UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES
THE BEOOKES
OF
B R I D L E :\I E R E
UY
G. J. WIIYTE MELVILLE.
ArrilOU OF "TUB GLADIATOR.*," " DIT.Br GRA>T," "THE KTERPRETEB," "nOLMBY
HOCSE," "THE ViCEKN'S MAttlES," tTC.
7.V TUIiEE VOLUMES.
VOL. L
;-^t! -
''\i,iFO^'t ivj A
>
LONDON:
CHiPMAN
AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY.
1864.
[77i« right ofTranAalion is reserved.']
c. « t
- c •
LONDON : rnrXTED BY WnXIAM CLOWES AND SO-NS, STAMFORD .^TRF.KT
AND CHAKING CROSS.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
-K>*-
CIIAPTEli I. PAGE
TWILIGHT 1
CHAPTER II.
COUNTRY QUAKTERS 2G
CHAPTER in.
THE BROOKES .57
CHAPTER lY.
STONEY BROTHERS 92
CHAPTER Y.
TOLLESDALE 121
CHAPTER YI.
JACK BROOKE 150
CHAPTER VII.
A dragon's TOOTH . . . . . . .180
CHAPTER VIII.
MARKET-DAY 204
CHAPTER IX.
" UNCLE ARCHIE " 234
CHAPTER X.
THE MIDDLESWORTH BALL ...... 263
THE BROOKES OF BPJDLEMERE.
CHAPTER I.
TWILIGHT.
T'S hard lines, Mas'r Philip — hard lines !
That's where it is, for a chap as is able
and willin', and carn't get work for five
weeks now come Toosday. The jobs
is scarce, ye see; with the days shortening, and
winter coming on, and what-not ; but I dun-know
how to better it, bless ye, not I, cut it whicii
way you will."
Jem Batters having thus relieved his mind in
the vernacular, turned to his companion a face of
injured honesty and simplicity, scarcely in keeping
Mdth the general character of his appearance. A
much-worn velveteen jacket, loose cord breeches,
sturdy calves, and heavy ankle-boots, seemed the
VOL. I. B
2 THE BROOKES OF BEIDLEMERE.
natural appendages of a countryman who was
supposed to be as arrant a poacher as ever set a
night-line in a reservoir, or a snare in a smeuse.
Nor did Jem's countenance in any way redeem
the rest of his person from the imputations under
which it laboured. The featm'es were good, but
pale, though weatherbeaten ; and the eyes, small
and cunning, looked bold, without being frank.
A Ted handkerchief, knotted loosely round his
neck, denoted pursuits somewhat without the pale
of honest labour, though as yet on the safe side of
the county gaol. Altogether he seemed a slang,
knowing, able-bodied, unscrupulous sort of person
— such an one as a man had rather breakfast
with than fight, nor care indeed to share his
morning repast, unless there was enough prepared
for three.
But " Mas'r Phil," properly called Mr. Philip
Stoney, did not form his opinion from externals,
and indeed was accustomed to look deeper below
the surface than most people. On the present
occasion he took notice of the blood from a dead
rabbit oozing through the pocket of Jem Batters's
velveteen, and scrupled not to express his senti-
ments on the subject.
TWILIGHT. 3
" You'll do no good Avithout being strictly
honest, Jem. I've told you so many a time.
You've no more right to that rabbit in your
pocket than you have to take the gun out of my
hand, and spout it at the first pawnbroker's shop
you come to in the High Street of ]\Iiddlesworth.
You were paid to beat ; and if you've done your
day's work, you've got your day's wages. What
business have you with the Squire's property, if it
was only the worth of a halfpenny ?"
" The Squire'll never miss it," replied Jem,
with a sheepish expression of countenance, and a
forced smile that did not improve his beauty. He
looked askance at Philip Stoney while he spoke,
like a dog who knows he has done wrong, and
deprecates the anger of his master. The latter
answered, in a sterner tone —
" The Squire wouldn't miss it, if you took five
shillings oft' his chimney-piece ; but the law would
send you to prison and hard labom-, all the same ;
and serve you right! Poaching is but stealing
out of doors, Jem. You ought to know that as
well as I do. I tell you, I wouldn't trust a
poacher any more than I would a housebreaker ur
a thief."
b2
4 THE BEOOKES OF BRIDLEMEEE.
But Jem could not see the matter exactly in
this light. It is doubtful if he ever admitted to
himself he was committing a crime when he
picked up a hare for supper on " a shiny night,"
though he had a vague idea that it was not quite
a 'respectable action ; and indeed, if he knew liis
own interest, was better let alone.
" It's hard, too, Mas'r Philip," said he, pluck-
ing a dry twig from the adjoining hedge, and
munching it with apparent relish. " But you've
been a good friend to me, and mother too, how-
ever ; and I take notice of what you says more
nor I do of parson, nor Squire neither. You
couldn't give a poor chap a job, could you, Mas'r
Pliil ?" added Jem, in his most insinuating tones,
and without removing the twig from his mouth.
" I'll tell you what it is, Jem," replied the
other, putting his hand at the same time into his
pocket, " I've known you a long time, and I'U see
if I can give you one more chance yet. Look ye
here. You take that rabbit back to old Half-
cock, the keeper. Promise now, and come down
to our place the first thing to-morrow morning.
I'll speak to my brother to-night about you. But
it's your last chance, Jem — mind that. We don't
Hi-
TWILIGHT.
keep dogs that won't bark in our shop ; and if a
man isn't honest, and sober too, he'd better not
come at all, for we shall be sure to find him out,
and turn him adrift, without thinking twice about
it. Good-night, Jem. Take the rabbit back
before you go home, and don't be late to-morrow,
for it's market-day, and we shall be pretty busy
before twelve o'clock."
So the two parted on their respective paths,
Philip Stoney stepping briskly out on his home-
ward way, and Jem Batters compromising the
matter of the rabbit by laying it down in the
comer of a copse where it was pretty sure to be
found by the keeper when he came round with a
retriever to pick up lost game next morning.
There had been a battue at Bridlemere that day
— not one of your pounding, slaughtering, can-
nonading attacks, resembling a general action in
all but the small proportion of those who run
away ; when, to enjoy the sport — if such it can be
called — dandies come down from London, with all
the modem improvements in dress, arms, and
accoutrements, for the express purpose of learning
how often they can pull their triggers within a
given number of hours. If they shoot straight,
6 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
and obtain an enormous bag, so much the better :
but the great thing is to let the gun off at the
utmost possible rate of rapidity and repetition.
\^T2en the colonel is sent forward with one breech-
loader in his hand, and two more carried by his
attendants (six barrels in all), so that he can never
be for an instant unprepared; when my lord,
with his legs very wide apart, stands like a colos-
sus in the ride, and whUe
"Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland,"
misses rocketer after rocketer, with increasing im-
patience and disgust ; wlien gentlemen's gentle-
men, sighing for the warmth of the castle, and the
luxuries of " the room," load for their masters
with a gracious carelessness, not always quite safe
for the sj)ortsman, but assumed by the valet as if
he were performing the mere every-day duties of
the toilet ; when the duke, at close of day, apolo-
gizes to his guests for the badness of the sport,
and condoles with them that they have only
averaged some two hundred head per gim ! No ;
the hattue at Bridlemere was nothing of this sort,
but a cozy little affair of eighty cock-pheasants,
and twice that number of hares and rabbits
TWILIGHT. /
equally enoiigli distributed amongst half a dozen
people, who shot well and fairly, without more
jealousy tlian was desirable in order that eacli
man should do his best. There was a pretty
range of eopsewood, skirting a warm and sheltered
dingle, to shoot iu the forenoon ; a capital lun-
cheon, with strong home-brewed, at two o'clock ;
and a good deal of sport afterwards in the fox-
covert, which afforded, iu addition to a woodcock,
the cheering sight of a brace of the wild and wily
animals, to the preservation of which it was
specially devoted. Old Halfcock never trapped a
fox in his life, though, Avith the perverse instinct
of a gamekeeper, he would have been only too
glad of the chance, for well he knew that such an
offence against the Squire's standing orders would
be his first and last. So Bridlemere offered a
sure find nearly once a fortniglit in open weather ;
and though the Squu'e was wont to complain with
sufficient pride that the Duke was veri/ hard upmi
it, two or three of the best runs in the season
owed their celebrity to that time-honoured locality.
Game and foxes are a contradiction that has long
since ceased to be an impossibility ; and there was,
without doubt, a fair show of both at Bridlemere.
8 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEEE.
Philip Stoney, walking home to JMiddlesworth,
reflected pleasantly enough on his day's amuse-
ment, and the skill he had displayed both in and
out of covert, at flesh and fowl, fur and feather,
ground game and winged. Phil was an English-
man all over — a pure-bred Anglo-Saxon as ever
stopped a cricket-ball in flannels, or handled a
Purdey in velveteen. He was no admirable
Crichton, like the hero of a novel, who -must needs
be strong as Hercules, beautiful as Apollo, brave
and swift as the son of Peleus, alternately
sulking in his tent, and vapouring over his com-
rades on the narrow strip of sand where the god-
like heroes of the " Iliad " laid their ten-years'
leaguer round the walls of Troy. No; he was
but a fair representative of the thousands of
Englishmen who constitute the upper and middle
classes of our happy country. For his bodily gifts,
he could walk, run, leap, skate, and swim as
well as his neighbours, though truth compels me
to admit that he knew not a note of music, and
was an execrable dancer. He could stand up
fairly enough to professional bowling, when the
ground was smooth ; shoot straight, either in the
coppice or on the stubble, when not too much
« ■
TWILIGHT. 9
hurried ; and would ride a good horse, in a good
place, with a pack of fox-hounds, even at the
expense of an occasional fall. His mental qualities
and acquirements were rather sound than brilliant.
Latin and Greek he had learned, and forgotten.
Of histoiy, both ancient and modern, he was not
more ignorant than other people. Science he
might have dabbled in, could he have spared the
time. He had a clear head for business, was a
capital accountant, and spoke French, the only
continental language he attempted, as Talleyrand
said the Great Duke did, " bravely." For his
tastes, he so far agreed with Byron, that
" He loved our taxes, when they're not too many ;
He loved a sea-coal fire, when not too dear ;
He loved a beef-steak too, as well as any ;
Had no objection to a pot of beer ."
Was a little inclined to Liberalism in politics,
and intolerance in religion; believed TJie Times,
shaved scrupulously, drank port wine, and hated
a lie.
Without being handsome, he had a clear, fresh
complexion, and a small well-shajDcd head, on
which the bro\vn locks were cropped short and
close. His teeth were good, and he showed them
10 THE FlROOKES of BEIDLEMERE.
all when he spoke. His eyes light, but looking
straight into your own, witli a frank and fearless
expression that inspired confidence in his sincerity
at once. All this, carried by a square, able-bodied
figure, very quick and energetic in its gestures,
offered an exterior rather pleasing than otherwise ;
and as well-known in the streets of Middlesworth
as the late-erected drinking-fountain or tlie old
church clock.
He stepped along more briskly, as evening
began to close, and the town lights twinkled out
more and more numerous through the hazy
twilight, yet lingering round some dull crimson
streaks on the horizon left by the departed sun.
It was a soft, still November evening, such as is
never experienced out of England, and shows our
English climate and our English scenery to the
greatest advantage. Everywhere else in Europe a
fine winter's day means a dazzling sun and a
piercing cold, that if you only took your wraps off,
would finish you in about ten minutes; but in
our own little island, which we abuse so heartily
amongst ourselves, it means a green and grateful
earth ; a sky of dappled clouds, serene and motion-
less, edged here and there with gold ; a sleeping
TWILIGHT. 11
fragrance and vitality only waiting for the spring ;
and a mild, hazy atmosphere, through which trees,
and hills, and hedges loom out, grave and ghostly,
and indistinct. Philip felt in charity with all
njankind, and more than usually grateful to Pro-
vidence for the many advantages of liis position,
the many pleasures of health and strength, and
everyday life — nay, for the harmless amusement
and enjoyment of the hours he had just spent at
Bridlemere. Behind him was the recollection of
a delightful day's shooting, in which he had borne
a skilful and satisfactory part ; the pleasant inter-
change of good fellowship with those of his own
age, nowhere so frankly afforded as in manly out-
of-doors recreation, and which furnishes one of the
strongest rational arguments in favour of field-
sports ; a conviction that he was esteemed, cer-
tainly not for his station, or such fictitious advan-
tages, but for himself ; and a pleasant conscious-
ness that he was not an idle man, like most of
those witli whom ho had spent the day, but a
working bee, for whom business was business, and
pleasure, pleasure — an arrangement which en-
hances extremely the satisfaction of both, and
which the drones, who eat the honey without the
12 THE BKOOKES OF BKIDLEMERE.
labour of making it, never can be brouglit to
understand.
Around him were already stretching the level
town meadows, grass at three pounds an acre,
smooth and springy as a garden lawn, feeding huge
beeves, that scarcely moved in their early beds by
the foot-path, save to raise great handsome wide-
horned heads, and stare lazily at him as he passed
— a movement, nevertheless, suflficiently terrifying
to the only other passenger across the town-lands,
a little girl pattering home to "mother" from a
half-mile errand, who kept close behind Philip, for
convoy through this alarming region.
Presently he sees the white indistinct lines of
the drying grounds in the suburbs, and "mother"
herself, with soapy arms, and pinned-up skirts,
talring in fluttering garments from the clothes-
line ; and now immediately before him, so to
speak, is the anticipation of warmth, and fire-light,
and dinner, and rest, in his own comfortable home
on the other side of the town. He is a ]\Iiddles-
worth man, and is proud of it, firmly believing that
for liealth, beauty, convenience, pubHc buildings,
and private society, everything but " business" —
of which he could wish it afforded a little more — his
TWILIGHT. 13
town would bear comparison with any city on the
face of the earth.
Everybody might not, perhaps, agree with Philip
Stoney in this favourable estimate. Mr. Dowlas,
the draper, who set up here when he retired from
r
Loudon, having failed there twice, once in Wig-
more Street, and once in the Tottenliam Court
Road, considers it " a poor place altogether, sir ;
a place in which a young man finds no opening ; a
place quite behind the times ;" and a smart, black-
bearded Italian, generally regarded by the inhabi-
tants as a conspirator, with horrible designs against
the French Emperor, to be prosecuted in some
mysterious manner, from a confectioner's shop in
the market-place, left it after a month's trial, in a
fit of somewhat unreasonable disgust, because
there was no opera. Nevertheless, the population
in general are extremely patriotic, and however
much they may squabble amongst themselves, rise
like one man to vindicate the honour and glory,
and general respectability of their town.
As Middlesworth, however, may not be quite so
well known to the general public as to its own
inhabitants, and the nobility and gentry of the
shire, who frequent its shops on market-day, and
14 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
fin its judicial buildings at Quarter Sessions,
Assizes, and such other important gatherings of
landed proprietors — as, moreover, the simple story
I have to tell is chiefly connected with this locality
and its immediate neighbourhood, I may be per-
mitted to pause on the very threshold of my
narrative, for the purpose of affording the reader
some vague idea of the general features and
character of the place.
To a certain extent, and from a metropolitan
point of view, particularly as regards facilities for
borrowing money, discounting bills, and robbing
the British pubhc, Mr. Dowlas is right. Middles-
worth is far "behind the times," when compared
with London, Liverpool, Manchester, and such
large, pof)ulous, and speculative cities ; but money,
nevertheless, is to be made in its quiet streets, by
honest enterprise ; and many an active, industrious
tradesman has realized a comfortable competence
in its marts, and retired in the prime of life to
enjoy the fruits of his success in its suburbs. These
outskhts are consequently well supplied with the
peculiar style of house which, when isolated by
twenty feet or so from its neighbours, is dignified
by the title of " a villa," but of which half-a-dozen
TWILIGHT. 15
constitute " a terrace," and twice that number
"a place." Plate-glass and laburnums are the
specialities of these residences ; and save for the
consideration that all the rooms are in front, and
commanded from the public road, they would seem
to be commodious and comfortable dwellings
enough.
But if the suburbs of Middlesworth thus run to
retirement and gentility, the streets and lanes, and
rows, within the actual precincts of the town, affect
no such attempts at refinement or ostentation.
They have no pretension to sink the trade by
which they thi-ive. Bow-windowed shops, espe-
cially for the sale of butchers'-meat, protrude them-
selves boldly on the pavement, which is, however,
in many places wide enough to admit of two male
passengers walking abreast. Stalls, whereon are
exposed most commodities of daily life, form an
outwork to this footway, projecting far into the
street. Any intervals that might otherwise be left
unguarded, ai-e filled with hand-barrows, empty
casks, and articles of ornamental husbandry, such
as iron-work, ploughs, many-teethed harrows, or
patent dibbling machines, so that the width of the
thoroughfare may be contracted to the scantiest
16 THE BROOKES OF BKIDLEMERE.
limits. A cattle-market, too, is held weekly in
the narrowest of the streets, and as the town is
paved throughout with the smoothest and most
slippery of stones, it may be imagined that a ride
or drive through Middlesworth, on any special
occasion, is a progress not entirely devoid of that
excitement which springs from a sense of personal
fear.
The shops, however, are cheap and good of their
kind. The staple manufacture of the to^n being
muffatees, it is needless to observe that these are
not to be procured for love or money, of decent
quality, owing, perhaps, to the brisk export trade
driven with the South Sea Islanders for this
indispensable article of costume; but all other
necessaries, and most luxm-ies of life, are found
in IMiddlesworth, of as good quality as in London,
and at little more than cost price.
Two branch railways connect this flourishing
town with two great arteries of English traffic,
rendering its communications with other places as
facile as is compatible with the inconvenience of
its local arrangements, trains being scarce during
the day, but redundant before light in the morning
and after dark at night. It has, besides, a race-
TWILIGHT. 17
course, a corn exchange, a homceopatbic dispen-
sary, a hospital, three churches, of which the oldest
is, of course, the handsomest, and a nondescript
building for the administration of justice, present-
ing a happy combination of several distinct orders
of architecture, including the Chinese, with twisted
pillars, parti-coloured porches, and an Oriental roof,
the whole wrought out in brickwork and stucco,
the colour of strawberries and cream.
There are days of bustle and confusion at Mid-
dlesworth, but there are also days of peace and
somnolent quiet, verging on stagnation. Once a
year, when Tattersall's pours its subscribers into
the grand stand on its race-course, for the great
Middlesworth Handicap ; once a week, when the
adjacent villages send their rustic inhabitants to
market in its overflowing streets, and their carriers'
carts, to increase the profits of its public-houses
and beer-shops, a stranger would imagine that he
had arrived at the very emporium of speculation
and commerce ; but let liim stay over the night at
the Plantagenet Arms, or elsewhere, and sally forth
after his coffee-room breakfast next day. Lo!
the spell is broken ; the hive, lately so busy and
populous, is hushed and lonely now ; the shops are
VOL. I. c
18 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEEE.
empty, the streets deserted ; save the church clock
lazily chiming the quarters, not a sound disturbs
the drowsy air, and ]\Iiddlesworth seems to stand
solemn, silent, and untenanted, as Palmyra, the
City of the Dead.
Philip Stoney had lived in the town all his life,
had been to a day-school in its High Street, and
played in its cricket matches (3Iiddlesworth against
Mudbury), ever since he was old enough to wield
a bat or stop a ball. Except for a couple of years
spent in London, to give him an insight into
business, and a few months at Manchester with a
flourishing cousin, who proposed to put the extra
polish of a commercial education on him in his
counting-house, and certainly did take him to half-
a-dozen balls and dinner-parties every week, he
had never quitted his own home for more than a
few days at a time. No wonder he looked affec-
tionately on every nook and corner of the quaint
old place; no wonder he felt interested in the
]\Iayor's improvements, and the Town Council's
edicts, and all the petty details of the circle in
which he lived, including the little squabbles and
heart-burnings of the municipality, a body no less
distinguished for diversity of opinion, than for the
TWILIGHT. 19
frequency and excellence of the dinners at which
it was their official privilege to meet.
Many a time had Philip watched the lights of
MidcUesworth as he neared them at even-tide, and
felt he was really going home. After a jaunt for
business or pleasure into the adjoining counties ;
after a day with the Duke's hounds, on a certain
blemished old chestnut horse, by which he set great
store, and justly, inasmuch as his grace's own
stable could not produce a better hunter, and the
animal, notwithstanding its lean old head, and a
pair of very worn looking fore-legs, afforded Philip
many a delightful gallop in a recreation both of
them enjoyed above all others. After a few hours'
good shooting as to-day in winter, or after a pic-nic
in summer, with a bevy of IMiddlesworth young
ladies, damsels of fascinating manners, though
somewhat gusldng, and rejoicing in sumptuous
apparel, such as dazzles, while it subdues ; but the
advantage of whose society, I fear, Philip did hardly
appreciate, being indeed less susceptible to the*
florid order of beauty, than to the chaste, and
classical, and severe. After any and all of these
excursions, I repeat, it was his nature to return to
Middlesworth as the bird returns to its nest ; nay,
c2
20 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
with even a more eager alacrity, for tbe bird, we
know, goes out to feed, whereas the unfoathered
biped comes home for that important ceremony.
To be young, to be hungry, to be able to walk five
miles an hour, heel and toe, these are advantages
of which men are scarcely conscious, yet of which
they make good use wlule they possess them. It
was Philip's habit to hurry home as if he were very
hungry indeed, which perhaps was generally the
case.
To-night, however, his pace was variable and
ill-sustained. Sometimes he strode on rapidly, at
a rate that forced his little follower to break into a
short jerking trot ; sometimes he relapsed moodily
into a thoughtful crawl, denoting the absorbing
influence of profound reflection, and once he halted
so suddenly, that his unprepared convoy ran fairly
between his legs. But Philip was undistm-bed by
this, as by every other external influence of the
moment. Habitual day-dreamers, like habitual
drunkards, preserve at their worst an inner con-
sciousness that enables them to shake ofi*, with a
temporary efibrt, the effects of their favourite
indulgence ; but a practical, wide-awake intellect,
steeped in a fit of abstraction, hke a sober man
«
TWILIGHT. 21
who has chanced for once to get drunk, loses all
power of observation, and abandons all attempt at
self-consciousness or self-control. The child's
excuse of " Please, sir, mother said as I must be
liome afore dark," was quite lost upon him, though
repeated more than once, nor did he miss the little
footsteps when they pattered joyfully away in front
at the welcome sight of "mother" in the drying-
ground. His thoughts must have been very far
from Middlesworth and its outskirts, to judge from
his pre-occupatiou. His manner was not that of
a man who is thinking of his dinner, the subject
to which human reflection naturally points about
this hour of the day, and when he reached the
bridge that spans a sluggish river meandering
round the outskirts of the to^\^l, he seemed to
have abandoned all idea of that necessary re-
freshment, for he stood still when half-way across,
and looked dreamily over the parapet into the
quiet stream.
It was nearly dark now. A star or two strug-
gled faintly through the thin misty clouds that
were stealing over the heavens from the south.
The light breeze, though damp, was soft and plea-
sant to his cheek, fanning him ^vith quiet breath
22 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
ere it passed on to stir the rustling sedges by the
river-side, and mingle their murmurs with the
drowsy lap of the water against its low, level
banks.
The town was close at hand, with its hum of
voices and continuous tread of men ; but Philip
seemed no more aware of its vicinity than if
he had been in the middle of the Great Desert.
The river was beneath his feet, stealing on to
the sea slowly, insensibly, surely, as time steals
on to eternity; but he thouglit not of the river
nor the sea, nor indeed, in the common ac-
ceptation of the words, of time nor of eternity
neither.
Dim though they were, the two or three stars
visible seemed to have more attraction for him
than any other material objects, and he indulged
in a good long stare at these celestial bodies,
apparently deriving a certain rehef and gratifica-
tion from the process. It was a strange occupa-
tion for a man of Mr. Stoney's character and
habits ; so near dinner-time, too, and after a day's
shooting at Bridlemere.
Mankind, I believe, after all, are very much
alike. We differ, it is true, in our external ap-
TWILIGHT.
Zo
pearance, our faces, figures, complexions, man-
ners, and various styles of ugliness ; but I make
little doubt tliat the formation of each one's heart,
liver, and digestive process is upon the same pat-
tern, and indeed almost identical. On a like
piynciple, the springs that set the outer man in
motion, the feelings, affections, v.-eaknesses, and
prejudices of one specimen are common to all
humanity. Were it not so, where would be the-
advantage of studying human nature, of acquiring
that knowledge which, L'ke the science of medi-
cine, is based on tlio assumption that all interiors
are alike ? You look at an old gentleman dozing
over his wine by the fii-e-side, bald, portly, and
double-chinned, infirm upon his pins, and spread
into a goodly bulk below the girdle. It is hard
to believe that this is the same man who led the
forlorn hope at Mullagatawny, and w^on tlie light-
weight steeple-chase at Ballinasloe, besides taking
all hearts captive in Dublin by the agility of his
dancing and the symmetry of his figure, the year
the potatoes were so plentiful, and the Viceroy's
balls so well attended. Or you watch a venerable
dame, with a Mother Shipton nose and chin, a
shrill, shaking voice, false teeth, false hair, and a
24 THE BEOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
complexion of brickdust and whitewash, wonder-
ing the while how this can be the lady who
refused dukes and marquises, and made a run-
away match for love with a clerk in the Foreign
Office, temporarily breaking the heart of the old
gentlemen aforesaid in that ill-advised perform-
ance. Perhaps you speculate on the possibility of
renewing the flash in the man's spirit, or the
capability for indiscretion in the woman's heart :
perhaps you arrive at the conclusion that neither
ever really grow old, that the sacred fire is
never thoroughly quenched in the' immortal sub-
ject, but, though damped and smothered for
the present, will assm-edly flicker up again at
some future period, bright and consuming as of
vore.
Old and young, men and women, wise and
simple, rich and poor, for each and all there is a
combustible principle somewhere beneath the
clay — a wild drop in the blood, a crevice in the
plate armour, a soft spot in the heart.
Phihp Stoney was of the same material as his
fellow-creatures, and perhaps, on emergency, not
a bit wiser or stronger than the rest. Neverthe-
less, he made no long stay upon the bridge, but
*,
• '
TWILIGHT. 25
after a good stare at the stars, sighed gently, and
walked on with rapid step and head erect, like a
man who, looking far into the future, has made
up his mind to follow out what he sees there,
resolutely and without fear.
CHAPTER II.
COUNTRY QUARTERS.
OT^VITHSTANDING its many weak-
nesses and shortcomings, its unworthy
subterfuges under pressure, and ob-
vious want of confidence on the eve of
a division, even the Opposition papers could not
but admit that Government showed sound dis-
cretion in stationing a squadi'on of light dra-
goons at Middleswortli. The presence of the
detachment shed its exhilarating influence over
every nook and corner of the town. Public-
houses in by-streets, albeit never languishing for
want of business, found trade so briskly on the
increase as to admit of their providing customers
gratis with glees, fiddles, and other musical j3ro-
vocatives of thirst. Small shopkeepers, derivino-
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 27
no practical benefit from the presence of the
military, but rejoicing in that sense of bustle
which the mercantile mind connects vaguely with
an idea of profit, were glad to treat the men of
the sword to much serious drinking free of ex-
pense. It was the beer these heroes swallowed,
not what they paid for, that stimulated consump-
tion so vigorously during the dark hours inter-
vening between evening stables and watch-set-
ting. The principal hotel, too, furnished the
officers' mess with wines at the highest possible
price, and sundry lodging-house keepers derived
their own share of profit from such enterprising
ladies as did not disdain to accompany their hus-
bands into country quarters. All classes received
the cavalry with open arms. Even the farrier-
major, notoriously the ugliest man in the regi-
ment, and the thirstiest, confessed that he had
more liquor given him than he could di'ink, and,
although an L-ishman, more offers of marriage
than he could find it in his conscience to enter-
tain. The mufifatee makers, as may be supposed,
were not the least ardent admirers of their mili-
tary guests. The male portion seemed too happy
to welcome any additional incentive to the con-
28 THE BROOKES OF BKIDLEMERE.
sumption of excisable fluids, and the female
stitchers, closers, and other handicrafts-women of
the trade felt secure of a suitor apiece, spurred,
braided, and small-waisted, of easy manners,
chronic thirst, and tolerable constancy until
ordered elsewhere,
A walk through Middleswortli after simset
afforded accordingly an amusing and enlivening
sight. The muffatee makers having finished
stitching for the day, turned out in ' streams, gay
with their best attire, in abundant crinolines,
saucy hats, and hair, though not very well
brushed, dressed in the newest fashion. I must
allow they were little remarkable for beauty as a
class — even the farrier-major was obliged to ad-
mit that — but, then, as he observed, " They zvas so
haffable ! " Their military swains 'squired them
about the doors of the different public-houses,
while their civilian adorers were drinking steadily
within — the latter thus consoling themselves
under unavoidable defeat; for how could they
hold their oAvn against such odds as clanking
spurs, laced jackets, forage caps (without peaks)
balanced on one ear, waxed moustaches, and,
above all, that fascinating walk, half stride, half
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 29
swagger, combining the utmost rigidity of body,
with apparent paralysis of the lower limbs, Avliich is
specially affected by every dismounted dragoon ?
Private Overall, of C Troop, Loyal Dancing
Hussars, lounging in the ill-lighted street, under
the sign of tlie " Fox and Fiddle," and listening to
some one plapng an accordion within, seemed the
only individual in uniform unprovided with a
companion of the other sex. Overall was a smart
fellow, too, a favourite with his captain, rather an
authority amongst his comrades, very often seen
smoking a cigar, and, when he took off his pipe-
clayed glove, further adorned with a ring.
That Miss Blades, the butcher's daughter, was
secretly over head and ears in love with Overall,
and Cutting her eyes to the humiliating con-
sideration that she was thus "letting herself
down," would steal out presently for a five
minutes' interview at the corner of the street,
under pretence of " fetching father's beer," is a
shred of gossip unconnected with my tale, and on
which I am not obliged to dwell ; but, in the
meantime, Overall was switching the unoffending
air with a smart riding-whip, and debating in his
own mind whether he would not go in for "just
30 THE BKOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
another half-pint," not without a strong inclination
to carry that measure in the affirmative. Pre-
sently he espied a comrade coming up the street
in the attire soldiers call " coloured clothes " — an
expression they apply indiscriminately to all civil
garments, even a suit of black, in contradistinction
to the scarlet or blue of their o^^■n uniforms. On
the present occasion the " colourcnl clothes " were
of a good working fustian, denoting that the
wearer was a batman, or officer's servant, though
on the strength of the regiment as a trooper in its
ranks. He carried a pair of very workioanlike
top-boots in his hand, and was obviously hastening
back to barracks. He must have been in a hurry,
for he declined his friend's invitation to drink.
"Do as I do. Tommy?" asked Overall, hos-
pitably, with a jerk of his smart head towards the
' Fox and Fiddle.' " Take a drain, man : it'll do
ye good ! "
" Throat's as dry as a limekiln ! " answered
"Tommy," whose surname was Belter, passing
the back of his large hand across his moustaches.
"Can't be done though. Bill. Time's up, d'ye
see?"
"Just a suck, and run home again," pleaded
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 31
Overall, spinning a sixpence in tlie air, and catcli-
inf? it dexterously as it fell. "Wants twenty
minutes to stables yet."
But Belter was proof against his comrade's
solicitations, and passed on, shaking his head
gravely as one who fulfils a duty at great i)ersonal
sacrifice. Let us follow him through the wind-
ings of two or three dark and slijjpery streets,
which ho threaded as though well acquainted
with their intricacies, and in the gloomiest of
which a heavy figure lurched helplessly against
him, and subsided with a drunken laugh into a
sitting posture on the pavement.
" Hurrah ! " hiccuj^ped Jem Batters — for Jem,
I am sorry to say, it was. " It's my call now.
J\lr. Batters will favour the company with a song.
Hurrah !"
Belter spread a cotton handkerchief carefully
on the driest square of pavement, stood the top-
boots thereon with extreme deliberation, and then
raised the sitter slowly to his legs, propping him
against a friendly lamp-post, and urging him to
" hold on by his eyelids tUl his missis could nip
round the corner, and fetch him home."
Jem Batters, however, seemed to treat all such
32 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
domestic interference with utter contempt. Per-
suaded that he was presiding over a convivial
meeting with equal grace and ability, he continued
to pour out a doleful lament, bewailing himself in
the reflection that
" if he had had soo"! government,
He had not come to thid "
and impressing on his hearer, with touching
gravity (while he clung to the lamp-post), a moral
contained in the following stanza, which, though
it seemed to have no connection with the rest of
his ditty, he repeated over and over again : —
" But I was always ready
To run at every one's call ;
Though it grieves my mind, yet still, I find
Good government is all."
Then he shook his head, got gradually lower and
lower do^vn the lamp-post, and subsided once more
into his former sitting postm-e on the flag-stones.
The fact is, Jem was helplessly drunk. Several
causes had combined since sundown to produce
this disgraceful, and I am bound to say, by no
means unusual, result.
In the first place, Jem was desirous of meeting
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 33
a friend in Philip Stoney's employment, to impart
the good news that he hoped to enter the same
service on the morrow. A naiTow, crowded street
is an uncomfortable locality for conversation.
The friend was a married man ; but it was
" washing-day " at home. Independent of the
confusion, damp, and other disagreeables attend-
ing such an operation in the scanty lodging
tenanted by a working man, he was too well
drilled by his " missis " to think of bringing in a
visitor at such a time. Where could the two go
but into the well-warmed, well-lighted, and well-
decorated tap of the familiar '• Fox and Fiddle " ?
There they had cleanliness, comfort, and shelter,
the excitement of societv, and the charms of
music, for the accordion was in practised and
untiring hands. There they were free to talk, and
laugh and jest, and gossip with their owti class,
discussing their news of the day, the rate of
wages, and the price of bread — ;just as interesting
to them as the odds on the Derby, or the defeat
of Ministers, to my lord at Brookes's and "Wliite's.
But being there, they must call for a pint. Men
always begin Mitli a pint, and soon that which
promised to be but a cheerful and friendly meet-
VOL. I. D
34 THE BROOKES OP BRIDLEMERE.
ing grew to a quarrelsome and degrading debauch.
Jem Batters had only one shillmg in his pocket —
the shilling PhiKp gave him in the afternoon;
but a man with a tendency to inebriety can get
very drunk for that sum if he likes. The soldiers,
too, shared the beer to which they were treated
very freely with Jem, lie was an able-bodied,
likely looking young fellow, just the stufi", so they
told him, out of which to make a dragoon, sinking
the two years' riding-school drill indisj)onsable for
such a metamorphosis ; and Jora, wIkj liad a
vague idea in his cups that he might some day be
tempted to '' take the shilling," encom-agcd the:
idea, though he never went so far as actually to
accept her Majesty's bounty.
Contented, as it seemed, with the quantity of
liquor his military asjtirations procured him free
of expense, he would have enlisted long ago, like
many another unquiet spirit, liad it not been for
his mother, but with all his faults there was this
one redeeming point in Jem's character, that he
loved old dame Batters in his heart. He was
often hard in speech to her ; he was rude and dis-
respectful in behaviour : but this was the rind, so
to speak, and outer husk of the man At the core.
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 35
he would have made any sacrifice rather than vex
" mother," and the old woman knew it.
" He's not so steady, our Jim ain't ;" she would
say to her cronies by the fire-side, " not so steady
as some on 'em, but he's a good son, is Jem, and
always has been, there ! and always will be."
Jem did not look very steady now, with a red
■neckcloth untied, and foolish eyes shining out from
a pale face, in the dull stare of intoxication.
Belter glanced down at him, half sympathizing,
half scornful, but appeared to think no further
interference necessary, for he gathered up the top-
boots, and resumed his walk to barracks, \nthout
troubling himself any more about his helpless
acquaintance.
Preserving his burden carefully from a light
drizzling rain, now beginning to fall, the batman
entered the barracks, and proceeded to the officers'
quarters with his usual steady gait, and immove-
able, not to say vacant, expression of countenance.
Only a r:an familiar with its every nook and
corner could have fomid his way along the passage
and up the gloomy staircase, whereon a feeble oil-
lamp shed the smallest possible amount of light,
without tumbling over a certain empty chest and
d2
36 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
iron coal-box, tliat fortified the approaches to his
destination. Belter, however, walked confidently
on till he reached a dirty and dilapidated door, on
which was painted, in letters nearly obliterated,
"Offs.' Qrs. No. 5," Here he gave two solemn
consecutive thumps with his sturdy knuckles, and
followed his summons at once into the apartment,
after the manner of these domestics, without,
waiting: for an answer from within.
There is no greater contrast than that aflorded
by the inside and outside of an oflicer's barrack-
room. The passage was as dark, dirty, and dismal,
as can be conceived. The bare boards — for of
course it was uncarpeted — stood an inch deep in
dried mud, bronght in by many a pair of regu-
lation boots and clinking spurs. It was scarcely
better lighted by day than by night, and besides
the dreary chest and coal-box above mentioned,
there was not an article of furniture to be seen, sug-
gestive of a civilized dwelling-place ; but no sooner
had the batman closed the door behind him, than
he entered an apartment overflowing with every
modern comfort, convenience, and luxury, all port-
able moreover, and made to be packed up and
carried about wherever the regiment moved in its
COUNT HY QUARTERS. 37
change of quarters. There was a Brussels carpet,
there was even a liearth-rng, whereon a royal Bengal
tiger, gorgeous in colour, and of abnormal stripes,
was worked in tapestry ; there was a couch, of
ample width and ])roportions, forming a sofa by
day and a bedstead by night, of which the brass
knobs and general iron-work denoted that it could
be taken awav in a bajrcrasre-wafffron at five minutes'
notice ; there was an easy-chair, of the easiest
description, draped with a real tiger skin, obviously
no relation to the monster on the hearth-rug;
there was a table that made a chest, and a chest
that made a table, both adoi-ned with rich coverings
of gaudy hues, and littered with tlieir respective
treasures ; gold-topped scent-bottles, silver dressing
things, ivory hair-brushes — all the appliances of an
elaborate, and indeed lady-like toilet, except a
mirror, represented in this martial domicile by a
four-inch shaving-glass, hung on a nail in the
window-sill. Several gun-cases were stowed away
in corners, surmounted by trophies, consisting of
Eastern sabres, regulation swords, cherry-stick
pipes, riding whips, umbrellas, and sabretasches.
Innumerable boots were ranged in military order
against the walls, and at least twenty pairs of
38 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
spui'S, inclusive of those expressly manufactured
with smooth rowels, for dancing, occupied the
chimney-piece, forming indeed, with the green
plush cushion on which they reposed, its principal
ornament.
Above the fireplace hung a photographic
print of the Ariadne, supported by a portrait of
" Beeswing," in oils, and a likeness of " Tom
Sayers," in water-colours ; the mare looking a good
deal more attenuated by training than the
champion. An embroidered cigar-case lay open
by a gold-laced forage-cap, where both had been
cast aside hurriedly on the couch, and a deep tin
bath, yet steaming with hot soap-and-water, from
which the occupant had lately emerged, like Venus
from the sea, filled the apartment with a misty
vapour, that mingled heavily with its habitual
odours of saddlery, blacking, varnish, aromatic per-
fumes, and stale tobacco-smoke.
Kagman de EoUe, formerly of Eton College,
Bucks, middle division, fifth form, and No. 9, in
the ten-oar, late of Christ Church, Oxford — whence,
I am concerned to add, he was rusticated for
breach of discipline, before the completion of his
second term — and now subaltern in her Majesty's
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 39
Loyal Dancing Hussars, having just washed
himself, after his day's exercise, from top to toe,
is preparing to smoke his fifth and last cigar before
dinner, in all the comfort of warmth, clean linen,
and. a fancy costume of velvet, such as in these
days has completely superseded the old-fashioned
dressing gown.
Mr. de Rolle poises the Havannah in his fingers,
and eyes the top-boots which Belter is disposing
in military line with their comrades. To judge by
his countenance, he has very little on his mind,
nor a mind indeed constructed to carry any con-
siderable burden at a time, but his face is rosy
and good-humoured ; his figure, though somewhat
thick and lumpy for a light dragoon, is vigorous
and full of health, whilst his clear eye, and glossy
hair, denote that good digestion, without which no
mortal can be said to enjoy his fair share of
physical happiness. En^-iable man ! he has but
one anxiety at present — he is a little apprehensive,
not \\ithout reason, of growing too fat — and medi-
tates " Banting," though he has not yet become a
disciple of the Great Attenuator.
" Belter," says his master, after a pause of
deep thought, " those tops must be three shades
40 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
lighter, at least. You've browned tliem to maho-
gany, and I like them the colour of double Glou-
cester cheese."
Belter springs to "attention," not a twitch
crosses that well-drilled scr\'ant'8 face. " Very-
good, sir," is all the answer, and yot tho com-
plexion of these tops is the curse and the trial
of Belter's hfe. "He'll be druv to drink, he
knows it," as he tells Overall, in moml'nts of con-
vivial confidence. " It's trouble as done it, all
along o' them tops ; but he'll be druv to drink, see
if he aint." Then he finishes his beer with a sigh,
and walks steadily off, once more to resume his
boot-trees, and his brush-case, and his daily efforts
at the unattainable.
"Shall I clean 'em all over again, sir?" asks
Belter, hopelessly, pointing to at least half-a-dozen
pair.
" Yes — no," answers Comet de Rolle, for he
is a good naturned cornet enough, notwithstanding
his peculiar taste in colours. " Only mind next
time to turn me out properly. Hang it, man, if
you want a pattern, go and buy a cheese, and copy
it ! Come in !"
The last two words are roared out pretty loudly.
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 41
in answer to a siimiuuiis ut the duur, from a heavy
kick, wliicli nearly (h-ives in the panels, followed
by the entrance of u younrr man, with a short
black pipe in his mouth, emitting fragrant odours
of Latakia. lie is clad in a .shooting dress of
knickerbockers, leggings, Ilythe boots, grey jerkin,
felt hat, with black cock's feather, and, in short,
the usual \\ar-paint of a '* brave," in the present
day.
" Halloo, Ivags !" said the new comer, removing
the pipe from between two rows of very white
teeth, under a silky and carefully-trimmed
moustache. "Look here, old fellow, you must
take my orderly duty to-morrow ; I've i)romised to
go to Tollesdale, for a crack at old Waywarden's
pheasants, and I quite forgot I should have the
belt on. Never mind, I can do yours next time,
so it's all right."
Now " Kags," as his brother officers called him,
would much prefer having the morrow to himself,
not that he has anything particular to do, but
like all idle men, he enjoys and appreciates the
pleasures of indolence for its own sake, yet he
consents at once to this ofl-hand aiTangement of
his friend, and resigns himself without a murmur
42 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
to his imprisonment, with the many parades,
inspections, and other duties, enforced by the rigid
discipline of the Dancing Hussars.
The truth is, Walter Brooke, tlie most poi)ular,
and indeed, as it is sometimes called, par excellence^
the show man of his regiment, had obtained over
none of his comrades so complete and unquestioned
an influence as over " Rags." To imitate, as far
as circumstances permitted, his pattern's dress,
walk, manner, tastes, pursuits, and sentiments,
was the one study of Ragman do Rolle's life. It
was a failure, of course. All sudi imitations are,
and indeed the honest, good-humoured Comet
was perhaps less than most men fitted to engraft
upon his own sturdy person, and frank disposition,
the air of a somewhat spoilt dandy, and what is
called " a finished man of the world." Rags was
a good fellow enough, not bright, nor quick-witted,
but with a certain plodding sense of right, and nice
feeling of honour, that guided his conduct as safely
as any amount of wordly wisdom. Of old family, as
his name implied, his grandfather and father had
both been in trade, bringing to their business
much of the energy, and a spice of the adventurous
spirit, that distinguished their mail-clad ancestors.
COUNTEY QUARTERS. 43
Consequently, they made money fast, and all they
had they left to Kags. A cornet, even in a crack
cavalry regiment, Nvhose income is numbered by
thousands, finds himself a very rich man, and
liable to be spoilt by adulation outside the barrack
gates, although, to do them justice, the mere pos-
session of wealth aftects his popularity very little
amongst his brother officers witliin. Nevertheless,
if he is of a free, good-humoured and jovial cha-
racter, it is not to be supposed that a " balance at
his bankers'" is likely to lower him in their
favour, and " JRags," as he was universally called,
found the path of life made very smooth and easy
for him, rolled, as it were, and gravelled, with
plenty of ripe fruit and blooming flowers, to pluck
by the way.
Like many others, he was scarcely aware of his
own advantages. From his mother, a comely
Scotchwoman of the middle class, he inherited
a considerable amount of diffidence and rather
lai-ge hands and feet, to equalize, perhaps, the envi-
able gifts of an even temper and a faultless diges-
tion. He was not much at home in the drawiug:-
room ; but quite in his element in the barrack-
yard. It was told of him, that on one occasion.
44 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLE3IERE.
sitting between two fine ladies in a tent at an
archery meeting, and finding nothing to say to
either, he laid down knife and fork submissively,
and looking from one to the other, thus appealed
to both in the plaintive accents of despair, '• Can't
ye speak to a fellow?" Being very fine ladies,
they were amused, and therefore delighted with
him, encourajjino; and makinir much of him
during the rest of the afternoon — vowing he was
an original and a quiz. But the last accusation
fell harmless ; for those who knew him ever so
little, felt there could be no deception about Rags.
Dull, honest, sincere, jovial, and good-tempered,
his character is best summed up iu his own avowal
of his tastes and predilections.
" I ain't much of a laches' man, I know," quoth
Eags, when taxed with disinclination to female
society. " I'm more at home with men, ye see. I
hope I should run straight anwhere ; but I like
soldiering— I like barracks. I hke my cool bottle
of claret and my weed after dinner, and a mess-
table suits me down to the ground." So he
did his duty, rode with his squadron, and smoked
his cigar in great comfort and content ; firmly
persuaded that life had nothing better to offer
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 45
tlian the good opinion of his brother officers, and
speedy promotion to a troop in the Dancing
Hussars.
Walter Brooke, puffing the short pipe >vith his
back to the fire, was a very different person in
every respect from liis easy-going fi-iend. A\'hen
I say he was the most popuhir man in tlie regi-
ment, I do not mean that lie was the most beloved ;
but that his opinion carried more weight, and liis
personal influence was greater than that of any one
else, from the war-worn old Colonel, bro\Mied and
bleached by an Indian sun, and counting nearly
as many wounds as he had clasps and medals on
his brave old breast — to tlic Paymaster, twenty
stone in weight, never Imown to be out of humour,
and, from his very duties, an official with whom it
was important to be on the most friendly terms.
Either of these, and indeed many other members
of the corps, had won more affection ; but none
commanded so much admiration as Walter Brooke.
I believe his secret was this : — Whatever he did,
he had the knack of making it appear he could do
better if he chose. There was a quiet, matter-of-
course consciousness of superiority in his manner :
perhaps the result of natural audacity and self-
46 THE BKOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
reliance ; perhaps assumed from motives of calcula-
tion, by one who was shrewd enough to know that
in society the world assesses a man at his own
valuation, which led people to think there was
considerable power latent in Brooke's character,
only wanting opportunity to display itself; that
he had it " in him, sir ! " so they said, " and some
day it would come out." When people talk thus,
they are prepared for a very favourable judgment.
It enhances their own penetration, and everybody
likes to nod sagaciously, yet not without triumph,
and say, " I told you so ! "
Walter Brooke was careful never to over-do the
thing. He was no boaster, but by inference — no
swaggerer, save by implication. He seemed to
say less than he knew, and to mean more tlian he
said. Generally cool, always collected, neither
subject to the influence of bodily caloric nor men-
tal excitement, he had the credit of steadier
nerves and a better temper than he really pos-
essed. Decidedlv good-looking — at least so the
women said — he enjoyed the further advantage
of a figure which coats and other articles of attire
fitted of their own accord, while his hands and
feet seemed made on purpose for the gloves and
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 47
boots he wore. Walter spent less money on his
personal adornment than any other young man in
the regiment — and not a tithe of Avhat Rags did —
yet they admitted unanimously (and this is no
mild panegyric), that for all external qualifications,
either in or out of imiform, Brooke was " quite the
Hussar ! " The men were not perhaps so fond of
him as the oflScers. He was aware of this, and it
annoyed him, for he knew that his inferiors are
nicer judges of a gentleman than his equals. It
may be that in his intercourse Mith them, more
opportunities arise for testing the true politeness
which comes from the heai-t ; it may be that they
place their standard higher, as not aspiring to
reach it themselves; but the coarser, commoner
clay seems always very ready to detect flaws in
the porcelain ; and if you must needs set up a
golden image, and would prove the brightness and
purity of the metal, find out how it looks from
beloiv.
So Eags agreed to do Walter's duty, and bade
him draw the other easy-chair to the fii-e, and
smoke at his ease, asking him hospitably, at the
same time, " Whether he wouldn't take anything
to drink ? "
48 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
His friend seemed somewhat restless, and not in
the best humour. Ignoring the invitation both
for rest and refreshment, he stood with his back to
the fire and puffed savagely at the short pipe
durinfr several seconds, then he broke out :
" What a wretched day's sport ! How infernally
tliey mismanage the whole thing now tliat the
governor's laid up. Not that it was much better
in his time, with their ridiculous fancies about the
tenants and tlie ground game. Old Halfcock's
superannuated. It's time he was pensioned off, or
shot, or put out of the way somehow. I /ell you,
Rags, we ought to have had five hundred pheasants
to-day in those coverts, if they were properly
looked after. I was quite ashamed (though I've
nothing to do with it), when I saw you fellows on
the patch of mangold-wnirtzel at the end of the
fox covert. The few pheasants there were went
back, and you'd only one * rocketer,' only am, 111
swear, for I saw it."
*' And I missed him," said Ixags, good-hu-
mouredly ; who, to do him justice, could usually
make good practice with his breech-loader, even at
" rocketers."
" And you missed him," repeated the other, with
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 49
rather a contemptuous smile ; adding, between a
volley of little short, angry puffs, " It always will
be so, as long as Jack has the management. Jack
won't listen to anybody. Jack won't go anywhere
to see how the thing ought to be done. Jack
don't even like my bringmg out two guns. It's
perfectly ridiculous in these days ; but Jack is so
painfully slow."
" Well, I thought we had some pretty shooting
enough," interposed Kags, uneasily divided
between his natural spirit of contentment and
the impossibility of thinking diflferently from his
friend. " I had very good fun with the rabbits in
the copsewood ; and, by Jove! Walter, that's some-
thing like beer, that stuff you gave us at luncheon."
" Oh ! of course, if you go in for beer," answered
the other, with a sneer, "it's a different thing.
You'd better take a share in the brewery with
that precious Mr. Stoney they always tliink it
necessary to ask to Bridlemere. ^^^lat the
governor sees in him is more than I can tell.
Jack is hand-in-glove with him, of course ; he's
just such another fellow himself."
" He's not half a bad shot," said honest Eags,
tliinking the while of a certain woodcock between
VOL. I. E
50 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
the trees, which Philip had turned over in very
workmanlike style.
"He's not half a good one," replied Walter.
"Besides, the fellow's a snob. The governor
used to be more particular when we were boys.
I don't mean to say there's any harm in Stoney ;
but he's in trade, mv good fellow, don't vou see ?
He's in trade ! "
*' Oh, of course ! Exactly ! " answered poor Eags,
who had not the coura2:e to confess he thoufrht none
the worse of him for that. " You must draw the
line somewhere, I suppose. Don't you dine with
us to-night, Walter ? " he added, getting off the
treacherous ground as quick as he could ; for
Kags was very sensitive on the subject of birth — a
weakness probably inherited fi-oui a plebeian
mother, rather than from a long line of male
ancestors, who were paladins in plate-armour, cen-
turies before the Brookes of Bridlemere had ever
been heard of.
"Not to-night," answered his friend, kicking
the coals into a flame with the heel of his neat
shooting-boot. " Waywarden expects me to dinner,
and I dare say will give me a pretty good one ;
though he's never had what I call a real cook
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 51
since Kavigotte left. I wish you were coming,
Eags; old AVay warden's a cai)ital fellow, and
shows a good deal of proper feeling about claret.
]My lady is always pleasantest in a small party ;
and. Lady Julia's a nice girl enough, though it's the
fashion to abuse her. I wish you were coming,
we could ride over together."
Eags devoutly wished it too. All this, being
interpreted, meant — " I, Walter Brooke, with my
advantages of birth, manner, impudence, and ap-
pearance, hold a position to which you, Eagman
de Eolle, cannot aspire. Tollesdale is one of the
great houses, with its indispensable accessories of
magnificence, exclusiveness, and a French cook.
Its mistress is one of the few fine ladies left ; re-
joicing, after the manner of her land, in a pomp of
dignified inanity, and a reign of terrorism, supported
by the cowardice of the oppressed. The daughter
of the house, I suppose, would hardly condescend to
admit the existence of a fellow like you — a mere
subaltern of light dragoons, unacknoMledged by
St. James's Street, and only known in Pall Mall to
the messenger of the Army and Navy Club. Yet,
behold ! I am at home in these enchanted regions.
I can criticise the claret, and find fault with the
E 2
52 THE BROOKES OF BEIDLEMERE.
dinners. I can brave the eriisliing manners of the
mother, and even speak of the daughter with half-
pitying approval, and charitable allowances for her
failings. I am one of them. Don't you envy me ?
You are not ! "
Bags did envy him ; though, to do him justice,
it was less for the pleasures of the evening than
the morrow. Nay, had he been invited, he could
probably have been induced to face -Lady Way-
warden's drawing-room, only by the anticipation of
the following day's sport amongst the belts and
hedgerows of the Home Farm at Tollesdale, and
the "hot corner" in the park, at the back of
the keeper's house.
This young man, you see, had not passed the
period of life when field-sports, in some dis-
positions, seem to be an absolute necessity of
existence. In later years, though even old blood
boils and thrills under the influence of a rattUng
gallop amongst large fences, or at the ringing
of shots and cheer of beaters, in a deep, stately
woodland, gaudy with the red, russet, and deep
brown hues of Autumn's last caress, these
pleasures are taken sparingly as they come, and
at least with an outward show of sobriety and
«
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 53
moderation ; but in the morning of life, when the
bloom is rosy on the cheek and the beard soft on
the chin, to miss a good day's shooting by some
untoward accident — to be stopped hunting by an
untimely frost; these are disappointments which
the' untried philosophy of inexperience accepts
with a frank avowal of vexation and disgust.
Despite a wholesome fear of the ladies, Bags
would have liked notliing better than to order
portmanteau and breech-loaders to be got ready
for ToUesdale.
" How are you going ? " he asked, after a pause,
during which, for the hundredth time that week,
he had been wishing that he could change places
with Walter Brooke. "I can lend you my trap, if
you like. It's a darkish night, and Belter says
it's beginning to rain. Sober John will get you
there under the hour."
" Sober John has quite enough to do, grinding
about the country with his master," answered
Walter, who never scrupled to avail himself of
thatusefid animal when he wanted him. •'"And as
for his getting there by dinner-time, why. Bags,
if you'll give me five minutes' start, and lay me
three to two, I'll undertake to beat him on foot,
54 THE BROOKES OF BKIDLEMERE.
and truudle a hoop before me tlie whole way !
No. I shall canter Jack's cob over, and send him
back to Bridlemere in the morning."
" But won't your brother want him ? " said good-
natured Eags. " I heard him talk of riding some-
where to-morrow, while we were at luncheon. I
can lend him one of mine, if he likes, you know,
as I shall be doing your duty."
" Oh ! never mind Jack," answered the younger
brother, filling liis pipe, and preparing for a start.
" We've some long distances next week ; we shall
want all the hacks. Jack don't mind ; he'll walk.
Jack's a capital Avalker. Good night, old fellow ;
I must make running, for I'm late as it is."
So Walter Brooke groped his way down the
dark staircase to the door where brother Jack's
pony stood in waiting, held by an unbraced and
bare-armed drairoon. He was in the saddle, and
away without loss of time, the man looking after
him with a grim half-doubtful approval, as the
pony's hoofs clattered out of the barrack-gate,
and down the slippery, ill-paved street. Walter
would have ridden his own horse, or even one
belonging to Eags, carefully over such ground,
however much he might have been hurried, but he
COUNTRY QUARTERS. 55
had accustomed himself to treat everything of his
elder brother with a recklessness, which arose not
so much from want of proper feeling as from the
generous character and utter unselfishness of the
owner. AVhatever belonged to Jack Brooke, was
at the service of everyone wlio wanted it. Such
a disposition need not go beyond its own family
circle to indulge its peculiar Mcakuess. Jack
seldom had a shilling in his pocket, or a good coat
to his back ; to-morrow he must trudge many a
mile through the muddy lanes, because Walter,
with plenty of horses at command, had borrowed
his pony for a mere whim of his own, and Jack,
tliough justly prizing the animal, never dreamt
for a moment of saying " No."
It was a good pony, no doubt, and sure-footed,
as Walter could not but admit, whilst rattling it
fifteen miles an hour down hill, on the stones;
nevertheless, for all his hurry, he too paused
when he arrived at the bridge, looking wistfully,
even as Philip Stoney had done, over the parapet,
listening to the mm-mm-ing wind, and the quiet
lapping of the waters.
For a few moments he seemed lost in thought,
and laid the rein on the pony's neck ; then, ere he
56 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEEE.
tightened it once more, and gave the animal a
hint to go on, he spoke aloud :
" Eum girl, Nell ! Wish she'd marry Eags.
Yet I don't know how we should get on without
her at Bridlemere. Somehow, it wouldn't seem
like home without Nell ! "
CHAPTER III.
THE BROOKES.
ELL, all unconscious, was playing the
pianoforte the while, by the light of a
wood fire, glowing and crackling under
the ample chimney-piece of the old
library, at Bridlcmere. The old library that —
because it had neyer been intended for the pur-
pose — had gradually become the fayourite sitting-
room of the whole house. It was yery lofty, with
deep narrow windows, looking on a little sheltered
flower garden, with oak floor and wainscoting;
with a ceiling in sufliciently bad taste, on which
the different coats-of-arms of the Brookes were
picked out in scarlet and gold — perhaps I ought
to say, " gules and or." The bookcases at Bridle-
mere were not so well furnished as the cellars ;
58 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
and large gaps on tlieir shelves, wliicli sliould have
been filled with intellectual food, were littered
with fly-hooks, fishing-tackle, work-boxes, back-
gammon boards, battledores, shuttlecocks, and such
miscellaneous articles as are apt to accumulate in
any large room of a country house to which young
ladies and gentlemen habitually resort. Bridle-
mere was an overgrown, old-fasliioned building —
partly of the Kestoration, partly of Queen Anne's
time — and had little pretension to regularity of
architecture or arrangement. The diniug-room
was the smallest and the worst on the gi'ound
floor ; the di-awing-room the prettiest and the
coldest. The best bed-rooms were ghostly, and
uncomfortable to a degree — much too large, and
in sad want of new furniture ; while in the
"Bachelors' Gallery," as it was called, a guest
micrht find himself in the cosiest and neatest of
retreats, bright ^vith French paper and flowering
chintz, replete with every appliance for cleanliness
and comfort, fragrant with the woodbine that
trailed and twined about the wmdow, and com-
manding an uninterrupted view of the tops of
some elms, an ivy-covered tower, and the broad
face of the stable clock. It is pleasant to lie in
• -
THE BROOKES. 59
bed in such a room as this, and watch the rooks
wheeling against an April sky ; listening to their
cawing through the open window, and looking
forward to a day of happy country idleness — only
happy and enjoyable when earned by a previous
period of honest anxiety and toil. Below stairs,
doubtless, Bridlemere was cheerful enough — the
servants took care of that. For good fires and
strong tea, commend me to the steward's room
and the servants' hall ; but, certainly, the darkest
and gloomiest apartment in the whole house was
that in which the family chose habitually to
reside.
They might have made it a little more cheerful
too, with a few prints or pictures, of which there
was no want in other parts of the building ; prints
representing many a spirited scene of country
and sporting life. Dogs and deer from Landseer,
that you could not look at for five minutes without
feeling the wild breeze ofi" the heather, and fancy-
ing you smelt the peat smoke. Horses from Kosa
Bonheur, snorting lifelike in the pla}'fulness of
wanton fear ; or cattle coming out of their frames
with meek wistful eyes, and wet healthy muzzles.
and the dew of mornins; fflisteninoc on their shair
D &■■
?gy
60 THE BKOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
russet hides. Pictures, too, of many a peri-
wigged gallant, and tiglit-waisted dame; the
gentleman invariably thrusting on public notice a
pale and slender hand ; the lady displaying with
much liberality a long white neck and bosom.
But none of these were admitted to the library,
perhaps lest they should withdraw the visitors'
attention from its great pictorial chef-d'oeuvre
and work of art — The Family Tree of the Brookes
of Bridlemere.
It was all very well f( )r the Craddocks of Caradoe,
now Dukes of IMerthyr-Tydvil and Severnside,
Earls of Caradoe and Lionesse, Barons Bonspiel in
the Peerage of Scotland, and all the rest of it,
whose ancestors sat with King Arthur at his
Bound Table, and held their heads high even then,
as having " come in " with King Cole, to look
down in pitying condescension on the antiquity of
the Brookes. It was all very well for Lord Way-
warden, of the illustrious race of Treadwell (the
first Treadwell ennobled was bootmaker to Charles
the Second), to assume a priority over the Brookes,
as his rank entitled him, at all county meetings
or social gatherings ; and for Lady Waywarden to
speak of them as " very good sort of people, whom
THE BROOKES. 01
she was always delighted to see " — wliich she was
not. The Brookes, I say, esteemed their own
pedigree infinitely superior to what they con-
sidered the fabidous ancestry of the Duke, and
the 'mercantile origin of the Earl. To be a
Brooke was with them tantamount to a diploma,
vouching not only for birth, but lor beauty, talent,
manners, probity, all the advantages, external and
internal, that are assumed, like gout, to be trans-
mitted from one generation to another through
the blood.
The Family Tree, however, on examination,
scarcely afforded sufficient reason for inorcUnate
pride of birth. Not\nthstan(hng that in its many
roots, suckers, and ramifications, it resembled
• that redundant plant, " The Auricaria," called
irreverently "The Puzzle Monkey" — notwith-
standing that it required much practice, a clear
head, and a sharp-pointed pencil besides, to follow
out all the marriages and intermarriages of the
different shoots, terminating too often in a httle
open cii'cle like a medal, with some barren spin-
ster's name sohtary in the midst — not^nthstanding
that the attention was much distracted from its
main trunk, by foreign grafts and excrescences
02 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
allied to liouses, which again were allied to royalty,
it seemed pretty clear that the family knew little
about their origin prior to the appearance of a
certain Sir Geoffrey Brooke, who did good service
in the cause of royalty durinjr tlie Rebellion, and
would haye assuredly been killed or taken prisoner
with his stand of pikes at ]\[arston ]\Ioor, had ho
not run away, like many another gulhint cavalier,
when the action became too hot for him.
From an old yellow letter — of which the ribbon
that once fastened it, according to the fashion of
the time, though much worn and frayed, was in
better preservation than any other part of tlie
missive — it appeared that Sir Geoffrey, before going
into battle, had commended to the care of his loyal
wife and sweetheart, to ^vhom it was addressed,
his poor old father, under the title of a simple
yeoman and franklin, giving thanks to Heaven, at
the same time, with quaint and sincere self-
gratulation for his owni advancement in life. This
letter, though carefully preserved, was neverthe-
less ignored by the family, who preferred a far-
fetched theory of their own regarding Sir Geoffrey's
origin, and affected to consider him as a younger
branch of the Devonshire De Brokes, hereditary
THE BROOKES. 6*3
grand posset-bearers to the Plantagenct kings,
and found in old chartei-s seised of certain tiefsand
manors, now lapsed to the Crown.
They might have been satisfied, nevertheless,
with their own Sir Geoffrey as he stood — an
honest, God-fearing old cavalier, who stuck to
church and sceptre, fought as well as his neigh-
boui-s, and swore by Prince Rupert, who lived to see
" the king enjoy his own again," and to win for
himself, though history does not explain how, a
goodly tale of rich acres in the vicinity of IMiddles-
wortli, where he built the oldest and least commo-
dious parts of the house now standing, and died in
it at something over four-score — the fii-st of the
Brookes of Uridlemere.
The Court of the " ^Icrry ^lonarch," with its
reckless pursuit of pleasure, its taste for meretri-
cious display, and its unbounded licence of man-
ners, served to ruin the fortunes of such Eoyalist
families as did not succeed in obtaining places or
monopolies under its patronage, quite as surely,
and almost as rapidly as revei'ses at Edge Hill and
Naseby, or fines inflicted by the Parliament and
the Protector. Eank, in a second generation, has
at all times been prone to affect the pomps and
04 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
vanities, ratlier than the duties of its position.
Sir Egremont, son to Sir Geoffrey, shook the dice
at Whitehall, and ran short-tailed horses at New-
market, to a tune which levelled half the West
Avenue, and melted away many a score of fat
acres round Bridlemere. There was a picture of
him over the dining-room sideboard, representing
a handsome, but doNvnish and sullen-looking man,
with a periwig, a breastplate, and a. tall glass of
wine in his hand (artist unknown), which formed a
striking; contrast to the likeness of his father bv
liis side, whose weather-beaten, war-worn visage
was depicted simpering under his steel head-piece,
turned carelessly away from a dirty-faced page, a
fore-shortened charger, and a general action raging
furiouslv in the backjiround. Sir Egremont not
only dissipated his property, but also married his
dairymaid, and thus on the first opportunity stmck
a deadly blow at the aristocratic pretensions of
his house.
The daiiymaid had a large progeny of
daughters, branching out, indeed, all over the
genealogical tree ; some wedded to diverse ple-
beian surnames ; some dying like ungathered roses
on the parent stem. The property now passed
THE BROOKES. 65
into possession of a family named Brown, and a
stranger could not commit a gi-eater solecism, nor
put a deeper affront on either race, than to confuse
the Browns and the Brookes of Bridlemere.
One of Sir Egremont's married daughters,
however, must have preserved her patronymic ; for
in George the First's reign, and after the Browns
had added a wing and put their mansion into
tliorough repair, a young Dorcas Brooke appeai-s
on the stage as the last remaining scion of her
name, and to Dorcas Brooke appertains a pretty
little romance, commemorated among the archives
of her family by a bad picture in oils, and a long
account in manuscript.
This young lady, it appears, dwelt with her aunt
and uncle by marriage, the latter a saddler and
' harness-maker in the City. She seems to have
been a fair young lady, and an amiable, also more
venturous than other damsels of her class, in-
heriting, perhaps, something of old Su* Geoffrey's
energy and resolution of character.
London, in the reign of George the Fu-st, was
not safe to walk about in at night as it is now ;
there were 3Iohocks in those days, as there
have been garotters since. Perhaps, too, the
VOL. I. p
66 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
anti-Mohocks, like the anti-garotte rs, contrihuted
largely to the general confusion after dark. A
nervous passenger would whip his sword out,
fancpng he was going to be attacked, and become
himself the occasion of the ver}' brawl he dreaded,
as in later times we have heard of impulsive gen-
tlemen who Avould run a muck with " life-pre-
servers " and " knuckle-dusters," persuaded that
the stranger liumbly asking liis way was some
perfidious brigand, scientific in gripe as a Tliug,
and backed by a swarm of confederate assassins
round tlie corner.
The ]\Iohocks, however, were the greater pest to
the public, that they slew and maltreated people
for sheer amusement. To be drunk with wine by
two o'clock in the day ; to " keep it up' \\ith
bowls of steaming punch and cups of burnt
brandy dm-ing the afternoon ; to " crack t'other
bottle," as it was called, at supper, and then sally
forth for the express purpose of insuhing women,
stabbing men, and beating the watch, was the
correct routine of a "blood's" life in those fine
old-fashioned times, which some people, I under-
stand, can still be found to regret.
Dorcas Brooke, however, was a good little girl
THE BROOKES. 67
enough, coquettish it may be, and not averse to
admiration, yet none tlie less womanly and kind
hearted for these natural failings of her sex, and
Dorcas Brooke was not to be deterred by all the
Mohocks in London from regular attendance at a
sewing society in the next street, held twice a
week, for the purposes of conversation and charity,
retailing gossip, and furnishing the indigent with
clothes. Wrapped in her muffler, a pretty white
hand peeping out to clasp it round her throat, and
her dainty feet tripping lightly over the mud,
from gutter to gutter, Dorcas went backwards and
forwards from her home to her sewing society,
without taking much notice of the admiration,
generally expressed with oaths, that she called
forth. One tall man, in a cloak, watched her
regularly for a fortnight ; and so did a shorter,
squarer, sturdier person, of less aristocratic exte-
rior, only she did not remark the latter. The tall
man ventured to accost her before long, and
although she was greatly shocked at the liberty, how-
do we know that it was so ver}^ disagreeable, after
all, or that she had not implied, as damsels will,
by some almost imperceptible hitch of her gar-
ments, some unnecessary adjustment of her veil —
F 2
G8 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
'* If you follow me, I shall be angry ; if you speak
to me, I shall scream ! and yet I shall be a little
disappointed if you don't do both ! " The tall
man, however, was a Mohock when required. The
third week he had a hackney-coach waiting, and a
couple of ruffians ready to help his prey into the
vehicle. She was a light weight ; a shawl would
gag her pretty mouth and easily stifle her cries.
It was but lifting her in, and the thing was done.
Such trifles took place nightly in that golden age.
It was, therefore, well for Dorcas that she had
another follower, watchful and unsuspected, of less
aristocratic appearance, but of honester nature,
stiffly built withal, and holding a good oak cudgel
in his hand.
These affrays are soon over. There was a
piercing whistle ; a scuffling of feet ; a hoarse,
suppressed voice muttered, " 3Iy darling, I won't
hurt you ! " and a shrill, angry one screamed out,
" Let me go, sir ! Help ! Murder ! Let — "
Then one of the ruffians went down on the stones,
with the blood streaming from his sconce, the
rapier flew in shivers out of the tall man's grasp,
and the saddler's apprentice flourished his cudgel
between Dorcas and her assailant, executing a war-
THE BROOKES. 69
dance in the mud that bade defiance to a legion,
and hallooing for the watch with might and main
the while. The tall man took to his heels and
fled ; the fallen accomplice lay senseless where he
fell^ his comrade jumped on the box with the
hackney-coachman, and drove off. The watch
never came at all, and Dorcas Avalked silently
home with her uncle's apprentice, longing to
thank him heartily, but not daring to speak, for
she knew she should burst out crying directly if
she ventured to open her lips. Nor was her
champion one whit less taciturn. Bayard might
have been more courtly in manner, but not more
chivalrous at heart. ^Vlso, in the presence of
Dorcas, he was shy, mute, and awkward. Her
aunt thought him " a poor creature," so she said,
" easily dashed, and for all his broad shoulders he
hasn't the heart of a chicken ; not he ! Now
look at Dorcas ; the spirit of the girl ! But then,
to be sure, she's a Brooke ! " It is my own opinion
that neither of its participators alluded to the
evening's adventure or its termination, after
Dorcas said " Good night ! Oh, thank you ! " at
the street-door, and hurried upstairs for the " good
cry" that could be delayed no longer. Neverthe-
70 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
less, there must have been thereafter a tacit
understanding between the two ; and, I dare say,
at meals, the only times they met, the apprentice
would raise his eyes timidly to seek the girl's, and
avert them the instant they caught her glance.
It is obvious that when two people are at oppo-
site ends of a line, and wish to meet at a given
point, one must take the initiative, and move in
the desired direction, if it be but aa inch at a
time. To do women justice, they slirink sensi-
tively from thus commencing operations, and as
long as there is a chance of the advance originat-
ing with the adversary-, they are as retiring as the
snail \vithin its shell ; but when the lover so far
forgets liis masculine prerogative of solicitation as
to remain a longing devotee rather than a brisk
assailant (and it is provoking to reflect that the
truer his affection, the less it seems to sue for a
return), why then, rather than that the game
should languish altogether, and die out for want
of players, she will emerge cautiously, gradually,
yet very obviously, from her resei-ve, and give him
to understand that she is neither so coy, nor so
indifferent, nor so hard-hearted as he seems to
believe. The saddler's apprentice must have
THE BROOKES. 71
gathered a deal of encouragement from his mas-
ter's niece, iu the shape of stolen glances and
approving smiles, ere he could summon courage to
offer ]ier his escort on the river, when she took
boat at Whitefriars for a voyage into the country
as far as Westminster. Tliat lier aunt made no
objections is only to be accounted for on that prin-
ciple which, ill all ages and societies, has trusted
" the cat to keep the cream." In the present
instance, the cream was not the least afraid of the
cat; and the latter, although an inexperienced
mouser, was delighted with its charge.
There could be but one result to such an expe-
dition. The waterman, a staunch Hanoverian,
full of ale and lovaltv, ran them aground in some
three feet of water. Dorcas, losing her footing
and her presence of mind simultaneously, upset
the wherry with much dexterity, and the appren-
tice, in a laced waistcoat, knee-breeches, and full-
skirted coat, waded with his dripping burden to
the bank, and felt his head swim with a vague
delirious happiness when he imprinted his first
kiss on her pretty Lips, while she clasped her arms
round his neck, and vowed he was her defender
and preserver, and had saved her a second time
72 TUE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
from death. The waterman, who was too dnink
to walk ashore, was in most danger of the three ;
nevertheless, the young people, ignoring the shal-
lowness of the river, voted it a rescue, and hence-
forth became avowed sweethearts, only waiting for
an opportunity to declare themselves.
So presently tlir- ajiprentice was "out of his
time," and, earning good wages, married his mas-
ter's niece, who thus exchanged tlio cherished
patronymic of Brooke f(3r the less noble name of
Housings — an exchange that only lasted till the
next generation, for blaster Housings, in some
forty years' practice, amassed a large fortune by
the leather trade, and })r('tty Dorcas lived to see
her grandfather's roof over lier head, and was
buried in the country churchyard at Bridlemere.
It was, perhaps, her aunt's untiring influence
that stimulated this prosperous London tradesman
to purchase the acres she persisted in terming his
wife's ancestral property — an influence none the
weaker that she never neglected to remind liim of
his inferior birth during her lifetime, and left him
a good round sum of money at her death. Master
Housings and his Dorcas ended their days then at
Bridlemere (Lord Waywarden maintains even now
THE BROOKES. 73
that the place was so called to commemorate the
saddler's employment ; but such an assertion is
directly refuted by the title-deeds of this estate,
held by one Brown), and their children, by royal
licepce, took the name and arms of the Brookes
of Bridlcraere.
Two or three succeeding Squires drew their
rents and drank their port in the old house with-
out becoming in any way remarkable. The last
bought pictures ; and the present, till his health
failed him, kept hounds. Both succeeded in im-
poverishing their estate, and the energy of another
Sir GeoftVey, or the good sense of another blaster
Housings, was beginning to be wanted for the re-
pair of the family fortunes. Nevertheless, the
Brookes held a high station amongst the coimty
people. They could go back honestly to Sir
Geoffrey, and, by a perverse train of reasoning
common to mankind, descent is the more valued
the further off it is fi'om an illustrious ancestor,
and, consequently, the less there is of his blood in
the veins of his posterity. The present Squire,
like the others, was, above all things, proud of
being a " Brooke. As he watched the firelight
flickering on Xell's black braided hair, crimsoning
74 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
her sweet pale forehead, and tlirowiiig a saffron
tinge on the keys of the pianoforte, from ^vhich
lier wliite hands were pressing out a low. pltad-
ing, niouniful synijthony, dwelling, as if they
loved it, on each sad luirmonious chord, he was
not thanking God, wlio gave Uini, in his helpless
age, tlie love of snrh a daughter, hut congratu-
lating himself rather on the two stalwart sons, who
should per]ietuate in the male lino thq Brookes of
Bridlemere. Helen was a good girl, no doubt — a
good girl and a bonny one — but it was well, he
thouirht, that he had nearlv twelve feet of man-
hood, besides, to look to, lest tho iiiee might
become extinct
The Squire had b<>en a stalwart, well-grown
man in his prime — could cheer his hounds and
ride his horses with unfailing lungs and vigorous
dexteritv. There were old women al^out the
place now, still hale and hearty, who remembered
" liis eves as bright as diamonds, bless you ! and
his hair as Mack as your hat. Such a hearty,
well-limbed man as our Squire was, and a free
•T-entleman, too ; with a word for everybody —
gentle and simple, rich and poor ;" whilst an old-
foshioncd attorney iu ^Fiddlesworth, with a red
TUE BROOKES. 75
nose aud wliite neckcloth, quoted Squire Brooke,
as " the best judge of jjort Mine in tlie country ;
but a careful man of his health, always, and an
abstemious, never tfiking more than his one bottle
a day !" }]o had been a good shot, of course ;
an active, but somewhat pig-headed magistrate,
and an invaluable auxiliary at all agricultural
dinners, cattle-shows, and such public gatherings
of the landed interest and its suppt»rters.
Now he could not walk across the room without
assist;ince. Powerless below the waist, his arms
and shoulders still retained something of their
former vigorous mould, and there was brightness
in his eye, and colour in his cheek still : but his
hair and whiskers had turned white since his
attack, and he betrayed, at times, a querulous
irritabilitv foreign to his character, denotinir too
plainly the approach of a general break-up. One
doctor called it rheumatism ; another, suppressed
gout ; a third thought that his liver was affected,
and a fourth considered the general svstem too
low in tone. Nobody sent for a strange practi-
tioner, lest he should blurt out the right name, and
declare it paralysis. It would have been a friendly
deed — it would have been the action of a kind
76 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
and brave man to trll Squire Brooke tlie truth.
It seems liard that tlie wayfarer sliould be tlie last
person wanu'd of liis inevitahlo journey — should
never know he is froin;j: to start lill the long
narrow box is as good as ordered and ready for
packing — till the horses are actually pawing and
snorting in his hearse.
The Sfpiire sat in tho warmth of the rhimney-
conier ; a newspaper lay brside him; Itut Irom
the hal>its of his old active life, he never read it
till evening. 1I<- was
-t«l in an out-of-(l(X)r8
costume, with his po«>r hcljtlcss legs incased in
stout shiM)ting-boots and gaiters. His hat neatly
brushed, his gloves carefully fohh'd, his stick
ready to suj)port him, were placed within reach
on a chair by his side. Every morning Helen
went through the same routine, unvaried now for
months. After breakfast, she looked at the ther-
mometer, and told her father the exact tempera-
ture (he was very particular about this) ; then at
the barometer, and recorded its changes : setting
it by liis directions with great care. Then she
went out at the hall-door, wet or dry, and
furnished her own report of the atmosphere,
seldom tallying with that afforded by the mercur}\
THE BROOKES. il
This performance accomplished, tlie Squire would
say, " Helen, my dear, I've a good deal to do at
the Home Farm ; but I tliiuk I shall not go DUt
till the afternoon."
At first, b\\o liked to hear him talk so, for it
gave her hope. After a time, when he got no
better, she would turn away to conceal her tears.
At Itust, she became used to this as to other dis-
tressing symptoms, and grew to consider it as one
of the details — nor indeed the most trvinjr one —
of her father's illness and lier own daily duties.
She had plenty to attend to — calls for the
exercise of thoughtfulness, patience, and self-
denial, every hour of the day. Her brothers con-
sulted "Nell" in all their complications of stables,
kennel, or other opportunities for mismanagement.
She was expected to remember tiu-ir engagements,
and get them out of their difficulties of forgetful-
ness or incivility. She had to sew the buttons on
their gloves, and keep them supplied with
stationery, stamps, paper-lights, and other miscel-
laneous articles which men seem to think crow of
their own accord in sleeping and sitting rooms,
like daisies in a 3Iay meadow-groimd. More-
over, they asked her advice in every conceivable
78 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
dilemma, and never took it on any subject what-
ever.
Then tlio servants came to jMiss Helen for
orders, bringing her, in n-turn, complaints of over-
charge from the tradesmen, and reports of each
other's short-comings, which they thought it
" their duty to name ;" but which could never be
substiintiated on furtht-r intpiiry, and poured in her
ready ear many a dolorous statement with which
they would not venture " to troul)lo the Squire."
She had lost her mother several years before, and
Helen wt\s well accustomed to a jwsition which
demands, more than any other, the qualities of
tact, and good-temper, viz., the acceptance of
responsibility without authority.
But it was as a daughter that the girl shone in
her bri'ditest lustre. She had alwavs been
devoted to papa, from the time when she used to
toddle after him on sturdy little bare legs, round
the Home Farm, tumbling about sadly amongst
the turnips, and holding tight by his forefinger in
the straw-yard, where dwelt those huge homed
monsters that visited her in her dreams. From those
earlv davs, when she thought him tlie noblest,
the wisest, and the most gigantic of men, till
THE BROOKES. 79
now that she knew herself the prop and mainstay
of the poor bleached, withered old cripple, she
had never wavered one hair's breadth in her
affection, thuugh year by year it changed its
character, progressing tlirough the successive
phases of admiration, confidence, anxiety, pity,
and protecting love.
The Squire accepted it all, as, if men were wise,
they would bo careful ever to accept the devotion
of the other sex, with a lofty royal condescension,
that seemed to expect attachment and homage as
a right.
Loyalty, I think, must be a special charac-
teristic of womanhood, ^J'lioy seldom rebel till
the monarch himself shows symptoms of weakness
or abdication. A\'hat taxes, too, will they not bear,
so long as he imposes them with a fii-m and
temperate hand ? Whilst he remains on the dais,
they are the sincerest, though the sulttlest of
courtiers ; but let liim not descend to meet them
on an equal footing in the hall ; and if he place
them on a pedestal above his own level, woe
betide him ! He "will surely find that the pretty
head turns giddy with elevation, and the little
feet can trample hard and heavy on the prostrate
80 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
ruler who has voluntarily yielded up his natural
sway.
The Squire had accustomed himself to be
tended and nursed, and waited on by his child,
till it seemed only natural that all Helens
pleasures, amusements, and pursuits, should give
way to every whim of the invalid. She seldom
left him for more than a coui)leof hours at a time,
and nobody knew how often she had denied her-
self a ball, a pic-nic, or an archery meeting, lest
the worn face in tlie arm-chair should look wist-
fully round for her and tind her not — lest the
querulous voice complaining from habit to Helen,
should become more querulous and irritiible
because she was beyond hearing of its wail.
The country people, voted Miss Brooke a little
shy, and a little proud. It may be she had a
spice of both these failings. On the few occasions
when she did apj>ear, the young men fell in love
at first sight ; but after a quadrille, or a dinner-
party, became somewhat afraid of her, confiding
to each other in elegant figures of speech, that
she was " a clever-shaped one ; but (slow^ and not
much in her." Nevertheless, it might be seen, by
the earnest way they took their hats off when she
THE BROOKES. 81
bowed — Avhicli sho did sonicwliat haughtily, I
a(hnit — tliat they liked her to notice them. The
ladies were less outspoken in their decision.
They had " heard she was a very nice girl. For
theii- own part, they shouldn't call her exactly
handsome." It is needless, therefore, to observe,
that 3Iiss Brooke's exterior was sutliciently pleas-
ing in the eyes of the other sex.
She was a stately looking young woman. She
carried herself naturally in a more queenly
ftishion than is usual with a country gentleman's
daughter. She possessed what is called a veiy
thorough-bred air — not that this advantage is by
any means monopolised by our aristocracy — and
her reserved manner was probably much increased
bv the life she led, and her habit of thinking for
eveiy one in the house. Her head and neck
were extremely well put on, particularly when
you saw her en profile. She could look very high
and mighty when she drew herself up, which she
was apt to do from shyness, oftener than was neces-
sary ; but M'hen she bent over her work, or
stooped do\\'n to caress a dog or a child, there was
something very gentle and womanly in her
gestures, that accorded well with the expression of
VOL. I. G
82 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
lier fair low forehead, and the gentle, trustful look
in her large dark eyes. Hers was not one of those
faces which derive so much beauty, and that too
of a very fascinating kind, from brilliancy of
colouring, and mobility of feature, lltden was
nearly always pale, and so calm she was almost
severe ; but if in an unguarded moment a thought
or feeling was jH'rmitted to express itself unre-
servedly on her face, men turned ^their eyes
((uickly away, and as quickly looked at her again,
in the instinctive homage the lx»ldest cannot but
pay to a liigh type of feminine attraction.
liud she been more liberal ol lur smiles, she
might have easily claimed the championshiji — if 1
may use such an expression — in every ball-room of
the shire. Had she looked at any other man as she
did now from under her long dark eyelashes at
her father, down he must have come, I think,
unless shortsighted, or lately married, or very
deeply pre-engaged — down like a wild bird, shot
deftly under the wing, wounded and fluttering,
and helpless at her feet !
She closed the pianoforte, and came round still
with that smile on her face, to her father's chair.
Wliatever Helen did was done noiselessly ; her
THE BROOKES. 83
dress never rustled, aud she could even read the
newspaper without crackling it. "Papa," she
said, " let us put off the Dacres aud the Stoneys.
There will be plenty of time for me to write a line
now, before the post goes."
The Squire struck both hands angrily against
the anus of his chair, making a movement as if
he would get upon his feet — "Put oft" the Dacrcs
and the Stoneys, Helen ! Good gracious ! what
are you dreaming of? Why on earth do you
suppose I asked them if I'm to put them off"?
You don't think I'm worse, do you ?"
His voice shook painfully, but it was partly
froui anger. He was easily irritated now, particu-
larly when his health was alluded to.
" Dear papa," persisted Helen, " you know
Mrs. I)acr6 has a bad cold, and the chances are
she will send an excuse at the last moment ; in
which case she won't let Mm come alone.
Walter is gone to Tollesdale, and he never knows
when he will be back ; people like so to have
him. You see, there would only be the Stoneys,
and Jack, and I."
" Then you count me for nothing !" exclaimed
the Squire. " Considering that I have been in this
G 2
84 THE HROOKES OF RKIDLEMERE.
cursed cliair for — for — how long have I boon in
this cursed clmir, IFclt'ii? Considering tliat it's
my house, and nvj servants, and my wine, 1 thiid<
I might be permitted to sit at my own table ! If
the doctors think I am going to dine at two o'clock
every day, they're infernally mistaken, and so I
tell them! AVliy. it's not till Tuesday. I expect
to get out to-morrow, if it's anything like a fine
day ; and I munf go to the Kome Farm on Monday,
at all risks. I suppose I may have some dinner
after my walk, eh, iliden? Neither you nor the
doctors are fools enongh to forbid me that! And
this isn't till Tuesday I W liy, on Tut-sday, 1 expect
to be nearly as well as ever I was in my life. A
litth^ heavier, jiorhaps, for want of exercise ; l)nt
quite strong again — ijuite strung again."
Now, these dinner parties were amongst the
weekly trials of Helen's life. The Squire persisted
in asking his friends and neighbours to dine with
him, as he used when he could sit at the end of
his table, and carve his saddle of mutton, and
drink his bottle of port. Ay, and jday his rubber
of whist till twelve o'cloek at night. Now, early
hours and complete repose were absolutely en-
joined. Nor, had he been equal to the exertion
THE BROOKES. 85
of eutertaining his guests, would tlie exeitemeut
of their society have been permitted l»y the
doctors. Nevertheless, he would take counsel
with his I'hiUlrcn whom lie slioiild ask, and with
his cuuk what tlicy should havo lor dinner ; and
semi oft" invitations for a party of fonrt(M-'n witli tar
more eagerness than he ever sliuwed wlien lie was
strong and well. Ptrhaps the bustle and excite-
ment of the project may have served to amuse
liini, but he was nevertheless very irritable while
its arrangements were pending ; very cpierulous
and desponding the day alter the feast at which he
had been unable to attend.
It was no easy task for a young girl to preside
and do the honours of a large i)arty, chiefly
country neighbours, neither very bright nor very
sociable ; but of this duty she acquitted herself
wonderfully well, ^\'hat Helen dreaded was the
effect of these Barmecide entertainments, both
past tUid prospective, upon her father.
It was worse, too, when Walter was away from
home. That young Hussar seemed to have ac-
quired an ascendancy over the Squire, such as
was acknowledged by his brother officers. In the
presence of his second son, Mr. Brooke was
86 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEEE.
ashamed to indulge the querulous habits of bad
health, and assumed, as far as he could, the tone
of a man of the world. A visit from AValter
always seemed to do him good ; but on the days
he felt weakest, he declined to see him ; and when
he was at his worst, he liked nobody but Helen
to be in the room.
" So Walter is olY to Tollesdale— off to Tolles-
dale," repeated the Squire, after a pause, " Quite
right, quite right. Young men should go into
society, good society, the best they can command.
And the Waywardens are civil to Walter, are
they? Popular fellow, Walter; twice the brains
of Jack, eh, Helen ? .Vnd Waywarden's a good-
natured man : old friend of mine, though he never
comes to see me now."
. His voice dropped, for he was tliinking of the
days when he could beat Waywarden over a
country, and shoot quicker at pheasants, and when
in one of these amusements or the other, they
used to meet three or four times a week. He
would have taken it veiy kindly had the latter
ridden over to see him a little oftener ; and his
old friend would have gi'udged neither time nor
distance, but that he fancied he should onlv be in
THE BROOKES. 87
the way in a sick room, forgetting that the Squire,
as a Christian, loved his neighbour, and none the
less wliL'u that neighbour was a Peer. Mr. Brooke
liked to think of Walter flourishing about amongst
the^se grandees, riding as good horses and wearing
as smart clothes as the best of them, though he
never seemed to consider how these advantages
were to be paid for, nor dreamt of increasing his
younger son's allowance to meet the expenses such
society entails-
There are many fathers who have no scruple in
pushing the earthen vessel out to swim down-
stream with the iron pots, and think they have a
right to be angry when it breaks and fills, and
sinks to rise no more. Were it not that the iron
pots, as a class, are very considerate and very
good-natured, these ship^Tecks would occur far
oftener than thev do, Mr. Brooke, reflecting on
his own choice piece of porcelain, began to think
he should like it to be present at his dinner-party.
" Of course Walter will be back by Tuesday,
Helen ? " said he, more cheerfully. " We shall
want his help to do the honours, and talk to the
young ladies. I forget who are coming, Helen.
I've got your list somewhere, but I've mislaid it
88 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEKE.
King the bell, dear; or, no, put a little more wood
on the fire."
Helen stirred the logs into a flame, as usual, to
please him ; then she went over, lor the twentieth
time siiiee luneheou, the roll of invited guests.
The Smiths, who couldn't come ; the Greens,
who hadn't sent an answer ; the Dacres, who were
doubtful ; and lastly, the Stoneys, who had ac-
cepted, " with thanks."
A dinner-party in the country is apt to prove a
failure from the difficulty of getting your forces
together at the last moment. Like an invading
army, its available strength is fur less than that
which it shows ou paper. In London, you send
out your invitations three weeks beforehand, and
the invited come as solemnly, as tardily, and ap-
parently as unwillingly, as they would to pay any
other just and unavoidable debt. IMoreover, the
gaps between your couples are filled with pro-
fessional diners-out — men who make a regular
business of the thing, and whose conversation, cut
fresh from the evening paper and the topics of
the afternoon, will no more keep till to-morrow
than the flowers in your epergne. Therefore, if
they are ahve, come they will, and you need fear
THE BROOKES. 89
no far-fetched excuses to disappoiut you at the
last moment.
I do not mean to say that the entertainment is
likely to be cool, roomy, comfortable, or in any
way particularly ])leasant ; but it is pretty sure to
take place, and there is an end of it ; whereas, in
the country, you may lose four of your party at
once on the day itself by such a trilling casualty
as the breaking of a spring, or the illness of a
coach-horse. If it is a frostv niirht, vom- richest
elderly lady probably fails you from slieer pol-
troonery ; if a thaw, yoiu* handsomest and most
eligible young man is likely to be wading up a
muddy lane with a tired hunter a dozen miles off,
when he ought to be simpering over his soup plate
at your dinner-table. The imdertaking is beset
with difficidties ; and even if it succeeds, in nine
cases out of ten, it proves one of the many
games which are not worth the candle that lights
tliem.
Helen never argued with nor contradicted her
father. She let him run on and exhaust his
petulance unopposed, returning, as it wore itself
out, with the gentle persistency of woman, again
and again to the attack.
90 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
" Walter will be back the end of the week,"
she said. " If we could put off the dinner-party,
papa, we might make sure of having him to help
us."
" I don't require any help ! " answered the
Squire, quickly. "Still, Walter makes himself
agreeable, and brings us all the news. And you
say the Dacres won't come, you think, Helen ? "
" Sure not, papa," was the rei>ly ; " ^\v all k-now
what Mrs. I>acre's colds are: they mean, *I won't
take any trouble about anything for a fort-
night.' "
The Squire wavered. Still he could not at once
rrlinquish the idea of his dinner-part v. It was a
sort of pyint cCappui for his jwor, weak, helpless,
vacillating mind.
" But there are the Stoneys," said he ; " three
of them, for I told you to ask Philip particularly.
Did you ask Philip particularly, Helen ?"
She had turned to make the fire up again.
" Yes, papa," she answered ; " I wrote him a
separate note in your name."
" Three of them," mused Mr. Brooke. " I don't
think we can put three of them off. It is not as
if we had only asked two. What should you say,
THE BEOOKES. 91
Helen ? Don't you think it would seem very odd,
it" wo put three of them off ? "
But Helen was firm. Ho had come round, as
usual, to hor way of tliinking, by imperceptible
degi'ees, and thought ho had converted her to his
own opinion. 80 she lit the candles on the
writing-table, and sat down to her task, taking
great pains, as ladies do, witli the penmanship and
superscription of her letters, and composing, as
her father desired, a particular and separate note
to Mr. Philip Stoney.
CilArTEll IV.
STONE Y BROTHERS.
b^ all tlie llirt.s iu and al)Oiit ^liildles-
wortli, I iloubt it' there was one who
c'ouUl bear corn|>arison with a young
hilly nuw uccupyiijg the liearth-rug at
the feet of riiilip Stoney, divested of his shooting
dress, clean, huugiy, and waiting for the important
hoTir of dinner. That this person was four years
of a^e, wearing her legs bare, likewise her
shoulders, and her frock in as untidy a state as
constant revision by mamma and nm-se would
permit, is simply an aggravation of the charge,
inasmuch as dishevelment and general disorder of
costume did but enhance the pecuh'ar style of
coquetry which she found ii-resistible by many of
her own, and all of the opposite sex.
STONEY BROTHERS. 93
Without being a pretty child, except in so far
as hcaltliy chiklren cannot help being pretty, rosy
cheeks and dancing eyes, and an ini^mdent nose,
with a profusion of curling brown hair, imparted
to this little lady quite pretension enough on
which to found a dynasty tliat had grailually
usurped dominion over the whole house. That
she had a Christian name I assume from |)re-
sumptive sponsorial evidence, aiVurded by a fairy-
like fork and spoon, with a red case, also a silver
toast-and-water mug in her possession. But such
baptismal appellation was entirely superfluous,
inasmuch a^ nobody, in or out of the family, ever
dreamed of calling her anything but '' Dot ;" and
a very troublesome, quaint, and noisy little per-
sonage Dot could be, at no time more so than at
the period,
" Between the dark and tlie daylight,
Which is called the children's hour."
Philip was warming himself (like an English-
man) at the fire. Dot sat on the hearth-rug at his
feet. She brandished a pair of scissors (points
blunted for tiimily use), and was cutting a paper
pattern of mamma's into a device which it had
94 TEE BROOKES OF RRIDLEMERE.
by no means been origriniiHy intended to re-
present.
After an unbroken silence of some thirty seconds,
Dot looked up.
" Uncle riiil," said she, shakinji: the curls off
her face, " when am I to l)o your wife ?"
This was a matrimonial armngement long since
concluded, and now established as a matter of
course by the ladv, with whom, indeed, it orifd-
nated.
" Not at all, D«»t," answered Uncle I'liil. " I am
afraid of umlertaking the j<»b. I've changed my
mind.
" Are you going to have another wife ?" asked
Dot, very graciously, and quite unmoved by her
favourite's inconstancy.
Philip smiled, and smothered a sigh, while he
thought how unHkely such an event was ; and
Dot proceeded with the utmost gravity :
"Because, mamma said this morning that Phil
was too gcMxl to be a hachddore, and when I asked
what a bachddore was, she said papa was one
before he manied. And I thought, perhaps, you
would be good enough for me to be your wife very
soon, and then we could go to that place you
STONEY BRUTUERS. 95
told me of, where the beasts are, like my Noab's
Ark."
• Dot had idready a very feminine notion of a
wedding tri|>, comhining, as far as jiraetiralde,
amusement with romance. Every child lias its
own- ideal region of enchantment, and Dot's
Utopia was ''where the beasts were, like her
Noah's Ark."
Uncle IMiil sat down, and his torment, reaching
his knee at a bound, proceeded to the constant
and never-iailiug resource of opening and shutting
his watch.
" We'll see about it, Dot," Siiid he, smoothing
the glossy head. " I think the beasts would all
be afraid of you ; you're such a little vrxen."
"What's a vixen ?" asked Dot. ''Wind it up,
uncle I'hil ! What's a vixen?" she repeated,
with a quick look in his face. " Ls Jane one ? Is
mamma a vixen ? "
Philip laughed outright. "Here she comes,
Dot," said he ; " you had better ask her yourself;"
and the words were scarce out of his mouth, ere
Dot, whose motions were like quicksilver, had
made a dive at mamma, and was lost in the ample
folds of that ladv's gown. Auvthing less like a
Of) THE BROOKES OF BRIDI.EMERE.
vixen tliaii ^Frs. (ieorpfo Stoney n>uleen always
nursing, yet her ap|)earance never failed to suggest
a general idea of nutrition ; and hor demeanour,
with its heavy, languid step, and slow im{>osing
gestures, was a happy combination of tho matronly
and the im|K'rial.
Her conversation, ttincti\X'ly. and
at random, without in the least coinpn-hending
the ])urport of a single question adilressed.
AVith men, ^Frs, Stoney was rather poj)ularthan
tithcrwisc. Tla-y uilmired her lint' piiints, ami
laughed good-humouredly at her line jdnases,
ignoring their misaj>plieation. or setting down hur
mistakes, as they will, to the score of feminine
ignorance and incapacity. Amongst her own sex,
opinions as to lur merits varied in aeconhmce
with the social standing of those wlio broached
them. The poor thought her "a noble lady," as
iudeetl they had good cause. The tradespeople
considered " she gave herself airs to which she was
not entitled ;" for this class of persons only toler-
ate and even admire bad manners, when covered
with a coronet The doctor's sister, the rector's
lady, and one or two neighbouring h^quiresses
voted her "a vulgar, trapesing woman, and just
what they expected from the first;*' whilst Lady
W^iywarden, I fear, ignored her altogether, and
VOL. I. H
98 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
none the less loftilv, that Waywarden, some years
at^'u, had been heard to dechire at a ]\IirMlos\vortli
ball, she was " out-and-out, the handsomest woman
in the room ! "
Mrs. George Stoney, however, })erniitted htTsi'lf
to be but little affected by the suffrages of her
neiglilx)urs. What with marketing, shopping, the
production and sustenance of infants, the unpick-
ing of dresses, tlie supervision of servaHts, and the
struggle for supremacy with Dot, time did not
hang heavy on her hands. All the languor she
indulged in was confined to her mannci-s, and she
could bustle about bclow-stairs, on occasion, with
a vigour and activity quite remarkable in so ample
and majestic a personage. Dot was devoted to
her. She herself thought she was the only per-
son who kept Dot in order, but to this opinion
the latter did by no means subscribe, and the
question was tried at least half-a-dozen times a
day, usually with the same result, a signal and
complete victory on the part of the child. Philip
got On admirably with his sister-in-law, perhaps for
the very reason, that no two people could be less
alike in every respect, and altogether, no more
united family sat down to diimcr in Middles-
STOXEY BROTHERS. 99
worth than that which surroimded tlie dining-
table of tlie comfortable vilUi inhabited by Stoney
Brothers.
"George is late," remarked his wife, ringing
the bell with one large white hand, and imprison-
ing Dot with the other. *' lie has not been in ten
minutes, but it never takes him long to make hi.s
toilet. He's an elegant figure, George ; and the
children take after him. He'll be here before the
soup now. Dot ! will you leave the fire-irons
alone?"
Dot's attention was at this juncture fortunately
arrested by the simultaneous entrance of papa,
who was always an attraction, and the soup, borne
by a clean, tidy looking parlour-maid, whose con-
nection witli a certain store-room, and the jam
thereto belonging, gave her opinions considerable
weight amongst the inhabitants of the nursery.
It was at her instance that Dot consented to be
removed, ostensibly to superintend the putting to
bed of her juniors ; and as the young lady was
replaced by a tureen of hot soup, the three sat
down to dinner in considerable comfort and tran-
quillity. George Stoney was several years older
than his brother. He had the worn and somewhat
H 2
100 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEItE.
subdued air of a man whose whole life has been
spent in the toils of business, in work not adapted
to his tastes, and that taxed his powers to tlie
utmost. There are two sorts of men in trade,
equally energetic, perhaps, and etjually successful,
but who wear their good fortune, as Ophelia says
of hor rue, "with a dilTerence." Those to whom
business is their natural element, thrive and grow
fat upon it ; they are younger and fresher men of
their years than the British yeoman himself. But
the others, who put their shoulders j>erhaps no
less assiduously to the wheel, yet who cannot cheat
themselves into the belief that labour and pleasure
are convertible terms, who do the drudgery, and
do it thoroughly, but only because it must be done
to })av the premiums on their life-assurances for
wife and children ; who stand at the desk, when
they would fain be breasting a mountain, and long
for the saddle, while perched high on an office-
stool; these men have thin hands and hollow
voices, weak hair, streaked with grey before its
time, a stoop in the shoulders, marked lines about
the mouth, and, Oh ! such a wistful look in the
weary, weary eyes, as if they longed so for rest,
that they would be content to find it even in the
STONEY BROTHERS. 101
grave. George Stoney was active, paiustakiiig,
intelligent, but his natural element was leisure
cind retirement. He would, probably, have been
equally successful as a scholar, had his lot been
cast amongst a difterent kind of books from those
which he compared and posted so carefully ; un-
questionably he would have looked ten years
younger, and he would certainly have been a
happier man.
Refined in character, cautious, and a little
indolent of disposition, shrinking almost sensitively
from everything noisy, exaggerated, or in bad
taste, averse even to so much of strife as must
constitute the necessary comjK'tition of trade,
he was a dreamer — almost a poet in heart : though
externally, both in dress, manner, and luibits, as
jirosaic a personage as it is possible even for the
British raerrhant to be. Such a man was sure to
marrv a woman of far coarser mental texture
than his own, and, having married her, was equally
sure to abandon the reins of government to her
grasp as far as she liked to possess them. Intel-
lect, from its' very nature, is too often hampered
by facility of character and love of ease ; such a
combination cannot but give way when opposed
102 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
to a firm and tliifk-skinned disposition ; strong in
its will as its aifections, regardless of those nicer
shades of feeling which do not practically affect its
well-being, and rejoicing in that usefnl self-con-
fidence, which, however unwarranted, is so often
justified by results. It is only fair to say, how-
ever, that in the present instance, the lady con-
fined her energies to domestic sway. She never
interfered with the business, and the brewery was
conducted, unquestionably, by the firm of Stoney
Brothers, tliough inside the villa ^Irs. George's
word was law.
This brewery, then, well known, long esta-
blished, and ministering to the thirst of more than
half the villages in the county, was considered
to be the best business doing in the town of
Middlesworth. Its magnificent greys were to be
seen at all hours resting their nose-bags to feed
on each other's backs. Its waggons clattered and
jingled along the ill-paved streets, waking the
echoes and shaking the windows as they rolled by.
Its draymen, jolly and gigantic, were walking
advertisements of the stuff on which they
fiourished, and " Stoney's Entire " seemed synony-
mous with John Barleycorn himself.
STONEY BKOTHERS. 103
For many years the firm had done well, and
amassed considerable profits in a dark, mysterious-
looking bnilding, far down a by-street, through
which it was a miracle liow the waggons and
the greys, and the draymen ever wound their
way ; but the sj)irit of enterprise had of late
prompted Stoney Brothers to quit their old
premises, and erect a magnificent pile of classical
proportions in the most frequented part of the
town, where gi"eys and thays, and waggoners,
should be permanently quartered, and which
should become the colossal emporium, as it were,
and fountain-head, of the very strongest beer (for
the money), that could be brewed by the power of
steam.
Old grey-headed tradesmen who remembered
Middlesworth before the days of railroads, " small
profits, and quick returns " men — who ate
and slept in their places of business, and were
proud of it; who "kept the shop as the shop
kept them," looked vdih no favourable eyes on
the new brewery, sagaciously opining that Stoney
Brothers were " reaching their hands out further
than they could draw them back again ;" but the
vounirer division of the mercantile interest — the
104 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEKE.
modern class of shopkeeijers — apju-oved mucli of
the whole proceeding, and Mr. Dowlas, the
draper, an eloquent person, with a taste for public
speaking and Mechanics' Institutes, declared it
was " refreshing to ^vitness such a bold and com-
prehensive spirit of entor]iriso. which deserved,
even if it failed, to command success !"
There was one person, however, who could not
brinij himself to entertain these sanji;uine views of
the new undertaking, on whose peace of mind the
huge erection seemed to press, witli tlic sj)ecilic
weight of the very bricks and mortar of which it was
composed. George Stoney had hjoked, if possible,
graver and Avearier than ever, since the foundations
of the building had been laid. It was only after
long consideration that he had given his consent
to its commencement, after carefully inspecting
the plans, and reducing the estimates, and
calculating the expense. AVhon fiiirly begun,
nobodv could have shown more enera'v and
activity in furthering its completion ; but even
Mrs. Stoney observed that George grew quieter
— " more absorbed in thought," she called it — day
by day; and Dot, standing on papa's knee, and
taking stock, as usual, of his eyebrows, whiskers,
STONEY BROTHERS. 105
&c., was delighted to find how many more of
those " nice white hairs " she could discover
every time she looked for them.
To your own fomily your symptoms are never
so alarming as to strangers. Meeting you every
day, changes are to them imperceptible, which your
visitors, as they drive away, tell each other " they
were quite shocked to perceive." Illness is like
age. You fondly imagine, the man you shave to-
day is very like what he was when you began to
shave him thirty years ago ; and the wife of your
bosom, if always with you, never looks older than
when she was a bride. Thus the gradual dechne
from indisposition to weakness, and from weak-
ness to ill-hoaltli, is only observed by your
doctor. And when the inmates of your house-
hold begin to see a dilference m your appearance,
depend upon it, the last change of all is not very
far off.
At the dinner-table, the conversation was
principally between Philip and his sister-in-law.
The latter moistening her remarks pretty plenti-
fully with the beer of the firm, as indeed she had
a good right, from conviction of its excellence, and
conscious want of its sustaining power within.
106 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE,
There was no ostentation about the repast, but all
its accessories were close at hand without the
trouble of asking: for them. The linen was soft
and white, the plates too hot to hold, the silver
shone, the glass sparkled, and the dumb-waiter
was scarcely quieter, or more indis[)ensable than
the noiseless parlour-maid, mIio removed and
changed the dishes with each succeeding course.
That parlour-maitl's ribbons always loo'lced new.
For the first month, Jitr mistress vowed daily,
"Jane wouldn't suit," on the score of being
" dressy ;" but Jane's clean hands and willing
face, and tidy, active ways, soon gained for her
the rei)utation of being " a treasure." Dot, too,
entertiiined morbid feelings alx)ut her merits.
"Altogether," as she wrote to her sister, "the
place was suitable, and she had no intentions of
leaving of it."
Mrs. Stoney looked very ample and handsome,
dispensing the good things before her to her hus-
band and his brother. Neither of them, to use
her own expression, " took as much animal food "
as she thought good for them. Her own idea was,
that the more a man ate and drank, the stronger
he must necessarily become. She would have
STONET BROTHERS. 107
liked to feed her husband as often as she did tlie
baby in possession. George Stoney, lifting his
liead hmguidly to dooline any more of liis own
beer, was admonished, that " if he woukl neither
eat nor drink at dinner, he must promise to take
two or three glasses of good wine afterwards.
" If once you let the system down," argued 31rs.
Stoney, " every medical man will tell you he can-
not answer for the consequences. Look at me ;
I'm sure I can't think whatever I should do witli-
out my beer. Philip there is afraid of his waist,
I know, but you've no need to be apprehensive on
that score, George. Your dancing days are over,
my dear ; something like my own."
Mrs. Stoney was fond of asserting her matronly
exemption from the delights of the dance ; claim-
ing privilege on the score of superannuation, which
it was pleasant to hear indignantly denied. This
self-depreciation, too, was pm-ely theoretical ; inas-
much as she liked nothing better than to swim
through a quadrille, with the majestic and imposing
progress of a first-class ship under easy sail ; and
my own impression is, that she abstained from
waltzing, less fi-om a sense of decorum, than a
specific gravity of person, which rendered that
108 THE BROOKES OF DIUDLEMERE.
measure too ltil)ori()Us and breatliless an eftbrt for
recreation, and only to be risked on gi-eat occa-
sions, once or twice a year.
"I've other things than dancing to attend to,"
said her husband, abstractedly ; " and if I liadn't,
IJell," he added, with a sniik', " 1 don't think
Middlesworth is much of a phice for that amuse-
ment."
* " I dechire if he hasn't forgottrn our ball ! " ex-
cdaimed ^Irs. George, cUi|ti»ing lu-r luinds with a
peal of laugliter, and turning tt» her brothrr-in-
law. "Now, that's George all over. I'll under-
take to say ymCve been tliinking about it, Philip,
more than enough, and are engaged, a dozen deep
beforehand, witli all the prettiest partners in the
town. Ah, it's a great pleasure, is a ball, to younf>'
l)eople! though there's many a heart-ache comes
from it afterwards ; and a head-ache, too," added
she reflectively, " if 3Ir. Driblet iurnishes the
champagne, as usual, at supper."
" Both are easily got rid of," answered Philip.
'* and both are easily avoided, if a man knows
what he's about. You needn't dance, if you can't
take care of your heart ; and you needn't drink
champagne, if you're not sure of your stomach."
STONEY BROTHERS. 109
" If I was a man, I'd run my chance of both,"
replied Mrs. George Stoney. " Notliing venture,
nothing have ! Phil ; and, ' faint heart never won
fair h\dy.' But you don't get oft' so easily from
our jMiddleswortli lialls. London parties may be
better, and more crowded, if you come to tliat ; but
nobody shall persuade me they can be more
genteel."
" I know nothing about London," said Philip,
who semed a little restless and inclined to change
the subject. " I am not much of a judge in such
matters, but these seem well enough in their way."
" Well enough in their way ! " echoed his sister-
in-law. *' Why, George, did you ever hear anything
like that?"
"Anything like what?" asked her husband,
waking up from a dreaming fit, and relapsing
without waiting for an answer ; while his wife, who
was used to his abstraction, continued the conver-
sation without him.
" I'm sure, Philip, I wonder what you'd have,
if these balls are not good enough for you.
I've seen a good deal of life in my time, as a
girl, you know, Phil, before I married your brother.
The very first people, both from the barracks
110 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
and tlic dock-yard, were always welcome in
my father's house : but if you ask me, I declare
I don't know when I've set eyes on so many
elegantly dressed females, and gentlemen of really
fasliionable exterior, as attended our ]\liddlesworth
ball this time last year. xVnd it's been the same
ever since I've known the town. If it wasn't for
what I call the * stuck-np set,' who always will get
by themselves at the top end of the room, there'd
be nothing equal to our balls — nothing!"
Mrs. Stoney flourished her large well-shaped
hand and arm, with a gesture that seemed to defy
contradiction.
" I've seen some very handsome people at that
end too," observed Philip, with a little malice, and
a slight accession of colour in his cheek. " Lady
Julia kept her whole party there last year, and
they say that she is reckoned quite a beauty, even
in London."
" I've no patience with her ! " exclaimed Mrs.
Stoney ; " nor her mother neither. I blame Lady
Waywarden far more than the girl ; though, if you
ask me, I think Lady Julia is rather inclined to
be a romp. Such airs and graces, indeed ! If
we're not good enough to be in the same room
STONE Y BROTHERS. Ill
with them, wliy do they come, I should like to
know ; I'm sure nobody wants 'em ! "
This last assertion was somewhat inconsequent,
inasmuch as these offenders contributed, at least,
one-third of the ball-goers ; and if they had ab-
stained from attending, because " nobody wanted
them," the assembly would have been shorn of
a large and very ornamental portion of its attrac-
tions. The grievance, however, was of long stand-
ing. Mrs. Stoney said no more than the truth,
when she declared it to be one of which she
" could not speak with patience ; " moreover, it be-
came year by year more confirmed amongst its
originators, and more offensive to the rest of the
society.
The Town Hall, wherein these solemnities were
held, though a lofty and lengthy room, was, un-
fortunately, but of scanty width. The musicians'
gallery, equally distant from both ends, and front-
ing an enormous fire-place, from before which the
shy men were knocked out of time in about five
minutes, almost divided it into two different apart-
ments ; and in the one of these, furthest from the
door, the countv families had contracted a habit
of congregating, huddled together Like starlings
112 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
in a nor' wester, and offering considerable social
difficulties to such adventurous youths as might
desire to extricate their partners from the flock.
It was in vain the townspeojde, with Mrs. 8toney
at their head, strove to form an opposition gather-
ing of their own, and took possession of the other
end, leaving a clear space in the midst, as though
for some exhibition of posture-making or leger-
demain. I'his only niadc matters woKse. Few
ladies, and still fewer gentlemen, ventured to cross
the Debat cable Land ; and, instead of a festive
gathering, these assemblies began to assume the
aspect of an imjicnding buttk' between opposing
armies, with Amazons in the front rank.
i\Irs. Stoney, indeed, had, on one occasion,
reaped a signal and unexpected triumph. It was
when Lord Waywarden, the most good-humoured
and unaffected of men, who could hardly have
been made to understand the dithculty, had it
been explained to him, deliberately left his ranks,
and selecting her from the opposition for a
partner, led her triumphantly to the top of a quad-
rille at his own end of the room, where she had a
Marquis for a vis-a-vis — an arrangement she did by
no means dislike.
STONEY BROTHERS. 11')
Nevertheless, such victories are too often fatal
as defeats. The English fine ladv can be the best
bred woman in the world. It does not follow that
she always is. When she means to bo rude, she
draws the bow with less comjmnction, and points
her shafts more accurately, and more mercilessly
from behind the shield of conventionality than
any other archer in the battle. Ere Mrs. Stoney
had swum through her quadrille, with no less, be
sure, than her accustomed majesty, she wished in
her heart she had never left the other end of the
room, ^yomen have a way of making each other
•
uncomfortable, wliich the stupider sex can neither
appreciate nor understand ; and thuuj::li Mrs.
George carried her crest bravely through the
figures, and did not lower an eyelash, under Lady
Waywarden's cold, contemptuous stare, she waa
very glad to get back to her own party at the con-
clusion ; and from that night hated the '• stuck-up
set " more than ever.
"Take away, Jane," said she to the parlour-
maid, who had re-entered with dessert ; and after
whispering certain injunctions, of which the words
*' bed " and " Miss Dot " were alone audible, she
turned to Philip, and resumed the subject that
VOL. I. I
114 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
about this time of year was generally uppermost in
her mind.
"There's beauty enough, and to spare, Thil,"
said she, smoothing her own glossy bands of hair
on her temples ; "and this winter there will be
more than ever ; though, to be sure, I don't think
much of the new people at the Poplars ; and I
don't see what there is in that ]\[rs. Dacre to make
a fuss about. If she didn't get her dreSSes straight
from Paris, she'd be positively plain, to my fancy.
Don't you think so, Phil ? "
Phil had not thought about it ; scarcely know-
ing Mrs. Dacre, indeed, by sight ; so he said " Yes,"
with a clear conscience, and ^Irs. George pursued
her criticisms, well satisfied.
" Lady Julia will be there, I suppose, as usual ?
She's a good figure of a girl, and a sweet dresser,
Phil — there's no denying that ; but she'U never
have her father's elegant manners ; and I'm certain
she's freckled when you're close to her. I declare,
if she would only seem a little more unbending,
there are none of them to beat my favourite, that
dark-eyed Miss Brooke. Don't you think Miss
Brooke is a very handsome, aristocratic looking
girl ? "
STONEY BROTHERS. 115
But Philip's answer, if he made one, was lost in
the wine-glass at his lips, for the subject was liere
brought to an abrupt termination by the appari-
tion of Dot, rosy and tumbled, closely pursued by
the parlour-maid, and obviously glowing with
excitement from some overt act of successful re-
bellion.
The young lady's costume, too, was of the sim-
plest and easiest. It consisted of a long white
cotton garment, clinging closely round her slender
little figure, and making it look absurdly limp
and pliant. Her feet were bare, and her curls
scattered over her shoulders. It was evident, even
without Jane's disapproving face, that she had
been permanently put to bed, and had jumped uji
again.
''HaUoo! Dot!" "Why here's Dot!" suffi-
ciently expressed her father's and uncle's as-
tonishment, while mamma's " Now Dot ! " denoted
more displeasure than surprise. AMiisking round
the table, and dodging out of Jane's grasp,
like an eel, the child sprang to Uncle Phil's knee,
and explained her appearance with perfect frank-
ness, and an air of determined resistance to
injustice.
I 2
IIC) THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
" My camel ! my camel ! " urged Dot, intensely
in earnest. " I've said my prayers, and I've had my
hail- done, and I've been a good little girl ; and I
can't go to bed without my camel ! "
Jane here felt called upon to explain. " Miss
Dot was veiy partial to her camel " (a rare speci-
men out of her Noah's Ark, resembling, now the
paint was worn off, no known creature upon earth),
" and couldn't never be got to bed without it " — u
position the rebel seemed resolved to maintain :
clasping Uncle Phil firmly round the neck, and
from that point of vantage eyeing her ])ursuer
with a comical expression of triumph and defi-
ance.
It was evidently a case where nothing but
mamma's interference could prove of the slightest
avail. Mrs. Stoney accordingly rose from the
table, and quietly carried off the intruder in her
arms, the latter glancing roguishly at Uncle Phil,
over the maternal shoulder, and clenching her
little fist on the regained treasure, which even in
the moment of capture she had spied out, and
picked off the hearth-rug, where she had been
playing with it before dinner.
" After a storm comes a calm," observed George
STONE Y BROTHERS. 117
Stoney, pusliing the decanter over to his brother,
and relapsing into silence.
Soon he looked up. "Those are my reasons,
Phil," said he, reverting to Dot and her companions
in the nursery, " for being so cautious. I some-
times think I'm not cautious enough for a man who
has a wife and family dependent on his life almost
for bread."
Philip knew well what was in his elder brotlier's
mind. The latter could not bring himself to the
belief that they had acted prudently in buikling
the new brewery.
" It's nearly finished," said Philip in a hearty,
cheery voice, answering his brother's thoughts
rather than his words. " Nearly finished, and as
good as paid for, in my opinion. I showed you the
calculations I made yesterday. Look how the
business will increase ; why, in six months it will
have doubled itself. In five years the capital \vill
be paid up, and there you are with the fore-horse
well by the head, as our people say — a rich man
for good and all."
"Five years is a long time," replied George,
looking thoughtfully into his glass. " Life's un-
certain. I'm not such a hard fellow as you, Phil ;
118 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
and a good deal older into the bargain. Suppose
I don't last five years ? "
" Stuff and nonsense ! " exclaimed the other.
'* You'll last fifty ! Besides," he added in a tone of
deep feeling, " I shall not be quite penniless. My
share is a pretty good thing — at least, / think so,
I can tell you. Then, if worst came to worst, d'ye
think you're fonder of the cliildren than I am ? And
Isabella hjis something, though it isn't' much, of
her own. Your life's insured, too. 1 )on't croak,
old bov ! What are vou tliinkiuf}: of? "
" That reminds me," observed George, more
cheerfidly, " we ought to insure the new place,
now it's so nearly finislied. I meant to speak to
vou al)0ut it to-dav, before vou went to Bridle-
mere."
"I've thought of that, too," answered Philip,
joyfully. " We'll do it next week. Save a quarter's
insurance ; don't you see, George ? Oh, trust me
for looking after the main chance ! "
" You're a better man of business than I am,"
replied the elder brother, '"though I've had so
much more experience. And you think the
venture is sure to turn out successfullv ; don't vou
Phil?"
STONEY BROTHERS. 119
" Not a doubt of it," answered tlie latter confi-
dently. " No more wine, George, thank you.
Yes, I will ; I'll have one glass, to drink " Good
luck to the new brewery, and success to Stoney
Brothers ! "
George put a little sherry into the bottom of his
glass, and pledged the hopeful toast. Neverthe-
less, the confidence was only forced in him, which
was spontaneous in his brother. Their characters
were diflferent, both by nature and from the force
of circumstances. Philip not only possessed the
buoyant hope and energy of a young man who had
never yet known serious disappointment ; but he
had also a resolute, and somewhat enterprising'
spirit, prone to adventure, and not to be deterred
by the rebuffs of fortune. A thorough woman, the
goddess is to be won both by readiness and persis-
tency. Philip could repair a failure, as well as
take advantage of a chance. At present, too, he
seemed even more than ever to be working: "with
a will." He wanted no holidays now, except, it may
be, for an occasional dav's shootino^ at Bridlemere.
Mrs. George began to suspect that this desire of
money making must originate in something be-
sides a love of independence for its own sake.
120 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
Her husband was not given to speculate on any-
thing save future reverses in trade ; nevertheless,
he, too, observed tliat riiili|) was never tired of
talking "shop," Business seemed now to be the
subject upjiermost in liis mind at all seasons.
To the very threshold of their pri-tty drawing-
room — in which Mrs. Stoney, having put Dot and
her camel to bod, was waiting toa for thorn — he
urged the advantage of taking Jem lluttors into
their employment, at a somewhat lower rate of
wages than the regular tarilT; and even while the
door 0})ened she heard her husband's quiet melan-
cholv tones remindin;; his brother of the insurance,
and the hitter's triumphant rejoinder, that he had
saved a quarter's interest — "A whole quarter's in-
terest, George, by not being in too great a hurr)'!"
^^^^^u^,
CHAPTER V.
TOLLESDALE.
EED I make excuses for reverting to tlie
subject of dinner — that principal event
in the recurrinjr dav ? From the acoru-
eating age of the savage to the great
discovery of truffles ; from the Ived Indian wlio
loosens his hunger-belt, and goes in for a gorge
on juicy hump and oily marrow off the fresh-killed
buffalo, to the dandy (no longer very young),
starched, curled, and perfumed, who sits down to
twenty dishes, with no appetite, but tastes of each
in turn, stimulated by dry champagne ; all times
and all classes have agreed to regard dinner as an
Institution, to establish it as the axis round which
tne whole twenty-four hours revolve.
122 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
Nor must it necessarily be an extremely
plenteous or elaborate repast. A crust of bread
and cheese under a hedgje ; a sandwich (mustard
forgotten) on the heather ; a mutton chop, with
another "to follow" — these simple provisions are
competent, on occasion, and when nothing better
can be had, to fill the place of a royal banquet,
and aflbrd as much satisfaction to the con-
sumer as turtle and venison. There are but two
conditions exacted for the sacrifice — the priest must
be luniirrv and the oflerinjj clean. Then is there
no necessity for great preparation, or " apparatus."
Say grace, fall to, and if you cannot get a sip of
sliorry, or a glass of claret, or even a teaspoonful of
alcohol, as a digestive, make the best of it, and
finish off with a smoke.
I know not why the very j>eople for whom this
important meal is an aftair of the greatest cere-
mony, who take the most pains to have it good,
and when they do get it, spend the most time in
its discussion, should put it off as long as they
possibly can.
The Stoneys were adjourning for tea at eight
o'clock. It was a quarter past before the party at
Tollesdale had fairlv sat down to dinner. Nor,
TOLLESDALE. 123
indeed, was their complement made up even at tliat
late hour. Jack Brooke's was a capital pony, no
doubt ; and Walter did not spare him as he galloped
from tlie barracks. A good-looking young man,
who wears his own hair and teeth, who does not
require to curl his whiskers, and whose clothes
are supplied (on credit) by the tailor most in vogue,
ouirht to be able to dress for dinner in twenty-
five minutes. Nevertheless, Walter contrived to
make his entrance, and his bow to liis hostess, as
the soup disappeared, and sank into the seat re-
served for him by Lady Waywarden, without
thinking it necessary to excuse himself. Apologies
in these days are never offered for anything ; and
a good deal of trouble is, perhaps, saved by their
abolition. They would have been insincere, too,
in the present instance, for Walter was late on
purpose. He was a dandy, you see ; and a certain
affectation, properly toned down, was in keeping
with the character. You must have attained your
social position, whatever it may be, before you
cease to care about it, and can aflbrd to be natural.
A man who wants to be thought wiser, or better,
or i-icher than he is, can never quite dispense with
sundry little artifices, sufficiently transparent to
121 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEltE.
those who know how much is done in socif^tv for
effect.
In Walter's case, however, it is onlv fair to sav,
tlie effect was voiy rrood. Even Ladv Waywar-
den admitted thut he was ''a ,i,'-entlcman-like,
agreeable young man ;" and her ladyship was l)y
no means given to over-rate the social (juah'ties of
her fellow-creatures. She had the happy knack,
too, of letting them feel that she made 'allowances,
because so thoroughly satisfied of their inferidrity ;
and this pleasant quality, eond)ined witli a stately
ligure and icy demeanour, rendered her a formid-
able personage even in London, and the terror of
tlie whole country round .Middlesworth.
She had been a beauty, in days when men ad-
mired a beauty, and women hated her more than
they do now, Tlie very mob cheered when she
leant forward in the carriage at the bottom of St.
James's Street, on her wav to lier first Urawinf^
Room. They talked about her in the clubs the
day she was presented, and took odds about *' the
double event " of Sal Volatile winning the Oaks,
and her marrying the only disengaged duke,
before Goodwood, She had very regular features,
a beautiful skin, and an expression of countenance
TOLLESDALE. 125
denoting utter indifference to everything in the
workl. I don't believe she bhished when Lord
Waywarden proposed to her (he had recently
succeeded to the earldom), and 1 think she said
" Yes^ "with as little emotion as if ho had offered her
a cup of tea. I'eople whispered there was "' a cousin
in India, that she used to like ;" hut I consider
this mere gossip. Indeed, unless he had been
Governor-General, I am convinced " a cousin in
India " would have stood but a poor chance.
At forty. Lady Waywarden had lost all preten-
sions to beauty. She looked the Countess (though
she was a Commoner's daughter), and that was all.
Like other tine ladies, she was active in mind,
indolent in body. Though she spent the mornings
in bed, and never walked a quarter of a mile from
the hall-door, she did a great deal of good
amongst her poor, and did it, too, in the most judi-
cious, energetic and discriminating way ; though
she never pitied people, she was always ready to
assist them ; and much of her voluminous corre-
spondence was occasioned by the public charities
and benevolent associations, to which she was
a generous and never-failino- contributor. Way-
Vf'arden was very fond of her, and let her do
126 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
exactly as she pleased. He was right : coercion
had never been tried witli tliis lady ; and it is
likely that hers would have been a very difficult
spirit to control.
The dinner party consisted oi' live — })«rhaps I
might say six, including Mr. Silke, the groom of
the chambers ; an important })ersonage of relined
appearance, whose duty seemed to consist in listen-
ing to everything that was said, and t)ccasionally
offering peojde sherry when th«>y did not want it.
There were a good many more servants, both in
and out of livery, who waited as quietly as only
very gooil servants can. His lordship was ex-
tremely particular, you see, and prided himself on
the excellence of liis domestic arrangements.
There was only one house in England, he boasted,
where " the thing " was as well done as at ToUes-
dale.
However disguised, Lord "Waywarden could
never have been taken for anN-thing but a gentle-
man. Though he was shurt, broad-shouldered, and
of a very powerful build, there was something in
the carriage of his handsome bald head ; something
in his bold, pleasant Saxon face ; something in
his frank, straiglitforward and collected manner.
TOLLESDALE. 127
peculiar to the English nobleman. There is no
class that combines so much of manliness with so
much of refinement. Their bodies are vigorous,
though their minds are cultivated ; and the same
individuals who are distinguished as scholars,
statesmen, and dij)loraatists, have physical power
to load coals or dig potatoes ; and physical courage —
" pluck " as it is now called — to do anything that
can be attempted by man.
Nothing could be more different, however, than
his lordship's outward appearance before and after
half-past seven o'clock, p.m. Li tho morning,
from the top of his low-crowned white hat to the
nails in his heavy double-soled shoes, he dressed
the practical agriculturist to the life. He had
been a sportsman in his day, and could handle a
gim still as well as most men ; but he was now
devoted heart and soul to the farm. Hour after
hour he would trudge about his acres, heedless of
wind and weather, intent only on draining, top-
dressing, or turnips; and rejoicing in the very
gavour of the dung-heaps that smoked at regular
intervals over the brown and wealthy soil. He
could cheapen bullocks, too, at fair or market, and
not a drover on the road would have let him pick
128 THE BROOKES OF liKlDLEMERE.
from liis strafrirHiig charge, at tlic average price
overhead of the herd. He could calculate the
wool on a sheej), vr the weight of u fat pig, at a
glauce ; and his tenants alHrmed tiiat " my lord
could buy e'er a one of 'om at one end of Middles-
wortii market, and sell iiim at the other! "
From his nine o'clock hreakfast till he returned
healthy, hapi)y, and hungry at night, he was the
farmer all over: but with the starched white
neck-doth, and portly white waisteoat, came a
transformation ; and at his own table no man
could be more courtly, more ])olished, nor ]non>
agreeable than Lord Waywarden.
Walter was rather a favourite. My lord was so
used to dandies, he did not mind them ; and had,
besides, a natural liking for one whom he had
known from childhood, and who was the son of his
old friend and neighbour, poor bcflridden Squire
Brooke. Frank and genial in his nature, ho would
enjoy his bottle of claret over the fire when the
ladies left them after dinner, none the less that
his guest was more than five-and-twenty years his
junior, and must necessarily consider him ''an old
fogey " in his heart.
It appears then that the guest was by no means
TOLLESDALE. 129
ill an enemy's country. Lord Waywarden liked
hiiu because be was used to liiiu ; Lady Way-
warden liked him because he was not afraid of her ;
and here I may observe, tliat WalUr iVart'd no
woman on earth. This iininunity he had obtained
at considerable personal sacrifice, by his former
intimacy with the well-known ^Irs. ]\rajor 8ha-
bracque, late of the Dancing Hussars, a dashing
lady, who rode, drove, dresseil, rouged, gambled,
flirted, and, I believe, smoked ; adding to these
dubious tastes tlie more rejirehcusible pursuit of
breaking-in raw cornets to the ways of the N\urld,
almost as fi^st as they joined. People said she
had rather burnt her fingers with young Brooke,
and took to liking Jam, when she only meant he
should like her. But it seems improbable th.it a
bold, brazen dame, of five-and-thirty, with the
animal spirits and great experience of Mrs. Sha-
bracque, should ever have played a losing hazard,
except as a matter of calculation in the game. Be
this as it may, Walter got tired of dangling about
her at last, and emerged from the ordeal a good
deal hardened externally, and if scorched within,
only so far burnt as is good for the child, who must
learn betimes to entertain a wholesome dread of
VOL. I. K
130 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE,
fire. After exposure to such a battery, all other
artillery seemed but as a volley of small arms.
3Ioreover, without knowing it, ^^'alter had become,
so t<) speak, " free of the guild." The women
were civil to him wherever he went, and Lady
Waywarden never dreamt of snubbing him as she
snubbed his brother Jack.
With ^Fr. Silke, too, he was a prime favourite.
Habits of personal extravagance, and a younger
l>rother's liberality in douceurs, had completely won
that functionary's affections; he really pressed him
with the old sherry, and a certain white Burgundy,
after cheese. Mr. Silke's own opinion was, that
Captain Brooke, as he persisted in calling him,
was *' quite the gentleman."
Two more ladies made up the party. JMiss
Prince, who sat next to AValter, and although a
little afraid of him, was delighted at herproximitv
to a live dandy. She, too, entertained certain
prepossessions in his favour, though in an indirect
way. Mr. Brooke's home was at Bridlemere ; Bridle-
mere was near Middlesworth ; in IMiddlesworth
lived jMrs. George Stoney ; and Mrs. George, when
bouncing, handsome Isabella Bichards, had been a
pupil at a school — I beg pardon, an establishment —
TOLLESDALE. 131
whereof Miss Prince was erst part-proprietress,
and principal teacher in all the most important
arts and sciences constituting^ female education.
How the little woman could know so much, yet bo
so silly, was a marvel : nevertheless, in spite of a
nervous titter and foolish manner, and an insati-
able tendency to ask questions, i\[iss Prince had a
heart far too large in proportion for her body, and
to the bottom of this great, simple, loving heart,
Isabella Richards had found her way.
The former teacher had met with reverses, which
she accepted in a humble, thankful spirit, that
showed a good deal of Clu-istian philosophy ; and
when the establishment broke up, the poor part-
proprietress went out as governess to Lady Julia
Tread well, at whose emancipation she consented to
remain as a sort of companion to her mamma. ISlie
had a paralytic sister to provide for, of course. You
never knew a woman totally unfitted to battle
with the world, yet making a capital fight of it
notwithstanding, who had not some drag of this
description ; but through all her ups and downs,
her debts and difficulties, Lady Julia's vagaries,
and Lady Waywarden's whims, she preserved, as
fresh as ever, her great love for Isabella Richards,
K 2
lo2 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
now Mrs. George Stouey. Though slie marvolled
mueli at his whiskers, his refinement, and the
somnoleiipy of his manners (" So unnatural in a
young man, my dear," as she afterwards told Lady
Julia), slic could not but regard with considerable
admiration so elaborate a specimen of his class as
\\'alter Brooke. I think, next to pereonal courage,
with which it is often associated, nothing goes down
witli women so well as personal vanity. The cox-
comb runs the hero a very hard race, and a combina-
tion of both never fails to produce a winner.
3Iis8 Prince, sitting on the edge of her chair,
appealing constantly to her former pupil, and
faltering a little when she caught Lady Way-
warden's eye, laid siege to her neighbour in her
own way, by plying him with a series of questions,
chiefly, as bein^ of eno^rossin": interest to a soldier,
on topics of military detail.
" xVnd are all your men taught to ride by the
same master, Captain Brooke ?" asked Miss Prince,
in a small, shrill, innocent voice. " And don't the
music, and banners, and shooting off the guns,
righten the horses? And when you go to the
ti eld of battle, is the Colonel obliged to go first?
I'm so uiterested in the army. I had an uncle
TOLLESDALE. 133
once in tlie War Office. And wliy are your soldiers
called light dragoons ?"
Walter stared, and held his glass for dry
champagne. These questions were indeed " posers,"
and while the thoujrht flitted throuirh his brain,
" What the deuce makes the woman want to
put me through my facings ? Mad, of course " — he
simply sipped his wine, and looked at Lady Julia,
sitting opposite, who immediately took upon her-
self to reply.
"Because they've light heads, and light liearts,
and li£i:ht heels. Don't vou know. Miss Prince,
' They love, and they ride away ? ' It's part of the
system. The army couldn't go on without it."
" jMy dear Julia !" exclaimed her mother.
IMiss Prince looked shocked; Lord Waywarden
laughed ; Lady Julia's eyes sparkled, and shot a
shaft or two at Walter that it could not have been
unpleasant to sustain.
" We are not to ride away, at least, for some
time, I am glad to hear," said he, in a tone meant
for his vis-a-vis, though he looked at Lady Way-
warden. " Middlesworth is a charming quarter for
me, in every respect, and they'll leave us here \i\
peace now till the spring."
l;M THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
•• 1 suppose lumting is the irroat attraction," said
Latly Julia, demurely, loosing ibu while another
shaft \'vnm \u'V how.
" Ami the shootintr at Tollesdale," added
Walter, turninirto his host, ''and its inmates, and
iiiv own relations at Bridlemere. I'm a domcstie
person; I always was. Don't you know, I'm a
domestic person. Lady Waywarden ?" he reiterated,
appealing to the Countess.
"I confess, I shouldn't have guessed it if yon
hadn't told me," answered her ladyshij) drily ;
wiiereon the eyes of Walter and Lady Julia met
once more, and they l»oth laughed.
It seemed as if there was some understanding
hetweeu these young people ; some interest in
common ; some link sulitler and stronger than the
mere acquaintance of London partnership or
country neiirhhourhood : hut it was hard to siiv. I
need scarcely observe, that Walter was not demon-
strative ; and as for Ladv Julia, I am sorrv to
admit that she was such a rattle, and such a tlirt,
you never knew what she was driving at.
Animal spirits have a great deal to answer for.
The daughter inherited all her father's health and
vitality, with much of his joyous temperament,
TOLLESDALE. 135
and hiul besides coutimuilly bcl'ure ht-r eyes her
mother's example to warn her from the opposite
extreme of exaggerated cohhie.ss and reserve.
Lady Julia's exterior, too, was in marked contrast
to her dis[»osition. Such beauty as she possessed
was of the cold, clear, delicate order. Her features
were very straight and regular ; but tlie eyes,
though brigiit as diamonds, were set too deep in
her liead ; and though Iilt mouth was very winning
wlien she spoke, the lips closed tiglit over tlu'
white, even teeth, when she ceased, giving lier
whole countenance a cast of resolution — I liad
almost said defiance — more formidable than femi-
nine. 1 liave seen heads cut on cameos that
resembk'd this young lady in every particuhir, and
I think 1 have felt thankful that tlie type has
become rarer now than it seems to have been of
old. With her |)ale, clear skin (it was not
freckled, though Mrs. Stoney said so, and though
that sort of complexion generally is freckled),
with her long, light eyelashes, her small, well-
shaped head, and wealth of plaited hair, golden in
the sun, rich chestnut by candle-light, and called
red or auburn, according as people were or were
not in love with her, she certainly did jjossess a
K^G THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
stiaiii^e, weinl, uucomfortable fascination of her
own. There are some women with Avhoin yon
i'nll in love, just as yon fall asleep, easily, gradn-
ally. insensibly. The whole jjrocess is quite a
pleasure, and the waking, as after a good night's
rest, merely a question of time. There are others,
again, who inflict on you nightmare rather than
repose : whose image aftbrds evil dreams, instead
of health V slumburs, and under whose influence
your state is more that of a mesmeric trance than
of sound, natural rest. You art> nrvcr reallv
hai)py during the whole time of the delusion ;
when vou wake vou are very miserable indeed.
These last are to be avoided if a man wishes to
remain a free agent, ami, in my opinion, Lady
.lulia was one of them. She had a beautiful
figure, though sliglit ; nobody could deny that.
She was formed more like a model than a living
creature ; and this advantage, of which she was
perfectly aware, perhaps made her the graceful
mover, dancer, and horsewoman she was. I am
afraid she loved riding dearly ; she could do it ver)"-
well, you see, and was rather proud of being called
'• horsey," and " slang}-," by old women of either
sex. To see her cross the pavement before their
TOLLESDALE. 137
house in Circus Square, and ki::s her favourite's
nose, when she niouutcd or dismounted at the
liottest hours of tlie day, was a sight, tliat if it
suggested waste of aflection, proved at tlie same
tim£ intense love for the animal and the exercise.
Even in the school-room ]\Iiss Prince was always
afraid Lady Julia would be fast. " Not as femi-
nine in her tastes as I could wish," was the wav
the governess worded her ap])rehensions, and they
were justified by the result. She was fast, no
doubt. Like her mother, she could be horribly
fine when she chose, though it is only fair to say
she seldom did choose in the country, or even in
London, except on special occasions, and, so to
speak, in self-defence. When they tilt in tlie
melee, it is not to be expected that they should
dispense with their plate-armour. She liked
gaiety very much: balls, races, pic-nics, occasions
for wearing handsome dresses, and flirting with
handsome men. Xor is this an unusual tendency
amons: the best and wisest of her sex, but I believe
she was never really so happy as when riding a
new horse, di'iving her wicked ponies, helping papa
to break a retriever, or engaged in any other
essentially masculine pursuit. It is a fact, that
138 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLE.MERE.
when her brother Viscount Xethersolc, low down
in the fourtli form at Eton, was at home for the
holidays, she used to play criclvot with him on
the lawn, and could howl, bat, and keep a
wicket, so that younij^ nobleman allirmed, " as
well as any fellow in the Lower Shooting-fields
Eleven."
\\liether Walter had the slightest chance in an
encounter with such a di.si)o.sitiou, was»a ipiestion
he had asked himself more than once of late.
Perhaps he had not answered it satisfactorily even
now, while he sat opjxjsite the brilliant, animated
girl, and thought what an amusing companion she
could be, and " what a Wfll-brcd one she was."
You are not to suppose he was in love with her
— that sort of thing is quite explfMled now. Since
the introduction of knickerbockers, I doubt if a
man has ever been kno^v^lto go down on his knees,
and Lady Julia was the last person in the Avorld
to encourage, or even tolerate, anything in the
shape of romance. But he certainly admired her.
It was with a feeling of positive vexation that he
bethought him, how, before he went away the day
after to-morrow (he had to attend a dismounted
parade at two o'clock), he would breakfast by
TOLLESDALK. 139
himself, witliout a chance of her company, whieli
she miglit so easily aflbrd him if she chose. He
knew the ways of the house, and could recall one
or two disappointments of the same nature. Lord
Waywarden breakfasted in his writing-room, and
a capital meal he made, at nine. IMiss Prince
consumed tea and toast in a spacious apartment,
once a school-room, at half-past ; Lady Julia had
her chocolate in bed at eleven ; and Lady Way-
warden never showed till two or three o'clock in
the afternoon. Breakfast went on for the guests
from ten indefinitely ; and nothing could be easier
than for Lady Julia to come down and make
Walter's tea, but well he knew she would do
nothinc: of the kind.
She was a clever girl, and had enjoyed a good
deal of practice in that sort of intercourse with
young gentlemen, which, thougli of a warmer
nature than friendship, stops short of positive
flirtation. They never went further tlian she
liked with her, or said to her more than she meant
they should ; and this immunity she owed jmrtly
to frankness of manner, natural or artificial; partly
to fearless tactics and skill in defensive warfare.
She had a reputation, too, for spirit, as well as
110 Tin: nnooKES of dridlemere.
wit, and raon did not care to provoke an encounter
witli a ladv wlio was notorious for tlie facility
with which she coukl " show yuii up," or •' set you
do\Mi." Of her own sox she liad ph'uty of com-
panions, l>ut no friends; of the oIIkt, jihiity <>f
admirers, but no lovers. There are many of these
exotic flowers grown in our aristocratic hothouses
— flowers that are forced rather early into bloom,
but are otherwise carefully reared aiid tended ;
of stately growth, and wondrous sjdendoiir ; pro-
tected from the bee rather than the butti-rfly, and
too often thrown away on an amateur, wlio has
but to walk into the glasshouse, and select from
it that which he desires. I sometimes think they are
the better for transplantincr. flourishing as briirhtly
on a poorer soil and in a more exposed situation,
losing nothing of their beauty, and gaining a
perfume sweeter than before. Lady Julia used
to say she should make a capital poor man's wife,
whereat mamma lifted her white hands in horror,
and ]\[iss Prince her grizzled eyebrows in depre-
cation. Such jests were not encouraged in the
family. Being an only daughter, she would have
some money, and by a perversion of reasoning,
less logical than natural, it seems established that
%■
TOLLESDALE. Ill
such young ladies are to fetch a higher price in
the matrimonial market than others of the same
fabric, equal in colouring and workmanship, but
without the gilding. Lady Waywarden, however,
obvjously entertained no suspicions of Walti^r
Brooke. Whether it was that the latter seemed,
as befitted his profession, cuirass all over, and a
warm admirer of no style of beauty but his own,
or whetlier she was herself so utterly impenetrable
(for the Indian cousin, if he ever existed, had
been forgotten long ago) as to disbelieve in the
superstition of mutual attraction, or whetlier her
ladyship's confidence arose from familiarity with
her daughter's disposition, she certainly seemed
to permit, if not to encourage, a state of things
which any of her own sex would have terjned '* a
strong flirtation with Walter Brooke."
Lady Julia, for her part, Mas nothing loth to
keej) her hand in, and seemed to practise on the
present subject with even more than her usual
zest. In vain mamma fitted on a taper white
glove, to indicate sailing orders for the drawing-
room. In vain 3Iiss Prince made nervous little
coughs, and took short dives at her smelling-
bottle, and fidgeted uneasily to .the extreme edge
142 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
of her seat — the tide of Lady Julia's eloquence
compelled tliem more tluiu once to lower away
their sijrnals in de
o
?spair.
Even Walter seemed to glow and Ijrighten
imder the sunshiny glances of the syren. She
asked him questions that denoted so much per-
sonal interest; she i»li<'d him so volubly with
half good-humoured, half sarcastic remarks of a
nature that she would herself have called "chafif;"
so sparkled, as it were, and flashed at him, like a
gem in a golden setting, that he could not but be
pleased, though somewhat dazzled the while, at
least for him, and not a little surprised.
" What sj)ort had he yesterday ? How late they
must have left oft"! How many guns? and who
were they ? Plenty of ground game at Bridle-
mere " (what a pretty name !), " but not so many
pheasants as papa, dear, you can show jMr. Brooke
to-morrow. Oh ! ahe knew ! >Vnd was 3Ir. de
EoUe there ? What a shame to call him ' Bags !'
Had seen liim — was sure of it — the other day out
with the Duke's hounds — must have been Racrs —
rather admired him ; his figure especially. And
how did you get here, Mr. Brooke, and why were
you so late ?"'
TOLLESDALE. 143
" I got here on Jack's pony," answered the
hussar ; " and I suppose I was late, because I
started early, and galloped the whole way."
" If I had said so, you would have called it
a woman's reason," observed Lady Julia, still
ignoring mamma's signals, who had now finished
buttoning on a very close-fitting and symmetrical
glove. " But I rather pity the poor pony. Is it
a very good animal ? I think one of mine is the
best in the world, and the other is better still. I
am so fond of ponies ! Tell me all about your
brother's."
" My dear Julia," interrupted Lady "Waywarden,
whose patience was fairly exhausted, " Mr. Brooke
will tell you all about the pony in the drawing-
room." And her ladyship, gathering up fan, hand-
kerchief, and smelhng-bottle, rose in a cloud of
drapery, and sailed stately, rippling and rustling
as she went, to the door. Walter held it open,
with a flourish, watcliing, it may be, for a respon-
sive glance fi'om Lady Julia as she went by,
which, it is needless to observe, she did not
vouchsafe to bestow.
My lord sank into an arm-chair by the fire,
poured out a liberal glass of claret, pushed the
144 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
decanter to Walter; giilpod, smacked his lips,
spread a strong white hand to warm, and com-
menced a promising conversation by prophesyhig
an open winter ; and asking his gnest, whether he
had seen any sport yet, and had got together
some horses he liked ?
AVitli such a preface, the dialogue was pretty
sure to proceed swimmingly. Every man is
pleased to talk about his horses, whatever be the
number or nature of his stud ; and TiOid W;iy-
warden was a good listener on any topic, by the
side of a blazing (ire, and with such excellent
claret as his own to keep the subject from getting
dry, '* He had been young himself," he was fond
of observimi: ; and he miirht have added that for
enjoyment of to-day and thoughtlessness of to-
morrow, he had been very young indeed, ^yhilst
he had nothing, his lordship had been one of the
fastest of the fast. He bought, no doubt, a good
deal of experience and dealing with the Jews, as
Lord Nethersole, bought it of course at a high
percentage on cost price. The Earl, however, had
the good sense to use the wisdom the Viscount
piu'chased, and it must have been a very sharp
Jew indeed who could get to windward of Way-
TOLLESDALE. 145
warden now ; yet it never seemed to occur to liim
that his old friend's second son ought hardly to
give three figures for his horses, and have so many
in the stable.
Not that he would have wittingly encouraged
him in any hurtful extravagance, but that it was
one of those matters men in his position seem
to ignore ; none more so than those who have
known difficulties in tlieir youtli, and got out
of them either by good fortune or good abilities.
Perhaps they think others must be able to do the
same, and, recognising only the successful ven-
tures, forget the number of barks that have been
met in stress of weather on the voyage, and never
come into port at all. Be this how it may, it
seems that a young man need only show an incli-
nation to go a fair pace down the road, and all his
friends are eager to encourage and assist him on
the wav.
By the time Walter had finished his bottle of
claret, and corrected everything with half a glass
of old sherry, the world seemed a good one to live
in. and an easy one to get on with. As he flung
his napkin into his chair, and swaggered off to the
drawing-room, pulling his moustache, he had no
VOL. I. L
14G THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
difficulty in stopping certain misgivings as to ways
and means which had oppressed him not a httle,
on an empty stomach, during the process of dress-
ing for dinner.
The invention of the pianoforte must have done
incalcidable service in the way of reducing the
nobler sex to subjection. For a woman wlio does
not sing, I can conceive no auxiliary so versatile,
and at the same time so effective. * She can work
on yoni' feelings with the treble ; she can drown
vour remonstrance witli the bass ; she can conceal
the very words you see trembling on her lips with
a gi-and crash of both hands at once, dying away
presently into a wail of low melodious chords, that
draw yoiu* very heart out through your long,
foolish, thrilling ears. Then her attitude at the
instrument is in itself so graceful, the turn of her
hands and arms over the keys so attractive, and
the upward look she steals at her prey so irresis-
tible, that the charm is completed long before the
fantas-ia is finished. The listener gasps, and
yields without an effort at self-preservation. The
net is spread, the noose adjusted, resistance is
hopeless, and escape impossible.
It must have been pleasant to lean over Lady
TOLLESDALE. 117
Julia, to listen to lioi* playiug, which was good ;
and watch her profile, which was better; and
catch, ever and anon, the sparkle of those diamoiid
eyes, which was best of all. Coffee came and
went. Ciira^oa and tea were offered, and de-
clined. Lady Waywarden wrote slieet after sheet
to some other corresponding countess, for whom
she cared as little as possible in her heart. Miss
Prince worked a counterpane of formidable
dimensions, with a hook-nosed ivory instrument,
in short an2:rv notches, and watched the while for
Lord Waywarden's tea-cup, balanced insecurely
on that nobleman's knee, w'ho had sunk, as usual,
into a sound, healthy, and somewhat noisy
slumber. Walter was treated without ceremony
(not that the Earl could keep awake after dinner
for any guest in the world ; so that wlion the
Duchess of Merthyr-Tyd\-il, who was a prodigious
favourite, staid at ToUesdale, he used to take
his repose in jerks and snatches, standing with
his back to the fire) ; but Lady Julia alone seemed
to devote herself to the young man's amusement,
and very successful, it is but fair to say, she was.
By the time he had drawn a low easy-chair to
the pianoforte, and seated himself in close prox-
L 2
148 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
imitv to her music-stool, their conversation had
gradually sobered down from the bantering to the
confidential. Though she played at intervals
(remarkably well), and kept up, indeed, a semblance
of music throughout, they talked upon a variety of
subjects, interesting and indifferent, but all leading
to one termination, viz., the state of things at
Bridlemere. The farm, the shooting, the Squire's
health, Helen's pursuits, " your charming sister
Helen, Mr. Brooke ;" even brother Jack, his pony
and terrier, were discussed in turn, and it was
hard to say on which Lady Julia seemed to
dwell with the most pleasure. By the time Lady
Waywarden finished her letter, ]\Iiss Prince saved
the tea-cup, and my lord awoke himself with a
vigorous snore, Walter began to think that he
had at last succeeded in making some real pro-
gress with the daughter of the house. It was now
long past midnight, and they used to fancy that
they were rather early people than otherwise at
Tollesdale. Poor ]\Iiss Prince could scarcely keep
awake, and swallowed a ya\Mi in the very act of
wishing everybody good-night ; but Lady Julia's
eyes sparkled brighter than ever, while Walter
lit her candle; and even in the hall, when he
TOLLESDALE. 149
turned to watch her up the wide staircase, branch-
ing oif midway in the direction of her own and
her mother's apartments, she flashed back at liira
one more of those deadly arrows that, like the
Parthian's, are so fatal when thus delivered o\er
the shoulder. More, he heard her voice die away
along the corridor above, humming the air s;]ie
had been playing whicli he had most enthusia^ti-
callv admired.
Walter returned to his host, and drank a glass
of fair water, receiving at the same time directions
as to where he should find a certain smoking-room,
recently built, and fitted up expressly for the
enjoyment of that deleterious luxury. But liis
host excused himself from joining him. " He was
confoundedly sleepy," he said, " so should be oft*
at once without ceremony to perch." And Walter,
reflecting that it was getting late, and he would
like to shoot his straightest to-morrow, followed
my lord's example, and was soon well over the
border, and far into the Land of Shadows, where
mankind pass nearly a third of their lives.
CHAPTER VI.
JACK BROOKE.
r was a lovelv ni^lit, for all that the
month was November, in the park at
Bridlemere. A light haze hung over
the saturated earth, and through its
film the moonlight glimmered in ghostly whitened
rays. The stems of the old trees loomed huge,
fantastic, and ill-defined, like objects in a dream.
Where the ground rose but by a few feet, patches
of bare russet sward, and bro\Mi bending fem, and
here a clump of brushwood, and there a twisted,
stunted thorn, emerged like islands from the
smface of a milky sea ; but on a lower level, more
especially down towards the lodges, and in a part
of the park called Dmgle-side, the heavy vapours
rolled and curdled, wreathing themselves into
JACK BROOKE. 151
strange curves and shapes tliat, waving in and
out between the trees, a vivid fancy might well
conjure into phantoms of the night.
A heavy dew had fallen, moistening and thick-
ening the clinging herbage, so as to deaden the
footsteps of the only passer-by at this late and
lonely hour ; footsteps, I am sorry to say, that
left an exceedingly wavering and devious track
behind them, denoting want of harmony be-
tween the volition and execution of the belated
traveller.
It was but om- friend Jem Batters, jfinding his
way home from the public-houses of Middlesworth,
to his mother's cottage, across Bridlemere Park.
Jem Batters walking himself sober, though by no
means yet arrived at that desirable condition, and
hovering between the imaginative state produced
by combining beer with alcohol, and the nervous
prostration consequent on such a mixture when
its fumes have evaporated. After to-night Jem
had resolved he would turn over a new leaf. He
had been " wetting his luck," as he called it, for
the last time. To-morrow he was promised em-
ployment in the brewery, and henceforth he would
become sober and steady, and save his money as
152 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
well as his nerve and muscle ; for Jem had found,
to his dismay, that these two last were beginning
somewhat to fail from the efleets of dissipation.
Thus it always was with tliis unfortunate rustic.
Ever}'^ new phase of life was inaugm-ated with a
debauch that riveted his fetters faster on him
than before. Well might Ids old mother declare,
" It was the drink as done it. Wuss than pison !
Keep our Jem from the drink, an' tl^ere ar'n't his
equal, not in the parisli, there ar'n't — either for
work or play ! "
" Our Jem " lurched up against one of the old
<-'liiis, and, setting his back to it, gazed down a
vista towards the Manor House with drunken
gravity, shaking his head as he espied a light
twinkling from an upper window in the vague
grey mass. Jem's thouglits were running riot
apace, and he was speculating wildly on the
inmates of that mansion, their pursuits, their
habits, and their position, which he had been
brought up to regard with a veneration such as we
pay to royalty — his fancies following each other
sometliing in this fashion :
How pleasant to be a gentleman ! Not a
gentleman in trade, like his future emplovei-s
JACK BROOKE. 153
Stoney Brothers ; nor a soldier gentleman, forced
to do as he is bid, getting wages just like a
working man, and expected to fight into the
bargain ; but a real gentleman, like our old
Squire, with nothing to do and plenty to drink,
and time upon his hands the whole day long.
Then he remembered that our old Squire had not
been seen at farm or garden ; had not been
outside the house now for a weary while; that
the labourers whispered to each other how his
time was nearly come ; that one-half of him was
as good as dead abeady ; and Jem felt an
instinctive shudder creep from head to heel while
he shrank from the conviction that not only the
old Squire, but he himself, and " mother," in the
chimney-corner at home, and the boon companions
whom he left still carousing at the " Fox and
Fidtller," were subject to the common lot. He
would drive away such thoughts though, with beer
and brandy, he reflected, if he were a gentleman.
If he were Mr. John, for instance. Ah ! that was
the man he would like to change places with !
Mr. John, so frank, so bold, so stout and hearty,
such a pleasant-spoken gentleman too, with every
girl in the parish talking of his ruddy cheek, his
154 THE BKOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
broAMi locks, his white teeth, and his ready smUe.
Jem pictured to himself "'Mr. John" at this
moment, sitting at the head of his father's table,
surrounded by his guests, the land-steward, the
tax-gatherer, the new tenant at the Mere Farm,
and perhaps one or two of the parish church-
wardens, waited on by grooms, game-keepers, the
under-gardener, and all the servants in the house ;
drinking port wine out of tumblers, and singing
liunting songs alternately with Miss Helen's
music, who is playing the piano to the party, with
a gold necklace on, and flowers in her hair. Ah !
it must be a jolly hfe, that must ! lie didn't
think much of Miss Helen, though. She wasn't
plump and likely looking, what he called ; though
some folks made a great to-do about her slim
waist and her cream-coloured face, with its black
eyes. To his mind, noAv, Cissy Brown or Sue
Stanion, were either of 'em a better sort ; more
what he should call his choice, you know.
But dear ! if he was a gentleman, he wouldn't
trouble much about the women-folk ! Not in his
present mood at least. Give him a good horse,
and rabbiting eveiy day, as much as he liked, and
plenty to drink when he came in, and he
JACK BROOKE. 155
wouldn't aslv for more. He'd be as happy as
a king, ho would ! Keep the game up too, as
well as e'er a gentleman of them all. Ah ! that
would be prime ! " You wheezy old beggar, you
frightened me, you did ! "
Jem gave a violent start, that denoted a good
deal more nervousness than is usual with the
healthy system of an out-of-door labourer, and
that probably frightened the asthmatic sheep
whose cough thus broke in on the tliread of his
reflections, quite as much as that gasping animal,
lying in the driest pai-t of the gravelled carriage
road, had frightened him. Under its sobering
influence, however, he woke from the dream in
which he had been immersed, and made his way
more steadily over the Park in the direction of
his home. Thither it is not my present mtention
to follow him. I would rather climb up one of
those lone: flickeriuof ravs to that window high in
the loftv buildinj?, and enter the chamber of the
only inmate stiU awake, an hour and more after
midnight, in the house of Bridlemere.
An odour of strong tobacco fiUs the apart-
ment, wreathing itself about the walls and fur-
niture as gracefully, and in far heavier volumes,
156 THE BEOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
than does the mist about the trees and shrubs
outside. Clearing sluggishly at intervals, it
discloses a short, very short pipe, such an in-
strument as French soldiers appropriately call
a " hrule-gueule" blackened with unremitting use,
and held firmly between two rows of remarkably
strong, white, and even teeth. Jack Brooke's
mouth is like his brother Walter's, only, being
clean shaven, the family lines of resolution around
its lips are more apparent on the face of the
elder son. This face is brown, ruddy and
healthful, not regular of features, and far inferior
in beauty to that of the handsome Hussar, but
with an honest, hearty expression, and a kindliness
in the eyes sufficiently engaging. Perhaps it is
only their long lashes that impart to these a
depth and softness almost womanly. Certainly,
there is benevolence, good^vill, and a gentle, pro-
tective tenderness in their glance.
It is a face that most people would call comely,
but heavy. Those who look below the surface,
and are accustomed to study character from slight
indications, would detect a sensitive nature under
this rough exterior, would observe signs of warm
affections, a high standard of good, and a generous
JACK BEOOKE. 157
confidence in others, mingled with the diffidence
and self- depreciation which spring from an
imaginative temperament, suppressed and re-
strained by force of circumstances, combined with
a keen sense of the ridiculous.
«
The fancy that is easily moved to laughter is
also somewhat susceptible of tears. A man of
common sense, ashamed to own his tendency to
such weak emotions, cloaks them under brevity of
speech, rough carelessness of manner, and an
appearance of confirmed insensibility, transparent
enough to those who are in the habit of pene-
trating the affectations of their kind. It is your
glib, plausible, well-spoken personage, generally
voluble, always indifferent, and habitually polite,
whose heart is as hard as the nether millstone.
Abruptness of speech, hesitation in offering and
accepting conventional courtesies, reserve with
strangers, and diffidence amongst women, these
drawbacks to social success are often the very
offspring of generous feelings and a high tone of
mind. It is a calumny to say that sh}Tiess arises
from conceit. It is more generally the result of
respect for others as well as self ; and, though the
example be rare as it is ridiculous, a man who is
158 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
capable of blushing after his whiskers are grown,
is usually a good fellow at bottom, and as honest
as the day is long.
Jack Brooke was sadly given to this absurdity.
Many a lady accosting Mr. Brooke across the
dinner-table, had marvelled to note how her
simple remark brought the blood to his cheek;
marvelled, perhaps, still more to find no further
result from his confusion. He was fnditened at
ladies, and that is the truth. " What he thought
they would do to him," as Walter used to say,
" was a mystery." But though Jack was as bold a
fellow as ever stepped, under circumstances of
physical danger, he was routed, so to speak, and
put to flight with great slaughter, by the society
of a Miss in her teens.
His character was not very easy to penetrate.
I doubt if any one knew him thoroughly. Cer-
tainly not his father, nor his brother Walter, nor
even Helen, though on occasion she was the only
person in wlioni he would confide. " Tatters," a
certain ragged terrier of eccentric habits, insepa-
rable from his master, seemed more familiar with
his thoughts and opinions than any other inmate
of the house. It speaks well for Jack that the
JACK BROOKE. 159
dog loved him with a devotion utterly ludicrous
aud canine. The domestics in general liked the
younger brother best. Walter gave them far
more trouble, domineered, hectored, blew up,
always in his own oflf-hand princely way, and they
" came to heel," as it were, and fawned upon him,
as human nature will, when consistently and
judiciously bullied. He was free, too, with his
money, and enjoyed, besides, the iJrestige of his
profession, his moustaches, and occasional appear-
ance in undress uniform, a costume which the
female part of the establishment — from the old
housekeeper, already a middle-aged person when
he was weaned, down to the under kitchen-maid,
lately promoted from the Sunday school to the
scullery — declared, one and all, " became Master
Walter wonderful ! "
Jack's pursuits may be gathered from the
furnitm-e and accessories of this, his own peculiar
snuggery, far removed from the inhabited regions
of the mansion, where he spends many a solitary
hour undisturbed, and where he can smoke liis
strong tobacco in peace, without polluting the
atmosphere for every other member of the
establishment.
160 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
His literary tastes seem simple enough, and of
a praetical ratlier than a speculative nature. A
heavy work on ajrriculture, witli elaborate diagrams
of ploughs, turnip-cutters, and such mechanical
auxiliaries to husbandry, stands in the place of
honour on the row of shelves which constitute his
library. It is supported by a few odd numbers of
the Sporting Miu/azine, a periodical in which
he takes great delight ; by two or tliree fly-books,
stuffed with crafty entomological imitations, tied
by Jack's own strong, supple tingers ; and a thick
quarto edition of '• Spenser's Faerj' Queen," a work
into which, as into a stiff fertile soil, you may
dig, and dig again, reaping in proportion to your
labour crop after crop in swift succession, of free,
irolden, and abundant harvests.
In decoration, the chamber has but little to
boast. Originally a servant's room, very near the
roof; its walls are simply whitewashed; its one
windo^v is bare of blind or curtain. There is a
carpet trodden into shreds by Jack's nailed shoot-
ing-boots, and there is a high-backed leathern
chair, in the depths of which Tatters lies curled
up and motionless, but opening an eye occasion-
ally to make sure his master is still poring over a
4
JACK BROOKE. 101
red-covered, interlined account-book at the writ-
ing-table. Propped against tbe inlvstand is a
photograph from a picture in one of the drawing-
rooms, and when Jack's eye travels from his work
it rests sadly and rather longingly on the photo-
gi-aph. At such moments Tatters bestows an
affectionate wink on his master.
Tlie photogra})h represents a handsome, pros-
perous-looking woman, with Helen Brooke's cast
of features, and a countenance which, although
very diflerent in character, has a strong physical
resemblance to the girl's — a fiice that, with
energy to sustain its burdens, and good-humour
to liijhten its crosses, seems desio:ned thoroujrhlv
to enjoy the pleasures as well as to fullil the
duties of life, not to be cut off after eight-and-
forty hours of illness before it had reached its
prime. Jack remembers her well. To this day,
when he thinks of his mother, his heart tightens
with the old pain tliat was so unbearable at first.
For years the child, and afterwards the schoolboy,
would wake up and weep in silence, longing,
yearning for the dear lost face, to his mind tlie
fondest and fairest he had ever seen.
Being the eldest, Jack remembered her far
VOL. I. M
162 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
better than the rest. She died, indeed, when
Helen was yet little more than an infant ; but
her first-bom was her constant playmate and com-
panion, the pride of her young wifehood, and the
darling of her maternal heart. " Mother," says a
great MTiter, who has lately gone from among us,
" is the name for God with little children ;" and
there is indeed no eartlily worship at once so
pure, so trusting, and so engrossing as that which
is offered to her by the innocent loving heart to
which slie is the embodiment of beauty, affection,
and power. When IMrs. Brooke died, the Squire,
as the seiwants said, " took on dreadful ;" but he
got over her loss long before liis quiet, undemon-
strative little son. Ruth, the upper housemaid,
since married, somewhat hurriedly, to a black-
smith, and gone to Australia, found the child,
months afterwards, squeezing his poor little face
against the railings of the churchyard where his
mamma was buried, " cr}ang," as that soft-hearted
damsel described it, "poor dear, quite softlike
and patient; and indeed if my 'art 'ad been a
stone, it must have iruv to the darlinir then and
there !" So she carried ^faster John back aijain
every yard of the way, an honest mile and more,
%■
JACK BROOKE. 1C3
in her bosom, mingling lior tears witli bis from
pure sympatliy and compassion, foregoing alto-
gether the junketing to which she was bound
wth her blacksmith, and thereby deferring, if not
imperilling the whole scheme of her nuptials and
subsequent emigration. Jack was right to mourn
for his mother. He had been somewhat lonely in
the world ever since she left him. Whether the
child's nature became repressed and blighted, as
it were, by so deep an affliction endured so early,
or that, lavishing so much love on mamma, it had
the less to spare for any one else : certain it is that
the eldest boy stood a little aloof from brother
and sister, nay, even from his father himself, and
appeared, unlike other cliildren, to lead his own
life apart, and follow out his own train of thoughts
and fancies uninfluenced by the companionship of
those with whom he lived.
He was no recluse though, far from it. At
school, where he took a leading part in foot-ball
and cricket matches ; at college, where he re-
mained long enough to be plucked for that pre-
liminary examination which is called " The Little
Go," and whence he departed sorrowful and
humiliated rather than sui-prised, Jack Brooke
M 2
164 THE BROOKES OF BKIDLEMERE.
was unquestionably a fovourite. Returning to
Rridlemere, he mingled cordially in the sports and
gatherings of the county ; but at the latter he
could scarce be said to enjoy himself; whilst of
the former he seemed most to relish those which
lire best pursued alone. There was not such a
fly-fisher as Jack in the 3[idland Counties. To
circumvent ducks by moonli2;ht. flushing the warv
wild-fi)wl just within range, and securing the effect
of both barrels, was a talent he possessed in com-
mon with a select few of his fellow-creatures, and
the exercise of which afforded him an intense and
inexplicable delight ; but to walk up partridges in
line, or to stand at covert-ends, and knock down
cock-pheasants by the dozen, ofiered him neither
pleasure nor excitement. In the sport par excel-
lence, the spirit-stirring, the joyous, the unrivalled,
the very thought of which recalls a golden vision
of those mild November mornings, with their
dewy pastures, their fragrant copses, and their
deep, still woodlands, famtly blushing yet from
autumn's farewell kiss ; of manly cheer, and
kindly greeting, and white and scarlet, and tramp
of hoof, and ring of bridle; of the horse's generous
daring, and the dash and mettle of the hound ; of
JACK BROOKE. IG.J
tlie heart-beating moments ere suspense thrills
into certainty ; of the maddening rally for a start,
and the quieter, steadier, more continuous energy
of the chase — in the sport of sports, I say, no man
was a deeper proficient than Jack Brooke. Yet
he enjoyed it very rarely now, for reasons which
will appear hereafter. He could ride, too, better
than the generality of sportsmen. Strongly built,
and of considerable weight, he cherished, never-
theless, a taste for keeping in the front rank,
wliich was neither to be baulked bv majjnitude of
obstacle nor inferiority of horse-flesh. The young-
est and wildest reprobate was easy and tractable
in his hands : sitting quite still and unflurried, he
seemed to impart his own cool energy to his
horse. The animal soon enters into the joke, and
enjoys it as much as his rider. I do not aim at
giving Jack more credit than he deserves for
success in a mere pastime. I only wisli you to
infer that he possessed both courage and temper,
a combination of qualities which help a man over
the metaphorical ups and downs of life as smoothly
as across a flying country, with a pack of fox-
hounds running hard.
In general society, our friend was, perhaps, not
166 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
quite so forward. In the ball-room, I fear, he sat
motionless as in the saddle ; and at picnics, or
archery meetings, proved simply a dead weight
and encumbrance. He was not even a good
listener, and when tackled by an old, or even a
young lady, without means of escape, afforded a
piteous and distressing spectacle. Elderly gentle-
men had a high opinion of him, notwithstanding.
They considered him, "A sensible young man
that : none of your talking chaps, sir ; but a fellow
that's not above taking a hint. Xo conceit, sir :
not asliamed to be taught." And indeed he
would suffer the platitudes of his seniors meekly,
and with a patience the less meritorious, perhaps,
that he permitted his attention to wander sadly
during its progress, and went his way totally
uninfluenced by the lecture at its close.
The women, I fear, compared him unfavourably
with his younger brother. Of Walter's dandyism,
insouciance and charming conceit he had not one
iota. These qualities, like ribbons, laces, and such
garnishing, command high prices in the female
market. The stouter calico and flannel virtues,
so to speak, fetch but a few coppers per yard. A
handsome face and a pair of broad shoulders can-
JACK BROOKE. 1G7
not hold their own against varnish and vanity
combined ; nor are the homely merits which con-
stitute a good husband and ])ere de famille of the
kind much relished in a dancing partner. Here
and there, a very fine lady who was a little tired
of everybody, or a very fast one who wanted to
strike out a new line, might think it worth while
to cultivate Jack Brooke ; but each invariably
gave him up in despair after half a dozen sen-
tences. No woman, however fast or fine, likes to
be assured by a man's manner that he is hope-
lessly uninterested in herself, her bonnet, her
conversation, and her opinions. The slightest
spark of intelligence, the shortest monosyllable
thrown in at intervals, will keep her tongue going,
with small exertion on a listener's part ; but the
intelligence and the interest must at least be
simulated, otherwise she votes you, " Oh ! so
heavy !" and flutters off to fasten on other game,
with which she hopes to have better sport.
. I fear most of the young ladies about ]\Iiddles-
worth would have passed upon Jack Brooke the
sweeping condemnation that he was " absent and
stupid, and always seemed to be thinking of
somethmg else !" He Jiad a good deal to think
1G8 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
of. He was busied with no pleasant thoughts
now, poring over those ruled pages, and emitting
tobaceo-smolce in pungent clouds that caused poor
Tatters to sneeze disgusted from the depths of his
arm-chair. Jack was fond of farming. Jack was
a practical fanner. Jack could not bear to see
things going wrong, and business mismanaged,
and money wasted where money was becoming
scarcer ever}' day. Ilis taste for agriculture he
inherited from the Squire: not so his love of
order, method, and a libcnil economy. The
father, like many indolent people, delighted in
beinir robbed — like most obstinate natures, was
penny-wise and pound-fuolish. Since the latter 's
illness, Jack was supposed to take much of the
trouble off his hands in looking after the Home
Farm, and managed the estate, subject to the
supervision of the jealous, exacting, and utterly
unreasonable invalid. In vain the son plodded,
and laboured, and pondered, tramj)ing about the
acres by day, and racking his brains over the
red account-book by night : some whim of the
father was sm-e to nullify his happiest suggestions ;
and, exert himself as he would, he was, after all,
but a man in fetters, liable at anv moment to be
«'
JACK BROOKE. 1G9
tripped up, and get a sore tumble besides. Being,
as I say, of a practical nature, he could not but
perceive the proportion in which expenditure
exceeded income ; and this, too, gave him the
une&.siness felt by every prudent person in like
straits. To reduce the outlay on his own respon-
sibility was impossible, and an expostulation witli
the Squire only brought on a good deal of intem-
perate language and an amount of excitement
very hurtful to the latter in his feeble state. At
first, he tried to get Walter to interest himself in
business matters, feeling that if any one's advice
could bias his father it would be that of the
favourite son. This conviction was not pleasant
for the elder brother ; but he worked upon it
nevertheless with considerable energy and com-
plete failure. The hussar could not bring himself
to take the slightest interest in " grubbing about
in the dirt," as he profanely termed the first and
most essential of sciences. There was something
of the Squire's indolence and carelessness of con-
sequences in Walter which, perhaps, endeared
liim to his father as much as his personal good
looks and the easy assumption of his manners
both at home and abroad. Once, and for a few
170 THE BKOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
moments, Jack bethought hiiu of enlisting Helen
in the cause ; but when lie remembered her con-
stant attendance on the invalid, his dependence
on her for society, and the many hours they spent
toerether alone, he refrained from addinij more
weight to the burden already sufliciently heavy
which his sister carried so uncomplainingly.
Altogether, Jack was not happy. Jit- kcjit his
cares to himself though, never even hinted at
them to the others, and, niglit after night, jiored
over the red account-book, with a sickening heart
indeed, but an honest stedfastness of pur[X)se and
determination to do the best he could.
Self-sacrifice is one of the most beautiful of
virtues. It speaks well for our fellow-creatures,
that they give us so many opportunities of culti-
vating it. If you choose, like Sir Walter Ealeigh,
to take the clothes off your back, and spread them
in the mire to be trodden on, innumerable muddy
feet pass over willingly enough, stamping them
into shreds, and even spurning your garments the
while, because they are not of the richest material
and the newest fashion. When you give a shoe-
less beggar the shilling which, perhaps, you cannot
very well spare, with which you meant to have
JACK BROOKE. 171
procured your early diuner, or taken your cliild to
the Zoological, or bought the tobacco that is your
only luxury, how do you know he does not purse
you because it is not half-a-crown ?
Being paid in gratitude is, after all, very embar-
rassing. It can seldom be gracefully tendered,
more seldom gracefully accepted. If a man owes
me five shillings, it is inconvenient both for him
and me that he should licpiidate his debt in cop-
per, and I can imagine many circumstances in
which I had rather not be reimbursed at all.
Perhaps it is only fair that benefits should usually
be welcomed with small thanks, and hardly ever
be requited in kind. Even without the reversion
thus purchased for the donor, the pleasure of con-
ferring them is a very suflScient return ; and while
it is more blessed, most people will allow that it is
also far more agreeable to give than to receive.
A story of Jack's school-days perhaps illustrates
his character better than whole pages of analysis.
His younger brother was not only more advanced
in learning, but took the lead from the elder in the
playground as well. Not that he was as strong
and active, as good at cricket or football, but that
the self-reliance of his character imposed upon his
172 Tlir. 15R00KES OF BRIDLEMERE.
comrades here, as subscqucutly on •reiieral society
in tlio real world. It is bnt jnstice to allow this,
however, that in ability at lessons he was far su-
perior to Jack. The latter succumbed cheerfully.
His honest face would frl<|^^ \\itli delight when
Walter was " commended " in Cornelius, or made
a stunniiic: catch at " lonc^-slip." There was no
jealuusy in Urttnkr, senior; and as for his irene-
rosity and goodnature, to use the boys' own ex-
pressiim, ''There was not such a hid in the school!"
Didn't he spend his pocket-money, treating the
other fellows, almost before he got it ? And hadn't
he given Pinkes his ferret, the treasure most
coveted in the whole society ? white, vindictive,
with red eyes, and far gone in the family-way, to
console that mourner for the loss of his great-
uncle, an old gentleman for whom Pinkes enter-
tained a morbid terror and aversion, and on whose
demise, I fear, that young dunce looked as a
happy interposition, for that he would examine
him in his humanities no more.
It was the custom in this, as in many other aca-
demies, to celebrate the Fifth of Xovember with
great glai'e and ceremony. The boys subscribed for
fireworks ; the ushers begged and bought faggots ;
JACK BIJOOKE. 173
a neighbouring ftirraer, known to the young gen-
tlemen by the simple apjiellation of ''Nobs," pro-
vided a tar-barrel, while the master contributed a
halt-holiday and his sanction to the proceedings.
Thea they yelled and shouted to their hearts' con-
tent, dancing and leaping like young savages, rounil
the bonfire; and by degrees, the dnn smoke,
studded witli sparks, rolled heavily away, the Hames
streamed up into a shifting, flickering pvi'amid of
fire ; the Ivoman-candles shot their luminous bul-
lets into air, the rockets soared heavenward in
glowing tracks, and fell again in showers of green
and crimson and gold ; squibs and crackers hissed
and bounded about like liery adders ; Catherine-
wheels, revolvhig faster and faster, like illuminated
kaleidoscopes, wheeled into one dazzling, stupefy-
ing, yellow blaze of glory ; and then the lustre
faded, the skeleton fi-ame-work showed, the bonfire
sank, the tar-barrel emitted a last feeble flash, the
whole thing went out like a eandle, and darkness
was once more upon the earth.
During the height of the revels, however, it
came to pass, that the spirit of mischief, never
dormant in a schoolboy, prompted Walter Brooke
to put a lighted cracker into the tail-pocket of Mr.
174 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
.Softly, the writing-master. That professor, unfor-
tunately, carried otlier combustible preparations
in the same receptacle. The result was, a pro-
tracted and continuous explosion, inconvenient,
ludicrous, and not devoid of danger. It was some
moments ere the sufferer knew exactly what had
haj)penod ; and during that interval, Pinkes, the
boy already mentioned, being of an excitable and
impressionable temperament, moved besides by
feelings of terror, mixed with considerable admira-
tion, could not forbear exclaiming, ''Oh ! I^rooke."
The professor, a married man witli a family, natu-
rally resenting an attempt to blow him into the
air as an extempore Guy Fawkes, caught the
name instantly, and did not fail to make his com-
plaint, nor to show his scorched and ruined gar-
ment to the master. Short and summary is the
justice of the rod. After school next morning,
Jack must stand forth, face to face with the
avenger. He marched up sturdily to the desk,
with cold hands and a beating heart. Stem,
measured, incisive, came the accents off the lips
of that immovable Fate, over its high starched
neck-cloth.
"An outrage, flagi-ant, vindictive, and unparal-
JACK BEOOKE. 175
leled — not only subversive of discipline in the
scliool, but a gross ofifenee to society at large, and
a crime provided against by the laws of the land.
What is the meaning of it? I ask you, Brooke,
what is the meaninc: of it ? "
" Please, sir, I didn't do it," said tlie poor little
man, in a low voice, which rang nevertheless in
his own ears like a trumpet.
" Please, sir, you didn't do it ! " sneered the
Fate. " Lie the first, sir — obvious, pal[)able, and
supererogatoiy. Then please, sir, who did do it ? "
" Please, sir, I don't know," answered the boy,
more courageously this time, for his pluck rose as
the danger drew near, and he felt, that though
he was telling a lie now, it was one which stamped
him a hero and a martyr in the dozen or two of
opinions that constituted his little world.
" You don't know, sir ! " repeated the cruel voice,
jubilant now, yet repressed, in conscious power.
*' Then we must make you know, sir, and teach you
to know better another time. Mr. Marks, the
boys Avill attend for punishment.^'
Mr. Marks was the usher. The boys did attend
for punishment, and Jack Brooke felt for the
rest of the dav as if he was standins: in the
17G THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
thinnest continuations, with his back to u kitchen
fire.
Jack shuts up the account-book at last, with u
puzzled, weary expression, and doubts whether lie
won't have one more pipe before turning in.
Tatters leaps exulting to the lloor, and wags his
tail for permission to take his usual place on the
quilt. His master pulls olf his old worn shooting-
jacket witli a yawn, and proceeds leisurely to
undress. Strijtping, one by one, the garments
from his fine athletic frame, something of dis-
content stirs within him at the thraldom and con-
straint in which he lives. A\ illingly, tliinks Jack,
wouhl he change places with any day-labourer
about the place. He could work at least as hard
and patiently as his fellows, for the benefit of those
he loves. He would be in no false position then ;
he would escape from the perpetual dissatisfaction
with the present, the constant misgivings for the
futm'e. He would feel no inferiority amoufrst his
comrades, tliose honest hard-handed rustics, with
whom strength and manhood are the only tangi-
ble qualities, and intellectual power entirely an
unknown quantity. He could not be fmther re-
moved than he is now from all that he wishes
JACK BROOKE. 177
to become ; and perhaps he uiiglit be better ap-
preciated by those who were dependent on his
exertions for their bread. Yes, he would walk out
cheerfully at sunrise, to earn his day^s wages by
his day's work, so that his father and Walter, and
even Helen, and perhaps one or two others, uiiglit
learn the stuff he was made of. " Bosh ! it's two
o^'lock in the morning," says Jack, out loud, "or
I never should be such an ass as to get into tliis
morbid strain. Hie up ! Tatters. Good-night, you
beauty!" And he pauses, with the extinguislier
in his hand, before putting out the candle, and
turning in finally for his rest.
"You beauty!" I must obseiTe, was not ad-
dressed to Tatters, whose claims to that appella-
tion would have borne considerable arc:ument.
It applied to a tawdry French print, whicli
hung within sight of his pillow, and for whicli
Jack cherished an admiration, unaccountable
to the most intimate and confidential of his
friends.
This work of art represented an impossible lady
on an impossible horse, \\ith an impossible hawk
on her wTist, and an impossible hound at her
stirrup. She wore the tightest of waists, the fullest
VOL. I. N
178 THE BROOKES OF BrJDLEMERE.
of skirts, the most exaggerated of hats, aud the
most undisciplined of feathers. Her liorse, sus-
tained to all appearance by atmospheric pressure
alone, danced and curvetted airily on one leg,
obviously without coercion from his rider, for the
rein floated loose in her lap, and her tiny riding-
whip Avas carried by the hound in its mouth.
Clouds of dust constituted the background of tliis
suggestive composition ; and the only merit in the
whole appeared to be the ingenuity with which the
artist had combined so much levity of expression
with such classic regularity of features. There
was something in the face, too, that drew atten-
tion ; a certain depth of tenderness in the eyes —
a certain saucy resolution about the mouth,
attractive because so contradictory, witliout being
entirely irreconcileable. The French print was
like a French novel — ludicrous, exaggerated,
unnatural, yet possessing a peculiar interest and
fascination of its OAvn.
Jack bought it in Paris, to which city he ha
been prevailed on to accompany Walter for a ten
days' ti-ip ; the elder brother, I fear, furnishing the
means out of his slender store. Walter used to
make his father laugh with an imaginary descrip-
»■
JACK BROOKE. 179
tion of its purcliase. Jack's French, his bhishes,
and general confusion, wliile lie explained to
the smiling shopwoman which print he wanted,
that voluble lady's coquetry and sly allusions,
with the eventual discomfiture of the Englishman,
and liis departure in possession of the article at
double its marked price. I say, imaginary, for the
brothers were seldom together, except at dinner,
in the gay city ; and though Jack suffered from a
fine chivalrous shyness amongst women, he had
also a business-like, quick-sighted, kind of common
sense, that would detect and resist imposition
from the most delusive dame who ever smiled
across a counter.
Whatever he paid for the print, however, he
seemed to value it very high. There it hung in
the place of honour opposite his bed-head. His
last look at night, his first in the morning, could
scarce help resting on the winning eyes, and
the saucy determined mouth. Pleasant dreams !
honest Jack, and sound sleep ! unbroken by the
snores of Tatters, lying warm and cosy, coiled up
on the quilt at your feet.
N 2
CHAPTEK VII.
A DRAGON S TOOTH.
HEX jMiss Brooke went out walking,
slie was not above the little coquetries
of outward adornment practised by her
sex. Dangerous, as young ladies can
be, in the full lustre of candle-light, glowing, so
to speak, in their war-paint, whirling their scalps
and other trophies in tlie war-dance, and fully
caparisoned at all j^oints for the war-path, I think
even the most formidable, to carr}' on the
metaphor, looks more like "raisin' har'," when
she sallies forth towards sundo^vn, lithe, looped-up,
and lightly accoutred either for flight or battle ; to
all appearauce unexpectant, yet at the same time
not incapable, of " following up a trail " (for the
female nature is seldom quite unprepared to take
A dragon's tooth. 181
a prey) ; and, conscious that her forces have been
recruited by hmcheon, while her weapons are
brightened by the becoming influence of the
evening breeze, equal to either emergency, the
extension of a merciful prerogative, or the inflic-
tion of immediate death.
Leaning over a stile, and gazing down into the
valley on the town of Middlesworth, a very well-
dressed and rather showy-looking man smoked his
cigar, apparently wrapped in deep meditation.
The sound ofj|Helen's step M'oke him from his
abstraction, and the undisguised approval Mith
which he stared at her as she approached was only
excusable on the plea that it was months since he
had seen anything in the shape of a young lady so
entirelv to his taste. Miss Brooke did look verv
handsome, as she came along a dry, sound path
that crossed the well-drained field.
Her dehcate cheek had cauo-ht a tinire of
colour from the soft west wind, that lifted the
heavy trails of black hair off her temples. The
small well-shaped head, with its clear-cut features,
was borne royally as usual ; but with a jaunty
carriage that sprang from the elastic step and free
graceful gestures of a perfect symmetry. Her
182 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
lips were parted, as though she drank in with zest
the pure autumnal air, and her eyes sparkled with
the lijjht of health and auimatiou. A dark woman
with a colour has all her attractions increased
tenfold. In repose she is very generally pale;
she rides at anchor, as one may say, under the
white flag — calm, stately, and peaceful ; but when
she shakes out her canvas and hoists the red
ensign, not another craft that walks the waters
need hope to take the wind out of her sails.
Helen thought as little of her looks as any young
woman who possessed a glass on her toilet-table ;
yet she must have felt beautiful, as she stepped
hghtly along, enjoying thoroughly the exercise,
the landscape, and even the solitude, so pleasant
after a whole morning spent in the library, hsten-
ing to the Squire's everlasting surmises and
wearisome complaints.
The man with the cigar took a thorough inven-
tory of her as she came on. He noted the turn
of her tall round figure, set off by a close-fitting
jacket, and a full fluted sldrt, looped up over the
striped stuff petticoat, with a rim of worked
white edging underneath. He glanced admiringly
at the slender, hollow feet, with their ai'ched in.
A dragon's tooth. 183
steps, cased in supple, shining little boots, laced,
soled, pieced, and strapped, in ridiculous imitation
of those j)onderous articles he wore liiniself on the
heather or the stubbles. He was pleased to see,
though it could not much matter to him, that over
the straight trim ankles tlie bright-coloured hose
clung close without a wrinkle ; that the dark kid
gloves fitted the taper hands without a crease.
Nothing escaped him — not the heavy links of a
gold bracelet at her wrist, nor tlie delicate lace-
edged handkerchief peeping from her jacket
pocket, nor the neat umbrella, much too small
for use, that if once opened could surely never be
folded so smooth again, nor even the heart-shaped
locket, with poor j^apa's hair in it, that hung on a
velvet ribbon round Helen's white neck.
All this, I say, he saw, as she drew nearer — and
she came on pretty fast, I can tell you — nor seeing
this could he repress a covert smile, a smile under
the skin, that flitted over the man's face, and did
by no means improve its expression.
He made way for her as she approached the
stile, and removed the cigar from his lips. There
is something in the presence of a real lady to
which the lowest bred man cannot but pay an
184 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
unwilling, almost an unconscious deference ; and
this was not a low-bred man, far from it. He had
been mucli more in society, and probably knew a
great many more smart people than Helen; yet,
taking the two as class specimens, a child would
not have hesitated in pointing out the aristocrat,
and the plebeian.
He was a good-looking fellow too, and not in
what could fairly be called a flash or vulgar style.
Helen did not look at him, be sure, but she saw
him nevertheless, and took in his general appear-
ance, as young ladies can, at a glance, with her
own eyes averted all the time. She observed
that he had heavy, well-shaped features, small
dark eyes and large dark whiskers, a coarse
mouth, very good teeth, a great deal of jewellery,
and a remarkably bright colour ; that his clothes
were' perfectly well-made (you must remember
Helen had two brothers, one of them a dandy by
profession), and though in no way remarkable,
were of a fashion and material more adapted for
town than country wear. She could not but
admit that his figure was strong and well-propor-
tioned, though a little inclined to corpulence, and
that the bare hand in which he held his cigar, was
A dragon's tooth. 185
very plump and white, adorned moreover with a
diamond ring of no small value ; such a ring as is
usually displayed in the foreground of professional
men's portraits, meditating under crimson cano-
pies, in -irreproachable linen and suits of glossy
black.
" Not quite a gentleman," said Helen to lier-
self, as the man made way for her, and lifted liis
hat with a flourish : " what AYaltor calls a ' Brum-
magem swell,' I think," and would have passed on
without fiu'ther notice, but that courtesy enjoined
some acknowledgment, however distant, of his
civility and his salute. There is hatred at first sight,
as there is love. Helen was provoked with herself to
feel such unreasonable repugnance towards a man
she had never seen before, and was unlikely ever to
see again. She Avould have been more provoked
still had she analysed the cause of her dislike. So
she incHned her head Avith that haughty distant
gesture which is, I think, the next remove from
a positive slap in the face, and passed over the
stile with a dexterous whisk of her draperies, that
nullified the half-step he made in advance, as though
to offer his assistance.
He was determined to speak to her, never-
ISG THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
tlieless ; and was rather irritated that he could
not, on tlie spur of tlie moment, hit upon some
pretext which should ^ivo him an excuse for doing
so without the appearance of presumption. This
was not a case in which he could iollow licr with
his own pocket-handkerchief, affecting to think it
was one she had dropped, or oflVr to remove
imaginary briers from tlie skirt of her dress, or
adopt the successful French plan, of informing the
lady she had whitened her gown where she could
not possibly see it, and dusting it tbc wJiile with
many protestations of deference, and entreaties for
forgiveness. Few people are sufficiently brutalized
to make these advances to a lady, and for the true
gentleman every woman is a lady ; but with all
her softness there was something about Helen
that would have bidden the most callous nature
pause before venturing on a lil)erty ; so the man
put his cigar in his mouth again as she passed on,
and racked his brain for a question that should
compel her to answer him. He was a connoisseur
in voices ; he was resolved to hear hers. If it was
at all in character with her appearance, he would
find out who she was, and see more of her. There
was a gQod deal of persistency and determination
■* A dragon's tooth. 187
hidden under that smooth, shining skin of his ;
a good deal of self-conceit and self-confidence ;
not an atom of conscientious scruple or remorse.
There was nothinii: for it but to ask his wav.
An old worn-out resource, indeed, yet which seemed
to him the least offensive in the present emer-
gency.
It would be absurd to inquire for ]\[iddles-
worth. There was the town staring him in the
face. He must think of some other locality.
Hurrying after her, hat-in-hand, breathlessly, he
"begged her pardon. There was a short cut
somewhere here, and he was afraid he had missed
it — would she kindly point out to hiiu the nearest
way to Bridlemere ? "
Helen's colour deepened, for the hurr^-ing steps
brought to her recollection one or two stories
she had heard of plausible footpads, wrenching
watches and bracelets from unprotected damsels
in lonely throughfares. * She even calculated the
defence she could offer with the neat umbrella,
and her own speed of foot, for a quarter of a mile,
the distance in which she could reach Dame Bat-
ters's cottage, and perhaps Jem's formidable aid ;
but the voice and mau' er were so thoroughly
188 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
couventional and re-assuring, that she halted and
faced about boldly, pointing to the direction from
which she came.
"That patli takes you to Bridlomere, and on l>y
the back of the stables into the high road."
She was going to tell him there was no right of
way ; but, after all, he had the appearance of u
gentleman, and she checked the ungracious re-
mark.
It was just the voice he expected, full, sweet,
composed, the quiet patrician accent distinct on
every syllable.
" Thank you very much," said the gentleman,
with a profusion of bows and superfluity of polite-
ness a little overdone. " I am most anxious to see
Bridlemere ; they say it is such a charming place,
such a beautiful old house. Perhaps you can tell
me if I shall be disappointed ? Perhaps you know
it?"
" Perhaps I do," answered Helen shoi-tly, for the
man's demonstrative manner provoked her. " I
live there."
" Miss Brooke, I beg you a thousand pardons,"
he exclaimed, raising his hat once more, and with
as much ceremony as if he had been regularly
A dragon's tooth. 189
introduced by a third person. " I did not expect ;
I was not aware ;" and muttering something about
" honour" and "pleasure," and so forth ; he passed
on, pretty well satisfied with his ingenuity in thus
paving the way to an acquaintance with tliis
beautiful young lady.
It cost him an extra walk, though, of more tliau
a mile, for he was proceeding from a neighbouring
estate, on which he held a mortgage, to the town
of Middlesworth, and he could not, in common
decency, but follow the path she had pointed out,
as long as there was a chance of Helen turning
round. He might have saved himself the trouble,
however, for the latter walked on, looking straight
before her, with her head rather higher than usual,
and a smile of somethins; akin to scorn curlins: her
lip. Miss Brooke was not usually a person to be
acted on by external influences, and to-day she
had come out from a long and wearisome morning
in the library, where she had settled the Squire at
last to his accustomed nap, with every inclination
to enjoy her release ; yet the weather, someho\v,
seemed spoilt within the last ten minutes. The
sky was darker, the wind had turned colder. It
would be sure to rain before she could get back.
190 THE BROOKES OF BTIIDLEMERE.
No ; it Avas none of these drawbacks, but I liave
said that there are such forces as antipatliies. Some
philosophers, indeed, opine that they are instincts
implanted in our nature to guard us from future
enemies, and it might have been something of
this kind that affected the young lady all the way
to Dame Batters's cottage door. jMiss Brooke's step
was hardly so light as usual, while shq neared'the
porch of that lowly dwelling, to which she was
welcome as the song of a wild bird, but Dame
Batters recognised it from her chimney-corner, and
folding her bare arms in her check apron, came
forth to meet her visitor.
""Wliy, if here b'ain't our young lady," said the
old woman, in a voice that constant practice of
self-commiseration had toned down to a plaintive
and somewhat irritating wail. " 3Iiss Helen sure-
lie ; an' it do my old eyes good to see her — There,
it do. Come in, miss, and set down now, an' rest
a bit, though it's little young bones like your'n
knows of rest nor rheumatics neither." Here
remembering her role, the dame put one hand to
her back, and puckered up her old face into a
lamentable expression of bodily anguish.
*' Why, I hoped the rheumatics were so much
A dragon's tooth. 191
better," said Helen, in her gentle, soothing tones.
"You told me that stuff had done you good. I
can send you some more. We've got plenty of it
at the hall."
"Good, my dear," answered the patient, not
without a certain trium})h, for people like to be
distinguished, even for the obstinacy of their
rheumatism. "'Ta'n't likely now, is it, as any-
think '11 ever do me good? It's in my bones,
you see, miss, in my bones it is, and in my bones
it'll stop, I know, till they lie in the churchyard,
an' I shouldn't wonder if they was to ache a bit at
odd times, even there."
Tills was said with a mixture of pride and resig-
nation, sucli as that with which a man talks of
the comfortable arrangements he has made for
survivors after his demise, probably with as little
perception of the reality thus anticipated ; but it
was Helen's especial nature to console. She had
a good deal of practice at home ; and indeed, when
she went out, never failed to bear a ray or two of
comfort along with her into every cottage on the
estate. The poor people about Bridlemere loved
the very ground she walked on, not because Miss
Helen was such a "fine lady" as those simple
192 THE nnooKES of bridlemere.
rustics said, attaching to the epithet a far different
meaning from that wliich it bears in cities, nor
because she was generous with her money, as far
as hor slender means allowed, but that she pos-
sessed the sympathetic quality, whicli interests
itself in a neighbour's affairs as earnestly as in its
own. This power of projecting the mind and feel-
ings, as it were, into the very existeiK-e of others,
when api»lied by means of diverse mental gifts,
sufh as imagination, construction, tact, and in- .
genuity, to purposes of .Vrt, and bridled, moreover,
by a severe taste, constitutes Genius. When it
exists simply with average brains, and a warm,
honest heart, it merely ajiproaches, and that very
closely, the Apostle's definition of Charity. The
poor are peculiarly susceptible of its influence,
and the kindly word, which proves that the speaker
not only pities, but understands the privations of
indigence, or the temptations of vice, has warmed
many a cold heart, reclaimed many a reckless nature,
and raised many a fallen woman out of the mire in
which she has been trodden down so ruthlessly.
Though dame Batters was old, dirty, querulous,
and to most people thoroughly uninteresting;
though her precious Jem was coarse, idle, drunken,
A dragon's tooth. 193
ami just thoughtful enough to be dishonest, altogetlier
a very complete specimen of the village black-
guard, Helen could listen as kindly to the long-
winded complaints of the mother, could thank the
son as sweetly for an act of sullen courtesy, as if
the one had been a duchess, and the other a
dandy; nay, the duchess and the dandy would
probably have found her far colder and more
distant ; would have voted her less " easy to get
on with," than did the humble inmates of the
cottage.
Jem, unbraced, unwholesome, dishevelled and
sodden-looking, rose from the fire-side when the
young lady entered, and hid a half-smoked pipe in
a wholly du'ty hand ; then he dragged a wooden
chair from its corner, knocked one of the legs
home, pulled his greasy cap from its peg, wiped the
seat, and griiming in extreme bashfulness, ground
it severely along the sanded floor to Miss Helen.
Her rich young voice thanked him so musically
as she sat down, that he stood spell-bound, shift-
ing from one leg to the other, and cramming his
horny finger into tlie hidden jjipe-bowl, not yet
thoroughly extinguished, till he burnt it to the
quick. Jem had changed his opinion all at once
VOL. I. o
194 THE BROOKES OF BPJDLEMERE.
about Cissy Brown and Sue Stanion. How could
he ever have compared those bouncing, brazen
hoydens to such a shining vision as this? He
would have given a gallon of beer now, to have
had his Sunday coat on ; nay, to have only washed
his face and hands at the pump.
]\[others have quick perceptions, even when they
are old, stupid, and rheumatic. Dame Batters
saw^her son's confusion, and advanced at once to
the rescue.
" He was always a bit dashed with the gentle-
folk, was our Jem," said she, grinning significantly
at her visitor. " He's not had the schooling, you
see, miss, of some on 'em, along o' my being left a
lone woman so young, my dear ; for a sore heart is
a heavy load, and a lame fut makes a long journey.
Speak up, Jem," she added, turning briskly on her
great, sheepish son. " Speak up, and tell young
miss the rights of it. He've got a job at last, miss,
what he don't need to be ashamed of, this turn, and
that's the truth."
Thus adjured, Jem rolled his eyes, gasped,
grinned, and said nothing.
"I was sorry you were out of work so long,"
observed Helen quietly, ignoring the while the
A dragon's tooth. 195
reason Jem had not been employed of late at the
Hall, which she knew perfectly well. "I spoke
to my brother for you, and I believe he spoke to
papa, but you know papa has been so ill that
nothing has been decided either about the embank-
ment, or the farm-road, or the draining, so my
brother says we have hands enough at present ;
but you see, Mrs. Batters, I hadn't forgot my
promise the last time I Avas here."
All this was truth, but not the whole truth.
What really took place was as follows: Helen
interceded with Jack, who vowed he would not
have such an idle, drunken rascal about the place,
not if he would do a twelvemonth's work for
nothing ; but after much coaxing and entreaty from
his beloved sister, whom, unlike most brothers,
next to the lady in the French print, Jack es-
teemed the &st of womankind, he consented to
speak to the governor on the subject. Broaching
it, as he hoped, in a lucid interval, the topic was
received with such a storm of petulant anger that
it fell incontinently to the ground, and was not
thereafter alluded to. This was one of the many
cases in which the Squire liked his son to have all
the trouble of looking after the estate, but none
o 2
196 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
of its management. Helen was aware that she
had no good news to impart, but it was her
nature to be considerate with her inferiors, and
she let Jem down as easily as circumstances
would permit.
"He've got a job at last, though," resumed
Dame Batters, rolling the check apron round and
round her bare arms. " He've found a friend,
have Jem ; and they do say a man's best friend is
him as pays him reg'lar. Fifteen shillin' a week,
Miss, and his beer. That's worth — what's your
beer worth, Jem ? You an' me counted it up a
while since. But what call have I to count it up
to you, Miss Helen ? What's a young lady like
you to know about beer ?"
Helen blushed, as if she had suddenly been
accused of di-inking that sustaining fluid in large
quantities. Nevertheless, the beer question seemed
not devoid of interest, for she turned away from
the old woman's keen, twinkling eyes, and ad-
dressed herself to the son.
"I hope, Jem," said she, gravely, "that you
won't buy any, now you can get as much as you
want for nothino-."
He could enter into this topic heartily.
A dragon's tooth. 197
" 'Taiu't the beer, miss," he explained, deferen-
tially, yet with conscious pride in the importance
of the question, and his own familiarity with all
its bearings. " 'Tain't the beer ; leastways, 'tain't
the beer alone as done all the mischief. You see,
miss, if a chap's dry, may be, and he turns in and
takes his half-iDint, why it's neither here nor there.
But when its weather, and such-like, and a chap's
hanging about the town, of a errand, we'll say,
and, as like as not, without a dry thread on him,
why, I asks your pardon, miss, what's a chap to
do ? In a ' public,' you see, miss, he gets warmed
both inside and out ; then he takes his beer with a
flourish of lacin' to it, as we calls it, miss ; and one
man he stands to a friend, and another man he
stands to a friend ; and it's, ' Jem, 'ore's luck, my
boy;' an' 'Jem, you was always a staunch dog,
you was ;' an' ' Jem, won't you sing us a song ?' I
ask your pardon, miss; an' that's the way the
money goes, an' I've done with it, I have, for one
while. There !"
He would have put his pipe in liis mouth again,
but that he suddenly remembered his manners,
and did homage once more to Helen by stuffing it
into his coat-cuff.
198 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
Dame Batters listened approvingly, and reached
up to pat her son's burly shoulders, a caress he
acknowledged with a shake and a grunt.
Helen was not tired of the beer question yet,
apparently, for she had something more to say.
" You haven't told me where your son is going
to work ?" she observed, looking intently out of
doors, as though to see if the weather still held
up. " I hope, for your sake, i\Irs. Batters, it's not
far from here ?"
" Stoney Brothers," growled Jem, with a kind of
jubilant defiance. " Stoney Brothers, That's the
shop, miss — that is ; and good luck to it, says 1 ;
good luck to both on 'em ; for good chaps they be,
and especially Master Phil."
" It's Mr. Philip, you see, miss, as got Jem the
place," said his mother, interpreting, as it were,
with a dignified politeness, to her visitor. " jMr.
Philip, as has a good word and a kind for rich and
poor, just like yourself, miss ; and hke will to like,
as they say, for you can't keep cows from clover,
nor yet cats from cream. And what I says is this :
you tell me what a man gets actin' of, and I'll tell
you what's the secret thoughts of that man's
heart. Butter's bound to come if vou do but
A dragon's tooth. 199
keep the churn going ; and there's not a mortal
thing on this earth as Master Philip would think
too good for them as comes off Bridlemere !"
Probably Miss Brooke heard not one word, for
she was looking intently over the wide valley,
with its broad, peaceful meadows, its dotted home-
steads and lines of intersecting hedgerows, to the
golden streak of snnset that seemed to be resting
on the distant wooded hills. A November sky
could scarcely look more settled, and Miss Brooke
cared as little for a wetting as a mermaid, never-
theless she took an abrupt departure, hardly
noticing Jem's grotesque bow, and wishing his
mother a hurried farewell, because she must get
home before it came on to rain.
Was it only the pace at which she walked — live
miles an horn", I really believe, and every footfall
light and springy as a deer's — tliat brought so high
a colour to her face? A colour that went and
came a dozen times before she reached the stile
where she met the man who asked his way, and
whom she had now completely forgotten — a colour
that if it would only settle in those delicate cheeks
of hers, and remain for the ball to-night, when I
dare say she would be very pale, must quite set at
200 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
rest any discussions as to wlio was the best-looking
young woman about ]^[iddleswol•tll, besides fur-
nisuing an extraordinary treat to the male
muffatee-makers and other roughs in the town,
who loved to conOTegate about the ball-room door,
and watch carriage after carriage landing its cargo
of white muslin, with remarks, it is but justice to
say, neither loud nor obtrusive, though extremely
sincere, on the respective merits ol" the compe-
titors.
Perhaps anticipation of this very gathering may
have had sumetliing to du with the additional
bloom on the flower. It is difficult for middle-
age — male middle-age especially — to realize a
girl's dreams of expectation the day she is going
to a ball. To her, I imagine, the ceremonial is a
compound of excitement, hope, emulation, triumph,
pleasure, business and dissipation, probably with a
halo of romance glorifving the whole thinf?. It is
her House of Commons, her Poor-law Board, her
lecture-room, her hunting-field, the betting-ring of
her racecourse, the deck f)f her frigate, the front
of her general action. In tliis bright, smooth
arena she concentrates the ambition, the amuse-
ments, the viscissitudes, the struggles, the victories
A dragon's tooth. 201
— all the best and some of the worst feelings of
the other sex — and yet we can sometimesfind it in
our hearts to grudge the curtailment of our claret,
the trouble of dressing after dinner, the incon-
venience of standing all night upon not the
soundest of feet, in order that she may take her
part in this all-important contest. She cannot go
without us, more's the pity ! Who knows ? per-
haps to-night she meditates the gi'and decisive
stroke that is to affect her whole life ! Shall
indolence, self-indulgence, the cosy fire-side, the
roomy four-poster, seduce us from our duty as a
man and a chaperon ? Ring the bell ! Get
coffee. Tell John to put us out the whitest of
neckcloths and the easiest of boots; order the
carriage, but let it not come round till it is wanted,
for great results are to be obtained only by careful
preparation, and the slower she is in dressing the
more effective will be her first appearance in the
room ; our own purgatory is also thus curtailed a
little at the nearer end.
Dame Batters looked long and wistfully after
Miss Brooke's receding figure ; then she shook her
head, and accosted Jem, who was sprawling over
the fire to light his pipe.
202 THE BKOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
" Jem," said she, " I never see our young Miss
not look half so well as she done to-niofht. Her
eyes was as bright as diamonds. Wasn't 'em,
Jem? Oh! my poor back !"
Jem made no imoiediate reply. It was his
practice to be very chary of his words with mother,
which was, perhaps, the reason she gave him more
than due credit for wisdom. I have observed the
same result from a judicious reticence in every
grade of society. Presently the germ of an idea
formed itself in his mind. Puffing gravely at his
pipe, he seemed to chui-n the thought, as it were,
and knead it well, before he tm-ned it out for
inspection. Then he rose, stretched, yawned, and
thus delivered himself —
"Mother?"
"Well, Jem?"
" D'ye mind the heifer as I druv' down the
green lane and by our door here, last club-mornin'
twelvemonth ?"
" I mind her, Jem," replied the Dame. " I tvas
bad with the rheumatics that turn. Never a heifer
has the Squire bred since not half as good nor yet
half as good looking. No, nor ]\Ii*. Marks neither.
You can't bake hot bread in a cold oven, Jem."
A deagon's tooth. 203
" That heifer wiir the cleanest thing ever I saw,
mother, bar our Miss Brooke."
" Bar our Miss Brooke," repeated the dame.
" And you druv' her to the butcher's, Jem. Didn't
ye now? I mind it well !"
*' Iss," said Jem. " I druv' her to the butcher's."
CHAPTEK VIII. >
MAEKET-DAY.
HAVE already observed that Middles-
wortb, on occasion, was capable of as
much bustle and confusion as if its
normal state had been one of brisk
commercial activity, rather than complete stagna-
tion and repose. The surrounding country, con-
sisting chiefly of pasture land, was not, therefore,
very thickly inhabited ; nevertheless, once in the
week, the streets of this prosperous town were so
densely thronged as to become impassable to all
but the most vigorous and resolute pedestrians. It
seemed as if the adjoining districts poured their
whole population — men, women, children, infants
in arms, with all the horses, pigs, waggons, carts,
ML\RKET-DAY. 205
live stock, poultry, dogs, and animals they could
muster, into Middlesworth on market-day. As in
all crowds, women predominated largely. They
came along the highways and byways for hours
dm-ing the forenoon, returning in cl asters about
dark ; for, whatever distance they might liave to
journey, they seemed with one accord to defer
their departure for home to as late an hour as
possible. Strong, wiry, and able-bodied, her
feminine roundness of form somewhat impaired
and attenuated by hard fare and hard labour, what
a day's work will one of these peasant women do
in the fifteen hours of incessant employment
that constitute her day ! First astir in the
humble household to light the fire and prepare
her " master's" breakfast ; last in bed at night,
mending the clothes of the family by the dim
flicker of one tallow-candle ; every intervening
moment has its appropriate task, lightened only
by the refreshment of gossip, which she takes
standing, and without respite from her employ-
ment, whatever it may be. There are the children
to dress ; there is the cottage to clean ; bread to
be brought home from the baker's; water to be
drawn and carried from the well; the weekly
206 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEEE,
stores to calculate, and a difficult problem to solve
which repeated practice fails to simplify, viz.,
twelve shillings given, and fifteen required. How
to make the sum answer ! All the cleaning, all the
cooking, all the care, falls on one poor pair of shoul-
ders, and they carry the weight with surprising
energy and much loud complaint. To walk four or
five miles backwards and forwards on a hisih road
because it is market-day would scarcely seem a
desirable addition to her usual task, yet is this
weekly pilgi'image her much-prized substitute for
the morning concerts, races, archery meetings, pic-
nics, and shopping of the richer class. Wet or
dry, frost or sunshine, with tanned face, drenched
stockings, and draggled skirt, she plods along, the
pattens and umbrella in one hand, the wicker-
basket — empty going, full returning — in the other.
Whilst in the town she certainly does make the
most of her time, loitering over her errands and
prolonging her shopping to the utmost possible
duration. Perhaps her amusements may be varied
by the excitement of extricating a husband, father,
or brother from some attractive pot-house and
incipient fight ; probably to coax him home-
wards, and guide his inebriated steps the whole
MAEKET-DAY. 207
way, propping him up, and replacing his hat, on
an average, once in every hundred yards.
The red Indian's squaw prays that her child
may not be a girl, for " Weary," says she " is the
lot of woman." Hedging, ditching, digging, drain-
ing, ploughing, turf-cutting, stone-breaking ; how-
ever hard he works, I think the English labourer
has a far easier time of it than the English
labourer's wife. To say nothing of Eve's curse, she
encounters as much physical exertion as his; and
all the wear-and-tear of miud which her husband
escapes. No wonder her comely Saxon face is
furrowed, and her soft brown hair streaked with
grey before her time.
Were it not for woman's dearest privilege, her
never-failing luxury, how could she exist? The
solace of conversation, the delightful employment
of the tongue, the inspiriting exercise of question
and reply ; these smooth the roughness of her
path, and turn her very tasks to pleasm-e and pas-
time. The debates of a rookery on a May morn-
ing ; the cackle of the Trojan army, as described
by Homer ; the parrot-room, at the Zoological in
the Regent's Park : the shrillest and most over-
powering of these discords, would convey but a
208 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
faint notion of the monster concert provided by
female voices for market-day, in tlie streets of
Middlesworth ; add to tliis, the shouts of drovers,
the lowing of oxen, the squealing of pigs, the clat-
ter of Stoney Brothers' waggons, whips cracking in
the horse-market, a cheap-jack selling on the
Parade, Strider's equestrian band performing in
the Square, with the clang of the church clock
striking sm-ely more than four times in the hour,
through and above all ; and it is reasonable to sup-
pose that more than common steadiness of nerve
and brain was required to buy even a yard of
ribbon, in the midst of all this turmoil.
It was strange how the confusion seemed to
quiet the quadrupeds, though they added then- share
of noise ; it was but a feeble effort, and emitted,
as it were, under protest. The pigs, indeed, vindi-
cated their character for energetic and peVsistent
rebellion ; but the poor oxen lowed very meekly
and pitifully ; nor, aghast and utterly stupefied by
the suiTounding clamour, would the vouns horses
show snflBcient mettle to attract a purchaser.
The whole town was, more or less, pervaded by
general confusion ; but its streams all converged
in one whirlpool, where also booths were erected
MARKET-DAY. 209
for the further discomfitm-e of tlie jiublic, viz., the
open space in front of the " PUmtagenet Arms,"
Here a dray had stopped wdth beer, a coal-cart was
discharwinp- its load, five market-women — all with
parcels, three with children — had wedged tliem-
selves into an impenetrable phalanx. The omnibns
was starting from the door, and a farmer's gig,
driven by an old man and drawn by a young horse,
blocked up the archway. But for great perse-
verance, and the exertion of much personal
strength, Kagman de Eolle, struggling through the
crowd, could never have reached his destination,
the portals of this long-established hotel and post-
ing house — the well known " Plant agenet Arms."
Eags was in -his usual health and spuits, in that
state wdiich he himself designated as " very fit,"
coming from the performance of his duty, or
rather, of his fiiend's duty ; he shone, not indeed
in the blaze of review order, but in the milder
lustre of frogged frock-coat, gold-laced forage cap,
much on one side, without a peak, and a pair of
killing steel spurs. In tliis costume, Kags felt
more equal to a social emergency than in the
obscurity of plain clothes. The chambermaid and
waiter looked after him admiring, as he passed
VOL. I. p
210 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
into the bar ; uiitl w lieu Le leuclied that aandum.
Miss iJolt, its presiding priestess, received him
with a giggle and a toss of her sleek head, which
denoted partiality and approval.
" You'll take your glass of brown sherry, as
usual, Capting de Rollo?" Siiid Miss Bolt, offering
at the same time a bumper of that mixture (price
one shilling), with a pretty hand garnished by
many rings, whereof, the newest, I believe, had
been presented, in all honour, by generous Rags.
He was a favourite, vou see. as mitrht be jrathered
from her condescending manner and frequent
repetition of his name, with the military title she
bestowed on all ranks of officers prefixed.
"Is Capting Brooke in the barracks? You can
tell me, Capting de Rolle, I dare say. A gentle-
man have been here, asking for him, repeated."
Rags was gulping at the sherry, and preparing
a compliment whilst he swallowed it.
'* He woidd have been, but I am on duty for
him," answered the hussar, adding, gallantly, " I
don't regret it either, for it keeps me in the to^vn
you brighten with your presence. Miss Bolt ! "
" Go along with you now, do," replied the lady,
who appreciated flattery none the less that she
MAKKET-DAY. 211
knew it was fired off in jest. '' I never see such a
man as you, Capting de Rollo, for your cajoleries
— flummery, I call it. I wonder wliat you take
me for, I do."
Miss Bolt had passed many years in citadels
such as that in which she was now entrenched ;
surrounded by outworlvs of glass, pewter, beer,
brandy, nets of lemons, jars of i)ickles, baskets of
game, bottles of bitters, and brown paper parcels ;
fortified, moreover, by her own rigid sense of
decorum, she could afford to do what execution
she pleased on a besieging force, and laugh at its
efforts to return her fire. These ladies who live
habitually before the public, allow themselves, it
is true, considerable latitude of speech and manner.
Their circle is no doubt a large one ; but they are
careful not to overstep its boundary. In flirtation
they are great proficients. How, indeed, can it be
otherwise ? Practising it as they must, hour after
hour, and day after day, for months together, with
every class of the male species, from peers to
potato-salesmen, including the commercial tra-
veller — a variety no less remarkable for audacity
of ^vit, than for fluency of language — in that choice
kind of repartee which depends for its success on
r 2
212 THE BROOKES OF BKIDLEMEKE.
pointed personal allusion, they are unrivalled ; and
they possess, moreover, the advantage of a partial
audience, and an encounter on tlieir own ground ;
but with all tlu-ir freedom of speech, they deny
themselves, scrupulously, a corresponding liberty
of action ; w ith eveiy temptation to evil, they are
almost without exception, untainted by vice ; and,
to use their own language, " know their place, and
take care to keep their-selves respectable."
It did nut cost RaLTS much trouble to finish a
glass of brown sherry ; yet, ere he had half
swallowed his shilling's worth, as many different
characters had come into, and gone out of Miss
Bolt's sanctum, as pass and repass the stage of a
theatre in a pantomime.
The Chairman of Quarter Sessions, burly, good-
humoured, and gentlemanlike, happy mixture of
squire, sportsman, and magistrate, paused there to
desire his Clerk of the Peace might be sent to him
forthwith. He was sixteen stone, and a gi-and-
father ; nevertheless, he congratulated ]\riss Bolt
on her good looks and brilliant ear-rings ; wishing
liimself, he said, " a young man, and a sherry
drinker again, for her sake." Miss Bolt, much
gratified, returned the compliment in kind, with
MAKKET-DAY. 213
a sportive allusion to his youthful a2)pearaiice,
Avhich sent the old gentleman away shaking his
jolly sides. He was succeeded by a Iligh-Church
rector, starched to the ears, and buttoned to the
chin, who asked for a parcel of books, that should
have come down by train ; but, of course, had not
arrived. For him, Miss Bolt took pains to explain
the railway arrangements, which were indeed
sufficiently complicated, and in the disentangle-
ment of which the good man showed less than his
usual powers of perception : even his last words,
however, were, " I trust everything to you, Miss
Bolt ! " But, before Eags could remark, in a loud
whisper, " What touching confidence ! " Mrs.
Marks, from the new farm at Bridlemere, brought
her little boy to be taken care of, while she went
to look for ]\rarks in the horscfair. Miss Bolt
turned from a business-like coquette to a loving
matron in the twinkling of an eye. She stuck the
little man against the back of an arm-chair, put a
sweet biscuit in his fist, and was down on lier
knees smoothing his llaxen curls, and making
friends with him, before Eags could express
admiration of her fondness for children, and
resret that she had not a bouncins: family of her
214 THE BROOKES OF BP.IDLEMERE.
own. The boy, sticking his fat legs straight out,
and making round eyes, as children do when
utterly at a loss, suffered himself to be comforted
with considerable philosophy, and gazed in undis-
guised wonder at De Eolle's general appearance,
and the rapid succession of j\Iis3 Bolt's visitors.
Mrs. Marks was hardly gone ere Marks appeared,
looking for her ; and that smart young agricul-
turist could not thiidv of following Bis wife without
a word for his first-bom, and a glass of sherry and
bitters lor himself: then he got into conversation
with Rags, on the merits of a certain young horse ;
and still an endless stream of Miss Bolt's admirers
l)0ured in and out. The auctioneer, from the
market-place, portly, well-whiskered, and high-
coloured, with his thumbs in the armholes of his
black satin waistcoat, and his white hat stuck very
much over one eye ; the rising apothecary, from
round the corner, clean-shaven, white-era va ted,
smooth-spoken, affecting a gravity beyond his
years, and the general pomposity of an authorised
physician ; one of Mr. Dowlas's young men, with
a parcel Lady Julia had ordered and forgotten ;
the sporting saddler AMU Whipthong, a little
''sprung," from having entertained a few friends
MARKET-DAY. 215
at an early dinner; two grave men who had
ordered tea at four, p.m. ; and who looked like
undertakers, but were, in reality, agents for the
establishment of a new branch bubble bank.
George Stoney asking for liis brother Philip, and
presently, PhiHp asking for George ; a little girl
belonging to nobody, who wanted change for a
doubtful half-crown ; the cellarman, tlie head
ostler, the parish clerk, the tax-gatherer, and
presently, a select detachment of the commercial
gentlemen, smiling, self-confident, and debonair,
fresh from their dinner in the commercial room.
It was long odds against Eags ; but he made a
good fight of it, notwithstanding. The frogged
coat, the spurs, the indispensable riding whip, the
brown shcny, and a huge cigar, inspired him ^vith
confidence. He bandied jests with the auctioneer ;
he stared the apothecary out of countenance ; he
accepted Will Whipthong's flattery, not entirely
disinterested, with a good-humoured condescen-
sion. A second glass of sherry put him on equal
terms with the commercial gentlemen, who are
always inclined to be sociable, especially with
military men, and the rest of the visitors he found
himself in a position to ignore.
216 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
Rags felt lie was monopolizing Miss Bolt — such
is the vanity inherent in the male sex, that it was
gratifying to know himself the object, even of a
barmaid's admiration ; and he accepted it thirstily,
as an earnest of successes to come in a higher
sphere.
Perhaps he was right. To kill a salmon, and to
land a trout, are efforts of the same skill, differing
onlv in degree. The nobler fisl> demands but
stronger tackle and a gaudier fly — a greater hardi-
hood, perlia])s ; but not a whit more art. Cinderella
at the ball, is still the Cinderella of the kitchen.
Toothless Lyce's heart is as near her lips as that of
smiling, whispering Lalage. Castle and cottage
surrender alike, when they begin to parley.
Neither the dulce's nor the dairs'mun's dautjhters
are proof against subtle stratagem, bold assault, or
persevering blockade. From Dido to Dorcas ;
from Pasiphae to Pamela, few, when they find it,
but will bend to the master-hand. Though all are
riddles, it seems there is but one solution for the
whole sex, and Congreve was not perhaps much
mistaken, when he makes them sing —
" Nothing's new except our fac«s :
Every woman is the same."
MAEKET-DAY. 217
Bags was getting on swimmingly. It took him,
indeed, several seconds to prepare his little
speeches ; but they were received cordially ; and
notwithstanding frequent interruptions, responded
to graciously in kind. The conversation proceeded
somewhat as follows : —
Kags, with the utmost sweetness, " How nicely
you do your hair, 3Iiss Bolt. I haven't seen such
hair as yours, since we marched into Middlesworth.
I suppose you wouldn't give a poor fellow a lock
of it ; would you now ? — though you have plenty
to spare, and it's most of it real, of course."
Miss Bolt, laughing in a succession of short,
shrill gasps, "The idea; I should have thought
you knew better than to "
Waiter, entering in a hurry, perspiring freely,
" Glass of sherry and bitters, for No. 4."
Miss Bolt, hardening once more in the exercise
of her profession, " You know I can't abide flum-
mery, Capting de EoUe. I'm sure if I thought you
was serious, I should be very "
Same waiter, only a trifle warmer :
" Two teas, an' a pint of ale, for No. 5."
Bags, taking refuge in the last drop of his
sherry —
218 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
"I know, I should be very — yes, very grate-
ful. I'd put it in a locket, and hang it round my
neck, and never take it off, even to shave.
" And if any one was asking me the reason why I wear it,
I'd say it's 'cause my true love is "
Waiter re-entering, compelled at last to mop his
face "with a dinner-napkin.
" Two letters and a parcel, for Ncf. 6."
Second waiter, approaching with noiseless step,
and an air of perfect candoui' —
" Party in the coffee-room wislies to know when
No. 6 will be back ?"
Landlord's daughter, a small child, with her
front teeth gone, and not yet replaced, lisping
painfully —
" Father says, please IMiss Bolt, did No. 6 have
lus letters before he went out ?"
Head ostler, venturing but haK his person,
huskily, as one whose rest is habitually broken,
and who drinks a mixture of gin and hay-seeds —
" From the Telegraph office — message for
No. 6."
]\Iiss Bolt—" Bother No. 6 1"
And when Bags, improving his opportunity,
MARKET-DAY. 219
condoled with her on the hardships of her position,
the variety of her duties, and the public nature of
a department in which she was " wasting her sweet-
ness," though she neither " blushed " nor remained
" unseen," he w^as a little piqued to observe that
her attention wavered obviously, and fixed itself on
a voice in the passage giving certain directions, in
which the words " servant," " lodcfe," " lujrofaore,"
and " fly," were alone audible.
It was a mellow, manly voice, grave in tone,
rather than sad, and with a peculiarly clear enun-
ciation of each syllable. A listener might be
sure, without seeing him, that the o\ATier had
good teeth, and shut them tight together when he
spoke.
Miss Bolt listened for a second or two with the
utmost earnestness ; then a smile, like a sunbeam
— a very diiferent smile from those she kept by
her for daily use — broke over her face. She
shook her ear-rings till they jingled again ; her
eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed, and she looked
twice as pretty now, whUe she clasped her hands,
and exclaimed —
" Goodness, gracious me ! I do declare, if there
isn't Sii* Archibald !"
220 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
She guessed right. AVhile she spoke, the
person she called Sir Archibald entered the bar.
A man of middle age — nay, middle age is but a
relative term, according to the distance at which
those who use it believe themselves to be from
either end of the rope. Here, where it is made
fast to the shore, a few fathoms out constitute
middle age ; yonder, where it drips already with
the spray, and is about to lose itself in the silent
sea, an inch or two yet further out is considered
still to indicate this doubtful period. I remember
when I thought a man of five-and-thirty middle-
aged. I call him *' a young fellow " now\ Well,
it is not worth discussing — " A soldier's a man ; a
life's but a span," and its termination as imcertain
at one period as another ; so that, for most of us,
there is no such thing as middle age, after all.
Sir Archibald, then, was a good bit over fifty ;
but, like many men who have spent their youth
in a life of constant toil and hardship, he seemed
rather to have hardened and toughened from
repeated kneading than worn by tlie friction of
continuous use. His walk was springy and
elastic ; his frame very spare and muscular.
Every atom of superfluous flesh seemed to have
MAKKET-DAY. 221
been absorbed bv exercise, or drained from his
system by tlie action of tropical heat. His very
face Avas but skin and bone. Skin tanned,
bronzed, and wrinkled ; bone harsh, angular, and
prominent. The whole clean shaved, all but a
heavy moustache, Avhich, like his haii', was rapidly
turning white. Nevertheless, there was beauty
still, and that of an engaging kind, in the old,
worn face ; beauty such as a young girl loves to
look upon, and weave for herself a drama of
passion, adventure, and romance, as acted out by
the 230ssessor —
" So bronzed, so marred, of more tlian twice her years."
She gives it credit for former attractions, which
perhaps it never possessed ; destroyed by dangers
and vicissitudes, on which perhaps it never looked.
There is many an Elaine who allows her fancy to
be thus captivated by a veteran Launcelot ; kind-
ling, it may be, in turn, the embers of a dead
grey fire into a feeble transient glow. Her fancy
only, not her heart ; poor girl, let her keep that
treasure for a younger, brighter, fresher, more
conoenial love. This old man looked indeed as if
his past career had been of no common order, as
222 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEKE.
if his character was one of no conventional cast.
It was something in the eyes that betrayed him,
that contradicted the quiet matter-of-fact, respect-
able appearance of dress and demeanour he
thought it consistent with his time of life to
affect. They were very keen, dark, and
bright; set deep under a pair of bushy broAVS,
which still retained their youtliful blackness.
There was habitually that glitter ni them which
you will never observe but in eyes that are
accustomed, day by day, to stare death out of
countenance, which the youngest and freshest
recruit acquires in six weeks' campaigning, if
pretty close to the enemy ; also, at times, they
shone with a soft, deep, tender lustre that spoke
of ardent affections, undying regrets, and holy,
hopeless love, chastened by memory into a reli-
gion, bearing to look back on the past, because it
could look forward to the future, having nothing
to lose now, and therefore nothing to fear.
Do not think, however, that his was a counte-
nance those who run may read. Sir Archibald
was the last person to carry his heart on his
sleeve. To the casual observer, he was but a
shrewd, hard, practised man of the world — a little
MARKET-DAY. 223
abrupt, a little caustic, and somewhat intolerant ot
anything like weakness or want of common sense.
His popularity, nevertheless, seemed to extend
beyond the bar, from which retirement Miss Bolt
handed him a light for liis cigar, with as much
delighted deference as if he had been a prince of
the blood. Marks, returning for his child, wel-
comed him back to the country with a perfect
storm of congratulations. The head ostler stood
grinning at him through a window that com-
manded the passage. A buxom chambermaid
came in three times for the same order, beaming
brightly on Sir Archibald, and was rebuked,
reasonably enough, by Miss Bolt for carelessness
and inattention. The landlord's little daughter
recognised him, and held up her toothless mouth
to be kissed. The very boots touched his fur cap,
and was glad to see " Sir Archibald looking so
well." Philip Stoney, again in search of George,
shook hands with him enthusiastically, and was
quite pleased to be asked concerning the well-
being of the chestnut horse. Everybody in Mid-
dlesworth seemed to know this brown man, with
his Avhite moustacnes, and to be glad to see him
back.
224 THE BEOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
"Who is lie?" whispered Eags to Miss Bolt.
" Seems a popular chap — ought to stand for the
town."
" What ! don't you know Sir Archibald ?" re-
plied the barmaid. I thought everybody knew Sir
Archibald. AVhy, he is "
Hut waiter entering in a hurry — " Xo. G come
in ! Letters, parcels, bottle of soda-water, to
No. (] !"
'* Eveiybody don't know him, you see," persisted
Rags ; for I don't. What's his name ? AVliere
does he hang out ?"
" Well, he don't live here — more's the pity,"
replied Bliss Bolt, frowning reprovingly the while
at the continuous tingling of a bell, which ]irofes-
sional instinct told her was jerked by the impa-
tience of No. 6, and which, it is needless to
observe, rang immediatelv outside the door dis-
tinofuished bv that numeral. " He don't live near
here, but he's often amongst us at odd times. You
see, Sir Archibald is the "
Interrupted again by the warm and noiseless
waiter, velvet-footed, and perspu-ing, as before —
" Half a lemon, lump sugar, wax candles, dozen
sheets of note-paper and envelopes, for No. 6."
MARKET-DAY. 225
" Well, I'm sure ! I wish No. 6 was further !"
"And who the deuce is No. G ?" burst from
Miss Bolt and Eags simultaneously; but it ap-
peared that Sir Archibald knew even No. 6, for
almost while they spoke, he turned to shake hands
with a dark, fresh-colourod, smartly-dressed gen-
tleman, who entered the bar to complain that his
orders were not attended to with the despatch he
required.
" The last place I should have expected to
meet you in, Multiple," said Sir Archibald, who
did not seem to like No. 6 as well as No. G liked
him.
" Delighted to see you, I'm sure !" replied the
other, with a cordiality perhaps a little overdone.
" Business brought me here, as you may sup-
pose — business and pleasure combined — or I
shouldn't be staying in this cursed hotel"
Miss Bolt looked daggers.
" Gentleman !" said she. " Nice gentleman, yuu
are, I think ! — not my sort, at any rate." But her
sort of gentleman, or none, he was a customer, so
she wisely said it to herself,
" That means you are going ^to the ball to-
night," observed the other ; and Miss Bolt thought
VOL. I. Q
226 THE BROOKES OF BEIDLEMEEE.
he drew Lis bushy eyebroA^■s down over his eyes
closer than before.
" I suppose I must look in for half an hour,"
answered Mr. Multiple, running his white hand
through his black hair. " Not much to tempt
one, I fancy, though, down here. You know the
people better than I do, Sn Archibald, beauties
and all. I suppose the whole thing is ver)- pro-
\incial ?"
There was a gleam of amusement in Su- Archi-
bald's eye, but he observed, with creditable
gravity—
" A London man is quite a windfall here,
i\[ultiple. The Middlesworth girls are celebrated
for tenacity. If you dance, they'll run you off
yom* legs, like an over-driven post-horse. If you
sit still, they'll swarm about you, like flies round a
honey-pot. I advise you to look out ; not one of
them but carries her grapnels, and they don't drag
their anchors, I promise you."
Multiple suspected his friend was laughing at
him. He was shrewd enough to know that vanity
as regards the other sex was his foible, and to
conceal his weakness as far as possible ; also, the
fencer's first instruction, never to betray how
MAEKET-DAY. 227
nearly his guard had been broken, so he answered
gravely —
" A ball is a ball, even a hundred miles from
town. I've done a good day's Avork to-day, and I
have a right to amuse myself. Two-and-twenty
letters written, and a ten-mile walk, Sir Archi-
bald. Pretty w' ell that for a cockney ?"
'•'I hope you have made it answer," was the
reply ; " a man ought to be handsomely paid for
all that exertion of body and mind."
" I must have turned about five hundred," said
Multiple, carelessly. " You make your ' monkey'
in a shorter time on a race-course, but really it's
almost as hard work. It's not worth my while to
be absent from our place, under a good many
hundreds, as you know. Sir Archibald."
" Indeed, I did not !" replied the latter; "but
I'm glad to hear it, for your sake. I only wish
my time was half as valuable ;" and he wondered
the while what could induce his friend to make
this astounding statement. He knew him well
enough to be aware that its truth or falsehood
had nothing to do with its enunciation. He
reflected that the other knew him also well
enough to have spared his breath. What puzzled
o2
228 THE BEOOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
Mm was, why it should be published here, for the
benefit of a barmaid and a young officer in
undress.
" It's a nice country about Middlesworth,"
added Multiple, in a sly, soliloquizing tone. " I've
seen the prettiest view to-day that has pleased my
eye for a long time, and that sort of thing makes
an impression on me. I am like Beppo's Count,
you know —
' Wax to receive, and marble to retain.'
I must have another look at it before long. And
where do you think I've been, Sir Arcliibald, on
my way back ? Why, right through the park at
Bridlemere."
The bushy'eyebrows went down this time with-
out a doubt. ]\Iiss Bolt was watching them, and
she was sure of it.
" A fine place, isn't it ?" said Sir Ai-chibald,
carelessly ; " and been a long time in the family.
Good morning, Multiple ; I'm rather late as it
is, and must be moving now." So, ■^^•ith a cour-
teous bow to Miss Bolt, who returned it en-
thusiastically, he walked forth, and plunged into
the whirlpool of traffic stiU seething, and roar-
MARKET-DAY. 229
ing, and raging, in front of tlie "Plantagenet
Arms."
Mr. Multiple retired to consume the additional
dozen of note-paper and envelopes in the
imaginary privacy of No. 6. Rags and ]\Iiss Bolt
whispered confidentially on matters, I imagine, of
a nature which she designated " flummery ;" and
Sir Archibald, puffing thoughtfully at his cigar,
walked down the High Street of Middlesworth,
absorbed in profound, and apparently somewhat
anxious meditation.
Whilst in the heart of the town, and in the
midst of the market-day bustle, he was interrupted
at every step by some hearty greeting, some
weather-beaten face; but as he gradually ap-
proached its outskirts, these became less frequent ;
and by the time he reached the bridge of which
I have already spoken, he was in complete soli-
tude, and immersed in his own thoughts.
To judge by his face, these were of no very envi-
able nature. Its expression had quite changed
since he first accosted Miss Bolt, in the bar of the
" Plantagenet Arms." Then he was bright, bene-
volent, and smiling; now he seemed anxious,
uneasy, and even wretched. He jerked the end
230
THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
of his cigar into the stream, with an impatient
action that suggested an oath, and walked on very
fast, taking the footway to Bridlemere.
It was hite in the afternoon, within an hour of
dark ; a breeze, rising with the approach of night,
sighed moumfiilly through the woods that crested
the rising gi*ound about the hall. He reached
the stile at which Helen had bestowed her unwill-
ing answer on the pedestrian, but" there was no
need for Sir Archibald to ask his way. No need,
for every gleam in the landscape, every fence,
every fuiTow, every tree in the hedgerow s, seemed
burnt in, as it were, by fire, on his memory.
There was no more chance of his forgetting them
than there is of your forgetting that summer sun-
set when heaven seemed to have come dowTi for
you upon earth ; or that cold, leaden dawn, when
you looked about you, stupefied, and wondered
whether there could be sorrow like to your
sorrow, and spoke to your crushed heart aloud,
telling it, that henceforth there was neither hope
nor rest for ever ; laughing, perhaps, in bitter
scorn, rebellious and erect, where it had been wiser
to kneel, and weep, and pray.
If Sir Archibald had been stricken blind some
MAKKET-DAY. 231
twenty years before, he could still have described
every turn in that walk from J\liddles^^ ortli to
Bridlemere as plainly as he saw it to-day.
A man who has lived half a century, cannot but
have known strange and sad experiences. It
needs no stirring career, it needs no miglity
tempests on the great ocean of life, to have made
him familiar with its dangers and its shipwrecks.
There are quicksands, shifting and treacherous, in
the shallows : there are hidden reefs for him who
creeps along the shore. The bai-k that stands
boldly out into blue water is perhaps the safest,
after all. But wliatever his course has been, and
whatever reverses he has met with, memory is to
him either a blessing or a curse, according as he is
climbing slowly, wearily, yet hopefully, towards
the golden hills, or speeding faster and faster,
reckless, on liis downward way.
Horace tells us, and the heathen poet was a
philosopher in his way, that nothing can rob us of
the past. A sound crack on the pate, producing
concussion of the brain, had probably escaped his
reasoning. We are neither philosophers nor
heathens, and have a nobler and fuller satisfaction
in the conviction that nothing can rob us of the
232 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMEEE.
future. And is there not some strange, mysterious
affinity, of which we are vaguely conscious, like
men in a dream, between the past and the future ?
For good, though not for evil, shall not that which
hath been be again ? Sin and sorrow, we believe,
will indeed die to all eternity ; but shall not love,
thougli it has come down on earth to be bruised
and soiled, and trodden under foot, shed its well-
remembered fragrance around us again, renewed
and pm-ified, holy and stainless, for ever in
heaven ?
Sir Archibald's brow cleared as he walked on.
Soon he entered the park, and made straight for
the shrubberies that surrounded the house of
Bridlemere. Now and then he paused, as if to
note some alteration ; a vista that had closed, a
plantation that had grown up, or a tree that had
been cut down. His eye grew brighter at every
step, and presently stooping to unfasten the gate
of the wire fencing that protected Helen's garden,
something like a tear trembled on his eyelash. If
so, it was a tear of pure and unmixed joy, for a
woman's light foot-fall came fast along the walk,
a woman's dress rustled amongst the evergreens,
and Helen, emerging from their shadow, seized
MARKET-DAY. 233
him violently by both hands, shaking them up and
down with a triumphant welcome, while she
exclaimed rapidly, and breathless with the haste
she had made :
" I rushed to the front door when I heard the
fly ; then I knew you'd walked, and I was sure
you'd go through my garden, and oh, Uncle
Archie, I'm so glad you're come !"
CHAPTER IX.
" UXCLE AECHIE."
^_2^'0 account for Sir ArcliibalJ's arrival at
Bridlemere, and his cordial reception
by his niece, it is necessary to look into
his antecedents, and for the elucidation
of these I must ask you to go back quite a quarter
of a century, and to take your position with me on
the wide door-steps of a certain edifice in St.
James's Street, which was then known as Crock-
ford's Club.
At that period this was a favourite resort with
some hundreds of the gentlemen of England, who,
finding life in Loudon not sufiSciently varied and
interestino: durino; the rest of the twentv-fours into
which they contrived to condense a week's amuse-
" UNCLE ARCHIE." 235
ment, were accustomed to congregate here at mid-
night, for the purpose, so they said, of social gossip
and cigar smoking.
I am bound to accept this explanation, for there
were certainly many temptations to remain up-
stairs, within — a large, lofty drawing-room, heavily
furnished and decorated, all gold and crimson — a
long supper-room, lustrous with innumerable wax-
lights, glancing and glittering on glass, plate,
china, and the gaudy variety of the choicest supper
that could be laid for a hundred epicures, on a
snowy-wliite tablecloth. Here, feasting at the
board, sat scores of tlie best known and best
looking faces in London, in clean white neck-
cloths, and the rigid costume of the English
gentleman dressed for dinner, but all with their
hats on. Waiters, solemnly and studiously attired,
handed difterent delicacies about with dignified
persuasion, and proffered cooling drinks, of skiKul
compounds, in which champagne was the weakest
and least expensive ingredient. Naturally, tliere
was no want of conversation, yet, at intervals,
above the hum of voices, might be heard a subdued
rattle, and a sharp, though smothered rap, pro-
ceeding from an adjoining apartment, where
236 THE BROOKES OF BEIDLEMERE.
shaded lamps shed a softer histre on a long green
table, protected from the doorway by a folding-
screen. Here people played hazard, and played it
very high. Now and again, a performer would
enter the supper-room quietly and unobtrusively,
to take his place at the board, but his success, or
the reverse, could hardly be gathered from his
demeanour. The ^\^nners, I think, seemed more
inchned to trifle with " cups," and' such mixtures,
whilst the losers plunged rashly into lobster-salad,
and drank their champagne unadulterated.
Perhaps, to a very intimate friend, one would hold
up two or more white-gloved fingers (they always
played in white kid gloves), to indicate the
landing of so many hundreds ; or another, with a
scarce perceptible shrug, might whisper, he had
"had a baddish night," but beyond this, the
external composure observed would have edified a
stoic. A man might be made or marred, but he
gave no sign. Then, whether he lost or won, ate
or drank, he would go down and smoke his cigar
in the cool night-air on the steps.
It is but a few minutes past twelve. Very hot,
even here, outside. People have hardly arrived
yet from the House, from the opera (there is only
"UNCLE ARCHIE." 237
one opera in this remote period, and Grisi is
young, and oh, how beautiful ! with a voice
" To draw
Another host from heaven, to break heaven's law "),
from their various evening haunts and evening
engagements. So two young gentlemen, of whom
one is subsequently to become a peer, and the
other a gold-digger, have the steps to themselves.
They are well dressed, well looking, and betray
that air of being bored, without being tired, which
sits so naturally on men who have nothing to do,
and do it perseveringly, from morning till night.
Says the future peer to the future gold-digger —
" What has become of Archie Brooke ? Wasn't
here last night ; wasn't here night before. Can't
be gone out of town, for I saw his servant to-day.
Didn't ask servant ; fool not to."
Gold-digger, much exhausted from having sat
for an hour in the drawing-room at White's, over
the way — " Wouldn't have told you. Good man ;
never knows. Wouldn't say his master was in the
next room if you were talking to Archie through
the door. Wish my man would send me away ;
try for Brooke's."
238 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
Peer prospective — " Wonder if lie's bolted.
Deuced hard up.^ Won a cracker here three nights
ago ; suppose he'd take that with him. Brother
wouldn't pay his debts, of course."
Gold-digger in posse — " Of course not ! Know
mine wouldn't. Here comes Tiny. Same regi-
ment. Safe to know."
Tiny, who is something over six feet high, vdi\\
a merry, girlish face at the tep, and who is
going to the bad as fast as only a mother's
darling can, bounces up the stej)S, and is stopped
by the pair.
" Brooke ?" says Tiny, in answer to their in-
quiries, " Gone a crowner ! No end of a crowner !
Sent in his papers. I'm sorry for it, though it
gives me a step. I say, I think I shall go in and
have a shy."
So they all go in, and " have a shy," in which
process Tiny anticipates his one-and-twentieth
birth-day to a tune that astonishes even the family
man of business, when he comes to arrange this
young gentleman's affairs.
It was perfectly true. Archie Brooke, in a regi-
ment of the Guards, popular, good looking, fond
of London, fond of society, above all things fond
" UNCLE AKCHIE." 239
of his profession and his battalion, had sent in his
papers to sell, and taken his brother officers com-
pletely by surprise. His Colonel, an old Penin-
sular (there were Peninsulars then, as there are
Crimeans now), had a private interview with him,
to dissuade the most promising of his chickens
from so irremediable a step. If it was money
matters, he even proposed to help him, and that
was a fine trait in the old soldier, and appreciated
as such by the young one. No ; it was not money.
He offered to show the Colonel his account at Cox
and Greenwood's, with some hundreds (I fear partly
the produce of the "cracker" above hinted at) stand-
ing to his credit. Why was he resolved, then, to
throw all his chances so completely overboard ? Had
he got into a scrape ? Would he confide in his old
friend and Colonel ? Unless it was very bad indeed,
surely they might pull him. through. No ; he was in
no scrape. He required no j)ulling at all. He was
resolved to leave London — to leave England.
There were reasons for it, he told the Colonel ;
strong reasons ; he could not explain ; and m ten
days from that interview with his commanding
officer. Captain Brooke, late of the Brigade of
Guards, was dazzling his eyes in the sun-glint
240 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
off the Line jMecliten-anean, from the quay at
Marseilles.
I presume nobody ever remained in that city
an hour longer than necessary, combining, as it
does, the dirt, the heat, the sterility of Africa,
with the incessant bustle and activity of France.
It was not long before Brooke found himself in
Algeria, on terms of the utmost cordiality with a
whole French garrison, in the city of Constantino.
Here his military predilections tempted him sorely
to don the lai-ge, loose pantalm, and well-cut
braided jacket of the Chasseurs d'^Urique. What
he wanted was excitement, adventure, iucessant
effort, and oft-recurring danger ; something to
stifle memory, and leave no time for thought, A
campaign against the Khabyles would be the very
thing. But he could not quite make up his mind
about the justness of the Frenchman's cause. Was
it right thus to hunt the Emir to death for the
advancement of civilization ? Was it worthy of
the great nation thus to appeal, unprovoked, to
the arbitration of the sword? Campaigning for
sheer bitterness of spirit was all very well, but
there were two sides to the question, just as there
were two opposing forces to constitute the cam-
"UNCLE ARCHIE." 241
paigii. Tlie arguments were nicely balanced, and
Archie Brooke, at this period of his life, was no
great casuist. He could not make up his mind
whether he ought to draw the sword with the
invaders, or join " The long-winged Hawk of the
Desert," figliting gallantly for independence, and
liberty, and life.
The story goes that the ex-guardsman, sitting
in a cafe at Constantine, by a little round table
covered with a marble slab, having a glass of
absinthe before him, an infamous French cigar in
his mouth, and a gay party of French subalterns
looking on, deliberately tossed up whether he should
ride in their ranks as a volunteer, or pass the
outposts at once, and offer his services to Abd-el-
Kader. The louis came down '* tails," and the
chivalrous Frenchmen shook hands with him all
round, wishing him a cordial and kindly farewell,
though henceforth they would never meet again
save as cruel enemies in a warfare so fierce that
quarter was too seldom asked, and indeed far too
often denied.
Archie Brooke turned up again with a tanned
face and a close-shaven head, under a white bur-
nouse, at Abd-el-Kader's right hand, when the
VOL. I. 8
242
THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
Emir held a certain review, in which ten thousand
of the Chivahy of the Desert ranked past him,
horse by horse, and man by man. Horse clean,
wiiy, sinoAV}^, untiring ; man spare, swarthy, fierce,
unconquered : the beast and its master remarkable
alike for flashing eye, distended nostrils, clean,
small, noble head, and a haughty, tameless bear-
ing that seemed to smack Avildly of the Avaste.
Tlie Emir himself looked no unwortliv leader
for sucli a host. His keen eye ^glittered like a
falcon's under the snoAvy hood whicli threw his
war-worn face into deep shadow. His nervous,
wiry figure, of whicli the muscular proportions
were scarcely concealed by the loose, white gar-
ments that drooped about him, sat erect upon his
lofty cumbrous saddle, unlike those of his chiefs,
ornamented only by a border of seed-pearls
embroidered on its velvet housings. His black
mare, with her clean, small head and scarlet
nostril, arched her foam-flecked neck, as she
champed and fretted on a powerful bit, under the
loose rein and light touch of her rider's hand. A
cord of tAvisted tissue, striped like a serpent's
skin, secured the hood of the Emir's burnouse ; a
sharp sabre hung, edge uppermost, at his belt.
" UNCLE ARCHIE." 248
Save these, arms and ornaments he had none !
Yet the Englishman^ scanning that white draped
figure on the good black mare, standing out from
the array of Arab chivalry, apart and by itself,
wondered no longer at the Emir's ascendancy over
his people, at their heroic and unreasoning devotion
to one, in whom, like a second Mahomet, they
believed, as warrior, priest, and king.
Soon the ten thousand horsemen formed in
their respective tribes, and a chosen trooj) from
each curveted into a smooth, green space before
the Emir, and drew up in opj^osing bands. Then
a chief on a chestnut stallion, thick and muscular,
like one of the Elgin marbles, dashed out into the
midst, and reined short up, man and horse quiver-
ing all over with suppressed energy and fire.
Another, wheeling round him at a gallop, cast an
unerring spear within a hand's-breath of liis
turban ; and the chestnut horse, sj)ringing to speed
at a bound, dashed off in hot pursuit. A dozen
strides and he had caught his enemy : the lance was
up to strike, and so like fierce earnest was this
warrior's play, it seemed as if it must transfix the
fugitive. But no, a turn of wrist, a touch of heel,
the chestnut skimmed aside like a swallow on the
E 2
244 THE BEOOKES OF BT^IDLEMERE.
wing, and swooped at another foe, fresh emerged
from the opposing phahinx. Another and another
shot out to swell the game, and then a dozen, and
then a score, till the whole were engaged, and the
eye saw nothing but one wild whirl of streaming
manes and glancing steel, and floating draperies,
and flash of pistols, through a cloud of dust ; and
here and there, above the dim confusion, the
fragments of a shivered spear, shot^ high into the
air.
Then the dust rolled awav. The skirmish
subsided ; cliiefs were standing by panting steeds,
stroking the pointed ears and dripping, shining
necks of their favourites. Here a girth had been
broken, there a warrior rolled over, man and
horse, on the sand : but beyond this, so skilful
were the human, so well broken the animal
performers, that nothing resembling a casualty
had occurred. Abd-el-Kader bowed his head in
dignified approval to the warlilce Arab on the
chestnut stallion, who galloped up to signify the
conclusion of the sports by flinging down a broken
lance at the Emir's feet. The play was over —
the real drama was about to begin.
The Chieftain signed to his lieutenants to attend
"UNCLE archie/' 245
him. All but one came cantering up and wheeled
into their places on his flank. This last was he
whom Abd-el-Kader most favoured and most
trusted. He rode in slowly and steadily at a
walk. Brooke was watcliing the Emir, and for
an instant saw his dark eye dilate, but not another
sign of discomposure betrayed itself either in the
pale, calm face or the stately, motionless figure.
Not a sign, and yet in that instant Bou Maza
levelled his pistol point-blank at the Chieftain's
heart: the next, his horse, the noblest in the
desert, stumbled on that smooth, level surface, fell
on his head and rolled completely over his rider,
who lay confused and helpless, with the smoking
pistol, which had gone off harmless in his grasp.
The Englishman was the first down to catch
the traitor by the throat, though his hand had
hardly closed ere a score of sabres were flashing
in the sun, a score of voices hoarse with rage
dooming the fallen man to instant death ; but the
Emir's calm, cold tones rose above the angry
Arab gutturals, as they had risen many a time,
distinct and measured, above tap of drum and
roll of musketry, and swelling battle-cry of France,
and the Emir's face looked upon the tumult pale.
246 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
mild and peaceful, as though reposing in his
harem, wliile he spoke.
'• Harm him not !" said he, raising his voice
slowly to command attention. " In the name of
Allah, lift him up, give him back his arms, let
his hands be free, and bring hira here, that he
may look ujx)n my face and live !"
Bou Maza was a bold man, or he had hardly
undertaken the crime which had thus been so
strangely thwarted. He was an Arab, too, and
could accept death with the strange composure
that never seems to desert those fatalists when
face to face with the inevitable ; but his features
worked with something keener than terror, and
the foam was on his lip, while his black eyes
sought the ground, and he shrank and cowered
like a dog before the man whom he had just failed
to murder,
"Bou Maza," said the Emir, in deep, quiet,
sorrowful tones, " do you think I had not fore-
seen, and could not have prevented, your attempt
on your Chieftain's life? When you left the
Council yesterday it w as in your heart, that you
would to-day murder your Father, as it was in
mine that von would fail and be foronven.
"UNCLE ARCHIE. 247
" Can you not see the band of Allah, who
caused your best horse to stumble and fall over a
blade of tender gi-ass, that you might not slay his
prophet, whom he has destined to victory ?
" Bou Maza, go in peace. Go to the enemies of
your country and your faith. Tell them of your
treachery — tell them of your failure. Tell them
that Allah protects his prophet alike from the
steel of a traitor as from the bullet of an open
enemy. You shall have a free pass to their out-
posts. Take with you horse and arms, water and
provisions. Go in peace, I say, and look upon my
face no more ! "
The Emir was as good as his word. Bou Maza
was permitted to pass out of the camp, and
proceed unmolested to his new friends, who
received bim with no great cordiality, as, indeed,
he could hardly expect they should, after an
attempt of so heinous a nature, which had, more-
over, failed at the moment of execution.
Archie Bil^oke used often to declare that he bad
never thoroughly realized "chivalry" till he looked
on the Emir's calm, noble face, wliile he extended
pardon and protection to the traitor.
I am not writins' Sir Archibald Brooke's
248 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
biograpliy. Another scene or two, and I have
done. If circumstances help to form the character
of the man, the man's nature again forces him
into those situations wliich re-act upon it in their
turn. An adventurer at thirty is an adventurer
all his life. Brooke came back to England after
Abd-cl-Kador was taken prisoner. Nay, he even
re-appeared in St. James's Street, rode in the
Park, went to the Derby, staid a whole fortnight
in town, was a little disappointed to find how
many friends had forgotten him, and how the few
whose memories were more tenacious, had not
missed him at all, and thought he was still in the
Guards ! The Squire, too, his elder brother, had
run up for the Great liace, leaving Mrs. Brooke
in the country. " There was another coming," he
said, with a laugh and deprecating shrug of the
shoulders. " Archie would be with them directly
the nurse was out of the house. Of course, his
old room was always ready for him at Bridlemere."
And Archie promised, and shook^his brother
cordially by the hand ; but long before the
functionary alluded to had left the bedside of her
pale, happy, lovely charge, he was battling with a
sou'-wester in the Atlantic, steam against storm
"UXCLE AKCHIE." 249
— the one power groaning, gasping, throbbing,
quivering, yet wresting some two knots an hour
from the headlong violence of the other — and ere
the second boy was weaned, his uncle had already
gained more than one success in South America,
commanding a brigade of ruffians, in comparison
with whom his old friends the Khabyles were
perfect gentlemen and philanthropists.
Sir Archibald never liked to talk much of this
staire of his career. I think he was a little
ashamed of his cause and his comrades. He had
joined them, too, in a moment of morbid and
unworthy feeling. What right had he to disci-
pline robbers, and point guns, and manoeuvre man-
slaughter on a great scale, because the old dull pain
at his heart still goaded him to action ? Could he
not drink his opiate, so to speak, but out of a
human skull ? He recrossed the Atlantic after a
time, and went no more to England, but flitted
through France into Eastern Europe, and set
himself down for a brief resting space within an
hour's ride of Bucharest, and took a farm on that
rich Wallachian soil, and reaped one abundant
harvest, and so departed to rove about aimlessly
as before.
250 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
He lingered in Turkey for a while, as those do
who are tired of European life and manners.
And, indeed, so utterly are East and West at
variance, that a man to tolerate either must be
thoroughly disgusted with its converse. Sir
Archibald liked the people : not the Greeks, but
the bold, dominant Osmanli race. He appreciated
their solemn courtesy, their grave, proud bearing,
their truth, their hospitality, their^ courage, their
generosity, their defiance of misfortune, their
contempt for death — nay, he admired their in-
tolerant pride of character and strict observance
of religion ; while he smiled to note the utter
freedom which abroad, at least, they affected,
from the female yoke. He thought of settling in
Turkey, and so thinking, watched those white sea-
birds that flit to and fro across the surface of the
Bosphorus, never resting wing nor dippinn-
plumage in the fair cool wave, and wondered
whether he too was doomed to be a homeless
wanderer in the world for evermore !
The leaven w^as working in him, you see, all
this time. It drove him into action, and in action
he found the anodyne which he was fain to accept
for rest.
II
UNCLE ARCHIE." 251
About this period, a little cloud like that in
Holy Writ, " no bigger than a man's hand,"
appeared in Syria, above the chapel-roof that
covers in the most sacred spot on earth. By-and-
by it had spread over the whole heavens from
east to west, and the Cossacks were gathering in
the Ukraine, and the Eoyal Irish recruiting in
Galway, and Omar Pasha was watching his over-
whelming enemy on the Danube, with an army of
brave men, half-starved, half-equipped, and
wretchedly officered, save for a handful of adven-
turous Englishmen who had volunteered their
services in the cause of the Sultan.
The Turkish General was sitting quietly on his
horse, a little out of the line of fire from a Eussian
field-work, against which it was his intention to
advance. Omar Pasha could feed an army, could
manoeuvre an army, and could fight an army.
Moreover, he was gifted with that coup d'oeil which
distingTiishes at once between the apparent and the
real key to a position. He was muttering a few
phrases of discontent in German, for it was already
daylight, and a new redoubt, skilfully engineered,
had sprung up in the night. The Eussians must
have laboured hard, and without intermission, for,
252 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
though the work was low, it was carefully sloped
and finished oif, while the few guns it mounted
commanded every approach to the chief earth-
work it was constructed to protect
" We must have it, Excellency !" exclaimed an
English officer of Engineers, with a determined
look on his comely red-bearded face. *' It's well
for w-8,«" he added, shutting his glasses, and jmlling
his horse's head up from the wet moYning herbage,
"that they could not put it fifty paces further
back. I can get a battalion along that ravine
tolerably under cover till within pistol-shot. We
must storm it then, and carry it with the bayonet ! "
" Who is to lead them ? " asked the General,
mistrusting sadly an unwieldy Pasha for so dashing
a business.
" Oh ! Major Brooke will lead them, of course,"
answered the other. " It's just in his line. Excel-
lency, we will have it in a quarter of an hour."
No more was said, but in ten minutes' time, a bat-
talion of blue coats and red fez-caps was seen to
disappear in a wooded hollow, under the command
of an officer, strangely attired in high riding-
boots, a plaid shooting-coat, and a low round hat,
with a white cloth round it, carr}'ing a sword by
" UNCLE ARCHIE." 253
his side, and a formidable walking stick in his
hand. Whilst they seemed to be swallowed in
the earth, a heavy well-sustained fire opened over
the General's head against the principal defence,
and presently the blue coats and red caps emerged
from the ravine in tolerable order, fonned, wavered,
hesitated, and finally disappeared again, leaving
a figure, in riding-boots and plaid coat, wildly
shouting, threatening and gesticulating on the
bank.
The Engineer officer laughed, swore, and then
laughed again. Omar Pasha shook his head, with
a grim, sarcastic smile.
" It is a gallant Englander," he observed quietly,
after a few moments of suspense, dm-ing which the
figure descended, and re-appeared from the ravine,
with some two or three score of bolder followers,
whom it was urging on by much vigorous persuasion,
and a few blows from the stick. Then, whirling that
weapon round its head, it made a dash, apparently
by itself, against the redoubt. But the spark had
kindled now, the savage Turkish spirit flashed out,
and cauo;ht like wild-fire. Thev swarmed like
wasps from the ravine — they dashed, pell-mell
against the earth-work ; there was a loose, irregu-
254 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
lar volley, a vrikl, heart-stirring cheer, and when
the cheer died out. and tlie smoke drifted heavily
away, the crimson flag, witli its glittering crescent,
was waving from the parapet, and tlie slope beneath
the outwork was dotted with blue prostrate figures,
and white up-turned faces, gleaming strange and
ghastly in tlie morning sun.
"Well done, Brooke!" said the Engineer to
himself, as he cantered oil" ti> hiisten some poor
bullocks bringing a gun up from tlie rear. " These
guardsmen turn out some d d good officers !
though w here they learn their duty is more than
I can tell ;" and he shook his head gravely, as a
man who concedes unwillingly a self-evident propo-
sition. How ^lajor Brooke's distinguished conduct
affected the result of the action has nothing to do
with my story, but ^^hen the Engineer asked him
subsequently by what process he had acquired a
knowledge of his profession in London, Brooke
only laughed, and told him how the Great Duke
himself had testified to the difficulty of getting
thirty thousand men into or out of Hyde Park.
Peace came within six months after the fall of
the Eussian stronghold, and Colonel Brooke (he
was a Colonel in the Turkish service now), thought
" UNCLE ARCHIE." 255
of crossing into Asia, and visiting China by way
of Tartary and Tliibct — thought of emigrating to
Australia — thought of tracing the Nile to its
source — thouglit of ex})loring Central Africa, and
— found himself in I'aris. Here he ■svas rather a
lion, notwithstanding that lions were plenty for a
little while; but he soon got tired of it — soon
began to find that city of glitter and whitewash,
and perpetual motion and continual out-of-doors
full-dress, and eternal drumming, dancing, dining
and standing about — was a waste, too, more dreary
than a IMexican plateau, more toilsome than a
rocky spur of Mount Atlas.
The French ladies wondered at him hugely.
It was strange to find a man so cold, yet so self-
possessed. Nothing shy, nothing awkward, nothing
of the " type Anglais " about him in speech or
manner ; pleasant, courteous, with a good deal of
their own keen sense of humour, their tendency
to sarcasm and repartee, but in all matters border-
ing on romance, or even flirtation, a stone, an im-
penetrable stone.
" Cest iin ours vols tu, Clotliilde?" said a pretty
Marquise, summing him uj) in confidence to a
friend, whom she suspected of designs on this man
2jG
THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
of marble. "Un ours instruit, hien-eyitendu. Un
ours qui a voyage meme, et qui fait toilette. Enjin,
un ours qui ne danse pas, 7nais qui fait danser son
mo7}de ! "
lie had got satlly tired of I'aris ere uiiother re-
creation was j)rovi»led for liini in tlie last spot on
eartli at wliieh an ernption \va-; anticipated, in
the eonntrv where England had been walking: se-
curely over a volcant) for year:', and started to find
it burst fortli over a score of kinf^doms in a nijrht.
He saw an aecount of the Indian outbreak in an
English paj)er, sitting over his absinthe, at three
o'clock, in the rue liivoli. Uy ten, next morning,
he was at London Bridge ; by seven that night, he
was leaving tliis station in the train for Calcutta
direct, with his appointment anil a pair of im-
proved saddle-bags.
He w as with Sir Colin at Lucknow, and reached
Windham in time to take his part in the hard-
fought defence of Cawnpore. Then came a severe
wound, a raging, wasting fever, and he was down
for weeks and weeks, feeble, prostrate, delirious,
iu that blighting atmosphere, and under that
burning smi.
Archie Brooke rose, like manv others, from a
" DNCLE AECHIE." 257
bed of suffering, having found out certain truths
tlmt do not strike men so keenly in the saddle or
the trenches, as on the stretcher of a hospital.
He was a calmer, happier man after that weary
period. The impatience, the restlessness, the
craving for incessant action were gone, and cudy
the (piiet energy, and cool good-humoured courage,
which were a part of his very nature, remained.
He had discovered, that for happiness, duty was a
better substitute than excitement, ^\'llerever he
could be of service, he went ; wherever he went, he
worked Jiarder, more quietly, more unselfishly,
than other people.
Time, or rather I\rercy, had healed the great
wound now — the great wound that had been first
dealt by a beloved hand, and then torn open once
again by the relentless gripe of death. Twice
had the pain been keener than he could bear ; now
there was left a dull, aching sense of void, but
sorrow had given place to resignation — resigna-
tion was about to blossom into Hope. Not the
hope that is dependent on earthly uncertainties,
and scarce deserves the name, but the sure and
certain hope that already grasps confidently at
the other woi-ld. He could have borne to 2:0 to
VOL. I. S
258 TUE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
England now. He caught liiraself often thinking
of the cool English hreezes, and the smiling
Euffiish vallevs, and the white-tliorn on the
hedges, nay, tlie very hutter-cn|is in the May
meadows, ricii with green and gold. Jie longed
to be at liome just ouce again, were it only to see
the grass waving tall and fresh over a beloved
grave.
lie was employed in the pacifu'ation of the
Lebanon, a duty for which his familiarity with
French arrangements and Eastern intrigue espe-
cially iitt«'d liim ; and when that complicati.'d
business was concluded, came back after his lont;
absence, to be knighted by his Sovereign. If, on
iiis previous return to London, he had been sur-
lirLsed to llnd how few people recognised him, he
might have been gratified now, at his first levee,
with the curiosity evinced concerning the quiet,
dark, war-worn man, with all those foreign orders
on his breast, and amused at the answers of old
schoolfellows at Eton, and companions afterAvards
in the world, who had quite forgotten him, and
could not tell who he was. After he had seen his
brother s children, and especially Helen, Sii' Archi-
bald completely abandoned an idea he had once
"UNCLE ARCHIE." 259
formed of taking service with his old employer,
the Sultan, and remaining entirely abroad. 1'lie
girl seemed to have found her way at once to her
soldier-uncle's heart. She wondered indeed at the
deep tenderness with which he WiHild lix his eyes
on her face, and why there should he a moisture
in tliem sometimes, that was almost like tears;
liut with the instinct ol'Iicr sex, ^liss Brooke soon
found out that her word was law with Uncle Arcliie,
and she petted him, and apjtealed to him, and do-
mineered over him, and ordered him about accord-
ingly.
When Helen " came out," it was Sir Archibald
who arranged her presentation by the great Lady
Waywarden herself; and I believe he bespoke
(and }>aid for) the beautiful dress which she wore,
of which, as of her chaperon's, was there not an
account, sublime and incomprehensible, in the
Morning Post? When his niece rode in the Park,
as ride she would, under a broiling sun, in the
hottest part of the day ; it was her uncle whom
she commanded to take care of her, and whose
horsemanship she was good enough to commend,
for the Brookes, like many of our English families,
were centaurs from the cradle ; whom she paraded
s 2
260 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLE:\IERE.
up and down at all places, untiring ; and scolded if
he ventured to complain of the heat.
" Yon, dear, of all peojde! "Who have been in
Africa and India. Al»suid ! ^^'hy, Uncle Archie,
I call it de—lightful ! "
The girl was immensely proud of him, quoting
him, and adopting liis ojiinious on most subiocts
with a facility truly feminine; and the pair had
all sorts of private jukes and undei-standings
between themselves, as indeed was to ho expected,
for ill liOndon they were inseparable: and if she
wanted to be taken anywhere in the country. Sir
Archibald would throw over every engagement,
and come down at a moment's notice, to attend on
his niece.
He lived in Loudon now, very quietly and un-
ostentatiously, therefore people believed him to
ho immensely rifh, and consequentlv. horribly
stingy. That he was neither the one nor the other
could have been substantiated by his banker, and
a great many very poor people, in some of the
most squalid rookeries of the town. Society, with
its usual discrimination, wondered what he would
do with his money, and why he did not marry !
It seems that a bachelor is never safe, not even
" UNCLE ARCHIE." 261
a bachelor with white moustaches and thirty years'
campaigniug over his head. There are, therefore,
women to be found, I presume, who spare neither
age nor grey hairs. How are we to distinguish
them? Do they go about disguised like the
others at dinner and evening parties, cool, shining,
beautiful, and well dressed? I often marvel at
the men to wliom these goddesses stoop so kindly ;
often try hard, and fail, to see what it is in Endy-
mion, coarse, ill-mannered, awkward, and perhaps
irritable, that draws Diana down from the lustrous
regions where she reigns amongst her nymphs.
Is it an attractive force on his part, or a spon-
taneous effort on liers? Is it a merciful pity for
our sex, or a cordial dislike of her own ?
Even at Sir Archibald's age it is not always a
waste of time to make love to an elderly gentle-
man ; but after a career like his, an honest stand-
up battle with self, fought fairly out, and hardly
won at last, it is like watering a sand-bank in
hopes of raising a crop. The labour is indeed
absorbed quietly, gratefully, and to any extent,
but there is no result from it whatever.
The marquise was right about Sir Archibald
after all. For women he was a bear with good
262 THE BROOKES OF BEIDLEMERE.
mannei-s ; but a bear who had never broken his
chain. There was yet a link or two left that the
poor bear could not have found in his heart to
part Avith. Other bears keep whole sets of rusty
fetters hidden away in their dens — lockets, rings,
gloves, flowei-s, eftbrts of embroidery, packets of
faded yellow letters tied about witlx dingy ribbons
once so bright and new. Other bears even like
sometimes to dwell upon their servitude, to talk
of their capture, their teachers, their resistance,
and the red-hot foot-hold on which they learned
their steps. But this bear kept all such matters
for his own reflection ; and thougli he hugged the
chain-Hnks close to his bearish heart, they were
very simple, harmless, and could have compro-
mised nobody. 1'hey did but consist of a lock of
hair, soft and dark like Helen's, in an envelope —
no letter, nothing more, except that on the
turned-down leaf of the envelope was written in a
woman's hand —
" You will forgive me, I know. But I shall noTcr forgive
myself."
And now Uncle Archie had come joyously down
to Bridlemere on purpose to take Helen to the
^liddlesworth ball.
CHAPTEll X.
THE MIDDLESWOKTII BALL.
[IIS was no trifling ceremony, no com-
niGn-})lace, ordinary function. To the
iuliabitants of Middleswortli it partook
of the nature of a sacrifice, entailing,
as it did, vast preparation, anxiety, and expense.
To the surrounding county families, although
intrinsically a festivity, it was also an important
epoch from which to date all other less engrossing
events. As people say before and after Christmas,
so those who attended it were accustomed to date
their proceedings as before and after the Middles-
worth ball. It was a moveable feast, too, and
depended, in a certain sense, and by courtesy, as
it were, on the moon. She seldom smiled upon
2G4 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
it, liowever, usually liidiuti: herself tlie whole
of the iiuportant night helihid heavy clouds
coming up from the south-west, with a drizzling
rain.
Post-horses were in great request at this season,
and their drivers expectant of large gratuities in
virtue of the occasion, with the very questionable
state of sobriety it produced : lior were carriage
accidents and heart-breaking stopJ)ages, lK)th
going and returning, by any means unusual
incidents in the gathering. People abused it
also, and never seemed sure they w(juld go,
though they always went. Papas said it inter-
fered with hunting, wliich was simply untrue, for
men cannot ride across country at night, and
everj'body can get up to hunt, however late he
goes to bed, as ladies very well know. ]\ranimas
thought they would catch cold, which was indeed
a more jjlausible excuse, and borne out by sub-
sequent indisposition ; whilst the young ladies
vowed it would be stupid, and they didn't care
the least whether thev were taken or not, having
got their dresses ready all the time.
There seemed also a general anxiety to arrive
as late as possible. How the Town Hall, which
THE MIDDLESWORTII BALL. 205
was a large room, ever iilled, under this prevailing
feeling, was probably known but to Tootle and
Dinne, the celebrated musical firm, wjio, from
their gallery overhead, dominated the ball, hatch-
ing, nursing, tempering, and keeping it alive by
their strains. They could have told you, and
they alone, how large and stately and empty the
apartment looked when they first took their
places, and the second fiddle commenced his
excruciating practices for the attainment of har-
mony ! — how beautifully the walls were decorated
with stripes of chintz and festoons of flowers ! — how
wonch'ous was the execution of the Town Arms in
chalk u})on the floor! — how mellow the lustre of
those wax-lights under which sallow women
looked lair, and fair women lovely ! — lastly, how
the first arrivals kept cautiously in the doorway,
shi-inking from this enchanted resiion like a knot
of bathing schoolboys hesitating on a river-brink
in June !
They could have told you, better than I can
— for they must have watched her oftener — how
Mrs. George Stoney was usually amongst the
earliest ; how imperially she entered, spreading
her robes of stiff and costly material about her, as
266 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
she took lip a position of defence, at what she was
pleased to term *' her own end of the room ;"
how her Inisband followed humbly, looking and
feeling completely out of place, us a man must
on sucli occasions, Avhose gloves are too large,
whose boots too small, and whose general habits
and disposition lead him to wisli earnestly tliat he
was in bed ; how tliey were seldom accompanied,
though generally followed at a later period, by
Philip — far more iu his element, and, for reasons
of his own, regarding these gaieties as glimpses
into Paradise ; how, by degrees, more groups of
beauty and muslin, and tulle and jewellery, arriv-
ing, more voices repeating the same formula —
'* What a night ! ^^'here are you staying ?
Whom did you bring ?" and, " What a pity the
room is so narrow !" the separate knots congre-
gated into a crowd, and then dispersed suddenly
in couples, while the band struck up, the centre
of the apartment cleared itself as if by magic, the
vis-a-vis were bespoken, the quadrilles arranged,
and the ball foirly began.
The weather was cold, though not cold enou'T'h
to stop hunting. Two or three adjoining packs of
hounds had shown sport; the dancing men,
THE MIDDLESWORTH BALL. 267
exhilarated by their morniug's amusement, were
on the alert ; the chaperons, congregating round
the fire, already prophesied a good ball; nay,
Mrs. Stoney herself whispered to George that the
" stuck-up set seemed less stuck-up than usual,
though, to be sure. Lady Waywarden hadn't come
yet ;" and everything looked jDromising for a
success.
Philip was embarked in the intricacies of " The
Lancers" with a pretty, blue-eyed girl, who, in the
short intervals permitted by that complicated
dance, looked up at liim from under her eye-
lashes, as some girls always do look up at their
partners, with the benevolent object, no doubt, of
making the whole thing as pleasant as possible.
She could not but observe that his attention
wandered visibly towards the door, " watching lor
Lady Waywarden's party, of course," thought the
blue-eyed girl, and she cursed them by her gods.
What I mean is, she said *' Bother ! " in her heart.
Then the measure came to a close ; he mollified
her with tea ; he returned her to her mother, and
stood under the music free as air again, but still
watching the door.
Just after the next dance (a glorious waltz,
208
THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
played a little too slow), a buzz of attention,
almost of admiration, quivered throuirh the room.
Philijt's heart jumped into his mouth, and sank
down to his boots again. It was but Lady Way-
warden's party after all ! The rest of the society,
however, seemed to appreciate this addition to
their ranks more favourably, although, to Mrs.
Stoney's delight, her ladyship did not appear.
She had dressed, indeed, for it, and sent her
party from Tollesdale, but changed her own
mind at the last moment. " The weather was
hateful. It was a dark drive. The Duchess
could chaperon Julia. Waywarden would take
care of tliem all. She didn't want to catch
cold; and so good-night to you, dears, and a
pleasant ball ! "
Therefore, my lord came in with the Duchess
of ^lerthyr-Tydvil by his side, and a frank, free,
good-humoured, pleasant duchess she was ! Fine
face, Saxon to the chin, soft, kind eyes, a rosy
mouth, a ringing laugh, a French dressmaker,
handsome, happy, and twenty-three ! No wonder
she was popular, no wonder the grandees crowded
about her, and overwhelmed her with questions,
and welcomes, and civilities, and congratulations
THE MIDDLESWORTH BALL. 269
on licr looks, her dress, her dancing, everything
that was liers !
"Where was the Duke?" "Oh! ^lerthyr-
Tydvil never turned up ! He was hunting his
hounds the other side of the county. Very
likely fighting his May at this moment, poor
fellow! on a tired liorse^ to Tollesdale. Very
likely fast asleep in his own arm-chair at St.
Barbs. So sorry he wasn't here ! Had waited
till the last moment in hopes he'd come. Mertliyr-
Tydvil was wilil about dancing, and this seemed
to be such a nice ball ! " And the Duchess, who,
though she was a duchess, had married for love,
and was as hapjn' as a dairymaid, looked about so
pleased, so pleasing, so kindly, fresh, and radiant,
that even Tootle and Dinne above fancied a dozen
more wax candles had been suddenly lighted, and
struck up an enlivening measure with a keener
taste and spirit than was usually displayed by
those celebrated performers themselves. Kay,
Mrs. George Stoney could not resist the pervading
influence, and was actually fascinated bv the
Duchess. The latter had no idea of confining her
good spu'its and her good-humour to any one part
of the room. She asked her jovial host point-
270 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
blank to dance with her. She made Waywarden
take her to the low end, and invite that great
handsome woman to be their vis-d-vis, owning, T
am afraid, that she wanted to inspect so wonderful
a dress more closely : nay, she trod upon the dress
by accident, and apologized so sweetly, and spoke
to Mrs. George subsequently in the tea-room so
kindly, that the latter adored her on the spot, and
was never afterwards tired of praising her
favoiu-ite, paying her, as she thought, the greatest
of all compliments, while she protested "she
could not conceive it possible how such a sweet
creature as that could be a friend of Lady Way-
warden ! "
And these victories her grace eflfected without
eifort or afterthought, just as she transfixed
Eagman de Eolle by a glance, literally dazzling
that diffident hussar with her beauty, leaving him
bewildered, awe-stricken, and positively gasping
with admiration.
Philip Stouey had left off watching the door
for, perhaps, five minutes, during which interval
he had been pressed for a tea-drinking sen-ice by
an old lady who had held him on her knee when
a child. The little start he gave, and the rapidity
THE MIDDLESWORTH BALL. 271
with which the colour left his cheek, when he saw
Sir Archibald and jMiss Brooke at his very elbow,
as he re-entered the ball-room, sufficiently ac-
counted for his previous vigilance to any one who
happened to be watching him. Mrs. George did,
and, being a woman, found him out from that
moment.
Helen looked remarkably well; but she, too,
was pale even for her. Nevertheless, as both her
brothers remarked (for both were there), " every-
thing had been done to bring her out in good
form :" nor, indeed, could the most artful and
experienced of dowagers in London have been
more anxious than was Sir Archibald about the
dress and appearance of his charge. It was this
old soldier, whose life had been spent in camps
and deserts, and long, weary campaigns, and fierce
irregular warfare, who had suggested the dressing
after dinner, the cup of strong coffee before start-
ing, and the latest departure possible, that she
might appear with smooth hair and fresh toilet
when the room was at its fullest.
How proud he was of her as she moved grace-
fully along, with her white ^vreath encircling the
dainty head that she carried like a young stag, in
272 THE BROOKES OF BPJDLEMERE.
happy contrast witli its MTaltli of silken jet black
hair. Even Walter could not help whispering to
Jack: ''I must say, Nell always looks like a
thorough-bred one ;" and Jack replied from the
bottom ol' his honest heart, " Darlino: Nell !" but
Sir Archibald believed in her as the handsomest
girl and the nicest that had been seen in Eng-
land for twenty years, and doted on her and
admired her more than did anybody else on earth,
except one, who had been watching the door so
eagerly to-night. That one could have kissed the
very ground she trod on. lie worshipped her as
an angel, while Sir Archibald loved her as a
child. To her uncle she was the embodiment of
memor}' — to Mm, of hope.
Mr. I'hiJip Stoney, I say, started when he saw
her, as if he had not expected Miss Brooke,
which seems strange, inasmuch as if this had been
the case, I cannot satisfactorily account for his
presence here at all.
I think 1 can understand also, though I cannot
explain, w hy he made as though he had not noticed
her, but collected his energies a little, and then
walked up to perform his bow, rather distantly,
doubting the while that he should hardly yet find
THE MIDDLESWORTH BALL. 273
courage to ask her to dance. But Helen looked
so pleased to see him, and shook hands with him
so cordially, that he brightened up all at once, and
made his very natural proposal with far more
audacity than he could have hoped, but in a low
tone and a serious, notwithstanding, since it was
no light boon to him for which he begged. I dare
say Miss Brooke's quick ear did not fail to detect
a little tremor in his voice, and she may even
have suspected the reason why the strong arm
fairly trembled under a hand that rested on it so
lightly.
If so, it might have been displeasure, perhaps,
which caused her to speak but little, and o\\
common-place topics, scarce louder than a whisper,
and that prevented her lifting her own eyes more
than once, and then very cautiously, to her part-
ner's ; nay, though her colour went and came, this
is often the result of hatred as well as love. 1
know she looked Mr. Multiple straight enough in
the face when she recognised the stranger whom
she had seen in her afternoon's walk, and who
presumed to bow to her on the strength of tliat
fortuitous meetino-, I also think she clunii; to
Philip a little as she hurried away, leaving Sir
VOL. I. T
274 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
Archibald and No. 6 standing together near the
door, from which position they reconnoitred, and
remarked upon the different incidents that consti-
tuted the balL
And now Kagnmn dc lu)lle, stimulated by the
threefold inlluence of ambition, admiration, and
champagne, implored Sir Archibald, whose ac-
quaintance he had made through AValter, to
present him to the young, iiappy, handsome
Ducliess. Uncle Archie, who knew everybody,
and, if a little satirical, was always good-natured,
complied immediately, and " Ivags," emboldened
by success, ventured to ask her to dance, trembling
the while at his own audacitv.
She was one of those straightforward, energetic
hidies, who go to a ball for the express purpose of
dancing, just as a sportsman beats a turnip-field to
kill as many birds as he can. The more sport she
had, the better she was pleased. I believe also, to
use another metaphor of the same nature, she
cared little about a partner's points, so long as he
could " g:o."
" Very happy, I'm sure," said the Duchess, with
a cordial bow and a radiant smile that would
have knocked even an experienced practitioner
THE MIDDLESWORTH BALL. 275
out of time, while she drew her arm through her
partner's, and led him away at once in search
of a vis-a-vis, for this was to be a quadrille, and
she worked her dances regularly thi'ough, round
and square.
The hussar scarcely knew whether he was on
his head or his heels. He had a vague idea he
was dreaming; the whole thing was too like
enchantment to be true ; but if ever man resolved
to merit his good fortune, by rigid attention to a
figure, and accurate execution of its steps, tliat
man was " Eags."
Though Mr. Multiple moved about the room,
criticising freely its inmates. Uncle xVrchie, be sure,
did not stir from his position neai* the door, for he
had told Helen she would find him there when
required ; but he watched the dancers with the
indolent enjoyment of a man who has begun to
rest himself in life. Even Sir Archibald was
somewhat given to dreaming — a habit he had
acquired in many still night-watches, and lonely
wanderings. He had read a little, and thought
much. His reading had been quaint, desultory,
and somewhat useless ; his thoughts were imbued
with a tinge of romance and melancholy, and
T 2
276 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
humour combined, which afforded him a good deal
of quiet amusement. From Avhere he stood he
could see nothing of Helen but the ample skirt of
her garment, so he watched the Duchess, and
admired her fresh English beauty, her frankness,
her comeliness, her fair modest brow, her native
dignity of manner, and the robe of truth and
innocence, and simple high-bom grace in which
she moved so royally. He thought of^hor noble,
free-hearted young husband, whom she loved so
fondly, and the brave old race to which she had
brought the blood and beauty of her own. The
brave old race that had given its scions so lavishly
for England, wherever shot was fired or sword
drawn, or life poured out like water in the cause
of honour, and the knightly craving for re-
nown ; that had seen its children stand at In-
kermau, and charge at Waterloo, and walk grace-
fully to death at Malplaquet, and sliiver lances
(in the mail-clad chivalry of France, to the
battle-cry of "St. George!" at Cregy and Poic-
tiers ; that traced its lineage upward, loyal and
stainless, to the Saxon Heptarchy; to the good
King Alfred, even to the dim, distant glories of
Arthur and his Eound Table, with the princely
THE MIDDLESWORTH BALL. 277
paladins, amongst whom one of the knightliest
and the noblest was its own ancestor, " Sir Carodac
the Keen."*
Still looking at the Duchess as she moved
through the dance, he thought of " The Boy and
the Mantle ;" of the first gentle heart on record
that had given itself to a Craddock ; of its faith,
its loyalty, its honest, unshrinking confidence in
its own truth and purity, when it assumed the
enchanted garment that none could wear if false,
however beautiful, as described iu the simple
stanzas of that quaint old ballad :
" When sbee had tane the mantle
And cast it her abowt,
Upp att her great toe
It began to crinkle and crowL
Shee said, Bowe downe, mantle.
And sliame me not for nought.
* " Why should I mention many more —
Sir Kuyc, Sir Banier, and Sir Bore,
Sir Carodac the Keen ;
The gentle Gawain's courteous lore,
Hector de Mares and Pellinore,
And Launcelot, who evermore
Looked stolen ^vise on the Queen? "
Bridal of Triermain .
278 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
Once I did amisse,
I tell you certiiinlyc,
When I kis't Craddockc's mouth
Under a grecne tree —
"When I kissed Craddocke's mouth
Before he marryed mee."
A strange, old-world ballad ! Strange thoughts
for a ball-room ! Sir Archibald had almost for-
gotten where he was, when a voice that never
failed to tix his attention, roused hiiji from his
dream, and Helen munuured in the iond, petulant
tone that she used only to Jam :
" Oh, Uncle Archie, I've promised to dance the
next dance with that horrid man, and it's a
waltz ! "
""That horrid man" was no other than Mr.
^[ultiple, who, considering his previous meeting
with Miss Brooke, and acquaintance with her
uncle and second brother (for Walter knew him,
of course), entitled him to make the request, had
offered himself as a partner, and whom Helen,
too young a lady to be rude, was forced to accept,
though much against the grain.
She gave a comical little look of resignation at
her uncle when Mr. Multiple came to claim her,
and darted one glance, which was immediately
THE MIDDLES WORTH BALL. 279
■withdrawn, at another face far down the room.
Then the waltz began, and there was nothing
for it but to rest her hand upon Mr. IMultiple's
shoukler, and put oil" into the whirlpool under his
pilotage.
Had Sir Archibald not been so taken up with
his favourite as to have eyes for none but her, he
must have remarked a charming couple, in whom
he was to a certain degree interested, floating
airily round to the sinking, swelling strains of the
soft Naehtwiindler waltz. Lady Julia Treadwell
was one of those damsels who can never be
thoroughly eclipsed. Less splendid than the
Duchess, less lovely than Helen Brooke, she
was, if possible, better dressed than either, and
triumphed, besides, in a brightness and piquancy
peculiarly her own. She danced, too, like a
sprite, or a Frenchw^oman, and never seemed hot
or out of breath, whereas the Duchess, in the
ardour of her exercise, cUd punt a little more than
was correct, and flush a little more than was
becoming. She had the knack, too, of talking to
her partner the whole time, on indifferent subjects,
tinned with a stronc; dash of sarcasm. She
seemed to manv lookers-on, of whom Jack Brooke
280 THE BROOKES OF BEIDLEMERE.
was one, to be discussing some engrossing topic in
keeping with the general fascination of the scene.
\Miat she did say was simple and practical
<.>noug]i. You must imagine the partners whirling
by, smooth and speedy as an express train, the
lady going with perfect ease, and, as she observed,
" quite within herself."
Lady Julia —
" Good waltz that old one, Mr. Brooke. They
don't half put the pace in, though !"
Walter, who, though an excellent dancer, was
doing all he knew —
" I can make it a little faster, if you like."
Lady Julia, looking about her as coolly as if
she were standing still —
" Wait till that red woman collapses, and we'll
get the steam on. Down the whole length of the
room, like the run-in for the Derby. — Ah ! I like
this !"
So down the whole length of the room they
came with the utmost haste, for the " red woman,"
who was, hideed, no other than Mrs. George
Stoney, collapsed from sheer exhaustion, after a
round or two, and Lady Julia, having a clear
stage, took advantage of it to whirl along with a
THE MIDDLESWOKTH BALL, 281
dexterous rapidity that elicited this exclamation of
enjoyment when she stopped, which she did imme-
diately under Jack Brooke's nose.
He made her a solemn bow, as politeness re-
quired, and she returned it with a little, saucy nod,
half malicious, half defiant, that frightened honest
Jack considerably. Then she bent towards her
partner, and asked him where he learned to waltz.
" You can go fast without labouring," said she.
"Is it natural genius or polite education? You
must ]ia\e begun very early. Did the deux-temps,
in a pinafore, with your sister, I should say ?"
Walter " didn't know, he was sure. Always
waltzed ; ever since he could remember. Sup-
posed he must have learnt once. Taught it by
his wet-nurse, in all probability !"
" Don't your brother waltz ?' asked Lady Julia,
quickly ; and, turning sharp round upon Jack, re-
peated her question : " Don't you waltz, Mr.
Brooke?"
But before he could answer, which he must have
done in the negative, she was away on her flight
once more, her pliant figure swaying gracefully to
every movement of her cavalier, her draperies
floating about her in a mist of lace and muslin.
282 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
and a gossamer material wliich, I understand, is
called, with ^rreat propriety, '* illusimi,'' her eyes
shooting sparks like diamonds, and the uncom-
promising mouth shut tighter tlian before. tSlie
looked like a very resolute Ariel, bound on some
mission not exclusively of charity or goodwill.
Jack watched her for two or three rounds of the
room with much the same expressii)n that a child
wciirs staring at a soa^nbubble. lie w^is wishing,
perhaps, that he could waltz as well as Walter :
was thinking that he had spent too much time in
the study of equitation, self-defence, buat-raeing,
and professional bowling, to the neglect of those
lighter accomplishments which are patronized by
the female sex. What did thei^ care — what did
she care for the exact feather of an oar, the
scientific defence of a wicket, the "cross-counter"
that staggered a prizefighter, or the " set to" that
landed a steeplechase ? Like Sir Andrew Ague-
cheek, he regretted that he had not devoted to
" the tongues," and such polite acquirements, the
hours he had wasted in these rude, robust pur-
suits.
He watched Ladv Julia, I sav, as a child watches
a soap-bubble, and on his honest countenance came
THE MIDDLESWORTH BALL. 283
the blank look of the cLild when the soap-bubble
bursts, while he turned awav, and •walked drearily
off to the su])per-room to refresh himself with a
draught of tlie "Plantagenet Arms" champagne.
Physically speaking, tliis was by no means a
wise measure — that beverage, like a good deal of
ball-supper champagne, being of a kind which
inflicts headache more or less acute, and a hot
sensation at the back of the drinker's throat next
morning. Nevertheless, he found Eags here, in a
state of high triumph and jubilation, tossing off
the pernicious mixture in frothy bumpers, and
holding Philip Stoney by his button-hole the while,
in ignorance or defiance of that gentleman's obvious
anxiety to escape.
Kags was pleased with himself, and consequently
pleased with everything else, even the " Plantage-
net Arms" champagne. He had made, as he felt, a
bold plunge into high life. Henceforth, Eags
believed, he wa.s what French people call lanee.
He had not tried the great world yet. He began
to think he should like it. With a few hints from
Walter Brooke, he did not see why he should get
on worse than other people. This was a famous
start. He should not dance again ; of course not.
284 TEE BUOOKES OF BRIDLEMEHE.
After the Duchess, every other partner would be
tame uud iusipid. Not that he meant to cultivate
her grace's acquaintance any more that night.
Though delightful, the process had entailed a high
state of nervous tension. Jle had done enough,
he thought, for once, and had earned the right to
enjoy himself. So Kags leaned across the supper-
table, and held his champagne-glass to be lilled
again and again.
" Have some more, Brooke," said he, as Jack
set his goblet down, with no great approval of its
contents. "And yr)U too, Stoney. ^\'hy you've
had none yet, man ! You, sir, here ! Three clean
glasses and a fresli bottle of champagne! Good
ball, Brooke. Capital ball ! ])y Jove, sir, the
thiiifr's been remaikablv well done to-nil
Uncle xVrchie now, ^Ir. Stoncy, please ; but thank
you all the same."
He might have been a little hurt, for ho offered
her Ills arm immediately.
" Forgive me," said he. '* I have monopolized
you too long. You want to join the dancers !"
" I shall not dance any more to-ni2:ht," said
Helen, demurely enough, as Sir Archibald thought,
for the pair had almost reached him when she
made this austere declaration; but 1 imagine there
was some mysterious inflection of voice, some
passing expression of countenam-e by whicli it
was accompanied, that gave it an import of a con-
soling and exhilarating tendency, for Phili^j's face
brightened up on the spot, and he handed her
over cheerfully to Sir Archibald, wishing " Good-
night" (juite merrily, and disappearing in the
crowd with the brisk energy of step and manner
that was habitual to him.
Helen did not dance again, and it was odd
enough that Philip's sister-in-law could not prevail
on him, either by entreaty or ridicule, to pair off
with any one of the many young ladies w^hom she
delighted to scold, suit with partners, and gene-
rally matronize at the Middlesworth ball.
21)2 THE BROOKES OF BRIDLEMERE.
It did happen, though by a fortuitous concourse
of circumstances truly remarkable, that he was in
the street at the exact moment when Helen got
into her carriage, after being carefully and skil-
fully shawled by Uncle Archie, to the disgust of
No. 0, not yet retired to that dormitory, as wish-
ing to see the last of Miss Brooke. It did happen
also, that she wished him " Good night !" again.
'\\\o very simple words — an exceedingly conven-
tional vale