£«2S3»i£S- >%%;?^%:^^- ^r-.y^ryn^jwrr-jf.-.-^-- .- -.^ ^C-y; THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES TEANSFOEMED PKIXTED BY SPOmSWOODE AND CO., XEW-STKEET SQtTAKE LONDON TEANSFORMED OB THREE WEEKS IN A LIFE- TIME 'And a little child shall lead them' BY FLORENCE MONTGrOMERY AUTHOR OF ' MISUNDERSTOOD ' LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET :|jitblis()ers in Ortrmnro to f)tx ^ajtstu tijc ^ntm 1886 All rights reserved PR EVELYN DE CETTO RACHEL KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN k::N, MABEL MONTGOMERY ETHEL MONTGOMERY CONTENTS. OPENING CHAPTER. PAGE JOHN RAMSAY . . . i PAET I. ENCELADUS. CHAPTEll I. SUCCESS II. WHAT THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SAY III. THE LAUGHING WOODPECKER IV. THE SPIRIT OP THE PAST V. AN UNCONSCIOUS HERO 21 30 46 65 77 PAKT II. MIDAS. I. UTILITARIANISM AND IMAGINATION . . 95 II. 'friendship oblige' . . . . . 119 viu CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE III. WHEREIN THEY DIFFERED . . . .143 IV. A STRANGELY ASSORTED PAIR . . . 166 V, AT HIS CHILD-TEACHEr's FEET . , .197 VI. CHANGED VIEWS 215 VII. THE CHURCH IN THE OLD COUNTY-TOWN . 232 VIII. THE TWO FRIENDS IN SOCIETY . . . 251 XI. HOW IS IT ALL TO END? . . . .285 PAKT III. NEMESIS. I. CONSEQUENCES 301 II. THE MESSAGE FROM THE RECTORY . . . 316 III. AN INTERVIEW 326 CLOSING- CHAPTER. JOHN RAMSAY . . .339 Errata Page 160, line 8,/w child's spirit r^ad child-spirit „ 314, „ 4, /or tublmed r^«f/ tumbled -, 330, „ 10, for And, read ' And,' Opening Chapter JOHN EAMSAY B Si OPE]S[IXG CHAPTER. JOHN RAMSAY. Joiix PiAMSAY was taking his ticket. It was clone as lie did everything ; leisurely, attentively, his mind for the moment concentrated on the ticket he was taking, and on nothing else. No hnrry nor bustle ; no vagueness nor inattention. It was so always. Whatever he did, he did well ; giving his whole attention to it ; which was per- haps why he had been successful : as men count success, at least. For, in so far as getting, in this world, the thing we wish to get, and have always b2 4 JOHN RAMS A V been determined upon getting, constitutes a successful life, Jolin Eamsay's life had been successful. But success may cost one dear for all tliat ; and the question may nevertheless arise — Cui bono f He had done what he had resolved to do ; and everyone cannot say tlie same. Years ago, when only a boy, not much more than nine years old, John Eamsay had determined within himself to make enough money to buy back the old family place, the old home of his childhood, which had then, been sold to satisfy his father's creditors. He was fifty-nine now, and he had done it some ten years previously. Ilis whole life had been spent in the effort ; and work — hard, grinding work JOHN RAMS A Y 5 — had been the instrument lie had cm- ployed. As a young man he had given up society, good fellowship, friendship, every- thing : for his work. He was a lawyer, and, with the one object in view of making money, he had worked and slaved day and night ; never allowing himself recreation, relaxation, rest, or change, till he had attained a cer- tain eminence in his profession. He then accepted a legal appointment in India, and toiled and moiled in the heat there for over twenty years, without ever coming home. His object was attained when he was forty-nine ; but he continued to work as before. He had lost sight of the end, in his concentration on the means ! Work had become to him second 6 JOHN RAMSAY nature ; and the making of money a goal, an idol, a god almost. He hardly cared for anything else. The aim of his life was accomplished, but he had ceased to care for it. Everything was swamped in the passion for work, and for what work brought. To see his cains increase ; to invest those gains ; and then to see them aug- mented by tlie unspent dividends, which re-invested created an ever rolling and rolling heap, became another charm. The momentary suspension of his con- centration on all this while he gave his mind to the details of buying, re-furnishing, v etc., through agents, the family place, was irksome to liim. The necessary arrangements fretted him. lie Avas dying all the time to get back to his work. JOHN RAMSAY 7 If his health had not begun to fail, I do not beUeve he would ever have come back to Enc^land at all. But India began to tell upon him ; and so he had, at last, come home. But he had not, for some time, got further than London. He took some dingy lodgings close to the Stock Exchange, . and there he estab- hshed himself, in company with an old clerk, who had been with him all his life. He took to gambling on the Stock Exchange ; and appeared to have forgotten the existence of the place he had toiled to recover. But it was not exactly so. He had always had, at the back of his mind, as it were, a feeling that there was a satisfaction in store for him in the re- covered possession, whenever he shouldhave 8 JOHN RAMS A V time to turn liis mind to it; it was there waiting, whenever he chose to take it up. All through his hard work he liad always had this consciousness. It was a sort of vista in the future, in which his thoughts could always rest, whenever he was so disposed. So it was not so strange in him as it seems, that he should put cfF and put off the pleasure of going down to the old home, so dearly bought. But the day, however, came at length, when he made his long-delayed pilgrimage to it. But once there, tlie conviction dawned upon him that it was too late ! He realised the fact that the recovered possession gave him no pleasure. It was not wortli the devotion of a life- time. JOHN RAMS A Y 9 He felt quite out of conceit with it. It was so much smaller than he had remembered it. It was a mere villa, as it seemed to him. Its sentimental value too, to which he had unconsciously clung all these years, was gone. The memory of his childhood, which he had always supposed the sight of the place would evoke, did not come to him. People talk of old associations bringnig back past scenes and past feelings ! Well ! all he could say was, the place did neither. His past was a blank. He could not look back over the dim waste of years, and merge his present identity in that of the fair-haired, dreamy boy who had wan- dered, and thought, and planned here ; who had loved every stick and stone about lo JOHN RAMSAY tlie place, and whose name was Jolin Earn- say, too ! JS'o ! He could get up no sentiment ; not even when he stood on the very grass knoll where, fifty years ago, he had formed his resolution. He had not even heart or imagination enough left to be disaijpointed that his ful- filled ambition was nothing to him. There was no pang at his heart as he wandered aimlessly about — only a longing, a craving, to get back to his dingy lodging and bury himself in figures once more. Which he did. His hurried visit of inspection came to an end the very next day ; and he left the place and returned to London. A poorer man than before, for his one remaininoj illusion was cone. Back to his absorbing occupations. JOHN RAMSAY ii like an opium-eater — but without his dreams. And from that time till the moment when we see him taking his ticket he had never been near it again. There was another reason which kept him away. A few miles from the old Manor House, lived his onl}^ blood relation, a half-brother, many years younger than he, to wdiom, on its falling vacant, he had presented the family living. This brother was married, and had several children, to one of whom the brought-back property would, of course, eventually come. John Eamsay was glad that there was some one to bear the family name, and live in the family place, but there his interest in his brother and his children beiian and 12 JOHN RAMSAY ended. lie had a nervous dread, all the time lie had been down there, that some of them might come over to see him. He felt so entirely out of sympathy with their interests, and with family life. And then clergymen always wanted money. The church would want repair, or there would be a great deal of distress in the village, or something or other. Not that John Eamsay was anti-reli- gious. He had a great respect for rehgion. He, the highly-respectable, was a man who never absented himself from church on Sunday morning, even now ; while that fair-haired shadow of the past had been of a thouglitful, and, as long as his young mother had lived, of a devotional, nature. He never, I say, absented himself from church once on Sunday, but I will not JOHN RAMSAY 13 attempt to answer for his tliouglits while there. But there were, figures on tlie fly- leaves of his prayer-book, and even on the margin of some of its pages, which certainly did not relate to the psalms or hymns. How far the debasing tendency of his constant thoughts (for there is nothing so debasing as the constant thought of money, for its own sake, and the love of the doubling and trebling thereof) shut out the thought of God, and quenched the light of his higher nature, we will not now enquire. His brother had come to see him imme- diately after his return from India, and welcomed him home with all the warmth of fraternal affection. But they had not been together ten minutes before both recognised the enor- mous gulf that divided them : the differ- 14 JOHN RAMSAY ence of tlieir feelings, interests, aims, and hopes, and their outlook on life, alto- gether. Both were embarrassed and constrained. The clergyman, accustomed to study- human nature, and to meet with every variety of character, recovered himself first. He concealed his disappointment as well as he could, and did not abate one jot of his kindness and consideration. He expressed his regret that his brother had no intention, just then, of settling at home, and begged him to use the Eectory as an hotel, whenever he felt inclined to do so. ' My children are longing to see the unknown uncle of whom they have heard so much all their lives,' he said (which sentence was entirely mysterious to John JOHN RAMSAY 15 Eamsa3^ lie could not, for long after Ids brother had departed, conceive what he meant by it). To hide his confusion at tlie moment, he asked how many children there were, but- 1 need not say he did not listen to the answer. 'I have one daughter and two little boys,' the clergyman, answered. ' Come down and see them and make acquaintance with my wife.' The last words of the sentence reached John Eamsay's inner ear, and roused him from his apathy. A lady ! an unknown sister-in-law. He had a poor opinion of women in general, as well as an indifference to their society, which amounted to distaste. Frivolous, unbusiness-hke, talking crea- tures, requiring little attentions, expecting i6 JOHN RAMSA V pretty speeches, offering to sing or play to you. Inwardly he shrank and shuddered, but outwardly he only looked away, and said : ' Out of the question, at present. I am far too busy.' ' Well ! ' said Gilbert Eamsay, ' I will not press you, only remember when you want a change and a holiday, how welcome you will be.' And with that they shook hands and parted : and John Eamsay had not seen his brother aszain. lie had had an urgent letter or two from him since, on an unwelcome subject ; which he had not answered. And there their intercourse had ended. The visit to the Manor House and this interview witli his brother were now matters of past history. JOHN RAMS A \ 17 But in the period which had since elapsed, matters had somewhat changed with John Eamsay. That is to say, what he would not do of himself, Nature had forced on him. Lassitude and weariness came upon him ; the overworked brain refused any longer to perform the duties demanded of it ; and the doctor, whom he had at last unwilhngly consulted, said absolute rest was necessary. Not only necessary, but imperative. This is why we see John Eamsay on the platform of a railway station, on his way down to the old place again. We left him taking his ticket. Having done so, he took his place in the train, bought an evening paper, and turned at once to the money article. The bell rang soon after, and the train started. C Part I. ENCELADUS c -J CHAPTER I. SUCCESS. The train tore alono- bearing; the silent figure in the compartment, intent upon the stocks and shares : never giving a look or a thought to the beauty of the country through wliich he Avas passing, or to the glory of the June evening. Two hours or so after John Ramsay was driving up to his own door. The housekeeper was waitin^f in the hall to welcome him back. She received him with a low courtesy : and then led the way to the library, which, 22 ENCELADUS she said as she ushered him in, she fancied would be the room he would prefer. He curtly replied to her observations, and, without giving a glance round the room, sat himself down in a big red leather chair by the writing-table, and began to wish she would go. She showed, however, no intention of doing so : but remained standing in the middle of the room, making various re- marks on the preparations she had made for his arrival, enquiring as to the hour at which it suited him to dine, etc., etc. His repHes were so very brief and uninterested, that she was evidently not encouraged to continue. It was impossible to sustain so one-sided a conversation. She therefore withdrew, saying she would look in again a little later, when she hoped he might have recovered the fatigue SUCCESS 23 of his journey. No doubt a little nap would refresh him. She would see that he was not disturbed. She had a look all the time as if she had something to say ; if only the moment had been more opportune for saying it, or a little more encouragement been given. There was rather a stress laid on the intimation that she would look in again. John Eamsay, however, observed nothing of all tliis. He was watching her im- patiently. Iler presence was a gene to him, and he was longing to be left to himself. At last she did so. The door closed behind her, and silence settled down upon the library, and its solitary occupant. Why does he wear that look of deep dejection? Why with such a weary un- satisfied gaze do his eyes wander round the room, and travel, with the same 24 ENCELADUS mournful expression, to the lovely coun- try outside the window, lying in all the still beauty of a June evening ? Why ? Because, as he sits there in the midst of the realised hopes of a lifetime, there has come suddenly upon him that sense of disappointment which had not assailed him on his former visit. A cruel sense of disappointment in the conviction tliat his realised joy is no joy to him whatever after all. He had been too much buried in his work before to feel it. But ever since the putting aside of the anodyne of constant occupation had laid him bare, as it were, to the world outside his business-room ; he had been a prey to sad thoughts. And now they suddeidy overwhelmed him. He had never known till this moment SUCCESS 25 ^vhat it had been to him all his life to have an illusion in the future : a promise of pleasure whenever he should have time or inclination to turn his thoufrlits towards it: whenever he should choose to stretch out his hand, and grasp it. And now it was gone ! That little beacon in the future, that little light which had led him on and on for so many years, was but a will-o'-the-wisp after all, and had landed him, after Q-oinsj out itself, in a morass of indifference and disappointment. Ah ! not to have your wish is sad enough, but to have it, and to find it dust and ashes, is the saddest thing of all. He fought with the feeling desperately, and tried to put it aside. lie told himself he was ill, unstrung, overwrought, morbid : that the causes of his depression were altogether physical. 26 ' ENCELADUS But it Avas no use. The thouo-]it would not leave Iiim. This longing to enjoy, wliat had cost him so much, returned in full force ; it was a feeling akin to pain. It seemed so hard. When young, he had not had the means of enjoyment ; when middle-aged, he had not had the leisure. NoiD he had both means and leisure : and the power of enjoyment was gone. That he liad missed tlie meaning of his life somehow, came very strongly over him as he sat. lie was at the top of tlie hill, it was true ; but the sun was already setting l^ehind him, and what was there in front ? Nothing — absolutely nothing. A cliill came down npon his spirit to think it was all endinL*" — and endinf^ so ! How frightfully empty his life was. IIow joyless ! How aimless ! Everything SLCCESS 27 tasteless, and now even tlie capacity for work bemnning; to fail. The means, and not the end, were, after all, he saw, what he had been living for all these years ; and now the power of nsing the means was going to be taken away from him. The emptiness of his individual life came home to him more and more every moment. He felt himself to be without interest, without hope, without feeling : without an object in life here, and with no definite aspiration after that which is to come. A strano;e feelino; of unrest came over him ; a va^ue lonsiinsf for the thino^s that 'coo o used to be ; for the feelinizs he used to have in his childhood, here ; hi tliis very place. He tried with all his mi^ht to throw himself back into them ; into the dreams 28 ENCELADUS and visions of his youtli, and the love of the scenes by which he was surrounded, that he might force liiniself to enjoy the consciousness that all was once more his own. But he could not do it. He could not catch the broken thread. The heaven of his childhood had de- parted, to be conjured up no more. All seemed a blank. He could remem- ber nothing ; could revive no past. lie passed his hand across his forehead, and felt quite bewildered. A tap at the door broke in upon his re- flections. The housekeeper again ! What could she Avant, disturbing him like this ? lie glanced at her impatiently. This time, even to his unobservant eye, SUCCESS 29 it was evident she had something particular to say. She stood in the middle of the room, smoothing down her apron with both hands, in a somewhat nervous manner. There was a short pause. It was broken by the housekeeper. 30 ENCELADUS CHAPTER 11. WHAT THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SAY. ' I AM sorry to say there is bad news, sir,' she said gravely, and her kind face was troubled as she said it. How such an announcement on an arrival at home would make some hearts beat — some stop beating altogether ! But here comes in the advantage of having dried-up feelings, and no ties. John Eamsay was quite unmoved. His pulses did not stir. His business- mind could only conceive of one kind of news, and he answered accordingly: ' You are mistaken,' he said, ' I have the WHA T THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SAY 31 evening papers. Tliere is nothing new. The money-market lias been very quiet, and there is no change in the quotations either for loans or discounts.' ' I beg your pardon, sir,' answered the housekeeper, ' but it was not of any news- paper news I was speaking. It is nearer home than that. The Eector, sir, is very ill.' She paused a moment, as if to give him time to recover from what she supposed must be a very painful piece of intelligence. John Eamsay tried to shake himself free of his abstraction, so as to understand what she meant ; and in so doing realised two things : first, that the Eector was his brother ; and secondly, that, that being so, he ouixlit to show some concern that the Eector was ill. ' I am sorry to hear it,' he stammered. ' What is the nature of his illness ? ' 32 ENCELADUS ' Typhoid fever, sir,' said the house- keeper, in a tremulous tone ; ' and a serious case, I am afraid.' ' He'll get through,' said Mr. Eamsay quickly ; and his tone was so confident that the housekeeper stopped short, in what she was beginning to say. ' Oh sir ! ' she exclaimed eairerly. ' Have you heard anything fresh ? Did j'ou know something before I told you ? ' But Mr. Eamsay was only providing himself witli an excuse for not feeling, on the same principle that makes some people say, ' I don't think it's true. I don't believe it ' ; when they do not want to have the trouble of expressing sympathy. ' No — no — ,' he answered, ' but I feel sure I — How did he get it .^ ' he interrupted himself, not quite knowing what to say. W//A T THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SA Y 33 ' The drains at tlic Eectory have been getting into a bad state for a long while,' was the answer ; ' and are, the doctor says, the cause of the outbreak. The Kector ' ' Outbreak ? ' repeated Mr. Eamsay rather nervously. For, as she spoke, a dim recollection of some letters from his brother on the subject of drains, flitted through his mind : letters, which, only half read, had very speedily found a resting- place in the waste-paper basket. ' Did you say outbreak ? Is there any other case, then, beside my brother ? ' ' I am sorry to say, sir, that two of tlie servants have attacks of the same kind, though of a milder form, and one of the children has scarlatina. This last is a slight case, but the doctor says it's from the same cause. The Rector has been P 34 ENCELADUS continually patching up the drains this year past : but they wanted thorough re-doing, which was more than he could afford.' John Eamsay turned away rather liastily, and said nothing more. He longed to be left alone again, and hoped every minute the housekeeper would go. But she seemed to have still something to say. 'I beg your pardon, sir,' she said, ' but not expecting you down, and thinking you would not object, I have had Master Gilbert (that's the Rector's youngest little boy, sir), over here with me to keep him out of tlie way and to help to keep the house quiet. And then when tlie scarlatina appeared, it was not safe to send him back. It is a great relief to poor Mrs. Eamsay to feel the cluld's safe and happy with IVHA T THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SAY 35 me. But I thought I'd better mention it, sir.' John Ramsay was much startled. A few minutes before he would have very distinctly shown it. But now a certain sense of shame kept him quiet ; and he only said, ' Well, Mrs. Prior, it's an awkward business, a very awkward lousiness ; but you must do your best.' To this somewhat incomprehensible sen- tence, Mrs. Prior — who, having a motherly heart, could not see how the presence of a child in a house could be considered an ' awkward business ' — answered, ' Master Gilbert is a dear little boy, sir. I'm glad of his company in this big empty house.' And then she left the room, and Mr. Ramsay leaned back in his chair. • d2 J 6 ENCELADUS There was a very uncomfortable feeling deep down in his breast about those letters lying in the waste-paper basket in his lodg- ings in London. He had not half read them, but now the gist of them returned to him, and they certainly had been something? about the Eectory drains. He remembered feeling angry at being asked to spend money, and impatiently tossing them aside with the reflection that he knew it would l)e like this — clergymen alucaij!^ wanted money for something or other. But above these thoughts rose others. The housekeeper's last words somehow clung to him. There was something about tlie way she had said ' a dear little boy ' lliat seemed to strike a chord deep down within him, I17/A T THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SA V 37 wliicli had not sounded for many and many a day. It was very, very long since lie had heard the words ' a dear little boy, and they somehow fell upon his ear witli a soothing effect. She spoke them so that they sounded almost like a caress. A dreamy feeling stole over him, for which he could not account. Something from the verjf far past, seemed to come and lay its liand on Ids head, and say ' My dear little boy.' His eye was dim for a moment as the thought of tliat touch and tliat voice came over him, and involuntarily his hand stole to a locket which hung upon his watch- chain ; and he opened it, and looked for a moment at tlie bright tress of hair it con- tained. His mother's hair ! His fair young 38 ENCELADUS mother, wlio died wlien he was nine years old. What centuries it seemed since he and she in the summer twihglit had sat hand-in-hand in this very room, and tallvcd too-ether ! He took up the evening paper, hut somethinfy bhirred his vision. It fell from his hand. ' Master Gilbert is a dear little boy, sir ! ' All unsought, his own far past began stealino' over him with a vividness he could not have thought possible a few minutes ago ! Was it after all that the old associations around him v:eTe beginninfif to tell ? Or was CD O it the thought of that child in the house, lying perhaps in the very same room Avhere that other boy used to lie ; over whom some one with the fair hair of the locket WHAT THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SA V 39 used to bend at iiiglit, and say ' My dear little boy ' ? What he had tried in vain to do for himself, the words of the housekeeper, ring-in"- in his ears, be<^an to do for him. Some key seemed to liave unlocked the paralysed feehngs and recollections buried for so many years. His past began slowly rising before him. He became able to revive it. It began to stand out clear. First, the happy, dreamy life with his young mother, the ' heaven that lies about us in our infancy.' Then the terrible wrench of the parting with her on his de- parture for school ; and the sudden going out of the lio'ht in his life : for from that moment he had never seen her again. Ere his first holidays arrived, she had sone to lier Ion"- home, to learn the well- 40 EXCELADUS ke])t secret "which no one comes back to tell. He remembered vividly the sudden summons, the long journey, and the arrival at the blank, desolate home — the darkened rooms, the aching void, the emptiness, and the closinir scene at the funeral. And it seemed to him now that out of that darkness and that emptiness he had never really come. All the innocence and the joyousness, and the poetry of his life had, it seemed to him, gone away with the spirit of his young mother ; and, ever since, over him, as well as over her, the crust of the earth — the most earthy of earthiness — had formed. His higher nature, all that there was of the spirit about him, had taken flight with her spirit ; and, it seemed to him now, had never returned. For in those old days he had had ll^//A r THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SAY d,\ aspirations, he had had longings after wliat was good and trne and worthy of a hfe's devotion. Where were they all gone ? He remembered so clearly how in tliat first school-time he had strnggled against difficulties and temptations for her sake ; and tlie hope of telling her all about it, and the thought of her smile of approval, liad kept him straight among the many temptations and provocations of the large, rough school, to wdiich his father had, because it was inexpensive, sent him. He had stored it all up to tell her, and he had never, never been able to do so. He had come to lay the griefs of his child's heart, and the weight of his young life's burden on her loving breast ; and had found that breast cold as marble, in the long last sleep of death. 42 ENCELADUS There was notliini:^ after that to strno^o-le for, no end in view. lie could never tell her now ; never shew her the prize for good conduct it had cost liim such infniite struc^oies, for her sake, to win. The light of his life was quenched for ever, and from thenceforward he had been left in the dark alone. And coldness and hardness and in- difference had come down upon him tlien. Following closely upon her death had come the break-up of the home, the sale of the place to pay his father's debts, and the removal to the uninteresting country town wliere his father settled. Later on, the cheap public school, the dull, unsatis- factory holidays, and home became more utterly distasteful to Iiim since his father's second marriaf/e to a middle-a^ed, bustlincf IV//A T THE HOUSEKEEPER HAD TO SAY 43 woiiiaii. Then had come stronger than ever the overmastering determmation, formed before leaving it, of buying back the old place some day, the place hallowed by his early recollections. He had had a secret hope all through his boyhood that he shoidd by doing so recover something of the heaven of his childhood, Avhich had drifted ever farther and farther away. After that, the hard work to fit himself for his profession, the slavery at the law, the many years' toil in India, and This brought him back to the present moment, when, all his dreams fulfdled, all his aims accomplished, he w^as sitting a successful man who had climbed to the very top of the ladder. And now — what? — Where was the heaven of his childhood ? How was he to revive it ? Too late, too late ! 44 ENCELADUS He has been Ijiuied too long. He moved uneasily in his chair, per- turbed by these new thoughts. His eye fell again on the evening paper. He took it up — and the dreams in "which he had been indulfrino; vanished, as also the higher thoughts to which they miiiht have led. The heaven of his cliildhood departs : he and his young mother are buried once more. She sleeps, as she has slept for years, beneath a marble slab, forgotten : and he under a mountain of gold. In other words, he is again buried under the absorbing thoughts of his daily and hourly interests. Stocks and shares ! Shares and stocks ! The state of the money market ! Out come the spectacles, and now no other thought to-ni