economy which were certainly, if
smart, rather flippant, and tended not only to
lower the favorable estimate of his intellectual
improvement which Vance had just formed, but
seriously disquieted the kindly artist. Vance
knew the world — knew the peculiar temptations
to which a young man in Lionel's position would
be exposed — knew that contempt for economy
belongs to that school of Peripatetics which re-
serves its last lessons for finished disciples in
the sacred walks of the Queen's Bench.
However, that was no auspicious moment for
didactic warnings.
"Here we are!" cried Lionel — "Putney
Bridge."
They reached the little inn by the river-side,
and while dinner was getting ready, they hired
a boat. Vance took the oars.
Vaxce. ' ' Kot so pretty here as by those green
quiet banks along which we glided, at moon-
light, five years ago."
Lionel. "Ah, no. And that innocent, charm-
ing child, whose portrait you took — you have
never heard of her since ?"
Vanxe. " Never ! How should I ? Have
70U?"
Lionel. " Only what Darrell repeated to me.
His lawyer had ascertained that she and her
grandfather had gone to America. Darrell
gently implied that, from what he learned of
them, they scarcely merited the interest I felt
in their fate. But we were not deceived — were
we, Vance ?"
Vance. "No; the little girl — what was her
name ? Sukcy ? Sally ? — Sophy — true, Sophy —
had something about her extremely jjrepossess-
ing, besides her pretty face; and, in spite of
that horrid cotton print, I shall never forget
it."
Lionel. " Ilcr face ! Nor I. I see it still
before me !"
Vance. " Her cotton jjrintl I see it still be-
fore me! But I must not be ungrateful. Would
you believe it, that little jiortrait, which cost me
three pounds, has made, I don't say my fortune,
but my fashion?"
Lionel. " How ! You had the heart to sell
it?"
Vance. "No; I kept it as a study for young
female heads — ' with variations,' as they say in
music. It was by my female heads that I be-
came the fashion ; every order I have contains
the condition — 'But be sure, one of your sweet
female heads, Mr. Vance.' JSIy female heads
are as necessary to my canvas as a white horse
to Wouvermans'. Well, that child, who cost
me three pounds, is the original of them all.
Commencing as a Titania, she has been in turns
a 'Psyche,' a 'Beatrice Cenci,' a 'ilinna,' 'A
Portrait of a Nobleman's Daughter,' ' Burns's
^Lary in Heaven,' 'The Young Gleaner,' and
' Sabrina fair,' in Milton's Coinus. I have led
that child through all history, sacred and pro-
fane. I have painted her in all costumes (her
own cotton print excepted). My female heads
are mv glory — even the Times' critic allows that!
' Mr. Vance, there, is inimitable ! a type of child-
like grace peculiarly his own, etc., etc' I'll
lend you the article."
Lionel. "And shall we never again see the
original darling Sophy ? Y'ou will laugh, Vance,
but I have been heart-proof against all young
ladies. If ever I marry, my wife must have
Sophy's eyes ! In America !"
Vance. "Let us hope by this time happily
married to a Yankee ! Y'ankees marry girls in
their teens, and don't ask for dowries. Married
to a Y'ankee ! not a doubt of it ! a Yankee who
chaws, whittles, and keeps a 'store!'"
Lionel. " Monster ! Hold your tongue !
Apropos of marriage, why are you still single?"
Vance. " Because I have no wish to be doub-
led up! Moreover, man is like a napkin, the
more neatly the housewife doubles him, the
more carefully she lays him on the shelf. Nei-
ther can a man once doubled know how often
he may be doubled. Not only his wife folds
him in two, but every child quarters him into a
new double, till what was a wide and handsome
substance, large enough for any thing in reason,
dwindles into a pitiful square that will not cover
one platter — all puckers and creases — smaller
and smaller with every double — with every
double a new crease. Then, my friend, comes
the washing bill ! and, besides all the hurts one
receives in the mangle, consider the hourly
wear and tear of the linen-press! In short,
Shakspeare vindicates the single life, and de-
picts the double in the famous line— which is
no doubt intended to be allegorical of mar-
riage —
'Double, double, toil and trouble.'
Besides, no single man can be lairly called poor.
What double man can with certainty be called
rich ? A single man can lodge in a garret, and
dine on a herring ; nobody knows, nobody cares.
148
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Let him marrr, and he invites the world to wit-
ness where he" lodges, and how he dines. The
first necessary a wife demands is the most ruin-
ous, the most indefinite superfluity ; it is Gen-
tility according to wliat her neighbors call gen-
teel". Gentility commences with the honey-moon ;
it is its shadow, and lengthens as the moon de-
clines. When the lioney is all gone, your bride
savs, ' We can have our tea without sugar when
quite alone, love ; but in case Gentility drop in,
here's a bill for silver sugar-tongs !' That's why
I'm single."
"Economy again, Vance."
" Prudence — dignity," answered Vance, se-
riously ; and sinking into a reverie that seemed
gloomy, he shot back to shore.
CHAPTER m.
Mr. Vance explains how he came to grind colors and
save half-pence. — -V sudden announcement
The meal was over — the table had been
spread by a window that looked upon the river.
The moijn was up ; the young men asked for
no other lights ; conversation betweea them —
often shifting, often pausing — had gradually be-
come grave, as it usually does, with two com-
panions in youth ; while yet long vistas in the
Future stretch before them deep in shadow, and
they fall into confiding talk on what they wish —
what they fear; making visionary maps in that
limitless Obscure.
"There is so much power in faith," said Li-
onel, "even when faith is applied but to things
human and earthly, that let a man be but firm-
ly persuaded that he is born to do, some day,
what at the moment seems impossible, and it is
fifty to one but what he does it before he dies.
Surely, when you were a child at school, you
felt convinced that thei'e was something in your
fate distinct from that of the other boys — whom
the master might call quite as clever — felt that
faith in yourself which made you sure that you
would be one day what you are."
"AYell, I suppose so; but vague aspirations
and self-conceits must be bound together by
some practical necessity — perhaps a very home-
ly and a very vulgar one — or they scatter and
evaporate. One would think that rich people
in high life ought to do more than poor folks in
humble life. More pains are taken with their
education ; they have more leisure for following
the bent of their genius ; yet it is the poor folks,
often half self-educated, and with pinched bel-
lies, that do three-fourths of the world's grand
labor. Poverty is the keenest stimulant, and
poverty made me not say, 'I icill do,' but 'I
must.^ "
" You knew real poverty in childhood,
Frank ?"
"Ileal poverty, covered over with sham afflu-
ence. My father was Genteel Poverty, and my
mother was Poor Gentility. The sham affluence
went when my father died. The real poverty
then came out in all its ugliness. I was taken
from a genteel school, at which, long afterward.
I genteelly paid the bills ; and I had to support
my mother somehow or other — somehow or oth-
er I succeeded. Alas, I fear not genteelly I
But before I lost her, which I did in a few years.
she had some comforts which were not appear-
ances ; and she kindly allowed, dear soul, that
gentility and shams do not go well together.
Oh ! beware of debt, LioneUo into ; and never
call that economy meanness which is but the
safeguard from mean degradation."
" I understand you at last, Vance ; shake
hands ; I know why you are saving."
" Habit now," answered Vance, repressing
praise of himself, as usual. "But I remember
so well when twopence was a sum to be respect-
ed, that to this day I would rather put it by
than spend it. All our ideas, like orange-plants,
spread out in proportion to the size of the box
which imprisons the roots. Then I had a sis-
ter." Vance paused a moment as if in pain,
but went on with seeming carelessness, leaning
over the window-sill, and turning his face from
his friend. " I had a sister older than myself,
handsome, gentle. I was so proud of her !
Foolish girl ! my love was not enough for her.
Foolish girl ! she could not wait to see what I
might live to do for her. She married — oh I so
genteelly ! — a young man, very well born, who
had wooed her before my father died. He had
the villainy to remain constant when she had not
a farthing, and he was dependent on distant re-
lations and his- own domains in Parnassus. The
wretch was a poet ! So they married. They
spent their honey-moon genteelly, I dare say.
His relations cut him. Parnassus paid no rents.
He went abroad. Such heart-rending letters
from her I They were destitute. How I work-
ed! how I raged I But how could I maintain
her and her husband too, mere child that I was ?
No matter. They are dead now, both ; all dead
for whose sake I first ground colors and saved
half-pence. And Frank Vance is a stingy, self-
ish bachelor. Never revive this dull subject
again, or I shall borrow a crown from you, and
cut you dead. Waiter, ho ! — the bill. I'll just
go round to the stables, and see the horse put
to."
As the friends re-entered London Vance said,
"Put me down any where in Piccadilly; I will
walk home. You, I suppose, of course, are stay-
ing with your mother in Gloucester Place ?"
"No,'' said Lionel, rather emban-assed; " Col-
onel ]Morley, who acts for me as if he were my
guardian, took a lodging for me in Chesterfield
Street, Mayfair. ily hours, I fear, would ill
suit my dear mother. Only in town two days ;
and, thanks to IMorley, my table is already cov-
ered with invitations."
" Yet you gave me one day, generous friend I"
"You the second day — my mother the first.
But there ai-e three balls before me to-night.
Come home with me, and smoke your cigar
while I dress."
"No; but I will at least light my cigar in
your hall — prodigal I"
Lionel now stopped at his lodging. The
groom, who served him also as valet, was in
waiting at the door. "A note for you. Sir,
from Colonel Moidey — just come." Lionel hast-
ily opened it, and read :
" " ]Mt dear Haughton, — ilr. Dan-ell has sud-
denly arrived in London. Keep yourself free
all to-morrow, when, no doubt, he will see you.
I am hun-yiug off to him. Yours in haste,
A, V. M."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
149
CHAPTER IV.
Oace more Guy DarrelL
GrT D.UIRELL was alone. A lofty room in
a large house, on the first floor. His own house
in Carlton Gardens, which he had occupied dur-
ing his brief and brilliant parliamentary career ;
since then, left contemptuously to the care of a
house-agent, to be let by year or by season, it
had known various tenants of an opulence and
station suitable to its space and site. Dinners
and concerts, routes and balls, had assembled
the friends and jaded the spirits of many a gra-
cious host and smiling hostess. The tenure of
one of these temporary occupants had recently
expired, and ere the agent had found another
the long-absent owner dropped down into its si-
lenced halls as from the clouds, without other
establishment than his old servant !Mills and the
woman in charge of the house. There, as in a
caravanserai, the traveler took his rest, stately
and desolate. Nothing so comfortless as one
of those large London houses all to one's self.
In long rows against the walls stood the empty
fauteuUs. Spectral from the gilded ceiling hung
lightless chandeliers. The furniture, pompous,
but worn by use and faded by time, seemed me-
mentoes of departed revels. When you return
to yoiu" own house in the country — no matter
how long the absence — no matter how decayed
by neglect the friendly chambers may be — if it
has only been deserted in the mean while (not
let to new races, who, by their own shifting dy-
nasties, have supplanted the rightful lord, and
half-efl'aced his memorials), the walls may still
greet you forgivingly, the character of Home be
still tiiere. You take up again the thread of as-
sociations which had been suspended, not snap-
ped. But it is otherwise with a house in cities,
especially in our fast-living London, where few
houses descend from father to son — where the
title-deeds are rarely more than those of a pur-
chased lease for a term of years, after which
your property quits you. A house in London,
which your father never entered, in which no
elbow-chair, no old-fashioned work-table, recalls
to you the kind smile of a mother — a house that
you have left as you leave an inn, let to people
whose names you scarce know, with as little re-
spect for your family records as you have for
theirs. \Mien you return after a long interval
of years to a house like that, you stand as stood
Darrell — a forlorn stranger under your own
roof-tree. What cared he for those who had
last gathered round those hearths with their
chilL steely grates — whose forms had reclined
on those formal couches — whose feet had worn
away the gloss from those costly carpets ? His-
tories in the lives of many might be recorded
within those walls. Lovers there had breathed
their first vows; bridal feasts had been held;
babes had crowed in the arms of proud young
mothers; politicians there had been raised into
ministers ; ministers there had fallen back into
"independent members;" through those doors
coryjses had been borne forth to relentless vaults.
For these races and their records what cared
the owner? Their writing was not on the walls.
Sponged out as from a slate, their reckonings
with Time, leaving dim, here and there, some
chance scratch of his own, blurred and by-gone.
Leaning against the mantle-piece, Darrell gazed
round the room with a vague, wistful look, as
if seeking to conjure up associations that might
link the present hour to that jjast life which had
slipped away elsewhere ; and his profile, reflect-
ed on the mirror behind, pale and mournful,
seemed like that ghost of himself which his
memorv' silently evoked.
The man is but little altered externally since
we saw him last, however inly changed since he
last stood on those unwelcoming floors ; the form
still retained the same vigor and symmetry —
the same unspeakable dignity of mien and bear-
ing — the same thoughtful bend of the proud
neck — so distinct, in its elastic rebound, from
the stoop of debility or age. Thick as ever the
rich mass of dark brown hair, though, when in
the impatience of some painful thought, his
hand swept the loose curls from his forehead,
the silver threads might now be seen shooting
here and there — vanishing almost as soon as
seen. Xo, whatever the baptismal register may
say to the contrary, that man is not old — not
even elderly ; in the deep of that clear gray eye
light may be calm, but in calm it is vivid; not
a ray; sent from brain or from heart, is yet flick-
ering down. On the whole, however, there is
less composure than of old in his mien and bear-
ing — less of that resignation which seemed to
say, "I have done with the substances of life."
Still there was gloom, but it was more broken
and restless. Evidently that human breast was
again admitting, or forcing itself to court, hu-
man hopes, human objects. Keturning to the
substances of life, their movement was seen in
the shadows which, when they wrap us round
at remoter distance, seem to lose their trouble
as they gain their width. He broke from his
musing attitude with an abrupt, angry move-
ment, as if shaking oft' thoughts which displeased
him, and gathering his arms tightly to his breast,
in a gesture peculiar to himself, walked to and
fro the room, murmuring inaudibly. The door
opened; he turned quickly, and with an evident
sense of relief, for his face brightened. "Al-
ban. my dear Alban I"
" Darrell — old friend — old school-friend —
dear, dear Guy Darrell !" The two Englishmen
stood, hands tightly clasped in each other, in
true English greeting — their eyes moistening
with remembrances that earned them back to
boyhood.
Alban was the first to recover self-possession ;
and when the friends had seated themselves,
he surveyed Darrell's countenance deliberate-
ly, and said: "So little change I — wonderful!
What is your secret ?"
" Suspense from life — hybernating. But you
beat me ; you have been spending life, yet seem
as rich in it as when we parted."
"Xo; I begin to decry the present and laud
the past — to read with glasses, to decide from
prejudice, to recoil from change, to find sense
in twaddle — to know the value of health from
the fear to lose it — feel an interest in rheuma-
tism, an awe of bronchitis — to tell anecdotes
and to wear flannel. To you in strict confidence
I disclose the truth — I am no longer twenty-five.
You laugh — this is civilized talk ; does it not re-
fresh you after the gibberish you must have chat-
tered in Asia Minor?"
Darrell might have answered in the affirma-
tive with truth. What man, after long years of
150
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
solitude, is not refreshed by talk, however triv-
ial, that recalls to him the gay time of the world
he remembered in his young day — and recalls
it to him on the lips of a friend in youth ! But
Darrell said nothing; only he settled himself in
his chair with a more cheerful ease, and inclined
his relaxing brows with a nod of encouragement
or assent.
Colonel Morley continued. "But when did
you arrive? whence? How long do you stay
iiere ? What are your plans ?"
Darrell. "Cscsar could not be more lacon-
ic. When arrived? — this evening. Whence?
— Ouzelford. How long do I stay ? — uncer-
tain. What are my plans? — let us discuss
them."
Colonel Morley. "With all my heart. You
have plans, then? — a good sign. Animals in
hybernation form none."
Darrell (Putting aside tlic liglits on the ta-
ble, so as to leave his face in shade, and look-
ing toward the floor as he speaks). " For the last
five years I have struggled hard to renew inter-
est in mankind, reconnect myself with common
life and its healthful objects. Between Fawlcy
and London I desired to form a magnetic me-
dium. I took rather a vast one — nearly all the
rest of the known world. I have visited both
Americas — either Ind. All Asia have I ran-
sacked, and pierced as far into Africa as travel-
er ever went in search of Timbuctoo. But I
have sojourned also, at long intervals — at least
they seemed long to me — in the gay capitals of
Europe (Paris excepted); mixed, too, witli the
gayest — hired palaces, filled them with guests —
feasted and heard music. ' Guy Darrell,' said
I, ' shake oft' the rust of years — thou hadst no
youth while young. Be young now. A holiday
may restore thee to wholesome work, as a holi-
day restores the wearied school-boy.' "
Colonel Morley. " I comprehend ; the ex-
pei'iment succeeded ?"
Darrell. "I don't know — not yet — but it
may ; I am here, and I intend to stay. I would
not go to a hotel for a single day, lest my reso-
lution should fail me. I have thrown myself
into this castle of care without even a garrison.
I hope to hold it. Help me to man it. In a
word, and without metaphor, I am here with the
design of re-entering London life."
Colonel Morley. "I am so glad. Hearty
congratulations ! How rejoiced all the Viponts
will be! Another 'crisis' is at hand. You
have seen the newspapei's regularly, of course —
the state of the country interests you. You say
that you come from Ouzelford, the town you
once represented. I guess you will re-enter
Paidiament ; you have but to say the word."
Darrell. "Parliament! No. I received,
while abroad, so earnest a i-equest from my old
constituents to lay the foundation-stoneof a new
Town-hall, in which they are much interested,
and my obligations to them have been so great,
that I could not refuse. I wrote to fix the day
as soon as I had resolved to return to England,
making a condition that I should be spared the
infliction of a public dinner, and landed just in
time to keep my appointment — reached Ouzel-
ford early this morning, went through the cere-
mony, made a short speech, came on at once
to London, not venturing to diverge to Fawley
twllU^ti ;c not vt^r\- fiv f'-r.m On7Clf(n-d^, ICSt, OnCC
there again, I should not have strength to leave
it — and here I am." Darrell paused, then re-
peated, in brisk, emphatic tone: "Parliament?
No. Labor ? No. Fellow-man, I am about to
confess to you ; I would snatch back some days
of youth — a wintry likeness of youth — better
than none. Old friend, let us amuse ourselves !
When I was working hard — hard — hard — it was
you who would say: 'Come forth, be amused'
— You happy butterfly that you were ! Now, I
say to you : ' Show me this flaunting town that
you know so well ; initiate me into the joy of
polite pleasures, social commune —
' Dulce niihi furere est aiuico.'
You have amusements — let me share them."
" Faith," quoth the Colonel, crossing his legs,
' ' you come late in the day ! Amusements cease
to amuse at last. I have tried all, and begin to
be tired. I have had my holiday, exhausted its
sports ; and you, coming from books and desk
fresh into the playground, say, ■' Football and
leapfrog.' Alas ! my poor friend, why did not
you come sooner?"
Darrell. "One word, one question. You
have made ease a philosophy and a system ; no
man ever did so with more felicitous grace ; nor,
in following pleasure, have you parted company
with conscience and shame. A fine gentleman
ever, in honor as in elegance. Well, are you
satisfied with your choice of life ? Are you hap-
py?"
" Happy — who is ? Satisfied — perhaps !"
"Is there any one you envy — whose choice,
other than your own, you would prefer ?"
"Certainly."
"Who?"
"You."
"I!" said Darrell, opening his eyes with
unaffected amaze. "I! envy me! prefer my
choice!"
Colonel Morley (peevishly). "Without
doubt. You have had-^gratified ambition — a
great career. Envy you ! who would not ?
Your own objects in life fulfilled ; you coveted
distinction — you won it ; fortune — your wealth
is immense ; the restoration of your name and
lineage from obscurity and humiliation — are
not name and lineage again written in the Li-
bra d'oro ? What king would not hail you as his
councilor ? what senate not open its ranks to
admit you as a chief ? what house, though the
haughtiest in the land, would not accept your
alliance ? And withal, you stand before me
stalwart and unbowed, young blood still in your
veins. Ungrateful man ! who would not change
lots with Guy Darrell ? Fame, fortune, health,
and, not to flatter you, a form and presence that
would be remarked, though you stood in that
black frock by the side of a monarch in his cor-
onation robes."
Darrell. " You have turned my questions
against myself with a kindliness of intention
that makes me forgive your belief in my vanity.
Pass on — or rather pass back ; you say you have
tried all in life that distracts or sweetens. Not
so ; lone bachelor, you have not tried wedlock.
Has not that been your mistake ?"
Colonel Morley. "Answer for yourself.
You have tried it." The words were scarce out
of his mouth ere he repented the retort. For
Darrell started as if stung to the quick ; and his
brow, before serene, his lip, before playful, grew,
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
151
the one darkly troubled, the other tightly com-
jiressed. " rardon mc," faltered out the friend.
Daurell. " Oh yes ; I bronprht it on myself.
What stuff we have" been talking ! Tell nic the
news — not political — any other. But first, your
report of young Ilaughton. Cordial thanks for
all vour kindness to him. You write me word
that he is much improved — most likeable ; you
add that at Paris he became the rage — that in
Loiulon you are sure he will be extremely pop-
ular. Be it so, if for his own sake. Are you
(juite sure that it is not for the expectations
which I come here to dissipate ?"
Coi.oNLL MoRLEY. " Much for himself, I am
certain ; a little, perhaps, because, whatever he
thinks and I say to the contrary — people seeing
no other heir to your property — "
" I understand," inten-upted Darrell, quickly.
" But he does not nurse those expectations? he
will not be disa])pointcd ?"
Colonel Morley. " Verily I believe that,
apart from his love for you, and a delicacy of
sentiment that would recoil from planting hopes
of wealth in the graves of benefactors, Lionel
Ilaughton would prefer can-ing his own fortunes
to all the ingots hewed out of California by an-
other's hand, and bequeathed by another's will."
"I am heartily glad to hear and to trust
yon."
" I gather from what you say that you are
here with the intention to — to — "
" JIarry again, " said Darrell, firmly. " Right.
I am."
" I always felt sure you would marry again.
Is the ladv here, too ?"
"What lady?"
" The lady you have chosen ?"
" Tush — I have chosen none. I come here
to choose ; and in this I ask advice from your
experience. I would marry again ! I — at my
age ! Ridiculous ! But so it is. You know all
the mothers and marriageable daughters that
London — ariJa iiutrix — rears for nuptial altars
— where, among them, shall I, Guy Darrell, the
man whom you think so enviable, find the safe
helj)mate whose love he may reward with mu-
nificent jointure, to whose child he may be-
queath the name that has now no successor, and
the wealth he has no heart to spend ?"
Colonel Morley — ^\•ho, as we know, is by hab-
it a match-maker, and likes the vocation — as-
sumes a placid but cogitative mien, rubs his
brow gently, and says, in his softest, best-bred
accents, " You would not marry a mere girl ?
some one of suitable age ? I know several most
superior young women on the other side of thir-
ty — Wilhelmina Prymme, for instance, or Ja-
net — "
Darrell. "Old maids. No — decidedly no I"
Colonel Morley (suspiciously). " But you
would not risk the peace of your old age with a
girl of eighteen, or else I do know a very ac-
complished, well-brought-up girl ; just eighteen
— who — "
Darrell. " Re-enter life by the side of
Eighteen ! Am I a madman ?"
Colonel Morley. " Neither old maids, nor
young maids ; the choice becomes narrowed.
You would prefer a widow. Ila I I have thought
of one I a prize, indeed, could j'ou but win her
— the widow of — "
Darrell. " Ephesus ! Bah ! suggest no ^^•id-
ow to me. A widow, with her affections buried
in the grave !"
M(jRLEY. " Not necessarily. And in this
I case — "
Darrell (interrupting, and with warmth).
" In every case, I tell you, no widow shall doff
her weeds for me. Did she love the first man?
fickle is the woman who can love twice. Did
she not love him? why did she maiTy him?
perhaps she sold herself to a rent-roll ? Shall
she sell herself again to me, for a jointure?
Heaven forbid I Talk not of widows. No dain-
ty so flavorless as a Jjeart warmed uji again."
Colonel Morley. " Neither maids, be they
old or young, nor widows. Possibly you want
an angel. London is not the place for angels."
Darrell. " I grant that the choice sccnis in-
volved in per])lexity. Ilowcan it be otherwise,
if one's self is perjjlexed ? And yet, Alban, I am
serious; and I do not jjresume to be so exact-
ing as my words have implied. I ask not for-
tune, nor rank beyond gentle blood, nor youth,
nor beauty, nor accomplishments, nor fashion ;
but I do ask one thing, and one thing only."
"What is that ? yon have left nothing worth
the having to ask for."
" Nothing ! I have left all. I ask some one
whom I can love — love better than all the world
— not the vtariage de convenance, not the maringe
de raison, but the mariage d'amou?-. All other
marriage, with vows of love so solemn, with in-
timacy of commune so close — all other mar-
riage, in my eyes, is an acted falsehood — a var-
nished sin. Ah! if I had thought so always)
But away, regret and repentance ! The Future
alone is now before me. Alban Morley, I would
sign away all I have in the world (save the old
house at Fawley), ay, and after signing, cut ofl',
to boot, this right hand, could I but once fall in
love ; love, and be loved again, as any two of
Heaven's simplest human creatures may love
each other while life is fresh ! Strange, strange
— look out into the world ; mark the man of our
years who shall be most courted, most adulated,
or admired. Give him all the attributes of pow-
er, wealth, royalty, genius, fame. See all the
younger generations bow before him with hope
or awe ; his word can make their fortune ; at
his smile a reputation dawns. Well ; now let
that man say to the young, ' Room among your-
selves — all that wins me this homage I would
lay at the feet of Beauty. I enter the lists of
love,' and straightway his power vanishes, the
poorest booby of twenty-four can jostle him
aside ; before the object of reverence he is now
the butt of ridicule. The instant lie asks right
to win the heart of woman, a boy whom, in all
else, he could rule as a lackey, cries, ' Oft", Gray-
beard ! t/iat realm at least is mine I' "
" Tliis were but eloquent extravagance, even
if your beard were gi'ay. ^len older than you,
and with half your pretensions, even of outward
form, have carried away hearts from boys like
Adonis. Only choose well ; that's the dithculty
— if it was not difficult who would be a bach-
elor !"
" Guide my choice. Pilot me to the haven."
"Accepted ! But you must remount a suit-
able establishment ; reopen your way to the
great world, and penetrate those sacred recesses
where awaiting sjiinsters weave the fatal web.
Leave all to me. Let Mills (I see you have him
152
. WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
still) call on me to-morrow about your menage.
You will give dinners, of course ?"
" Oh, of cours?. Must I dine at them my-
self?"
Morley laughed softly, and took up his hat.
" So soon," cried Darrell. " If I fatigue you
already, what chance shall I have with new
friends ?"
" So soon ! it is past eleven. And it is you
who must be fatigued."
" No such good luck ; were I fatigued, I might
hope to sleep. I will walk back with you. Leave
me not alone in this room — alone in the jaws of
a Fish ; swallowed up by a creature whose blood
is cold."
"You have something still to say to me,"
said Alban, when they were in the open air;
"I detect it in your manner — ivhat is it ?"
"I know not. But you have told me no
news ; these streets are grown strange to me.
Who live now in yonder houses ? once the dwell-
ers were my friends."
" In that house — oh, new people ; I forget
their names — but rich — in a year or two, with
luck, they may be exclusives, and forget my
name. In the other house, Carr Vipont, still."
"Vipont; those dear Viponts ! what of them
all ? crawl they ? sting they ? Bask they in the
sun ? or are they in anxious process of a change
of skin?"
" Hush, my dear friend ; no satire on your
own connections ; nothing so injudicious. I am
a Vipont, too, and all for the family maxim —
'Vipont with Vipont, and come what may!'"
"I stand rebuked. But I am no Vipont. I
married, it is true, into their house, and they
married, ages ago, into mine ; but no drop in
the blood of time-servers flows through the veins
of the last childless Darrell. Fardon. I allow
the merit of the Vipont race ; no family more
excites my respectful interest. What of their
births, deaths, and marriages?"
Colonel MoiiLEY. "As to births, Carr has
just welcomed the birth of a grandson ; the first-
born of his eldest son (who married last year a
daughter of the Duke of Halifax) — a ]»romising
young man, a Lord in the Admiralty. Carr
has a second son in the Hussars ; has just
purchased his step : the other boys are still at
school. He has three daughters too, fine girls,
admirably brought up ; indeed, now I think of
it, the eldest, Honoria, might suit you ; highly
accomplished — well read, interests herself in
politics — a great admirer of intellect — of a very
serious turn of mind, too."
Daerell. " A female politician with a seri-
ous turn of mind — a farthing rushlight in a
London fog ! Hasten on to subjects less gloomy.
Whose funeral Achievement is that yonder?"
Colonel Mokley. " The late Lord Niton's,
father to Lady Montfort."
Dakuell. •" Lady JNIontfort ! Her father was
a Lyndsay, and died before the Flood. A del-
uge, at least, has gone over me and my world
since I looked on the face of his widow."
Colonel Mokley. "I speak of the present
Lord Montfort's wife — the Earl's. You of the
poor Marquis's — the last Marquis — the mar-
quisate is extinct. Surely, whatever your wan-
derings, you must have heard of the death of
the last Marquis of Montfort?"
"Yes, I heard of that," answered Darrell, in
a somewhat husky and muttered voice. " So he
is dead, the young man ! — What killed him ?"
Colonel Moeley. "A violent attack of
croup — quite sudden. He was staying at Carr's
at the time. I suspect that Carr made him
talk I a thing he was not accustomed to do :
deranged his system altogether. But don't let
us revive painful subjects."
Daeeell. " Was she with him at the time ?"
Colonel Morley. " Lady Montfort ? — 'No ;
they were very seldom together."
Daeeell. " She is not married again yet?"
Colonel Moeley. " No, but still young, and
so beautiful, she will have many offers. I know
those who are waiting to propose. Montfort has
been only dead eighteen months — died just be-
fore young Carr's marriage. His widow lives,
in complete seclusion, at her jointure-house near
Twickenham. She has only seen even me once
since her loss."
Darrell. " When was that ?"
Morley'. " About six or seven months ago ;
she asked after you with much interest."
Darrell. "After me!"
Colonel Morley'. " To be sure. Don't I
remember how constantly she and her mother
were at your house? Is it strange that she
should ask after you? Y'ou ought to know her
better — the most affectionate, grateful charac-
ter."
Darrell. "I dare say. But at the time you
refer to I was too occupied to acquire much ac-
curate knowledge of a young lady's character.
I should have kno^vn her mother's character
better, yet I mistook even that."
Colonel Morley. " Mrs. Lyndsay's charac-
ter j-ou might well mistake — charming but ar-
tificial : Lady Montfort is natural. Indeed, if
you had not that liberal prejudice against wid-
ows, she was the very person I was about to sug-
gest to you."
Darrell. " A fashionable beauty, and young
enough to be my daughter! Such is human
friendship ! So the marquisate is extinct, and
Sir James Vipont, whom I remember in the
House of Commons — respectable man — great
authority on cattle — timid, and always saying,
'■Did you read that article in to-day's paper?'
— has the estates and the earldom."
Colonel Morley. "Yes. There was some
fear of a disputed succession, but Sir James
made his claim very clear. Between you and
me, the change has been a serious affliction to
the Viponts. The late Lord was not wise, but
on State occasions he looked his part — tres
Grand Seigneur — and Carr managed the family
influence with admirable tact. The present
Lord has the habits of a yeoman ; his wife shares
his tastes. He has taken the management not
only of the property, but of its influence, out of
Carr's hands, and will make a sad mess of it, for
he is an impracticable, obsolete politician. He
will never keep the family together — impossible
— a sad thing. I remember how our last muster,
five years ago next Christmas, struck terror
into Lord 's Cabinet ; the mere report of
it in the newspapers set all people talking and
thinking. The result was, that, two weeks
after, proper overtures were made to Carr — he
consented to assist the Ministers — and the
Country was saved ! Now, thanks to this stu-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
153
pid new Earl, in eighteen months we have lost '
ground wliich it took at least a century and a
half to gain. Our votes are divided, our intlu-
enoe frittered away ; Montfort House is shut u]), I
and Carr, grown quite thin, says that, in the j
coming ' crisis' a Cabinet will not only be form-
ed, but will also last— last time enough for ir- i
reparable mischief — without a single Vipont iu
office." I
Thus Colonel Morley continued in mournful I
strain, Darrell silent by his side, till the Colonel
reached his own door. There, while applying
his latch-key to the lock, Alban's mind return-
ed from the perils that threatened the House
of Vipont and the Star of Brunswick to the
pcttv cliiims of private friendship. But even
these last were now blended with those grander
interests, due care for which every true patriot
of the House of Vipont imbibed with his mo-
ther's milk.
" Your appearance in town, my dear Darrell,
is most opportune. It will be an object with the
whole family to make the most of you at this
coming ' ckisis' — I say coming, for I believe it
nmst come. Your name is still frcslily remem-
bered — your position greater for having been
out of all the scrapes of the party the last si.v.-
teen or seventeen years ; your house should be
the nucleus of new combinations. Don't forget
to send Mills to me ; I will engage your c/icf
and your house-steward to-morrow. I know
just the men to suit yon. Y''our intention to
marry, too, just at this moment, is most season-
able ; it will increase the family interest. I may
give out that you intend to marry ?"
"Oil, certainly — cry it at Charing Cross."
" A club-room will do as well. T beg ten
thousanil pardons ; but peo])lc will talk about
money whenever they talk about marriage. L
should not like to exaggerate your fortune — I
know it must be very large, and all at your own
disposal — eh ?"
" Every shilling."
" You 'must have saved a great deal since you
retired into jirivate life ?"
" Take that for granted. Dick Fairthom re-
ceives my rents, and looks to my various invest-
ments ; and I take him as my indisputable au-
thority when I say that, what with the rental of
lands I purchased in my poor boy's lifetime, and
the interest on my much more lucrative money-
ed capital, you may safely wiiisjier to all ladies
likely to feel interest in that ditt'usion of knowl-
edge, ' Thirty-five thousand a year, and an old
fool.' "
" I certainly shall not say an old fool, for I am
the same age as yourself; and if I had £155,000
a year I would marry too."
" You would ! Old fool !" said Darrell, turn-
ing away.
CHAPTER V.
IJere.iling glimpses of Guy DarreU's past in his envied
prime. I >iK but deep enough, nnd under all earth runs
water, undiT all life runs grief.
Alonk in the streets, the vivacity which had
characterized DarreU's countenance as well as
his words, while with his old school friend,
changed as suddenly and as completely into
pensive abstracted gloom as if he had been act-
ing a part, and with the exit the acting ceased.
Disinclined to return yet to the solitude of his
home, he walked on, at first mechanically, in
the restless desire of movement, he cared not
whither. But, as thus chance-led, he found
himself in tlie centre of that long straight
thoroughfare which connects what once were
the seijaratc villages of Tyburn and Holborn,
something in the desultory links of reverie sug-
gested an object to his devious feet. He had
but to follow that street to his right hand to
gain, in a fpiarter of an hour, a sight of the
humble dwelling-house in which he had first
settled down, after his early marriage, to tho
arid labors of the bar. Hew ould go, now that,
wealthy and renowned, he was revisiting the
long deserted focus of English energies, and .
contemplate the obscure abode in which his
powers had been first concentred on the pursuit
of renown and wealth. Who among my read-
ers that may have risen on the glittering steep
("Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb?"*)
has not been similarly attracted toward the roof,
at the craggy foot of the ascent, under which
golden dreams refreshed his straining sinews?
Somewhat quickening his stejis, now that a
bourne was assigned to them, the man growing
old in years, but, unhappily for himself, too
tenacious of youth in its grand discontent, and
keen susceptibilities to pain, strode noiselessly
on, under the gaslights, under the stars ; gas-
lights primly marshaled at equidistance ; stars
that seem, to the naked eye, dotted over space
without symmetry or method — Man's order,
near and finite, is so distinct; the Maker's or-
der, remote, infinite, is so beyond ]\Ian's com-
prehension even of irhat is order!
Darrell paused, hesitating. He had now gain-
ed a spot in which improvement had altered the
landmarks. The superb broad thoroughfare con-
tinued where once it had vanished abrupt in a
labyrinth of courts and alleys. But the way was
not hard to find. He turned a little toward the
left, recognizing, with admiring interest, in the
gay white would-be Grecian edifice, with its
French ffrille, bronzed, gilded, the transformed
Museum, in the still libraries of which he had
sometimes snatched a brief and ghostly respite
from books of law. Onward yet through lifeless
Bloomsbury, not so far toward the last bounds
of Atlas asthe desolation of Todden Place, but
the solitude deepening as he passed. There
it is, a quiet street indeed! not a soul on its
gloomy pavements — not even a policeman's soul.
Naught stirring save a stealthy, profiigate, good-
for-nothing cat, flitting fine through yon area
bars. Down that street had he come, I trow,
with a livelier, quicker step the day when, by
the strange good luck which had uniformly at-
tended his worldly career of honors, he had l)een
suddenly called upon to supply the place of an
absent senior, and, in almost his earliest brief,
the Courts of Westminster had recognized a
master ; come, I trow, with a livelier stc]>, knock-
ed at that very door whereat he is halting now;
entered the room where the young wife sat, and
at sight of her querulous peevish face, and at
sound of her unsympathizing languid voice, fled
into his cupboard-like back-parlor— and mutter-
• "Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afarr
Beattie.
154
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
ed " courage" — courage to endure the home he
had entered longing for a voice which should
invite and respond to a crv of joj.
How closed up, dumb, and blind, looked the
small mean house, with its small mean door, its
small mean rayless windows. Yet a Fame had
been born there I Who are the residents now?
Buried in slumber, have tJtey anv " golden
dreams ?"' Works therein any struggling brain,
to which the prosperous man might whisper
" courage ;" or beats, there, any troubled heart
to which faithful woman should murmur "joy?"
Who knows ? London is a wondrous poem, but
each page of it is written in a different language ;
no lexicon yet composed for any.
Back through the street, under the gaslights,
under the stars went Guy Darrell, more slow
and more thoughtful. Did the comparison be- \
tween what he had been, what he was, the mean
home just revisited, the stately home to which
he would return, suggest thoughts of natural
pride ? it would not seem so ; no pride in those
close-shut lips, in that melancholy stoop.
He came into a quiet square — still Blooms-
bury — and right before him was a large respect-
able mansion, almost as large as that one in
courtlier quarters, to which he loiteringly de-
layed the lone return. There, too, had been,
for a time, the dwelling which was called his
home — there, when gold was rolling in like a
tide, distinction won, position assured, there —
not yet in Parliament, but foremost at the bar —
already pi-essed by constituencies, already wooed
by ministers — there, still young (oh, luckiest of
lawyei-s I) — there had he moved his household
gods. Fit residence for a Prince of the Gown.
Is it when living there that you would envy the !
prosperous man ? Yes, the moment his step <?i«V.-;
that door; but envy him when he enters its
threshold? — nay, envy rather that roofless Sa- ,
voyard who has crept under yonder portico,
asleep with his ragged arm round the cage of |
his stupid dormice ! There, in that great bar- \
ren drawing-room, sits a
'■Pale and elegant Aspasia."
Well, but the wife's face is not querulous now. j
Look again — anxious, fearful, secret, sly. Oh, '
that fine lady, a Vipont Crooke, is not content-
ed to be wife to the wealthy, great Mr. Darrell.
What wants she ? that he should be spouse to
the fashionable fine Mrs. Darrell? Pride in
him! not a jot of it; such pride were unchris- j
tian. Were he proud of her, as a Chiistian
husband ought to be of so elegant a wife, would
he still be in Bloomsburr ? Envy him ! the high
gentleman, so true to his blood, all galled and
blistered by the moral vulgarities of a tuft-hunt-
ing, toad-eating mimic of the Lady Selinas.
En\-y him ! well, why not ? All women have '
their foibles. Wise husbands must bear and
forbear. Is that all ? wherefore, then, is her i
aspect so furtive, wherefore on his a wild, vigi- i
lant sternness ? Tut, what so brings into cov- !
eted fashion a fiiir lady exiled to Bloomsbnry
as the marked adoration of a lord, not her own, '.
who gives law to St. James's 1 Untempted by
passion, cold as ice to affection, if thawed to the
gush of a sentiment, secretly preferring the hus-
band she chose, wooed, and won, to idlers less
gifted even in outward attractions ; all this, yet
seeking, coquetting for, the eckit of dishonor I
To elope ! Oh, no, too wary for that, but to be
gazed at and talked of, as the fair ]Mrs. Darrell,
to whom the Lovelace of London was so fondly
devoted. Walk in, haughty son of the Dare-all,
Darest thou ask who has just left thy house?
Darest thou ask what and whence is the note
that sly hand has secreted? Darest thou? —
perhaps yes : what then ? canst thou lock up
thy wife ? canst thou poniard the Lovelace ?
Lock up the air ; poniard all whose light word
in St. James's can bring into fashion the matron
of Bloomsburyl Go, lawyer, go, study briefs,
and be parchment.
Agonies — agonies — shot again through Guy
Darrell's breast, as he looked on that large, most
respectable house, and remembered his hourly
campaign against disgrace ! He has triumph-
ed. Death fights for him : on the very brink
of the last scandal, a cold, caught at some Vi-
pont's ball, became fever ; and so from that door
the Black Horses bore away the Bloomsbury
Dame, ere she was yet — the fashion I Happy
in grief the widower who may, with confiding
hand, ransack the lost wife's harmless desk, sure
that no thought concealed from him in hfe will
rise accusing from the treasured papers I But
that pale, proud mourner, hurrying the eye over
sweet-scented billets, compelled, in very justice
to the dead, to convince himself that the mo-
ther of his children was corrupt only at heart —
that the Black Horses had couic to the door in
time — and, wretchedly consoled by that nig-
gardly conviction, flinging into the flames the
last flimsy tatters on which his honor (rock-like
in his own keeping) had been fluttering to and
fro in the charge of a vain, treacherous fool !
Envy you that mourner ? No ! not even in his
rel.ease. ilemory is not nailed down in the vel-
vet coffin; and to great loyal natures, less bit-
ter is the memory of the lost when hallowed by
tender sadness, than when coujiled with scorn
and shame.
The wife is dead. Dead, too, long years ago,
the Lothario I The world has forgotten them ;
they fade out of this very record when ye turn
the page ; no influence, no bearing have they
on such future events as may mark what yet
rests of life to Guy Darrell. But as he there
stands and gazes into space, the two forms are
before his eye as distinct as if living still. Slow-
ly, slowly he gazes them down ; the false smiles
flicker away from their feeble lineaments ; woe
and terror on their aspects — they sink, they
shrivel, they dissolve !
CHAPTER VI.
The wreck cast back from Charybdis.
Souviens-toi de ta Gabrielle.
Gut Darkell turned hurriedly from the large
house in the great square, and, more and more
absorbed in reverie, he wandered out of his di-
rect way homeward, clear and broad though it
was, and did not rouse himself till he felt, as it
were, that the air had grown darker ; and look-
ing vaguely round, he saw that he had strayed
into a dim maze of lanes and passages. He
paused under one of the rare lamp-posts, gath-
ering up his recollections of the London he had
so long quitted, and doubtful for a moment or
two which turn to take. Just then, up from an
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
i;
allev fronting him at right angles, came sullen-
ly, warily, a tall, sinewy, ill-boding tatterdema-
lion figure, and seeing DarrcU's face under the
lamp, "halted abrupt at the mouth of the narrow
jiassage from which it had emerged — a dark
form filling up the dark aperture. Does that I
ragged wayfarer recognize a foe by the imper-
fect ray ofthe lamplight? or is he a mere vul- j
rrsLT footpad, who is doubting whether he should |
spring upon a prey ? Hostile his look — his ges- ,
ture— the sudden" cowering down of the strong
frame, as if for a bound ; but still he is irreso- j
lute. What awes him ? What awes the tiger, !
who would obey his blood-instinct without fear,
in his rush on the Negro — the Hindoo — but who
halts and hesitates at sight of the white man — t
the lordly son of Europe ? Darreli's eye was
turned toward the dark passage — toward the
dark figure — carelessly, neither recognizing, nor
fearing, nor defying — carelessly, as at any harm-
less object in crowded streets, and at broad day.
But while that eye was on him, the tatterdema-
lion halted ; and, indeed, whatever his hostility,
or whatever his daring, the sight of Darrell took
him by so sudden a sui-prise, that he could not
at once re-collect his thoughts, and determine
how to approach the quiet, unconscious man
who, in reach of his spring, fronted his over-
whelmin#c physical strength with the habitual
air of di^Tiified command. His first impulse
was that of violence ; his second impulse curb-
ed the first. But Dan-ell now turns quickly,
and walks straight on ; the figure quits the
mouth of the passage, and follows with a long
and noiseless stride. It has nearly gained Dar-
rell. With what intent ? A fierce one, per-
haps — for the man's face is sinister, and his
state evidently desperate — when there emerges
unexpectedly from an ugly-looking court or cul
lie sac, just between Dan-ell and his pursuer, a
slim, long-backed, buttoned-up, weasel-faced
policeman. The policeman eyes the tatterde-
malion instinctively, then turns his glance to-
ward the soUtary, defenseless gentleman in ad-
vance, and walks on, keeping himself between
the two. The tatterdemalion stifles an impa-
tient curse. Be his purpose force, be it only
supplication, be it colloquy of any kind, impos-
■• sible to fulfill it while that policeman is there.
True, that in his powerful hands he could have
clutched that slim, long-backed officer, and bro-
ken him in two as a willow wand. But that of-
ficer is the Personation of Law, and can stalk
through a legion of tatterdemalions as a ferret
may glide through a barn full of rats. The
prowler feels he is suspected. L'nknown as yet
to the London police, he has no desire to invite
their scrutiny. He crosses the way ; he falls
back ; he follows from afar. The policeman
may yet turn away before the safer streets of
the metropolis be gained. No ; the cursed In-
carnation of Law, with eyes in its slim back,
continues its slow stride at the heels of the un-
suspicious Darrell. The more solitary defiles
are alreadv passed — now that dim lane, with its
dead wall on one side. By the dead wall skulks
the prowler; on the other side still walks The
Law. Now — alas for the prowler I — shine out
the thoroughfares, no longer dim nor deserted
— Leicester Square, the Haymarket, Pall Mall,
Carlton Gardens ; Darrell is at his door. The
policeman turns sharply round. There, at the
comer near the learned Club-house, halts the
tatterdemalion. Toward the tatterdemalion the
policeman now advances quickly. The tatter-
demalion is quicker still — fled like a guilty
thought.
Back — back — back into that maze of passages
and courts — back to the mouth of that black al-
ley. There he halts again. Look at him. He
has arrived in London but that very night, aft-
er an absence of more than four years. He has
arrived from the sea-side on foot ; see, his shoes
are worn into holes. He has not yet found a
shelter for the night. He had been directed to-
ward that quarter, thronged with adventurers,
native and foreign, for a shelter, safe, if squalid.
It is somewhere near that court, at the mouth
of which he stands. He looks i-ound, the po-
liceman is bafrled, the coast clear. He steals
forth, and pauses under the same gaslight as
that under which Guy Darrell had paused be-
fore — under the same gaslight, under the same
stars. From some recess in his rags he draws
forth a large, distained, distended pocket-book
— last relic of sprucer days — leather of dainty
morocco, once elaborately tooled, patent springs,
fairy lock, fit receptacle for bank-notes, billets-
doux, memoranda of debts of honor, or jileasur-
able engagements. Now how worn, tarnished,
greasy, rapscallion-like, the costly bauble ! Fill-
ed with what motley, unlovable contents — stalp
pawn-tickets of foreign inonts de jtiete, pledges
never henceforth to be redeemed ; scrawls by
villainous hands in thievish hieroglyphics ; ugly
implements replacing the malachite penknife,
the golden tooth-pick, the jeweled pencil-case,
once so neatly set within their satin lappets.
L'gly implements, indeed — a file, a gimlet, load-
ed dice. Pell-mell, with such more hideous and
recent contents, dishonored evidences of gaudi-
er summer life — locks of ladies' hair, love-notes
treasured mechanically, not from amorous sen-
timent, but perhaps from some vague idea that
they might be of use if those who gave the
locks or wrote the notes should be raised in for-
tune, and could buy back the memorials of
shame. Diving amidst these miscellaneous
documents and treasures, the j)rowler's hand
rested on some old letters in clerk-like fair ca-
ligraphy, tied round with a dirty string, and on
them, in another and fresher writing, a scrap
that contained an address — " tSamucl Adoli)hus
Poole, Esq.,- Alhambra Villa, Regent's Park."
" To-morrow, Nix my Dolly ; to-morrow," mut-
tered the tatterdemalion ; "but to-night — plague
on it, where is the other blackguard's direction ?
Ah, here — " And he extracted from the thiev-
ish scrawls a peadiarlj thievish-looking hiero-
glvph. Now, as he lifts it up to read by the gas-
light, survey him well. Do you not know him?
Is°it possible? What! the" brilliant sharper!
The ruffian exquisite ! Jasper Losely ! Can it
be ? Once before, in the fields of Fawlcy, we
beheld him out of elbows, seedy, shabby, ragged.
But then it was the decay of" a foppish spend-
thrift — clothes distained," ill-assorted, yet still
of fine cloth; shoes in holes, yet still pearl-col-
ored brodequins. But now it is the decay of no
foppish spendthrift ; the rags arc not of fine
' cloth ; the tattered shoes are not brodequins.
j The man has fallen far below the polifer grades
j of knavery, in which the sharper aflects the
i beau. Aiid the countenance, as we last saw it,
15G
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
if it had lost mncli of its earlier beauty, was still
incontestably handsome. What with vigor, and
health, and animal spirits, then on the aspect
still lingered light ; nou\ from corruption, the
light itself was gone. In that Herculean con-
stitution excess of all kinds had at length forced
its ravage, and the ravage was \-isible in the ru-
ined face. The once sparkling eye was dull and
bloodshot. The colors of the cheek, once clear
and vivid, to which fiery diink had only sent the
blood in a warmer glow, were now of a leaden
dullness, relieved but by broken streaks of angiy
red — like gleams of flame struggling through
gathered smoke. The profile, once sharp and
delicate like Apollo's, was now confused in its
swollen outline ; a few years more, and it would
be gross as that of Silenus — the nostrils, dis-
tended with incipient carbuncles, which betray
the gnawing fang that alcohol fastens into the
liver. Evil passions had destroyed the outline
of the once beautiful lips, arched as a Cupid's
bow. The sideling, lowering, villainous ex- 1
pression which had formerly been but occasion- '
al, was now habitual and heightened. It was
the look of the bison before it gores. It is true,
however, that even yet on the countenance there
lingered the trace of that lavish favor bestowed
on it by nature. An artist would still have said,
" How handsome that ruggamufiin must have
been I" And true is it, also, that there was yet i
that about the bearing of the man which con-
trasted his squalor, and seemed to say that he
had not been born to wear rags, and loiter at [
midnight among the haunts of thieves. Nay, I
am not sui-e that you would have been as incred- :
ulous now, if told that the wild outlaw before i
you had some claim by birth or by nurture to '
the rank of gentleman, as you would had yoii
seen the gay spendthrift in his gaudy day. For
then he seemed below, and now he seemed
above, the grade in which he took place. And
all this made his aspect yet more sinister, and
the impression that he was dangerous yet more
profound. Muscular strength often remains to
a powerful frame long after the constitution is
undermined, and Jasper's Losely's frame was
still that of a formidable athlete ; nay, its
strength was yet more apparent now that the
shoulders and limbs had increased in bulk, than
when it was half-disguised in the lissom sym-
metry of exquisite proportion — less active, less
supple, less capable of endurance, but with more
crushing weight in its rush or its blow. It was
the figure in which brute force seems so to pre-
dominate that in a savage state it would have
worn a crown — the figure which secures com-
mand and authority in all societies where force
alone gives the law. Thus, under the gaslight
and under the stars, stood the terrible animal —
a strong man imbruted — " Souviens-toi l»e ta
Gabhielle." There, still uneffaced, though the
gold-threads are all tarnished and ragged, are
the ominous words on the silk of the she-devil's
love-token ! But Jasper has now inspected the
direction on the paper he held to the lamp-
light, and, satisfying himself that he was in the
right quarter, restored the paper to the bulky,
distended pocket-book, and walked sullenly on
toward the court from which had emerged the
policeman who had crossed his prowling chase.
" It is tlie most infernal shame," said Losely,
between his grinded teeth, " that I should be
driven to these wretched dens for a lodging,
while that man who ought to feel bound to main-
tain me should be rolling in wealth, and cotton-
ed up in a palace. But he shall fork out. So-
phy must be hunted up. I will clothe her in
rags like these. She shall sit at his street-door.
I will shame the miserly hunks. But how track
the girl ? Have I no other hold over him ? Can
I send Dolly Poole to him? How addled my
brains are! — want of food — want of sleep. Is
this the place ? Peuh!"
Thus murmuring he now reached the arch of
the court, and was swallowed up in its gloom.
A few strides, and he came into a square open
space, only lighted by the skies. A house, larg-
er than the rest, which were of the meanest or-
der, stood somewhat back, occupying nearly one
side of the quadrangle — old, dingy, dilapidated.
At the door of this house stood another man,
applying his latch-key to the lock. As Losely
approached, the man turned quickly, half in fear,
half in menace — a small, very thin, impish-look-
ing man, with peculiarly restless features that
seemed trying to run away from his face. Thin
as he was, he looked all skin and no bones — a
gobhn of a man whom it would not astonish you
to hear could creep through a keyhole. Seem-
ing still more shadowy and impalpable by his
slight, thin, sable dress, not of cloth, but a sort
of stuff like alpaca. Xor was that dress ragged,
nor, as seen but in starlight, did it look worn or
shabby ; still you had but to glance at the creat-
ure to feel that it was a child in the same Fam-
ily of Xight as the ragged felon that towered by
its side. The two outlaws stared at each other.
"Cutts I" said Losely, in the old rollicking voice,
but in a hoarser, rougher key — " Cutts, my boy,
here I am, welcome me !"
" What ! General Jas. I" retnrned Cutts, in a
tone which was not without a certain respectful
awe, and then proceeded to pour out a series of
questions in a mysterious language, which may
be thus translated and abridged : " How Icng
have you been in England? how has it fared
with you? you seem very badly oft? coming
here to hide ? nothing very bad, I hope ? what
is it?"
Jasper answered in the same language, though
with less practiced mastery of it — and with that
constitutional levity which, whatever the time or
circumstance, occasionally gave a strange sort
of wit, or queer, uncanny, devd-me-care vein of
drollery, to his modes of expression.
"Three months of the worst luck man ever
had — a row vrith. the gens-iTarmes — long story
— three of our pals seized — affair of the galleys
for them, I suspect — French frogs can't seize
me — fricasseed one or two of them — broke away
— crossed the countr}- — reached the coast — found
an honest smuggler — landed ofi" Sussex with a
few other kegs of brandy — remembered you —
preserved the address you gave me — and conde-
scend to this rat-hole for a night or so. Let me
in — knock up somebody — break open the larder
— I want to eat — I am famished — I should have
eaten you by this time, only there's nothing on
your bones."
The little man opened the door — a passage
black as Erebus. " Give me your hand. Gener-
al." Jasper was led through the pitchy gloom
for a few yards ; then the guide found a gas-
cock, and the place broke suddenly into light.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
157
A dirty narrow stair-case on one side ; facing it,
a sort "of lobby, in which an open door showed a
long, sanded parlor, like that in public-houses —
several tables, benches, the walls whitewashed,
but adorned with sundry ingenious designs made
by charcoal or the smoked ends of clay-pipes.
A strong smell of stale tobacco and of gin and
rum. Another gaslight, swinging from the cen-
tre of the ceiling, sprang into light as Cutts
touched the tap-cock.
'« Wait here, " said the guide. " I will go and
get you some supper."
"And some brandy," said Jasper.
" Of course."
The bravo threw himself at length on one of
the tables, and, closing his eyes, moaned. His
vast strength had become acquainted with phys-
ical pain. In its stout knots and fibres, aches
and sharp twinges, the dragon-teeth of which
had been sown years ago in revels or brawls,
which then seemed to bring but innocuous joy
and easy triumph, now began to gnaw and grind.
But when Cutts reappeared with coarse viands
and the brandy-bottle, Jasper shook off the sense
of pain, as does a wounded wild beast that can
still devour ; and after regaling fast and raven-
ously, he emptied half the bottle at a draught,
and felt himself restored and fresh.
" Shall you fling yourself among the swell fel-
lows who iiold their club here. General?" asked
Cutts ; " 'tis a bad trade, every year it gets worse.
Or have you not some higher game in your
eye ?"
" I have higher game in my eye. One bird I
marked down this very night. But that may be
slow work, and uncertain. I have in this pocket-
book a bank to draw upon meanwhile."
"How? — forged French billets de banque —
dangerous."
"Pooh ! better than that ; letters which prove
theft against a respectable rich man."
"Ah, you expect hush-money?"
" Exactly so. I have good friends in Lon-
don."
"Among them, I suppose, that affectionate
' adopted mother' who would have kept you in
such order."
"Thousand thundei-s! I hope not. I am not
a superstitious man, but I fear that woman as if
she were a witch, and I believe she is one. You
remember black Jean, whom we called Sans cu-
lotte. He would have filled a church-yard with
his own brats for a five-franc piece ; but he
would not have crossed a church-yard alone at
night for a thousand Naps. Well, that woman
to me is what a church-yard was to black Jean.
No ; if she is in London, I have but to go to her
house and say, ' Food, shelter, money ;' and I
would rather ask Jack Ketch for a rope."
"How do you account for it, General? She
does not beat you — she is not your wife. I have
seen many a stout fellow, who would stand fire
without blinking, show the white feather at a
scold's tongue. But then he must be spliced to
her — "
"Cutts, that grifiin does not scold — she
preaches. She wants to make me spooney,
Cutts — she talks of my young days, Cutts — she
wants to blight me into what she calls an hon-
est man, Cutts ; — the virtuous dodge ! She snubs
and cows me, and frightens me out of my wits,
Catts. For I do believe that the witch is de-
termined to have me, body and soul, and to
marry me some day in spite of myself, Cutts.
And if ever you see me about to be clutched in
those horrible paws, poison me with ratsbane,
or knock me on the head, Cutts."
The little man laughed a little laugh, sharp
and eldritch, at the strange cowardice of the
stalwart dare-devil. But Jasper did hot echo the
laugh.
"Hush !" he said, timidly, "and let me have
a bed, if you can ; I have not slept in one for a
week, and my nerves are shaky."
The imp lighted a candle-end at the gas-lamp,
and conducted Losely up the stairs to his o^^^l
sleeping-room, which was less comfortless than
might be supposed. He resigned his bed to the
wanderer, who flung himself on it, rags and all.
But sleep was no more at his command than it
is at a king's.
" Why the did you talk of that witch?"
he cried, jieevishly, to Cutts, who was composing
himself to rest on the floor. " I swear I fsmcy
I feel her sitting on my chest like a nightmare."
He turned with a vehemence which shook the
walls, and wrapped the coverlid round him,
plunging his head into its folds. Strange though
it seem to the novice in human nature — to Jas-
per Losely the woman who had so long lived but
for one object — viz., to save him from the gibbet,
was as his evil genius, his haunting fiend. He
had conceived a prof^ound terror of her, from
the moment he perceived that she was resolutely
bent upon making him honest. He had broken
from her years ago — fled — resumed his evil
courses — hid himself from her — in vain. Wher-
ever he went, there went she. He might baftle
the police, not her. Hunger had often forced
him to accept her aid. As soon as he received
it, he hid from her again, burying himself deeper
and deeper in the mud, like a persecuted tench.
He associated her idea with all the ill-luck that
had befallen him. Several times some villainous
scheme on which he had counted to make his
fortune had been baffled in the most mysteri-
ous way ; and just when baffled — and there
seemed no choice but to cut his own throat or
some one else's — up turned grim Arabella Crane,
in the iron-gray go^Ti, and with the iron-gray
ringlets — hatefully, awfully beneficent — offering
food, shelter, gold — and some demoniacal, hon-
orable work. Often had he been in imminent
peril from watchful law or treacherous accom-
plice. She had warned and saved him as she
had saved him from the fell Gabrielle Desmarets,
who, unable to bear the sentence of penal servi-
tude, after a long process defended with aston-
ishing skill, and enlisting the romantic sympa-
thies of young France, had contrived to escape
into another -(TOrld by means of a subtle poison
concealed about her distinguee person, and which
she had prepared years ago with her own blood-
less hands, and no doubt scientifically tested its
eft'ect on others. The cobra capella is gone at
last! '' Souviens-toi de ta Gabrielle" O Jasper
j Losely ! But why Arabella Crane should thus
I continue to watch over him whom she no longer
professed to love— how she should thus have ac-
quired the gift of ubiquity and the power to save
him— Jasp'er Losely could not conjecture. The
whole thing seexne"d to him weird and super-
natural. Most truly did he say that she had
cowed him. He had often longed to strangle
158
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
her ; when absent from her, had often resolved
Upon that act of gratitude. The moment he
came in sight of her stern, haggard face — her
piercing lurid eves — the moment he heard her
slow, dry voice in some such sentences as these,
"Again you come to me in your trouble, and
ever shall. Am I not still as your mother, but
with a wife's fidelity, till death us do part.
There is the portrait of what you were — look at
it, Jasper. Xow turn to the glass — see what
you are. Think of the fate of Gabrielle Des-
marets I But for me what, long since, had been
your own ? But I will save you — I have sworn
it. You shall be wax in these hands at last ;"
the moment that voice thus claimed and insisted
on redeeming him, the ruflnan felt a cold shud-
der — his courage oozed — he could no more have
nerved his arm against her than a Thug would
have lifted his against the dire goddess of his
murderous superstition. Jasper could not resist
a belief that the life of this dreadful protectress
was, somehow or other, made essential to his —
that, were she to die, he should perish in some
ghastly and preternatural expiation. But for
the last few months he had, at length, esca{^d
from her — diving so low, so deep into the mud,
that even her net could not mesh him. Hence,
perhaps, the imminence of the perils from which
he had so narrowly escaped — hence the utter-
ness of his present destitution. But man, how-
ever vile, whatever his peril, whatever his desti-
tution, was born free, and loves liberty. Liberty
to go to Satan in his own way was to Jasper
Losely a supreme blessing compared to that be-
nignant compassionate espionaye, with its relent-
less eye and restraining hand. Alas arid alas !
deem not this perversity unnatural in that head-
strong self-destroyer I How many are there
whom not a grim hard-featured Arabella Crane,
but the long-suflFering, dinne, omniscient, gen-
tle Providence itself, seeks to warn, to aid, to
save — and is shunned, and loathed, and fled
from, as if it were an e\-il genius I How manv
are there who fear nothing so much as tlie being
made good in spite of themselves ? — how many ?
— who can count them?
CHAPTER VII.
The public man needs but o:ii! patron — vi/^, the lucky
MOMENT.
"At his house in Carlton Gardens, Guy Dar-
rell, Esq., for the season."
Simple insertion in the pompous list of Fash-
ionable Arrivals ! — the name of a plain com-
moner imbedded in the amber which glitters
with so many coronets and stars! Yet such is
England, with all its veneration for titles, that
the eyes of the public passed indifferently over
the rest of that chronicle of illustrious "where-
abouts," to rest with interest, curiosity, specu-
lation, on the unemblazoncd name which but a
day before had seemed slipped out of date — ob-
solete as that of an actor who figures no more
in play-bills. Unquestionably the sensation ex-
cited was due, in much, to tiie " ambiguous
voices" which Colonel Morley had disseminated
throughout the genial atmosphere of Club-rooms.
"Arrived in London for the season I" he, the
orator, once so famous, long so forgotten, who
had been out of the London world for the space
of more than half a generation. "Why now?
why for the season?" quoth the Colonel. "He
is still in the prime of life as a public man, and
— a CRISIS is at hand I"
But that which gave weight and significance
to Alban Morley's hints, was the report in the
newspapers of Guy Darrell's visit to his old con-
stituents, and of the short speech he had ad-
dressed to them, to which he had so slightly re-
ferred in his conversation with Alban. True,
the speech teas short : true, it touched but little
on passing topics of political interest — rather
alluding, with modesty and terseness, to the con-
tests and victories of a former day. But still,
in the few words there was the swell of the old
clarion — the wind of the Paladin's horn which
woke Fontarabian echoes.
It is astonishing how capricious, how sudden
are the changes in value of a public man. All
depends upon whether the public want, or be-
lieve they want, the man ; and that is a ques-
tion upon which the pubUc do not know their
own minds a week before ; nor do they always
keep in the same mind, when made up, for a
week together. If they do not want a man — if
he do not hit the taste, nor respond to the exi-
gency of the time — whatever his eloquence, his
abilities, his virtues, they push him aside, or cry
him down. Is he wanted? — does the min-or of
the moment reflect his image ? — that mirror is
an intense magnifier; his proportions swell —
they become gigantic. At that moment the pub-
lic wanted some man ; and the instant the hint
v.-as given, "Why not Guy Darrell?" Guy Dar-
rell was seized upon as the man wanted. It was
one of those times in our Pari iamentaiy history
when the public are out of temper with all par-
ties — when recognized leaders have contrived to
damage themselves — when a Cabinet is shak-
ing, and the public neither care to destroy nor to
keep it ; a time, too, when the country seemed
in some danger, and when, mere men of busi-
ness held unequal to the emergency, whatever
name suggested associations of vigor, eloquence,
genius, rose to a premium above its market-
price in times of tranquillity- and tape. With-
out effort of his own — by the mere force of the
under-current — Guy Darrell was thrown up from
oblivion into note. He could not form a cabinet
— certainly not ; but he might help to bring a
cabinet together, reconcile jarring elements, ad-
just disputed questions, take in such government
some high place, influence its councils, and de-
i light a public weary of the oratory of the day
with the eloquence of a former race. For the
public is ever a laudator temporis acti, and what-
ever the authors or the orators immediately be-
fore it, were those authors and orators Homers
and Ciceros, would still shake a disparaging
j head, and talk of these degenerate days, as Ho-
mer himself talked ages before Leonidas stood
in the Pass of Thermopylae, or Miltiades routed
Asian armaments at Marathon. Guy Darrell
; belonged to a former race. The fathers of those
young Members rising now into fame, had quot-
' ed to their sons his pithy sentences, his virid im-
ages ; and added, as Fox added when quoting
Burke, " but you should have heard and seen
the man!"
Heard and seen the man! But there he was
again ! — come up as from a grave — come up to
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
159
the public just when such a man was wanted.
Wanted how ? wanted where ? Oh. somehow
and somewhere I There he is I make the most
of him.
The house in Carlton Gardens is prepared,
the establishment mounted. Thither flock all
the Viponts — nor they alone ; all the chiefs of
all parties — nor they alone ; all the notabilities
of our grand metropolis. Guy Darrell might be
startled at his own position ; but he compre-
hended its nature, and it did not discompose
his ner^•es. He knew public life well enough
to be aware how much the popular favor is the
creature of an accident. By chance he had
nicked the time ; had he thus come to town the
season before, he might have continued obscure ;
a man like Guy Darrell not being wanted then.
Whether with or without design, his bearing
confirmed and extended the effect produced by
his reappearance. Gracious, but modestly re-
served — he spoke little, listened beautifully.
Many of the questions which agitated all around
him had grown up into importance since his dav
of action ; nor in his retirement had he traced
their progressive development, with their change-
ful effects upon men and parties. But a man
who has once gone deeply into practical politics
might sleep in the cave of Trophonius for twen-
ty years, and find, on waking, veri' httle to learn.
Darrell regained the level of the day, and seized
upon all the strong points on which men were
divided, whh the rapidity of a prompt and com-
prehensive intellect — his judgment perhaps the
clearer from the freshness oi' long repose, and
the composure of dispassionate survey. "\\*hen
partisans ^Tangled as to what should have been
done, Darrell was silent ; when they asked what
should be done, out came one of his terse sen-
tences, and a knot was cut. Meanwhile it is
true this man, round whom expectations group-
ed and rumor buzzed, was in neither House of
Parliament ; but that was rather a delay to his
energies than a detriment to his consequence.
Important constituencies, anticipating a vacan-
cy, were already on the look-out for him ; a
smaller constituency, in the interim, CarrYipont
undei-took to procure him any day. There was
always a Vipont ready to accept something —
even the Chiltem Hundreds. But Darrell, not
without reason, demurred at re-entering the
House of Commons after an absence of seven-
teen years. He had left it with one of those
rare reputations which no wise man likes rash-
ly to imperih The Yiponts sighed. He would
certainly be more useful in the Commons than
the Lords, but still in the Lords he would be of
great use. They would want a debating lord,
perhaps a lord acquainted with law in the com-
ing CRISIS ; — if he preferred the peerage ? Dar-
rell demurred still. The man's modesty was
insufferable — his style of speaking might not
suit that august assembly ; and as to law — he
could never now be a law lord — he should be
but a ci-devant advocate, affecting the part of a
judicial amateur.
In short, without declining to re-enter public
life, seeming, on the contrary, to resume all his
interest in it, Darrell contrived with admirable
dexterity to elude for the present all overtures
pressed upon hira. and even to convince his ad-
mirers, not only of his wisdom but of his patri-
otism in that reticence. For certainly he thus
managed to exercise a very considerable influ-
ence — his advice was more sought, his sugges-
tions more heeded, and his power in reconciling
certain rival jealousies was perhaps greater than
would have been the case if he had actually en-
tered either House of Parliament, and thrown
himself exclusively into the ranks, not only of
one party, but of one section of a party. Nev-
ertheless, such suspense could not last very long;
he must decide at all events before the next ses-
sion. Once he was seen in the arena of his old
; triumphs, on the benches devoted to strangers
1 distinguished by the Speaker's order. There,
recognized by the older members, eagerlv gazed
at by the younger, Guy Darrell listened calmly,
throughout a long field night, to voices that
must have roused from forgotten graves, kin-
dhng and glorious memories ; voices of those —
veterans now — by whose side he had once strug-
gled for some cause which he had then, in the
necessary exaggeration of all honest enthusiasm,
identified with a nation's life-blood. Yoices too
of the old antagonists, over whose routed argu-
ments he had marched triumphant amidst ap-
plauses that the next day rang again through
England from side to side. Hark,^he very man
with whom, in the old battle-days, he had been
the most habitually pitted, is speaking now.
His tones are embarrassed — his argument con-
fused. Does he know who listens yonder? Old
members think so — smile, whisper each ether,
and glance significantly Mhere DaiTell sits.
gits, as became him, tranquil, respectful, in-
tent, seemingly, perhaps really, unconscious of
the sensation he excites. What an eye for an
orator I how like the eye in a portrait I it seems
to fix on each other eye that seeks it — steady,
fascinating. Yon distant members behind the
Speaker's chair, at the far distance, feel the light
of that eye travel toward them. How lofty and
massive among all those rows of human heads
seems that forehead, bending slightly dovna, with
the dark, strong line of the weighty eyebrow!
But what is passing within that secret mind?
Is there mournfulness in the retrospect? Is
there eagerness to renew the strife? Is that
interest in the Hour's debate feigned or real?
Impossible for him who gazed upon that face to
say. And that eye would have seemed to the
gazer to read himself through and through to
the heart's core, long ere the gazer could haz-
ard a single guess as to the thoughts beneath
that marble forehead, as to the emotions Mithin
the heart over which, in old senatorial fashion,
the arms were folded with so conventional an
ease.
CHAPTER Vni.
Darrell and Lionel.
Daeeell had received Lionel with some evi-
dent embarrassment, which soon yielded to af-
fectionate warmth. He took to the young man
whose fortunes he had so improved : he felt that
with the improved fortunes the young man's
whole being was improved ; — assured position,
early commune with the best social circles, in
which the equality of fashion smooths away all
disparities in rank, had softened in Lionel much
of the wayward and morbid irritability of his
boyish pride ; but the high spirit, the generous
IGO
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
love of independence, the scorn of mei-cenary
calculation, were strong as ever ; these were in
the grain of his nature. In common with all
who in youth aspire to be one day noted from
"the undistinguishable many," Lionel had form-
ed to himself a certain ideal standard, above
the ordinary level of what the world is content-
ed to call honest, or esteem clever. He admit-
ted into his estimate of life the heroic element,
not undesirable even in tlie most practical point
of view, for the world is so in the habit of de-
crying — of disbelieving in high motives and pure
emotions — of daguerreotyping itself with all its
ugliest wrinkles, stripped of the true bloom that
brightens, of the true expression that redeems,
those defects which it invites the sun to limn,
that we shall never judge human nature aright,
if we do not set out in life with our gaze on its
fairest beauties, and our belief in its latent good.
In a word, we should begin with the Heroic, if
we would learn the Human. But though to
himself Lionel thus secretly prescribed a certain
superiority of type, to be sedulously aimed at,
even if never actually attained, he was wholly
without pedantry and arrogance toward his own
contemporaries. From this he was saved not
only by good-nature, animal spirits, frank hard-
ihood, but by the very affluence of ideas which
animated his tongue, colored his language, and
whether to young or old, wise or dull, made his
conversation racy and original. He was a de-
lightful companion; and if he had taken much
instruction from those older and wiser than
himself, he so bathed that instruction in the
fresh fountain of his own lively intelligence, so
warmed it at his own beating, impulsive heart,
that he could make an old man's gleanings from
experience seem a young man's guesses into
truth. Faults he had, of coui-se — chiefly the
faults common at his age ; among them, per-
haps, the most dangerous were — Firstly, care-
lessness in money matters ; secondly, a distaste
for advice in which prudence was visibly pre-
dominant. His tastes were not in reality ex-
travagant ; but money slipped through his hands,
leaving little to show for it ; and when his quar-
terly allowance became due, ami)le though it
was — too ample, perhaps — debts wholly forgot-
ten started up to seize hold of it. And debts,
as yet being manageable, were not regarded with
sufficient horror. Faid or put aside, as the case
might be, they were merely looked u])on as bores.
Youth is in danger till it learu to look upon
them as furies. For advice, he took it with
pleasure, when clothed with elegance and art —
when it addressed ambition — when it exalted
the loftier virtues. But advice, practical and
prosy, went in at one ear and out at the other.
In fact, with many talents, he had yet no ade-
quate ballast of common sense ; and if ever he
get enough to steady his bark through life's try-
ing voyage, the necessity of so much dull weight
must be forcibly striken home less to his reason
than his imagination or his heart. Bnt if, some-
how or other, he get it not, I will not insure his
vessel.
I know not if Lionel Haughton had genius ;
he never assumed that he had ; l)ut he had
something more like genius than tiiat in'ototy])e
— iiEsoLVE — of which lie boasted to the artist.
He had youth — real youth — youth of nrind,
youth of heart, youth of soul. Lithe and supple
as he moved before you, with the eye to which
light or dew sprung at once from a nature vi-
brating to every lofty, every tender thought, he
seemed more than young — the incarnation of
youth.
Darrell took to him at once. Amidst all the
engagements crowded on the important man,
he contrived to see Lionel daily. And what
may seem strange, Guy Darrell felt more at
home with Lionel Haughton than with any of
his own contemporaries — than even with Alban
jVIorley. To the last, indeed, he opened speech
with less reserve of certain portions of the past,
or of certain projects in the future. But still,
even there, he adopted a tone of half-playful,
half-mournful satire, which might be in itself
disguise. Alban Morley, with all his good qual-
ities, was a man of the world ; as a man of the
world, Guy Darrell talked to him. But it was
only a very small part of Guy Darrell the man
of which the world could say "mine."
To Lionel he let out, as if involuntarily, the
more amiable, tender, poetic attributes of his
varying, complex, uncompreheuded character;
not professedly confiding, but not taking pains
to conceal. Hearing what worldlings would call
" Sentiment" in Lionel, he seemed to glide soft-
ly down to Lionel's own years, and talk " senti-
ment" in return. After all, this skilled lawyer,
this noted politician, had a great dash of the boy
still in him. Reader, did you ever. meet a re-
ally clever man who had not ?
CHAPTER IX.
Saith a very homely proverb (pardon its vulgarity),
"You can not make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
But a sow's ear is a much finer work of art than a silk
purse. And grand, indeed, the mechanician who could
make a sow's ear out of a silk purse, or conjure into
creatures of flesh and blood the sarcenet and tulle of a
Loudon drawing-room.
' ' Mamma," asked Honoria Carr Vipont, " what
sort of a person was Mrs. Darrell ?"
" She was not in our set, my dear," answered
Lady Selina. "The Vipont Crookes are just
one of those connections in which, though, of
course, one is civil to all connections, one is
more or less intimate, according as they take
after the Viponts or after the Crookes. Poor
woman ! she died just before Mr. Darrell entered
Parliament, and appeared in society. But I
should say she was not an agreeable pei'son.
Not nice," added Lady Selina, after a pause,
and conveying a M'orld of meaning in that con-
ventional monosyllable.
"I suppose she was very accomplished — very
clever?"
" Quite the reverse, my dear. Mr. Darrell was
exceedingly young when he married — scarcely
of age. She was not the sort of woman to suit
him."
" But at least she must have been very much
attached to him — very proud of him?"
Lady Selina glanced aside from her work,
and observed her daughter's face, which evinced
an animation not usual to a young lady of a
breeding so lofty, and a mind so well disci-
plined.
"I don't think," said Lady Selina, "that she
was proud of him. She would have been proud
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
161
of his station, or rather of that to which his fame
and fortune would have raised her, had she
lived to enjoy it. But for a few years after her
marriage they were very poor ; and though his
rise at the bar was sudden and brilliant, he was
lone wholly absorbed in his profession, and lived
in Bloomsbury. Mrs. Darrell was not proud of
that. The Crookes are generally fine — give
themselves airs — marry into great houses if they
can — but we can't naturalize them — they always
remain Crookes — useful connections, veiy I Carr
says we have not a mox'e useful — but third-rate,
my dear. All the Crookes are bad wives, be-
cause they are never satisfied with their own
homes, but are always trying to get into great
people's homes. Not very long before she died, 1
Mrs. Darrell took her friend and relation, Mrs.
Lyndsay, to live with her. I suspect it was not
from affection, or any great consideration for
Mrs. Lyndsay's circumstances (which were in-
dee'd those of actual destitution, till — thanks to
Mr. DaiTell — she won her lawsuit), but simply
because she looked to Mrs. Lyndsay to get her
into our set. Mrs. Lyndsay was a great favorite
with all of us, charming manners — perfectly cor-
rect, too — thorough Vipont — thorough gentle-
woman — but artful! Oh, so artful I She hu-
mored poor Mrs. Darrell's absurd vanity ; but
she took care not to injure herself. Of course,
Darrell's wife, and a Vipont — though only a
Vipont Crooke — had free passport into the out-
skirts of good society, the great parties, and so
forth. But there it stopped ; even I should have
been compromised if I had admitted into our set
a woman who was bent on compromising her-
self. Handsome — in a bad style — not the Vi-
pont tournure ; and not only silly and flirting,
but — (we are alone, keep the secret) — decided-
ly vulgar, my dear."
" You amaze me ! How such a man — " Ho-
noria stopped, coloring up to the temples.
"Clever men," said LadySelina, "as a gen-
eral rule, do choose the oddest wives ! The clev-
erer a man is, the more easily, I do believe, a
woman can take him in. However, to do Mr.
Darrell justice, he has been taken in only once.
After Mrs. Darrell's death, Jlrs. Lyndsay, I
suspect, tried her chance, but failed. Of course,
she could not actually stay ia the same house
with a widower who was then young, and who
had only to get rid of a wife to whom one was
forced to be shy, in order to be received into our
set with open arms ; and, in short, to be of the
very best monde. Mr. Darrell came into Parlia-
ment immensely rich (a legacy from an old East
Indian, besides his own professional savings) —
took the house he has now, close by us. Mrs.
Lyndsay was obliged to retire to a cottage at Ful-
ham. But as she professed to be a second mo-
ther to poor Matilda Darrell, she contrived to
be very much at Carlton Gardens ; her daughter
Caroline was nearly always there, profiting by
Matilda's masters ; and I did think that Mrs.
Lyndsay would have caught Darrell — but your
papa said 'No,' and he was right, as he always
is. Nevertheless, Mrs. Lyndsay would have been
an excellent wife to a public man — so popular —
knew the world so well — never made enemies
till she made an enemy of poor dear Montfort ;
but that was natural. By-the-by, I must write
to Caroline. Sweet creature ! but how absurd,
shutting herself up as if she were fretting for
Montfort! That's so like her mother — heart-
less — but full of propriety."
Here Carr Vipont and Colonel Morley entered
the room. "We have just left Darrell," said
Carr; "he will dine here to-day, to meet our
cousin Alban. I have asked his cousin, young
Haughton, and * * * *^ and * * * *^ your
cousins, Selina — (a small party of cousins) — so
lucky to find Darrell disengaged."
" I ventured to promise," said the Colonel,
addressing Honoria in an under voice, "that
Darrell should hear you play Beethoven."
HoxoRiA. " Is Mr. Darrell so fond of music,
then?"
Colonel Morlet. "One would not have
thought it. He keeps a secretary at Fawley who
plays the flute. There's something very inter-
esting about Dan'ell. I wish you could hear
his ideas on marriage and domestic life — more
freshness of heart than in the young men one
meets nowadays. It may be prejudice ; but it
seems to me that the young fellows of the pres-
ent race, if more sober and staid than we were,
are sadly wanting in character and spirit — no
warm blood in their veins. But I should not
talk thus to a demoiselle who has all those young
fellows at her feet."
"Oh," said Lady Selina, overhearing, and
with a half-laugh, " Honoria thinks much as you
do ; she finds the young men so insipid — all like
one another — the same set phrases."
"The same stereotyped ideas," added Hono-
ria, moving away with a gesture of calm disdain.
[ "Avery superior mind hers," whispered the
I Colonel to Carr Vipont. " She'll never marry
j a fool."
j Guy Darrell was very pleasant at "the small
family dinner-party." Carr was afways popular
I in his manners — the true old House of Com-
1 mons manner, which was very like that of a
I gentlemanlike public school. Lady Selina, as
has been said before, in her own family circle
I was natural and genial. Young Carr, there,
without his wife, moi'e pretentious than his
! father — being a Lord of the Admiralty — felt a
I certain awe of Darrell, and spoke little, which
was much to his own credit, and to the general
conviviality. The other members of the sym-
posium, besides Lady Selina, Honoria, and a
younger sister, were but Darrell, Lionel, and
Lady Selina's two cousins; elderly peers — one
with the garter, the other in the cabinet — ^jovial
men, who had been wild fellows once in the same
mess-room, and still joked at each other when-
ever they met as they met now. Lionel, who
remembered Vance's description of Lady Selina,
and who had since heard her spoken of in so-
ciety as a female despot who can-ied to perfec-
tion the arts by which despots flourish, with
majesty to impose, and caresses to deceive — an
Aurungzebe in petticoats — was sadly at a loss
to reconcile such portraiture with the good-hu-
mored, motherly woman who talked to liim of
her hotne, her husband, her children, with open
fondness and becoming pride, and who, far from
being so formidably clever as the world cruel-
ly gave out, seemed to Lionel rather below par
in her understanding ; strike from her talk its
kindliness, and the residue was very like twad-
dle. After dinner, various members of the Vi-
pont family dropped in — asked impromptu by
Carr or by Lady Selina, in hasty three-cornered
1G2
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
notes, to take that occasion of renewing their
acquaintance with their distinguished connec-
tion. By some accident, among those invited
there were but few young single ladies ; and by
some other accident, those few were all plain.
Honoria Vipont was unequivocally the belle of
the room. It could not but be observed that
Darrell seemed struck with her — talked with her
more than with any other lady ; and when she
went to the piano, and played that great air of
Beethoven's, in which music seems to have got
into a knot that only fingers the most artful can
unravel, Darrell remained in his seat aloof and
alone, listening, no doubt, with ravished atten-
tion. But just as the air ended, and Honoria
turned round to look for him, he was gone.
Lionel did not linger long after him. The
gay young man went, thence, to one of those
vast crowds which seem convened for a practi-
cal parody of Mr. Bentham's famous proposi-
tion — contriving the smallest happiness for the
greatest number.
It was a very great house, belonging to a very
great person. Colonel Morley had procured an
invitation for Lionel, and said, " Go ; you should
be seen there." Colonel Morley had passed the
age of growing-into society — no such cares for
the morrow could add a cubit to his convention-
al stature. One among a group of other young
men by the door-way, Lionel beheld Darrell,
who had arrived before him, listening to a very
handsome young lady, with an attention quite
as earnest as that which had gratified the supe-
rior mind of the well-educated Honoria. A very
handsome young lady certainly, but not with a
superior mind, nor supposed hitherto to have
found young gentlemen " insipid." Doubtless
she would henceforth do so. A few minutes
after, Darrell was listening again — this time to
another young lady, generally called "fast."
If his attentions to her were not marked, hers
to him were. She rattled on to him volubly,
laughed, pretty hoyden, at her own sallies, and
seemed at last so to fascinate him by her gay
spirits that he sate down by her side ; and the
playful smile on his lips — lips that had learned
to be so gravely firm — -showed that he could
enter still into the mirth of childhood ; for sure-
ly to the time-worn man the fast young lady
must have seemed but a giddy child. Lionel
was amused. Could this be the austere recluse
whom he had left in the shades of Fawlej'?
Guy Darrell, at his years, with his dignified
rejjute, the object of so many nods, and becks,
and wreathed smiles — could he descend to be
that most frivolous of characters, a male co-
quette? Was he in earnest — was his vanity
duped ? Looking again, Lionel saw in his kins-
man's fiice a sudden return of the sad despond-
ent expression which had moved his own young
pity in the solitudes of Fawley. But in a mo-
ment the man roused himself — the sad expres-
sion was gone. Had the girl's merry laugh
again chased it away ? But Lionel's attention
was now drawn from Darrell himself to the ob-
servations murmured round him, of which Dar-
rell was the theme.
" Yes, he is bent on marrying again ! I have
it from Alban Morley — immense fortune — and
so young-looking, any girl might fall in love
with such eyes and forehead ; besides, what a
jointure he could settle ! . . . Do look at
that girl, Flora Vyvyan, trying to make a fool
of him. .She can't appreciate that kind of man,
and she would not be caught by his money —
does not want it. ... I wonder she is not
afraid of him. He is certainly quizzing her.
. . . The men think her pretty — I don't.
. . . They say he is to return to Parliament,
and have a place in the Cabinet. . . . Xo !
he has no children living — very natural he should
marry again. ... A nephew I — you are
quite mistaken. Young Haughton is no nephew
— a very distant connection — could not expect
to be the heir. ... It was given out though,
at Paris. The Duchess thought, so, and so did
Lady Jane. They'll not be so civil to young
Haughton now. . . . Hush — "
Lionel, wishing to hear no more, glided by,
and penetrated farther into the throng. And
then, as he proceeded, with those last words on
his ear, the consciousness came upon him that
his position had undergone a change. Difficult
to define it ; to an ordinary by-stander, people
would have seemed to welcome him cordially
as ever. The gradations of respect in polite so-
ciety are so exquisitely delicate, that it seems
only by a sort of magnetism that one knows
from day to day whether one has risen -or de-
clined. A man has lost high ofiice, patronage,
power, never, perhaps, to regain them. Peo-
ple don't turn their backs on him ; their smiles
are as gracious, their hands as flatteringly ex-
tended. But that man would be dull as a rhi-
noceros if he did not feel as every one who ac-
costs him feels — that he has descended in the
ladder. So with all else. Lose even your for-
tune, it is not the next day in a London drawing-
room that your friends look f.s if you were go-
iug to ask them for five pounds. Wait a year
or so for that. But if they have jiist heard you
are ruined, you will feel that they have heai-d
it, let them how ever so courteously, smile ever
so kindly. Lionel at Paris, in the last year or
so, had been more than fashionable : he had
been the fashion — courted, run after, petted,
quoted, imitated. That evening he felt as an
author may feel who has been the rage, and,
without fault of his own, is so no more. The
rays that had gilt him had gone back to the oi'b
that lent. And they who were most genial stiU
to Lionel Haughton, were those who still most
respected thirty-five thousand pounds a year —
in Guy Darrell !
Lionel was angry with himself that he felt
galled. But in his wounded pride there was no
mercenary regret — only that sort of sickness
which comes to youth when the hoUowness of
worldly life is first made clear to it. From the
faces round him there fell that glamour by which
the amour j>ropre is held captive in large as-
semblies, where the amour propre is flattered.
"Magnificent, intelligent audience," thinks the
applauded actor. "Delightful party," murmurs
the worshiped beauty. Glamour I glamour ! Let
the audience yawn while the actor mouths ; let
the party neglect the beauty to adore another,
and straightway the " magnificent audience" is
an " ignorant public," and " the delightful par-
ty" a " heartless world."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
163
CHAPTER X.
Escaped from a London Drawing-Eoonj, flesh once more
tingles, and blood flo«s — Guy Darrell explains to Lionel
Haughton why he holds it a duty to be — an old fool.
Lionel Haughton glided through the dis-
enchanted rooms, and breathed a long breath
of relief when he found himself in the friendless
streets.
As he walked slow and thoughtful on, he sud-
denly felt a hand upon his shoulder, tm-ned, and
saw Darrell.
"Give me your arm, my dear Lionel; I am
tired out. What a lovely night! What sweet
scorn in the eyes of those stars that we have
• neglected for yon flaring lights!"
Lionel. "Is it scorn — is it pity? Is it but
serene indifference?"
Dareell. "As we ourselves interpret; if
scorn be present in our own hearts, it will be
seen in the disc of Jupiter. Man, egoist though
he be, exacts sympathy from all the universe.
Joyous, he says to the sun, 'Life-giver, rejoice
with me.' Grieving, he says to the moon, ' Pen-
sive one, thou sharest my sorrow.' Hope for
fame ; a star is its promise ! Mourn for the
dead ; a star is the land of reunion ! Say to
Earth, ' I have done with thee ;' to Time, ' Thou
hast naught to bestow ;' and all Space cries aloud,
' The earth is a speck, thine inheritance infinity.
Time melts Avhile thou sighest. The discontent
of a mortal is the instinct that proves thee im-
mortal.' Thus construing Xature, Nature is our
companion, our consoler. Benign as the play-
mate, she lends herself to our shifting humors.
Serious as the teacher, she responds to the
steadier inquiries of reason. Mystic and hal-
lowed as the priestess, she keeps alive by dim
oracles that spiritual yearning within us, in
which, from savage to sage— through all dreams,
through all creeds — thrills the sense of a link
with Divinity. Never, therefore, while confer-
ring with Nature, is Man wholly alone, nor is
she a single companion with uniform shape.
Ever n£w, ever various, she can pass from gay to
severe — from fancy to science — quick as thought
passes from the dance of a leaf, from the tintof
a rainbow, to the theory of motion, the problem
of light. But lose Nature — forget or dismiss
her — make companions, by hundreds, of men
who ignore her, and I will not say with the poet,
'This is solitude.' But in the commune, what
stale monotony, what weary sameness I"
Thus Darrell continued to weave together sen-
tence with sentence, the intermediate connec-
tion of meaning often so subtle, that when put
down on paper it requires effort to discern it.
But it was his peculiar gift to make clear when
spoken what in writing would seem obscure.
Look, manner, each delicate accent in a voice
wonderfully distinct in its unrivaled melodv, all
so aided the sense of mere words, that "it is
scarcely extravagant to say he might have talked
an unknown language, and a listener would have
understood. But, understood or not, those sweet
intonations it was such delight to hear, that anv '
one with nerves alive to music would have mur-
mured, " Talk on forever." And in this gift lav
one main secret of the man's strange influence
over all who came familiarly into his intercourse •
so that if Darrell had ever bestowed confidential
intimacy on any one not by some antagonistic
idiosyncracy steeled against its charm, and that I
intimacy had been withdrawn, a void never to
be refilled must have been left in the life thus
robbed.
Stopping at his door, as Lionel, rapt by the
music, had forgotten the pain of the reverie so
bewitohingly broken, Darrell detained the hand
held out to him, and said, " No, not yet — I have
something to say to you: come in; "let me say
it now."
Lionel bowed his head, and in surprised con-
jecture followed his kinsman up the lofty stairs
into the same comfortless stately room t"hat has
been already described. When the sen-ant closed
the door, Darrell sank into a chair. Fixing his
eyes upon Lionel with almost parental kindness,
and motioning his young cousin to sit by his side,
close, he thus began :
" Lionel, before I was your age I was married
— I was a father. I am lonely and childless
now. My life has been moulded by a solemn
obligation which so few could comprehend, that
I scarce know a man living beside yourself to
whom I would frankly confide it. Pride of fam-
ily is a common infirmity — often petulant with
the poor, often insolent with the rich ; but rare-
ly, perhaps, out of that pride do men construct
a positive binding duty, which at all self-sacri-
fice should influence the practical choice of life.
As a child, before my judgment could discern
how much of vain superstition may lurk in our
reverence for the dead, my whole heart was en-
gaged in a passionate dream, which my waking
■ existence became vowed to realize. My father!
— my lip quivers, my eyes moisten as I recall
j him, even now — my father !— I loved him so in-
! tensely ! — the love of childhood how fearfully
strong it is! All in him was so gentle, yet so
sensitive — chivalry without its armor. I was
his constant companion : he spoke to me unre-
servedly, as a poet to his muse. I wept at his
sorrows — I chafed at his humiliations. He
talked of ancestors as he thought of them ; to
him they were beings like the old Lares — not
dead in graves, but images ever present on
household hearths. Doubtless he exaggerated
their worth — as their old importance. Obscure,
indeed, in the annals of empire, their deeds and
their power, their decline and fall. Not so
thought he; they were to his eyes the moon
track in the ocean of history — light on the waves
over which they had gleamed — all the ocean
elsewhere dark ! With him thought I ; as my
father spoke, his child believed. But what to
the eyes of the world was this inheritor of a
vaunted name? — a threadbare, slighted, rustic
pedent — no station in the very province in which
mouldered away the last lowly dwelling-place
of his line. By lineage high above most nobles,
in position below most yeomen. He had learn-
ing, he had genius ; but the studies to which
they were devoted only served yet more to im-
poverish his scanty means, and led rather to
ridicule than to honor. Not a day but v.hat I
saw on his soft features the smart of a fresh
sting, the gnawing of a new care. Thus, as a
boy, feeling in myself a strength inspired by
afl^ection, I came to him, one day as he sate
grieving, and kneeling to him, said, 'Father,
courage yet a little while ; I shall soon be man,
and I swear to devote myself as man to revive
the old fading race so prized by you ; to rebuild
the House that, by you so loved, is loftier in my
164
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
eyes than all the heraldry of Idngs.' And my
father's face brightened, and his voice blessed
me ; and I rose up ambitious !" Darrell paused,
heaved a short, quick sigh, and then rapidly
continued :
"I was fortunate at the university. That
was a day when chiefs of party looked for re-
cruits among young men who had given the
proofs, and won the first fruits of emulation
and assiduity. For statesmanship then was
deemed an art which, like that of war, needs
early discipline. I had scarcely left college
when I was offered a seat in Parliament by the
head of the Viponts, an old Lord Montfort. I
was dazzled but for one moment — I declined
the next. The fallen House of Darrell needed
wealth, and Parliamentary success, in its higher
honors, often requires wealth — never gives it.
It chanced that I had a college acquaintance
with a young man named Vipont Crooke. His
grandfather, one of the numberless Viponts, had
been compelled to add the name of Crooke to
his own on succeeding to the property of some
rich uncle, who was one of the numberless
Crookes. I went with this college acquaintance
to visit the old Lord Montfort, at his villa near
London, and thence to the country house of the
Vipont Crookes. I staid at the last two or three
weeks. While there, I received a letter from
the elder Fairthorn, my father's bailiff, entreat-
ing me to come immediately to Fawley, hinting
at some great calamity. On taking leave of my
friend and his family, something in the manner
of his sister startled and pained me — an evident
confusion, a burst of tears — I know not what.
I had never sought to win her affections. I had
an ideal of the woman I could love. It did not
resemble her. On reaching Fawley, conceive the
shock that awaited me. My fiither was like one
heart-stricken. The principal mortgagee was
about to foreclose — Fawley about to pass forever
from the race of the Darrells. I saw that the
day my father was driven from the old house
would be his last on earth. What means to
save him ? — how raise the pitiful sum — but a
few thousands — by which to release from the
spoiler's gripe those barren acres which all the
lands of the Seymour or the Gower could never
replace in my poor father's eyes? My sole in-
come was a college fellowship, adequate to all
my wants, but useless for sale or loan. I spent
the night in vain consultation with Fairthorn.
There seemed not a hope. Next morning came
a letter from young Vipont Crooke. It was
manly and fi'ank, tliough somewhat coarse.
With the consent of his parents he offered me
his sister's hand, and a dowry of £10,000. He
hinted, in excuse for his bluntness, that, per-
haps from motives of delicacy, if I felt a jn-ef-
erence for his sister, I might not deem myself
rich enough to ))ropose, and — but it matters not
what else he said. You foresee the rest. My
father's life could be saved from despair — his
beloved home be his shelter to the last. That
dowry would more than cover the paltry debt
upon the lands. I gave myself not an hour to
pause. I hastened back to the house to which
fate had led me. But," said Darrell, proudly,
" do not think I was base enough, even with
such excuses, to deceive the young lady. I told
her what was true ; that I could not profess to
her the love painted by romance-writers and
poets ; but that I loved no other, and that, if
she deigned to accept my hand, I should studi-
ously consult her happiness, and gratefully con-
fide to her my own. I said also, what was true,
that, if she married me, ours must be for some
years a life of privation and struggle ; that even
the interest of her fortune must be devoted to
my father while he lived, though every shilling
of its capital would be settled on herself and her
children. How I blessed her when she accept-
ed me, despite my candor! — how earnestly I
prayed that I might love, and cherish, and re-
quite her !" Darrell paused, in evident suffer-
ing. " And, thank Heaven! I have nothing on
that score wherewith to reproach myself. And
the strength of that memory enabled me to bear
and forbear more than otherwise would have
been possible to my quick spirit, and my man's
heart. My dear father ! his death was happy —
his home was saved — he never knew at what
sacrifice to his son ! He was gladdened by the
first honors my youth achieved. He was re-
signed to my choice of a profession, which,
though contrary to his antique prejudices, that
allowed to the representative of the Darrells no
profession but the sword, still promised the
wealth which would secure his name from per-
ishing. He was credulous of my futui'e, as if I
had uttered, not a vow, but a prediction. He
had blessed my union, without foreseeing its
sorrows. He had embraced my first-born — true,
it was a girl, but it was one link onward from
ancestors to posterity. And almost his last
words were these : ' You icill restore the race —
you icill revive the name ! and my son's children
will visit the antiquary's grave, and learn grat-
itude to him for all that his idle lessons taught
to your healthier vigor.' And I answered : ' Fa-
ther, your line shall not perish from the land ;
and when I am rich and great, and lordships
spread far round the lowly hall that your life
ennobled, I will say to your grandchildren,
" Honor ye and your son's sons, while a Darrell
yet treads the earth — honor him to whom I owe
every thought which nerved me to toil for what
you who come after me may enjoy."'
"And so the old man, whose life had been so
smileless, died smiling."
By this time Lionel had stolen Darrell's hand
into his own — his heart swelling with childlike
tenderness, and the tears rolling down his
cheeks.
Darrell gently kissed his young kinsman's
forehead, and, extricating himself from Lionel's
clasp, paced the room, and spoke on while pac-
ing it.
"I made, then, a promise; it is not kept.
No child of mine survives to be taught reverence
to my father's grave. My wedded life was not
happy: its record needs no words. Of two
children born to me, both are gone. My son
went first. I had thrown my life's life into him
— a boy of energy, of noble promise. 'Twas for
him I began to build that baffled fabric — ' Se-
piikhri iminetnor.' For him I bought, acre on
acre, all the land within reach of Fawley — lands
twelve miles distant. I had meant to fill uj) the
intervening space — to buy out a mushroom Earl,
whose woods and corn-fields lie between. I was
scheming the purchase — scrawling on the coun-
ty map — when they brought the news that the
boy I had just taken back to school was dead —
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
drowned bathing on a calm summer eve ! Xo,
Lionel. I must go on. That grief I have wres-
tled with — conquered. I was widowed then.
A daughter still left — the first-born, whom mv
father had blessed on his death-bed. I trans-
ferred all my love, all my hopes, to her. I had
no vain preference for male heirs. Is a race
less pure thrt runs on through the female line?
Well, my son's death was merciful compared
to — " Again Darrell stopped — again hurried
on. "Enough! all is forgiven in the gi-ave I I
was then still in the noon of man's life, free to
form new ties. Another grief that I can not tell
you ; it is not all conquered yet. And by that
grief the last verdure of existence was so blight-
ed, that — that — in sliort, I had no heart for nup-
tial altars — for the social world. Years went bv.
Each year I said, 'Next year the wound will be
healed ; I have time yet.' Xow age is near, the
grave not far ; now, if ever, I must fulfiU the
promise that cheered my father's death-bed.
Xor does that duty comprise all my motives. If
I would regain healthful thought,"manly action,
for my remaining years, I must feel "that one
165
■ haunting memory is exorcised, and forever laid
at rest. It can be so only — whatever my i-isk
of new cares— whatever the folly of the hazard
at my age— be so only by— by— " Once more
, Darrell paused, fixed his eyes "steadily on Lionel,
j and, opening his arms, cried out, " Forgive me,
I my noble Lionel, that I am not contented with
an heir like you ; and do not you mock at the
old man who dreams that woman may love him
yet, and that his own children may inherit his
father's home."
i Lionel sprang to the breast that opened to
\ him; and if Darrell had planned how best tc
! remove from the young man's mind forever the
J possibility of one selfish pang, no craft could
i have attained his object like that touching con-
I fidence before which the disparities between
youth and age literally vanished. And, both
made equal, both elevated alike, verily I know
not which at the moment felt the elder or the
, younger I Two noble hearts, intermingled in
: one emotion, are set free from all time save the
present ; par each with each, they meet as broth-
! ers tnin-bom.
BOOK Y I I.
CHAPTER I.
Vignettes for the next Book of Beauty.
"I QnTE agree with you, Alban; Honoria
Vipont is a very superior young lady."
" I knew you would think so I" cried the Col-
onel, with more warmth than usual to him.
" Many years since," resumed Darrell, with
reflective air, " I read Miss Edgeworth's novels ;
and in conversing with Miss Honoria Vipont,
methinks I confer with one of ^Miss Edgeworth's
heroines — so rational, so prudent, so well-be-
haved — so free from silly romantic notions — so
replete with solid information, moral philoso-
phy, and natural history — so sure to regulate
her watch and her heart to the precise moment,
for the one to strike, and the other to throb —
and to marry at last a respectable steady hus-
band, whom she will win with dignity, and would
lose with — decorum ! A veiy superior girl, in-
deed."*
'•Though your description of Miss Vipont is
satirical," said Alban Morley, smiling, in spite
of some irritation, " yet I will accept it as pane-
gyric ; for it conveys, unintentionally, a just idea
of the qualities that make an intelligent com-
panion and a safe wife. And those are the
qualities we must look to, if we marrv at our
age. We are no longer boys," added t'he Colo-
nel, sententiously.
Darrell. " Alas, no ! I wish we were. Bat ,
the truth of your remark is indisputable. Ah, |
look ! Is not that a face which might make an
* Darrell speaks — not the author. Darrell is unjust to •
the more exquisite female characters of a Novelist, ad-
mirable for strength of sense, correctness of delineation,
terseness of narrative, and lucidity of style — nor less ad- !
Hiirable for the unexaggerated nobleness of sentiment by ;
which some of her heroines are notably distingoished. i
octogenarian forget that he is not a boy ? — what
regular features ! and what a blush !"
The friends were riding in the park ; and as
Darrell spoke, he bowed to a young lady, who,
with one or two others, passe"d rapidly by in a
barouche. It was that verj- handsome "young
lady to whom Lionel had seen him listening so
attentively in the great crowd, for which Carr
Vipont's family party had been deserted.
"Yes; Lady Adela is one of the loveliest
girls in London," said the Colonel, who had also
lifted his hat as the barouche whirled by, " and
amiable too : I have known her ever since she
was bom. Her father and I are great friends —
an excellent man, but stingy. I had much diflS-
culty in arranging the eldest girl's marriage with
Lord Bolton, and am a trustee in the settlements.
If you feel a preference for Lady Adela, though
I don't think she would suit you so well as Miss
Vipont, I will answer for her father's encour-
agement and her consent. 'Tis no drawback to
you, though it is to most of her admirers, when
I add, ' There's nothing with her I' "
"And nothing in her! which is worse," said
Darrell. " Still, it is pleasant to gaze on a
beautiful landscape, even though the soil be
barren."
Colo>t:l Morley. "That depends upon
whether you are merely the artistic spectator
of the landscape, or the disappointed proprietor
of the soil."
"Admirable!" said Darrell; "you have dis-
posed of Lady Adela. So ho! so ho!" Dar-
rell's horse (his old high-mettled horse, freshly
sent to him from Fawley, and in spite of the
five years that had added to its age, of spirit
made friskier by long repose) here put down its
ears — lashed out — and indulged in a bound
166
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
which would have unseated many a London
rider. A young Amazon, followed hard by some
two or three young gentlemen and their grooms,
shot by, swift and reckless as a hero at Balakla-
va. But with equal suddenness, as she caught
sight of Darrell — whose liand and voice had al-
ready soothed the excited nerves of his steed —
the Amazon wheeled round and gained his side.
Throwing up her vail, she revealed a face so
prettily arch — so perversely gay — with eye pi'
radiant hazel, and fair locks half loosened from
their formal braid — that it would have beguiled
resentment from the most insensible — reconciled
to danger the most timid. And yet there was
really a grace of humility in the apologies she
tendered for her discourtesy and thoughtless-
ness. As the girl reined her light palfrey by
Darrell's side — turning from the young compan-
ions who had now joined her, their hackneys in
a foam — and devoting to his ear all her lively
overflow of happy spirits, not untempered by a
certain deference, but still appai'ently free from
dissimulation — Darrell's grand face lighted up
— his mellow laugh, unrestrained, though low,
echoed her sportive tones ; her youth, her joy-
ousness were irresistibly contagious. Alban
Morley watched observant, while interchanging
talk with her attendant comrades, young men
of high ton, but who belonged to that jeunesse
doree, with which the surface of life patrician is
frittered over — young men with few ideas, few-
er duties — but with plenty of leisure — plenty of
health — plenty of money in their pockets — plen-
ty of debts to their tradesmen — daring at Mel-
ton — scheming at Tattersall's — ])ride to maiden
aunts — plague to thrifty fathers — fickle lovers,
but solid matches — in brief, fast livers, who get
through their youth betimes, and who, for the
most part, middle-aged before they are thirty —
tamed by wedlock — sobered by the responsibili-
ties that come with the cares of property and
the dignities of rank — undergo abrupt metamor-
phosis into chairmen of quarter sessions — coun-
ty members, or decorous peers — their ideas en-
riched as their duties grow — their opinions, once
loose as willows to the wind, stiffening into the
palisades of fenced propriety — valuable, busy
men, changed as Henry V., when, coming into
the cares of state, he said to the Chief Justice,
"There is my hand;" and to Sir John Falstaflf,
"I know thee not, old man;
Fall to thy prayers!"
But, meanwhile, the elite of this jeunesse doi-ee
glittered round Flora Vyvyan: not a regular
beauty like Lady Adela — not a fine girl like
Miss Vipont, but such a light, faultless figure —
such a pretty, radiant face — more womanly for
affecting to be manlike — Hebe a])ingThalestris.
Flora, too, was an heiress — an only child — spoil-
ed, willful — not at all accomplished (my belief is
that accomplisiiments are thought great bores
by the jeunesse doree) — no accomplishment ex-
cept horsemanship, with a slight knack at bill-
iards, and the capacity to take three whiffs from
a Spanish cigarette. That last was adorable —
four offers had been advanced to her hand on
that merit alone. (N.B. Young ladies do them-
selves no good with the jeu7iesse dor^e, which, in
our time, is a lover that rather smokes than
"sighs like furnace," by advertising their horror
of cigars.) You would suppose that Flora Vy-
vyan must be coarse — vulgar perhaps ; not at all ;
she was piqnante — original ; and did the oddest
things with the air and look of the highest breed-
ing. Fairies can not be vulgar, no matter what
they do; they may take the strangest liberties
— pinch tlie maids, turn the liouse topsy-turvy ;
but they are ever the darlings of grace and po-
etry. Flora Vyvyan was a fairy. Not peculiar-
ly intellectual herself, she had a veneration for
intellect ; those fast young men were the last
persons likely to fascinate that fast young lady.
Women are so perverse ; they always prefer the
very people you would least suspect — the antith-
eses to themselves. Y^et is it possible that Flo-
ra Vyvyan can have carried her crotchets to so
extravagant a degree as to have designed the
conquest of Guy Darrell — ten years older than
her own father ? She, too, an heiress — certain-
ly not mercenary ; she who had already refused
better worldly matches than Darrell himself was
— young men, handsome men, with coronets on
the margin of their note-paper and the panels
of their broughams ? The idea seemed prepos-
terous ; nevertheless, Alban Morley, a shrewd
observer, conceived that idea, and trembled for
his friend.
At last the yoiing lady and her satellites shot
off, and the Colonel said, cautiously, " Miss Vy-
vyan is — alarming."
Dabrell. "Alarming! the epithet requires
construing."
Colonel Morley. "The sort of girl who
might make a man of our years really and liter-
ally — an old fool !"
Darrell. "Old fool such a man must be if
girls of any sort are permitted to make him a
greater fool than he was before. But I think
that, with those pretty hands resting on one's
arm-cliair, or that sunny face shining into one's
study windows, one might be a Aery happy old
fool — and that is the most one can expect!"
Colonel Morley (checking an anxious
groan). " I am afraid, my poor friend, j'ou arc
far gone already. No wonder Honoria Vipont
fails to be appreciated. But Lady Selina has
a maxim — the truth of which my experience at-
tests — 'tlie moment it comes to women, the
most sensible men are the — ' "
"Oldest fools!" put in Darrell. "If Mark
Antony made such a goose of himself for that
])ainted harridan Cleopatra, what would he have
done for a blooming Juliet? Youth and high
spirits ! Alas ! why are these to be unsuitable
companions for us, as we reach that climax in
time and sorrow — when to the one we are grown
the most indulgent, and of the other have the
most need? Alban, that girl, if her heart were
really won — her wild nature wisely mastered —
gently guided — would make a true, prudent,
loving, admirable wife — "
" Heavens !" cried Alban Morley.
"To such a husband," pursued Darrell, un-
heeding the ejaculation, "as — Lionel Haugh-
ton. What say you?"
"Lionel — oh, I have no objection at all to
that ; but he's too young yet to think of marriage
— a mere boy. Besides, if you yourself marry,
Lionel could scarcely aspire to a girl of Miss
Vyvyan's birth and fortune."
"Ho, not aspire! That boy, at least, shall
not have to woo in vain from the want of for-
tune. The day I marry — if ever that day come
— I settle on Lionel Haughton and his heirs
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
167
five thousand a year; and if, with gentle blood,
vouth, good looks, and a heart of gold, that for-
tune does not allow him to aspire to any girl
whose hand he covets, I can double it, and stiU
be rich enoiagh to buy a superior companion in j
Honoria Vipont — " j
MoRLET. '• Don't say buy — " i
Darrell. " Ay, and still be young enough to
catch a butterfly in Lady Adela — sdll be bold
enough to cliain a panther in Flora Yyv}-an.
Let the world know — your world in each nook
of its gaudy auction mart — that Lionel Haugh-
ton is no pauper cousin — no penniless fortune-
hunter. I wish that world to be kind to him
while he is yet young, and can enjoy it. Ah,
Morlev, Pleasure, like Punishment, hobbles aft-
er us, 'pede claudo. What would have delighted
us yesterday does not catch us up till to-morrow,
and yesterday's pleasure is not the morrow's.
A pennvworth of sugar-plums would have made
our eyes sparkle when we were scrawling pot-
hooks' at a prepai-ator}- school, but no one gave
us sugar-plums then. Now, every day at dessert
France heaps before us her daintiest sugar-plums
in gilt bonhonnieres. Do you ever covet them?
I never do. Let Lionel "have his sugar-plunis
in time. And as we talk, there he comes. Li-
onel, how are you ?"
"I resign you to Lionel's charge now," said
the Colonel, glancing at his watch. '■ I have an
engagement — troublesome. Two silly friends
of mine have been quarreling — high words — in
an age when duels are out of the question. I
have promised to meet another man, and draw
up the form for a mutual apology. High words
are so stupid nowadays. Xo option but to
swallow them up again if they were as high as
steeples. Adieu for the present. We meet to-
night at Lady Dulcett's concert ?"
" Yes," said Darrell ; " I promised Miss Vy-
vyan to be there, and keep her from disturbing
the congregation. You, Lionel, will come with
me."
Lionel (embarrassed). "Xo; you must ex-
cuse me. I have long been engaged elsewhere."
"That's a pity," said the Colonel, gravely.
" Lady Dulcett'sconcert is just one of the places
where a young man should — be seen." Colonel
Morley waved his hand mth his usual languid
elegance, and his hack cantered off with him,
stately as a charger, easy as a rocking-horse.
"Unalterable man," said Darrell, as his
eye followed the horseman's receding figure.
''Through all the mutations on Time's dusty
high road — stable as a milestone. Just what
Alban Morley was as a school-boy he is now;
and if mortal span were extended to the age of
the patriarchs, just what Alban Morley is now
Alban Morley would be a thousand years hence.
I don't mean externally, of course ; wrinkles will
come — cheeks will fade. But these are trifles ;
man's body is a garment, as Socrates said before
me, and every seven years, according to the
physiologists, man has a new suit, fibre and cu-
ticle, from top to toe. The interior being that
wears the clothes is the same in Alban Morley.
Has he loved, hated, rejoiced, suffered ? Where
is the sign ? Not one. At school, as in life, do-
ing nothing, but decidedly somebody — respected
by small boys, petted by big boys — an authority
with all. Never getting honors — arm and arm
with those who did ; never in scrapes— advising
those who were; imperturbable, immovable,
calm above mortal cares as an Epicurean deitv.
What can wealth give that he has not got ? In
the houses of the richest he chooses his room.
Talk of ambition, talk of power — he has their re-
wards without an eftbrt. True prime minister
of all the realm he cares for ; Good Society has
not a vote against him — he transacts its affairs,
he knows its secrets — he wields its patronage.
Ever requested to do a favor — no man great
enough to do him one. Incorruptible, yet versed
to a fraction in each man's price ; impeccable,
yet confident in each man's foibles ; smooth as
silk, hard as adamant ; impossible to wound,
vex, annoy him — but not insensible ; thorough-
ly kind. Dear, dear Alban I Nature never pol-
ished a finer gentleman out of a solider block
of man I" Darrell's voice quivered a little as he
completed in earnest affection the sketch begun
in playful irony, and then, with a sudden change
of thought, he resumed lightly,
"But I wish you to do me a favor, Lionel.
Aid me to repair a fault in good breeding, of
which Alban Morley would never have been
guilty. I have been several days in London,
and not yet called on your mother. Will you
accompany me now to her house and present
me?"
"Thank you, thank you! you will make her
so proud and happy ; but may I ride on and pre-
pare her for your visit?"
" Certainly ; her address is — "
" Gloucester Place, No. — ."
" I will meet vou there in half an hour."
CHAPTER n.
"Let Observation, wi:h expansive view,
Survey mankind from China to Pern,"
and Observation will every where find, indispensable
to the happiness of woman, A Visitisg Acqcaixta>-ce.
Lionel knew that Mrs. Haughton would that
day need more than usual forewarning of a visit
from Mr. Darrell. For the evening of that day
Mrs. Haughton proposed "to give a party."
When ilrs. Haughton gave a party, it was a se-
rious affair. A notable and bustling honse^sife,
she attended herself to each preparatory detail.
It was to assist at this party that Lionel had re-
signed Lady Dulcett's concert. The young man,
reluctantly'acquiescing in the arrangements by
which Alban Morley had engaged him a lodging
of his own, seldom or never let a day pass with-
out gratifying his mother's proud heart by an
hour or two spent in Gloucester Place, often to
the forfeiture of a pleasant ride, or other tempt-
ing excursion, with gay comrades. Difficult in
London life, and at the fuU of its season, to de-
vote an hour or two to visits, apart from the track
chalked out bv one's very mode of existence —
difficult to cut off an hour so as not to cut up a day.
And Mrs. Haughton was exacting— nice in her
choice as to the exact sfice in the day. She
took the primeof the joint. She liked her neigh-
bors to see the handsome, elegant, young man
dismount from his charger, or descend from his
cabriolet, just at the witching hour when Glouces-
ter Place was fullest. Did he go to a levee, he
must be sure to come to her before he changed
his dress, that she and Gloucester Place might
admire him in uniform. Was he going to dine
168
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
at some very great house, he must take her in
his way (though no street could be more out of
his way), that she might be enabled to say in
the parties to which she herself repaiied, ''There
is a orreat dinner at Lord So-and-so's to-day;
mv son called on me before he went there. If
he had been disengaged, I should have asked
permission to bring him here."
Not that Mrs. Haughton honestly designed,
nor even wished, to draw the young man from
the dazzling vortex of high life into her own lit-
tle currents of dissipation. She was much too
proud of Lionel to think that her friends were
grand enough for him to honor tlieir houses by
his presence. She had in this, too, a lively rec-
ollection of her lost Captain's doctrinal views of
the great world's creed. The Captain had flour-
ished in the time when Impertinence, installed
by Brummell, though her influence was waning,
still schooled her oligarchs, and maintained the
etiquette of her court; and even when his me-
salliance and his debts had cast him out of his
native sj;here, he lost not all the original bright-
ness of an exclusive. In moments of connubial
confidence, when owning his past errors, and
tracing to his sympathizing Jessie the causes of
his decline, he would say, '"Tis not a man's
birth, nor his fortune, that gives him his place
in society — it depends on his conduct, Jessie.
He must not be seen bowing to snobs, nor should
his enemies track him to the haunts of vulgari-
ans. I date my fall in life to dining with a hor-
rid man who lent me £100, and lived in L^pper
Baker Street. His wife took my arm from a
place they called a drawing-room (the Captain
as he spoke was on a fourth floor), to share some
unknown food which they called a dinner (the
Captain at that moment would have welcomed a
rasher). The woman went about blabbing — the
thing got wind — for the first time my character
received a soil. A\niat is a man without char-
acter? and character once sullied, Jessie, a man
becomes reckless. Teach my boy to beware of
the first false step — no association with /jar t-enas.
Don't cry, Jessie — I don't mean that he is to
cut you — relations are quite different from other
people — nothing so low as cutting relations. I
continued, for instance, to visit Guy Darrell,
though he lived at the back of Holborn, and I
actually saw him once in brown beaver gloves.
But he was a relation. I have even dined at
his house, and met odd people there — people
who lived also at the back of Holbora. But he
did not ask me to go to their houses, and if he
had, I must have cut him."
By reminiscences of this kind of talk Lionel
was saved from any design of ]Mrs. Haughton's
to attract his orbit into tlie circle within which
she herself moved. He must come to the par-
ties she gave — illumine or awe odd people there.
That was a proper tribute to maternal pride.
But had they asked him to their parties, she
would have been the first to resent such a lib-
erty.
Lionel found Mrs. Haughton in great bustle.
A gardener's cart was before the street-door.
Men were bringing in a grove of evergreens, in-
tended to border the stair-case, and make its ex-
iguous ascent still more difficult. Tlie refresh-
ments were already laid out in the dining-room.
Mrs. Haughton, with scissors in hand, was cut-
ting flowers to fill the eperyne, but darling to
and fro, like a dragon-fly, from the dining-room
to the hall, from the flowers to the evergi-eens.
" Dear me, Lionel, is that you ? Just tell me,
you who go to all those grandees, whether the
ratafia-cakes should be opposite to the sponge-
cakes, or whether they would not go better —
thus — at cross-corners?"
"My dear mother, I never observed — I don't
know. But make haste — take oft" that apron —
have these doors shut — come up stairs. IVIr.
Darrell will be here very shortly. I have ridden
on to prepare you."
"Mr. Dan-ell — to-datI — How could yon let
him come? Oh, Lionel, how thoughtless you
are ! You should have some respect for your
mother — I am your mother. Sir."
"Yes, my own dear mother — don't scold — I
could not help it. He is so engaged, so sought
after ; if I had put him oft' to-day he might
never have come, and — "
" Never have come ! Who is Mr. Darrell, to
give himself such airs ? — Only a lawyer, after
all," said Mrs. Haughton, with majesty.
'• Oh, mother, that speech is not Mke you. He
is our benefactor — our — "
" Don't, don't say more — I was verv wrong —
quite wicked — only my temper, Lionel dear.
Good Mr. Darrell I I shall be so happy to see
him — see him, too, in this house that I owe to
him — see him by your side I I think I shall fall
down on my knees to him."
And her eyes began to stream.
Lionel kissed the tears away fondly. '• That's
my own mother now indeed — now I am proud
of you, mother ; and how well you look I — I am
proud of that too."
"Look well I — I am not fit to be seen, this
figure — though perhajjs an elderly quiet gentle-
man like good Mr. Darrell does not notice ladies
much. John, John, make haste with those
plants. Gracious me ! you've got your coat otf!
— put it on — I expect a gentleman — I'm at
home, in the front drawing-room — no — that's
all set out — the back drawing-room, John. Send
Susan to me. Lionel, do just look at the sup-
per-table ; and what is to be done with the
flowers, and — "
The rest of ]Mrs. Haughton's voice, owing to
the rapidity of her ascent, which aflPected the
distinctness of her utterance, was lost in air.
She vanished at culminating point — within her
chamber.
CHAPTER HI.
Mrs. Haughton at home to Guy DarrelL
TnA>-K.s to Lionel's actinty, the hall was dis-
encumbered — the plants hastily stmved away —
the parlor closed on the festive preparations —
and the footman in his livery waiting at the door
— when Mr. Darrell anived. Lionel himself
came out and welcomed his benefactor's footstep
across the threshold of the home which the gen-
erous man had provided for the widow.
If Lionel had some secret misgivings as to the
result of this interview, they were soon and most
happily dispelled. For, at the sight of Guy
Darrell leaning so affectionately on her son's
arm, jMrs. Haughton mechanically gave herself
up to the impulse of her own warm, grateful,
true woman's heart. And her bound forward
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
169
— her seizure of Darrell's hand — her first fer-
vent blessing — her after words, simple but elo-
quent with feeling — made that heart so trans-
parent, that Darrell looked it through with re-
spectful eyes.
Mrs. Haughton was still a pretty woman, and
with much of that delicacy of form and outline
which constitutes the gentility of person. She
had a sweet voice too, except when angry. Her
defects of education, of temper, or of conven-
tional polish, were not discernible in the over-
flow of natural emotion. Darrell had come re-
solved to be pleased, if possible. Pleased he
was, much more than he had expected. He
even inly accepted for the deceased Captain ex-
cuses which he had never before admitted to
himself. The linen-draper's daughter was no
coarse presuming dowdy, and in her candid rush
of gratitude there was not that underbred ser-
vility "which Darrell had thought perceptible in
her epistolary compositions. There was elegance
too, void both of gaudy ostentation and penuri-
ous thrift, in the furniture and arrangements of
the room. The income he gave to her was not
spent with slatternly waste or on tawdry gew-
gaws. To ladies in general, Darrell's manner
was extremely attractive — not the less winning
because of a certain gentle shyness which, im-
plying respect for those he addressed, and a
mode-t undervaluing of his o\vn merit, conveyed
compliment and soothed self-love. And to that
lady in especial such gentle shyness was the
happiest good-breeding.
In short, all went off without a hitch, till, as
Darrell was taking leave, Mrs. Haughton was
remin -ed by some evil genius of her evening
party, and her very gratitude, longing for some
opportunity to requite obligation, prompted her
to invite the kind man to whom the facility of
giving parties was justly due. She had never
realized to herself, despite all that Lionel could
say, the idea of Darrell's station in the world
— a lawyer who had spent his youth at the
back of Holborn, whom the stylish Captain had
deemed it a condescension not to cut, m.ight in-
deed become very rich ; but he could never be
the fashion. "Poor man," she thought, "he
must be very lonely. He is not, like Lionel, a
young dancing man. A quiet little party, with
people of his own early rank and habits," would
be more in- his way than those grand places to
which Lionel goes. I can but ask him — I ought
to ask him. What would he say if I did not ask
him ? Black ingratitude indeed, if he were not
asked:" All these ideas rushed through her
ipind in a breath, and as she clasped Darrell's
extended hand in both her own, she said — "I
have a little party to-night!" And paused —
Darrell remaining mute," and Lionel not sus-
pecting what was to ensue, she continued:
"There may be some good music — yonn"-
friends of mine — sing charmingly — Italian 1"'
Dan-ell bowed. Lionel began to shudder.
" And if I might presume to think it would
amuse you, :Mr. Darrell, oh, I should be so
happy to see you 1 — so happy I"
" Would you?" said Darrell, briefly. " Then
I should be a churl if I did not come. Lionel
will escort me. Of course, you expect him
too."
'• Yes, indeed. Though he has so many fine
places to go to — and it can't be exactly what
i he is used to — yet he is such a dear good bov'
, that he gives up all to gratify his mother."
j Lionel, in agonies, turned an uniilial back,
I and looked steadily out of the window ; but
Darrell, far too august to take offense where
I none was meant, only smiled at the implied
i reference to Lionel's superior demand in the
fashionable world, and replied, without even a
touch of his accustomed ironv — " And to grati-
fy his mother is a pleasure l" thank vou for in-
viting me to share with him."
More and more at her ease, and charmed
with having obeyed her hospitable impulse,
Mrs. Haughton, following Darrell to the land-
ing-place, added —
•' And if yon like to play a quiet rubber — "
'• I never touch cards. I abhor the verv name
of them, ma'am," intemipted Darrell," some-
what less gracious in his tones.
He mounted his horse ; and Lionel, breaking
from Mrs. Haughton, who was assurinir him
that ^Ir. Darrell was not at all what she ex-
pected, but really quite the gentleman — nay, a
much grander gentleman than even Colonel
Morley — regained his kinsman's side, looking
abashed and discomfited. Dan-ell, with the
kindness which his fine quick intellect enabled
him so felicitously to apply, hastened to reUeve
the young guardsman's mind.
"I like your mother much — very much." said
he, in his most melodious accents. '-Good
boy ! I see now why you gave up Lady Dulcett.
Go and take a canter by yourself, or with youn-
ger friends, and be sure that you call on me, so
that we may be both at Mrs. Haughton's bv ten
o'clock. I can go later to the concen if I feel
inclined."
He waved his hand, wheeled his horse, and
trotted off toward the fair suburban lanes that
still proffer to the denizens of London glimpses
of niral fields, and shadows from quiet hedge-
rows. He wished to be alone; the sight of
^Irs. Haughton had revived recollections of by-
gone days — memory linking memory in painful
chain — gay talk with his younger school-fellow
— that wild Charlie now in his grave — his ovra
laborious youth, resolute aspirings, secret sor-
rows — and the strong man felt the want of that
solitary self-comipune, without which self-con-
quest is unattainable.
CHAPTER IV.
Mrs. Haughton at horne miscellaneously. Little partie*
are useful in bringing people together. One never
knows whom one may meet.
Great kingdoms grow out of small begin-
nings. Mrs. Haughton's social circle was de-
scribed from a humble centre. On coming into
possession of her easy income, and her house in
Gloucester Place, she was naturally seized with
the desire of an appropriate "visiting acquaint-
ance." The accomplishment of that desire had
been deferred a while by the excitement of
Lionel's departure for Paris, and the immense
TEMPTATiox to whicli the attentions of the spu-
rious Mr. Courtenay Smith had exposed her
widowed solitude; but no sooner had she re-
covered from the shame and anger with which
she had discarded that showy impostor, happily
170
WHAT WTXL HE DO WITH IT ?
in time, than the desire became tlie more keen ;
because the good lady felt that, with a mind so
active and restless as hers, a visiting acquaint- |
ance might be her best preservative from that
sense of loneliness which disposes widows to
lend the incautious ear to adventurous wooers.
After her experience of her own weakness in
listening to a sharper, and with a shudder at
her escape, Mrs. Haughton made a firm resolve
never to give her beloved son a father-in-law.
No, she would distract her thoughts — she would
have a visiting acqcaintance. She com-
menced by singling out such families as at
various times had been her genteelest lodgers —
now lodging elsewhere. She informed them by
polite notes of her accession of consequence and
fortune, which she was sure they would be hap-
py to hear ; and these notes, left with the card
of " Mrs. Houghton, Gloucester Place," neces-
sarily produced respondent notes and corre-
spondent cards. Gloucester Place then pre-
pared itself for a party. The ci-devant lodgers
urbanely attended the summons. In their turn
they gave parties. Mrs. Haughton was invited.
Fi'om eacli such party she bore back a new
draught into her " social circle." Thus, long
before the end of five years, Mrs. Haughton had
attained her object. She had a " visiting ac-
quaintance !" It is true that she was not par-
ticular ; so that there was a new somebody at
whose house a card could be left, or a morning
call achieved — who could help to fill her rooms,
or whose rooms she could contribute to fill in
turn, she was contented. She was no tuft-hunt-
er. She did not care for titles. She had no visions
of a column in the Morning Post. She wanted,
kind lady, only a vent for the exubei'ance of her
social instincts ; and being proud, she rather
liked acquaintances who looked up to, instead of
looking down on her. Thus Gloucester Place
was invaded by tribes not congenial to its natu-
ral civilized atmosphere. Hengists and Horsas,
from remote Anglo-Saxon districts, crossed the
intervening channel, and insulted the British
nationality of that salubrious district. To most
of such immigrators Mrs. Haughton, of Glouces-
ter Place, was a personage of the highest dis-
tinction. A few others of prouder status in the
world, though they owned to themselves that
there was a sad mixture at Mrs. Haughton's
house, still, once seduced there, came again —
being persons who, however independent in for-
tune, or gentle by blood, had but a small " vis-
iting acquaintance" in town ; fresh from eco-
nomical colonization on the Continent, or from
distant provinces in these three kingdoms. Mrs.
Haughton's rooms were well lighted. There was
music for some, wliist for others, tea, ices, cakes,
and a crowd for all.
At ten o'clock — -the rooms already nearly fill-
ed, and Mrs. Haugliton, as she stood at the door,
anticipating with joy that hapjjy hour when the
stair-case would become inaccessible — the head
attendant, sent with the ices from the neighlior-
ing confectioner, announced, in a loud voice,
" Mr. Haughton — Mr. Uarrell."
At that latter name a sensation thrilled the
assembly — the name so much in every one's
mouth at that period, nor least in the mouths
of the great middle class, on whom — though the
polite may call them " a sad mixture," cabinets
depend — could not fail to be familiar to the cars
of Mrs. Haughton's "visiting acquaintance."
The interval between his announcement and his
ascent from the hall to the drawing-room was
busily filled up by murmured questions to the
smiling hostess, " Darrell ! what! the Darrell !
Guy Darrell ! greatest man of the day ! A con-
nection of yours ? Bless me, you don't say so ?"
Mrs. Haughton began to feel nen-ous. Was Li-
onel righf ? Could the man who had only been
a lawyer at the back of Holborn really be, now,
such a very, very great man — greatest man of
the day ? Nonsense !
"Ma'am" — said one pale,'puiF-cheeked, flat-
nosed gentleman, in a very large white waist-
coat, who was waiting by her side till a vacancy
in one of the two whist-tables should occur —
"Ma'am, I'm an Enthusiastic admirer of Mr.
Darrell. You s.ay he is a connection of yours ?
Present me to him."
Mrs. Haughton nodded flutteringly, for, as the
gentleman closed his request, and tapped a large
gold snuif-box, Darrell stood before her — Lionel
close at his side, looking positively sheepish.
The great man said a few civil words, and was
gliding into the room to make way for the press
behind him, when he of the white waistcoat,
touching Mrs. Haughton's arm, and staring Dar-
rell full in the face, said, very loud: "In these
anxious times public men dispense with cere-
mony. I crave an introduction to Mr. Darrell."
Thus pressed, poor Mrs. Haughton, without look-
ing up, muttered out, " Mr. Adolphus Poole —
Mr. Darrell," and turned to welcome fresh
comers.
"Mr. Darrell," said Mr. Poole, bowing to the
ground, " this is an honor."
Darrell gave the speaker one glance of his
keen eye, and thought to himself — "If I were
still at the bar, I should be sorry to hold a brief
for that fellow." However, he retm-ned the bow
formally, and, bowing again at the close of a
highly complimentary address with which Mr.
Poole followed up his opening sentence, express-
ed himself "much flattered," and thought he
had escaped ; but wherever he went through the
crowd, Mr. Poole contrived to follow him, and
claim his notice by remarks on the aft'airs of the
day — the weather — the funds — the crops. At
length Darrell perceived, sitting aloof in a cor-
ner, an excellent man, whom indeed it surprised
him to see in a London drawing-room, but who,
many years ago, when Darrell was canvassing
the enlightened constituency of Ouzelford, had
been on a visit to the chairman of his committee
— an influential trader — and having connections
in the town — and, being a very high character,
had done him good service in the canvass. Dar-
rell rarely forgot a face, and never a service.
At any time he would have been glad to see the
worthy man once more, but at that time he was
grateful indeed.
" Excuse me," he said, bluntly, to Mr. Poole ;
"but I see an old friend." He moved on, and
thick as the crowd had become, it made way
with respect, as to royalty, for the distinguished
orator. The buzz of admiration as he passed —
louder than in drawing-rooms more refined —
would have had sweeter music than Grisi's most
artful quaver to a vainer man — nay, once on a
time to him. But — sugar-plums come too late !
He gained the corner, and roused the solitary
sitter.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
171
"My dear Mr. Hartopp, do yoii not remember
me — Guy Darrell ?"
" Mr. Darrell I" cried the ex-mayor of Gates-
boro' rising, " who could think that you would
remember me f
"What! not remember those ten stubborn
voters, on whom, all and singly, I had lavished
my powers of argument in vain? You came,
and with the brief words, ' John — Ned — Dick —
oblige me — vote for Darrell I' the men were con-
vinced — the votes won. That's what I call elo-
quence" — {sotto voce — " Confound that fellow !
still after me !" — Aside to Hartopp) — "Oh 1 may
I ask who is that Mr. — what's his name — there
— in the white waistcoat?"
" Poole," answered Hartopp. " Who is he,
Sir ? A speculative man. He is connected with
a new Company — I am told it answers. Will-
iams (that's my foreman — a very long head he
has too) has taken shares in the Company, and
wanted me to do the same, but 'tis not in my
way. And ilr. Poole may be a very honest man,
but he does not impress me with that idea. I
have grown careless ; I know I am liable to be
taken in — I was so once — and therefore I avoid
' Companies' upon principle — especially when
they promise thirty per cent., and work copper
mines — Mr. Poole has a copper mine."
"And deals in brass — you may see it in his
face ! But you are not in town for good, Mr.
Hartopp ? If I remember right, you were set-
tled at Gatesboro' when we last met."
"And so 1 am still — or rather in the neigh-
borhood. - I am gradually retiring from business,
and grown more and more fond of farming. But
I have a family, and we live in enlightened times,
when children require a finer education than
their parents had. Mrs. Hartopp thought my
daughter Anna Maria was in need of some ' fin-
ishing lessons' — very fond of the harp is Anna
Maria — and so we have taken a house in Lon-
don for six weeks. That's Mrs. Hartopp yon-
der, with the bird on her head — bird of para-
dise, I believe — Williams says that birds of that
kind never rest. That bird is an exception — it
has rested on Mrs. Hartopp's head for hours to-
gether, every evening since we have been in
town."
" Significant of your connubial felicity, Mr.
Hartopp."
' ' May it be so of Anna Maria's. She is to
be married when her education is finished —
married, by-the-by, to a son of your old friend
Jessop, ofOuzelford — and between you and me,
Mr. Dan-ell, that is the reason why I consented
to come to town. Do not suppose that I would
have a daughter finished unless there was a hus-
band at hand who undertook to be responsible
for the results."
" You retain your wisdom, Mr. Hartopp ; and
I feel sure that not even your fair partner could
have brought you up to London unless you had
decided on the expediency of coming. Do you
remember that I told you the day you so ad-
mirably settled a dispute in our committee-room,
'It was well you were not bom a king, for you
would have been an irresistible tyrant.' "
" Hush I hush !" whispered Hartopp in great
alarm, " if Mrs. Hartopp should hear you I What
an observer you are. Sir! I thought / was a
judge of character — but I was once deceived.
I dare say yon never were."
"Y'ou mistake," answered DaiTell, wincing,
"?/oM deceived: How?"
" Oh, a long story, Sir. It was an elderly
man — the most agreeable, interesting compan-
ion — a vagabond nevertheless — and such a pret-
ty bewitching little girl with him, his grand-
child. I thought he might have been a wild
harum-scarum chap in his day, but that he had
a true sense of honor" — (Darrell, wholly uninter-
ested in this narrative, suppressed a yawn, and
wondered when it would end). "Only think,
Sir, just as I was saying to myself, ' I know char-
acter — I never was taken in,' down comes a
smart fellow — the man's o^\ti son — and tells me
— or rather he sufll'ers a lady who comes with him
to tell me — that this chai-ming old gentleman of
high sense of honor was a returned convict —
been transported for robbing his employer."
Pale, breathless, Darrell listened, not unheed-
ing now. "What was the name of — of — "
" The comict ? He called himself Chapman,
but the son's name was Losely — Jasper."
"Ah!" faltered Darrell, recoiling, "and you
spoke of a little girl ?"
"Jasper Losely's daughter ; he came after her
with a magistrate's warrant. The old miscreant
had earned her off, to teach her his own swin-
dling ways, I suppose. Luckily she was then in
my charge. I gave her back to her father, and
the very respectable-looking lady he brought
with him. Some relation, I presume?"
"What was her name, do you remember ?"
"Crane."
"Crane! Crane!" muttered Darrell, as if
trying in vain to tax his memorv' with that name.
" So he said the child was his daughter — are
you sure?"
" Oh, of course he said so, and the lady too.
But can you be acquainted with them, Sir ?"
"I? no! Strangers to me except by rej^ute.
Liars — infamous liars ! But have the accom-
plices quarreled — I mean the son and fatlier —
that the father should be exposed and denounced
by the son ?"
"I conclude so. I never saw them again.
But you believe the father really was, then, a
felon, a convict — no excuse for him — no extenu-
ating circumstances ? There was something in
that man, Mr. Darrell, that made one love him
— positively love him ; and when I had to teU
him that I had given up the child he trusted to
my charge, and saw his grief, I felt a criminal
myself."
Darrell said nothing, but the character of his
face was entirely altered — stem, hard, relent-
less — the face of an inexorable judge. Hartopp,
lifting his eyes suddenly to that countenance,
recoiled in awe.
"You think I was a criminal !" he said, pite-
ously.
"I think we are both talking too much, Mr.
Hartopp, of a gang of miserable swindlers, and
I advise you to dismiss the whole remembrance
of intercourse with any of them from your hon-
est breast, and never to repeat to other ears the
tale you have poured into mine. Men of honor
should crush down the very thought that ap-
proaches them to knaves !"
Thus saying, Dairell moved off with abrupt
rudeness, and passing quickly back through the
crowd, scarcely noticed Mrs. Haughton by a re-
treating nod, nor heeded Lionel at all, but hur-
172
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
ried down the stairs. He was impatiently search-
ing for his cloak in the hack parlor, when a voice
behind said, " Let me assist you, Sir — do ;" and
turning round with petulant quickness, he be-
held again Mr. Adolphus Poole. It requires an
habitual intercourse with equals to give perfect
and invariable control of temper to a man of ir-
ritable nerves and frank character; and though,
where Darrell really liked, he had much sweet
forbearance, and where he was indifferent, much
stately courtesy, yet, when he was offended, he
could be extremely uncivil. " Sir," he cried,
almost stamping his foot, "your importunities
annoy me ; I request you to cease them."
"Oh! I ask your pardon," said Mr. Poole,
with an angry growl. " I have no need to force
myself on any man. But I beg you to believe
that if I presumed to seek your acquaintance,
it was to do you a service, Sir — yes, a private
service. Sir." He lowered his voice into a whis-
per, and laid his finger on his nose — "There's
one Jasper Losely, Sir — eh? Oh, Sir, I'm no
mischief-maker. I respect family secrets. Per-
haps I might be of use, perhaps not."
"Certainly not to me, Sir," said Darrell,
flinging the cloak he had now found across his
shoulders, and striding from the house. When
he entered his carriage, the footman stood wait-
ing for orders. Darrell was long in giving them.
"Any where for half an hour — to St. Paul's,
then home."
But on returning from this objectless plunge
into the city, Darrell pulled the check-string —
" To Belgrave Square — Lady Dulcett's."
The concert was half over; but Flora Vyvyan
had still guarded, as she had promised, a seat
beside herself for Darrell, by lending it for the
present to one of her obedient vassals. Her
face brightened as she saw Darrell enter and
approach. The vassal surrendered the chair.
Darrell appeared to be in the highest spirits ;
and I firmly believe that he was striving to the
utmost in his power — what ? — to make himself
agreeable to Flora Vyvyan ? No ; to make Flora
Vyvyan agreeable to himself. The man did not
presume that a fair young lady could be in love
with him ; perhaps he believed that, at his years,
to be impossible. But he asked what seemed
much easier, and was much harder — he asked
to be himself in love.
CHAPTER V.
It is asserted by those learned men who have devoted
their lives to the study of the manners and habits of
insect society, that when a spider has lost its last web,
having exhausted all the glutinons matter wherewith
to spin another, it still protracts its innocent existence
by obtruding its nippers on some less warlike but more
respectable spider, possessed of a convenient home and
an airy larder. Observant moralists have noticed tlic
same peculiarity in the Man-Iiater, or Pocket-Canni-
bal.
Eleven o'clock a.m. Samuel Adolphus Poole,
Esq., is in his parlor — the house one of those
new dwellings which yearly spring up north of
the Kegent's Park — dwellings that, attesting the
eccentricity of the national character, task tlie
fancy of the architect and the gravity of the be-
holder — each tenement so tortured into contrast
with the other, that, on one little rood of ground,
all ages seem blended, and all races encamped.
No. 1 is an Egyptian tomb! — Pharaohs may
repose there ! No. 2 is a Swiss chalet — William
Tell may be shooting in its garden ! Lo ! the
severity of Doric columns — Sparta is before
you ! Behold that Gothic porch — you are rapt
to the Norman days! Ha! those Elizabethan
mullions Sidney and Raleigh, rise again! Ho!
the trellises of China — come forth, Confucius
and Commissioner Yeh ! Passing a few paces,
Ave are in the land of the Zegri and Abence-
rage--
" Land of the dark-eyed Maid and dusky Moor."
Mr. Poole's house is called Alhambra Villa !
Jloorish verandas — plate-glass windows, with
cusped heads and mahogany sashes — a garden
behind, a smaller ona in front — stairs ascending
to the door-way under a Saracenic portico, be-
tween two pedestaled lions that resemble poo-
dles — the whole new and lustrous — in semblance
stone, in substance stucco — cracks in the stucco
denoting "settlements." But the house being
let for ninety-nine years — relet again on a run-
ning lease of seven, fourteen, and twenty-one —
the builder is not answerable for duration, nor
the original lessee for repairs. Take it alto-
gether, than Alhambra Villa masonry could de-
vise no better type of modern taste and metro-
politan speculation.
J\Ir. Poole, since we s.aw him, between four
and five years ago, has entered the matrimonial
state. He has married a lady of some money,
and become a reformed man. He has eschewed
the turf, relinquished belcher neckcloths and
Newmarket coats — dropped his old bachelor ac-
quaintances. When a man marries and reforms
— especially when marriage and reform are ac-
companied with increased income, and settled
respectably in Alhambra Villa — relations, before
estranged, tender kindly overtures ; the world,
before austere, becomes indulgent. It was so
with Poole — no longer Dolly. Grant that in
earlier life he had fallen into bad ways, and,
among equivocal associates, he had been led on
by that taste for sporting which is a manly though
a perilous characteristic of the true-born English-
man. He who loves horses is liable to come in
contact with blacklegs. The racer is a noble
animal ; but it is his misfortune that the better
his breeding the worse his company. Grant that
in the stables Adolphus Samuel Poole had picked
np some wild oats — he had sown them now. By-
gones were by-gones. He had made a very pru-
dent marriage. Mrs. Poole was a sensible wo-
man — had rendered him domestic, and would
keep him straight ! His uncle Samuel, a most
worthy man, had found him that sensible wo-
man, and, having found her, had paid his neph-
ew's debts, and adding a round sum to the lady's
fortune, had seen that the whole was so tightly
settled on wife and children that Poole had the
tender satisfaction of knowing that, happen what
might to himself, those dear ones were safe ; nay,
that if, in the reverses of fortune, he should be
compelled by persecuting creditors to fly his na-
tive shores, law could not impair the competence
it had settled upon Mrs. Poole, nor destroy her
blessed privilege to share that competence with
a beloved spouse. Insolvency itself, thus pro-
tected by a marriage-settlement, realizes the
sublime security of virtde immortalized by the
Roman Muse :
WHAT WILL HE DO "V^^TH IT ?
173
"Repnlsae nescia sordid^,
Intaminatis fiilget honoribus;
Nee sumit aut ponit secures
Arbitrio popularis aurse."
Mr. Poole was an active man in the parish
Tcstry — he was a sound politician — he subscribed
to public charities — he attended public dinners
— he had votes in half a dozen public institu-
tions — he talked of the public interests, and
'called himself a public man. He chose his as-
sociates among gentlemen in business — specula-
tive, it is true, but steady. A joint-stock com-
pany was set up ; he obtained an official station
at its board, coupled with a salary — not large,
indeed, but still a salary.
"The money," said Adolphus Samuel Poole,
" is not my object ; but I like to have something
to do." I can not say how he did something,
but no doubt somebody was done.
Mr. Poole was in his parlor, reading letters
and sorting papers, before he departed to his
office in the West End. INIrs. Poole entered,
leading an infant who had not yet learned to
walk alone, and denoting, by an interesting en-
largement of shape, a kindly design to bless that
infant, at no distant period, with a brother or
sister, as the case might be.
" Come and kiss Pa, Johnny," said she to the
infant.
" Mrs. Poole, I am busy," growled Pa.
" Pa's busy — working hard for little Johnny.
Johnny will be the better for it some day," said
Mrs. Poole, tossing the infant half up to the
ceiling, in compensation for the loss of the
paternal kiss.
" ■Mrs. Poole, what do you want ?"
"May I hire Jones's brougham for two hours
to-day to pay visits? There are a great many
cards we ought to leave; is there any place
where I should leave a card for you, lovey — any
person of consequence you were introduced to
at Mrs. Haughton"3 last night? That great
man they were all talking about, to whom vou
seemed to take such a fancy, Samuel, duck — "
"Do get out! that man insulted me, I tell
you."
" Insulted you ! No ; you never told me."
" I did tell you last night coming home."
"Dear me, I thought you meant that Mr.
Hartopp."
"Well, he almost insulted me, too. Mrs.
Poole, you are stupid and disagreeable. Is that
all you have to say ?"
" Pa's cross, Johnny dear ! poor Pa ! — people
have vexed Pa, Johnny — naughty people. We
must go, or we shall vex him "too."
Such heavenly sweetness on the part of a for-
bearing wife would have softened Tamburlane.
Poole's sullen brow relaxed. If women knew
how to treat men, not a husband, nnhenpecked,
would be found from Indos to the Pole ! And
Poole, for all his surly demeanor, was as com-
pletely governed by that angel as a bear by his
keeper.
"Well, Mrs. Poole, excuse me. I own I am
out of sorts to-day — give me little Johnnv — there
(kissing the infant, who in return makes a di(T
at Pa's left eye, and begins to cry on finding
that he has not succeeded in digging it out)
take the brougham. Hush, Johnny — hush —
and you may leave a card for me at Mr. Peck-
ham's, Harley Street. My eye smarts horri-
bly ; that baby will gouge me one of these
days."
Mrs. Poole has succeeded in stilling the in-
fant, and confessing that Johnny's fingers are
extremely strong for his age — but, adding, that
babies will catch at whatever is very bright and
beautiful, such as gold and jewels, and Mr.
Poole's eyes, administers to the wounded orb so
soothing a lotion of pity and admiration that
Poole growls out quite mildly — " Nonsense, blar-
ney — by-the-by, I did not say this morning that
you should not have the rosewood chifFoniere."
" No, you said you could not afford it, duck ;
and when Pa says he can't afford it. Pa must
be the judge — must not he, Johnny dear?"
"But, perhaps, I can afford it. Yes, you may
have it — yes, I say, you shall have it. Don't
forget to leave that card on Peckham — he's a
moneyed man. There's a ring at the bell, who
is it? Run and see."
JNIrs. Poole obeyed with great activity, con-
sidering her interesting condition. She came
back in half a minute.
"Oh, my Adolphus! oh, my Samuel! it is
that dreadful-looking man who was here the
other evening — staid with you so long. I don't
like his looks at all. Pray, don't be at home."
"I must," said Poole, turning a shade paler,
if that were possible. " Stop — don't let that
girl go to the door, and you leave me." He
snatched his hat and gloves, and putting aside
the parlor maid, who had emerged from the
shades below in order to answer the 'ring,'
walked hastily down the small garden.
Jasper Losely was stationed at the little gate.
Jasper was no longer in rags, but he was coarsely
clad — clad as if he had resigned all pretense
to please a lady's eye, or to impose upon a West-
End tradesman — a check shirt — a rough pea-
jacket, his hands buried in its pockets.
Poole started with well-simulated surprise.
" What, you ! I am just going to my office — in
a great hurry at present."
"Hurry or not, I must and will speak to yon,"
said Jasper, doggedly.
"What now? then, step in ; — only remember
I can't give you more than five minutes."
The rude visitor followed Poole into the back
parloi", and closed the door after him.
Leaning his arms over a chair, his hat still on
his head, Losely fixed his fierce eyes on his old
friend, and said in a low, set, determined voice
— "Now, mark me, Dolly Poole, if you think to
shirk my business, or throw me over, you'll find
yourself in Queer Street. Have you called on
Guy Darrell, and put my case to him, or have
you not ?"
"I met Mr. Darrell only last night, at a very
genteel party. (Poole deemed it pi-udent not
to say by whom that genteel party was given, for
it will be remembered that Poole had been Jas-
per's confidant in that adventurer's former de-
signs upon Mrs. Haughton ; and if Jasper knevr
that Poole had made her acquaintance, might
he not insist upon Poole's reintroducing him as
a visiting acquaintance ?) "A verj- genteel par-
ty," repeated Poole. " I made a point of being
presented to Mr. Darrell, and very polite he was
at fi.rst."
"Curse his politeness — get to the point."
"I sounded my way very carefully, as you
may suppose ; and when I had got him into
174
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
friendly chat, you understand, I began : Ah I my
poor Losely, nothing to be done there — he flew
off in a tangent — as much as desired me to
mind my own business, and hold my tongue;
and upon my life, I don't think there is a chance
for you in that quarter."
" Very well^we shall see. Xext, have you
taken any steps to find out the girl, my daugh-
ter ?"
" I have, I assure you. But you give me so
sli;:;ht a clew. Are you quite sure she is not in
America after all?"
" I have told you before that that story about
America was all bosh! a stratagem of the old
gentleman's to deceive me. Poor old man,"
continued Jasper, in a tone -that positively be-
trayed feeling — " I don't wonder that he dreads
and flies me ; yet I would not hurt him more
than I have done, even to be as well off as you
are — blinking at me from your mahogany perch
like a pet owl with its crop full of mice. And
if I would take the girl from him, it is for her
own good. For if Dai-rell could be got to make
a provision on her, and, through her, on myself,
why, of course, the old man should share the
benefit of it. And now that these infernal pains
often keep me awake half the night, I can't
always shut out the idea of that old man wan-
dering about the world, and dying in a ditch.
And that runaway girl — to whom, I dare swear,
he would give away his last crumb of bread — •
ought to be an annuity to us both': Basta, basta !
As to the American story — I had a friend at
Paris, who went to America on a speculation;
I asked him to inquire about this William Waife
and his grand-daughter Sophy, who were said to
have sailed for New York nearly five years ago,
and he saw the very persons — settled in New
Tork — no longer under the name of Waife, but
their true name of Simpson, and got out from
the man that they had been induced to take
their passage from England in the name of
Waife, at the request of a person whom the man
would not give up, but to whom he said he was
under obligations. Perhaps the old gentleman
had done the fellow a kind turn in early life.
The description of this soi disant Waife and his
grandchild settles the matter ; — wholly unlike
those I seek; so that there is every reason to
suppose they must still be in England, and it
is your business to find them. Continue your
search — quicken your wits — let me be better
pleased with your success when I call again this
day week — and meanwhile four pounds, if you
please — as much more as you like."
"Why, I gave you four pounds the other
day, besides six pounds for clothes ; it can't be
gone."
" Every penny."
"Dear, dear! can't you maintain yourself
anyhow? Can't you get any one to play at
cards ? Four pounds ! Why, with your talent
for whist, four pounds are a capital?"
" Whom can I play with ? Whom can I herd
with? — Cracksmen and pickpockets. Fit me
out ; ask me to your own house ; invite your own
friends ; make up a rubber, and you Avill then
see what I can do with four pounds ; and may
go shares if you like, as we used to do."
" Don't talk so loud. Losely, you know very
well that what you ask is impossible. I've turned
over a new leaf."
"But I've still got yonr handwriting on the
old leaf."
"What's the good of these stupid threats?
If you really wanted to do me a mischief,
where could you go to, and who'd beUeve
you ?"
"I fancy your wife would. I'll try. Hillo — "
" Stop — stop — stop. No row here, Sir. No
scandal. Hold your tongue, or I'll send for the
police."
"Do! Nothing I should like better. I'm
tired out. I want to tell my own story at the
Old Bailey, and have my revenge upon you,
upon Darrell, iipon all. Send for the police."
Losely threw himself at length on the sofa —
(new morocco, with spring cushions) — and folded
his arms. ^
" You could only give me five minutes — they
are gone, I fear. I am more liberal. I give
you your own time to consider. I don't care if
I stay to dine ; I dare say Mrs. Poole will excuse
my dress."
"Losely, you are such a — fellow ! If I do give
you the four pounds you ask, will you promise
to shift for yourself somehow, and molest me no
more?"
" Certainly not. I shall come once every week
for the same sum. I can't live upon less —
until — "
"Until what?"
" Until either you get Mr. Darrell to settle on
me a suitable pro\"ision, or until you place me in
possession of my daughter, and I can then be in
a better condition to treat with him myself; for
if I would make a claim on account of the girl, I
must produce the girl, or he may say she is
dead. Besides, if she be as pretty as she was
when a child, the very sight of her might move
him more than all my talk."
"And if I succeed in doing any thing with
Mr. Darrell, or discovering your daughter, you
will give up all such letters and documents of
mine as you say you possess ?"
"'Say — I possess!' I have shown them to
you in this pocket-book. Dolly Poole — your
o«Ti proposition to rob old Latham's safe."
Poole eyed the book, which the ruflian took
out and tapped. Had the rufiian been a slighter
man, Poole would have been a braver one. As
it was — he eyed and groaned. "Turn against
one's old crony! So unhandsome, so unlike
what I thought you were I"
" It is you who would turn against me. But
stick to Darrell, or find me my daughter, and
help her and me to get justice out of him; and
j'ou shall not only have back these letters, but
I'll pay yon handsomely — handsomely, Dolly
Poole. Zooks, Sir — I am fallen — but I am al-
ways a gentleman."
Therewith Losely gave a vehement slap to his
hat, which, crushed by the stroke, improved his
general appearance into an aspect so outra-
geously raffish, that but for the expression of
his countenance the contrast between the boast
and the man would have been ludicrous even to
Mr. Poole. The countenance was too dark to
permit laughter. In the dress, but the ruin of
fortune — in the face, the ruin of man.
Poole heaved a deep sigh, and extended four
sovereigns. Losely rose and took them care-
lessly. " This day week," he said — shook him-
self — and went his wav.
WHAT "WILL HE DO WITH IT?
CHAPTER VI.
French tonches to the Three Vignettes for the Book of
Beauty.
Weeks passed — the London season was be-
ginning — Darrell had decided nothing — the
prestige of his position was undiminished — in
politics, perhaps, higher. He had succeeded in
reconciling some great men ; he had strength-
ened, it might be saved, a jarring cabinet. In
all this he had shown admirable knowledge of
mankind, and proved that time and disuse had
not lessened his powers of perception. In his
matrimonial designs Darrell seemed more bent
than ever upon the hazard — irresolute as ever
on the choice of a partner. Still the choice ap-
peared to be circumscribed to the fair three who
had been subjected to Colonel ^Morlej's specula-
tive criticism — Lady Adela, Miss Vipont, Flora
Vrn-an. I\Iuch j)ro and con might be said in
respect to each. Lady Adela was so handsome
that it was a pleasure to look at her; and that
is much when one sees the handsome face every
day — provided the pleasure does not wear off.
She had the reputation of a very good temper;
and the expression of her countenance confirmed
it. There, panegj'ric stopped ; but detraction
did not commence. What remained was in-
offensive commonplace. She had no salient
attribute, and no ruling passion. Certainly she
wotild never have wasted a thought on Mr. Dar-
rell, nor have discovered a single merit in him,
if he had not been quoted as a very rich man of
high character in search of a wife ; and if her
father had not said to her — "Adela, Jlr. Dar-
rell has been greatly stiiick with your appear-
ance — he told me so. He is not young, but he
is still a very fine-looking man, and you are
tnenty-seven. 'Tis a greater distinction to be
noticed by a person of his years and position
than by a pack of silly young fellows, who think
more of their own pretty faces than they would
ever do of yours. If you did not mind a little
disparity of years, he would make you a happy
wife ; and, in the course of nature, a widow,
not too old to enjoy hberty, and with a jointure
that might entitle you to a still better match."
Darrell, thus put into Lady Adela's head, he
remained there, and became an idee fixe. View-
ed in the light of a probable husband, he was
elevated into an '■ interesting man." She would
have received his addresses with gentle com-
placency ; and, being more the creature of habit
than impulse, would, no doubt, in the intimacy
of connubial life, have blessed him, or any other
admiring husband, with a reasonable modicum
of languid affection. Nevertheless, Lady Adela
was an unconscious impostor ; for, owing to a
mild softness of eye and a susceptibihty to
blushes, a victim ensnared by her beautv would
be apt to give her credit for' a nature far more
accessible to the romance of the tender passions,
than, happily perhaps for her on-n peace of mind,
she possessed ; and might flatter himself that he
had produced a sensation which gave that soft-
ness to the eye, and that damask to the blush.
Honoria Vipont would have been a choice far
more creditable to the good sense of so mature
a wooer. Few better specimens of a young ladv
brought up to become an accomplished woman
of the world. She had sufiicient instruction to
be the companion of an ambitious man — solid
i judgment to fit her for his occasional addser.
i She could preside with dignity over a statelv
j household — receive with grace distinguished
I guests. Fitted to administer an ample fortune,
; ample fortune was necessary to the development
of her excellent qualities. If a man of Dan-ell's
age were bold enough to marr}- a young wife, a
safer -nife among the young ladies of London
he could scarcely find ;" for though Honoria was
\ only three-aud-twenty, she v,as as staid, as sens-
ible, and as remote 'from all girlish frivolities
. as if she had been eight-and-thirty. Certainly,
. had Guy Darrell been of her own years, his
fortune unmade, his fame to win, a lawyer re-
^ siding at the back of Holborn, or a pettv squire
in the petty demesnes of Fawley, he woiild have
had no charm in the eves of "Honoria Vipont.
I Disparity of years Mas in this case not his draw-
back but his advantage, since to that disparity
Darrell owed the established name and the emi-
nent station which made Honoria think she ele-
j vated her own self in preferring him. It is but
I justice to her to distinguish here between a wo-
^ man's veneration for the attributes of respect
which a man gathers round him, and the more
' vulgar sentiment which sinks the man altogether,
' except as the necessary fixture to be taken in
with the general valuation. It is not fair to ask
i if a girl who entertains a preference for one of
I our toiling, stirring, ambitious sex, who mav be
I double her age, or have a snub nose, but "who
looks dignified and imposing on a pedestal of
j state, whether she would like him as much if
I stripped of all his accessories, and left unre-
j deemed to his baptismal register or unbecoming
I nose. Just as well ask a girl in love with a
yotmg Lotharia if she would like him as much
! if he had been ugly and crooked. The high
' name of the one man is as much a part of hnn
! as good looks are to the other. Thus, though
[ it was said of Madame de la Valliere that she
loved Louis XIV. for himself and not for his
j regal grandeur, is there a woman in the world,
' however disinterested, who believes that ^Madame
I de la Villiere would have liked Louis XPV". as
I much if Louis XIV. had been Mr. John Jones !
Honoria would not have bestowed her hand on
a brainless, worthless nobleman, whatever his
rank or wealth. She was above that sort of
ambition ; but neither would she have married
the best-looking and worthiest John Jones v.ho
ever bore that British appellation, if he had not
occupied the social position which brought the
merits of a Jones within range of the eye-glass
of a Vipont.
Many girls in the nursery say to their juve-
nile confidants, " I will only marry the man I
love." Honoria had ever said, '•! will only
marry the man I respect." Thus it was her re-
spect for Guj- Darrell that made her honor him
by her preference. She appreciated his intel-
lect — she fell in love with the reputation which
the intellect had acquired. And DaiTcll might
certainly choose worse. His cool reason in-
clined him much to Honoria. When Alban
Morley argued in her favor he had no escape
from acquiescence, except in the turns and
doubles of his ironical humor. But his heart
was a rebel to his reason ; and between you and
me, Honoria was exactly one of those young
women by whom a man of grave years ought to
be attracted, and by whom, somehow or other,
176
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
he never is ; I suspect, because the older we
grow the more we love vouthfulness of charac-
ter. When Alcides, havingr gone through all
the fatigues of life, took a bride in Olympus, he
ought to have selected Minen-a, but he chose
Hebe.
Will Darrell find J;iis Hebe in Flora Vyvyan ?
Alban Morley became more and more alarmed
by that apprehension. He was shrewd enough
to recognize in her the girl of all others formed
to glad the eye and plague the heart of a grave
and reverend seigneur. And it might well not
only flatter the vanity, but beguile the judg-
ment, of a man who feared his hand would be
accepted only for the sake of his money, that
Flora, just at this moment, refused the greatest
match in the kingdom — young LordVipont, son
of the new Earl of Montfort — a young man of
good sense, high character, well-looking as men
go, heir to estates almost royal — a young man
whom no girl on earth is justified in refusing.
But would the whimsical creature accept Dar-
rell ? Was she not merely making sport of him,
and if, caught by her arts, he, sage and elder,
solemnly offered homage and hand to that belle
dedaigneuse who had just doomed to despair a
comely young magnate with five times his for-
tune, would she not hasten to make him the
ridicule of London ?
Darrell had, perhaps, his secret reasons for
thinking otherwise, but he did not confide them
even to Alban Morley. This much only will
the narrator, more candid, say to the reader —
if out of the three whom his thoughts fluttered
round, Guy Darrell wished to select the one
who wotild love him best — love him with the
whole, fresh, unreasoning heart of a girl whose
childish frowardness sprung from childlike in-
nocence — let him dare the hazard of refusal
and of ridicule ; let him say to Flora Vyvyan,
in the pathos of his sweet, deep voice, " Come,
and be the spoiled darling of my gladdened
age ; let my life, ere it sink into night, be re-
joiced by the bloom and fresh breeze of the
morning 1"
But to say it he must wish it ; he himself
must love — love with all the lavish indulgence,
all the knightly tenderness, all the grateful sym-
pathizing joy in the youth of the beloved, when
youth for the lover is no more, which alone can
realize what we sometimes see, though loth to
own it — congenial unions with unequal years.
If Darrell feel not that love, woe to him ; woe
and thrice .shame if he allure to his hearth one
who might indeed be a Hebe to the spouse who
gave up to her his whole heart in return for
hers ; but to the spouse who had no heart to
give, or gave but the chips of it, the Hebe, in-
dignant, would be worse than Erinnys !
All things considered, then, they who •wish
well to Guy Darrell must range with Alban
Morley in favor of Miss Honoria Vipont. She
proffering affectionate respect, Darrell respond-
ing by rational esteem. So, perhaps, Dan-ell
himself thought ; for whenever Miss Vipont was
named he became more taciturn, more absorbed
in reflection, and sighed heavily, like a man who
slowly makes up his mind to a decision, wise but
not tempting.
CHAPTER YU.
Containing much of that information which the wisest
men in the world could not give, but which the Au-
thor can.
"Darrell," said Colonel Morley, "you re-
member my nephew George as a boy ? He is
I now the rector of Humberston ; man-ied — a
I very nice sort of woman — suits him. Hum-
1 berston is a fine living ; but his talents are
I wasted there. He preached for the first time
in London last year, and made a considerable
sensation. This year he has been much out of
town. He has no church here as yet. I hope
to get him one. Carr is determined that he
shall be a Bishop. Meanwhile he preaches at
Chapel to-ma^Tow. Come and hear him
with me, and then tell me frankly — is he elo-
quent or not ?"
Dan^ell had a prejudice against fashionable
preachers, but to please Colonel Morley he went
to hear George. He was agreeably surprised
by the pulpit oratory of the young divine. It
j had that rare combination of impassioned earn-
1 estness, with subdued tones, and decorous ges-
! ture, which suits the ideal of ecclesiastical
i eloquence conceived by an educated English
I Churchman —
" Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full."
I Occasionally the old defect in utterance was
I discernible ; there was a gasp as for breath, or
I a prolonged dwelling upon certain syllables,
which, occurring in the most animated passages,
and apparently evincing the preachers struggle
I with emotion, rather served to heighten the
sympathy of the audience. But for the most
part the original stammer was replaced by a fe-
: licitous pause — the pause as of a thoughtful rca-
soner, or a solemn monitor knitting ideas, that
came too quick, into method, or chastening im-
pulse into disciplined zeal. The mind of the
j preacher, thus not only freed from trammel, but
I armed for victory, came forth with that power
which is peculiar to an original intellect — the
I power which suggests more than it demon- '
' strates. He did not so much preach to his au-
j dience as wind himself through unexpected
; ways into the hearts of the audience ; and they
! who heard suddenly found their hearts preach-
; ing to themselves. He took for his text, "Cast
I down, but not destroyed." And out of this text
I he framed a discourse full of true Gospel ten-
[ demess, which seemed to raise up comfort as
; the sanng, against despair as the evil, principle
I of mortal life. The congregation was what is
I called "brilliant" — statesmen, and peers, and
: great authors, and fine ladies — people whom the
inconsiderate believe to stand little in need of
comfort, and never to be subjected to despair.
In many an intent or drooping face in that
brilliant congregation might be read a very dif-
ferent tale. But Of all present there was no
one whom the discourse so moved as a woman,
who, chancing to pass that way, had followed
the throng into the Chapel, and" with difficulty
obtained a seat at the far end ; a woman who
had not been within the walls of chapel or church
for long years — a grim woman, in iron gray.
There she sate, unnoticed, in her remote cor-
ner ; and before the preacher had done, her face
was hidden behind her clasped hands, and she
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
177
was weeping such tears as she had not wept
since childhood.
On leaving church Darrell said little more to
the Colonel than this : "Your nephew takes me
bv surprise. The Church wants such men. He
will have a grand career, if life be spared to
him." Then he sank into a reverie, from which
he broke abrupth' — '• Your nephew was at school
wiih my boy. Had my son lived, what had been
his career ?"
The Colonel, never encouraging painful sub-
jecis, made no rejoinder.
" Bring George to see me to-morrow. I
shrunk from asking it before : I thought the
sight of him would too much revive old sorrows,
but I feel I should accustom myself to face ev-
ery memory. Bring him."
The next day the Colonel took George to
Darrell's ; but George had been pre-engaged
till late at noon, and Darrell was just leaving
home, and at his street-door, when the uncle
and nephew came. They respected his time
too much to accept his offer to come in, but
walked beside him for a few minutes, as he be-
stowed upon George those compliments which
ai-e sweet to the ear of rising men from the lips
of those who have risen.
"I remember you, George, as a boy," said
Darrell, " and thanked you then for good advice
to a school-fellow, who is lost to your counsels
now." He faltered an instant, but went on firm-
ly : '• You had then a slight defect in utterance,
which, I understand from your uncle, increased
as you grew older ; so that I never anticipated
for you the fame that you are achieving. Orator
.fit — you must have been admirably taught. In
the management of your voice, in the excellence
of your delivery, I see that you are one of the
few who deem that the Divine AVord should not
be unworthily nttered. The debater on beer
bills may be excused from studying the orator's
efiects ; but all that enforce, dignify, adorn,
make the becoming studies of him who strives
by eloquence to people heaven ; whose task it is
to adjure the thoughtless, animate the languid,
soften the callous, humble the proud, alarm the
guilty, comfort the sorrowful, call back to the
fold the lost. Is the culture to be slovenly
where the glebe is so fertile? The only field
left in modern times for the ancient orator's
sublime conceptions, but laborious training, is
the Preacher's. And I own, George, that I
envy the masters who skilled to the Preacher's
art an intellect like yours."
"Masters," said the Colonel, "I thought all
those elocution masters failed with you, George.
You cured and taught yourself. Did not you ?
No! AVhy, then, who was your teacher?"
George looked very much embarrassed, and,
attempting to answer, began horribly to stutter.
Darrell, conceiving that a preacher whose
fame was not yet confirmed, might reasonably
dislike to confess those obligations to elaborate
study, which, if known, might detract from his
eifect, or expose him to ridicule, hastened to
change the subject. "You have been to the
country, I hear, George ; at your living, I sup-
pose?"
"Xo. I have not been there very lately;
traveling about."
"Have you seen Lady Montfort since your
return ?" asked the Colonel.
M
"I only retiu-ned on Saturday night. I go to
, Lady Montfort's, at Twickenham, this even-
ing."
! " She has a delightful retreat," said the Col-
onel. " But if she wish to avoid admiration, she
should not make the banks of the river her fa-
vorite haunt. I know some romantic admirers
who, when she reappears in the world, may be
j rival aspirants, and who have much taken to
rowing since Lady Montfort has retired to
j Twickenham. They catch a glimpse of her,
I and return to boast of it. But they report that
: there is a young lady seen walking with her —
j an extremely pretty one— who is she ? People
I ask 7ne — as if I knew every thing."
"A companion, I sujjpose," said George, more
I and more confused. "But, pardon me, I must
leave vou now. Good-bv, uncle. Good-dav, Mr
Darrell." '.
Darrell did not seem to observe George take
leave, but walked on, his hat over his brows, lost
in one of his frequent fits of abstracted gloom.
"If my nephew were not married," said the
Colonel, "I should regard his embarrassment
with much suspicion — embarrassed at every
i point, from his travels about the countiy to the
I question of a young lady at Twickenham. I
wonder who that young lady can be — not one
: of the Viponts, or I should have heard. Are
, there any young ladies on the Lvndsay side? —
Eh, Darrell ?"
[ "What do I care — your head runs on young
ladies," answered Darrell, with peevish vivaci-
ty, as he stopped abruptly at Carr Vipont's door.
"And your feet do not seem to run from
them," said the Colonel; and, with an ironical
salute, walked away, while the expanding port-
als ingulfed his friend.
As he sauntered up St. James's Street, nod^
ding toward the thronged windows of its various
clubs, the Colonel suddenly encountered Lionel,
and, taking the young gentleman's arm, said,
" If you are not very much occupied, will you
waste half an hour on me ? — I am going home-
ward."
Lionel readily assented, and the Colonel con-
tinued : "Are you in want of your cabriolet to-
day, or can you lend it to me? I have asked a
Frenchman, who brings me a letter of introduc-
tion, to dine at the nearest restaurant to which
one can ask a Frenchman. I need not say that
is Greenwich ; and if I took him in a cabriolet,
he would not suspect that he was taken five miles
out of town."
" Alas ! my dear Colonel, I have just sold my
cabriolet."
"What! old-fashioned already ? True, it has
been built three months. Perhaps the horse, too,
has become an antique in some other collection
— silent — imi! — cabriolet and horse both sold?"
"Both," said Lionel, ruefully.
"Nothing surprises me that man can do,"
said the Colonel, "or I should be surprised.
When, acting on Dairell's general instructions
for your outfit, I bought that horse, I flattered
myself that I had chosen well. But rare are
good horses — rarer still a good judge of them ;
I suppose I was cheated, and the brute proved a
screw."
"The finest cab-horse in London, my dear
Colonel, and every one knows how proud I was
of him. But I wanted money, and had nothing
178
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
else that vrould bring the sum I required. Oh,
Colonel Morley, do hear me !"
" Certainly, I am not deaf, nor is St. James's
Street. When a man says, ' I have parted with
my horse because I wanted money,' I advise
him to say it in a whisper."
" I have been imprudent, at least unlucky,
and I must pay the penalty. A friend of mine
— that is, not exactly a friend, but an acquaint-
ance — whom I see every day — one of my own
set — asked me to sign my name at Paris to a
bill at three months' date, as his security. He
gave me his honor that I should hear no more
of it — he would be sure to take up the bill when
due — a man whom I supposed to be as well off
as myself! You will allow that I could scarcely
refuse — at all events, I did not. The bill be-
came due two days ago ; my friend does not pay
it, and indeed says he can not, and the holder
of the bill calls on me. He was very civil — of-
fered to renew it — pressed mc to take my time,
etc. ; but I did not like his manner, and as to
my friend. I find that, instead of being well off,
as I supposed, he is hard up, and that I am not
the first he has got into the same scrape — not
intending it, I am sure. He's really a veiy good
fellow, and, if I wanted security, would be it to-
morrow, to any amount."
"I've no doubt of it — to any amount I" said
the Colonel.
"So I thought it best to conclude the matter
at once. I had saved nothing from my allow-
ance, munificent as it is. I could not have the
face to ask Mr. Darrell to remunerate me for my
own irajjrudence. I should not like to borrow
from my mother — I know it would be incon-
venient to her. I sold both horse and cabriolet
this morning. I had just been getting the check
cashed when I met you. I intend to take the
monev mvself to the bill-holder. I have just the
sum— £200."
"The horse alone was worth that," said the
Colonel, with a faint sigh — "not to be replaced.
Prance and Russia have the pick of our stables.
However, if it is sold, it is sold — talk no more of
it. I hate painful subjects. You did right not
to renew the bill — it is opening an account with
Ruin ; and though I avoid preaching on money-
makers, or, indeed, any other (preaching is my
nephew's vocation, not mine), yet allow me to
extract from you a solemn promise never again
to sign bills, nor to draw them. Be to your
friend what you please except security for him.
Orestes never asked Pylades to help him to bor-
row at fifty per cent. Promise me — your word
of honor as a gentleman ! Do you hesitate ?"
"My dear Colonel," said Lionel, frankly, "I
do hesitate. I might promise not to sign a mon-
ey-lender's bill on my own account, though real-
ly I think you take rather an exaggerated view
of what is, after all, a common occurrence — "
"Do I?" said the Colonel, meekly. "I'm
sorry to hear it. I detest exaggeration. Go on.
You migiit promise not to ruin yourself — but you
object to promise not to help in the ruin of your
friend."
"That is exquisite irony, Colonel," said Li-
onel, ])iqued; "but it does not deal with the
difficulty, which is simply this : When a man
whom you call friend — whom you walk with,
ride with, dine with almost every day, says to
you, ' I am in immediate want of a few hun-
dreds — I don't ask you to lend them to me, per-
haps you can't — but assist me to borrow — trust
to my honor that the debt shall not fall on you,'
why, then, it seems as if to refuse the favor was
to tell the man you call friend that you doubt
his honor ; and though I have been caught once
in that way, I feel that I must be caught very
often before I should have the moral courage to
say ' Xo I' Don't ask me, then, to promise — be
satisfied with my assurance that in future, at
least, I will be more cautious, and if the loss
fall on mc, why, the worst that can happen is
to do again what I do now."
"Xay, you would not perhaps have anothei
horse and cab to sell. In that case, you would
do the reverse of what you do now — you would
renew the bill— ^he debt would run on like a
snow-ball — in a year or tsvo you would owe, nol
hundreds, but thousands. But come in — here
we are at my door."
The Colonel entered his dra^ving-^oom. A
miracle of exquisite neatness the room was —
rather effeminate, perhaps, in its attributes ; bul
that was no sign of the Colonel's tastes, but of
his popularity with the ladies. All those prettv
things were their gifts. The tapestry on the
chairs their work — the scvre on the consoles —
the clock on the mantle-shelf — the inkstand,
paper-cutter, taper-stand on the writing-table —
their birthday presents. Even the white wool-
ly jMaltese dog that sprang from the rug to wel-
come him — even the flowers in the jardinier —
even the tasteful cottage-piano, and the verj
music-stand beside it — and the card-trays, piled
high with invitations — were contributions from
the forgiving sex to the unrequiting bachelor.
Surveying his apartment with a coraplacenf
air, the Colonel sank into his easy ftuiteuil, and
drawing off' his gloves leisurely, said —
"Xo man has more friends than I have —
never did I lose one — never did I sign a bill,
Your father pursued a different policy — he sign,
cd many bills — and lost many friends."
Lionel, much distressed, looked down, and
evidently desired to have done with the subject,
Xot so the Colonel. That shrewd man, though
he did not preach, had a way all his own, which
was perhaps quite as effective as any sermon by
a fashionable layman can be to an impatieni
youth.
"Yes," resumed the Colonel, "it is the old
story. One alw,ays begins by being security to
a friend. The discredit of the thing is familiar-
ized to one's mind by the false show of generous
confidence in another. Then wliat you have
done for a friend, a friend should do for you —
a hundred or two would be useful now — you are
sure to repay it in three months. To Youth the
Future seems safe as the Bank of England, and
distant as the Peaks of Himalaya. You pledge
your honor that in three months you will re-
lease your friend. The three months expire.
To release the one friend, you catch hold of an-
other — the bill is renewed, premium and inter-
est thrown into the next pay-day — soon the ac-
count multiplies, and with it the'honor dwindles
— your NAME circulates from hand to hand on
the back of doubtful paper — your name, which,
in all money transactions, should grow higher
and higher each year you live, fiilling down ev-
ery month like the shares in a swindling specu-
lation. You begin bv what you call trusting a
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
179
friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction— . capital horseman— knew the wavs of all ani-
buving him arsenic to clear his complexion ; . mals, fishes, and birds ; I verilv be'lieve he could
you end by dragging all near you into your own , have coaxed a pug-dog to point, and an owl to
abyss, as a drowning man would clutch at his , sing. Void of alt malice, up to all fun. Im-
own brother. Lionel Haughton, the saddest : agine how much people would court, and how
expression I ever saw in your father's face was i little they would do for, a Willv of 'that sort,
when — when — but you shall hear the story." ; Do I bore you ?"
" Xo, Sir ; spare me. Since you so insist on | " On the contrar\-, I am sreatlv interested "
it, I will give the promise— it is enough ; and j " One thing a Willy, if a Willvcould be wise,
my father — " ought to do for himself— keep s'im^le. A wed-
'' Was as honorable as yoa when he first sign- ' ded Willy is in a false position? :Mv Willv
ed his name to a friend's bill ; and perhaps wedded— for love, too — an amiable girl I be-
promised to do so no more as reluctantly as you : lieve — (I never saw her; it was lono-'^aft'erward
do. You had better let me say on ; if I stop ; that I knew Willv) — but as poor "as" himself,
now, you will forget all about it by this day I The friends and relatives then said— 'This is
twelvemonth ; if I go on, you will never forget. I serious ; something must be done for Willv.' It
There are other examples besides your father,
I am about to name one."
Lionel resigned himself to the operation,
throwing his handkerchief over his face as if he
had taken chloroform.
was easy to say, ' something must be done,' and
monstrous difficult to do it. While the relations
were consulting, his half-sister, the Baronet's
lawful daughter, died, unmarried : and, though
she had ignored 'nim in life, left him £20(X).
"When I was young," resumed the Colonel, { 'I have hit it now,' cried one of the cousins
" I chanced to make acquaintance 'with a man j ' Willy is fond of a countrv life. I will let him
of infinite whim and humor ; fascinating as ; have a farm on a nominal rent, his £2000 v.ill
Darreil himself, though in a very different way
We called liim Willy — you know the kind of
man one calls by his Christian name, cordially
abbreviated — that kind of man seems never to
be quite grown up ; and therefore never rises in
life. I never knew a man called Willy after
the age of thirty, who did not come to a melan-
choly end I Willy was the natural son of a rich,
helter-skelter, cleverish, maddish, stylish, raffish,
four-in-hand Baronet, by a celebrated French
actress. The title is extinct now ; and so, I be-
lieve, is that genus of stylish, raffish, four-in-
hand Baronet. Sir Julian Losely — "
' ■ Losely !"' echoed Lionel.
" Yes ; do you know the name ?"
' ' I never heard it till yesterday. I want to
tell you what I did hear then — but after your
story — go on."
" Sir Julian Losely (Willy's father) lived with
stock it ; and his farm, which is surrounded by
woods, will be a capital hunting meet. As lono-
as I hve Willy shall be mounted.'
"Willy took the farm, and astonished his
friends by attending to it. It was just begin-
ning to answer when his wife died, leavmg him
only one child — a boy ; and her death made
him so melancholy that he could no longer at-
tend to his farm. He threw it up ; invented the
proceeds as a capital, and lived on tlie interest
as a gentleman at large. He traveled over Eu-
rope for some time — chiefly on foot — came back,
having recovered his spirits — resumed his old,
desultory, purposeless life at different country-
houses ; and at one of those houses I and Charles
Haughton met him. Here I pause, to state that
Will Losely at that time impressed me with
the idea that he was a thoroughly honest man.
Though he was certainly no formalist — thouo^h
the French lady as his wife, and reared Willy j he had lived with wild sets of conrivial scape-
in his house, with as much pride and fondnes"s {graces — though, out of sheer high spirits, he
as if he intended him for his heir. The poor i would now and then make conventional Propri-
boy, I suspect, got but little regular education ; | eries laugh at their own long faces ; vet. I should
though, of course, he spoke his French mother's 1 have said, that Bayard himself —and Bayard
tongue like a native ; and, thanks also perhaps was no saint — could not have been more i'nca-
to his mother, he had an extraordinary talent pable of a disloyal, rascally, shabby action.
for mimicry and acting. His father was pas- i Xay, in the plain 'matter of i'ntegritv, his ideas
sionately fond of private theatricals, and ^Yilly might be called refined, almost Quixotic. If
had early practice in that line. I once saw him | asked to give or to lend, Willy's hand was in his
act Falstaff in a country-house, and I doubt if '. pocket in an instant ; but though thrown amono-
Quin could have acted it better. Well, when ! rich men — careless as himself— Willv never pu"
Willy was still a mere boy, he lost his mother, his hand into their pockets, never ' borrowed,
the actress. Sir Julian married — had a legiti-
mate daughter — died intestate — and the daugh-
ter, of course, had the personal property, which
was not much ; the heir-at-law got the land,
and poor Willy nothing. But Yv'illv was a uni
never owed. He would accept hospitality —
make frank use of your table, your horses, your
dogs — but your money, no! He repaid all he
took from a host by rendering himself the pleas-
antest guest that host ever entertained. Poor
versal favorite with his father's old friends— { Willy ! I think I see his quaint smile brimming
wild fellows like Sir Julian himself: among | over with sly sport! The sound of his voice was
them there were two cousins, with large coun- ; like a crv of ' half holidav' in a school-room,
try-houses, sporting men, and bachelors. Thev
shared Willy benveen them, and quarreled
which should have the most of him. So he
grew up to be man, with no settled provision,
but always welcome, not only to the two cous-
ins, but at every house in which, like Milton's
lark, 'he came to startle the dull night' — the
most amusing companion! — a famous shot — a
He dishonest ! I should as soon have suspected
the noonday sun of being a dark lantern ! I
remember, when he and I were walking home
from wild-duck shooting in advance of our com-
panions, a short conversation between us that
touched me greatly, for it showed that, under
all his lerity, there were sound sense and right
feeling. I asked him about his son, then a bov
180
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
at school. ' Why, as it was the Christmas va-
cation, he had refused our host's suggestion to
let the lad come down there?' 'Ah,' said he,
' dout fanc}- that I will lead my son to grow up
a scatter-brained good-for-naught like his father.
His society is the joy of my life ; whenever I
have enough in my pockets to afford myself that
joy, I go and hire a quiet lodging close by his
school, to have him with me from Saturday till
Monday all to myself — where he never hears
wild fellows call me "Willy," and ask me to
mimic. I had hoped to have spent this vaca-
tion with him in tha-t way, but his school-bill
was higher than usual, and after paying it I
had not a guinea to spare — obliged to come
here where they lodge and feed me for nothing ;
the boy's uncle on the mother's side — a respect-
able man in business — kindly takes him home
for the holidays ; but did not ask me, because
his wife — and I don't blame her — thinks I'm
too wild for a city clerk's sober household.'
"I asked Will Losely what he meant to do with
his son, and hinted that I might get the boy a
commission in the army without purchase.
" 'No,' said Willy, 'I know what it is to set
up for a gentleman on the capital of a beggar.
It is to be a shuttlecock between discontent and
temptation. I would not have my lost \\"ife's
son waste his life as I have done. He would
he more spoiled, too, than I have been. The
handsomest boy you ever saw — and bold as a
lion. Once in that set' — (pointing over his
shoulders toward some of our sporting comrades,
whose loud laughter every now and then reached
our ears) — ' once in that set he would never be
out of it — fit for nothing. I swore to his mo-
ther, on her death-bed, that I would bring him
up to avoid my errors — that he should be no
hanger-on and led- Captain! Swore to her
that he should be reared according to his real
station — the station of his mother's kin (/ have
no station) — and if I can but see him an honest
British trader — respectable, upright, equal to
the highest — because no rich man's dependent,
and no poor man's jest — mv ambition will be
satisfied. And now you understand. Sir, why
my boy is not here.' You would say a father
who spoke thus had a man's honest stuff in him.
Eh, Lionel ?"
" Yes, and a true gentleman's heart, too I"
" So I thought ; yet I fancied I knew the
world I After that conversation I quitted our
host's roof, and only once or twice afterward, at
country houses, met William Losely again. To
say truth, his chief patrons and friends were not
exactly in my set. But your father continued
to see Willy pretty often. They took a great
fancy to each other. Charlie, you know, was
jovial •'— fond of private theatricals, too; in
short, they became great allies. Some years
after, as ill luck would have it, Charles Haugh-
ton, while selling off his ]Middlesex property,
was in immediate want of £1200. He could
get it on a bill, but not without security. His
bills were already rather down in the market,
and he had already exhausted most of the
friends whose security was esteemed by accom-
modators any better than his own. In an e^il
hour he had learned that poor Willy had just
£1500 out upon mortgage ; and the money-
lender, who was lawyer for the property on
which the mortgage was, knew it too. It was
on the interest of this £1500 that Willy lived,
having spent the rest of his little capital in set-
tling his son as a clerk in a first-rate commer-
cial house. Charles Haughton went down to
shoot at the house where Willy was a guest —
shot with him — drank with him — talked with
him — proved to him, no doubt, that long before
the three months were over the iliddlesex prop-
erty would be sold ; the bill taken up, Willy
might trust to his honor. Willy did trust. Like
you, my dear Lionel, he had not the moral cour-
age to say ' No.' Your father, I am certain,
meant to repay him ; your father never in cold
blood meant tu defraud any human being ; but
— j'our father gambled ! A debt of honor at^ji-
quet preceded the claim of a bill-discounter.
The £1200 were forestalled — your father >vas
penniless. The money-lender came upon Wil-
ly. Sure that Charles Haughton would yet re-
deem his promise, Willy renewed the bill an-
other three months on usurious teiTns ; those
months over, he came to town to find your fa-
ther hiding between four walls, unable to stir
out for fear of arrest. Willy had no option but
to pay the money ; and when your father knew
that it was so paid, and that the usury had swal-
lowed up the whole of Willy's little capital,
then, I say, I saw upon Charles Haughton's
once radiant face the saddest expression I ever
saw on mortal man's. And sure I am that all
the joys your father ever knew as a man of
pleasure were not worth the agony and remorse
of that moment. I respect your emotion, Li-
onel, but you begin as your father began ; and
if I had not told you this stor)- you might have
ended as your father ended."
Lionel's face remained covered, and it was
only by choking gasps that he interrupted the
Colonel's narrative. " Certainly," resumed Al-
ban Morley, in a reflective tone, " Certainly
that villain — I mean William Losely, for villain
he afterward proved to be — had the sweetest,
most forgiving temper! He might have gone
about to his kinsmen and friends denouncing
Charles Haughton, and saying by what solemn
promises he had been undone. But no ! sucli a
story, just at that moment, would have crushed
Charles Haughton's last chance of ever holding
up his head again ; and Chai'les told me (for it
was through Charles that I knew the tale) that
Willy's parting words to him were, ' Do not fret,
Charlie. ■ After all, my boy is now settled in
life, and I am a cat with nine lives, and should
fall on my legs if thrown out of a gan-et win-
dow. Don't fret.' So he kept the secret, and
told the money-lender to hold his tongue. Poor
Willy ! I never asked a rich friend to lend me
money but once in my life. It was then. I
went to Guy Darrell, who was in full prac-
tice, and said to him, ' Lend me one thousand
pounds. I may never repay you.' ' Five thou-
sand pounds, if you like it,' said he. ' One will
do.' I took the money, and sent it to Willy.
Alas ! he returned it, writing word that ' Prov-
idence had been very kind to him ; he had
just been appointed to a capital pkce, with a
magnificent salary. The cat had fallen on its
legs.' He bade nie comfort Haughton with that
news. The money went back into Darrell's
pocket, and perhaps wandered thence to Charles
Haughton's creditors. Now for the appoint-
ment^. At the country house, to which Willy
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
181
had remnied destitute, he had met a stranger
(no relation), who said to him, ' You live with
these people — shoot their game — break in their
horses — see to their farms — and they give you
nothing I You are no longer very young — you
shouldlay by your little income, and add to it.
Live with me, and I will give you £300 a year.
I am parting with my steward — take his place,
but be my friend.' William Losely, of course,
closed with the proposition. This gentleman,
whose name was Gunston, I had known slight-
ly in former times (people say I know every
body) — a soured, bilious, melancholy, indolent,
misanthropical old bachelor. With a magnifi-
cent place universally admired, and a large es-
tate universally envied, he lived much alone,
ruminating on the bitterness of life and the no-
thingness of worldly blessings, fleeting Willy
at the country house to which, by some predes-
tined relaxation of misanthi-opy, he had been
decoyed, for the first time for years Mr. Gun-
ston was heard to laugh. He said to himself,
' Here is a man who actually amuses me.'
William Losely contrived to give the misan-
thrope a new zest of existence ; and when he
found that business could be made pleasant, the
rich man conceived an interest in his own house,
gardens, property. For the sake of William's
merry companionship he would even ride over
his farms, and actually carried a gun. ^Mean-
while the property, I am told, was really v^ell
managed. Ah ! that fellow Willy was a born
genius, and could have managed ever}' body's
atFairs except his own. I heard of all this with
pleasure (people say I hear every thing) — when
one day a sporting man seizes me by the button
at Tattersall's — ' Do you know the news ? Will
Losely is in prison on a charge of robbing his
employer !' "
■'Eobbing! incredible!" exclaimed LioneL
"ily deal" Lionel, it was after hearing that
news that I establislied as invariable my grand
maxim, A'i7 admirari — never to be astonished at
any thing 1"
"But of course he was innocent?"
" On the contrary, he confessed, was commit-
ted ; pleaded guilty, and was transported 1 Peo-
ple who knew Willy said that Gunston ought to
have declined to' drag him before a magistrate,
or, at the subsequent trial, have abstained from
gi^'ing evidence against him ; that Willy had
been till then a faithful steward ; the whole pro-
ceeds of the estate had passed through his hands ;
he might, in transactions for timber, have cheat-
ed, undetected, to twice the amount of the alleged
robberj- ; it must have been a momentary aber-
ration of reason ; the rich man should have let
him otF. But I side Mith the rich man. His
last belief in his species was annihilated. He
must have been inexorable. He could never be
amused, never be interested again. He was in-
exorable and — vindictive."
•■But what were the facts? — what was the
evidence?'
•• Very little came out on the trial ; because,
in pleading guilty, the court had merely to con-
sider the evidence which had sufficed to commit
him. The trial was scarcely noticed in the Lon-
don papers. William Losely was not like a
man known about town. His fame was con-
fined to those who resorted to old-fashioned
country houses, chiefly single men, for the sake
of sport. But stay. I felt such an interest in
the case that I made an abstract or precis, not
only of all that appeared, but all that I could
learn of its leading circumstances. 'Tis a habit
of mine, whenever any of my acquaintances em-
broil themselves with the Crown — " The Col-
onel rose, unlocked a small glazed book-case,
selected from the contents a JIS. volume, re-
seated himself, turned the pages, found the place
sought, and, reading from it, resumed his narra-
tive. " ' One evening Mr. Gunston came to
William Losely's private apartment. Losely
had two or three rooms appropriated to himself
in one side of the house, which was built in a
quadrangle round a court-yard. When Losely
opened his door to Mr. Gunston's knock, it
struck Jlr. Gunston that his manner seemed
confused. After some talk on general subjects,
Losely said that he had occasion to go to Lon-
don next morning for a few days on private bus-
iness of his own. This annoyed Mr. Gunston.
He ouserved that Losely's absence just then
would be inconvenient. He reminded him that
a tradesman, who lived at a distance, was com-
ing over the next day to be paid for a vinery he
had lately erected, and on the charge for which
there was a dispute. Could not Losely at least
stay to settle it ? Losely replied, " that he had
already, by correspondence, adjusted the dis-
pute, having suggested deductions which the
tradesman had agi^eed to, and that Mr. Gunston
would only have to give a check for the balance
— viz., £270." Thereon Mr. Gunston remarked,
*• If you were not in the habit of paying my bills
for me out of what you receive, you would know
that I seldom give checks. I certainly shall not
give one now, for 1 have the money in the house."
Losely observed, '• that is a bad habit of yours
keeping large sums in your own house. You
may be robbed." Gunston answered, " Safer
than lodging large sums in a country bank.
Country banks break. My grandfather lost
£1000 by the failure of a country bank ; and my
father, therefore, always took his payments in
cash, remitting them to London from time to
time as he went thither himself. I do the same,
and I have never been robbed of a farthing that
I know of. AVho would rob a great house like
this, full of men-servants ?" " That's true,"
said Losely; "so if you are sure you have as
much by you, you will pay the bill, and have
done with it. I shall be back before Sparks the
builder comes to be paid for the new barns to
the home farm — that will be £600 ; but I shall
be taking money for timber next week. He can
be paid out of that." Gunstos. "Xo, I will
pay Sparks, too, out of what I have in my bu-
reau ; and the timber-merchant can pay his debt
into my London banker's." Losely. " Do you
mean that you have enough for both these bills
actually in the house ?" Gc^ston". " Certain-
ly, in the bureau in my study. I don't know
how much I've got. It may be £1500 — it may
be £1700. I have not counted; I am "such a
bad man of business ; but I am sure it is more
than £1-100." Losely made some jocular ob-
sers-ation to the effect that if Gunston never kept
an account of what he had, he could never tell
whether he was robbed, and, therefore, never
would be robbed ; since, according to Othello,
" He that is robbed, not wanting Trhat is stolen,
Let him not know it, and he's not robbed at all."
182
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
After that, Losely became absent in manner, and
seemed impatient to get rid of Mr. Gunston, hint-
ing that he had the labor-book to look over, and
some orders to write out for the bailiff, and that
he should start early the next morning.' "
Here the Colonel looked up from his MS., and
said, episodically, "Perhaps you will fancy that
these dialogues are invented by me after the
fashion of the ancient historians? Not so. I
give you the report of what passed, as Gunston
repeated it verbatim ; and I suspect that his
memory was pretty accurate. Well" (here Al-
ban returned to his MS.), " 'Gunston left Willy,
and went into his own study, where he took tea
by himself When his valet brought it in, he
told the man that Mr. Losely was going to town
early the next morning, and ordered the serv-
ant to see himself that coffee was served to Mr.
Losely before he went. The servant observed
"that Mr. Losely had seemed much out of sorts
lately, and that it was perhaps some unpleasant
affair connected with the gentleman who had
come to see him two days before." Gunston
had not heard of such a visit. Losely had not
mentioned it. When the servant retired, Gun-
ston, thinking over Losely's quotation respect-
ing his money, resolved to ascertain what he
had in his bureau. He opened it," examined
the drawers, and found, stowed away in differ-
ent places at different times, a larger sum than
he had supposed — gold and notes to the amount
of £1975, of which nearly £300 were in sover-
eigns. He smoothed the notes carefully ; and,
for want of other occupation, and with the view
of showing Losely that he could profit by a hint,
he entered the numbers of the notes in his pock-
et-book, placed them all together in one drawer
with the gold, relocked his bureau, and went
shortly afterward to bed. The next day (Lose-
ly having gone in the morning) the tradesman
came to be paid for the vinery. Gunston went
to his bureau, took out his notes, and found
£250 were gone. He could hardh' believe his
senses. Had he made a mistake in counting ?
No. There was his pocket-book, the missing
notes entered duly therein. Then he recount-
ed the sovereigns, 142 were gone of them —
nearly £400 in all thus abstracted. He refused
at first to admit suspicion of Losely ; but, on in-
terrogating his servants, the valet deposed, that
he was disturbed about two o'clock in the morn-
ing by the bark of the house-dog, which was let
loose of a night within the front court-yard of
the house. Not apprehending robbers, but fear-
ing the dog might also disturb his master, he
got out of his window (being on the ground-
floor) to pacify the animal; that he then saw,
in the opposite angle of the building, a light
moving along the casement of the passage be-
tween Losely's rooms and Mr. Gunston's study.
Surprised at this, at such an hour, he approach-
ed that part of the building, and saw the light
very faintly tiu'ough the chinks in the shutters
of the study. The passage windows had no
shutters, being old-fashioned stone muUions.
He waited hy the wall a few minutes, when the
light again reappeared in the passage ; and he
saw a figure in a cloak, which, being in a pecu-
liar color, he recogni-zed at once as Losely's,
pass rapidly along; but before the figure had
got half through the passage, the light was ex-
tinguished, and the servant could see no more.
But so positive was he, from his recognition of
the cloak, that the man was Losely, that he
ceased to feel alarm or surprise, thinking, on
reflection, that Losely, sitting np later than
usual to transact business before his dei)arture,
niiglit have gone into his employer's study for
any book or jxaper which he might have left
there. The dog began barking again, and seem-
ed anxious to get out of the court-yard to which
he was confined ; but the servant gradually ap-
peased him — went to bed, and somewhat over-
slept himself. When he woke, he hastened to
take the coflee into Losely's room, but Losely
was gone. Here there was another suspicious
circumstance. It had been a question how the
bureau had been opened, the key being safe in
Gunston's possesion, and there being no sign
of force. The lock was one of those rude, old-
fashioned ones which are very easily pjicked,
but to which a modern key does not readily fit.
In the passage there was found a long nail
crooked at the end ; and that nail the superin-
tendent of the police (who had been summoned)
had the wit to apply to the lock of the bureau,
and it unlocked and relocked it easily. It was
clear that whoever had so shaped the nail could
not have used such an instrument for the first
time, and must be a practiced picklock. That,
one would suppose at first, might exonerate
Losely; but he was so clever a fellow at all
mechanical contrivances, that, cou]jled with the
place of finding, the nail made greatly against
him ; and still more so, when some nails pre-
cisely similar were found on the chimney-piece
of an inner-room in his apartment, a room be-
tween that in which he had received Gunston
and his bed-chamber, and used by him both as
study and workshop, the nails, indeed, which
were very long and narrow, with a Gothic orna-
mental head, were at once recognized by the
carpenter on the estate as having been made
according to Losely's directions, for a garden-
bench to be placed in Gunston's favorite walk,
Gunston having remarked, some days before,
that he should like a seat there, and Losely hav-
ing undertaken to make one from a design by
Pugin. Still loth to believe in Losely's guilt,
Gunston went to London with the police super-
intendent, the valet, and the neighboring attor-
ney. They had no difficulty in finding Losely;
he was at his son's lodgings in the City, near
the commercial house in which the son was a
clerk. On being told of the roljbery, he seemed
at first unaffectedly surprised, evincing no fear.
I He was asked whether he had gone into the
study about two o'clock in the morning ? He
said, "No; why should I?" The valet ex-
claimed, "But I saw you — I knew you by that
old gray cloak, with the red lining. AVhy, there
I it is now — on that chair yonder. I'll swear it is
I the same." Losely then began to tremble visi-
bly, and grew extremely pale. A question was
next put to him as to the nail, but he seemed
j quite stupefied, muttering, "Good Heavens! the
I cloak — you mean to say you saw that cloak?"
They searched his person — found on him some
I sovereigns, silver, and one bank-note for five
I pounds. The number on that bank-note corre-
sponded with a number in Gunston's pocket-book.
He was asked to say where he got that five-
pound note. He refused to answer. Gunston
said, "It is one of the notes stolen from me!"
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
183
Losely cried, fiercely, "Take care what you say. tions, must have been more than a mere securi-
How do you know ?" Gunston replied, " I took ty in a joint bill with Captain Haughton. Gun-
an account of the numbers of my notes on leav- ston could never have understood such an in-
ing your room. Here is the memorandum in consistency in human nature, that the same man
my pocket-book— see— " Losely looked, and , who broke open his bureau should have become
fell back as if shot. Losely's brother-in-law responsible to the amount of his fortune for a
was in the room at the time, and he exclaimed, | debt of which he had not shared the discredit
"Oh, William! you can't be guilty. You are | and still less that such a man should, in case he
the honestest fellow in the world. There must j had been so generously imprudent,' have con-
be some mistake, gentlemen. Where did you j cealed his loss out of delicate tenderness for the
get the note, William — say ?" Losely made no "
answer, but seemed lost in thought or stupefac-
tion. " I will go for your son, William — per-
haps he may help to explain." Losely then seem-
ed to wake up. " My son ! what ! would you ex-
pose me before my son? he's gone into the coun-
try, as you know. What has he to do with it ? I
took the notes — there — I have confessed. Have
done with it," or words to that effect.'
"Nothing more of importance," said the Col-
onel, turning over/the leaves of his MS., "ex-
cept to account for the crime. And here we
come back to the money-lender. You remem-
ber the valet said that a gentleman had called
on Losely two days before the robbery. This
proved to be tlie identical bill-discounter to
character of the man to whom he owed his ruin.
Therefore, in short, Gunston looked on his dis-
honest steward, not as a man tempted by a sud-
den impulse in some moment of distress, at
which a previous life was belied, but as a con-
firmed, dissimulating sharper, to whom public
justice allowed no mercy. And thus, Lionel,
William Losely was prosecuted, tried, and sen-
tenced to seven years' transportation. By plead-
ing guilty, the term was probably made shorter
than it otherwise would have been."
Lionel continued too agitated for words. The
Colonel, not seeming to heed his emotions,
again ran his eye over the MS.
" I observe here that there are some queries
^ entered as to the evidence against Losely. The
whom Losely had paid away his fortune. This j solicitor whom, when I heard of his arrest, I en-
person deposed that Losely had written to him j gagedandsent down to the place on his behalf
some days before, stating that he wanted to bor
row two or three hundred pounds, which he
could repay by installments out of his salary.
What would be the terms ? The money-lender
having occasion to be in the neighborhood,
called to discuss the matter in person, and to
ask if Losely could not get some other person
to join in security — suggesting his brother-in-
law. Losely replied that it was a favor^ he
would never ask any one; that his brother-in-
law had no pecuniary means beyond his salary
as a senior clerk ; and, supposing that he (Lose-
ly) lost his place, which he might any day, if
Gunston were displeased with him — ^liow then
could he be sure that his debt would not fall on
the security? Upon which the money-lender
remarked that the precarious nature of his in-
come was the very reason why a security was
wanted. And Losely answered, ' Ay ; but you
know that you incur that risk, and charge ac-
cordingly. Between you and me the debt and
the hazard are mere matter of business, but be-
tween me and my security it would be a matter
of honor.' Finally the money-lender agreed to
find the sum required, though asking very high
terms. Losely said he would consider, and let
him know. There the conversation ended. But
Gunston inquired 'if Losely had ever had deal-
ings with the money-lender before, and for
what purpose it was likely he would want the
money now ?' and the money-lender answered
'that probably Losely had some sporting or
gaming speculations on the sly, for that it was
to pay a gambling debt that he had joined Cap-
" You did ! Heaven reward you!" sobbed out
Lionel. "But my father? — where was he ?"
"Then? — in his grave."
Lionel breathed a deep sigh, as of thankful-
ness.
"The lawyer, I say — a sharp fellow — was of
opinion that if Losely had refused to plead
guilty, he could have got him off in spite of his
first confession — turned the suspicion against
some one else. In the passage where the nail
was picked up, there was a door into the park.
That door was found unbolted in the inside the
next morning ; a thief might therefore have
thus entered, and passed at once into the study.
The nail was discovered close by that door ; tlie
thief might have dropped it on putting out his
light, which, by the valet's account, he must
have done, when he was near the door in ques-
tion, and required the light no more. Another
circumstance in Losely's favor. Just outside
the door, near a laurel-bush, was found the fag-
end of one of those small rose-colored wax-
lights which are often placed in lucifer match-
boxes. If this had been used by the thief, it
would seem as if, extinguishing the light before
he stepped into the air, he very naturally jerked
away the morsel of taper left, when, in the next
moment, he was out of the house. But Losely
would not have gone out of the house ; nor was
he, nor any one about the premises, ever known
to make use of that kind of taper, which would
rather appertain to the fashionable fopperies of
a London dandy. You will have observed, too,
the valet had not seen the thief's face. His
tain Haughton in a bill for £1200.' And Gun- \ testimony rested solely on the colors of a cloak,
ston aftenvard told a friend of mine that this it , which, on cross-examination, might have gone
was that decided him to appear as a witness at | for nothing. The dog had barked before the
the trial ; and you will observe that if Gunston | light was seen. It was not the light that made
had kept away, there would have been no evi- j him bark. He wished to get out of the court-
dence sufficient to insure conviction. But Gun- i yard; that looked as if there were some stran-
ston considered that the man who could gamble j ger in the grounds beyond. Following up this
away his whole fortune must be incorrigible, ; clew, the lawyer ascertained that a strange man
and that Losely, having concealed from him had been seen in the park toward the gray of
that he had become destitute by such transac- the evening, walking up in the direction of the
18i
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
house. And here comes the strong point. At
the railway station, about five miles from Mr.
Gunston's, a strange man had arrived just in
time to take his place in the night train from
the north toward London, stopping there at four
o'clock in the morning. The station-master re-
membered the stranger buying the ticket, but
did not remark his appearance. The porter did,
however, so far notice him, as he hurried into a
first-class carriage, that he said afterward to the
station-master, 'Why, that gentleman has a
gray cloak just like ilr. Losely's. If he had
not been thinner and taller, I should have
thought it was ^Ir. Losely.' Well, Losely went
to the same station the next morning, taking an
early train, going thither on foot, with his car-
pet-bag in his hand; and both the porter and
station-master declared that he had no cloak on
him at the time ; and as he got into a second-
class carriage, the porter even said to him, ' 'Tis
a sharp morning, Sir; I'm afraid you'll be cold.'
Furthermore, as to the purpose for which Losely
had wished to borrow of the money-lender, his
brother-in-law stated that Losely's son had been
extravagant, had contracted debts, and was even
hiding from his creditors in a country town, at
which William Losely had stopped for a few
hours on his way to London. He knew the
young man's employer had written kindly to
Losely several days before, lamenting the son's
extravagance ; intimating that unless his debts
were discharged, be mr.st lose the situation in
which otherwise he might soon rise to compe-
tence, for that he was quick and sharp ; and
that it was impossible not to feel indulgent to-
ward him, he was so lively and so good-looking.
The trader added that he would forbear to dis-
miss the young man as long as he could. It
was on the receipt of that letter that Losely
had entered into communication with the mon-
ey-lender, whom he had come to town to seek,
and to whose house he was actually going at the
very hour of Gunston's arrival. But why bor-
row of the money-lender, if he had just stolen
more money than he had any need to borrow ?
"The most damning fact against Losely, by
the discovery in his possession of the £5 note,
of which Mr. Gunston deposed to have taken
the number, was certainly hard to get over; still
an ingenious lawyer might have thrown doubt
on Gunston's testimony — a man confessedly so
careless might have mistaken the number, etc.
The lawyer went, with these hints for defense,
to see Losely himself in prison ; but Losely de-
clined his help — became very angry — said that
he would rather suffer death itself than have
suspicion transferred to some innocent man;
and that, as to the cloak, it had been inside his
carpet bag. So you see, bad as he was, there
was something inconsistently honorable left in
him still. Poor Willy! he would not even sub-
poena any of his old friends as to his general
character. But even if he had, what could the
Court do since he pleaded guilty? And now
dismiss that subject, it begins to pain me ex-
tremely. You were to speak to me about some
one of the same name when my story was con-
cluded. What is it?"
"I am so confused," faltered Lionel, still
quivering with emotion, "that I can scarcely
answer you — scarcely recollect myself. But —
but — wliile you were describing this poor Will-
' iam Losely, his talent for mimicry and acting,
} I could not help thinking that I had seen him."
Lionel proceeded to speak of Gentleman Waife,
1 "Can that be the man?"
I Alban shook his head incredulously. He
i thought it so like a romantic youth to detect
imaginary resemblances.
"No," said he, " my dear boy. ily William
Losely could never become a strolling player in
a village fair. Besides, I have good reason to
! believe that Willy is well off; probably made
money in the colony by some lucky hit : for
when do you say you saw your stroller? Five
years ago? Well, not verj- long before that
date — perhaps a year or two — less than two
years I am sure — this eccentric rascal sent Mr.
Gunston, the mat* who had transported him,
£100! Gunston, you must know, feeling more
than ever bored and hipped when he lost Willy,
tried to divert himself by becoming director in
some railway company. The company proved a
bubble ; all turned their indignation on the one
rich man who could pay where others cheated.
Gunston was ruined — purse and character — fled
to Calais ; and there, less than seven years ago,
when in great distress, he received from poor
Willy a kind, affectionate, forgiving, letter, and
£100. I have this from Gunston's nearest rela-
tion, to whom he told it, crying like a child.
Willy gave no address ; but it is clear that at
the time he must have been too well ofl' to turn
mountebank at your miserable exhibition. Poor,
dear, rascally, infamous, big-hearted Willy,"
burst out the Colonel. "I wish to Heaven he
had only robbed me !"
"Sir," said Lionel, "rely upon it, that man
you^describe never robbed any one — 'tis impos-
sible."
"Xo — veiy possible! — human nature," said
Alban ^lorley. "And, after all, he really owed
Gunston that £100. For out of the sum stolen,
Gunston received anonymously, even before the
trial, all the missing notes, minus about that
£100; and Willy therefore owed Gunston the
money, but not, perhaps, that kind, forgiving
letter. Pass on — quick — the subject is worse
than the gout. You have heard before the
name of Losely — possibly. There are many
members of the old Baronet's family ; but when
or where did you hear it?"
" I will tell you ; the man who holds the bill
(ah, the word sickens me!) reminded me when
he called that I had seen him at my mother's
house — a chance acquaintance of hers — pro-
fessed great regard for me — great admiration
for Mr. Darrell — and then surprised me by ask-
ing if I had never heard Mr. Darrell speak of
Mr. Jasper Losely."
"Jasper!" said the Colonel; "Jasper! — well,
go on."
" When I answered ' No,' ilr. Poole (that is
his name) shook his head, and muttered — ' A
sad aft'air — very bad business — I could do IMr.
Darrell a great service if he would let me :" and
then went on talking what seemed to me imper-
tinent gibberish about • family exposures' and
'poverty making men desperate,' and 'better
compromise matters;' and finally wound up by
begging me, 'if I loved Mr. Darrell, and wished
to guard him from very great annoyance and
suflering, to persuade him to give Mr. Poole an
intenicw.' Then he talked about his own char-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
185
acter in the Citv, and so forth, and entreating
me ' not to think of paying him till quite con-
venient ; that he would keep the bill in his desk ;
nobody should know of it ; too happy to do me
a favor' — laid his card on the table, and went
away. Tell me, should I say any thing to Mr.
Darrell about this or not ?"
"Certainly not, till I have seen Mr. Poole
myself. You have the money to pay him about
you? Give it to me with Mr. Poole's address;
i will call and settle the matter. Just ring the
bell." (To the servant, entering) "Order my
horse round." Then, when they were again
alone, turning to Lionel abruptly, laying one
hand on his shoulder, with the other grasping
his hand warmly, cordially, " Young man," said
Alban ^Morley, "I love you — I am interested in
you — who would not be ? I have gone through
this story ; put myself positively to pain — which
I hate — solely for your good. You see what
usury and moner-lenders bring men to. Look
me in the face! Do you feel now that you
would have the ' moral courage' you before
doubted of? Have you done with such things
forever?"
" Forever, so help me Heaven I The lesson
has been cruel, but I do thank and bless you
for it."
" I knew you would. [Mark this ! never treat
money atfairs with levity — money is charac-
ter 1 Stop. I have bared a father's fault to a
son. It was necessary — or even in his grave
those faults might have revived in you. Now,
I add this, if Charles Haughton — like you, hand-
some, high-spirited, favored by men, spoiled by
women — if Charles Haughton, on entering life,
could have seen, in the mirror I have held up
to you, the consequences of pledging the mor-
row to pay for to-day, Charles Haughton would
have been shocked as you are, cured as you will
be. Humbled by your own first error, be leni-
ent to all his. Take up his life where I first
knew it : when his heart was loyal, his lips truth-
ful. Raze out the interval ; imagine that he
gave birth to you in order to replace the leaves
of existence we thus blot out and tear away. In
every error avoided say, ' Thus the father warns
the son ;' in every honorable action or hard
self-sacrifice, say, ' Thus the son pays a father's
debt.' "
Lionel, clasping his hands together, raised
his eyes streaming with tears, as if uttering inly
a vow to Heaven. The Colonel bowed his sol-
dier-crest with religious reverence, and glided
from the room uoiselesslv.
CHAPTER Yin.
Being but one of the considerate pauses in a long jour-
ney—charitably afforded to the Reader.
CoLON-EL MoRLET found Mr. Poole at home,
just returned from his office ; he staid with
that gentleman nearly an hour, and then went
straight to Darrell. As the time appointed to
meet the French acquaintance, who depended
on his hospitalities for a dinner, was now near-
ly arrived, Alban's conference with his English
friend was necessarily brief and humed, though
long enough to confirm one fact in Mr. Poole's
statement, which had been unknown to the Col-
onel before that day, and the admission of which
was to Guy Darrell a pang as shai-p as ever
wTcnched confession from the lips of a prisoner
in the cells of the Inquisition. On returning
from Greenwich, and depositing his Frenchman
in some melancholy theatre, time enough for
that resentful foreigner to witness theft and
murder committed npon an injured countrv-
man's vaudeville, Alban hastened again to Carl-
ton Gardens. He found Darrell alone, pacing
his floor to and fro, in the habit he had acquired
in earlier life, perhaps Mhen meditating some
complicated law-case, or wrestling with himself
against some secret sorrow. There are men of
quick nerves who require a certain action of the
body for the better composure of the mind ; Dar-
rell was one of them.
During these restless movements, alternated
by abrupt pauses, equally inharmonious to the
supreme quiet which characterized his listener's
tastes and habits, the haughty gentleman dis-
burdened himself of at least one of the secrets
which he had hitherto guarded from his early
friend. But as that secret connects itself with
the history of a Person about whom it is well
that the reader should now learn more than was
known to Darrell himself, we will assume our
privilege to be ourselves the narrator, and at
the cost of such dramatic vivacity as may belong
to dialogue, but with the gain to the reader of
clearer insight into those portions of the past
which the occasion permits us to reveal — we will
weave into something like method the more im-
perfect and desultory communications by which
Guy Darrell added to Alban Morley's distaste-
ful catalogue of painful subjects. The reader
will allow, jierhaps, that we thus evince a de-
sire to gratify his curiosity, when we state, that
of Arabella Crane, Dan-ell spoke but in one
brief and angry sentence, and that not by the
name in which the reader as yet alone knows
her ; and it is with the antecedents of Arabella
Crane that our explanation will tranquilly com-
mence.
CHAPTER IX.
Grim Arabella Crane.
0>XE on a time there lived a merchant named
Fossett, a widower with three children, of whom
a daughter, Arabella, was by some years the
eldest. He was much respected, deemed a warm
man, and a safe — attended diligently to his busi-
ness — suffered no partner, no foreman, to dic-
tate or intermeddle — liked his comforts, but
made no pretense to fashion. His villa was at
Clapham, not a showy but a solid edifice, ^^itli
lodge, lawn, and gardens, chiefly notable for
what is technically called glass — viz., a range of
glass-houses on the most improved principles ;
the heaviest pines, the earliest strawberries.
"I'm no judge of flowers," quoth Mr. Fossett,
meekly. "Give me a plain lawn, provided it
be close shaven. But I sav to my gardener,
• Forcing is my hobby — a cucumber with my fish
all the year round!'" Yet do not suppose Mr.
Fossett ostentatious — quite the reverse. He
would no more ruin himself for the sake of daz-
zling others than he would for the sake of serv-
ing them. He liked a warm house, spacious
rooms, good lining, old vriue, for their inherent
186
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
merits. He cared not to parade them to public
envy. When he dined alone, or with a single
favored guest, the best Latitte, the oldest sher-
ry ! — when extending the rites of miscellaneous
hospitality to neighbors, relations, or other slight
acquaintances — for Lafitte, Julien ; and for sher-
ry. Cape! — Thus not provoking vanity, nor
courting notice, Mr. Fossett was without an en-
emy, and seemed without a care. Formal were
his manners, formal his household, formal even
the stout cob that bore him from Cheapside to
Clapiiam, from Claphani to Cheapside. That
cob could not even prick up its ears if it wished
to shy — its ears were cropped, so were its mane
and its tail.
Arabella early gave promise of beautv, and
more than ordinary power of intellect and char-
acter. Her father bestowed on her every ad-
vantage of education. She was sent to a select
boarding-school of the highest reputation; the
strictest discipline, the best masters, the longest
bills. At the age of seventeen she had become
the show pupil of the seminary. Friends won-
dered somewhat why the prim merchant took
such pains to lavish on his daughter the worldly
accomplishments which seemed to give him no
pleasure, and of which he never spoke with
]jride. But certainly, if she was so clever —
tirst-rate musician, exquisite artist, accomplish-
ed linguist, "it was very nice in old Fossett to
bear it so meekly, never crying her up, nor
showing her off to less fortunate parents — very
nice in him — good sense — greatness of mind."
"Arabella," said the worthy man, one day, a
little time after she had left school for good ;
"Arabella," said he, "Mrs. ," naming the
head teacher in that famous school, "pays you
a very high compliment in a letter I received
from her this morning. She says it is a pity
j'ou are not a poor man's daughter — that you
are so steady and so clever that you could make
a fortune for yourself as a teacher."
Arabella at that age could smile gayly, and
gayly she smiled at the notion conveyed in the
compliment.
" No one gau guess," resumed the father,
twirling his thumbs and speaking rather through
his nose, "the ups and downs in this mortal
sphere of trial, 'specially in the mercantile com-
munity. If ever, when I'm dead and gone, ad-
versity should come upon you, you will grateful-
ly remember that I have given you the best of
education, and take care of your little brother
and sister, who are both — stupid !"
These doleful words did not make much im-
pression on Arabella, uttered as they were in a
handsome drawing-room, opening on the neat-
shaven lawn it took three gardeners to shave,
with a glittering side-view of those galleries of
glass in which strawberries were ripe at Christ-
mas, and cucumbers never failed to fish. Time
went on. Arabella was now twenty-three — a
very fine girl, with a decided manner — much
occujned by her music, her drawing, her books,
and her fancies. Fancies — for, like most girls
with very active heads and idle hearts, she had
a vague yearning for some excitement beyond
the monotonous routine of a young lady's life ;
and the latent force of her nature inclined her
to admire whatever was out of the beaten track
— whatever was wild and daring. Slic had re-
ceived two or three offers from young gentlemen
in the same mercantile community as that which
surrounded her father in this sphere of trial.
But they did not please her; and she believed
her father when he said that they only courted
her under the idea that he would come down
with something handsome ; " whereas," said the
merchant, " I hope you will marry an honest
man, who will like you for yourself, and wait
for your fortune till my will is read. As King
William says to his son, in the History of En-
gland, ' I don't mean to strip till I go to bed.' "
One night, at a ball in Clapham, Arabella saw
the man who was destined to exercise so bale-
ful an influence over her existence. Jasper
Losely had been brought to this ball by a young
fellow-clerk in the same commercial house as
himself; and then ffr all the bloom of that con-
spicuous beauty, to which the miniature Arabel-
la had placed before his eyes so many years aft-
erward did but feeble justice, it may well be
conceived that he concentred on himself the
admiring gaze of the assembly. Jasjier was
younger than Arabella ; but, what with the
height of his stature and the self-confidence of
his air, he looked four or five and twenty. Cer-
tainly, in so far as the distance from childhood
may be estimated by the loss of innocence, Jas-
per might have been any age ! He was told that
old Fossett's daughter would have a very fine
fortune; that she was a strong-minded young
lady, who governed her father, and would choose
for herself; and accordingly he devoted himself
to Arabella the whole of the evening. The ef-
fect produced on the mind of this ill-fated wo-
man by her dazzling admi'.er was as sud len as
it proved to be lasting. There was a strange
charm in the very contrast between his rattling
audacity and the bashful formalities of the
swains who had hitherto wooed her, as if she
frightened them. Even his good looks fascinat-
ed her less than that vital energy and power
about the lawless brute, which to her seemed
the elements of heroic character, though but the
attributes of riotous spirits, magnificent forma-
tion, flattered vanity, and im]3erious egotism.
She was as a bird gazing spell-bound on a gay
young bo;i-constrictor, darting from bough to
bough, sunning its brilliant hues, and showing
oft' all its beauty, just before it takes the bird
for its breakfast.
When they parted that night their intimacy
had made so much progress that arrangements
had been made for its continuance. Arabella
had an instinctive foreboding that her father
would be less charmed than herself with Jasper
Losely; that, if Jasper were presented to him,
he would possibly forbid her farther acquaint-
ance with a young clerk, however superb his
outward appearance. She took the first false
step. She had a maiden aunt by the mother's
side, who lived in Bloomsbury, gave and went
to small parties, to which Jasper could easily
get introduced. She arranged to pay a visit for
some weeks to this aunt, who was then very
civil to her, accepting with marked kindness
seasonable presents of strawberries, pines,
spring chickens, and so forth, and ottering iu
turn, whenever it was convenient, a spare room,
and whatever amusement a round of small par-
ties, and the innocent flirtations incidental
thereto, could bestow. Arabella said nothing
to her father about Jasper Losely, and to her
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
187
aunt's she went. Arabella saw Jasper very
often ; they became engaged to each other, ex-
changed vows and love-tokens, locks of hair, etc.
Jasper, already much troubled by duns, became
naturally ardent to insure his felicity and Ara-
bella's supposed fortune. Arabella at last sum-
moned courage, and spoke to her father. To
her delighted surprise, Mr. Fossett, after some
moralizing, more on the uncertainty of life in
general than her clandestine proceedings in
particular, agreed to see Mr. Jasper Losely, and
asked him down to dinner. After dinner, over
a bottle of Lafitte, in an exceedingly plain but
exceedingly weighty silver jug, which made
Jasper's mouth water (I mean the jug), Mr. Fos-
sett, commencing with that somewhat coarse
though royal saying of William the Conqueror,
with which he had before edified his daughter,
assured Jasper that he gave his full consent to
the young gentleman's nuptials with Arabella,
provided Jasper o/his relations would maintain
her iu a plain respectable way, and wait for her
fortune till his (Fossett's) will was read. What
that fortune would be, Mr. Fossett declined
even to hint. Jasper went away very much
cooled. Still the engagement went on. The
nuptials were tacitly deferred. Jasper and his
relations maintain a wife ! Preposterous idea I
It would take a Clan of relations and a Zenana
of wives to maintain in that state to which he
deemed himself entitled — Jasper himself! But
just as he was meditating the possibility of a
compromise with old Fossett, by which he would
agree to wait till the will was read for contin-
gent advantages, provided Fossett, in his turn,
would agree in the mean while to afford lodging
and board, with a trifle for pocket-money, to
Aiabella and himself, in the Clapham Villa,
which, though not partial to rural scenery,
Jasper preferred, on the whole, to a second floor
in the city — old Fossett fell ill, took to his bed ;
was unable to attend to his business, some one
else attended to it; and the consequence was,
that tlie house stopped payment, and was dis-
covered to have been insolvent for the last ten
years. Not a discreditable bankruptcy. There
might, perhaps, be seven shillings in the pound
ultimately paid, and not more than forty fami-
lies irretrievably ruined. Old Fossett, safe in
his bed, bore the atfliction with philosophical
composure; observed to Arabella that he had
alv.ays warned her of the ups and downs in this
sphere of trial ; referred again with pride to her
first-rate education; commended again to her
care Tom and Biddy; and, declaring that he
died in charity with all men, resigned himself
to the last slumber.
Arabella at first sought a refuge with her
maiden aunt. But that lady, though not hit in
pocket by her brother-in-law's failure, was more
vehement against his memory than his most in-
jured creditor — not only that she deemed her-
self unjustly defrauded of the ] lines, strawben'ies,
and spring chickens, by which she had been
enabled to give small parties at small cost,
though with ample show, but that she was
robbed of the consequence she had hitherto de-
rived from the supposed expectations of her
niece. In short, her welcome was so hostile,
and her condolences so cutting, that Arabella
quitted her door with a solemn determination
never again to enter it
And now the nobler qualities of the bank-
rupt's daughter rose at once into play. Left
penniless, sJie resolved by her own exertions to
support and to rear her young brother and sister.
The great school to which she had been the or-
nament willingly received her as a teacher, un-
til some more advantageous place in a private
family, and with a salary worthy of her talents
and accomplishments, could be found. Her in-
tercourse with Jasper became necessarily sus-
pended. She had the generosity to write, offer-
ing to release him from his engagement. Jas-
per considered himself fully released -without
that letter; but he deemed it neither gallant
nor discreet to say so. Arabella might obtain
a situation with larger salary than she could
possibly need, the superfluities whereof Jasper
might undertake to invest. Her aunt had evi-
dently something to leave, though she might
have nothing to give. In fine, Arabella, if not
rich enough for a wife, might be often rich
enough for a friend at need ; and so long as he
was engaged to her for life, it must be not more
her pleasure than her duty to assist him to
live. Besides, independently of these pruden-
tial though not ardent motives for declaring un-
alterable fidelity to troth, Jasper at that time
really did entertain what he called love for the
handsome young woman — flattered that one of
attainments so superior to all the girls he had
ever known should be so proud even less of his
aflection for her than her own aft'ection for him-
self. Thus the engagement lasted — interviews
none — letters frequent. Arabella worked hard,
looking to the future ; Jasper worked as little
as possible, and was very much bored by the
present.
Unhappily, as it turned out, so great a sym-
pathy, not only among the teachers, but among
her old school-fellows, was felt for Arabella's
reverse — her character for steadiness as well as
talent stood so high, and there was something
so creditable in her resolution to maintain her
orphan brother and sister — that an efibrt was
made to procure her a livelihood much more
lucrative, and more independent, than she could
obtain either in a school or a family. Why not
take a small house of her own, live there with
her fellow-orphans, and give lessons out by the
hour? Several families at once agreed so to
engage her, and an income adequate to all her
wants was assured. Arabella adopted this plan.
She took the house ; Bridget Greggs, the nurse
of her infancy, became her senant, and soon to
that house, stealthily in the shades of ev£ning,
glided Jasper Losely. She could not struggle
against his influence — had not the heart to re-
fuse his visits — he was so poor — in such scrapes
— and professed himself to be so unhappy.
There now became some one else to toil for,
besides the little brother and sister. But what
were Ai'abella's gains to a man who already
gambled ! Kew afflictions smote her. A con-
tagious fever broke out in the neighborhood;
her little brother caught it; her little sister
sickened the next day; in less than a week two
small coffins were borne from her door by the
Black Horses — borne to that plot of sunny turf
in the pretty suburban cemetery, bought with
the last earnings made for the little ones by the
mother-like sister — Motherless, lone survivor !
what ! no friend on earth, no soother but that
188
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
direful Jasper ! Alas ! the truly dangerous Ve-
nus is not that Erycina round wiioni circle Jest
and Laughter. Sorrow, and that sense of soli-
tude which makes us welcome a footstep as a
child left in the haunting dark welcomes the
entrance of light — weaken the outworks of fe-
male virtue more than all the vain levities of
mirth, or the flatteries which follow the path of
Beauty through the crowd. Alas, and alas !
Let the tale huiTj on I
Jasper Losely has still more solemnly sworn
to marry his adored Arabella. But when ?
When they are rich enough. She feels as if
her spirit was gone — as if she could work no
more. She was no weak, commonplace girl,
whom love can console for shame. She had
been rigidly brought up- her sense of female
rectitude was keen ; her remorse was noiseless,
but it was stern. Harassments of a more vul-
gar nature beset her ; she had forestalled her
sources of income ; she had contracted debts
for Jasper's sake : in vain, her purse was emp-
tied, yet his no fuller. His creditors pressed
him ; he told her that he must hide. One win-
ter's day he thus departed : she saw him no
more for a year. She heard, a few days after
he left her, of his father's crime and committrd.
Jasper was sent abroad by his maternal uncle,
at his father's prayer ; sent to a commercial
house in France, in which the uncle obtained
him a situation. In fact, the young man had
been dispatched to France under another name,
in order to save him from the obloquy which his
father had brought upon his own.
Soon came William Losely's trial and sen-
tence. Arabella felt the disgrace acutely — felt
how it would affect the audacious, insolent Jas-
per ; did not wonder that he forebore to write to
her. She conceived him bowed by shame, but she
was buoyed up by her conviction that they should
meet again. For good or for ill, she held her-
self bound to him for life. But meanwhile the
debts she had incurred on his account came
upon her. She was forced to dispose of her
house ; and at this time ]Mrs. Lyndsay, looking
out for some first-rate sujjerior governess for
Matilda Darrell, was urged by all means to try
and secure for that post Arabella Fossett. The
highest testimonials from the school at which
she had been reared, from the most eminent
professional masters, from the families at which
she had recently taught, being all brought to
bear upon Mr. Darrell, he authorized Mrs.
Lyndsay to propose such a salary as could not
fail to secure a teacher of such rare qualifica-
tions. And thus Arabella became governess to
Miss Dan-ell.
There is a kind of young lady of whom her
nearest relations will say, "I can't make that
girl out." Matilda Darrell was that kind of
young lady. She talked very little ; she moved
very noiselessly ; she seemed to regard herself
as a secret which she had solemnly sworn not to
let out. She had been steeped in slyness from
her early infancy by a sly mother. Mrs. Dar-
rell was a woman who had always something to
conceal. There was always some note to be
thrust out of sight ; some visit not to be spoken
of; something or other which Matilda was not
on any account to mention to Pajia.
When Mrs. Darrell died, Matilda was still a
child, but she still continued to view her father
j as a person against whom prudence demanded
her to be constantly on her guard. It was not
that she was exactly afraid of him — he was very
gentle to her, as he was to all children; but
his loyal nature was antipathetic to hers. She
had no sympathy with him. How confide her
thoughts to him ? She had an instinctive knowl-
edge that those thoughts were not such as could
harmonize with his. Yet, though taciturn, un-
caressing, undemonstrative, she appeared mild
and docile. Her reserve was ascribed to consti-
tutional timidity. Timid to a degree she usually
seemed ; yet, when you thought you had solved
the enigma, she said or did something so coolly
determined, that you were forced again to ex-
claim, " I can't mal^e that girl out I" She was
not quick at her lessons. You had settled in
your mind that she was dull, when, by a chance
remark, you were startled to find that she was
very sharp; keenly observant, v.hen you had
fancied h'fer fast asleep. She had seemed, since
her mother's death, more fond of ^Irs. Lyndsay
and Caroline than of any other human beings
— always appeared sullen or out of spirits when
they were absent ; yet she confided to them no
more than she did to her father. You would
suppose from this description that Matilda could
inspire no liking in those with whom she lived,
Xot so ; her very secretiveness had a sort of at-
traction — a puzzle always creates some interest.
Then her face, though neither handsome nor
pretty, had in it a treacherous softness — a sub-
dued, depressed expression. A kind observer
could not but say with an indulgent pity, " There
must be a good deal of heart in that girl, if one
could but — make her out."
She appeared to take at once to Arabella,
more than she had taken to Mrs. Lyndsay, or
even to Caroline, with whom she had been
brought up as a sister, but who, then joyous and
quick and innocently fearless — with her soul
in her eyes and her heart on her lips — had no
charm for Matilda, because there she saw no
secret to penetrate, and her she had no object
in deceiving.
But this stranger, of accomplishments so rare,
of character so decided, with a settled gloom on
her lip, a gathered care on her brow — there was
some one to study, and some one with whom
she felt a sympathy ; for she detected at once
that Arabella was also a secret.
At first, Arabella, absorbed in her own re-
flections, gave to Matilda but the mechanical
attention which a professional teacher bestows
on an ordinary pupil. But an interest in Ma-
tilda sprung up in her breast, in proportion as
she conceived a venerating gratitude for DaiTell.
He was aware of the pomp and circumstance
which had surrounded her earlier years ; he re-
spected the creditable energy with which she
had devoted her talents to the support of the
young children thro^n-n upon her care ; compas-
sionated her bereavement of those little fellow-
orphans for whom toil had been rendered sweet;
and he strove, by a kindness of forethought and
a delicacy of attention, which were the more
prized in a man so eminent and so preoccupied,
to make her forget tliat she was a salaried
teacher — to place her saliently, and as a matter
of course, in the position of gentlewoman, guest,
and friend. Recognizing in her a certain vigor
and force of intellect apart from her mere ac-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
TS9
complishments, he would flatter her scholastic
pride, by referring to her memory in some ques-
tion of reading, or consulting her judgment on
some point of critical taste. She, in return,
was touched by his chivalrous kindness to the
depth of a nature that, though already seriously
injured by its unhappy contact with a soul like
Jasper's, retained that capacity of gratitude, the
loss of which is humanity's last depravation.
Xor this alone : Arabella was startled by the
intellect and character of Dan-ell into that kind
of homage which a woman, who has hitherto
met but her own intellectual inferiors, renders
to the first distinguished personage in whom she
recognizes, half with humility and half with
awe, an understanding and a culture to which
her own reason is but the flimsy glass-house,
and her own knowledge but the forced exotic.
Arabella, thus roused from her first listless-
ness, sought to requite DaiTcll's kindness by ex-
erting ever)- enerdf to render his insipid daugh-
ter an accomplisned woman. So far as mere
ornamental education extends, the teacher was
more successful than, with all her experience,
her skill, and her zeal, she had presumed to
anticipate. Matilda, without ear or taste, or
love for music, became a veiy fair mechanical
musician. Without one artistic predisposition,
she achieved the science of perspective — she at-
tained even to the mixture of colors — she filled
a portfolio with di'awings which no young lady
need have been ashamed to see circling round a
drawing-room. She carried Matilda's thin mind
to the farthest bound it could have reached with-
out snapping, through an elegant range of se-
lected histories and harmless feminine classics
— through Gallic dialogues — through Tuscan
themes — through Teuton verbs — yea, across the
invaded bounds of astonished Science into the
Elementary Ologies. And all this being done,
Matilda Darrell was exactly the same creature
that she was before. In all that related to char-
acter, to inclinations, to heart, even tliat consum-
mate teacher could give no intelligible answer,
when Mrs. Lyndsay, in her softest accents (and no
accents ever were softer), sighed — ''Poor, dear
Matilda I can yon make her out, Miss Fossett?"
Miss Fossett could not make her out. But, after
the most attentive study. Miss Fossett had inly de-
cided that there was nothing to make out — that,
like many other very nice girls, Matilda Darrell
was a harmless nullity, what you call '• a miss."
White deal or willow, to v.liich ]Miss Fossett had
done all in the way of increasing its value as
ornamental furniture, when she had veneered it
over with rosewood or satin-wood, enriched its
edges with ormolu, and strewed its surface with
nicknacks and albums. But Arabella firmly
believed Matilda Darrell to be a quiet, honest,
good sort of '-miss," on the whole — very fond
of her, Arabella. The teacher had been several
months in Darrell's family, when Caroline Lynd-
say, who had been almost domesticated "with
Matilda (sharing the lessons bestowed on the
latter, whether by jNIiss Fossett or -(-isiting mas-
ters), was taken away by Mrs. Lyndsay on a
visit to the old ^Marchioness of IMontfort. Ma-
tilda, who was to come out the next year, was
thus almost exclusively with xirabella, who re-
doubled all her pains to veneer the white deal,
and protect with ormolu its feeble edges — so
that, wlien it " came out," all should admire !
that thoroughly fashionable piece of furniture.
It was the habit of ^liss Fossett and her pupil
to take a morning walk in the quiet retreats of
the Green Park ; and one morning as they were
thus strolling, nurserj'-maids and children, and
elderly folks, who were ordered to take earlv
exercise, undulating round their unsuspecting
way — suddenly, right upon their path (un-
looked-for as the wolf that startled Horace in
the Sabine wood, but infinitely more deadly
than that runaway animal), came Jasper Lose-
ly ! Arabella uttered a faint scream. She
could not resist — had no thought of resistintr —
the impulse to bound fonvard — lay her hand
on his arm. She was too agitated to perceive
whether his predominant feehng was surprise
or. rapture. A few hurried words were ex-
changed, while Matilda Dan-ell gave one side-
long glance toward the handsome stranger, and
walked quietly by them. On his part, Jasper
said that he had just returned to London — that
he had abandoned forever all idea of a commer-
cial life — that his fathers misfortune (he gave
that gentle appellation to the incident of penal
transportation) had severed him frcm all former
friends, ties, habits — that he had dropped the
name of Losely forever — entreated Arabella not
to betray it — his name now was Hammond^his
"prospects," he said, "fairer than they had
ever been." L'nder the name of Hammond, as
an independent gentleman, he had made friends
more powerful than he could ever have made
under the name of Losely as a city clerk. He
blushed to think he had ever been a city clerk.
No doubt he should get into some Government
office ; and then, oh then, with assured income,
and the certainty to rise, he might claim the
longed-for hand of the " best of creatures."
On Arabella's part, she hastily explained her
present position. She was governess to ISIiss
Darrell — that was iliss Danell. Arabella must
not leave her walking on by herself — she would
write to him. Addresses were exchanged —
Jasper gave a very neat card — " Jlr. Ham-
mond, No. , Duke Street, St. James's."
Arabella, with a beating heart, hastened to
join her friend. At the rapid glance she had
taken of her perfidious lover, she thought him,
if possible, improved. His dress, always stud-
ied, was more to the fashion of polished society,
more simply correct — his air more decided.
Altogether he looked prosperous, and his man-
ner had never been more seductive, in its mix-
ture of easy self-confidence and hypocritical
coaxing. In fact, Jasper had not been long
in the French commercial house — to which he
had been sent out of the way while his fathers
trial was proceeding and the shame of it fresh
— before certain licenses of conduct had result-
ed in his dismissal. But, meanwhile, he had
made many friends among young men of his
own age — those loose wild viveurs who, without
doing any thing the law can punish as dishon-
est, contrive for a few fast years to live very
showily on their wits. In that strange social
fermentation which still prevails in a country
where an aristocracy of birth, exceedingly im-
poverished, and exceedingly numerous so far as
the right to prefix a I>e to the name, or to stamp
a coronet on the card, can constitute an aristo-
crat — is difi\ised among an ambitious, adventur-
ous, restless, and not inelegant young democracy
190
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
— each cemented with the other by that fiction
of law called egaUte ; in that yet unsettled and
struggling society in which so much of the old
has been irretrievably destroyed, and so little of
the new has been solidly constructed — there are
much greater varieties, infinitely more subtle
grades and distinctions, in the region of life
which lies between respectability and disgrace,
than can be found in a country like ours. The
French novels and dramas may appl}' less a
mirror than a magnifying-glass to the beings
that move through that region. But still those
French novels and dramas do not unfaithfully
represent the classifications of which they ex-
aggerate the types. Those strange combina-
tions, into one tableau, of students and grisettes,
opera-dancers, authors, viscounts, swindlers, ro-
mantic Lorettes, gamblers on the Bourse, whose
pedigree dates from the Crusades ; impostors,
taking titles from villages in which their grand-
sires might have been saddlers ; and if detected,
the detection but a matter of laugh ; delicate
women living like lawless men ; men making
trade out of love, like dissolute women, yet with
point of honor so nice, that, doubt their truth
or tlieir courage, and — pitf! you are in Charon's
boat, humanity in every civilized land may pre-
sent single specimens, more or less, answering
to each thus described. But where, save in
France, find them all, if not pi'ccisely in the
same salons, yet so crossing each other to and
fro, as to constitute a, social phase, and give
color to a literature of unquestionable genius?
And where, over orgies so miscellaneousl}' Bery-
cynthian, an atmosphere so elegantly Horatian?
And where can coarseness so vanish into pol-
ished expression as in that diamond-like lan-
guage — all terseness and sparkle — which, as
friendly to Wit in its airiest jtrose, as hostile to
Passion in its torrent or cloud wrack of poetry,
seems invented by the Gi'ace out of spite to the
Muse ?
Into circles such as those of which the dim
outline is here so imperfectly sketched, Jasper
Losely niched himself, as le bel Anglais. (Pleas-
ant representative of the English nation !) Not
that those circles are to have the sole credit of
his corruption. No! Justice is justice! Stand
we up for our native land ! Le bcl Anglais en-
tered those circles a much greater knave than
most of those whom he found there. But there,
at least, he learned to set a yet higher value on
his youth, and strength, and comeliness — on his
readiness of resource — on the reckless audacity
that brow-beat timid and some even valiant men
— on the six feet one of faultless symmetry that
captivated foolish, and some even sensible wo-
men. Gaming was, however, his vice by predi-
lection. A month before Arabella met him he
had had a rare run of luck. On the strength
of it he had resolved to return to London, and
(wholly oblivious of "the best of creatures" till
she had thus startled him) hunt out and swoop
otf with an heiress. Three French friends ac-
companied him. •Eacli had the same object.
Eacli believed that London swarmed with heir-
esses. Tliey were all three fine-looking men.
One was a Count — at least he said so. But proud
of his rank? notabitofit: all for liberty (no man
more likely to lose it) — all for fraternity (no man
you would less love as a brother). And as for
igulile' the son of a shoemaker who was homme
de lettres, and wrote in a journal, inserted a
jest on the Count's countship. "All men are
equal before the pistol," said the Count ; and
knowing that, in tliat respect, he 'was equal to
most, having practiced at poupees from the age
of fourteen, he called out the son of Crispin and
shot him througii the lungs. Another of Jas-
per's traveling friends was an enfant dupeuple —
boasted that he was a foundling. He made
verses of lugubrious strain, and taught Jasper
how to shuffle at whist. The third, like Jasper,
had been designed for trade ; and, like Jasper,
he had a soul above it. In politics he was a
Communist — in talk a Philanthropist. He was
the cleverest man of them all, and is now at the
galleys. The fate of his two compatriots — more
obscure — it is not my duty to discover. In that
peculiar walk of life Jasper is as much as I can
possibly manage.
It need not be said that Jasper carefully ab-
stained from reminding his old city friends of
his existence. It was his object and his hope
to drop all identity with that son of a convict
who had been sent out of the way to escape hu-
miliation. In this resolve he was the more con-
firmed because he had no old city friends out of
whom any thing could be well got. His jjoor
uncle, who alone of his relations in England had
been ])rivy to his change of name, was dead ;
his end hastened b\' grief for William Losely's
disgrace, and the bad reports he had received
from France of the" conduct of William Losely's
son. That uncle had left, in circumstances too
straitened to admit the waste of a shilling, a
widow of very rigid opinions ; who, if ever by
some miraculous turn in the wheel of fortune
she could have become rich enough to slay a
fatted calf, would never have given the sliin-
bone of it to a prodigal like Jasper, even had he
been her own penitent son, instead of a grace-
less step-nephew. Therefore, as all civilization
proceeds westward, Jasper turned his face from
the east ; and had no more idea of recrossing
Temple Bar in search of fortune, friends, or
kindred, than a modern Welshman would dream
of a pilgrimage to Asian shores to re-embrace
those distant relatives whom Hu Gadarn left
behind him countless centuries ago, when that
mythical chief conducted his faithful Cymri-
ans over the Haz}' Sea to this happy Island of
Honey.*
Two days after his rencontre with Arabella in
the Green Park, the soi-disant Hammond, hav-
ing, in the interim, learned that Darrell was
immensely rich, and IMatilda his only surviving
child, did not fail to find himself in the Green
Park again — and again — and again !
Arabella, of course, felt how wrong it was to
allow him to accost her, and walk by one side
of her while Miss Darrell was on the other.
But she felt, also, as if it would be much more
wrong to slip out and meet him alone. Not for
worlds would she again have placed herself in
such jieril. To refuse to meet him at all ? —
she had not strength enough for tliat .' Her joy
at seeing him was so immense. And nothing
could be more respectful than Jasper's manner
and conversation. Whatever of warmer and
more impassioned sentiment was exchanged be-
* Mel Ynn'js—laXe. of Honey. One of the poetic
names given to England in the language of the ancient
Britons.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
191
tween them passed in notes. Jasper had sug-
gested to Arabella to pass liim ofi' to Matilda as
some near relation. But Arabella refused all
such disguise. Her sole claim to self-respect
was in considering him solemnly engaged to
her — the man she was to marry. And, after
the second time they thus met, she said to ^la-
tilda, who had not questioned her by a word —
by a look — '' I was to be married to that gentle-
man before my father died; we are to be married
as soon as we have something to live upon."
Matilda made some commonplace but kindly
rejoinder. And thus she became raised into
Arabella's confidence — so far as that confidence
could be given, without betraying Jasper's real
name, or one darker memory in herself. Lux-
iiiy, indeed, it was to Arabella to find, at last,
some one to whom she could speak of that be-
trothal in which her whole future was invested
— of that affection /vhich was her heart's sheet-
anchor — of that home, humble it might be, and
far off, but to which Time rarely fails to bring
the Two, if never weary of the trust, to become
as One. Talking thus, Arabella forgot the re-
lationship of pupil and teacher; it was as wo-
man to woman — girl to girl — friend to friend.
Matilda seemed touched by the confidence —
flattered to possess at last another's secret. Ar-
abella was a little chafed that she did not seem
to admire Jasjier as much as Arabella thought
the whole world must admire, ilatilda excused
herself. " She had scarcely noticed Mr. Ham-
mond. Yes; she had no doubt he would be
considered handsome ; but she owned, though
it might be bad taste, that she preferred a pale
complexion, with auburn hair ;" and then she
sighed and looked away, as if she had, in the
course of her secret life, encountered some fatal
pale complexion, with never-to-be-forgotten au-
burn hair. Kot a word was said by either Ma-
tilda or Arabella as to concealing from Mr. Dar-
rell these meetings with Mr. Hammond. Per-
haps xVrabella could not stoop to ask that secrecy ;
but there was no necessity to ask. jMatilda was
always too rejoiced to have something to con-
ceaL
Kow, in these interviews, Jasper scarcely ever
addressed himself to IMatilda ; not twenty spoken
words could have passed between them ; yet, in
the very third interview, Matilda's sly fingers
had closed on a sly note. And from that day,
in each inteniew, Arabella walking in the cen-
tre, Jasper on one side, Matilda the other — be-
hind Arabella's back — passed the sly fingers and
the sly notes, which Matilda received and an-
swered. Not more than twelve or fourteen times
was even this interchange effected. DaiTell was
about to move to Fawley. All such meetings
would be now suspended. Two or three morn-
ings before that fixed for leaving London SLa-
tilda's room was found vacant. She was gone.
Arabella was the first to discover her flight, the
first to learn its cause. INIatilda had left on her
wi-iting-table a letter for Miss Fossett. It was
very short, very quietly expressed, and it rested
her justification on a note from Jasper, which
she inclosed — a note in which that gallant hero,
ridiculing the idea that he could ever have been
in love with Arabella, declared that he would
destroy himself if Matilda refused to fly. She
need not fear such angelic confidence in him.
No ! Even
■ Had he a heart for falsehood framed,
He ne'er could injure her."
Stifling each noisier cry — but panting — gasp-
ing — literally half out of her mind, Arabella
rushed into Darrell's study. He, unsuspecting
man, calmly bending over his dull books, was
startled by her apparition. Few minutes sufficed
to tell him all that it concerned him to learn.
Few brief questions, few passionate answers,
brought him to the very M-orst.
Who, and what, was this Mr. Hammond?
Heaven of heavens ! the son of William Losely
— of a transported felon !
Arabella exulted in a reply which gave her
a moment's triumph over the rival who had
filched from her such a prize. Koused from his
first misery and sense of abasement in this dis-
coveiy, Dan-ell's wrath was naturally poured,
not on the fugitive child, but on the frcntless
woman, who, buoyed up by her own rage and
sense of wrong, faced him, and did not cower.
She, the faithless governess, had presented to
her pupil this convict's son in another name ;
she owned it — she had trepanned into the
snares of so vile a fortune-hunter, an ignorant
child — she might feign amaze — act remorse —
she must have been the man's accomplice.
Stung, amidst all the bewilderment of her an-
guish, by this charge, which, at least, she did
not deserve, Arabella tore from her besom Jas-
per's recent letters to herself — letters all devo-
tion and passion — placed them before Darrell,
and bade him read. Nothing thought she then
of name and fame. Nothing but of her wrongs
and of her woes. Compared to herself, Matilda
seemed the perfidious criminal — she the injured
victim. Darrell but glanced over the letters ;
the}- were signed "your loving husband."
"What is this?" he exclaimed, "are you
married to the man ?"
"Yes," cried Arabella, " in the eyes of Heav-
en!"
To Darrell's penetration there was no mistak-
ing the significance of those words, and that
look ; and his wrath redoubled. Anger in him,
when once roused, was terrible ; he had small
need of words to vent it. His eye withered, his
gesture appalled. Conscious but of one burning
firebrand in brain and heart — of a sense that
youth, joy, and hope were for ever gone, that
the world could never be the same again — Ara-
bella left the house, her character lost, her
talents useless, her ven- means of existence
stopped. Who henceforth would take her to
teach ? Who henceforth place their children
under her charge ?
She shrank into a gloomy lodging — she shut
herself up alone with her despair. Strange
though it may seem, her anger against Jasper
was slight as compared with the intensity of
her hate to JMatilda. And stranger still it may
seem, that as her thoughts recovered from their
first chaos, she felt more embittered against the
world, more crushed by a sense of shame, and
yet galled by a no less keen sense of injustice,
in recalling the scorn with which Darrell had
rejected all excuse for her conduct in the misery
it had occasioned her, than she did by tlie con-
sciousness of her own lamentable errors. As in
Darrell's esteem there was something that, to
those who could appreciate it, seemed invahaa-
ble, so in his contempt to those who had cherish-
192
SYHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
ed that esteem there was a weight of ignominy,
as if a judge had pronounced a sentence that
outlaws the rest of life.
Arabella had not much left out of her muni-
ficent salary. What she had hitherto laid by
had passed to Jasper — defraying, perhaps, the
very cost of his flight with her treacherous rival.
Wlien her money was gone, she pawned the
poor relics of her innocent happy girlhood, which
she had been permitted to take from her father's
home, and had borne with her wherever she
went, like household gods, — the prize-books, the
lute, the costly work-box, the very bird-cage, all
which the reader will remember to have seen
in her later life, the books never opened, the
lute broken, the bird long, long, long vanished
from the cage ! Never did she think she should
redeem those pledges from that Golgotha, which
takes, rarely to give back, so many hallowed
tokens of the dreamland called '"better days"
— the trinkets worn at the first ball, the ring
that was given with the earliest love-vow — yea,
even the very bells and coral that pleased the
infant in its dainty cradle, and the very Bible
in which the lips that now bargain for sixpence
more, read to some gi'ay-haired father on his
bed of death !
Soon the sums thus miserably raised were as
miserably doled away. With a sullen apathy
the woman contemplated famine. She would
make no effort to live — appeal to no relations,
no friends. It was a kind of vengeance she took
on others, to let herself drift on to death. She
had retreated from lodging to lodging, each ob-
scurer, more desolate than the other. Now, she
could no longer pay rent for the humblest room ;
now, she was told to go forth — whither ? She
knew not — cared not — took her way toward the
river, as by that instinct which, when the mind
is diseased, tends toward self-destruction, scarce
less involuntarily than it turns, in health, to-
ward self-preservation. Just as she passed un-
der the lamplight at the foot of Westminster
Bridge, a well-dressed man looked at her, and
seized her arm. She raised her head with a
chillv, melancholy scorn, as if she had received
an insult — as if she feared that the man knew
the stain upon her name, and dreamed, in his
folly, that the dread of death might cause her
to sin again.
"Do you not know me?" said the man;
"more strange that I should recognize you!
Dear, dear ! — and what a dress 1 — how you are
altered! Poor thing I"
At the words " Poor thing !" Arabella burst
into tears ; and in those tears the heavy cloud
on her brain seemed to melt away.
" I have been inquiring, seeking for you eveiy
where, Miss," resumed the man. " Surely you
know me now ! Your poor aunt's lawyer ! She
is no more — died last week.* She has left you
all she had in the world ; and a very pretty in-
come it is, too, for a single lady."
Thus it was that we find Arabella installed
in the dreary comforts of Poddcn Place. "She
exchanged," she said, '• in iionor to her aunt's
memory, her own name for that of Crane, which
her aunt had borne — her own motlier's maiden
name." She assumed, though still so young, that
title of "Mrs." which spinsters, grown venerable,
moodily adopt when they desire all mankind to
know that henceforth they relinquish the vani-
ties of tender misses — that, become mistress of
themselves, they defy and spit upon our worth-
less sex, which, whatever its repentance, is warn-
ed that it repents in vain. jNIost of her aunt's
property was in houses, in various districts of
Bloomsbury. Arabella moved from one to the
other of these tenements, till she settled for
good into the dullest of all. To make it duller
yet, by contrast with the past, the Golgotha for
once gave up its buried treasures — broken lute,
birdless cage !
Somewhere about two years after Matilda's
death, Arabella happened to be in the otnce of
the agent who collected her house-rents, when a
well-dressed man entered, and, leaning over the
counter, said — "There is an advertisement in
to-day's Times about a lady who offers a home,
education, and so forth, to any little motherless
girl ; terms moderate, as said lady loves chil-
dren for their own sake. Advertiser refers to
j'our office for particulars — give them I"
The agent turned to his books ; and Arabella
turned toward the inquirer. "For whose child
do you want a home, Jasper Losely ?"
Jasper started. "Arabella! Best of creat-
ures ! And can you deign to speak to such a
vil "
"Hush — let us walk. Never mind the ad-
vertisement of a stranger. I may find a home
for a motherless child — a home that will cost
you nothing."
She drew him into the street. " But can this
be the child of — of — Matilda Darrell ?"
" Bella I" replied, in coaxing accents, that
most execrable of lady-killers, " can I trust
you ? — can you be my friend in spite of my
having been such a very sad dog? But money
— what can one do without money in this world ?
' Had I a heart for falsehood framed, it would
ne'er have injured you' — if I had not been so
cursedly hard up I And indeed now, if you
would but condescend to forgive and forget, per-
haps some day or other we may be Darby and
Joan — only, you see, just at this moment I am
really not worthy of such a Joan. You know,
of course, that I am a widower — not inconsola-
ble."
"Yes: I read of Mrs. Hammond's death in
an old newspaper."
" And you did not read of her baby's death,
too — some weeks afterward?"
"No; it is seldom th^t I see a newspaper.
Is the infant dead?"
"Hum — you shall hear." And Jasjier en-
tered into a recital, to which Arabella listened
with attentive interest. At the close she ofi'er-
ed to take herself the child for whom Jasper
sought a home. She informed him of her
change of name and address. The wretch
promised to call that evening with the infant;
but he sent the infant, and did not call. Nor
did he present himself again to her eyes, until,
several years afterward, those eyes so luridly
welcomed him to Podden Place. But though
lie did not even condescend to write to her in
the mean while, it is probable tliat Arabella con-
trived to learn more of his habits and mode of
life at Paris than she intimated when they once
more met face to fiice.
And now the reader knows more than Alban
Morley, or Guy Darrell perhaps ever will know,
of the grim woman in iron gray.
WHAT "WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
193
CHAPTER X.
"Sweet are the uses of Adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly anj venoraoua.
Bears yet a precious jewel in its head."
Most persons will agree that the toad is ugly and ven-
omous, but few indeed are the persons who can boast
of having actually discovered that " precious jewel in
its head" whicii the poet assures us is placed there.
But calamity may be classed in two great divisions —
1st, The afSictions, which no prudence can avert : '2d,
The misfortunes, which men take all possible pains to
bring upon themselves. Afflictions of the first cla^s
may but call forth our virtues, and result in our ulti-
mate good. Such is the adversity which may give us
the jewel. But to get at the jewel we must kill the
toad. Misfortunes of the second class but too often in-
crease the erroi's or the vices by which they were cre-
ated. Such is the adversity which is all toad and no
jewel. If you choose to breed and fatten your own
toads, the increase of the venom absorbs every bit of
the jeweL
Xevzk did I knoK' a man who was an habit-
ual gambler, otherwi.se than notably inaccnrate
in his calculations of probabilities in the ordi-
nary affairs of life. Is it that such a man has
become so chronic a drunkard of hope, that he
sees double every chance in his favor ?
Jasper Losely had counted upon two things
as matters of course.
1st. Darrell's speedy reconciliation with his
only child.
2d. That Darrell's only child must of neces-
sity he Darrell's heiress.
Ill both these expectations the gambler was
deceived.
Darrell did not even answer the letters that
Matilda addressed to him from France, to the
shores of which Jasper had borne her, and
where he had hastened to make her his wife
under his assumed name of Hammond, but his
true Christian name of Jasjjer.
In- tlie disreputable marriage Matilda had
made all the worst parts of her character seem-
ed suddenly revealed to her father's eye, and
he saw what he had hitherto sought not to see,
the tnie child of a worthless mother. A mere
mesalliance, if palliated by long or familiar ac-
quaintance with the object, however it might
have galled him, his heart might have pardon-
ed ; but here, without even a struggle of duty,
without the ordinary coyness of maiden pride,
to be won with so scanty a wooing, by a man
who she knew was betrothed to another — the
dissimulation, the perfidy, the combined effront-
ery and meanness of the whole transaction, left
no force in Darrell's eyes to the commonplace
excuses of inexperience and youth. Darrell
would not have been Dan-ell if he could have
taken back to his home or his heart a daugh-
ter so old in deceit, so experienced in thoughts
that dishonor.
Darrell's silence, however, little saddened the
heartless bride, and little dismayed the san-
guine bridegroom. Both thought that pardon
and plenty were but the affair of time — a little
more or little less. But their funds rapidly di-
minished ; it became necessary to recruit them.
One can't live in hotels entirely upon hope.
Leaving his bride for a while in a pleasant pro-
vincial town, not many hours distant from
Paris, Jasper returned to London, intent upon
seeing Darrell himself; and should the father-
in-law still defer articles of peace, Jasper be-
lieved that he could have no trouble in raising
a present supply upon such an El Dorado of fu-
ture expectations. Darrell at once consented
to see Jasper, not at his own house, but at his
solicitor's. Smothering all opposing disgust, the
proud gentleman deemed this condescension es-
sential to the clear and definite understanding
of those resolves upon which depended the world-
ly station and prospects of the wedded pair.
When Jasper was shown into Jlr. Gotobed's
office, Darrell was alone, standing near the
hearth, and by a single quiet gesture repelled
that tender rush toward his breast which Jas-
per had elaborately prepared ; and thus for the
first time the two men saw each other, Darrell
perhaps yet more resentfully mortified while
recognizing those personal advantages in the
showy profligate which had rendered a daughter
of his house so facile a conquest : Jasper (who
had chosen to believe that a father-in-law so
eminent must necessarily be old and broken)
shocked into the most disagreeable surprise by
the sight of a man still young, under forty, with
a countenance, a port, a presence, that in any
assemblage would have attracted the general
gaze from his own brilliant self, and looking al-
together as unfavorable an object, whether for
pathos or for post-obits, as unlikely to breathe
out a blessing or to give up the ghost, as the
worst brute of a father-in-law could possibly be.
Nor were Darrell's words more comforting than
his aspect.
" Sir, I have consented to see you, partly that
you may learn from my own lijis once for all that
I admit no man's right to enter my family with-
out my consent, and that consent you will never
receive, and partly that, thus knowing each oth-
er by sight, each may know the man it becomes
him most to avoid. The lady who is now your
wife is entitled by my marriage-settlement to
the reversion of a small fortune at my death :
nothing more from me is she likely to inherit!
As I have no desire that she to whom I once
gave the name of daughter should be dependent
wholly on yourself for bread, my solicitor will
inform you on what conditions I am willing,
during my life, to pay the interest of the sum
which will pass to your wife at my death. Sir,
I return to your hands the letters that lady has
addressed to me, and which, it is easy to per-
ceive, were written at your dictation.' Xo let-
ter from her will I answer. Across my thresh-
old her foot will never pass. Thus, Sir, con-
cludes all possible intercotirse between you and
myself; what rests is between you and that
gentleman."
Darrell had opened a side-door in speaking
the last words — pointed toward the respectable
form of Mr. Gotobed standing tall beside his
tall desk — and, before Jasper could put in a
word, the father-in-law was gone.
With becoming brevity Mr. Gotobed made
Jasper fully aware that not only all Mr. Dar-
rell's funded or personal property was entirely
at his own disposal — that not only the large
landed estates he had purchased (and which
Jasper had vaguely deemed inherited and in
strict entail) were in the same condition — con-
dition enviable to the proprietor, odious to the
bridegroom of the proprietor's sole daughter;
but that even the fee-simple of the poor Fawley
Manor-House and lands was vested in Darrell.
encumbered only by the portion of £10,000
which the late Mrs. Darrell had brought to her
194
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
husband, and which was settled, at the death of
herself and Darrell, on the children of the mar-
riage.
In the absence of marriage-settlements be-
tween Jasper and Matilda, that sum at Darrell's
death was liable to be claimed by Jasper, in
right of his wife, so as to leave no certainty that
provision would remain for the support of his
wife and family ; and the contingent reversion
might, in the mean time, be so dealt with as to
bring eventful poverty on them all.
" Sir," said the lawyer, " I will be quite frank
with you. It is my wish, acting for Mr. Dar-
rell, so to settle this sum of £10,000 on your
wife, and any children she may bear you, as to
place it out of your power to anticiiJate or dis-
pose of, even with Mrs. Hammond's consent. If
you part with that power, not at present a val-
uable one, you are entitled to compensation.
I am prepared to make that compensation lib-
eral. Perhaps you would prefer communicating
with me through your own solicitor. But I
should tell you, that the tei'ms are more likely
to be advantageous to you, in proportion as ne-
gotiation is confined to us two. It might, for
instance, be expedient to tell your solicitor that
your true name (I beg you a thousand pardons)
is not Hammond. That is a secret which, the
more you can keep it to yourself, the better I
think it will be for you. We have no wish to
blab it out."
Jasper by this time had somewhat recovered
the first shock of displeasure and disappoint-
ment ; and with that quickness which so errat-
ically darted through a mind that contrived to
be dull when any thing honest was addressed
to its apprehension, he instantly divined that
his real name of Losely was worth something.
He had no idea of resuming — was, indeed, at
that time anxious altogether to ignore and es-
chew it ; but he had a right to it, and a man's
rights are not to be resigned for nothing. Ac-
cordingly, he said with some asperity, "I aiiall
resume my family name whenever I choose it.
If Mr. Darrell does not like his daughter to be
called Mrs. Jasper Losely — or all the malig-
nant tittle-tattle which my poor father's unfor-
tunate trial might provoke — he must, at least,
ask me as a favor to retain the name I have
temporarily adopted — a name in my family. Sir.
A Losely married a Hammond, I forget when
— generations ago — you'll see it in the ]3aronet-
age. JNIy grandfather, Sir Julian, Avas not a
crack lawyer, but he was a baronet of as good
birth as any in the country ; and my father,
Sir" — (Jasper's voice trembled) — "my father,"
he repeated, fiercely striking his clenched hand
on the table, " was a gentleman every inch of
his body ; and I'll pitch any man out of the
window who says a word to the contrary !"
" Sir," said Mr. Gotobed, shrinking toward
the bell-pull, "I think, on the whole, I had bet-
ter see your solicitor."
Jasper cooled down at that suggestion ; and,
with a slight apology for natural excitement,
begged to know what Mr. Gotobed wished to
propose. To make an end of this part of tlie
story, after two or three interviews, in which the
two negotiators learned to understand each oth-
er, a settlement was legally completed, by which
the sum of £10,000 was inalienably settled on
Matilda, and her children by her marriage with
Jasper ; in case he survived her, the interest
was to be his for life — in case she died childless,
the capital would devolve to himself at Darrell's
decease. Meanwhile, Darrell agreed to pay
£500 a year, as the interest of the £10,000 at
five per cent, to Jasper Hammond, or his order,
provided always that Jasper and his wife con-
tinued to reside together, and fixed that resi-
dence abroad.
By a private verbal arrangement, not even
committed to writing, to this sum was added
another £200 a year, wholly at Darrell's option
and discretion. It being clearly comprehended
that these words meant so long as Mr. Ham-
mond kept his own secret, and so long, too, as
he forboi'e directly, or indirectly, to molest, or
even to address the person at whose pleasure it
was held. On the whole, the conditions to Jas-
per were sufficiently favorable : he came into
an income immeasui-ably beyond his right to be-
lieve that he should ever enjoy ; and sufficient
— well managed — for even a fair share of tlie
elegances as well as comforts of life, to a young
couple blessed in each other's love, and remote
from the horrible taxes and emulous gentilities
of this opulent England, where, out of fear to
be thought too poor, nobody is ever too rich.
Matilda wrote no more to Darrell. But some
months afterward he received an extremely
well-expressed note in French, the writer where-
of represented herself as a French lady, who had
very lately seen Madame Hammond — was now
in London but for a few days, and had some-
thing to communicate, of such importance as to
justify the liberty she took in requesting him to
honor her with a visit. After some little hesi-
tation, Darrell called on this lady. Though Ma-
tilda had forfeited his affection, he could not
contemplate her probable fate without painful
anxiety. Perhaps Jasper had ill-used her —
perhaps she had need of shelter elsewhere.
Though that shelter could not again be under
a father's roof — and though Darrell would have
taken no step to separate her from the husband
she had chosen, still, in secret, he would have
felt comparative relief and ease had she her-
self sought to divide her fate from one whose
l)ath downward in dishonor his penetration in-
stinctively divined. With an idea that some
communication might be made to him, to which
he might reply that Matilda, if compelled to
quit her husband, should never want the home
and subsistence of a gentlewoman, he repaired
to the house (a handsome house in a quiet
street, temporarily occupied by the French lady).
A tall chassem-, in full costume, opened the door
— a page ushered him into the drawing-room.
He saw a lady — young — and with all tbe grace
of a Parisicnne in her manner — who, after some
exquisitely-turned phrases of excuse, showed him
(as a testimonial of the intimacy between her-
self and Madame Hammond) a letter she had
received from Matilda, in a very heart-broken,
filial stx'ain, full of professions of penitence —
of a passionate desire for her father's forgive-
ness — but far from complaining of Jasper, or
hinting at the idea of deserting a spouse, with
whom, but for the haunting remembrance of a
beloved parent, her lot would be blessed indeed.
Whatever of pathos was deficient in the letter,
the French lady supplied by such ai)pareut fine
feeling, and by so many touching little traits of
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
195
Matilda's remorse, that Darrell's heart was soft-
ened in spite of his reason. He went away,
however, saying very little, and intending to
call no more. But another note came. The
French lady had received a letter from a mutual
friend — "Matilda," she feared, "was danger-
ously ill." This took him again to the house,
and the poor French lady seemed so agitated
by the news she had heard — and yet so desirous
not to exaggerate nor alarm him needlessly,
that Darrell suspected his daughter was really
dying, and became nervously anxious himself
for tlie next report. Thus, about three or four
visits in all necessarily followed the first one.
Then Darrell abruptly closed the intercourse,
and could not be induced to call again. Xot
that he for an instant suspected that this amia-
ble lady, who spoke so becomingly, and M'hose
manners were so hi^h-bred, was other than the
well-born Baroness she called herself, and looked
to be, but partly because, in the last interview,
the charming Parisienne had appeared a little to
forget Matilda's alarming illness, in a, not for-
ward but still, coquettish desire to centre his
attention more upon herself; and the moment
she did so, he took a dislike to her which he
had not before conceived; and partly because
his feelings having recovered the first effect
which the vision of a penitent pining, dving
daughter could not fail to produce, his experi-
ence of Matilda's duplicity and falsehood made
him discredit the penitence, the pining, and the
dying. The Baroness might not willfully be
deceiving him — Matilda might be willfully de-
ceiving the Baroness. To the next note, there-
fore, dispatched to him by the feeling and
elegant foreigner, he replied but by a dry ex-
cuse — a stately hint that family matters could
never be satisfactorily discussed except in familv
councils, and that if her friend's grief or illness
were really in any way occasioned by a belief
in the pain her choice of life might have in-
flicted on himself, it might comfort her to know
that that pain had subsided, and that his wish
for her health and happiness was not less sin-
cere, because henceforth he could neither watch
over the one nor administer to the other. To
this note, after a day or two, the Baroness re-
plied by a letter so beautifully worded, I doubt
whether 3Iadame de Sevigne could have 'WTitten
in purer French, or Madame de Stael with a
finer felicity of phrase. Stripped of the graces
of diction, the substance was but small ; "Anx-
iety for a friend so beloved — so unhappy — more
pited even than before, now that the IBaroness
had been enabled to see how fondly a daughter
must idolize a father in the man whom a nation
revered I — (here two lines devoted to compli-
ment personal) — compelled by that anxietv to
quit even sooner than she had first intended
the metropolis of that noble countrv," etc.
(here four lines devoted to compliment nation-
al)^and then proceeding through some chaiin-
ing sentences about patriot altars and domestic
hearths, the writer suddenly checked herself —
" would intrude no more on time sublimelv
dedicated to the human race — and concluded
with the assurance of sentiments the most dis-
tinguees." Little thought DaiTell that this com-
plimentary stranger, whom he never again be-
held, would exercise an influence over that
portion of his destiny which then seemed to
him most secure from evil ; toward which, then
he looked for the balm to every wound the
compensation to every loss !
Darrell heard no more of Matilda, till, not
long aftenvard, her death was announced to
him. She had died from exhaustion shortly
after giving birth to a female child. The news
came upon him at a moment when, from other
causes — (the explanation of which, forming no
part of his confidence to Alban, it will be con-
venient to reserve)— his mind was in a state of
gi-eat afl^iction and disorder— when he had al-
ready buried himself in the solitudes of Fawley
— ambition resigned and the world renounced
and the intelligence saddened and shocked him
more than it might have done some months be-
1 fore. If, at that moment of utter bereavement
; Matilda's child had been brought to him — given
' up to him to rear — would he "have rejected it?
would he have forgotten that it was a felon's
grandchild? I dare not say. But his pride
was not put to such a trial.' One day he re-
ceived a packet from Mr. Gotobed, inclosing
the formal certificates of the infant's death"
which had been presented to him by Jasper,
who had arrived in London for that melancholy
purpose, with which he combined a pecuniary
proposition. By the death of Matilda and her
only child, the sum of £10,000 absolutely revert-
ed to Jasper in the event of Darrell's decease.
As the interest meanwhile was continued to Jas-
per, that widowed mourner suggested " that it
would be a great boon to himself and no dis-
advantage to Dan-ell if the principal were made
over to him at once. He had been brought up
originally to commerce. He had abjured all
thoughts of resuming such vocation during his
wife's lifetime, out of tliat consideration for her
family and ancient birth which motives of deli-
cacy imposed. Now that the connection with
Mr. Darrell was dissolved, it might be rather a
relief than otherwise to that gentleman to know
that • a son-in-law so displeasing to him was
finally settled, not only in a foreign land, but
in a social sphere, in which his very existence
would soon be ignored by all who could remind
Z\Ir. Darrell that his daughter had once a hus-
band. An occasion that might never occur
again now presented itself. A trading firm at
Paris, opulent, but unostentatiously quiet in its
mercantile transactions, would accept him as a
partner could he bring to it the additional cap-
ital of £10,000." Not without dignity did Jas-
per add, " that since his connection had been
so unhappily distasteful to Mr. Darrell, and since
the very payment, each quarter, of the interest
on the sum in question must in itself keep alive
the unwelcome remembrance of that connection,
he had the less scruple in making a proposition
which would enable the eminent personage who
so disdained his alliance to get rid of him al-
together." Darrell closed at once with Jasper's
proposal, pleased to cut off" from his life each
tie that could henceforth link it to Jasper's,
nor displeased to relieve his hereditary acres
from every shilling of the man-iage portion
which was imposed on it as a debt, and asso-
ciated with memories of unmingled bitterness.
Accordingly, Mr. Gotobed, taking care first to
ascertain that the certificates as to the poor
child's death were genuine, accepted Jasper's
final release of all claim on Mr. Darrell's estate-
196
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
There still, however, remained the £200 a year
which Jasper had received during Matilda's life,
on the tacit condition of remaining Mr. Ham-
mond, and not personally addressing Mr. Dar-
rell. Jasper inquired ''if that annuity was to
continue?" Mr. Gotobed referred the inquiry
to Darrell, observing that the object for which
this extra allowance had been made was ren-
dered nugatory by the death of Mrs. Hammond
and her child; since Jasper henceforth could
have neither power nor pretext to molest Mr.
Darrell, and that it could signify but little what
name might in future be borne by one whose
connection ■with the Darrell family was wholly
dissolved. Darrell impatiently replied. "That
nothing having been said as to the withdrawal
of the said allowance in case Jasper became a
widower, he i-emained equally entitled, in point
of honor, to receive that allowance, or an ade-
quate equivalent."
This answer being intimated to Jasper, that
gentleman observed •' tliat it was no more than
he had expected from Mr. Darrell's sense of
honor," and apparently quite satisfied, carried
himself and his £10,000 back to Paris. Not
long after, however,- he wrote to Mr. Gotobed
that "'^Ir. Darrell, having alluded to an equiva-
lent for the £200 a year allowed to him, evi-
dently implying that it was as disagreeable to
Mr. Darrell to see that sum entered quarterly
in his banker's books, as it had to see there
the quarterly interest of the £10,000, so Jasper
might be excused in owning that he should
prefer an equivalent. The commercial firm to
which he was about to attach himself required
a somewhat larger capital on his part than he
had anticipated, etc., etc. Without presuming
to dictate any definite sum, he would observe
that £1500, or even £1000, would be of more
avail to his views and objscts in life than an
annuity of £200 a year, which, being held only
at will, was not susceptible of a temporary loan."
Darrell, wrapped in thoughts wholly remote. from
recollections of Jasper, chafed at being thus re-
called to the sense of that person's existence,
wrote back to the solicitor who transmitted to
him this message, " that an annuity held on
his word was not to be calculated by Mr. Ham-
mond's notions of its value. That the £200 a
year should therefore be placed on the same
footing as the £500 a year that had been allow-
ed on a capital of £10,000; that accordingly it
might be held to represent a principal of £4000,
for which he inclosed a check, begging Mr.
Gotobed not only to make Mr. Hammond fully
understand that there ended all possible ac-
counts or communication between them, but
never again to trouble him with any matters
whatsoever in reference to atfairs that were
thus finally concluded." Jasper, receiving the
£1000, left Darrell and Gotobed in peace till
the following year. He then addressed to Goto-
bed an exceedingly plausible, business-like let-
ter. " The firm he had entered, in the silk
trade, w.is in the most flourisliing state — an
opportunity occurred to purchase a magnificent
mulberry plantation in Provence, with all re-
quisite marpianieres, etc., which would yield an
immense increase of profit. That if, to insure
him to have a share in this lucrative purchase,
Mr. Darrell could accommodate him for a year
with a loan of £2000 or £3000, he sanguinely
calculated on attaining so high a position in
the commercial world, as, though it couid not
render the recollection of his alliance more
obtrusive to IMr. DaiTell, would render it less
humiliating."
Mr. Gotobed, in obedience to the peremptory
instructions he had received from his client,
did not refer this letter to Darrell, but having
occasion at that time to visit Paris on other
business, he resolved (without calling on Mr.
Hammond) to institute there soAe private in-
quiry into that rising trader's prospects and
status. He found, on arrival at Paris, these
inquiries diflicult. No one in either the beau
moade or in the haul commerce seemed to know
any thing about thiOIr. Jasper Hammond. A
few fixshionable English roues remembered to
have seen once or twice during Matilda's life,
and shortly after her decease, a very fine-look-
ing man shooting meteoric across some equivo-
cal salons, or lounging in the Champs J-Jli/stes,
or dining at the Cct/e de Paris ; but of late that
meteor had vanished. Mr. Gotobed, then cau-
tiously employing a commissioner to gain some
information of ilr. Hammond's firm at the pri-
vate residence from which Jasper addressed his
letter, ascertained that in that private residence
Jasper did not reside. He paid the porter to
receive occasional letters, for which he called
or sent ; and the porter, who was evidently a
faithful and discreet functionary, declared his
belief that ilonsieur Hammond lodged in the
house in which he transacted business, though,
where was the house, or what was the business,
the porter observed, with well-bred implied re-
buke, " Monsieur Hammond was too reserved
to communicate, he himself too incurious to
inquire." At length Mr. Gotobed's business,
which was, in fact, a commission from a dis-
tressed father to extricate an imprudent son,
a mere boy, from some unhappy associations,
having brought him into the necessity of seeing
persons who belonged neither to the beau monde
nor to the haul commerce, he gleaned from them
the information he desired. 'Sir. Hammond
lived in the very heart of a certain circle in
Paris, which but few Englishmen ever pene-
trate. In that circle Mr. Hammond had, on
receiving his late wife's dowry, become the
partner in a private gambling hell ; in that hell
had been ingulfed all the moneys he had re-
ceived — a hell that ought to have prospered
with him, if he could have economized his vil-
lainous gains. His senior partner in that firm
retired into the country with a fine fortune —
no doubt the very owner of those mulbeny
plantations which were now on sale I But Jas-
per scattered Napoleons faster than any croupier
could rake them away. And Jasper's natural
talent for converting solid gold into thin air
had been assisted by a lady, who, in the course
of her amiable life, had assisted many richer
men than Jasper to lodgings in St. Pelagic, or
cells in the Maison des Fous. With that lady
he had become acquainted during the lifetime
of his wife, and it was sujiposed that Matilda's
discovery of this liaison had contributed perhaps
to the illness which closed in her decease ; the
name of that lady was Gabrielle Desmarets.
She might still be seen daily at the Bois de
Boulogne, nightly at opera-house or theatre ;
she had apartments in the Chaussec d'Antin far
WHAT ^nLL HE DO AVITII IT ?
197
from inaccessible to Mr. Gotobed, if he coveted
the honor of her acquaintance. But Jasper was
less before an admiring world. He was sup-
posed now to be connected with another gam-
bling-house of lower grade than the last, in
which he had contrived to break his own bank,
and plunder his own till. It was supposed also
that he remained good friends with Mademoi-
selle Desmarets : but if he \-isited her at her
house, he was never to be seen there. In fact,
his temper was so uncertain, his courage so
dauntless, his strength so prodigious, that gen-
tlemen who did not wish to be thrown out of a
window, or hurled down a stair-case, shunned
any salon or boudoir in which they had a chance
to encounter him. Mademoiselle Desmarets
had thus been condemned to the painful choice
between his society and that of nobody else, or
that of any body elsc/with the rigid privation of
his. Not being a <mrtle-dove, she had chosen
the latter alternative. It was believed, how-
ever, that if ever Gabrielle Desmarets had known
the weakness of a kind sentiment, it was for this
turbulent lady-killer : and that, with a liberality
she had never exhibited in any other instance,
when she could no longer help him to squander,
she would still, at a pinch, help him to live ;
though, of course, in such a reverse of the nor-
mal laws of her being, ilademoiselle Desmarets
set those bounds on her own generosity which
she would not have imposed upon his, and had
said with a sigh, "I could forgive him if he
beat me and beggared my friends : but to beat
my frien(ls and to beggar me — that is not the
kind of love which makes the world go round I"
Scandalized to the last nerve of bis respect-
able system by the information thus gleaned,
Mr. Gotobed returned to London. Slore letters
from Jasper — becoming urgent, and at last even
insolent — Mr. Gotobed, worried into a reply,
wrote back shortly ''that he could not even
communicate such applications to Mr. Darrell,
and that he must peremptorily decline all far-
ther intercourse, epistolary or personal, with
^Ir. Hammond."
Darrell, on returning from one of the occa-
sional rambles on the Continent, "remote, un-
friended, melancholy," by which he broke the
monotony of his Fawley life, found a letter from
Jasper, not fawning, but abrupt, addressed to
himself, complaining of ISIr. Gotobed's improper
tone, requesting pecuniary assistance, and inti-
mating that he could in return communicate to
Mr. Darrell an intelligence that would give him
more joy than all his wealth could purchase.
Darrell inclosed that note to Mr. Gotobed ; ]SIr.
Gotobed came down to Fawley to make those
revelations of Jasper's mode of life which were
too delicate, or too much the reverse, to com-
mit to paper. Great as Darrell's disgust at the
memory of Jasper had hitherto been, it may
well be conceived how much more bitter became
that memory now. No answer was, of course,
vouchsafed to Jasper, who, after another ex-
tremely forcible apf)eal for money, and equally
enigmatical boast of the pleasurable information
it was in his power to bestow, relapsed into
sullen silence.
One day, somewhat more than five years after
Slatilda's death, Darrell, coming in from his
musing walks, found a stranger waiting for him.
This stranger was William Losely, returned
from penal exile ; and while Darrell, on hear-
ing this announcement, stood mute with haughty
wonder that such a visitor could cross the thresh-
old of his father's house, the convict began what
seemed to Darrell a story equally audacious and
incomprehensible — the infant Matilda had borne
to Jasper, and the certificates of whose death
had been so ceremoniously produced and so
prudently attested, lived still! Sent out to
nurse as soon as born, the nurse had in her
charge another babe, and this last was the child
who had died and been buried as Matilda Ham-
mond's. The elder Losely went on to stammer
out a hope that his son was not at the time
aware of the fraudulent exchange, but had been
deceived by the nurse — that it had not been a
premeditated imposture of his own to obtain his
wife's fortune.
When Darrell came to this part of his story,
Alban Morley's face grew more seriously inter-
ested. "Stop I" he said; "William Losely as-
sured you of his own conviction that this strange
tale was true. AThat proofs did he volunteer?"
"Proofs ! Death, man, do you think that at
such moments I was but a bloodless lawyer, to
question and cross-examine ? I could but bid
the impostor leave the house which his feet pol-
luted."
Alban heaved a sigh, and murmured, too low
for Darrell to overhear, "Poor Willy!" then
aloud, "But, my dear friend, bear with me one
moment. Suppose that, by the arts of this dia-
bolical Jasper, the exchange really had been
' effected, and a child to your ancient line lived
still, would it not be a solace, a comfort — "
I " Comfort !" cried Darrell, " comfort in the
perpetuation of infamy ! The line I promised
my father to restore to its rank in the land, to
be renewed in the grandchild of a felon ! — in
the child of the yet viler sharper of a hell I —
You, gentleman and soldier, call that thought
— ' comfort ?' Oh, Alban ! — out on you I Fie !
fie! No! — leave such a thought to the lips of
a William Losely ! He indeed, clasping his
hands, faltered forth some such word ; he seemed
to count on my forlorn privation of kith and
' kindred — no heir to my wealth — no representa-
tive of my race — would I deprive myself of — ay
— your very words — of a solace — a comfort !
He asked me, at least, to inquire."
" And you answered ?"
I "Answered so as to quell and crush in the
I bud all hopes in the success of so flagrant a
falsehood — answered, ' "WTiy inquire ? Know
' that, even if your tale were true, I have no heir,
' no representative, no descendant in the child
of Jasper — the grandchild of William — Losely.
I can at least leave my wealth to the son of
Charles Haughton. True, Charles Haughton
was a spendthrift — a gamester ; but he was
; neither a professional cheat nor a convicted
1 felon.' "
I "Yousaidthat — oh, Darrell!"
The Colonel checked himself But for Charles
Haughton, the spendthrift and gamester, would
\ William Losely have been the convicted felon?
He checked that thought, and hurried on —
j "And how did William" Losely reply?"
" He made no reply — he skulked away with-
out a word."
I Darrell then proceeded to relate the inteniew
' which Jasper had forced on him at Fawley dtir-
198
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
ing Lionel's visit there — on Jasper's part, an
attempt to tell the same tale as William had
told — on Darrell's part, the same scornful re-
fusal to hear it out. "And," added Darrell,
" the man, finding it thus impossible to dupe
mv reason, had the inconceivable meanness to
apply to me for alms. I could not better show
the "disdain in which I held himself and his
story than in recognizing his plea as a mendi-
cant. I threw my purse at his feet, and so left
him.
"But," continued Darrell, his brow growing
darker and darker, " but wild and monstrous as
the story was, still the idea that it might be true
— a supposition which derived its sole strength
from the character of Jasper Losely — from the
interest he had in the supposed death of a child
that alone stood between himself and the money
he longed to grasp — an interest which ceased
when the money itself was gone, or rather
changed into the counter-interest of proving a
life that, he thought, would re-establish a hold
on me — still. I say, an idea that the story inirjlit
be true, would force itself on my fears, and if
so, though my resolution never to acknowledge
the child of Jasper Losely as a representative,
or even as a daughter, of my house, would of
course be immovable — yet it would become my
duty to see that her infancy was sheltered, her
childhood reared, her youth guarded, her exist-
ence amply provided for."
"Right— your plain duty," said Alban, blunt-
Iv. "Intricate sometimes are the obligations
imposed on us as gentlemen ; ' noblesse oblige'' is
a motto which involves puzzles for a casuist ;
but our duties as men are plain — the idea very
properly haunted you — and — "
"And I hastened to exorcise the spectre. I
left England — I went to the French town in
which poor Matilda died — I could not, of course,
make formal or avowed inquiries of a nature to
raise into importance the very conspiracy (if
conspiracy there were) which threatened me.
But I saw the physician who had attended both
my daughter and her child — I saw those who
had seen them both when living — seen them
both when dead. The doubt on my mind was
dispelled — not a pretext left for my own self-
torment. The only person needful in evidence
whom I failed to see was the nurse to whom the
infant had been sent. She lived in a village
some miles from the town — I called at her house
— she was out. I left word I should call the
next day — I did so — she had absconded. I
might, doubtless, have traced her, but to what
end, if she were merely Jasper's minion and
tool? Did not her very flight prove her guilt
and her terror? Indirectly I inquired into her
antecedents and character. The inquiry opened
a field of conjecture, from which I hastened to
turn my eyes. This woman liad a sister who
had been in the service of Gabrielle Desmarets ;
and Gabrielle Desmarets had been in the neigh-
boxhood during my poor daughter's Hfetime, and
just after my daughter's death. And the nurse
had had two infants under her charge ; the
nurse had removed with one of them to Paris
— and Gabrielle Desmarets lived in Paris — and,
oh, Alban, if there be really in flesh and life a
child by Jasper Losely to be forced upon my
purse or my pity — is it his child, not by the ill-
fated Matilda, but by the vile woman for whom
Matilda, even in the first year of wedlock, was
deserted? Conceive how credulity itself would
shrink appalled from the horrible snare ! — I to
acknowledge, adopt, proclaim as the last of the
Darrells, the adulterous ofl:spring of a Jasper
Losely and a Gabrielle Desmarets ! — or, when I
am in mv grave, some claim advanced upon the
sum settled by my marriage articles on ilatilda's
issue, and which, if a child survived, could not
have been legally transferred to its father — a
claim with witnesses suborned — a claim that
might be fraudulently established — a claim that
would leave the representative — not indeed of
my lands and wealth, but, more precious far, of
mv lineage and blood — in — in the person of —
of—" /
DaiTeU paused, almost stifling, and became
so pale that Alban started from his seat in
alarm.
"It is nothing," resumed DaiTcU, faintly;
" and, ill or well, I mivst finish this subject now,
so that we need not reopen it.
" I remained abroad, as you know, for some
years. During that time two or three letters
from Jasper Losely were forwarded to me ; the
latest in date more insolent than all preceding
ones. It contained demands as if they were
rights, and insinuated threats of public expo-
sure, reflecting on myself and my pride — ' He
was my son-in-law after all, and if he came
to disgrace the world should know the tie.'
Enough. This is all I knew until the man who
now, it seems, thrusts himself forward as Jasper
Losely's friend or agent, spoke to me the other
nightat Mrs. Haughtou's.. That man you have
seen, and you say that he — "
" Represents Jasper's poverty as extreme ;
his temper unscrupulous and desperate ; that he
is capable of any amount of scandal or violence.
It seems that though at Paris he has (Poole be-
lieves) still preserved the name of Hammond,
i yet that in England he has resumed that of
Losely ; seems, by Poole's date of the time on
which he, Poole, made Jasper's acquaintance,
to have done so after his baffled attempt on you
at Fawley — whether in so doing he intimated
the commencement of hostilities, or whether, as
is more likely, the sharper finds it convenient to
have oiie name in one countiy, and one in an-
other, 'tis useless to inquire ; enough that the
identity between the Hammond who married
poor Matilda and the Jasper Losely whose fa-
ther was transported, that unscrupulous rogue
has no longer any care to conceal. It is true
that the revelation of this identity would now
be of slight moment to a man of the world — as
thick-skinned as myself, for instance ; but to
you it would be disagreeable — there is no de-
nying that — and therefore, in short, when ilr.
Poole advises a compromise, by which Jasper
could be secured from want and yourself from
annoyance, I am of the same opinion as ilr.
Poole is."
I " You are ?"
" Certainly. 5Iy dear Darrell, if in your se-
cret heart there was something so galling in the
thought that the man who had married your
daughter, though without your consent, was not
merely the commonplace adventurer whom the
world'supposed, but the son of that poor dear —
I mean, that rascal who was transported. Jas-
per too, himself a cheat and a shai-per — if this
"WHAT WLLL HE DO WITH IT ?
199
galled vou so that you have concealed the true
facts from myself, your oldest friend, till this
day — if it has cost you even now so sharp a
pang to divulge the true name of that Mr. Ham-
mond, whom our society never saw, whom even
gossip has forgotten in connection with yourself
— how intolerable would be your suffering to
have this man watching for you in the streets,
some wretched girl in his hand, and crying out,
'A penny for your son-in-law and your grand-
child!' Pardon me — I must be blunt. You
can give him to the police — send him to the
tread-mill. Does that mend the matter ? Or,
worse still, suppose the man commits some
crime that fills all the newspapers with his life
and adventures, including, of course, his runaway
marriage with the famous Guy Darrell's heiress
— no one would blame you, no one respect you
less ; but do not tell me that you would not be
glad to save your daughter's name from being
coupled \yiih such a miscreant's, at the price of
half your fortune."
"Alban," said Darrell, gloomily, "you can
say nothing on this score that has not been con-
sidered by myself. But the man has so placed
the matter that honor itself forbids me to bar-
gain with him for the price of my name. So
long as he threatens, I can not buy off a threat
— so long as he persists in a story by which he
would establish a claim on me on behalf of a
child whom I have ever}' motive, as well as ev-
ery reason, to disown as inheriting my blood —
whatever I bestowed on himself v.ould seem like
hush-money to suppress that claim."
" Of course — I understand, and entirely agree
with you. But if the man retract all threats,
confess his imposture in respect to this pretend-
ed offspring, and consent to retire for life to a
distant colony, upon an annuity that may suffice
for his wants, but leave no surplus beyond, to
render more glaring his vices, or more eflective
his powers of evil — if this could be aiTanged be-
tween Mr. Poole and myself, I think that your
peace might be permanently secured without the
slightest sacrifice of honor. "Will you leave the
matter in my hands, on this assurance — that I
will not give this person a farthing except on
the conditions I have premised ?"
" On these conditions, yes, and most grate-
fully," said Darrell. '• Do' what you will. But
one favor more ; never again speak to me (un-
less absolutely compelled) in reference to this
dark portion of my inner life."
Alban pressed his friend's hand, and both
were silent for some moments. Then said the
Colonel, with an attempt at cheerfulness, '• Dar-
rell, more than ever now do I see that the new
house at Fawley, so long suspended, must be
finished. Marry again you must I You can
never banish old remembrances unless you can
supplant them by fresh hopes."
" I feel it — I know it I" cried Darrell, passion-
ately. " And oh I if one remembrance could be
wrenched away I But it shall — it shall I"
" Ah 1' thought Alban, " the remembrance of
his former conjugal life I — a remembrance which
might well make the youngest and the boldest
Benedict shrink from the hazard of a similar
experiment."
In proportion to the delicacy, the earnest-
ness, the depth of a man's nature, will there be
a something in his character which no male
friend can conceive, and a something in the se-
crets of his life which no male friend can ever
conjecture.
CHAPTER XI.
j Our old friend the Pocket Cannibal evinces unexpected
j patriotism and philosophical moderation, contented
I -with a steak off his own succulent friend in the airs of
1 his own native sky.
CoLoxEL MoELET had a second interview
with Mr. Poole. It needed not Alban's knowl-
edge of the world to discover that Poole was no
partial friend to Jasper Losely ; that, for some
reason or other, Poole was' no less anxious
than the Colonel to get that formidable cli-
ent, whose cause he so warmly advocated, pen-
sioned and packed off into the region most re-
mote from Great Britain, in which a spirit hith-
erto so restless might consent to settle. And
although Mr. Poole had evidently taken offense
; at ]^Ir. Darrell's discourteous rebuff' of his ami-
able intentions, yet no grudge against Darrell
furnished a motive for conduct equal to his
Christian desire that Darrell's peace should be
purchased by Losely's perpetual exile. Accord-
ingly, Colonel Morley took leave, with a well-
placed confidence in Poole's determination to
do all in his power to induce Jasper to listen to
reason. The Colonel had hoped to learn some-
thing from Poole of the elder Losely "s present
1 residence and resources. Poole, as we know,
j could give him there no information. The Col-
onel also failed to ascertain any particulars rel-
ative to that female pretender on whose behalf
I Jasper founded his principal claim to Darrell's
! aid. And so great was Poole's emban-assment
' in reply to all questions on that score — Where
j was the young person ? With whom had she
] lived ? What was she like ? Could the Colonel
j see her, and hear her own tale ? — that Alban
I entertained a strong suspicion that no such girl
[ was in existence ; that she was a pure fiction
and myth ; or that, if Jasper were compelled to
produce some petticoated fair, she would be an
artful baggage hired for the occasion.
Poole waited Jaspers next visit with impa-
tience and sanguine delight. He had not a
doubt that the ruffian would cheerfully consent
to allow that, on farther inquiry, he found he
had been deceived in Lis belief of Sophy's par-
entage, and that there was nothing in England
so pecidiarly sacred to his heart but what he
might consent to breathe the freer air of Colum-
bian skies, or even to share the shepherd's harm-
less life amidst the pastures of auriferous Aus-
tralia ! But, to Poole's ineffable consternation,
Jasper declared sullenly that he would not con-
sent to expatriate himself merely for the sake
of living.
" I am not so young as I was," said the bravo ;
"I don't speak of years, but feeling. I have
not the same energy-; once I had high spirits —
they are broken ; once I had hope — I have none :
I ain not up to exertion ; I have got into lazy
habits. To go into new scenes, fonn new plans,
live in a horrid raw new world, every body round
me bustling and pushing — No! that may suit
your thin dapper light Ilop-o'-my-th umbs ! Look
at me ! See how I have increased in weight the
last five years — all sohd bone and muscle. I
defy any four draymen to move me an inch if I
200
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
am not in the mind to it ; and to be blown off to
the antipodes as if I were the down of a pestilent
thistle, I am not in the mind for that, Dolly
Poole !"
" Hum I" said Poole, trying to smile. " This
is funny talk. You always were a funny fellow.
But I am quite sure, from Colonel ilorley's de-
cided manner, that you can get nothing from
Darrell if you choose to remain in England."
"Well, when I have nothing else left, I may
go to Darrell myself, and have that matter out
with him. At present I am not up to it. Dolly,
don't bore !" And the bravo, opening a jaw
strong enough for any carnivorous animal,
yawned — yawned much as a bored tiger does in
the face of a philosophical student of savage
manners in the Zoological Gardens.
"Bore I" said Poole, astounded, and recoiling
from that expanded jaw. "But I should have
thought no subject could bore you less than the
consideration of how you are to live?"
" Why, Dolly, I have learned to be easily con-
tented, and you see at present I live upon you."
"Yes," groaned Poole, "but that can't go on
forever; and, besides, you promised that you
would leave me in peace as soon as I had got
Darrell to provide for you."
"So I will. Zounds, Sir, do you doubt my
word ? So I will. But I don't call exile ' a
provision' — Basta .' I understand from you that
Colonel Morley offers to restore the niggardly
£200 a year Darrell formerly allowed to me, to
be paid monthly or weekly, through some agent
in Van Diemen's Land, or some such uncom-
fortable half-way house to Eternity, that was
not even in the Atlas when I studied geography
at school. But £200 a year is exactly my in-
come in England, paid weekly too, by your
agreeable self, with whom it is a pleasure to
talk over old times. Therefore that proposal is
out of the question. Tell Colonel Morley, with
my compliments, that if he will double the sum,
and leave me to spend it where I please, I scorn
haggling, and say 'done.' And as to the girl,
since I can not tind her (which, on penalty of
being thrashed to a mummy, you will take care
not to let out), I would agree to leave Mr. Dar-
rell free to disovrn her. But are you such a
dolt as not to see that I put the ace of trumps
on my adversary's pitiful deuce, if I depose that
my own child is not my own child, when all I
get for it is what I equally get out of you, with
my ace of trumps still in ray hands? Basta! —
I say again Basta ! It is evidently an object to
Darrell to get rid of all fear that Sophy should
ever pounce upon him tooth and claw : if he be
so convinced that she is not his daughter's child,
why make a point of my saying that I told him
a fib when I said she was? Evidently, too, he
is afraid of my power to harass and annoy him ;
or why make it a point that I shall only nibble
his cheese in a trap at the world's end, stared
at by bushmen, and wombats, and rattlesnakes,
and alligators, and other American citizens or
British settlers? £200 a year, and my own
wife's father a millionaire! The offer is an in-
sult. Ponder this ; put on the screw ; make
them come to terms which I can do them the
honor to accept ; meanwhile, I will trouble you
for my four sovereigns."
Poole had the chagrin to report to the Col-
onel Jasper's I'efusal of the terms proposed, and
to state the counter-proposition he was com-
missioned to make. Alban was at first sur-
prised, not conjecturing the means of supply, in
his native land, which Jasper had secured in
the coffers of Poole himself. On sounding the
unhappy negotiator as to Jasper's reasons, he
surmised, however, one part of the truth — viz.,
that Jasper built hopes of better terms precisely
on the fact that terms had been ofi'ei-ed to him
at all ; and this induced Alban almost to regret
that he had made any such overtures, and to
believe that Darrell's repugnance to open the
door of conciliation a single inch to so sturdy a
mendicant, was more worldly-wise than Alban
had originally supposed. Yet ]jartly, even for
Darrell's own securit/ and peace, from that per-
suasion of his own powers of management which
a consummate man of the world is apt to enter-
tain, and partly from a strong curiosity to see
the audacious son of that poor dear rascal Willy,
and examine himself into the facts he asserted,
and the objects he aimed at, Alban bade Poole
inform Jasper that Colonel iNIorley would be
quite willing to convince him, in a personal in-
terview, of the impossibility of acceding to the
propositions Jasper had made ; and that he
should be still more willing to see the young
person whom Jasper asserted to be the child of
his marriage.
Jasper, after a moment's moody deliberation,
declined to meet Colonel INIorley — partly, in-
deed, from the sensitive vanity viiiich once had
given him delight, and now only pave him pain.
Meet thus — altered, fallen, imbruted — the fine
gentleman whose calm eye had quelled him in
the widow's drawing-room in his day of com-
parative splendor — that in itself was distasteful
to the degenerated bravo. But he felt as if he
should be at more disadvantage in point of ar-
gument with a cool and wary representative of
Darrell's interests than he should be even with
Darrell himself. And unable to produce the
child whom he ascribed the right to obtrude, he
should be but exposed to a fire of cross-questions
without a shot in his own locker. Accordingly,
he declined, point-blank, to see Colonel jNIor-
ley ; and declared that the terms he himself had
proposed were the lowest he would accept. "Tell
Colonel JlorleV, however, that if negotiations
fail, / shall not fail, sooner or later, to argue
my view of the points in dispute with my kind
father-in-law, and in person."
"Yes, hang it!" cried Poole, exasperated;
"go and see Darrell yourself. He is easily
found."
" Ay," answered Jasper, with the hardest look
of his downcast sidelong eye — " ay ; some day
or other it may come to that. I would rather
not, if possiljle. I might not keep my temper.
It is not merely a matter of money between us,
if we two meet. There are affronts to efiace.
Banished his house like a mangy dog — treated
by a jackanapes lawyer like the dirt in the ken-
nel I The Loselys, I suspect, would have looked
down on the Darrells fifty years ago ; and what
if my father was born out of wedlock, is the
blood not the same? Does the breed dwindle
down for want of a gold ring and priest ? Look
at me. No ; not what I now am ; not even as
you saw me five years ago; but as I leaped into
youth ! Was I bom to cast sums and nib pens
as a City clerk? Aha, my poor father, you
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
201
were wrong there ! Blood will out ! Mad devil,
indeed, is a racer in a citizen's gig ! Spavined,
and wind-galled, and foundered — let the bruta
go at last to the knackers ; but by his eye, and
his pluck, and his bone, the brute shows the
stock that he came from I"
Dolly opened his eyes and — blinked. Never
in his gaudy days had Jasper half so openly re-
vealed what, perhaps, had been always a sore
in his pride; and his outburst now may possibly
aid the reader to a subtler comprehension of the
arrogance, and levity, and egotism, which ac-
companied his insensibility to honor, and had
converted his very claim to the blood of a gen-
tleman into an excuse for a cynic's disdain of
the very virtues for which a gentleman is most
desirous of obtaining credit. But by a very or-
dinary process in the human mind, as Jasper
had fallen lower and lower into the lees and
dregs of fortune, his pride had more prominent-
ly emerged from tjie group of the other and
more flaunting vices by which, in health and
high spirits, it had been pushed aside and out-
shone.
" Humph !" said Poole, after a pause. " If
Dan-ell was as uncinl to you as he was to me,
I don't wonder that you owe him a grudge.
But even if you do lose temper in seeing him,
it might rather do good than not. You can
make yourself cursedly unpleasant if you choose
it ; and perhaps you will have a better chance
of getting your own terms if they see you can
bite as well as bark ! Set at Darrell and worry
him; it is not fair to worry nobody but me I"
"Dolly, don't bluster! If I could stand at
his door, or stop him in the streets, with the
girl in my hand, your advice would be judicious.
The world would not care for a row between a
rich man and a penniless son-in-law. But an
interesting young lady, who calls him grandfa-
ther, and falls at his knees, he could not send
her to hard labor ; and if he does not believe in
her birth, let the thing but just get into the
newspapers, and there are plenty who will ;
and I should be in a very different position for
treating. 'Tis just because, if I meet Darrell
again, I don't wish that again it should be all
bark and no bite, that I postpone the interview.
All your own laziness — exert youi-self and find ]
the girl." " \
" But I can't find the girl, and you know it I '
And I tell you what, Mr. Losely, Colonel Mor-
ley, who is a very shrewd man, does not believe
in the girl's existence." |
"Does not he! I begin to doubt it myself.
But, at all events, you can't doubt of mine", and
I am grateful for yours ; and since you have
given me the trouble of coming here to no pur-
pose, I may as well take the next week's pay
in advance — four sovereigns, if you please, Dol-
ly Poole."
a daughter sufficiently artful to produce. And
pleased to think that the sharper was thus un-
provided with a means of annoyance, which,
skillfully managed, might have been seriously
harassing ; and convinced that when Jasper
found no farther notice taken of him, he himself
would be compelled to petition for the terms
he now rejected, the Colonel dryly informed
Poole "that his interference was at an end;
that if Mr. Losely, either through himself, or
through Mr. Poole, or any one else, presumed
to address :Mr. Darrell direct, the offer previous-
ly made would be peremptorily and irrevocably
withdrawn. I myself," added the Colonel,
"shall be going abroad veiy shortly, for the
rest of the summer ; and should Mr. Loselv, in
the mean while, think better of a proposal which
secures him from want, I refer him to ]\Ir. Dar-
rell's solicitor. To that proposal, according to
your account of his destitution, he must come
sooner or later; and I am glad to see that he
has in yourself so judicious an adviser" — a com-
pliment which by no means consoled the miser-
able Poole.
In the briefest words, Alban infonned Dar-
rell of his persuasion that Jasper was not only
without evidence to support a daughter's claim,
but that the daughter herself was still in that
part of Virgil's Hades appropriated to souls that
have not yet appeared upon the upper earth, and
that Jasper himself, although holding back, as
might be naturally expected, in the hope of
conditions more to his taste, had only to be left
quietly to his own meditations in order to rec-
ognize the advantages of emigration. Another
£100 a year or so, it is true, he might bargain
for, and such a demand might be worth conced-
ing. But, on the whole, Alban congratulated
Darrell upon the probability of hearing very lit-
tle more of the son-in-law, and no more at all
of the son-in-law's daughter.
Darrell made no comment nor reply. A
grateful look, a warm pressure of the hand', and,
when the subject was changed, a clearer brow
and livelier smile, thanked the English Alban
better than all words.
CHAPTER Xn.
Another halt — Change of Horses — and a turn on the road.
CoLoyEL MoKLEY, on learning that Jasper
declined a personal conference with himself,
and that the proposal of an interview with Jas-
per's alleged daughter was equally scouted or
put aside, became still more confirmed in his
beUef that Jasper had not yet been blessed with
CHAPTER XIH.
Colonel Morley shows that it is not without reason that
he enjoys his reputation <;f knowing something about
every body.
"Well met, "said Darrell, the day after Alban
had conveyed to him the comforting assurances
which had taken one thorn from his side — dis-
persed one cloud in his evening sky. "Well
met," said DaiTell, encountering the Colonel a
few paces from his own door. " Pray walk with
me as far as the New Road. I have promised
Lionel to visit the studio of an artist friend of
his, in whom he chooses to find a Rafiaelle, and
in whom I suppose, at the price of truth, Ishall
be urbanely compelled to compliment a daub-
er."
" Do you speak of Frank Vance ?"
" The same!"
"You could not visit a worthier man, nor
compliment a more premising artist. Vance is
one of the few who unite gusto and patience,
fancy and brushwork. His female heads, in es-
pecial, are exquisite, though they are all, I con-
202
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
fess, too much like one another. The man him-
self is a thoroughly line fellow. He has been
much made of in good society, and remains un-
spoiled. You will find his manner rather off-
hand, the reverse of shy ; partly, perhaps, be-
cause he has in himself the racy freshness and
boldness wliich he gives to his colors ; partly,
perhaps, also, because he has in his art the self-
esteem that patricians take from their pedigree,
and shakes a duke by the hand to prevent the
duke holding out to him a finger."
"Good," said Darrell, with his rare, manly
laugh. "Being shy myself, I like men who
meet one half-way. I see that we shall be at
our ease with each other."
"And perhaps still more when I tell you that
he is connected with an old Eton friend of ours,
and deriving great benefit from that connection ;
you remember poor Sidney Branthwaite ?"
" To be sure. He and I were great friends at
Eton — somewhat in tlie same position of pride
and poverty. Of all the boys in the school we
two had the least pocket-money. Poor Branth-
waite! I lost sight of him afterward. HeM-ent
into the Church, got only a curacy, and died
young."
"And left a son, poorer than himself, who
married Frank Vance's sister."
" You don't say so. The Branthwaites were
of good old famih' ; what is Mr. Vance's ?"
"Respectable enough. Vance's father was
one of those clever men who have too many
strings to their bow. He, too, was a painter;
but he was also a man of letters, in a sort of a
way — had a share in a journal, in which he
^\Tote Criticisms on the Fine Arts. A musical
composer, too. Rather a fine gentleman, I sus-
pect, with a wife who was rather a fine lady.
Their house was much frequented by artists and
literary men : old Vance, in short, was hospita-
ble — las wife extravagant. Believing that pos-
terity would do that justice to his pictures which
Ills contemporaries refused, Vance left to his
family no other pi'ovision. After selling his
pictures and paying his debts, there was just
enough left to bury him. Fortunately, Sir ,
the great painter of that day, had aheady con-
ceived a liking to Frank Vance — then a mere
boy — who had shown genius from an infant, as
all true artists do. Sir took him into his
studio, and gave him lessons. It would have
been unlike Sir , who was open-hearted but
close-fisted, to give any thing else. But the boy
contrived to support his mother and sister. That
fellow, who is now as arrogant a stickler for the
dignity of art as you or my Lord Chancellor
may be for that of the bar, stooped then to deal
clandestinely with fancy-shops, and imitate Wat-
teau on fans. I have now two hand-screens that
he painted for a shop in Rathbone Place. I sup-
pose he may have got 10^\ for tbem, and now
any admirer of Frank's would give £100 apiece
for them."
" That is the true soul in which genius lodges,
and out of which fire springs," cried Darrell,
cordially. "Give me the fire that lurks in the
flint, and answers by light the stroke of the hard
steel. I'm glad Lionel has won a friend in
such a man. Sidney Branthwaitc's son married
Vance's sister — after Vance had won reputa
tion ?"
" No ; while Vance was still a boy. Youn^
Arthur Branthwaite was an orphan. If he had
any living relations, they were too poor to assist
him. He wrote poetry much praised by the
critics (they deserve to be hanged, those critics !)
— scribbled, I suppose, in old Vance's journal;
saw Mary Vance a little before her father died ;
fell in love with her; and on the strength of a
volume of verse, in which the critics all solemnly
deposed to his surpassing riches — of imagina-
tion, rushed to the altar, and sacrificed a wife
to the Muses ! Those villainous critics will have
a dark account to render in the next world I
Poor Arthur Branthwaite I For the sake of our
old friend his father, I bought a copy of his
little volume. Little as the volume was, I could
not read it through."
"What! — below contempt?"
"On the contrary, above comprehension. All
poetry praised by critics nowadays is as hard to
understand as a hieroglyphic. I own a weakness
for Pope and common sense. I could keep up
with our age as far as Byron ; after him I M'as
thrown out. However, Arthur was declared by
the critics to be a great improvement on Byron
— more ' poetical in form' — more ' a;sthetically
artistic' — more 'objective' or 'subjective' (I am
sure I forget which, but it was one or the other,
nonsensical, and not English) in his views of
man and nature. Very possibly. All I know
is — I bought the poems, but could not read
them ; the critics read them, but did not buy.
All that Frank Vance could make by painting
hand-screens and fans and album scraps he
sent, I believe, to the poor poet ; but I fear it
did not suffice. Arthur, I suspect, must have
been publishing another volume on his own ac-
count. I saw a Monody on something or other,
by Arthur Branthwaite, advertised, and no doubt
Frank's fans and hand-screens must have melt-
ed into the printer's bill. But the Monody nev-
er appeared : the poet died, his young wife too.
Frank Vance remains a bachelor, and sneers at
gentility — abhors poets — is insulted if you prom-
ise posthumotis fame — gets the best price he
can for his pictures — and is proud to be thought
a miser. Here we are at his door."
CHAPTER XIV.
Ilomantic Love pathologically regarded by Frank Vance
and Alban Morley.
Vaxce was before his easel, Lionel looking
over his shoulder. Never was Darrell more
genial than he was that day to Frank Vance.
The two men took to each other at once, and
talked as familiarly as if the retired la\\yer and
the rising painter were old fellow-travelers along
the same road of life. Darrell was really an
exquisite judge of art, and his praise was the
more gratifying because discriminating. Of
course he gave the due meed of panegyric to
the female heads, by which the artist had become
so renowned. Lionel took his kinsman aside,
and, with a mournful expression of face, showed
him the portrait by which all those varying ideals
had been suggested — the poi'trait of Sophy as
Titania.
"And that is Lionel," said the artist, pointing
to the rough outline of Bottom.
"Pish!" said Lionel, angrily. Then turning
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
203
to DaiTcU— "This is the Sophy we have failed
to find, Sir — is it not a lovely face ?"'
*'It is, indeed," said Darrell. "But that
nameless refinement in expression — that arch
vet tender elegance in the simple, watchful atti-
tude — these, Mr. Vance, must be your additions
to the original."
'•No, I assure you. Sir," said Lionel; "be-
sides that elegance, that refinement, there was
a delicacy in "the look and air of that child, to
which Vance failed to do justice. Own it,
Frank."
"Reassure yourself, Mr. Darrell, " said Vance,
" of any fears" which Lionel's enthusiasm might
excite.' He tells me that Titania is in Amer-
ica; vet, after all, I would rather he saw her
ao-ain — no cure for love at first sight like a
second sight of the beloved object after a long
absence."
Daerel (somewhat crravely). " A hazardous
remedy — it might kill/if it did not cure."'
CoLOXEL MoKLEY. " I suspect, from Vance's
manner, that he has tested its efficacy on his
own person."
Lionel. "Xo, mon Colonel — I'll answer for
Vance. 27einlove! Never."
Vance colored — gave a touch to the nose of a
Roman senator in the famous classical picture
which he was then painting for a merchant at
Manchester — and made no reply. Darrell looked
at the artist -with a sharp and searching glance.
Colonel !Moeley. ' • Then all the more credit
to Vance for his intuitive perception of philo-
sophical truth. Suppose, my dear Lionel, that
we light, one idle day, on a beautiful novel, a
glowing romance — suppose that, by chance, we
are torn from the book in the middle of the in-
terest — we remain under the spell of the illusion
— we recall the scenes — we try to guess what
should have been the sequel — we think that no
romance ever was so captivating, simply because
we were not allowed to conclude it. Well, if,
some years aftemard, the romance fall again
in our way, and we open at the page where Ave
left oft', we cry, in the maturity of our sober
judgment, 'ZSfawkish stuft"! — is this the same
thing that I once thought so beautiful? — how
one's tastes do alter !' "
Darrell. "Does it not depend on the age
in which one began the romance?"
Lionel. " Rather, let me think. Sir, upon the
real depth of the interest — the true beauty of
the — "
Vance (interrupting). "Heroine? — Not at
all, Lionel. I once fell in love — incredible as
it may seem to you — nine years ago last Janu-
ary. I was too poor then to aspire to any young
lady's hand — therefore I did not tell my love,
but 'let concealment,' et cetera, et cetera. She
went away with her mamma to complete her
education on the Continent. I remained 'Pa-
tience on a monument.' She was always before
my eyes — the slenderest, shyest creature — ^just
eighteen. I never had an idea that she could
grow any older, less slender, or less shy. Well,
four years afterward (just before we made our
excursion into Surrey, Lionel), she returned to
England, still unmarried. I went to a party at
which I knew she was to be — saw her, and was
cured."
" Bad case of small-pox, or what ?" asked the
Colonel, smiling.
Vance. " Nay ; every body said she was ex-
tremely improved — that was the mischief — she
had improved herself out of my fancy. I had
been faithful as wax to one settled impression,
and when I saw a fine, full-formed, young
Frenchified lady, quite at her ease, armed with
eye-glass and bouquet and bustle, away went
my dream of the slim blushing maiden. The
Colonel is quite right, Lionel ; the romance
once suspended, 'tis a haunting remembrance
till thrown again in our way, but complete dis-
illusion if we try to renew it ; though I swear
that in my case the interest was deep, and the
heroine improved in her beauty. So with you
and that dear little creature. See her again,
and you'll tease me no more to give you that
portrait of Titania at watch over Bottom's soft
slumbers. All a Mid-summer Night's Dream,
Lionel. Titania fades back into the arms of
Oberon, and would not be Titania if you could
make her — Mrs. Bottom."
CHAPTER XV.
Even Colonel ilorley, knowing every body and every
thing, is puzzled when it comes to the plain question
— '• What will he do with it ":"
"I AM delighted with Vance," said Darrell,
when he and the Colonel were again walking
arm in arm. '"His is not one of those meagre
intellects which have nothing to spare out of the
professional line. He has humor. Humor —
strength's rich superfluity."
" I like your definition," said the Colonel.
"And humor in Vance, though fantastic, is not
without subtlety. There was much real kind-
ness in his obvious design to quiz Lionel out of
that silly enthusiasm for — "
"For a pretty child, reared up to be a stroll-
ing player," interrupted Darrell. "Don't call
it silly enthusiasm. I call it chivalrous com-
passion. Were it other than compassion, it
would not be enthusiasm, it would be degrada-
tion. But do you believe, then, that Vance's
confession of first love, and its cure, was but a
whimsical invention?'
Colonel Morley. "Not so. Many a grave
truth is spoken jesting^ly. " I have no doubt
that, allowing for the pardonable exaggeration
of a raconteur, Vance was narrating an episode
in his own life."
Darrell. "Do you think that a grown man,
who has ever really felt love, can make a jest of
it, and to mere acquaintances ?"
Colonel Morley. "Yes; if he be so thor-
oughly cured that he has made a jest of it to
himself. And the more lightly he speaks of it,
perhaps the more solemnly at one time he felt
it. Levity is his revenge on the passion that
fooled him."
Darrell. "You are evidently an experienced
philosopher in the lore of such folly. ' ConsuU
tus insapientis snpienticE.' Yet I can scarcely be-
lieve that vou have ever been in love."
"Yes, I have," said the Colonel, bluntly,
" and very often ! Every body at my age has —
except yourself. So like a man's obser^-ation,
that," co'ntinued the Colonel, with much tartness.
"No man ever thinks another man capable of
a profound and romantic sentiment 1"
20i
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Darrell. " True ; I own my shallow fault,
and beg you ten thousand pardons. So then
you really believe, from your own experience,
that there is much in Vance's theory and your
own very happy illustration ? Could we, after
many years, turn back to the romance at the
page at which we left off', we should — "
Colonel Morley. " Not care a straw to read
on! Certainly, half the peculiar charm of a
person beloved must be ascribed to locality and
circumstance."
Darrell. " I don't quite understand you."
Colonel Morley. "Then, as you liked my
former illustration, I will explain myself by an-
other one, more homely. In a room to which
you are accustomed, there is a piece of furniture,
or an ornament, which so exactly suits the place,
that you say — ' The prettiest thing I ever saw !'
You go away — you return — the j)iece of furni-
ture or the ornament has been moved into an-
other room. You see it there, and you say —
'Bless me, is that the thing I so much admired !'
The strange room does not suit it — losing its
old associations and accessories, it has lost its
charm. So it is with human beings — seen in
one place, tlie place would be nothing without
them — seen in another, tlie place without them
would be all the better !"
Darrell (musingly). " There are some puz-
zles in life which resemble the riddles a child
asks you to solve. Your imagination can not
descend low enough for the right guess. Yet,
when you are told, you are obliged to say — 'How
clever !' Man lives to learn."
" Since you have arrived at that conviction,"
replied Colonel Morle^^, amused by liis friend's
gravity, "I hope that you will rest satisfied with
the experiences of Vance and myself; and that
if you have a mind to propose to one of the
young ladies whose merits we have already dis-
cussed, you will not deem it necessary to try
what effect a prolonged abscHce might produce
on your good resolution."
"No!" said Darrell, with sudden animation.
" Before three days are over, my mind shall be
made up."
" Bravo ! — as to whom of the three you would
ask in mari'iage ?"
" Or as to the idea of ever marrying again.
Adieu. I am going to knock at that door."
" Mr. Vyvyan's ! Ah, is it so, indeed ? Veri-
ly, you are a true Dare-all."
"Do not be alarmed. I go afterward to an
exhibition with Lady Adela, and I dine with
the Carr Viponts. My choice is not yet made,
and my hand still free."
"His hand still free!" muttered the Colonel,
pursuing his walk alone. "Yes — but, three
days hence — What will he do with it ?"
CHAPTER XVL
Guy Darren's Decision.
Guy Darrell returned liome from Carr Vi-
pont's dinner at a late hour. On his table was
a note from Lady Adela's father, cordially in-
viting Darrell to pass the next week at his coun-
try house. London was now emptying fast.
On the table-tray was a parcel, containing a
book which Darrell had lent to Miss Vyvyan
some weeks ago, and a note from herself. In
calling at her father's house that morning, he
had learned that Mr. Vyvyan had suddenly re-
solved to take her into Switzerland, with the
view of passing the next winter in Italy. The
room was filled with loungers of both sexes.
Darrell had staid but a short time. The leave-
taking had been somewhat formal — Flora un-
usually silent. He opened her note, and read
the first lines listlessly ; those that followed,
with a changing cheek and an earnest eye. He
laid down the note very gently, again took it up,
and reperused. Then he held it to the candle,
and it dropped from his hand in tinder. "The
innocent child," murmured he, with a soft pa-
ternal tenderness ; "x«he knows not what she
writes." He began to pace the room with his
habitual restlessness when in solitary thought —
often stopping — often sighing heavily. At
length his face cleared — his lips became firm-
ly set. He summoned his favorite servant.
"Mills," said he, "I shall leave town on horse-
back as soon as the sun rises. Put what I may
require for a day or two into the saddle-bags.
Possibly, however, I may be back by dinner-time.
Call me at five o'clock, and then go round to the
stables. I shall require no groom to attend me."
The next morning, while the streets were de-
serted, no houses as yet astir, but the sun bright,
the air fresh, Guy Dan-ell rode from his door.
He did not return the same day, nor the next,
nor at all. But, late in the evening of the sec-
ond day, his horse, reeking-hot and evidently
hard-ridden, stopped at the porch of Fawley
Manor-House ; and Darrell flung himself from
the saddle, and into Fairthorn's arms. "Back
again — back again — and to leave no more !" said
he, looking round ; " Spes et Fortuna valete .'"
CHAPTER XVIL
A Man's Letter — unsatisfactory and provoking as a
man's letters always are.
Guy Darrell to Colonel Morley.
Fawley Manou-Housh, August 19, IS — .
I HAVE decided, my dear Alban. I did not
take three days to do so, though the third day
may be just over ere you learn my decision. I
shall never marry again. I abandon that last
dream of declining years. My object in return-
ing to the London world was to try whether I
could not find, among the fairest and most at-
tractive women that the world produces — at
least to an English eye — some one who could
inspire me with that singleness of affection
which could alone justify the hope that I might
win, in return, a wife's esteem and a contented
home. That object is now finally relinquished,
and with it all idea of resuming the life of cit-
ies. I might have re-entered a political career,
had I first secured to myself a mind sufficiently
serene and healthful for duties that need the
concentration of thought and desire. Such a
state of mind I can not secure. I have striven
for it ; I am battted. It is said that politics are
a jealous mistress — that they require the whole
man. The saying is not invariably true in the
application it commonly receives — that is, a pol-
itician may have some other employment of in-
tellect, which rather enlarges his powers than
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
205
distracts their political uses. Successful poli-
ticians have united with great parliamentary
toil and triumph legal occupations or literary or
learned studies. But politics do require that
the heart should be free, and at peace from all
more absorbing private anxieties — from the
gnawing of a memory or a care, which dulls
ambition and paralyzes energy. In this sense
politics do require the whole man. If I return-
ed to politics now, 1 should fail to them, and
they to me. I feel that the brief interval be-
tween me and the grave has need of repose : I
find that repose here. I have therefore given
the necessary orders to dismiss the pompous
retinue wliich I left behind me, and instructed
ray agent to sell my London house for whatever
it mtiy fetch. I was unwilling to sell it before
— unwilling to abandon the hope, however faint,
that I might yet regain strength for action.
But the very struggle to obtain such strength
leaves me exhausted more.
You may believe thaylt is not without a pang
— less of pride than ot remorse — that I resign
unfulfilled the object toward which all my ear-
lier life was so resolutely shaped. The house I
had promised my father to refound dies to dust
in my grave. To my father's blood no heir to
my wealth can trace. Yet it is a consolation to
think tjiat Lionel Haughton is one on whom my
father would have smiled approvingly. At my
death, therefore, at least the old name will not
die : Lionel Haughton will take and be worthy
to bear it. Strange weakness of mine, you will
say ; but I can not endure the thought that the
old name should be quite blotted out of the
land. I trust that Lionel may early form a
suitable and happy marriage. Sure that he will
not choose ignobly, I impose no fetters on his
choice.
One word only on that hateful subject, con-
fided so tardily to your friendship, left so thank-
fully to your discretion. Now that I have once
more buried myself in Fawley, it is very unlike-
ly that the man it pains me to name will seek
me here. If he does, he can not molest me as
if I were in the London world. Continue, then,
I pray you, to leave him alone. And in adopt-
ing your own shrewd belief that, after all, there
is no such child as he pretends lo claim, my
mind becomes tranquilized on all that part of
my private griefs.
Farewell, old school-friend ! Here, so far as
I can foretell — here, where my life began, it re-
turns, when Heaven pleases, to close. Here I
could not ask you to visit me : what is rest to
me would be loss of time to you. But in my
late and vain attempt to re-enter that existence
in which you have calmly and wisely gathered
round yourself " all that should accompany old
age — honor, love, obedience, troops of friends"
— nothing so repaid the effort — nothing now so
pleasantly remains to recollection — as the brief
renewal of that easy commune which men like
me never know, save with those whose laughter
brings back to them a gale from the old play-
ground. " Vive, vale ,-" I will not add, " Sis
inemor mei." So many my obligations to your
kindness, that you will be forced to remember
me whenever you recall the nut " painful sub-
jects" of early friendship and lasting gratitude.
Eecall only those when reminded of
Guy Dakeell.
CHAPTER XVHL
I No coinage in circulation so fluctuates in value as the
I worth of a JIarriageable Man.
Colonel Morley was not surprised (that, we
know, he could not be, by any fresh experience
of human waywardness and caprice), but much
disturbed and much vexed by the unexpected
nature of Darrell's communication. Schemes
for Darrell's future had become plans of his oAvn.
Talk with his old school-fellow had, within the
last three months, entered into the pleasures of
his age. Darrell's abrupt and final renunciation
of this social world made at once a void in the
business of Alban's mind, and in the affections
of Alban's heart. And no adequate reason as-
signed for so sudden a flight and so morbid a
resolve ! Some tormenting remembrance — some
rankling grief— distinct from those of which Al-
ban was cognizant, those in which he had been
consulted, was implied but by vague and general
hints. But what was the remembrance of the
grief, Alban Morley, who knew every thing, was
quite persuaded that Darrell would never suffer
him to know. Could it be in any way connected
with those three young ladies to whom Darrell's
attentions had been so perversely impartial?
The Colonel did not fail to observe that to those
yoimg ladies Darrell's letter did not even allude.
Was it not possible that he had really felt for
one of them a deeper sentiment than a man ad-
vanced in years ever likes to own even to his
nearest friend — hazarded a proposal, and met
with a rebuff? If so, Alban conjectured the fe-
male culprit by whom the sentiment had been
inspired and the rebuff administered. "That
mischievous kitten, Flora Vyvyan," growled the
Colonel. " I always felt that she had the claws
of a tigress under that jxitte de velours J" Roused
by this suspicion, he sallied forth to call on the
Vyvyans. Mr. Vyvyan, a widower, one of those
quiet gentlemanlike men who sit much in the
drawing-room and like receiving morning vis-
itors, was at home to him. " So Darrell has
left town for tlie season," said the Colonel,
pushing straight to the point.
"Yes, " said Mr. Vyvyan. " I had a note from
him this morning, to say he had renounced all
hojie of — "
"What?" cried the Colonel.
"Joining us in Switzerland. I am so soriy.
Flora still more sorry. She is accustomed to
have her own way, and she had set her heart on
hearing Darrell read ' Manfred' in sight of the
Jung Fran!"
'• Um," said the Colonel. "What might be
sport to her might be death to him. A man at
his age is not too old to fall in love with a young
lady of hers. Btit he is too old not to be ex-
tremely ridiculous to such a young lady if he
does."
"Colonel Morley — Fie!" cried an angry
voice behind him. Flora had entered the room
unobserved. Her face Avas much flushed, and
her eyelids looked as if tears had lately swelled
beneath them, and were swelling still.
"What have I said to merit your rebuke?"
asked the Colonel, composedly.
" Said ! Coupled the thought of ridicule with
the name of Mr. Darrell !"
" Take care, Morley," said Mr. Vvvyan,
laughing. "Flora is positively superstitious in
206
WHAT WELL HE DO WITH IT ?
her respect for Guy Darrell ; and you can not
offend her more than by implying that he is
mortal. Nay, child, it is very natural. Quite
apart from his fame, there is something in that
man's familiar talk, or rather, ])erha])s, in the
very sound of his voice, which makes most other
society seem flat and insipid. I feel it myself.
And when Flora's young admirers flutter and
babble round her — ^just after Darrell has quit-
ted his chair beside her — they seem very poor
company. I'm sure, Flora," continued Vyvyan,
kindly, " that the mere acquaintance of such a
man has done you a great deal of good ; and I
am now in great hopes that, whenever you mar-
ry, it will be a man of sense."
" Urn !" again said the Colonel, eying Flora
aslant, but with much attention. " How I wish,
for my friend's sake, that he was of an age which
inspired Miss Vyvyan with less — veneration !"
Flora turned her back on the Colonel, look-
ing out of the window, and her small foot beat-
ing the ground with nervous irritation.
"It was given out that Darrell intended to
marry again," said Mr. Vyvyan. "A man of
that sort requires a very superior, highly-edu-
cated woman ; and if Miss Carr Vijiont had
been a little more of his age she would have
just suited him. But I am patriot enough to
hope that he will remain single, and have no
wife but his country, like Mr. Pitt."
The Colonel having now satisfied his curiosi-
ty, and assured himself that Darrell was, there
at least, no rejected suitor, rose and approached
Flora to make peace, and to take leave. As he
held out his hand he was struck with the change
in a countenance usually so gay in its aspect —
it spoke of more than dejection, it betrayed dis-
tress ; when she took his hand she retained it,
and looked into his ej'es wistfully ; evidently
there was something on her mind which she
wished to express, and did not know how. At
length she said in a whisper, *' You are IMr.
Darrell's most intimate friend ; I have heard
him say so. Shall you see him soon?"
"I fear not ; but why ?"
"Why? you, his friend; do j'ou not perceive
that he is not happy ? I, a mere stranger, saw
it at the first. You should cheer and comfort
him ; you have that right — it is a noble privi-
lege."
"My dear young lady," said the Colonel,
touched, "you have a better heart than I
thought for. It is true Darrell is not a happy
man ; but can you give me any message that
might cheer him more than an old bachelor's
commonplace exhortations to take heart, forget
the rains of yesterday, and hope for some gleam
of sun on the morrow?"
" No," said Flora, sadly, " it would be a pre-
sumption indeed in me to affect the consoler's
part ; but — (her li])S quivered) — but if I may
judge by his letter, I may never see him again."
"His letter! He has written to you, then, as
well as to your father ?"
"Yes," said Flora, confused and coloring, " a
few lines in answer to a silly note of mine ; yes,
tell him that I shall never forget his kind coun-
sels, his delicate, indulgent construction of — of
— in short, tell him my father is right, and that
I shall be better and wiser all my life for the
few short weeks in which I have known Guy
Darrell."
" What secrets are you two whispering there ?"
asked Mr. Vyvyan from his easy chair.
" Ask her ten years hence," said the Colonel,
as he retreated to the door. "The fairest leaves
in the flower are the last that the bud will dis-
close."
From Mr. Vyvyan the Colonel went to Lord
's. His lordship had also heard from Dar-
rell that morning; Darrell declined the invita-
tion to Hall ; business at Fawley. Lady
Adela had borne the disappointment with her
wonted serenity of temper, and had gone out
shopping. Darrell had certainly not offered his
hand in that quarter ; had he done so — whether
refused or accepted — all persons yet left in Lon-
don would have hea^d the news. Thence the
Colonel repaired to Carr Vipont's. Lady Seli-
na was at home, and exceedingly cross. Carr
had been astonished by a letter from Mr. Dar-
rell, dated Fawley — left town for the season
without even calling to take leave — a most ec-
centric man. She feared his head was a little
touched — that he knew it, but did not like to
own it — perhaps the doctors had told him he
must keep quiet, and not excite himself with
politics. "I had thought," said Lady Selina,
" that he might have felt a growing attachment
for Honoria ; and, considering the disparity of
years, and that Honoria certainly might marry
any one, he was too proud to incur the risk of
refusal. But I will tell you in confidence, as a
relation and dear friend, that Honoria has a
very superior mind, and might have overlooked
the mere age : congenial tastes — you under-
stand. But on thinking it all over, I begin to
doubt whether tliat be the true reason for his
running away in this wild sort of manner. My
maid tells me that his house-steward called to
say that the establishment was to be broken up.
That looks as if he had resigned London for
good ; just, too, when, Carr says, the crisis, so
long put off, is siu-e to burst on us. I'm quite
sick of clever men — one never knows how to
trust them ; if they are not dishonest, they are
eccentric ! I have just been telling Honoria
that clever men are, after all, the most tiresome
husbands. Well, what makes yon so silent?
What do you say ? Why don't you speak ?"
" I am slowly recovering from my shock,"
said the Colonel. " So Darrell shirks the
CRISIS, and has not even hinted a preference
for Honoria, the very girl in all London that
would have made him a safe, rational compan-
ion. I told him so, and he never denied it.
But it is a comfort to think he is no loss. Old
monster!"
"Nay," said Lady Selina, mollified by so
much sympathy, "I don't say he is no loss.
Honestly speaking — between ourselves — I think
he is a very great loss. An alliance between
him and Honoria M'ould have united all the Vi-
pont influence. Lord JMontfort has the greatest
confidence in Darrell ; and if this crisis comes,
it is absolutely necessary for the Vipont interest
that it should find somebody who can speak.
Really, my dear Colonel Morley, you who have
s)ich an influence over this very odd man
sliould exert it now. One must not be over-
nice in times of crisis ; the country is at stake,
Cousin Alban."
"I will do my best," said the Colonel; "I
am quite aware that an alliance which would
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
207
secure Darrell's talents to the House of Vipont,
and the House of Vipont to Darrell's talents,
would — but 'tis no use talking, we must not sac-
rifice Honoria even on the altar of her country's
interest I"
" Sacrifice ! Xonsense ! The man is not
young, certainly ; but then, what a grand creat-
ure — and so clever!"
"Clever — yes! But that was your very ob-
jection to him five minutes ago."
"I forgot the crisis. One don't want clever
men every day, bat there are days when one
does want them !"
"I envy you that aphorism. But from what
you now imply, I fear that Honoria may have
allowed her thoughts to settle upon what may
never take place; and, if so, she may fret."
*' Fret I a daughter of mine fret I — and of all
my daughters, Honoria ! A girl of the best-dis-
ciplined mind I Fret! what a word — vulgar!"
Colonel Morley. " So it is ; I blush for it ;
but let us understand each other. If Dasrell
proposed for Honoria, yqn think, ambition apart,
she would esteem him sufficiently for a decided
preference."
Ladt Selixa. " If that be his doubt, reassure
him. He is shy ; men of genius r.re ; Honoria
u-oulj esteem him! Till he has actually pro-
posed, it would compromise her to say more
even to you."
Colonel Morlet. "And if that be not the
doubt, and if I ascertain that Dan-ell has no
idea of proposing, Honoria would — "
Lady Selina. " Despise him. Ah, I see by
your countenance that you think I should pre-
pare her. Is it so, frankly ?"
Colonel MoELEY. " Frankly, then. I think
Guy Darrell, like many other men, has been so
long making up his mind to marry again that
he has lost the right moment, and will never
find it."
Lady Selina smells at her vinaigrette, and re-
plies in her softest, affectedest, civilest, 'and
crushingest manner —
" Poor— DEAR— OLD IIAN!"
CHAPTER XIX.
Man is not permitted, with ultimate impunity, to exas-
perate the envies, and insult the miseries of those
around him, by a systematic perseverance in willful —
Celibacy. In vain may he scheme, in the marriage
of injured friends, to provide arm-chairs, and foot-
stools, and prattling babies for the luxurious delecta-
tion of his indolent age. The avenging Eumenides
(being themselves ancient virgins neglected; shall
humble his insolence, baffle his projects, and condemn
his declioing years to the horrors of solitude— rarely
even wakening his poul to the grace of repentance.
The Colonel, before returning home, dropped
into the Clubs, and took care to give to Darrell's
sudden disappearance a plausible and common-
place construction. The season was just over.
Darrell had gone to the country. The town
establishment was broken up, because the house
in Carlton Gardens was to be sold. Darrell did
not like the situation — found the air relaxing —
Park Lane or Grosvenor Square were on higher
ground. Besides, the stair-case was bad for a
house of such pretensions — not suited to large
parties. Next season Darrell might be in a
position when he would have to give large par-
I ties, etc., etc. As no one is inclined to suppose
that a man will retire from public life just when
\ he has a chance of office, so the Clubs took
Alban Morley "s remarks unsuspiciously, and
; generally agreed that Darrell showed great tact
, in absenting himself from town during the tran-
j sition state of poUtics that always precedes a
I CRISIS, and that it was quite clear that he cal-
culated on playing a great part when the crisis
■ was over, by finding his house had grown too
, small for him. Thus paving the way to Dar-
rell's easy return to the world, shouldhe repent
of his retreat (a chance which Alban bv no
means dismissed from his reckoning), the Col-
onel returned home to find his nephew George
awaiting him there. The scholarly clergyman
had ensconced himself in the back drawing-
room, fitted up as a library, and was making
free with the books. " What have you there,
George?" asked the Colonel, after shaking him
by the hand. "You seemed quite absorbed in
its contents, and would not have noticed mv
presence but for Gip's bark."
" A volume of poems I never chanced to meet
before. Full of true genius."
"Bless me, poor Arthur Branthwaite's poems.
And you were positively reading those — not in-
duced to do so by respect for his father ? — Could
you make head or tail of them ?"
"There is a class of poetiy which displeases
middle age by the very attributes which render
it charming to the young ; for each generation
has a youth with idiosyncrasies peculiar to it-
self, and a peculiar poetry by which those idio-
syncrasies are expressed."
Here George was beginning to grow meta-
physical, and somewhat German, when his un-
cle's face assumed an expression which can only
be compared to that of a man who dreads a very
severe and long operation. George humanely
hastened to relieve his mind.
"But I will not bore you at present."
"Thank you," said the Colonel, brightening
np.
"Perhaps you will lend me the book. I am
going down to Lady Montfort's by-and-by, and
I can read it by the way."
"Yes, I will lend it to you till next season.
Let me have it again then, to put on the table
when Frank Vance comes to breakfast with me.
The poet was his brother-in-law; and though,
for that reason, poets and poetry are a sore sub-
ject with Frank, yet, the last" time he break-
fasted here, I felt, by the shake of his hand in
parting, that he felt pleased by a mark of re-
spect to all that is left of poor Arthur Branth-
waite. So you are going to Lady Montfort?
Ask her why she cuts me !"
" My dear uncle ! You know how secluded
her life is at present ; but she has charged me
to assure you of her unalterable regard for you :
and whenever her health and spirits are some-
what more recovered, I have no doubt that she
will ask you to give her the occasion to make
that assurance in person."
Colonel Morley. " Can her health and
spirits continue so long affi^cted by grief for the
loss of that distant acquaintance whom the law
called her husband?"
George. " She is very far from well, and her
spirits are certainly much broken. And now,
uncle, for the little favor I came to ask. Since
208
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
you presented me to Mr. Darrell, he kiudly sent
me two or three invitations to dinner, which my
frequent absence from town would not allow me
to accept. I ought to call on him; and, as I
feel ashamed not to have done so before, I wish
you would accompany me to his house. One
happy word from you would save me a relapse
into stutter. When I want to apologize, I al-
ways stutter."
'•Darrell has left town," said the Colonel,
roughly; "you have missed an opportunity that
will never occur again. The most charming
companion ; an intellect so manly, yet so sweet I
I shall never find such another." And for the
first time in thirty years a tear stole to Alban
INIorley's eye.
George. "When did he leave town?"
Colonel ?.Iorley. "Three days ago."
George. "Three days ago I and for the Con-
tinent again ?"
Colonel Morlet. "No, for the Hermitage.
George, I have such a letter from him! You
know how many years he has been absent from
the world. When, this year, he reappeared, he
and I grew more intimate than we had ever
been since we had left school ; for though the
same capital held us before, he was then too
occupied for much familiarity with an idle man
like me. But just when I was intertwining what
is left of my life with the bright threads of his,
be snaps the web asunder ; he quits this London
world again ; says he will return to it no more."
George. "Yet I did hear that he proposed
to renew his parliamentary career; nay, that he
was about to form a second marriage with Ho-
noria Vipont !"
Colonel Morlet. "'Mere gossij:i — not true.
No, he will never again marry. Tliree days
ago I thought it certain that he would — certain
that I should find for my old age a nook in his
home — the easiest chair in his social circle;
that my daily newspaper would have a fresh in-
terest in the praise of his name or the report
of his speech ; that I should walk proudly into
White's, sure to hear there of Guy Darrell ;
that I should keep from misanthropical rust my
dry knowledge of life, planning shrewd pane-
gyrics to him of a young, happy wife, needing
all his indulgence — panegyrics to her of the
high-minded, sensitive man, claiming tender
respect and delicate soothing; that thus, day
by day, I should have made more pleasant the
home in which I should have planted myself,
and found in his children boys to lecture and
girls to spoil. Don't be jealous, George. I like
your wife, I love your little ones, and you will
have all I have to leave. But to an old bache-
lor, who would keep young to the last, there is
no place so sunny as the hearth of an old school-
friend. But my house of cards is blown down
— talk of it no more — 'tis a painful subject.
You met Lionel Haughton here the last time you
called — how did you like him ?"
"Very much, indeed."
"Well, then, since you can not call on Dar-
rell, call on him."
George (with animation). " It is just what I
meant to do — what is his address ?"
Colonel Morlet. " There is his card — take
it. He was here last night to inquire if I knew
where Darrell had gone, though no one in his
household, nor I either, suspected till this morn-
ing that Darrell had left town for good. You
will find Lionel at home, for I sent him word
I would call. But really I am not up to it now.
Tell him from me that ^Ir. Darrell will not re-
turn to Carlton Gardens this season, and is gone
to Fawley. At present Lionel need not know-
more — you understand ? And now, my dear
George, good-day."
CHAPTER XX.
Each generation has its own critical canons in poeti*y as
well as in political creeds, financial systems, or what-
pver other changeable matters of taste are called "Set-
tled QLiestions" and " Fixed Opinions."
George, musing 'fiiuch over al! that his un-
cle had said respecting Darrell, took his way to
Lionel's lodgings. The young man received
him with the cordial greeting due from Dar-
rell's kinsman to Colonel Morley's nephew, but
teippered by the respect no less due to the dis-
tinction and the calling of the eloquent preacher.
Lionel was perceptibly atT'ected by learning
that Darrell had thus suddenly returned to the
gloomy beech-woods of Fawley ; and he evinced
his anxious interest in his benefactor with so
much spontaneous tenderness of feeling, that
George, as if in sympathy, warmed into the
same theme. " I can well conceive," said he,
"your aftection for Mr. Darrell. I remember,
when I was a boy, how powerfully he impressed
me, though I saw but little of him. He was
then in the zenith of his career, and had but
few moments to give to a boy like me ; but the
ring of his voice and the flash of his eye sent
me back to school, dreaming of fame, and in-
tent on prizes. I spent part of one Easter va-
cation at his house in town ; he bade his son,
who was my school-fellow, innte me."
Lionel. " You knew his son ? How Mr. Dar-
rell has felt that loss !"
George. " Heaven often vails its most provi-
dent mercy in what to man seems its sternest
inflictions. That poor boy must have changed
his whole nature, if his life had not to a fatlier,
like Mr. Darrell, occasioned grief sharper than
his death."
Lionel. "You amaze me. ilr. DaiTcll spoke
of him as a boy of great promise."
George. " He had that kind of energy which
to a father conveys the idea of promise, and
which might deceive those older than himself
—a fine bright-eyed bold-tongued boy, with just
enough awe of his father to bridle his worst
qualities before him."
Lionel. " What were those?"
George. " Headstrong arrogance — relent-
less cruelty. He had a pride which would have
shamed his father out of pride, had Gu}' Dar-
rell detected its nature — purse pride I I re-
member his father said to me with a half-laugh,
' My boy must not be galled and mortified as I
was every hour at school — clothes patched and
pockets empty.' And so, out of mistaken kind-
ness, Mr. Darrell ran into the opposite extreme,
and the son was proud, not of his father's fame,
but of his father's money, and withal not gen-
erous, nor exactly extravagant, but using money
as power — power that allowed him to insult an
equal or to buy a slave. In a word, his nick-
name at schoolwas 'Sir Giles Overreach.' His
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
209
death was the result of his strange passion for
tonnenting others. He had a fag who could
not swim, and who had the greatest terror of
the M-ater ; and it was while driving this child
into the river out of his depth that cramp ssized
himself, and he was drowned. Yes, when I
think what that boy would have been as man,
succeeding to Darrell's wealth — and had Dar-
rell persevered (as he would, perhaps, if the boy
had lived) in his public career — to the rank and
titles he would probably have acquired and be-
queathed — again I say, in man's affliction is
often Heaven's mercy."
Lionel listened aghast. George continued,
"Would that I could speak as plainly to Mr.
Darrell himself! For we find constantly in the
world that there is no error that misleads us like
the eiTor that is half a truth wrenched from the
other half; and nowhere is such an error so
common as when man applies it to the judg-
ment of some event in his own life, and sepa-
rates calamity from consolation."
Lionel. '-True; buy who could have the
heart to tell a mourning father that his dead
son was worthless ?"
George. '*Alas, my young friend, the preach-
er must sometimes harden his own heart if he
would strike home to another's soul. But I am
not sure that I\Ir. Darrell would need so cruel a
kindness. I believe that his clear intellect must
have divined some portions of his son's nature
which enabled him to bear the loss with forti-
tude. And he did bear it bravely. But now,
Mr. Haughton, if you have the rest of the day
free, I am about to make you an unceremonious
proposition for its disposal. A lady who knew
Mr. Darrell when she was very j-ouug, has a
strong desire to form your acquaintance. She
resides on the banks of the Thames, a little
above Twickenham. I have promised to call on
her this evening. Shall we dine together at
Eichmond ? And afterward we can take a boat
to her villa.''
Lionel at once accepted, thinking so little of
the lady that he did not even ask her name. He
was pleased to have a companion with whom he
could talk of Darrell. He asked but delay to vrrite
A few lines of aft'ectionate inquiry to his kinsman
at Fawley, and, while he wrote, George took out
Arthur Branthwaite's poems and resumed their
perusal. Lionel having sealed his letter, George
extended the book to him. " Here are some re-
markable poems by a brother-in-law of that re-
markable artist, Frank Vance." '
" Frank Vance ! True, he had a brother-in-
law a poet. I admire Frank so much ; and,
though he professes to sneer at poetry, he is so
associated in my mind with poetical images
that I am prepossessed beforehand in favor of
all that brings him, despite himself, in connec-
tion with poetry."
" Tell me, then," said George, pointing out
a passage in the volume, '"what you think of ;
these lines." My good uncle woiild call them
gibberish. I am not sure that I can construe
them ; but when I was yom- age, I think I could |
— what say you?" !
Lionel glanced. " Exquisite indeed.' nothing |
can be clearer ; they express exactly a sentiment
in myself that I could never explain."
"Just so," said George, laughing. "Youth
has a sentiment that it can not explain, and the
O
• sentiment is expressed in a form of poetrv that
middle age can not construe. It is true that
poetry of the grand order interests equally all
ages ; but the world ever throws out a poetry
not of the grandest ; not meant to be durable—
j not meant to be universal— but following the
I shifts and changes of human sentiment, and
' just like those pretty sun-dials formed by flowers
which bloom to tell the hour, open their buds
to tell It, and, telling it, fade themselves from
time.
j Not listening to the critic, Lionel continued
I to read the poems, exclaiming, "How exqui-
site ! how true !"
CHAPTER XXI.
In Life, as in Art, the Beautiful moves in curves.
They have dined. George Morley takes the
oars, and the boat cuts through the dance of
waves flushed by the golden sunset. Beautiful
river! which might furnish the English tale-
teller with legends wild as those culled on shores
licked by Hydaspes, and sweet as those which
Cephisus ever blended with the songs of night-
ingales and the breath of violets! But what
true English poet ever names thee, O Father
Thames! without a melodious tribute? And
what child ever whiled away summer noons
along thy grassy banks, nor hallowed tbv re-
membrance among the fairy days of hfe ? "
Silently Lionel bent overthe "side of the glid-
ing boat, his mind carried back to the same%oft
stream five years ago. How vast a space in his
short existence those five years seemed to fill I
And how far, how immeasurably far from the
young man, rich in the attributes of wealth,
armed with each weapon of distinction, seemed
I the hour when the boy had groaned aloud,
" Fortune is so far. Fame so impossible !" Far-
ther and farther yet than his present worldly
station from his past, seemed the image that
had first called forth in his breast the dreamy
sentiment, which the sternest of us in after-life
never utterly forget. Passions rage and vanish,
and when all their storms are gone, yea, it may
be, at the verge of the very grave, we look back
and see like a star the female face, even though
it be a child's, that first set us vaguely wonder-
ing at the charm in a human presence, at the
void in a smile withdrawn ! How many of us
could recall a Beatrice through the gaps of
ruined hope, seen, as by the Florentine, on the
earth a guileless infant, in the heavens a spirit
glorified! Yes — Laura was an affectation —
Beatrice a reality I
George's voice broke somewhat distastefully
on Lionel's reverie. " We near our destina-
tion, and you have not asked me even the name
of the lady to whom you are to render homage.
It is Lady Montfort, widow to the last Mar-
quis. You have no doubt heard 3Ir. Darrell
speak of her ?"
"Never Mr. Darrell — Colonel Morley often.
And in the world I have heard her cited as per-
haps the handsomest, and certainly the haughti-
est, woman in England."
" Xever heard Mr. Darrell mention her ! that
is strange, indeed," said George Morley, catch-
ing at Lionel's fii-st words, and nnnoticing his
210
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
after comment. "She was mucli in his house
as a child, shared in his daughter's education."
" Perhaps for that very reason he shuns her
name. Never but once did I liear him allude
to his daughter; nor can I wonder at that, if it
be true, as I have been told by people who seem
to know very little of the particulars, that, while
3'et scarcely out of the nursery, she fled from his
house with some low adventurer — a Mr. Ham-
mond — died abroad the first year of that un-
happy marriage."
* ' Yes, that is tlie correct outline of the story ;
and as you guess, it explains why Mr. Darrell
avoids mention of one whom he associates with
his daughter's name, though, if you desire a
theme dear to Lady Montfort, you can select
none that more interests her grateful heart than
praise of the man who saved her mother from
penury, and secured to herself the accomplish-
ments and instruction which have been her chief
solace."
"Chief solace! Was she not happy with
Lord Montfort? What sort of man was he?"
"I owe to Lord Montfort the living I hold,
and I can remember the good qualities alone of
a benefactor. If Lady Montfort was not happy
with him, it is just to both to say that she never
complained. But there is much in Lady Mont-
fort's character which the Marquis apparently
failed to appreciate ; at all events, they had lit-
tle in common, and what was called Lady Mont-
fort's haughtiness was perhaps but the dignity
with which a woman of grand nature checks the
pity that would debase her — the admiration that
would sully — guards her own beauty, and pro-
tects her husband's name. Here we are. Will
you stay for a few minutes in the boat while I
go to prejiare Lady Montfort for your visit ?"
George leaped ashore, and Lionel remained
under the covert of mighty willows that dipped
their leaves into the wave. Looking through
the green interstices of the foliage, he saw at
the far end of the lawn, on a curving bank by
which the glittering tide shot oblique, a simple
arbor — an arbor like that from which he had
looked upon summer stars five years ago — not
so densely covered Avith the honey-suckle; still
the honey-suckle, recently trained there, was fast
creeping uj) the sides ; and through the trellis
of the wood-work and the leaves of the flower-
ing shrub he just caught a glimpse of some form
within — the white robe of a female form in a slow
gentle movement — tending, perhaps, the flow-
ers t'liat wreathed the arbor. Now it was still,
now it stirred again ; now it was suddenly lost
to view. Had the inmate left tlie arbor? Was
the inmate Lady Montfort? George Morley's
step had not passed in that direction.
CHAPTER XXII.
A quiet scene — an unquiet heart.
Meanwhile, not far from the willow-bank
which sheltered Lionel, but far enough to be
out of her sight, and beyond her hearing, George
Morley found Lady Montfort seated alone. It
was a spot on which Milton might have placed
the Lady in " Comus" — a circle of the smooth-
est sward, ringed every where (except at one
opening which left the glassy river in full view)
with thick bosks of dark evergreens, and shrubs
of livelier verdure ; oak and chestnut backing
and overhanging all. Flowers, too, raised on
rustic tiers and stages ; a tiny fountain, shoot-
ing up from a basin starred with the water-lily;
a rustic table, on which lay books and the im-
plements of woman's graceful work ; so that the
j)lace had the home-look of a chamber, and
spoke that intense love of the out-door life which
abounds in our old poets, from Chancer down
to the day when minstrels, polished into wits,
took to Wills's Coffee-house, and the lark came
no more to bid bards
" Good-morrow
From his watch-tower in the skies."
But long since, thanli Heaven, we have again
got back the English poetry which chimes to
the babble of the waters and the riot of the
birds ; and just as that poetry is the freshest
which the out-door life has the most nourished,
so I believe that there is no surer sign of the
rich vitality which finds its raciest joys in
sources the most innocent, than the childlike
taste for that same out-door life. Whether
you take from fortune the palace or the cottage,
add to your chambers a hall in the courts of Na-
ture. Let the earth but give you room to stand
on ; well, look up. Is it nothing to have for
your roof-tree — heaven ?
Caroline Montfort (be her titles dropped) is
changed since we last saw her. The beauty is
not less in degree, but it has gained in one at-
tribute, lost in another ; it commands less, it
touches more. Still in deep mourning, the
sombre dress throws a paler shade over the
cheek. The eyes, more sunken beneath the
brow, appear larger, softer. There is that ex-
pression of fatigue which cither accompanies
impaired health or succeeds to mental struggle
and disquietude. But the coldness or pride of
mien which was peculiar to Cai'oline, as a wife,
is gone — as if in widowhood it was no longer
needed. A something like humility pre»'ailed
over the look and the bearing which had been
so tranquilly majestic. As at the api)roach of
her cousin she started from her seat, there was
a nervous tremor in her eagerness ; a rush of
color to the cheeks ; an anxious quivering of
the lip ; a flutter in the tones of the sweet, low
voice. " Well, George."
" Mr. Darrell is not in London ; he went to
Fawley three days ago ; at least he is thei'e
now. I have this from my uncle, to whom he
wrote ; and whom his departure has vexed and
saddened."
" Three days ago ! It must have been he,
then ! I was not deceived," murmured Caro-
line, and her eyes wandered round.
"There is no truth in the report you heard
that he was to marry Honoria Vipont. i\Iy un-
cle thinks he will never marry again, and im-
plies that he has resumed his solitary life at
Fawley with a resolve to quit it no more."
Lady Montfort listened silently, bending her
face over the fountain, and dropping amidst its
playful spray the leaves of a rose which she had
abstractedly plucked as George was speaking.
" I have, therefore, fulfilled your commission
so far," renewed George Morley. "I have as-
certained that Mr. Darrell is alive, and doubt-
less well ; so that it could not have been his
ghost that startled you amidst yonder thicket.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
211
But I have done more : I have forestalled the ized away. And I apprehend that it is this ex
wish you expressed to become acquainted with alting or etherealizing attribute of beautv to
young Haughton ; and your object in postpon- which all poets, all writers who would poetize
ing the accomplishment of that wish while Mr. the realities of life, have unconsciouslv render
Darrell himself was in town having ceased with ed homage, in the rank to which theV elevate
Mr. Barren's departure, I have ventured to bring what, stripped of such attribute would be but a
the young man with me. He is in the boat yon- gaudy idol of painted clav. If from the loftiest
der. AVill you receive him ? Or— but, my dear epic to the tritest novel a" heroine is often little
cousin, are you not too umvell to-day ? What more than a name to which we are called upon
is the matter? Oh, I can easily make an ex- to bow, as to a svmbol representing beauty-
case for you to Haughton. I will run and do and if we ourselve's (be we ever so indifferent
so." , , ^" °"^ common life to fair faces) feel that in
"^o, George, no. I am as well as usual. I art, at least, imagination needs an iman-e of the
will see Mr. Haughton. All that you have Beautiful— if, in a word, both poet and reader
heard of him, and have told me, interests me here would not be left excuseless it is because
so much in his fovor; and besides—" She did in our inmost hearts there is a sentiment which
not finish the sentence ; but, led away by some links the ideal of beautv with the Super=ensual
other thought, asked, " Sasa you no news of Wouldst thou, for instance, form -^ome vague
our missing friend ?" : conception of the shape worn bv a pure <=oul
"^one as yet; but in a few days I shall re- released? wouldst thou give to it the hkeness
new my search. Now, then, I will go for of an ugly hag? or wouldst thou not ransack
Haughton.' : all thy remembrances, all thv conceptions of
" Uo so ; and, George, when you have pre- forms most beauteous, to clothe the holv imac^e »
sented him to me, will you kindly join that dear. Do so : now bring it thus robed with 'the rich-
anxious child yonder ? She is in the new ar- est graces before thv mind's eve. Well <=eest
bor. or near it— her favorite spot. You must ! thou now the excuse"for poets in the rank they
sustain her spirits and give her hope. You can ; give to Beauty ? Seest thou now how hi^rh
not guess how eagerly she looks forward to your ; from the realm of the senses soars the mvsten-
visits, and how gratefully she relies on your ex- ! ous Archetype ? Without the idea of beauty,
eitions." I couldst thou conceive a form in which to clothe
George shook his head half-despondently, ! a soul that has entered heaven ?
and saying, briefly, " My exertions have estab-
lished no claim to her gratitude as yet," went
quickly back for Lionel.
CHAPTER XXIV,
I Agreeable surprises are the perquisites of youth.
j If the beauty of Lady Montfort's countenance
' took Lionel by surprise, still more might he won-
der at the winning kindness of her address — a
kindness of look, manner, voice, which seemed
to welcome him not as a chance acquaintance
but as a new-found relation. The first few
sentences, in giving them a subject of common
interest, introduced into their converse a sort
of confiding household familiarity. For Lionel,
ascribing Lady Montfort's gracious reception to
her early recollections of his kinsman, began at
once to speak of Guy Darrell ; and in a little
time they were walking over the turf, or through
the winding alleys of the garden, linking talk to
the same theme, she by question, he by answer
— he, charmed to expatiate — she, pleased to list-
en — and liking each other more and more, as
she recognized in all he said a bright young
heart, overflowing with grateful and proud af-
fection, and as he felt instinctively that he was
with one who sympathized in his enthusiasm —
one who had known the great man in his busy
day, ere the rush of his career had paused, whose
childhood had lent a smile to the great man's
home before childhood and smile had left it.
As they thus conversed, Lionel now and then,
in the turns of their walk, caught a glimpse of
George Morley in the distance, walking also
side by side with some young companion, and
ever as he caught that glimpse a strange restless
curiosity shot across his mind, and distracted it
even from praise of Guy Darrell. Who could
that be with George ? Was it a relation of Lady
Montfort's? The figure was not in moumint^;
its shape seemed slight and youthful — now it pass-
CHAPTER XXm.
Something, oa an old siibject, which has never been
said before.
Although Lionel was prepared to see a verv
handsome woman in Lady Montfort, the beauty
of her countenance took him by surprise. No
preparation by the eulogies of description can
lessen the effect which the first sight of a beau-
tiful object produces upon a mind to which re-
finement of idea gives an accurate and quick
comprehension of beauty. Be it a work of art,
a scene in nature, or, 'rarest of all, a human
face dinne, a beauty never before beheld strikes
us with hidden pleasure, like a burst of light ;
and it is a pleasure that elevates. The imagi-
nation feels itself richer by a new idea of ex-
cellence; for not only is real beautv whollv
original, baring no prototype, but its immediat'e
influence is spiritual. It' may seem strange — I
appeal to every observant artist if the assertion
be not true — but the first sight of the most per-
fect order of female beauty, rather than court-
ing, rebukes and strikes back every grosser in-
stinct that would alloy admiration. " There must
be some meanness and blemish in the beauty
which the sensualist no sooner beholds than he
covets. In the higher incarnation of the ab-
stract idea which runs through all our notions
of moral good and celestial purity — even if the
moment the eye sees the heart loves the image
— the love has in it something of the reverence
which it was said the charms of Virtue would
produce could her form be made visible ; nor
could mere human love obtrude itself till the
sweet awe of the first effect had been familiar-
212
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
es bv that acacia-tree — standing for a moment
apart and distinct from George's shadow, but its
own outline dim in the deepening twilight — now
it has passed on, lost among the laurels.
Lionel and Lady IMontfort now came before
the windows of the house, which was not large
for the rank of the owner, but commodious, with
no pretense to architectural beauty — dark-red
brick, a centuiy and a half old — irregular; jut-
ting forth here, receding there, so as to produce
that depth of light and shadow which lends a
certain picturesque charm even to the least or-
nate buildings — a charm to which the Gothic
architecture owes half its beauty. Jessamine,
roses, woodbine, ivy, trained up the angles and
between the windows. Altogether the house
had that air of home which had been wanting
to the regal formality of Montfort Court. One
of the windows, raised above the ground by a
short winding stair, stood open. Lights had
seemingly just been brought into the room with-
in, and Lionel's eye was caught by the gleam.
Lady Montfort turned up the stair, and Lionel
followed her into the apartment. A harp stood
at one corner — not far from it the piano and
music-stand. On one of the tables there were
the implements of drawing — a sketch in water-
colors half finished.
"Our work-room," said Lady Montfort, with
a warm cheerful smile, and yet Lionel could see
that tears were in her eyes — "mine and my dear
pupil's. Yes, that harp is hers. Is he still fond
of music — I mean Mr. Darrell ?"
" Yes, though he does not care for it in crowds ;
but he can listen for hours to Fairthorn's lute.
You remember Mr. Fairthorn ?"
' ' Yes, I remember him," answered Lady Mont-
fort, softly. " ilr. Darrell, then, likes his music
still ?"
Lionel here uttered an exclamation of more
than surprise. He had turned to examine the
water-color sketch — a rustic inn, a honey-suckle
arbor, a river in front, a boat yonder— just be-
gun.
"I know the spot!" he cried. "Did you
make the sketch of it?"
" I ? no ; it is hers — my pupil's — my adopted
child's."
Lionel's dark eyes turned to Lady Montfort's
wistfully, inquiringly ; they asked what his lips
could not presume to ask. " Your adopted child
— what is she? — who?"
As if answering to the eyes, Lady Montfort
said —
"Wait here a moment ; I wiU go for her."
She left him, descended the stairs into the
garden, joined George Morley and his compan-
ion ; took aside the former, whispered him, then
drawing the arm of tlie latter within her own,
led her back into the room, while George Mor-
ley remained in the garden, throwing himself on
a "bench, and gazing on the stars as they now
came forth, fast and frequent, though one by one.
CHAPTER XXV.
"Qaem Fors dienim cnnque dabit
Lucro appone." — Hoeat.
Lionel stood, expectant, in the centre of the
room, and as the two female forms entered the
lights were full upon their faces. That younger
face — it is she — it is she, the unforgotten — the
long lost. Instinctively, as if no years had rolled
between — as if she were still the little child, he
the boy who had coveted such a sister — he sprang
forward and opened his arms, and as suddenly
halted, dropped the arms to his side, blushing,
confused, abashed. She I that vagrant child I —
she 1 that form so elegant — that great peeress's
pupil — adopted daughter, she! the poor wander-
ing Sophy ! She '. — impossible !
But her eyes, at first downcast, are now fixed
on him. She, too, starts — not forward, but in
recoil ; she, too, raises her arms, not to open,
but to press them to her breast ; and she, too,
as suddenly checks anJmpulse, and stands, like
him, blushing, confused, abashed.
" Yes," said Caroline Montfort, drawing Sophy
nearer to her breast — " yes, you will both forgive
me for the surprise. Yes, you do see before you,
grown up to become the pride of those who cher-
ish her, that Sophy who — "
" Sophy I" cried Lionel, advancing ; " it is
so, then ! I knew vou were no stroller's grand-
child."
Sophy drew up — "I am, I am his grandchild,
and as proud to be so as I was then."
" Pardon me, pardon me ; I meant to say that
he too was not what he seemed. You forgive
me," extending his hand, and Sophy's soft hand
fell into his forgivingly.
'•But he lives? is well? is here? is — "
Sophy burst into tears, and Lady Montfort
made a sign to Lionel to go into the garden
and leave them. Eeluctantly and dizzily, as
one in a dream, he obeyed, leaving the vagrant's
grandchild to be soothed in the fostering arms
of her whom, an hour or two ago, he knew but
by the titles of her rank and the reputation of
her pride.
It was not many minutes before Lady 3Iont-
fort rejoined him.
"You touched unawares," said she, "npon
the poor child's most anxious cause of sorrow.
Her grandfather, for whom h<2r affection is so
sensitively keen, has disappeared. I will speak
of that later; and if you wish, you shall be ta-
ken into our consultations. But — " she paused,
looked into his face — open, loyal face, face of
gentleman — with heart of man in its eyes, soul
of man on its brow ; — face formed to look up to
the stars which now lighted it — and laying her
hand lightly on his shoulder, resumed with hesi-
tating voice — "But I feel like a culprit in ask-
ing you what, nevertheless, I must ask, as an
imperative condition, if your visits here are to
be renewed — if your intimacy here is to be es-
tablished. And unless you comply with that
condition, come no more ; we can not confide in
each other."
"Oh, Lady ilontfort, impose any condition.
I promise beforehand."
" Not beforehand. The condition is this : in-
violable secrecy. You will not mention to any
one your visits here ; your introduction to me ;
your discovery of the stroller's grandchild in my
adopted daughter."
"Not to Mr. Darrell?"
"To him least of all; but this I add, it is for
IMr. Darrell's sake that I insist on such conceal-
ment ; and I trust the concealment will not be
long protracted."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
213
'•For "Mr. Darrell's sake!"
" For the sake of his happiness," cried Lady
Montfort, clasping her hands. "My debt to him
is larger far than yours ; and in thus appealing
to you, I scheme to pay back a part of it. Do
you trust me ?"
"Ido, Ido."
And from that evening Lionel Haughton be-
came the constant visitor in that house.
Two or three days afterward Colonel Morley,
quitting England for a German Spa at which
he annually recruited himself for a few weeks,
relieved Lionel from the embarrassment of any
questions which that shrewd observer might
otherwise have addressed to him. London it-
self was now empty. Lionel found a quiet lodg-
ing in the vicinity of Twickenham. And when
his foot passed along the shady lane through
yon wicket gate into that region of turf and
flowers, he felt as might have felt that famous
Minstrel of Ercildoun, when, blessed with the
privilege to enter Fairyland at will, the Rhymer
stole to the grassy hill-side, and murmured the
spell that unlocks the gates of Oberon.
BOOK VIII.
CHAPTER I.
" A little fire burns up a great deal of corn."
Old Pkoveeb.
Gut Darrell resumed the thread of solitary
life at Fawley with a calm whicli was deeper in
its gloom than it had been before. The experi-
ment of return to the social world had failed.
The resolutions which had induced the experi-
ment were finally renounced. Five years near-
er to death, and the last hope that had flitted
across the narrowing desponding passage to the
grave, fallen like a faithless torch from his own
hand, and trodden out by his own foot.
It was peculiarly in the nature of Darrell to
connect his objects with posterity — to regard
eminence in the Present but as a beacon-height
from which to pass on to the Future the name
he had taken from the Past. All his early am-
bition, sacrificing pleasure to toil, had placed
its goal at a distance, remote from the huzzas
of bystanders ; and Ambition halted now, baftled
and despairing. Ciiildless, his line would per-
ish with himself — himself, who had so vaunted
its restoration in the land ! His genius was
childless also — it would leave behind it no off-
spring of the brain. By toil he had amassed
ample wealth; by talent he had achieved a
splendid reputation. But the reputation was as
perishable as the wealth. Let a half century
pass over his tomb, and nothing would be left to
speak of the successful lawyer, the ai)plauded
orator, save traditional anecdotes, a laudatory
notice in contemporaneous memoirs — perhaps,
at most, quotations of eloquent sentences lav-
ished on forgotten cases and obsolete debates —
shreds and fragments of a great intellect, which
another half-century would sink without a bub-
ble into the depths of Time.* He had enacted
no laws — he had administered no state — he had
composed no Iwoks. Like the figure on a clock,
which adorns the case and has no connection
with the movement, he, so prominent an orna-
* It is so with many a Pollio of the Bar and Senate.
Fifty years hence, and how faint upon tlie page of Han-
sard will be the vestiges of Follett! No printer's tvpe
can record his decorous grace — the persuasion of his'sil-
very tongue. Fifty years hence, even Plunkett, weight-
iest speaker, on his own subject, in the assembly that
contained a Canning and a Brougham, will be a myth to
our grandsons.
ment to Time, had no part in its works. Re-
moved, the eye would miss him for a while ; but
a nation's literature or history was the same,
whether with him or without. Some with a
tithe of his abilities have the luck to fasten their
names to things that endure; they have been
responsible for measures they did not invent,
and which, for good or evil, influence long gen-
erations. They have written volumes out of
which a couplet of verse, a period in prose, may
cling to the rock of ages as a shell that survives
a deluge. But the orator, whose efl'ects are im-
mediate—who enthralls his audience in propor-
tion as be nicks the hour — who, were he speak-
ing like Burke what, apart from the subject-
matter, closet students would praise, must, like
Burke, thin his audience, and exchange present
oratorical success for ultimate intellectual re-
nown — a man, in short, whose oratory is em-
phatically that of the Debater, is, like an act-
or, rewarded with a loud applause and a com-
plete oblivion. Waife on the village stage might
win applause no less loud, followed by oblivion
not more complete.
Darrell was not blind to the brevity of his
fame. In his previous seclusion he had been
resigned to that conviction — now it saddened
him. Then, unconfessed by himself, the idea
that he might yet reappear in active life, and
do something which the world would not willing-
ly let die, had softened the face of that tranquil
Nature from which he must soon now pass out
of reach and sight. On the tree of Time he
was a leaf already sere upon the bough — not an
inscription graven into the rind.
Ever slow to yield to weak regrets — ever seek-
ing to combat his own enemies within — Darrell
said to himself one right, while Fairthorn's flute
was breathing an air of romance through the
melancholy walls, " Is it too late yet to employ
this still busy brain upon works that will live
when I am dust, and make Posterity supply the
heir that fails to my house ?"
He shut himself up with immortal authors —
he meditated on the choice of a theme ; his
knowledge was wide, his taste refined ; — words !
— fie could not want words! Why should he
not write? Alas! why indeed? — He who has
never been a writer in his youth, can no more
be a writer in his age than he can be a painter
21-t
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
— a musician. What ! not write a book ? Oh
yes — as he may paint a picture or set a song.
But a writer, in tlie emphatic sense of the word
— a writer as Darrell was an orator — Oh no I
And, least of all, will he be a writer if he has
been an orator by impulse and habit — an orator
too happily gifted to require, and too laborious-
ly occuijied to resort to, the tedious aids of writ-
ten jjreparation — an orator as modern life forms
orators — not, of course, an orator like those of
the classic world, who elaborated sentences be-
fore delivery, and who, after delivery, polished
each extemporaneous interlude into rhetorical i
exactitude and musical perfection. And how
narrow the range of compositions to a man bur- '.
dened already by a grave reputation! He can
not have the self-abandonment — he can not ven-
ture the headlong charge — with which Youth ;
flings the reins to genius, and dashes into the ,
ranks of Fame. Few and austere his themes —
fastidious and hesitating his taste. Restricted
are the movements of him who walks for the ,
first time into the Forum of Letters with the ',
purple hem on his senatorial toga. Guy Dar- i
rell, at his age, entering among authors as a nov-
ice I — lie, the great lawyer, to whom attorneys i
would have sent no briefs had he been suspected '
of coquetting with a muse — he, the great orator,
who had electrified audiences in proportion to ■
the sudden effects which distinguish oral inspi-
ration from written eloquence — he achieve now,
in an art which his whole life had neglected,
any success commensurate to his contempora-
neous repute; — how unlikely! But a success
which should outlive that repute, win the "ev-
erlasting inheritance" which could alone have
nerved him to adequate effort — how impossible !
He could not himself comprehend why, never at
a loss for language felicitously apposite or richly
ornate when it had but to flow from his thought
to his tongue, nor wanting ease, even eloquence,
in epistolary correspondence confidentially fa-
miliar — he should find words fail ideas, and
ideas fail words, the moment his pen became a
wand that conjured up the Ghost of the dread
Public 1 The more copious his thoughts, the
more embarrassing their selection ; the more
exquisite his ])erce]jtion of excellence in others,
the more timidly frigid his efforts at faultless
style. It would be the same with the most
skillful author, if the Ghost of the Public had
not long since ceased to haunt him. While he
writes, the true author's solitude is absolute or
peojjled at his will. But take an audience from
an orator, what is he? He commands the liv-
ing Public — the Ghost of the Public awes him-
self.
" Surely once," sighed Darrell, as he gave his
blurred pages to the flames — " surely once I had
some pittance of the author's talent, and have
spent it upon lawsuits."
Tiie author's talent, no doubt, Guy Dairell
once liad — the author's temperament, never.
What is the autlnjr's temperament? Too long
a task to define. But without it a man may
write a clever book, a useful book, a book that
may live a year, ten years, fifty years. He will
not stand out to distant ages a representative of
the age that rather lived in him than he in it.
The author's temperament is that which makes
him an integral, earnest, original unity, distinct
from all before and all that may succeed him.
And as a Father of the Church has said that
the consciousness of individual being is the
sign of immortality, not granted to the inferior
creatures — so it is in this individual tempera-
ment one and indivisible ; and in the intense
conviction of it, more than in all the works it
may throw off", that the author becomes immor-
tal. Nay, his works may perish like those of
Orpheus or Pythagoras ;* but he himself, in his
name, in the footprint of his being, remains,
like Orpheus or Pythagoras, undestroyed, in-
destructible.
Resigning literature, the Solitary returned to
science. There he was more at home. He had
cultivated science, in his dazzling academical
career, with ardor and success ; he had renewed
the study, on his first Tetirement to Fawley, as a
distraction from tormenting memories or unex-
tinguished passions. He now for the first time
regarded the absorbing abstruse occupation as
a possible source of fame. To be one in the
starry procession of those sons of light who have
solved a new law in the statute-book of heaven !
Surely a grand ambition, not unbecoming to his
years and station, and pleasant in its labors to
a man who loved Nature's outward scenery with
poetic passion, and had studied her inward mys-
teries with a sage's minute research. Science
needs not the author's art — she rejects its graces
— she recoils with a shudder from its fancies.
But Science requires in the mind of the dis-
coverer a limpid calm. The lightnings that re-
veal Diespiter must flash in serene skies. No
clouds store that thunder —
"Quo bruta tellus, et vaga flumina.
Quo Styx, et invisi lionida Ta:nari
Sedes, Atlanteusque finis
Coucutitur!"
So long as you take science only as a distrac-
tion, science will not lead you to discovery.
And from some cause or other, Guy Darrell was
more unquiet and perturbed in his present than
in his past seclusion. Science this time failed
even to distract. In the midst of august medi-
tations — of close experiment — some haunting
angry thought from the far world passed with
rude shadow between Intellect and Truth — the
heart eclipsed the mind. The fact is, that Dar-
rell's genius was essentially formed for Action.
His was the true orator's temperament, with the
qualities that belong to it — the grasp of affairs
— the comprehension of men and states — the
constructive, administrative faculties. In such
career, and in such career alone, could he have
developed all his powers, and achieved an im-
perishable name. Gradually as science lost its
interest, he retreated from all his former occupa-
tions, and would wander for long hours over the
wild unpopulated landscapes round him. As if
it were his object to fatigue the body, and in
that fatigue tire out the restless brain, he would
make his gun the excuse for rambles from sun-
rise to twilight over the manors he had pur-
chased years ago, lying many miles oft' from
Fawley. There are times when a man who has
passed his life in cultivating his mind finds that
the more he can make the physical existence
predominate, the more he can lower himself to
the rude vigor of his game-keeper or his day-
* It need scarcely be said that the works ascribed to
Orplieus or Pythagoras aie generally allowed not to be
genuine.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
215
laborer — why, the more he can harden his
nerves to support the weight of his reflections.
In tliese rambles he was not always alone.
Fairthorn contrived to insinuate himself much
more than formerly into his master's habitual
companionsliip. The faithful fellow had missed
Darrell so sorely in that long unbroken absence
of five years, that on recovering him, Fairthorn
seemed resolved to make np for lost time. De-
parting from his own habits, he would, there-
fore, lie in wait for Guy Darrell — creeping out
of a, bramble or bush, like a familiar sprite ; and
was no longer to be awed away liy a curt sylla-
ble or a contracted brow. And Darrell, at llrst
submitting reluctantly, and out of compassionate
kindness, to the flute-player's obtrusive society,
became by degrees to welcome and relax in it.
Fairthorn knew the great secrets of bis life. To
Fairthorn alone on all earth could he speak with-
out reserve of one name and of one sorrow.
Speaking to Fairthorn was like talking to him-
self, or to his pointers, or to his favorite doe,
upon which last he bestowed a new collar, with
an inscriijtion that im];iied more of the true
cause that had driven him a second time to the
shades of Fawley than he would have let out to
Alban ilorley or even to Lionel Ilaughton. Al-
ban was too old for that confidence — Lionel
much too young. But the j\lusician, like Art
itself, was of no age ; and iT" ever the gloomy
master unbent his outward moodiness and secret
spleen in any approach to gaycty, it was in a
sort of saturnine playfulness to this grotesque,
grown-u]) infant. They cheered each other, and
the}' teased each other. Stalking side by side
over the ridged fallows, Darrell would some-
times jiour furtli his whole soul, as a ];oet does
to his muse ; and at Fairthorn's abrupt inter-
ruption or rejoinder, turn round on him with
fierce objurgation or withering sarcasm, or what
the flute-player abhorred more than all else, a
truculent cpiotation from Horace, which drove
Fairthorn a\\ay into some vanishing covert or
hollow, out of which Darrell had to entice him,
sure that, in return, Fairthorn would take a
sly occasion to send into his side a vindictive
prickle. But as the two came home in the
starlight, the dogs dead beat and poor Fair-
thorn too — ten to one but what the musician
was leaning all his weight on his master's nerv-
ous arm, and Darrell was looking with tender
kindness in the face of the some oxe left to
lean upon liim still.
One evening, as they were sitting together in
the library, the two hermits, each in his corner,
and after a long silence, the flute-player said
abruptly —
"I have been thinking — "
" Thinking !" quoth Darrell, with his mechan-
ical irony ; •' I am sorry for you. Try not to
do so again."
Fairthorn. " Your poor dear father — "
Darrell, wincing, startled, and expectant of a
prickle — ''Eh? my father — "
Fairthorn. " Was a great antiquary. How
it would have pleased him could he have left a
fine collection of antiquities as an heir-loom to
the nation ! — his name thus preserved for ages,
and connected with the studies of his life.
There are the Elgin Marbles. The parson was
talking to me yesterday of a new Vernon Gal-
lery ; why not in the British Museum an ever-
lasting Darrell Room ? Plenty to stock it
mouldering yonder in the chambers which you
will never finish."
" My dear Dick," cried Darrell, starting up,
'•give me your hand. What a brilliant thought!
I could do nothing else to preserve my dear
father's name. Eureka! You are right. Set
the carpenters at work to-morrow. Remove the
boards ; open the chambers ; we will inspect
their stores, and select what would worthily
furnish ' A Darrell Room.' Perish Guy Darrell
the lawyer! Philip Darrell the antiquary at
least shall live !"
It is marvelous with what charm Fairthorn's
lucky idea seized upon Darrell's mind. The
whole of the next day he spent in the forlorn
skeleton of the unfinished mansion slowlv de-
caying beside his small and homely dwelling.
The pictures, many of which were the rarest
originals in early Flemish and Italian art, were
dusted with tender care, and hung from hasty
nails upon the bare ghastly walls. Delicate
ivory carvings, wrought by the matchless band
of Cellini — early Florentine bronzes — jiriccless
specimens of Raft'aelle ware and Venetian glass
— the precious trifles, in short, which the col-
lector of medieval curiosities amasses for his
heirs to disperse among the palaces of kings
and the cabinets of nations — were dragged
again to unfamiliar light. The invaded sepul-
chral building seemed a veiy Pomjieii of the
Cinque Cento. To examine, arrange, method-
ize, select for national jiurposes, such miscella-
neous treasures, would be the work of weeks.
For easier access, Darrell caused a slight hasty
l^assagc to be thrown over the gap between the
two edifices. It ran from the room niched into
the gables of the old house, which, originally
fitted up for scientific studies, now became his
habitual apartment, into the largest of the un-
comjdeted chambers which had been designed
for the grand reception-gallery of the new build-
ing. Into the pompous gallery thus made con-
tiguous to his monk-like cell, he gradually gath-
ered the choicest specimens of his collection.
The damps were expelled by fires on grateless
hearth-stones ; sunshine admitted from windows
now for the first time exchanging boards for
glass ; rough iron sconces, made at the nearest
forge, were thrust into the walls, and sometimes
lighted at night — Darrell and Fairthorn walking
arm in arm along the unpolished floors, in com-
pany with Holbein's Nobles, Pemgino's Virgins.
Some of that high-bred company displaced and
banished the next day, as repeated inspection
made the taste more rigidly exclusive. Darrell
had found object, amusement, occupation —
frivolous if compared with those lenses, and
glasses, and algebraical scrawls which had once
whiled lonely hours in the attic-room liard by ;
but not frivolous even to the judgment of the
austerest sage, if that sage had not reasoned
away his heart. For here it was not Darrell's
taste that was delighted ; it was Darrell's heart
that, ever hungry, had found food. His heart
was connecting those long-neglected memorials
of an ambition baffled and relinquished — here
with a nation, there with his father's grave!
How Ins eyes sparkled ! how his lip smiled !
Nobody would have guessed it — none of us
know each other ; least of all do we know the
interior being of those whom we estimate bj
216
public repute ; but what a world of simple, fond
affection, lay coiled and wasted in that proud
man's solitarv breast I
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
CHAPTER n.
The learned compute that seven hundred and seven mill-
ions of millions of vibrations have penetrated the eve
before the eye can distinguish the tints of a violet.
What philosophy can calculate the vibrations of the
heart before it cau distinguish the colors of love?
While Guy Darrell thus passed his hours
within the unfinished fragments of a dwelling
builded for posterity, and among the still relics
of remote generations, Love and Youth were
weaving their warm eternal idyll on the sunny
lawns by the gliding river.
There they are, Love and Youth, Lionel and
Sophv, in the arbor round which her slight hands
have "twined the honey-suckle, fond imitation of
that bower endeared by the memory of her
earliest holiday — she seated coyly, he on the
ground at her feet, as when Titania had watch-
ed his sleep. He has been reading to her, the
book has fallen from his hand. What book?
That volume of poems so unintelligibly obscure
to all but the dreaming young, who are so un-
intelligibly obscure to themselves. But to the
merit of those poems, I doubt if even George
did justice. It is not true, I believe, that they
are not durable. Some day or other, when all
the jargon so feelingly denounced by Colonel
Morley, about "ffisthetics," and "objective,"
and '-subjective," has gone to its long home,
some critic who can write English will probably
bring that poor little volume fairly before the
public ; and, with all its manifold faults, it will
take a place in the affections, not of one single
generation of the young, but — everlasting, ever-
dreaming, ever-growing yottth. But you and I,
reader, have no other interest in these poems,
except this — that they were written by the
brother-iu-law of that whimsical, miserly Frank
Vance, who perhaps, but for such a brother-in-
law, would never have gone through the labor
by which he has cultivated the genius that
achieved his fame ; and if he had not cultivated
that genius, he might never have known Lionel;
and if he had never known Lionel, Lionel might
never perhaps have gone to the Surrey village,
in which he saw the Fhenomenon : And to push
farther still that A'oltaireian philosophy of ifs —
if eitiier Lionel or Frank Vance had not been
30 intimately associated in the minds of Sophy
and Lionel with the golden holiday on the beau-
tiful river, Sophy and Lionel might not have
thought so much of those poems; and if they
had not thought so much of those poems, there
mi^ht not have been between them that link of
poetry without which the love of two young
people is a sentiment, always verj* pretty, it is
true, but much too commonplace to deserve
special commemoration in a work so uncom-
monly long as this is likely to be. And thus it
i-i clear that Frank Vance is not a superfluous
and episodical personage among the characters
of this history; but, however indirectly, still
essentially, one of those beings without whom
the author must have given a very different an-
swer to the question, "What will he do with
it?"
Return we to Lionel and Sophy. The poems
have brought their hearts nearer and nearer to-
gether. And when the book fell from Lionel's
hand, Sophy knew that his eyes were on her
face, and her own eyes looked away. And the
silence was so deep and so sweet ! Neither had
vet said to the other a word of love. And in
"that silence both felt that they loved and were
beloved. Sophy I how childlike she looked still!
How little she is changed '. — except that the
soft blue eyes are far more pensive, and that
her merry "laugh is now never heard. In that
luxtirious home, fostered with the tenderest care
by its charming owner, the romance of her
childhood realized, and Lionel by her side, she
misses the old crippled_vagrant. And therefore
it is that her mern.* laugh is no longer heard!
"Ahl" said Lionel, softly breaking the pause
at length, " Do not turn your eyes from me, or
I shall think that there are tears in them!"
Sophy's breast heaved, but her eyes were averted
still. Lionel rose gently, and came to the other
side of her quiet form. "Fie! there are tears,
and you would hide them from me. Ungrate-
ful !"
Sophy loolied at him now with candid, inex-
pressible, guileless affection in those swimming
eyes, and said, with touching sweetness, "L^n-
grateful ! Should I not be so if I were gay and
happy?"
Atid in self-reproach for not being sufficient-
ly unhappy while that young consoler was by
lier side, she too rose, left the arbor, and look-
ed wistfully along the river. George INIorley
was expected ; he might bring tidings of the
absent. And now while Lionel, rejoining her,
exerts all his eloquence to allay her anxiety and
encourage her hopes, and while they thus, in
that divmest stage of love, ere the tongue re-
peats what the eyes have told, glide along —
here in sunlight by lingering flowers — there in
shadow under mournful willows, whose leaves
are ever the latest to fall, let us explain by what
links of circumstance Sophy became the great
ladv's guest, and Waife once more a homeless
wanderer.
CILSJPTER in.
Comprising many needful explanations illustrative of
wise saws ; as, ior example. '• He that hath an ill name
is half hanged." '-He that hath been bitten by a ser-
pent is afraid of a rope." "He that looks for a star
puts out his candles;" and, " AYhen God wills, all
winds bring rain."
The reader has been already made aware
how, by an impulse of womanhood and human-
ity, Arabella Crane had been converted from a
persecuting into a tutelary agent in the desti-
nies of Waife and Sophy.' That revolution in
her moral being dated from the evening on
which she had sought the cripple's retreat to
warn him of Jasper's designs. We have seen
by what stratagem she had made it appear that
Waife and his grandchild had sailed beyond
the reach of molestation ; with what liberality
she had advanced the money that freed Sophy
from the manager's claim: and how consider-
ately she had empowered her agent to give the
reference which secured to Waife the asylum
in which we last beheld him. In a few stern
sentences she had acquainted Waife ^^•ith her
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
211
fearless, inflexible resolve to associate her fate
henceforth with the life of his lawless son ; and,
by rendering abortive all his evil projects of
plunder, to compel him at last to depend upon
her for an existence neither unsafe nor sordid,
provided only that it were not dishonest. The
moment that she revealed that design, Waife's
trust in her was won. His own heart enabled
him to comprehend the effect produced upon a
character othenvise unamiable and rugged, by the
grandeur of self-immolation and the absorption
of one devoted heroic thought. In the strength
and bitterness of passion which thus pledged
her existence to redeem another's, he obtained
the liey to her vehement and jealous nature ;
saw why she had been so cruel to the child of a
rival; why she had conceived compassion for
that child in proportion as the father's unnatu-
ral indifference had quenched the anger of her
own self-love ; and, above all, why, as the idea
of reclaiming and appropriating solely to her-
self the man who, for good or for evil, had grown
into the all-predominant object of her life, gain-
ed more and more the mastery over her mind,
it expelled the lesser and the baser passions,
and the old mean revenge against an infant
faded away before the light of that awakening
conscience, which is often rekindled from ashes
by the sparks of a single better and worthier
thought. And, in the resolute design to re-
claim Jasper Losely, Arabella came at once to
a ground in common with his father, with his
child. Oh what, too, would the old man owe
to her, what would be his gratitude, his joy, if
she not only guarded his spotless Sophy, but
saved from the bottomless abyss his guilty son I
Thus when Arabella Crane had, nearly five
years before, sought Waife's discovered hiding-
place, near the old blood-stained tower, mutual
interests and sympathies had formed between
them a bond of alliance not the less strong be-
cause rather tacitly acknowledged and openly
expressed. Arabella had xvritten to Waife from
the Continent, for the first half year, pretty oft-
en, and somewhat sanguinely, as to tlie chance
of Losely's ultimate reformation. Then the in-
tenals of silence became gradually more pro-
longed, and the letters more brief. But still,
whether from the wish not unnecessarily to pain
the old man, or, as would be more natural to
her character, which, even in its best aspects,
was not gentle, from a proud dislike to confess
failure, she said nothing of the evil courses |
which Jasper had renewed. Evidently she was
always near him. Evidently, by some means '
or another, his life, furtive and dark, was ever ;
under the glare of her watchful eyes. j
Meanwhile, Sophy had been presented to Car- '
oline Montfort. As Waife had so fondly antici- !
pated, the lone childless lady had taken with
kindness and interest to the fair motherless ''
child. Left to herself often for months togeth- t
er in the grand forlorn house, Caroline "soon |
found an object to her pensive walks in the '
basket-maker's cottage. Sophy's charming face
and charming ways stole more and more into
affections which were denied all nourishment
at home. She entered into Waife's desire to
improve, by education, so exquisite a nature ; i
and. familiarity growing by degrees, Sophy was I
at length coaxed up to the great house ; and ;
during the hours which Waife devoted to his j
rambles (for even in his settled industry he
could not conquer his vagrant tastes, but wouJd
weave his reeds or osiers as he sauntered through
solitudes of turf or wood), became the docile,
delighted pupil in the simple chintz room which
Lady ]Montfort had reclaimed from the desert
of her surrounding palace. Lady Montfort was
not of a curious turn of mind; profoundly in-
different even to the gossip of drawing-rooms,
she had no rankling desire to know the secrets
of tillage hearth-stones. Little acquainted even
with the great world — scarcely at all with any
world below that in which she had her being,
save as she approached humble sorrows bv del-
icate charity — the contrast between Waife's call-
ing and his conversation roused in her no vi<Ti-
lant suspicions. A man of some education, and
bom in a rank that touched upon the order of
gentlemen, but of no practical or professional
culture — with whimsical tastes — with roving,
eccentric habits — had, in the course of hfe,
picked up much harmless Misdom, but, perhaps
from want of worldly prudence, failed of for-
tune. Contented with an obscure retreat and
an humble livelihood, he might yet naturally be
loth to confide to others the painful history of
a descent in life. He might have relations in
a higher sphere, whom the confession would
shame; he might be silent in the manly pride
which shrinks from alms and pity and a tale of
fall. Nay, grant the worst — grant that Waife
had suffered in repute as well as fortune — grant
that his character had been tarnished by some
plausible circumstantial evidences which he
could not explain away to the satisfaction of
friends or the acquittal of a short-sighted world
— had there not been, were there not always,
many innocent men similarly afflicted? And
who could hear Waife talk, or look on his arch
smile, and not feel that he was innocent? So,
at least, thought Caroline Montfort. Natural-
ly ; for if in her essentially womanlike charac-
ter there was one all-penading and all-predomi-
nant attribute, it was Pixr. If Fate had placed
her under circumstances fitted to ripen into ge-
nial development all her exquisite forces of
soul, her true post in this life would have been
that of the Soother. What a child to some
grief-worn father! "^Tiat a wife to some toil-
ing, aspiring, sensitive man of genius I What
a mother to some suffering child ! It seemed
as if it were necessar}- to her to have something
to compassionate and foster. She was sad when
there was no one to comfort ; but her smile was
like a simbeam from Eden when it chanced on
a sorrow it could brighten away. Out of this
ver}- sympathy came her faults — faults of rea-
soning and judgment. Prudent in her own chill-
ing path through what the world calls tempta-
tions, because so ineffably pure — because, to
Fashion's light tempters, her very thought was
as closed, as
"Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,"
was the ear of Sabrina to the comrades of Co-
mus — yet place before her some gentle scheme
that seemed fraught with a blessing for others,
and straightway her fancy embraced it, prudence
faded — she saw not the obstacles, weighed not
the chances against it. Charity to her did not
come alone, but with its sister twins, Hope and
Faith.
Thus, benignly for the old man and the fair
JIS
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
child, years rolled on till Lord Montfort's sud-
den deatli, and liis widow was called iijjon to
exclianse Montfort Court (which passed to the
new heir) for the distant jointure house ofTwick-
cnham. By this time she had s^wn so at-
tached to Sophy, and Sophy so gratefully fond
of her, that she projiosed to Waife to take his
sweet {grandchild as her permanent companion,
complete her education, and assure her future.
This had heen tlie old man's cherished day-
dream ; but he had not contemplated its reali-
zation until he himself were in the grave. He
turued pale, he staggered, when the proposal
which would separate him from his grandchild
was first brought before him. But he recovered
ere Lady Montfort could be aware of the acutc-
ness of the pang she inflicted, and accepted the
generous offer with warm protestations of joy
and gratitude. But Sophy ! Sophy consent to
leave her grandfather afar and aged in his soli-
tary cottage ! Little did either of them know
Sophy, with her soft heart and determined soul,
if they supposed such egotism possible in her.
Waife insisted — Waife was angry — Waife was
authoritative — Waife was imploring — Waife was
pathetic — all in vain! But to close every argu-
ment, the girl went boldly to Lady Montfort,
and said, " If I left him, his heart would break
— never ask it." Lady Montfort kissed Sophy
tenderly as mother ever kissed a child for some
sweet loving trait of a noble nature, and said
simply, "But he shall not be left — he shall
come too."
She offered Waife rooms in her Twickenham
house — she wished to collect books — he should
be librarian. The old man shivered and re-
fused — refused firmly. He had made a vow
not to be a guest in any house. Finally, the
matter was compromised ; Waife would remove
to the neighborhood of Twickenham ; there hire
a cottage; there jjly his art; and Sophy, living
with him, should spend a part of each day Avith
Lady Montfort as now.
So it was resolved. Waife consented to oc-
cupy a small house on the verge of the grounds
belonging to the jointure villa, on the condition
of paying rent for it. And George Morley in-
sisted on the jjrivilege of preparing that house
for his old teacher's reception, leaving it sitnple
and rustic to outward appearance, but fitting its
pleasant chambers with all that his knowledge
of the old man's tastes and habits suggested for
comfort or humble luxury ; a room for Sophy,
hung with the prettiest paper, all butterflies and
flowers, commanding a view of the river. Waife,
desjiite his proud scruples, could not refuse stich
gifts from a man whose fortune and career had
been secured by his artful lessons. Indeed, he
had already i)ermitted George to assist, though
not largely, his own efforts to rej)ay the £100
advanced by Mrs. Crane. The years he had
devoted to a craft which his ingenuity made
lucrative, had just enabled the basket-maker,
with his pupil's aid, to clear off tliat debt by
installments. lie had the satisfaction of think-
ing that it was iiis industry which had rejjlaced
the sum to which his grandchild owed her re-
lease from the execrable Kugge.
Lady Montfort's departure (which preceded
Waife's by some weeks) was more mourned by
the poor in her immediate neighborhood than
by the wealthier families wlio composed what a
province calls its society, and the gloom which
that event cast over the little village round the
kingly mansion was increased when Waife and
his grandchild left.
For the last three years, emboldened by Lady
Montfort's protection, and the conviction that
he was no longer pursued or spied, the old
man had relaxed his earlier reserved and se-
cluded habits. Constitutionally sociable, he had
made acquaintance with his humbler neighbors ;
lounged by their cottage palings in his rambles
down the lanes ; diverted their children with
Sir Isaac's tricks, or regaled them with nuts an4
apples from his little orchard; given to the more
diligent laborers many a valuable hint how to
eke out the daily wage with garden ])roduce, or
bees, or poultry ; doctored farmers' cows ; and
even won the heart of the stud groom by a
mysterious sedative ball, which had reduced to
serene docility a highly nervous and hitherto
unmanageable four-year-old. Sophy liad been
no less popular. No one grudged her the favor
of Lady Montfort — no one wondered at it.
They were loved and honored. Perhaps the
hajipiest years Waife had known since his young
wife left the earth were passed in the hamlet
which he fancied her shade haunted ; for was
it not there— there, in that cottage — there, in
sight of those green osiers, that her first modest
virgin replies to his letters of love and hope had
soothed his confinement and animated him —
till then little fond of sedentary toils — to the
very industry which, learned in sport, now gave'
subsistence, and secured a home. To that home
]jersecution had not come — gossip had not jiryed
into its calm seclusion — even chance, when
threatening disclosure, had seemed to jjass by
innocuous. For once — a year or so before he
left — an incident had occurred which alarmed
him at the time, but led to no annoying results.
The banks of the great sheet of water in Montfort
Park were occasionally made the scene of rural
picnics by the families of neighboring farmers
and tradesmen. One day Waife, while care-
lessly fashioning his baskets on his favorite spot,
was recognized by a party on the opposite mar-
gin to whom he liimself had paid no attention.
He was told the next day by the landlady of the
village inn, the main chimney of which he had
undertaken to cure of smoking, that a " lady"
in the picnic symposium of the day before had
asked many questions about him and his grand-
child, and had seemed pleased to hear they
were both so comfortably settled. The " lady"
had been accompanied by another "lady," and
by two or three yoinig gentlemen. They had
arrived in a "'buss," which they had hired for
the occasion. They had come from Humbers-
ton the day after those famous races which an-
nually filled Humberston with strangers — the
time of year in which Eugge's grand theatrical
exhibition delighted that ancient town. From
the description of the two ladies, Waife sus-
pected that they belonged to Rugge's comjiany.
But they had not claimed Waife as a cidcvant
comrade ; they had not spoken of Sophy as the
Phenomenon or the Fugitive. No molestation
followed this event ; and, after all, the Re-
morseless Baron had no longer any claim to
the Persecuted Bandit or to Juliet Araminta.
But the ex-comedian is gone from the osiers
— the hamlet. He is in his new retreat by the
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
219
lordly river — within an hour of tlie smoke and
roar of tumultuous London. lie tries to look
cheerful and happy, but his repose is troubled —
his heart is anxious. Ever since Sophy, on his
account, refused the offer which would have
transfei-red her, not for a few daily hours, but
for liabitual life, from a basket-maker's roof to
all the elegances and refinements of a sphere
in which, if freed from him, her charms and
virtues might win her some such alliance as
seemed impossible while he was thus dragginc;
her do^^Ti to his own le^el — ever since that day
the old man had said to himself, "I live too
long." While .S'ojihy was by his side, he ap-
peared busy at his work and merry in his hu-
mor ; the moment she left him for Lady Mont-
fort's house tlue work dropped from his hands,
and he sank into moody thought.
Waife had written to ]Mrs. Crane (her address
then was at Paris) on removing to Twickenham,
and begged her to warn him, should Jasper med-
itate a return to England, by a letter directed to
him at the General Post-office, London. Despite
his later trust in Mrs. Crane, lie did not deem
it safe to confide to her Lady Montfort's ofier to
Sophy, or the affectionate nature of that lady's
intimacy v.ith the girl now gi-o\vn into woman-
hood. Witli that insight into the human heart,
w^hich was in him not so habitually clear and
steadfast as to be always useful, but at times
singularly if erratically lucid, he could not feel
assured that Arabella Crane's ancient hate to
Sophy (which, lessening in proportion to the
girl's destitution, had only ceased when the
stern woman felt, with a sentiment borderin,:i
on revenge, that it was to her that Sojihy owed
an asylum obscure and humble) might not re-
vive, if she learned that the cliild of a detested
rival was raised above the necessity of her pro-
tection, and brought within view of that station
so much loftier than her own, from which she
had once rejoiced to knovv- that the offspring of
a marriage which had darkened her life was ex-
cluded. For indeed it had been only on Waife 's
promise that he would not repeat the attempt
that had proved so abortive, to enforce Sophy's
claim on Guy Darrell, that Arabella Crane had
in the first instance resigned the child to his
care. His care — his — an attainted outcast! As
long as Arabella Crane could see in Sophy but
an object of compassion she might haughtily
protect her; but could Sophy become an object
of envy, would that protection last ? Ko, he did
not venture to confide in Mrs. Crane further
than to say that he and Sophy had removed
from Montfort village to the vicinity of London.
Time enough to say more when ]\Irs. Crane re-
turned to England; and then not by letter, but
in personal interview.
Once a month the old man went to London
to inquire at the General Post-ofnce for any com-
munications his correspondent might there ad-
dress to him. Only once, however, had he heard
from Mrs. Crane since the announcement of his
migration, and her note of reply was extremely
brief, until in the fatal month of June, when
Guy Darrell and Jasper Losely had alike re-
turned, and on the same day, to the metropolis ;
and then the old man received from her a letter
which occasioned him profound alarm. It ap-
prised him not only that his terrible son was in
England — in London ; but that Jasper had dis-
I covered that the persons embarked for America
were not the veritable Waife and Sophy, whose
names they had assumed. Mrs. Crane ended
with these ominous words: "It is right to say-
now that he has descended deeper and deeper.
Could you see him, you would wonder that I
neither abandon him nor my resolve. He hates
me worse than the gibbet. To me, and not to
the gibbet, he shall pass — fitting punishment to
both. I am in London, not in my old house,
but near him. His confidant is my hireling.
Ilis life and his projects are clear to my eyes — •
clear as if he dwelt in glass. Soi)hy is" now of
an age in which, were she ]jlaced in" the care of
some person whose respectability could not be
impugned, she could not be legally forced away
against her will ; but if under your roof, those
whom Jasper has induced to institute a search,
that he has no means to institute ven.- actively
himself, might make statements which (as you
are already a vvare)might persuade others, thot gh
well-meaning, to assist him in sep-arating her
from you. He might publicly face even a po-
lice court if he thus hoped to shame the rich
man into buying off an intolerable scandal. He
might, in the first instance, and more probably,
decoy her into his power through stealth ; and
what might become of her before she was re-
covered? Separate yourself from her for a time.
It is )'ou, notwithstanding your arts of disguise,
that can be the more easily tracked. She, now
almost a woman, will have grown out of recog-
nition. Place her in some secure asylum until
at least j"ou hear from me again."
"Waife read and re-read this e]<istle (to v>hich
there w^as no direction that enabled him to rej ly)
in the private room of a httle coffee-house to
which he had retired from the gaze and press-
ure of the streets. The determination he had
long brooded over now began to take shape — to
be hurried on to prompt decision. On recover-
ing his first shock, he formed and matured his
jdans. That same evening he saw Lady i\Iont-
fort. He felt that the tim.e had come when, for
Sophy's sake, he must lift the vail from the
obloquy on his own name. To guard against
the same concession to Jasper's authority that
had betrayed her atGatesboro', it was necessary
that he should ex]jlain the mystery of Sophy's
parentage and position to Lady Montfort, and
go tlu-ough the anguish of denouncing his cv,n
son as the last person to whose hands she should
be consigned. He approached this subject not
only with a sense of profound humiliation, but
with no unreasonable fear lest Lady Montfort
might at once decline a charge which would
possibly subject her retirement to a harassing
invasion. But, to his surprise as well as relief,
no sooner had he named Sophy's parentage than
Lady Montfort evinced emotions of a joy which
cast into the shade all more painful or disci-cd-
itable associations. " Henceforth, believe mo,"
she said, "your Sophy shall be my own child,
my own treasured darling! no humble comj.an-
ion — my equal as well as my charge. Fear not
that any one shall tear her from me. Yen are
right in thinking that my roof should be l;er
home — that she should have the rearing and the
station which she is entitled as well as fitted to
adorn. But you nnist not part from her. I
have listened to your tale ; my experience of
you supplies the defense you suppress — it re-
220
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
verses the judgment wLich has aspersed you.
And, more ardently than before, I press on you
a refuge in the Home that will shelter your
grandchild." Noble-hearted woman ! and no-
bler for her ignorance of the practical world, in
the proposal which would have blistered with
scorching blushes the cheek of that Personifica-
tion of all " Solemn Plausibilities," the House
of Vipont! Gentleman Waife was not scamp
enough to profit by the ignorance which sprang
from generous virtue. But, repressing all argu-
ment, and appearing to acquiesce in the possi-
bility of such an arrangement, he left her be-
nevolent delight unsaddened — and before the
morning he was gone. Gone in stealth, and by
the starlight, as he had gone years ago from the
bailiff's cottage — gone, for Sophy, in waking, to
find, as she had found before, farewell lines,
that commended hope and forbade grief. "It
was," he wrote, "for both their sakes that he
had set out on a tour of pleasant adventure.
He needed it ; he had felt his spirits drooj) of
late in so humdrum and settled a life. And
there was danger abroad — danger that his brief
absence would remove. He had confided all
his secrets to Lady IMontfort ; she must look on
that kind lady as her sole guardian till he return-
ed — as return he surely would ; and then they
would live happy ever afterward as in fairy tales.
He should never forgive her if she were silly
enough to fret for him. He should not be alone ;
Sir Isaac would take care of him. He was not
without plenty of money — savings of several
months ; if he wanted more, he would apply to
George Morley. He would write to her occa-
sionally ; but she must not expect frequent let-
ters ; he might be away for months — -what did
that signify ? He was old enough to take care
of himself; she was no longer a child to cry her
eyes out if she lost a senseless toy, or a stupid
old cripple. She was a young lady, and he ex-
pected to find her a famous scholar when he re-
turned." And so, with all flourish and bravado,
and suppressing every attempt at pathos, the old
man went his way, and Sophy, hurrying to Lady
Alontfort's, weeping, distracted, imploring her to
send in all directions to discover and bring back
the fugitive, was there detained a captive guest.
But Waife left a letter also for Lady JMontfort,
cautioning and adjuring her, as she valued So-
phy's safety from the scandal of Jasper's claim,
not to make any imprudent attempts to discover
him. Such attempt would only create the very
publicity from the chance of which he was seek-
ing to escape. The necessity of this caution was
so obvious, that Lady Mont'fort could only send
her most confidential servant to inquire guarded-
ly in the neighborhood, until she had summoned
George Morley from Humberston, and taken
him into counsel. Waife had permitted her to
relate to him, on strict promise of secrecy, the
tale he had confided to her. George entered
with the deepest sympathy into Sophy's dis-
tress ; but he made her comprehend the indis-
cretion and peril of any noisy researches. He
promised that he himself would sjxire no jiains
to ascertain the old man's hiding-j)lace, and sec,
at least, if he could not be persuaded either to
return or suffer her to join him, that he was not
left destitute and comfortless. Nor was this an
idle promise. George, though his inquiries were
unceasing, crippled by the restraint imposed on |
them, was so acute in divining, and so active in
following up each clew to the wanderer's artful
doublings, that more than once he had actually
come upon the track, and found the very spot
where Waife or Sir Isaac had been seen a few
days before. Still, up to the day on which Mor-
ley had last reported progress, the ingenious ex-
actor, fertile in all resources of stratagem and
disguise, had baftled his research. At first,
however, Waife had greatly relieved the minds
of these anxious friends, and cheered even
Sophy's heavy heart, by letters, gay though
brief. These letters having, by their postmarks,
led to his trace, he had stated, in apparent an-
ger, that reason for discontinuing them. And
for the last six weeks, no line from him had
been received. In fact, the old man, on resolv-
ing to consummate his self-abnegation, strove
more and more to wean his grandchild's thoughts
from his image. He deemed it so essential to
her whole future, that, now she had found a
home in so secure and so elevated a sphere, she
should gradually accustom herself to a new rank
of life, from which he was an everlasting exile ;
should lose all trace of his very being; eflace a
connection that, ceasing to protect, could hence-
forth only harm and dishonor her ; that he tried,
as it were, to blot himself out of the world which
now smiled on her. He did not underrate her
grief in its fii'st freshness : he knew that, could
she learn where he was, all else would be for-
gotten — she would insist on flying to him. But
he continually murmured to himself, " Youth is
ever proverbially short of memory; its sorrows
poignant, but not endui-ing; now the wounds
are already scarring over — they will not reopen
if they are left to heal."
He had, at first, thought of hiding some-
where not so far but that once a week, or once
a month, he might have stolen into the grounds,
looked at the house that held her — left, per-
haps, in her walks some little token of himself.
But, on reflection, he felt that that luxury would
be too imprudent, and it ceased to tempt him in
proportion as he reasoned himself into the stern
wisdom of avoiding all that could revive her
grief for him. At the commencement of this
tale, in the outline given of that grand melo-
drama in which Juliet Araminta played the
part of the Bandit's child, her efi^brts to decoy
pursuit from the lair of the persecuted Mime
were likened to the arts of the sky-lark to lure
eye and hand from the nest of its young. ]\Iore
appropriate that illustration now to the parent-
bird than then to the fledgeling. Farther and
farther from the nest in which all his love was
centred fled the old man. What if Jasper did
discover him now; that very discovery would
mislead the pursuit from Sophy. Most improba-
ble that Losely would ever guess that they could
become separated ; still more improbable, un-
less Waife, imprudently lurking near her home,
guided conjecture, that Losely should dream of
seeking under the roof of the lofty peeress the
child that had fled from IMr. Rugge.
I'oor old man! his heart was breaking; but
his soul was so brightly comforted, that there,
where many, many long miles off, I see him
standing, desolate and patient, in the corner of
yon crowded market-place, holding Sir Isaac by-
slackened string, with listless hand — Sir Isaac
unshorn, travel-stained, draggled, with drooping
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
221
head and melancholy eyes — yea, as I see him
there, jostled by the crowd, to wliom, now and
then, pointing to that huge pannier on his arm,
filled with some homely peddler-wares, he me-
chanically mutters, "Buy" — yea, I say, verily,
as I see liim thus, I can not draw near in pity —
I see what the crowd does not — the shadow of
an angel's wing over his gray head ; and I stand
reverentially aloof, with bated breath and bend-
ed knee.
CHAPTER IV.
A woman too often reasons from lier lieart — lience two-
thirds of her mistakes and her troubles. A man of
genius, too, often reasons from his heart — hence, also,
two-thirds of his troubles and mistakes. Wherefore,
between woman and genius there is a sympathetic af-
finity; each has some intuitive comprehension of the
secrets of the other, and the more feminine the woman,
the more exquisite the genius, the more subtle the in-
telligence between the two. But note well that this
tacit understanding becomes obscui"ed if human love
pass across its relations. Shakspearo interprets aright
the most intricate riddles in woman. A woman was
the first to interpret aright the art that is latent in
Sluilcspeare. But did Anne Hathaway and Shakspeare
understand each other ?
Unobserved by the two young people, Lady
Montfort sate watching them as they moved
along the river banks. She was seated where
Lionel had first seen her- — in the kind of grassy
chamber that had been won from the foliage
and the sward, closed round with interlaced au-
tumnal branches, save where it opened toward
the water. If ever woman's brain can conceive
and plot a scheme thoroughly pure from one
ungentle, selfish thread in its web, in such a
scheme had Caroline Montfort brouglit together
those two fair young natures. And yet they
were not uppermost in her thoughts as she now
gazed on them ; nor was it wholly for them that
her eyes were filled with tears at once sweet,
yet profoundly mournful — holy, and yet intense-
ly human.
Women love to think themselves uncompre-
hended — nor often without reason in that foi-
ble; for man, howsoever sagacious, rarely does
entirely comprehend woman, howsoever simple.
And in this her sex has the advantage over ours.
Our hearts are bare to their eyes, even though
they can never know what have been otir lives.
But we may see every action of their lives,
guarded and circumscribed in conventional
forms, wliile their liearts will have many mys-
teries to which we can never have tlie key'. But,
in more than the ordinary sense of the word,
Caroline Montfort ever had been a woman nn-
comprehended. Nor even in her own sex did
she possess one confidante. Only the outward
leaves of that beautiful flower opened to the
sunlight. The leaves round the core were gath-
ered fold upon fold closely as when life itself
was in the bud.
As all the years of her wedded existence her
heart had been denied the natural household
vents, so, by some strange and unaccountable
chance, her intellect also seemed restrained and
pent from its proper freedom and play. During
those barren years she had read — she had pon-
dered — she had enjoyed a commune with those
whose minds instyict others, and still her own
intelligence, which, in early youth, had been
characterized by singular vivacity and bright-
ness, and which Time had enriched with every
womanly accomplishment, seemed chilled and
objectless. It is not enough that a mind should
be cultured — it should have movement as well
as culture. Caroline Montfort's lay quiescent,
like a beautiful form spell-bound to repose, but
not to sleep. Looking on her once, as he stood
among a crowd whom her beauty dazzled, a poet
said, abruptly, " Were my guess not a sacrilege
to one so spotless and so haughty, I should say
tliat I had hit on the solution of an enigma
that long perplexed me ; and in the core of that
queen of the lilies, could we strip the leaves
folded round it, we should find lie/norse."
Lady Montfort started; the shadow of an-
other form than her own fell upon the sward.
George Morley stood behind her, liis finger on
his lips. "Hush," he said in a whisper ; "see,
Sophy is looking for me up the river. I knew
she would be — I stole this way on purpose — for
I would speak to you before I face her ques-
tions."
"What is the matter? — you alarm me!" said
Lady Montfort, on gaining a part of the grounds
more remote from the river, to which George
had silently led the way.
" Nay, my dear cousin, there is less cause for
alarm than for anxious deliberation, and that
upon more matters than those which directly
relate to our poor fugitive. You know that I
long shrunk from enlisting the police in aid of
our search. I was too sensible of the pain and
offense which such an application would occa-
sion Waife — (let us continue so to call him) —
and the discovery of it might even induce him
to put himself beyond our reach, and quit En-
gland. But his jn-olonged silence, and my fears
lest some illness or mishap might have befallen
him, together with my serious apprehensions of
the effect which unrelieved anxiety might pro-
duce on Sophy's health, made me resolve to
wave former scruples. Since I last saw you I
have applied to one of the higher police-officers
accustomed to confidential investigations of a
similar nature. The next day he came to tell
me that he had learned that a "friend of his, who
had been formerly a distinguished agent in the
detective police, had been engaged for months
in tracking a person whom he conjectured to be
the same as the one whom I had commissioned
him to discover, and with somewhat less caution
and delicacy than I had enjoined. The fugi-
tive's real name had been given to this ex-agent
— tlie cause for search, that he had abducted
and was concealing his grand-daughter from her
father. It w-as easy for me to perceive why this
novel search had hitherto failed, no suspicion be-
ing entertained that Waife had separated him-
self from Sophy, and the inquiry being therefore
rather directed toward the grandcluld than the
grandfather. But that inquiry had altogether
ceased of late, and for this terrible reason — a
different section of the police had fixed its eye
upon the father on whose behalf the search had
been instituted. This Jasper Losely (ah I our
poor friend might well shudder to think Sophy
should fall into his hands I) haunts the resorts
of the most lawless and formidable desperadoes
of London. He appeais to be a kind of author-
ity among them ; but there is no evidence that
as yet he has committed himself to any partici-
pation in their habitual coiu'ses. He lives pro-
222
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
fiisely, for a person in such society (rea;alinp:
Daredevils, whom he awes by a strength and
coiirap;e which are described as extraordinary),
but without any visible means. It seems that
the ex-a^ent, who had been thus previously em-
ployed in Jasper Losely's name, had been en-
ga-^ed, not by Jasper himself, but by a person
in verv respectable circumstances, whose name
I have ascertained to be Poole. And the ex-
a,cjent deemed it right to acquaint this Mr. Poole
with Jasper's evil character and ambiguous mode
of life, and to intimate to his employer that it
mi^ht not be prudent to hold any connection
with such a man, and still less proper to assist
in restoring a young girl to his care. On this Mr.
Poole became so much agitated, and expressed
himself so incoherently as to his relations with
Jasper, that the ex-agent conceived suspicions
against Poole himself, and reported the whole
circumstances to one of the chiefs of the former
service, through whom they reached the very
man whom I myself was employing. But this
ex-agent, who liad, after his last interview with
Poole, declined all farther interference, had
since then, through a correspondent in a coun-
try town, whom he had employed at the first,
obtained a clew to my dear old friend's wander-
ings, more recent, and I think more hopeful,
than any I had yet discovered. You will re-
member that when questioning Sophy as to any
friends in her former life to whom it was proba-
ble Waife might have addressed himself, she
coald think of no one so probable as a cobbler
named Merle, with whom he and she had once
lodged, and of whom he had often spoken to her
with much gratitude, as having put him in the
way of recovering herself, and having shown
him a peculiar trustful kindness on that occa-
sion. But you will remember also that I could
not find this Merle ; he had left the village, near
this very place, in which he had spent the great-
er part of his life — his humble trade having been
neglected in consequence of some strange super-
stitious occupations in which, as he had grown
older, he had become more and more absorbed.
He had fallen into poverty ; his effects had been
sold off; he had gone away no one knew whith-
er. Well, the ex-agent, who had also been di-
rected to this Merle by his employer, had, through
his correspondent, ascertained that the cobbler
was living at Norwich, where he passed under
the name of the Wise Man, and where he was
in perpetual danger of being sent to the house
of correction as an impostor, dealing in astrology,
crystal-seeing, and such silly or nefarious prac-
tices. Very odd, indeed, and very melancholy
too," quoth the scholar, lifting up his hands and
eyes, "that a man so gifted as our poor friend
should ever have cultivated an acquaintance with
a cobbler who deals in the Black Art!"
" Sophy has talked to me much about that
cobbler," said Lady Montfort, with her sweet
half-smile. "It was under his roof that she
first saw Lionel Haughton. But though the
poor man may be an ignorant enthusiast, he is
certainly, by her account, too kind an I simple-
hearted to be a designing impostor."
George. "Possibly. But, to go on with my
story : A few weeks ago, an elderly lame man,
accompanied by a dog, who was evidently poor
dear Sir Isaac, lodged two days with Merle at
Norwich. On hearing this, I myself went yes-
terday to Norwich, saw and talked to ^lerle, and
through this man I hope, more easily, delicate-
ly, and expeditiously than by any other means,
to achieve our object. He evidently can assist
us, and, as evidently, Waife has not told him
that he is flying from Sophy and friends, but
from enemies and persecutors. For Merle, who
is impervious to bribes, and who at first was
churlish and rude, became softened as my hon-
est affection for the fugitive grew clear to him,
and still more when I told him how wretched
Sophv was at her grandfather's disappearance,
and that she might fret herself into a decline.
And we parted with this promise on his side,
that if I would bring down to him either Sophy
herself (which is out of the question), or a line
from her, which, in refen'ing to any circum-
stances while vmder his roof that could only be
known to her and himself, should convince him
that the letter was from her hand, assuring him
that it was for Waife's benefit and at her prayer
that he should bestir himself in the search for
her grandfather, and that he might implicitly
trust to me, he would do all he could to help
us. So far, then, so good. But I have now
more to say, and that is in reference to Sophy
herself. While we are tracking her grandfather,
the peril to her is not lessened. Never was that
peril thoroughly brought before my eyes until I
had heard actually from the police agent the
dreadful character and associations of the man
who can claim her in a father's name. Waife,
it is true, had told you that his son was profli-
gate, spendthrift, lawless — sought her, not from
natural affection, but as an instrument to be
used, roughly and coarsely, for the purpose of
extorting money from Mv. Darrell. But this
stops far short of the terrible reality. Imagine
the effect on her nerves, so depressed as they now
are, nay, on her very life, should this audacious
miscreant force himself here and say, 'Come
with me, you are my child !' And are we quite
sure that out of some refining nobleness of con-
science she might not imagine it her duty to obey,
and to follow him ? The more abject and friend-
less his condition, the more she might deem it
her duty to be by his side. I have studied her
from childhood. She is capable of any error in
judgment, if it be made to appear a martyr's
devoted self-sacrifice. You may well shudder,
my dear cousin. But grant that she were swayed
bv us and by the argument that so to act would
betray and kill her beloved grandfather, still, in
resisting this ruffian's paternal authority, what
violent and painful scenes might ensue ! What
dreadful publicity to be attached forever to her
name! Nor is this all. Grant that her father
does not discover her, but that he is led by his
associates into some criminal offense, and suffers
by the law — her relationship, both to him from
whom you would guard her, and to him whose
hearth you have so tenderly reared her to grace,
suddenly dragged to day — would not the shame
kill her? And in that disclosure how keen would
be the anguish of Darrell !"
" Oh Heavens !" cried Caroline Montfort,
white as ashes, and wringing her hands, " you
'"reeze me with terror. But this man can not be
so fallen as you describe. I have seen him —
spoken with'him in his youth — hoped then to
assist in a task of conciliation, pardon. No-
thintr about him then forboded so fearful a cor-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
223
ruption. He might be vain, extravagant, self-
ish, false — ah, yes ! he was false indeed ! — but
still the ruffian you paint, banded with common
criminals, can not be the same as the gay, dain-
ty, perfumed, fair-faced adventurer with whom
my ill-fated playmate fled her father's house.
You shake your head — what is it you advise ?"
" To expedite your own project — to make at
once the resolute attempt to secure to this poor
child her best, her most rightful protector — to
let whatever can be done to guard her from
danger, or reclaim her father from courses to
which despair may be driving him — to let, I
say, all this be done by the person whose in-
terest in doing it effectively is so paramount —
whose ability to judge of and decide on the
wisest means is so immeasurably superior to all
that lies within our own limited experience of
life."
" But you forget that our friend told me that
he had appealed to — to Mr. Darrell on his return
to England ; that I\Ir. Darrell had peremptorily
refused to credit the claim ; and had sternly
said ihat, even if Sophy's birth could be proved,
he would not place under her father's roof the
grandchild of William Losely."
" True ; and yet you hoped reasonably enough
to succeed where he, poor outcast, had failed."
" Yes, yes ; I did hope that Sophy — her man-
ners formed, her education completed — all her
natm-al exquisite graces so cultured and refined
as to justify pride in the proudest kindred — I
did hope that she should be brought, as it were
by accident, imder his notice ; tbat she would
interest and charm him; and that the claim,
when made, might thus be welcomed with de-
light. Mr. Darrell's abrupt return to a seclu-
sion so rigid forbids the opportunity that might
easily have been found or made if he had re-
mained in London. But suddenly, violently to
renew a claim that such a man has rejected,
before he has ever seen that dear child — before
his heart and his taste plead for her — who would
dare to do it ? or, if so daring, who could hope
success?"
'■ My dear Lady Montfort, my noble cousin,
with repute as spotless as the ermine of your
robe — -who but you?"
" Who but I '? Any one. Mr. Darrell would
not even read through a letter addressed to him
by me?"
George stared with astonishment. Caroline's
face was downcast — her attitude that of pro-
found humihated dejection. ,
" Incredible !" said he, at length. " I have
always suspected, and so indeed has my un-
cle, that Darrell had some cause of complaint
against your mother. Perhaps he might have
supposed that she had not sufficiently watched
over his daughter, or had not sufficiently in-
quired into the character of the governess whom
she recommended to him ; and that this had led
to an estrangement between Darrell and your
mother which could not fail to extend some-
what to yourself. But such misunderstandings
can surely now be easily removed. Talk of his
not reading a letter addressed to him by vou!
Why, do I not remember, when I was on'avisit
to my school-fellow, his son, what influence you,
a mere child yourself, had over that grave, busy
man, then in the height of his career — how you
alone could run without awe into his study —
how you alone had the privilege to arrange his
books, sort his papers — so that we two bovs
looked on you with a solemn respect, as the
depositary of all his state secrets — how vainly
you tried to decoy that poor timid Matilda, his
daughter, into a share of your own audacitv .' —
Is not all this true ?"
j " Oh yes, yes — old days, gone forever!"
I " Do I not remember how you promised that,
before I went back to school, I should hear Dar-
rell read aloud — how you brought the volume
of Milton to him in the evening— how he said,
' No, to-morrow night ; I must go now to the
House of Commons' — how I man-eled to hear
you answer, boldly, 'To-morrow night George
will have left us, and I have promised that he
sliall hear you read' — and how, looking at you
I under those dark brows with serious softness^ he
said, ' Right ; promises, once given, must be
kept. But was it not rash to promise in anoth-
er's name?' — and you answered, half gently,
half pettishly, ' As if you could fail me !' He
took the book without another word, and read.
What reading it was, too ! And do you not re-
member another time, how — "
Lady Moxtfort (interrupting with nervous
impatience). " Ay, a}- — I need no reminding of
all — all ! Kindest, noblest, gentlest friend to a
giddy, heedless child, unable to appreciate the
blessing. But now, George, I dare not, I can
not write to Mr. Darrell.""
George mused a moment, and conjectured
that Lady Montfort had, in the inconsiderate,
impulsive season of youth, aided in the clandes-
tine marriage of Darrell's daughter, and had be-
come thus associated in his mind with the af-
fliction that had imbittered his existence. Were
this so, certainly she would not be the fitting in-
tercessor on behalf of Sophy. His thoughts then
turned to his uncle, Darrell's earliest friend, not
suspecting that Colonel Morleywas actually the
person whom DaiTcll had already appointed his
adviser and representative in all transactions
that might concern the very parties under dis-
cussion. But just as he was about to suggest
the expediency of writing to Alban to return to
England, and taking him into confidence and
consultation. Lady Montfort resumed, in a calm-
er voice, and with a less troubled countenance,
"Who should be the pleader for one whose
claim, if acknowledged, would affect his own
fortunes, but Lionel Haughton ? Hold ! — look
where yonder they come into sight — there, by
the gap in the evergreens. May vre not hope
that Providence, bringing those" two beautiful
lives together, gives a solution to the difficulties
which thwart our action and embarrass our
judgment ? I conceived and planned a blissful
romance the first moment I gathered from So-
phy's artless confidences the effect that had
been produced on her whole train of thought
and feeling by the first meeting with Lionel in
her childhood; by his brotherly, chivalrous kind-
ness, and, above all, by the chance words he let
fall, which discontented her with a life of shift
and disguise, and revealed to her the instincts
of her own honest, truthful nature. An alli-
ance between Lionel Haughton and Sophy seem-
ed to me the happiest possible event that could
befall Guy DaiTcll. The two branches of his
family united — a painful household secret con-
fined to the circle of his own kindred — grant-
oo^
WEL.^.T WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
ing Sophy's claim never perfectly cleared up,
but subject to a tormenting doubt — her future
equally assured — her possible rights equally es-
tablished — Darrell's conscience and pride rec-
onciled to each other. And how, even but as
vnfe to his young kinsman, he would learn to
love one so exquisitely endearing!" [Lady
^Montfort paused a moment, and then resumed.]
'• When I heard that ^Ir. Darrell was about to
marrv again, my project was necessarily arrest-
ed." ■
'• Certainly," said George, "if he formed new
ties, Sophy would be less an object in his exist-
ence, whether or not he recognized her birth.
The alliance between her and Lionel would lose
many of its advantages ; and any address to him
on Sophy's behalf would become yet more un-
gi'aciously received."
La.dy Moxtfort. " In that case I had re-
solved to adopt Sophy as my own child ; lay by
from my abundant income an ample dowry for
her ; and whether Mr. Darrell ever knew it or
not, at least I should have the secret joy to think
that I was saving him from the risk of remorse
hereafter — should she be, as we believe, his
daughter's child, and have been thrown upon
the world destitute ; — yes, the secret joy of feel-
ing that I was sheltering, fostering as a mother,
one whose rightful home might be with him
who in my childhood sheltered, fostered me 1"
George (much affected). " How, in propor-
tion as we know you, the beauty which you vail
from the world outshines that which you can
not prevent the world from seeing I But you
must not let this grateful enthusiasm blind your
better judgment. You think these young per-
sons are beginning to be really attached to each
other. Then it is the more necessary that no
time should be lost in learning how Mr. Darrell
would regard such a marriage. I do not feel
so assured of his consent as you appear to do.
At all events, this should be ascertained before
their happiness is seriously involved. I agree
with you that Lionel is the best intermediator
to plead for Sophy ; and his very generosity in
urging her prior claim #o a fortune that might
otherwise pass to him, is likely to have weight
with a man so generous himself as Guy Darrell
is held to be. But does Lionel yet know all ?
Have you yet ventured to confide to him, or
even to Sophy herself, the nature of her claim
on the man who so proudly denies it?'
"Xo — I deemed it due to Sophy's pride of
sex to imply to her that she would, in fortune
and in social position, be entitled to equality
with those whom she might meet here. And
that is true, if only as the child whom I adopt
and enrich. I have not said more. And only
since Lionel has appeared has she ever seemed
interested in any thing that relates to her par-
entage. From the recollection of her father
she naturally shrinks — she never mentions his
name. But two days ago she did ask timidly,
and with great change of countenance, if it was
through her mother that she was entitled to a
rank higher than she had hitherto known ; and
when I answered ' Yes,' she sighed, and said,
'But my dear grandfather never spoke to me
of her ; he never even saw my mother.' "
George. "And you, I suspect, do not much
like to talk of that mother. I have gathered
from you, unawares to yourself, that she was
not a person you could highly praise ; and to
me, as a boy, she seemed, with all her timidity,
wapvard and deceitful."
Ladv Montfoet. "Alas I how bitterly she
must have suffered — and how young she was!
But you are right ; I can not speak to Sophy
of her mother, the subject is connected with so
much sorrow. But I told her ' that she should
know all soon ;' and she said, with a sweet and
melancholy patience, ' When my poor grandfa-
ther will be by to hear: I can wait.' "
George. " But is Lionel, with his quick in-
tellect and busy imagination, equally patient ?
Does he not guess at the truth ? You have told
' him that you do meditate a project which af-
• fects Guy Darrell, and required his promise not
I to divulge to Darrell his visits In this house."
I Ladt iloxTFORT. "He knows that Sophy's
j paternal grandfather was William Losely. From
I your uncle he heard William Losely's story,
[ and — ■'
I George. " My uncle Alban ?"
Lady Mostfort. " I'es ; the Colonel was
I well acquainted with the elder Losely in former
days, and spoke of him to Lionel with great af-
fection. It seems that Lionel's father knew
him also, and thoughtlessly involved him in his
own pecimiary difficulties. Lionel was not long
a visitor here before he asked me abruptly if
Mr. Waife's real name was not Losely. I was
obliged to own it, begging him not at present to
question me further. He said, then, with much
emotion, that he had a hereditary debt to dis-
charge to WilUam Losely, and that he was the
last person who ought to relinquish belief in the
old man's innocence of the crime for which the
law had condemned him, or to judge him harsh-
ly if the innocence were not substantiated. You
remember with what eagerness he joined in
your search, until you positively forbade his in-
terposition, fearing that should our poor friend
hear of inquiries instituted by one whom he
could not recognize as a friend, and might pos-
sibly consider an emissary of his son's, he would
take yet greater pains to conceal himself. But
from the moment that Lionel learned that So-
phy's grandfather was William Losely his man-
ner to Sophy became yet more tenderly respect-
ful. He has a glorious nature, that young man !
But did your uncle never speak to you of Will-
iam Losely ?"
"Xo. I am not surprised at that. 5Iy un-
cle Alban avoids -painful subjects.' I am only
surprised ihat he should have revived a painful
subject in talk to Lionel. But I now understand
why, when Waife first heard my name, he seem-
ed aftected, and why he so specially enjoined
me never to mention or describe him to my
friends and relations. Then Lionel knows
Losely's story, but not his son's connection with
Darrell ?"
"Certainly not. He knows but what is gen-
erally said in the world, that Darrell's daugh-
ter eloped with a IMr. Hammond, a man of in-
ferior birth, and died abroad, leaving but one
child, who is also dead. Still Lionel does sus-
pect — my verv- injunctions of secrecy must make
him more than suspect — that the Loselys are
somehow or other mixed up with Darrell's fam-
ily historv". Hush! I hear his voice yonder —
they approach."
" My dear cousin, let it be settled between
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
us, tlien, that you frankly and without delay
communicate to Lionel the whole truth, so far
as it is known to us, and put it to him how best
and most touchingly to move Mr. Darrell to-
ward her, of whom we hold him to be the natu-
ral protector. I will write to my uncle to re-
turn to England, that he may assist us in the
same good work. ^leanwhile, I shall have only
good tidings to communicate to Sophy in my
new hopes to discover her grandfather through
Merle."
Here, as the sun was setting, Lionel and So-
phy came in sight ; above their heads, the west-
ern clouds bathed in gold and purple. Sophy,
perceiving George, bounded forward, and reach-
ed his side, breathless.
CHAPTER V.
Lionel Haughton having lost liis heart, it is no longer a
question what HE will do with it. lint what wiil be
done with it is a very grave question indeed.
Lionel forestalled Lady Montfort in the del-
icate and embarrassing subject which her cousin
had urged her to open. For while George, lead-
ing away Sojihy, informed her of his journey to
Norwich, and his interview with Merle, Lionel
drew Lady Montfort into the house, and with
much agitation, and in abrupt, hurried accents,
implored her to withdraw the promise which
forbade him to inform his benefnctor how^ and
where his time had been spent of late. He
burst forth with a declaration of that love with
which Sophy had inspired him, and which Lady
Montfort could not be but prepared to hear.
"Nothing," said he, "but a respect for her
more than filial anxiety at this moment could
have kept my heart thus long silent. But that
heart is so deeply pledged — so utterly hers — that
it has grown an ingratitude, a disrespect to my
generous kinsman, to conceal from him any lon-
ger the feelings which must color my whole fu-
ture existence. Nor can I say to her, ' Can
you return my affection ? — will you listen to my
vo-fts ? — will you accept them at the altar ?' —
until I have won, as I am sure to win, the ap-
proving consent of my more than father."
" You feel sure to win that consent, in spite
of the stain on her grandfather's name ?"
"When Darrell learns that, but for my poor
father's fault, that name might be spotless now
— yes ! I am not IMr. Darrell's son — the trans-
mitter of his line. I believe yet that he will
form new ties. By my mother's side I have no
ancestors to boast of; and you have owned to
me that Sophy's mother was of gentle birth.
Alban Morley told me, when I last saw him,
that Darrell wishes me to marry, and leaves me
free to choose my bride. Yes ;" I have no doubt
of ilr. Darrell's consent. My dear mother will
welcome to her heart the prize so coveted by
mine ; and Charles Haughton's son will have a
place at his hearth for the old age of William
Losely. Withdraw your interdict at once, dear-
est Lady Montfort, and confide to me all that
you have -hitherto left unexplained, but have
promised to reveal when the time came. The
time has come."
" It has come," said Lady Montfort, solemn-
ly ; "and Heaven grant that it may bear the
blessed results which vrere in mv thoughts when
P
I took Sophy as my own adopted daughter, and
hailed in yourself the reconciler of conflicting
circumstance. Not under this roof should you
woo William Losely's grandchild. Doubly arc
you bound to ask Guy Darrell's consent and
blessing. At his hearth woo your Sophy — at
his hands ask a bride in his daughter's child."
And to her wondering listener, Caroline Mont-
fort told her grounds for the belief that con-
nected the last of the Darrells with the convict's
grandchild.
CHAPTER VI.
Credulous ciystal-seers, j-oung lovers, and grave wise
men — all in the same category.
George Morlet set out the next day for Nor-
wich, in which antique city, ever since the Dane
peo]jled it, some wizard or witch, star-reader, or
crystal-seer has enjoyed a mysterious renown,
perpetuating thus through allchange inour land's
social progress the long line of Vala and Saga,
who came with the Raven and Valkyr from the
Scandinavian ])ine shores. Merle's reserve van-
ished on the perusal of Sophy's letter to him.
He informed George that Waife declared he had
plent}' of money, and had even forced a loan
upon Jlerle ; but that he liked an active, wan-
dering life ; it kept him from thinking, and that
a peddler's pack would give him a license for va-
grancy, and a budget to defray its expenses ;
that Merle had been consulted b)- him in the
choice of light popular wares, and as to the route
he might find the most free from competing
rivals. Merle willingly agreed to accompany
George in quest of the wanderer, whom, by the
help of his crystal, he seemed calmly sure he
could track raid discover. Accordingly, they
both set out in the somewhat devious and de-
sultory road which Merle, who had some old
acquaintances among the ancient profession of
hawkers, had advised Waife to take. But Merle,
unhappily confiding more in his crystal than
Waife's steady adherence to the chart prescribed,
led the Oxford scholar the life of a will-of-
the-wisp ; zigzag, and shooting to and fro, here
and there, till, just when George had lost all
patience, Jlerle chanced to see, not in the crj's-
tal, a. pelerine on the neck of a fiirmer's daugh-
ter, wdiich he was morally certain he had him-
self selected for Waife's pannier. And the girl
stating, in reply to his inquiry, that her father
had bought that pelerine as a present for her,
not many days before, of a peddler in a neighbor-
ing town, to the market of which the farmer re-
sorted weekly, ^lerle cast a horary scheme, and
finding the Third House (of short joui'neys) in
favorable aspect to the Seventh House (contain-
ing the object desired), and in conjunction with
the Eleventh House (friends), he gravely inform-
ed the scholar that their toils were at an end, and
that the Hour and the Man were at hand. Not
oversanguine, George consigned himself and
the seer to an early train, and reached the fa-
mous town of Ouzelford, whither, when the
chronological order of our narrative (which we
have so far somewhat forestalled) will permit,
we shall conduct the inquisitive reader.
IMeanwhile Lionel, subscribing without a mur-
mur to Lady ilontfort's injunction to see Sophy-
no more till Darrell had been conferred with
226
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
and his consent won, returned to his lodgings
in London, sanguine of success and flushed with
joy. His intention was to set out at once to
Fawlev ; but on reaching town he found there
a few lines from Darrell himself, in reftly to a
long and affectionate letter which Lionel had
written a few days before, asking permission to
visit the old manor-house ; for amidst all his ab-
sorbing love for Sophy, the image of his lonely
benefactor in that gloomy hermitage often rose
before him. In these lines Darrell, not unkind-
ly, but very peremptorily, declined Lionel's over-
tures. "In truth, my dear young kinsman,"
T\T0te the recluse — "in truth I am, with slow-
ness, and with frequent relapses, laboring through
convalescence from a moral fever. My nen'es
are yet unstrung. I am as one to whom is pre-
scribed the most complete repose — the visits,
even of friends the dearest, forbidden as a peril-
ous excitement. The sight of you — of any one
from the great world — but especiallyof one whose
rich vitality of youth and hope affronts and mocks
my own fiitigued exhaustion, would but irritate,
unsettle, torture me. When I am quite well I
will ask you to come. I shall enjoy your visit.
Till then, on no account, and on no pretext, let
my morbid ear catch the sound of your footfall
on my quiet floor. Write to me often, but tell
me nothing of the news and gossip of the world.
Tell me only of yourself, your studies, your
thoughts, your sentiments, your wishes. Nor
forget my injunctions. Marry young, marry for
love ; let no ambition of power, no greed of gold,
ever mislead you into giving to j-our life a com-
pa;;ion who is not the half of your soul. Choose
with the heart of a man ; I know that you will
choose with the self-esteem of a gentleman ; and
be assured beforehand of the sympathy and sanc-
tion of your
" Churlish but LovrsG Kixsmax."
After this letter, Lionel felt that, at all events,
he could not at once proceed to the old manor-
house in defiance of its owner's prohibition. He
wrote briefly, entreating Darrell to forgive him
if he persisted in the prayer to be received at
Fawley, stating that his desire for a personal
interview was now suddenly become special and
urgent; tliat it not only concerned himself, but
affected his benefactor. By return of post Dar-
rell replied with curt frigidity, repeating, with
even sternness, his refusal to receive Lionel, but
professing himself ready to attend to all that his
kinsman might address to him by letter. '"If
it be as you state," wrote Darrell, with his ha-
bitual irony, " a matter that relates to myself,
I claim, as a lawyer for my own affairs — the pre-
caution I once enjoined to my clients — a written
brief should always precede a personal consult-
ation."
In fact, the proud man suspected that Lionel
had been directly or indirectly addressed on be-
half of Jasper Losely ; and certainly that was
the last subject on which he would have grant-
ed an inteniew to his young kinsman. Lionel,
however, was not perhaj)s sorry to be thus com-
pelled to tiT.st to writing his own and Sophy's
cause. Darrell was one of those men whose
presence insjures a certain awe — one of those
men whom we feel, upon great occasions, less
embarrassed to address by letter than in person.
Lionel's pen moved rapidly — his whole heart
and soul suffused with feeling, and, rushing over
the page, he reminded Darrell of the day when
he had told to the rich man the tale of the love-
ly wandering child, and how, out of his s}Tnpathy
for that child, Darrell's apjiroving. fostering ten-
derness to himself had grown. Thus indirectly
to her forlorn condition had he owed the rise in
his own fortunes. He went through the story
of William Losely as he had gathered it from
Alban ^lorley, and touched pathetically on his
own father's share in that dark history. If Will-
iam Losely really was hurried into crime by the
tempting necessity for a comparatively trifling
sum, but for Charles Haughton, would the ne-
cessity have arisen ? Eloquently then the lover
united grandfather and grandchild in one touch-
ing picture — their love for eaclt-other, their de-
pendence on each other. He enlarged on Sophy's
charming, unselfish, simple, noble character ;
he told how he had again found her ; he dwelt
on the refining accomplishments she owed to
Lady Montfort's care. How came she with Lady
Montfort ? Why had Lady Montfort cherished,
adopted her ? Because Lady Montfort told him
how much her own childhood had owed to Dar-
rell ; because, should Sophy be, as alleged, the
offspring of his daughter, the heiress of his line,
Caroline Montfort rejoiced to guard her from
danger, save her from poverty, and ultimately
thus to fit her to be not only acknowledged with
delight, but with pride. Why had he been en-
joined not to divulge to Darrell that he had again
found, and under Lady ^lontfort's roof, the child
whom, while yet unconscious of her claims, Dar-
rell himself had vainly sought to find, and be-
nevolently designed to succor? Because Lady
^lontfort wished to fulfill her task — complete
Sophy's education, interrupted by grief for her
missing grandfather, and obtain indeed, when
William Losely again returned, some proofs (if
such existed) to corroborate the assertion of
Sophy's parentage. "And," added Lionel,
"Lady ISIontfort seems to fear that she has giv-
en you some cause of displeasure — what I know
not, but which might have induced you to dis-
approve of the acquaintance I had begun with
her. Be that as it may, v.ould you could hear
the reverence with which she ever alludes to
your worth — the gratitude with which she attests
her mother's and her own early obligations to
your intellect and heart !" Finally, Lionel wove
all his threads of recital into the confession of
the deep love into which his romantic memories
of Sophy's wandering childhood had been ripen-
ed by the sight of her graceful, cultured youth.
" Grant," he said, "that her father's tale be false
— and no doubt you have sufficient reasons to
discredit it — still, if you can not love her as
your daughter's- child, receive, know her, I im-
]dore — let her love and revere you — as my wife !
Leave me to protect her from a lawless father —
leave me to redeem, by some deeds of loyalty
and honor, any stain that her grandsire's sen-
tence may seem to fix upon our union. Oil ! if
ambitious before, how ambitious I should be now
— to efface, for her sake as for mine, her grand-
sire's sliame, my father's en-ors ! But if, on the
other hand, she should, on the requisite inqui-
ries, be ])roved to descend from your ancestry —
3'our father's blood in her pure veins — I know,
alas! then that I should have no right to aspire
to such nuptials. Who would even think of her
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
227
descent from a William Losely ? Who would
not be too proud to remember only her descent
from you ? All spots would vanish in the splen-
dor of your renown ; the highest in the land
would court her alliance. And I am but the
pensioner of your bounty, and only on my father's
side of gentle origin. But still I think you would
not reject me — you would place the future to my
credit ; and I would wait, wait patiently, till I
hud won such a soldier's name as would entitle
me to mate with a daughter of the Darrells."
Sheet upon' sheet the young eloquence flowed
on— seeking, with an art of which the writer
was unconscious, all the arguments and points
of view which might be the most captivating to
the superb jiride or to the exquisite tenderness
which seemed to Lionel the ruling elements of
Darrell's character.
He had not to wait long for a reply. At the
first glance of the address on its cover his mind
misgave him ; the hopes that had hitherto elated
his spirit yielded to abrupt forebodings. Dar-
rell's handwriting was habitually in harmony
with the intonations of his voice — singularly
clear, formed with a peculiar and original ele-
gance, yet with the undulating ease of a natu-
ral, candid, impulsive character. And that
decorous care in such mere trifles as the very
sealing of a letter, which, neglected by musing
poets and abstracted authors, is observable in
men of high public station, was in Guy Darrell
significant of the Patrician dignity that im-
parted a certain stateliness to his most ordinary
actions.
But in the letter which lay in Lionel's hand
the writer was scarcely recognizable — the di-
rection blurred, the characters dashed off from
a pen fierce yet tremulous ; the seal a great
blotch of wax ; the device of the heron, with its
soaring motto, indistinct and mangled, as if the
stamping instrument had been i)lucked wrath-
fully away before the wax had cooled. And
when Lionel opened the letter, the handwriting
M'ithin was yet more indicative of mental dis-
order. The very ink looked menacing and
angry — blacker as the pen had been forcibly
driven into the page.
'■L'nhappy boy!" began the ominous epistle,
"is it through you that the false and detested
woman who has withered up the noonday of
my life seeks to dishonor its blighted close ?
Talk not to me of Lady Montfort's gratitude
and reverence ! Talk not to me of her amiable,
tender, holy aim, to obtrude upon my childless
house the grand-daughter of a convicted felon !
Show her these lines, and ask her by what
knowledge of my nature she can assume that
ignominy to my name would be a blessing to
my hearth ? Ask her, indeed, how she can
dare to force herself still u]>on my thoughts —
dare to imagine she can lay me under obliga-
tions—dare to think she can be a something
still in my forlorn existence ! Lionel Haun-hton,
I command you, in the name of all the dead
whom we can claim as ancestors in common, to
tear from j'our heart, as you would tear a thou dit
of disgrace, this image which has bewitched
your reason. Jly daughter, thank Heaven, left
no pledge of an execrable union. Bat a girl
who has been brought up by a thief — a girl
whom a wretch so lost to honor as Jasjier Losely
sought to make an instrument of fraud to my
harassment and disgrace, be her virtues and
beauty what they may, I could not, without in-
tolerable anguish, contemplate as the wife of
Lionel Haughton. But receive her as your wife !
Admit her within these walls! Never, never;
I scorn to threaten you with loss of favor, loss
of fortune. Marry her if you will. You shall
have an ample income secured to you. But
from that moment our lives are separated — our
relation ceases. You will never agqin see nor
address me. But oh, Lionel ! can you — can you
inflict upon me this crowning sorrow? Can
you, for the sake of a girl of whom you have
seen but little, or in the Quixotism of atone-
ment for your father's fault, complete the in-
gratitude I have experienced from those who
owed me most ? I can not think it. I rejoice
that you wrote — did not urge this suit in per-
son. I should not have been able to control my
jjassion ; we might have parted foes. As it is,
I restrain myself with difficulty ! That woman,
that child, associated thus to tear from me the
last affection left to my ruined heart! No!
You will not be so cruel ! Send this, I com-
mand you, to Lady IMontfort. See again neither
her nor the impostor she has been cherishing
for my disgrace . This letter will be your excuse
to break off with both — with both ! '
"Guy Dakrell."
Lionel was stunned. Not for several hours
could he recover self-possession enough to ana-
lyze his own emotions, or discern the sole course
that lay before him. After such a letter from
such a benefactor, no option was left to him.
Sophy must be resigned ; but the sacrifice crushed
him to the earth — crushed the ver}' manhood
out of him. He threw himself on the floor,
sobbing— sobbing, as if body and soul were torn,
each from each, in convulsive spasms.
But send this letter to Lady Montfort ! A
letter so wholly at variance with Darrell's dig-
nity of character — a letter in which rage seemed
lashed to unreasoning frenzy ! Such bitter lan-
guage of hate and scorn, and even insult, to a
woman, and to the very woman who had seemed
to Lionel so reverently to cherish the writer's
name — so tenderly to scheme for the writer's
happiness ! Could he obey a command that
seemed to lower Darrell even more than it could
himible her to whom it was to be sent?
Yet disobey ! What but the letter itself could
explain! Ah — and was there not some strange
misunderstanding with respect to Lady INIont-
fort, which tlie letter itself, and nothing but the
letter, would enable her to dispel ; and if dis-
pelled, might not Darrell's whole mind undergo
a change ? A flash of joy suddenly broke on
his agitated, tempestuous thoughts. Ho forced
himself again to read those blotted, impetuous
lines. Evidently — evidently, while writing to
Lionel — the subject Sop>hy — the man's wrathful
heart had been addressing itself to neither. A
suspicion seized him ; with tliat susjjicion, hope.
He would send the letter, and with but few
words from himself — words that revealed his
immense despair at the thought of relinquishing
Sophy — intimated his belief tluit Dan-ell here
was, from some error of judgment which Lio-
nel could not com])rehend, avenging himself on
Lady Montfort; and closed with his prayer to
her, if so, to forgive lines colored by hasty pas-
228
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
sion, and, for the sake of all, not to disdain
that self-vindication which might perhaps yet
soften a nature possessed of such dcjjths of
sweetness as that which appeared now so cruel
and so bitter! He would not yet despond — not
yet commission her to <^ive his last farewell to
Sophy.
CHAPTER VII.
The Man-eater continues to take his quiet steak out of
Dolly Poole, and is in turn subjected to the anatomical
knife of the dissecting Author. Two traps are laid for
him — one by his fellow Man-eaters — one by that dead-
ly persecutrix, the Woman who tries to save him in
spite of all he can do to be hanged.
Meanwhile the unhappy Adolphus Poole
had been the reluctant but unfailing source
from which Jasper Losely had weekly drawn
the supplies to his worthless and workless exist-
ence. Never, was a man more constrainedly be-
nevolent, and less recompensed for pecuniary
sacrifice by applauding conscience, thaia the
doomed inhabitant of Alhambra Villa. In the
utter failure of his attempts to discover Sophy,
or to induce Jasper to accept Colonel Morley's
proposals, he saw this parasital monster fixed
upon his entrails, like the vulture on those of
the classic sufferer in mythological tales. Jas-
per, indeed, had accommodated himself to this
regular and unlaborious mode of gaining ^^ sa
pauvra vie." To call once a week upon his old
acquaintance, frighten him with a few threats,
or force a death-like smile from agonizing lijjs
by a few villainous jokes, carry off his four sov-
ereigns, and enjoy himself thereon till pay-day
duly returned, was a condition of things that Jas-
per did not greatly care to improve ; and truly had
he said to Poole that his earlier energy had left
him. As a sensualist of Jasper's stamp grows
older and falls lower, indolence gradually usurps
the place once occupied by vanity or ambition.
Jasper was bitterly aware that his old comeli-
ness was gone; that never more could he en-
snare a maiden's heart or a widow's gold. And
when this truth was fully brought home to him,
it made a strange revolution in all his habits. He
cared no longer for dress and gewgaws — sought
rather to hide himself than to parade. In the
neglect of the person he had once so idolized—
in the coarse roughness which now characterized
his exterior — there was that sullen despair which
the vain only know when what had made them
dainty and jocund is gone forever. The liuman
mind, in deteriorating, fits itself to the sj)here
into which it declines. Jasper would not now,
if he could, have driven a cal)riolet down St.
James's Street. He had taken more and more
to the vice of drinking as the excitement of
gambling was withdrawn from him. For how
gamlile with those who had notliing to lose, and
to whom he himself would liavc been pigeon,
not hawk? And as ho found that, on what he
thus drew regularly from Dolly Poole, he could
command all the comforts that his inibruted
tastes now desired, so an odd kind of ])rudence,
for the first time in liis life, came with what
he chose to consider "a settled income." He
mixed with ruffians in their niglitly orgies ;
treated them to cheap potations ; swaggered,
bullied, boasted, but shared in no jjroject of
theirs vvliich might bring into jeopardy the life
which Dolly Poole rendered so comfortable and
secure. His energies, once so restless, were
lulled, j)artly by habitual intoxication, partly by
tlie physical pains which had nestled themselves
into his robust fibres, eftbrts of an immense and
still tenacious vitality to throw ofi' diseases re-
pugnant to its native magnificence of health.
The finest constitutions are those which, when
once seriously im])aired, occasion the direst
pain ; but they also enable the suflPerer to bear
pain that would soon wear away the delicate.
And Jasper bore his pains stoutly, though at
times they so exasperated his temper, that woe
then to any of his comrades whose want of cau-
tion or i-espect gave him the occasion to seek re-
lief in wrath! His hand was asTieavy, liis arm
as stalwart as ever. George Morley had been
rightly informed. Even by burglars and cut-
throats, whose dangers he shunned, while fear-
lessly he joined their circle, Jasper Losely was
regarded with terror. To be the awe of reck-
less men, as he had been the admiration of fool-
ish women, this was delight to his vanity — the
last delight that was left to it. But he thus pro-
voked a danger to which his arrogance was blind.
His boon companions began to grow tired of
him. He had been welcomed to their resort on
the strength of the catch-word or passport which
confederates at Paris had communicated to him,
and of the reputation for great daring and small
scruple which he took from Cutts, who was of
high caste among their mysterious tribes, and
who every now and then flitted over the Conti-
nent, safe and accursed as the Wandering Jew.
But when they found that this Achilles of the
Greeks would only talk big, and employ his wits
on his private exchequer and his thews against
themselves, they began not only to tire of his
imperious manner, but to doubt his fidelity to
the cause. And all of a sudden, Cutts, who
had at first extolled Jasjjcr as one likely to be a
valuable acquisition to the Family of Night, al-
tered his tone, and insinuated that the bravo
was not to be trusted ; that his reckless temper
and incautious talk when drunk would unfit him
for a safe accomplice in any skillful project of
plunder; and that he was so unscrupulous, and
had so little sympathy with their class, that he
might be quite capable of playing spy or turning
king's evidence ; that, in short, it would be well
to rid themselves of his domineering presence.
Still there was that j)hysical power in this lazy
Hercules — still, if the Do-naught, he w^as so
fiercely the Dread-naught — that they did not
dare, despite the advantage of numbers, openly
to brave and defy him. ^Jo one would bell the
cat — and such a cat I They began to lay plots
to get rid of him through the law. Nothing
could be easier to such knowing adepts in guilt
than to transfer to his charge any deed of vio-
lence one of their own gang had committed —
heap damning circumstances round him — privi-
ly apprise justice — falsely swear away his life.
In short, the man was in their way, as a wasp
that has blundered into an ant's nest; and,
while frightened at the size of the intruder,
these honest ants were resolved to get him out
of their citadel alive or dead. Probable it was
that Jasper Losely w^ould meet with his deserts
at last for an ottense of which he was innocent
as a babe unborn.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
229
It is at this juncture that we are readmitted
to the presence of Arabella Crane.
She was standing by a window on the upper
floor of a house situated in a narrow street. The
blind was let down, but she had drawn it a little
aside, and was looking out. By the fireside was
seated a thin, vague, gnome-like figure, perched
comfortless on the edge of a rush-bottomed chair,
with its shadowy knees drawn up till they near-
ly touched its shadowy chin. There was some-
thing about the outline of this figure so indefin-
ite and unsubstantial, that you might have taken
it for an optical illusion, a spectral apparition
on the \)oint of vanishing. This thing was. how-
ever, possessed of voice, and was speaking in a
low but distinct hissing whisjier. As the whis-
per ended, Arabella Crane, without turning her
face, spoke, also under her breath.
"You are sure that, so long as Losely draws
this v,-eekly stipend from the man whom he has
in his power, he will persist in the same course
of life. Can you not warn him of the danger ?"
'•Peach against pals! I dare not. No trust-
ing him. He would come down, mad with
brandy, make an infernal row, seize two or
three by the throat, dash their heads against
each other, blab, bully, and a knife w'ould be
out, and a weasand or two cut, and a carcass or
so drop])ed into the Thames, mine certainly —
his perhaps."
" You say you can keep back this plot against
him for two or three days ?"
"For two days— yes. I should be glad to
save General Jas. He has the bones of a fine
fellow, and if he had not destroyed himself by
brandy, he might have been at the top of the
tree— in the ])rofession. But he is fit for no-
thing now."
" Ah ! and you say the brand}' is killing him ?"
"Xo, he will not be killed by brandy, if he
continues to drink it among the same jolly set."
"And if he were left without the money to
spend among these terrible companions, he
would no longer resort to their meetings ? You
are right there. The same vanity that makes
him pleased to be the great man in that society
would make him shrink from coming among
them as a beggar."
"And if he had not the wherewithal to pay
the weekly subscrijnion, there would be an ex-
cuse to shut the door in his face. All these fel-
lows wish to do is to get rid of him ; and if by fair
means, there would be no necessity to resort to
foul. The only danger would be that from which
you have so often saved him. In despair would
he not commit some violent, rash action — a
street-robbery, or something of the kind? He
has courage for any violence, but no longer the
cool head to plan a scheme which would not be
detected. Y'ou see I can prevent mj' pals join-
ing in such risks as he may propose, or letting
him (if he were to ask it) into any adventure
of their own, for they know that I am a safe ad-
viser ; they respect me ; the law has never been
able to lay hold of me ; and when I say to them,
'That fellow drinks, blabs, and boasts, and would
bring us all into trouble,' they will have nothing
to do with him ; but I can not prevent his doing
what he pleases out of his own muddled head,
and with his own reckless hand."
" But you will keep in his confidence, and let
me know all that he proposes?"
"l''es."
" And meanwhile he must come to me. And
this time I have more hope than ever, since his
health gives way, and he is weary of crime it-
self. Mr. Cutts, come near — softly. Look —
nay, nay, he can not see you from below, and
you are screened by the bhnd. Look, I say,
where he sits."
She pointed to a room on the ground-floor in
the opposite house, where might be dimly seen
a dull, red fire in a sordid grate, and a man's
form, the head ijillowed upon arms that rested
on a small table. On the table a glass, a bottle.
"It is thus that his mornings pass," said Ara-
bella Crane, with a wild, bitter pity in the tone
of her voice. "Look, I say, is he formidable
now ? can you fear him ?"
" Very much indeed," muttered Cntts. " He
is only stupefied, and he can shake off a doze as
quickly as a biill-dog does when a rat is let into
his kennel."
"Mr. Cutts, you tell me that he constantly
carries about him the same old ]:ocket-book
which he says contains his fortune; in other
words, the papers that frighten his victim into
giving him the money which is now the cause
of his danger. There is surely no pocket 3'ou
can not pick or get picked, Mr. Cutts ? Fifty
pounds for that book in three hours."
"Fifty pounds are not enough ; the man he
sponges on would give more to have those pa-
pers in his power."
"Possibly; but Losely has not been dolt
enough to trust you sufficiently to enable you to
know how to commence negotiations. Even if
the man's name and address be among those pa-
pers, you could not make use of the knowledge
without bringing Jasper himself upon you ; and
even if Jasper were out of the way, you would
not have the same hold over his victim : you
know not the circumstances ; you could make
no story out of some incoherent rambling let-
ters ; and the man, who, I can tell you, is by
nature a +)ully, and strong, compared with any
other man but Jasper, would seize you by the
collar ; and you would be lucky if you got out
of his house with no other loss than the letters,
and no other gain but a broken bone. Pooh!
you know all that, or you would have stolen the
book, and made use of it before. Fifty pounds
for that book in three hours ; and if Jasper
Losely be safe and alive six months hence, fifty
pounds more, Mr. Cutts. See! he stirs not —
he must be fast asleep. Now is the moment."
"AVhat, in his own room!" said Cutts, with
contempt. "Why, he would know who did it;
and where should I be to-morrow ? No — in the
streets ; any one has a right to pick a pocket in
the Queen's highways. In three hours you shall
have the book."
CHAPTER VHI.
Jlercury i3 the Patron Deity of Mercantile Speculators,
as well as of crack-brained Poets; indeed, he is much
more favorable, more a friend at a pinch, to the former
class of his proteges than he is to the latter.
"PooLrii per hoftes Mercurius celer
DenbO paventem su-tulit aere."
Poole was sitting with his wife after dinner.
He had made a good speculation that day ; little
330
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Johnny would be all the better for it a few years
hence, and some other man's little Johnnys all
the worse — but each for himself in this world !
Poole was therefore basking in the light of his
gentle helpmate's approving smile. He had
taken an extra glass of a venerable port-wine,
which had passed to his cellar from the bins of
Uncle Sam. Commercial prosperity without,
conjugal felicity within, the walls of Alhambra
Villa; surely Adolphus Poole is an enviable man I
Does he look so ? The ghost of what he was
but a few months ago! His cheeks have fallen
in ; his clothes hang on him like bags ; there is
a won-ied, haggard look in his eyes, a nervous
twitch in his lips, and every now and then he
looks at the handsome Parisian clock on the
chimney-piece, and then shifts his posture, snubs
his connubial angel, who asks "what ails him?"
refills his glass, and stares on the fire, seeing
strange shapes in the mobile aspects of the
coals.
To-morrow brings back this weekly spectre!
To-morrow Jasper Losely, punctual to the stroke
of eleven, returns to remind him of that past
which, if revealed, will blast the future. And re-
vealed it might be any hour, despite the biibe for
silence which he must pay with his own hands,
under his own roof. Would he trust another with
the secret of that payment ? — horror ! Would
he visit Losely at his own lodging, and pay him
there ? — murder ! Would he appoint him some-
where in the streets — run the chance of being
seen with such a friend ? Respectability con-
fabulating with offal I — disgrace ! And Jasper
had on the last two or three visits been pecul-
iarly disagreeable. He had talked loud. Poole
feared that his wife might have her ear at the
keyhole. Jasper had seen the parloi'-raaid in
the passage as he went out and caught her
round the waist. The parlor-maid had com-
plained to INIrs. Poole, and said she should leave
if so insulted by such anuglv blackguard. Fan-
cy I what the poor lady-killer has come to I ^Irs.
Poole had grown more and more inquisitive and
troublesome on the subject of such extraordinary
visits ; and now, as her husband stirred the fire
— having roused her secret ire by his previous
unmanly snubbings, and Mrs. Poole being one
of those incomparable wives who have a perfect
command of temper, who never reply to angry
words at the moment, and who always, with ex-
quisite calm and self-possession, pay off every
angry word by an amiable sting at a right mo-
ment — Mrs. Poole, I say, thus softly said :
" Sammy, duck, we know what makes oo so
cross; but it sha'n't vex 00 long, Sammy. That
dreadful man comes to-morrow. He always
comes the same day of tlie week."
" Hold your tongue, Mrs. Poole."
"Yes, Sammy dear, I'll hold my tongue.
But Sammy sha'n't be imposed upon by mendi-
cants ; for I know he is a mendicant — one of
those sharpers or black-legs who took oo in,
poor innocent Sam, in oo wild l)achelor days,
and 00 good heart can't bear to see him in dis-
tress ; but there must be an end to all things."
" Mrs. Poole — Mrs. Poole — will you stop your
fool's jaw or not ?"
" ^ly poor dear hubby," said the angel,
squeezing out a mild tear, " oo will be in good
hands to advise oo ; for I've been and told Pal"
" You have," faltered Poole, " told your father
— ^v^ou have I" and the expression of his face be-
came so ghastly that Mrs. Poole grew seriously
terrified. She had long felt that there was
something very suspicious in her husband's sub-
mission to the insolence of so rude a visitor.
But she knew that he was not brave ; the man
might intimidate him by threats of personal
violence. The man might probably be some
poor relation, or some one whom Poole had
ruined, either in by-gone discreditable sporting
days, or in recent respectable mercantile specu-
lations. But at that ghastly look a glimpse of
the real truth broke upon her ; and she stood
speechless and appalled. At this moment there
was a loud ring at the street-door bell. Poole
gathered himself up, and staggered out of the
room into the passage.
His wife remained without motion; for the
first time she conceived a fear of her husband.
Presently she heard a harsh female voice in the
hall, and then a joyous exclamation from Poole
himself. Recovered by these unexpected sounds,
she v>-ent mechanically forth into the passage,
just in time to see the hems of a dark iron-gray
dress disappearing within Poole's study, while
Poole, who had opened the study door, and was
bowing in the iron-gray dress obsequiously,
turned his eye toward his wife, and striding to-
ward her for a moment, whispered — '• Go up
stairs, and stir not," in a tone so unlike his
usual gi'uff accents of command, that it cowed
her out of the profound contempt with which
she habitually received, while smilingly obey-
ing, his marital authority.
Poole, vanishing into his study, carefully
closed his door, and would have caught his lady
visitor by both her hands ; but she waved him
back, and, declining a seat, remained sternly-
erect.
'• ^Ir. Poole, I have but a few words to say.
The letters which gave Jasper Losely the power
to extort money from you are no longer in his
possession ; they are in mine. Yon need fear
him no more — you will fee him no more."
" Oh I" ci-ied Poole, falling on his knees, "the
blessing of a father of a family — a babe not six
weeks born — be on your blessed, blessed head !"
" Get up, and don't talk nonsense. I do not
give you these papers at present, nor burn them.
Instead of being in the power of a muddled, ir-
resolute diimkard, you are in the power of a
vigilant, clear-brained woman. You are in my
j)ower, and you will act as I tell you."
" You can ask nothing wrong, I am sure,"
said Poole, his grateful enthusiasm much abated.
"Command me; but the papers can be of no
use to you ; I will pay for them handsomely."
" Be silent and listen. I retain these papers
— first, because Jas])er Losely must not know
that they ever passed to my hands ; secondly,
because you must inflict no injury on Losely
himself Betray me to him, or try to render
himself up to the law, and the documents will
be used against you ruthlessly. Obey, and you
have nothing to fear, and nothing to pay.
When Jasper Losely calls on you to-morrow,
ask him to show you the letters. He can not ;
he will make excuses. Decline peremptorily,
but not insultingly (his temper is fierce), to pay
him farther. He' will perliaps charge you with
having hired some one to purloin his pocket-
book; let him think it. Stoi) — your window
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
231
here opens on the ground ; a garden without :
— Ah I have three of the poUce in that garden,
in sight of the window. Point to them if he
threaten you ; summon them to your aid, or
pass out to them, if he actually attempt violence.
But when he has left the house, you must urge
no charge against him ; he must be let olf un-
scathed. You can be at no loss for excuse in
this mercy: a friend of former times — needy,
unfortunate, whom habits of drink maddened
for the moment — necessary to eject him, inhu-
man to prosecute— any story you please. The
next day you can, if you choose, leave London
for a short time ; I adrise it. But his teeth will
be drawn ; he v.ill most probably never trouble
you again. I know his character. There, I
have done ; open the door. Sir."
CHAPTER IX.
The wreck and the life-boat ia a fog.
The next day, a little after noon, Jasper
Losely, coming back from Alhambra Yilla —
furious, desperate, knowing not where to turn
for bread, or on whom to pour his rage — beheld
suddenly, in a quiet, half-built street, which led
from the suburb to the New Road, Arabella
Crane standing right in his path. She had
emerged from one of the many straight inter-
secting roads which characterize that crude
nebula of a future city : and the woman and
the man met thus face to face ; not another
passer-by visible in the thoroughfare ; at a dis-
tance the dozing hack cab-stand; round and
about them carcasses of brick and mortar —
some with gaunt scaffolding fixed into their
ribs, and all looking yet more weird in their
raw struggle into shape tlirough the livid haze
of a yellow fog.
Losely, seeing Arabella thus planted in his
way, recoiled; and the superstition in which
he had long associated her image with baiHed
schemes and perilous hours, sent the ^vrathful
blood back through his veins so quickly that he
heard his heart beat I
3Ies. Cr-^xe. " So ! Tou see we can not
help meeting, Jasper dear, do what you wiU to
shun me."
LosELT. "I — I — you always startle me sol
— you are in town, then ? — to stay ? — your old
quarters?"
!Mrs. Ceaxe. " Why ask ? You can not wish
to know where I am — you would not call. But
how fares it ? — what do you do ? — how do you
live ? You look ill — Poor Jasper I'
Losely (fiercely). "Hang your pity, and give
me some money."
:Mes. Ceaxe (calmly laying her lean hand on
the arm which was darted forward more in men-
ace than entreaty, and actually terrifying the
Gladiator as she linked that deadly arm into her
own). "I said you would always find me when
at the worst of your troubles. And so, Jasper,
it shall be till this right hand of yours is power-
less as the clay at our feet. Walk — walk ; you
are not afraid of me ? — walk on, tell me all.
TMiere have you just been?"
Jasper, therewitli reminded of his wrongs,
poured out a volley of abuse on Poole, commu-
nicating to ilrs. Crane the whole story of his
claims on that gentleman — the loss of the pock-
et-book filched from him, and Poole's knowl-
edge that he was thus disarmed.
"And the coward," said he, grinding his
teeth, " got out of his window — and three po-
licemen in his garden. He must have bribed a
pickpocket — low knave that he is. But I shall
find out — and then — "
'•And then, Jasper, how will you be better
oft"? — the letters are gone ; and Poole has yon
in his power if you threaten him again. Kow,
hark you ; you did not murder the Italian who
: was found stabbed in the fields yonder a week
ago? £100 reward for the murderer."
I "I — no. How coldly you ask! I have hit
hard in fair fight — murdered, never. If ever I
take to that, I shall begin with Poole."
" But I tell you, Jasper, that you are suspected
of that murder ; that j^lk ^iH t)e accused of
that murder; and if I hSS not thus fortunately
met you, for that murder you would be tried
and hanged."
" Are you serious ? Who could accuse me ?"
" Those who know that you are not guilty —
! those who coYild make you appear so — the ril-
! lains with whom you horde, and drink, and
brawl! Have I ever been wi-ong in my wam-
1 ings yet ?"
" This is too hon-ible," faltered Losely, think-
' ing not of the conspiracy against his life but of
her prescience in detecting it. '• It must be
I witchcraft, and nothing else. How cotild you
I learn what you tell me ?"
"That is my affair; enough for you that I
1 am right. Go no more to those black haunts ;
they are even now full of snares and pitfalls for
you. Leave London, and you are safe. Trust
to me."
" And where shall I go?"
" Look you, Jasper ; you have worn out this
Old World — no refuge for you but the New.
Whither went your father, thither go you.
Consent, and you shall not want. You can not
discover Sophy. You have failed in all attempts
on Darrell's purse. But agree to sail to Aus-
tralasia, and I will engage to you an income
larger than you sa\- you extorted from Poole,
to be spent in those safer shores."
" And you will go with me, I suppose," said
Losely, with ungracious snllenness.
" Go with you, as you please. Be where you
are — yes."
The rufiian bounded with rage and loathing.
"Woman, cross me no more, or I shall be
goaded into — "
" Into killing me — you dare not ! Meet my
eye if you can — you dare not ! Harm me, yea
a hair of my head, and yoiu' moments are num-
bered — ^your doom sealed I Be we two togeth-
er in a desert — not a human eye to see the deed
; — not a human ear to receive my groan, and
still I should stand by your side unharmed. I,
■ who have returned the wrongs received from
you by vigilant, untiring benefits — I, who have
saved you from so many enemies and so many
dangers — I, who, now when all the rest of earth
shun you, when all other resource fails — I, who
I now say to you, ' Share my income, but be hon-
lestl' — /receive injury from that hand! No;
the guilt would be too unnatural — Heaven would
not permit it. Try, and your arm will fall pal-
sied bv vour side I"
"WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
Jasper's bloodshot eves dropped beneath the
woman's fixed and scorching gaze, and his lips,
white and tremulous, refused to breathe the
fierce curse into which his brutal nature con-
centrated its fears and its hate. He walked
on in gloomy silence ; but some words she had
let fall suggested a last resort to his own dar-
ing.
She had ui-ged him to quit the Old World for
the Xew, but that had been the very proposition
conveyed to him from Darrell. If that proposi-
tion, so repugnant to the indolence that had
grown over him, must be embraced, better, at
least, sail forth alone, his own master, than be
the dependent slave of this abhorred and ]jerse-
cuting benefactress. His despair gave him the
determination he had hitlierto lacked. He
would seek Darrell himself, and make the best
compromise he couldj^.This resolve passed into
his mind as he stalked on through the yellow
fog, and his nei'ves recovered from their irrita-
tion, and his thoughts regained something of
their ancient craft, as the idea of escaping from
Mi's. Crane's vigilance and charity assumed a
definite shape.
" Well," said he, at length, dissimulating his
repugnance, and with an eflfort at his old half-
coaxing, half-rollicking tones, "you certainly
are the best of creatures ; and, as you say,
'Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I ne'er could injure you,'
ungi-ateful dog though I must seem, and very
likely am. I own I have a horror of Australia
— such a long sea-voyage ! New scdnes no lon-
ger attract me ; I am no longer young, though
I ought to be ; but, if you insist on it, and will
really condescend to accompany me, in spite of
all my sins to you, why, I can make up my mind.
And as to honesty, ask those infernal rascals
who, you say, would swear away my life, and
they will tell you that I have been as innocent
as a lamb since my return to England ; and
that is my guilt in their villainous eyes. As
long as that infamous Poole gave me enough
for my humble wants I was a reformed man. I
wish to keep reformed. Very little suffices for
me now. As you say, Australia may be the
best place for me. When shall we sail?"
" Are you serious?"
" To be sure."
" Then I will inquire the days on which the
vessels start. You can call on me at my own
old home, and all shall be arranged. Oh, Jas-
per Losely, do not avoid this last chance of es-
cape from the perils that gather round you."
I " No ; I am sick of life — of all things except
repose. Arabella, I suffer horrible pain."
I He groaned, for he spoke truly. At that mo-
ment the gnaw of the monster anguish, which
fastens on the nerves like a wolfs tooth, was so
keen that he longed to swell his groan into a
roar. The old fable of Hercules in the poison-
ed tunic was surely invented by some skilled
physiologist to denote the truth that it is only in'
the strongest frames that pain can be pushed
into its extremest torture. The heart of the
grim woman was instantly and thoroughly soft-
ened. She paused ; she made him lean on her
arm; she wiped the drops from his brow; she
addressed him in the most soothing tones of
pity. The spasm passed av.-ay _suddenly, as it
does in neuralgic agonies, and with it any grat-
itude or any remorse in the breast of the suf-
ferer.
"Yes," he said, "I will call on you; but
meanwhile I am without a farthing." Oh, do
not fear that if you helped me now I should
again shun you. I have no other resource left ;
nor have I now the spirit I once had. I no lon-
ger now laugh at fatigue and danger."
" But will you swear by all that you yet hold
sacred — if, alas ! there be aught which is sacred
to you — that you will not again seek the com-
pany of those men who are conspiring to entrap
you into the hangman's hands?"
" Seek them again, the uhgrateful, cowardly
blackguards ! No, no ; I promise you that — sol-
emnly ; it is medical aid that I want ; it is rest,
I tell you — rest, rest, rest."
Arabella Crane drew forth her purse. "Take
what you will," said she, gently. Jasper, wheth-
er from the desire to deceive her, or because her
alms were really so distasteful to his strange
kind of pride that he stinted to bare necessity
the appeal to them, contented himself with a
third or a fourth of the sovereigns that the purse
contained ; and after a few words of thanks and
promises he left her side, and soon vanished in
the fog that grew darker and darker as the
night-like wintery day deepened over the silenced
thoroughfares.
The woman went her way through the mists,
hopeful — through the mists went the man, hope-
ful also. Recruiting himself by slight food and
strong drink at a tavern on his road, he stalked
on to Darrell's house in Carlton Gardens ; and,
learning there that Darrell was at Fawley, hast-
ened to the station from which started the train
to the town nearest to the old Manor House ;
reached that town safely, and there rested for
the night.
ATHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
203
BOOK IX.
CHAPTER I.
The secret Trliich Guy Darrell did not confide to Altian
iloi'lev.
It was a serene noonday in that melancholy
interlude of the seasons when autumn has real-
ly ceased — winter not yet visibly begun. The
same hired vehicle which had bfcnie Lionel to
Fawley, more tlian five years ago, stopped at
the pate of the wild, umbrageous sirass-land
that surrounded the antique !Manor House. It
had been engaged, from the nearest railway
station on the London Road, by a lady, with
a female companion who seemed her servant.
The di-iver dismounted, opened the door of the
vehicle, and the lady, bidding him wait there
till her return, and saying a few words to her
comj^anion, descended, and drawing her cloak
around her, walked on alone toward the Manor
House. At first her step was firm, and her pace
quick. She was still under the excitement of
the resolve in v.-hich the journey from her home
had been suddenly conceived and promptly ac-
complished. But as the path wound on through
the stillness of venerable groves, her courage
began to fail her. Her feet loitered, her eyes
wandered round vaguely, timidly. The scene
was not new to her. As she gazed, rushingly
gathered over her sorrowful, shrinking mind
memories of sportive, happy summer days, spent
in childhood amidst those turt's and shades —
memories, more agitating, of the last visit (child-
hood then ripened into blooming youth) to the
ancient dwelling which, yet concealed from view
by the swells of the undulating ground and the
yellow boughs of the giant trees, betrayed its
site by the smoke rising thin and dim against
the limpid atmosjihere. She bent down her
head, closing her eyes as if to shut out less the
face of the landscape than the images that rose,
ghost-like, up to people it, and sighed heavily,
heavily. Xow — hard by, roused from its bed
among the fern, the doe that Darrell had tamed
into companionship had watched with curiosity
this strange intruder on its solitary range. But
at the sound of that heavy sigh, "the creature,
emboldened, left its halting-place, and stole
close to the saddened woman, touching her very
dress. Doubtless, as Darrell's companion in his
most musing hours, the doe was famiHarized to
the sound of sighs, and associated the sound
with its gentlest notions of humanitv.
The lady, starting, raised her drooping lids,
and met those soft dark eyes, dark and soft as
her own. Round the animal's neck there was
a simple collar, with a silver plate, fresh and
new, evidently placed there recently ; and as
the creature thrust forward its head, as if for
the caress of a wonted hand, the lady read the
inscription. The words were in Italian, and
may be construed thus : '• Female, yet not faith-
less ; fostered, yet not ungrateful." As she read,
her heart so swelled, and her resolve so desert-
ed her, that she turned as if she had received a
sentence of dismissal, and went back some liastj
paces. The doe followed her till she ];aused
again, and then it went slowly down a narrow
path to the left, which led to 'the banks of the
little lake.
The lady had now recovered herself. " It is
a duty, and it must be done," she muttered ;
and letting down the vail she had raised on en-
tering the demesne, she humed on, not retrac-
ing her steps in the same pfih, but taking that
into which the doe had stricken — perhaps in the
confused mistake of a mind absorbed and absent
— perhaps in revived recollection of vhe locali-
ties ; for the way thus to the house was shorter
than by the weed-grown carriage-road. The
lake came in view, serene and glassy ; half leaf-
less woodlands reflected far upon its quiet wa-
ters ; the doe halted, lifted its head and sniffed
the air, and, somewhat quickening its pace, van-
ished behind one of the hillocks clothed with
brushwood, that gave so primitive and forest-
like a character to the old ground. Advancing
still, there now, at her right hand, grew out of
the landscajje the noble turrets of the unfinished
pile ; and, close at her left, under a gnarled fan-
tastic thorn-tree, the still lake at his feet reflect-
ing his stiller shadow, reclined Guy Darrell, the
doe nestled at his side.
So unexpected this sight — he, whom she came
to seek yet feared to see, so close upon her way
— the lady uttered a fiiint btit sharp cry, and
Darrell sprang to his feet. She stood "before
him, vailed, mantled, bending as a suppliant.
'•AvauntI" he faltered, wildly. "Is this a
spirit my own black solitude conjures up — or is
it a delusion, a dream ?"
"It is I — I ! — the Caroline dear to you once,
if detested now! Forgive me! Xot for myself
I come." She flung back her vail — her eyes
pleadingly sought his.
" So," said DaiTell, gathering his arms round
his breast in the gesture peculiar to him when
seeking either to calm a more turbulent move-
ment, or to confirm a sterner resolution of his
heart — " so ! Caroline, Marchioness of ilont-
fort, we are then fated to meet face to face at
last ! I understand — Lionel Haughton sent, or
showed to you, my letter ?"
"Oh, Mr. Darrein how could you have the
heart to write in such terms of one who — "'
" One who had taken the heart from my bo-
som and trampled it into the mire. True, frib-
bles will saj-, 'Fie ! the vocabulary of fine gen-
tlemen has no harsh terms for women.' Gal-
lants, to whom love is pastime, leave or are left
with elegant sorrow and courtly bows. ]Madam,
I was never such airy gallant. I am but a man,
unhappily in earnest — a man who placed in those
hands his life of life — who said to you, while yet
in his prime, ' There is my future — take it, till
it vanish out of earth I' You have made that
life substanceless as a ghost — that future barren
as the grave. And when you dare force your-
self again upon my way, and would dictate laws
234
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
to my very hearth — when I speak as a man
what plain men must feel — 'Oh, Mr. Darrell!'
says your injured ladyship, 'how can you have
the heart ?' Woman ! were you not false as the
falsest? Falsehood has no dignity to awe re-
buke — falsehood no privilege of sex."
" Darrell — Darrell — Darrell — spare me,
spare me ! I have been so jiuuished"- — I am so
miserable !"
" You I — punished ! — What ! j^ou sold your-
self to youth, and sleek looks, and grand titles,
and the flattery of a world ; and your rose-leaves
were crumpled in the gorgeous marriage-bed.
Adequate punishment I — a crumpled rose-leaf!
True, the man was a — But why should I speak
ill of him ? It was he who was punished, if, ac-
cepting his rank, yon recognized in himself a
nothingness that you could neither love nor
honor. False and ungrateful alike to the man
you chose — to the man you forsook ! And now
you have, buried one, and you have schemed to
degrade the other."
"Degrade I — Oh, it is that charge which has
stung me to the quick ! All the others I de-
serve. But that charge ! Listen — you shall
listen I"
" I stand here resigned to do so. Say all you
will now, for it is the last time on earth I lend
my ears to your voice."
'•Be it so — the last time." She paused to
recover speech, collect thoughts, gain strength ;
and strange though it may seem to those who
have never loved, amidst all her grief and hu-
miliation, there was a fearful delight in that
presence from which she had been exiled since
her youth — nay, delight unaccountable to her-
self, even in that rough, vehement, bitter tem-
pest of reproach; for an instinct told her that
there would have been no hatred in the lan-
guage had no love been lingering in the soul.
" Speak," said Darrell, gently softened, de-
spite himself, by her evident struggle to control
emotion.
Twice she began — twice voice failed her. At
last her words came forth audibly. She began
with her plea for Lionel and Sophy, and gath-
ered boldness by her zeal on their behalf. She
proceeded to vindicate her own motives — to ac-
quit herself of his harsh charge. She scheme
for Ills degradation! She had been too carried
away by her desire to promote his happiness —
to guard him from the i>ossibility of a self-re-
proach. At first he listened to her with a
haughty calmness, merely saying, in reference
to Sophy and Lionel, " I have nothing to add
or to alter in the resolution I have communi-
cated to Lionel." But when siie thus insensi-
bly mingled their cause with her own, his im-
patience broke out. " 'Sly happiness ! Oli, well
have you proved the sincerity with which you
schemed for that ! Save me from self-reproach !
— me I Has Lady Montfort so wliolly forgotten
that slie was once Caroline Lyndsay that she
can assume the part of a warning angel against
the terrors of self-reproach ?"
"Ah!" she murmured, faintly, "can you
suppose, however fickle and thankless I may
seem to you — "
" Seem !" he repeated.
" Seem !" she said again, but meekly — " seem,
and seem justly ; yet can you suj)pose that when
I became free to utter my remorse — to sj>eak of
gratitude, of reverence — I was insincere ? Dar-
rell, Darrell, you can not think so! That let-
ter which reached you abroad nearly a year ago,
in which I laid my pride of woman at your feet,
as I lay it now in coming here — that letter, in
which I asked if it were impossible for you to
pardon, too late for me to atone — was Mritten
on my knees. It was the outburst of my veiy
heart. Js ay, nay, hear me out. Do not imagine
that I would again obtrude a hope so contempt-
uously crushed !" (A deep blush came over her
cheek.) "I blame j'ou not, nor, let me say it,
did your severity bring that shame which I
might have justly felt had I so written to any
man on earth but you — you, so reverenced from
my infancy, that — "
"Ay," interrupted Darrell, fiercely, "aj-, do
not fear that I should misconceive you ; you
would not so have addressed the young, the fair,
the hapjiy. Xo ! you, proud beauty, witli hosts,
no doubt, of supplicating wooers, would have
thrust that hand into the flames before it wrote
to a young man, loved as the young are loved,
what without shame it wrote to the old man, rev-
erenced as the old are reverenced! But my
heart is not old, and your boasted reverence was
a mocking insult. Your letter, torn to pieces,
was returned to you without a word — insult for
insult! You felt no shame that I should so
rudely reject 3'our pity. Why should you ? Re-
jected pity is not rejected love. The man was
not less old because he was not reconciled to
age."
This construction of her tender penitence —
this explanation of his bitter scorn — took Caro-
line Montfort wholly by surprise. From wliat
writhing agonies of lacerated self-love came that
pride which was but self-depreciation ? It was
a glimpse into the deeper rents of his charred
and desolated being, which increased at once
her yearning affection and her passionate de-
spair. Vainly she tried to utter the feelings tliat
; crowded upon her! — vainly, vainly! Woman
'can murmur, "I have injured you — forgive!"
j when she can not exclaim, "You disdain me,
I but I love !" Vainly, vainly her bosom heaved
j and her lips moved under the awe of his fiash-
j ing eyes and the grandeur of his indignant
fro^^^l.
"Ah !" he resumed, pursuing his own thoughts
j with a sombre intensity of passion that rendered
I him almost unconscious of her presence — " Ah !
I I said to myself, 'Oh, she believes that she has
! been so mourned and missed that my soul would
spring back to her false smile ; that I could be
so base a slave to my senses as to pardon the
traitress because her face was fair enough to
haunt my dreams. She dupes herself; she is no
necessity to my existence — I have wrenched it
from her power years, long years ago ! I will
show lier, since again she deigns to remember
me, that I am not so old as to be grateful for
the leavings of a heart. I will Jove another — I
will be beloved. She shall not say with secret
triumph, ' The old man dotes in rejecting me.' "
"Darrell, Darrell — unjust — cruel; kill me
rather tlian talk tlius !"
He heeded not her cry. His words rolled on
in that wonderful, varying music which, whether
in tenderness or in wrath, gave to his voice a
magical power — fascinating, hushing, overmas-
terins; human souls.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
" But — vou have the triumph ; see, I am still
alone I I sought the world of the young — the
marriage mart of the Beautiful once more.
Alas I if my eye was cajjtured for a moment, it
was by something that reminded me of you. I
saw a faultless face, radiant with its virgin
blush ; moved to it. I drew near — sighing, turned
awav : it was not you ! I heard the silvery '[
laugh of a life fresh as an April morn. ' Hark !' ;
I said, ' is not that the sweet mirth-note at
which all my cares were dispelled ?' Listening,
I forgot my weight of years. Why ! because
listening, I remembered you. ' Heed not the j
treacherous blush and the beguiling laugh,'
whispered Prudence. ' Seek in congenial mind :
a calm companion to thine own.' 31ind I — oh
frigid pedantry I ilind I — had not yours been a ■
volume open to my eyes, in every page, me- ;
thought, some lovely poet-truth never revealed [
to human sense before ! Ko ; you had killed to j
me all womanhood ! Woo another I — wed an- 1
other! 'Hush,' I said, 'it shall he. Eighteen I
years since we parted — seeing her not, she re- i
mains eternally the same ! Seeing her again,
the very change that time must have brought
will cure.' I saw you — all the Past rushed back j
in that stolen moment. I fled — never more to ^
dream that I can shake oft" the curse of memory-
— blent with each drop of my blood — woven i
with each tissue — throbbing in each nerve — bone ■
of my bone, and flesh of my flesh — poison-root '
from which every thought buds to wither — the
curse to have loved and to have trusted you I"
" Merciful Heaven I can I bear this ?" cried
Caroline, clasping her hands to her bosom.
" And is my sin so great — is it so unpardonable !
Oh, if in a heart so noble, in a nature so great,
mine was the unspeakable honor to inspire an
aflection thus enduring, must it be only — only
as a curse I Why can I not repair the past ?
You have not ceased to love me. Call it hate
— it is love still I And now, no barrier between
our lives, can I never, never again — never, now
that I know I am less unworthy of you by the
very anguish I feel to have so stung you — can I
never again be the Caroline of old !"
"Ha, hal"' burst forth the unrelenting man,
with a bitter laugh I — "see the real coarseness
of a woman's nature under all its fine-spun frip-
pery ! Behold these delicate creatures, that we
scarcely dare to woo ! how little they even com-
prehend the idolatry they inspire ! The Caro-
line of old I Lo, the virgin whose hand we
touched with knightly homage, v.-hose first bash-
ful kiss was hallowed as the gale of paradise,
deserts us — sells herself at the altar — sanctifies
there her very infidelity to us ; and when years
have passed, and a death has restored her free-
dom, she comes to us as if she had never pillowed
her head on another's bosom, and says, ' Can I
not again be the Caroline of old !' We men are
too rude to forgive the faithless. Where is the
Caroline I loved? You — are — my Lady ^lont-
fort I Look round. On these turfs you, then
a child, played beside my children. They are
dead, but less dead to me than you. Never
dreamed I then that a creature so fair would be
other than a child to my grave and matured
existence. Then, if I glanced toward your fu-
ture, I felt no pang to picture you grown to wo-
manhood — another's bride. My hearth had for
years been widowed. I had no thought of second
nuptials. My son would gipw up to enjoy my
wealth, and realize my cherished dreams — he
was snatched from me I Who alone had the
power to comfort ? — who alone had the courage
to steal into the darkened room where I sate
mourning? sure that in her voice there would
be consolation, and the sight of her sympathizing
tears would chide away the bitterness of mine ?
— who but the Caroline of old! Ah, you are
weeping now. But Lady Montfort's tears have
no talisman to me ! You v.ere then still a child
— as a child, my soothing angel — A year or so
more, my daughter, to whom all my pride of
House — all my hope of race, had been consigned
— she whose happiness I valued so much more
than my ambition, that I had refused her hand
to your young Lord of Montfort — puppet that,
stripped of the millinery of titles, was not wor-
thy to replace a doll! — my daughter, I folded
her one night in my arms — I implored her to
confide in me if ever she nursed a hope that I
could further — knew a grief that I could banish ;
and she promised — and she bent her forehead
to my blessing — and before daybreak she had
fled with a man whose very touch was dishonor
and pollution, and was lost to me forever
Then, v.hen I came hither to vent at my father's
gi'ave the indignant grief I suSered not the world
to see, you and your mother (she who professed
for me such loyal friendship, such ineflaceable
gratitude), you two came kindly to share my
solitude — and then, then you were a child no
more I — and a sun that had never gilt my life,
brightened out of the face of the Caroline of
old I" He paused a moment, heeding not her
bitter weeping; he was rapt from the present
hour itself by the excess of that anguish which
is to woe what ecstasy is to joy — swept along by
the flood of thoughts that had been pent within
his breast through the solitar}- days and haunted
nights, which had made the long transition-state
from his manhood's noon to its gathering eve.
And in that pause the^e came from afar off
a melodious, melancholy strain — softly, softly
borne over the cold blue waters — softly, softly
through the sere autumnal leaves — the music
of the magic flute !
"Hark!" he said, "do yon not remember?
Look to that beech -tree yonder! Summer
clothed it then ! Do you not remember ! as
under that tree we stood — that same, same note
came, musical as now, undulating with rise and
fall — came, as if to inteqjret, by a voice from
fairy-land, the beatings of m}' own mysterious
heart. You had been pleading for pardon to
one less ungrateful — less perfidious — than my
comforter proved herself. I had listened to you,
vrondering why anger and wrong seemed ban-
ished from the world ; and I murmured, in
answer, without conscious thought of myself,
' ' Happy the man whose faults your bright char-
ity will admonish — whose griefs your tenderness
will chase away ! But when, years hence, chil-
dren are born to yourself, spare me the one who
shall most resemble you, to replace the daugh-
ter whom I can only sincerely pardon when
something else can spring up to my desolate
being — something that I can cherish without the
meraoiy of falsehood and the dread of shame.'
Yes, as I ceased, came that music ; and as it
thrilled through the summer air, I turned and
, met your eyes — turned and saw your blush —
236
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
turned and heard some faint faltering words
drowning the music witli diviner sweetness ; and
suddenly I knew as by a revelation, that the
Cliild I had fostered had grown the Woman
whom I loved. — My own soul was laid bare to
me by the flash of hope. Over the universe
rushed light and color! Oil, the Caroline of
old ! What wonder that she became so fatally,
so unspeakably beloved ! As some man in an-
cient story, banished from his native land, is
told by an oracle to seek a happier isle in un-
discovered seas — freights with his all a single
bark — collects on his wandering altar the last
embers of his abandoned hearth — places beside
it his exiled household gods ; so all that my life
had left to me, hallowing and hallowed, I stored
in you I tore myself from the old native
soil, the old hardy skies. Through Time's wide
ocean I saw but the promised golden isle. Fa-
bles, fables ! — lying oracle ! — sunken vessel ! —
visionary isle ! And life to me had till then
been so utterly without love ! — had passed in
such arid labors — without a holiday of romance
—all the fountains of the unknown passion seal-
ed till the spell struck tlie rock, and every wave,
every drop sparkled fresh to a single star. Yet
my boyhood, like other men's, had dreamed of
its Ideal. There at last that Ideal, come to
life, bloomed before me ; there, under those
beech-trees, the Caroline of old. Oil wretched
woman, now weeping at my side, well may you
weep ! Never can earth give you back such love
as you lost in mine."
"I know it, I know it — fool that I was — mis-
erable fool !"
"Ay, but comfort yourself— wilder and sad-
der folly in myself! Your mother was right.
' The vain child,' she said, 'knows not her own
heart. Siie is new to the world — has seen none
of her own years. For your sake, as for hers, I
must insist on the experiment of absence. A
year's ordeal — see if she is then of the same
mind.' I marveled at .her coldness; proudly I
submitted to her reasonings; fearlessly I con-
fided the result to you. Ah! how radiant was
your smile, when, in the parting hour, I said,
' Summer and you will return again !' In vain,
on pretense that the experiment should be com-
plete, did your mother carry you abroad, and
exact from us both the solemn jiromise that not
even a letter should pass between iis — that our
troth, made thus conditional, should be a secret
to all — in vain, if meant to torture me with
doubt. In my creed, a doubt is itself a treason.
How lovely grew the stern face of Ambition ! —
how Fame seemed as a messenger from me to
you ! In the sound of applause I said, ' They
can not shut out the air that will carry that
sound to her ears ! All that I can win from
Honor shall be my marriage-gifts to my queenly
bride.' See that arrested ]iile — begun at my
son's birth, stopped a while at his death, recom-
menced on a statelier plan when I thought of
your footstep on its floors — your shadow on its
walls. Stopped now for ever! Architects can
build a palace; can tiiey build a home? But
you — yon — you, nil the while — j'our smile on
another's suit — your thoughts on another's
hearth !"
"Not so! — not so! Your image never for-
sook me. I was giddy, thoughtless, dazzled,
entangled ; and I told von in tlie letter you re-
turned to me — told you that I had been de-
ceived !"
"Patience — patience! Deceived! Do you
imagine that I do not see all that passed as in a
magician's glass ? Caroline Montfort, you nev-
er loved me ; you never knew what love was.
Thrown suddenly into the gay world, intoxica-
ted by the efi'ect of your own beauty, my sombre
figure gradually faded dim — pale ghost indeed
in the atmosphere of flowers and histres, rank
with the breath of flatterers. Then came my
lord the Marquis — a cousin, privileged to famil-
iar intimacy, to visit at will, to ride with you,
dance with you, sit side by side with you, in
quiet corners of thronging ball-rooms, to call
you ' Caroline.' Tut, tut — ye axe only cousins,
and cousins are as brothers and sisters in the
aftectionate House of Vipont ; and gossips talk,
and young ladies envy — flnest match in all En-
gland is the pretty-faced lord of Montfort ! And
your mother, who had said, ' Wait a year' to
GuyDarrell, must have dreamed of the cousin,
and schemed for his coronet, when she said it.
And I was unseen, and I must not write ; and
the absent are always in the wrong — when cous-
ins are present ! And I hear your mother speak
of me — hear the soft sound of her damaging
praises. ' Another long speech from your clever
admirer! Don't fancy he frets; that kind of
man thinks of nothing but blue-books and poli-
tics.' And your cousin proposes, and you say
with a sigh, 'No : I am bound to Guy Darrell ;'
and your mother says to my Lord, 'Wait, and
still come — as a cousin !' And then, day by
da}', the sweet Mrs. Lyndsay drops into your .ear
the hints that shall poison your heart. Some
fable is dressed to malign me ; and you cry,
' 'Tis not true ; prove it true, or I still keep my
faith to Guy Darrell.' Then comes the kind
compact — ' If the story be false, my cousin must
go ;' ' and if it be true, you will be my own du-
teous child. Alas ! your poor cousin is break-
ing his heart. A lawyer of forty has a heart
made of parchment!' Aha! 3'ou were entan-
gled, and of course deceived ! Your letter did
not explain what was the tale told to you. I
care not a rush what it was. It. is enough for
me to know that if you had loved me yon would
have loved me the more for every tale that be-
lied me. So the tale was credited, because a
relief to credit it. So the compact was kept —
so the whole bargain hurried over in elegant
privacy — place of barter an embassador's chaji-
el. Bauble for bauble — a jilt's faith for a man-
nikin's coronet. Four days before the year of
trial expired, ' Only four days more !' I exclaim-
ed, drunk with ra])ture. The journals lie be-
fore me. Three columns to Guy Darrell's speech
last night ; a column more to its effect on a
senate, on an em]iire ; and two lines — two little
lines — -to the sentence that struck Guy Darrell
out of the world of men! 'JMarriage in high
life. — I\Iarquis of Montfort — Caroline Lyndsay.'
And the sun did not fall from heaven ! Vul-
garest of ends to the tritest of romances ! In
tlie gay world these things happen every day.
Young ladies are privileged to give hopes to one
man — their hands to another. 'Is tlie sin so
unpardonable?' you ask with ingenuous sim-
plicity. Lady Montfort, that depends! Re-
flect ! What was my life before I ])Ut it into
your keeping? Barren of happiness, I grant —
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
237
addened, solitary — to myself a thing of small
alue ? But what was that life to others ? — a
liing full of warm beneficence, of active uses,
if hardy powers fitted to noble ends ! In para-
yzing that life as it was to others, there may be
in wider and darker than the mere infidelity
o love. And now do you dare to ask, ' Can I
igain be the Caroline of old?'"
'•I ask nothing — not even pardon," said the
niserable woman. " I might say something to
how where you misjudge me — something that
night palliate ; but no, let it be." Her accents
rere so drearily hopeless that Darrell abruptly
vithdrew his eyes fi-om her face, as if fearful
hat the sight of her woe might weaken his
esolve. She had turned mechanically back,
rhey walked on in gloomy silence side by
ide, away now from the lake, back under the
)arbed thorn-tree — back by the moss-grown
•rag — back by the hollow trunks, and over the
alien leaves of trees that had defied the
torms of centuries, to drop, perhaps, brittle
md sapless, some quiet day v.hen every wind is
uUed.
The flute had ceased its music ; the air had
ITown cold and piercing; the little park was
oon traversed ; the gate came in sight, and the
lumble vehicle without it. Then, involuntarily,
)oth stopjied ; and on each there came at once
he consciousness that they were about to part —
)art, never perhaps in this world to meet again ;
tnd, with all that had been said, so much un-
pcken — their hearts so ftdl of what, alas ! their
ips could not speak.
"Lady ]Montfort," at length said Darrell.
At the sound of her name she shivered.
" I have addressed you rudely — harshly — "
"Xo — no — "
"But that was the last exercise of a right
vhich I nov,- resign forever. I spoke to her who
lad once been Caroline Lyndsay ; some gentler
rords are due to the widow of Lord Moutfort.
Whatever the wrongs you have inflicted on me
—wrongs inexpiable — I recognize no less in
our general nature qualities that would render
ou, to one whom you really loved and had
lever deceived, the blessing I had once hoped
ou would prove to me."
She shook her head impatiently, piteously.
"I know that in an ill-assoi-ted imion, and
imidst all the temptations to which flattered
)eauty is exposed, your conduct has been with-
)ut reproach. Forget the old man whose thoughts
hould now be on Jiis grave."
"Hush, hush — have human mercy!"
"I withdraw and repent my injustice to your
notives in the protection you have given to the
)Oor girl v.hom Lionel would wed ; I thank you
or that protection — though I refuse consent to
ny kinsman's prayer. "\Yliatever her birth, I
nust be glad to know that she whom Lionel so
oves is safe from a WTetch like Losely. More
—one word more — wait — it is hard for me to
ay it- — Be happy — I can not pardon, but I can
)less you. Farewell forever !"
More overpoweringly crushed by his tender-
less than his wrath, before Caroline could re-
cover the vehemence of her sobs he had ceased
—he was gone — lost in the close gloom of a
leighboring thicket, his hurried headlong path
)etrayed by the rustle of mournful boughs swing-
ng back with their withered leaves.
CHAPTER H.
EETEOSPECT.
There is a place at which three roads meet, sacred to that
mysterious goddess called Diana on earth, Luna (or
the Moon) in heaven, and Hecate in the infernal re-
gions. At this place pause the Virgins pemiitted to
take their choice of the three roads. Few give their
preference to that which is vowed to the goddess in her
name of Diana: that road, cold and barren, is clothed
by no roses and myrtles. Eoses and niyrtles vail the
entrance to both the others, and in both the others Hy-
men has much the same gay-looking temples. But
which of those two leads to the celestial Luna, or which
of them conducts to the infernal Hecate, not one nymph
in fifty divines. If thy heart should misgive thee, O
nymph! — if, though cloud vail the path to the Moon,
and sunshine gild that to pale Hecate — thine instinct
recoils from the sunshine, while thou darest not adven-
ture the cloud — thou hast still a choice left — thou hast
still the safe road of Diana. Hecate, O nymph ! is the
goddess of ghosts. If thou takest her path look not
back, for the ghosts are behind thee.
i Whex we slowly recover from the tumult and
passion of some violent distress a peculiar still-
ness falls upon the mind, and the atmosphere
around it becomes, in that stillness, appallingly
I clear. We knew not, while ^Testling with our
I woe, the extent of its ravages. As a land the
day after a flood, as a field the day after a bat-
tle, is the sight of our own sorrow, when we no
j longer have to stem its raging, but to endure
the destruction it has made. Distinct before
I Caroline Montfort's vision stretched the waste
I of her misery — the Past, the Present, the Fu-
I ture — all seemed to blend in one single Desola-
tion. A strange thing it is how all lime will
converge itself, as it were, into the burning-
glass of a moment! There runs a popular su-
perstition that it is thus in the instant of death ;
that our whole existence crowds itself on the
glazing eye — a panorama of all we have done on
earth — just as the sotil restores to the earth its
garment. Certes, there are hours in our being,
long before the last and dreaded one, when this
phenomenon comes to warn us that, if memorv'
were always active, time would be never gone.
Rose before this woman — who, whatever the
justice of Darreirs bitter reproaches, had a na-
ture lovely enough to justify his anguish at her
loss— the image of herself at that turning-point
of life, when the morning mists are dimmed on
our way, yet when a path chosen is a fate de-
cided. Yes ; she had excuses, not urged to the
judge who sentenced, nor estimated to their full
extent by the stern equity with which, amidst
suffering and ^vTath, he had desired to weigh
her cause.
Caroline's mother, Mrs. Lyndsay, was one of
those parents who acquire an extraordinary in-
fluence over their children, by the union of ca-
ressing manners with obstinate resolves. She
never lost control of her temper nor hold on her
object. A slight, delicate, languid creature too,
who would be sure to go into a consumption if
unkindly crossed. With much strong common
sense, much knowledge of human nature, ego-
tistical, worldly, scheming, heartless, but withal
so pleasing, so gentle, so bewitchingly despotic,
that it M'as like living with an electro-biologist,
who unnerves you by a lock to knock you down
with a feather. In only one great purpose of
her life had Mrs. Lyndsay failed. When Dar-
rell, rich by the rewards of his profession and
the bequest of his namesake, had entered Par-
liament, and risen into that repute which cou-
i
238
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
fers solid and brilliant station, Mrs. Lyndsay
conceived the idea of appropriating to herself
his honors and his wealth by a second Hymen.
Having so long been domesticated in his house
during the life of ISIrs. Darrell, an intimacy as
of near relations had been established between
them. Her soft manners attached to her his
children ; and after Mrs. Darrell's deatli ren-
dered it necessary that she should find a home
of her own, she had an excuse, in Matilda's af-
fection for her and for Caroline, to be more fre-
quently before Darrell's eyes, and consulted by
hini yet more frequently than when actually a
resident in his house. To her Darrell confided
the proposal which had been made to him by
the old Marchioness of Montfort, for an alliance
batween her young grandson and his sole sur-
viving child. Wealthy as was the House of Vi-
pont, it was among its traditional maxims that
wealth wasles if not perpetually recruited. Ev-
ery third generation, at farthest, it was the dut}-
of that House to marry an heiress. Darrell's
daughter, just seventeen, not yet brought out,
would be an heiress, if he pleased to make her
so, second to none whom the research of the
Marchioness had detected within the drawing-
rooms and nurseries of the three kingdoms.
The proposal of the venerable peeress was at
first very naturally gratifying to Darrell. It
was an euthanasia for the old knightly race to
die into a House that was an institution in the
empire, and revive, j)henix-like, in a line of
peers, who might perpetuate the name of the
heiress whose quarterings they would annex to
their own, and sign themselves ''Darrell Mont-
fort." Said Darrell inly, "On the whole, sucli
a marriage would have pleased my poor father."
It did not please Mrs. Lyndsay. The bulk of
Darrell's fortune thus settled away, he himself
would be a very different match for Mrs. Lynd-
say ; nor was it to her convenience that Matilda
should be thus hastily disposed of, and the stron-
gest link of connection between Fulham and
Carlton G.irdens severed. Mrs. Lyndsay had
one golden rule, which I respectfully point out
to ladies who covet popularity and power: She
never spoke ill of any one whom she wished to
injure. She did not, therefore, speak ill of the
Marquis to Darrell, but she so praised him thai,
her praise alarmed. She ought to know the
young peer well ; she was a good deal with the
j\LT.rchiones5, who likeJ her pretty manners.
Till then, Darrell had only noticed this green
Head of the Viponts as a neat-looking Head,
too modest to open its lips. But he now exam-
ined the head with anxious deliberation, and
finding it of the poorest possible kind of wood,
with a heart to match, Guy Darrell had the au-
dacity to reject, though with great courtesy, the
idea of grafting the last plant of his line on a
stem so pithless. Though, like men who are
at once very affectionate and very busy, he saw
few faults in liis children, or indeed in any one
he really loved, till the fault was forced on him,
he could not Init be aware that ^Matilda's sole
chance of becoming a hajipy and safe wife was
in uniting herself with such a husband as would
at once win her confidence and command her re-
spect. He trembled when he thought of her as
the wife of a man whose rank would expose her
to all fashionable temptations, and whose charac-
ter would leave her without a guide or protector.
The ^larquis, who obeyed his grandmother
from habit, and who had lethargically sanctioned
her proposals to Dai-rell, evinced the liveliest
emotion he had ever yet betrayed when he
learned that his hand was rejected. And if it
were possible for him to carry so small a senti-
ment as pique into so large a passion as hate,
from that moment he aggrandized his nature
into hatred. He would have given half his lands
to have spited Guy Darrell. Jlrs. Lyndsay took
care to be at hand to console him, and the
Marchioness was grateful to her for taking that
troublesome task upon herself. And in the
course of their conversations Mrs. Lyndsay con-
trived to drop into his mind the egg of a pro-
ject which she took a later occasion to hatch
under her plumes of down. " There is but one
kind of wife, my dear Montfort, who could in-
crease your importance ; you should marry a
beauty ; next to ro^valty ranks beauty." The
Head nodded, and seemed to ruminate for some
moments, and then, apropos des bottes, it let fall
this mysterious monosyllable, "Shoes." By
what process of ratiocination the Head had thus
arrived at the feet, it is not for me to conjecture.
All I know is that, from that moment, 'Slvs.
Lyndsay bestowed as much thought upon Caro-
line's chaussure, as if, like Cinderella, Caroline's
whole destiny in this world hung upon her slip-
per. With the feelings and the schemes that
have been thus intimated, this sensible lady's
mortification may well be conceived when she
was startled by Darrell's proposal, not to herself,
but to her daughter. Her egotism was profound-
ly shocked, her worldliness cruelly thwarted.
With Guy Darrell for her own spouse, the ^lar-
quis of Montfort for her daughter's, Mrs. Lynd-
say would have been indeed a considerable per-
sonage in the world. But to lose Darrell for
herself, the JNIarquis altogether — the idea was
intolerable ! Yet, since to have refused at once
for her portionless daughter a man in so high a
position, and to v.diom her own obligations were
so great, was impossible, she adopted a policy,
admirable for the craft of its conception and the
dexterity of its e.xecution. In exacting the con-
dition of a year's delay, she made her motives
appear so loftily disinterested, so magnanimous-
ly friendly! She could never forgive herself if
he — he — the greatest, the best of men, were
again rendered unhappy in marriage by her im-
prudence (hers, who owed to him her all)! yes,
imprudent indeed, to have thrown right in his
way a pretty coquettish girl ('for Caroline is co-
quettish, Mr. Darrell ; most girls so pretty are
at that sillv age'). In short, she carried her
point against all the eloquence Darrell could
employ, and covered her designs by the sem-
blance of the most delicate scruples, and the
sacrifice of worldly advantages to the prudence
which belongs to high principle and atfectionate
caution.
And what were Caroline's real sentiments for
Guy Darrell ? She understood them now on
looking back. She saw herself as she was then
— as she had stood under the beech-tree, wlien
the heavenly pity that was at the core of her
nature — when the venerating, grateful aflPection
that had grown with her growth, made her
yearn to be a solace and a joy to that grand and
solitary life. Love him ! Oh certainly she loved
him, devotedly, fondly; but it was with the love
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
239
of a child. She had not awakened tlien to the
love of woman. Removed from his presence,
suddenly thrown into the great world — yes, Dar-
rell had sketched the picture with a stern but
not altogether an untruthful hand. He had not,
however, fairly estimated the inevitable inilu-
euce which a mother, such as Mrs. Lyndsa}',
Avould exercise over a girl so wholly inexperi-
enced — so guileless, so unsuspecting, and so
filially devoted. He could not appreciate — no
man can — the mightiness of female cunning.
He could not see how mesh upon mesh the soft
Mrs. Lyndsay (pretty woman, with pretty man-
ners) wove her web round the "cousins," until
Caroline, who at first had thought of the silent
fair-haired young man only as the Head of her
House, pleased with attentions that kept aloof
admirers, of whom she thought Guy Darrell
might be more reasonably jealous, was appalled
to hear her mother tell her that she was either
the most heartless of coquets, or poor Montfort
was the most ill-used of men. But at this time
Jasper Losely, under his name of Hammond,
brought ills wife from the French town at which
they had been residing since their marriage, to
see Mrs. Lyndsay and Caroline at Paris, and
implore their intiuence to obtain a reconcilia-
tion with lier father. Matilda soon learned from
Mrs. Lyndsay, who affected the most enchanting
candor, the nature of the engagement between
Caroline and Darrell. She communicated the
information to Jasper, who viewed it with very
natural alarm. By reconciliation with Guy Dar-
rell, Jasper understood something solid and prac-
tical — not a mere sentimental pardon, added to
that paltry stipend of £700 a year which he had
just obtained — but tlie restoration to all her
rights and expectancies of the heiress he had
supposed himself to marry. He had by no
means relinquished the belief that sooner or
later Darrell would listen to the Voice of Na-
ture, and settle all his fortune on his only child.
But then, for the Voice of N'ature to have fair
play, it was clear that there should be no other
child to plead for. And if Darrell were to marry
again, and to have sons, what a dreadful dilem-
ma it would be for the Voice of Nature ! Jasper
was not long in discovering that Caroline's en-
gagement was not less unwelcome to JMrs. Lynd-
say than to himself, and that she was disposed
to connive at any means by which it might be
annulled. Matilda was first employed to weaken
the bond it was so desirable to sever. Matilda
did not re]5roach, but she wept. She was sure
7?0M' that she should be an outcast — her children
beggars. Mrs. Lyndsay worked up this com-
plaint with adroitest skill. Was Caroline sure
that it was not most dishonorable — most treach-
erous — to rob her own earliest friend of the
patrimony that would otherwise return to Ma-
tilda with Darrell's pardon? This idea became
exquisitely painful to the high-spirited Caroline,
but it could not counterpoise the conviction of
the greater pain she should occasion to the breast
that so conhded in her faith, if that faith were
broken. Step by step the intrigue against the
absent one proceeded. I\Irs. Lyndsay thorough-
ly understood the art of insinuating doubts. Guy
Darrell, a man of the world, a cold-blooded law-
yer, a busy politician, he break his heart for a
girl! No, it was only the young, and especially
the young when not remarkably clever, who broke
their hearts for such trifles. Jlontfort, indeed
— there was a man whose heart could be broken !
whose hapjjiness could be blasted! Dear Guy
Darrell had been only moved, in his proposals,
by generosity — " Something, my dear child, in
your own artless words and manner, that made
him fancy he had won your affections unknow-n
to yourself! an idea that he was bound as a gen-
tleman to speak out ! Just like him. lie has
that spirit of chivalry. But my belief is, that
he is quite aware by this time how foolish such
a marriage would be, and would thank you heart-
ily if, at the year's end, he found hiinself free,
and you ha])])ily disposed of elsewhere," etc., etc.
The drama advanced. ]Mrs. Lyndsay evinced
decided pulmonary symptoms. Her hectic cough
returned; she could not sleep; her days were
numbered— a secret grief. Caroline implored
frankness, and, clasped to her mother's bosom,
and compassionately bedewed with tears, those
hints were dropped into her ear which, though
so worded as to show the most indulgent for-
bearance to Darrell, and rather, as if in com-
passion for his weakness than in abhorrence of
his perfidy, made Caroline start with the in-
dignation of revolted purity and outraged pride.
"Were this true, all would be indeed at an end
between us! But it is not true. Let it be
proved." "But, my dear, dear child, I could
not stir in a matter so delicate. I could not aid
in breaking off a marriage so much to your
worldly advantage, unless you could promise
that, in rejecting I\Ir. Darrell, you would accept
your cousin. In my wretched state of health,
the anxious thought of leaving you in the world
literally penniless would kill me at once !"
" Oh, if Guy Darrell be false (but that is im-
possible !), do with me all you will ; to obey and
please you would be the only comfort left to
me."
Thus was all prepared for the final dinuuement.
Mrs. Lyndsay had not gone so far without a re-
liance on the means to accomplish her object,
and for these means she had stooped to be in-
debted to the more practical villainy of Matilda's
husband.
Jasper, in this visit to Paris, had first foi-med
the connection, which comjiletcd the wickedness
of his perverted nature, with that dark adven-
turess who has flitted shadow-like through part
of this varying narrative. Gabrielle Desmarets
w'as then in her youth, notorious only for the
ruin she had inflicted on admiring victims, and
the superb luxury with which she rioted on their
plunder. Captivated by the personal advant-
ages for which Jasper was then pre-eminently
conspicuous, she willingly associated her for-
tunes with his own. Gabrielle was one of those
incarnations of evil which no city but Paris can
accomplish with the same epicurean refinement,
and vitiate into the same cynical corruption.
She was exceedingly witty, sharply astute, capa-
ble of acting any part, carrying out any plot;
and when she pleased to simulate the decorous
and immaculate gentlewoman, she might have
deceived the most experienced roue. Jas]ier
presented this Artiste to his unsuspecting wife
as a widow of rank, who was about to visit Lon-
don, and who might be enabled to see Mr. Dar-
rell, and intercede on their behalf. IMatilda fell
readily into the snare ; the Frenchwoman went
to London, with assumed name and title, and
210
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
with servants completely in her confidence. And
such (as the reader knows already) was that elo-
quent baroness who had pleaded to Darrell the
cause of his penitent daughter I No doubt tiie
wily Paruiieaae had calculated on the effect of
her arts and her charms to decoy him into at
least a passin:^ forgetfulness of his faith to an-
other. But if she could not succeed there, it
might equally achieve the object in view to ob-
tain the credit of that success. Accordingly she
viTote to one of her friends at Paris letters
stating that she had found a very rich admirer
in a celebrated English statesman, to whom she
was indebted for her establishment, etc. ; and
alluding, in very witty and satirical terms, to his
matrimonial engagement with the young English
beauty at Paris, who was then creating such a
sensation — an engagement of which she repre-
sented her admirer to be heartily sick, and ex-
tremely repentant. Without mentioning names,
her descriptions were unmistakable. Jasper, of
course, presented to Mrs. Lyndsay those letters
(which, he said, the person to whom they were
addressed had communicated to one of her own
gay friends), and suggested that their evidence
against Darrell would be complete in Miss Lynd-
say's eyes if some one, whose veracity Caroline
could not dispute, could con'oborate the asser-
tions of the letters ; it would be quite enough to
do so if Mr. Darrell were even seen entering or
leaving the house of a person whose mode of
life was so notorious. Mrs. Lyndsay, v.ho, with
her consummate craft, saved her dignity by af-
fected blindness to the artifices at which she
connived, declared that, in a matter of inquiry
which involved the private character of a man
so eminent, and to whom she owed so much,
she would not trust his name to the gossip of
others. She herself would go to London. She
knew that odious, but too fascinating, Gabrielle
by sight (as every one did who went to the opera,
or drove in the Bois dc Boulogne^. Jasper un-
dertook that the Parislenne should show herself
at her balcony at a certain day at a certain hour,
and that, at that hour, Darrell should call and
be admitted ; and Mrs. Lyndsay allowed that
that evidence would sutnce. Sensible of the
power over Caroline that she would derive if,
with her habits of languor and her delicate health,
she could say that she had undertaken such a
journey to be convinced with her own eyes of a
charge that, if true, would influence her daugh-
ter's conduct and destiny — Mrs. Lyndsay did go
to London — did see Gabrielle Desmarets at her
balcony — did see Darrell enter the house ; and
on her return to Paris did, armed with this tes-
timony, and with the letters that led to it, so
work upon her daughter's mind that the next
day the Marquis of Slontfort was accepted. But
the year of Darrell's probation was nearly ex-
pired ; all delay would be dangerous — all ex-
planation would be fatal, and must be forestalled.
Xor could a long courtship be kept secret ; Dar-
rell might hear of it, and come over at once ;
and the Marquis's ambitious kinsfolk would not
fail to interfere if the news of his intended mar-
riage with a portionless cousin came to their
ear.s. Lord ]\Iontfort, who was awed by Carr,
and extremely afraid of his grandmother, was
not less anxious for secrecy and expedition than
Mrs. Lyndsay herself.
Thu-s then, ilrs. Lyndsay triumphed, and
while her daughter was still under the influence
of an excitement which clouded her judgment,
and stung her into rashness of action as an es-
cape from the torment of reflection — thus were
solemnized Caroline's unhappy and splendid
nuptials. The Marquis hired a villa in the de-
lightful precincts of Fontainebleau for his honey-
moon ; that moon was still young when the
Marquis said to himself, "I don't find that it
produces honey." When he had first been at-
tracted toward Caroline, she was all life and
joy — too much of a child to jiiue for Darrell's
absence, while credulously confident of their
future union — her spirits naturally wild and live-
ly, and the world, opening at her feet, so novel
and so brilliant. This fresh gayetj had amused
the Marquis — he felt cheated when he found it
gone. Caroline might be gentle, docile, sub-
missive; but those virtues, though of higher
quality than glad animal spirits, are not so en-
tertaining. His own exceeding sterility of mind,
and feeling was not apparent till in the tetes-a-
ieies of conjugal life. A good-looking young '^
man, with a thorough-bred air, who rides well,
dances well, and holds his tongue, may, in all
mixed societies, pass for a shy youth of sensi-
tive genius. But when he is your companion
for life, and all to yourself, and you find that,
when he does talk, he has neither an idea nor
a sentiment — alas ! alas for v"ou, young bride,
if you have ever known the charm of intellect, /
or the sweetness of sympathy. But it v.';is not
for Caroline to complain ; struggling against her
own weight of sorrow, she had no immediate
perception of her companion's vapidity. It was
he, poor man, who complained. He just de-
tected enough of her superiority of intelligence
to suspect that he was humiliated, while sure
that he was bored. An incident converted his
gi'owing indifference into permanent dislike not
many days after their marriage.
Lord Montfort, sauntering into Caroline's
room, found her insensible on the floor — an ojien
letter by her side. Summoning her maid to her
assistance, he took the marital privilege of read-
ing the letter which had apparently caused her
swoon. It was from Matilda, and written in a
state of maddened excitement. Matilda had
little enough of what is called heart ; but she
had an intense selfishness, which, in point of
suffering, supplies the place of a heart. It was
not because she could not feel for the wrongs of
another that she could not feel anguish for her
own. Arabella was avenged. The cold-blooded
snake that had stung her met the fang of the
cobra-capella. Matilda had learned from some
anonymous correspondent (probably a rival of
Gabrielle's) of Jasper's liaison with that adven-
turess. But half-recovered from her confine-
ment, she had risen from her bed — -hurried to
Paris (for the pleasuresiof which her husband
had left her) — seen this wretched Gabrielle —
recognized in her the false baroness to whom
Jasper had presented her — to whom, by Jasper's
dictation, she had written such affectionate let-
tei-s — whom she had employed to plead her cause
to her father ; — seen Gabrielle — seen her at her
own luxurious apartment, Jasper at home there
— burst into vehement wrath — roused up the co-
bra-capella ; and on declaring that she would sep-
arate from her husband, go back to her father, tell
her wrongs, ajjpeal to his mercy, Gabrielle calm-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
241
ly replied, " Do so, and Iwill take care that your
father shall know that your plea for his pardon
through 3Iadame la Baronne was a scheme
to blacken his name, and to frustrate his mar-
riage. Do not think that he will suppose you did
not connive at a project so sly ; he must know
you too well, pretty innocent." No match for
Gabrielle Desmarets, ^latilda flung from . the
house, leaving Jasper whistling an air from Fi-
garo ; returned alone to the French town, from
which slie now wrote to Caroline, pouring out
her wrongs, and without seeming sensible that
Caroline had been wronged too, expressing her
fear that her father might believe her an accom-
plice in Jasper's plot, and refuse her the means
to live apart from the wretch, upon whom she
heaped every epithet that just indignation could
suggest to a feeble mind. The latter part of
the letter, blurred and blotted, was iivoherent,
almost raving. In fact, ]Matilda was thtu seized
by the mortal illness which hurried her to the
grave. To the Marquis much of this letter was
extremely uninteresting — much of it quite in-
comprehensible. He could not see why it should
so overpoweringly affect his wife. Only those
passages which denounced a scheme to frustrate
some marriage meditated by Mr. Darrell made
him somewhat uneasy, and appeared to him to
demand explanation. But Caroline, in the an-
guish to which she awakened, forestalled his in-
quiries. To her but two thoughts were present
— how she had wronged Darrell — how ungrate-
ful and faithless she must seem to him ; and in
the impulse of her remorse, and in the child-
like candor of her soul, artlessly, ingenuously
she poured out her feelings to the husband she
had taken as counselor and guide, as if seek-
ing to guard all her sorrow for the past from a
sentiment that might render her less loyal to the
responsibilities which linked her future to an-
other's. A man of sense would have hailed, in
so noble a confidence (however it might have
pained him for the time), a guarantee for the
happiness and security of his wliole existence.
He would have seen how distinct from that ar-
dent love which, in Caroline's new relation of
life, would have bordered upon guilt, and been
cautious as guilt against disclosing its secrets,
was the infantine, venerating affection she had
felt for a man so far removed from her by years
and the development of intellect — an affection
which a young husband, trusted with every
thought, every feeling, might reasonably hope to
eclipse. A little forbearance, a little of delicate
and generous tenderness, at that moment, would
have secured to Lord I\Iontfort the warm devo-
tion of a grateful heart, in which the grief that
overflowed was not for the irreplaceable loss of
an earlier lover, but the repentant shame for
An'ong and treachery to a confiding friend.
But it is in vain to ask from any man that
which is not in him! Lord Montfort listened
with sullen, stolid displeasure. That Caroline
should feel the slightest pain at any cause which
had canceled her engagement to that odious
Darrell, and had raised her to the rank of his
marchioness, was a crime in his eyes never to
be expiated. He considered, not without rea-
son, that INIrs. Lyndsay had shamefully deceived
him ; and fully believed that she had been an
accomplice with Jasper in that artifice which
he was quite gAitleman enough to consider
Q
placed those who had planned it out of the pale
of his acquaintance. And when Caroline, who
had been weeping too vehemently to read her
lord's countenance, came to a close. Lord ilont-
fort took up his hat and said, " I beg never to
hear again of this lawyer and his very disrepu-
table famih- connections. As you say, you and
your mother have behaved very ill to" him; but
you don't seem to understand that you have be-
haved much worse to me. As to 'condescend-
ing to write to him, and enter into explanations
how you came to be Lady Montfort, it would
be so lowering to me that I would never forgive
it — never. I would just as soon that you run
away at once — sooner. As for Mrs. Lyndsay,
I shall foi-bid her entering my house. ' When
you have done ciying, order your things to be
packed up. I shall return to England to-mor-
row."
That was perhaps the longest speech Lord
Montfort ever addressed to his wife ; perhaps
it was also the rudest. From that time he re-
garded her as some Spaniard of ancient days
might regard a guest on whom he was compelled
to bestow the rites of hospitality — to whom he
gave a seat at his board, a chair at his hearth,
but for whom he entertained a profound aver-
sion, and kept at invincible distance, with all
the ceremony of dignified dislike. Once only
during her wedded life Caroline again saw Dar-
rell. It was immediately on her return to En-
gland, and little more than a month after her
maiTiage. It was the day on which Parliament
•had been prorogued preparatory to its dissolu-
tion — the last Parliament of which Guy Darrell
was a member. Lady jMontfort's carriage was
detained in the throng with which the cere-
monial had filled the streets, and Darrell passed
it on horseback. It was but one look in that
one moment ; and the look never ceased to
hauut her — a look of such stern disdain, but
also of such deep despair. No language can
exaggerate the eloquence which there is in a
human countenance, when a great and tortured
spirit speaks out from it accusingly to a soui
that comprehends. The crushed heart, the rav-
aged existence, were bared before her in that
glance, as clearly as to a wanderer through the
night are the rents of the pirecipice in the flasli
of the lightning. So they encountered — so,
without word, they parted. To him that mo-
ment decided the flight from active life to which
his hopeless thoughts jiad of late been wooinir
the jaded, weary man. In safet\^ to his ver\
conscience, he would not risk the certainty thu-
to encounter one whom it convulsed his whoh
being to remember was another's wife. In tha.
highest and narrowest sphere of the great Lon-
don world to which Guy Darrell's political dis-
tinction condemned his social life, it was im-
possible but what he should be brought fre-
quently into collision with Lord IMontfort, the
Head "of a House with which Darrell himself
was connected — the most powerful patrician of
the party of which Darrell was so conspicuous
a chief. Could he escape Lady INIontfort's pres-
ence, her name, at least, would be continual!;
in his ears. From that fatal beauty he couki
no more hide than from tne sun.
This thought, and the terror it occasioned
him, completed his resolve on the instant. The
next day he was in the gi'oves of Fawley, and
242
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
amazed the world by dating from that retreat
a farewell address to his constituents. A few
days after, the news of his daughter's death
reached him ; and as that event became known,
it accounted to many for his retirement for a
while from public life.
But to Caroline Montfort, and to her alone,
the secret of a career blasted, a fame renounced,
was unmistakably revealed. For a time she
was tortured, in every society she entered, by
speculation and gossip which brought before her
the memory of his genius, the accusing sound
of his name. But him, who withdraws himself
from the world, the world soon forgets ; and by
degrees DaiTcU became as little spoken of as
the dead.
Mrs. Lyndsay had never, during her schemes
on Lord Montfort, abandoned her own original
design on Darrell. And when, to her infinite
amaze and mortification. Lord Montfort, before
the first month of his marriage expired, took
care, in the fewest possible words, to dispel her
dream of governing the House, and residing in
the houses, of Vipont, as the lawful regent dur-
ing the life-long minority to which she had con-
demned both the submissive Caroline and the
lethargic Marquis, she hastened by letter to
exculpate herself to Darrell — laid, of covirse, all
the blame on Caroline. Alas ! had not she al-
ways warned him that Caroline was not worthy
of him? — him, the greatest, the best of men,
etc., etc. Darrell replied by a single cut of
his trenchant sarcasm — sarcasm which shore
through her cushion of down and her vail of
gauze like the sword of Saladin. The old Alar-
chioness turned her back upon Mrs. Lyndsay.
Lady Selina was crushingly civil. The pretty
woman with pretty manners, no better off for
all the misery she had occasioned, went to
Kome, caught cold, and, having no one to nurse
her as Caroline had done, fell at last into a real
consumption, and faded out of the world ele-
gantly and spitefully, as fades a rose that still
leaves its thorns behind it.
Caroline's nature grew developed and exalted
by the responsibilities she had accepted, and by
the purity of lier grief. She submitted, as a just
retribution, to the solitude and humiliation of
her wedded lot ; she earnestly, virtuously strove
to banish from her heart every sentiment that
could recall to her more of Darrell than the re-
morse of having so darkened a life that had been
to her childhood so benignant, and to her youth
so confiding. As we have seen her, at the men-
tion of Darrell's name — at the allusion to his
griefs — fly to the side of her ungenial lord,
though he was to her but as the owner of the
name she bore, so it was the saving impulse of
a delicate, watchful conscience that kept her as
honest in thought as she was irreproachable in
conduct. But vainly, in summoning her intel-
lect to the relief of her heart — vainly had she
sought to find in the world friendships, compan-
ionships, that might eclipse the memory of the
mind so lofty in its antique mould — so tender in
its dejjths of unsuspected sweetness — which had
been withdrawn from her existence before she
could fully comprehend its rarity, or appreciate
its worth.
At last she became free once more ; and then
she had dared thoroughly to examine into her
own heart, and into the nature of that hold
which the image of Darrell still retained on its
remembrances. And precisely because she was
convinced that she had succeeded in preserving
her old childish affection for him free from the
growth into tliat warm love which would have
been guilt if so encouraged, she felt the more
free to volunteer the atonement which might
permit her to dedicate herself to his remaining
years. Thus, one day, after a convei-sation with
Alban Morley, in which Alban had spoken of
Darrell as the friend, almost the virtual guard-
ian, of her infancy ; and, alluding to a few lines
just received from him, brouglU- vividly before
Caroline the picture of Darrelfs melancholy
wanderings and blighted life — thus had she, on
the impulse of the moment, written the letter
which had reached Darrell at Malta. In it she
referred but indirectly to the deceit that had
been practiced on herself — far too delicate to
retail a scandal which she felt to be an insult to
his dignity, in which, too, the deceiving parties
were his daughter's husband and her own mo-
ther. No doubt every true woman can under-
stand why she thus wrote to Darrell, and every
true man can equally comprehend why that let-
ter failed in its object, and was returned to her
in scorn. Hers was the yearning of meek, pas-
sionless aftection, and his the rebuke of sensi-
tive, embittered, indignant love.
But now, as all her past, with its interior life,
glided before her, by a grief the most intolerable
she had yet known, the woman became aware
that it was no longer penitence for the injured
friend — it was despair for the lover she had lost.
In that stormy interview, out of all the confused
and struggling elements of her life-long self-re-
proach, LOVE— the love of woman — had flashed
suddenly, luminously, as the love of youth at
first sight. Strange — but the very disparity of
years seemed gone! She, the matured, sor-
rowful woman, was so much nearer to the man,
still young in heart, and little changed in per-
son, than the g.ay girl of seventeen had been to
the grave friend of forty ! Strange, but those
vehement reproaches had awakened emotions
deeper in the core of the wild mortal breast
than all that early chivalrous honiage which
had exalted her into the ideal of dreaming po-
ets. Strange, strange, strange ! But where
there is nothing strange, tlicre — is there ever
love ?
And with this revelation of her own altered
heart came the clearer and fresher insight into
the nature and cliaracter of the man she loved.
Hitherto she had recognized but his virtues —
now she beheld his failings ; beholding them as
' if virtues, loved him more; and, loving him,
more despaired. She recognized that all-per-
I vading indomitable pride, which, interwoven
! with his sense of honor, became as relentless
as it was unrevengeful. She comprehended
now, that the more he loved her, the less he
would forgive; and, recalling the unexpected
gentleness of his fiirewell words, she felt th.at
in his jaomised blessing lay the sentence that
I annihilated every hope !
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
2+3
CHAPTER HL
Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be
times in his life when he has one too few ; but if he
has only one enemy, he is lucky indeed if he has not
one too many.
A COLD night; sharp frost; winter set in.
The shutters are closed, the curtains drawn, the
fire burns clear, and the lights are softly shaded
in Alban Jklorley's drawing-room. The old bach-
elor is at home again. He had returned that
dav; sent to Lionel to come to him; and Li-
onel had already told him what had transpired
in his absence — "from the identification of Waife
with William Losely, to Lady ^lontfort's viiit
to Fawley, which had taken place two days be-
fore, and of which she had informed Lionel by
a few hasty lines, stating her inability to soften
Mr. Darrell's objections to the alliance between
Lionel and Sophy; severely blaming herself
that those objections had not more forcibly pre-
sented themselves to her own mind, and conclud-
ing with expressions of sympathy, and appeals
to fortitude, in which, however brief, the exqui-
site kindness of her nature so diffused its charm,
that the soft words soothed insensibly, like those
sounds which in Nature itself do soothe us we
know not why.
The poor Colonel found himself in the midst
of painful subjects. Though he had no very
keen sympathy for the sorrows of lovers, and
no credulous faith in everlasting attachments,
Lionel's portraiture of the young girl, who form-
ed so mysterious a link between the two men
who, in varying ways, had touched the finest
springs in his own heart, compelled a compas-
sionate and chivalrous interest, and he was deep-
ly impressed by the quiet of Lionel's dejection.
The young man uttered no complaints of the
inflexibility with which Darrell had destroyed
his elysium. He bowed to the will with which
it was in vain to argue, and which it would have
been a criminal ingratitude to defy. But his
youth seemed withered up ; down-eyed and list-
less he sank into that stupor of despondency
which so drearily simulates the calm of resigna-
tion.
"I have but one wish now," said he, " and
that is, to change at once into some regiment
on active sen-ice. I do not talk of courting
danger and seeking death. That would be ei-
ther a senseless commonplace, or a threat, as it
were, to Heaven ! But I need some vehemence
of action — some positive and irresistible call
upon honor or duty that may force me to con-
tend against this strange heaviness that settles
down on my whole life. Therefore, I entreat
you so to arrange for me, and break it to Jlr.
Darrell in such terms as may not needlessly
pain him by the obtrusion of my sufferings.
For, while I know him well enough to be con-
vinced that nothing could move him from re-
solves in which he had intrenched, as in a cita-
del, his pride or his creed of honor, I am sure
that he would take into his own heart all the
crrief which those resolves occasioned to anoth- '
» '> 1
er s.
"You do him justice there!" cried Alban ; i
" you are a noble fellow to understand him so I
well ! Sir, you have in you the stuff that makes j
English gentlemen such generous soldiers." |
'•Action, action, action I" exclaimed Lionel. '
" Strife, strife ! No other chance of cure. Rest
is so crushing, solitude so dismal."
Lo! how contrasted the effect of a similar
cause of grief at different stages of life ! Chase
the first day-dreams of our youth, and we cry,
"Action — Strife!" In that cry, unconsciously
to ourselves, Hope speaks, and profters worlds
of emotion not yet exhausted. Disperse the
last golden illusion in which the image of hap-
piness cheats our experienced manhood, and
Hope is silent ; she has no more words to offer
— unless, indeed, she drop her earthly attri-
butes, change her less solemn name, and float
far out of sight as " Faith I"
Alban made no immediate reply to Lionel ;
but, seating himself still more comfortably in
his chair — planting his feet still more at ease
upon his fender — the kindly man of the world
silently revolved all the possible means by which
Darrell might yet be softened and Lionel ren-
dered happy. His reflections dismayed him.
'"Was there ever such untoward luck," he said
at last, and peevishly, "that out of the whole
world you should fall in love with the very girl
against whom Dan-ell's feelings (prejudices, if
you please) must be mailed in adamant I Con-
vinced, and apparently with every reason, that
she is not his daughter's child, but, however in-
nocently, an impostor, how can he receive her
as his young kinsman's bride? How can we
exjicct it ?"
" But," said Lionel, " if, on farther investiga-
tion, she prove to be his daughter's child — the
sole surviving representative of his fine and
name ?"
"///s name! No! of the name of Losely —
the name of that turbulent sharper who may yet
die on the gibbet — of that poor, dear, lovable
rascal Willy, who was goose enough to get him-
self transported for robbery ! — a felon's grand-
child the representative of Darrell's line ! But
how on earth came Lady Montfort to favor so
wild a project, and encourage you to share in
it ? — she who ought to have known Darrell bet-
ter?"
"Alas! she saw but Sophy's exquisite, sim-
ple virtues, and inborn grace ; and, believing
her claim to Darrell's lineage. Lady Montfort
thought but of the joy and blessing one so good
and so loving might bring to his joyless hearth.
She was not thinking of morbid pride and mould-
ering ancestors, but of soothing charities and
loving ties. And Lady ilontfort, I now sus-
pect, in her scheme for our happiness — for Dar-
rell's — had an interest which involved her
own !"
" Her own I"
" Yes ; I see it all now."
" See what ? you puzzle me."
" I told you that Darrell, in his letter to me,
wrote with great bitterness of Lady Montfort."
"Very natural that he should. Who would
not resent such interference ?"
" Listen. I told you that, at his own com-
mand, I sent to her tliat letter ; that she, on
receiving it, went herself to Fawley, to plead
our cause. I was sanguine of the result."
" Why ?"
" Because he who is in love has a wondrous
intuition into all the mysteries of love in oth-
ers; and when I read Darrell's letter, I felt
sure that be had once loved — loved still, per-
244
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
haps — the woman he so vehemently reproach-
ed."
" Ha !" said the man of the world, intimate
with Guy Darrell from his school-days ; " ha !
is it possible ? And they say that I know every
thing ! You were sanguine — I understand.
Yes, if your belief were true — if there were
some old attachment that could be revived —
some old misunderstanding explained away —
stop ; let me think. True, true — it was just
after her marriage that he fled from the world.
Ah, my dear Lionel ! light, light ! light dawns
on me ! Not without reason were you sanguine.
Your hand, my dear boy ; I see hope for you at
last. For if the sole reason that prevented
Darrell contracting a second marriage was the
unconquered memory of a woman like Lady
Montfort (where, indeed, her equal in beauty, in
dispositions so akin to his own ideal of woman-
ly excellence ?) — and if she too has some corre-
spondent sentiments for him, why, then, indeed,
you might lose all chance of being Darrell's sole
heir ; your Sophy might forfeit the hateful claim
to be the sole scion on his ancient tree. But it
is precisely by those losses that Lionel Haugh-
ton might gain the bride he covets ; and if tliis
girl prove to be what these Loselys affirm, that
very marriage, which is now so repugnant to
Darrell, ought to insure his blessing. Were he
himself to marry again — had he rightful repre-
sentatives and heirs in his own sons — he should
rejoice in the nuptials that secured to his daugh-
ter's child so honorable a name and so tender a
protector. And as for inheritance, you have not
been reared to expect it ; you have never count-
ed on it. You would receive a fortune suffi-
ciently ample to restore your ancestral station ;
your career will add honors to fortune. Yes,
yes ; that is the sole way out of all these diffi-
culties. Darrell must marry again ; Lady Mont-
fort must be his wife. Lionel shall be free to
choose her whom Lady Montfort approves — be-
friends — no matter what her birth ; and I — I —
Alban Morley — shall have an arm-chair by two
smiling hearths."
At this moment there was heard a violent
ring at the bell, a loud knock at the street door ;
and presently, following close on the servant,
and pushing him aside as he asked what name
to announce, a woman, severely dressed in iron
gray, with a strongly-marked and haggard coun-
tenance, hurried into the room, and, striding
right up to Alban Morley as he rose from his
seat, grasped his arm, and whispered into his
ear, '• Lose not a minute ; come with me in-
stantlv — as vou value the safety, perhaps the
life, of Guy barren !"
" Gixy Darrell !" exclaimed Lionel, overhear-
ing her, despite the undertones of her voice.
"Who are you?" she said, turning fiercely ;
" are you one of his family ?"
" His kinsman — almost his adopted son — Mr.
Lionel Haughton," said the Colonel. "But
pardon me, madam — who are you ?"
" Do you not remember me ? Yet you were
so often in Darrell's house that you must Have
seen my face, as you have learned from your
friend how little cause I have to care for him or
his. Look again ; I am that Arabella Fossett
who — "
"Ah! I remember now ; but — "
" But I tell you that Darrell is in danger, and
this night. Take money ; to be in time you
must hire a special train. Take arms, though
to be tised only in self-defense. Take your
servant, if he is brave. This young kinsman —
let him come too. There is only one man to
resist ; but that man," she said, with a wild kind
of pride, "would have the strength and courage
of ten, were his cause not that which may make
the strong man weak and the bold man craven.
It is not a matter for the officers of justice, for
law, for scandal : the service is to be done in
secret, by friends, by kinsmen ; for the danger
that threatens Darrell — stoop — stoop, Colonel
Morley — close in your ear;" and into his ear
she hissed, " for the danger that threatens Dar-
rell in his house this night is from the man
whose name his daughter bore. That is why I
come to you. To you I need not say, ' Spare
his life — Jasper Losely's life.' Jasper Losely's
death as a midnight robber would be Darrell's
intolerable shame ! Quick, quick, quick ! —
come, come!"
WHAT \\TLL HE DO WITH IT ?
245
BOOK X.
CHAPTER I.
Brute force.
"\Te left Jasper Losely resting for the night
at the small town near Fawley. The next morn-
ing he walked on to the old Manor House. It
was the same morning in which Lad}' Montfort
had held her painful interview with Darrell;
and just when Losely neared the gate that led
into the small park, he saw her re-enter the
hired vehicle in waiting for her. As the car-
riage rapidh- drove past the miscreant, Lady
Montfort looked forth from the window to
snatch a last look at the scenes still so dear to
her, through eyes blinded by despairing tears.
Jasper thus caught sight of her countenance,
and recognized her, though she did not even
notice him. Surprised at the sight, he halted
by the palings. "\Yhat could have brought Lady
Montfort there ? Could the intimacy his fraud
had broken off so many years ago be renewed ?
If so, why the extreme sadness so evident on
the face of which he had caught but a hurried,
rapid glance ? Be that as it might, it was no
longer of the interest to him it had once been ;
and after pondering on the circumstance a min-
ute or two, he advanced to the gate. But while
his hand was on tlie latch he again paused ;
how should he obtain admission to Uarrell?
how announce himself? If in his own name,
would not exclusion be certain ? If as a stran-
ger on business, would Darrell be sure to re-
ceive him ? As he was thus cogitating, his ear,
which, with all his other organs of sense, was
constitutionally fine as a savage's, caught sound
of a faint rustle among the boughs of a thick
copse which covered a part of the little park,
terminating at its pales. The rustle came near-
er and nearer; the branches were rudely dis-
placed ; and in a few moments more Guy Dar-
rell himself came out from the copse, close by
the gate, and, opening it quickly, stood face to
face with his abhorrent son-in-law. Jasper was
startled, but the opportunity was not to be lost.
"Mr. Darrell," he said, "I come here again to
see you ; vouchsafe me this time a calmer hear-
ing." So changed was Losely, so absorbed in
his own emotions Darrell, that the words did
not at once waken up remembrance. '"An-
other time," said Darrell, hastily moving on into
the road; " I am not at leisure now."
"Pardon me, noic" said Losely, unconscious-
ly bringing himself back to the tones and bear-
ing of his earlier and more civilized years.
"You do not remember me. Sir; no wonder.
But my name is Jasper Losely."
Darrell halted ; then, still "as if spell-bound, i
looked fixedly at the broad-shouldered, burlv
frame before him, cased in its coarse pea-jack-
et, and in that rude form, and that defeatured,
bloated face, detected, though with strong effort,
the wrecks of the masculine beauty which had
ensnared his deceitful daughter. Jasper could
.not have selected a more uupropitious moment i
for his cause. Dan-ell was still too much under
the influence of recent excitement and immense
son-ow for that supremacy of prudence over pas-
sion which could alone have made him a w illing
listener to overtures from Jasper Losely. And
about the man whose connection with himself
was a thought of such bitter shame, there was
now so unmistakably the air of settled degrada-
tion, that all Darrell's instincts of gentleman
were revolted — just at the vert- time, too, when
his pride had been most chafed and assailed by
the obtrusion of all that rendered most gaUing
to him the very name of Jasper Losely. AVhat !
was it that man's asserted child whom Lionel
Haughton desired as a wife? was the alliance
witli that man to be thus renewed and strength-
ened? that man have another claim to him and
his in right of parentage to the bride of his near-
est kinsman ? What ! was it that man's child
whom he was asked to recognize as of his own
flesh and blood? the last representative of his
line? That man! — that! A flash shot from
his bright eye, deepening its gray into dark;
and, turning on his heel, Darrell said, through
his compressed lips,
" You have heard, Sir, I believe, through Col-
onel Morley, that only on condition of your per-
manent settlement in one of our distant'colonies,
or America, if you prefer it, would I consent to
assist you. I am of the same mind still. I can
not parley with you myself. Colonel Morley is
abroad, I believe. I refer you to my solicitor ;
you have seen him years ago ; you know his ad-
dress. Xo more. Sir."
"This will not do, Mr. DaiTell,"said Losely,
doggedly; and, planting himself right before
Darrell's way, " I have come here on purpose
to have all ditferences out with you, face to face
— and I will — "
"You will!" said Darrell, pale with haughty
anger, and, with the impulse of his passion, his
hand clenched. In the bravery of his nature,
and the warmth of a temper constitutionally
quick, he thought nothing of the strength and
bulk of the insolent intruder — nothing of the
peril of odds so unequal in a personal encounter.
But the dignity which pervaded all his habits,
and often supplied to him the place of discre-
tion, came, happily for himself, to his aid now.
He strike a man whom he so despised I he raise
that man to his own level by the honor of a
blow from his hand ! Impossible ! " You will !"
he said. " Well, be it so. Are you come again
to tell me that a child of my daughter lives, and
that you won my daughter's fortune by a delib-
erate lie?"
" I am not come to speak of that girl, but of
myself. I say that I have a claim on you, Mr.
Darrell; I say that, turn and twist the truth as
you will, you are still my father-in-law, and that
it is intolerable that I s'.iould be wanting bread,
or driven into actual robbery, while my wife's
father is a man of countless wealth, and has no
heir except — but I will not now urge that child's
216
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
cause ; I am content to abandon it, if so obnox-
ious to you. Do you wish me to cut a throat,
and to be hanged, and all the world to hear the
last dying speech and confession of Guy Dar-
rell's son-in-law ? Answer me, Sir I"
" I answer you briefly and plainly. It is sim-
ply because I would not have that last disgrace
on Guy Darrell's name that I offer you a sub-
sistence in lands where you will be less exposed
to those temptations which induced you to in-
vest the sums that, by your own tale, had been
obtained from me on false pretenses, in the sink
of a Paris gambling-house. A subsistence that,
if it does not pamper vice, at least places you
beyond the necessity of crime, is at your option.
Choose it or reject it as you \vill."
'•Look yoa, Mr. DaiTcll," said Jasper, whose
temper was fast giving way beneath the cold
and galling scorn «-ith which he was thus cast
aside, '■ I am in a state so desperate, that, rath-
er than starve, I may take what yon so con-
temptuously fling to — your daughter's husband ;
but — "
" Knave 1" cried Dan-ell, interrupting him,
"do you again and again urge it as a claim
upon me, that you decoyed from her home, un-
der a false name, my only child; that she died
in a foreign land — broken-hearted, if I have
rightly heard ; is that a claim upon your duped
victim's father ?"
'• It seems so, since your pride is compelled to
own that the world would deem it one, if the
jail-chaplain took down the last words of your
son-in-law. But, hasta, basta I hear me out, and
spare hard names ; for the blood is mounting
into my brain, and I may become dangerous.
Had any other man eyed, and scoff'ed, and rail-
ed at me as you have done, he would be lying
dead and dumb as this stone at my foot ; but
you — are my father-in-law. Xow, I care not to
bargain with you what be the precise amount of
my stipend if I obey your wish, and settle mis-
erably in one of those raw, comfortless corners
into which they who burden this Old World are
thrust out of sight. I would rather live my time
out in this country — live it out in peace, and for
half what you may agree to give in transporring
me. If you are to do any thing for me, you
had better do it so as to make me contented on
easy terms to your own pockets, rather than to
leave me dissatisfied, and willing to annoy you,
which I could do somehow or other, even on the
far side of ths Herring Pond. I might keep to
the letter of a liargain, live in Phillip's Town or
Adelaide, and take your money, and yet molest
and trouble you by deputy. That girl, for in-
stance — your grandchild ; well, well, disown her
if you please ; but if I find out where she is,
which I own I have not done yet, I might con-
trive to render her the plague of your life, even
though I ;j-ere in Australia."
'•Ay," said Darrell, murmuring — "ay, ay;
but" — (suddenly gathering himself up) — "No!
Man, if she v.ere my grandchild, your own child,
could you talk of her thus ? — make her the ob-
ject of so base a traffic, and such miserable
threats? Wicked though you be, this were
against nature I — even in nature's wickedness —
even in the son of a felon, and in the sharper
of a hell. Pooh 1 I despise your malice. I will
listen to vou uo longer. Out of mv path !"
"No!'"'
I "No?"
I " No, Guy Darrell, I have not yet done ; you
j shall hear my terms, and accept them — a mod-
I erate sum down ; say a few hundreds, and two
hundred a year to spend in London as I will —
I but out of your beat, out of your sight and hear-
I ing. Grant this, and I will never cross you
j again — never attempt to find, and, if I find by
. chance, never claim, as my child by your daugh-
: ter, that wandering gii^l. I will never shame
I you by naming our connection. I wiU not of-
fend the law, nor die by the hangman ; yet I
shall not live long, for I suff"er much, and I drink
hard."
The last words were spoken gloomily, not al-
together ^\'ithout a strange dreary pathos. And
amidst all his just scorn and anger, the large
human heart of Guy Darrell was for the mo-
ment touched. He was silent — his mind hesi-
tated ; would it not be well — would it not be
just as safe to his own peace, and to that of the
poor child, whom, no matter what her parent-
age, DaiTell could not but desire to free from
the claim set up by so bold a ruffian, to gratify
Losely's wish, and let him remain in England,
upon an allowance that would suffice for his sub-
sistence? Unluckily for Jasper, it was while
this doubt passed through DaiTcUs relenting
mind that the miscreant, who was shrewd
enough to see that he had gained ground but
too coarse of apprehension to ascribe his advant-
age to its right cause, thought to strengthen his
case by additional arguments. " Yon see, Sir, "re-
sumed Jasper, in almost familiar accents, "that
there is no dog so toothless but what he can bite,
and no dog so savage but what, if yon give him
plenty to eat, he will serve you."
Darrell looked up, and his brow slowly dark-
ened.
Jasper continued — "I have hinted how I
might plague you ; perhaps, on the other hand,
I might do you a good turn with that handsome
lady who drove from your park gate as I came
up. Ah ! you were once to have been married
to her. I read in the newspapers that she has
become a widow : you may marry her yet.
There was a stoi-y against you once ; her mo-
ther made use of it, and broke off" an old en-
gagement. I can set that story right."
'•You can," said Darrell, with that exceeding
calmness which comes from exceeding ^sTath ;
"and perhaps. Sir, that story, whatever it might
be, you invented. Xo dog so toothless as not
to bite — eh. Sir ?"
"Well," returned Jasper, mistaking Darrell's
composure, "at that time certainly it seemed
my interest that you should not marry again ; —
but basta ! basta ! enough of by-gones. If I bit
once, I will serve now. Come, Sir, you are a
man of the world, let us close the bargain."
All Darrell's soul was now up in arms. What,
then ! this infamous wretch was the author of
the tale by which the woman he had loved, as
woman never was loved before, had excused her
breach of faith, and been lost to hini for ever ?
And he learned this, while yet fresh from her
presence — fresh from the agonizing conviction
that his heart loved still, but could not jiardon.
With a spring so sudden that it took Losely ut-
terly by surprise, he leaped on the bravo, swung
.1-idc that huge bulk which Jasper had boasted
fear draymen could not stir against its will,
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
247
cleared his way ; and turning back before Lose-
ly had recovered his amaze, cried out, ''Exe-
crable villain I I revoke every offer to aid a life
that has e>asted but to darken and desolate those
it was permitted to approach. Starve or rob !
perish miserably I And if I pour not on your
head my parting curse, it is only because I know
that man has no right to curse ; and casting you
back on your own evil self is the sole revenge
which my belief in Heaven permits me."
Thus saying, Darrell strode on — swiftly, but
not as one who flies. Jasper made three long
bounds, and was almost at his side, when he was
startled by the explosion of a gun. A pheasant
fell dead on the road, and Darrell's gamekeeper,
gnn in hand, came through a gap in the hedge
opposite the park pales, and seeing his master
close before him, approached to apologize for
the suddenness of the shot.
Whatever Losely's intention in hastening after
Darrell, he had no option now but to relinquish
it, and drop back. The village itself was not
many hundred yards distant ; and, after all,
what good in violence, except the gratified rage
of the moment ? Violence would not give to
Jasper Losely the income that had just been
within his giasp, and had so unexpectedly elud-
ed it. He remained, therefore, in the lane,
standing still, and seeing Darrell turn quietly
into his park through another gate close to the
Manor House. The gamekeeper, meanwhile,
picked up his bird, reloaded his gun, and eyed
Jasper suspiciously askant. The baffled gladi-
ator at length turned, and walked slowly back
to the town he had left. It was late in the aft-
ernoon when he once more gained his corner in
the coftee-room of his commercial inn ; and, to
his annoyance, the room was crowded — it was
market-day. Farmers, their business over, came
in and out in quick succession ; those who did
not dine at the ordinaries, taking their hasty
snack, or stirrup-cup, while their horses were
being saddled ; others to look at the newspaper,
or exchange a word on the state of markets and
the nation. Jasper, wearied and sullen, had to
wait for the refreshments he ordered, and mean-
while fell into a sort of half doze, as was not now
nnusual in him in the intervals between food and
mischief. From this creeping torpor he was sud-
denly roused by the sound of Darrell's name.
Three formers, standing close beside him, their
backs to the fire, were tenants to Darrell — two
of them on the lands that Darrell had purchased
in the years of his territorial ambition ; the third
resided in the hamlet of Fawley, and rented the
larger portion of the comparatively barren acres
to which the old patrimonial estate was circum-
scribed. These farmers were talking of their
Squire's return to the county — of his sequestered
mode of life — of his peculiar habits — of the great
nnfinished house which was left to rot. The
Fawley tenant then said that it might not be
left to rot after all, and that the village work-
men had been lately employed, and still were,
in getting some of the rooms into rough order;
and then he spoke of the long gallery in which
the Squire had been arranging his fine pictures,
and how he had run up a passage between that
gallery and his own room, and how he would
spend hours at day, and night too, in that aw-
ful long room, as lone as a church-yard ; and
that Mr. Mills hud said that his master now
lived almost entirely either in that gallery or in
the room in the roof of the old house — quite cut
off, as you might say, except from the eyes of
those dead pictures, or the rats, which had
gi-own so excited at having their quarters in
the new building invaded, that if you peeped in
at the windows in moonlit nights you might see
them in dozens, sitting on their haunches as if
holding council, or peering at the curious old
things which lay beside the crates out of which
they had been taken. Then the rustic gossips
went on to talk of the rent-day, which was at
hand — of the audit feast, which, according to
immemorial custom, was given at the old :Ma"nor
House on thatsame rent-day — supposed that Mr.
Fairthorn would preside— that the Squire him-
self would not appear — made some incidental
observations on their respective rents and wheat
crops — remarked that they should have a good
moonlight for their ride back from the audit
j feast — cautioned each other, laughing, not to
! drink too much of Jlr. Fairthorn's punch — and
] finally went their way, leaving on the mind of
' Jasper Losely ^who, leaning his scheming head
1 on his powerful hand, had ajipeared in dull
j sleep all the while — these two facts : 1st, That
[ on the third day from that which was then de-
clining, sums amounting to thousands would
find their way into Fawley Manor House; and,
2dly, That a communication existed between
the unfinished, uninhabited building and Dar-
rell's own solitary chamber. As soon as he had
fortified himself by food and drink, Jasper rose,
paid for his refreshments, and walked forth.
Xoiseless and rapid, skirting the hedge-rows by
the lane that led to Fawley, and scarcely dis-
tinguishable under their shadow, the human
wild-beast strided on in scent of its quarry. It
was night when Jasper once more reached the
moss-grown pales round the demesnes of the
old Manor House. In a few minutes he was
standing under the black shadow of the but-
tresses to the unfinished pile. His object was
not then to assault, but to reconnoitre. He
prowled round the irregular walls, guided in his
sun-ey, now and then, faintly by the stars — more
constantly and clearly by the lights from the con-
tiguous Manor House — more especially the light
from that high chamber in the gable, close by
whrich ran the thin frame-work of wood whicti
linked the two buildings of stone, just as any
frail scheme links together the Past, which man
has not enjoyed, with the Future he will not
complete. Jasper came to a large bay unglazed
window, its sill but a few feet from the ground,
from which the boards, nailed across the mull-
ions, had been removed by the workmen whom
Darrell had employed on the interior, and were
replaced but by a loose tarpaulin. Pulling aside
this slight obstacle, Jasper had no difficulty in en-
tering through the wide mullions into the dreary
edifice. Finding himself in profound darkness,
he had recourse to a lucifer-box which he had
about him, and the waste of a dozen matches
sufficed him to examine the ground. He was
in a space intended by the architect for the prin-
cipal stair-case ; a tall ladder, used by the re-
cent workmen, was still left standing against
the wall, the top of it renting on a landing-place
opposite a door-way, that, from the richness of
its half-finished architrave, obviously led to what
had been designed for the state apartments;
248
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
between the pediments was a slight temporary
door of rough deal planks. Satisfied with his
reconnoitre, Losely quitted the skeleton pile
and retraced his steps to the inn he had left.
His musings by the way suggested to liim the
expediency, nay, the necessity, of an accom-
plice. Implements might be needed — disguises
would be required — swift horses for flight to be
hired — and, should the robbery succeed, the
bulk of the spoil would be no doubt in bank-
notes, which it would need some other hand
than his own to dispose of, either at the bank
next morning at the earliest hour, or by trans-
mission abroad. For help in all this Jasper
knew no one to compare to Cutts ; nor did he
suspect his old ally of any share in the conspir-
acy against him, of which he had been M-arned
by Mrs. Crane, Resolving, therefore, to admit
that long-tried friend into his confidence and a
share of the spoils, he quickened his pace, ar-
rived at the railway-station in time for a late
train to London, and, disdainful of the dangers
by which he was threatened in return to any of
the haunts of his late associates, gained the dark
court wherein he had effected a lodgment on the
night of his return to London, and roused Cutts
from his slumbers with tales of an enterprise so
promising, that the small man began to recover
his ancient admiration for the genius to which
he had bowed at Paris, but which had fallen
into his contempt in London.
Mr. Cutts held a very peculiar position in that
section of the great world to which he belonged.
He possessed the advantage of an education su-
perior to that of the generality of his compan-
ions, having been originally a clerk to an Old
Bailey attorney, and having since that early
day accomplished his natural shrewdness by a
variety of speculative enterprises both at home
and abroad. In these adventures he had not
only contrived to make money, but, what is very
rare with the foes of law, to save it. Being a
bachelor, he was at small expenses ; but besides
his bacheloi-'s lodging in the dark court, he had
an establishment in the heart of the City, near
the Thames, which was intrusted to the care of
a maiden sister as covetous and as crafty as
himself. At this establishment, ostensibly a
pawnbroker's, were received the goods which
Cutts knew at his residence in the court were
to be sold a bargain, having been obtained for
nothing. It was chiefly by this business that
the man had enriched himself But his net was
one that took in fishes of all kinds. He was a
general adviser to the invaders of law. If he
shared in the schemes he advised, they were so
sure to be successful that he enjoyed the liigh-
est reputation for luck. It was "biit seldom that
he did actively share in those schemes — lucky
in what he shunned as in what he performed.
He had made no untruthful boast to Mrs. Crane
of the skill with which he had kept himself out
of the fangs of justice. With a certain portion
of the })olice he was indeed rather a favorite ;
for was any thing mysteriotisly " lost," for which
the owner would give a reward equal to its value
in legal markets, Cutts was the man who would
get it back. Of violence he had a wiiolesome
dislike ; not that he did not admire force in oth-
ers — not that he was jdiysically a coward — iiut
tlial caution was his ])redominant characteristic.
He employed force when reipiired — set a just
.value on it — would plan a burglary, and dispose
of the spoils ; but it was only where the jjrize
was great and the danger small that he lent
his hand to the work that his brain approved.
When Losely i)roj)osed to him the robbery of a
lone country house, in which Jasper, making
light of all perils, brought prominently forward
the images of some thousands of jiounds in gold
and notes, guarded by an elderly gentleman,
and to be approached with ease through an un-
inhabited building — Cutts thought it well worth
personal investigation. Nor did he consider
himself bound, by his general engagement to
IMrs. Crane, to lose the chance of a sum so im-
measurably greater than he could expect to ob-
tain from her by revealing the jjlflt and taking
measures to frustrate it. Cutts was a most faith-
ful and intelligent agent when he was properly
paid, and had jiroved himself so to Mrs. Crane
on various occasions. But then, to be paid
jtropcrhj meant a gain greater in serving than
he could get in not serving. Hitherto it had
been exti-emely lucrative to obey ilrs. Crane in
saving Jasper from crime and danger. In this
instance the lucre seemed all the other way.
Accordingly, the next morning, having filled a
saddle-bag with sundry necessaries, such as files,
picklocks, masks — to Avhich he added a choice
selection of political tracts and newspapers — he
and Jasjier set out on two hired but strong and
fleet hackneys to the neighborhood of Fawley.
They put up at a town on the other side of the
Manor House from that by which Jasper had
approached it, and at about the same distance.
After baiting their steeds, they proceeded to
Fawley by the silent guid;> of a finger-post, gain-
ed the vicinity of the park, and Cutts, dismount-
ing, flitted across the turf, and plunged himself
into the hollows of the unfinished mansion,
while Jasper took charge of the horses in a cor-
ner of the wooded lane. Cutts, pleased by the
survey of the forlorn interior, ventured, in the
stillness that reigned around, to mount the lad-
der, to ap]dy a picklock to the door above, and
opening this with ease, crept into the long gal-
lery, its walls covered with pictures. Through
the crevices in another door at the extreme end
gleamed a faint light. Cutts applied his eye to
the chinks and keyhole, and saw that the light
came from a room on the other side the narrow
passage which connected the new house with
the old. The door of that room was open, can-
dles were on the table, and beside the table
Cutts could distinguish the outline of a man's
form seated — doubtless the owner ; but the form
did not seem "elderly." If inferior to Jasper's
in physical power, it still was that of vigorous
and unbroken manhood. Cutts did not like the
appearance of that form, and he retreated to
outer air with some misgivings. However, on
rejoining Losely, he said, "As yet things look
promising — place still as death — only one door
locked, and that the common country lock, which
a school-boy might ])ick with his knife."
"Or a crooked nail," said Jas])er.
"Ay, no better picklock in good hands. But
there are other things besides locks to think of."
Cutts then hurried on to suggest that it was
just the hour when some of the workmen em-
ployed on the jiremises might be found in the
Fawley public house ; that he should ride on,
dismount there, and take his chance of picking
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
249
up details of useful information as to localities
and household. He should represent himself
as a commercial traveler on his road to the town
they had quitted ; he should take out his cheap
newspapers and tracts ; he should talk politics
— all workmen love politics, especially the poli-
tics of cheap newspapers and tracts. He would
rejoin Losely in an hour or so.
The bravo waited — his horse grazed — the
moon came forth, stealing through the trees,
bringing into fantastic light the melancholy old
dwelling-house — the yet more melancholy new
pile. Jasper was not, as we have seen, without
certain superstitious fancies, and they had grown
on him more of late as his brain had become
chronicalh- heated and his nerves i-elaxed by
pain. He began to feel the awe of the silence
and the moonlight ; and some vague remem-
brances of eai'lier guiltless days — of a father's
genial love — of joyous sensations in the price-
less possession of youth and vigor — of the ad-
mii'ing smiles and cordial hands which his beau-
ty, his daring, and high spirits had attracted to-
ward him — of the all that he had been, mixed
with the consciousness of what he was, and an
uneasy conjecture of the probable depth of the
final fall — came dimly over his thoughts, and
seemed like the whispers of remorse. But it is
rarely that man continues to lay blame on him-
self; and Jasper hastened to do as many a bet-
ter person does without a blush for his folly —
viz., shift upon the innocent shoulders of feUow-
men, or on the hazy outlines of that clouded
form which ancient schools and modern plagia-
rists call sometimes "Circumstance," sometimes
"Chance, "sometimes "Fate," all the guilt due
to his own willful abuse of irrevocable hours.
With this consolatoiy creed came, of necessi-
ty, the devil's grand luxury, Revenge. Say to
yourself, " For what I suffer I condemn anoth-
er man, or I accuse the Arch-Invisible, be it a
Destiny, be it a Maker!" and the logical sequel
is to add evil to evil, folly to folly — to retort on
the man who so wrongs, or on the Arch-Invisi-
ble who so afflicts you. Of all our passions is
not Revenge the one into which enters with the
most zest a devil ? For what is a devil ? — A be-
ing whose sole work on earth is some revenge
on God I
Jasper Losely was not by temperament vindic-
tive ; he was irascible, as the vain are — combative,
aggressive, turbulent, by the impulse of animal
spirits ; but the premeditation of vengeance was
foreign to a levity and egotism which abjured
the self-sacrifice that is equally necessary' to ha-
tred as to love. But Guy Darrell had' forced
into his moral system a passion not native to it.
Jasper had expected so much from his marriage
with the great man's daughter — counted so
thoroughly on her power to obtain pardon and
confer wealth — and his disappointment had been
so keen — been accompanied with such mortifi-
cation — that he regarded the man whom he had
most injured as the man who had most injured
him. But not till now did his angry feelings
assume the shape of a definite vengeance. So
long as there was a chance that he could ex-
tort from Darrell the money that was the essen-
tial necessary to his life, he checked his thoughts
whenever they suggested a profitless gratifica-
tion of rage. But now that Darrell had so
scornfully and so inexorably spurned all conces-
sion — now that nothing was to be wrung from him
except by force — force and vengeance came to-
gether in his projects. And yet, even in the
daring outrage he was meditating, murder itself
did not stand out as a thought accepted — no ;
what pleased his wild and turbid imagination
was the idea of humiliating by terror the man
j who had humbled him by disdain. To pene-
trate into the home of this haughty scorner —
to confront him in his own chamber at the dead
of night, man to man, force to force ; to say to
him, "None now can deliver you from me — I
come no more as a suppliant — I command you
to accept my terms;" to gloat over the fears
which, the strong man felt assured, would bow
the rich man to beg for mercy at his feet; —
this was the picture which Jasper Losely con-
[ jured up ; and even the spoil to Le won by vio-
! lence smiled on him less than the grand po-
I sition which the violence itself would bestow.
I Are not nine murders out of ten fashioned thus
I from conception into deed? "Oh that my en-
emy were but before me face to face — none to
part us I" says the vindictive dreamer. W^ell,
i and what then? T/iere his imagination halts
I — there he drops the sable curtain ; he goes not
j on to say, " Why, then another murder will be
! added to the long catalogue from Cain." He
I palters with his deadly wish, and mutters, per-
i haps, at most, "Why, then— come what may."
j Losely continued to gaze on the pale walls
I gleaming through the wintry boughs, as the
i moon rose high and higher. And now out broke
the light from Darrell's lofty casement, and
Losely smiled fiercely, and muttered — hark!
the very words — "And then! — come what
may."
Hoofs are now heard on the hard road, and
Jasper is joined by his accomplice.
"Well!" said Jasper.
" Blount I" returned Cutts ; "I have much to
say as we ride."
"This will not do," resumed Cutts, as they
sped fast down the lane ; " why, you never told
me all the drawbacks. There are no less than
four men in the house — two servants besides
the master and his secretary ; and one of those
servants, the butler or valet, has fire-arms, and
knows how to use them."
" Pshaw 1"' said Jasper, scoflSngly ; "is that
all ? Am I not a match for four ?"
" Ko, it is not all ; you told me the master
of the house was a retired elderly man, and you
mentioned his name. But you never told me
that your 3Ir. Darrell was the famous lawyer
and Parliament man — a man about whom the
newspapers have been writing the last six
months."
"What does that signify?"'
" Signify ! Just this, that there will be ten
times more row about the affair you propose
than tliere would be if it concerned only a stupid
old country squire, and therefore ten times as
much danger. Besides, on principle, I don't
like to have any thing to do with lawyers — a
cantankrous, spiteful set of fellows. And this
Guy Darrell ! Why, General Jas, I have seen
the man. He cross-examined me once when I
was a witness on a ca:?e of fraud, and turned
me inside out with as much ease as if I had
been an old pin-cushion stuft'ed with bran. I
think I see his eye now, and I would as lief
250
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
have a loaded pistol at my head as that eye
again fixed on mine."
" Pooh I Yon have brought a mask; and,
besides, you need not see him; I can face him
alone."
" No, no ; there might be murder ! I never
mix myself with things of that kind, on princi-
ple ; your plan will not do. There might be a
much safer chance of more swar/ in a very dif-
ferent sort of scheme. I hear that the pictures
in that ghostly long room I crept through are
worth a mint of money. Now pictures of great
value are well known, and there are collectors
abroad who would pay almost any price for some
pictures, and never ask where they came from;
hide them for some years, perhaps, and not
bring them forth till any tales that would hurt
us had died away. This would be safe, I say.
If the pictures are small, no one in the old
house need be disturbed. I can learn from
some of the trade wliat pictures Darrell really
has that would fetch a high price, and then loi/k
out for customers abroad. This will take a lit-
tle time, but be worth waiting for."
" I will not wait," said Jasper, fiercely ; "and
you are a coward. I have resolved that to-mor-
row night I will be in that man's room, and that
man shall be on his knees before me."
Cutts turned sharply round on his saddle, and
by aid of the moonlight surveyed Losely's coun-
tenance. " Oh, I see," he said, " there is more
than robbery in your mind. You have some
feeling of hate — of vengeance ; the man has in-
jm-ed you ?"
'• He has treated me as if I were a dog," said
Jasper; "and a dog can bite."
Cutts mused a few moments. " I have heard
you talk at times about some rich relation or
connection on whom you had claims ; Darrell is
the man, I suppose ?"
" He is ; and hark ye, Cutts, if you try to
balk m3 here I will wring your neck otf. And
since I have told you so much, I will tell you this
much more — that I don't think there is the dan-
ger you count on ; for I don't mean to take Dar-
rell's blood, and I believe he would not take
mine."
" But there may be a struggle — and then ?"
"Ay, if so, and then — man to man," replied
Jasper, mutteringly.
Nothing more was said, but both spurred on
their horses to a quicker pace. The sparks
flashed from the hoofs. Now through the moon-
light, now under shade of the boughs, scoured
on the riders — Losely's broad chest and mark- j
ed countenance, once beautiful, now fearful, '
formidably defined even under the shadows —
his comrade's unsubstantial figure and goblin
features flitting vague even under the moon-
light.
The town they had left came in sight, and by
this time Cutts had resolved on the course his
prudence suggested to him. Tlie discovery
that, in the proposed enterprise, Losely had a
personal feeling of revenge to satisfy, had suf-
ficed to decide the accom])licc jieremptorily to
have nothing to do with the aftair. It was his
rule to abstain from all transactions in which
fierce passions were engaged. And the quarrels
between relations or connections were especial-
ly those which his exjierience of human nature
told hinr brought risk upon all intcrmoddlers.
But he saw that Jasper was desperate ; that the
rage of the bravo might be easily turned on
himself; and therefore, since it was no use to
argue, it would be discreet to dissimulate. Ac-
cordingly, when they reached their inn, and
were seated over their brandy-and-water, Cutts
resumed the conversation, appeared gradually
to yield to Jasper's reasonings, concerted with
him the whole plan for the next night's opera-
tions, and took care meanwhile to pass the
brandy. The day had scarcely broken before
Cutts was oft", with his bag of implements and
tracts. He would have fain carried off also
both the horses ; but the hostler, surly at being
knocked up at so early an hour, might not have
surrendered the one ridden by Jajper without
Jasper's own order to do so. Cutts, however,
bade the hostler be sure and tell the gentleman,
before going away, that he, Cutts, strongly ad-
vised him " to have nothing to do with the bul-
locks."
Cutts, on arriving in London, went straight
to Mrs. Crane's old lodging opposite to Jasper's.
But she had now removed to Eodden Place, and
left no address. On reaching his own home,
Cutts, however, found a note from her, stating
that she should be at her old lodging that even-
ing, if he would call at half past nine o'clock;
for, indeed, she had been expecting Jasper's
promised visit — had learned that he had left his
lodgings, and was naturally anxious to learn
from Cutts what had become of him. When
Cutts called at the appointed hour and told his
story, Arabella Crane immediately recognized
all the danger which her informant had so pru-
dently shunned. Nor was she comforted by
Cntts's assurance that Jasper, on finding him-
self deserted, would have no option but to aban-
don, or at least postpone, an enterprise that,
undertaken singly, would be too rash even for
his reckless temerit_v. As it had become the
object of her life to save Losely from justice, so
she now shrunk from denouncing to justice his
meditated crime ; and the idea of recurring to
Colonel Morley happily flashed upon her.
Having thus explained to the reader these
antecedents in the narrative, we return to Jas-
jier. He did not rise till late at noon; and as
he was generally somewhat stupefied on rising,
by the drink he had taken the night before, and
by the congested brain which the heaviness of
such sleep produced, he could not at first be-
lieve that Cutts had altogether abandoned the
enterprise — rather thought that, with his habit-
ual wariness, that Ulysses of the Profession had
gone forth to collect further information in the
neighborhood of the jjroposed scene of action.
He was not fully undeceived in this belief till
somewhat late in the da\', when, strolling into
the stable-yard, the hostler, concluding from the
gentleman's goodly thews and size that he was
a north-country grazier, delivered Cutts's alle-
gorical caution against the bullocks.
Thus abandoned, Jasper's desperate project
only acquired a still more concentrated pur]iose,
and a ruder simplicity of action. His original
idea, on first conceiving the plan of robbery, had
been to enter into Darrell's presence disguised
and masked. Even, however, before Cutts de-
serted him, the mere hope of plunder had be-
come subordinate to the desire of a jiersonal
triumph; and now that Cutts had left him to
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
251
himself, and carried away the means of disguise,
Jasper felt rather pleased than otherwise at the
thought that his design should have none of the
characteristics of a vulgar burglary. No mask
now ; his front should be as open as his demand.
Cutts's report of the facility of penetrating into
Darrell's very room also lessened the uses of
an accomplice." And in the remodification of
his first hasty plan of commonplace midnight
stealthy robbery, he would no longer even re-
quire an assistant to dispose of the plunder he
might gain. Darrell should now yield to his
exactions, as a garrison surprised accepts the
terms of its conqueror. There would be no
flight, no hiding, no fear of notes stopped at
banks. He would march out, hand on haunch,
witli those immunities of booty that belong to
the honors of war. Pleasing his self-conceit
with so gallant a view of his meditated exploit,
Jasper sauntered at dark into the town, bought
a few long narrow nails and a small hammer,
and returning to his room, by the aid of the fire,
the tongs, and the hammer, he fashioned these
nails, with an ease and quickness which showed
an expert practitioner, into instruments that
would readily move the wards of any common
country-made lock. He did not care for weap-
ons. He trusted at need to his own powerful
hands. It was no longer, too, the affair of a
robber unknown, unguessed, who might have to
fight his way out of an alarmed household. It
was but the visit which he, Jasper Losely, Es-
quire, thought tit to pay, however imceremoni-
ously and unseasonably, to the house of a father-
in-law ! At the worst, should he fail in finding
Darrell, or securing an imwitnessed inteiTiew
— should he instead alarm the household, it
would be a proof of tiie integrity of his inten-
tions that he had no weapons save those which
Nature bestows on the wild man as the mightiest
of her wild beasts. At night he mounted his
horse, but went out of his way, keeping the higli-
road for an hour or two, in order to allow amjde
time for the farmers to have quitted the rent-
feast, and the old Manor House to be hushed in
sleej). At last, when he judged the coast clear
and the hour ripe, he wound back into the lane
toward Fawley ; and when the spire of its ham-
let-church came in sight through the frosty star-
lit air, he dismounted — led the horse into one
of the thick beechwoods, that make the prevail-
ing characteristic of the wild country round that
sequestered dwelling-place — fastened the animal
to a tree, and stalked toward the park-pales on
foot. Lightly, as a wolf enters a sheepfold,
he swung himself over the moss-grown fence ;
he gained the buttresses of the great raw pile ;
high and clear above, from Darrell's chamber,
streamed the light; all tlie rest of the old house
was closed and dark, buried, no doubt, in slum-
ber.
He is now in the hollows of the skeleton pile ;
he mounts the ladder ; the lock of the door be-
fore him yields to his rude implements but art-
ful hand. He is in the long gallery ; the moon-
light comes broad and clear through the large
casements. What wealth of art is on the walls !
but how ])rofitless to the robber's greed ! There,
through the very halls which the master had
built in tlie day of his ambition, saying to him-
self, "These are for far Posterity," the step of
Violence, it may be of Murder, takes its stealthy
way to the room of the childless man ! Through
the uncompleted pile, toward the nncompleted
life, strides the terrible step.
The last door yields noiselessly. The small
wooden corridor, narrow as the drawbridore
which in ancient fortresses was swung between
the commandant's room in the topmost story
and some opposing wall, is before him. And
Darrell's own door is half open ; lights on the
table — logs burning bright on the hearth. Cau-
tiously Losely looked through the aperture.
Darrell was not there; the place was solitary:
but the opposite door was open also. Losely's
fine ear caught the sound of a slight movement
of a footstep in the room just below, to which
that opposite door admitted. In an instant the
robber glided witJiin the chamber— closed and
locked the door by which he had entered, re-
taining the key about his person. The next
stride brought him to the hearth. Beside it
hung the bell-rope common in old-fashioned
houses. Losely looked round; on the table, by
the writing implements, lay a pen-knife. In
another moment the rope was cut, high out of
Darrell's reach, and flung aside. The hearth,
being adapted but for logwood fires, furnished
not those implements in which, at a moment
of need, the owner may find an available weapon
— only a slight pair of brass wood-pincers, and
a shovel equally frail. Such as they were, how-
ever, Jasper quietly removed and hid them be-
hind a lieavy old bureau. Steps were now heard
mounting the stair that led into the chamber;
Losely shrunk back into the recess beside the
mantle-piece. Darrell entered, with a book in
his hand, for which he had, indeed, quitted his
chamber — a volume containing the last Act of
Parliament relating to Public Trusts, which had
been sent to him by his solicitor; for he is
creating a deed of trust, to insure to the nation
the Darrell Antiquities, in the name of his
father, the antiquarian.
Darrell advanced to the Avriting-table, wliich
stood in the centre of the room ; laid down the
book, and sighed — the short, quick, impatient
sigh which had become one of his peculiar hab-
its. The robber stole from the recess, and, glid-
ing round to the door by which Darrell had en-
tered, while the back of the master was still to-
ward him, set fast the lock, and appropriated
the key as he had done at the door which had
admitted himself. Though the noise in that
operation was but slight, it rouses I^jin-ell from
his abstracted thoughts. He turiicd quicklv,
and at the same moment Losely advanced to-
ward him.
At once Darrell comprehended his danger.
His rapid glance took in all the precautions by
which the intruder proclaimed his lawless pur-
pose — the closed door, the bell-rope cut off.
There, between those four secret walls, must
pass the interview between himself and the des-
perado. He was unarmed, but he was not
daunted. It was but man to man. Losely had
for him his vast physical strength, his penury,
despair, and vindictive purpose. Darrell had
in his favor the intellect which gives presence
of mind ; the energy of nerve, which is no more
to be seen in the sinew and bone than the fluid
which fells can be seen in the jars and the
wires ; and that superb kind of pride, which, if
terror be felt, makes its action impossible, be-
252
WHAT ^YILL HE DO WITH TI ?
cause a disfrrace, and bravery a matter of course,
simply because it is honor.
As the bravo approached, by a calm and slight
movement Darrell drew to the other side of the
table, placing that obstacle between himself and
Losely, and, extending his arm, said, "Hold,
Sir ; i forbid you to advance another step. You
are here, no matter how, to reurge your claims
on me. Be seated ; I will listen to you."
Darrell's composure took Losely so by sur-
prise that, mechanically, he obeyed the com-
mand thus tranquilly laid upon him, and sunk
into a chair — facing Darrell with a sinister un-
der-look from his sullen brow. '• Ah I" he said,
"you will listen to me now ; but my terms have
risen."
Darrell, who had also seated himself, made
no answer ; but his face was resolute, and his
eye watchful. The ruffian resumed, in a gruffer
tone, " My terms have risen, Mr. DaiTeU."
'• Have they, Sir? and why ?"
" Why I Because no one can come to your
aid here ; because here you can not escape ; be-
cause here you are in my power I"
"Eather, Sir, I listen to you because here
you are under my roof-tree ; and it is you who
are in my power I"
■• Yours ! Look round ; the doors are locked
on you. Perhaps you think your shouts, your
cries, might bring aid to you. Attempt it —
raiie your voice — and I strangle you with these
hands."
" If I do not raise my voice, it is, first, be-
cause I should be ashamed of myself if I re-
quired aid against one man ; and, secondly, be-
cause I would not expose to my dependents a
would-be assassin in him whom ray lost child
called husband. Hush, Sir, hush, or your own
voice will alarm those who sleep below. And,
now, what is it you ask ? Be plain, Sir, and be
brief."
'• Well, if you like to take matters coolly, I
have no objection. These are my terms. You
have received large sums this day; those sums
are in your house, probably in that bureau ; and
your life is at my will."
"You ask the moneys paid for rent to-day.
True, they are in the house ; but they are not
in my apartments. They were received by
another; they are kept by another. In vain,
through the windings and passages of this old
house, would you seek to find the room in which
he stores them. In doing so, you will pass by
the door of a sen^ant who sleeps so lightly that
the chances are that he will hear you ; he is
armed with a blunderbuss and with pistols. You
say to me, ' Your money or your life.' I say to
you, in reply, 'Neither: attempt to seize the
money, and your own life is lost.'"
"Miser! I don't believe that sums so large
are not in your own keeping. And even if they
are not, you shall show me where they are ; you
shall lead me through those windings and pas-
sages of which you so tenderly warn me, my
hand on your throat. And if servants wake, or
danger threaten me, it is you who shall save me,
or die I Ha ! you do not fear me — eh, Mr. Dar-
rell 1" And Losely rose.
" I do ttot fear you," replied Darrell, still
seated. " I can not conceive that you are here
with no other design but a profitless murder.
You are here, you say, to make terms; it will
be time enough to see whose life is endangered,
when all your propositions have been stated. As
yet you have only suggested a robbery, to which
you ask me to assist you. Impossible I Grant
even that you were able to murder me, you
would be just as far off from your booty. And
yet you say your terms have risen I To me they
seem fallen to — nothing ! Have you any thing
else to say ?"
The calmness of Darrell, so supremely dis-
played in this irony, began to tell upon the ruf-
fian — the magnetism of the great man's eye and
voice, and steadfast courage, gradually gaining
power over the wild, inferior animal. Trying to
recover his constitutional audacity, Jasper said,
with a tone of the old rollicking voice, "Well,
Mr. Darrell, it is all one to me "how I wring
from you, in your own house, what you refused
me when I was a suppliant on the road. Fair
means are pleasanter than foid. I am a gen-
tleman — the grandson of Sir Julian Losely,
of Losely Hall ; I am your son-in-law ; and I
am starving. This must not be; vrrite me a
check."
Darrell dipped his pen in the ink, and drew
the paper toward him.
" Oho I you dou"t fear me, eh ? This is not
done from fear, mind — all out of pure love and
compassion, my kind father-in-law ."• You will
write me a check for five thousand pounds —
come, I am moderate — your life is worth a pre-
cious deal more than that. Hand me the check
— I will trust to your honor to give me no trouble
in cashing it, and bid you good-night, my — fa-
ther-in-law."
As Losely ceased with a mocking laugh, Dar-
rell sprang up quickly, threw open the small
casement which was within his reach, and flung
from it the paper on which he had been writing,
and which he wrapped round the heavy armoriiU
seal that lay on the table.
Losely bounded toward him. "What means
that? — what have you done?"
" Saved your life and mine, Jasper Losely,"
said Darrell solemnly, and catching the arm
that was raised against him. ".We are now
upon equal terms."
"I understand," growled the tiger, as the
slaver gathered to his lips — "you think by that
paper to summon some one to your aid."
" Xot so — that paper is useless while I live.
Look forth — the moonlight is on the roofs be-'
low — can you see where that paper has fallen?
On the ledge of a parapet that your foot could
not reach. It faces the window of a room in
which one of my household sleeps ; it will meet
his eye in the morning when the shutters are
unbarred; and on that paper are vnh these
words, ' If I am this night murdered, the mur-
derer is Jasper Losely,' and the paper is signed
by my name. Back, Sir — would you doom your-
self to the gibbet?"
Darrell released the dread arm he had arrest-
ed, and Losely stared at him, amazed, bewil-
dered.
Darrell resumed : "And now I tell you plain-
ly that I can accede to no terms put to me thus.
I can sign my hand to no order that you may
dictate, because that would be to sign myself a
coward — and my name is Darrell I"
" Down on your knees, proud man — sign yoa
shall, and on your knees ! I care not now for
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
253
gold — I care not now a rush for my life. I
came here to humble tlie man who from first to
last has so scornfiillv humbled me. And I will,
I will ! On your knees^on your knees !"
The robber flung liimself forward ; but Dar-
rell, whose eye had never quitted the foe, was
prepared for and eluded the rush. Losely,
missing his object, lost his balance, struck
against the edge of the table which partially
interposed between himself and his prey, and
was only saved from falling by the close neigh-
borhood of the wall, on which he came with a
shock that for the moment well-nigh stunned
him. Meanwhile Darrell had gained the hearth,
and snatched from it a large log, half burning.
Jasper, recovering himself, dashed the long
matted hair from his eyes, and, seeing undis-
mayed the foiTnidalile weapon with which he
was menaced, cowered for a second and dead-
lier spring.
" Stay, stay, stay, parricide and madman !"
cried Darrell, his eye flashing brighter than the
brand. " It is not my life I plead for — it is
yours. Remember, if I fall by your hand no
hope and no refuge are left to you ! In the
name of my dead child, and under the eye of
avenging Heaven, I strike down the fury that
blinds you, and I scare back your soul from the
abyss !"
So ineffably grand were the man's look and
gesture — so full of sonorous terror the swell of
his matchless, all-conquering voice — that Lose-
ly, in his midmost rage, stood awed and spell-
bound. His breast heaved, his eye fell, his
frame collapsed, even his very tongue seemed
to cleave to the parched roof of his mouth.
Whether the effect so suddenly produced might
have continued, or whether the startled mis-
creant might not have lashed himself into re-
newed wrath and inexpiable crime, passes out
of conjecture. At that instant simultaneously
were lieard hurried footsteps in the corridor
without, violent blows on the door, and voices
exclaiming, " Of)en, open! — Darrell, Darrell!"
while the bell at the portals of the old house
rang fast and shrill.
" Ho I — is it so ?" growled Losely, recovering
himself at those iHiwelcome sounds. " But do
not think that I will be caught thus, like a rat
in a trap. No — I will — "
" Hist !" interrupted Darrell, dropping the
brand, and advancing quickly on the ruffian —
"Hist! — let no one know that my daughter's
husband came here with a felon's purpose. Sit
down — down, I say. It is for my house's honor
that you should be safe." And" suddenly plac-
ing both hands on Losely's broad shoulder he
forced him into a seat.
During these few hurried words the strokes
at the door and the shouts without had been
continued, and the door shook on its yielding
hinges.
" The key — the key !" whispered Darrell.
But the bravo was stupefied by the sudden-
ness with which his rage had been cowed, his
design baffled, his position changed from the
man dictating laws and threatening life to the
man protected by his intended victim. And he
was so slow in even comprehending the mean-
ing of Darrell's order, that Darrell had scarce-
ly snatched the keys less from his hand than
from the pouch' to which he at last mechanical- ,
ly pointed, when the door was burst open, and
Lionel Haughton, Alban Morley, and the Col-
onel's servant were in the room. Not one of
them, at the first glance, perceived the inmates
of the chamber, who were at the right of their
^ entrance, by the angle of the wall and in shad-
; ow. But out came Darrell's calm voice —
I "Alban! Lionel! — welcome always; but
I what brings you hither, at such an hour, with
: such clamor ? Armed, too !"
{ The three men stood petrified. There sMe,
peaceably enough, a large dark form, its hands
on its knees, its head bent down, so that the
j features were not distinguishable ; and over the
j chair in which this bending figure was thus con-
j fusedly gathered up, leaned Guy Darrell, with
! quiet ease — no trace of fear nor "of past danger
in his face, which, though very pale, was serene,
with a slight smile on the firm lips.
" Well," muttered Alban jMorley, slowly low-
ering his pistol, "well, I am surprised ! — yes, for
the first time in twenty years, I am surprised !"
" Surprised, perhaps, to find me at this hour
still up, and with a person upon business — the
door locked. However, mutual explanations
later. Of course you stay here to-night. My
business with this — this visitor is now over. Li-
onel, open that door — here is the key. Sir (he
touched Losely by the shoulder, and" whispered
in his ear, 'I-iise, and speak not!' — (aloud) —
Sir, I need not detain you longer. Allow me
to show you the way out of this rambling old
house."
Jasper rose like one half-asleep, and, still
bending his form and hiding his face, followed
Darrell down the private stair, through the
study, the library, into the hall, the Colonel's
servant lighting the way ; and Lionel and Mor-
ley, still too amazed for words, bringing up the
rear. The servant drew the heavy bolts from
the front door. And now the household had
caught alarm. Mills first appeared with the
blunderbuss, then the footman, then Fairthorn.
" Stand back, there !" cried Darrell, and he
opened the door himself to Losely. " Sir," said
he, then, as they stood in the moonlight, "mark
that I told you truly you were in my power ; and
if the events of this night can lead you to ac-
knowledge a watchful Providence, and recall
with a shudder the crime from which you have
been saved, why, then, I too, out of gratitude
to Heaven, may think of means by which to
free others from the peril of your despair."
Losely made no answer, but slunk off with a
fast, furtive stride, hastening out of the moon-
lit sward into the gloom of the leafless trees.
CHAPTER n.
If the Lion ever wear the Fox's hide, still he wears it as
the Lion.
When Darrell was alone with Lionel and Al-
ban jMorley the calm with which he had before
startled them vanished. He poured out his
thanks with deep emotion. " Forgive me ; not
in the presence of a servant could I say, ' You
have saved me from an unnatural strife, and
my daughter's husband from a murderer's end.'
But by what wondrous mercy did you learn mv
danger? Were you sent to my aid?"
2o-i
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
Alban briefly explained. " You may judge,"
he said, in conclusion, " how great was our anx-
iety, when, following the instructions of our
guide, while our driver rang his alarum at the
■ front portals, we made our entrance into yon
ribs of stone, found the doors already opened,
and feared we might be too late. But, mean-
while, the poor woman waits without in the car-
riage that brought us from the station. I must
go and relieve her mind."
"'And bring her hither," cried Darrell, "to
receive my gratitude. iStay, Alban ; while you
leave me wirh her you will speak aside to Mills ;
tell him tliat you heard there was an attempt to
be made on t!ie house, and came to frustrate it,
hut that your fears were exaggerated ; the man
was more a half-insane mendicant than a rob-
ber. Be sure, at least, that liis identity with
Losely be not surmised, and bid Mills treat the
affair lightly. Public men are exposed, you
know, to assaults from crack-brained enthusi-
asts ; or stay — I was once a lawyer, and (con-
tinued Darrell, whose irony had become so in-
tegral an attribute of his mind as to be proof
against all trial) there ai-e men so out of their
wits as to fancy a lawyer has ruined them !
Lionel, tell poor Dick Fairthorn to come to
me." AVhen the musician entered, Darrell
whispered to him, " Go back to your room —
open your casement — step out on to the parapet
— you will see something white ; it is a scrap
of paper wrapped round my old armorial seal.
Bring it to me just as it is, Dick. That poor
young Lionel, we must keep him here a day or
two ; mind, no prickles for him, Dick."
CHAPTER III.
Arabella Cra.ne versus Guy Darrell: or. Woman versiis
Lawyer. In the Courts, Lawyer would win; but in a
Private Parlor, foot to foot and tongue to tongue, Law-
yer has not a chance.
Arabella Craxe entered the room; Darrell
hesitated — the remembrances attached to her
were so painful and repugnant. But did he not
now owe to her, perhaps, his very life? He
passed his hand rapidly over his brow, as if to
sweep away all earlier recollections, and, ad-
vancing quickly, extended that hand to her.
The stern woman shook her head, and rejected
the proffered greeting.
"You owe me no thanks," she said, in her
harsli, ungracious accents; "I sought to save
not you, but him."
" How :" said Darrell, startled ; " you feel no
resentment against the man who injured and
betrayed you ?"
"What my feelings may be toward him are
not for you to conjecture; man could not con-
jecture them ; I am woman. What they once
were I might blush for; what they are "now, I
could own without shame. But you, Mr. Dar-
rell — y.)u, in the hour of my uttermost anguish,
when all my future was laid desolate, and the
world lay crashed at my feet — you — man, cliiv-
alrous man I — you had for me no liimian com-
passion — you thrust me in scorn from your doors
— you saw in my woe nothing but my error —
you sent me forth, strii)ped of reputation, brand-
ed by your contempt, to famine or to suicide.
And you wonder that I feel less resentment
against him who wronged me than against you,
who, knowing me wronged, only disdained my
grief. The answer is plain — the scorn of the
man she only reverenced leaves to a woman
no memory to mitigate its bitterness and gall.
The wrongs inflicted by the man she loved may
deave, what they have left to me, an undving
sense of a past existence — radiant, joyous, hope-
ful ; of a time when the earth seemed covered
with blossoms, just ready to burst into bloom;
when the skies through their haze took the rose-
hues as the sun seemed about to rise. The
memory that I once was happy, at least then, I
owe to him who injured and betrayed me. To
you, when happiness was lost to me forever,
what do I owe? Tell me." —
Struck by her words, more by her impressive
manner, though not recognizing the plea by
which the defendant thus raised herself into the
accuser, Darrell answered gently, " Pardon me ;
this is no moment to revive recollections of
anger on my part; but reflect, I entreat you,
and you will feel that I was not too harsh. In
the same position any other man would not
have been less severe."
" Any other man !" she exclaimed ; "ay, pos-
sibly ! but would the scorn of any other rnan so
have crushed self-esteem ? The' injuries of the
wicked do not sour ns against the good ; but the
scoff of the good leaves us malignant against
i virtue itself. Any other man I Tut ! Genius
is bound to be indulgent. It should know hit-
man errors so well — has, with its large lumin-
ous forces, such errors itself when it deigns to
be human, that, where others may scorn, genius
should only pity." She paused a moment, and
then slowly resumed. " And pity was my due.
Had you, or had any one lofty as yourself "in re-
puted honor, but said to me, "' Thou hast sinned
— thou must suffer ; but sin itself needs com-
passion, and compassion forbids thee to despair'
— why, then, I might have been gentler to the
things of earth, and less steeled against the in-
fluences of Heaven than I have been. That is
all— no matter now. :\Ir. Darrell, I would not
part from you with angry and bitter sentiments.
Colonel Morley tells me that you have not only
let the man, whom we need not name, go free,
but that you have guarded the secret of his de-
signs. For this I thank you. I thank you, be-
cause what is left of that blasted and deformed
existence I have taken into mine. And I woidd
save that man from his own devices as I would
save my soul from its own temptations. Are
you large-hearted enough to comprehend me ?
Look in my f;ice — you have seen his ; all earth-
ly love is erased and blotted out of both."
Guy Darrell bowed his head in respect that
partook of awe.
"You too," said the grim woman, after a
pause, and approaching him nearer — "^o», too,
have loved, I am told, and you, too, were for-
saken."
He recoiled and shuddered.
"What is left to your heart of its ancient
folly ? I should like to know I I am curious to
learn if there be a man who can feel as woman !
Have you only resentment? have you only dis-
dain ? have you only vengeance ? have you pity ?
or have you the jealous, absorbing desire, sur-
viving the affection from which it sprang, that
still the life wrenched from vou shall owe, de-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
255
spite itself, a melancholy allegiance to your
own ?"
Darrell impatiently waved his hand to forbid
further questions ; and it needed all his sense
of the service this woman had just rendered
him, to repress .his haughty displeasure at so
close an approach to his torturing secrets.
Arabella's dark bright eyes rested on his
knitted brow, for a moment, wistfully, musingly.
Then she said, "I see I man's inflexible pride —
no pardon there I But own, at least, that you
have suffered."
"Suffered I" groaned Darrell involuntarily,
and pressing his hand to his heart.
"You have I and you own it I Fellow-suf-
ferer, I have no more anger against you. Nei-
ther should pity, but let each respect, the other.
A few words more — this child I"
"Ay — ay — this child 1 you will be truthful.
You will not seek to deceive me — you know
that she — she — claimed by that assassin, reared
by his convict father — she is no daughter of my
line I"
" What ! would it then be no joy to know that
your line did not close with yourself — that your
child might — "
" Cease, madam, cease — it matters not to a
man nor to a race when it perish, so that it
perish at last with honor. Who would have
either himself or his lineage live on into a day
when the escutcheon is blotted and the name
disgraced ? No ; if that be ]\Latilda's child, tell
me, and I will bear, as man may do, the last
calamity which the will of Heaven may inflict.
If, as I have all reason to think, the tale be an
imposture, speak and give me the sole comfort
to which I would cling amidst the ruin of all
other hopes."
" Verily," said Arabella, with a kind of mus-
ing wonder in the tone of her softened voice ;
" verily, has a man's heart the same throb and
fibre as a woman's? Had I a child like that
blue-eyed wanderer with the frail form needing
protection, and the brave spirit that ennobles
softness, what would be my pride ! my bliss I
Talk of shame — disgrace I Fie — iie — the more
the evil of others darkened one so innocent, the
more cause to love and shelter her. But / —
am childless ! Shall I tell you that the oflense
which lies heaviest on my conscience has been
my cruelty to that girl ? She was given an in-
fant to my care. I saw in her the daughter of
that false, false, mean, deceiving friend, who
had taken my confidence, and bought, with her
supposed heritage, the man sworn by all oaths
to me. I saw in her, too, your descendant,
your rightful heiress. I rejoiced in a revenge
on your daughter and yourself. Think -not I
would have foisted her on your notice! Xo.
I would have kept her without culture, without
consciousness of a higher lot ; and when I gave
her up to her grandsire the convict, it was a
triumph to think that ^Matilda's child would be
an outcast. Terrible thought ! but I was mad
then. But that poor convict whom you, in vour
worldly arrogance, so loftily despise — he took to
his breast what was flung away as a worthless
weed. And if the flower keep the promise of
the bud, never flower so fair bloomed from your
vaunted stem I And yet you would bless me,
if I said, ' Pass on, childless man ; she is no-
thing to you!' "
" Madam, let us not argue. You are right ;
man's heart and woman's must each know throbs
that never are, and never should be, familiar to
the other. 1 repeat my question, and again I
implore your answer."
"I can not answer for certain; and I am
fearful of answering at all, lest on a point so
important I should mislead you. ^latilda's
child ? Jasper affirmed it to me. His father
believed him — I believed him. I never had the
shadow of a doubt till — "
"Till what ? For Heaven's sake, speak."
"Till about five years ago. or somewhat more,
I saw a letter from Gabrielle Desmarets, and — "
"Ah! which made you suspect, as I do, that
the child is Gabrielle Desmaret's daughter."
Arabella reared her crest as a serpent before
it strikes. " Gabrielle's daughter ! You think
so. Her child that I sheltered ! Her child for
whom I have just pleaded to you I Hers.'"
She suddenly became silent. Evidently that
idea had never before struck her ; evidently it
now shocked her ; evidently something was
passing through her mind which did not allow
that idea to be dismissed. xVs Darrell was about
to address her, she exclaimed, abruptly, "Xo!
say no more now. You may liear from me
again, should I learn what may decide at least
this doubt one war or the other. Farewell,
Sir."
" Xot yet. Permit me to remind you that
you have saved the life of a man whose wealth
is immense."
" Mr. Darrell, my wealth in relation to my
wants is perhaps immense as yours, for I do not
spend what I possess."
" But this unhappy outlaw whom you would
save from himself can henceforth be to you but
a burden and a charge. After what has passed
to-night, I do tremble to think that penury may
whisper other houses to rob, other lives to men-
ace. Let me, then, place at your disposal, to
be employed in such mode as you deem the
best, whatever may be sulficient to secure an
object which we may here have in common."
"Xo, Mr. Darrell," said Arabella, fiercely;
"whatever he be, never with my consent shall
Jasper Losely be beholden to you for alms. If
money can save him from shame and a dread-
ful death, that money shall be mine. I have
said it. And hark you, 3Ir. Darrell, what is re-
pentance without atonement ? I say not that I
repent, but I do know that I seek to atone."
The iron-gray robe fluttered an instant, and
then vanished from the room.
When Alban Morley returned to the library
he saw Darrell at the farther corner of the
room on his knees. Well might Guy Darrell
thank Heaven for the mercies vouchsafed to
him that night. Life presened? Is that all?
jNIight hfe yet be bettered and gladdened?
Was there aught in the grim woman's words
that might bequeath thoughts which reflection
would ripen into influences over action? aught
that might suggest the cases in which, not igno-
bly, Pity might subjugate Scorn ? In the royal
abode of that soul does Pride only fortify Hon-
or ? is it but the mild king, not the imperial
despot ? Would it blind, as its rival, the rea-
son ? Would it chain, as a rebel, the Heart ?
Would it mar the dominions that might be se-
rene by the treasures it wastes — by the wars it
25G
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
provokes ? Self-knowledge ! self-knowledge !
From Heaven, indeed, descends the precept —
" Know thyself." That truth was told to us
by the old heathen oracle. But what old hea-
then oracle has told us how to know?
CHAPTER rV.
The ilan-eater humiliated. He encounters an old ac-
quaintance in a traveler, who, like Shakspeare's
Jaq:ies, is "a melancholy fellow;" who, also, like
Jiiques, hath "great reason to be sad;" and who, still
like Jaques, is '• full of matter."
Jasper Loselt rode slowlv on through the
clear frosty night ; not back to the country town
which he had left on his hateful errand, nor into
the broad road to London. With a strange de-
sire to avoid the haunts of men, he selected — at
each choice of way in the many paths branch-
ing right and left, between waste and woodland
— the lane that seemed the narrowest and the
dimmest. It was not remorse that gnawed him,
neither was it the mere mercenary disappoint-
ment, nor even the pang of baffled vengeance —
it was the profound humiliation of diseased self-
love — the conviction that, with all his brute pow- '
er, he had been powerless in the very time and
scene in which he had pictured to himself so
complete a triumph. The very quiet with which i
he had escaped stung him. Capture itself would •
have been preferable, if capture had been pre-
ceded by brawl and strife — the exhibition of his i
hardihood and prowess. Gloomily bending over |
his horse's neck, he cursed himself as fool and j
coward. What would he have had ! — a new !
crime on his soul ? Perhaps he would have an- |
swered, "Any thing rather than this humiliating
failure." He did not rack his brains with con- i
jecturing if Cutts had betrayed him, or by what |
other mode assistance had been sent in such i
time of need to DarreU. Nor did he feel that !
hunger for vengeance, whether on DarrelT or j
on his accomplice (should that accomplice have
played the traitor), which might have been ex- ;
pected from his characteristic ferocity. On the
contrary, the thought of violence and its excite- [
meats had in it a sickness as of shame. DarreU
at that hour might have ridden by him scathe-
less. Cutts might have jeered and said, "l'
blabbed your secret, and sent the aid that foil- '
ed it;" and Losely would have continued to
hang his head, nor lifted the Herculean hand
that lay nerveless on the horse's mane. Is it
not commonly so in all reaction from excite-
ments in which self-love has been keenly gall- !
ed? Does not vanity enter into the lust of ,
crime as into the desire of fame ? ;
At sunrise Losely found himself on the high ;
road, into which a labyrinth of lanes had led
him, and opposite to a mile-stone, by which he '
learned that he had been long turning his back ;
on the metropolis, and that he was about ten
miles distant from the provincial city of Ouzel-
ford." By this time his horse was knocked up,
and his own chronic pains began to make them-
selves acutely felt ; so that wlien, a little farther
on, he came to a wayside inn, he was glad to
halt; and after a strong dram, which had the
effect of an opiate, he betook himself to bed,
and slept till the noon was far advanced.
When Loselv came down stairs the common
room of the inn was occupied by a meeting of
the trustees of the high roads ; and, on demand-
ing breakfast, he was shown into a small sand-
ed parlor adjoining the kitchen. Two other
occupants — a man and a woman — were there
already, seated at a table by the tireside, over
a pint of half-and-half. Losely, warming him-
self at the hearth, scarcely noticed these hum-
ble revelers by a glance. And they, after a
displeased stare at the stalwart frame which
obscured the cheering glow they had hitherto
monopolized, resumed a muttered conversation ;
of which, as well as of the vile modicum which
refreshed their lips, the man took the lion's
share. Shabbily forlorn were that man's habil-
iments — turned and returned, patched, darned,
weather-stained, grease-stained — but still re-
taining that kind of mouldy grandiose, bastard
gentility, which implies that the wenrer has
known better days ; and, in the downward pro-
gress of fortunes when they once fall, may prob-
ably know still worse. The woman was some
years older than her companion, and still more
forlornly shabby. Her garments seemed literal-
ly composed of particles of dust glued together,
while her face might have insured her condem-
nation as a witch before any honest jury in the
reign of King James the First. His breakfast,
and the brandy bottle that flanked the loaf, were
now placed before Losely ; and, as distastefully
he forced himself to eat, his eye once more
glanced toward, and this time rested on, the
shabby man, in the sort of interest with which one
knave out of elbows regards another. As Jas-
per thus looked, gradually there stole on him a
reminiscence of those coarse large features —
that rusty, disreputable wig. The recognition,
however, was not mutual ; and, presently, after
a whisper interchanged between the man and
the woman, the latter rose, and approaching
Losely, dropped a courtesy, and said, in a weird,
under voice, " Stranger, luck's in store for you.
Tell your fortune?" As she spoke, from some
dust hole in her garments she produced a pack
of cards, on whose half-obliterated faces seem-
ed incrusted the dirt of ages. Thrusting these
antiquities under Jasper's nose, she added,
" Wish and cut."
"Pshaw," said Jasper, who, though sufficient-
1)' superstitious in some matters and in regard
to some persons, was not so completely under
the influence of that imaginative infirmity as to
take the creature before him for a sibyl. "Get
away ; you turn my stomach. Your cards smell ;
so do you !"
"Forgive her, worthy Sir," said the man,
leaning forward. "The hag may be unsavory,
but she is wise. The Three Sisters who accost-
ed the Scottish Thane, Sir (Macbeth — you have
seen it on the stage ?), were not savory. With-
ered, and wild in their attire, Sir, but they knew
a thing or two! She sees luck in your face.
Cross her hand, and give it vent!''
"Fiddledee," said the irreverent Losely.
"Take her off, or I shall scald her," and he
seized the kettle.
The hag retreated grumbling ; and Losely,
soon dispatching his meal, placed his feet on
the hobs, and began to meditate what course to
adopt for a temporary subsistence. He had
broken into the last pound left of the money
which he had extracted from Mrs. Crane's purse
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
257
some days before. He recoiled with terror from
the thought of returnino; to town and placing
himself at her mercy. Yet what option had he?
While thus musing, he turned impatiently round
and saw that the shabby man and the dusty hag
were engaged in an amicable game of ecarte,
with those very cards which had so offended his
olfactory organs. At that sight the old instinct
of the gambler struggled back ; and, raising him-
self up, he looked over the cards of the players.
The miserable wretches were, of course, play-
ing for nothing; and Losely saw at a glance
that the man was, nevertheless, trying to cheat
the woman. Positively he took that man into
more respect ; and that man, noticing the inter-
est with which Losely surveyed the game, look-
ed up, and said, "While the time, Sir? What
say you ? A game or two ? I can stake my
pistoles — that is, Sir, so far as a fourpenny bit
goes. If ignorant of this French game, Sir,
cribbage or all-fours."
"No," said Losely, mournfully; "there is
nothing to be got out of you ; otherwise — " He
stojiped and sighed. " But I have seen you un-
der other circumstances. What has become of
your Theatrical Exhibition? Gambled it away ?
Yet, from what I see of your play, I think jou
ought not to have lost, Mr. Rugge."
The ex-manager started.
"^liat! You knew me before the Storm! —
before the lightning struck me, as I may say.
Sir — and falling into difficulties, I became — a
WTCck ? You knew me ? — not of the Company ?
— a spectator ?"
"As you say — a spectator. You had once in
your employ an actor — clever old fellow. Waife,
I think, he was called."
" Ha ! hold ! At that name, Sir, my wounds
bleed afresh. From that execrable name, Sir,
there hangs a tale !"
" Indeed ! Then it will be a relief to you to
tell it," said Losely, resettling his feet on the hob,
and snatching at any diversion from his own re-
flections.
" Sir, when^ gentleman, who is a gentleman,
asks, as a favor, a specimen of my powers of re-
cital, not professionally, and has before him the
sparkling goblet, which he does not invite me
to share, he insults my fallen fortunes. Sir, I
am poor — I own it ; I have fallen into the sere
and yellow leaf, Sir; but I have still in this
withered bosouT the heart of a Briton I"
" Warm it, Mr. Rugge. Help yourself to the
brandy — and the lady too."
" Sir, you are a gentleman ; Sir, your health.
Hag, drink better days to us both. That wo-
man, Sir, is a hag, but she is an honor to her
sex — faithful I"
" It is astonishing how faithful ladies are
when not what is called beautiful. I speak from
painful experience," said Losely, growing debon-
nair as the liquor relaxed his gloom, and regain-
ing that levity of tongue which sometimes straved
into wit, and which, springing originally from
animal spirits and redundant health — still came
to him mechanically whenever roused by com-
panionship from alternate inteiTals of lethargy
and pain. "But now, ^Ir. Rugge, I am all ears ;
perhaps you will be kind enough to be all tale."
With tragic aspect, unrelaxed by that jou de
mots, and still wholly unrecognizing in the mass-
ive form and discolored swollen countenance
R
of the rough-clad stranger the elegant propor-
tions, the healthful, blooming, showy face, and
elaborate fopperies of the Jasper Losely who
had sold to him a Phenomenon which proved
so evanishing, Rugge entered into a prolix his-
tory of his wrongs at the hands of Waife, of
Losely, of Sophy. Only of Mrs. Crane did he
speak with respect ; and Jasper then for the first
time learned — and rather with anger for the in-
terference than gratitude for the generosity —
that she had repaid the £100, and therein- can-
celed Rugge"s claim upon the child. The ex-
manager then proceeded to the narrative of his
subsequent misfortunes— all of which he laid
to the charge of Waife and the Phenomenon.
"Sir," said he, "I was ambitious. From my
childhood's hour I dreamed of the great York
Theatre — dreamed of it literally thrice. Fatal
Vision 1 But, like other dreams, that dream
would have faded — been forgotten in the work-
day world — and I should not have fallen into
the sere and yellow, but have had, as formerly,
troops of friends, and not been reduced to the
horrors of poverty and a faithful Hag. But,
Sir, when I first took to my bosom that fiend,
William Waife, he exhibited a genius. Sir, that
Dowton (you have seen Dowton ? — grand !) was
a stick as compared with. Then my ambition,
Sir, blazed and flared up — obstreperous, and my
childhood's di'eam haunted me ; and I went
about musing — [Hag, you recollect !] — and mut-
tering ' The Royal Theatre at York.' But in-
credible though it seem, the ungrateful scorpion
left me, with a treacherous design to exhibit
the parts I had fostered, on the London boards;
and even-handed Justice, Sir, returned the pois-
oned chalice to his lips, causing him to lose an
eye and to hobble — besides splitting up his voice
— which served him right. And again I took
the scorpion for the sake of the Phenomenon.
I had a babe myself once, Sir, though you may
not think it. Gormerick (that is this faithful
Hag) gave the babe Daffy's Elixir, in teething;
but it died — convulsions. I comforted myself
when that Phenomenon came out on my stage
— in pink satin and pearls. 'Ha!' I said, 'the
great York Theatre shall yet be mine!' The
haunting idea became a Mania, Sir. The learn-
ed say that there is a ^Mania called Money Ma-
nia* — when one can think but of the one thing
needful — as the guilty Thane saw the dagger,
Sir — you understand. And when the Phenom-
enon had vanished and gone, as I was told, to
America, where I now wish I was myself, act-
ing Rolla at Kew York or elsewhere, to a free
and enlightened people — then. Sir, the Mania
grew on me still stronger and stronger. There
was a pride in it. Sir— a British pride. I said
to this faithful Hag — ' What — shall I not have
the York because that false child has deserted
me ? Am I not able to realize a Briton's ambi-
tion without being beholden to a Phenomenon
in spangles?' Sir, I took the York! Alone I
did it !"
" And," said Losely, feeling a sort of dreary
satisfaction in listening to the grotesque sorrows
of one whose condition seemed to him yet more
abject than his own — ''And the York Theatre
alone perhaps did you."'
"Right, Sir," said Rugge — half dolorously,
I
Query — Monoaiania.
258
WHAT AVILL HE DO WITH IT ?
half exultingly. " It was a Grand Concern, and |
might have done for the Bank of England ! It :
swallowed up my capital with as much ease,
Sir, as I could swallow an oyster if there were I
one upon that plate. I saw how it would be
the very first week — when I came out myself, j
strong — Kean's own part in the Iron C'test — '
Mortimer, Sir; there warn't three pounds ten I
in the house — packed audience, Sir, and they
had t!ie face to hiss me. ' Hag,' said I, to Mrs.
Gormerick, ' this Theatre is a howling wilder-
ness.' Bat there is a fascination in a Grand
Concern, of which one is the head — one goes on
and on. All the savings of a life devoted to the
British Drama and the productions of native
genius went in what I may call — ajift'y I But
it was no common object, Sir, to your sight dis-
played — but what with pleasure. Sir (I appeal
to the Hag !), Heaven itself surveyed ! — a great
man struggling. Sir, with the storms of fate, and
greatly falling. Sir, with — a sensation! York
remembers it to this day I I took the benefit of
the Act — it was the only benefit I did take —
and nobody was the better for it. But I don't
repine — I realized my dream : that is more than
all can say. Since then I have had many downs,
and no ups. I have been a messenger. Sir — a
prompter. Sir, in my own Exhibition — to which
my own clown, having married into the tragic
line, succeeded, Sir, as proprietor; buying of
me, when I took the York, the theatre, scenery,
and properties, Sir, with the right still to call
himself, ' Rugge's Grand Theatrical Exhibition,'
for an old song. Sir — ^lelancholy. Tyi'annized
over. Sir — snubbed and bullied by a creature
dressed in a little brief authority; and my own
tights — scarlet — as worn by me in my own ap-
plauded part of 'The Remorseless Baron.' At
last, with this one faithful creature, I resolved
to burst the chains — to be free as air — in short,
a chartered libertine, Sir. We have not much,
but, thank the immortal gods, we are independ-
ent, Sir, the Hag and I, chartered libertines !
And we are alive still — at which, in strict confi-
dence, I may own to you that I am astonished."
"Yes ! you do live," said Jasper, much inter-
ested — for how to live at all was at that moment
a matter of considerable doubt to himself; '• you
do live — it !s amazing I How?"
" The Faithful tells fortunes ; and sometimes
we pick up windfalls — widows and elderly single
ladies — but it is dangerous. Labor is sweet,
Sir; but not hard labor in the dungeons of a
Bridewell; she has known that labor, Sir; and
in those intervals I missed her much. Don't
cry. Hag ; I repeat, I live !"
"I understand now; you live upon her!
They are the best of creatui-es, these hags, as
you call them, certainly. \Vell, well, no salving
what a man may come to ! I suppose you have
never seen Waife, nor that fellow you say was
so well-dressed and good-looking, and who sold
you the Phenomenon, nor the Phenomenon her-
self — Eh?" added Losely, stretching himself,
and yawning, as he saw the brandy bottle was
finished.
" I have seen Waife — the one-eyed monster !
Aha — I have seen him ! — and yesterday too ;
and a great comfort it was to me too."
"You saw Waife yesterday — where?"
" At Ouzelford, which I and the Faithful left
this morning."
"And what was he doing?" said Losely, witli
well-simulated inditi'erence. " Begging, break-
ing stones, or what?"
"No," said Rugge, dejectedly; "I can't say
it was what, in farcical composition, I should
call such nuts to me as that, Sir. Still, he was
in a low way — seemed a peddler or hawker, sell-
ing out of a pannier on the Rialto — I mean the
Corn-market, Sir — not even a hag by his side,
only a great dog — French. A British dog would
have scorned such fellowship. And he did not
look merrv, as he used to do when in my troop.
Did he, Hag ?"
" His conscience smites him," said the Hag,
solemnly.
" Did you speak to him ?" ^
" Why, no. I should have liked it, but we
could not at that moment, seeing that we were
not in our usual state of independence. This
faithful creature was being led before the mag-
istrates, and I too — chai-ge of cheating a cook
maid, to whom the Hag had only said, ' that if
the cards spoke true she would ride in her car-
riage.' The charge broke down ; but we were
placed for the night in the Cells of the Inquisi-
tion, remanded, and this morning banished from
the city, and are now on our way to — any other
city ; eh, Hag ?"
" And the old man was not with the Phenom-
enon ? What has become of her, then ?"
" Perhaps she may be with him at his house,
if he has one ; only she was not with him on
the Rialto or Corn-market. She was with him
two years ago, I know ; and he and she were
better off then than he is now, I suspect. And
that is why it did me good. Sir, to see him a
peddler — a common peddler — fallen into the
sere, like the man he abandoned !"
" Humph ! where were they two years ago ?"
"At a village not far from Humberston. He
had a pretty house, Sir, and sold baskets ; and
the girl was there too, favored by a great lady —
a Marchioness, Sir ! Gods !"
'• Marchioness ? — near Humberston ? The
Marchioness jif ^Vlontfort, I su])pose."
" Likely enough ; I don't remember. All I
know is, that two years ago my old clown was
my tyrannical manager ; and he said to me,
with a sneer, ' Old Gentleman Waife, whom
you used to bully, and his Juliet Araminta, are
in clover.' And the mocking varlet went on to
say that when he had last visited Humberston,
in the race-week, a young tradesman, who was
courting the Columbine, whose young idea I
myself taught to shoot on the light fantastic
toe, treated that Columbine and one of her sis-
ter train (being, indeed, her aunt, who has since
come out at the Surrey in Desdemona) to a pic-
nic in a fine park. "(That's discipline! — ha,
ha !) And there. Sir, Columbine and her aunt
saw Waife on the other side of a stream by which
they sate carousing."
■' The clown perhaps said it to spite you."
" Columbine herself confirmed his tale, and
said that, on returning to the Village Inn for
the Triumphal Car (or bus) which brought them,
she asked if a Air. Waife dwelt thereabouts, and
was told, ' Yes, with his grand-daughter.' And
she went on asking, till all came out as the clown
reported. And Columbine had not even the
gratitude, the justice, to expose that villain —
not even to say he had been my perfidious serv-
WHAT WELL HE DO WITH IT '
259
ant ! She had the face to tell me ' she thought
it might harm him, and he was a kind old
soul.' Sir, a Columbine whose toes I had rapped
scores of times before they could be turned out,
was below contempt I but when ray own clown
thus triumphed over me, in parading before my
vision the bloated prosperity of mine enemy, it
went to ray heart like a knife ; and we had
words on it. Sir, and — I left him to his fate.
But a peddler ! Gentleman Waife has come to
that ! The Heavens are just. Sir, and of our
pleasant vices, Sir, make instruments that —
that — "
" Scourge us," prompted the Hag, severely.
Losely rang the bell ; the maid-servant ap-
peared. ' " My horse and bill. Well, Mr. Riigge,
I must quit your agreeable society. I am not
overflowing with wealth at this moment, or I
would request your acceptance of — "
" The smallest trifle," inteniipted the Hag,
with her habitual solemnity of aspect.
■ Losely, who, .in his small way, had all the lilx
erality of a Catiline, '^alieni appeiens, sui jiroju-
sus, drew forth the few silver coins yet remain-
ing to him ; and though he must have calculated
that, after paying his bill, tliere could scarcely
be three shillings left, he chucked two of them
toward the Hag, who, clutching them with a
profound courtesy, then handed them to the
fallen monarch by her side, with a loyal tear
and a quick sob that might have touched the
most cynical republican.
In a few minutes more Losely was again on
horseback ; and as he rode toward Ouzelford,
Rugge and his dusty Faithful shambled on in
the opposite direction — shambled on, foot-sore
and limping, along the wide, waste, wintry thor-
oughfare — vanished from the eye, as their fates
henceforth from this story. There they go by
the white hard mile-stone ; farther on, by the
trunk of the hedge-row tree, which lies lopped
and leafless — cumbering the way-lide, till the
time come to cast it otf to the thronged, dull
stack-yard ; farther yet, where the ditch widens
into yon stagnant pool, with the great dung-
heap by its side. There the road turns aslant ;
the dung-heap hides them. Gone ! and not a
speck on the Immemorial, L^niversal Thorough-
fare.
CHAPTER V.
No wmd so cutting as that which sets in the quarter
from Mhich the sun rises.
The town to which I lend the disguising
name of Ouzelford. which in years by-gone was
represented by Guy Darrell, and which" in years
to come may preserve in its municipal hail his
eiBgies in canvas or stone, is one of the hand-
somest in England. As you approach its sub-
urbs from the London Road it rises clear and
wide upon your eye, crowning the elevated ta-
ble-land upon which it is built ; a noble rana;e
of prospect on either side, rich with hedge-rows
not yet sacrificed to the stern demands of mod-
ern agriculture — venerable woodlands, and the
green jiastures round many a rural thane's frank,
hospitable hall ; no one Great House banishing
from leagues of landscape the abodes of knight
and squire, nor menacing, with " the legitimate
influence of property," the votes of rebellious
burghers. Every where, like finger-posts to
heaven, you may perceive the church-towers of
rural hamlets embosomed in pleasant valleys,
or climbing up gentle slopes. At the horizon
the blue fantastic outline of girdling hills min-
gles with the clouds. A famous old cathedral,
neighbored by the romantic ivy-grown walls of
a ruined castle, soars up from the centre of the
town, and dominates the whole survey — calm,
as with conscious power. Kearing the town,
the villas of merchants and traders, released,
perhaps, from business, skirt the road, with trim
gardens and shaven la\^-ns. Now the small riv-
er, or rather rivulet, of Ouzel, from which the
town takes its name, steals out from deep banks
covered with brushwood or aged trees, and.
widening into brief importance, glides under
the arches of an ancient bridge ; runs on, clear
and shallow, to refresh low fertile daiiT-mead-
ows, dotted with kme ; and finally quits the
view, as brake and copse close round its narrow-
ing, winding way ; and that which, under the'
city bridge, was an imposing noiseless stream,
becomes, amidst rustic solitudes, an insignifi-
cant babbling brook.
From one of the largest villas in these charm-
ing suburbs came forth a gentleman, middle-
aged, and of a very mild and prepossessing
countenance. A young lady without a bonnet,
but a kerchief thrown over her sleek dark hair,
accompanied him to the garden-gate, twining
both hands aff'ectionately round his arm, and
entreating him not to stand in thorough draughts
and catch cold, nor to step into puddles and wet
his feet, and to be sure to be back before dark,
as there were such shocking accounts in the
newspapers of persons robbed and garroted even
in the most populous highways ; and, above all,
not to listen to the beggars in the street, and
allow himself tp be taken in ; and before final-
ly releasing him at the gate she buttoned his
great-coat up to his chin, thrust two pellets of
cotton into his ears, and gave hira a parting
kiss. Then she watched him tenderly for a
mintite or so as he strode on with the step of a
man who needed not all those fostering admo-
nitions and coddling cares.
As soon as he was out of sight of the lady and
the windows of the villa, the gentleman cautious-
ly unbuttoned his great-coat, and removed the cot-
ton from his ears. "vShe takes much after her
mother, does Anna [Maria," muttered the gentle-
man ; " and I am verj- glad she is so well mar-
ried."
He had not advanced many paces when,
from a branch-road to the right that led to
the railway station, another gentleman, much
younger, and whose dress unequivocally bespoke
hira a minister of our Church, came suddenly
upon hira. Each with surprise recognized the
other.
" What ! — Mr. George Morley !"
"]\Ir. Hartopp ! — How are you, my dear Sir?
— What brings you so far from home?"
" I am on a visit to my daughter, Anna Maria.
She has not been long 'married — to young Jes-
sop. Old Jessop is one of the principal mer-
chants at Ouzelford — verv- respectable, worthy
family. The young couple are happily settled
in a remarkably snug villa — that is it with the
portico, not a hundred yards behind us, to the
right. Very handsome town, Ouzelford ; you
260
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
are bound to it, of course? — we can walk togeth-
er. I am going to look at the jjapers in the City
Rooms — very fine rooms these are. But you
are straight from London, perhaps, and have
seen the day's journals? Any report of the
Meeting in aid of Ragged Schools?"
"Not that I know of. I have not come from
London this morning, nor seen the papers."
" Oh I^there's a strange-looking fellow fol-
lowing us ; but perhaps he is your servant ?"
" Not so, but my traveling companion — in-
deed my guide. In fact, I come to Ouzelford
in the faint hope of discovering there a poor old
friend of mine, of whom I have long been in
search."
"Perhaps the Jessops can help you; they
know every body at Ouzelford. But now I meet
you thus by surprise, Mr. George, I should very
much like to ask your advice on a matter which
has been much on my mind the last twenty-four
hours, and which concerns a person I contrived
to discover at Ouzelford, though I certainly was
not in search of him — a person about whom
you and I had a conversation a few years ago,
when you were staying with your worthy fa-
ther."
" Eh ?" said George, quickly ; " whom do you
speak of?"
"That singular vagabond who took me in,
you remember — called himself Chapman — real
name William Losel}', a returned convict. You
would have it that he was innocent, though the
man himself had pleaded guilty on his trial."
" His whole character belied his lips, then.
Oh, Mr. Hartopp, tliat man commit the crime
imputed to him ! — a planned, deliberate rol)bcry
— an ungrateful, infamous breach of trust ! That
man — that! — he who rejects the money he does
not earn, even when pressed on him by anxious,
imploring friends — he who has now gone vol-
untarily forth, aged and lonely, to wring his
bread from the humblest calling rather than in-
cur the risk of injuring the child with whose ex-
istence he had cliarged himself !—/ie a dark mid-
night thief! Believe him not, though his voice
may say it. To screen, perhaps, some other
man, he is telling you a noble lie. But what of
him ? Have you really seen him, and at Ouzel-
ford?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Yesterday. I was in the City Reading-room,
looking out of the Avindow. I saw a great white
dog in the street below — I knew the dog at
once. Sir, though he is disguised by restoration
to his natural coat, and his hair is as long as a
Peruvian lama's. 'Tis Sir Isaac,' said I to my-
self; and behind Sir Isaac I saw Chapman, so to
call him, carrying a basket with peddler's wares,
and, to my surprise. Old Jessop, who is a formal
man, with a great deal of reserve and dignity,
pompous indeed (but don't let that go farther),
talking to Chapman quite affably, and actually
buying something out of the basket. Presently
Chapman went away, and was soon lost to sight.
Jessop comes into the reading-room. ' I saw
you,' said I, 'talking to an old fellow with a
French dog.' 'Such a good old fellow,' said
Jessop ; ' has a way about him that gets into
your very heart while he is talking. I should
like to make you acquainted with him.' ' Thank
you for nothing,' said I; 'I should be — taken
in.' ' Never fear,' says Jessop, ' he would not
take in a fly — the simplest creature.' I own I
chuckled at that, Mr. George. 'And does he
live here,' said I, ' or is he merely a wandering
peddler ?' Then Jessop told me that he had seen
him for the first time two or three weeks aero,
and accosted him rudely, looking on him as a
mere tramp ; but Chapman answered so well,
and showed so many pretty things in his basket,
that Jessop soon found himself buying a pair of
habit-cuffs for Anna Maria, and in the course
of talk it came out, I suppose by a sign, that
Chapman was a freemason, and Jessop is an en-
thusiast in that sort of nonsense, master of a
lodge or something, and that was a new attrac-
tion. In short, Jessop took a great fancy to
him, patronized him, promised him protection,
and actually recommended him to a lodging in
the cottage of an old widow who lives in the out-
skirts of the town, and had once been a nurse
in the Jessop family. And what do you think
Jessop had just bought of this simple creature?
A pair of worsted mittens as a present for me ;
and what is more, I have got them on at this
moment — look! neat, I think, and monstrous
warm. Now, I have hitherto kept my own coun-
sel. I have not said to Jessop, ' Beware — that
is the man who took me in.' But this conceal-
ment is a little on my conscience. On the one
hand, it seems very cruel, even if the man did
once commit a crime, in spite of your charita-
ble convictions to the contrary, that I should bo
blabbing out his disgrace, and destroying perhaps
his livelihood. On the other hand, if he should
still be really a rogue, a robber, perhaps danger-
ous, ought I — ought I — in sliort — you are a cler-
gyman and a fine scholar, Sir— what ought I to
do?"
" My dear Mr. Hartopp, do not vex yourself
with this very honorable dilemma of conscience.
Let me only find my poor old friend, my bene-
factor I may call him, and I hope to persuade
him, if not to return to the home that waits
him, at least to be my guest, or put himself un-
der my care. Do you know the name of the
widow with whom he lodges ?"
" Yes — Halse ; and I know the town well
enough to conduct you, if not to the house it-
self, still to its immediate neighborhood. Pray
allow me to accompany you ; I should like it
very much — for, though }"ou may not think it,
from the light way I have been talking of Chap-
man, I never was so interested in any man,
never so charmed by any man ; and it has often
haunted me at night, thinking that I behaved
too harshly to him, and that he was about on the
wide world, an outcast, depi'ived of his little
girl, whom he had trusted to me. And I sliould
have run after him yesterday, or called on him
this morning, and said 'Let me serve you,' if it
had not been for the severity with which he and
his son were spoken of, and I myself rebuked
for mentioning their very names, by a man whose
opinion I, and indeed all the country, must hold
in the higliest respect — a man of the finest honor,
the weightiest character — I mean Guy Darrell,
the great Darrell."
George Morley sighed. " I believe Darrell
knows nothing of the elder Losely, and is pre-
judiced against him by the misdeeds of the
younger, to whose care j'ou (and I can not blame
you, for I also was instrumental to the same
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
2GI
transfer, which might have proved calamitously
fatal) surrendered the poor motherless girl."
" She is not with her grandfather now? She
lives still, I hope ? She was very delicate."
" She lives — she is safe. Ha — take care !"
These last words were spoken as a horseman,
riding fast along the road toward the bridge
that was now close at hand, came,without warn-
ing or heed, so close upon our two ]jedestrians,
that George Morley had but just time to pluck
Hartopp aside from the horse's hoofs.
'■An impudent, careless, rutHanly fellow, in-
deed!" said the mild Hartopp, indignantly, as
he brushed from his sleeve the splash of dirt
which the horseman bequeathed to it. " He
must be drunk !"
The rider, gaining the bridge, was there de-
tained at the toll-bar by some carts and wag-
ons, and the two gentlemen passed him on the
bridge, looking with some attention at his
gloomy, unobservant countenance, and the pow-
erful frame on which, despite coarse garments
and the change wrought by years of intemperate
excess, was still visible the trace of that felici-
tous symmetry once so admirably combining
Herculean strength with elastic elegance. En-
tering the town, the rider turned into the yard
of the nearest inn. George Morley and Har-
topp, followed at a little distance by Morley's
traveling companion. Merle, passed on toward
the other extremity of the town, and after one
or tv,-o inquiries for "Widow Halse, Prospect
Row," they came to a few detached cottages,
very prettily situated on a gentle hill, command-
ing in front the roofs of the city and the gleam-
ing windows of the great cathedral, with some-
what large gardens in the rear. i\Irs. Halse's
dwelling was at the extreme end of tliis Rov.-.
The house, however, was shut up ; and a ViO-
man, wlio was standing at the door of the neigh-
boring cottage, plaiting straw, informed the vis-
itors that Mrs. Halse was gone out "charing"
for the day, and that her lodger, who had his
own kej-, seldom returned before dark, but that
at that hour he was pretty sure to be found in
the Corn-market or the streets in its vicinity,
and oftered to send her little boy to discover
and " fetch" him. George consulted apart with
Merle, and decided on dispatching the cobbler,
with the boy for his guide, in quest of the ped-
dler. Merle being of course instructed not to let
out by whom he was accompanied, lest Waife,
in his obstinacy, should rather abscond than en-
counter the friends from whom he had fled.
Merle, and a curly-headed urchin, who seemed
delighted at the idea of hunting up Sir Isaac and
Sir Isaac's master, set forth and were soon out
of sight. Hartopp and George opened the little
garden-gate, and strolled into the garden at the
back of the cottage, to seat themselves patiently
on a bench beneath an old apple-tree. Here
they waited and conversed some minutes, till
George observed that one of the casements on
that side of the cottage was left open, and, in-
voluntarily rising, he looked in ; surveying with
interest the room, which, he felt sure at the
first glance, must be that occupied by his self-
exiled friend : a neat, pleasant little room — a
bull-finch in a wicker cage on a ledge within the
casement — a flower-pot beside it. Doubtless the
window, which faced tlie southern sun, had been
left open by the kind old man in order to cheer
the bird and to gladden the plant. Waife's well-
known pipe, and a tobacco-pouch worked for
him by Sophy's fairy fingers, lay on a table near
the fire-place, between casement and door ; and
George saw with emotion the Bible which he
himself had given to the wanderer lying also
on the table, with the magnifying- glass which
Waife had of late been obliged to emplov in
reading. Waife's habitual neatness was visible
in the aspect of the room. To George it was
evident that the very chairs had been arranged
by his hand ; that his hand had courteously given
that fresh coat of varnish to the wretched por-
trait of a man in blue coat and buflF waistcoat,
representing, no doubt, the lamented spouse of
the hospitable widow. George beckoned to Har-
topp to come also and look within ; and as the
worthy trader jieeped over his shoulder, the
clergyman said, whisperingly, " Is there not
something about a man's home which attests
his character? — No 'pleading guilty' here!"
Hartojjp was about to answer, when they
heard the key turn sharply in the outer door,
and had scarcely time to draw somewhat back
from the casement when Waife came hurriedly
into the room, followed, not by IMerle, but by
the tall rough-looking horseman whom they had
encountered on the road. " Thank Heaven,"
cried Waife, sinking on a chair, "out of sight,
out of hearing now ! Now you may speak ; now
I can listen ! Oh, wretched S9n of my lost an-
gel, whom I so vainly sought to save by the sac-
rifice of all my claims to the respect of men, for
what purpose do you seek me ? I have nothing
left that you can take away ! Is it the child
again? See — see — look round — search the
house if you will — she is not here."
" Bear with me, if you can. Sir," said Jasper,
in tones that were almost meek ; " you, at least,
can say nothing that I will not bear. But I am
in my right when I ask you to tell me, without
equivocation or reserve, if Sophy, though not
actually within these walls, be near you, in this
town or its neighborhood ? — in short, still under
your protection ?"
"Not in this town — not near it — not under
ray protection ; I swear."
"Do not swear, father; I have no belief in
other men's oaths. I believe your simple word.
Now comes my second question — remember I
am still strictly in my right — where is she? —
and under whose care?"
"I will not say. One reason why I have
abandoned the very air she breathes, was, that
you might not trace her in tracing me. But
she is out of your power again to kidnap and to
sell. You might molest, harass, shame her, by
proclaiming yourself her father; but regain her
into your keeping, cast her to infamy and vice
— never, never! She is now with no powerless,
miserable convict, for whom Law has no respect.
She is now no helpless infant, without a choice,
without a will. She is safe from all save the
wanton unprofitable eflrort to disgrace her. Oh,
Jasper, Jasper, be human — she is so delicate of
frame — she is so sensitive to reproach, so trem-
ulously alive to honor — I — / am not fit to be
near her now. I have beea a tricksome, sliifty
vagrant, and innocent though I be, the felon's
brand is on me ! But you, you too, who never
loved her, who can not miss her, whose heart is
not breaking at her loss as mine is now — von.
262
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
you — to rise up from the reeking pesthouse in
which you have dwelt by choice, and say, ' De-
scend from God's day with me' — Jasper, Jasper,
you will not — you can not ; it would be the ma-
lignity of a devil !"
"Father, hold I" cried Jasper, UTithing and
livid ; " I owe to you more than I do to that
thing of pink and white. I know better than
you the trumpery of all those waxen dolls of
whom dupes make idols. At each turn of the
street you may find them in basketfuls — blue-
eyed or black-eyed, just the same worthless frip-
pery or senseless toys ; but every man dandling
his own doll, whether he call it sweet-heart or
daughter, makes the same puling boast that he
has an angel of purity in his puppet of wax.
Nay, hear me I to that girl I owe nothing. You
know what I owe to you. You bid me not seek
her, and say, ' I am your father !' Do you think
it does not misbecome me more, and can it
wound you less, when I come to you, and re-
mind you that I am your son !"
"Jasper!" foltered the old man, turning his
face aside, for the touch of feeling toward him-
self, contrasting the cynicism with which Jas-
per spoke of other ties not less sacred, took the
father by surprise.
"And," continued Jasper, "remembering how
you once loved me — with what self-sacrifice you
proved that love, it is mth a bitter grudge against
that girl that I see her thus take that place in
your affection which was mine — and you so in-
dignant against me if I even presume to approach
her. What ! I have the malignity of a devil be-
cause I would not quietly lie down in yonder
kennels to starve, or sink into the grade of those
whom your daintier thief disdains ; spies into
unguarded areas, or cowardly skulkers by blind
walls ; while in the paltry girl, who j-ou say is
so well provided for, I see the last and sole re-
source which may prevent you from being still
more degraded, still more afflicted by your son."
" What is it you want ? Even if Sophy were
in your power, Darrell would not be more dis-
posed to enrich or relieve you. He will never
believe your tale, nor deign even to look into
its proofs."
" He might at last," said Jasper, evasively.
" Surely with all that wealth, no nearer heir
than a remote kinsman in the son of a beggared
spendthrift by a linen-draper's daughter — he
should need a grandchild more than you do.
Yet the proofs you speak of convinced yourself;
you believe my tale."
" Believe — yes, for that belief was every thing
in the world to me! Ah, remember how joy-
ously, when my term of sentence expired, I
hastened to seek you at Paris, deceived by the
rare letters with which you had deigned to cheer
me — fondly dreaming that, in expiating your
crime, I should have my reward in your re-
demption — should live to see you honored, hon-
est, good — live to think your mother watched us
from heaven with a smile on both — and that we
should both join her at last — you purified by ray
atonement ! Oh, and when I saw you so sunken,
so hardened, exulting in vice as in a glory —
bravo and partner in a gambler's hell — or, worse
still, living on the plunder of miserable women,
even the almsman of that vile Desmarets — my
son, my son, my lost Lizzy's son blotted out of
my world forever! — then, then I should have
died if you had not said, boasting of the lie
which had wrung the gold from Darrell, ' But
the child lives still.' Believed you — oh yes,
yes ! — for in that belief something was still left
to me to cherish, to love, to live for I"
Here the old man's hurried voice died away
in a passionate sob; and the direful son, all
reprobate though he was, slid from his chair,
and bowed himself at his father's knee, cover-
ing his face with fell hands that trembled.
"Sir, Sir," he said, in broken, reverential ac-
cents, " do not let me see you weep. You can
not believe me, but I say solemnly that, if there
be in me a single remnant of affection for any
human being, it is for you. Vv^hen I cpnsented
to leave you to bear the sentence which should
have fallen on myself, sure I am that I was less
basely selfish than absurdly vain. I fancied my-
self so born to good fortune I — so formed to cap-
tivate some rich girl ! — and that you would re-
turn to share wealth with me ; that the evening
of your days would be happy ; that you would
be repaid by my s] jlendor for your own disgrace !
And when I did marry, and did ultimately get
from the father-in-law who spurned me the
capital of his daughter's fortune, pitifully small
though it was compared to my expectations, my
first idea was to send half of that sum to you.
But — but — I was living with those who thought
nothing so silly as a good intention — nothing so
bad as a good action. That mocking she-devil,
Gabrielle, too ! Then the witch's spell of that
d — d green table ! Luck against one — wait !
double the capital ere you send the half. Luck
with one — how balk the tide? how fritter the
capital just at the turn of doubling ? Soon it
grew irksome even to think of you ; yet still,
when I did, I said, ' Life is long ; I shall win
riches ; he shall share them some day or oth-
er!' — Basta, basta! — what idle twaddle or hol-
low brag all this must seem to you !"
"No," said Waife, feebly — and his hand
drooped till it touched Jasper's bended shoul-
der, but, at the touch, recoiled as with an elec-
tric spasm.
"So, as you say, you found me at Paris. I
told you where I had placed the child, not con-
ceiving that Arabella would part with her, or
you desire to hamper yourself with an encum-
brance — nay, I took for granted that you would
find a home, as before, with some old friend or
country cousin ; but fancying that your occa-
sional visits to her might comfort you, since it
seemed to please you so much when I said she
lived. Thus we parted — you, it seems, 'only
anxious to save that child from ever falling into
my hands or those of Gabrielle Desmarets; I
hastening to forget all but the riotous life round
me, till — "
"Till you came back to England to rob from
me the smile of the only face that I knew would
never wear contempt, and to tell the good man
with whom I thought she had so safe a shelter
that I was a convicted robber, by whose very
love her infancy was sullied.' Oh Jasper! Jas-
per !"'
"I never said that — never thought of saying
it. Arabella Crane did so, with the reckless
woman-will, to gain her object. But I did take
the child from you. Why ? Partly because I
needed money s'o much that I would have sold
a Itecatomb of children for half what I was of-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
263
fered to bind the girl to a service that could not
be very dreadful, since yourself had first placed
her there — and partly because you had shrunk,
it seems, from appealing to old friends ; you
were living, like myself, from hand to moutJi ;
what could that child be to you but a drag and
a bother?"
"And you will tell me, I suppose," said
Waife, with an incredulous bitter irony, that
seemed to wither himself in venting it, so did
his whole fiame recoil and shrink — "you will
tell me that it was from tlie same considerate
tenderness that you would have again filched
her from me some months later, to place her
with that ' she-devil' who was once more by
your side, to be reared and sold to — oh horror !
— horror! — unimaginable horror! — that pure,
helpless infant ! — you, armed with the name of
father! — you, strong in that mighty form of
man !"
" What do you mean ? Oh, I remember now !
When Gabrielle was in Loudon, and I had seen
you on the Bridge. Who could have told you
that I meant to get the child from you at that
time?"
Waife was silent. He could not betray Ara-
bella Crane; and Jasper looked perplexed and
thoughtful. Then gradually the dreadful nature
of his father's accusing word seemed to become
more clear to him ; and he cried, with a fierce
start and a swarthy flush, "But whoever told
you that I harbored the design that it whitens
your lip to hint at, lied, and foully. Harkye,
Sir ! many years ago Gabrielle had made ac-
quaintance with Darrell, under another name,
as Matilda's friend (long story now — not worth
telling) ; he had never, I believe, discovered
the imposture. Just at the time you refer to,
I heard that Darrell had been to France, inquir-
ing himself into facts connected with my former
story that Matilda's child was dead. That very
inquiry seemed to show that he had not been so
incredulous of my assertions of Sophy's claims
on him as he had aftected to be when I urged
them. He then went on into Italy. Talking
this over with Gabrielle, she suggested that, if
the child could be got into her possession, she
would go with her in search of Darrell, resum-
ing the name in which she had before known
him — resuming the title and privilege of Ma-
tilda's friend. In that character he might list-
en to her when he would not to me. She might
confirm my statement — melt his heart — coax
him into terms. She was the cleverest creat-
ure! I should have sold Sophy, it is true. For
what ? A provision to place me above want and
crime. Sold her to whom? To tlie man who
would see in her his daughter's child — rear her
to inherit his wealth — guard her as his own hon-
or. What! was this the design that so shocks
3'ou? Basta — basta! Again, I say Enough!
I never thought I should be so soft as to mutter
excuses for what I have done. And if I do so
now, the words seem forced from me against
my will — forced from me, as if in seeing you I
was again but a wild, lawless, willful boy, who
grieved to see you saddened by his faults,
though he forgot his grief the moment you were
out of sight."
" Oh Jasper," cried Waife, now fairly plac-
ing his hand on Jasper's guilty head, and fixing
his bright soft eye, swimming in teai-s, on that
downcast, gloomy face, "j'ou repent! you re-
pent ! Yes ; call back your boyhood ! call it
back ! Let it stand before you, now, visible,
palpable ! Lo ! I see it ! Do not you ? Fear-
less, joyous Image! Wild, lawless, willful, as
you say ! Wild from exuberant life ; lawless as
a bird is free, because air is boundless to un-
tried, exulting wings ; w'illful from the ease with
which the bravery and beauty of Nature's ra-
diant Darling forced M-ay for each jocund whim
through our yielding hearts ! Silence ! It is
there! I see it, as I saw it rise in the empty
air when guilt and ignominy first darkened
round you ; and my heart cried aloud, ' Not on
him, not on him — not on that glorious shape of
hope and promise — on me, whose life, useless
hitherto, has lost all promise now — on me let
fall the shame !' And my lips obeyed my heart,
and I said, ' Let the laws' will be done — I am
the guilty man !' Cruel — cruel one! Was that
sunny Boyhood then so long departed from you ?
On the verge of youth, and such maturity ia
craft and fraud — that when you stole into my
room that dark M'inter eve, threw yourself at my
feet, spoke but of thoughtless debts, and the
fears that you should be thrust from an indus-
trious honest calling, and I — I said — ' No, no ;
fear not ; the head of your firm likes you ; he
has written to me; I am trying already to raise
the money you need ; it shall be raised, no mat-
ter what it cost me ; you shall be saved ; my
Lizzy's son shall never know the soil of a pris-
on ; shun temptation henceforth ; be but honest,
and I shall be repaid !' What ! even then you
you were coldlj' meditating the crime that will
make my very grave dishonored!"
"Meditating — not so! How could I? Not
till after what had thus passed between us,
when you spoke with such indulgent kindness,
did I even know that I might more than save
myself — by moneys — not raised at risk and loss
to you ! Remember, you had left me in the
inner room, while you went forth to speak with
Gunston. There I overheard him talk of notes
he had never counted, and might never miss ;
describe the very place where they were kept ;
and then the idea came to me irresistibly ; ' bet-
ter rob him than despoil my own generous fa-
ther.' Sir, I am not pretending to be better
than I was. I was not quite the novice you
supposed. Coveting pleasures or shows not
w^ithin my reach, I had shrunk from draining
you to supply the means ; I had not had the
same forbearance for tlie superfluous wealth of
others. I had learned with what simple tools
old locks may ny open ; and none had ever sus-
pected me, so I had no fear of danger, small
need of premeditation ; a nail on your mantle-
j)iece, the cloven end of the hammer lying be-
side, to crook it when hot from the fire that
blazed before me ! I say this to show you that
I did not come provided ; nothing was planned
beforehand ; all was the project and work of the
moment. Such was my haste, I burned myself
to the bone with the red iron — feeling no pain,
or rather, at that age, bearing all pain without
wincing. Before Gunston left you my whole
plan was then arranged — my sole instrument
fashioned. You groan. But how could I fancy
that there would be detection? How imagine
that, even if moneys never counted icere missed,
suspicion could fall on you — a better gentleman
2G4
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
than he whom you served ? And had it not
been for that accursed cloak which you so fond-
ly wrapped round me, when I set off to catch
the night-train back to ; if it had not been,
I say, for that cloak, there could have been no
evidence to criminate either you or me — except
that unlucky £5 note, which I pressed on you
when we met at , where I was to hide till
you had settled with my duns. And why did
I press it on you ? — because you had asked me
if I had wherewithal about me on which to live
meanwhile ; and I, to save you from emptying
your own purse, said, 'Yes;' showed you some
gold, and pressed on you the bank-note, which
I said I could not want — to go, in small part,
toward my debts ; it was a childish, inconsist-
ent wish to please you ; and you seemed so
pleased to take it as a proof that I cared for
you."
"For me! — no, no; for honor — for honor —
for honor! I thought you cared for honor ; and
the proof of that care was, thrusting into these
credulous hands the share of your midnight
plunder!"
" Sir," resumed Jasper, persisting in the same
startling combination of feeling, gentler and
more reverential than could have been supposed
to linger in his breast, and of the moral obtuse-
ness that could not, save by vanishing glimpses,
distinguish between crime and its consequences
— between dishonor and detection — " Sir, I de-
clare that I never conceived that I was exposing
you to danger; nay, I meant, out of the money
I had taken, to replace to you what you were
about to raise, as soon as I could invent some
plausi!)le story of having earned it honestly.
Stupid notions and clumsy schemes, as I now
look back on them; but, as you say, I had not
long left boyhood, and fancying myself deep
and knowing, was raw in the craft I had prac-
ticed. Busta! basta! basfa!''
Jasper, who had risen from his knees while
speaking, here starriped heavily on the floor, as
if with anger at the heart-stricl;en aspect of his
silenced father ; and continued with a voice that
seemed struggling to regain its old imperious,
rollicking, burly swell.
" What is done can not be undone. Fling it
aside. Sir — look to the future ; you with your
peddler's pack, I with my empty pockets ! What
can save you from the workhouse — me from the
hulks or gibbet ? I know not unless the persons
sheltering that girl will buy me off by some pro-
vision which may be shared between us. Tell
me, then, where she is ; leave me to deal in the
business as I best may. Pooh ! ^vhy so scared ?
I will neither terrify nor kidnap her. I will
shuffle off the crust of blackguard that has
hardened round me. I will be sleek and
smooth, as if I were still the exquisite Lothario
— copied by would-be rutHcr;*, and spoiled by
willing beauties. Oh, I can still play the gen-
tleman, at least for an hour or two, if it be worth
my while. Come, Sir, come ; trust me ; out
with the secret of this hidden maiden, whose
interests should surely weigh not more with 3-ou
than those of a starving son. What, you will
not ? Be it so. I suspect that I know where
to look for her — on what noble thresholds to set
my daring foot; what fair lady, mindful of for-
mer days — of girlish friendship — of virgin love
— wraps in compassionate luxury Guy Darrell's
rejected heiress ! Ah, your looks tell me that
I am hot on the scent. That fair lady I knew
of old ; she is rich — I helped to make her so.
She owes me something. I will call and re-
mind her of it. And — tut. Sir, tut — you shall
not go to the workhouse, nor I to the hulks."
Here the old man, hitherto seated, rose —
slow'ly, with feebleness and effort — till he gained
his full height ; then age, infirmity, and weak-
ness seemed to vanish. In the erect head, the
broad massive chest, in the whole presence there
was dignity — there was power.
" Hark to me, unhappy reprobate, and heed
me well ! To save that child from the breath
of disgiuice — to place her in what you yourself
assured me were her rights amidst those in
whose dwellings I lost the privilege to dwell
when I took to myself your awful' burden — I
thought to resign her charge forever in this
world. Think not that I will fly her now, when
you invade. No — since my prayers will not
move you — since my sacrifice to you has been
so fruitless — since my absence from herself does
not attain its end ; there, where you find her,
shall you again meet me! And if there we
meet, and j-ou come with the intent to destroy
her peace and blast her fortune, then I, Will-
iam Losely, am no more the felon. In the face
of day I will proclaim the truth, and say, ' Rob-
ber, change place in earth's scorn with me ;
stand in the dock, where thy fat'aer stood in
vain to save thee !' "
"Bah, Sir— too late now; who would listen
to you?"
"All who have once known me — all will lis-
ten. Friends of power and station will take up
my cause. There will be fresh inquiry into facts
that I held back — evidence that, in ])leading
guilty, I suppressed — ungrateful one — to ward
away suspicion from you."
" Say what you will," said Jasper, swaying
his massive form to and fro, with a rolling ges-
ture which spoke of cold defiance, "I am no
hypocrite in fair repute whom such threats would
frighten. If you choose to thwart me in what I
always held my last resource for meat and drink,
I must stand in the dock even, perhaps, on a
heavier charge than one so stale. Each for him-
self; do your worst— what does it matter r"
" What does it matter that a father should
accuse his son ! No, no — son, son, son — this
nuist not be ! — Let it not be ! — let me complete
my martyrdom ! I ask no reversal of man's de-
cree, except before the Divine Tribunal. Jas-
per, Jasjier — child of my love, spare the sole
thing left to fill up the chasms in the heart that
you laid waste. Speak not of starving, or of
fresh crime. Stay — share this refuge ! I ■wili,
AVOKK FOR BOTH !"
Once more, and this time thoroughly, Jasper's
hideous levity and coarse bravado gave w.n be-
fore the lingering human sentiment knitting
him back to childhood, which the sight and
voice of his injured father had called forth with
spasms and throes, as a seer calls the long-bur-
ied from a grave. And as the old man extend-
ed his arms )ileadingly townrd him, Jasper, with
a gasping sound— half groan, half sob — sprang
forward, caught both the hands in his own
strong grasp, lifted them to his- lips, kissed
them, and then, gaining the door with a rapid
stride, said, in hoarse broken tones, " Share
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
2CC
vour refuge ! no — no — I should break your heart
downright did you see me daily — hourly as I
am ! You work for both I — you — you !" His
voice stopped, choked for a brief moment, then
hurried on: "As for that girl — you — you — you
are — but no matter, I will try to obey you — will
try to wrestle against hunger, despair, and
thoughts that wliisper sinking men with devil's
tongues. I will try — I will tn,' ; if I succeed
not, kee]> your threat — accuse me — give me np
to justice — clear yourself; but if you would
crush me more than by the heaviest curse,
never again speak to me with such dreadful
tenderness ! Cling not to me, old man ; release
me, I say ; thei-e — there— oft'. Ah ! I did not
hurt you? Brute that I am- — you bless me —
yon — you ! And I dare not bless again ! Let
me go — let me go — let me go !" He wrenched
himself away from his father's clasp — drowning
with loud tone his father's pathetic soothings —
out of the house — down the hill — lost to sight
in the shades of the falling eve.
CHAPTER VI.
Gentleman Waife does not forget an old friend. The old
friend reconciles Astrology to Prudence, and is under
the influence of Benefics. Mr. Hartopp hat in hand to
Gentleman AVaife.
Waife fell on the floor of his threshold, ex-
claiming, sobbing, moaning, as voice itself grad-
ually died away. The dog, who had been shut
out from the house, and remained ears erect,
head drooping, close at the door, rushed in as
Jasper burst forth. The two listeners at the
open casement now stole round ; there was the
dog, its paw on the old man's shoulder, trying
to attract his notice, and whining low.
Tejiderly — reverentially, they lift the poor
martyr — evermore cleared in their eyes from
stain, from question; the dishonoring brand
transmuted into the hallowing cross ! And
when the old man at length recovered con-
sciousness, his head was pillowed on the breast
of the spotless, noble preacher; and the deco-
rous English trader, with instinctive deference
for repute and respect for law, was kneeling by
his side, clasping his hand; and as Waife
glanced down, confusedly wondering, Hartopp
exclaimed, half sobbing, "Forgive me; you
said I should repent if I knew all! I do're-
pent! I do! Forgive me — I shall never for-
give myself."
" Have I been dreaming? Yvhat is all this ?
You here, too, Mr. George! But — but there
was Another. Gone I ah — gone — gone ! lost,
lost ! Ha ! did you overhear us ?"
"We overheard you — at that window! See,
spite of yourself, Heaven lets your innocence be
known, and in that innocence your sublime
self-sacritice."
"Hush! you will never betray me, either of
you — never ! A father turn against his son ! —
horrible I"
Again he seemed on the point of swooning.
In a few moments more his mind began evi-
dently to wander somewhat ; and just as Merle
(who, with his urchin-guide, had wandered
vainly over the whole town in search of the
peddler, until told that he had been seen in a
by-street, stopped and accosted by a tall man in
a rough great-coat, and then hurrying off, fol-
lowed by the stranger) — came back to re])ort his
ill success, Hartopp and George had led Waife
np stairs into his sleeping-room, laid him down
on his bed, and were standing beside him watch-
ing his troubled face, and whispering to each
other in alarm.
Waife overheard Hartopp proposing to go in
search of medical assistance, and exclaimed,
piteously, " Xo, that would scare me to death.
No doctors — no eaves-droppers. Leave me to
myself— quiet and darkness ; I shall be well to-
morrow."
George drew the curtains round the bed, and
Waife caught him by the arm. "You will not
let out what you heard, I know ; you under-
stand how little I can now care for men's judg-
ments ; but how dreadful it would be to undo
all I have done — I to be witness against my
Lizzy's child! I — I! I trust you — dear, dear
Mr. Morley ; make Mr. Harto[)p sensible that,
if he would not drive me mad, not a syllable of
what he heard must go forth — 'twould be base
in him."
"Nay!" said Hartopp, whispering also through
the dark — "Don't fear me; I will hold my peace,
though 'tis very hard not to tell Williams, at
least, that you did not take me in. But you
shall be obeyed."
They drew away Merle, who was wondering
what the whispered talk was about, catching a
word or two here and there, and left the old
man not quite to solitude — Waife's hand, in
quitting George's grasp, dropped on the dog's
head.
Hartopp went back to his daughter's home in
a state of great excitement, drinking more wine
than usual at dinner, talking more magisterial-
ly than he had ever been known to talk, railing
quite misanthropically against the world ; ob-
serving that Williams had become insufferably
overbearing, and should be pensioned oft': in
short, casting the whole family into the great-
est perplexity to guess what had come to the
mild man. ilerle found himself a lodging, and
cast a horarj' scheme as to what would happen
to Waife and himself for the next three months,
and found all the aspects so penersely contra-
dictory, that he owned he was no wiser as to the
future than he was before the scheme was cast.
George Morley remained in the Cottage, steal-
ing up, from time to time, to Waife's room, but
not fatiguing him with talk. Before midnight
the old man slept, but his slumber was much
perturbed, as if by fearful dreams. However,
he rose early, very weak, but free from fever,
and in full possession of his reason. To George's
delight, Waife's first words to him then were
expressive of a wish to return to Sophy. ' ' He
had dreamed," he said, "that he had heard her
voice calling oitt to him to come to her help."
He would not revert to the scene with Jasper.
George once ventured to touch on that reminis-
cence, but the old man's look became so implor-
ing that he desisted. Nevertheless, it was evi-
dent to the Pastor that Waife's desire of return
was induced by his belief that he had become
necessary to Sophy's p';otection. Jasper, whose
remorse would probably be very short-lived, had
clearly discovered Sophy's residence, and as
clearly Waife, and Waife alone, srill retained
some hold over his rugged breast. Perhaps,
2G6
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
too, the old man had no longer the same dread
of encountering Jasper; rather, perhaps, a faint
hope that, in another meeting, he might more
availingly soften his son's heart. He was not
only willing, then — he was eager to depart, and
either regained or assumed much of his old
cheerfulness in settling with his hostess, and
parting with Merle, on whom he forced his latest
savings, and the tasteful contents of his panier.
Then he took aside George, and whispered in
his ear, "A very honest, kind-hearted man. Sir;
can you deliver him from the Planets! — they
bring him into sad trouble. Is there no open-
ing for a cobbler at Humberston?"
George nodded, and went back to Merle, who
was wiping his eyes with his coat-sleeve. " My
good friend," said the scholar, "do me two fa-
vors besides the greater one you have already
bestowed in conducting me back to a revered
friend. First, let me buy of you the contents
of tliat basket ; I have children among whom I
would divide them as heir-looms ; next, as we
were traveling thither, you told me that, in your
younger days, ere you took to a craft wliich does
not seem to have prospered, you were brought
up to country pursuits, and knew all about cows
and sheep, their cure and tlieir maladies. Well,
I have a few acres of glebe-land on my own
hands, not enough for a bailiff — too much for
my gardener — and a pretty cottage, which once
belonged to a schoolmaster, but we have built
him a larger one ; it is now vacant, and at your
service. Come and take all trouble of land and
stock off my hands ; we shall not quarrel about
the salary. But, hark-ye, my friend — on one
proviso — give up the Crystal, and leave the
Stars to mind their own business."
"Please your Reverence," said Merle, who,
at the earlier part of the address, had evinced
the most grateful emotion, but who, at the pro-
viso which closed it, jerked himself up, dignified
and displeased, "Please your Reverence, no!
Kit Merle is not so unnatral as to swop away
his Significator at Birth for a mess of porritch !
There was that forrin chap, Gally-Leo — he stuck
to the stars, or the sun, which is the same thing
— and the stars stuck by him, and brought him
honor and glory, though the Parsons war dead
agin him. He had Malefics in his Ninth House,
which belongs to Parsons."
" Can't the matter be compromised, dear Mr.
George?" said Waife, persuasively. " Suppose
Merle promises to keep his crystal and astrolo-
gical schemes to himself, or at least only talk
of _ them to you ; they can't hurt you, I should
think. Sir? And science is a sacred thing,
Merle ; and the Chaldees, who were the great
star-gazers, never degraded themselves by show-
ing off to the vulgar. Mr. George, who is a
scliolar, will convince you of that fact."
"Content," said George. "So long as Mr.
Merle will leave my children and servants, and
the parish generally, in happy ignorance of the
future, I give him the fullest leave to discuss
his science with myself whenever we chat to-
gether on summer noons or in winter evenings ;
and perhaps I may — "
" Be converted ?" said Waife, with a twinkling
gleam of the jtlayful Humor which had ever
sported along his thorny way by the side of
Sorrow.
"I did not mean that," said the Parson, smil-
ing; "rather the contrary. What say you,
Merle ? Is it not a bargain ?"
"Sir — God bless you!" cried Merle, simply;
" I see you won't let me stand in my own light.
And what Gentleman Waife says as to the vul-
gar, is uncommon true."
This matter settled, and Merle's future se-
cured in a way that his stars, or his version of
j their language, had not foretold to him, George
and Waife walked on to the station. Merle fol-
lowing with the Parson's small carpet-bag, and
Sir Isaac charged w^ith Waife's bundle. They
had not gone many yards before they met Har-
topp, who was indeed on his way to Prospect
I Row. He was vexed at learning Waife was
I about to leave so abruptly ; he had set his heart
j on coaxing him to return to Gatesboro' with
i himself — astounding Williams and ilrs. H., and
I proclaiming to Market Place and Higli Street,
that, in deeming Mr. Chapman a g(5od and a
great man disguised, he, Josiah Havtopp, had
not been taken in. He consoled himself a little
for Waife's refusal of this kind invitation and
unexpected departure, by walking ])roudly be-
side him to the station, finding it thronged with
passengers — some of them great burgesses of
Ouzelford — in whose presence he kept bowing
his head to AVaife wuth every word he uttered;
and, calling the guard — who was no stranger to
his own name and importance — he told him
pompously to be particularly attentive to that
elderly gentleman, and see that he and his
companion had a carriage to themselves all the
way, and that Sir Isaac had a particularly com-
fortable box. "A very great man," he said,
with his finger to his lip, " only he will not
have it known — just at present." The guard
stares, and promises all defei'ence — opens the
door of a central first-class carriage — assures
Waife that he and his friend shall not l>e dis-
turbed by other jjussengers. The train heaves
into movement — Ilartopp runs on by its side
along the stand — his hat off— kissing his hand ;
then, as the convoy shoots under yon dark tun-
nel, and is lost to sight, he turns back, and see-
ing Merle, says to him, " You know that gentle-
man — the old one ?"
"Yes, a many year."
"Ever heard any thing against him?"
" Yes, once — at Gatesboro'."
"At Gatesboro'! — ah! and you did not be-
lieve it ?"
"Onlyjist for a moment — transiting."
"I envy you," said Hartopp ; and he went
off with a sigh.
CHAPTER VII.
Jasper Losely in his Element. O young Reader, who-
soever tilou art, on whom Nature has bestowed lier
magnificent gift of physical power witli tlie joys it
commands, with tiie daring that springs from it — on
closing this chapter, pause a moment and think —
"Wliat wilt thou do with it?" Shall it he brute-like
or God-like ? With what advantage for life — its de-
liglits or its perils — toils borne with Ciise, and glories
cheap bought — dost thou start at lift's onset ? Give
thy sinews a Mind that conceives the Heroic, and what
noble things thou maysi do ! But value tliy sinews
for rude Strength alone, and that strength may be
turned to tliy shame and thy torture. The Wealth of
thy life win' but tempt to its Waste. Abuse, at first
felt not, will poison the uses of Sense. Wild bulls
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
267
gore and trample their foes. Thou hast Soul! Wilt ;
tiiou trample and gore it? j
Jaspek Losely, on quitting his father, spent
his last coins in payment for his horse's food,
and on fierv diink for himself. In haste he
mounted — in haste he spurred on to London ;
not even pence for the toll-bai-s. Where he '
found the gates open, he dashed through them |
headlong ; where closed, as the night advanced, |
he forced his horse across the fields, over hedge
and ditch — more than once the animal faUing
with him — more than once thrown from the
saddle ; for, while a most daring, he was not a '
very practiced rider; but it was not easy to
break bones so strong, and though bruised and
dizzy he continued his fierce way. At morn-
ing his horse was thoroughly exhausted, and at
the first village he reached after sunrise he left
the poor beast at an inn, and succeeded in bor-
rowing of the landlord £1 on the pawn of the
horse thus left as hostage. Eesolved to husband
this sum he performed the rest of his journey
on foot. He reached London at night, and
went straight to Cutts's lodging. Cutts was,
however, in the club-room of those dark associ-
ates against whom Losely had been warned.
Oblivious of his solemn promise to Arabella,
Jasper startled the revelers as he stalked into
the room, and toward the chair of honor at the
far end of it, on which he had been accustomed
to lord it over the fell groups he had treated out
of Poole's pm-se. One of the biggest and most
redoubted of the Black Family was now in that
seat of dignity, and, refusing siu'lily to yield it
at Jasper's rude summons, was seized by the
scufl' of the neck, and literally hurled on the
table iri front, coming do^Ti with clatter and
crash among mugs and glasses. Jasper seated
himself coolly, while the hubbub began to swell
— and roared for drink. An old man, who
served as drawer to these cavaliers, went out to
obey the order; and when he was gf^ne, those
near the door swung across it a heavy bar.'
Wrath against the domineering intruder was
gathering, and waited but the moment to ex-
plode. Jasper, turning round his bloodshot eyes,
saw Cutts within a few chairs of him, seeking
to shrink out of sight.
" Cutts, come hither I" cried he, imperiously.
Cutts did not stir.
" Throw me that cur this way — you who sit
next him!"
'• Don't, don't ; his mad fit is on him ; he will
murder me — murder me, who have helped and
saved you all so often. Stand by me '."
"We will," said both his neighbors, the one
groping for his case-knife, the other for his re-
volver.
'•Do you fear I should lop your ears, dog I"
cried Jasper, "for shrinking from my side with
your tail between your legs. Pooh I I scorn to
•waste force on a thing so small. After all, I
am glad you left me : I did not want you. You
will find your horse at an inn in the village of
. I will pay for its hire whenever we meet
again. Meanwhile, find another master — I dis-
charge you. Milk tonneres ! why does that wea-
sel-faced snail not bring me the brandy? By
yonr leave," and he appropriated to himself the
brimming glass of his next neighbor. Thus re-
freshed, he glanced round through the reek of
tobacco smoke ; saw the man he had dislodged.
and who, rather amazed than stunned by his
fall, had kept silence on rising, and was now
ominously interchanging muttered words with
two of his comrades, who were also on their
legs. Jasper turned from him contemptuous-
ly ; ^^'^th increasing contempt in his hard, fierce
sneer, noted the lowering frowns on either side
the Pandemonium ; and it was only with an
angry flash from his eyes that he marked, on
closing his survey, the bar dropped across the
door, and two forms, knife in hand, stationed
at the threshold.
" Aha I my jolly companions," said he, then,
" you do right to bar the door. Prudent fami-
lies can't settle their quarrels too snugly among
themselves. I am come here on purpose to give
you all a proper scolding ; and rf some cf you
don't hang your heads for shame before I have
done, you'll die more game than I think for,
whenever you come to the last Drop I"
He rose as he thus spoke, folding his sinewy
arms across his wide chest. Most of the men
had risen too — some, however, remained seat-
ed. There might be eighteen or twenty men in
all. Every eye was fixed on him, and many a
hand was on a deadly weapon.
" Scum of the earth I" burst forth Jasper,
with voice like a roll of thunder, "I stooped to
come among you — I shared among you my mon-
ey. Was any one of you too poor to pay up his
club fee — to buy a draught of Forgetfulness — I
said, ' Brother, take 1' Did brawl break out in
vour jollities — were knives drawn — a throat in
"danger — this right hand struck down the up-
roar, crushed back the coward murder. If I
did not join in your rogueries,' it was because
they were sneaking and pitiful. I came as your
Patron, not as your Pal ; I did not meddle with
your secrets — did not touch your plunder. I
owed you nothing. Ofl^al that you 'are! to me
you owed drink, and meat, and good-fellowship.
I gave you mirth, and I gave you Law ; and in
return ye laid a plot among you to get rid of
me — how, ye white-livered scoundrels ? Oho !
not by those fists, and knives, and bludgeons.
All yovu- pigeon breasts clubbed together had
not manhood for that. But to palm ofl" upon
me some dastardly deed of your own, by snares
and scraps of false evidence — false oaths, too,
no doubt — to smuggle me oft to the hangman.
That was your precious contrivance. Once
again I am here ; but this once only. What
for? — why, to laugh at, and spit at, and spurn
you. And if one man among you has in him
an ounce of man's blood, let him show me the
traitors who planned that pitiful project, and be
they a dozen, they shall caiTy the mark of this
hand till their carcasses go to the stu-geon's
scalpel."
He ceased. Though each was now hustling
the other toward him, and the whole pack of
miscreants was closing up, hke hounds round a
\vild boar at bay, the only one who gave audi-
ble tongue was'that thin' splinter of life called
Cutts !
"Look you, General Jas, it was all a mis-
take your ever coming here. You were a fine
fellow once, particularly in the French way of
doing business — large prizes and lots of row.
That don't suit us ; we are quiet Englishmen.
You brag of beating and bullying the gentle-
men who admit you among them, and of not
268
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
sharing their plans or risks ; but that sort of
thing is quite out of order — no jjrecedent for it.
How do we know that you are not a spy, or
could not be made one, since you say you owe
us nothing, and hold us in such scorn ? Truth
is, we are all sick of you. You say you only
come this once : very well, you have spun your
yarn — now go. That's all we want ; go in peace,
and never trouble us again. Gentlemen, I move
that General Jas be expelled this club, and re-
quested to withdraw."
" I second it," said the man whom Jasper
had flung on the table.
" Those who are in favor of the resolution
hold up their hands ; all — carried unanimously.
General Jas is expelled."
'• Expel me I" said Jasper, who, in the mean
while, swaying to and fro his brawny bulk, had
cleared the space round him, and stood resting
his hands on the heavy arm-chair from which
he had risen.
A hostile and simultaneous movement of the
group brought four or five of the foremost on
him. Up rose the chair on which Jasper had
leaned — up it rose in his right hand, and two
of the assailants fell as falls an ox to the butch-
er's blow. With his left hand he wrenched a
knife from a third of the foes, and thus armed
with blade and buckler, he sprang on the table,
towering over all. Before him was the man
with the revolver, a genteeler outlaw than the
rest — ticket-of-leave man, who had been trans-
ported for forgery. " Shall I shoot him ?" whis-
pered this knave to Cutts. Cutts drew back the
hesitating arm. *' No ; the noise ! bludgeons
safer." Pounce, as Cutts whispered — pounce
as a hawk on its quarry, darted Jasper's swoop
on the Forger, and the next moment, flinging
the chair in the faces of those who were now
swarming up the table, Jasper was armed with
the revolver, which he had clutched from its
startled owner, and its six barrels threatened
death, right and left, beside and before and
around him, as he turned from face to face.
Instantly there fell a hush — instantly the as-
sault paused. Every one felt that there no fal-
tering would make the hand tremble or the ball
swerve. Wherever Jasper turned the foes re-
coiled. He laughed with audacious mockery as
he surveyed the recreants.
" Down with your arms, each of you — down
that knife, down that bludgeon! That's well.
Down yours — there ; yours-^yours. What, all
down ! Pile them here on the table at my feet.
Dogs, what do you fear ? — death ? The first
who refuses dies."
Mute and servile as a repentant Legion to a
Caesar's order, the knaves piled their weapons.
" Unbar the door, you two. You, orator
Cutts, go in front ; light a candle ; open the
street-door. So — so — so. Who will treat me
with a parting cup — to your healths? Thank
you. Sir. Fall back there ; stand back— along
the wall — each of you. Line my way. Ho,
ho ! — yon harm me — you daunt me — yoii — you !
Stop — I have a resolution to propose. Hear it,
and cheer. ' That this meeting rescinds the res-
olution for the expulsion of General Jasper, and
entreats him humbly to remain, tlie pride and
ornament of the club !' Those who are for that
resolution, hold up their hands — as many as are
against it, theirs. Carried unanimouslv. Gen-
tlemen, I thank you — proudest day of my life —
but I'll see you hanged first ; and'till that sight
diverts me — gentlemen, your health !"
Descending from his eminence, he passed
slowly down the room unscathed, unmenaced,
and, with a low mocking bow at the threshold,
strode along the passage to the street-door.
There, seeing Cutts with the light in his hand,
he uncocked the pistol, striking off the caps,
and giving it to his quondam associate, said,
" Return that to its owner, with my compli-
ments. One word— speak truth, and" fear no-
thing. Did you send help to Darrell ?"
" No ; I swear it."
"I am sorry for it. I should like to^^ave
owed so trusty a friend that one favor. Go
back to your pals. Understand now why I
scorned to work with such rotten tools."
"A wonderful fellow, indeed!" muttered
Cutts, as his eye followed the receding form of
the triumphant bravo. "All London might look
to itself if he had more solid brains and less
liquid fire in them."
CHAPTER VIII,
.Jasper Losely sleeps under the portico from which False-
hood was borne by Black Horses. He forgets a prom-
ise, reweaves a scheme, visits a liver side; and a door
closes on the Strong Wan and the Grim Woman.
Jasper had satisfied the wild yeaminsrs of his
wounded vanity. He had vindicated his claim
to hardihood and address, which it seemed to
him he had forfeited in his interview with Dar-
rell. With crest erect and a positive sense of
elation, of animal joy that predominated over
hunger, fatigue, remorse, he strided on — he
knew not whither. He would not go back to
his former lodgings ; they were too familiarly
known to the set which he had just flung from
him, witif a vague resolve to abjure henceforth
all accomplices, and trust to himself alone.
The hour was now late — the streets deserted —
the air bitingly cold. Must he at last resign
himself to the loathed dictation of Arabella
Crane? Well, lie now preferred even that to
humbling himself to Darrell, after what had
passed. Darrell's parting words had certainly
implied that he would not be as obdurate to en-
treaty as he had shown himself to threats. But
Jasper was in no humor to entreat. Mechanic-
ally he continued to stride on toward the soli-
tary district in which Arabella held her home ;
but the night was now so far advanced that he
sJirunk from disturbing the grim woman at that
hour — almost as respectfully afraid of her dark
eye and stern voice as the outlaws he had quitted
were of his own crushing hand and leveled pis-
tol. So, finding himself in one of the large
squares of Bloomsbnry, he gathered himself up
under the sheltering porch of a spacious man-
sion, unconscious that it was the very residence
which Darrell had once occupied, and that from
that portico the Black Horses had borne away
the mother of his wife. In a few minutes he
was fastasleep — sleeping with such heavy, death-
like soundness, that the policeman passing him
on his beat, after one or two vain attempts to
rouse him, was seized with a rare compassion,
and suffered the weary outcast to slumber on.
When Jasper woke at last in the gray dawn,
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
269
he felt a strange numbness in his limbs ; it was
even with difficulty that he could lift himself
up. This sensation gradually wearing off, was
followed by a quick tingling down the arms to
the tips of the fingers. A gloomy noise rang in
his ears, like the boom of funeral church-bells ;
and the pavement seemed to be sliding from
under him. Little heeding these symptoms,
which he ascribed to cold and want of food, and
rather agreeably surprised not to feel the gnaw
of his accustomed pains, Jasper now betook
himself to I'odden Place. The house was still
unclosed; and it was not till Jasper's knock
had been pretty often repeated that the bolts
were withdrawn from the door and Bridgett
Greggs appeared. " Oh, it is you, Mr. Losely,"
she said, with much sullenness, but with no ap-
parent surprise. " Mistress thought you would
come while she was away ; and I'm to get you
the bedroom you had, over the stationer's, six
years ago, if you like it. You are to take your
meals here, and have the best of every thing;
that's mistress's orders."
" Oh, Mrs. Crane is out of town," said Jas-
per, much relieved; "where has she gone?"
" I don't know."
" When will she be back?"
" In a few days ; so she told me. Will you
walk in and have breakfast ? Mistress said
there was to be always plenty in the house —
you might come any moment. Please scrape
your feet."
Jasper hea\'ily mounted into the drawing-
room, and impatiently waited the substantial re-
freshments which were soon placed before him.
The room looked unaltered, as if he had left it
but the day before — the prim book-shelves —
the empty bird-cage — the broken lute — the pat-
ent easy-chair — the footstool — the sofa, which
had been added to the original furniture for his
express comfort, in the days when he was first
adopted as a son — nay, on the hearth-rug the
very slippers, on the back of the chair the very
dressing-gown, graciously worn by him while
yet the fairness of his form justified his fond
respect for it.
For that day he was contented with the neg-
ative luxur}- of complete repose ; the more so
as, in every attempt to move, he felt the same
numbness of limb as that with which he had
woke, accompanied by a kind of painful weight
at the back of the head, and at the junction
which the great seat of intelligence forms at
the spine with the great mainspring of force ;
and, withal, a reluctance to stir, and a more
than usual inclination to doze. But the next
day, though these unpleasant sensations con-
tinued, his impatience of thought and hate of
solitude made him anxious to go forth and seek
some distraction. Xo distraction left to him
but the gambling-table — no companions but fel-
low-victims in that sucking whirlpool. Well,
he knew a low gaming-house, open all dav as
all night. Wishing to add somewhat to "the
miserable remains of the £1 borrowed on the
horse, that made all his capital, he asked Brid-
gett, indifferently, to oblige him with two or
three sovereigns ; if she had them not, she
might borrow them in the neighborhood till her
mistress returned. Bridgett answered, with ill-
simulated glee, that her mistress had given posi-
tive orders that Mr. Losely was to have every
thing he called for except — money. Jasper
' colored with wrath and shame ; but he said no
I more — whistled — took his hat — went out — re-
paired to the gaming-house — lost his last shil-
ling, and returned moodily to dine in Podden
I Place. The austerity of the room, the loneli-
' ness of the evening, began now to inspire him
, with unmitigated disgust, which was added iu
. fresh account to his old score of repugnance for
the absent Arabella. The affront put upon him
: in the orders which Bridgett had so faithfully
I repeated, made him yet more distastefully con-
j template the dire necessity of falling under the
rigid despotism of this determined guardian : it
j was like going back to a preparatory school, to
be mulcted of pocket-money, and set in a dark
I corner I But what other resource? Xone but
appeal to Darrell — still more intolerable ; except
I — he paused in his cogitation, shook his head,
'muttered "Xo, no." But that "except" Kould
return I Except to forget his father's prayer
and his own promise — except to hunt out Sophy,
and extract from the generosity, compassion, or
fear of her protectress, some such conditions as
he would have wi-ung from Darrell. He had no
doubt now that the girl was with Lady Mont-
fort; he felt that, if she really loved So]jhy, and
i were sheltering her fi-om any tender recollection,
] whether of Matilda or of Darrell himself, he
I might much more easily work on the delicate
' nerves of a woman, shrinking from all noise and
scandal, than he could on the stubborn pride of
I his resolute father-in-law. Perhaps it was on
I account of Sopihy — perhaps to plead for her —
! that Lady Montfort had gone to Fawley ; per-
' haps the grief visible on that lady's countenance,
! as he caught so hasty a glimpse of it, might be
: occasioned by the failure of her mission. If so,
, there might be now some breach or dissension
. between her and Darrell, which might render
, the Marchioness still more accessible to his de-
mands. As for his father — if Jasper played his
i cards well and luckily, his father might never
': know of his disobedience ; he might coax or
j frighten Lady Montfort into secrecy. It might
be quite unnecessary for him even to see Sophy ;
1 if she caught sight of him, she would surely no
more recognize his altered features than Eugge
had done. These thoughts gathered on him
stronger and stronger all the evening, and grew
into resolves with the next morning. He sallied
: out after breakfast — the same numbness ; but
he walked it off. Easy enough to find the ad-
dress of the ilarchioness of ]Montfort. He asked
it boldly of the porter at the well-known house
of the present Lord, and, on learning it, pro-
ceeded at once to Eichmond — on foot, and
thence to the small, scattered hamlet immedi-
ately contiguous to Lady !Montfort's villa. Here
he found two or three idle boatmen lounging near
the river side ; and entering into conversation
with them about their craft, which was sufficient-
ly familiar to him, for he had plied the stron-
gest oar on that tide in the holidays of his youth,
he proceeded to inquiries, which were readily
and unsuspectingly answered. " Yes, there teas
a young lady withLady Jlontfort ; they did not
know her name. They had seen her often in
the lawn — seen her, too, at church. She was
very pretty ; yes, she had blue eyes and fair hair."
Of his father he only heard that " there hadbeen
an old gentleman such as he described — lame,
270
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
and with one eye — who had lived some months
ago in a cottage on Lady Montfort's grounds.
They heard he had gone away. He had made
baskets — they did not know if for sale ; if so,
perhaps for a charity. They supposed he was
a gentleman, for they had heard he was some
relation to the young lady. But Lady ^Montfort's
head coachman lived in the village, and could,
no doubt, give him all the information he re-
quired." Jas])er was too wary to call on the
coachman ; he had learned enough for the pres-
ent. Had he pi-osecuted his researches farther,
he miglit only have exposed himself to questions,
and to the chance of his inquiries being repeated
to Lady Jlontfort by one of her servants, and
thus setting her on her guard ; for no doubt his
father had cautioned her against him. It never
occurred to him that the old man could already
have returned ; and those to whom he confined
his interrogatories were quite ignorant of that
fact. Jasper had no intention to intrude him-
self that day on Lady Montfort. His self-love
shrank from presenting himself to a lady of such
rank, and to whom he had been once presented
on equal terms, a.s the bridegroom of her friend
and the confidential visitor to her mother, in
habiliments that bespoke so utter a fall. Better,
too, on all accounts, to appear something of a
gentleman ; more likely to excite pity for suffer-
ing — less likely to suggest excuse for rebutting
his claims, and showing him to the door. Nay,
indeed, so dressed, in that villainous pea-jacket,
and with all other habiliments to match, would
any servant admit him? — could he get into Lady
Montfort's presence? He must go back — wait
for Mrs. Crane's return. Doubtless she would
hail his wish — half a reform in itself — to cast
off the outward signs of an accepted degrada-
tion.
Accordingly he went back to town in much
better spirits, and so absorbed in his hopes, that,
when he arrived at Podden Place, he did not
observe that, from some obliquity of vision, or
want of the normal con-espondence between will
and muscle, his hand twice missed the knocker
— wandering first above, then below it ; and
that, when actually in his clasp, he did not feel
the solid iron : the sense of touch seemed sus-
pended. Bridgett appeared. "Mistress is come
back, and will see you."
Jasper did not look charmed ; he winced, but
screwed up his courage, and mounted the stairs
— slowly — heavily. From the landing-place
above glared down the dark shining-eyes that
had almost quailed his bold spirit nearly six
years before ; and almost in the same words as
then, a voice as exulting, but less stern, said,
" So you come at last to me, Jasper Losely —
you are come!" Eapidly — flittingly, with a
step noiseless as a spectre's, Arabella Crane de-
scended the stairs ; but she did not, as when he
first sought that house in years before, grasp his
hand or gaze into his face. Rather, it was with
a slirinking avoidance of his touch — with some-
thing like a shudder — that she glided by him
into the open drawing-room, beckoning to him
to follow. He halted a moment ; he felt a long-
ing to retreat — to fly the house ; his supersti-
tious awe of her very benefits came back to him
more strongly than ever. But her help at the mo-
ment was necessary to his very hope to escape
all future need of her, and, tliough with a vague
foreboding of unconjecturable evil, he stepped
into the room, and the door closed on both.
BOOK XI.
CHAPTER I.
" The course of true love never does run smooth !" May
it not be because where there are no obstacles, there
are no tests to tlie truth of Love? Where the course
is smooth, the stream is crowded with pleasure-boats.
AVhere the wave swells, and the shoals threaten, and
the sky lowers, the pleasure-boats have gone back into
harbor. Ships titled for rough weather are those built
and stored for long voyage.
I PASS over the joyous meeting between Waife
and Sophy. I pass over George's account to his
fair cousin of the scene he and Hartopp had
witnessed, in which Waife's innocence had been
manifested, and his reasons for accepting the
penalties of guilt had been explained. The
first few agitated days following Waife's return
have rolled away. He is resettled in the cot-
tage from which he had fled ; he refuses, as be-
fore, to take up his abode at Lady Montfort's
house. But Sophy has been almost constantly
his companion, and Lady Montfort herself has
spent hours with him each day — sometimes in
his rustic parlor, sometimes in the small gar-
den-plot round his cottage, to which his ram-
bles are confined. George has gone back to his
home and duties at Humberston, promising very
soon to revisit his old friend and discuss future
plans.
The scholar, though with a sharp pang, con-
ceding to Waife that all attempt publicly to
clear his good name at the cost of reversing the
sacrifice he had made, must be forborne, could
not, however, be induced to pledge himself to
unconditional silence. George felt that there
were at least some others to whom the knowl-
edge of Waife's innocence was imperatively
due.
Waife is seated by his open window. It is
noon ; there is sunshine in the pale blue skies
— an unusual softness in the wintry air. His
Bible lies on the table beside him. He has just
set his mark in the page, and reverently closed
the Book. He is alone. Lady Montfort — who,
since her return from Fawley, has been suffer-
ing from a kind of hectic fever, accompanied by
a languor that made even the walk to Waife's
cottage a fatigue, which the sweetness of her
kindly nature enabled her to overcome, and
would not permit her to confess — has been so
much worse that morning as to be unable to
WHAT WELL HE DO WITH IT ? '
271
leave ber room. Sophy has gone to see her.
Waife is now leaning his face upon his hand,
and that face is sadder and more disquieted
than it had been, perhaps, in all his wanderings.
His darling Sophy is evidently unhappy. Her
sorrow bad not been visible during the first two
or three days of his return, chased away by the
jov of seeing him — the excitement of tender i-e-
proach and question — of tears that seemed as
joyous as the silvery laugh which responded to
the gayety that sported round the depth of feel-
ing with which he himself beheld her once
more clinging to his side, or seated, with up-
ward loving eyes, on the footstool by his knees.
Even at the "first look, however, he had found
her altered ; her cheek was thinner, her color
paled. Tbat might be from fretting for him.
She would be herself again, now that her ten-
der anxiety was relieved. But she did not be-
come hei-self again. The arch and playful
Sophy he had left was gone, as if never to re-
turn. He marked that her step, once so bound-
ing, had become slow and spiritless. Often
when she sate near him, seemingly reading or
at her work, he noticed that her eyes were not
on the page — that the work stopped abruptly in
listless hands ; and then he would hear her sigh
— a heavy but short impatient sigh ! Xo mis-
taking that sigh by those who have studied
grief: Whether in maid or man, in young or
old, in the gentle Sophy, so new to life, oivin
the haughty Dan-ell, weaiy of the world, and
shrinking from its honors, that sigh had the
same character, a like symptom of a malady in
common : the same effort to free the heart from
an oppressive load ; the same token of a sharp
and rankling remembrance lodged deep in that
finest nerve-work of being, which no anodyne
can reach — a pain that comes without apparent
cause, and is sought to be expelled without con-
scious effort.
The old man feared at first that she might,
by some means or other, in his absence, have
become apprised of the brand on his own name,
the verdict that had blackened his repute, the
sentence that had hurled him from his native
sphere ; or that, as her reason had insensibly
matured, she, hei-self, reflecting on all the mys-
tery that surrounded him — his incognitos, his
hidings, the incongruity between his social grade
and his education or bearing, and his repeated
acknowledgments that there were charges against
him which compelled him to concealment, and
from which he could not be cleared on earth ;
that she, reflecting on all these evidences to his
disfavor, had either secretly admitted into her
breast a conviction of his guilt, or that* as she
grew up to woman, she had felt, through him,
the disgrace entailed upon herself. Orif such
were not the cause of her sadness, had she
learned more of her father's evil courses ; had
any emissary of Jasper's worked upon her sensi-
bilities or her fears? No, that could not be the
case, since whatever the grounds upon which
Jasper had conjectured that Sophy was with
Lady Montfort, the accuracy of his conjectures
had evidently been doubted by Jasper himself;
or why so earnestly have questioned Waife ?
Had she learned that she was the grandchild
and natural heiress of a man wealthy and re-
no^^Tied — a chief among the chiefs of England
— who rejected her with disdain? Was she
pining for true position ? or mortified by the
contempt of a kinsman, whose rank so contrasted
the vagrancy of the grandsire by whom alone
she was acknowledged ?
Tormented by these doubts, he was unable to
solve them by such guarded and delicate ques-
tions as he addressed to Sophy herself. For
she, when he falteringly asked what ailed his
darhng, would start, brighten up for the mo-
ment, answer — "Nothing, now that he had
come back ;" kiss his forehead, play with Sir
Isaac, and then manage furtively to glide away.
But the day before that in which we now see
him alone, he had asked her abruptly, " if, dur-
ing his absence, any one besides George Morley
had visited at Lady Montfort's — any one whom
she had seen?' And Sophy's cheek had as
suddenly become crimson, then deadly pale ;
and first she said '"No," and then "Yes;" and
after a pause, looking away from him, she added
— " The young gentleman who — who helped us
to buy Sir Isaac, he has visited Lady Montfort
— related to some dear friend of hers."
"What, the painter?"
"No — the other, with the dark eyes."
" Haughton !" said Waife, with an expression
of great pain in his face.
" Yes — ^Ir. Haughton ; but he has not been
here a long, long time. He will not come again,
I believe."
Her voice quivered, despite herself, at the
last words, and she began to bustle about the
room — filled Waife's pipe, thrust it into his
hands with a laugh, the false mirth of which
went to his very heart, and then stejiped from
the open window into the little garden, and be-
gan to sing one of Waife's favorite simple old
Border songs ; but before she got through the
first line the song ceased, and she was as lost
to sight as a ring-dove, whose note comes and
goes so quickly among the impenetrable coverts.
But Waife had heard enough to justify pro-
found alarm for Sophy's peace of mind, and to
waken in his own heart some of its most painful
associations. The reader, who knows the wrong
inflicted on William Losely by Lionel Haugh-
ton's father — a wrong which had led to all poor
Willy's subsequent misfortunes — may conceive
that the very name of Haughton was wounding
to his ear; and when, in his brief, sole, and
bitter interview with Darrell, the latter had
dropped out that Lionel Haughton, however dis-
tant of kin, would be a more grateful heir than
the grandchild of a convicted felon — if Willy's
sweet nature cou/d have admitted a momentary
hate — it would have been for the thus vaunted
son of the man who had stripped him of the
modest all which would perhaps have saved his
own child from the robber's guilt, and himself
from the robber's doom. Long since, therefore,
the reader will have comprehended why, when
Waife came to meet Sophy at the river-side, and
learned at the inn on its margin that the name
of her younger companion was Lionel Haughton
— why, I say, he had so morosely parted from
the boy, and so imperiously bade Sophy to dis-
miss all thought of meeting " the pretty young
gentleman" again.
And now again this very Lionel Haughton to
have stolen into the retreat in which poor Waife
had deemed he left his treasure so secure ! Was
it for this he had fled from her ? Did he retmTi
272
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
to find her youth blighted, her affections robbed
from him, by the son of Charles Haughton ? The
father had despoiled his manhood of independ-
ence ; must it be the son who despoiled his age
of its only solace ? Grant even that Lionel was
worthy of Sophy — grant that she had been loy-
ally wooed — must not that attachment be fruit-
less — be fatal ? If Lionel were really now adopt-
ed by Darrell, Waife knew human nature too
well to believe that Darrell would complacently
hear Lionel ask a wife in her whose claim to
his lineage had so galled and incensed liim. It
was wliile plunged in these torturing reflections
that Lady Montfort (not many minutes after
Sophy's song had ceased and her form vanish-
ed) had come to visit him, and he at once ac-
costed her with agitated inquiries — "When had
Mr. Haughton first presented himself? — how
often had he seen iSophy ? — what had passed
between them? — did not Lady Montfort see that
his darling's heart was breaking?"
But he stopped as suddenly as he had rushed
into this thorny maze of questions ; for, looking
imploringly into Caroline Montfort's face, he
saw there more settled signs of a breaking heart
than Sophy had yet betrayed, despite her pale-
ness and her sighs. Sad, indeed, the change in
her countenance since he had left the place
months ago, though Waife, absorbed in Sophy,
had not much remarked it till now, when seek-
ing to read therein secrets that concerned his
darling's welfare. Lady Montfort's beauty was
so perfect in that rare harmony of feature which
poets, before Byron, have compared to music,
that sorrow could no more mar the effect of
that beauty on the eye than pathos can mar the
effect of the music that admits it on the ear.
But the change in her face seemed that of a
sorrow which has lost all earthly hope. Waife
therefore checked questions that took the tone
of reproaches, and involuntarily murmured,
"Pardon."
Then Caroline Montfort told him all the ten-
der projects she had conceived for his grand-
child's ha])piness — how, finding Lionel so dis-
interested and noble, she had imagined she saw
in him the providential agent to place Sophy in
the position to which Waife had desired to raise
her; Lionel to share with her the heritage of
which he might otherwise despoil her — both to
become the united source of joy and of pride to
the childless man who now favored the one to
exclude the other. Nor in these schemes had
the absent wanderer been forgotten. No ; could
Sophy's virtues once be recognized by Darrell,
and her alleged birth acknowledged by him —
could the guardian who, in fostering those vir-
tues to bloom by Darrell's hearth, had laid un-
der the deepest obligations one who, if unfor-
giving to treachery, was grateful for the hum-
blest service — could that guardian justify the
belief in his innocence which George Morley
had ever entertained, and, as it now proved,
with reason — then where on all earth a man
like Guy Darrell to vindicate William Losely's
attainted honor, or from whom William Losely
might accept cherishing friendshij) and inde-
pendent ease, with so indisputable a right to
both ! Such had been the picture that tlie fond
and sanguine imagination of Caroline Montfort
had drawn from generous hope, and colored
with tender fancies. But alas for such castles
in the air ! All had failed. She had only her-
self to blame. Instead of securing Sophy's wel-
fare she had endangered Sophy's happiness.
They whom she had desired to unite were ir-
revocably separated. Bitterly she accused her-
self — her error in relying so much on Lionel's
influence with Darrell — on her owm early re-
membrance of Darrell's affectionate nature, and
singular sympathies with the young — and thus
suffering Lionel and Sophy to grow familiar
with each other's winning characters, and carry
on childlike romance into maturer sentiment.
She spoke, though briefly, of her visit to Dar-
rell, and its ill success — of the few letters that
had passed since then between herself and
Lionel, in which it was settled that he should
seek no parting interview with Sophy ._ He had
declared to Sophy no formal suit — they had ex-
changed no lovers' vows. It would be, there-
fore, but a dishonorable cruelty to her to say,
" I come to tell you that I love you, and that
we must part forever." And how avow the
reason — that reason that would humble her to
the dust ? Lionel was forbidden to wed with
one whom Jasper Losely called daughter, and
whom the guardian she so venerated believed
to be his grandchild. All of comfort that Lady
Montfort could suggest was, that Sophy was so
young that she would conquer what might be
but a girl's romantic sentiment — or, if a more
serious attachment, one that no troth had ce-
mented — for a person she might not see again
for years ; Lionel was negotiating exchange
into a regiment on active service. " Mean-
while," said Lady Montfort, "I shall never wed
again. I shall make it known that I look on
your Sophy as the child of my adoption. If I
do not live to save sufiicient for her out of an
income that is more than thrice what I require,
I have instructed my lawyers to insure my life
for her provision ; it will be ample. Many a
wooer, captivating as Lionel, and free from the
scruples that fetter his choice, will be proud to
kneel at the feet of one so lovely. This rank
of mine, which has never yet bestowed on me a
joy, now becomes of value, since it will give
dignity to — to Matilda's child, and — and to — "
Lady Montfort sobbed.
Waife listened respectfully, and for the time
was comforted. Certainly, in his own heart he
v.as glad that Lionel Haughton was permanently
separated from Sophy. There was scarcely a
man on earth, of fair station and repute, to whom
he would have surrendered Sophy with so keen
a pang as to Charles Haughton's son.
The poor young lovers 1 all the stars seemed
against them ! Was it not enough th^it Guy
Darrell should be so obdurate? must the mild
William Losely be also a malefic in their horo-
scope ?
But when, that same evening, the old man
more observantly than ever watched his grand-
child, his comfort vanished — misgivings came
over him — he felt assured that the fatal shaft
had been broken in the wound, and that the
heart was bleeding inly.
True ; not without prophetic insight had Ara-
bella Crane said to the pining, but resolute,
quiet child, behind the scenes of Mr. Rugge's
show, " How much you will love one day !" All
that night Waife lay awake, pondering — revolv-
ing — exhausting that wondrous fertility of re-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
273
source which teemed in liis inventive brain. In
vain !
And now — (the day after this conversation
with Lady ISIontfort, whose illness grieves, but
does not surprise him) — now, as he sits and
thinks, and gazes abstractedly into that far, pale,
winter sky — now, the old man is still scheming
how to reconcile a human loving heart to the
eternal loss of that atfection which has so many
perisliable counterfeits, but which, when true in
all its elements — complete in all its varied
Mcalth of feeling — is never to be forgotten, and
never to be replaced.
CHAPTER n.
An offering to the Manes.
Three sides of Waife's cottage weie within
Ladj- Montfort's grounds ; the fourth side, with
its more public entrance, bordered the lane.
Now, as he thus sate, he was startled by a low
timid ring at the door which opened on the
lane. Who could it be ? — not Jasper ! He be-
gan to tremble. The ring was repeated. One
woman-servant composed all his establishment.
He heard her opening the door — heard a low
voice ; it seemed a soft, fresh young voice. His
room-door opened, and the woman, who, of
course, knew the visitor by sight and name, hav-
ing often remarked him on the grounds with
Lady Montfort and Sophy, said, in a cheerful
tone, as if bringing good news, "Mr. Lionel
Haughton."
Scarcely was the door closed — scarcely tlie
young man in the room, before, with all his de-
lightful, passionate frankness, Lionel had clasjjed
Waife's reluctant hand in both his own, and,
with tears in his eyes, and choking in his voice,
was pouring forth sentences so loosely knit to-
gether, that they seemed almost incoherent ; —
now a burst of congratulation — now a falter of
condolence — now words that seemed to suppli-
cate as for pardon to an offense of his own —
rapid transitions from enthusiasm to pity — from
joy to grief — variable, with the stormy April of
a young, fresh, hearty nature.
Taken so wholly by surprise, Waife, in vain
attempting to appear cold and distant, and only
very vaguely comprehending what the unwel-
come visitor so confusedly expressed, at last
found voice to interrupt the jet and gush of
Lionel's impetuous emotions, and said as dryly
as he could, "I am really at a loss to conceive
the cause of what appears to be meant as con-
gi'atulations to me and reproaches to yourself,
I^Ir. — ^Ir. Hauglit — "; his lips could not com-
plete the distasteful name.
" My name shocks you--no wonder," said
Lionel, deeply mortified, and bowing down his
head as he gently dropped the old man's hand.
"Reproaches to myself 1 — Ah, Sir, lam here as
Charles Haughton's son !"
"What!" exclaimed Waife, "you know?
How could you know that Charles Haughton — "
Lionel (interrupting). "I know! His own
lips confessed his shame to have so injured you."
Waife. " Confessed to whom?"
Lionel. "To Alban Morley. Believe me,
my father's remorse was bitter; it dies not in
his grave, it lives in me. I have so longed to
meet with William Losely."
S
Waife seated himself in silence, shading his
face with one hand, while with the other he
made a slight gesture, as if to discourage or re-
buke farther allusion to ancient wrong. Lionel,
in quick accents, but more connected meaning,
went on —
" I have just eome from Mr. Dan-ell, where I
and Colonel 3Iorley (here Lionel's countenance
was darkly troubled) have been staying some
days. Two days ago I received this letter from
George Morley, fonvarded to me from London.
It says — let me read it — 'You will rejoice to
learn that our dear Waife' — pardon that name."
"I Iiave no other — go on."
"Is once more with his grandchild." (Here
Lionel sighed heavily — sigh like Sophy's.) ' ' You
will rejoice yet more to learn that it has pleased
Heaven to allow me and another witness, who,
some years ago, had been misled into condemn-
ing Waife, to be enabled to bear incontroverti-
ble testimony to the complete innocence of my
beloved friend; nay, more — I say to you most
solemnly, that in all which appeared to attest
guilt there has been a virtue, which, if known
to Mr. Darrell, would make him bow in rever-
ence to that old man. Tell Mr. Darrell so from
me; and add, that in saying it, I expressed my
conviction of his own admiring sympathy for all
that is noble and heroic."
"Too much — this is too, too much," stam
mered out Waife, restlessly turning away ; " but
— but, you are folding up the letter. That is
all ? — he does not say more ? — he does not men-
tion any one else? — eh — eh?"
"No", Sir; that is all."
" Thank Heaven ! He is an honorable man!
Yet he has said more than he ought — much
more than lie can jirove, or than I — " He broke
off, and abruptly asked, " How did jNIr. Darrell
take these assertions? With an incredulous
laugh — eh ? — ' Why, the old rogue had pleaded
guilty !' "
" Sir, Alban ]\Iorley was there to speak of
the William Losely whom he had known ; to
explain, from facts which he had collected at
the time, of what natm-e was the evidence not
brought forward. The motive that induced you
to plead guilty I had long guessed ; it flashed
in an instant on Guy Darrell ; it was not mere
guess with him ! You ask me what he said ?
This : ' Grand nature ! George is rights and I
do bow my head in reverence !' "
" He said that ? — Guy Darrell ? On your hon-
or, he said that ?"
" Can you doubt it ? Is he not a gentleman ?"
Waife was fairly overcome.
"But, Sir," resumed Lionel, "I must not con-
ceal from you, that, though George's letter and
Alban ]Morley's communications suiBced to sat-
isfy Darrell, without farther question, your old
friend was naturally anxious to learn a more
full account, in the hope of legally substantia-
ting your innocence. He therefore dispatched
by the telegraph ai-equest to his nephew to come
at once to Fawley. George arrived there yes-
terday. Do not blame him. Sir, that we share
his secret."
" You do ? Good Heavens ! And that law-
yer will be barbarous enough too ; but no — he
has an interest in not accusing of midnight rob-
bery his daughter's husband; Jasper's secret is
safe with him. And Colonel Morley — surely
274
WHAT AVILL HE DO WITH IT?
his cruel nephew will not suffer him to make
me — me, with one foot in the grave — a witness
against my Lizzy's son!"
"Colonel Morley, at Darrell's suggestion,
came with me to London ; and if he does not
accompany me to you, it is because he is even
now busied in finding out your son, not to undo,
but to complete, the purpose of youi' self-sacri-
fice. ' All other considerations,' said Guy Dar-
rell, ' must be merged in this one thought — that
such a father shall not have been in vain a mar-
tyr.' Colonel Morley is empowered to treat
with your son on any terms; but on this condi-
tion, that the rest of his life shall inflict no far-
ther pain, no farther fear on you. This is the
sole use to which, without your consent, we have
presumed to put the secret we have learned.
Do you pardon George now ?"
Waife's lips murmured inaudibly, but his face
grew very bright; and as it was i-aised upward,
Lionel's ear caught the whisper of a name — it
was not Jasper, it was "Lizzy."
" Ah I why," said Lionel, sadly, and after a
short pause, '• why was I not permitted to be the
one to attest your innocence — to clear your
name? I, who owed to you so vast an hered-
itarv debt I And now — dear, dear Mr. Lose-
" Hush ! Waife I — call me Waife still I — and
always."
• ' Willingly ! It is the name by which I have
accustomed myself to love you. Now, listen to
me. I am dishonored until at least the mere
pecuniary debt, due to you from my father, is
paid. Hist I hist I — Alban Morley says so —
Darrell says so. Darrell says ' he can not own
me as kinsman till that debt is canceled.' Dar-
rell lends me the means to do it ; he would
share his kinsman's ignominy if he did not. Be-
fore I could venture even to come hither, the
sum due to you from my father was repaid. I
hastened to town yesterday evening — saw Mr.
Darrell's lawyer. I have taken a great liberty
— I have invested this sum already in the pur-
chase of an annuity for yon. Mr. Darrell's law-
yer had a client who was in immediate want of
the sum due to you ; and, not wishing perma-
nently to burden his estate by mortgage, would
give a larger interest by way of annuity than
the public oSices would ; excellent landed se-
curity. . The lawyer said it would be a pity to
let the opportunity slip, so I ventured to act for
you. It was all settled this morning. The par-
ticulars are on this paper, Avhich I will leave mth
you. Of course the sum due to you is not ex-
actly the same as that which my father borrowed
before I was born. There is the interest — com-
pound interest ; nothing more. I don't under-
stand such matters ; Darrell's lawyer made the
calculation — it must be right."
Waife had taken the paper, glanced at its con-
tents, dropped it in confusion, amaze. Those
hundreds lent swelled into all those thousands
returned! And all methodically computed —
tersely — arithmetically — down to fractions. So
that every farthing seemed, and indeed was, his
lawful due. And that sum invested in an an-
nuity of £500 a year! — income which, to poor
Gentleman Waife, seemed a prince's revenue !
"It is quite a business-like computation, I tell
you, Sir; all done by a lawyer. It is indeed,"
cried Lionel, dismayed at Waife's look and ges-
ture. '■ Compound interest icill run up to what
seems a large amount at first ; every child knows
that. You can't deny Cocker and calculating
tables, and that sort of thing. William Losely,
you can not leave an eternal load of disgrace on
the head of Charles Haughton's son."
" Poor Charlie Haughton," murmured Waife.
" And I was feeling bitter against his memory
— bitter against his son. How Heaven loves to
teach us the injustice that dwells in anger ! But
— but — this can not be. I thank Mr. Darrell
humbly — I can not take his money."
"It is not his mone}' — it is mine; he only
advances it to me. It costs him really nothing,
for he deducts the £500 a year from the allow-
ance he makes me. And I don't want such an
absurd allowancfe as I had before going out of
the Guards into the line — I mean to be a sol-
dier in good earnest. Too much pocket-money
spoils a soldier — only gets one into scrapes.
Alban Morley says the same. Darrell, too,
says 'Right, no gold could buy a luxury like
the payment of a father's debt!' You can not
grudge me that luxury — you dare not ! — why ?
because you are an honest man."
"Softly, softly, softly," said Waife. "Let
me look at you. Don't talk of money now —
don't let us think of money ! What a" look of
your father! 'Tis he, 'tis he, whom I see be-
fore me! Charlie's sweet bright playful eyes —
that might have turned aside from the path of
duty — a sheriff's officer ! Ah! and Charlie's
happy laugh, too, at the slightest joke ! But
this is not Charlie's — it is all your own (touching,
with gentle finger, Lionel's broad truthful brow).
Poor Charlie, he was grieved — you are right — ^I
remember."
" Sir," said Lionel, who was now on one knee
by Waife's chair — " Sir, I have never yet asked
man for his blessing — not even Guy Darrell.
Will you put your hand on my head ; and oh!
that in the mystic world beyond us. some angel
may tell Charles Haughton "that William Losely
has blessed his son I"
Solemnly, but with profound humility — one
hand on the Bible beside him, one on the young
soldier's bended head— William Losely blessed
Charles Haughton's son — and, having done so,
involuntarily his arms opened, and blessing was
followed by embrace.
CHAPTER m.
Xothing so obstinate as a young man's hope ; nothing so
eloquent as a lover's tongue.
Hitherto there had been no reference to
Sophy. Not Sophy's lover, but Charles Haugh-
ton's son had knelt to Waife and received the
old man's blessing. But Waife could not be
long forgetful of his darling — nor his anxiety on
her account. The expression in his varying
face changed suddenly. Not half an hour be-
fore, Lionel Haughton was the last man in the
world to whom willingly he would have consigned
his grandchild. Now, of all men in the world
Lionel Haughton would have been his choice.
He sighed heavily ; he comprehended, by his
own changed feelings, how tender and profound
an affection Lionel Haughton might inspire in
a heart so fresh as Sophy's, and so tenacious of
the impressions it received. But they were sep-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
275
arated forever ; she ought not even again to see
him. Uneasily Waife glanced toward the open
window — rose involuntarily, closed it, and drew
down the blind.
'• You must go now, roung gentleman," said
he, almost churlishly.
The quick lover's sense in Lionel divined why
the blind was drawn, and the dismissal so ab-
ruptly given.
"Give me your address," said Waife ; " I will
write about — that paper. Don't now stay lon-
ger — pray — pray."
" Do not fear'. Sir. I am not lingering here
with the wish to see — her /"
Waife looked down.
'• Before I asked the servant to announce me,
I took the precaution to learn that you were
alone. But a few words more — hear them pa-
tiently. Have you any proof that could satisfy
Mr. DaiTcU's reason that your Sophy is his daugh-
ter's child?"
" I have Jasper's assurance that she is ; and
the copy of the nurse's attestation to the same
effect. They satisfied me. I would not have
asked Mr. Darrell to be as easily contented ; I
could but have asked him to inquire, and satis-
fy himself. Bat he would not even hear me."
" He will hear you now, and with respect."
" He will I" cried Waife, joyously. "And if
he should inquire, and if Sophy should prove to
be, as I have ever believed, his daughter's child,
would he not own, andreceive, and cherish her?"
" Alas ! Sir, do not let me pain you ; but that
is not my hope. If, indeed, it should prove that
your son deceived you — that Sophy is no way
related to him — if she should be the cliild of
peasants, but of honest peasants — why, Sir, that
is my hope, my last hope — for then I would
kneel once more at your feet, and implore your
permission to win her affection and ask her
hand,"
" What ! Mr. Darrell would consent to yonr
union with the child of peasants, and not with
his own grandchild ?"
" Sir, Sir, you rack me to the heart; but if
you knew all, you would not wonder to hear me
say, ' I dare not ask Mr. Darrell to bless ray
union with the daughter of Jasper Losely.'"
Waife suppressed a groan, and began to pace
the room with disordered steps.
" But," resumed Lionel, " go to Fawley your-
self. Seek Darrell ; compare the reasons for
your belief with his for rejecting it. At this
moment his pride is more subdued than I have
ever known it. He will go calmly into the in-
vestigation of facts ; the truth will become clear.
Sir — dear, dear Sir — I am not without a hope."
"A hope that the child I have so cherished
should be nothing in the world to mc!"
'• Nothing to you ! Is memory such a shadow?
— is affection such a weathercock? Has the
love between you and Sophy been only the in-
stinct of kindred blood ? Has it not been hal-
lowed by al! that makes A^q and Childhood so
pure a blessing to each other, i-ooted in trials
borne together? Were you not the first who
taught her, in wanderings, in privations, to see
a Mother in Nature, and pray to a Father which
is in Heaven ? Would all this be blotted out of
your souls if she were not the child of that son
whom it chills you to remember? Sir, if there
be no tie to replace the mere bond of kindred.
why have you taken such vigilant pains to sep-
arate a child from him whom you believe to be
her father ?"
Waife stood motionless and voiceless. This
passionate appeal struck him forcibly.
" And, Sir," added Lionel, in a lower, sadder
tone — " can I ask you, whose later life has been
one sublime self-sacrifice, whether you would
rather that you might call Sophy grandchild,
and knov.- her wretched, than know her but as
the infant angel whom Heaven sent to your side
when bereaved and desolate, and know also that
she was happy ? Oh, William Losely, pray with
me that Sophy may not be your grandchild.
Her home will not be less your home — her at-
tachment will not less replace to you your lost
son — and on your knee her children may learn
to lisp the same prayers that you taught to her.
Go to Darrell — go — go I and take me with you !"
"I will — I will I" exclaimed Waife; and
snatching at his hat and staft' — "Come — come!
But Sophy should not learn that you have been
here — that I have gone away with you ; it might
set her thinking, dreaming, hoping — all to end
in greater sorrow." He bustled out of the room
to caution the old woman, and to write a few
hasty lines to Sophy herself — assuring her, on
his most solemn honor, that he was not now fly-
ing from her to resume his vagrant life — that,
without fail, please Heaven, he would return
that night or the next day.
In a few minutes he reopened the room door,
beckoning silently to Lionel, and then stole into
the quiet lane with quick steps.
CHAPTER IV.
Guy Barren's views in tlie invitation to Waife.
Lionel had but inadequately represented, for
he could but imperfectly comprehend, the pro-
found impression made upon Guy Darrell by
George Morley's disclosures. Himself so capa-
ble of self-sacrifice, Darrell was the man above
all others to regard with an admiring reverence,
which partook of awe, a self-immolation that
seemed almost above humanity — to him who
set so lofty an estimate on good name and
fair repute. He had not only willingly permit-
ted, but even urged Lionel to repair to Waife,
and persuade the old man to come to Fawley.
With Waife he was prepared to enter into the
full discussion of Sophy's alleged parentage.
But apart even from considerations that touched
a cause of perplexity which disquieted himself,
Darrell was eager to see and to show homage to
the sufferer, in whom he recognized a Ijero's
dignity. And if he had sent by Lionel no let-
ter from himself to Waife, it was only because,
in the exquisite delicacy of feeling that belonged
to him when his best emotions were aroused, he
felt it just that the whole merit, and the whole
delight of reparation to the wrongs of William
Losely, should, without direct interposition of
his own, be left exclusively to Charles Haugh-
ton's son. Thus far it will be acknowledged
that Guy Darrell was not one of those men
who, once warmed to magnanimous impulse, are
cooled by a thrifty prudence when action grows
out of the impulse. Guy Darrell could not be
generous by drachm and scruple. Not apt to
276
WHAT AVILL HE DO WITH IT ?
say, "I apologize" — slow to say, "I repent;"
very — very — very slow indeed to say. "I for-
give;" yet let him once say, "I repent," "I
apologize," or " I forgive," and it was said with
his whole heart and soul.
But it must not be supposed that, in authoriz-
ing Lionel to undertake the embassy to Waife,
or in the anticipation of what might pass be-
tween Waife and himself should the former
consent to revisit the old house from which
he had been so scornfully driven, Darrell had
altered, or dreamed of altering, one iota of his
resolves against a union between Lionel and
Sophy. True, Lionel had induced him to say,
"Could it be indisputably proved that no drop
of Jasper Losely's blood were in this girl's veins
— that she were the lawful child of honest par-
ents, however humble — my right to stand be-
tween her and yourself would cease." But a
lawyer's experience is less credulous than a
lover's hope. And to Darrell's judgment it was
wholly improbable that any honest parents, how-
ever humble, sliould have yielded their child to
a knave like Jasjjer, while it was so probable
that his own persuasion was well-founded, and
that she was Jasper's daughter, though not Ma-
tilda's.
The winter-evening had closed. George and
Darrell were conversing in the library; the
theme, of course, was Waife ; and Darrell list-
ened with vivid interest to George's graphic ac-
counts of the old man's gentle, playful humor
— with its vague desultory under-currents of
poetic fancy or subtle wisdom. But when
George turned to s])eak of Sophy's endearing,
lovely nature, and, though cautiously, to inti-
mate an appeal on her behalf to Darrell's sense
of duty, or susceptibility to kindly emotions, the
proud man's brow became knit, and his stately
air evinced displeasure. Fortunately, just at a
moment when farther words might have led to
a permanent coldness between men so disposed
to esteem each other, they heard the sound of
wheels on the frosty ground — the shrill bell at
the porch-door.
CHAPTER V.
The vagabond received in the Manor House at Fawley.
Very lamely, very feebly, declining Lionel's
arm, but leaning heavily on his crutch-stick,
Waife crossed the threshold of the Manor House.
George sprang fonvard to welcome him. The
old man looked on the preacher's face with a
kind of wandering uncertainty in his eye, and
George saw that his cheek was very much flushed.
He limped on through the hall, still leaning on
his staff, George and Lionel at either side. A
pace or two, and there stood Darrell! Did he,
the host, not s})ring forward to offer an arm, to
extend a hand! No, such greeting in Darrell
would have been but vulgar courtesy. As the
old man's eye rested on him, the superb gentle-
man bowed low — bowed as we bow to kings !
They entered the library. Darrell made a
sign to George and Lionel. They understood
the sign, and left visitor and host alone.
Lionel drew George into the quaint old din-
ing-hall. "I am verj' uneasy about our dear
friend," he said, in agitated accents. " I fear
that I have had too little consideration for his
years and his sensitive nature, and that, what
with the excitement of the conversation that
passed between us, and the fatigue of the jour-
ney, his nerves have broken down. We were
not half-way on the road, and as we had the rail-
way carriage to ourselves, I was talking to him
with imprudent earnestness, when he began to
tremble all over, and went into a hysterical
paroxysm of mingled tears and laughter. I
wished to stop at the next station, but he was
not long recovering, and insisted on coming on.
Still, as we approached Fawley, after muttering
to himself, as far as I could catch his words, in-
coherently, he sank into a heavy state of lethargy
or stupor, resting his head on my shoulder. It
was with difficulty I roused him when he en-
tered the park." ~-
" Poor old man," said George, feelingly ; " no
doubt the quick succession of emotions through
which he has lately passed has overcome him
for the time. But the worst is now past. His
interview with Darrell must cheer his heart and
soothe his spirits ; and that interview over, we
must give him all repose and nursing. But tell
me what passed between you — if he was very
indignant that I could not suffer men like you
and my uncle Alban, and Guy Darrell, to be-
lieve him a pick-lock and a thief?"
Lionel began his narrative, but had not pro-
ceeded far in it before Darrell's voice was heard
shouting loud and the library bell rang vio-
lently.
They hurried into the library, and Lionel's
fears were verified. Waife was in strong con-
vulsions ; and as these gradually ceased, and he
rested without struggle, half on the floor, half
in Darrell's arms, he was evidently unconscious
of all around him. His eye was open, but fixed
in a glassy stare. The servants thronged into
the room ; one was dispatched instantly to sum-
mon the nearest medical practitioner. "Help
me — George — Lionel," said Darrell, "to bear
him up stairs. Mills, light us." When they
reached the landing-place. Mills asked, ''Which
room, Sir?"
Darrell hesitated an instant, then his gray
eye lit into its dark fire. " ]\Iy father's room —
he sliall rest on my father's bed."
When the surgeon arrived, he declared Waife
to be in imminent danger — pressure on the brain.
He prescribed prom]]t and vigorous remedies,
which had indeed before the surgeon's arrival
suggested themselves to, and been partly com-
menced by, Darrell, M'ho had gone through too
many varieties of experience to be unversed in
the rudiments of leeehcraft. "If I were in my
guest's state," asked Darrell of the practitioner,
"what would you do?"
"Telegraph instantly for Dr. F ."
" Lionel — you hear? Take my own horse —
he will carry you like the wind. Off to * * * * ;
it is the nearest telegraph station."
Darrell did not stir from Waifc's bedside all
that anxious night. Dr. F did not arrive
till morning. He approved of all that had been
done, but nevertheless altered the treatment ;
and after staying some hours, said to Darrell,
" I am compelled f o leave you for the present ;
nor could I be of use in staying. I have given
all the aid in my power to Nature — we must
leave the rest to Nature herself. That fever —
those fierce throes and spasms — are but Na-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
ture's efforts to cast off the grasp of the enemy gre«- almost clear to her. Was not ]\rr. Darrell
we do not see. It now depends on what decp-ee that relation to her lost mother upon Avhom she
of rallying power be left to the patient. For- , had claims not hitherto conceded? Lionel and
tunately, his frame is robust, yet not plethoric, j Waife both with that relation now! Surelv the
Do you know his habits?" i clouds that had rested on her future were ad-
"I know," answered George; "most tern- mitting the sun through their opening rents —
perate, most innocent." and she blushed as she caught its ray.
" Then, with constant care, minute attention
to my directions, he may recover."
" If care and attention can save my guest's
life he shall not die," said Darrell.
The physician looked at the speaker's pale
face and compressed lips. "But, Mr. Darrell,
I must not have you on my hands too. You
must not be out of your bed again to-night."
" Certainly not," said George. " I shall
watch alone."
'• No," cried Lionel, " that is my post, too."
" I'ooh !" said Darrell; "young men so far
from Death are not such watchful sentinels
against his stroke as men of my years, who
have seen him in all aspects ; and, moreover,
base indeed is the host who deserts his own
guest's sick-chamber. Fear not for me, doc-
tor; no man needs sleep less than I do."
Dr. F slid his hand on Darrell's pulse.
"Irregular — quick; but what vitality'! what
power 1 — a young man's pulse ! Mr. Darrell,
many years for your country's service are yet in
these lusty beats."
Darrell breathed his chronic sigh, and, turn-
ing back to Waife's bedside, said, " When will
you come again?"
" The day after to-morrow."
When the doctor returned "^Yaife was out of
immediate danger. Nature, fortified by tiie
'• temperate, innocent habits" which husband
up her powers, had dislodged, at least for a
time, her enemy; but the attack was followed
by extreme debility. It was clear that for days,
perhaps even weeks to come, the vagrant must
remain a prisoner under Darrell's roof-tree.
Lionel had been too mindful of .Sophy's anx-
iety to nezlect writing to Lady Moiitfort the day
after Waife's seizure. But he could not find
the heart to state the old man's danger; and
with the sanguine tendencies of his young na-
ture, even when at the worst, he clung to belief I
in the liest. He refrained from any separate !
and private communication of Waife's state to I
CHAPTER VI.
Individual concession.? are like political ; when you once
begin, there is no saying where you will stop.
Waife's first words on recovering conscious-
ness were given to thoughts of Sophy. He had
promised her to return, at farthest, the next
day ; she would be so uneasy — he must get up
— he must go at once. When he found his
strength would not suffer him to rise, he shed
tears. It was only very gradually, and at inter-
vals, that he became acquainted with the length
and severity of his attack, or fully sensible that
he was in DaiTell's house; that that form, of
which he had retained vague, dreamv reminis-
cences, hanging over his pillow, wiping his brow,
and soothing him with the sweetest tones of the
sweet human voice — that that form, so genial,
so brotherlike, was the man who had once com-
manded him not to sully with his presence a
stainless home.
All that had passed within the last few days
was finally made clear to him in a short, unwit-
nessed, touching conversation with his host ; aft-
er which, however, he became gradually worse;
his mind remaining clear, but extremely deject-
ed; his bodily strength evidently sinking. Dr.
F was again summoned in haste. That
great physician was, as every great physician
should be, a profound philosopher, though with
a familiar ease of manner, and a light, off-hand
vein of talk, which made the philosophy less
sensible to the taste than any other ingredient
in his pharmacopaeia. Turning every body else
out of the room, he examined his patient alone
— sounded the old man's vital organs, with ear
and with stethoscope — talked to him now on his
feelings, now on the news of the day, and then
stepped out to Darrell.
"Something on the heart, my dear Sir; I
can't get at it ; perhaps you can. Take oft" that
Lady Montfort, lest the sadness it would not I something, and the springs will react, and my
fail to occasion her should be perceptible to So- ! patient will soon recover. All about him sound
phy, and lead her to divine the cause. So he ! as a rock — but the heart ; that has been horri-
contented himself with saying that Waife had I bly worried; something worries it now. His
accompanied him to Mr. Darrell's, and would heart may be seen in his eye. Watch his eye ;
be detained there, treated with all kindness and | it is missing some face it is accustomed to see."
honor, for some days. j Darrell changed color. He stole back into
Sophy's mind was relieved by this intelli- Waife's room, and took the old man's hand,
gence, but it filled her with wonder and conjee- Waife returned the pressure, and said, "I was
ture. That Waife, who had so pertinaciously just praying for you — and — and — I am sinking
refused to break bread as a guest under anv ! fast. Do not let me die. Sir, without wishing
man's roof-tree, should be for days receiving ' poor Sophy a last good-by I"
the hospitality of Lionel Hanghton's wealthy j Darrell passed back to the landing-place,
and powerful kinsman, was indeed mysterious, where George and Lionel were standing, while
But whatever brought Waife and Lionel thus ' Dr. F was snatching a hasty refreshment in
in confidential intercourse could not but renew
yet more vividly the hopes she had been en-
the library before his return to town. Darrell
laid his hand on Lionel's shoulder. "Lionel,
deavoring of late to stifle. And combining to- I you must go back to London with Dr. F-
gether many desultory remembrances of words I I can not keep you here longer. I want your
escaped unawares from Lionel, from Lady Mont-
/ort, from Waife himself, the truth (of which her
native acuteuess had before admitted glimpses) still so ill ! You can not be thus unkind."
room.
Sir," said Lionel, aghast, "while Waife is
278
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
"Inconsiderate egotist! would you deprive
the old man of a presence dearer to him than
yours ? George, you will go too ; but you will
return. You told me yesterday that your wife
was in London for a few days ; entreat her to
accompany j'ou hither ; entreat her to bring
with her the poor young lady whom my guest
pines to see at his bedside — the face that his eye
misses."
CHAPTER VII.
Sophy, Darrell, and the Flute-player. Darrell prepares
a surprise for Waife.
Sophy is come. She has crossed that inex-
orable threshold. She is a guest in the house
which rejects her as a daughter. She has been
there some days. Waife revived at the first sight
of her tender face. He has left his bed ; can
move for some hours a day into an adjoining
chamber, which has been hastily arranged for
his private sitting-room ; and can walk its floors
with a step that grows daily firmer in the delight
of leaning on Sophy's arm.
Since the girls twrival, Dan-ell has relaxed
his watch over the patient. He never now
enters his guest's apartment without previous
notice ; and, by that incommunicable instinct
which passes in households between one silent
breast and another, as by a law equally strong
to attract or repel — here drawing together, there
keeping apart — though no rule in either case has
been laid down — by virtue, I say, of that strange
inteUigence, Sophy is not in the old man's room
when Darrell enters. Rarely in the twenty-
four hours do the host and the fair young guest
encounter. But Darrell is a quick and keen ob-
server. He has seen enough of Sophy to be
sensible of her charm — to penetrate into her
simple, natural loveliness of character — to feel
a deep interest in her, and a still deeper pity for
Lionel. Secluding himself as much as possible
in his private room, or in his leafless woods, his
reveries increase in gloom. Nothing unbends
his moody brow like Fairthorn's flute or Fair-
thorn's familiar converse.
It has been said before that Fairthorn knew
his secrets. Fairthorn had idolized Caroline
Lyndsay. Fairthorn was the only being in the
world to whom Guy Dan-ell could speak of Car-
oline Lyndsay — to whom he could own the un-
conquerable but unforgiving love which had twice
driven him from the social world. Even to Fair-
thorn, of course, all could not be told. Darrell
could not speak of the letter he had received at
Malta, nor of Caroline's visit to him at Fawley ;
for to do so, even to Fairthorn, was like a trea-
son to the diijmti) of the Belo\ed. And Guy
Darrell miglit rail at her inconstancy — her heart-
lessness; but to boast that she had lowered her-
self by the profl'ers that were dictated by repent-
ance, Guy Darrell could not do that ; — he was a
gentleman. Still there was much left to say.
He could own that he thought she would now
accept his hand ; and when Fairtliorn looked
happy at that thought, and hinted at excuses
for her former fickleness, it was a great relief
to Darrell to fly into a rage ; but if the flute-
player meanly turned round and became liim-
self Caroline's accuser, then poor Fairthorn was
indeed frightened, for Darrell's trembling lip or
melancholy manner overwhelmed the assailant
with self-reproach, and sent him sidelong into
one of his hidden coverts.
But at this moment Fairthorn was a support
to him under other trials — Fairthorn, who re-
spects as he does, as no one else ever can, the
sanctity of the Darrell line — who would shrink
like himself from the thought that the daughter
of Jasper Losely, and in all probability not a
daughter of Matilda Darrell, should ever be mis-
tress of that ancestral hall, lowly and obscure
and mouldering though it be — and" that the child
of a sharper, a thief, a midnight assassin, should
carry on the lineage of knights and warriors in
whose stainless scutcheons, on many a Gothic
tomb or over the portals of ruined castles, was
impaled the heraldry of Brides sprung from the
loins of Lion Kings ! Darrell, then, doing full
justice to all Sophy's beauty and grace, purity
and goodness, was more and more tortured by
the conviction that she could never be wife to
the man on whom, for want of all nearer kin-
dred, would devolve the heritage of the Darrell
name.
On the other hand, Sophy's feelings toward
her host were almost equally painfui and im-
bittered. The tenderness and reverence that he
had showed to her beloved grandfather, the af-
fecting gratitude with which Waife spoke of him,
necessarily deepened her prepossessions in his
favor as Lionel's kinsman ; and though she saw
him so sparingly, still, when they did meet, she
had no right to complain of his manner. It
might be distant, taciturn ; but it was gentle,
courteous — the manner which might be expect-
ed, in a host of secluded habits, to a young guest
from whose sympathies he was remo\ed by years,
but to whose comforts he was unobtrusively con-
siderate — whose wishes were delicately fore-
stalled. Yet was this all that her imagination
had dared to picture on entering those gi-ay
walls ? Where was the evidence of the relation-
ship of which she had dreamed ? — where a single
sign that she was more in that house than a mere
guest? — where, alas! a token that even Lionel
had named her to his kinsman, and that for
Lionel's sake tliat kinsman bade her welcome?
And Lionel too — gone the very day before she
arrived ! That she learned incidentally from
the servant who showed her into her room.
Gone, and not addressed a line to herself, though
but to condole with her on her grandfather's ill-
ness, or congratulate her that the illness had
spared the life ! She felt wounded to the very
core. As Waife's progressive restoration al-
lowed her tlioughts more to revert to so many
causes for pain and perplexity, the mystery of
all connected with lier own and AVaife's sojourn
under that roof baffled her attempts at conject-
ure. The old man did not volunteer exjilana-
tions. Timidly she questioned him ; but his
nerves yet were so unstrung, and her questions
so evidently harassed him, that she only once
made that attempt to satist^y her own bewilder-
ment, and smiled as if contented when he said,
after a long pause, "Patience yet, my child;
let me get a little stronger. You see Mr. Darrell
will not sulfer me to talk with him on matters
that must be discussed with him before I go ;
and then — and then — Patience till then, Sophy."
Keither George nor his wife gave her any clew
to the inquiries that preyed upon her mind, Tlie
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
279
latter, a kind, excellent woman, meekly devoted
to her husband, either was, or affected to be, in
ignorance of the causes that had led Waife to
Fawley, save very generally that Darrell had
once wronged him by an erring judgment, and
had hastened to efface that wrong. And then
she kissed Sophy fondly, and told her that bright-
er days were in store for the old man and her-
self. George said, with more authority — the
authoi-ity of the priest — "Ask no questions.
Time, that solves all riddles, is hurrying on, and
Heaven directs its movements."
Her very heart was shut up, except where it
could gush forth — nor even then with full tide
— in letters to Lady Montfort. Caroline had
heard from George's wife, with intense emotion,
that Sojihy was summoned to Darrell's house,
the gravity of Waife's illness being considerate-
ly suppressed. Lady IMontfort could but sup-
pose that Darrell's convictions had been shaken
— his resolutions softened ; that he sought an
excuse to see Sophy, and judge of her himself.
Under this impression, in parting with her young
charge, Caroline besought Sophy to write to her
constantly, and frankly. Sophy felt an inex-
pressible relief in this correspondence. But
Lady IMontfort in her replies was not more
communicative than ^^^aife or the Morleys, only
she seemed more thoughtfully anxious that
Sophy should devote herself to the task of pro-
pitiating her host's affections. She urged her to
trj' and break through his reserve — see more of
him ; as if that were possible ! And her letters
were moro filled with questions about Darrell
than even with admonitions and soothings to
Sophy. The letters that arrived at Fawley
were brought in a bag, which Darrell opened ;
but Sophy noticed that it was with a peculiar
compression of lip, and a marked change of col-
or, that he had noticed the handwriting on Lady
Montfort's first letter to her, and that after that
first time her letters were not inclosed in the
bag, but came apart, and were never again given
to her by her host.
Thus passed days in which Sophy's time was
spent chiefly in Waife's sick-room. But now
he is regaining strength hourly. To his sitting-
room comes George frequently to relieve Sophy's
watch. There, once a day, comes Guy Darrell,
and what then passed between the two men
none witnessed. In these hours Waife insisted
upon Sophy's going forth for air and exercise.
She is glad to steal out alone — steal down by
the banks of the calm lake, or into the gloom
of the mournful woods. Here she not unfre-
quently encounters Fairthorn, who, having tak-
en more than ever to the flute, is driven more
than ever to outdoor rambles ; for he has been
cautioned not to indulge in his melodious re-
source within doors lest he disturb the patient,
Fairthorn and Sophy thus made acquaintance,
distant and shy at first on both sides ; but it
gradually became more frank and cordial. Fair-
thorn had an object not altogether friendly in
encouraging this intimacy. He thought, poor
man, that he should be enabled to extract from
Sophy some revelations of her early life, which
would elucidate, not in favor of her asserted
claims, tiie mystery that hung upon her parent-
age. But had Dick Fairthorn been the astutest
of diplomatists, in this hope he would have been
equally disappointed, Sophy had nothing to
communicate. Her ingenuousness utterly baf-
fled the poor flute-player. Out of an innocent,
unconscious kind of spite, on ceasing to pry
into Sophy's descent, he began to enlarge upon
the dignity of Darrell's. He inflictedon her
the long-winded genealogical memoir, the re-
cital of which had, on a previous occasion, so
nearly driven Lionel Haughton from Fawley.
He took her to see the antiquary's grave ; he
spoke to her, as they stood there, of Darrell's
ambitious boyhood— his arid, laborious man-
hood — his determination to restore the fallen
line — the very vow he had made to the father
he had so pityingly revered. He sought to im-
press on her the consciousness that she was the
guest of one who belonged to a race with whom
spotless honor was the all in all; and who had
gone through life with bitter sorrows, but rever-
encing that race, and vindicating that honor :
Fairthorn's eye would tremble — his eyes flash
on her while he talked. She, poor child, could
not divine why ; but she felt that he was angry
with her — speaking at her. In fact, Fairthorn's
prickly tongue was on the barbed point of ex-
claiming, "And how dare you foist j-ourself
into this unsullied lineage! — how dare you
think that the dead would not turn in their
graves ere they would make room in the vault
of the Darrells for the daughter of a Jasper
Losely!" But though she could not conceive
the musician's covert meaning in these heraldic
discourses, Sophy, with a justness of discrimina-
tion that must have been intuitive, separated
from the more fantastic declamations of the
grotesque genealogist that which, was genuine
and pathetic in the single image of the last de-
scendant in a long and gradually-falling race,
lifting it up once more into power and note on
toiling shoulders, and standing on the verge of
age, with the melancholy consciousness that the
effort was successful only for his fleeting life ;
that, with all his gold, with all his fame, the
hope which had achieved alike the gold and the
fame was a lying mockery, and that name and
race would perish with himself, when the earth
yawned for him beside the antiquary's grave.
And these recitals made her conceive a more
soft and tender interest in Guj' Darrell than she
had before admitted ; they accounted for the
mournfulness on his brow ; they lessened her in-
voluntary awe of that stateliness of bearing,
which before had only chilled her as the evi-
dence of pride.
While Fairthorn and Sophy thus matured ac-
quaintance, Darrell and Waife were drawing
closer and closer to each other. Certainly no
one would be predisposed to suspect any con-
geniality of taste, intellect, experience, or emo-
tion, between two men whose lives had been so
widely different — in whose faults or merits the
ordinary observer would have seen nothing but
antagonism and contrast. Unquestionably their
characters were strikingly dissimilar, vet there
was that in each which the other recognized as
familiar to his own nature. Each had been the
victim of his heart ; each had passed over the
plowshare of self-sacrifice, Darrell had offered
u]) his youth — Waife his age; — Darrell to a Fa-
ther and the unrequitiiig Dead — Waife to a Son
wliose life had become his terror. To one man,
NAjfE had been an idol ; to the other, nami: had
been a weed cast away into the mire. To the
280
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
one man, iinjoyoiis, evanescent glory — to the
other, a shame that had been borne with a sport-
ive cheerfnhiess, dashed into sorrow only when
the world's contumely threatened to despoil Af-
fection of its food. But there was something
akin in their joint experience of earthly vani-
ties ; — so little solace in worldly honors to the
triumphant Orator — so little of misery to the
vagrant Mime while his conscience mutely aj)-
pealed to Heaven from the verdict of his kind.
And as beneath all the levity and whim of the
man reared and nurtured, and fitted by his char-
acteristic tendencies, to view life through its
humors, not through its passions, there still ran
a deep under-current of grave and earnest in-
tellect and feeling — so too, amidst the severer
and statelier texture of the once ambitious, la-
borious mind, which had conducted Darrell to
renown — amidst all that gathered-up intensity
of passion, which admitted no comedy into Sor-
row, and saw in Love but the aspect of Fate —
amidst all this lofty seriousness of soul, there
was yet a vivid capacity of enjoyment — those
fine sensibilities to the pleasurable sun-rays of
life, which are constitutional to all genius, no
matter how grave its vocations. True, afHiction
at last may dull them, as it dulls all else that
we took from Nature when she equipped us for
life. Yet, in the mind of Darrell, affliction had
shattered the tilings most gravely coveted, even
more than it had marred its perceptive acknowl-
edgment of the sympathies between fancies that
move to smiles, and thoughts that bequeath
solemn lessons, or melt to no idle tears. Had
Darrell been placed amidst the circumstances
that make happy the homes of earnest men,
Darrell would have been mirthful ; had Waife
been placed among the circumstances that con-
centrate talent, and hedge round life with
trained thicksets and belting laurels, Waife
would have been grave.
It was not in the earlier conferences that took
place in Waife's apartment that the subject
whicli had led the old man to Fawley was
brought into discussion. When Waife had
sought to introduce it — when, after Sophy's
arrival, he had looked wistfully into Darrell's
face, striving to read there the impression she
had created, and, unable to discover, had be-
gun, with tremulous accents, to reopen the
cause that weighed on him — Darrell stopped
him at once. "Hush — not yet ; remember that
it was in the very moment you first broached
this sorrowful tojiic, on arriving here, and per-
ceived how different the point of view from
which we two must regard it, that your nerves
gave way — your illness rushed on you. Wait,
not only till you are stronger, but till we know
each other better. This subject is one that it
becomes us to treat with all the strength of our
reason — with all the calm which either can im-
pose upon the feelings that ruffle judgment. At
present, talk we of all matters except that, which
I promise you shall be fairly discussed at last."
Darrell found, however, that his most effect-
ive diversion from the subject connected with
Sophy was through another channel in the old
man's atirections, hopes, and fears. George
Morlcy, in rejieating the conversation he had
overheard between Waife and Jasper, had nat-
urally, while clearing the father, somewhat soft-
ened tlie bravado and cynicism of the sou's lan-
guage, and more than somewhat brightened the
touches of natural feeling by which the bravado
and cynicism had been alternated. And Dar-
rell had sufficient magnanimity to conquer the
repugnance with which he approached a name
associated with so many dark and hateful mem-
ories, and, avoiding as much as possible distinct
reference to Jasper's past life, to court a con-
sultation on the chances of saving from the
worst the life that yet remained. With whom
else, indeed, than Jasper's father could Darrell
so properly and so unreservedly discuss a mat-
ter in which their interest and their fear were
in common ? — As though he were rendering
some compensation to Waife for the disappoint-
ment he would experience when Sojihy's claims
came to be discussed — if he could assist in re-
lieving the old man's mind as to the ultimate
fate of the son for whom he had made so grand
a sacrifice, Darrell spoke to Waife somewhat in
detail of the views with which he had instruct-
ed Colonel INIorley to find out and to treat with
Jasper. He heard from the Colonel almost
daily. Alban had not yet discovered Jasper,
nor even succeeded in tracing Mrs. Crane ! But
an account of Jasper's wild farewell visit to that
den of thieves, from which he had issued safe
and triumphant, had reached the ears of a de-
tective employed by the Colonel, and on tolera-
bly good terms with Cutts ; and it was no small
comfort to know that Jasper had finally broken
with those miscreant comrades, and had never
again been seen in their haunts. As Arabella
had introduced herself to Alban hy her former
name, and neither he nor Darrell was acquaint-
ed with that she now bore, and as no questions
on the suljject could be put to Waife during the
earlier stages of his illness, so it was several
days before the Colonel had succeeded in trac-
ing her out as Mrs. Crane of Podden Place — a
discovery effected by a distant relation to whom
he had been referred at the famous school of
which Araliella had been the pride, and who
was no doubt the owner of those sheepskin ac-
count-books by which the poor grim woman had
once vainly sought to bribe Jasper into honest
work. But the house in Podden Place was
shut up — not a soul in charge of it. The houses
immediatel}' adjoining it were tenantless. The
Colonel learned, however, from a female serv-
ant in an oj>posite house, that several days ago
she had seen a tall, ])owerful-looking man enter
Mrs. Crane's street-door; that she had not seen
him quit it; that some evenings afterward, as
this servant was closing up the house in wiiich
she served, she had remarked a large private
carriage driving away from Mrs. Crane's door;
that it was too dark to see who were in the car-
liage, but she had noticed a woman whom she
felt fully sure was JNIrs. Crane's servant, Brid-
gett Greggs, on the box beside the coachman.
Alban had been to the agent employed by
Mrs. Crane in the letting of her houses, but had
not there gained any information. The Colonel
believed that Mrs. Crane had succeeded in re-
moving Jasper from London — had, perhaps,
accompanied him abroad. If with her, at all
events, tor tiie ])resent, he was safe from the
stings of want, and with one who had sworn to
save him from his own guilty self. If, however,
still in England, Albauhad no doubt, sooner or
later, to hunt him up.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
281
Upon the whole, this conjectural information,
though unsatisfactory, allayed much anxiety.
Darrell made the most of it iu his representa-
tions to Waife. And tlie old man, as we know,
was one not hard to comfort, never quarreling
irrevocably with Hope.
And now Waife is rapidly recovering. Dar-
rell, after spending the greater part of several
days, intent upon a kind of study from which
he had been estranged for many years, takes to
frequent absences for the whole day ; goes up
to London by the earliest train, comes back by
the latest. George Morley also goes to London
for a few hours. Darrell, on returning, does
not allude to the business which took him to the
metropolis ; neither does George, but the latter
seems unusually animated and excited. At
length, after one of these excursions, so foreign
to his habits, he and George enter together the
old man's apartment not long before the early
hour at which the convalescent retires to rest.
Sophy was seated on the footstool at Waife's
knee, reading the Bible to him, his hand rest-
ing lightly on her bended head. The sight
touched both George and Darrell ; but Darrell,
of the two, was the more affected. What young,
pure voice shall read to 1dm the Book of Hope
in the evening of lonely age?" Sophy started in
some confusion, and as, in quitting the room,
she passed by Darrell, he took her hand gently,
and scanned her features more deliberately,
more earnestly than he had ever yet seemed to
do ; then he sighed, and dropped the hand,
murmuring, " Pardon me." Was he seeking to
read in that fair face some likeness to the Dar-
rell lineaments ? If he had found it, what then ?
But when Sophy was gone, Darrell came straight
to Waife with a cheerful Ijrow — with a kind-
ling eye.
"William Losely," said he.
"Waife, if you please, Sir," interrupted the
old man.
"William Losely," repeated Darrell, "jus-
tice seeks to repair, so far as, alas I it now can,
the wrongs inflicted on the name of William
Losely. Your old friend Alban Morley supply-
ing me with the notes he had made in the mat-
ter of your trial, I arranged the evidence they
furnished. The Secretary for the Home Depart-
ment is one of my most intimate political friends
— a man of humanity — of sense. I jjlaced that
evidence before him. I, George, and ]\Ir. Har-
topp — saw him after he had perused it — "
" I\Iy — son — Lizzy's son!"
"His secret will be kept. The question was
not who committed the act for which you suf-
fered, but whether j/oM were clearly, incontesta-
bly innocent of the act, and, in pleading guilty,
did but sublimely bear the penalty of another.
There will be no new trial — there are none
who would prosecute. I bring back to you the
Queen's free pardon under the Great Seal. I
should explain to you that this form of the rov-
al grace is so rarely given that it needed all the
strength and affecting circumstance of your pe-
culiar case to justify the Home Secretary in list-
ening, not only to the interest I could bring to
bear in your favor, but to his own humane in-
clinations. The pardon under the Great Seal
diffei-s from an ordinary pardon. It purges the
blood from tlie taint of felony — it remits all the
civil disabilities which the mere expiry of a
penal sentence does not remove. In short, as
applicable to your case, it becomes virtuallv a
complete and formal attestation of your inno-
cence. Alban Morley will take caie to aj prise
those of your old friends who may yet survive
of that revocation of unjust obloquy which this
royal deed implies — Alban INIorley, who would
turn his back on a prince of the blood if but
guilty of some jockey trick on the turf! Live
henceforth openly, and in broad daylight, if you
please ; and trust to us three — the Soldier, the
Lawyer, the Churchman — to give to this paper
tliat value which your Sovereign's advisers in-
tend it to receive."
"Your hand now, dear old friend!" cried
George. "You remember I commanded you
once to take mine as man and gentleman ; as
man and gentleman now honor me with yours."
"Is it possible?" faltered Waife, one hand in
George's, the other extended in imiiloring ap-
peal to Darrell — "is it possible? I vindicated
— I cleared — and yet no felon's dock for Jasper!
— the son not criminated by the father's acquit-
tal ! Tell me that ! again — again !"
"It is so, believe me. All that rests is to
force on that son, if he have a human heart, the
conviction that he will be worse than a parricide
if he will not save himself."
" And he will— he shall ! Oh that I could but
get at him !" exclaimed the preacher.
"And now," said DaiTell — "now, George,
leave ns; for now, upon equal terms, we two
fathers can discuss family diilerences."
CHAPTER Vni.
Sophy's claim examined and canvassed.
"I TAKE this moment," said Darrell, when
left alone with Waife — (ah, reader, let vs keep
to that familiar name to the last !) — " I take
this moment," said DaiTcll, "the first moment
in which you can feel thoroughly assured that
no prejudice against yourself clouds my judg-
ment iu reference to her whom you believe to
be your grandchild, to commence — and, I trust,
to conclude forever — the subject which twice
brought you within these walls. On the night
of your recent arrival here you gave me this
copy of a French woman's declaration, to the
effect that two infants had been placed out with
her to nurse ; that one of them was my poor
daughter's infant, who was about to be taken
away from her; that the other was confided to
her by its parent, a French lady, whom she
speaks of as a very liberal and distinguished
person, but whose name is not stated in the
paper."
Waife. "The confession describes that lady
as an artiste; 'distinguished artiste' is the ex-
pression — viz., a professional person — a paint-
er — an actress — a singer — or — "
Darrell {dryly). "An opera-dancer! I un-
derstand the French word perfectly. And I
presume the name is not mentioned in the doc-
ument from motives of delicacy; the child of a
distinguished French artiste is not necessarily
born iu wedlock. Buc this lady was very grate-
ful to the nurse for the care shown to her in-
fant, who was verj- sickly ; and promised to take
the nurse, and the nurse's husband also, into her
282
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
service. The nurse states that she herself was
very poor ; that the hidy's offer appeared to her
like a permanent provision ; that the life of this
artiste's infant was of the utmost value to her —
the life of my poor daughter's child of compara-
tive insignificance. But the infant of the artiste
died, and the nurse's husband put it into his
wife's liead to tell your son (then a widower, and
who had seen so little of his child as to be easi-
ly deceived) that it was his infant who died.
The nurse shortly afterward removed to Paris,
taking with her to the artiste's house the child
who in reality was my daughter's."
" It seems very probable, does it not — does it
not ?" said the ex-comedian, eagerly.
"It seems to me," replied the ex-lawyer,
"very probable that a witness entering into
court with the confession of one villainous false-
hood would have little scruple to tell another.
But I proceed. This rich and liberal artiste
dies ; the nurse's conscience then suddenly
awakens — she sees Mr. Hammond — she in-
forms him of the fraud she has practiced. A
lady of rank, who had known Matilda, and had
seen both the infants when both were living
under the nurse's charge, and observed them
more attentively than your son had done — cor-
roborates the woman's stor}', stating that the
artistes child had dark eyes instead of blue;
that the artiste herself was never deceived ; but,
having taken a great fancy to the spurious in-
fant, was willing to receive and cherish it as
her own ; and that she knows several persons
who will depose that they heard the artiste say
that the child was not her own. On this evi-
dence your son takes to himself this child — and
this child is your Sophy — and you wisli me to
acknowledge her as my daughter's offspring.
Do not look me so earnestly in the face, my
dear and respected guest! It was when you
read in my face what my lips shrunk from utter-
ing that your emotions overcame your strength,
and your very mind deserted you. Now, be
firmer. Your Sophy has no need of me — she
is under your charge, and your name is clear-
ed. She has found a friend — a protectress — in
her own sex. Lady Montfort's rank gives to
her a position in the world as high as I could
offer; and as to mere pecuniary ])rovision for
her, make your mind easy — it shall be secured.
But bear with me when I add, resolutely and
calmly, that this nurse's attestation is to me a
grosser and ])oorer attempt at imposture than I
had anticipated ; and I am amazed that a man
of your abilities should have been contented to
accept it."
"Oh, Mr. Darrell, don't say so! It was such
a blessing to think, when my son was lost to me,
that I miglit fill up the void in mj' heart with an
innocent, loving child. Don't talk of my abili-
ties. If you, whose abilities none can question —
if you had longed and yearned for such a com-
forter — if you had wished — if you wished now
this tale to be true, you would liave believed it
too ; you would believe it now — you would, in-
deed. Two men look so differently at the same
story — one deeply interested that it should be
true — one determined, if possible, to find it
false. Is it not so?"
Darrell smiled slightly, but could not be in-
duced to assent even to so general a jiroposition.
He felt as if lie were jutted against a counsel
who would take advantage of every conces-
sion.
Waife continued. "And whatever seems
most improbable in this confession is rendered
probable at once — if — if — we may assume that
my unhappy son, tempted by the desire to —
to—"
" Spare yourself — I rmderstand — if your son
wished to obtain his wife's fortune, and there-
fore connived at the exchange of the infants,
and was therefore, too, enabled always to cor-
roborate the story of the exchange, whenever it
suited him to reclaim the infant. I grant this
— and I grant that the conjecture is sufficiently
plausible to justify you in attaching to it much
weight. We will allow that it was his interest
at one time to represent his child, thougtTliving,
as no more ; but you must allow also that he
would have deemed it his interest, later, to fasten
upon me, as my daughter's, a child to whom she
never gave birth. Here we entangle ourselves
in a controversy without data, without facts.
Let us close it. Believe what you please. Why
should I shake convictions that render you hap-
py ? Be equally forbearing with me. I do full
justice to your Sophy's charming qualities. In
herself, the proudest parent might rejoice to
own her ; but I can not acknowledge her to be
the daughter of Matilda Darrell. And the story
that assured you she was your grandchild, still
more convinces me that she is not mine !"
"But be not thus inflexible, I implore you —
you can be so kind, so gentle — she would be
such a blessing to yon ! later — perhaps — when I
am dead. I am pleading for your sake — I owe
you so much ! I should repay you, if I could
but induce you to inquire — and if inquiry should
prove that I am right."
"I have inquired sufficiently."
"Then I'll go and find out tlie Nurse. I'll
question her. I'll — "
"Hold. Be persuaded! Hug your belief!
Inquire no farther I"
" Why — why ?"
Darrell was mute.
Waife ])assed and repassed his hand over his
brow, and then cried, suddenly, "But if I could
prove her not to be my grandchild, then she
might be happy ! — then — then — ah. Sir, young
Haughton tells me that if she were but the
', daughter of honest parents — no child of Jas-
per's, no grandchild of mine — then you might
not be too proud to bless her at least as his
bride ! And, Sir, the poor child loves the young
I man. How could she help it? And, at her
j age, life without hope is either very short, or
I very, very long ! Let me inquire ! I should be
{ happy even to know that she was not my grand-
child. I should not love her less ; and then she
' would have others to love her when I am gone
to Lizzy !"
Darrell was dee])ly moved. To him there
I was something in this old man — ever forgetting
himself, ever so hurried on by his heart — some-
[ thing, I say, in this old man, before which Dar-
rell felt his intellect subdued, and his pride
silenced and abashed.
j "Yes, Sir," said Waife, musingly, "so let it
! be. I am well now. I will go to France to-
il
morrow.
Darrell nerved his courage. He had wished
to spare Waife the pain which his own persua-
WHAT ^Y1L1, HE DO WITH IT?
283
sions caused to himself. Better now to be frank.
He laid his hand on Waife's shoulder, and, look-
ing him in the face, said, solemnl_v, '• I entreat
you not ! Do you suppose that I would not re-
sume inquiry in person, nor pause till the truth
were made amply clear, if I had not strong rea-
son to ))refer doubt to certainty?"
" What do you mean, Sir?"
" There is a woman whose career is, I believe,
at this moment revived into fresh notoriety as
the heroine of some drama on the stage of Paris
— a woman who, when years paled her fame and
reft her spoils, as a courtesan renowned for the
fools she had beggared, for the young hearts she
had corrupted, sought plunder still by crimes, to
which law is less lenient. Charged with swin-
dling, with fraud, with forgery, and at last more
than suspected as a practiced poisoner, she es-
caped by suicide the judgment of human tri-
bunals."
" I know of whom you speak — that dreadful
Gabrielle Desmarets, but for whom my sacrifice
to Jasper's future might not have been in vain !
It was to save Sophy from the chance of Jasper's
ever placing her within reach of that woman's
example that I took her away."
" Is it not, then, better to forbear asking who
were your Sophy's parents, than to learn from
inquiry that she is inileed your grandchild, and
that her mother was Gabrielle Desmarets ?"
Waife uttered a cry like a shriek, and then
sate voiceless and aghast. At last he exclaimed,
" I am certain it is not so ! Did you ever see
that woman?"
" Never that I know of; but George tells me
that he heard your son state to you that she
had made acquaintance with me under another
name, and if there was a design to employ her
in confirmation of his tale — if he was then
speaking truth to you, doubtless this was the
lady of rank referred to in the Nurse's confes-
sion — doubtless this was the woman once palmed
upon me as Matilda's confidante. In that case
I have seen her. What, then?"
"Mother was not written on her face! She
could never have been a mother. Oh, you may
smile. Sir ; but all my life I have been a reader
of the human face; and there is in the aspects
of some women the barrenness as of stone — no
mother's throb in their bosom — no mother's kiss
on their lips."
"I am a poor reader of women's faces," said
Darrell ; " but she must be very unlike women
in general, who allows you to know her a bit
better if you stood reading her face till dooms-
day. Besides, at the time you saw Gabrielle
Desmarets her mode of life had perhaps given
to her an aspect not originally in her counte-
nance. And I can only answer your poetic con-
ceit by a poetic illustration — Xiobe turned to
stone ; but she had a great many daughters be-
fore she petrified. Pardon me, if I would turn
off by a jest a thought that I see would shock
you, as myself, if gravely encouraged. Encour-
age it not. Let us suppose it only a chance
that inquiry might confirm this conjecture ; but
Ictus shun that chance. Meanwhile, if inquiry
is to be made, one more liRely than either of us
to pet at the truth has promised to make it, and
sooner or later we may learn from her the re-
sults — I mean that ill-fated Arabella Eosset,
whom you knew as Crane."
Waife was silent; but he kept turning in his
hand, almost disconsolately, the document which
assoiled him from the felon's taint, and said at
length, as Darrell was about to leave, "And
this thing is of no use to her, then?"
Darrell came back to the old man's chair, and
said, softly, "Erien'd, do not fancy that the young
have only one path to happiness. You grieve
that I can not consent to Lionel's marriage with
your Sophy. Dismiss from your mind the de-
sire for the Impossible. Gently wean from hers
what is but a girl's first fancy."
"It is a girl's first love."
"And if it be," said Darrell, calmly, "no
complaint more sure to yield to change of air.
I have known a girl as affectionate, as pure, as
full of all womanly virtues, as your Sojdiy (and
I can give her no higher praise) — loved more
deeply than Lionel can love ; professing, doubt-
less at the time believing, that she also loved
for life ; betrothed too ; faith solemnized by
promise ; yet in less than a year she was an-
other's wife. Change of air, change of heart !
I do not underrate the effect which a young
man, so winning a» Lionel, would naturally
produce on the fancy or the feelings of a girl
who as yet, too, has seen no others ; but im-
pressions in youth are characters in the sand.
Grave them ever so deeply, the tide rolls over
them; and when the ebb shows the surface
again the characters are gone, for the sands are
shifted. Courage ! Lady JMontfort will present
to her others with forms as fair as Lionel's and
as elegantly dressed. With so muchinher o^^'Il
favor, there are young patricians enough who
will care not a rush what her birth — young lords
— Lady Montfort knows well how fascinating
young lords can he ! Courage — before a year
is out, you will find new characters written on
the sand."
" You don't know Sophy, Sir," said Waife,
simply ; " and I see you are resolved not to
know her. But you say Arabella Crane is to
inquire ; and should the inquiry prove that she
is no child of Gabrielle Desmarets — that she is
either your own grandchild or not mine — that — "
" Let me interrupt you. If there be a thing
in the world that is cruel and treacherous, it is
a false hope ! Crush out of every longing thought
the belief that this poor girl can prove to be one
whom, with my consent, my kinsman can woo
to be his wife. Lionel Haughton is the sole
kinsman left to whom I can bequeath this roof-
tree — these acres, hallowed to me because as-
sociated with my earliest lessons in honor, and
with the dreams which directed my life. He
must take with the heritage the name it repre-
sents. In his children, that name of Dan-ell
can alone live still in the land. I say to you,
that even were my daughter now in existence,
she would not succeed me — she would not in-
herit nor transmit that name. Why? — not be-
cause I am incapable of a Christian's forgive-
ness, but because I am not capable of a gentle-
man's treason to his ancestors and himself —
because Matilda Darrell was false and perfidi-
ous — because she was dead to honor, and there-
fore her birth-right to a heritage of honor was
irrevocably forfeited. And since you compel
me to speak rudely, while in you I revere a
man above the power of law to degrade — while,
could we pass a generation, and Sophy were
28i
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
your child by your Lizzy, I should proudly wel-
come an alliance that made you and me broth-
ers — yet I can not contemiilate — it is beyond
my power — I can not contemplate the picture
of Jasper Losely's daughter, even by my own
child, the Mistress in my lather's home — the
bearer of my father's name. 'Tis in vain to
argue. Grant rae the slave of a prejudice —
grant these ideas to be antiquated bigotry — I
am too old to change. I ask from others no
sacrifice which I have not borne. And what-
ever be Lionel's grief at my resolve, grief will
be my companion long after he has forgotten
that he mourned."
CHAPTER IX.
Poor Sophy!
The next morning Mills, in giving Sophy a
letter from Lady Montfort, gave her also one
for Waife, and she recognized Lionel Haugh-
ton's handwriting on the address. She went
straight to Waife's sitting-room, for the old man
had now resumed iiis early habits, and was up
and dressed. She phiced the letter in his hands
without a word, and stood by his side while he
opened it, with a certain still firmness in the
expression of her face, as if she were making
u\> her mind to some great eft'ort. The letter
was ostensibly one of congratulation. Lionel
had seen Darrell the day before, after the latter
had left the Home Secretary's office, and had
learned that all which Justice could do to repair
tlie wrong iutiicted had been done. Here Li-
onel's words, though brief, were cordial, and al-
most joyous ; but then came a few sentences
steeped in gloom. There was an allusion, vague
and delicate in itself, to the eventful conversa-
tion with Waife in reference to Sophy — a som-
bre, solentn farewell conveyed to her and to
hope — a passionate praj-er for her hajipiness —
and then an abrujit wrench, as it were, away
from a subject too intolerably painful to prolong
— an intimation that lie had succeeded in ex-
changing into a regiment very shortly to be sent
into active service ; that he should set out the
next day to join that regiment in a distant part
of the country ; and that he trusted, should his
life be spared by war, that it would be many
years before he should revisit England. The
sense of the letter was the more atfecting in
what was concealed than in what A\as express-
ed. Evidently Lionel desired to convey to
Waife, and leave it to him to inform Sophy,
that she was henceforth to regard the writer as
vani.--hcd out of her existence — dejiarted, as ir-
revocably as depart the Dead.
While Waife was reading he had turned him-
self aside from Sophy ; he had risen — he had
gone to the deep recess of the old muUion win-
dow, half screening himself beside the curtain.
Noiselessly Sophy followed; and when he had
closed the letter she laid her hand on his arm,
and said, very quietly, " Grandfather, may I read
that letter':"'
Waife was startled, and replied, on the in-
stant, " No, my dear."
"It is better that I should," said she, with
the same quiet firmness ; and then, seeing the
distress iu his face, she added, with her more
accustomed sweet docility, yet with a forlorn
droop of the head, "But as you please, grand-
father."
Waife hesitated an instant. Was she not
right ? — would it not be better to show the let-
ter? After all, she must confront the fact that
Lionel could be nothing to her henceforth ; and
would not Lionel's own words wound her less
than all Waife could say ? So he put the letter
into her hands, and sate down, watching her
countenance.
At the ofiening sentences of congratulatioa
she looked up inquiringly. Poor man I he had
not spoken to her of what at another time it
would have been such joy to speak; and he
now, in answer to her look, said, almost sadl}',
" Onlj'^ about me, Sophy ; what does tTiat mat-
ter?" But before the girl read a line farther
she smiled on him, and tenderly kissed his fur-
rowed brow.
"Don't read on, Sophy," said he, quickly.
She shook her head and resumed. His eye
still upon her face, he marked it changing as
the sense of the letter grew upon her, till, as,
without a word, with scarce a visible heave of
the bosom, she laid the letter -on his knees, the
change had become so complete that it seemed
as if Another stood in her place. In very
young and sensitive persons, esjjecially female
(though I have seen it even in our hard sex), a
great and sudden shock or revulsion of feeling
reveals itself thus in the almost preternatm-al
alteration of the countenance. It is not a mere
paleness — a skin-deep loss of color; it is as if
the whole bloom of youth had rushed away ;
hollows, never discernible before, ajjpear in the
cheek that was so round and smooth; the mus-
cles fall as in mortal illness ; a havoc, as of
years, seems to have been wrought in a mo-
ment ; Flame itself does not so suddenly ravage
— so suddenly alter — leave behind it so ineft'a-
ble an air of desolation and ruin. Waife sprang
forward and clasped her to his breast.
" You will bear it, Sophy ! The worst is over
now. Fortitude, my child! — fortitude! The
human heart is wonderfully sustained when it
is not the conscience that weighs it down —
griefs that we think at the moment must kill us
wear themselves away. I speak the truth, for I
too have suftered !"
" Poor grandfather !" said Sophy, gently; and
she said no more. But when he would have con-
tinued to speak comfort, or exiiort to patience,
she pressed his hand tightly, and laid her fin-
ger on her lip. He was hushed in an instant.
Presently she began to move about the room,
busying herself, as usual, in those slight, scarce
perceptible arrangements liy which she loved to
think that she ministered to the old man"s sim-
ple comforts. She placed the arm-chair in his
favorite nook by the window, and before it the
footstool for the poor lame foot ; and drew the
table near the chair, and looked over the books
that George had selected for his perusal from
Darrell's library ; and chose the volume in which
she saw his murk to place nearest to his hand,
and tenderly cleared the mist from his reading-
glass ; and removed one or two withered or ail-
ing snow-drops from the little winter nosegay she
had gathered for him the day before — he watch-
ing her all the time, silent as herself, not daring,
indeed, to speak, lest his heart should overfiow.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
285
These little tasks of love over, she came to-
ward him a few paces, and said, " Please, dear
grandfather, tell me all about what has happen-
ed to 3'ourself which should make us glad — that
is, by-aud-by ; but nothing as to the rest of that
letter. I will just thiuk over it by myself; but
never let us talk of it, grandy dear, never more
— never more."
CHAPTER X.
Trees that, like the poplar, lift upward all their boughs,
give no shade and no shelter, whatever their height.
Trees the most loyingly shelter and sliade us, when,
like the willow, the higher soar their summits, the
lowlier droop their boughs.
Usually, when Sophy left Waife in the morn-
ing, she would wander out into the gi'ounds,
and he could see her pass before his window ;
or she would look into the library, which was
almost exclusively given up to the Morleys, and
he could hear her tread on the old creaking
stairs. But now she had stolen into her own
room, v.hich communicated with his sitting-
room — a small lobby alone intervening — and
there she remained so long that he grew un-
easy. He crept softly to her door and listened.
He had a fineness of hearing almost equal to
his son's ; but he could not hear a sob-— not a
breath. At length he softly opened the door,
and looked in with caution.
The girl was seated at the foot of the bed,
quite still — her eyes fixed on the ground, and
her finger to her lip, just as she had placed it
there when imploring silence; so still, it might
be even slumber. All who have grieved respect
grief. Waife did not like to approach her ; but
he said, from his stand at the threshold — ''The
sun is quite bright now, Sophy ; go out for a
little while, darling."
She did not look round'— she did not stir ;
but she answered with readiness — "Yes, pres-
ently."
So he closed the door, and left her. An hour
passed away ; he looked in again ; there she
was still — in the same place, in the same atti-
tude.
" Sophy, dear, it is time to take your walk;
go — ^Irs. Morley is in front, before my window.
I have called to her to wait for you."
"Yes — presently," answered Sophy, and she
did not move.
Waife was seriously alarmed. He paused a
moment — then went back to his room — took his
hat and his staff — came back.
" Sophy, I should like to hobble out and
breathe the air; it will do me good. Will you
give me your arm? I am still very weak."
Soj'hy now started — shook back her fair curls
— rose — put on her bonnet, and in less than a
minute v.as by the old man's side. Drawing
his arm fondly into hers, they descend the
stairs ; they are in the garden ; Mrs. Morley
comes to meet them — then George. Waife ex-
erts himself to talk — to be gay — to protect So-
phy's abstracted silence, by his own active, des-
ultory, erratic humor. Twice or thrice, as he
leans on Sophy's arm, she draws it still nearer
to her, and presses it tenderly. She under-
stands — she thanks him. Hark ! from some
undiscovered hiding-place near the water — Fair-
I thorn's flute ! The Music fills the landscape
as with a living jjresence ; the swans pause
upon the still lake — the tame doe steals through
yonder leafless trees ; and now, musing and
I slow, from the same desolate coverts, comes the
I doe's master. The music spells them all. Guy
I Uarrell sees his guests where they have halted
by the stone sun-dial. He advances — joins
them — congratulates Waife on his first walk as
a convalescent. He quotes Gray's well-known
verses applicable to that event,* and when, in
that voice sweet as the flute itself, he comes to
the lines —
"The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise"". —
Sophy, as if suddenly struck with remorse at the
thought that she, and she alone, was mamng
that opening paradise to the old man in liis es-
cape from the sick room to "the sun, the air,
the skies," abruptly raised her looks from the
ground, and turned them full upon her guard-
ian's face, with an attempt at gladness in her
quivering smile, which, whatever its efl:ect on
Waife, went straight to the innermost heart of
Guy Darrell. On the instant he recognized,
as by intuitive sympathy, the anguish from
which that smile struggled forth — knew that,
Sophy had now learned that grief which lay
deep within himself — that grief which makes a
sick chamber of the whole external world, and
which greets no more, in the common boons
of Nature, the opening Paradise of recovered
Hope ! His eye lingered on her face as its
smile waned, and perceived that chaxge which
had so startled Waife. Involuntarily he moved
to her side — involuntarily drew her arm within
his own — she thus supporting the one who cher-
ished — supported by the one who disowned her.
Guy Darrell might be stern in resolves which
aflSicted others, as he was stern in afflicting
himself; but for others he had at least compas-
sion.
Poor Waife, with nature so different, marked
Darrell's movement, and, ever ready to seize on
comfort, said inly — " He relents. I will not go
to-morrow, as I had intended. Sophy must win
her way ; who can resist her?"
Talk languished — the wintry sun began to
slope — the air grew keen — Waife was led in —
the Morleys went uj) into his room to keep him
company — Sophy escaped back to her own.
Darrell continued his walk, plunging deep into
his maze of beechwoods, followed by the doe.
The swans dip their necks among the watei"-
weeds ; the flute has ceased, and drearily still
is the gray horizon, seen through the skeleton
boughs — seen behind the ragged sky-line of shaft
and parapet in the skeleton palace.
Darrell does not visit Waife's room that day ;
he concludes that Waife and Sophy would wish
to be much alone ; he dreads renewal of the
only subject on which he has no cheering word
to say. Sophy's smile, Sophy's face haunted
him. In vain he repeated to himself — "Tut, it
will soon pass — only a girl's first fancy."
But Sophy does not come back to Waife's
room when the Morleys have left it ; Waife
creeps into her room as before, and, as before,
there she sits — still as if in slumber. She comes
in, however, of her own accord, to assist, as
usual, in the meal which he takes apart in his
• "See the wretch who long has tost," etc. — Geay.
286
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
room: helps him — helps herself, but eats no- loquy which may be heaped on ns bv that crowd
thing. She talks, however, almost gayly ; hopes of mere strangers to us and to each "other, which
he will be well enough to leave the next day ; is called ' the world,' yet to slink out of sight
wonders whether Sir Isaac has missed them from a friend, as one more to be shunned than
very much ; reads to him Lady Montfort's af- a foe — to take, like a coward, the lashings of
fectionate letter to herself; and, when dinner , scorn — to wince, one raw sore, from the kind-
is over, and Waife's chair drawn to the fireside, ness of Pity — to feel that in life the sole end
she takes her old habitual place on the stool be- ■ of each shift and contrivance is to slip the view-
side him, and says — " Now, dear gi-andfather hallo, into a grave without epitaph, by paths as
— all about yourself — what happy thing has stealthy and sly as the poor hunted fox, when
chanced to you ?" j his last chance — and sole one — is, by v, inding
Alas I poor Waife has but little heart to and doubling, to run under the earth ; to know
speak; but he forces himself; what he has to I that it would bean ungrateful imposture to take
say may do good to her. ■ chair at the board — at the hearth, of the man
"You know that, on my own account, I had : who, unknowing your secret, says — 'Friend, be
reasons for secrecy — change of name. I shunned ' social;' accepting not a crust that one does not
all those whom I had ever known in former pay for, lest one feel a swindler to the^cind fel-
days ; could take no calling in life by which I low-creature whose equal we must not be I — all
might be recognized ; deemed it a blessed mer- { this — all this, Sophy, did at times chafe and gall
cy of Providence that when, not able to resist ; more than I ought to have let it do, considering
offers that would have enabled me to provide for j that there was oxe who saw it all, and would —
you as I never othenvise could, I assented to Don't cry, Sophy; it is all over now."
hazard an engagement at a London theatre — I "Xot cry! Oli, it does me so much good!"
trusting for my incognito to an actor's arts of "All over now! I am under this roof — with-
disguise — came the accident which, of itself, ; out shame or scruple ; andif Guy Darrell, know-
annihilated the temptation into which I had ; ing all my past, has proved my innocence in the
.suffered myself to be led. For, ah child ! had ' eyes of those whom alone I cared for, I feel as
it been known who and what was the William ' if I had the right to stand before any crowd of
Waife whose stage-mime tricks moved harmless men erect and shameless — a Z^Ian once more
mirth, or tears as pleasant, the audience would : with Men ! Oh, darling, let me but see thy old
have risen, not to applaud, but hoot — 'Off, off,' ^ happy smile again ! The happy smiles of the
from both worlds — the ilimic as the Real ! young are the sunshine of the old. Be patient
Well, had I been dishonest, you — you alone
felt that I could not have dared to take you,
guiltless infant, by the hand. You remember
that, on my return to Rugge's wandering thea-
tre, bringing you with me, I exaggerated the
effects of my accident — affected to have lost
voice — stipulated to be spared appearing on his
stage. That was not the mere pride of man-
hood shrinking from the display of physical af-
flictions. No. In the first village that we ar-
rived at I recognized an old friend, and I saw
-be firm ; Providence is so very kind, Sophy."
CHAPTER XI.
Waife exacts from George Movley the fulfillment of one
of those promises which mean nothing or every thing.
The next day George ^lorley visited Waife's
room earlier than usual. Waife had sent for
him. Sophy was seated by her grandfather —
that, in spite of time, and the accident that had his hand in hers. She had been exerting her-
disfigured me, he recognized me, and turned : self to the utmost to talk cheerfully — to shake
away his face, as if in loathing. An old friend, from her aspect every cloud of sorrow. But
Sophy — an old friend I Oh, it pierced me to j still that chaxge was there — more marked
the heart ; and I resolved, from that day, to es- ] than even on the previous day. A few hours
cape from Rugge's stage ; and I consented, till ' of intense struggle, a single night wholly with-
the means of escape, and some less dependent j out sleep, will tell on the face of early youth,
mode of livelihood were found, to live on thy I Not till we, hard veterans, have gone through
earnings, child; for if I were discovered by oth- \ such struggles as life permits not to the slight
er old friends, and they spoke out, my disgrace [ responsibilities of new recruits — not till sleepless
would reflect on you, and better to accept sup- | nights have grown to us familiar — will Thought
port from you than that ! Alas ! appearances j seem to take, as it were, strength, not exhaust-
were so strong against me I never deemed they ' ion, from unrelaxing exercise — nourish the
could be cleared away, even from the sight of - brain, sustain the form by its own untiring,
my nearest friends. But Providence, you know, i fleshless, spiritual immortality; not till many a
has been so kind to us hitherto ; and so Provi- j winter has stnpped the leaves ; not till deep,
dence will be kind to us again, Sophy. And and far out of sight, spread the roots that sup-
now, the very man I thought most hard to me port the stem — will the beat of the east wind
— this very Guy Darrell, under whose roof we leave no sign on the rind,
are — has been the man to make those whose j George had not, indeed, so noticed the day
opinion I most value know that I am not dis- before the kind of withering blight that hacl
honest; and Providence has raised a witness on I passed over the girl's countenance; but he did
my behalf in that very Mr. Ilartopp who judged now — when she met his eye more steadfastly,
me (and any one else might have done the same) ' and had resumed something of the open genial
too bad to be fit company for you! And that is infantine grace of manner which constituted her
why I am congratulated; and oh, Sophy! though ! peculiar charm, and which it was difficult to as-
I have borne it as Heaven does enable us to bear ! sociate with deeper griefs than those of child-
what of ourselves we could not, and though one l hood,
learns to shrug a patient shoulder under the ob- I " You must scold my grandfather," she said.
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
287
" He chooses to fancy that he is not well enough
yet to leave ; and I am sure that he is, and will
recover more quickly at home than here."
"Pooh!" said Waife ; "you young things
suppose we old folks can be as brisk as your-
selves ; but if I am to be scolded, leave Mr.
George unawed by your presence, and go out,
my dear, while the sun lasts; I know by the
ways of that blackbird that the day will be over-
cast by noon."
As soon as they were alone, George said, ab-
ruptly, " Your Sophy is looking very ill, and, if
you are well enough to leave, it might be better
for her to move from this gloomy house. Move-
ment itself is a great restorative," added George,
with emphasis.
" You see, then, that she looks ill — very ill,"
said Waife, deliberately; "and there is that
in your manner which tells me you guess the
cause."
"I do guess it, from the glimpse which I
caught of Lionel's face after he had been clos-
eted a short time with Mr. Darrell at my uncle's
house two days ago. I guess it also from a let-
ter I have received from my uncle."
"You guess right — very right," said Waife,
still with the same serious, tranquil manner.
"I showed her this letter from young Haugh-
ton. Read it." George hurried his eye over
the letter, and i-eturned it silently. Waife pro-
ceeded.
"I was frightened yesterday by the strange
composure she showed. In her face alone could
be read what she suffered. We talked last night.
I spoke of myself — of my old sorrows — in order
to give her strength to support hers ; and tlie
girl has a heroic nature, Sir. George — and she
is resolved to conquer or to die. But she will
not conquer."
George began the usual strain of a consoler
in such trials. Waife stopped him. "All that
you can say, i\Ir. George, I know beforehand ;
and she will need no exhortation to prayer and
to fortitude. I stole from my room when it was
almost dawn. I saw light under the door of her
chamber. I just looked in — softly — unperceived.
She had not gone to bed. She was by the open
window^stars dying out of the sky — kneeling
on the floor, her face buried in her hands. She
has prayed. In her soul, at this moment, be
sure that she is praying now. She will devote
herself to me — she will be cheerful — you will
hear her laugh, Mr. George : but she "will not
conquer in this world ; long before the new year
is out she will be looking down upon our grief
with her bright smile ; but we shall not seeher,
Mr. George. Do not think this is an old man's
foolish terror ; I know sorrow as physicians know
disease ; it has its mortal symptoms. Hush !
hear me out. I have one hope — it is in you."
" In me?"
"Yes. Do you remember that you said, if I
could succeed in opening to your intellect its
fair career, you would be the best friend to
me man ever had ; and I said, ' Agreed, but
change the party in the contract; befriend my
Sophy instead of me, and, if ever I ask you, help
me in aught for her welfare and happiness ;'
and you said, ' With heart and soul.' That was
the bargain, jNIr. George. Now, you have all
that you then despaired of; you have the dignity
of your sacred calling — you have the eloquence
of the preacher. I can not cope with JMr. Dar-
rell — you can. He has a heart— it can be soft-
ened ; he has a soul— it can be freed from the
withes that tether it down ; he has the virtues
you can appeal to ; and he has the pride which
you, as a Christian minister, have the right to
prove to be a sin. I can not argue with him ;
I can not reprove the man to whom I owe so
much. All ranks of men and of mind should
be equal to you, the pastor, the divine, l^ou
ministers of the Gospel address yourselves un-
abashed to the poor, the hunable, the uninstruct-
ed. Did Heaven give you power and command-
ment over these alone ? Go, Preacher ! go !
Speak with the same authority to the great, to
the haughty, to the wise !"
The old man's look and gesture were sublime.
The Preacher felt a thrill vibrate from his ear
to his heart ; but his reason was less affected
than his heart. He shook his head mournfully.
The task thus assigned to him was beyond the
limits which custom prescribes to the priest of
the English Church — dictation to a man not
even of his own flock, upon the closest affairs of
that man's own private hearth and home ! Our
society allows no such privilege ; and our so-
ciety is right.
Waife, watching his countenance, saw at once
what was passing in his mind, and resumed, as
if aTiswering George's own thought.
' ' Ay, if you were but tJie commonplace priest !
But you are something more ; you are the priest
specially endowed for all special purposes of
good. You have the mind to reason — the tongue
to persuade — the majestic earnestness of impas-
sioned zeal. Xor are you here the priest alone ;
you are here the friend, the confidant, of all for
whom you may exert your powers. Oh, George
Morley, I am a poor ignorant blunderer when
presuming to exhort yon as Christian minister;
but in your own words — I address you as man
and gentleman— you declared that ' thought and
zeal should not stammer whenever I said — Keep
your ]n-omise.' I say it now— Keejj faith to the
child you swore to me to befriend !"
" I will go — and at once," said George, rising.
"But be not sanguine. I see not a chance of
success. A man so superior to myself in years,
station, abilities, repute !"
"Where would be Christianity," said Waife,
" if the earliest preachers had raised such ques-
tions? There is a soldier's courage — is there
not a priest's ?"
George made no answer, but, with abstracted
eye, gathered brow, and slow meditative step,
quitted the room, and sought Guy Darrell.
288
WliAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
BOOK XII.
CHAPTER I.
The man of the World shows more indifference to the
things and doctrines of the World than might be sup-
posed. — Ijiit he vindicates liis character, which might
otiierwise be jeopardized, by the adroitness with which,
having resolved to roast cliestnuts in the ashes of an-
other raan"s hearth, he handles them when hottest by
the proxy of a — Cat's paw.
In the letter which George told Waife he had
received from his uncle, George had an excuse
for the delicate and arduous mission he under-
took, which he did not confide to the old man,
lest it should convey more hopes than its nature
justified. In this letter Alban related, with a
degree of feeling that he rarely manifested, his
farewell conversation with Lionel, who had just
departed to join his new regiment. The poor
young man had buoyed himself uj> with delight-
ed expectations of the result of Sophy's prolonged
residence under Darrell's roof; he had persuaded
his reason that when Darrell had been thus en-
abled to see and judge of her for himself, he
would be irresistibly attracted toward her ; that
Innocence, like Truth, would be mighty and
prevail ; — Darrell was engaged in the attempt
to clear William Losely's name and blood from
the taint of felony; — Alban was commissioned
to negotiate with Jasper Losely on any terms
that would remove all chance of future disgrace
from that quarter. Oh yes ! to poor Lionel's
eyes, obstacles vanished — the future became
clear. And thus, when, after telling him of
his final interview with the minister, Darrell
said, "I trust that, in bringing to William Lose-
ly this intelligence, I shall at least soften his
disappointment, when I make it thoroughly clear
to him how impossible it is that his Sophy can
ever be more to me — to us — than a stranger
whose virtues create an interest in her welfare"
— Lionel was stunned as by a blow. Scarcely
could he murmur —
" You have seen her — and your resolve re-
mains the same."
"Can you doubt it?" answered Darrell, as
if in surprise. "The resolve may now give me
pain on my account, as before it gave me pain
on yours. But if not moved by your pain, can
I be moved by mine ? That would be a base-
ness."
The Colonel, in depicting Lionel's state of
mind after the young soldier had written his
farewell to Waife, and previous to quitting Lon-
don, expressed very gloomy forebodings: " I do
not say," wrote he, "that Lionel will guiltily
seek death in the field, noi^ does death there
come more to those who seek than to those who
shun it ; but he will go Ufion a service exposed
to more than ordinary sntfering, ])rivation, and
disease — without that rallying power of hope —
that Will and Desire to Live, whicli constitute
the true stamina of Youth. And I have always
set a black mark upon those who go into war
joyless and despondent. Send a young fellow
to the camp with his spirits broken, his heart
heavy as a lump of lead, and the first of those
epidemics which thin ranks more than the can-
non says to itself, ' There is a man for me !'
Any doctor will tell you that, even at home, the
gay and light-hearted walk safe through the
pestilence, that settles on the moping as malaria
settles on a marsh. Confound Guy Darrell's
ancestors, they have spoiled Queen Victoria as
good a young soldier as ever wore sword. by his
side. Six months ago, and how blithely Li-
onel Haughton looked forth to the future I ' — all
laurel ! — no cypress ! And now, I feel as if I
had shaken hands with a victim sacrificed by
Superstition to the tombs of the dead. I can
not blame Darrell : I dare say in the same posi-
tion 1 might do the same. JBut no ; on second
thoughts I should not ! If Darrell does not
choose to marry and have sons of his own, he
has no right to load a poor boy with benefits,
and say, ' There is but one way to prove your
gratitude ; remember my ancestors, and be mis-
erable for the rest of your days !' Darrell, for-
sooth, intends to leave to Lionel the transmis-
sion of the old Darrell name ; and the old Dar-
rell name must not be tarnished by the marriage
on which Lionel has unluckily set his heart! I
respect the old name ; but it is not like the
House of Vipont — a British Institution. And
■if some democratical cholera, which does not
care a rash for old names, caiTies off Lionel,
what becomes of tlie old name then ? Lionel
is not Darrell's son ; Lionel need not, perforce,
take the old name. Let the j'oung man live as
Lionel Haughton, and the old name die with
Guy Darrell !
"As to the poor girl's birth and parentage, I
believe we shall never know them. I quite agree
with Darrell that it will be wisest never to in-
quire. But I dismiss, as far-fetched and improb-
able, his supposition that she is Gabrie'lle Des-
maret's daughter. To me it is infinitely more
likely, either that the deposition of the Nurse,
which poor Willy gave to Darrell, and which
Darrell showed to me, is true (only, that Jasper
was conniving at the temporary suspension of
his child's existence while it suited his purpose)
— or that, at the worst, this mysterious young
lady is the daughter of the artiste. In the for-
mer supposition, as I have said over and over
again, a marriage between Lionel and Sophy is
precisely that which Darrell should desire ; in
the latter case, of course, if Lionel were the head
of the House of Vipont, the idea of such a un-
ion would be inadmissible. But Lionel, enire
nous, is theson of a ruined spendthrift by a linen-
draper's daughter. And Darrell has but to give
the handsome young couple five or six thousand
a year, and I know the world well enough to
know that the world will trouble itself very little
about their pedigrees. And really Lionel should
be left wholly free to choose whether he prefer
a girl whom he loves with his whole heart, five
or six thousand a year, happiness, and the chance
of honors in a glorious profession to which he
TVHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
289
vrill then look with glad spirits — or a life-long
misery, with the right, after Darrell's death —
that i hope will not be these thirty years — to
bear the name of Darrell instead of Haughton ;
which, if I were the last of the Haughtons, and
had any family pride — as, thank Heaven, I have
not — would be a painful exchange to me ; and
dearly-bought by the addition of some additional
thousands a year, when I had grown perhaps as
little disposed to spend them as Guy Darrell
himself is. But, after all, there is one I com-
passionate even more than young Haughton.
My morning rides of late have been much in
the direction of Twickenham, visiting our fair
cousin Lady Montfort. I went first to lecture
her for letting these young people see so much
of each other. But my anger melted into ad-
miration and sympathy when I found with what
tender, exquisite, matchless friendship she had
been ail the while scheming for Darrell's hap-
piness ; and with what remorse she now con-
templated the sorrow which a friendship so grate-
ful, and a belief so natural, had innocently oc-
casioned. That remorse is wearing her to death.
Dr. F , who attended poor dear Willy, is
also attending her; and he told me privately
that his skill was in vain — that her case baf-
fled him ; and he had very serious apprehen-
sions. Darrell owes some consideration to such
a friend. And to think that here are lives per-
manently imbittered, if not risked, by the ruth-
less obstinacy of the best-liearted man I ever
met I Now, though I have already intimated
my opinions to Darrell with a candor due to the
oldest and dearest of my friends, yet I have nev-
er, of course, in the letters I have written to
him, or the talk we have had together, spoken
out as plainly as I do in writing to you. And
having thus WTitten, without awe of his gray
eye and dark brow, I have half a mind to add —
'seize him in a happy moment and show him
this letter.' Yes, I give you full leave ; show it
to him if you think it would avail. If not, throw
it into the tire, and pray Heaven for those whom
we poor mortals can not serve."
On the envelope Alban had added these words
— "But, of course, before showing the inclosed,
you will prepare Darrell's mind to weigh its con-
tents." And probably it was in that curt and
simple injunction that the subtle man of the
world evinced the astuteness of which not a trace
was apparent in the body of his letter.
Though Alban's communication had mnch ex-
cited his nephew, yet George had not judged it
discreet to avail himself of the permission to
*how it to Darrell. It seemed to him that the
pride of his host would take much more oii'ense
at its transmission through the hands of a third
person than at the frank tone of its reasonings
and suggestions. And George had determined
to reinclose it to the Colonel, urging him to for-
ward it himself to Darrell just as it was, with
but a brief line to say, '"that, on reflection, Al-
ban submitted, direct to his old school-fellow, the
reasonings and apprehensions which he had so
unresenedly poured forth in a letter commenced
without the intention at which the writer arrived
at the close." But now that the preacher had
undertaken the duty of an advocate the letter
became his brief.
George passed throngh the library, through the
study, up the narrow stair that finally conducted
to the same lofty cell in which Darrell had con-
fronted the midnight robber who claimed a child
in Sophy. With a nervous hand George knocked
at the door.
Unaccustomed to any intrusion on the part of
guest or household in that solitaiw retreat, some-
what sharply, as if in anger, Darrell's voice ao-
swered the knock.
" Who's there ?"
"George Morley."
Darrell opened the door.
CHAPTER n.
" A good archer is not known by his arrows, bnt his aim."
'■A good man is no more to be feared than a sheep."
"A good surgeon must have an eagle's eye, a lion's
heart, and a lady's hand." "A good tongue is a good
weapon." And despite those suggestive or encoura-
ging proverbs, George Morley lias undertaken some-
thing so opposed to all proverbial philosophy, tliat it he-
comes a grave question what he will do with it.
"I COME," said George, "to ask yon one of
the greatest favors a man can confer upon an-
other ; it will take some little time to explain.
Are you at leisure?"
Darrell's brow relaxed.
" Seat yourself in comfort, my dear George.
If it be in my power to serve or to gratify Alban
ISIorley's nephew, it is I who receive a favor."
Darrell thought to himself, "the young man is
ambitious — I. may aid in his path toward a
See!"
George Moklet. "First let me say that I
would consult your intellect on a matter which
habitually attracts and engages mine — that old
vexed question of the origin and uses of Evil,
not only in the physical, but the moral world ;
it involves problems over which I would ponder
for hours as a boy — on which I wrote essays
as a schoolman — on which I perpetually collect
illustrations to fortify my views as a theolo-
gian."
"He is writing p Book," thought Darrell,
enviously ; "and a book on such a subject will
last him all his life. Happy man !"
George Morley. "The Pastor, you know,
is frequently consulted by the suff'ering and op-
pressed ; frequently called upon to answer that
question in which the skepticism of the humble
and the ignorant ordinarily begins — 'Why am I
suff'ering? Why am I oppressed? Is this the
justice of Providence ? Has the Great Father
that benign pity, that watchful care for his chil-
dren which you preachers tell us ?' Ever intent
on deducing examples from the lives to M'hich
the clew has become apparent, must be the
Priest who has to reason with Atiiiction caused
by no apparent fault ; and where, judged by the
canons of Human justice, cloud and darkness
obsctire the Divine — still to ' vindicate the ways
of God to man.' "
Darrell. " A philosophy that preceded, and
will outlive, all other schools. It is twin-born
with the worid itself. Go on ; though the theme
be inexhaustible, its interest never flags."
1 George Morlet. " Has it struck you, Mr.
■ Darrell, that few lives have ever passed under
j your survey in which the inexpressible tender-
' ness of the" Omniscient has been more visibly
J clear than in that of your guest William Losely ?"
290
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
Daerell (surprised). "Clear? To me, I
confess that if ever there were an instance in
which the Divine tenderness, the Divine justice,
which I can never presume to doubt, was yet
undiscernible to my bounded vision, it is in the
instance of the very life you refer to. I see a
man of admirable virtues — of a childlike sim-
plicity of character, which makes him almost
unconscious of the grandeur of his own soul —
involved by a sublime self-sacrifice — by a virtue,
not by a fault — in the most dreadful of human
calamities — ignominious degradation ; — hurled
in the mid-day of life from the sphere of honest
men — a felon's brand on his name — a vagrant
in his age ; justice at last, but tardy and niggard,
and giving him but little joy when it arrives;
because, ever thinking only of others, his heart
is wrapped in a child whom he can not make
happy in the way in which his hopes have been
set! — George — no, your illustration might be
turned by a skeptic into an argument against
you."
George Morley. "Not unless the skeptic
refused the elementary starting-ground from
which you and I may reason ; not if it be
granted that Man has a soul, which it is the ob-
ject of this life to enrich and develop for an-
other. We know from my uncle what William
Losely was before this calamity befell him — a
genial boon-companion — a careless, frank, 'good
fellow' — all the virtues you now praise in him
dormant, unguessed even by himself. Sudden-
ly came Calamity! — suddenly arose the Soul!
Degradation of name, and with it dignity of
nature ? How poor, how slight, how insignifi-
cant William Losely, the hanger-on of rural
Thanes, compared with that William Waife
whose entrance into this house, you — despite
that felon's brand when you knew it was the
martyr's glory — greeted with noble reverence :
whom, when the mind itself was stricken down
— only the soul left to the wreck of the body —
you tendt'd with such pious care as he lay on
your father's bed ! And do you, who hold No-
bleness in such honor — do you, of all men, tell
me that you can not recognize that Celestial
tenderness which ennobled a Spirit for all Eter-
nity?"
" George, you are right!" cried Darrell ; " and
I was a blockhead and blunderer, as man always
is when he mistakes a speck in his telescope for
a blotch in the sun of a system."
Gkorge Morley. "But more difficult it is to
recognize the mysterious agencies of Heavenly
Love when no great worldly adversity forces us
to pause and question. Let Fortune strike down
a victim, and even the heathen cries 'This is
the hand of God !' But where Fortune brings
no vicissitude ; where her wheel runs smooth,
dropping wealth or honors as it rolls — where
Affliction centres its work within the secret, un-
revealing heart — there, even the wisest man
may not readily perceive by what means Heaven
is admonishing, forcing, or wooing him nearer
to itself. I take the case of a man in whom
Heaven acknowledges a favored son. I assume
his outward life crowned with successes, his
mind stored with opulent gifts, his natui'e en-
dowed with lofty virtues ; what an heir to train
through the brief school of earth for due place
in the ages that roll on forever! But this man
has a parasite weed in each bed of a soul rich
in flowers ; weed and flowers intertwined, stem
with stem — their fibres uniting even deep down
to the root. Can you not conceive with what
untiring vigilant care Heaven will seek to dis-
entangle the flower from the weed ? — how (drop-
ping inadequate metaphor) Heaven will select
for its warning chastisements that very error
which the man has so blent with his virtues that
he holds it a virtue itself? — how, gradually,
slowly, pertinaciously, it will gather this beau-
tiful nature all to itself — insist on a sacrifice it
would ask from no other? To complete the
true nature of poor William Losely, Heaven
ordained the sacrifice of worldly repute ; to
complete the true nature of Guy Darrell, God
ordains him the sacrifice of pride !"
Darrell started — half rose ; his eye flashed —
his cheek paled ; but he remained silent.
" I have approached the favor I supplicate,"
resumed George, drawing a deep breath, as of
relief. " Greater favor man can scarcely bestow
upon his fellow. I entreat you to believe that I
respect, and love, and honor you sufficiently to
be for a while so lifted up into your friendship,
that I may claim the privilege, without which
friendship is but a form — just as no freedom is
more obnoxious than intrusion on confidence
withheW, so no favor, I repeat, more precious
than the confidence which a man of worth
vouchsafes to him who invites it with no claim
but the loyalty of his motives."
Said Darrell, softened, but with stateliness —
"All human lives are as separate circles; they
may touch at one point in friendly approach,
but, even where they touch, each rounds itself
from oft" the other. With this hint I am con-
tented to ask at what point in my circle you
would touch ?"
George Morley. "I thank you gratefully;
I accept yoiu- illustration. The point is touched;
I need no other." He paused a moment, as if
concentrating all his thoughts, and then said,
with musing accents — " Yes, I accept your ilUis-
tration ; I will even strengthen the force of the
truth implied in it by a more homely illustration
of my own. There are small skeleton abridg-
ments of history which we give to children. In
such a year a king was crowned — a battle was
fought ; there was some great disaster, or some
great triumph. Of the true progress and de-
velopment of the nation whose record is thus
epitomized — of the complicated causes which
lead to these salient events — of the animated,
varied, multitudinous life which has been hurry-
ing on from epoch to epoch, the abridgment
tells nothing. It is so with the life of each in-,
dividual man ; the life as it stands before us is
but a sterile epitome — hid from our sight the
emotions which are the People of the Heart.
In such a year occurred a visible something — a
gain — a loss — a success — a disappointment ; the
People of the Heart crowned or deposed a king.
This is all we know; and the most voluminous
biography ever written must still be a meagre
abridgment of all that really individualized and
formed a man. I ask not your confidence in a
single detail or fact in your existence which lies
beyond my sight. Far from me so curious an
insolence ; but I do ask you this — Reflecting on
your past life as a whole, have not your chief
sorrows had a common idiosyncrasy ? Have
they not been strangely directed toward the
WHAT ATTLL HE DO WITH IT?
291
frustration of some one single object — cherished
by your earliest hopes, and, as it in defiance of
fate, resolutely clunij to even now?"
"It is true," muttered Darrell. "You do
not offend me ; go on I"
" And have not these Sorrows, in frustrating
your object, often assumed, too, a certain uni-
formity in the weapons they use, in the quarter
they harass or invade, almost as if it were a
strategic policy that guided them where they
could most pain, or humble, or eject a Foe
that they were ordered to storm ? Degrade you
they could not ; such was not their mission.
Heaven left you intact a kingliness of nature —
a loftiness of spirit, unabased by assaults leveled
not against yourself, but your pride ; your per-
sonardignity, though singularly sensitive, though
bitterly galled, stood proof What might lower
lesser men, lowered not you ; Heaven left you
that dignity, for it belongs alike to your intellect
and vour virtues — but suffered it to be a source
of your anguish. Why? Because not content
with adorning your virtues, it was covering the
fault against which were directed the sorrows.
You frown — forgive me."
" You do not transgress unless it be as a flat-
terer ! If I frowned, it was unconsciously — the
sign of thought, not anger. Pause! — my mind
has left you for a moment ; it is looking into
the past."
The past ! — Was it not true ! That home to
whose porch came in time the Black Horses, in
time just to save from the last, worst dishonor,
but not save from years racked by each pang
that can harrow man's dignity in each daily
assault on the fort of man's pride ; the sly, treach-
erous daughter — her terrible marriage — the man
whose disgrace she had linked to her blood, and
whose life still was insult and threat to his own.
True, what a war upon Pride ! And even in
that secret and fatal love which had been of all
his griefs the most influential and enduring, had
his pride been less bitterly wounded, and that
pride less enthroned in his being, would his
grief have been so relentless, his attempts at its
conquest so vain? And then, even now — what
was it said, " I can bless" — holy Love ! What
was it said, " but not pardon" — stern Peide !
And so on to these last revolutions of sterile
life. Was he not miserable in Lionel's and
Sophy's misery? Forlorn in that Citadel of
Pride — closed round and invested with Sorrows
— and the last Hopes that had fled to the for-
tress, slain in defense of its outworks. With
hand shading his face, Darrell remained some
minutes silent. At last he raised his head, and
his eye was steadfast, his lip firm.
"George Morley," said he, "I acknowledge
much justice in the censure you have conveyed,
with so artful a delicacy, that if it fail to reform
it can not displease, and leaves much to be seri-
ously revolved in solitary self-commune. But
though I may own that pride is not made for
man, and that in the blindness of human judg-
ment I may often have confounded pride with
duty, and suffered for the mistake, yet that one
prevailing object of my life, which with so start-
ling a truth you say it has pleased Heaven to
frustrate, I can not hold an error in itself.
You have learned enough fi'om your uncle, seen
enough of me yourself, to know what that ob-
ject has been. You are scholar enough to con-
cede to me that it is no ignoble homage which
either nations or persons render to the ancestral
■Dead — that homage is an instinct in all but
vulgar and sordid natures. Has a man no an-
cestry of his own, rightly and justly, if himself
of worth, he appropriates to his lineage all the
heroes, and bards, and patriots of his fatherland ?
A free citizen has ancestors in all the glorious
chiefs that have adorned the state, on the sole
condition that he shall revere their tombs, and
guard their memon.- as a son I And thus, when-
ever they who speak trumpet-tongued to grand
democracies, would rouse some quailing genera-
tion to heroic deed or sacrifice, they ajjpeal in
the Name of Ancestors, and call upon the living
to be worthy of the dead! That which is so
laudable — nay, so necessarj' a sentiment in the
mass, can not be a fault that angers Heaven in
the man. Like all high sentiments, it may com-
pel harsh and rugged duties; it may need the
stern suppression of many a gentle impulse — of
many a pleasing wish. But we must regard it
in its merit and consistency as a whole. And
if, my eloquent and subtle friend, all yoti have
hitherto said be designed but to wind into
pleas for the same cause that I have already de-
cided against the advocate in my own heart
which sides with Lionel's generous love and j-oii
fair girl's ingenuous and touching grace, let us
break up the court : the judge has no choice but
the law which imperiously governs his judg-
ment."
George Morlet. "I have not hitherto pre-
sumed to apply to particular cases the general
argument you so indulgently allow me to urge
in favor of my theory, that in the world of the
human heart, when closely examined, there is
the same harmony of design as in the external
universe ; that in Fault and in Sorrow are the
axioms, and problems, and postulates of a sci-
ence. Bear with me a little longer if I still
pursue the same course of reasoning. I shall
not have the arrogance to argue a special in-
stance — to say, 'This you should do, this you
should not do.' All I would ask is, leave to
proffer a few more suggestions to your own
large and candid experience."
Said Darrell, irresistibly allured on, but with
a tinge of his grave irony, " You have the true
genius of the pulpit, and I concede to you its
rights. I will listen with the wish to profit —
the more susceptible of conviction, because freed
from the necessity to reply."
George Morlet. " You vindicate the ob-
ject which has been the main ambition of your
life. You say ' not an ignoble object.' Truly I
ignoble objects are not for you. The questicn
is, are there not objects nobler, which should
have attained higher value, and led to larger
results in the soul which Providence assigned
to you ; was not the proper place of the object
you vindicate that of an auxiliaiw — a subordin-
ate, rather than that of the all-directing seif-
suilicing leader and autocrat of such varioi:s
powers of mind? I picture you to myself — a
lone, bold-hearted boy— in this ancient hall,
amidst these primitive landscapes, in which old
associations are so little disturbed by the mod-
ern — in which the wild turf of waste lands, van-
ishing deep into mazes of solemn wood, lend
the scene to dreams of gone days — bring Ad-
venture and Knighthood, and all the poetical
292
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
colors of Eld to unite the homage due to the
ancestral dead with the future ambition of
life; — Image full of interest and of jjathos — a
friendless child of a race more beloved for its
decay, looking dauntless on to poverty and toil,
with that conviction of power which is born of
collected purpose and earnest wiM ; and record-
ing his secret vow, that single-handed he will
undo the work of destroying ages, and restore
his line to its place of honor in the land!"
George paused, and tears stood in Darrell's
eyes.
"Yes," resumed the scholar — "yes, for the
child, for the youth, for the man in his first
daring stride into the Action of Life, that object
commands our respectful sympathies. But wait
a few years. Has that object expanded ? Has
it led on into objects embracing humanity?
Remains it alone and sterile in tlie bosom of
successful genius? Or is it prolific and fruit-
ful of grander designs — of more wide-spread-
ing uses ? Make genius successful, and all
men have the right to say, ' Brother, help us !'
What ! no other object still but to build up a
house ! — to i-ecover a line ! What was grand at
one stage of an onward career is narrow and
small at another! Ambition limited to the rise
of a family ! Can our symjjathies still hallow
tliat ! No ! In Guy Uarrell successful — that
ambition was treason to earth! IMankind was
his family now ! Therefore Heaven thwarted
the object which opposed its own ends in creating
you! Therefore childless you stand on your
desolate hearth! — Therefore, lo! side by side
— von uncompleted pile — ^your own uncompleted
life !"
Darrell sate dumb. — He was appalled !
George IMorley. "Has not that object stint-
ed your very intellect? Has it not, while baf-
fled in its own centred aim — has it not robbed
you of the glory which youth craved, and which
manhood might have Vvon ? Idolater to the creed
of an Ancestor's Name, has your own name that
hold on the grateful respect of the Future which
men ever give to that genius whose objects are
knit with mankind? Suddenly, in the zenith
of life, amidst cheers, not of genuine renown —
cheers loud and brief as a mob's hurrah — calam-
ities, all of which I know not nor conjecture, in-
terrupt your career ; and when your own life-
long object is arrested, or rather when it is
snatched from your eye, your genius renounces
all uses. Fame, ever-duriug, was before you
still, had your objects been those for which
genius is given. You muse. Heaven permits
these rude words to strike home ! Guy Darrell,
it is not too late ! Heaven's warnings are al-
ways in time ! Reflect, with the one narrow
object was fostered and fed the one master fail-
ing of Bride. To us, as Christians or as rea-
soiiers, it is not in this world that every duty is
to find its special meed ; yet by that same mys-
tical LAW which makes Science of Sorrow, re-
wards are but often the normal eflfect of duties
sublimely fulfilled. Out of your pride and your
one-cherished object has there grown hajipi-
ness ? Has the success which was not denied
you achieved the link with ])Osterrty that your
hand, if not fettered, would long since have
forged ? Grant that Heaven says, ' Stubborn
child, yield at last to the warnings that came
from my love ! From a son so favored and
strong I exact the most difficult offering ! Thou
hast sacrificed much, but for ends not prescribed
in my law ; sacrifice now to me the thing thou
most clingest to — Bride. I make the pang I
demand purjiosely bitter. I twine round the
ottering I ask tlie fibres that bleed in relaxing.
What to other men would be no duty is duty to
thee, because it entails a triumphant self-con-
quest, and pays to Humanity the arrears of just
dues long neglected.' Grant the hard sacrifice
made ; I must think Heaven has ends for your
joy even here, when it asks you to part with the
cause of your sorrows ; I must think that your
evening of life may have sunshine denied to its
noon. But with God are no bargains. A vir-
tue, the more arduous because it must trample
down what your life has exalted as virtue, is
before you — distasteful, austere, repellant. The
most inviting arguments in its favor are that it
proffers no bribes ; men would acquit you in re-
jecting it ; judged by our world's ordinary rule,
men would be right in acquitting you. ]3ut if,
on reflection, you say in your heart of hearts,
' This is a virtue,' you will follow its noiseless
path up to the smile of God!"
The Breacher ceased.
Darrell breathed a long sigh, rose slowly, took
George's hand, pressed it warmly in both his
own, and turned quickly and silently away. He
paused in the deep recess, where the gleam of
the wintry sun shot through the small casement,
aslant and pale, on the massive wall. Ojjening
the lattice, he looked forth on the old hereditary
trees — on the Gothic church-tower — on the dark
evergreens that belted his father's tomb. Again
he sighed, but this time the sigh had a haughty
sound in its abrupt impatience ; and George felt
that words written must remain to strengthen
and confirm the effect of words spoken. He
had at least obeyed his uncle's wise injunction
— he had prepared Darrell's mind to weigh the
contents of a letter, which, given in the first in-
stance, would perhaps have rendered Darrell's
resolution not less stubborn, by increasing the
pain to himself which the resolution already in-
flicted.
Darrell turned, and looked toward George,
as if in surprise to see him still lingering there.
" I have now but to place before you this let-
ter from my uncle to myself; it enters into those
details which it would have misbecome me spe-
cially to discuss. Remember, I entreat you, in
reading it, that it is written by your oldest friend
— by a man who has no dull discrimination in
the perplexities of life, or the niceties of hon-
or."
Darrell bowed his head in assent, and took
the letter. George was about to leave the
room.
"Stay," said Darrell, "'tis best to have but
one interview — one conversation on the subject
which has been just enforced on me ; and the
letter may need a comment, or a message to
your uncle." He stood hesitating, with the let-
ter open in his hand ; and, fixing his keen eye
on George's pale and powerful countenance,
said, " How is it that, with an experience of
mankind, which you will pardon me for assum-
ing to be limited, you yet rend so wondrously
the complicated human heart?"
"If I really have tiiat gift." said George, "I
will answer your question by another: Is it
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT I
293
through experience that we learn to read the
human heart — or is it through sympathy? If it
he experience, what becomes of the Poet? If
the Poet be born, not made, is it not because he
is born to sympathize with what he has never
experienced?"
"I see! There are bom Preachers I"
Darrell reseated himself, and began Alban's
letter. He was evidently moved by the Colo-
nel's account of Lionel's grief — muttering to
himself, '-Poor boy I — but he is brave — he is
young." When he came to Alban's forebod-
ings, on the eftects of dejection upon the stam-
ina of life, he pressed his hand quickly against
his breast as if he had received a shock I He
mused a while before he resumed his task : then
he read rapidly and silently till his face flushed,
and he repeated in a hollow tone, inexpressibly
mournful, '"'Let the young man live, and the
old name die with Guy Darrell.' Ay. ay ! see
how the world sides with Youth ! What mat-
ters all else so that Youth have its toy I" Again
his eye hurried on impatiently till he came to
the passage devoted to Lady Montfort; then
George saw that the paper trembled violently in
his hand, and that his very lips grew white.
"'Serious apprehensions,'" he muttered. '"I
owe 'consideration to such a friend.' This
man is without a heart I"
He clenched the paper in his hand without
reading farther. "Leave me this letter,
George ; I will give an answer to that and to
you before night." He caught up his hat as he
spoke, passed into the lifeless picture-gallery,
and so out into the open air. George, dubious
and anxious, gained the solitude of bis own
room, and locked the door.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IIL
At last, the great Qnestion br Torture is fairly applied
to Guy Darrell.
What m-ill he do -vriTH it? What will
Guy Darrell do with the thought that weighs on
his brain, rankles in his heart, perplexes his du-
bious conscience? "\^^lat will he do with the
Law which has governed his past life ? What
will he do with that shadow of a Xajie, which,
alike in swarming crowds or in lonely burial-
places, has spelled his eye and lured his step as
a beckoning ghost ? What will he do with the
Pride from which the mask has been so mdely
torn? What will he do with idols s'o long re-
vered ? Are they idols, or are they but symbols
and images of holy truths ? What will he do
with the torturing problem, on the solution of
which depend the honor due to consecrated
ashes, and the rights due to beating hearts ?
There, restless he goes, the arrow of that ques-
tion in his side — now through the broad waste
lands — now through the dim woods, pausing oft
with short quick sigh, with hand swept across
his brow as if to clear away a cloud ; — now
snatched from our sight by the evergreens round
the tomb in that still church-yard — now emerg-
ing slow, with melancholy eyes fixed on the old
roof-tree I What will he do with it ? The
Question of Questions in which all Futurity is
opened, has him on its rack. What ■vtill he
DO WITH IT ? Let us see.
Immnnis aram, fi tetigit maaas,
Non suniptuosa blandior hostia,
JlolUvit aversas Penates,
Farre pio et saliente mica Hobat.
It is the gray of the evening. Fairthom is
sauntering somewhat sullenly along the banks
of the lake. He has missed, the last three dars,
his walk with Sophy — missed the pleasing ex-
citement of talking at her, and of the familv in
whose obsolete glories he considers her verj-
interest an obtrusive impertinence. He has
missed, too, his more habitual and less irritat-
ing conversation with Darrell. In short, alto-
gether he is put out. and he vents his spleen on
the swans, who foHow him along the wave as
he walks along the margin, iniiraatino- either
their aflection for himself, or their anticipation
of the bread crumbs associated with his image
— by the amiable note, half snort and half
grunt, to which change of time or climate has
reduced the vocal accomplishments of those
classical birds, so pathetically melodious in the
age of Moschus and on the banks of Cayster.
"Xot a crumb, you nnprincipled beggars,"
growled the musician. "You imagine that
mankind are to have no other thought but that
of supplying you with luxuries! And if yon
were asked, in a competitive examination, to
define me, your benefactor, you would say — 'A
thing very low in the scale of creation, without
wings or even feathers, but which Proridence
endowed with a peculiar instinct for aflbrding
nutritious and palatable additions to the ordi-
nary aliment of Swans I' Ay, you may grunt ;
I wish I had you — in a pie I"
Slowly, out through the gap between yon gray
crag and the thorn-tree, paces the doe, halting
to drink just where the faint star of eve shoots
its gleam along the wave. The musician for-
gets the swans and quickens his pace, expecting
to meet the doe's wonted companion. He is
not disappointed. He comes on Guy Darrell
where the twilight shadow falls darkest between
the gray crag and the thorn-tree.
"Dear Fellow Hermit," said Darrell, almost
gayly, yet with more than usual affection in his
greeting and voice, "yon find me just when I
want you. I am as one whose eyes have been
strained by a riolent conflict of colors, and your
quiet presence is like the relief of a return to
green. I have news for you, Fairthorn. You,
who know more of my secrets than any other
man, shall be the first to learn a decision that
must bind you and me more together — but not
in these scenes, Dick.
' Ibimus — ibimns!
-Supremum
Carpere iter, comites, parati ." "
"What do you mean, Sir?" asked Fairthom.
" !My mind always misgives me when I hear
you quoting Horace. Some reflection about the
certainty of death, or other disagreeable sub-
jects is sure to follow!"
"Death! No. Dick — not now. Marriage-
bells and jov, Dick! We shall have a wed-
ding !"
" What ! Yoit will marry at last ! And it
must be that beautiful Caroline Lyndsay ! It
must — it must! You can never love another!
You know it, my dear, dear master! I shall
see you, then, happy before I die."
294
WHAT '«*ILL HE DO WITH IT?
"Tut, foolish old friend 1" said Darrell, lean-
ing; his arm tenderly on Fairthorn's shoulder,
and walking on slowly toward the house. '• How
often must I tell you that no maiTiage-bells can
ring for me I"
"But you have told me, too, that you went
to Twickenham to steal a sight of her again ;
and that it was the sight of her that made you
resolve to wed no one else. And when I have
railed against her for fickleness, have not you
nearly frightened me out of my wits, as if no
one might rail against her but youi-self ? And
now she is free — and did you not grant that she
would not refuse your hand, and would be true
and faithful henceforth ? And yet you insist
on being — granite 1"
" No, Dick, not granite ; I wish I were I"
" Granite and pride," persisted Dick, coura-
geously. " If one chips a bit off the one, one
only breaks one's spade against the other."
" Pride I — you too I" muttered Darrell, mourn-
fully; then aloud, ''Xo, it is not pride now,
whatever it mi^^ht have been even yesterday.
But I would rather be racked by all the tortures
that pious inquisitors ever invented out of com-
passion for obstinate heretics, than condemn the
woman I have so fatally loved to a penance the
misery of which she can not foresee. She would
accept me ? — certainly 1 Why ? Because she
thinks she owes me reparation — because she
pities me. And my heart tells me that I might
become cruel, and mean, and vindictive, if I
were to live day b\' day with one who created in
me, while my life was at noon, a love never
known in its morn, and to feel that that love's
sole return was the pity vouchsafed to the night-
fall of my age. 2S'o ; if she pitied, but did not
love me, when, eighteen years ago, we parted
under yonder beech-tree, I should be a dotard
to dream that woman's pity mellows into love as
our locks become gray, and Youth turns our
TOWS into ridicule. It is not pride that speaks
here ; it is rather humility, Dick I But we must
not now talk of old age and by-gones. Youth
and marriage-bells, Dick ! Know that I have
been for hours pondering how to reconcile with
my old-fashioned notions dear Lionel's happi-
ness. We must think of the li\"ing as well as
the dead, Dick. I have solved the problem. I
am happy, and so shall the young folks be."
"You don't mean to say that you will con-
sent to — "
" Yes, to Lionel's marriage with that beauti-
ful girl, whose parentage we never will ask.
Great men are their own ancestors ; why not
sometimes fair women ? Enough — I consent I
I shall of course secure to my kinsman and his
bride an ample fortune. Lionel will have time
for his honeymoon before he departs for the
wars. He will fight with good heart now, Dick.
Young folks of the present day can not bear up
against sorrow as they were trained to do in
mine. And that amiable lady who has so much
pity for me, has, of course, still more pity for a
cliarming young couple for whose marriage she
schemed, in order to give me a liome, Dick.
And rather than she should pine and fall ill,
and — no matter ; all shall be settled as it should
be for the happiness of the living. But some-
1 thing else must be settled ; we must think of
the dead as well as the living; and this name
i of Darrell shall be buried with me in the grave
j beside my father's. Lionel Haughton will keep
i to his own name. Live the HaughtonsI Per-
ish, but with no blot on their shield — perish the
JDarrells: Why, what is that? Tears, Dick?
Pooh ! — be a man 1 And I want all your
strength ; for you, too, must have a share in the
sacrifice. What follows is not the dictate of
pride, if I ca?i read myself aright. No; it is the
'. final completion and surrender of the object on
which so much of my life has been wasted — but
, a surrender that satisfies my crotchets of honor.
At all events, if it be pride in disguise, it will
! demand no victim in others ; you and I may
have a sharp pang — we must bear it, Dit!k."
I " What on eai'th is coming now ?" said Dick,
, dolefully.
"The due to the dead, Richard Fairthorn.
I This nook of fair England, in which I learned
from the dead to love honor — this poor domain
I of Fawley — shall go in bequest to the College
at which I was reared."
"Sir!"
" It will serve for a fellowship or two to hon-
est, brave-hearted young scholars. It will be
thus, while English institutions may last, de-
voted to Learning and Honor. It may sustain
for mankind some ambition more generous than
mine, it appears, ever was — settled thus, not in
mine, but my dear father's name, like the Dar-
rell Mtiseum. These are my dues to the dead,
Dick I And the old house thus becomes use-
less. The new house was ever a folly. They
must go down both, as soon as the young foll^
are married ; not a stone stand on stone I The
plowshare shall pass over their sites! And
this task I order you to see done. I have not
strength. You will then hasten to join me at
Sorrento, that corner of earth on which Horace
Mished to breathe his last sigh.
'lUe te mecam locus et beatae
Postulant arces — ibi — tu — '"
" Don't, Sir, don't. Horace again ! It is too
, much." Fairthorn was choking ; but as if the
' idea presented to him was really too monstrous
I for belief, he clutched at DaiTell with so uncer-
I tain and vehement a hand that he almost caught
him by the throat, and sobbed out, " You must
be joking."
" Seriousl}- and solemnly, Richard Fairthorn,"
I said Dartell, gently disentangling the fingers
i that threatened him with strangulation. " Se-
{ riously and solemnly I have uttered to yoa my
deliberate purpose. I implore you, in the name
of our lifelong friendship, to face this pain as I
do — resolutely, cheerfully. I implore you to
execute to the letter the instructions I shall
leave with you on quitting England, which I
shall do the day Lionel is married; and then,
dear old friend, calm days, clear consciences.
In climes where whole races have passed away
— proud cities themselves sunk in graves — where
our petty grief for a squirearch's lost house we
shall both grow ashamed to indulge — there we
will moralize, rail against vain dreams and idle
I pride, cultivate vines and orange-trees, with
1 Horace — nay, nay, Dick — viiih. the Flcxe I"
WHAT "STILL HE DO WITH IT?
295
CHAPTER V.
More bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their )
flow melts into their water?. And when fine natures I
relent, their kindness is swelled by the thaw.
Dakrell escaped into the house ; Fairthom
sunk upon the ground, and resigned himself for
some minutes to unmanly lamentations. Sud-
denly he started up; a thought came into his
brain — a hope into his breast. He made a ca-
per — launched himself into a precipitate zigzag
—gained the hall-door — plunged into his o^vn
mysterious hiding-place — and in less than an
hour re-emerged, a letter in his hand, with which
he had just time to catch the postman, as that
functionary was striding off from the back-yard
with the official bag.
This exploit performed, Fairthom shambled
into his chair at the dinner-table, as George
Morley concluded the grace which preceded the
meal that, in Fairthorn's estimation, usually
made the grand event of the passing day. But
the poor man's appetite was gone. As Sophy
dined with Waife, the Morleys alone shared,
with host and secretary, the melancholy enter-
tainment. George was no less silent than Fair-
thorn ; Darrell's manner perplexed him. ]Mrs.
ilorley, not admitted into her husband's confi-
dence in secrets that concerned others, though
in all his own he was to her conjugal sight pel-
htcidhr vitro, was the chief talker; and, being
the best woman in the world, ever wishing to
say something pleasant, she fell to praising the
dear old family pictures that scowled at her
from the wall, and informed Fairthorn that she
had made great progress with her sketch of the
old house as seen from the lake, and was in
doubt whether she should introduce in the fore-
ground some figures of the olden time, as in
Nash's Views of Baronial Mansions. But not
a word could she coax out of Fairthorn; and
when she turned to appeal to Darrell, the host
suddenly addressed to George a question as to
the texts and authorities by which the Papal
Church defends its doctrine of Purgatory. That
entailed a long, and no doubt erudite, reply,
which lasted not only through the rest of the
dinner, but till ISIrs. Morley, edified by the dis-
course, and delighted to notice the undeviating
attention which Darrell paid to her distinguish-
ed spouse, took advantage of the first full stop,
and retired. Fairthom finished his bottle of
port, and, far from convinced that there was no
Purgato'iy, but inclined to advance the novel
heresy that Purgatory sometimes commenced
on this side the grave — slinked away, and was
seen no more that night ; neither was his flute
heard.
Then Darrell rose, and said, "I shall go up
stairs to our sick friend for a few minutes ; may
I find you here when 1 come back? Your visit
to him can follow mine."
On entering Waife's room, Darrell went
straight forward toward Sophy, and cut off her
retreat.
"Fair guest," said he, with a grace and ten-
derness of manner which, when he pleased it,
could be ineffably bewitching — '' teach me some
art by which in future rather to detain than to
scare away the presence in which a duller age
than mine could still recognize the charms that
subdue the young." He led her back gently to
the seat she had deserted — placed himself next
to her — addressed a few cordial queries to "Waife
about his health and comforts — and then said,
"You must not leave me for some days yet. I
have written by this post to my kinsman, Lionel
Haughton. I have refused to be his embassa-
dor at a court in which, by all the laws of na-
tions, he is bound to submit himself to his con-
queror. I can not even hope that he may escape
with his freedom. No I chains for life ! Thrice
happy, indeed, if that be the merciful sentence
you inflict."
He raised Sophy's hand to his lips as he end-
ed, and before she could even quite comprehend
the meaning of his words — so was she startled,
confused, incredulous of such sudden change in
fate — the door had closed on Darrell, and Waife
had clasped her to his breast, murmuring, "Is
not Providence kind?"
Darrell rejoined the scholar. " George," said
he, "be kind enough to tell Alban that you
showed me his letter. Be kind enough also to
write to Lady Montfort. and say that I grate-
fully acknowledge her wish to repair to me those
losses which have left me to face age and the
grave alone. Tell her that her old friend (yoa
remember, George, I knew her as a child) sees
in that wish the same sweet goodness of heart
which soothed him when his son died and his
daughter fled. Add that her wish is gratified.
To that maiTiage, in which she compassionately
foresaw the best solace left to my bereaved and
bafiled existence — to that marriage I give my
consent."
" You do I Oh, Mr. Darrell, how I honor
you 1"
"Nay, I no more deserve honor for consent-
ing than I should have deserved contempt if I
had continued to refuse. To do what I deem-
ed right is not more my wish now than it was
twelve hours ago. To what so sudden a change
of resolve in one who changes resolves very rare-
ly, may be due, whether to Lady Montfort, to
Alban, or to that metaphysical skill with which
you wound into my reason, and compelled me
to review all its judgments, I do not attempt to
determine ; yet I thought I had no option but
the course I had tclken. No ; it is fair to your-
self to give you the chief credit ; you made me
desire, you made me resolve, to find an option
— I have found one. And now pay your visit
where mine has been just paid. It will be three
days, I suppose, before Lionel, having joined
his new regiment at * * * *, can be here. And
then it will be weeks yet, I believe, before his
regiment sails ; — a^d I'm all for short court-
ships."
CHAPTER YL
Fairthom frightens Sophv. Sir,Isaac is invited by Dar-
rell, and forms one of a Family Circle.
SrcH a sweet voice in sinking breaks out from
yon leafless beeches I Waife hears it at noon
ifrom his window. Hark ! Sophy has found song
once more.
She is seated on a garden bench, looking
across the lake toward the gloomy old !Manor
House and the tall spectre-palace beside it. 3Irs.
Morley is also on the bench, hard at work on
her sketch ; Fairthom prowls through the thick-
ets behind, wandering restless and wretched,
296
■WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
and wrathful beyond all words to describe. He
hears that voice singing; he stops short, per-
fectly rabid with indignation. "Singing," he
muttered, " singing in triumph, and glowering
at the very House she dooms to destruction.
Worse than Xero striking his lyre amidst the
conflagi-ation of Rome !"
By-and-by Sophy, who somehow or other can
not sit long in any place, and tires that day of
any companion, wanders away from the lake,
and comes right upon Fairthorn. Hailing, in
her unutterable secret bliss, the musician who
had so often joined her rambles in the days of
unuttered secret sadness, she sprang toward
hira with welcome and mirth in a face that
would have lured Diogenes out of his tub.
Fairthorn recoiled sidelong, growling forth,
" Don't — you had better not I" — grinned the
most savage grin, showing all his teeth like a
wolf; and as she stood, mute with wonder, per-
haps with fright, he slunk edgewise off, as if
aware of his own murderous inclinations, turn-
ing his head more than once, and shaking it at
her; then, with the wonted mystery which en-
veloped his exits, he was gone I — vanished be-
hind a crag, or amidst a bush, or into a hole —
Heaven knows ; but like the lady in the Siege
of Corinth, who warned the renegade Alp of
his approaching end, he was " gone."
Twice again that day Sophy encountered the
enraged musician ; each time the same mena-
cing aspect and weird disappearance.
" Is Jlr. Fairthorn ever a little — odd ?" asked
Sophy, timidly, of George ilorley.
•' Always," answered George, dryly.
Sophy felt relieved at that reply. Whatever
is habitual in a man's manner, however un-
pleasant, is seldom formidable. Still Sophy
could not help saying,
*' I wish poor Sir Isaac were here I"
"Do you?" said a soft voice behind her;
" and, pray, who is Sir Isaac ?"
The Speaker was Darrell, who had come forth
with the resolute intent to see more of Sophy,
and make himself as amiably social as he could.
Guy Darrell could never be kind by halves.
" Sir Isaac is the wonderful dog you have
heard me describe," replied George.
" Would he hurt my doe if he came here?"
asked Darrell.
" Oh no," cried Sophy ; " he never hurts any
thing. He once found a wounded hare, and he
brought it in his mouth to us so tenderly, and
seemed so anxious that we should cure it, which
grandfather did, and the hare would sometimes
hurt him, but he never hurt the hare."
Said George, sonorously,
" Ingeniias didicisse fideliter artes
KmoUit mores, nee sinit esse feros."
DaiTcU drew Sophy's arm into his own.
"Will you walk back to the lake with me,"
said he, "and help me to feed the swans?
George, send your servant express for Sir Isaac.
I am impatient to make his acquaintance."
Sophy's hand involuntarily pressed Darrell's
arm. She looked up into his face with inno-
cent, joyous gratitude ; feeling at once, and as
by magic, that her awe of him was gone.
Darrell and Sophy rambled thus together for
more than an hour. He sought to draw out her
mind, unaware to herself; he succeeded. He
was struck with a certain simple poctiy of
thought which pen^aded her ideas — not artifi-
cial sentimentality, but a natural tendency to
detect in all life a something of delicate or
beautiful which lies hid from the ordinary
sense. He found, thanks to Lady Montfort,
that, though far from learned, she was more ac-
quainted with literature than he had supposed.
And sometimes he changed color, or breathed
his short, quick sigh when he recognized her
familiarity with passages in his favorite authors
which he himself had commended, or read aloud,
to the Caroline of old.
The next day Waife, who seemed now recov-
ered as by enchantment, walked forth with
George, Darrell again ^Wth Sophy. Sir Isaac
arrived — immense joy ; the doe butts Sir Isaac,
who, retreating, stands on his hind legs^ and,
having possessed himself of Waife 's crutch, pre-
sents fire ; the doe in her turn retreats ; half
an hour afterward doe and dog are friends.
Waife is induced, without much persuasion,
to join the rest of the party at dinner. In the
evening all (Fairthorn excepted) draw round
the fire. Waife is entreated by George to read
a scene or two out of Shakspeare. He selects
the latter portion of " King Lear." Darrell,
who never was a play-goer, and who, to his
shame be it said, had looked verj- little into
Shakspeare since he left college, was wonder-
struck. He himself read beautifully — all great
orators, I suppose, do ; but his talent was not
mimetic — not imitative ; he could never have
been an actor — never thrown himself into ex-
istences wholly alien or repugnant to his own.
Grave or gay, stern or kind, Guy Darrell, though
often varying, was always Guy Darrell.
But when Waife was once in that magical
world of art, Waife was gone — nothing left of
him ; the part lived as if there were no actor to
it ; it icas tlie Fool — it avas Lear.
For the first time Darrell felt what a grand
creature a grand actor really is — what a lumin-
ous, unconscious critic bringing out beauties of
which no commentator ever dreamed! When
the reading was over talk still flowed; the
gloomy old hearth knew the charm of a home-
circle. All started incredulous when the clock
struck one. Just as Sophy was passing to the
door, out from behind the window-curtain glared
a vindictive, spiteful eye. Fairthorn made a
mow at her, which 'tis a pity Waife did not see
- — it would have been a study for Cahban. She
uttered a little scream.
" ^^^lat's the matter?" cried the host.
" Xothing," said she, quickly — far too gener-
ous to betray the hostile oddities of the musi-
cian. " Sir Isaac was in my way — that was
all."
" Another evening we must have Fairthorn's
flute," said Darrell. '"What a pity he was not
here to-night I — he would have enjoyed such
reading — no one more."
Said Mrs. Morley, "He was here once or
twice during the evening; but he vanished I"
" Vanishing seems his forte," said George.
Darrell looked annoyed. It was his peculiar-
ity to resent any jest, however slight, against an
absent friend ; and at that moment his heart
was perhaps more warmed toward Dick Fair-
thorn than to any man living. If he had not
determined to be as amiable and mild toward
his guests as his nature would permit, probably
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
29.7
Georize mijrlit have had the flip of a sarcasm
which would have tingled for a month. But as
it was, Darrell contented himself with saying,
gravely,
" 2\o, George ; Fairthorn's foible is vanishing
— his forte is fidelity. If my fortune were to
vanish, Fairthorn would never disappear; and
that's more than I would say if I were a King,
and Fairthorn — a Bishop!"
After that extraordinary figure of speech
"Good-nights" were somewhat hastily ex-
changed; and Fairthorn was left behind the
curtain with feelings toward all his master's
guests as little, it is to be hoped, like those of a
Christian Bishop toward his fellow-creatures as
thej possibly could be.
CHAPTER YU.
"Domus et placens Uxor."
Fairthorn finds nothing placens in the Vxor, to whom
liomus is indebted for its destruction.
Another day ! Lionel is expected to arrive
an hour or two after noon. Darrell is in his
room — his will once more before him. He has
drawn up a rough copy of the codicil by which
Fawley is to pass away ; and the name of Dar-
rell be consigned to the care of grateful Learn-
ing, linked with prizes and fellowships — a pub-
lic property — lost forever to private representa-
tives of its sepulchred bearers. Preparations
for departure from the doomed dwelling-house
have begun. There are large boxes on the
floor ; and favorite volumes — chiefly in science
or classics — lie piled beside them for selection.
Wliat is really at the bottom of Guy Darrell's
heart ? Does he feel reconciled to his decision?
Is the virtue of his new self-sacrifice in itself a
consoling reward? Is that cordial urbanity,
that cheerful kindness, by which he has been
yet more endearing himself to his guests, sin-
cere or assumed ? As he throws aside his ])en,
and leans his cheek on his hand, the expression
of his countenance may perhaps best answer
those questions. It has more unmingled mel-
ancholy than was habitual to it before, even
when in his gloomiest moods ; but it is a mel-
ancholy much more soft and subdued ; it is the
melancholy of resignation — that of a man who
has ceased a long struggle — paid his ofl'ering to
the appeased Xemesis, in casting into the sea
the thing that had been to him the dearest.
But in resignation, when complete, there is
always a strange relief. Despite that melan-
choly, Darrell is less unhappy than he has been
for years. He feels as if a suspense had passed
— a load been lifted from his breast. After all,
he has secured, to the best of his judgment, the
happiness of the living, and in relinquishing
the object to which his own life has been vainly
devoted, and immolating the pride attached to
it, he has yet, to use his own words, paid his
"dues to the dead." Xo descendant from a
Jasper Losely and a Gabrielle Desmarets will
sit as mistress of the house in which Lovaltv
and Honor had garnered, with the wrecks of
fortune, the memories of knightly fame — nor
perpetuate the name of DaiTcll through chil-
dren whose blood has a source in the sink of
infamy and fraud. Xor was this consolation
that of a culpable pride ; it was bought by the
abdication of a pride that had opposed its preju-
dices to living worth — to living happiness. So-
phy would not be punished for sins not her ovrn
— Lionel not barred from a prize that earth
never might replace. What mattered to them
a mouldering, old. desolate Manor House — a few
hundreds of pitiful acres ? Their children would
not be less blooming if their holiday summer
noons were not shaded by those darksome trees
— nor less lively of wit, if their school themes
were signed in the name, not of Darrell, but
Haughton.
A slight nenous knock at the door. Darrell
has summoned Fairthorn; Fairthorn enters.
Dan-ell takes up a paper; it contains minute
instructions as to the demolition of the two
buildings. The materials of the new pile may
be disposed of, sold, caned away — any how,
any where. Those of the old house are" sacred
— not a brick to be carried from the precincts
around it. No; from foundation to roof, all to
be piously removed — to receive formal inter-
ment deep in the still bosom of the little lake,
and the lake to be filled up and tuifed over.
The pictures and antiquities selected for the
Darrell ^Museum are, of course, to be carefully
transported to London — warehoused safely till
the gift from owner to nation be legally ratified.
The pictures and articles of less value will be
sent to an auction. But when it came to the
old family portraits in the ^lanor House, the old
homely furniture, familiarized to sight and use
and love from infancy, Danell was at a loss;
his invention failed. That question was re-
served for farther consideration.
"And why," says Fairthorn, bluntly and
coarsely, urging at least reprieve, "why, if it
must be, not wait till you are no more ? Why
must the old house be buried before you are ?"
"Because," answered Darrell, "such an or-
der, left by will, would seem a reproach to my
heirs ; it would wound Lionel to the quick.
Done in my lifetime, and just after I have
given my blessing on his marriage, I can sug-
gest a thousand reasons for an old man's whim ;
and my manner alone will dispel all idea of a
covert afl:ront to his charming innocent bride."
" I wish she were hanged, with all my heart,"
muttered Fairthorn, "coming here to do such
astonishing mischief! But, Sir, I can't obey
you ; 'tis no use talking. You must get some
one else. Parson Morley will do it — with pleas-
ure, too, no doubt; or "that hobbling old man
whom I suspect to be a conjuror. Who knows
but what he may get knocked on the head as
he is looking on with his wicked one eye ; and
then there will be an end of him, too, which
would be a great satisfaction!"
" Pshaw, my dear Dick ; there is no one else
I can ask but you. The Parson would argue ;
I've had enough of his arguings ; and the old
man is the last whom my own arguings could
deceive. Fiatjustitia."
" Don't, Sir, don't ; you are breaking my
heart I — 'tis a shame, Sir," sobbed the poor
faithful rebel.
" Well, Dick, then I must see it done myself;
and you shall go on first to Sorrento, and hire
some villa to suit us. I don't see why Lionel
should not be married next week; then the
house will be clear. And — yes — it was cow-
ardlv in me to shrink. Mine be the task.
298
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
Shame on me to yield it to another. Go back
to thy flute, Dick.
" 'Neque tibias
Euterpe cohibet, nee Polyhymnia
Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton!'"
At that last remorseless shaft from the Hora-
tian quiver, " Venenatis gravida sagittis," Fair-
thorn could stand ground no longer ; there was
a shamble — a plunge — and once more the man
was vanished.
CHAPTER YIU.
The Flute-player shows how little Music hath power to
soothe the savage breast — of a Musician.
Fairthorn found himself on the very spot in
which, more than five years ago, Lionel, stung
by Fairthorn's own incontinent prickles, had
been discovered by Darrell. There he threw
himself on the ground, as the boy had done ;
there, like the boy, he brooded moodily, bitter-
ly — sore with the world and himself. To that
letter, written on the day that Darrell had so
shocked him, and on which letter he had count-
ed as a last forlorn-hope, no answer had been
given. In an hour or so Lionel would arrive ;
those hateful nuptials, dooming Fawley as the
nuptials of Taris and Helen had doomed Troy,
would be finally arranged. In another week
the work of demolition would commence. He
never meant to leave Darrell to superintend
that work. Xo ; grumble and refuse as he
might till the last moment, he knew well enough
that, when it came to the point, he, Richard
Fairthorn, must endure any torture that could
save Guy Darrell from a pang. A voice comes
singing low through the grove — the patter of
feet on the crisp leaves. He looks up ; Sir
Isaac is scrutinizing him gravely — behind Sir
Isaac, Darrell's own doe, led patiently by So-
phy — yes, lending its faithless neck to that fe-
male criminal's destroying hand. He could not
bear that sight, which added insult to injury.
He scrambled up — darted a kick at Sir Isaac —
snatched the doe from the girl's hand, and
looked her in the face {her — not Sophy, but the
doe) with a reproach that, if the brute had not
been lost to all sense of shame, would have cut
her to the heart ; then, turning to Sophy, he
said, " Xo, Miss! I reared this creature — fed
it with my own hands, Miss. I gave it up to
Guy Darrell, Miss; and you sha'n't steal this
from him whatever else you may do, Miss."
SopH\\ "Indeed, Mr. Fairthorn. it was for
Mr. Darrell's sake that I wished to make friends
with the doe — as you would with poor Sir Isaac,
if you would but try and like me — a little, only
a very little, Mr. Fairthorn."
Fairthorn. " Don't I"
Sophy. "Don't what ? I am so sorry to see I
have annoyed you somehow. You have not
been the same person to me the last two or
three days. Tell me what I have done wrong ;
scold me, but make it up."
Fairthorn. " Don't hold out your hand to
me ! Don't be smiling in ray face I I don't
choose it ! Get out of my sight ! You are
standing between me and the old house — rob-
bing me even of my last looks at the home which
you— "
Sophy. " Which I— what ?"
Fairthorn. "Don't, I say, don't — don't
tempt me. You had better not ask questions —
that's all. I shall tell you the truth ; I know I
shall ; my tongue is itching to tell it. Please to
walk on."
Despite the grotesque manner and astound-
ing rudeness of the flute-player, his distress of
mind was so evident — there was something so
genuine and earnest at the bottom of bis ludi-
crous anger — that Sophy began to feel a vague
presentiment of evil. That she was the myste-
rious cause of some great suifering to this strange
enemy, whom she had unconsciously provoked,
was clear ; and she said, therefore, with more
gravity than she had before evinced,
" Mr. Fairthorn, tell me how I have incurred
your displeasure. I entreat you to do so ; no
matter how painful the truth may be, it is due
to us both not to conceal it."
A ray of hope darted through Fairthorn's en-
raged and bewildered mind. He looked to the
right — he looked to the left ; no one near. Re-
leasing his hold on the doe, he made a side-
long dart toward Sophy, and said, " Hush ! do
you really care what becomes of-Mr. Darrell ?"
" To be sure I do."
" You would not wish him to die broken-
hearted in a foreign land — that old house level-
ed to the ground, and buried in the lake ? Eh,
Miss— eh ?"
"How can you ask me such questions ?" said
Sophy, faintly. " Do speak plainly, and at
once."
" Well, I will, Miss, I believe you are a good
young lady, after all — and don't wish really to
bring disgrace upon all who want to keep you
in the dark, and — "
"Disgrace!" interrupted Sophy; and her
pure spirit rose, and the soft blue eye flashed a
ray like a shooting-star.
"No, I am sure you would not like it; and
some time or other you could not help knowing,
and you would be very soriy for it. And that
boy, Lionel, who was as proud as Guy Darrell
himself when I saw him last (prouder, indeed)
— that he should be so ungrateful to his bene-
factor! And, indeed, the day may come when
he may turn round on }ou, or on the lame old
gentleman, and say he has been disgraced.
Should not wonder at all ! Young folks, when
thev are sweet-hearting, only talk about roses,
and angels, and such like ; but when husbands
and wives fall out, as they always do sooner or
later, they don't mince their words then, and
they just take the sharpest thing that they can
find at their tongue's end. So you may depend
on it, my dear Miss, that some day or other that
young Haughton will say ' that you lost him the
old Manor House and the old Darrell name,' and
have been his disgrace ; that's the verj- word,
Miss ; I've heard husbands and wives say it to
each other over and over again."
Sophy. "Oh, Mr. Fairthorn, Mr. Fairthorn!
these horrid words can not be meant for me. I
will go to Mr. Darrell — I will ask him how I
can be a dis — " Her lips could not force out
the word.
FAiRTHonN. "Ay; go to Mr. Darrell, if you
please. He will deny it all ; he will never speak
to me again. I don't care — I am reckless. But
it is not the less true that you make him an ex-
ile because you may make me a beggar."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
299
SoFHT {ivringing her liands). " Have you no
ni?rcy, Mr. Fiiirthorn ? Will you not explain ?"
Fairthoun. "Yes, ifyou will promise to keep
it secret at least for the next six mouths — any
thintj; for breathing time."
yoPHY (iiujHitieiUlt/). "I promise, I promise!
s])eak, sj)eak !"
Andtiien Fairtliorn did speak ! He did speak
of Jasper Losely — his character — his debase-
ment — even of his midnight visit to her host's
chamber. He did speak of the child fraudu-
lently sought to be thrust on Darrell — of Dar-
rell's just indignation and loathing. The man
was merciless , though he had not an idea of
the anguish he was mfiictiug, he was venting his
own anguish. All the mystery of her past life
became clear at once to the unhappy girl — all
that had been kept from her by protecting love.
All her vague conjectures now became a dread-
ful certainty ; — explained now why Lionel had
fl^d her — why he had written that letter, over
the contents of which she had pondered, with
lier finger on her lip, as if to iuish her own
sighs — all, all ! She marry Lionel now ! im-
possible ! She bring disgrace upon him, in re-
turn for such generous, magnanimous affection !
She drive his benefactor, her graudsire's vindi-
cator, from his own hearth ! Slie — she — that
Sophy who, as a mere infant, had recoiled from
the thought of playful subterfuge and tamper-
ings with plain honest truth i bhe rose before
Fairthorn had done; indeed the tormentor, left
to himself, would not have ceased till nightfall.
"Fear not, Mr Fairthorn," she said, reso-
hitely, " Mr. Darrell will be no exile ; his house
v.ill not be destroyed. Lionel Ilaughton shall
not wed the child of disgrace ! Fear not, Sir ;
all is safe !"
She shed not a tear; nor was there writ on
her countenance that CHANGE, speaking of blight-
ed hope, which had passed over it at her young
lover's melancholy farewell. No, now she was
supported — now there was a virtue by the side
of a sorrow— now love was to shelter and save
the beloved from disgrace — from disgrace ! At
that thought disgrace fell harmless from herself
as the rain from the plumes of a bird. She
passed on, her cheek glowing, her form erect.
By the porch door she met Waife and the
Morleys. With a kind of wild impetuosity she
seized the old man"s arm, and drew it fondly,
chngingly within her. own. Henceforth they
two were to be, as in years gone by, all in all
to each other. George Morley eyed her coun-
tenance in thoughtful surprise. " Mrs. Morley,
bent as usual on saying something seasonably
kind, burst into a eulogium on her brilliant col-
or. So they passed on toward the garden side
of the house. Wheels — tlie tramp of hoofs, full
gallop; and George Morley, looking up, ex-
claimed, '"Ha! here comes Lionel! — and see,
Darrell is hastening out to -welcome him!"
CHAPTER IX.
The letter on which Richard Fairthorn relied for the de-
feat of the conapiracy against Fawley Manor House.
Bad aspects for Houses. The House of Vipont is threat-
ened. A Physician attempts to medicine to a mind dis-
eased. A strange communication, which Lurries the
reader on to the next Chapter.
It has been said that Fairthorn had committed
to a certain letter his last desperate ho]^e that
something might yet save Fawley from demoli-
tion, and himself and his master from an exile's
home in that smiling nook of earth to which
Horace invited Septimius, as uniting the ad-
vantages of a mild climate, excellent mutton,
ca])ital wine; and affording to Septimius the
prospective privilege of sprinkling a tear over
the cinder of his poetical friend while the cinder
was yet warm ; inducements which had no charm
at all to Fairthorn, who was quite satisfied with
the Fawley Southdowns — held in just horror all
wishy-washy light wines — and had no desire to
see Darrell reduced to a cinder for the pleasure
of sprinkling that cinder with a tear.
The letter in question was addressed to Lady
Montfort. LTnscrupulously violating the sacred
confidence of his master, the treacherous wretch,
after accusing her in language little more con-
sistent with the respect due to the fair sex than
that which lie had addressed to Sophy, of all the
desolation that the ]jerfidious nuptials of Caro-
line Lyndsay had brought upon Guy Darrell, de-
clared that the least Lady Montfort could do to
repair the wrongs inflicted by Caroline Lyndsay,
was — not to pity his master! — that her pity was
killing him. He repeated, with some grotesque
comments of his own, but on the whole not in-
accurately, what Darrell had said to him on the
subject of her pity. He then informed her
of Darrell's consent to Lionel's marriage with
Sophy ; in which criminal esjiousals it was clear,
from Darrell's words, that Lady Montfort had
had some nefarious share. In the most lugu-
brious colors he brought before her the conse-
quences of that marriage — the extinguished
name, the demolished dwelling-place, the re-
nunciation of native soil itself. He called upon
her, by all that was sacred, to contrive some
means to undo the terrible mischief she had
originally occasioned, and had recently helped
to complete. His epistle ended by an attempt
to conciliate and coax. He revived the image
of that wild Caroline Lyndsay to whom he had
never refused a favor; whose earliest sums he
had assisted to cast up — to whose young idea he
had communicated the elementary principles of
the musical gamut — to whom he "had played on
his flute, winter eve and summer noon, by the
hour together ; that Caroline Lyndsay who, when
a mere child, had led Guy Darrell' where she
willed, as by a thread of silk. Ah, how Fair-
thorn had leaped for joy when, eighteen years
ago, he had thought that Caroline Lyndsay was
to be the sunsjiine and delight of the house to
which she had lived to bring the cloud and the
grief! And by all these memories, Fairthorn
conjured her either to break off the marriage she
had evidently helped to bring about, or, failing
that, to convince Guy Darrell that he was not
the object of her remorseful and affectionate com-
passion !
Caroline was almost beside herself at the re-
ceipt of this letter. The picture of Guy Darrell
effacing his very life from his native land, and
destroying the last memorials of his birthright
and his home — the conviction of the influence
she still retained over his bleak and solitary ex-
istence — the experience she had already acquired
that the influence failed where she had so fond-
ly hoped it might begin to repair and to bless,
300
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
all overpowered her with emotions of yearning
tenderness and unmitigated despair. What
could she do? She could not offer herself,
again to be rejected. She could not write again,
to force her penitence upon the man who, while
acknowledging his love to be unconquered, had
so resolutely refused to see, in the woman who
had once deceived his trust — the Caroline of
old ! Alas ! if he were but under the delusion
that her pity was the substitute, and not the com-
panion of love, how could she undeceive him ?
How say — how write — " Accept me, for I love
you." Caroline Montfort had no pride of rank,
but she had pi-ide of sex ; that pride had been
called forth, encouraged, strengthened, through-
out all the years of her wedded life. For Guy
Darrell's sake, and to him alone, that pride slie
had cast away — trampled upon ; such humility
was due to him. But when the humility had
been once in vain, could it be repeated — would
it not be debasement? In the first experiment
she had but to bow to his reproach — in a second
experiment she might have but to endure his
contempt. Yet how, with her sweet, earnest,
affectionate nature — how she longed for one
more interview — one more explanation! If
chance could but bring it about ; if she had but
a pretext — a fair reason apart from any interest
of her own, to be in his presence once more!
But in a few days he would have left England
forever — his heart yet more hardened in its re-
solves by the last sacrifice to what it had so stern-
ly recognized to be a due to others. Never to
see him more — never! to know how much in
that sacrifice he was suffering now — would per-
haps suffer more hereafter, in the reaction that
follows all strain upon purpose — and yet not a
word of comfort from hex- — her who felt born to
be his comforter !
But this marriage, that cost him so much,
must that be ? Could she dare, even for his
sake, to stand between two such fair young lives
as those of Lionel and Sophy — confide to them
what Fairthorn had declared — appeal to their
generosity ? She shrunk from inflicting such
intolerable sorrow. Could it be her duty ? In
her inability to solve tliis last problem, she be-
thought herself of Albau Morley ; here, at least,
he might give advice — offer suggestion. She
sent to his house entreating him to call. Her
messenger was some hours before he found the
Colonel, and then brought back but a few hasty
lines — " Impossible to call that day. The Crisis
had come at last ! The Country, the House of
Vipont, the British Empire, were trembling in
the balance. The Colonel was engaged every
moment for the next twelve hours. He had the
present Earl of IMontfort, who was intractable
and stupid beyond conception, to see and talk
over; Carr Vipont was hard at work on the
materials for the new Cabinet — Alban was help-
ing Carr Vipont. If the House of Vipont failed
England at this moment, it would not be a Cri-
sis, but a CRASH ! The Colonel hoped to ar-
range an interview with Lady Montfort for a
minute or two the next da^^ But jjcrhaps she
would excuse him from a journey to Twicken-
ham, and drive into town to see him ; if not at
home, he would leave woi-d where he was to be
found."
By the beard of Jupiter Capitolinus, there
are often revolutions in the heart of a woman,
during which she is callous to a Crisis, and
has not even a fear for a CRASH !
The next day came George's letter to Caro-
line, with the gentle message from Darrell ; and
when Dr. F , whose apprehensions for the
state of her health Colonel Morley had by no
means exaggerated, called in the afternoon to
see the efi'ect of his last prescription, he found
her in such utter prostration of nerves and
spirits, that he resolved to hazard a dose not
much known to great ladies, viz., three grains
of plain-speaking, M'ith a minim of frightening.
"My dear lady," said he, "yours is a case in
which physicians can be of very little use. There
is something on the mind which my prescrip-
tions fail to reach ; worry of some sort — decided-
ly worry. And unless you yourself can either
cure that, or will make head against it, worry,
my dear Lady IMontfort, will end, not in con-
sumption — you are too finely formed to let worry
eat holes in the lungs — no ; but in a confirmed
aneurism of the heart, and the first sudden
shock might then be immediately fatal. The
heart is a noble organ — bears a gi-eat deal — but
still its endurance has limits. Heart complaints
are more common than they were ; — over-educa-
tion and over-civilization, I suspect. Very young
people are not so subject to tliem ; they have
flurry, not worry — a very dift'erent thing. A
good chronic silent grief of some years' stand-
ing, that gets worried into acute inflammation
at the age when feeling is no longer fancy,
throws out a heart-disease wliich sometimes
kills without warning, or sometimes, if the grief
be removed, will rather prolong than shorten
life, by inducing a prudent avoidance of worry
in future. There is that worthy old gentleman
who was taken so ill at Fawley, and about whom
you were so anxious ; in his case there had
certainly been chronic grief; then came acute
worry, and the heart could not get through its
duties. Fifty j'ears ago doctors would have
cried ' apoplexy !' — nowadays we know that the
heart saves the head. Well, he was more easy
in his mind the last time I saw him, and, thanks
to his temperance, and his constitutional dislike
to self-indulgence in worry, he may jog on to
eighty, in spite of the stenoscope ! Excess in
the moral emotions gives heart-disease; abuse
of the physical powers, paralysis ; — both more
common than they were — the first for your gen-
tle sex, the second for our rough one. Both,
too, lie in wait for their victims at the entrance
into middle life. I have a very fine case of pa-
ralysis now ; a man built up by nature to live to
a hundred — never saw such a splendid forma-
tion — such bone and such muscle. I would
have given Van Amburgh the two best of his
lions, and my man would have done for all three
in five minutes. All the worse for him, my
dear lady — all the worse for him. His strength
leads him on to abuse the main fountains of life,
and out jumps avenging Paralysis and fells him
to eartli with a blow. 'Tis your Hercules that
Paralysis loves ; she despises the weak invalid,
who prudently shuns all excess. And so, rny
dear lady, that assassin called Aneurism lies in
wait for" the hearts that abuse their o\yn force
of emotion ; sparing hearts that, less vital, are
thrifty in waste and supply. But you are not
listening to me ! And yet 'my patient rii.ay not
be quite unknown to your ladyship ; for in hap-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
301
pening to mention, the other day, to the lady
who attends to and nurses him, that I could not
call this mornin;:;, as I had a visit to pay to
Lady Montfort at Twickenham, she became very
anxious about you and wrote this note vvliich
she begged me to give you. She seems very
much attached to my patient — not his wife nor
his sister. She interests me ; — capital nurse —
cleverish woman too. Oh ! here is the note."
Caroline, who had given but little heed to this
recital, listlessly received the note — scarcely
looked at the address — and was about to put it
aside, wlien the good doctor, who was intent
upon rousing her by any means, said, "No, my
dear lady, I promised that I would see you read
the note ; besides, I am the most cuiuous of
men, and dying to know a little more who and
what is the writer."
Caroline broke the seal and read as follows :
" If Lady Montfort remembers Arabella Fos-
sett, and will call at Clare Cottage, Vale of
Health, Hampstead, at her ladyship's earliest
leisure, and ask for Mrs. Crane, some informa-
tion, not perhaps important to Lady Montfort,
but very important to Mr. Darrell, will be given."
Lady INIontfort startled the doctor by the
alertness with whicli she sprang to her feet and
rang the bell.
" What is it ?" asked he.
" The carriage immediatel}', cried Lady
Montfort as the servant entered.
Ah ! you are going to see the poor lady, IMrs.
Crane, eh? Well, it is a charming drive, and
just what I should have recommended. Any
exertion will do you good. Allow me ; — why
your pulse is already fifty per cent, better. Fray,
what relation is Mrs. Crane to my patient ?"
"I really don't know; pray excuse me, my
dear Dr. F ."
" Certainly ; go while the day is fine. Wrap
up; — a close carriage, mind; — and I will look
iu to-morrow."
CHAPTER X.
Wherein is insinuated the highest compliment to Wo-
man ever paid to her sex by the Author of this work.
L.4,DY Montfort has arrived at Clare Cottage.
She is shown by Bridget Greggs into a small
room upon the first floor ; folding-doors to some
other room, closely shut — evidences of sickness
in the house ; — phials on the chimney-piece — a
tray M'ith a brotli basin on the table — a sauce-
pan on the hob — the sofa one of those that serve
as a bed which sleep little visits for one who
may watch through the night over some helpless
suff'erer — a woman's shawl thrown carelessly
over its hard narrow bolster ; — all, in short, be-
traying that pathetic untidiness and discomfort
which says that a despot is in the house to
whose will order and form are subordinate; —
the imperious Tyranny of Disease establishing
itself in a life that, within those four walls, has
a value not to be measured by its worth to the
world beyond. The more feeble and helpless
the sufferer, the more sovereign the despotism
— the more submissive the servitude.
In a minute or two one of the folding-dooi's
silently opened, and as silently closed, admitting
into Lady Montfort's presence a grim woman in
iron gray.
Caroline could not, at the first glance, recog-
nize that Arabella Fossett of whose handsome,
if somewhat too strongly defined and sombre
countenance, she had retained a faithful remi-
niscence. But Arabella had still the same im-
posing manner whicli had often repressed the
gay spirits of her young pupil ; and as she now
•motioned the great lady to a seat, and placed
herself beside, an awed recollection of the school-
room bowed Cai-oline's lovely head in mute re-
spect.
Mrs. Crane. "You too are changed since I
saw you last — that was more than five years ago,
but you are not less beautiful. You can still be
loved ; you would not scare away the man whom
you might desire to save. Sorrow has its par-
tialities. Do you know that I have a cause to
be grateful to you, without any merit of your
own. In a very dark moment of my life — only
vindictive and evil passions crowding on me —
your face came across my sight. Goodness
seemed there so beautiful — and, in this face,
Evil looked so haggard ! Do not interrupt me.
I have but few minutes to spare you. Yes ; at
the sight of that face, gentle recollections rose
up. You had ever been kind to me ; and truth-
ful, Caroline Lyndsay — truthful. Other thoughts
came at the beam of that face, as other thoughts
come when a strain of unexpected music reminds
us of former days. I can not tell how, but from
that moment a something more like womanhood
than I had known for years entered into my
heart. Within that same hour I was sorely
tried — galled to the quick of my soul. Had I
not seen you before, I might have dreamed of
nothing but a stern and dire revenge. And a
purpose of revenge I did form. But it was not
to destroy — it was to save ! I resolved that the
man who laughed to scorn the idea of vows due
to me — vows to bind life to life — should yet sooner
or later be as firmly mine as if he had kept his
troth ; that my troth at least should be kept to
him, as if it had been uttered at the altar. Hush,
did you hear a moan ? — No ! He lies yonder,
Caroline Lyndsay — mine, indeed, till the grave
us do part. These hands have closed over him, '
and he rests in their clasp, helpless as an infant."
Involuntarily Caroline recoiled. But looking
into that care-worn face, there was in it so wild
a mixture of melancholy tenderness, with a re-
solved and fierce expression of triumph, that,
more impressed by the tenderness than by the
triumph, the woman sympathized with the wo-
man; and CaroHne again drew near, nearer
than before, and in her deep soft eyes pity alone
was seen. Into those eyes Arabella looked as
if spell-bound, and the darker and sterner ex-
pression in her own face gradually relaxed and
fled, and only the melancholy tenderness was
left behind. She resumed:
"I said to Guy Darrell that I would learn, if
possible, whether the poor child whom I ill-used
in my most wicked days, and whom you, it seems,
have so benignly sheltered, was the daughter of
Matilda — or, as he believed, of a yet more hate-
ful mother. Long ago I had conceived a sus-
picion that there was some ground to doubt poor
Jasper's assertion, for I had chanced to see two
letters addressed to him — one from that Gabri-
elle Desmarets, whose influence over his life had
been so baleful — in which she spoke of some
guilty plunder with which she was coming to
302
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
London, and in\-ited him again to join his for-
tunes with her own. Oh, but the cold, blood-
less villainy of the tone 1 — the ease with which
crimes for a gibbet were treated as topics for
wit I" Arabella stoj^ped — the same shudder
came over her as when she had concluded the
epistles abstracted from the dainty pocket-book.
"But in the letter were also allusions to Sophy,
to another attempt on Darrell to be made by
Gabrielle herself Nothing very clear; but a
doubt did suggest itself — ' Is she writing to him
about his own child ?' The other letter was from
the French nurse with whom Sophy had been
placed as an infant. It related to inquiries in
person, and a visit to her own house, which Mr.
Darrell had recently made ; that letter also
seemed to imply some deception, though but by
a few dubious words. At that time the chief
etfect of the suspicion these letters caused was
but to make me more bent on repairing to Sophy
my cruelties to her childhood. What if I had
been cruel to an infant who, after all, was not
the daughter of that false, false ilatiIJa Darrell !
I kept in my memory the French nurse's ad-
dress. I thought that when in France I might
seek and question her. But I lived only for one
absorbing end. Sophy was not then in danger ;
and even my suspicions as to her birth died
away. Pass on : — Guy Darrell 1 Ah, Lady
Montfort I his life has been imbittered like mine ;
but he was man, and could bear it better. He
has known, himself, the misery of broken faith,
of betrayed atfection, which he could pity so
little when its blight fell on me ; but you have
excuse for desertion — you yourself were de-
ceived : and I pardon him, for he pardoned Jas-
per, and we are fellow-sufferers. You weep I
Pardon my rudeness. I did not mean to pain
you. Try and listen calmly — I must hurry on.
On leaving Mr. Darrell I crossed to France. I
saw the nurse ; I have ascertained the truth ;
here are the proofs in this packet. I came back
— I saw Jasper Losely. He was on the eve of
seeking you. whom he had already so MTonged
— of claiming the child, or rather of extorting
money for the renunciation of a claim to one
whom you had adopted. I told him how vainly
he liad hitherto sought to fly from me. One by
one I recited the guilty schemes in which I had
bartied his purpose — all the dangers from whiLh
I had rescued his life. I commanded him to
forbear the project he had then commenced. I
told him I would frustrate that project as I had
frustrated others. Alas, alas I why is this tongue
so harsh ? — why does this face so belie the idea
of human kindness ? I did but enrage and mad-
den him ; he felt but the reckless impulse to de-
stroy the life that then stood between himself
and the objects to which he had pledged his
own self destruction. I thought I should die by
his hand. I did not quail. Ah ! the ghastly
change that came over his face — the one glance
of amaze and superstitious horror ; his arm
obeyed him not; his strength, liis limbs forsook
him ; lie fell at my feet — one side of him strick-
en dead I Hist! that is his voice — [jardon me ;"
and Arabella flitted from the room, leaving the
door ajar.
A feeble Voice, like the treble of an infirm
old man, came painfully to Caroline's ear.
" I want to turn ; help me. Why am I left
alone ? It is cruel to leave me so — cruel !"
In the softest tones to which that harsh voice
could be tuned, the grim woman apologized and
soothed.
"You gave me leave, Jasper dear. Y'ou said
it would be a relief to you to have her pardon
as well as theirs."
' ' Whose pardon ?" asked the Voice, queru-
lously.
" Caroline Lyndsay's — Lady Montfort's."
" Nonsense I What did I ever do against
her ? Oh — ah I I remember now. Don't let
me have it over agam. Y'es — she pardons me,
I suppose ! Get me my broth, and don't be
long I"
Arabella came back, closing the door; and
while she busied herself with that precious
saucepan on the hob — to which the Marchion-
ess of Montfort had become a very secondary
object — she said, looking toward Caroline from
under her iron-gray ringlets —
"You heard — he misses me! He can't bear
me out of his sight now — me, me ! You
heard I"
Meekly Lady Montfort advanced, bringing in
her hand the tray with the broth basin.
" Yes, I heard I I must not keep you ; but let
me help while I stay."
So the broth was poured forth and prepared,
and with it Arabella disappeared. She return-
ed in a few minutes, beckoned to Caroline, and
said, in a low voice —
" Come in — say you forgive him I Oh, you
need not fear him ; a babe could not fear him
now !"
Caroline followed Arabella into the sick-room.
No untidiness there ; all so carefully, thought-
fully an-anged. A pleasant room, too — with
windows looking full on the sunniest side of the
Vale of Health ; the hearth so cheerily clear,
swept so clean — the very ashes out of sight;
flowers — costly exotics — on the table, on the
mantle-piece ; the couch drawn toward the win-
dow ; and on that couch, in the gay rich dress-
ing-gown of foi-mer days, warm coverlets heaped
on the feet, snow-white pillows proppingthehead,
lay what at first seemed a vague, undistinguish-
able mass — lay, what, as the step advanced, and
the eye became more accurately searching, grew
into Jasper Losely.
Y'es ! there, too weak indeed for a babe to
fear, lay all that was left of the Strong Man !
No enemy but himself had brought him thus
low — spendthrift, and swindler, and robber of
his own priceless treasures— Health and Strength
— those grand rent-rolls of joy which Nature
had made his inheritance. As a tree that is
crumbling to dust under the gnarls of its bark,
seems, the moment ere it falls, proof against
time and the tempest ; — so, within all decayed,
stood that image of strength— so, air scarcely
stirring, it fell. " And the pitcher was broken
at the fountain ; and the wheel was broken at
the cistern. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preach-
er."
Jasper turned his dull eye toward Caroline,
as she came softly to his side, and looked at her
with a piteous gaze. The stroke that had shat-
tered the form had spared the face ; and illness
and compulsorv" abstinence from habitual stim-
ulants had taken from the aspect much of the
coarseness — whether of shape or color — that of
late years had disfigured its outline — and sup-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
303
plied the delicacy that ends with youth by the
delicacy that comes with the approach of death.
So that, in no small degree, the beauty which had
been to him so fatal a gift, was once more visi-
ble — the features growing again distinct, as wan-
ness succeeded to tiie hues of intemperance, and
emaciation to the bloated cheeks and swollen
muscle. The goddess whose boons adorn the
outward shell of the human spirit, came back
to her favorite's death-couch as she had come
to the cradle — not now as the Venus Erycina,
goddess of Smile and Jest, but as the warning
Venus Libitina, the goddess of Doom and the
Funeral.
" I'm a very poor creature," said Jasper, after
a pause. "I can't rise — I can't move without
help. Very strange I — supernatural I She al-
ways said that if I raised my hand against her,
it would fall palsied !" He turned his eye to-
ward Arabella with a glare of angry ten-or.
" She is a witch I" he said, and buried his face
in the pillow. Tears rolled down the grim wo-
man's cheek.
Lady Montfokt. " She is rather your good
ministering spirit. Do not be unkiiid to her.
Over her you have more power now than you had
when you were well and strong. She lives but
to ser\e you; command her gently."
Jasper was not proof against that sweet voice.
With difficulty he wrenched himself round, and
again looked long at Caroline Montfort, as if
the sight did him good ; then he made a sign
to Arabella, who flev.- to his side and raised
him.
"I have been a sad dog," he said, with a
mournful attempt at the old rollicking tone —
"a very sad dog — in short, a villain! But all
ladies are indulgent to villains — in fact, prefer
them. Never knew a lady who could endure ' a
good young man' — never ! So I am sure jon
■will forgive me, miss — ma'am. Who is this
lady? when it comes to forgiveness, there are
so many of them ! Oh, I remember now — your
ladyship will forgive me — 'tis all down in black
and white what I've done — Bella has it. You
see this hand — I can write with this hand — this
is not paralyzed. This is not the hand I tried
to raise against her. But, basta, hasta ! where
was I ? ]\Iy poor head 1 — I know what it is to
have a head now ! — ache, ache .' — boom, boom
— weight, weight — heavy as a church bell— hol-
low as a church bell — noisy as a church bell !
Brandy ! give me brandy, you witch \ — I mean
Bella, good Bella, give me "brandy 1"
"Not yet, Jasper dear. You are to have it
every third hour; it is not time yet, dearest;
you must attend to the doctor, and try to get
well and recover your strength. You remember
I told you how kind Lady Montfort had been
to your father, and you wished to see and thank
her."
" ]VIy father — my poor, poor father ! You've
been kind to him ! Bless you, bless you ! And
you will see him ? I want his pardon before I
die. Don't forget, and — and — "
"Poor Sophy!" said Mrs. Crane.
"Ah yes! But she's well off now, you tell
me. I can't think I have injured her. And
really girls and women are intended to be a lit-
tle useful to one. Basta, Basta.'"
" ]\Ir. Darrell— "
" Yes, yes, yes ! I forgive him, or he forgives
me ; settle it as you like. But my father's par-
don, Ladv ^lontfort, vou will get me that .'"
" I will", I will."
He looked at her again, and smiled. Ara-
bella gently let his head fall back upon the
pillow.
"Throw a handkerchief over my face," he
said, feebly, "and leave me; but be in call; I
feel sleepy." His eyes closed ; he seemed asleep
even before they stole from the room.
"You will bring his father to him?" said
Arabella, when she and Lady Montfort were
again alone. "In this packet is Jasper's con-
fession of the robbery for which that poor old
man suffered. I never knew of that before.
But you see how mild he is now! — how his
heart is changed; it is indeed changed more
than he shows; only you have seen him at the
worst — his mind wanders a little to-day ; it does
sometimes. I have a favor to ask of you. I
once heard a preacher, not many months ago ;
he affected me as no preacher ever did before.
I was told that he was Colonel Morley's nephew.
Will you ask Colonel Morley to persuade him
to come to Jasper ?"
' ' My cousin, George Morley ! He shall come,
I promise you ; so shall your poor patient's for-
giving father. Is there more I can do?"
"Xo. Explain to Mr. Darrell the reason
why I have so long delayed sending to him the
communication which he will find in the jjacket
I have given to you, and which you will first
open, reading the contents yourself — a part of
them, at least, in Jasper's attestation of his
stratagem to break off your marriage with Mr.
Darrell, may yet be of some value to you — you
had better also show the papers to Colonel Mor-
ley — he may complete the task — I had meant,
on returning to England, or before seeing ^Ir.
Darrell, to make the inquiries which you will
see are still necessary. But then came'this ter-
rible affliction! I have been able to tiiink of
nothing else but Jasper — terrible to quit the
house which contains him for an hour — only
when Dr. F. told me that he was attending you,
that you were ill and suffering, I resolved to
add to this packet Jasper's own confession. Ah,
and he gave it so readily, and went yesterday
through the fatigue of writing with such good
heart. I tell you that there is a change within
him; there is — there is ! Well, well — I resolved
to give you the packet to transmit to Mr. Dar-
rell ; for somehow or other I connected your
illness with your visit to him at Fawley !"
"My visit to Mi. Darrell!"
"Jasper saw j'ou as your carriage drove from
the park gate, not very many days since. Ah,
you change color! You have wronged that
man; repair the wrong; you have the power!"
"Alas! no," murmured Caroline, "I have
not the power."
"Pooh — he loves you still. You are not one
of those whom men "forget."
Caroline was silent, but involuntarily she low-
ered her vail. In an instant the acute sense of
the grim woman detected the truth.
"Ah! Pride — pride in both," she said. "I
understand — I dare not blame Am here. But
you — you were the injurer; you have no right
to pride ; you will see him again !"
"iSTo — never — never!" faltered Caroline, with
accents scarcely audible under her vail.
304
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
Ai-abella was silent for a moment, and Lady
Montfort rose hastily to depart.
"You will see him again, I tell you;" and
Arabella then, following her to the door —
" Stay; do you think he will die?"
"Good Heavens! Mr. Darrell?"
"No, no — Jasper Losely !"
" I hope not. What does Dr. F. say ?"
"He will not tell me. But it is not the pa-
ralysis alone ; he might recover from that — so
young still. There are other symptoms ; that
dreadful habit of stimulants. He sinks if he
has them not — they hasten death if he has.
But — but — but — He is mine, and mine only,
TO THE GKAVB NOW !"
CHAPTER XL
'' The Crisis — Public and Private.
Lady Montfort's carriage stopjjed at Col-
onel Morley's door just as Carr Vipont was
coming out. Carr, catching sight of her, bus-
tled up to the carriage Avindow.
"My dear Lady Montfort! — not seen you for
an age ! What times we live in ! How sud-
denly The Crisis has come upon us ! Sad loss
in poor dear Montfort ; no wonder you mourn
for him! Had his failings, true — who is not
mortal ? — but always voted right ; always to be
relied on in times of Crisis ! But this crotch-
ety fellow, who has so unluckily, for all but
himself, walked into that property, is the loosest
fish ! And what is a House divided against it-
self! Never was the Constitution in such peril !
— I say it deliberately ! — and here is the Head
of the Viponts humming and haaing, and ask-
ing whether Guy Darrell will join the Cabinet.
And if Guy Darrell will not, we have no more
chance of the Montfort interest than if we were
Peep-o'-Day Boys. But excuse me — I must be
oft"; every moment is precious in times of Cri-
sis. Think, if we can't form a Cabinet by to-
morrow night — only think what may happen ;
the other fellows will come in, and then — the
Deluge !"
Carr is gone to find mops and Dame Parting-
tons to stave oft' the Deluge. Colonel Morley
has obeyed Lady Montfort's summons, and has
entered the carriage. Before she can speak,
however, he has rushed into the subject of which
he himself is full. " Only think — I knew it
would be so when the moment came ; all de-
pends upon Guy Darrell ! Montfort, who seems
always in a fright lest a newspaper should fall
on his head and crush him, says that if Darrell,
whom he chooses to favor just because the news-
papers do, declines to join, the newspapers will
say the Crisis is a job! Fancy! — a job — the
Crisis ! Lord Mowbray de I'Arco and Sir Jo-
siah Snodge, who are both necessary to a united
government, but who unluckily detest each oth-
er, refuse to sit in the same Cabinet, unless
Darrell sit between — to save them, I suppose,
from the fate of the cats of Kilkenny. Sir John
Cautly, our crack county member, declares that
if Darrell does not come in, 'tis because the
Crisis is going too far! Harry Bold, our most
popular speaker, says, if Darrell stay out, 'tis a
sign that the Crisis is a retrograde movement !
In short, without Darrell, the Crisis will be a
failure, and the House of Vipont smashed —
Lady Montfort — smashed ! I sent a telegram
(oh, that I should live to see such a word intro-
duced into the English language ! — but, as Carr
says, what times these are !) to Fawley this
morning, entreating Guy to come up to town at
once. He answers by a line from Horace, which
means, ' that he will see me shot first.' I must
go down to him ; only waiting to know the re-
sult of certain negotiations as to measures. I
have but one hope. There is a measure which
Darrell always privately advocated — which he
thoroughly understands — which, placed in his
hands, would be triumjjhantly carried ; one of
those measures. Lady Montfort, which, if de-
fective, shipwreck a government; if framed as
Guy Darrell could frame it, immortalize the
minister who concocts and carries them. This
is all that Darrell needs to complete his fame
and career. This is at length an occasion to
secure a durable name in the history of his
country; let him reject it, and I shall tell him
frankly that his life has been but a brilliant
failure. Since he has not a seat in Parliament,
and usage requires the actual possession of that
qualification for a seat in the Cabinet, we must
lose his voice in the Commons. But we can
arrange that; for if Darrell will but join the
government and go to the Lords, Sir Josiah
Snodge, who has a great deal of voice and a
great deal of jealousy, will join too — head the
Vipont interests in the Commons — and speak
to the country — speak every night — and all
night too, if required. Yes ! Darrell must take
the peerage — devote himself for a year or two
to this great measure — to the consolidation of
his fame — to the redemption of the House of
Vipont — and to the Salvation of the Empire;
and then, if he please, 'solve senescentem' —
that is, he may retire from harness, and browse
upon laurels for the rest of his days !"
Colonel Morley delivered himself of this long
address without interruption from a listener in-
terested in every word that related to Guy Dar-
rell, and in every hope that could reunite hira
to the healthful activities of life.
It was now Lady Montfort's turn to speak;
though, after subjects so momentous as the
Crisis and its speculative consequences, private
aft"airs, relating to a poor little girl like Sophy —
nay, the mere private aff'airs of Darrell himself,
seemed a pitiful bathos. Lady Montfort, how-
ever, after a few words of womanly comment
upon the only part of the Colonel's discourse
which touched her heart, hastened on to de-
scribe her interview with Arabella, and the
melancholy condition of Darrell's once formi-
dable son-in-law. For that last the Colonel
evinced no more compassionate feeling than
any true Englishman, at the time I am writing,
would demonstrate for a murderous Sepoy tied
to the mouth of a cannon.
"A very good riddance!" said the Colonel,
dryly. "Great relief to Darrell, and to every
one else whom that monster tormented and
preyed on ; and with his life will vanish the
only remaining obstacle in righting poor Willy's
good name. I hope to live to collect, from all
parts of the country, Willy's old friends, and
give them a supper, at which I suppose I must
not get drunk, though I should rather like it
than not! But I interrupt you ; go on."
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT ?
305
Lady Montfort proceeded to state the sub-
stance of the papers she had perused in refer-
ence to the mystery which had been the cause
of so much disquietude and bitterness.
The Colonel stretched out his hand eagerly
for the documents thus quoted. He hurried his
eye rapidly over the contents of the first paper
he lit on, and then said, pulling out his watch,
" Well, I hare half an hour yet to spare in dis-
cussing these matters with you — may I order
your coachman to drive round the Regent's
Park ? — better than keeping it thus at my door
- — with four old maids for opposite neighbors."
The order was given, and the Colonel again re-
turned to the papers. Suddenly he looked up
• — looked full into Lady Montfort's face, with a
thoughtful, searching gaze, which made her
drop her own eyes; and she saw that he had
been reading Jasper's confession, relating to his
device for breaking off her engagement to Dar-
rell, which in her hurry and excitement she had
neglected to abstract from the other documents.
" Oh, not that paper — you are not to read that,''
she cried, quickly covering the writing with her
hand.
"Too late, my dear cousin. I have read it.
All is now clear. Lionel was right ; and I was
right, too, in my convictions though Darrell put
so coolly aside my questions when I was last at
Fawley. I am justified now in all the pains I
took to secure Lionel's marriage — in the cun-
ning cruelty of my letter to George ! Know,
Lady 2\Iontfort, that if Lionel had sacrificed his
happiness to respect for Guy's ancestor- worship,
Guy Darrell would have held himself bound in
honor never to marry again. He told me so —
told me he should be a cheat if he took any step
to rob one from whom he had exacted such an
off"ering — of the name, and the heritage for
which the offering had been made. And I then
resolved that County Guy should not thus ir-
revocably shut the door on his own happiness !
Lady Montfort, you know that this man loves
you — as, verily, I believe, never man in our
cold century loved woman — through desertion
— through change — amidst grief — amidst resent-
ment — despite pride ; dead to all other love —
shrinking from all other ties — on, constant on
— carrying in the depth of his soul to the verge
of age, secret and locked up, the hopeless pas-
sion of his manhood. Do you not see that it is
through you, and you alone, that Guy Darrell
has for seventeen years been lost to the country
he was intended "to serve and to adorn ? Do
you not feel that if he now reject this last op-
portunity to redeem years so wasted, and achieve
a fame that may indeed link his Ancestral Name
to the honors of Posterity, you, and you alone,
are the cause?"
"Alas — alas — but what can I do?"
" Do ! — ay, true. The poor fellow is old now ;
you can not care for him I — you still young, and
so unluckily beautiful! — you, for whom young
princes might vie. True; you can have no
feeling for Guy Darrell, except pity!"
"Fitij! I hate the word!" cried Lady Mont-
fort, with as much petulance as if she had still
been the wayward lively Caroline of old.
Again the Man of the World directed toward
her face his shrewd eyes, and dropped out,
" See him I"
"But I ha"\'e seen him. You remember I
U
went to plead for Lionel and Sophy — in
vain !"
"Not in vain. George Avrites me word that
he has informed you of DarrelFs consent to
their marriage. And I am much mistaken if
his greatest consolation in the pang that con-
sent must have cost him is not the thought that
it relieves you from the sorrow and remorse his
refusal had occasioned to you. Ah! there is
but one person who can restore Dan-ell to the
world — and that is yourself!"
Lady Montfort shook her head drearily.
'"If I had but an excuse — with dignity— with
self-respect — to — to — "
"An excuse! You have an absolute neces-
sity to communicate with DaiTell. You have
to give to him these documents — to explain how
you came by them. Sophy is with him ; you
are bound to see her on a subject of such vital
importance to herself. Scruples of prudervM
You, Caroline Lyndsay, the friend of his daugh-
ter — you whose childhood was reared in his
very house — you whose mother owed to him
such obligations — you to scruple in being the
first to acquaint him with information afl^ecting
him so nearly ! And why, forsooth ? Because,
ages ago, your hand was, it seems, engaged to
him, and you were deceived by false appear-
ances, like a silly young girl as you were."
Again Lady Moiotfort shook her head dreari-
ly — drearily.
" Well," said the Colonel, changing his tone,
" I will grant that those former ties can't be re-
newed now. The man now is as old as the hills,
and you had no right to expect that he would
have suffered so much at being veiy naturally
jilted for a handsome young Marquis."
"Cease, Sir, cease !" cried Caroline, angrily.
The Colonel coolly persisted.
" I see now that such nuptials are out of the
question. But has the world come to such a
pass that one can never at any age have a friend
in a lady unless she marry him? Scruple to
accompany me — me, your cousin — me, your
nearest sur^-iving relation — in order to take
back the young lady you have virtually adopt-
ed! — scruple to trust yourself for half 'an hour
to that tumble-down old Fawley! Are you
afraid that the gossips will say yon, the Mar-
chioness of Montfort, are running after a gloomv
old widower, and scheming to be mistress of a
mansion more like a ghost-trap than a residence
for civilized beings ? Or are you afraid that Guy
Darrell will be fool and fop enough to think you
are come to force on him your hand? Pooh,
pooh ! Such scruples would be in place if j-ou
were a portionless, forward girl ; or if he Mere
a conceited young puppy, or even a suspicious
old roue. But Guy Darrell — a man of his sta-
tion, his character, his years ! And }ou, cousin
Caroline, what are you? Surely, lifted above
all such pitiful crotchets by a rank among the
loftiest gentlewomen of England; — ample for-
tune, a beauty that in itself is rank and wealth :
and, above all, a character that has passed with
venerated purity through that ordeal in which
every eye seeks a spot, every ear invites a'scan-
dal. But as you will. All I say is, that Dar-
rell's future may be in your hands ; that, aftc r
to-morrow, the occasion to give at least noble
occupation and lasting renown to a mind that is
devouring itself and stifling its genius, may be
306
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
irrevocably lost ; aud that I do believe, if you
said to-morrow to Guy Darrell, ' You i-efused to
hear rlie when I pleaded for wliat you thought a
disgrace to your name, and yet even that you
at last conceded to the voice of affection as if of
duty — now hear me when I plead by the side
of your oldest friend on behalf of your honor,
and in the name of your forefathers' — if tou say
THAT, he is won to his country. You will have
repaired a wrong ; and, pray, will you have com-
promised your dignity ?"
Caroline had recoiled into the corner of the
carriage, her mantle close drawn round her
breast, her vail lowered ; but no sheltering garb
or vail could conceal her agitation.
The Colonel pulled the check-string. "No-
thing so natural ; you are the widow of the
Head of the House of Vipont. Y'ou are, or
ought to be, deeply interested in its fate. An
awful Ckisis, long expected, has occurred. The
House trembles. A connection of that House
can render it an invaluable service ; that con-
nection is the man at whose hearth your child-
hood was reared ; and you go with me — me,
who am known to be moving heaven and earth
for every vote that the House can secure, to
canvass this wavering connection for his sup-
port and assistance. Nothing, I say, so natu-
ral ; and yet you scruple to serve the House of
Vipont — to save your country ! Y'ou may well
be agitated. I leave you to your own reflec-
tions. ]My time runs short ; I will get out here.
Trust me with these documents. I will see to
the rest of this long painful subject. I will send
a special report to you this evening, and you
will reply by a single line to the prayer I have
ventured to address to you."
CHAPTER XU., AND LAST.
In which the Author endeavors, to the best of his abili-
ty, to give a final reply to the question, "What will
lie do with it?"
Scene — The banks of the lake at Fawley.
George is lending his arm to Waife ; Sirs. Mor-
ley, seated on her camp-stool, at the opposite
side of the water, is putting the last touch to
her sketch of the Manor House ; Sir Isaac, re-
clined, is gravely contemplating the swans ; the
doe, bending over him, occasionally nibbles his
ear; Fairthorn has uncomfortably edged liim-
self into an angle of the building, between two
buttresses, and is watching, with malignant eye,
two young forms, at a distance, as they move
slowly yonder, side by side, yet apart, now lost,
now emerging, through the gaps between mel-
ancholy leafless trees. Dai-rell, having just
quitted Waife and George, to whose slow pace
he can ill time his impatient steps, wonders why
Lionel, whom, on arriving, he had, ^ith brief
cordial words, referred to So])hy for his fate, has
taken more than an hour to ask a simple ques-
tion, to which the reply may be pretty mcII
knowii beforehand. He advances toward those
melancholy trees. Suddenly one young form
leaves the other — comes with rapid stride
through the withered fern. Pale as death Li-
onel seizes Guy Darrell's hand with convulsive
grasp, and says, ' ' I must leave you, Sir. God
bless you ! All is over. I was the blindest fool
— she refuses me !"
"Refuses you! — impossible! For what rea-
son?"
" She can not love me well enough to marry,"
answered Lionel, with a quivering lip, and an
attempt at that irony in which all extreme an-
guish, at least in our haughty sex, delights to
seek refuge or disguise. " Likes me as a friend,
a brother, and so forth, but nothing more. All
a mistake. Sir — all, except your manelous kind-
ness to me — to her — for which Heaven ever bless
you !"
"Yes, all a mistake of yom* own, foolish boy,"
said Darrell, tenderly ; and, turning sharp, he
saw Sophy hastening by, quickly and firmly,
with her eyes looking sti-aightward — on into
space. He threw himself in her path.
" Tell this dull kinsman of mine that ' faint
heart never won fair lady.' You do not mean
serious!}', deliberately, to reject a heart that will
never be faint with a meaner fear than that of
losing you?"
Poor Sophy ! She kept her blue eyes still
on the cold gray space, and answered by some
scarce audible words — words which in every age
girls intending to say No seem to learn as birds
learn their song — no one knows who taught
them, but they are ever to the same tune.
" Sensible of the honor" — " Grateful" — " Some
one more worthy" — etc., etc.
Darrell checked this embarrassed jargon.
"My question, young lady, is solemn; it in-
volves the destiny of two lives. Do voti mean
to say that you do not love Lionel Ilaughton
well enough to give him your hand, and return
the true faith which is pledged with his own?"
"Yes," said Lionel, who had gained the side
of his kinsman: "yes, that is it. Oh Sophy —
Ay or No ?"
"No!" fell from her pale, firm lips — and in
a moment more she was at AYaife's side, and
had drawn him away from George. "Grand-
father, grandfather! — home, home; let us go
home at once, or I shall die !"
Darrell has kept his keen sight upon her
movements — upon her countenance. He sees
her gesture — her look — as she now clings to
her grandfather. The blue eyes are not now
coldly fixed on level air, but raised upward, as
for strength from above. The young face is
sublime with its woe, and with its resolve.
"Noble child!" muttered Darrell. "I think
I see into her heart. If so, poor Lionel indeed !
My pride has j-ielded, hers never will !"
Lionel, meanwhile, kept beating his foot on
the ground, and checking indignantly the tears
that sought to gather to his eyes. Darrell threw
his arm round tlie young man's shoulder, and
led him gently, slowly away, by the barbed
thorn-tree — on by the moss-grown crags.
Waife, meanwhile, is bending his ear to So-
phy's lip. The detestable Fairthorn emerges
from between the buttresses, aud shambles up to
George, thirsting to hear his hopes confirmed,
and turning his face back to smile congratula-
tion on the gloomy old house that he thinks he
has saved from the lake.
Sophy has at last convinced Waife that his
senses do not deceive him, nor hers wander.
She has said, "Oh, grandfather, let us ever hence-
forth be all in all to each other. You are not
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
307
ashamed of me — I am so proud of you. But
there are others akin to me, grandfather, whom
we will not mention ; and vou would be ashamed
of me if I brought disgrace on one who would
confide to me his name, his honor ; and should
I be as proud of you, if you asked me to do
it ?"
At these words Waife understands all, and
he has not an argument in reply ; and he suffers
Sophy to lead him toward the house. Yes, they
will go hence — yes, there shall be no schemes
of marriage I They had nearly reached the
door when the door itself opened violently, and
a man rushing forth caught Sophy in his arms,
and kissed her forehead, her cheek, with a heart-
iness that it is well Lionel did not witness I
Speechless and breathless with resentment, So-
phy struggled, and in vain, when Waife, seizing
the man by the collar, swung him away with a
'•How dare you, Sir?" that was echoed back
from the hillocks — stmimoned Sir Isaac at full
gallop from the lake — scared Fairthorn back to
his buttresses — roused Mrs. Morley from her
sketch — and, smiting the ears of Lionel and
Darrell, hurried them, mechanically as it were,
to the spot from which that thunder-roll had
pealed.
'• How dare I ?" said the man, resettling the
flow of his disordSred coat — "How dare I kiss
my own niece ? — my own sister's orphan child ?
Venerable Bandit, I have a much better right
than you have. Oh my dear injured Sophy, to
think that I was ashamed of your poor cotton
print — to think that to your pretty face I have
been owing fame and fortune — and you, you
wandering over the world — child of the sister
of whose beauty I was so proud — of her for
whom, alas in vain ! I painted Watteaus and
Greuzes upon screens and fans !" Again he
clasped her to his breast ; and "Waife this time
stood mute, and Sophy passive — for the man's
tears were raining upon her face, and washed
away eveiy blush of shame as to the kiss they
hallowed.
"But where is my old friend William Lose-
ly? — where is Willy?" said another voice, as a
tall thin personage stepped out from the hall,
and looked poor Waife unconsciously in the
face.
"Alban Morley!" faltered Waife; you are
bat little changed!"
The Colonel looked again, and in the elderly,
lame, one-eyed, sober-looking man, recognized
the wild, jovial Willy, who had tamed the most
nnruly fillies, taken the most frantic leaps, car-
oled forth the blithest song — madcap, good fel-
low, frolicsome, childlike darling of gay and
grave, young and old !
'"Eheu, fiigaces, Postnine, Postume,
Labuntur anni,' "
said the Colonel, insensibly imbibing one of
those Horatian particles that were ever floating
in that classic atmosphere — to Darrell medic-
inal, to Fairthorn morbific. '• Years slide away,
Willy, mutely as birds skim through air; but
when friend meets with friend lifter absence,
each sees the print of their crow's-feet on the
face of the other. But we are not too old yet,
Willy, for many a meet — at the fireside ! No-
thing ebe in our studs, we can still mount our
hobbies ; and thorough-bred hobbies contrive to
be in at the death. But yon are waiting to
learn by what title and name this stranger lavs
claim to so peerless a niece. Know then — Ah
here comes Danell. Guy Darrell. in this voun^
lady you will welcome the grandchild of Sidney
Branthwaite, our old Eton school friend, a gen-
tleman of as good blood as any in the land!"
"Xone better," cried Fairthorn, who has
sidled himself into the group; " there's a note
on the Branthwaite genealogy, Sir, in vour fa-
ther's great work upon ' Monumental Brasses.' "
" Permit me to conclude, Mr. Fairthorn," re-
sumed the Colonel ; '• Monumental Brasses are
painful subjects. Yes DaiTell, yes Lionel ; this
fair creature, whom Lady Mon'tfort might well
desire to adopt, is the daughter of" Arthur
Branthwaite, by man-iage with the sister of
Frank Vance, v.hose name I shrewdly suspect
nations will prize, and whose works princes will
hoard, when many a long genealogy, all blazoned
in azure and or, will have left not a scrap for
the moths."
"Ah !" murmured Lionel, " was it not I, So-
phy, who taught you to love your father's gen-
ius I Do you not remember how, as we bent
over his volume, it seemed to translate to us
our own feelings ? — to draw us nearer together?
He was speaking to us from his grave."
Sophy made no answer ; her face was hidden
on the breast of the old man, to whom she still
clung closer and closer.
" Is it so ? Is it certain ? Is there no doubt
that she is the child of these honored parents?"
asked Waife, tremulously.
'■ Xone," answered Alban ; " we bring with
us proofs that will clear up all my story."
The old man bowed his head over Sophv's
fair locks for a moment ; then raised it, serene
and dignified ; " You are mine for a moment
yet, Sophy," said he.
" Yours as ever — more fondly, gratefully than
ever," cried Sophy.
" There is but one man to whom I can will-
ingly yield you. Son of Charles Haughton, take
my treasure."
"I consent to that," cried Vance, "though
I am put aside like a Remorseless Baron. And,
Lionello mio, if Frank Vance is a miser, so
much the better for his niece."
" But," faltered Lionel.
Oh, falter not. Gaze into those eves ; read
that blush now ! She looks coy, not "reluctant.
She bends before him — adorned as for love, by
all her native graces. Air seems brightened by
her bloom. Xo more the Outlaw-Child of Ig-
nominy and Fraud, but the Starry Daughter of
Poetry a>t> Art I Lo, where they glide away
under the leafless, melancholy trees. Leafless
and melancholy I Xo! Verdure and blossom
and the smile of spring are upon even* bough.
"I suppose," said Alban, "it will not now
break Lionel's heart to learn that not an hour
before I left London I heard from a friend at
the Horse Guards that it has been resolved to
substitute the regiment for Lionel's ; and
it will be for some time yet, I suspect, that he
must submit to be ingloriously happy. Come
this way, George ; a word in your ear." And
Alban, drawing his nephew aside, told him of
Jasper's state, and of Arabella's request. " Xot
a word to-day on these mournful topics to poor
Willy. To-day let nothing add to his pain to
have lost a grandchild, or dim his consolation
308
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
in the happiness and security his Sophy gains i
in that loss. But to-morrow you will go and
see this stricken-down sinner, and prepare the
father for the worst. I made a point of seeing
Dr. F. last night. He gives Jasper but a few
weeks. He compares him to a mountain, not
merely shattered by an earthquake, but burned
out by its own inward fires."
"A few weeks only," sighed Greorge. " Well,
Time, that seems every thing to man, has not
even an existence in the sight of God. To that
old man I owe the power of speech to argue, to
exhort, and to comfort ; he was training me to
kneel by the death-bed of his son!'''
" You believe," asked the Man of the World,
" in the efficacy of a death-bed repentance,
when a sinner has sinned till the power of sin-
ning be gone?"
"I believe," replied the Preacher, "that in
health there is nothing so unsafe as trust in a
death-bed repentance ; I believe that on the
death-bed it can not bs unsafe to repent!"
Alban looked thoughtful, and George turned
to rejoin Waife, to whom Vance was narrating
the discovery of Sophy's parentage; while Fair-
thorn, as he listened, drew his flute from his
pocket, and began screwing it, impatient to vent
in delicate music what he never could have set
into words for his blundering, untunable tongue.
The Colonel joins Darrell, and hastens to un-
fold more fully the story which Vance is re-
citing to Waife.
Brief as it can, be the explanation due to the
reader.
Vance's sister had died in child-birth. The
poor young poet, unfitted to cope with penury,
his sensitive nature combined with a frame that
could feebly resist the strain of exhausting emo-
tions, disappointed in fame, despairing of for-
tune, dependent for bread on his wife's boyish
brother, and harassed by petty debts in a for-
eign land, had been fast pining away, even be-
fore an affliction to which all the rest seemed
as naught. With that atBiction he broke down
at once, and died a few days after his wife,
leaving an infant not a week old. A French
female singer, of some repute in the theatre?,
and making a provincial tour, was lodging in
the same house as the young couple. She had
that compassionate heart which is more com-
mon than prudence or very strict principle with
the tribes who desert the prosaic true world for
the light, sparkling, false one. She had assist-
ed the young couple, in their later days, witli
purse and kind offices ; had been present at the
birth of the infant — the death of the mother ;
and had promised Arthur Branthwaite that she
would take care of his child, until she could
safely convey it to his wife's relations ; while
he wept to own that they, poor as himself, must
regard such a charge as a burden.
The singer wrote to apprise Mrs. Vance of
the death of her daughter and son-in-law, and
the birth of the infant whom she undertook
shortly to send to England. But the babe,
whom, meanwhile, she took to herself, got hold
of her affections ; with that yearning for chil-
dren which makes so remarkable and almost
uniform a characteristic of French women (if
themselves childless) in the wandering Bohe-
mian class that separates them from the ordi-
nary household affections never dead in the
heart of women till womanhood itself be dead,
the singer clung to the orphan little one to
whom she was for the moment rendering the
cares of a mother. She could not bear to part
with it ; she resolved to adopt it as her own.
The knowledge of Mrs. Vance's circumstances
— the idea that the orphan, to herself a blessing,
would be an unwelcome incumbrance to its own
relations — removed every scruple from a mind
unaccustomed to suffer reflection to stand in the
way of an impulse. She wrote word to Mrs.
Vance that the child was dead. She trusted
that her letter would suffice, without other evi-
dence, to relations so poor, and who could have
no suspicion of any interest to deceive them.
Her trust was well founded. Mrs. Vance and
the boy Frank, whose full confidence and grat-
itude had been already secured to their corre-
spondent for her kind offices to the young par-
ents, accepted, without a demur or a question,
the news that the infant was no more. The
singer moved on to the next town at which she
was professionally engaged. The infant, hith-
erto brought up by hand, became ailing. The
medical adriser called in recommended the nat-
ural food, and found, in a village close by, the
nurse to whom, a little time before, Jasper Lose-
ly had consigned his own daughter. The latter
died ; the nurse then removed to Paris, to reside
with the singer, who had obtained a lucrative
appointment at one of the metropolitan thea-
tres. In less than two years the singer herself
fell a victim to a prevailing epidemic. She had
lived without thought of the morrow ; her debts
exceeded her means ; her effects were sold.
The nurse, who had meanwhile become a wid-
ow, came for advice and refuge to her sister,
was in the service of Gabrielle Desmarets. Ga-
brielle being naturally appealed to, saw the in-
fant, heard the story, looked into the statement
which, by way of confession, the singer had
dra^^"n up, and signed, in a notary's presence,
before she died ; looked into the letters from
Mrs. Vance, and the school-boy scrawls from
Frank, both to the singer and to the child's par-
ents, which the actress had carefully presened ;
convinced herself of the poverty and obscurity
of the infant's natural guardians and next of
kin ; and said to Jasper, who was just dissipat-
ing the fortune handed over to him as survivor
of his wife and child, "There is what, if well
managed, may retain your hold on a rich father-
in-law, when all else has failed. You have but
to say that this infant is his grandchild ; the
nurse we can easily bribe, or persuade to con-
firm the tale. I, whom he already knows as that
respectable baroness, your Matilda's friend, can
give to the story some probable touches. The
lone, childless man must rejoice to think that a
tie is left to him. The infant is exquisitely
pretty ; her face will plead for her. His heart
will favor the idea too much to make him very
rigorous in his investigations. Take the infant.
Doubtless in your own country you can find
some one to rear it at little or no expense, un-
til the time come for appeal to your father-in-
law, when no other claim on his purse remains."
Jasper assented with the insouciant docility bj
which he always acknowledged Gabrielle's as-
tuter intellect. He saw the nurse; it was clear
that she had nothing to gain by taking the child
to English relations so poor. They might re-
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
309
fuse to believe her, and certainly could not re-
ward. To rid herself of the infant, and obtain
the means to return to her native village with a
few hundred francs in her purse, there was no
promise she was not willing to make, no story
she was too honest to tell, no paper she was too
timid to sign. Jasper was going to London on
some adventure of his own. He took the infant
— chanced on Arabella ; — the reader knows the
rest. The indifference ever manifested by Jas-
per to a child not his own — the hardness with
which he had contemplated and planned his fa-
ther's separation from one whom he had im-
posed by false pretexts on the old man's love,
and whom he only regarded as an alien encum-
brance upon the scanty means of her deluded
protector — the fitful and desultory mode in
which (when, contrary to the reasonings which
Gabrielle had based upon a very large experi-
ence of the credulities of human nature in gen-
eral, but in utter ignorance of the nature pecu-
liar to Darrell) his first attempt at imposition
had been so scornfully resisted by his indignant
father-in-law — he had played fast and loose
with a means of extortion which, though loth to
abandon, he knew would not bear any strict in-
vestigation; — all this is now clear to the reader.
And the reader will also comprehend why, part-
ly from fear that his father might betraj- him,
partly from a compassionate unwillingness to
deprive the old man of a belief in which Will-
iam Losely said he had found such solace, Jas-
per, in his last inteiwiew ^\•ith his father, shrunk
from saying, '"but she is not your grandchild!"
The idea of recurring to the true relations of
the child naturally never entered into Jasper's
brain. He considered them to be as poor as
himself. They buy from him the child of par-
ents whom they had evidently, by their letters,
taxed themselves to the utmost, and in vain, to
save from absolute want! So wild seemed that
notion that he had long since forgotten relations
so useless existed. Fortunately the Nurse had
preserved the written statement of the singer —
the letters by ]\Irs. Vance and Frank — the cer-
tificate of the infant's birth and baptism — some
poor relics of Sophy's ill-fated parents — manu-
scripts of Arthur's poems — baby-caps with ini-
tials and armorial crests, wrought before her
confinement by the young wife— all of which
had been consigned by the singer to the nurse,
and which the nurse willingly 'disposed of to
Mrs. Crane, with her own forinal deposition of
the facts, confirmed by her sister, Gabrielle's
old confidential attendant, and who, more fa-
vored than her mistress, was living peaceablv in
the rural scenes of her earlier innocence, upon
the interest of the gains she had saved in no in-
nocent sen'ice — confirmed yet more by refer-
ences to many whose testimonies could trace,
step by step, the child's record from its birth to
its transfer to Jasper, and by the brief but dis-
tinct avowal, in tremulous lines, writ by Jasper
himself. As a skein crossed and tangled, when
the last knot is loosened, slips suddenly free, so
this long-bewildering mystery now became clear
as a commonplace! What years of suflfering
Darrell might have been saved had he himself
seen and examined the nurse — had his inqniry
been less bounded by the fear of his pride — had
the great lawyer not had himself for a client I
Darrell silently returned to Alban Morley the '
papers over which he had cast his eye as they
walked slowly to and fro the sloping banks of
the lake.
" It is well," said he, glancing fondly, as Fair-
thorn had glanced before him, toward the old
House, now freed from doom, and permitted to
last its time ; " it is well," he repeated, looking
away toward that part of the landscape where
he could just catch a glimpse of Sophy's light
form beyond the barbed thorn-tree; "it "is well,"
be repeated thrice, with a sigh. "Poor human
nature ! Alban, can you conceive it. I, who
once so dreaded that that poor child should
prove to be of my blood, now, in knowing that
she is not, feel a void, a loss ! To Lionel I am
so distant a kinsman I — to his wife, to his chil-
dren, what can I be ? A rich old man ; the
sooner he is in his grave the better. A few-
tears, and then the will ! But, as your nephew-
says, 'This life is but a school ;' the new-comer
in the last form thinks the head-boy just leaving
so old ! And to us, looking back, it seems but
the same yesterday whether we were the last
comer or the head-boy."
" I thought," said Alban, plaintively, " that,
for a short time at least, I had done with ' pain-
ful subjects.' You revel in them ! County Guy,
you have not left school yet : leave it with cred-
it ; M-in the best prize." And Alban plunged at
once into The Crisis. He grew eloquent ; the
Party, the Country, the Great IMeasure to be
intrusted to Darrell, if he would but undertake
it as a member of the Cabinet ; the Peerage,
the House of Vipont, and immortal glory ! — el-
oquent as Ulysses haranguing the son of Pelens
in Troilus and Cressida.
Darrell listened coldly ; only while Alban
dwelt on " the Measure" in which, when it was
yet too unripe for practical statesmen, he had
attached his faith as a thinker, the orator's eye
flashed with young fire. A gi-eat truth is eter-
nally clear to a great heart that has once nour-
ished its germ and foreseen its fruits. But
when Alban quitted that part of his theme all
the rest seemed wearisome to his listener.
They had now wound their walk to the opposite
side of the lake, and ]'aused near the thick
beech-trees, hallowed and saddened by such se-
cret associations to the mournful owner.
" No, my dear Alban," said Darrell, " I can not
summon up sufficient youth and freshness of
spirit to re-enter the turbulent arena I have left.
Ah ! look yonder where Lionel and Sophy move \
Give me, I do not say Lionel's years, but Lionel's
wealth of hope, and I might still have a wish
for fame and a voice for England ; but it is a
subtle truth that where a man misses a home, a
link between his country and himself is gone.
Vulgar ambition may exist — the selfish desire
of power; they were never very strong in me,
and now less strong than the desire of rest;
but that beautiful, genial, glorious union of all
the aff"ections of social citizen, which begins at
the hearth and widens round the land, is not
for the hermit's cell."
Alban was about to give up the argument in
in-itable despair, when, happening to turn his
eye toward the farther depth of the beech-
grove, he caught a glimpse — no matter what of;
but quickening his step in the direction to which
his glance had wandered, he seated himself on
the gnarled roots of a tree that seemed the
310
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
monarch of the wood, wide-spreading as that
under which Tityrus reclined of old ; and there,
out of sight of the groups on the opposite hanks
of the lake — there, as if he had sought the
gloomiest and most secret spot for what he had
yet to say, he let fall, in the most distinct yet
languid tones of his thorough- bred, cultured
enunciation, " I have a message to you from
Lady Montfort. Eestless man, do come near-
er, and stand still. I am tired to death." Dar-
rell approached, and, leaning against the trunk
of the giant tree, said, with folded arms and
compressed lips,
" A message from Lady ^lontfort !"
" Yes. I should have told you, by-the-hy,
that it was she who, being a woman, of course
succeeded where I, being a man, despite in-
credible pains and trouble, signally failed, dis-
covered Arabella Fossett, alias Crane, and ob-
tained from her the documents which free your
life forever from a haunting and torturing fear.
I urged her to accompany me hither, and place
the documents herself in }our hand. She re-
fused ; j'ou were not worth so much trouble, my
dear Gu3\ I requested her at least to sufl'er me
to show to you a paper containing Jasper Lose-
ly's confession of a conspiracy to poison her
mind against you some years ago— a conspiracy
so villainously ingenious that it would have com-
pletely exonerated any delicate and proud young
girl from the charge of fickleness in yielding to
an impulse of pique and despair. But Lady
Montfort did not wish to be exonerated; your
good opinion has ceased to be of the slightest
value to her. But to come to the point. She
bade me tell you that if yoa persist in shelter-
ing yourself in a hermit's cell from the fear of
meeting her — if she be so dangerous to your
peace — you may dismiss such absurd apprehen-
sion. She is going abroad ; and, between you
and me, my dear fellow, I have not a doubt
that she %vill marry again before six months are
out. I spoke of your sufferings ; she told me
she had not the smallest compassion for them."
"Alban Morley, you presumed to talk thus
of me?" cried Darrell, livid with rage.
" Strike, but hear me. It is true you would
not own, when I was last at Fawley, that she
was the cause of your secluded life, of your
blighted career : but I knew better. However,
let me go on before you strangle me. Lady
Alontfort's former feelings of friendship for you
are e^"idently quite changed; and she charged
me to add that she really hoped that you would
exert your good sense and pride (of which Heav-
en knows you have plenty) to eradicate an ab-
surd and romantic sentiment, so displeasing to
her, and so — "
"It is false ! it is false ! What have I done
to you, Colonel Morley, that you should slander
me thus ? / send you messages of taunt and
insult, Mr. Darrell! I — /.' — you can not be-
lieve it — you can not I"
Caroline Montfort stood between the two, as
if she had dropped from heaven.
A smile, half in triumph, half in irony, curved
the lip of the fine gentleman. It faded instant-
ly as his eye turned from the face of the earn-
est woman to that of the earnest man. Alban
Morley involuntarily bowed his head, murmur-
ed some words, unheard, and passed from the
place, unheeded.
Not by concert nor premeditation was Caro-
line Montfort on that spot. She had consent-
ed to accompany her cousin to Fawley, but be-
fore reaching the park-gates her courage failed
her; she would remain within the carriage;
the Colonel, wanted in London as soon as pos-
sible, whatever the result of his political mis-
sion to Darrell, could not remain long at Faw-
ley ; she would return with him. Vance's jjres-
ence and impatient desire to embrace his niece
did not allow the Colonel an occasion for argu-
ment and parley. Chafed at this fresh experi-
ence of the capricious uncertainty of woman, he
had walked on with Vance to the ilanor House.
Left alone, Caroline could not endure the still-
ness and inaction which increased the tumult
of her thoughts ; she would at least have one
more look — it might be the last — at the scenes
in which her childhood had sported — her youth
known its first happy dreams. But a few yards
across those circumscribed demesnes, on through
those shadowy, serried groves, and she should
steal, unperceived, in view of the house, the be-
loved lake — perhaps even once more catch a
passing glimpse of the owner. She resolved,
she glided on, came ; she gained the beech-
grove, when, by the abrupt wind of the banks,
Darrell and Alban came suddenly on the very
spot. The flutter of her robe, as she turned to
retreat, caught Alban's eye ; the reader com-
prehends with what wily intent, conceived on
the moment, that unscrupulous intriijant shaped
the words that chained her footstep, and then
stung her on to self-disclosure. Trembling and
blushing, she now stood before the startled man
— he, startled out of every other sentiment and
feeling than that of inefl;able, exquisite delight
to be once more in her presence ; she, after her
first passionate outburst, hastening on, in con-
fused, broken words, to explain that she was
there but by accident — by chance; confusion
growing deeper and deeper — how explain the
motive that had charmed her steps to the spot ?
Suddenly from the opposite bank came the
music of the magic flute, and her voice as sud-
denly stopped and failed her.
" Again — again," said Darrell, dreamily.
" The same music! the same air I and this the
same place on which we two stood together when
I first dared to say, ' I love !' Look, we are un-
der the very tree ! Look, there is the date I
caiwed on the bark when you were gone, but
had left Hope behind. Ah! Caroline, why can
I not now resign myself to age ? Why is youth,
while I speak, rushing back into my heart, into
my soul ? Wliy can not I say, ' Gratefully I ac-
cept your tender friendship ; let the past be for-
gotten ; through what rests to me of the future
while on earth, be to me as a child ?' I can not
— I can not I Go !"
She drew nearer to him, gently, timidly.
"Even that, Darrell — even that; something in
your life — let me be something still!"
"Ay," he said with melancholy bitterness,
"you deceive me no longer now! You own
that, when here we stood last, and exchanged
our troth, you in the blossom, and I in the prime,
of life — you own that it was no woman's love,
deaf to all calumny, proof to all craft that could
wrong the absent ; no woman's love, warm as
the heart, undying as the soul, that you pledged
me then.'^- — ^
WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?
311
"Darrell, it was not — though then I thought
it was."
"Ay, ay," he continued with a smile, as if
of triiimpii in his own pangs, "so that truth is
confessed at last ! And when, once more free,
you wrote to me the letter I returned, rent in
fragments, to your hand — or when, forgiving
my rude outrage and fierce reproach, you spoke
to me so gently yonder, a few weeks since, in
these lonely shades, then what were your sen-
timents, your motives? Were they not those
of a long-suppressed and kind remorse? — of a
charity akin to that which binds rich to poor,
bows happiness to suffering? — some memories
of gratitude — nay, perhaps of childlike affec-
tion? — all amiable, all generous, all steeped in
that sweetness of nature to which I unconscious-
ly rendered justice in the anguish I endured in
losing you ; but do not tell me that even then
you were under the influence of woman's
love."
" Darrell, I was not."
"You own it, and you suffer me to see you
again I Trifler and cruel one, is it but to en-
joy the sense of yom' undiminished, unalterable
power?"
" Alas, Darrell I alas ! why am I here ? — ^vhy
so yearning, yet so afraid to come ? Why did
my heart fail when these trees rose in sight
against the sky ? — why, why — why was it drawn
hither by the spell I could not resist? Alas,
Darrell, alas I I am a woman noiv — and — and
this is — " She lowered her vail and turned
away ; her lips could not utter the word, because
the word was not pity, not remorse, not remem-
brance, not even affection ; and the woman
loved now too well to subject to the hazard of
rejection — Love !
" Stay, oh stay !" cried Darrell. "Oh that I
could dare to ask you to complete the sentence I
I know — I know by the mysterious sympathy of
my own soul, that you could never deceive me
more ! Is it — is it — " His lips falter too ; but
her hand is clasped in his ; her head is reclined
upon his breast ; the vail is withdrawn from the
sweet downcast face ; and softly on her ear steal
the murmured words, " Again and now, till the
grave — Oh, by this hallowing kiss, again — the
Caroline of old I"
Fuller and fuller, spreading, wave after wave,
throughout the air, till it seem interfused and
commingled with the bi-eath which the listeners
breathe, the flute's mellow gush streams along.
The sun slopes in peace toward the west ; not a
cloud in those skies, clearer seen through yon
boughs stripped of leaves, and rendering more
vivid the evergreen of the arbute and laurel.
I^ionel and Sophy are now seated on yon
moss-gro-mi trunk ; on either side the old gray-
haired man, as if agreeing for a while even to
forget each other, that they may make Mm feel
how fondly he is remembered. Sophy is resting
both her hands on the old man's shoulder, look-
ing into his face," and murmuring in his ear with
voice like the coo of a happy dove. Ah ! fear
not, Sophy ; he is happy too — he, who never
thinks of himself. Look — the playful smile
round his arch lips ; look — now he is showing
oft' Sir Isaac to Vance ; with austere solemnity
the dog goes through his tricks ; and Vance,
with hand stroking his chin, is moi'alizing on all
that might have befallen had he grudged his
three pounds to that famous ixvestment !
Behind that group, shadowed by the Thorn-
tree, stands the Preachee, thoughtful and
grave, foreseeing the grief that must come to
the old man with the morrow, when he will
learn that a guilty son nears his end, and wiU
hasten to comfort Jasper's last days with pardon.
But the Preacher looks not down to the death-
couch alone ; on and high over death looks the
Preacher I By what words heavenly mercy may
lend to his lips shall he steal away, yet in time,
to the soul of the dying, and justifv murmurs
of hope to the close of a life so dark with the
shades of its past ? And to him, to the Preacher,
they who survive — the two mourners — will come
in their freshness of soitow ! He the old man ?
Nay to him there will be comfort. His spirit
Heaven's kindness had tempered to trials ; and,
alas ! for that son, what could fiither hope more
than a death free from shame, and a chance
yet vouchsafed for repentance? But she, the
grim, iron-gray woman ? The Preacher's inter-
est, I know, will sqo centre on her : — And balm
may yet fall on tliy wounds, thou poor, grim,
iron-gray, loving woman !
Lo !- that traitor, the Flute-player, over whom
falls the deep grateful shade from the eaves of
the roof-tree reprieved ; though unconscious as
yet of that hapjiy change in the lot of the mas-
ter, which, ere long, may complete (and haply
for sons sprung in truth from the blood of the
Darrell) yon skeleton pile, and consummate, for
ends nobler far, the plan of a grand life imper-
fect ;-r-though as yet the musician nor knows
nor conjectures the joy that his infamous treason
to Sophy so little deserves ; yet, as if by those
finer perceptions of sense, impressed, ere they
happen, by changes of pleasure and of pain,
which Art so mysteriously gives to the minds
from which music is bom, his airs, of them-
selves, float in joy : Like a bird at the coming
of spring, it is gladness that makes him melo-
dious.
And Alban Morley, seemingly intent upon
the sketch which his amiable niece-in-law sub-
mits to his critical taste ere she ventures to show
it to Vance, is looking from under his brows
toward the grove, out from which, towering over
all its dark brethren, soars the old trysting
beech-tree, and to himself he is saying, " Ten
to one that the old House of Vipont now weather
the Crisis ; and a thousand to one that I find
at last my arm-chair at the hearth of my school-
friend, Guy Darrein"
And the lake is as smooth as glass ; and the
swans, hearkening the music, rest still, with
white breasts against the grass of the margin;
and the doe, where she stands, her fore-feet
in the water, lifts her head wistfully, with nos-
trils distended, and wondering soft eyes that are
missing the master. Xow full on the beech-
grove shines the westering sun; out from the
gloomy beech-grove into the golden sunlight —
They come, they come — Man and the Helpmate,
two lives rebetrothed — ts^-o souls reunited. Be
it evermore! Amen.
THE END.
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