293C
 
 CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS AJTCILES 
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM 
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER 
 
 BY 
 
 EDNA LYALL 
 
 .'.rTHOR. OF 
 DONOVAN,' 1 " WE TWO, 1 ' " KNIGHT ERRANT," ETC 
 
 NEW YORK 
 LOVELL, CORYELL & COMPANY, 
 
 43, 43 AXD 47 FAST TKNTII STREET.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BV 
 UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 BARR-OiNWiooie PRINTING i BOOK-BINDING Co., 
 
 GRtENVILLe, JERSEY CIT, H. J.
 
 WITH LOVE 
 
 TO 
 
 M. S. C. 
 
 How many unknown worlds there are 
 
 Of comforts, which Thou hast in keeping ! 
 How many thousand mercies there 
 
 In pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping ! 
 Happy he who has the art 
 To awake them 
 And to take them 
 Home, and lodge them in his heart ! 
 
 RICHARD CRASHAW. 
 
 2136909
 
 NOTE. 
 
 [This sketch was suggested by the late Dean Plump- 
 ire's book, "The Spirits in Prison," and by an article 
 in the Spectator, June 5, 1884, referring to Mr. Mac- 
 Colts paper in the Fortnightly Review on the late 
 Princess Alice.]
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 
 
 " HE is wonderfully patient," said the doctor 
 to the sick-nurse, as she followed him to the 
 head of the stairs. 
 
 " I never saw any one more patient." 
 
 The door was ajar, and the sick man heard 
 the words. If he had had a wife sitting 1 there 
 beside him, he would have turned toward her 
 with a glance half humorous, half pathetic. As 
 he had no wife, his eyes remained sad, but the 
 ghost of a smile flickered about his pale lips. 
 There was enough truth in the words to make 
 them praise and not flattery, and there was the 
 inevitable personal pronoun which makes all 
 praise, if rightly understood, tend to produce 
 humility. 
 
 To the doctor he seemed patient ; yet, though 
 he knew that in truth some patience had been 
 given to him during the long months of his 
 illness, he knew too well that the actual Max 
 Hereford was far from his own ideal of what a
 
 <3 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 
 
 man should be, and that under a mask of pas- 
 sive quiet there raged too often a consuming 
 impatience under an assumed hopefulness a 
 real despair. 
 
 Orator and philanthropist, he had suddenly 
 been struck down in the noontide of life, and 
 from the glad enthusiasm of successful work 
 had been all at once relegated to the enforced 
 quiet of the sick-room. 
 
 "You will gain much from such an experi- 
 ence," said his friends. "You will be better 
 able to teach ; it will foster the growth of your 
 inner life." 
 
 He wondered if they knew; hoped there 
 might be truth in that thought of the after- 
 harvest of righteousness, but knew that at pres- 
 ent he longed to swear if the maid knocked 
 over the fire-irons, and to anathematize the 
 cook if there was too much salt in the broth. 
 
 His foes, on the other hand, rejoiced in his 
 discomfiture. 
 
 " It is exactly what you deserve," wrote anony- 
 mous malignity. "Your ill-advised speeches 
 are checked, your schemes of reform brought 
 to naught, ana we rejoice mat your mischievous 
 voice is silenced. May heaven bring you to a 
 better frame of mind ! "
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 7 
 
 And so, with variations on these two themes, 
 the long days and weeks and months passed 
 by, and Max, unable to move hand or foot, lived 
 on and wondered why he lived. 
 
 His neighbors were kind to him unweary- 
 ingly kind. People who knew what illness was 
 sent him an endless succession of flowers and 
 tempting delicacies. People who had never 
 been ill themselves sent him religious books. 
 The flowers he enjoyed ; the food he obedient- 
 ly swallowed; the religious books found their 
 way into his book-case where they remained. 
 Printed religious sentiments seldom comfort 
 the sick, who want something more practical : 
 the sympathy of loving human hearts, and trust 
 in the Unchangeable. 
 
 The night was approaching. All the tedious 
 ceremonies had been gone through. As usual 
 Max had made the little jests which did what 
 could be done to relieve the monotony; for 
 nurses and patients are bound to laugh, if they 
 would not fall into a grim, apathetic gloom. 
 As usual, he had envied Job for having died 
 before the invention of the clinical thermom- 
 eter, and sighed as the disappointing figures 
 were recorded, and smiled at the nurse's story 
 of the old patient who insisted on being fed
 
 8 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 
 
 with a tablespoon, and wondered what it would 
 feel like to be a free agent once more, and 
 longed for just five minutes of health and ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 At length the unwelcome night really arrived, 
 the room was darkened, and save for the ticking 
 of the clock and the breathing of the sick-nurse, 
 faintly audible through the open door of the 
 dressing-room, all was still around him, and all 
 within him full of unrest, as he lay in the mis- 
 ery of that first watch, when the refrain of " All 
 the night is now before us" chants itself in 
 dirge-like notes, instead of in a chorus of cheer- 
 ful voices. 
 
 " You will learn so much," his friends said. 
 
 "Learn!" he echoed, impatiently; "why, I 
 can't even think to any purpose. I am a mere 
 useless log." 
 
 "With extraordinary slowness the clocks of the 
 quiet city chimed the hours; still sleep held 
 aloof, and he seemed to live in a lake of fire 
 whose never-ceasing waves surged relentlessly 
 over him. The sick-nurse brought him food. 
 
 " You have not slept yet 1 " she said. " Try 
 to lie still and say your prayers that often 
 puts people to sleep ; you just try." 
 
 He was secretly amused, and had little faith
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 9 
 
 in his capacity at that time for any sort of form 
 or ceremony. He fell into a confused train 
 of thought as to what the generality of people 
 meant by " saying 1 their prayers." Then, after 
 a long, weary interval he found that the night- 
 light was burning with a feeble blue flame, and 
 speculated as to why in every boxful there 
 should always be one with too short a wick, 
 destined to bum with a faint and depressing 
 light recollected certain superstitions as to 
 blue flames, and repeated Herrick's lines : 
 
 When the tapers now burn blue, 
 And the comforters are few, 
 And that number more than true, 
 
 Sweet Spirit comfort me ! 
 
 From this he passed to thoughts of death and 
 the unseen, and to the old, doggerel lines of his 
 childhood about 
 
 Four corners to my bed, 
 Four angels round my head, 
 One to watch, two to pray, 
 And one to bear my soul away. 
 
 His old, childish perplexity came back to him. 
 " Why two to pray ? "VVhy on earth should
 
 10 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAV. 
 
 there be two to pray ? " Over and over in his 
 brain rang the quaint old rhyme : 
 
 One to watch, two to pray, 
 And one to bear my soul away, 
 
 till the familiar words brought at last the long- 
 desired sleep ; and while he slept he dreamed. 
 
 The faint, blue flame of the night-light gave 
 place to a mellow, restful light, which suffused 
 the room. Max hated darkness and dimness 
 it was alwa3 7 s full of excitement and unrest to 
 him ; but this perfect light gave him the same 
 keen sense of happiness as the breathing of the 
 first breath of warm, health-giving southern air 
 gives to one who flies from the severity of a 
 northern spring. After a time, revealed by 
 this perfect light, the meaning of which he 
 began to apprehend, he found to his surprise 
 that the four angels of the rhyme really were 
 about his bed. We most of us profess a belief 
 in ministering spirits sent forth to minister, 
 and orthodox people sing, every eighteenth 
 day of the month, of the angels who are given 
 charge over them to keep them in all their 
 ways ; yet, perhaps, very few of us in the least
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 11 
 
 realize their presence. Max was astonished, in- 
 terested, a little awed. His first natural im- 
 pulse was to look up behind him and investi- 
 gate the two standing figures, who were not so 
 easily discernible ; his innate love of proof and 
 certainty, his shrinking- from all that was dim 
 and veiled, drew him toward these two. At his 
 right stood the guardian angel, with a face and 
 bearing which spoke of invincible strength and 
 alert watchfulness. He turned eagerly to the 
 left, hoping to read something of his fate in the 
 face of the death angel. But the face revealed 
 nothing but gentle patience : whether the wait- 
 ing were to be for a few days or for many years 
 was all one to this still messenger, who kept 
 watch like a servant awaiting orders from one 
 in authorit3 r , not in the least knowing at what 
 hour the orders might be received. 
 
 With a sigh Max turned his eyes to the two 
 kneeling angels at the foot of the bed. " Why 
 two to pray ? " he thought to himself, and then 
 with a shock of surprise he perceived that they 
 had heard his thought, for they looked up at 
 him in prompt reply. 
 
 " I pray for you and for those whom you have 
 influenced who are still on this earth," said the 
 angel on the right, glancing up with eyes
 
 12 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 
 
 which made him think of blue speedwell-blos- 
 soms bathed in sunshine. 
 
 The eyes of the last angel were deeper, and 
 seemed to bear in them the sorrows of other 
 hearts. They made him think of pale violets 
 drenched in dew. 
 
 " I pray for you and for those influenced by 
 you who have passed away from this earth/' 
 was the reply to his thought. 
 
 " Can prayer for these avail ? " he asked. 
 
 " All prayer avails ; wherefore not this ? " 
 
 " But the dead are in God's keeping ; is not 
 that enough ? " 
 
 "Here also all are in his keeping, yet are 
 you bidden to pray without ceasing. But few 
 keep the command. Then they weep and la- 
 ment that they cannot realize spiritual things. 
 They have lost touch and cannot understand 
 why all at once they are powerless to regain 
 it." 
 
 "Yet how can prayer affect those so far re- 
 moved from here ? " mused Max. 
 
 "Far and near are but words belonging to 
 this earth," replied the angel. "How prayer 
 affects another soul you cannot now under- 
 stand; yet that the soul is affected while in 
 this world even by any earnest thought you do
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREA.V. 13 
 
 not doubt. Why then question that this is pos- 
 sible after death ? " 
 
 " The idea is new to me, and prayers for the 
 departed once led to such abuse and supersti- 
 tion, such spiritual bargain-driving, that one 
 shrinks from the possible danger of returning 
 to the old practice." 
 
 " All good things have been abused," said the 
 angel, " and the lack of the right use of prayers 
 for the dead brings much sorrow and works 
 great harm. Conic with us and see." 
 
 Then, to his unspeakable delight, Max, who 
 had looked for months only on the four walls of 
 his room, and had panted for the fresh, free 
 winds, and the restful sense of infinite space, 
 found himself borne out into the still, peaceful 
 night. Instead of the skulls and cross-bones 
 which, with a sick man's fancy, he had grown 
 into the habit of tracing in the well-known pat- 
 tern of his carpet, he saw beneath him dimly- 
 lighted towns, fields, trees, rivers, and hills 
 bathed in moonlight. Instead of the blank 
 white ceiling, there was stretched above him 
 the dark-blue vault of heaven with its countless 
 stars. 
 
 Not without a feeling of regret, he found 
 himself taken from this calm outer world into
 
 14: MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 
 
 a large country house a house upon which the 
 sad hush of death rested. 
 
 Two days before the lifeless form of the 
 master had been carried across the threshold. 
 Killed in the hunting-field, cut off suddenly 
 in the midst of a life of self-indulgence and 
 vice, he had left behind him one woman who, 
 in spite of his faithlessness, had remained 
 faithful to him, and who grieved for him now 
 with the saddest of all griefs. Max could see 
 that round her sleepless bed there were also 
 four angels, and her sorrow seemed to be re- 
 flected in their faces. 
 
 " All her life she has prayed for her husband, 
 and loved and served him; now she is heart- 
 broken because she thinks it has all been in 
 vain, and that she can do nothing more for 
 him," said one of the angels. 
 
 " Oh, the sadness of it ! " said another. " If 
 she could but see that love, being eternal, must 
 eternally serve! If she could but realize that 
 there is work which she is leaving undone ! 
 Then hope and strength would spring up in 
 her heart, which is now crushed and likely to 
 sink into the apathy of fruitless sorrow." 
 
 The watching angel looked sorrowfully down 
 at the stricken woman.
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 15 
 
 " It will not be," he said. " Custom is too 
 strong, and what in the past was a natural 
 resource for all sad souls has in these days 
 fallen into neglect. The remedy is here, but 
 she will doubt if it be a true remedy, and so 
 reject it." 
 
 Max, looking at the hopeless sorrow and bit- 
 ter tears of the widow, felt his own eyes grow 
 dim. " That she should miss her comfort when 
 it is so ready to hand, so clear, so plain ! " he 
 cried, forgetting his previous doubt and the old 
 abuses that had crept in and blinded men's eyes 
 to the truth. 
 
 The angels smiled sadly at his exclamation 
 and once more bore him away into the outer 
 air. Far away they flew over land and sea un- 
 til, at the other side of the Atlantic, they came 
 to a great city, where in a lofty window there 
 burned the lamp of a solitary student. 
 
 The room was lined with books ponderous 
 works on theology, ecclesiastical histories, vol- 
 umes of sermons old and new. Toiling hard at 
 the writing-table, with books and papers strewn 
 round him, there sat a middle-aged man, who 
 looked older than his years by reason of the 
 cares that had thronged his life. A new sor- 
 row was filling his heart that night. The friend
 
 16 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 
 
 for whom he had cared most, yet had least 
 agreed with, had passed away only a few hours 
 before, had 
 
 Died and made no sign. 
 
 Without hope of future life, without faith in 
 God, he had drawn his last breath. 
 
 Max looked from the sad face of the student 
 to the angels, who here, too, were in charge. 
 Here, also, one of them prayed for the living-, 
 one for the dead ; and the latter seemed to con- 
 centrate his thoughts on the dead friend who 
 had just passed from the life of an agnostic, 
 zealously combating what he deemed supersti- 
 tion and error, into that unseen world the very 
 existence of which had seemed to him a mis- 
 chievous delusion a vain fancy. 
 
 The angel prayed that his sorrow for past 
 misunderstandings and errors might be com- 
 forted ; that he might be brought to the knowl- 
 edge of God's truth and to faith in Him, and 
 that at length all humanity might hear the 
 voice of the Constant Shepherd who seeks un- 
 til He finds, and become one flock in His safe 
 keeping. 
 
 But the student left the angel to pray alone 
 nothing could allure his thoughts into that
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 17 
 
 channel of comfort. With a sad heart he bent 
 his head over musty old volumes and tried to 
 forget his sorrow, or, when it thrust itself irre- 
 sistibly upon him, to stifle it with the saying-, 
 " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do 
 right ? " 
 
 The truest of truths, however, cannot greatly 
 comfort us when we neglect a corresponding 
 truth ; he forgot that his friendship still made 
 claims upon him, and that all who love are 
 workers together with One whose "tender 
 mercy " is " for ever and ever." 
 
 " You shall see now how it should be," said 
 the angels to Max. " You have seen the great 
 loss which the many unwittingly endure; you 
 shall see now the comfort which the few vouch- 
 safe to take." 
 
 Once more they crossed the great ocean, and 
 just as dawn was breaking they came to a cot- 
 tage among the hills, where, in a tiny room 
 with sloping roof and bare floor, there rested 
 an old, white-haired laborer. The aged have 
 short hours of sleep, and this old man had 
 for many hours lain with wide-open eyes, pray- 
 ing for those whom ho loved, as was his habit 
 when sleep forsook him ; for the son and grand- 
 children out in Canada ; for the daughter who
 
 18 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 
 
 had married and emigrated to Australia, and 
 was doing well, as he loved to think ; but most 
 of all for the scajjegrace son who had died 
 many years before, and who, notwithstanding 1 
 his brutality and his evil ways, had still a place 
 in his father's heart. 
 
 " A worthless fellow who went to sea and fell 
 overboard one night when drunk." This was 
 the world's verdict. 
 
 But his father still loved him, still hoped, 
 still prayed, never troubling his head as to ln>w 
 the prayers might help, but just following the 
 natural impulse of a heart full of loving trust, 
 and, though he could not have read the old 
 book of prayers published centuries ago by 
 William Caxton, his longing clothed them- 
 selves very much in the language of one of 
 these, written for use on entering a church or 
 churchyard : 
 
 " Be merciful, O Lord, through Thy glorious 
 resurrection to the souls of all the faithful de- 
 parted; be merciful to those souls who have 
 none to intercede for them, for whom there is 
 no consolation or hope in their torment save 
 that they were made in Thine image. Spare 
 them, O Lord, spare them, and defend Thy 
 work in them, and give not the honor of Thy
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 19 
 
 name, we pray Thee, to another. Despise not 
 the work of Thy hands in them, but put forth 
 Thy right hand, and free them from the in- 
 tolerable pains and anguish of hell, and lead 
 them to the fellowship of the citizens on high, 
 for Thy holy name's sake." 
 
 The perfect faith and peace in the old labors 
 er's wrinkled face, the look of fellowship in the 
 faces of the praying angels, who found in this 
 poor home the simplicity of heart lacking else- 
 where, impressed Max with a strange feeling of 
 awe and reverence. He knew that he should 
 always remember this scene, with the faint gray 
 dawn just showing the dark lattice-work of the 
 casement window, and the wonderful light of 
 an unseen Presence which revealed the angels 
 round the bed, and the answering radiance of 
 that praying soul. It pleased him greatly that 
 in this place the lesson should have been made 
 clear to him, for at heart he was a republican. 
 
 Something of this he spoke to his guides. 
 They smiled, knowing all his little foibles and 
 preferences so well: and once more they bore 
 him away over the sea, until in the land of 
 Luther they paused before a palace-gate. 
 
 Now Max had, naturally enough, no love for 
 palaces.
 
 20 MAX HEREFORD'S DEEA'M. 
 
 " Here ? " he said, questioningly, with an ex- 
 pressive motion of the shoulders. 
 
 " Yes, here," said the angels, smiling- ; " here 
 for the fairest sight of all." 
 
 They entered the palace, and Max was at 
 once aware of the shadow of a great sorrow 
 brooding over the household. It filled his 
 heart with sympathy, his prejudices were all 
 forgotten ; but being weakened by long ill- 
 ness, he found himself almost shrinking from 
 the mere pain of the sight which he antici- 
 pated. 
 
 He was surprised when his angels took him 
 into a room where, beside a bed, a child knelt 
 in prayer. The sun had just risen, and its rays 
 made a glory about the little bent head. Pres- 
 ently the boy looked up; tears were stream- 
 ing down his face, but though they were very 
 real tears, very full of sorrow, they were with- 
 out the bitterness and pain of a more mature 
 grief. 
 
 The rays of light seen through his wet eye- 
 lashes made tiny rainbows of blue, and red, and 
 yellow, and the little prince fell to thinking of 
 the beauty of color and of what they had told 
 him of heaven. Then again he bent his head 
 and prayed with all the fervor of his childish
 
 MAX HEREFORD'S DREA.V. 21 
 
 heart for the brother who had gone before to 
 the homeland ; for were they not still one fam- 
 ily above and below? And why should the 
 dear name be left out of his prayers because 
 death had opened the gate to eternal peace and 
 joy? 
 
 The angels prayed, too, with a glad light on 
 their brows; and Max Hereford thanked God, 
 who again had led him, as so often before, by a 
 little child. 
 
 Once more they passed into the outer world, 
 and he felt on him the fresh, invigorating 
 breath of early day, and the sunshine streamed 
 over him and seemed to fill him with new 
 life. 
 
 " It is the best night you have had," said the 
 sick-nurse, looking with professional satisfac- 
 tion at the clear, quiet light in his eyes. " That 
 sleep has done you a power of good." 
 
 Max smiled. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "you are quite right. 'Tis 
 the best night I ever had." 
 
 "You have turned the corner," she added, 
 touching his cool hand, " and now all that you 
 want is patience to climb up the hill."
 
 22 MAX HEREFORD'S DREAM. 
 
 He nodded a cheerful assent no longer chaf- 
 ing at the prospect of a tedious recovery; for 
 was there not much for him to do much that 
 he had all his life neglected ?
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN, 
 NOVELIST
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY 
 UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 TO MY DEAB FRIEND 
 
 MARY DAVIES 
 
 [CHIEF SOKGSTBESS OF WALES,) 
 
 I DBDICATE THIS BOOK.
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN, 
 
 NOVELIST. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "Nothing fills a child's mind like a large old mansion; 
 better if un- or partially occupied; people with the spirits 
 of deceased members of the county and Justices of the 
 Quorum. Would I were buried in the peopled solitude of 
 one, with my feelings at seven years old !" From Letters 
 of CHARLES LAMB. 
 
 To attempt a formal biography of Derrick 
 Vaughan would be out of the question, even 
 though he and I have been more or less thrown 
 together since we were both in the nursery. But 
 I have an odd sort of wish to note down roughly 
 just a few of my recollections of him, and to show 
 how his fortunes gradually developed, being per- 
 haps stimulated to make the attempt by certain 
 irritating remarks which one overhears now often 
 enough at clubs or in drawing-rooms, or indeed 
 wherever one goes. " Derrick Vaugban," sa,v
 
 6 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 
 
 these authorities of the world of small-talk, with 
 that delightful air of omniscience which invari- 
 ably characterizes them, " why, he simply leapt 
 into fame. He is one of the favorites of for- 
 tune. Like Byron, he woke one morning and 
 found himself famous." 
 
 Now this sounds well enough, but it is a long 
 way from the truth, and I Sydney Wharncliff-e, 
 of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-law desire 
 while the past few years are fresh in my mind to 
 write a true version of my friend's career. 
 
 Every one knows his face. Has it not ap- 
 peared in " Noted Men," and gradually deteri- 
 orating according to the price of the paper and 
 the quality of the engraving in many another 
 illustrated journal? Yet somehow these works 
 of art don't satisfy me, and, as I write, I see be- 
 fore me something very different from the latest 
 photograph by Messrs. Paul and Reynard. 
 
 I see a large-featured, broad-browed English 
 face, a trifle heavy-looking when in repose, yet 
 a thorough, honest, manly face, with a complex- 
 ion neither dark nor fair, with brown hair and 
 moustache, and with light hazel eyes that look 
 out on the world quietly enough. You might 
 talk to him for long in an ordinary way and never
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 1 
 
 suspect that he was a genius ; but when you 
 have him to yourself, when some consciousness 
 of sympathy roused him, he all at once becomes 
 a different being. His quiet eyes kindle, his 
 face becomes full of life you wonder that you 
 ever thought it heavy or commonplace. Then 
 the world interrupts in some way and, just as a 
 hermit-crab draws down its shell with a comi- 
 cally rapid movement, so Derrick suddenly re- 
 tires into himself. 
 
 Thus much for his outer man. 
 
 For the rest, there are of course the neat little 
 accounts of his birth, his parentage, his educa- 
 &c., &c., published with the list of his works in 
 due order, with the engravings in the illustrated 
 papers. But these tell little of the real life of 
 the man. 
 
 Carh-le, in one of his finest passages, says that 
 " A true delineation of the smallest man and his 
 scene of pilgrimage though life is capable of in- 
 teresting the greatest men ; that all men are to 
 an unspeakable degree brothers, each man's life 
 a strange emblem of every man's ; and that hu- 
 man portraits faithfully drawn are of all pictures 
 the welcomest on human walls." And though I 
 don't profess to give a portrait, but merely a
 
 8 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 sketch, I will endeavor to sketch faithfully, and 
 possibly in the future my work may fall into th 
 hands of some of those worthy people who im- 
 agine that my friend leapt into fame at a bound, 
 or of those comfortable mortals who seem to 
 think that a novel is turned out as easily as water 
 from a tap. 
 
 There is, however, one think I can never do : 
 I am quite unable to but into words my friend's 
 intensely strong feeling with regard to the sacred- 
 ness of his profession. It seemed to me not un- 
 like the feeling of Isaiah when, in the vision, his 
 mouth had been touched with the celestial fire. 
 And I can only hope that something of this may 
 be read between my very inadequate lines. 
 
 Looking back, I fancy Derrick must have been 
 a clever child. But he was not precocious, and 
 in some respects was even decidedly backward. 
 
 I can see him now, it is my first clear recollec- 
 tion of him, leaning back in the corner of my 
 father's carriage as we drove from the New- 
 market station to our summer home at Mondis- 
 field. He and I were small boys of eight, and 
 Derrick had been invited for the holidays, while 
 his twin brother if I remember right indulged 
 in typhoid fever at Kensington. He was shy and
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAy NOVELIST. 9 
 
 silent, and the ice was not broken until we 
 passed Silvery Steeple. 
 
 " That," said my father, " is a ruined church ; 
 it was destroyed by Cromwell in the Civil Wars." 
 
 In an instant the small quiet boy sitting beside 
 me was transformed. His eyes shone ; he sprang 
 forward and thrust his head far out of the 
 window, gazing at the old ivy-covored tower as 
 long as it remained in sight. 
 
 " Was Cromwell really once there ? " he asked 
 with breathless interest. 
 
 " So they say," replied my father, looking with 
 an amused smile at the face of the questioner, in 
 which eagerness, delight, and reverence were 
 mingled. " Are you an admirer of the Lord 
 Protector?" 
 
 " He is my greatest hero of all," said Derrick 
 fervently. " Do you think oh, do you think 
 he possibly can ever have come to Mondisfield ? " 
 
 My father thought not, but said there was an 
 old tradition that the Hall had been attacked by 
 the Royalists, and the bridge over the moat de- 
 fended by the owner of the house ; but he had 
 no great belief in the story, for which, indeed, 
 there seemed no evidence. 
 
 Derrick's eves during this conversation were
 
 -J DERRICK VAUG II AN NOVELIST. 
 
 something wonderful to see, and long after, when 
 we were not actually playing at anything, I used 
 often to notice the same expression stealing over 
 him, and would cry out, " There is the man 
 defending the bridge again, I can see him in 
 your eyes ! Tell me what happened to him 
 next ! " 
 
 Then, generally pacing to and fro in the apple 
 walk, or sitting astride the bridge itself, Derrick 
 would tell me of the adventures of my ancestor, 
 Panl Wharncliffe, who performed incredible feats 
 of valor, and who was to both of us a most real 
 person. On wet days he wrote his story in a 
 copy-book, and would have worked at it for 
 hours had my mother allowed him, though of the 
 manual part of the work he had, and has always 
 retained, the greatest dislike. I remember well 
 the comical ending of this first story of his. lie 
 skipped over an interval of ten years, represented 
 on the page by ten laboriously made stars, and 
 did for his hero in the following lines : 
 
 " And now, reader, let us come into Mondis- 
 field churchyard. There are three tombstones. 
 On one is written, ' Mr. Paul Wharncliffe.' ' 
 
 The story was no better than the productions 
 of most eight-year-old children, the written story
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. H 
 
 at least. But curiously enough it proved to be 
 the germ of the celebrated romance 'At Strife,' 
 which Derrick wrote in after years ; and he him- 
 self maintains that his picture of life during the 
 Civil War would have been much less graphic 
 had he not lived so much in the past during his 
 various visits to Mondisfield. 
 
 It was at his second visit, when we were nine, 
 that I remember his announcing his intention of 
 being an author when he was grown up. My 
 mother still delights in telling the story. She 
 was sitting at work in the south parlor one day, 
 when I dashed into the room calling out 
 
 " Derrick's head is stuck between the banisters 
 in the gallery ; come quick, mother, come quick I " 
 
 She ran up the little winding staircase and 
 there, sure enough, in the musician's gallery, was 
 poor Derrick, his manuscript and pen on the 
 floor and his head in durance vile. 
 
 " You silly boy ! " said my mother, a little 
 frightened when she found that to get the head 
 back was no easy matter. " What made you 
 put it through ? " 
 
 " You look like King Charles at Carisbrooke,'' 
 I cried, forgetting how much Derrick would 
 resent the speech.
 
 12 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 
 
 And being released at that moment lie took 
 me by the shoulders and gave me an angry shake 
 or two, as he said vehemently, " I'm not like 
 King Charles ! King Charles was a liar." 
 
 I saw my mother smile a little as she separated 
 us. 
 
 " Come boys, don't quarrel," she said. " And 
 Derrick will tell me the truth, for indeed I am 
 curious to know why he thrust his head in such 
 a place." 
 
 "I wanted to make sure," said Derrick, 
 " whether Paul Wharu cliff e could see Lady 
 Lettice when she took the falcon on her wrist 
 below in the passage. I mustn't say he saw her 
 if it's impossible, you know. Authors have to 
 be quite true in little things, and I mean to be 
 an author." 
 
 " But," said my mother, laughing at the great 
 earnestness of the hazel eyes, " could not your 
 hero look over the top of the rail ? " 
 
 " Well, yes," said Derrick. " He would have 
 done that, but you see it's so dreadfully high and 
 I couldn't get up. Bnt I tell you what, Mrs. 
 Wharncliffe, if it wouldn't be giving you a great 
 deal of trouble I'm sorry you were troubled to 
 get my head back again but if you would just
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. l\ 
 
 look over, since you are so tall, and I'll run down 
 and act Lady Lettice." 
 
 " Why couldn't Paul go downstairs and look 
 at the lady in comfort ? " asked my mother. 
 
 Derrick mused a little. 
 
 " He might look at her through a crack in the 
 door at the foot of the stairs, perhaps, but that 
 would seem mean, somehow. It would be a pity, 
 too, not to use the gallery ; galleries are uncom- 
 mon, you see, and you can get cracked doors 
 anywhere. And, you know, he was obliged to 
 look at her when she couldn't see him, because 
 their fathers were on different sides in the war, 
 and dreadful enemies." 
 
 When school-days came, matters went on much 
 in the same way ; there was always an abomi- 
 nably scribbled tale stowed away in Derrick's 
 desk, and he worked infinitely harder than I did, 
 because there was always before him this deter- 
 mination to be an author and to prepare himself 
 for the life. But he wrote merely from love of 
 it, and with no idea of publication until the 
 beginning of our last year at Oxford, when, 
 having reached the ripe age of one-and-twenty, 
 he determined to delay no longer but to plunge 
 boldly into his first novel.
 
 14 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 
 
 He was seldom able to get more than six or 
 eight hours a week for it, because he was reading 
 rather hard, so that the novel progressed but 
 slowly. Finally, to my astonishment, it came to 
 a dead stand-still. 
 
 I have never made out exactly what was wrong 
 with Derrick then, though I know that he passed 
 through a terrible time of doubt and despair. I 
 spent part of the Long with him down at Vent- 
 nor, where his mother had been ordered for her 
 health. She was devoted to Derrick, and, as far 
 as I can understand, he was her chief comfort in 
 life. Major Vaughan, the husband, had been out 
 in India for years ; the only daughter was mar- 
 ried to a rich manufacturer at Birmingham, who 
 had a constitutional dislike to mothers-in-law, 
 and as far as possible eschewed their company ; 
 while Lawrence, Derrick's twin brother, was for- 
 ever getting into scrapes, and was into the bar- 
 gain the most unblushingly selfish fellow I ever 
 had the pleasure of meeting. 
 
 "Sydney," said Mrs. Vaughan to me one 
 afternoon when we were in the garden, " Derrick 
 seems to me unlike himself, there is a division 
 between us which I never felt before. Can you 
 tell me what is troubling him ? "
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 15 
 
 She was not at all a good-looking woman, but 
 she had a very sweet, wistful face, and I never 
 looked at her sad eyes without feeling ready to 
 go through fire and water for her. 1 tried now 
 to make light of Derrick's depression. 
 
 " He is only going through what we all of us 
 go through," I said, assuming a cheerful tone. 
 " He has suddenly discovered that life is a great 
 riddle, and that the things he has accepted in- 
 blind faith are, after all, not so sure." 
 
 She sighed. 
 
 "Do all go through it?" she said, thought- 
 fully. "And how many, I wonder, get be- 
 yond?" 
 
 " Few enough," I replied moodily. Then, re- 
 membering my rdle, " But Derrick will get 
 through ; he has a thousand things to help him 
 which others have not, you, for instance. And 
 then I fancy he has a sort of insight which most 
 of us are without." 
 
 " Possibly," she said. " As for me, it is little 
 that I can do for him. Perhaps you are right, 
 and it is true that once in a life at any rate we 
 all have to go into the wilderness alone." 
 
 That was the last summer I ever saw Derrick's 
 mother ; she took a chill the following Christmas
 
 16 DERRICK VAUGIIAN-NOVEL1ST. 
 
 and died after a fe\v days' illness. But I him 
 always thought her death helped Derrick in a way 
 that her life might have failed to do. For al- 
 though he never, I fancy, quite recovered from 
 the blow, and to this day cannot speak of her 
 without tears in his eyes, yet when he came back 
 to Oxford he seemed to have found the answer 
 to the riddle, and though older, sadder and 
 graver than before, had quite lost the restless 
 dissatisfaction that for some time had clouded 
 his life. In a few months, moreover, I noticed a 
 fresh sign that he was out of the wood. Coming 
 into his rooms one day I found him sitting in the 
 cushioned window-seat, reading over and correct- 
 ing some sheets of blue foolscap. 
 
 " At it again ? " I asked. 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " I mean to finish the first volume here. For 
 the rest I must be in London." 
 
 " Why ? " I asked, a little curious as to this 
 unknown art of novel-making. 
 
 " Because," he replied, " one must be in the 
 heart of things to understand how Lynwood was 
 affected by them." 
 
 " Lynwood ! I believe you are always thinking 
 of him!" (Lynwood was the hero of his novel.)
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 17 
 
 " Well so I am nearly so I must be, if the 
 book is to be any good." 
 
 " Read me what you have written," I said, 
 throwing myself back in a rickety but tolerably 
 comfortable arm-chair which Derrick had inher- 
 ited with the rooms. 
 
 He hesitated a moment, being always very 
 diffident about his own work; but presently, 
 having provided me with a cigar and made a good 
 deal of unnecessary work in arranging the sheets 
 of the manuscript, he began to read aloud, rather 
 nervously, the opening chapters of the book now 
 so well known under the title of ' Lynwood's 
 Heritage.' 
 
 I had heard nothing of his for the last four 
 years, and was amazed at the gigantic stride 
 he had made in the interval. For, spite of a 
 certain crudeness, the story seemed to me a most 
 powerful story; it rushed straight to the point 
 with no wavering, no beating about the bush ; it 
 flung itself into the problems of the day with a 
 sort of sublime audacity ; it took hold of one ; it 
 whirled one along with its own inherent force, 
 and drew forth both laughter and tears, for Der- 
 rick's power of pathos had alwa}*s been hia 
 
 strongest point. 
 
 2 >
 
 18 DERRICK VAUGUAy NOVELIST. 
 
 All at once he stopped reading. 
 
 " Go on ! " I cried, impatiently. 
 
 " That is all," he said, gathering the sheets 
 together. 
 
 " You stopped in the middle of a sentence ! " 
 I cried in exasperation. 
 
 " Yes," he said, quietly, " for six months." 
 
 "You provoking fellow ! why, I wonder?" 
 
 " Because I didn't know the end." 
 
 " Good heavens ! And do you know it now? " 
 
 He looked me full in the face, and there was 
 an expression in his eyes which puzzled me. 
 
 k 'I believe I do," he said; and, getting up, he 
 crossed the room, put the manuscript away in a 
 drawer, and returning, sat down in the window- 
 seat again, looking out on the narrow, paved 
 street below, and at the gray buildings opposite. 
 
 I knew very well that he would never ask me 
 what I thought of the story that was not his 
 way. 
 
 " Derrick ! " I exclaimed, watching his impas- 
 sive face, " I believe after all you are a genius." 
 
 I hardly know why I said " after all," but till 
 that moment it had never struck me that Derrick 
 was particularly gifted. He had so far got 
 through his Oxford career creditably, but then he
 
 DERRICK VAUGH AN NOVELIST. 19 
 
 had worked hard ; his talents were not of a showy 
 order. I had never expected that he would set 
 the Thames on fire. Even now it seemed to me 
 that he was too dreamy, too quiet, too devoid of 
 the pushing faculty to succeed in the world. 
 
 My remark made him laugh incredulously. 
 
 " Define a genius," lie said. 
 
 For answer I pulled down his beloved Imperial 
 Dictionary and read him the following quotation 
 from De Quincey : " Genius is that mode of 
 intellectual power which moves in alliance with 
 the genial nature ; i.e. with the capacities of 
 pleasure and pain ; whereas talent has no vestige 
 of such an alliance, and is perfectly independent 
 of all human sensibilities." 
 
 " Let me think ! You can certainly enjoy 
 things a hundred times more than I can and as 
 for suffering, why you were always a great hand 
 at that. Now listen to the great Dr. Johnson 
 and see if the cap fits. ' The true genius is a 
 mind of large general powers accidentally deter- 
 mined in some particular direction.' 
 
 " * Large general powers ' ! yes, I believe 
 after all you have them with alas, poor Derrick 1 
 one notable exception the mathematical faculty. 
 You were always bad at figures. We will stick
 
 20 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 
 
 to De Quincey's definition, and for heaven's sake, 
 my dear fellow, do get Lynwood out of that 
 awful plight ! No wonder you were depressed 
 when you lived all this age with such a sentence 
 unfinished ! " 
 
 " For the matter of that," said Derrick, " he 
 can't get out till the end of the book ; but I can 
 begin to go on with him now." 
 
 "And when you leave Oxford? " 
 
 "Then I mean to settle down in London to 
 write leisurely and possibly to read for the 
 Bar." 
 
 " We might be together," I suggested. And 
 Derrick took to this idea, being a man who 
 detested solitude and crowds about equally. 
 Since his mother's death he had been very much 
 alone in the word. To Lawrence he was always 
 loyal, but the two had nothing in common, and 
 though fond of his sister he could not get on at 
 all with the manufacturer, his brother-in-law. 
 But this prospect of life together in London 
 pleased him amazingly ; he began to recover his 
 spirits to a great extent and to look much more 
 like himself. 
 
 It must have been just as he had taken his 
 degree that he received a telegram to announce
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAX NOVELIST. 21 
 
 that Major Vaughan had been invalided home, 
 and would arrive at Southampton in three 
 weeks' time. Derrick knew very little of his 
 father, but apparently Mi's. Vaughan had done 
 her best to keep up a sort of memory of his 
 childish days at Aldershot, and in these the part 
 that his father played was always pleasant. So 
 he looked forward to the meeting not a little, 
 while 1 from the first had my doubts as to the 
 felicity it was likely to bring him. 
 
 However, it was ordained that before the Major's 
 ship arrived, his son's whole life should change ; 
 even Lynwood was thrust into the background. 
 As for me, I was nowhere, for Derrick, the quiet, 
 the self-contained, had fallen passionately in love 
 with a certain Freda Merrifield.
 
 DERRICK 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Infancy ? What if the rose-streak of morning 
 Pale and depart in a passion of tears ? 
 Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning : 
 Love once : e'en love's disappointment endears, 
 A moment's success pays the failure of years." 
 
 li. BROWNING. 
 
 THE wonder would have been if he had not 
 fallen in love witli her, for a more fascinating girl 
 I never saw. She had only just returned from 
 school at Compiegne, and was not yet out ; her 
 charming freshness was unsullied she had all 
 the simplicity and straightforwardness of un- 
 spoilt, unsophisticated girlhood. I well remem- 
 ber our first sight of her. We had been invited 
 for a fortnight's yachting b}- Calvevley of Exeter. 
 His father, Sir John Calverley, had a sailing 
 yacht, and some guests having disappointed him 
 at the last minute, he gave his son carte blanche 
 as to who he should bring to fill the vacant 
 berths. 
 
 So we three travelled down to Southampton
 
 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 23 
 
 together, one hot summer day, and were rowed 
 out to the Aurora, an uncommonly neat little 
 schooner which lay in that over-rated and fre- 
 quently odoriferous roadstead, Southampton 
 Water. However, I admit that on that evening 
 the tide being high the place looked remark- 
 ably pretty; the level rays of the setting sun 
 turned the water to gold, a soft luminous haze 
 hung over the town and the shipping, and by a 
 stretch of imagination one might have thought 
 the view almost Venetian. Derrick's perfect 
 content was only marred by his shyness. I knew 
 that he dreaded reaching the Aurora ; and sure 
 enough as we stepped on to the exquisitely white 
 deck and caught sight of the little group of 
 guests, I saw him retreat into his crab-shell of 
 silent reserve. Sir John, who made a very 
 pleasant host, introduced us to the other visitors 
 Lord Probyn and his wife, and their niece, 
 Miss Freda Merrifield. Lady Probyn was Sir 
 John's sister, and also the sister of Miss Merri- 
 field's mother ; so that it was almost a family 
 party, and by no means a formidable gathering. 
 Lady Probyn played the part of hostess, and 
 chaperoned her pretty niece; but she was not 
 in the least like the aunt of fiction on the con-
 
 24 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 trary, she was comparatively young in years and 
 almost comically young in mind ; her niece was 
 devoted to her, and the moment I saw her I 
 knew that our voyage could not possibly be dull. 
 
 As to Miss Freda, when we first caught sight 
 of her she was standing near the companion, 
 dressed in a daintily made yaching costume of 
 blue serge and white braid, and round her white 
 sailor hat she bore the name of the yacht stamped 
 on a white ribbon ; in her waist-band she had 
 fastened two deep crimson roses, and she looked 
 at us with frank, girlish curiosity, no doubt won- 
 dering whether we should add to or detract from 
 the enjoyment of the expedition. She was rather 
 tall, and there was an air of strength and energy 
 about her which was most refreshing. Her skin 
 was singularly white, but there was a healthy 
 glow of color in her cheeks ; while her large, 
 gray eyes, shaded by long lashes, were full of 
 life and brightness. As to her features, they 
 were perhaps a trifle irregular, and her elder 
 sisters were supposed to eclipse her altogether ; 
 but to my mind she was far the most taking of 
 the three. 
 
 I was not in the least surpised that Derrick 
 should fall head over ears in love with her ; she
 
 DERRICK VAUG II AN NOVELIST. 25 
 
 was exactly the sort of girl that would infallibly 
 attract him. Her absence of shyness ; her 
 straightforward, easy way of talking ; her genuine 
 good heartedness ; her devotion to animals one 
 of his own pet hobbies and finally her exquisite 
 playing made the result a foregone conclusion. 
 And then, moreover, they were perpetually to- 
 gether. He would hang over the piano in the 
 saloon for hours while she played, the rest of us 
 lazily enjoying the easy chairs and the fresh air 
 on deck ; and whenever we landed, these two 
 were sure in the end to be just a little apart from 
 the rest of us. 
 
 It was an eminently successful cruise. We all 
 liked eacli other; the sea was calm, the sunshine 
 constant, the wind as a rule favorable, and I 
 think I never in a single fortnight heard so many 
 good stories, or had such a good time. We 
 seemed to get right out of the world and its 
 narrow restrictions, away from all that was hollow 
 and base and depressing, only landing now and 
 then at quaint little quiet places for some merry 
 excursion on shore. Freda was in the highest 
 spirits ; and as to Derrick, lie was a different 
 creature. She seemed to have the power of 
 drawing him out in a marvellous degree, and she
 
 26 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 took the greatest interest in his work a sure 
 way to every author's heart. 
 
 But it was not till one clay, when we landed at 
 Tresco, that I felt certain she genuinely loved him 
 there in one glance the truth flashed upon me. 
 I was walking with one of the mleners down 
 
 O *-7 
 
 one of the long shady paths of that lonely little 
 island, with its curiously foreign look, when we 
 suddenly came face to face with Derrick and 
 J'reda. They were talking earnestly, and I 
 could see her great gray eyes as they were lifted to 
 his perhaps they were more expressive than 
 she knew I cannot say. They both started a 
 little as we confronted them, and the color 
 deepened in Freda's face. The gardener, with 
 what photographers usually ask for "just the 
 faint beginning of a smile,*' turned and gathered 
 a bit of white heather growing near. 
 
 " They say it brings good luck, miss," he 
 remarked, handing it to Freda. 
 
 " Thank you," she said, laughing, " I hope it 
 will bring it to me. At any rate it wiU remind 
 me of this beautiful island. Isn't it just like 
 Paradise, Mr. Wharncliffe ? " 
 
 " For me it is like Paradise before Eve was 
 created," I replied, rather wickedly. " By the
 
 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 27 
 
 bye, are you going to keep all the good luck to 
 yourself?" 
 
 " I don't know," she said, laughing. " Perhaps 
 I shall ; but you have only to ask the gardener, 
 he will gather you another piece directly." 
 
 I took good care to drop behind, having no 
 taste for the third fiddle business ; but I noticed 
 when we were in the gig once more, rowing back 
 to the yacht, that the white heather had been 
 equally divided one half was in the waistband 
 of the blue serge dress, the other half in the 
 button-hole of Derrick's blazer. 
 
 So the fortnight slipped by, and at length 
 one afternoon we found ourselves once more in 
 Southampton water ; then came the bustle of 
 packing and the hurry of departure, and the merry 
 party dispersed. Derrick and I saw them all off 
 at the station, for, as his father's ship did not 
 arrive till the following day, I made up my mind 
 to stay on with him at Southampton. 
 
 " You will come and see us in town," said 
 Lady Probyn, kindly. And Lord Probyn invited 
 us both for the shooting at Blachington in 
 September. 
 
 " We will have the same party on shore, and 
 see if we can't enjoy ourselves almost as well."
 
 28 DERRICK 
 
 he said in his hearty way ; " the novel will go 
 all the better for it, eh, Vaughau ? " 
 
 Derrick brightened visibly at the suggestion. 
 I heard him talking to Freda all the time that 
 Sir John stood laughing and joking as to the 
 comparative pleasures of yachting and shooting. 
 
 " You will be there too?" Derrick asked. 
 
 " I can't tell," said Freda, and there was a 
 shade of sadness in her tone. Her voice was 
 deeper than most women's voices a rich contralto 
 with something striking and individual about it. 
 I could hear her quite plainly ; but Derrick spoke 
 less distinctly he always had a bad trick of 
 mumbling. 
 
 " You see I am the youngest," she said, " and I 
 am not really * out.' Perhaps my mother will 
 wish one of the elder ones to go ; but I half 
 think they are already engaged for September, 
 so after all I may have a chance." 
 
 Inaudible remark from my friend. 
 
 " Yes, I came here because my sisters did not 
 care to leave London till the end of the season," 
 replied the clear contralto. " It has been a perfect 
 cruise. I shall remember it all my life.' 5 
 
 After that, nothing more was audible ; but I 
 imagine Derrick mu^t have hazarded a more per-
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 29 
 
 sonal question, and that Freda had admitted 
 that it was not only the actual sailing she should 
 remember. At any rate her face when I caught 
 sight of it again made me think of the girl de- 
 scribed in the ' Biglow Papers ' : 
 
 ' ' "T\vas kin' o' kingdom conie to look 
 On sech a blessed crsatnr, 
 A dogrose blushin' to a brook 
 Ain't modester nor sweeter.' " 
 
 So the train went off, and Derrick and I were 
 left to idle about Southampton and kill time as 
 best we might. Derrick seemed to walk the 
 streets in a sort of dream he was perfectly well 
 aware that he had met his fate, and at that time 
 no thought of difficulties in the way had arisen 
 either in his mind or in my own. We were both 
 of us young and inexperienced ; we were both of 
 us in love, and we had the usual lover's notion 
 that everything in heaven and earth is prepared 
 to favor the course of his particular passion. 
 
 I remember that we soon found the town in- 
 tolerable and, crossing by the feny, walked over 
 to Netley Abbey, and lay down idly in the shade 
 of the old gray walls. Not a breath of wind 
 stirred the great masses of ivy which were 
 wreathed about the ruined church, and the placo
 
 30 DERRICK VAUGTI AN NOVELIST. 
 
 looked so lovely in its decay, that we felt disposed 
 to judge the dissolute monks very leniently for 
 having behaved so badly that their church and 
 monastery had to be opened to the four winds of 
 heaven. After all, when is a church so beautiful 
 as when it has the green grass for its floor and 
 the sky for its roof ? 
 
 I could show you the very spot near the East 
 window where Derrick told me the whole truth, 
 and where we talked over Freda's perfections 
 and the probability of frequent meetings in 
 London. He had listened, so often and so pa- 
 tiently to my affairs, that it seemed an odd re- 
 versal to have to play the confidant ; and if now . 
 and then my thoughts wandered off to the com- 
 ing month at Mondisfield, and pictured violet 
 eyes while he talked of gray, it was not from any 
 lack of sympathy with my friend. Derrick was 
 not of a self-tormenting nature, and though I 
 knew he was amazed at the thought that such a 
 girl as Freda could possibly care for him, yet he 
 believed most implicitly that this wonderful thing 
 had come to pass ; and remembering her face 
 as we had last seen it, and the look in her eyes 
 at Tresco, I, too, had not a shadow of a doubt 
 that she really loved him. She was not the least
 
 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 31 
 
 bit of a flirt, and society had not had a chance 
 yet of moulding her into the ordinary girl of the 
 nineteenth century. 
 
 Perhaps it was the sudden and unexpected 
 change of the next day that makes me remember 
 Derrick's face so distinctly as he lay back on the 
 smooth turf that afternoon in Netley Abbey. As 
 it looked then, full of youth and hope, full of 
 that dream of cloudless love, I never saw 11 
 agaiu.
 
 32 DERRICK VAUC11ANSOVEL1SI. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 *' Religion in him never died, but became a habit a habit of 
 enduring hardness, and cleaving to the steadfast, perform- 
 ance of duty in face of the strongest allurements to the 
 plcasanter and easier course." Life of Charles Lamb, by 
 
 A. AlNGEK. 
 
 DERRICK was in a good spirits the next day. 
 He talked much of Major Vaughan, wondered 
 whether the voyage home had restored his health, 
 discussed the probable length of his leave, and 
 speculated as to the nature of his illness ; the 
 telegram had of course given no details. 
 
 " There hasn't been even a photograph for the 
 last five years," he remarked, as we walked down 
 to the quay together. " Yet I think I should 
 know him anywhere, if it is only by his height. 
 He used to look so well on horseback. I re- 
 member as a child seeing him in a sham fight 
 charging up Csesar's Camp." 
 
 " How old were you when he went out?" 
 
 " Oh, quite a small boy," replied Derrick. " It 
 was just before I first stayed with you. How- 
 ever, lie has had a regular succession of pho-
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAy NOVELIST. 33 
 
 tographs sent out toliim, and will know me easily 
 enough." 
 
 Poor Derrick ! I can't think of that day even 
 now without a kind of mental shiver. We 
 watched the great steamer as it glided up to the 
 quay, and Derrick scanned the crowded deck 
 with eager eyes, but could nowhere see the tall, 
 soldierly figure that had lingered so long in his 
 memory. He stood with his hand resting on the 
 rail of the gangway, and when presently it was 
 raised to the side of the steamer, he still kept liis 
 position, so that he could instantly catch sight of 
 his father as he passed down. I stood close 
 behind him, and watched the motley procession 
 of passengers ; most of them had the dull, color- 
 less skin which bespeaks long residence in India, 
 and a particularly yellow and peevish-looking old 
 man was grumbling loudly as he slowly made his 
 way down the gangway. 
 
 " The most disgraceful scene ! " he remarked. 
 " The fellow was as drunk as he could be." 
 
 " Who was it ? " asked his companion. 
 
 " Why, Major Vaughan, to be sure. The only 
 wonder is that he hasn't drunk himself to death 
 by this time been at it years enough ! " 
 
 Derrick turned, as though to shelter himself
 
 34 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 from the curious eyes of the travellers ; but 
 everywhere the quay was crowded. It seemed 
 to me not unlike the life that lay before him, 
 with this new shame, which could not be hid; 
 and I shall never forget the look of misery in 
 his face. 
 
 " Most likely a great exaggeration of that 
 spiteful old fogey's," I said. "'Never believe 
 anything that you hear,' is a sound axiom. Had 
 you not better try to get on board? " 
 
 "Yes; and for heaven's sake come with me, 
 Wharncliffe ! " he said. " It can't be true ! It 
 is, as you say, that man's spite", or else there is 
 some one else of the name on board. That 
 must be it some one else of the name." 
 
 I don't know whether he managed to deceive 
 himself. We made our way on board, and he 
 spoke to one of the stewards, who conducted us 
 to the saloon. I knew from the expression of 
 the man's face that the words we had overheard 
 were but too true ; it was a mere glance 
 that he gave us, yet if he had said aloud, 
 "they belong to that old drunkard! Thank 
 Heaven I'm not in their shoes ! " I could not 
 have better understood what was in his mind. 
 
 There were three persons only in the great
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 35 
 
 saloon : an officer's servant, whose appearance 
 did not please me ; a fine-looking old man with 
 gray hair and whiskers, and a rough-hewn, hon- 
 est face, apparently the ship's doctor ; and a tall 
 grizzled man, in whom I at once saw a sort of 
 horrible likeness to Derrick horrible because 
 this face was wicked and degraded, and because 
 its owner was drunk noisily drunk. 
 
 Derrick paused for a minute, looking at his 
 father ; then, deadly pale, he turned to the old 
 doctor. " I am Major Yaughan's son," he said. 
 
 The doctor grasped his hand, and there was 
 something in the old man's kindly, chivalrous 
 manner which brought a sort of light into the 
 gloom. 
 
 "I am very glad to see you! " he exclaimed. 
 "Is the Major's luggage ready? "he inquired, 
 turning to the servant. Then, as the man re- 
 plied in the affirmative, "How would it be, Mr. 
 Vaughan, if your father's man just saw the 
 things into a cab? and then I'll come on shore 
 with you and see my patient safely settled in." 
 
 Derrick acquiesced, and the doctor turned to 
 the Major, who was leaning up against one of 
 the pillars of the saloon and shouting '-'Twas in 
 Trafalgar Bay" in a way which, under other
 
 36 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 
 
 circumstances, would have been biglily ccmic. 
 The doctor interrupted him, as with much feel- 
 ing he sang how 
 
 " England declared that every man 
 That day had done his duty." 
 
 "Look, Major," he said; "here is your son 
 come to meet you." 
 
 " Glad to see you, my boy," said the Major, 
 reeling forward and running all his words to- 
 
 o <-* 
 
 gether, "How's your mother? Is this Law- 
 rence ? Glad to see both of you ! Why, your's 
 like's two peas! Not Lawrence, do you say? 
 Confound it, doctor, how the ship rolls to-day I" 
 
 And the old wretch staggered and would have 
 fallen, had not Derrick supported him and 
 landed him safely on one of the fixed ottomans. 
 
 "Yes, yes, you're the son for me," he went 
 on, with a bland smile, which made his face all 
 the more hideous. " You're not so rough and 
 clumsy as that confounded John Thomas, whose 
 hands are like brickbats. I'm a mere wreck, 
 as you see ; it's the accursed climate ! But 
 your mother will soon nurse me into health 
 again ; she was always a good nurse, poor soul ! 
 it was her best point. What with you and your 
 mother, I shall soon be myself again."
 
 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 37 
 
 Here the doctor interposed, and Derrick made 
 desperately for a porthole and gulped down 
 mouthfuls of fresh air : but he was not allowed 
 much of a respite, for the servant returned to 
 say that he had procured a cab, and the Major 
 called loudly for his son's arm. 
 
 "I'll not have you," he said, pushing the ser- 
 vant violently away. " Come, Derrick, help me ! 
 you are worth two of that blockhead." 
 
 And Derrick came quickly forward, his face 
 still very pale, but with a dignity about it which 
 I had never before seen ; and giving his arm to 
 his drunken father, he piloted him across the 
 saloon, through the staring ranks of stewards, 
 officials and tardy passengers outside, down the 
 gangway, and over the crowded quay to the cab. 
 I knew that each derisive glance of the specta- 
 tors was to him like a sword-thrust, and longed 
 to throttle the Major, who seemed to enjoy him- 
 self amazingly on terra firma, and sang at, the 
 top of his voice as we drove through the streets 
 of Southampton. The old doctor kept up a 
 cheery flow of small-talk with me, thinking, no 
 doubt, that this would be a kindness to Derrick: 
 and at last that purgatorial drive ended and 
 somehow Derrick and the doctor between them
 
 38 DERRICK VAUGIIAN-NOVEL1ST. 
 
 got the Major safely into his room at Radley'a 
 Hotel. 
 
 We had ordered lunch in a private sitting- 
 room, thinking that the major would prefer it 
 to the coffee-room ; but, as it turned out, he was 
 in no state to appear. They left him asleep, and 
 the ship's doctor sat in the seat that had been 
 prepared for his patient, and made the meal as 
 tolerable to us both as it could be. He was an 
 odd, old-fashioned fellow, but as true a gentle- 
 man as ever breathed 
 
 "Now," he said, when lunch was over, "you 
 and I must just have a talk together, Mr. 
 Vaughan, and I will help you to understand 
 your father's case." 
 
 I made a movement to go, but sat down again 
 at Derrick's request. I think, poor old fellow, 
 he dreaded being alone, and knowing that I had 
 seen his father at the worst, thought I might as 
 well hear all particulars. 
 
 "Major Vaughan," continued the doctor, "has 
 now been under my care for some weeks, and I 
 had some communication with the regimental 
 surgeon about his case before he sailed. lie is 
 suffering from an enlarged liver, and the disease 
 has been brought on by his unfortunate habit of
 
 DEERLCK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 39 
 
 over-indulgence in stimulants." I could almost 
 have smiled, so very gently and considerately 
 did the good old man veil in long words the 
 shameful fact. " It is a habit sadly prevalent 
 among our fellow countrymen in India; the 
 climate aggravates the mischief, and very many 
 lives are in this way ruined. Then your father 
 was also unfortunate enough to contract rheu- 
 matism when he was camping out in the jungle 
 last year, and this is increasing on him very 
 much, so that his life is almost intolerable to him, 
 and he naturally flies for relief to his greatest 
 enemy, drink. At all costs, however, you must 
 keep him from stimulants ; they will only inten- 
 sify the disease and the sufferings, in fact they 
 are poison to a man in such a state. Don't 
 think I am a bigot in these matters ; but I say 
 that for a man in such a condition as this, there 
 is nothing for it but total abstinence, and at all 
 costs your father must be guarded from the 
 possibility of procuring any sort of intoxicating 
 drink. Throughout the voyage I have done my 
 best to shield him, but it was a difficult matter. 
 His servant, too, is not trustworthy, and should 
 be dismissed if possible." 
 
 41 Had he spoken at all of his plans ? " asked.
 
 40 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 Derrick, and his voice sounded strangely uniike 
 itself. 
 
 " He asked me what place in England he had 
 better settle down in," said the doctor, " and I 
 strongly recommended him to try Bath. This 
 seemed to please him, and if he is well enough 
 he had better go there to-morrow. He mentioned 
 your mother this morning; :io doubt she will 
 know how to manage him." 
 
 " My mother died six months ago," said Derrick, 
 pushing back his chair and beginning to pace 
 the room. The doctor made kindly apologies. 
 
 " Perhaps you have a sister who could go to 
 him?" 
 
 " No," replied Derrick. " My only sister is 
 married, and her husband would never allow it.'' 
 
 " Or a cousin or an aunt?" suggested the old 
 man, naively unconscious that the words sounded 
 like a quotation. 
 
 I saw the ghost of smile flit over Derrick's 
 harassed face as he sliook his head. 
 
 " I suggested that he should go into some 
 Home for cases of the kind," resumed the 
 doctor, " or place himself under the charge of 
 some medical man; however, he won't hear of 
 such a thing, lint \i he is left to himself well,
 
 DERRICK VAUGII AN NOVELIST. 41 
 
 it is all up with him. He will drink himself to 
 death in a few months." 
 
 "He shall not be left alone," said Derrick; 
 "I will live with him. Do you think I should 
 do ? It seems to be Ilobson's choice." 
 
 I looked up in amazement for here was Der- 
 rick calmly giving himself up to a life that must 
 crush every plan for the future he had made. Did 
 men make such a choice as that while they took 
 two or three turns in a room? Did they speak 
 so composedly after a struggle that must have 
 been so bitter? Thinking it over now, I feel 
 sure it was his extraordinary gift of insight and 
 his clear judgment which made him behave in 
 this way. He instantly perceived and promptly 
 acted ; the worst of the suffering came long after. 
 
 " Why of course you are the very best person 
 in the world for him," said the doctor. "He 
 has taken a fancy to you, and evidently you 
 have a certain influence with him. If any one 
 can save him it will be you.'* 
 
 But the thought of allowing Derrick to be 
 sacrificed to that old brute of a Major was more 
 than I could bear calmly. 
 
 "A more mad scheme was never proposed," I 
 cried. " Why, doctor, it will be utter ruin to
 
 42 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 my friend's career ; lie will lose years that no 
 one can ever make up. Ami besides he is unfit 
 for such a strain ; he will never stand it." 
 
 My heart felt hot as I thought of Derrick, with 
 his highly-strung sensitive nature, his refinement, 
 his gentleness, in constant companionship with 
 such a man as Major Vaughan. 
 
 " My dear sir," said the old doctor, with a 
 gleam in his eye, " I understand your feeling 
 well enough. But depend upon it, your friend 
 has made the right choice, and there is no doubt 
 that he'll be strong enough to do his duty." 
 
 The word reminded me of the Major's song, 
 and my voice was abominably sarcastic in tone 
 as I said to Derrick, "You no longer consider 
 writing your duty then." 
 
 " Yes," he said, " but it must stand second to 
 this. Don't be vexed, Sydney ; our plans are 
 knocked on the head, but it is not so bad as you 
 make out. I have at any rate enough to live on, 
 and can afford to wait." 
 
 There was no more to be said, and the next 
 day I saw that strange trio set out on their road 
 to Bath. The Major looking more wicked when 
 sober than he had done when drunk ; the old 
 doctor kindly and considerate as ever ; and
 
 DERRICK VAUGIIAN -NOVELIST. 43 
 
 Derrick, with an air of resolution about that 
 English face of his, and a dauntless expression 
 in his eyes which impressed me curiously. 
 
 These quiet reserved fellows are always giving 
 one odd surprises. He had astounded me by 
 the vigor and depth of the first volume of 
 4 Lynwood's Heritage.' He astonished me now 
 by a new phase in his own character. Apparently 
 he who had always been content to follow where 
 I led, and to watch life rather than to take an 
 active share in it, now intended to strike out a 
 very decided line of his own.
 
 44 DERRICK 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Both Goethe and Schiller were profoundly convinced that 
 Art was no luxury of leisure, no mere amusement to charm 
 the idle, or relax the careworn ; but a mighty influence, 
 serious in its aims although pleasurable in its means ; a 
 sister of Religion, by whose aid the great world-scheme 
 was wrought into reality." LEWES'S Life of Goethe. 
 
 MAN is a selfish being, and I am a particularly 
 fine specimen of the race as far as that character- 
 istic goes. If I had had a dozen drunken parents 
 I should never have danced attendance on one of 
 them ; yet in my secret soul I admired Derrick 
 for the line he had taken, for we mostly do 
 ail mi re what is unlike ourselves and really noble, 
 though it is the fashion to seem totally indifferent 
 to everything in heaven and earth. But all the 
 same I felt annoyed about the whole business, 
 and was glad to forget it in my own affairs at 
 Mondisfield. 
 
 Weeks passed by. I lived through a midsum- 
 mer dream of happiness, and a hard awaking. 
 That, however, has nothing to do with Derrick's 
 story, and may be passed over. In October I
 
 DERRICK VAUG II AN NOVELIST. 45 
 
 settled clown in Montague Street, Bloomsbuiy, 
 and began to read for the Bar, in about as dis- 
 agreeable a frame of mind as can be conceived. 
 One morning I found on my breakfast table a 
 letter in Derrick's handwriting. Like most men, 
 we hardly ever corresponded what women say 
 in the eternal letters they send to each other I 
 can't conceive but it struck me that under the 
 circumstances I ought to have sent him a line to 
 ask how he was getting on, and my conscience 
 pricked me as I remembered that I had hardly 
 thought of him since we parted, being absorbed 
 in my own matters. The letter was not very 
 long, but when one read between the lines it 
 somehow told a good deal. I have it lying by 
 me, and this is a copy of it : 
 
 "DEAR SYDNEY, Do like a good fellow go to North 
 Audley Street for me, to the house which I described to you 
 as the one where Lynwood lodged, and tell me what he would 
 see besides the church from his window if shops, what 
 kind ? Also if any glimpse of Oxford Street would be visible. 
 Then if you'll add to your favors by getting me a second 
 hand copy of Laveleye's 'Socialisme Contemporain,' I should 
 be forever grateful . We are settled in here all right. Bath 
 is empty, but I people it as far as I can with the folk out of 
 'Evelina' and 'Persuasion.' How did you get on at Blach- 
 iiigton ? and which of the Misses Merrifield went in the end ? 
 Don't bother about the commissions. Any time will do. 
 Ever yours, 
 
 "DERRICK VAUGUAN."
 
 46 DERRICK VAUGIT AN NOVELIST. 
 
 Poor old fellow ! al! the spirit seemed knocked 
 out of him. There was not one word about the 
 Major, and who could say what wretchednees 
 was veiled in that curt phrase, " we are settled 
 in all right " ? Al! right ! it was all as wrong as 
 it could be ! My blood began to boil at the 
 thought of Derrick, with his great powers his 
 wonderful gift cooped up in a place where the 
 study of life was so limited and so dull. Then 
 there was his hunger for news of Freda, and his 
 silence as to what had kept him away from 
 Blachington, and about all a sort of proud hu- 
 mility which prevented him from saying much 
 that I should have expected him to say under 
 the circumstances. 
 
 It was Saturday, and my time was my own. 
 I went out, got his book for him ; interviewed 
 North Audley Street; spent a bad five minutes 
 in company with that villain * Bradshaw,' who 
 is responsible for so much of the brain and eye 
 disease of the nineteenth century, and finally 
 left Paddington in the Flying Dutchman, which 
 landed me at Bath early in the afternoon. I left 
 my portmanteau at the station, and walked 
 through the city till I reached Gay Street. Like 
 most of the streets of Bath, it was broad, and
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 47 
 
 had on either hand dull, well-built, dark gray, 
 eminently respectable, unutterably dreary-look- 
 ing houses. I rang, and the door was opened to 
 me by a most quaint old woman, evidently the 
 landlady. An odor of curry pervaded the pas- 
 sage, and became more oppressive as the door of 
 the sitting-room was opened, and I was ushered 
 in upon the Major and his son, who had just 
 finished lunch. 
 
 " Hullo! " cried Derrick, springing up, his face 
 full of delight which touched me, while at the 
 same time it filled me with envy. 
 
 Even the Major thought fit to give me a hearty 
 welcome. 
 
 " Glad to see you again," he said, pleasantly 
 enough. "It's a relief to have a fresh face to 
 look at. We have a room which is quite at your 
 disposal, and I hope you'll stay with us. Brought 
 your portmanteau, eh ? " 
 
 " It is at the station," I replied. 
 
 " See that it is sent for," he said to Derrick ; 
 "and show Mr. WharnclifTe all that is to be seen 
 in this cursed hole of a place." Then, turning 
 again to me, "Have you lunched? Very well, 
 then, don't waste this fine afternoon in an in- 
 valid's room, but be off and enjoy yourself." 
 
 4
 
 i3 LERRICK VAUGllAN NOVELIST. 
 
 So cordial was the old man, that I should have 
 thought him already a reformed character, had 
 I not found that he kept the - 'Ugh side f hi;- 
 tongue for home use. Derrick placed a novel 
 and a small hand-bell within his reach, and \ve 
 were just going, when we were checked by a 
 volley of oaths from the Major ; then a book 
 came flying across the room, well-aimed at Der- 
 rick's head. He stepped aside, and let it fall 
 with a crash en the sideboard. 
 
 * What do }'ou mean by giving me the second 
 volume when you know I am in the third? ' 
 fumed the invalid. 
 
 He apologized quietly, fetched the third vol- 
 ume, straightened the disordered leaves of the 
 dise;vrded second, and with the air of one well 
 accustomed to such little domestic scenes, took 
 up his hat and came out with me. 
 
 " How long do you intend to go on playing 
 David to the Major's Saul?" I asked, marvelling 
 at the way in which he endured the humors of 
 his father. 
 
 "As long as I have the chance," he replied. 
 " I say, are you sure you won't miud staying 
 with us? It can't be a very comfortable house- 
 hold for an outsider."
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 49 
 
 u Much better than for an insider, to all ap- 
 pearance," I replied. " I'm only too delighted 
 to stay. And now, old fellow, tell me the hon- 
 est truth you didn't, you know, in your letter 
 how have you been getting on ? " 
 
 Derrick launched into an account of his father's 
 ailments. 
 
 " Oh, hang the Major ! I don't care about 
 him, I want to know about you," I cried. 
 
 " About me ? " said Derrick doubtfully. " Oh, 
 I'm right enough." 
 
 " What do you do with yourself ? How on 
 earth do you kill time ? " I asked. " Come, give 
 me a full, true, and particular account of it all." 
 
 "We have tried three other servants," said 
 Derrick ; " but the plan doesn't answer. They 
 either won't stand it, or eLse they are bribed 
 into smuggling brandy into the house. I find I 
 can do most tilings for my father, and in the 
 morning he has an attendant from the hospital 
 who is trustworthy, and who does what is nec- 
 essary for him. At ten we breakfast together, 
 then there are the morning papers which he likes 
 to have read to him. After that I go round to 
 the Pump Room with him odd contrast now 
 to what it must have been when Bath was the
 
 60 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 rage. Then we have lunch. In the afternoon, 
 if he is well enough we drive ; if not, he sleeps, 
 and I get a walk. Later on an old Indian friend 
 of liis will sometimes drop in ; if not, he likes to 
 be read to until dinner. After dinner we play 
 chess he is a first-rate player. At ten I help him 
 to bed ; from eleven to twelve I smoke and study 
 Socialism and all the rest of it that Lynwood is 
 at present floundering in." 
 
 " Why don't yon write then? " 
 
 " I tried it, but it didn't answer. I couldn't 
 sleep after it, and was in fact too tired ; seems 
 absurd to be tired after such a day as that, but 
 somehow it takes it out of one more than the 
 hardest reading ; I don't know why. 
 
 " Why," I said, angrily, " it's because it is work 
 to which you are quite unsuited work for a 
 thin-skinned, hard-hearted, uncultivated and 
 well-paid attendant, not for the novelist who is 
 to be the chief light of our generation. 
 
 He laughed at this estimate of his powers. 
 
 "Novelists, like other cattle, have to obey 
 their owner," he said, lightly. 
 
 I thought for a moment that he meant the 
 Major, and was breaking into an angry remon- 
 strance, when I saw that he meant something
 
 DERRICK VAUOHAN NOVELIST. 51 
 
 quite different. It was always his strongest 
 point, this extraordinary consciousness of right, 
 this unwavering belief that he had to do and 
 therefore could do certain things. Without this, 
 I know that he never wrote a line, and in my 
 heart I believe that this was the cause of his 
 success. 
 
 " Then you are not writing at all ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes, I write generally for a couple of hours 
 before breakfast," he said. 
 
 And that evening we sat by his gas stove and he 
 read me the next four chapters of ' Lynwood.' 
 He had rather a dismal lodging-house bed-room, 
 with faded wall-paper and prosaic snuff-colored 
 carpet. On a rickety table in the window was 
 his desk, and a portfolio full of blue foolscap, but 
 he had done what he could to make the place 
 habitable ; his Oxford pictures were on the walls 
 Hoffmann's " Christ speaking to the Woman 
 taken in Adultery " hanging over the mantel- 
 piece it had always been a favorite of his. I 
 remember that, as he read the description of 
 Lynwood and his wife, I kept looking from him 
 to the Christ in the picture, till I could almost 
 have fancied that each face bore the same ex- 
 pression. Had his strange monotonous life with
 
 2 DERRICK VAUGII AN NOVELIST. 
 
 that old brute of a Major brought him some new 
 perception of those words, "Neither do I con- 
 demn thee " ? But when he stopped reading, I, 
 true to my character, forgot his affairs in my 
 own, and we sat talking far into the night talk- 
 ing of that luckless month at Mondisfield, of all 
 the problems it had opened up, and of my wretch- 
 edness. 
 
 " You were in town all September ? " he asked ; 
 "you gave up Blachington ? " 
 
 " Yes," I replied. " What did I care for coun- 
 try houses in such a mood as that ? " 
 
 He acquiesced, and I went on talking of my 
 grievances, and it was not till I was in the train, 
 on my back to London, that I remembered how 
 a look of disappointment had passed over his 
 face just at the moment. Evidently he had 
 counted on learning something about Freda from 
 me, and I well, I had clean forgotten both her 
 existence and his passionate love. 
 
 Something, probably self-interest, the desire for 
 my friend's company, and so forth, took me down 
 to Bath pretty frequently in those days; luckily 
 the Major had a sort of liking for me, and was al- 
 ways polite enough ; and dear old Derrick, well, 
 I believe my visits really helped to brighten him
 
 DERRICK VAUGH AN NOVELIST. & 
 
 up. At any rate lie said he couldn't have borne 
 his life without them, and for a sceptical, dismal, 
 cynical fellow like me to hear that was somehow 
 flattering. The mere force of contrast did me 
 good. I used to come back on the Monday won- 
 dering that Derrick didn't cut his throat, and 
 realizing that, after all, it was something to 
 be a free agent, and to have comfortable rooms 
 in Montague Street, with no old bear of a drunk- 
 ard to disturb my peace. And then a sort of ad- 
 miration sprang up in my heart, and the cynicism 
 bred of melancholy broodings over solitary pipes 
 was less rampant than usual. 
 
 It was, I think, early in the new year that I 
 met Lawrence Vaughan in Bath. He was not 
 staying at Gay Street, so I could still have the 
 vacant room next to Derrick's. Lawrence put 
 up at the York House Hotel. 
 
 " For you know," he informed me, " I really 
 can't stand the governor for more than an hour 
 or two at a time." 
 
 " Derrick manages to do it," I said. 
 
 " Oh, Derrick, yes," he replied, " it's his metier 
 and he is well-accustomed to the life. Besides, 
 you know, he is such a dreamy quiet sort of 
 fellow ; he lives all the time in a world of his
 
 C4 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 cvrn creation, and bears the discomforts of this 
 world with great philosophy. Actually he has 
 turned teetotaler ! It would kill me in a week." 
 
 I make a point of never arguing with a fellow 
 like that, but I think I had a vindictive longing, 
 as I looked at him, to shut him up with the 
 Major for a month, and see what would happen. 
 
 These twin brothers were curiously alike in face 
 and curiously unlike in nature. So much for 
 the great science of physiognomy. It often 
 seemed to me that they were the complement 
 of each other. For instance, Derrick in society 
 was extremely silent, Lawrence was a rattling 
 talker ; Derrick when alone with you, would 
 now and then reveal unsuspected depths of 
 thought and expression ; Lawrence, when alone 
 with you, very frequently showed himself to be 
 a cad. The elder twin was modest and diffident, 
 the younger inclined to brag ; the one had a 
 strong tendency to melancholy, the other was 
 blest or curst with the sort of temperament which 
 has been said to accompany " a hard heart and a 
 good digestion." 
 
 " I was not surprised to find that the son who 
 could not tolerate the governor's presence for 
 more than an hour or two, was a prime favorite
 
 DEREICK VAUGHAJS NOVELIST. 65 
 
 with the old man : that was just the way of the 
 world. Of course, the Major was as polite as 
 possible to him ; Derrick got the kicks and 
 Lawrence the halfpence. 
 
 In the evenings we played whist, Lawrence 
 coming in after dinner, "For, you know," he 
 explained to me, " I really couldn't get through 
 a meal with nothing but those infernal mineral 
 waters to wash it down." 
 
 And here I must own that at my first visit I 
 had sailed rather close to the wind : for when 
 the Major, like the Hatter in "Alice," pressed me 
 to take wine, I not seeing any -had answered 
 that I did not take it ; mentally adding the 
 words, " in your house, you brute ! " 
 
 The two brothers were fond of each after a 
 fashioi Jut Derrick was human, and had his 
 faults like the rest of us ; and I am pretty sure he 
 did not much enjoy the sight of his father's foolish 
 and unreasoning devotion to Lawrence. If you 
 come to think of it, he would have been a full- 
 fledged angel if no jealous pang, no reflection 
 that it was rather rough on him, had crossed his 
 mind, when he saw his younger brother treated 
 with every mark of respect and liking, and knew 
 that Lawrence would never stir a finger really
 
 56 DERIIICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 to help the poor fractious invalid. Unluckily 
 they happened one night to get on the subject 
 of professions. 
 
 " It's a comfort," said the Major in his sar- 
 castic way, " to have a fellow-soldier to talk to 
 instead of a quill-driver, who as yet is not even 
 a penny-a-liner. Eh, Derrick ? Don't you feel 
 inclined to regret your fool's choice now ? You 
 might have been starting off for the war with 
 Lawrence next week, if you hadn't chosen what 
 you're pleased to call a literary life. Literary 
 life, indeed ! I little thought a son of mine would 
 ever have been so wanting in spirit as to prefer 
 dabbling in ink to a life of action to be the 
 scribbler of mere words, rather than an officer of 
 dragoons." 
 
 Then to my astonishment Derrick sprang to 
 his feet in hot indignation. I never saw him 
 look so handsome, before or since ; for his anger 
 was not the distorting devilish anger that the 
 Major gave way to, but real downright wrath. 
 
 " You speak contemptuously of mere novels," 
 he said in a low voice, }'et more clearly than 
 usual and as if the words were wrung out of him. 
 " What right have you to look down on one of 
 the greatest weapons of the day ? and why is a
 
 DEB KICK VA VG II AX NO VELIS T. 57 
 
 writer to submit to scoffs an insults and tamely 
 to hear his profession reviled? I have chosen 
 to write the message that has been given me, 
 and I don't regret the choice. Should I have 
 shown greater spirit if I had sold my freedom 
 and right of judgment to be one of the national 
 killing machines ? " 
 
 With that he threw down his cards and strode 
 out of the room in a white heat of anger. It was a 
 pity he made that last remark, for it put him in the 
 wrong and needlesssly annoyed Lawrence and the 
 Major. But an angry man has no time to weigh 
 his words, and, as I said, poor old Derrick was 
 very human, and when wounded too intolerably, 
 could on occasion retaliate. 
 
 The Major uttered an oath and looked in aston- 
 ishment at the retreating figure. Derrick was 
 such an extraordinarily quiet, respectful, long 
 suffering son as a rule, that this outburst was 
 startling in the extreme. Moreover, it spoilt the 
 game, and the old man, chafed by the result of 
 his own ill-nature, and helpless to bring back his 
 partner, was forced to betake himself to chess. 
 T left him grumbling away to Lawrence about the 
 vanity of authors, and went out in the hope of 
 finding Derrick. As I left the house I was some-
 
 53 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 one turn the corner into the Circus, and starting 
 in pursuit, overtook the tall dark figure where 
 Bennett Street opens on to the Lansdowne Hill. 
 
 " I'm glad you spoke up, old fellow," I said, 
 taking his arm. 
 
 lie modified his pace a little. " Why is it," 
 he exclaimed, "that every other profession can 
 be taken seriously, but that a novelist's work is 
 supposed to be mere play ? Good God ! don't 
 we suffer enough? Have we not hard brain 
 work and drudgery of desk work and tedious 
 gathering of statistics and troublesome search 
 into details? Have we not an appalling weight 
 of responsibility on us ? and are we not at the 
 mercy of a thousand capricious chances ? " 
 
 "Come now," I exclaimed, "you know that 
 you are never so happy as when you are writ- 
 ing." 
 
 "Of course," he replied; "but that doesn't 
 make me resent such an attack the less. Besides, 
 you don't know what it is to have to write in 
 such an atmosphere as ours; it's like a weight on 
 one's pen. This life here is not life at all it's a 
 daily death, and it's killing the book, too; the 
 last chapters are wretched. I'm utterly dissatis- 
 fied with them."
 
 DERRICK VAUG U 'AN NOVELIST. 59 
 
 " As for that," I said, calmly, " you are no judge 
 at all. You never can tell the worth of your own 
 work ; the last bit is splendid." 
 
 "I could have done it better," he groaned. 
 " But there is always a ghastly depression drag- 
 ging one back here and then the time is so 
 short ; just as one gets into the swing of it the 
 
 breakfast bell rings, and then comes " He 
 
 broke off. 
 
 I could well supply the end of the sentence, 
 however, for I knew that then came the slow 
 torture of a tete-a-tete with the Major, stinging 
 sarcasms, humiliating scoldings, vexations and 
 difficulties innumerable. 
 
 I drew him to the left, having no mind to go 
 to the top of the hill. We slackened our pace 
 again and walked to and fro along the broad, 
 level pavement of Lansdowne Crescent. We had 
 it entirely to ourselves not another creature was 
 in sight. 
 
 " I could bear it all," he burst forth, " if only 
 there was a chance of seeing Freda. Oh, you 
 are better off than I am at least you know the 
 worst. Your hope is killed, but mine lives on a 
 tortured, starved life! Would to God I had 
 never seen her ! "
 
 CO DERRICK VAUGII AN NOVELIST. 
 
 Certainly before that night I had never quite 
 realized the irrevocableness of poor Derrick's 
 passion. I had half hoped that time and separa- 
 tion would gradually efface Freda Merrifield 
 from his memory ; and I listened with a dire 
 foreboding to the flood of wretchedness which 
 he poured forth as we paced up and down, think- 
 ing now and then how little people guessed at 
 the tremendous powers hidden under his usually 
 quiet exterior. 
 
 At length lie paused, but his last heart-broken 
 words seemed to vibrate in the air and to force 
 me to speak some kind of comfort. 
 
 " Derrick," 1 said, " come back with me to 
 London give up this miserable life." 
 
 I felt him start a little ; evidently no thought 
 of yielding had come to him before. We were 
 passing the house that used to belong to that 
 strange book-lover and recluse, Beckford. I 
 looked up at the blank windows, and thought of 
 that curious, self-centred life in the past, sur- 
 rounded by every luxury, able to indulge every 
 whim; and then I looked at my companion's 
 pale, tortured face, and thought of the life he had 
 elected to lead in the hope of saving one whom 
 duty bound him to honor. After all, which life
 
 LERRICK VAUGTIAN NOVELIST. Gl 
 
 was the most worth living which was the most 
 to Le admired ? 
 
 We walked on : down below us and up on the 
 further hill we could see the lights of Bath ; the 
 place so beautiful by day looked now like a fairy 
 city, and the Abbey, looming up against the 
 moon-lit sky, seemed like some great giant keep- 
 ing watch over the clustering roofs below. The 
 well-known chimes rang out into the night" and 
 the clock struck ten. 
 
 " I must go back," said Derrick quietly. " My 
 father will want to get to bed." 
 
 I couldn't say a word ; we turned, passed Beck- 
 ford's house once more, walked briskly down the 
 hill, and reached the Gay Street lodging-house. 
 I remember the stifling heat of the room as we 
 entered it, and its contrast to the cool, dark, win- 
 ter's night outside. I can vividly recall, too, the 
 old Major's face as he looked up with a sarcastic 
 remark, but with a shade of anxiety in his blood- 
 shot eyes. He was leaning back in a green-cush- 
 ioned chair, and his ghastly yellow complexion 
 seemed to me more noticeable than usual his 
 scanty gray hair and whiskers, the lines of pain 
 so plainly visible in his face, impressed me curi- 
 ously. I think I had never before realized what
 
 C2 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 a wreck of a man he was how utterly depend- 
 ent on others. 
 
 Lawrence, who, to do him justice, had a good 
 deal of tact, and who, I believe, cares for his 
 brother as much as ho was capable of caring for 
 anyone but himself, repeated a good story with 
 which he had been enlivening the Major, and I 
 did what I could to keep up the talk. Derrick 
 meanwhile put away the chessmen, and lighted 
 the Major's candle. lie even managed to force 
 up a laugh at Lawrence's story, and, as lie helped 
 his father out of the room, I think I was the 
 only one who noticed the look of tired endurance 
 in his eyes.
 
 DERRICK V A UG II AN NOVELIST. 63 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " I know 
 
 How far high failure overtops the bounds 
 Of low successes. Only suffering draws 
 The inner heart of song, and can elicit 
 The perfumes of the soul." Epic of Hades. 
 
 NEXT week, Lawrence went off like a hero to 
 the war; and my friend also I think like a hero 
 stayed on at Bath, enduring as best he could 
 the worst form of loneliness ; for undoubtedly 
 there is no loneliness so frightful as constant 
 companionship with an uncongenial person. He 
 had, however, one consolation : the Major's health 
 steadily improved, under the joint influence of 
 total abstinence and Bath waters, and, with the 
 improvement, his temper became a little better. 
 
 But one Saturday, when I had run down to 
 Bath without writing beforehand, I suddenly 
 found a different state of things. In Orange 
 Grove I met Dr. Mackrill, the Major's medical 
 man; he used now and then to play whist with 
 us on Saturday nights, and I stopped to speak to 
 him.
 
 64 DERRICK- VAUGIIANSOVELIST. 
 
 " Oh ! you've come do\vn again. Thai's all 
 right! " he said. " Your friend wants some one 
 to cheer him up. He's got his arm broken." 
 
 " How on earth did he manage that ? " I asked. 
 
 " Well, that's more than I can tell you," said 
 the doctor, with an odd look in his eyes, as if lie 
 guessed more than he would put into words. 
 " All I can get out of him was that it was done 
 accidentally. The Major is not so well no 
 whist for us to-night I'm afraid." He passed on, 
 and I made my way to Gay Street. There was 
 an air of mystery about the quaint old landlady ; 
 she looked brimful of news when she opened the 
 door to me but she managed to "keep herself 
 to herself," and showed me in upon the Major 
 and Derrick, rather triumphantly I thought. 
 The Major looked terribly ill worse than I had 
 ever seen him, and, as for Derrick, he had the 
 strangest look of shrinking and shame-facedness 
 you ever saw. lie said he was glad to see me, 
 but I knew that he lied. He would have given 
 anything to have kept me away. 
 
 " Broken your arm ? " I exclaimed, feeling 
 bound to take some notice of the sling. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " I met with an accident to 
 it. But luckily it's only the left one, so it doesn't
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 65 
 
 hinder me much I I have finished seven chapters 
 of the last volume of ' Lynwood,' and was just 
 wanting to ask you a legal question." 
 
 All this time his eyes bore my scrutiny defi- 
 antly ; they seemed to dare me to say one other 
 word about the broken arm. I didn't dare in- 
 deed to this day I have never mentioned the 
 subject to him. 
 
 But that evening, while he was helping the 
 Major to bed, the old landlady made some pre- 
 text for toiling up to the top of the house, where 
 I sat smoking in Derrick's room. 
 
 " You'll excuse my making bold to speak to 
 you, sir," she said. I threw down my newspaper, 
 and, looking up, saw that she was bubbling over 
 with some story. 
 
 " Well? " I said, encouragingly. 
 
 " It's about Mr. Vaughan, sir, I wanted to 
 speak to you. I really do think, sir, it's not safe 
 he should be left aloHe with his father, sir, any 
 longer. Such doings as we had here the other 
 day, sir ! Somehow or other and none of us 
 can't think how the Major had managed to get 
 hold of a bottle of brandy. How he had it I 
 don't know ; but we none of us suspected him, 
 and in the aftermoon he says he was too poorly
 
 66 DERRICK VAUGU AN NOVELIST. 
 
 to go for a drive or to go out in his chair, and 
 settles off on the parlor sofa for a nap while Mr. 
 Vnughan goes out for a walk. Mr. Vaughun 
 was out a couple of hours. I heard him come in 
 and go into the sitting-room ; then there came 
 sounds of voices, and a scuffling of feet and 
 moving of chairs, and I knew something was 
 wrong and hurried up to the door and just then 
 came a crash like fire-irons, and I could hear the 
 Major a-s\vearing fearful. Not hearing a sound 
 from Mr. Vanglian, I got scared, sir, and opened 
 the door, and there I saw the Major a-leaning up 
 against the mantel-piece as drunk as a lord, and 
 his son seemed to have got the bottle from him ; 
 it was half empty, and when he saw me lie just 
 handed it to mo and ordered me to take it away. 
 Then between us we got the Major to lie down 
 on the sofa and left him there. "When we got 
 out into the passage Mr. Vaughan he leant against 
 the wall for a minute, looking as white as a sheet, 
 and then I noticed for the first time that his left 
 arm was hanging down at his side. " Lord ! 
 sir,*' I cried, " your arm's broken." And he 
 went all at once as red as he had been pale just 
 before, and said he had got it done accidentally, 
 and bade me say nothing about it, and walked
 
 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 67 
 
 off there and then to the doctor's, and had it set. 
 But, sir, given a man drunk as the Major was, 
 and given a scuffle to get away the drink that 
 was poisoning him, and given a crash such as I 
 heard, and given a poker a-lying in the middle of 
 the room where it stands to reason no poker could 
 get unless it was thrown whj-, sir, no sensible 
 woman who can put two and two together can 
 doubt that it was all the Major's doing." 
 
 " Yes," I said, " that is clear enough ; but for 
 Mr. Vaughan's sake we must hush it up; and, 
 as for safety, why, the Major is hardly strong 
 enough to do him any worse damage than that." 
 
 The good old thing wiped away a tear from 
 her eyes. She was very fond of Derrick, and it 
 went to her heart that he should lead such a 
 dog's life. 
 
 I said what I could to comfort her, and she 
 went down again, fearful lest he should discover 
 her upstairs and guess that she had opened her 
 heart to me. 
 
 Poor Derrick ! That he of all people on earth 
 should be mixed up with sucli a police-court 
 story with drunkards, and violence, and pokers 
 figuring in it! I lay back in the carnp-chair and 
 looked at Hoffman's " Christ," and thought of
 
 68 DERRICK VAUG HAN NOVELIST. 
 
 all the extraordinary problems that one is for- 
 ever coming across in life. And I wondered 
 whether the people of Bath who saw the tall, 
 impassive-looking, hazel-eyed son and the invalid 
 father in their daily pilgrimages to the Pump- 
 Room, or in church on Sunday, or in the Park 
 on sunny afternoons, had the least notion of the 
 tragedy that was going on. My reflections were 
 interrupted by his entrance. He had forced up 
 a cheerfulness that I am sure he didn't really 
 feel, and seemed afraid of letting our talk flag 
 for a moment. I remember, too, that for the 
 first time.he offered to read me his novel, instead 
 of as usual waiting for me to ask to hear it. I 
 can see him now, fetching the untidy portfolio 
 and turning over the pages, adroitly enough, as 
 though anxious to show how immaterial was the 
 loss of a left arm. That night I listened to the 
 first half of the third volume of " Lyn wood's 
 Heritage," and couldn't help reflecting that its 
 author seemed to thrive on misery; and yet how 
 I grudged him to this deadly-lively place, and this 
 monotonous, cooped-up life. 
 
 " How do you manage to write one-handed? " 
 I asked. 
 
 And he sat down to his desk, put a letter-
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 69 
 
 weight on the left-hand corner of the sheet of 
 foolscap, and wrote that comical first paragraph 
 of the eighth chapter over which we have all 
 laughed. I suppose few readers guessed the 
 author's state of mind when he wrote it. I 
 looked over his shoulder to see what he had 
 written, and couldn't help laughing aloud, I 
 verily believe that it was his way of turning off 
 attention from his arm, and leading me safely 
 from the region of awkward questions. 
 
 ." By-the-bye," I exclaimed, " your writing of 
 garden-parties reminds me. I went to one at 
 Campden Hill the other day, and had the good 
 fortune to meet Miss Freda Merrifield." 
 
 How his face lighted up, poor fellow, and what 
 a flood of questions he poured out. " She looked 
 very well and very pretty," I replied. " I 
 played two sets of tennis with her. She asked 
 after you directly she saw me, seeming to think 
 that we always hunted in couples. I told her 
 you were living here, taking care of an invalid 
 father ; but just then up came the others to ar- 
 range the game. She and I got the best courts, 
 and as we crossed over to them she told me she 
 had me your brother several times last autumn, 
 when she had been staying near Aldershot.
 
 70 DERRICK VAVGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 Odd that he never mentioned her here ; but I 
 don't suppose she made much impression on him. 
 She is not at all his style." 
 
 "Did you have much more talk with her?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " No, nothing to be called talk. She told me 
 they were leaving London next week, and she 
 was longing to get back to the country to her 
 beloved animals rabbits, poultry, an aviary, and 
 ail that kind of thing. I should gather that they 
 had kept her rather in the background this sea- 
 son, but I understand that the eldest sister is to 
 be married in the winter, and then no doubt 
 Miss Freda will be brought forward." 
 
 He seemed wonderfully cheered by this oppor- 
 tune meeting, and though there was so little to 
 tell he appeared to be quite content. I left him 
 on Monday in fairly good "spirits, and did not 
 come across him again till September, when his 
 arm was well, and his novel finished and revised. 
 He never made two copies of his work, and I 
 fancy this was perhaps because he spent so short 
 a time each day in actual writing, and lived so 
 continually in his work ; moreover, as I said 
 before, he detested penmanship. 
 
 The last part of * Lynwood ' far exceeded my
 
 DEEIUCK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 71 
 
 expectations ; perhaps yet I don't really think 
 so I viewed it too favorably. But I owed the 
 book a debt of gratitude, since it certainly helped 
 me through the worst part of my life. 
 
 " Don't you feel flat now it is finished ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " I felt so miserable that I had to plunge into 
 another story three da}-s after," he replied ; and 
 then and there he gave me the sketch of his sec- 
 ond novel, " At Strife," and told me how he meant 
 to weave in his childish fancies about the defense 
 of the bridge in the Civil Wars. 
 
 " And about ' Lynwood ' ? Are you coming 
 up to town to hawk him round ? " I asked. 
 
 " I can't do that," he said ; " you see I am tied 
 here. No, I must send him off by rail, and let 
 him take his chance." 
 
 "No such thing?" I cried. "If you can't 
 leavs Bath I will take him round for you." 
 
 And Derrick, who with the oddest inconsis- 
 tency would let his MS. lie about anyhow at 
 home, but hated the thought of sending it out 
 alone on its travels, gladly accepted my offer. 
 So next week I set off with the huge brown- 
 paper parcel ; few. however, will appreciate my 
 good nature, for no one but an author or a pub-
 
 72 DERRICK VAUGHAN-NOVELIST. 
 
 lisher knows the fearful weight of a three-volume 
 novel in MS. ! To my intense satisfaction I soon 
 got rid of it, for the first good firm to which I 
 took it received it with great politeness, to be 
 handed over to their "reader" for an opinion; 
 and apparently the "reader's " opinion coincided 
 with mine, for a month later Derrick received 
 an offer for it with which he at once closed 
 not because it was a good one, but because the 
 firm was well thought of, and because he wished 
 to lose no time, but to have the book published 
 at once. I happened to be there when his first 
 " proofs " arrived. The Major had had an attack 
 of jaundice, and was in a fiendish humor. We 
 had a miserable time of it at dinner, for he b.vl- 
 gered Derrick almost past bearing, and I think 
 the poor old fellow minded it more when there 
 was a third person present. Somehow, through 
 all, he managed to keep his extraordinary capac- 
 ity for reverencing mere age even this de- 
 graded and detestable old age of the Major's. I 
 often thought that in this he was like my own 
 ancestor, Hugo Wharncliffe, whose deference 
 and respectfulnesss and patience had not de- 
 scended to me, while unfortunately the effects of 
 his physical infirmities had. I sometimes used
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 73 
 
 to reflect bitterly enough on the truth of Her- 
 bert Spencer's teaching as to heredity, so clearly 
 shown in my own case. In the year 1683, through 
 the abominable cruelty and harshness of his 
 brother Randolph, tiiis Hugo Wharncliffe, my 
 great-great-great-great-great grandfather, was im- 
 mured in Newgate, and his constitution was 
 thereby so much impaired and enfeebled that, 
 two hundred years after, my constitution is pay- 
 ing the penalty, and my whole life is thereby 
 changed and thwarted. Hence this childless 
 Randolph is affecting the course of several lives 
 in the 19th century to their grievous hurt. 
 
 But revenons a nos moutons that is to say, 
 to our lion and lamb the old brute of a Major 
 and his long-suffering son. 
 
 While the table was being cleared, the Major 
 took forty winks on the sofa, and we two beat a 
 retreat, lit up our pipes in the passage, and were 
 just turning out when the postman's double 
 knock came, but no shower of letters in the 
 box. Derrick threw open the door, and the man 
 handed him a fat stumpy-looking roll in a pink 
 wrapper. 
 
 "I say !" he exclaimed, "proofs!" 
 
 And, in hot haste, he began tearing away the
 
 74 DERRICK VAUG1IAN NOVELIST. 
 
 pink paper, till out came the clean folded bits of 
 printing and the dirty and dishevelled blue fool- 
 scap, the look of which I knew so well. It is an 
 odd feeling, that first seeing oneself in print, and 
 I could guess, even then, what a thrill shot 
 through Derrick as he turned over the pages. 
 But he would not take them into the sitting-room, 
 no doubt dreading another diatribe against his 
 profession ; and we solemnly played euchre, and 
 patiently endured the Majors withering sarcasms 
 till ten o'clock sounded our happy release. 
 
 However, to make a long story short, a month 
 later that is, at the end of November ' Lyn- 
 wood's Heritage ' was published, in three vol- 
 umes with maroon cloth and gilt lettering. 
 Derrick had distributed among his friends the 
 publishers' announcement of the day of publica- 
 tion ; and when it was out I besieged the lib- 
 raries for it, always expressing surprise if I did 
 not find it in their lists. Then began the time 
 of reviews. As I had expected, they were ex- 
 tremely favorable, with the exception of The 
 Herald, The Stroller, and The Hour, which made 
 it rather hot for him, the latter in particular 
 pitching into his views and assuring its readers 
 that the book was " dangerous," and its author a
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 75 
 
 believer in various things especially repugnant 
 to Derrick, as it happened. 
 
 I was with him when he read these reviews. 
 Over the cleverness of the satirical attack in The 
 Weekly Herald he laughed heartily, though the 
 laugh was against himself ; and as to the critic 
 who wrote in The Stroller, it was apparent to all 
 who knew ' Lynwood ' that he had not read much 
 of the book ; but over this review in The Hour 
 he was genuinely angry it hurt him personally, 
 and, as it afterwards turned out, played no 
 small part in the story of his life. The good 
 reviews, however, were many and their recom- 
 mendation of the book hearty ; they all prophesied 
 that it would be a great success. Yet, spite of 
 this, * Lyn wood's Heritage' didn't sell. Was it, 
 as I had feared, that Derrick was too devoid of 
 the pushing faculty ever to make a successful 
 writer? Or was it that he was handicapped by 
 being down in the provinces playing keeper to 
 that abominable old bear ? Anyhow, the book 
 was well received, read with enthusiasm by an 
 extremely small circle, and then it dropped down 
 to the bottom among the mass of overlooked 
 literature, and its career seemed to be over. I 
 can recall the look in Derrick's face when one
 
 76 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 day he glanced through the new Mudie and 
 Smith lists and found 4 Lyn wood's Heritage ' no 
 longer down. I had been trying to cheer him 
 up about the book and quoting all the favorable 
 remarks I had heard about it. But unluckily this 
 vas damning evidence against my optimist view. 
 
 He sighed heavily and put down the lists. 
 
 " It's no use to deceive oneself," he said 
 drearily, "'Lyn wood' has failed." 
 
 Something in the deep depression of look and 
 tone gave me a momentary insight into the 
 author's heart. He thought, I know, of the 
 agony of mind this book had cost him ; of those 
 long months of waiting and their deadly struggle, 
 Of the hopes which had made all he passed 
 through seem so well worth while ; and the 
 bitterness of the disappointment was no doubt 
 intensified by the knowledge that the Major 
 would rejoice over it. 
 
 We -walked that afternoon along the Bradford 
 Valley, a road which Derrick was specially fond 
 of. He loved the thickly-wooded hills, and the 
 glimpses of the Avon which, flanked by the canal 
 and the railway, runs parallel with the high 
 road ; he always admired, too, a certain little 
 village with gray stone cottages which lay in
 
 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST 11 
 
 this direction, and liked to look at the site of the 
 old hall near the road: nothing remained of it 
 but the tall gate posts, and rusty iron gates look- 
 ing strangely dreary and deserted, and within 
 one could see, between some dark yew trees, an 
 old terrace walk with stone steps and balus- 
 trades the most ghostly-looking place you can 
 conceive. 
 
 " I know you'll put this into a book some 
 day," I said, laughing. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " it is already beginning to 
 simmer in my brain." Apparently his deep dis- 
 appointment as to his first venture had in no way 
 affected his perfectly clear consciousness that, 
 come what would, he had to write. 
 
 As we walked back to Bath he told me his 
 'Ruined Hall' story as far as it had yet evolved 
 itself in his bruin, and we were still discussing 
 it when in Milsom Street we met a boy crying 
 evening papers, and details of the last great 
 battle at Saspataras Hill. 
 
 Derrick broke off hastily, everything but 
 anxiety for Lawrence driven from his mind.
 
 18 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "Say not, O Soul, thou art defeated, 
 
 Because thou art distiest ; 
 If thou of better things art cheated, 
 Thou canst not be of best." T. T. LYNCH, 
 
 " GOOD Heavens, Sydney ! " lie exclaimed in 
 great excitement and with his whole face aglow 
 with pleasure, " look here ! " 
 
 He pointed to a few lines in the paper which 
 mentioned the heroic conduct of Lieutenant L. 
 Vaughan, who at the risk of his life had rescued 
 a brother officer when surrounded by the enemy 
 and completely disabled. Lieutenant Vaughan 
 had managed to mount the wounded man on his 
 own horse and had miraculously escaped himself 
 with nothing worse than a sword-thrust in the 
 left arm. 
 
 We went home in triumph to the Major, and 
 Derrick read the whole account aloud. With 
 all his detestation of war, he was nevertheless 
 greatly stirred by the description of the gallant 
 defence of the attacked position and for a time 
 we were all at one, and could talk of nothing
 
 DEREICK VAUG HAN NOVELIST. 79 
 
 but Lawrence's heroism, and Victoria crosses, and 
 the prospects of peace. However, all too soon, 
 the Major's fiendish temper returned, and he 
 began to use the event of the day as a weapon 
 against Derrick, continally taunting him with 
 the contrast between his stay-at-home life of 
 scribbling and Lawrence's life of heroic adven- 
 ture. I could never make out whether he wanted 
 to goad his son into leaving him, in order that 
 lie might driak himself to death in peace, or 
 whether he merely indulged in his natural love 
 of tormenting, valuing Derrick's devotion as con- 
 ducive to his own comfort, and knowing that 
 hard words would not drive him from what he 
 deemed his duty. I rather incline to the latter 
 view, but the old Major was always an enigma 
 to me ; nor can I to this day make out his raison- 
 cTetre, except on the theory that the training of 
 a novelist required a course of slow torture, and 
 that the old man was sent into the world to be a 
 sort of thorn in the flesh to Derrick. 
 
 What with the disappontment about his first 
 book, and the difficulty of writing his second, 
 the fierce craving for Freda's presence, the 
 struggle not to allow his admiration for Law- 
 rence's bravery to become poisoned by envy under
 
 80 DERRICK VAUG11AN NOVELIST. 
 
 the influence of the Major's incessant attacks, 
 Derrick had just then a hard time of it. lie 
 never complained, but I noticed a great change 
 in him ; his melancholy increased, his flashes of 
 humor and merriment became fewer and fewer 
 I began to be afraid that he would break down. 
 
 " For God's sake ! " I exclaimed one evening 
 when left alone with the Doctor after an even- 
 ing of whist, "do order the Major to London. 
 Derrick has been mewed up here with him for 
 nearly two 3 T ears, ?nd I don't think he can stand 
 it mucli longer." 
 
 So the Doctor kindly contrived to advise the 
 Major to consult a well-known London physician 
 and to spend a fortnight in town, further sug- 
 gesting that a month at Ben Rhydding might be 
 enjoyable before settling down at Bath again for 
 the winter. Luckily the Major took to the idea, 
 and just as Lawrence returned from the war 
 Derrick and his father arrived in town. The 
 change seemed likely to work well, and I was 
 able now and then to release my friend and play 
 cribbage with the old man for an hour or two 
 while Derrick tore about London, interviewed 
 Ilia publisher, made researches into seventeenth 
 century documents at the British Museum, and
 
 DERRICK VAUGBAN NOVELIST. 81 
 
 somehow managed in his rapid way to acquire 
 those glimpses of life and character which he 
 afterwards turned to such good account. All 
 was grist that came to his mill, and at first the 
 mere sight of his old home, London, seemed to 
 revive him. Of course at the very first oppor- 
 tunity he called at the Probyns, and we both of 
 us had an invitation to go there on the following 
 Wednesday to see the march-past of the troops 
 and to lunch. Derrick was nearly beside him- 
 self at the prospect, for he knew that he should 
 certainly meet Freda at last, and the mingled 
 pain and bliss of being actually in the same 
 place with her, yet as completely separated as if 
 seas rolled between them, was beginning to try 
 him terribly. 
 
 Meantime Lawrence turned up again, greatly 
 improved in every way by all that he had lived 
 through, but rather too ready to fall in with his 
 father's tone towards Derrick. The relations 
 between the two brothers always a little peculiar 
 became more and more difficult, and the Major 
 seemed to enjoy pitting them against each other. 
 
 At length the day of the review arrived. 
 Derrick was not looking well, his eyes were 
 
 heavy with sleeplessness, and the Major had 
 
 G
 
 82 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 been unusually exasperating at breakfast that 
 morning, so that he started with a jaded, worn- 
 out feeling that would not wholly yield even to 
 the excitement of this long-expected meeting 
 with Freda. When he found himself in the 
 great drawing-room at Lord Probyn's house, 
 amid a buzz of talk and a crowd of strange faces, 
 he was seized with one of those sudden attacks 
 of shyness to which he was always liable. In 
 fact, he had been so long alone with the old 
 Major that this plunge into society was too great 
 a reaction, and the very thing he had so longed 
 for became a torture to him. 
 
 Freda was at the other end of the room talk- 
 ing to Keith Collins, the well-known member 
 for Codrington, whose curious but attractive 
 face was known to all the world through the 
 caricatures of it in * Punch.' I knew that she 
 saw Derrick, and that he instantly perceived 
 her and that a miserable sense of separation, of 
 distance, of hopelessness overwhelmed him us he 
 looked. After all, it was natural enough. For 
 two years he had thought of Freda night and 
 day ; in his unutterably dreary life her memory 
 had been his refreshment, his solace, his com- 
 panion. Now he was suddenly brought face to
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 83 
 
 face, not with the Freda of his dreams, but with 
 a fashionable, beautifully dressed, much-sought 
 girl, and he felt that a gulf lay between them ; it 
 was the gulf of experience. Freda's life in 
 society, the whirl of gayety, the excitement and 
 success which she had been enjoying throughout 
 the season, and his miserable monotony of com- 
 panionship with his invalid father, of hard work 
 and weary disappointment, had broken down 
 the bond of union that had once existed be- 
 tween them. From either side they looked at 
 each other Freda with a wondering perplexity, 
 Derrick with a dull grinding pain at his heart. 
 
 Of course they spoke to each other ; but I fancy 
 the merest platitudes passed between them. 
 Somehow they had lost touch and a crowded 
 London drawing-room was hardly the place to 
 regain it. 
 
 " So your novel is really out," I heard her say 
 to him in that deep, clear voice of hers. " I like 
 the design on the cover." 
 
 " Oh, have you read the book ? " said Derrick 
 coloring. 
 
 " Well, no," she said, truthfully. " I wanted 
 to read it, but my father wouldn't let me he is 
 very particular about what we read."
 
 84 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 That frank but not very happily worded an- 
 swer was like a stab to poor Derrick. He had 
 given to the world, then a book that was not fit 
 for her to read. This ' Lynwood,' which had 
 been written with his own heart's blood, was 
 counted a dangerous, poisonous thing, from which 
 she must be guarded ! 
 
 Freda must have seen that she had hurt him, 
 for she tried hard to retrieve her words. 
 
 " It was tantalizing to have it actually in the 
 house, wasn't it ? I have a grudge against The 
 Hour, for it was the review in that which set my 
 father against it." Then, rather anxious to leave 
 the difficult subject "And has your brother 
 quite recovered from his wound ? " 
 
 I think she was a little vexed that Derrick did 
 not show more animation in his replies about 
 Lawrence's adventures during the war ; the less 
 he responded the more enthusiastic she became, 
 and I am perfectly sure that in her heart she was 
 thinking 
 
 " He is jealous of his brother's fame I am dis- 
 appointed in him. He has grown dull, and absent, 
 and stupid, and he is dreadfully wanting in small- 
 talk. I fear that his life down in the provinces 
 is turning him into a bear."
 
 DERRICK VAUG II AN NOVELIST. 85 
 
 She brought the conversation back to his book ; 
 but there was a little touch of scorn in her voice, 
 as if she thought to herself, "I suppose he is one 
 of those people who can only talk on one subject 
 his own doings." Her manner was almost 
 brusque. 
 
 " Your novel has had a great success, has it 
 not ? " she asked. 
 
 He instantly perceived her thought, and replied 
 with a touch of dignity and a proud smile 
 
 " On the contrary, it has been a great failure ; 
 only three hundred and nine copies have been 
 sold.". 
 
 " I wonder at that," said Freda, " for one eo 
 often hears it talked of." 
 
 He promptly changed the topic, and began to 
 speak of the march past. " I want to see Lord 
 Starcross," he added. " I have no idea what a 
 hero is like." 
 
 Just then Lady Probyn came up, followed by 
 an elderly harpy in spectacles and false, much- 
 frizzed fringe. 
 
 ' ; Mrs. Carsteen wishes to be introduced to you, 
 Mr. Vaughan; she is a great admirer of your 
 writings." 
 
 And poor Derrick, who was then quite unused
 
 86 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 to the species, had to stand and receive a flood 
 of the most fulsome flattery, delivered in a 
 strident voice, and to bear the critical and pro- 
 longed stare of the spectacled eyes. Nor would 
 the harpy easily release her prey. She kept him 
 much against his will, and I saw him looking 
 wistfully now and then towards Freda. 
 
 " It amuses me," I said to her, " that Derrick 
 Vaughan should be so anxious to see Lord Star- 
 cross. It reminds me of Charles Lamb's anxiety 
 to see Kosciusko, ' for,' said he, ' 1 have never 
 seen a hero ; I wonder how they look,' while all 
 the time he himself was living a life of heroic 
 self-sacrifice." 
 
 " Mr. Vaughan, I should think, need only look 
 at his own brother," said Freda, missing the drift 
 of my speech. 
 
 I longed to tell her what it was possible to tell 
 of Derrick's life, but at that moment Sir Richard 
 Merrifield introduced to his daughter a girl in a 
 huge hat and great flopping sleeves, Miss Isaacson, 
 whose picture at the Grosvenor had been so much 
 talked of. Now the little artist knew no one in 
 the room, and Freda saw fit to be extremely 
 friendly to her. She was introduced to me, and 
 I did my best to talk to her and set Freda at
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 87 
 
 liberty as soon as the harpy had released Derrick ; 
 but my endeavors were frustrated, for Miss 
 Isaacson, having looked me well over, decided 
 that I was not at all intense, but a mere common- 
 place, slightly cynical worldling, and having 
 exchanged a few lukewarm remarks with me, 
 she returned to Freda, and stuck to her like a 
 bur for the rest of the time. 
 
 We stood out on the balcony to see the troops 
 go by. It was a fine sight, and we all became 
 highly enthusiastic. Freda enjoyed the mere 
 pageant like a child, and was delighted with the 
 horses. She looked now more like the Freda of 
 the yacht, and I wished that Derrick could be 
 near her ; but, as ill-luck would have it, he was 
 at some distance, hemmed in by an impassable 
 barrier of eager spectators. 
 
 Lawrence Vaughan rode past, looking wonder- 
 fully well in his uniform. He was riding a 
 spirited bay, which took Freda's fancy amazingly, 
 though she reserved her chief enthusiasm for Lord 
 Starcross and his steed. It was not until all was 
 over and we had returned to the drawing-room, 
 that Derrick managed to get the talk with 
 Freda for which I knew he was longing, and 
 then they were fated, apparently, to disagree. I
 
 88 DERRICK VAUGH AN NOVELIST. 
 
 was standing near and overheard the close of their 
 talk. 
 
 "I do believe you must be a member of the Peace 
 Society ! " said Freda impatiently. " Or perhaps 
 you have turned Quaker. But I want to in- 
 troduce you to my godfather, Mr. Fleming; you 
 know it was his son whom your brother saved." 
 
 And I heard Derrick being introduced as the 
 brother of the hero of Saspataras Hill ; and the 
 next day he received a card for one of Mrs. 
 Fleming's receptions, Lawrence having previously 
 been invited to dine there on the same night. 
 
 What happened at that party I never exactly 
 understood. All I could gather was that Law- 
 rence had been tremendously feted, that Freda 
 had been present, and that poor old Derrick was 
 as miserable as he could be when I next saw him. 
 Putting two and to together, I guessed that he had 
 been tantalized by a mere sight of her, possibly 
 tortured by watching more favored men enjoying 
 long tete-a-tetes ; but he would say little or noth- 
 ing about it, and when, soon after, he and the 
 Major left London, I feared that the fortnight had 
 done my friend harm instead of good.
 
 DERRICK VAUGH AN NOVELIST. 89 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 11 Then in that hour rejoice, since only thus 
 Can thy proud heart grow wholly piteous. 
 Thus only to the world thy speech can flow 
 Charged with the sad authority of woe. . 
 
 Since no man nurtured in the shade can sing 
 To a true note one psalm of conquering; 
 Warriors must chant it whom our own eyes see 
 Red from the battle and more bruised than we, 
 Men who have borne the worst, have known the whole, 
 Have felt the last abeyance of the soul." 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS. 
 
 ABOUT the beginning of August I rejoined 
 him at Ben Rhydding. The place suited the 
 Major admirably, and his various baths took up 
 so great a part of each day, that Derrick had 
 more time to himself than usual, and " At Strife " 
 got on rapidly. He much enjoyed, too, the 
 beautiful country round, while the hotel itself, 
 with its huge gathering of all sorts and condi- 
 tions of people, afforded him endless studies of 
 character. The Major breakfasted in his own 
 room, and, being so much engrossed with his 
 baths, did not generally appear till twelve. Der- 
 rick and I breakfasted in the great dining-hall ;
 
 90 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 
 
 and one morning, when the meal was over, we 
 as usual, strolled into the drawing-room to see if 
 there were any letters awaiting us. 
 
 " One for you," I remarked, handing him a 
 thick envelope. 
 
 " From Lawrence ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Well, don't read it in here ; the doctor will 
 be coming to read prayers. Come out in the 
 garden," I said. 
 
 We went out into the beautiful grounds, and 
 he tore open the envelope and began to read his 
 letter as we walked. All at once I felt the arm 
 which was linked in mine give a quick involun- 
 tary movement, and, looking up, saw that Der- 
 rick had turned deadly .pale. 
 
 " What's up? " I said. But he read on with- 
 out replying; and, when I paused and sat down 
 on a sheltered rustic seat, he unconsciously fol- 
 lowed my example, looking more like a sleep- 
 walker than a man in the possession of all his 
 faculties.. At last he finished the letter, and 
 looked up in a dazed, miserable way, letting his 
 .eyes wander over the fir-trees and the fragrant 
 shrubs and the flowers by the path. 
 
 "Dear old fellow, what is the matter?" I 
 asked.
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN -NOVELIST. 91 
 
 The words seemed to rouse him. 
 
 A dreadful look passed over his face the look 
 of one stricken to the heart. But his voice was 
 perfectly calm, and full of a ghastly self-control. 
 
 " Freda will be my sister-in-law," he said, 
 rather as if stating the fact to himself than an- 
 swering my question. 
 
 " Impossible ! " I said. " What do you mean ? 
 How could- " 
 
 As if to silence me he thrust the letter into 
 my hand. It ran as follows : 
 
 "DEAR DERRICK, For the last few days I have been 
 down at the Flemings' place in Derbyshire, and fortune has 
 favored me, for the Merrifields are here too. Now prepare 
 yourself for a surprise. Break the news to the governor, 
 and send rae your heartiest congratulations by return of post. 
 1 am engaged to Freda Merrifield, and am the happiest fel- 
 low in the world. They are awfully fastidious sort of people, 
 and I do not believe Sir Richard would have consented to 
 such a match had it not been for that lucky impulse which 
 made me rescue Dick Fleming. It has all been arranged 
 very quickly, as these things should be, but we have seen a 
 good deal of each other first at Aldershot the year before 
 last, and just lately in town, and now these four days down 
 here and ciays in a country house are equal to weeks else- 
 where. I enclose a letter to my father give it to him at a 
 suitable moment but, after all, he is sure to approve of a 
 daughter-in-law with such a dowry as Miss Merrifield is 
 likely to have. 
 
 " Tours, affly, 
 
 " LAWRENCE VAUGHAN." 
 
 I gave him back the letter without a word.
 
 92 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 In dead silence we moved on, took a turning 
 which led to a little narrow gate, and passed out 
 of the grounds to the wild moorland country be- 
 yond. 
 
 After all, Freda was in no way to blame. As 
 a mere girl she had allowed Derrick to see that 
 she cared for him ; then circumstances had en- 
 tirely separated them; she saw more of the 
 world, met Lawrence, was perhaps first attracted 
 to him by his very likeness to Derrick, and 
 finally fell in love with the hero of the season, 
 whom every one delighted to honor. Nor could 
 one blame Lawrence, who had no notion that he 
 had supplanted his brother. All the blame lay 
 with the Major's slavery to drink, for if only he 
 had remained out in India I feel sure that mat- 
 ters would have gone quite differently. 
 
 We tramped on over heather and ling and 
 springy turf till we reached the old ruin known 
 as the Hunting Tower ; then Derrick seemed to 
 awake to the recollection of present things. He 
 looked at his watch. 
 
 " 1 must go back to my father," he said, for 
 the first time breaking the silence. 
 
 " You shall do no such thing ! " I cried. " Stay
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 93 
 
 out here, and I will see to the Major, and give 
 him the letter too if you like." 
 
 He caught at the suggestion, and as he 
 thanked me I think there were tears in his eyes. 
 So I took the letter and set off for Ben Rhyd- 
 ding, leaving him to get what relief he could 
 from solitude, space, and absolute quiet. Once 
 I just glanced back, and somehow the scene has 
 always lingered in my memory the great 
 stretch of desolate moor, the dull crimson of the 
 heather, the lowering gray clouds, the Hunting 
 Tower a patch of deeper gloom against the 
 gloomy sky, and Derrick's figure prostrate on the 
 turf, the face hidden, the hands grasping at the 
 sprigs of heather growing near. 
 
 The Major was just ready to be helped into 
 the garden when I reached the hotel. We sat 
 down in the very same place where Derrick had 
 read the news, and when I judged it politic, I 
 suddenly remembered with apologies the letter 
 that had been intrusted to me. The old man 
 received it with satisfaction, for he was fond of 
 Lawrence and proud of him, and the news of the 
 engagement pleased him greatly. He was still 
 discussing it when, two hours later, Derrick re- 
 turned.
 
 94 DERRICK VAUG II AN NOVELIST. 
 
 " Here's good news ! " said the Major, glancing 
 up as his son approached. " Trust Lawrence to 
 fall on his feet! He tells me the girl will have 
 a thousand a year. You know her, don't you? 
 What's she like?" 
 
 " I have met her," replied Derrick, with forced 
 composure. " She is very charming." 
 
 " Lawrence has all his wits about him," growled 
 
 the Major. " Whereas you " (several oaths 
 
 interjected). "It will be a long while before 
 any girl with a dowry will look at you ! What 
 women like is a bold man of action ; what they 
 despise, mere dabblers in pen and ink, writers of 
 poisonous sensational tales such as you re ! I'm 
 quoting your own reviewers, so you needn't con- 
 tradict me ! " 
 
 Of course no one had dreamt of contradict- 
 ing ; it would have been the worst possible policy. 
 
 " Shall I help you in ? " said Derrick. " It is 
 just dinner time." 
 
 And as I walked beside them to the hotel, lis- 
 tening to the Major's flood of irritating words, 
 and glancing now and then at Derrick's grave, 
 resolute face, which successfully masked such 
 bitter suffering, I couldn't help reflecting that 
 here was courage infinitely more deserving of the
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 95 
 
 Victoria Cross than Lawrence's impulsive rescue. 
 Very patiently lie sat through the long dinner. 
 I doubt if any but an acute observer could have 
 told that he was in trouble ; and, luckily, the 
 world in general observes hardly at all. He en- 
 dured the Major till it was time for him to take 
 a Turkish bath, and then, having two hours' 
 freedom, climbed with me up the rock-covered 
 hill at the back of the hotel. He was very silent. 
 But I remember that, as we watched the sun go 
 down a glowing crimson ball, half veiled in 
 gray mist he said, abruptly, " If Lawrence 
 makes her happy I can bear it. And of course 
 I always knew that I was not worthy of her." 
 
 Derrick's room was a large, gaunt, glustly 
 place in one of the towers of the hotel, and in 
 one corner of it was a winding stair leading to 
 the roof. When I went in next morning I found 
 him writing away at his novel just as usual, but 
 when I looked at him it seemed to me that the 
 night had aged him fearfully. As a rule, he took 
 interruptions as a matter of course, and with 
 perfect sweetness of temper; but to-day he 
 seemed unable to drag himself back to the outer 
 world. He was writing at a desperate pace too, 
 and frowned when I spoke to him. I took up
 
 96 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 the sheet of foolscap which he had just finished 
 and glanced at the number of the page evi- 
 dently he had written an immense quantity since 
 the previous day. 
 
 "You will knock yourself up if you go on at 
 this rate ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " he said, sharply. " You know 
 it never tires me." 
 
 Yet, all the same, he passed his hand very 
 wearily over his forehead, and stretched himself 
 with the air of one who had been in a cramping 
 position for many hours. 
 
 
 
 " You have broken your vow ! " I cried. " You 
 have been writing at night." 
 
 " No," he said ; " it was morning whon I 
 began three o'clock. And it pays better to 
 get up and write than to lie awake thinking." 
 
 Judging by the speed with which the novel 
 grew in the next few weeks, I could tell that 
 Derrick's nights were of the worst. 
 
 He began, too, to look very thin and haggard, 
 and I more than once noticed that curious 
 " sleep-walking " expression in his eyes ; he 
 seemed to me just like a man who has received 
 his death-blow, yet still lingers half alive, half 
 dead. I had an odd feeling that it was his novel
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 97 
 
 which kept him going, and I began to wonder 
 what would happen when it was finished. 
 
 A month later, when I met him again at Bath 
 he had written the last chapter of " At Strife," 
 and we read it over the sitting-room fire on the 
 Saturday evening. I was very much struck 
 with the book ; it seemed to me a great advance 
 on u Lymvood's Heritage," and the part which 
 he had written since that day at Ben Rhydding 
 was full of an indescribable power, as if the life 
 of which he had been robbed had flowed into his 
 work. When he had done, he tied up the MS. 
 in his usual prosaic fashion, just as if it had 
 been a bundle of clothes, and put it on a side 
 table. 
 
 It was arranged that I should take it to Davi- 
 son the publisher of " Lynwood's Heritage" 
 on Monday, and see what offer he would make 
 for it. Just at that time I felt so sorry for Der- 
 rick that if he had asked me to hawk round fifty 
 novels I would have done it. 
 
 Sunday morning proved wet and dismal ; as 
 a rule the Major, who was fond of music, attended 
 service at the Abbey, but the weather forced 
 him now to stay at home. I myself was at that 
 time no church-goer, but Derrick would, I verily
 
 98 DERRICK VAUGHAX-NOVELIST. 
 
 believe, as soon have fasted a week as have 
 given up a Sunday morning service ; and having 
 no mind to be left to the Major's company, and 
 a sort of wish to be near my friend, I went with 
 him. I believe it is not correct to admire Bath 
 Abbey, but for all that " the lantern of the west " 
 has always seemed to me a grand place ; as for 
 Derrick, he had a horror of a " dim religious 
 light," and always stuck up for its huge windows, 
 and I believe he loved the Abbey with all his 
 heart. Indeed, taking it only from a sensuous 
 point of view, I could quite imagine what a re- 
 lief he found his weekly attendance here ; by con- 
 trast with his home the place was Heaven itself. 
 
 As we walked back, I asked a question that 
 had long been in my mind ; " Have you seen 
 anything of Lawrence ? " 
 
 " He saw us across London on our way from 
 Ben Rhydding," said Derrick, steadily. " Freda 
 came with him, and my father was delighted 
 with her." 
 
 I wondered how they had got through the 
 meeting, but of course my curiosity had to go 
 unsatisfied. Of one thing I might be certain, 
 namely, that Derrick had gone through with it 
 like a Trojan, that he had smiled and congratu-
 
 DERRICK VAUG1IAN NOVELIST. 9 
 
 lated in his quiet way, and had done his best to 
 efface himself and think only of Freda. But as 
 everyone knows 
 
 " Face joy's a costly mask to wear, 
 'Tis bought with pangs long nourished 
 And rounded to despair," 
 
 and he looked now even more worn and old than 
 he had done at Ben Rhydding in the first days of 
 his trouble. 
 
 However, he turned resolutely away from the 
 subject I had introduced and began to discuss 
 titles for his novel. 
 
 " It's impossible to find anything new," he said, 
 "absolutely impossible. I declare I shall take 
 to numbers." 
 
 I laughed at this prosaic notion, and we were 
 still discussing the title when we reached home. 
 
 " Don't say anything about it at lunch," he 
 said as we entered. "My father detests my 
 writing." 
 
 I nodded assent and opened the sitting-room 
 door a strong smell of brandy instantly became 
 apparent ; the Major sat in the green velvet 
 chair, which had been wheeled close to the 
 hearth. He was drunk. 
 
 Derrick gave an ejaculation of utter hopeless- 
 ness.
 
 100 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 " This will undo all the good of Ben Ilhyd- 
 ding ! " he said. " How on earth has he man- 
 aged to get it ? " 
 
 The Major, however, was not so far gone as 
 he looked ; he caught up the remark and turned 
 towards us with a hideous laugh. 
 
 " Ah, yes," he said, " that's the question. But 
 the old man has still some brains, you see. I'll 
 be even with you yet, Derrick. You needn't 
 think you're to have it all your own way. It's 
 my turn now. You've deprived me all this time 
 of the only thing I care for in life, and now I 
 turn the tables on you. Tit for tat. Oh ! yes, 
 
 I've turned your d d scribblings to a useful 
 
 purpose, so you needn't complain ! " 
 
 Ail this had been shouted out at the top of his 
 voice and freely interlarded with expressions 
 which I will not repeat ; at the end he broke 
 again into a laugh, and with a look, half idiotic, 
 half devilish, pointed towards the grate. 
 
 "Good Heavens!" I said, "What have you 
 done?" 
 
 By the side of the chair I saw a piece of brown 
 paper, and, catching it up, read the address 
 "Messrs. Davison, Paternoster Row" in the 
 fireplace was a huge charred mass. Derrick
 
 DERRICK VAUGH AN NOVELIST. 101 
 
 caught his breath ; he stooped down and snatched 
 from the fender a fragment of paper slightly 
 burned, but still not charred beyond recognition 
 liked the rest. The writing was quite legible 
 it was his own writing the description of the 
 Royalist's attack, and Paul Wharncliffe's defence 
 of the bridge. I looked from the half-burnt scrap 
 of paper to the side table where, only the previous 
 night, we had placed the novel, and then, realiz- 
 ing as far as any but an author could realize, the 
 frightful thing that had happened, I looked in 
 Derrick's face. It's white fury appalled me. 
 What he had borne hitherto from the Major, God 
 only knows, but this was the last drop in the cup. 
 Daily insults, ceaseless provocation, even the 
 humiliation of personal violence he had borne 
 with superhuman patience ; but this last injury, 
 this wantonly cruel outrage, this deliberate de- 
 struction of an amount of thought, and labor, and 
 suffering which only the writer himself could 
 fully estimate this was intolerable. 
 
 What might have happened had the Major 
 been sober and in the possession of ordinary 
 physical strength I hardly care to think. As it 
 was, his weakness protected him. Derrick's 
 wrath was speechless ; with one look of loathing
 
 102 DERRICK VAUGHAN- NOVELIST. 
 
 and contempt at the drunken man, he strode out 
 of the room, caught up his hat, and hurried from 
 the house. 
 
 The Major sat chuckling to himself for a min- 
 ute or two, but soon he grew drowsy, and before 
 long was snoring like a grampus. The old land- 
 lady brought in lunch, saw the state of things 
 pretty quickly, shook her head and commiserated 
 Derrick. Then, when she had left the room, see- 
 ing no prospect that either of my companions 
 would be in a fit state for lunch, I made a solitary 
 meal, and had just finished when a cab stopped 
 at the door, and out sprang Derrick. I went into 
 the passage to meet him. 
 
 "The Major is asleep," I remarked. 
 
 He took no more notice than if I had spoken 
 of the cat. 
 
 " I'm going to London," he said, making for 
 the stairs. " Can you get your bag ready? 
 There's a train at 2 : 5." 
 
 Somehow the suddenness and the self-control 
 with which he made this announcement carried 
 me back to the hotel at Southampton, where, 
 after listening to the account of the ship's doctor, 
 he had announced his intention of living with 
 his father. For more than two years he had
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 103 
 
 borne this awful life ; he had lost pretty nearly 
 all that there was to be lost, and he had gained 
 the Major's vindictive hatred. Now, half mad- 
 dened by pain and having, as he thought, so 
 hopelessly failed, he saw nothing for it but to go 
 and that at once. 
 
 I packed my bag, and then went to help him. 
 He was cramming all his possessions into port- 
 manteaus and boxes ; the H ff man was already 
 packed, and the wall looked curiously bare with- 
 out it. Clearly this was no visit to London: he 
 was leaving Bath for good, and who could won- 
 der at it ? 
 
 " I have arranged for the attendant from the 
 hospital to come in at night as well as in the 
 morning," he said, as he locked a portmanteau 
 that was stuffed almost to bursting. " What's 
 the time ? We must make haste or we shall lose 
 the train. Do, like a good fellow, cram that 
 heap of things into the carpet-bag while I speak 
 to the landlady." 
 
 At last we were off, rattling through the quiet 
 streets of Bath, and reaching the station barely 
 in time to rush up the long flight of stairs and 
 spring into an empty carriage. Never shall I 
 forget that journey. The train stopped at every
 
 104 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 
 
 single station, and sometimes in between ; we 
 were five mortal hours on the road, and more 
 than once I thought Derrick would have fainted. 
 However, he was not of the fainting order, he 
 only grew more and more ghastly in color and 
 rigid in expression. 
 
 I felt very anxious about him, for the shock 
 and the sudden anger following on the trouble 
 about Freda seemed to me enough to unhinge 
 even a less sensitive nature. " At Strife " was 
 the novel which had, I firmly believe, kept him 
 alive through that awful time at Ben Rhydding, 
 and I began to fear that the Major's fit of drunken 
 malice might prove the destruction of the author 
 as well as of the book. Everything had, as it 
 were, come at once on poor Derrick ; yet I don't 
 know that he fared worse than other people in 
 this respect. 
 
 Life, unfortunately, is for most of us no well- 
 arranged story with a happy termination ; it is a 
 checkered affair of shade and sun, and for one 
 beam of light there come very often wide patches 
 of shadow. Men seem to have known this so 
 far back as Shakespeare's time, and to have ob- 
 served that one woe trod on another's heels, to 
 have battled not with a single wave, but with a
 
 DERRICK VAUG HAN NOVELIST. 105 
 
 "sea of troubles," and to have remarked that 
 " sorrows come not singly, but in battalions." 
 
 However, owing I believe chiefly to his own 
 self-command, and to his untiring faculty for tak- 
 ing infinite pains over his work, Derrick did not 
 break down, but pleasantly cheated my expecta- 
 tions. I was not called on to nurse him through 
 a fever, and consumption did not mark him for 
 her own. In fact, in the matter of illness, he 
 was always the most prosaic, unromantic fellow, 
 and never indulged in any of the euphonious and 
 interesting ailments. In all his life, I believe, 
 he never went in for anything but the mumps 
 of all complaints the least interesting and, may 
 be, an occasional headache. 
 
 However, all this is a digression. We at length 
 reached London, and Derrick took a room above 
 mine, now and then disturbing me with noctur- 
 nal pacings over the creaking boards, but, on the 
 whole, proving himself the best of companions. 
 
 If I wrote till Doomsday, I could never make 
 you understand how the burning of his novel, 
 affected him to this day it is a subject I instinc- 
 tively avoid with hyii though the rewritten " At 
 Strife " has been such a grand success. For he 
 did re-write the story, and that at once. He said
 
 106 DERRICK VAUGIIAN-NOVEL1ST. 
 
 little ; but the very next morning, in one of the 
 windows of our quiet sitting-room, often enough 
 looking out despairingly at the gray monotony 
 of Montague Street, he began at " Page 1, Chap- 
 ter 1," and so worked patiently on for many 
 months to re-make as far as he could what his 
 drunken father had maliciously destroyed. Be- 
 yond the unburnt paragraph about the attack on 
 Mondisfield, he had nothing except a few hastily 
 scribbled ideas in his note-book, and of course 
 the very elaborate and careful historical notes 
 which he had made on the Civil War, during 
 many years of reading and research for this 
 period had always been a favorite study with 
 him. 
 
 But, as any author will understand, the effort 
 of re-writing was immense, and this, combined 
 with all the other troubles, tried Derrick to the 
 utmost. However, he toiled on, and I have 
 always thought that his resolute, unyielding con- 
 duct with regard to that book pro ved what a man 
 he was.
 
 DERRICK F AUGEAN NOVELIST. 107 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " How oft Fate's sharpest blow shall leave thee strong, 
 With some re-risen ecstacy of song." 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS. 
 
 \s the autumn wore on, we heard now and 
 then from old Mackrill the doctor. His re- 
 ports of the Major were pretty uniform. Derrick 
 used to hand them over to me when he had read 
 them; but, by tacit consent, the Major's name 
 was never mentioned. 
 
 Meantime, besides re-writing " At Strife," he 
 was accumulating material for his next book 
 and working to very good purpose. Not a 
 minute of his day was idle ; he read much, saw 
 various phases of life hitherto unknown to him, 
 studied, observed, gained experience, and con- 
 trived, I believe, to think very little and very 
 guardedly of Freda. 
 
 But, on Christmas Eve, I noticed a change in 
 him and that very night he spoke to me. For 
 such an impressionable fellow, he had really 
 extraordinary tenacity, and, spite of the course
 
 108 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 of Herbert Spencer that I had put him through, 
 he retained his unshaken faith in many things 
 which to me were at that time the merest 
 legends. I remember very well the arguments 
 we used to have on the vexed question of " Free- 
 will," and being myself more or less of a fatalist, 
 it annoyed me that I never could in the very 
 slightest degree shake his convictions on that 
 point. Moreover, when I plagued him too much 
 with Herbert Spencer, he had a way of retalia- 
 ting, and would foist upon me his favorite authors. 
 He was never a worshipper of any one writer 
 but always had at least a dozen prophets in 
 whose praise he was enthusiastic. 
 
 Well, on this Christmas Eve, we had been to 
 see dear old Ravenscroft and his granddaughter, 
 and we were walking back through the quiet 
 precincts of the Temple, when he said, abruptly 
 
 " I have decided to go back to Bath, to-mor- 
 row." 
 
 "Have }-ou had a worse account ?" I asked, 
 much startled at this sudden announcement. 
 
 "No;" he replied, "but the one I had a week 
 ago was far from good if you remember, and I 
 Lave a feeling that I ought to be there." 
 
 At that moment we emerged into the confusion
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 109 
 
 of Fleet Street; but when we had crossed the 
 road I began to remonstrate with him, and argued 
 the folly of the idea all the way down Chancery 
 Lane. 
 
 However, there was no shaking his purpose ; 
 Christmas and its associations had made his life 
 in town no longer possible for him. 
 
 " I must at any rate tiy it again and see how 
 it works," he said. 
 
 And all I could do was to persuade him to 
 leave the bulk of his possessions in London, 4i in 
 case," as he remarked, " the Major would not 
 have him." 
 
 So the next day I vas left to myself again 
 with nothing to remind me of Derrick's stay but 
 his pictures whicli still hung on the wall of our 
 sitting-room. I made him promise to write a 
 full, true, and particular account of his return, a 
 bond fide old-fashioned letter, not the half-dozen 
 lines of these degenerate da}-s ; and about a week 
 later I received the following budget. 
 
 " DEAB SYDNEY, 
 
 " I got down to Bath all right, and, thanks 
 to your 'Study of sociology,' endured a slow and cold and 
 dull and depressing journey with the thermometer down to 
 zero, and spirits to correspond, with the country a monoto- 
 nous white, and the sky a monotonous gray, and a companion
 
 110 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 who smoked the vilest tobacco you can conceive. The old 
 place looks as beautiful as ever, and to my great satisfaction 
 the hills rounJ about are green. Snow, save in pictures, is 
 an abomination. Milsom Street looked asleep, and Gay 
 Street decidedly dreary, but the inhabitants were roused by 
 my knock, and the old landlady nearly shook my hand off. 
 My father has an attack of jaundice and is in a miserable 
 state. He was asleep when I got here, and the good old 
 landlady, thinking the front sitting-room would be free, had 
 invited ' company,' i. e., two or three married daughters and 
 their belongings; one of the children beats Magnay's ' Cat ina ' 
 as to beauty he ought to paint her. Happy thought, send 
 him and prelty Mrs. Esperance down here on spec. He can 
 paint the child for the next Academy, and meantime I could 
 enjoy his company. Well, all these good folks being just 
 set-to at roast beef, I naturally wouldn't hear of disturbing 
 them, and in the end was obliged to sit down too and eat at 
 that hour of the day the hugest dinner you ever saw anything 
 but voracious appetites offended the hostess. Magnay's 
 future model, for all its angelic face, ' ate to repletion ' like 
 the fair American in the story. Then I went into my father's 
 room, and shortly after he woke up and asked me to give 
 him some Friedrichshall water, making no comment at all on 
 my return, but just behaving as though I had been here all 
 the autumn, so that 1 felt as if the whole affair were a dream. 
 Except for this attack of jaundice, he has been much as 
 usual, and when you next come down you will find us settled 
 into our old groove. The quiet of it after London is ex- 
 traordinary. But I believe it suits the book, which gets on 
 pretty fast. This afternoon I went up Lansdown and right 
 on past the Grand Stand to Prospect Stile, which is at the 
 edge of a high bit of table-land, and looks over a splendid 
 stretch of country, with the Bristol Channel and the Welsh 
 hills in the distance. While I was there the sun most consid- 
 erately set in gorgeous array. You never saw anything like 
 it. It was worth the journey from London to Bath, i can 
 assure you. Tell Magnay, and may it lure him down ; also 
 name the model aforementioned.
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. HI 
 
 "How is the old Q.C. and his pretty grandchild? That 
 quaint old room of theirs in the Temple somehow took my 
 fancy, and the child was divine. l)o you remember my 
 showing you, in a gloomy narrow street here, a jolly old 
 watchmaker who sits in his shop-window and is forever 
 bending over sick clocks and watches? Well, he's still sit- 
 ting there, as if he had never moved since we saw him that 
 Saturday months ago. I mean to study him for a portrait ; 
 his sallow clean-shaved wrinkled face has a whole skry in it. 
 I believe he is married to a Xanthippe who throws cold water 
 over him, both literally and metaphorically ; but he is a 
 philosopher I'll stake my reputation as an observer on that 
 he just shrugs his sturdy old shoulders, and goes on mending 
 clocks and watches. On dark days he works by a gas jet 
 and then Rembrandt would enjoy painting him. I look at 
 him whenever my world is particularly awry, and find him 
 highly beneficial, Davison lias forwarded me to-day two 
 letters from readers of 'Lynwood.' The first is from an irate 
 female who takes mo to task for the dangerous tendency of 
 the story, and insists that I have drawn impossible circum- 
 stances and impossible characters. The second is from an 
 old clergyman, who writes a pathetic letter of thanks, and 
 tells me that it is almost word for word the story of a son of 
 his who died five years ago. Query : shall I send the irate 
 female the old man's letter, and save myself the trouble of 
 writing? But on the whole I think not, it would be pearls 
 before swine. I will write to her myself. Glad to see you 
 whenever you can run down. 
 
 " Yours ever, 
 
 " D. V. 
 " (Xever struck me before what pious initials mine are)." 
 
 The very evening I received this letter, I 
 happened to be dining at the Probyns'. As luck 
 would have it, pretty Miss Freda was staying in 
 the house, and she fell to my share. I always
 
 112 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 
 
 liked her, though of late I had felt rather angry 
 with her for being carried away by the general 
 storm of admiration and swept by it into an 
 engagement with Lawrence Vaughan. She was 
 a very pleasant, natural sort of talker, and she 
 always treated me as an old friend. But she 
 seemed to me, that night, a little less satisfied 
 than usual with life. Perhaps it was merely the 
 effect of the black lace dress which she wore, 
 but I fancied her paler and thinner, and some- 
 how she seemed all eyes. 
 
 " Where is Lawrence now ? " I asked, as we 
 went down to the dining-room. 
 
 " He is stationed at Dover," she replied. " He 
 was up here for a few hours yesterday ; he came 
 to say good-bye to me, for I am going to Bath 
 next Monday with my father, who has been 
 very rheumatic lately and you know Bath is 
 coming into fashion again, all the doctors recom- 
 mend it." 
 
 " Major Vaughan is there," I said, " and has 
 found the waters very good, I believe ; any day, 
 at twelve o'clock, you may see him getting out 
 of his chair and going into the Pump Room on 
 Derrick's arm. I often wonder what outsiders 
 think of them. It isn't often, is it, that one sees
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 113 
 
 a son absolutely giving up his life to his invalid 
 father?" 
 
 She looked a little startled. 
 
 " I wish Lawrence could be more with Major 
 Vaughari," she said ; " for he is his father's 
 favorite. You see he is such a good talker, 
 and Derrick well, he is absorbed in his books ; 
 and then he has such extravagant notions about 
 war, he must be a very uncongenial companion 
 to the poor Major." 
 
 I devoured turbot in wrathful silence. Freda 
 glanced at me. 
 
 " It is true, isn't it, that he has quite given up 
 his life to writing and cares for nothing else ? " 
 
 " Well, he has deliberately sacrificed his best 
 chance of success by leaving London and bury- 
 ing himself in the provinces," I replied dryly ; 
 " and as to caring for nothing but writing, why 
 he never gets more than two or three hours a 
 day for it." And then I gave her a minute 
 account of his daily routine. 
 
 She began to look troubled. 
 
 " I have been misled," she said ; " I had gained 
 quite a wrong impression of him." 
 
 " Very few people know anything at all about 
 him," I said warmly ; " you are not alone in that."
 
 114 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST 
 
 " I suppose his next novel is finished now ? " 
 said Freda ; " he told me he had only one or 
 two more chapters to write when I saw him a 
 few months ago on his way from Ben Rhydding. 
 What is he writing now ? " 
 
 " He is writing that novel over again," I replied. 
 
 " Over again? What fearful waste of time ? " 
 
 " Yes, it has cost him hundreds of hours' work ; 
 it just shows what a man he is that he has gone 
 through with it so bravely." 
 
 " But how do you mean ? Didn't it do ? " 
 
 Rashly, perhaps yet I think unavoidably, I 
 told her the truth. 
 
 " It was the best thing he had ever written, 
 but unfortunately it was destroyed, burnt to a 
 cinder. That was not very pleasant, was it, for a 
 man who never makes two copies of his work? " 
 
 " It was frightful ! " said Freda, her eyes 
 dilating. " I never heard a word about it. Does 
 Lawrence know ? " 
 
 " No, he does not; and perhaps I ought not 
 to have told you, but I was annoyed at your so 
 misunderstanding Derrick. Pray never mention 
 the affair, he would wish it kept perfectly quiet." 
 
 " Why ? " asked Freda, turning her clear eyes 
 full upon mine.
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN-NOVEL1ST. 115 
 
 "Because," I said, lowering my voice, "because 
 his father burnt it." 
 
 She almost gasped. 
 
 "Deliberately?" 
 
 " Yes, deliberately," I replied. " His illness 
 has affected his temper, and he is sometimes 
 hardly responsible for his actions." 
 
 " Oli, I knew that he was irritable and hasty 
 and that Derrick annoyed him. Lawrence told 
 me that, long ago," said Freda. " But that he 
 should have done such a think as that ! It is 
 horrible ! Poor Derrick, how sorry I am for him ! 
 I hope we shall see something of them at Bath. 
 Do you know how the Major is ? " 
 
 " I had a letter about him from Derrick only 
 this evening," I replied, " if you care to see it, I 
 will show it you Liter on." 
 
 And by-and-by, in the drawing-room, I put 
 Derrick's letter into her hands, and explained to 
 her how for a few months he had given up his 
 life at Bath, in despair, but now had returned. 
 
 " I don't think Lawrence can understand the 
 state of things," she said, wistfully. " And yet 
 he has been down there." 
 
 I made no reply, and Freda, with a sigh turned 
 away.
 
 116 DERRICK VAUQHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 A month later I went down to Bath and found, 
 as my friend foretold, everything going on in 
 the old groove, except that Derrick himself had an 
 odd, strained look about him, as if he Avere fight- 
 ing a foe beyond his strength. Freda's arrival 
 at Bath had been very hard on him, it was almost 
 more than he could endure. Sir Richard, blind 
 as a bat, of course, to anything below the surface 
 made a point of seeing something of Lawrence's 
 brother. And on the day of my arrival Derrick 
 and I had hardly set out for a walk when we 
 ran across the old man. 
 
 Sir Richard, through rheumatic in the wrists, 
 was nimble of foot and an inveterate walker. 
 He was going with his daughter to see over Beck- 
 ford's Tower, and invited us to accompany him. 
 Derrick, much against the grain, I fancy, had to 
 talk to Freda, who, in her winter furs and close-fit- 
 ting velvet hat, looked more fascinating than ever, 
 while the old man descanted to me on Bath 
 waters, antiquities, etc., in a long-winded way that 
 lasted all up the hill. We made our way into the 
 cemetery and mounted the tower stairs, think- 
 ing of the past when this dreary place had been 
 so gorgeously furnished. Here Derrick contrived
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 117 
 
 to get ahead with Sir Richard, and Freda 
 lingered in a sort of alcove with me. 
 
 " I have been so wanting to see you," she said, 
 in an agitated voice. " Oh, Mr. Wharncliffe, is 
 it true what I have heard about the Major? 
 Does he drink ? " 
 
 " Who told you ? " I said, a little embarrassed. 
 
 " It was our landlady," said Freda ; " she is 
 the daughter of the Major's landlady. And you 
 should hear what she says of Derrick ! Why he 
 must be a downright hero ! All the time I have 
 been half despising him " she choked back a 
 sob " he has been trying to save his father from 
 what was certain death to him so they told me. 
 Do you think it is true ? " 
 
 " I know it is," I replied gravely. 
 
 " And about his arm was that true ? " 
 
 I signed an assent. 
 
 Her gray eyes grew moist. 
 
 " Oh,'* she cried, " how I have been deceived, 
 and how little Lawrence appreciates him I I think 
 he must know that I've misjudged him, for he 
 seems so odd and shy, and I don't think he likes 
 to talk to me." 
 
 I looked searchingly into her truthful gray eyes, 
 thinking of poor Derrick's unlucky love-story.
 
 118 DERRICK VAUGH AN NOVELIST. 
 
 " You do not understand him," I said ; " and 
 perhaps it is best so." 
 
 But the words and the look were rash, for all 
 at once the color flooded her face. She turned 
 quickly away, conscious at last that the mid- 
 summer dream of those yachting days had to 
 Derrick been no dream at all, but a life-long 
 reality. 
 
 I felt very sorry for Freda, for she was not at 
 all the sort of girl who would glory in having a 
 fellow hopelessly in love with her. I knew that 
 the discovery she had made would be nothing 
 but a sorrow to her, and could guess how she 
 would reproach herself for that innocent past 
 fancy, which, till now, had seemed to her so 
 faint and far-away almost as something belong- 
 ing to another life. All at once we heard the 
 others descending, and she turned to me with 
 such a frightened, appealing look, that I could 
 not possibly have helped going to the rescue. I 
 plunged abruptly into a discourse on Beckford, 
 and told her how he used to keep diamonds in a 
 tea-cup, and amused himself by arranging them 
 on a piece of velvet. Sir Richard fled from the 
 sound of my prosy voice, and, needless to say, 
 Derrick followed him. We let them get well in
 
 DERRICK VAUGII AN NOVELIST. 119 
 
 advance and then followed, Freda silent and 
 distraite, but every now and then asking a ques- 
 tion about the Major. 
 
 As for Derrick, evidently he was on guard. 
 He saw a good deal of the Merrifields and was 
 sedulously attentive to them in many small 
 ways ; but with Freda he was curiously reserved, 
 and if by chance they did talk together, he took 
 good care to bring Lawrence's name into the 
 conversation. On the whole, I believe loyalty 
 was his strongest characteristic, and want of 
 loyalty in others tried him more severely than 
 anything in the world. 
 
 As the spring wore on, it became evident to 
 everyone that the Major could not last long. 
 His son's watchfulness and the enforced temper- 
 ance which the doctors insisted on had prolonged 
 his life to a certain extent, but gradually his 
 sufferings increased and his strength diminished. 
 At last he kept his bed altogether. 
 
 What Derrick bore at this time no one can 
 ever know. When, one bright sunshiny Satur- 
 day, I went down to see how he was getting on, 
 I found him worn and haggard, too evidently 
 paying the penalty of sleepless nights and thank- 
 less care. I was a little shocked to hear that Law-
 
 120 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 rencc had been summoned, but when I was taken 
 into the sick room I realized that they had done 
 wisely to send for the favorite son. 
 
 The Major was evidently dying. 
 
 Never can I forget the cruelty and malevo- 
 cnce with which his bloodshot eyes rested on 
 Derrick, or the patience with which the dear old 
 fellow bore his father's scathing sarcasms. It 
 was while I was sitting by the bed that the land- 
 lady entered with a telegram, which she put into 
 Derrick's hand. 
 
 " From Lawrence ! " said the dying man 
 triumphantly, " to say by what train we may 
 expect him. Well ? " as Derrick still read the 
 message to himself ; " can't you speak, you 
 
 d d idiot ? Have you lost your d d 
 
 tongue ? What does he say ? " 
 
 " I am afraid he cannot be here just yet," said 
 Derrick, trying to tone down the curt message ; 
 " it seems he cannot get leave." 
 
 " Not get leave to see his dying father ? 
 What confounded nonsense. Give me the thing 
 here ; " and he snatched the telegram from 
 Derrick and read it in a quavering, hoarse voice, 
 
 " Impossible to get away. Am hopelessly tied here. 
 Love to iny father. Greatly regret to hear such bad news of 
 him."
 
 DERRICK VAUGnAN NOVELIST. 121 
 
 I think that message made the old man 
 realize the worth of Lawrence's often expressed 
 affection for him. Clearly it was a great blow- 
 to him. He threw down the paper without a 
 word and closed his eyes. For half an hour he 
 lay like that, and we did not disturb him. At 
 last he looked up ; his voice was fainter and his 
 manner more gentle. 
 
 " Derrick," he said, " I believe I've done you 
 an injustice ; it is you who care for me, not 
 Lawrence, and I've struck your name out of my 
 will have left all to him. After all, though 
 you are one of those confounded novelists, you've 
 done what you could for me. Let some one 
 fetch a solicitor I'll alter it I'll alter it ! " 
 
 I instantly hurried out to fetch a lawyer, but 
 it was Saturday afternoon, the offices were closed, 
 and some time passed before I had caught iny 
 man. I told him as we hastened back some of 
 the facts of the case, and he brought his writing 
 materials into the sick room and took down from 
 the Major's own lips the words which would 
 have the effect of dividing the old man's posses- 
 sions between his two sons. Dr. Mackrill was 
 now present ; he stood on one side of the bed, 
 his fingers on the dying man's pulse. On the
 
 122 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 
 
 other side stood Derrick, a degree paler and 
 graver tban usual, but revealing little of liisreal 
 feelings. 
 
 "Word it as briefly as you can," said the doc- 
 tor. 
 
 And the lawyer scribbled away as though for 
 his life, while the rest of us waited in a wretched 
 hushed state of tension. In the room itself there 
 was no sound save the scratching of tli3 pen and 
 the labored breathing of the old man ; but in 
 the next house we could hear some one playing 
 a waltz. Somehow it did not seem to me incon- 
 gruous, for it was " Sweethearts," and that had 
 been the favorite waltz at Ben Rhydding, so 
 that I always connected it with Derrick and his 
 trouble, and now the words rang in my ears 
 
 " Oh, love for a year, a week, a day, 
 But alas ! for the love that loves alway." 
 
 If it had not been for the Major's return from 
 India, I firmly believed that Derrick and Freda 
 would by this time have been betrothed. Der- 
 rick had taken a line which necessarily divided 
 them, had done what he saw to be his duty ; yet 
 what were the results? He had lost Freda, he 
 had lost his book, he had damaged his chance of 
 success as a writer, he had been struck out oi
 
 DERRICK VAUG HAN NOVELIST. 123 
 
 his father's will, and he had suffered unspeaka- 
 bly. Had anything whatever been gained? The 
 Major was dying unrepentant to all appearance, 
 as hard and cynical an old worldling as I ever 
 saw. The only spark of grace he showed 
 was that tardy endeavor to make a fresh will. 
 What good had it all been ? What good ? 
 
 I could not answer the question then, could 
 only cry out HI a sort of indignation, " What 
 profit is there in his blood ?" But looking at it 
 now, I have a sort of perception that the very 
 lack of apparent profitableness was part of Der- 
 rick's training, while if, as I now incline to 
 think, there is a hereafter where the training 
 begfun here is continued, the old Major in the 
 hel] hs most richly deserved would have the re- 
 membrance of his sou's patience and constancy 
 and devotion to serve as a guiding light in the 
 outer darkness. 
 
 The lawyer no longer wrote at railroad speed ; 
 he pushed back his chair, brought the will to the 
 bed, and placed the pen ui the trembling yellow 
 hand of the invalid. 
 
 ''You must sign your name here,'* he said, 
 pointing with his finger; and the Major raised 
 himself a little, and brought the pen quaver-
 
 124 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 ingly down towards the paper. With a sort of 
 fascination I watched the finely-pointed steel 
 nib; it trembled for an instant or two, then the 
 pen dropped from the convulsed fingers, and 
 with a cry of intolerable anguish the Major fell 
 back. 
 
 For some minutes there was a painful struggle ; 
 presently we caught a word or two between the 
 groans of the dying man. 
 
 " Too late ! " he gasped, " too late ! " and then 
 a dreadful vision of horrors seemed to rise be- 
 fore him, and with a terror that I can never for- 
 get he turned to his son and clutched fast hold 
 of his hands : " Derrick ! " he shrieked. 
 
 Derrick could not speak, but he bent low 
 over the bed as though to screen the dying eyes 
 from those horrible visions, and with an odd sort 
 of thrill I saw him embrace his father. 
 
 When he raised his head the terror had died 
 out of the Major's face ; all was over.
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN-NOVEL1ST. 125 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " To duty firm, to conscience true. 
 
 However tried and pressed, 
 In God's clear sight high work we do, 
 If we but do our best." 
 
 W. GASKELL. 
 
 LAWRENCE came down to the funeral, and I 
 took good care that he should hear all about his 
 father's last hours, and I made the solicitor show 
 him the unsigned will. lie made hardly any 
 comment on it till we three were alone together. 
 Then with a sort of kindly patronage he turned 
 to his brother Derrick, it must be remembered, 
 was the elder twin and said pityingly, "Poor 
 old fellow ! it was rather rough on you that the 
 governor couldn't sign this; but never mind, 
 you'll soon, no doubt, be earning a fortune by 
 your books ; and besides, what does a bachelor 
 want with more than you've already inherited 
 from our mother ? Whereas, an officer just go- 
 ing to be married, and with this confounded 
 reputation of hero to keep up, why, I can tell 
 you he needs every penny of it."
 
 12G DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 Derrick looked at his brother searchingly. 1 
 honestly believe that he didn't very much care 
 about the money, but it cut him to the heart that 
 Lawrence should treat him so shabbily. The 
 soul of generosity himself, he could not under- 
 stand how any one could frame a speech so in- 
 fernally mean. 
 
 " Of course," I broke in, " if Derrick liked to 
 go to law he could no doubt get his rights ; 
 there are three witnesses who can prove what 
 .was the Major's real wish." 
 i "I shall not go to law," said Derrick, with a 
 dignity of which I had hardly imagined him 
 capable. "You spoke of your marriage, Law- 
 rence ; is it to be soon ?" 
 
 " This autumn, I hope," said Lawrence ; " at 
 least, if I can overcome Sir Richard's ridiculous 
 notion that a girl ought not to marry till she's 
 twenty-one. He's a most crotchety old fellow, 
 that future father-in-law of mine." 
 
 When Lawrence had first come back from the 
 war I had though him wonderfully improved, 
 but a long course of spoiling and flattery liar] 
 done him a world of harm. He liked very much 
 to be lionized, and to see him now posing in 
 drawing-rooms, surrounded by a worshipping
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAy NOVELIST. 127 
 
 throng of women, was enough to sicken any 
 sensible being. 
 
 As for Derrick, though he could not be ex- 
 pected to feel his bereavement in the ordinary 
 way, yet his father's death had been a great 
 shock to him. It was arranged that after settling 
 various matters in Bath he should go down to 
 stay with his sister for a time, joining me in 
 Montague Street later on. While he was away 
 at Birmingham, however, an extraordinary 
 change came into 1 my humdrum life, and when 
 he rejoined me a few weeks later, I selfish 
 brute was so overwhelmed with the trouble 
 that had befallen me that I thought very little 
 indeed of his affairs. He took this quite as a 
 matter of course, and what I should have done 
 without him I can't conceive. However, this 
 story concerns him and has nothing to do with 
 my extraordinary dilemma, I merely mention it 
 as a fact which brought additional cares into his 
 life. All the time he was doing what could be 
 done to help me he was also going tli rough a 
 most baffling and miserable time among the 
 publishers; for "At Strife," unlike its prede- 
 cessor, Wiis rejected by Davison and by five 
 other houses. Think of this, you comfort-
 
 128 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 able readers, as you lie back in your easy chairs 
 and leisurely turn the pages of that popular 
 story. The book which represented years of 
 study and long hours of hard work was first 
 burnt to a cinder. It was re-written with what 
 infinite pains and toil few can understand. It 
 was then six times tied up and carried with 
 anxiety and hope to a publisher's office, only to 
 re-appear six times in Montague Street, an un- 
 welcome visitor, bringing withi f depression and 
 disappointment. 
 
 Derrick said little, but suffered much. How- 
 ever, nothing daunted him. When it came back 
 from the sixth publisher he took it to a seventh, 
 then returned and wrote away like a Trojan at 
 his third book. The one thing that never failed 
 him was that curious consciousness that he had to 
 write ; like the prophets of old, the " burden " 
 came to him, and speak it he must. 
 
 The seventh publisher wrote a somewhat 
 dubious letter : the book he thought had great 
 merit, but unluckily people were prejudiced, and 
 historical novels rarely met with success. How- 
 ever, he was willing to take the story, and offered 
 half profits, candidly admitting that he had no 
 great hopes of a large sale. Derrick instantly
 
 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 129 
 
 closed with this offer, proofs came in, the book 
 appeared, was well received like it predecessor, fell 
 into the hands of one of the leaders of Society, and, 
 to the intense surprise of the publisher, proved 
 to be the novel of the year. Speedily a second 
 edition was called for ; then, after a brief interval, 
 a third edition this time a rational one-volume 
 affair ; and the whole lot 6,000 I believe went 
 off on the day of publication. Derrick was 
 amazed ; but he enjoyed his success very heartily, 
 and I think no one could say, that he had leapt 
 into fame at a bound. 
 
 Having devoured " At Strife," people began to 
 discover the merits of " Lyn wood's Heritage " ; 
 the libraries were besieged for it, and a cheap 
 edition was hastily published, and another and 
 another, till the book, which at first had been 
 such a dead failure, rivalled " At Strife." Truly 
 an author's career is a curious thing ; and pre- 
 cisely why the first book failed, and the second 
 succeeded, no one could explain. 
 
 It amused me very much to see Derrick turned 
 into a lion he was so essentially un-lionlike. 
 People were forever asking him how he worked, 
 and I remember a very pretty girl setting upon
 
 130 DERRICK VAUGIIAN NOVELIST. 
 
 him once at a dinner-party with the embarrassing 
 request 
 
 " Now do tell me, Mr. Vaughan, how do you 
 write your stories? I wish you would give me a 
 good receipt for a novel." 
 
 Derrick hesitated uneasily for a minute ; finally, 
 with a humorous smile, said 
 
 " Well, I can't exactly tell you, because, more 
 or less, novels grow ; but if you want a receipt, 
 you might perhaps try after this fashion : Con- 
 ceive your hero, add a sprinkling of friends and 
 relatives, flavor with whatever scenery or local 
 color you please, carefully consider what circum- 
 stances are most likely to develope your man 
 into the best he is capable of, allow the whole to 
 simmer in your brain as long as you can, and 
 then serve, while hot, with ink upon white or 
 blue foolscap, according to taste." 
 
 The young lad}' applauded the receipt, but 
 she sighed a little, and probably relinquished all 
 hope of concocting a novel herself ; on the whole, 
 it seemed to involve incessant taking of trouble. 
 
 About this time I remember too another little 
 scene, which I enjoyed amazingly. I laugh now 
 when I think of it. I happened to be at a huge 
 evening crush, and, rather to my surprise, came
 
 DERRICK VAUGUAN NOVELIST. 131 
 
 across Lawrence Vaughan. We were talking 
 together, when up came Connington of the 
 Foreign Office. " I say, Vaughan," he said, 
 " Lord Remington -wishes to be introduced to 
 you." I watched the old statesman a little curi- 
 ously as he greeted Lawrence, and listened to his 
 first words: " Very glad to make your acquaint- 
 ance, Captain Vaughan ; I understand that the 
 author of that grand novel, " At Strife," is a 
 brother of yours." And poor Lawrence, spent a 
 mauvais quart d'heure, inwardly fuming I know 
 at the idea that he, the hero of Saspataras Hill, 
 should be considered merely as " the brother of 
 Vaughan, the novelist." 
 
 Fate, or perhaps I should say the effect of his 
 own pernicious actions, did not deal kindly just 
 now with Lawrence. Somehow Freda learnt 
 about that will, and, being no bread-and-butter 
 miss, content meekly to adore her fiancS and 
 deem him faultless, she " up and spake " on the 
 subject, and I fancy poor Lawrence must have 
 had another mauvais quart cTheure. It \ras not 
 this, however, which led to a final breach between 
 them ; it was something which Sir Richard dis- 
 covered with regard to Lawrence's life at Dover. 
 The engagement was instantly broken off, and
 
 132 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST, 
 
 Freda, I ain sure, felt nothing but relief. She 
 went abroad for some time, however, and we did 
 not see her till long after Lawrence had been com- 
 fortably married to X1500 a year and a middle- 
 aged widow who had long been a hero-worship- 
 per, and who, I am told, never allowed any 
 visitor to leave the house without making some 
 allusion to the memorable battle of Saspataras 
 Hill and her Lawrence's gallant action. 
 
 For the two years following after the Major's 
 death, Derrick and I, as I mentioned before, 
 shared the rooms in Montague Street. For me, 
 owing to the trouble I spoke of, they were years 
 of maddening suspense and pain ; but what 
 pleasure I did manage to enjoy came entirely 
 through the success of my friend's books and 
 from his companionship. It was odd that from 
 the care of his father he should immediately 
 pass on to the care of one who had made such a 
 disastrous mistake as I had made. But I feel 
 the less compunction at the thought of the 
 amount of sympathy I called for at that time, 
 because I notice that the giving of sympathy is 
 a necessity for Derrick, and that when the 
 troubles of other folk do not immediately thrust 
 themselves into his life he carefully hunts them
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 133 
 
 up. During these two years he was reading for 
 the Bar not that he ever expected to do very 
 much as a barrister, but he thought it well to 
 have something to fall back on, and declared 
 that the drudgery of the reading would do him 
 good. He was also writing as usual, and he 
 used to spend two evenings a week at White- 
 chapel, where he taught one of the classes in 
 connection with Toynbee Hall, and where he 
 gained that knowledge of East-end life which is 
 conspicuous in his third book " Dick Carew." 
 This, with an ever increasing and often very 
 burdensome correspondence, brought to him by 
 his books, and with a fair share of dinners, " At 
 Homes," and so forth, made his life a full one. 
 In a quiet sort of way I believe he was happy 
 during this time. But later on, when, my trouble 
 at an end, I had migrated to a house of my own, 
 and he was left alone in the Montague Street 
 rooms, his spirits somehow nagged. 
 
 Fame is, after all, a hollow, unsatisfying thing 
 to a man of his nature. He heartily enjoyed his 
 success, he delighted in hearing that his books 
 had given pleasure or had been of use to any 
 one, but no public victory could in the least 
 make up to him for the loss he had suffered in
 
 134 DERRICK VAUGHANNOVELICT. 
 
 his private life ; indeed, I almost think there 
 were times when his triumphs as an author 
 seemed to him utterly worthless days of de- 
 pression, when the congratulations of his friends 
 were nothing but a mockery. He had gained a 
 striking success, it is true, but he had lost Freda ; 
 he was in the position of the starving man who 
 has received a gift of bon-bons, but so craves 
 for bread that they half sicken him. I used now 
 and then to watch his face when, as often hap- 
 pened, some one said : " What an enviable fellow 
 you are, Vaughan, to get on like this ! " or, 
 " What wouldn't I give to change places with 
 you ! " He would invariably smile and turn the 
 conversation ; but there was a look in his eyes 
 at such times that I hated to see it always 
 made me think of Mrs. Browning's Doem. " The 
 Mask" 
 
 Behind no prison-grate, she sa.d- 
 Which slurs the sunshine half a ni-*e. 
 Live captives so uncomforted 
 As souls behind a smile." 
 
 As to the Merrifields, there wa; no chance 01 
 seeing them, for Sir Richard had gone to India 
 in some official capacity, and no doubt, as every 
 one said, they would take good care to marry
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 135 
 
 Freda out there. Derrick had not seen her 
 since that trying February at Bath, long ago. 
 Yet I fancy she was never out of his thoughts. 
 
 And so the years rolled on, and Derrick 
 worked away steadily, giving his books to the 
 world, accepting the comforts and discomforts of 
 an author's life, laughing at the outrageous 
 reports that were in circulation about him, yet 
 occasionally, I think, inwardly wincing at them, 
 and learning from the number of begging letters 
 which he received, and into which he usually 
 caused searching inquiry to be made, that there 
 are in the world a vast number of undeserving 
 poor. 
 
 One day I happened to meet Lady Probyn at 
 a garden-party; it was at the same house on 
 Campden Hill where I had once met Freda, and 
 perhaps it was the recollection of tin's which 
 prompted me to inquire after her. 
 
 " She has not been well," said Lady Probyn, 
 "and they are sending her back to England; 
 the climate doesn't suit her. She is to make 
 her home with us for the present, so I am the 
 gainer. Freda has always been my favorite 
 niece, I don't know what it is about her that is 
 so taking ; she is not half so pretty as the otiiers."
 
 136 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 "But so much more charming,"! said. "I 
 wonder she has not married out in India, as 
 every one prophesied." 
 
 "And so do I," said her aunt. "However, 
 poor child, no doubt, after having been two years 
 engaged to that very disappointing hero of 
 Saspataras Hill, she will be shy of venturing to 
 trust any one again." 
 
 "Do you think that affair ever went very 
 deep?" I ventured to ask. "It seemed to me 
 that she looked miserable during her engage- 
 ment, and happy when it was broken off." 
 
 "Quite so," said Lady Probyn; "I noticed 
 the same thing. It was nothing but a mistake. 
 They were not in the least suited to each other. 
 By-the-by, I hear that Derrick Vaughan is 
 married." 
 
 " Derrick ? " I exclaimed ; " oh, no, that is a 
 mistake. It is merely one of the hundred and 
 one reports that are forever being set afloat 
 about him." 
 
 " But I saw it in a paper, I assure you," said 
 Lady Probyn, by no means convinced. 
 
 " Ah, that may very well be ; they were hard 
 up for a paragraph, no doubt, and inserted it. 
 But, as for Derrick, why, how should he marry?
 
 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 137 
 
 He has been madly in love with Miss Merrifield 
 ever since our cruise in the Aurora. " 
 
 Lady Probyn made an inarticulate exclama- 
 tion. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " she said, after a minute's 
 thought ; " that explains much to me. " 
 
 She did not explain her rather ambiguous re- 
 mark, and before long our tete-a-tete was in- 
 terrupted. 
 
 Now that my friend was a full-fledged barrister, 
 he and I shared chambers ; and one morning, 
 about a month after this garden party, Derrick 
 came in with face of such radiant happiness, that 
 I couldn't imagine what good luck had befallen 
 him. 
 
 " What do you think? " he exclaimed ; " here's 
 an invitation for a criuse in the Aurora at the 
 end of August to be nearly the same party 
 that we had years ago," and he threw down the 
 letter for me to read. 
 
 Of course there was a special mention of " my 
 niece, Miss Merrifield, who has just returned 
 from India, and is ordered plenty of sea-air." I 
 could have told that without reading the letter, 
 for it was written quite clearly in Derrick's face. 
 He looked ten years younger, and if any of his
 
 138 DERRICK VAUGHAN NOVELIST. 
 
 adoring readers could have seen the pranks ho 
 was up to that morning in our staid and respects- 
 able chambers, I am afraid they would no longer 
 have spoken of him " with 'bated breath and 
 whispering humbleness." 
 
 As it happened, I too was able to leave home 
 for a fortnight at the end of August ; and so our 
 party in the Aurora really was the same, except 
 that we were all several years older, and let us 
 hope wiser, than on the previous occasion. Con- 
 sidering all that had intervened, I was surprised 
 that Derrick was not more altered ; as for Freda, 
 she was decidedly paler than when we first met 
 her, but, before long, sea-air and happiness 
 wrought a wonderful transformation in her. 
 
 In spite of the pessimists who are forever 
 writing books even writing novels (more shame 
 to them) to prove that there is no such thing as 
 happiness in the world, we managed every one 
 of us heartily to enjoy our cruise. It seemed 
 indeed true that 
 
 '* Green leaves ami blossoms, and sunny warm weather, 
 And singing and loving all come back together." 
 
 Something, at any rate, of the glamour of 
 those past days came back to us all, I fancy, as
 
 DERRICK VAUGH AN NOVELIST. 139 
 
 we laughed and dozed and idled and talked be- 
 neath the snowy wings of the Aurora; and I 
 cannot say I was in the least surprised when, on 
 roaming through the pleasant garden walks in 
 that unique little island of Tresco, I came once 
 more upon Derrick and Freda, with, if you will 
 believe it, another handful of white heather 
 given to them by that discerning gardener ! 
 Freda once more reminded me of the girl in the 
 " Biglow Papers," and Derrick's face was full of 
 such bliss as one seldom sees. 
 
 He had always had to wait for his good 
 things, but in the end they came to him. How- 
 ever, you may depend upon it he didn't say 
 much. That was never his way. He only 
 gripped my hand, and with his eyes all aglow 
 with happiness, exclaimed, " Congratulate me, 
 old fellow 1" 
 
 THE END.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO ALL 
 WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
 
 Trust not to each accusing tongue. 
 
 As most weak persons do ; 
 But still believe that story false 
 
 Which ought not to be true. 
 
 SHERIDA::.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
 A SLANDER. 
 
 MY FIRST STAGE. 
 
 At last the tea came up, and so 
 With that our tongues began to go. 
 Now in that house you're sure of knowing 
 The smallest scrap of news that's going. 
 We find it there the wisest way 
 To take some care of what we say. 
 
 Recreation, JANE TAYLOR. 
 
 I WAS born on September 2, 1886, in a small, 
 dull, country town. When I say the town was 
 dull, I moan, of course, that the inhabitants 
 were unenterprising 1 , for in itself Muddleton 
 was, a picturesque place, and though it labored 
 under the usual disadvantage of a dearth of 
 bachelors and a superfluity of spinsters, it 
 might have been pleasant enough had it not 
 been a favorite resort for my kith and kin. 
 
 My father has long enjoyed a world- wide 
 notoriety ; he is not, however, as a rule, named 
 in good society, though he habitually frequents
 
 6 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 it ; and as I am led to believe that my autobiog- 
 raphy will possibly be circulated by Mr. Mudie, 
 and will lie about on drawing-room tables, I 
 will merely mention that a most striking repre- 
 sentation of my progenitor, under his nom de 
 thedtre, Mephistopheles, may be seen now in 
 London, and I should recommend all who wish 
 to understand his character to go to the Lyceum, 
 though, between ourselves, he strongly disap- 
 proves of the whole performance. 
 
 I was introduced into the world by an old 
 lady named Mrs. O'Reilly. She was a very 
 pleasant old lady, the wife of a general, and one 
 of those sociable, friendly, talkative people who 
 do much to cheer their neighbors, particularly 
 in a deadly -lively provincial place like Muddle- 
 ton, where the standard of social intercourse is 
 not very high. Mrs. O'Reilly had been in her 
 day a celebrated beauty; she was now gray- 
 haired and stout, but still there was something 
 impressive about her, and few could resist tho 
 charm of her manner and the pleasant, easy flow 
 of her small talk. Her love of gossip amounted 
 almost to a passion, and nothing came amiss to 
 her ; she liked to know every tiling about every- 
 body, and in the main I think her interest was a 
 kindly one. though she found that a little bit of
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 7 
 
 scandal, every now and then, added a piquant 
 flavor to the homely fare provided by the com- 
 monplace life of the Muddletonians. 
 
 I will now, without further preamble, begin 
 the history of my life. 
 
 " I assure you, my dear Lena, Mr. Zaluski is 
 nothing less than a Nihilist ! " 
 
 The sound-waves set in motion by Mrs. 
 O'Reilly's words were tumultuously heaving in 
 the atmosphere when I sprung into being, a 
 young but perfectly formed and most promising 
 slander. A delicious odor of tea pervaded the 
 drawing-room, it was orange-flower pekoe, and 
 Mrs. O'Reilly was just handing one of the deli- 
 cate Crown Derby cups to her visitor, Miss 
 Lena Houghton. 
 
 " What a shocking thing ! Do you really 
 mean it ? " exclaimed Miss Houghton. " Thank 
 you cream, but no sugar ; don't you know, Mrs. 
 O'Reilly, that it is only Low-Church people 
 who take sugar nowadays ? But, really, now, 
 about Mr. Zaluski. How did you find it out * " 
 
 " My dear, I am an old woman, and I have 
 learned in the course of a wandering life to put 
 two and two together," said Mrs. O'Reilly. 
 She had somehow managed to ignore middle
 
 8 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 age, and had passed from her position of re- 
 nowned beauty to the position which she now 
 firmly and constantly claimed of many years 
 and much experience. "Of course," she con- 
 tinued, " like every one else, I was glad enough 
 to be friendly and pleasant to Sigismund 
 Zaluski ; and as to his being a Pole, why, I 
 think it rather pleased me than otherwise. You 
 see, my dear, I have knocked about the world 
 and mixed with all kinds of people. Still, one 
 must draw the line somewhere, and I confess 
 it gave me a very painful shock to find that he 
 had such violent antipathies to law and order. 
 When he took Ivy Cottage for the summer I 
 made the general call at once, and before long 
 we had become very intimate with him ; but, 
 my dear, he's not what I thought him not at 
 all!" 
 
 " Well, now, I am delighted to hear you say 
 that," said Lena Houghton, with some excite- 
 ment in her manner, " for it exactly fits in with 
 what I always felt about him. From the first I 
 disliked that man, and the way he goes on with 
 Gertrude Morley is simply dreadful. If they 
 are not engaged they ought to be ; that's all I 
 can say." 
 
 " Engaged, my dear ! I trust not," said Mrs.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 9 
 
 O'Reilly. " I had always hoped for something- 
 very different for dear Gertrude. Quite be- 
 tween ourselves, you know, my nephew, John 
 Carew, is over head and ears in love with her, 
 and they would make a very good pair ; don't 
 you think so ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, I like Gertrude to a certain 
 extent," replied Lena Houghton. " But I never 
 raved about her as so many people do. Still, 
 I hope she will not be entrapped into marry- 
 ing Mr. Zaluski ; she deserves a better fate 
 than that." 
 
 " I quite agree with you," said Mrs. O'Reilly, 
 with a troubled look. " And the worst of it is, 
 Gertrude is a girl who might very likely take 
 up foolish revolutionary notions; she needs a 
 strong, wise husband to keep her in order and 
 form her opinions. But is it really true that he 
 flirts with her ? This is the first I have heard of 
 it. I can't think how it has escaped my notice." 
 
 " Nor I, for indeed he is up at the Morleys' 
 pretty nearly every day. What with tennis, and 
 music, and riding, there is always some excuse 
 for it. I can't think what Gertrude sees in him, 
 he is not even good-looking." 
 
 " There is a certain surface good-nature about 
 him," said Mrs. O'Reilly. " It deceived even me
 
 10 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 at first. But, my dear Lena, mark my words : 
 that man has a fearful temper; and I pray 
 Heaven that poor Gertrude may have her eyes 
 opened in time. Besides, to think of that lit- 
 tle, gentle, delicate thing marrying a Nihilist ! 
 It is too dreadful; really, quite too dreadful! 
 John would never get over it ! " 
 
 " The thing I can't understand is why all the 
 world has taken him up so," said Lena Hough- 
 ton. " One meets him everywhere, yet nobody 
 seems to know anything about him. Just be- 
 cause ho has taken Ivy Cottage for four months, 
 and because he seems to be rich and good- 
 natured, every one is ready to run after him." 
 
 "Well, well," said Mrs. O'Reilly, "we all 
 like to be neighborly, my dear, and a week ago 
 I should have been ready to say nothing but 
 good of him. But now my eyes have been 
 opened. I'll tell you just how it was. We were 
 Bitting here, just as you and I are now, at after- 
 jioon tea ; the talk had flagged a little, and for 
 the sake of something to say I made some re- 
 mark about Bulgaria not that I really knew 
 anything about it, you know, for I'm no politi- 
 cian ; still, I knew it was a subject that would 
 make talk just now. My dear, I assure you I 
 was positively frightened. All in a minute his
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 11 
 
 face changed, his eyes flashed, he broke into 
 such a torrent of abuse as I never heard in my 
 life before." 
 
 " Do you mean that he abused you ? " 
 " Dear me, no ; but Russia and the czar, and 
 tyranny, and despotism, and many other things 
 I had never heard of. I tried to calm him down 
 and reason with him, but I might as well have 
 reasoned with the cockatoo in the window. At 
 last he caught himself up quickly in the middle 
 of a sentence, strode over to the piano, and be- 
 gan to play, as he generally does, you know, 
 when he comes here. Well, would you believe 
 it, my dear ! instead of improvising or playing 
 operatic airs as usual, he began to play a stupid 
 little tune which every child was taught years 
 ago, of course with variations of his own. Then 
 he turned round on the music-stool, with the 
 oddest smile I ever saw, and said, 'Do you 
 know that air, Mrs. O'Reilly ? ' " 
 " Yes," I said ; " but I forget now what it is." 
 " It was composed by Festal, one of the vic- 
 tims of Russian tyranny," said he. " The execu- 
 tioner did his work badly, and Festal had to be 
 strung up twice. In the interval he was heard 
 to mutter, ' Stupid country, where they don't 
 even know how to hang ! ' Then he gave a lit-
 
 12 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 tie forced laugh, got up quickly, wished me 
 good-by, and was gone before I could put in a 
 word." 
 
 " What a horrible story to tell in a drawing- 
 room ! " said Lena Houghton. " I envy Ger- 
 trude less than ever." 
 
 " Poor girl ! What a sad prospect it is for 
 her!" said Mrs. O'Eeilly, with a sigh. "Of 
 course, my dear, you'll not repeat what I have 
 just told you." 
 
 " Not for the world ! " said Lena Houghton, 
 emphatically. "It is perfectly safe with me." 
 
 The conversation was here abruptly ended, 
 for the page threw open the drawing-room door 
 and announced " Mr. Zaluski." 
 
 " Talk of the angel," murmured Mrs. O'Reil- 
 ly, with a significant smile at her companion. 
 Then skilfully altering the expression of her 
 face, she beamed graciously on the guest, who 
 was ushered into the room, and Lena Hough- 
 ton also prepared to greet him most pleasantly. 
 
 I looked with much interest at Sigismund 
 Zaluski, and, as I looked I partly understood 
 why Miss Houghton had been prejudiced 
 against him at first sight. He had lived five 
 years in England, and nothing pleased him more 
 than to be taken for an Englishman. He had
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 13 
 
 had his silky black hair closely cropped in the 
 very hideous fashion of the present day ; he wore 
 the ostentatiously high collar now in vogue; 
 and he tried to be sedulously English in every 
 respect. But in spite of his wonderfully fluent 
 speech and almost perfect accent, there lingered 
 about him something which would not harmo- 
 nize with that ideal of an English gentleman 
 which is latent in most minds. Something he 
 lacked, something he possessed, which inter- 
 fered with the part he desired to play. The 
 something lacking showed itself in his inerad- 
 icable love of jewelry and in a transparent hab- 
 it of fibbing ; the something possessed showed 
 itself in his easy grace of movement, his de- 
 lightful readiness to amuse and to be amused, 
 and in a certain cleverness and rapidity of idea 
 rarely, if ever, found in an Englishman. 
 
 He was a little above the average height and 
 very finely built ; but there was nothing strik- 
 ing in his aquiline features and dark-gray eyes, 
 and I think Miss Houghton spoke truly when 
 she said that he was " Not even good-looking." 
 Still, in spite of this, it was a face which grew 
 upon most people, and I felt the least little bit 
 of regret as I looked at him, because I knew 
 that I should persistently haunt and harass
 
 14 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 him, and should do all that could be done to 
 spoil his life. 
 
 Apparently he had forgotten all about Russia 
 and Bulgaria, for he looked radiantly happy. 
 Clearly his thoughts were engrossed with his 
 own affairs, which, in other words, meant with 
 Gertrude Morley ; and though, as I have since 
 observed, there are times when a man in love is 
 an altogether intolerable sort of being, there are 
 other times when he is very much improved by 
 the passion, and regards the whole world with 
 a genial kindness which contrasts strangely with 
 his previous cool cynicism. 
 
 " How delightful and home-like your room 
 always looks ! " he exclaimed, taking the cup 
 of tea which Mrs. O'Reilly handed to him. " I 
 am horribly lonely at Ivy Cottage. This house 
 is a sort of oasis in the desert." 
 
 " Why, you are hardly ever at home, I 
 thought," said Mrs. O'Reilly, smiling. "You 
 are the lion of the neighborhood just now ; and 
 I'm sure it is very good of you to come in and 
 cheer a lonely old woman. Are you going to 
 play me something rather more lively to-day 1 " 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "Ah! Poor Festal ! I had forgotten all about 
 our last meeting."
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 15 
 
 " You were very much excited that day," said 
 Mrs. O'Reilly. " I had no idea that your poli- 
 tical notions 
 
 He interrupted her. 
 
 " Ah ! no politics to-day, dear Mrs. O'Reilly. 
 Let us have nothing but enjoyment and har- 
 mony. See, now, I will play you something 
 very much more cheerful." 
 
 And sitting down to the piano, he played the 
 bridal march from " Lohengrin," then wandered 
 off into an improvised air, and finally treated 
 them to some recollections of the " Mikado." 
 
 Lena Houghton watched him thoughtfully as 
 she put on her gloves ; he was playing with 
 great spirit, and the words of the opera rang in 
 her ears : 
 
 " For he's going to marry Yum-Ynm, Yum- Yum, 
 And so you had better be dumb, dumb, dumb !" 
 
 I knew well enough that she would not follow 
 this moral advice, and I laughed to myself be- 
 cause the whole scene was such a hollow mock- 
 ery. The placid, benevolent-looking old lady 
 leaning back in her arm-chair ; the girl in her 
 blue gingham and straw hat preparing to go to 
 the afternoon service; the happy lover enter- 
 ing heart and soul into Sullivan's charming
 
 1G THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 music ; the pretty room, with its Chippendale 
 furniture, its aesthetic hanging's, its bowls of 
 roses; and the sound of church bells wafted 
 through the open window on the soft summer 
 breeze. 
 
 Yet all the time I lingered there unseen, car- 
 rying with me all sorts of dread possibilities. 
 I had been introduced into the world, and even 
 if Mrs. O'Reilly had been willing to admit to 
 herself that she had broken the ninth com- 
 mandment, and had earnestly desired to recall 
 me, all her sighs and tears and regrets would 
 have availed nothing ; so true is the saying, 
 " Of thy words unspoken thou art master ; thy 
 spoken word is master of thee." 
 
 " Thank you." " Thank you." " How I envy 
 your power of playing ! " 
 
 The two ladies seemed to vie with each other 
 in making pretty speeches, and Zaluski, who 
 loved music and loved giving pleasure, looked 
 really pleased. I am sure it did not enter his 
 head that his two companions were not sincere, 
 or that they did not wish him well. He was 
 thinking to himself how simple and kindly the 
 Muddleton people were, and how great a con- 
 trast this life was to his life in London ; and 
 he was saying to himself that he had been a
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 17 
 
 fool to live a lonely bachelor life till he was 
 nearly thirty, and yet congratulating himself 
 that he had done so, since Gertrude was but 
 nineteen. Undoubtedly he was seeing blissful 
 visions of the future all the time that he replied 
 to the pretty speeches, and shook hands with 
 Lena Houghton, and opened the drawing-room 
 door for her, and took out his watch to assure 
 her that she had plenty of time and need not 
 hurry to church. 
 
 Poor Zaluski ! He looked so kindly and 
 pleasant. Though I was only a slander, and 
 might have been supposed to have no heart at 
 all, I did feel sorry for him when I thought of 
 the future and of the grief and pain which 
 would persistently dog his steps. 
 
 MY SECOND STAGE. 
 
 Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie ; 
 Truth is the speech of inward purity. 
 
 The Light of Asia. 
 
 IN my first stage the reader will perceive 
 that I was a comparatively weak and harmless 
 little slander, with merely that taint of orig- 
 inal sin which was to be expected in one of such 
 parentage. But I developed with great rapid-
 
 18 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 ity ; and I believe men of science will tell you 
 that this is always the case with low organisms. 
 That, for instance, while it takes years to de- 
 velop the man from the baby, and months to 
 develop the dog- from the puppy, the baby 
 monad will grow to maturity in an hour. 
 
 Personally I should have preferred to linger 
 in Mrs. O'Reilly's pleasant drawing-room, for, 
 as I said before, my victim interested me, and I 
 wanted to observe him more closely and hear 
 what he talked about. But I received orders to 
 attend even- song at the parish church, and to 
 haunt the mind of Lena Houghtou. 
 
 As we passed down the High Street the bells 
 rang out loud and clear, and they made me feel 
 the same slight sense of discomfort that I had 
 felt when I looked at Zaluski ; however, I went 
 on, and soon entered the church. It was a fine 
 old Gothic building, and the afternoon sunshine 
 seemed to flood the whole place ; even the white 
 stones in the aisle were glorified here and there 
 with gorgeous patches of color from the stained- 
 glass windows. But the strange stillness and 
 quiet oppressed me, I did not feel nearly so 
 much at home as in Mrs. O'Reilly's drawing- 
 room to use a terrestrial simile, I felt like a 
 fish out of water.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 10 
 
 For some time, too, I could find no entrance 
 at all into the mind of Lena Houghton. Try as 
 I would, I could not distract her attention or 
 gain the slightest hold upon her, and I really 
 believe I should have been altogether baffled, 
 had not the rector unconsciously come to my 
 aid. 
 
 All through the prayers and psalms I had 
 fought a desperate fight without gaining a 
 single inch. Then the rector walked over to 
 the lecturn, and the moment he opened his 
 mouth I knew that my time had come, and that 
 there was a very fair chance of victory before 
 me. Whether this clergyman had a toothache, 
 or a headache, or a heavy load on his mind, I 
 cannot say, but his reading was more lugubri- 
 ous than the wind in an equinoctial gale. I 
 have since observed that he was only a degree 
 worse than many other clerical readers, and 
 that a strange and delightfully mistaken notion 
 seems prevalent that the Bible must be read in 
 a dreary and unnatural tone of voice, or with a 
 sort of mournful monotony ; it is intended as a 
 sort of reverence, but I suspect that it often 
 plays into the hands of my progenitor, as it 
 most assuredly did in the present instance. 
 
 Hardly had the rector announced, " Here be-
 
 20 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 ginneth the forty-fourth verse of the sixteenth 
 chapter of the book of the Prophet Ezekiel," 
 than a sort of relaxation took place in the mind 
 I was attacking. Lena Houghton's attention 
 could only have been given to the drearily read 
 lesson by a very great effort; she was a little 
 lazy and did not make the effort ; she thought 
 how nice it was to sit down again, and then the 
 melancholy voice lulled her into a vague interval 
 of thoughtless inactivity. I promptly seized my 
 opportunity, and in a moment her whole mind 
 was full of me. She was an excitable, impres- 
 sionable sort of girl, and when once I had ob- 
 tained an entrance into her mind I found 
 it the easiest thing in the world to dominate 
 her thoughts. Though she stood, and sat, and 
 knelt, and courtesied, and articulated words, 
 her thoughts were entirely absorbed in me. I 
 crowded out the " Magnificat " with a picture of 
 Zaluski and Gertrude Morley. I led her 
 through more terrible future possibilities in the 
 second lesson than would be required for a 
 three-volume novel. I entirely eclipsed the 
 collects with reflections on unhappy marriages ; 
 took her off vid Russia and Nihilism in the 
 state prayers, and by the time we arrived at St. 
 Chrysostom had become so powerful that I had
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 21 
 
 worked her mind into exactly the condition I 
 desired. 
 
 The congregation rose. LenaHoughton, still 
 dominated by me, knelt longer than the rest, 
 but at last she got up and walked down the 
 aisle, and I felt a great sense of relief and sat- 
 isfaction. We were out in the open air once 
 more, and I had triumphed ; I was quite sure 
 that she would tell the first person she met, for, 
 as I have said before, she was entirely taken up 
 with me, and to have kept me to herself would 
 have required far more strength and unselfish- 
 ness than she at that moment possessed. She 
 walked slowly through the church-yard, feeling 
 much pleased to see that the curate had just 
 left the vestry door, and that in a few moments 
 their paths must converge. 
 
 Mr. Blackthorne had only been ordained three 
 or four years, and was a little younger, and 
 much less experienced in the ways of the world, 
 than Sigismund Zaluski. He was a good, well- 
 meaning fellow, a little narrow, a little preju- 
 diced, a little spoiled by the devotion of the dis- 
 trict visitors and Sunday-school teachers ; but 
 he was honest and energeti'c, and as a worker 
 among the poor few could have equalled him. 
 He scorned to fancy, however, that with the
 
 22 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 poor his work ended, and he was not always so 
 wise as he might have been in Muddleton so- 
 ciety. 
 
 "Good-afternoon, Miss Houghton," he ex- 
 claimed. " Do you happen to know if your 
 brother is at home ? I want just to speak to 
 him about the choir treat." 
 
 " Oh, he is sure to be in by this time," said 
 Lena. 
 
 And they walked home together. 
 
 " I am so glad to have this chance of speak- 
 ing to you," she began, rather nervously. " I 
 wanted particularly to ask your advice." 
 
 Mr. Blackthorne, being human and young, 
 was not unnaturally flattered by this remark. 
 True, he was becoming well accustomed to this 
 sort of thing, since the ladies of Muddleton 
 were far more fond of seeking advice from the 
 young and good-looking curate than from the 
 elderly and experienced rector. They said it 
 was because Mr. Blackthorne was so much more 
 sympathetic,, and understood the difficulties of 
 the day so much better ; but I think they un- 
 consciously deceived themselves, for the rector 
 was one of a thousand, and the curate, though 
 he had in him the makings of a fine man, was 
 as yet altogether crude and young.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 23 
 
 " Was it about anything in your district ? " 
 he asked, devoutly hoping that she was not 
 going- to propound some difficult question about 
 the origin of evil, or any other obscure sub- 
 ject. For though he liked the honor of being 
 consulted, he did not always like the trouble it in- 
 volved, and he remembered with a shudder that 
 Miss Houghton had once asked him his opinion 
 about the " Ethical Concept of the Good." 
 
 "It was only that I was so troubled about 
 something Mrs. O'Reilly has just told me," 
 said Lena Houghton. " You won't tell any one 
 that I told you ? " 
 
 " On uo account," said the curate, warmly. 
 
 " Well, you know Mr. Zaluski, and how the 
 Morleys have taken him up ? " 
 
 " Every one has taken him up," said the cu- 
 rate, with the least little touch of resentment in 
 his tone. " I knew that the Morleys were his 
 special friends ; I imagine that he admires Miss 
 Morley." 
 
 " Yes, every one thinks they are either en- 
 gaged or on the brink of it. And oh ! Mr. 
 Blackthorne, can't you or somebody put a stop 
 to it, for it seems such a dreadful fate for poor 
 Gertrude ? " 
 
 The curate looked startled.
 
 24 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 " Why, I don't profess to like Mr. Zaluski," 
 he said. "But I don't know anything 1 exactly 
 against him." 
 
 " But I do. Mrs. O'Reilly has just been tell- 
 ing me." 
 
 "What did she tell you?" he asked, with 
 some curiosity. 
 
 " Why, she has found out that he is really a 
 Nihilist just think of a Nihilist going about 
 loose like this and playing tennis at the rectory 
 and all the good houses ! And not only that, 
 but she says he is altogether a dangerous, un- 
 principled man, with a dreadful temper. You 
 can't think how unhappy she is about poor 
 Gertrude, and so am I, for we were at school 
 together and have always been friends." 
 
 "I am very sorry to hear about it," said Mr. 
 Blackthorne, "but I don't see that anything 
 can be done. You see, one does not like to in- 
 terfere in these sort of things. It seems offi- 
 cious rather, and meddlesome." 
 
 " Yes, that is the worst of it," she replied, 
 with a sigh. " I suppose we can do nothing. 
 Still, it has been a great relief just to tell J T OU 
 about it and get it off my mind. I suppose we 
 can only hope that something may put a stop 
 to it all ; we must leave it to chance."
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 25 
 
 This sentiment amused me not a little. Leave 
 it to chance indeed ! Had she not caused me to 
 grow stronger and larger by every word she ut- 
 tered ? And had not the conversation revealed 
 to me Mr. Blackthorne's one vulnerable part ? 
 I knew well enough that I should be able to 
 dominate his thoughts as I had done hers. 
 Finding me burdensome, she had passed me on 
 to somebody else, with additions that vastly in- 
 creased my working powers, and then she talked 
 of leaving it to chance ! The way in which mor- 
 tals practise pious frauds on themselves is really 
 delightful ! And yet Lena Houghton was a good 
 sort of girl, and had from her childhood repeat- 
 ed the Catechism words which proclaim that 
 " My duty to my neighbor is to love him as my- 
 self. ... To keep my tongue from evil- 
 speaking, lying, and slandering." What is more, 
 she took great pains to teach these words to a 
 big class of Sunday-school children, and went, 
 rain or shine, to spend two hours each Sunday 
 in a stuffy school -room for that purpose. It 
 was strange that she should be so ready to be- 
 lieve evil of her neighbor, and so eager to spread 
 the story. But my progenitor is clever, and 
 doubtless knows very well whom to select as his 
 tools.
 
 26 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 By this time they had reached a comfortable- 
 looking 1 , red-brick house with white stone fac- 
 ings, and in the discussion of the arrangements 
 for the choir treat I was entirely forgotten. 
 
 MY THIRD STAGE. 
 
 Alas ! such is our weakness, that we often more read- 
 ily believe and speak of another that which is evil than 
 tliat which is good. But perfect men do not easily give 
 credit to every report ; because they know man's weak- 
 ness, which is very prone to evil, and very subject to 
 fail in words. THOMAS i KEMPIS. 
 
 ALL through that evening, and through the 
 first part of the succeeding day, I was crowded 
 out of the curate's mind by a host of thoughts 
 with which I had nothing in common ; and 
 though I hovered about him as he taught in 
 the school, and visited several sick people, and 
 argued with a habitual drunkard, and worked at 
 his Sunday sermon, a power, which I felt but 
 did not understand," baffled all my attempts to 
 gain an entrance and attract his notice. I made 
 a desperate attack on him after lunch as he sat 
 smoking and enjoying a well-earned rest, but it 
 was of no avail. I followed him to a large gar- 
 den-party later on, but to my great annoyance
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 27 
 
 he went about talking to everyone in the pleas- 
 antest way imaginable, though I perceived that 
 he was longing to play tennis instead. 
 
 At length, however, my opportunity came. 
 Mr. Blackthorne was talking to the lady of the 
 house, Mrs. Courtenay, when she suddenly ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " Ah, here is Mr. Zaluski just arriving. I be- 
 gan to be afraid that he had forgotten the day, 
 and he is always such an acquisition. How do 
 you do, Mr. Zaluski ? " she said, greeting my 
 victim warmly as he stepped on to the terrace. 
 " So glad you were able to come. You know 
 Mr. Blackthorne, I think ? " 
 
 Zaluski greeted the curate pleasantly, and his 
 dark eyes lighted up with a gleam of amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 " Oh, we are great friends," he said, laughing- 
 ly. " Only, you know, I sometimes shock him 
 a little just a very little." 
 
 " That is very unkind of you, I am sure," said 
 Mrs. Courtenay, smiling. 
 
 " No, not at all," said Zaluski, with the audac- 
 ity of a privileged being. " It is just my little 
 amusement, very harmless, very what you call 
 innocent. Mr. Blackthorne cannot make up his 
 mind about me. One day I appear to him to be
 
 23 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 Catholic, the next Comtist, the next Orthodox 
 Greek, the next a convert to the Anglican com- 
 munion. I am a mystery, you see ! And mys- 
 teries are as indispensable in life as in a ro- 
 mance." 
 
 He laughed. Mrs. Courtenay laughed too, and 
 a little friendly banter was carried on between 
 them, while the curate stood by feeling rather 
 out of it. 
 
 I drew nearer to him, perceiving that my 
 prospects bid fair to improve. For very few 
 people can feel out of it without drifting into a 
 self -regarding mood, and then they are the eas- 
 iest prey imaginable. Undoubtedly a man like 
 Zaluski, with his easy nonchalance, his knowl- 
 edge of the world, his genuine good nature, and 
 the background of sterling qualities which came 
 upon you as a surprise because he loved to make 
 himself seem a mere idler, was apt to eclipse an 
 ordinary mortal like James Blackthorne. The 
 curate perceived this and did not like to be 
 eclipsed as a matter of fact, nobody does. It 
 seemed to him a little unfair that he, who had 
 hitherto been made much of, should be called 
 to play second fiddle to this rich Polish fellow 
 who had never done anything for Muddleton or 
 the neighborhood. And then, too, Sigismuud
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 29 
 
 Zaluski had a way of poking- fun at him which 
 ho resented, and would not take in good part. 
 
 Something of this began to stir in his mind ; 
 and he cordially hated the Pole when Jim 
 Courtenay, who arranged the tennis, came up 
 and asked him to play in the next set, passing 
 the curate by altogether. 
 
 Then I found no difficulty at all in taking 
 possession of him ; indeed, he was delighted to 
 have me brought back to his memory, he posi- 
 tively gloated over me, and I grew apace. 
 
 Zaluski, in the seventh heaven of happiness, 
 was playing- with Gertrude Morley, and his play 
 was so good and so graceful that everyone was 
 watching- it with pleasure. His partner, . too, 
 played well ; she was a pretty, fair-haired girl, 
 with soft gray eyes, like the eyes of a dove ; 
 she wore a white tennis dress and a white sailor 
 hat, and at her throat she had fastened a cluster 
 of those beautiful orange -colored roses known 
 by the prosaic name of " William Allan Rich- 
 ardson." 
 
 If Mr. Blackthorne grew angry as he watched 
 Sigismund Zaluski, he grew doubly angry as he 
 watched Gertrude Morley. He said to himself 
 that it was intolerable that such a girl should 
 fall a prey to a vain, shallow, unprincipled for-
 
 30 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 eigner, and in a few minutes he had painted 
 such a dark picture of poor Sigismund that my 
 strength increased tenfold. 
 
 "Mr. Blackthorne," said Mrs. Courtenay, 
 " would you take Mrs. Milton-Cleave to have 
 an ice ? " 
 
 Now, Mrs. Milton-Cleave had always been 
 one of the curate's great friends. She was a 
 very pleasant, talkative woman of six-and- 
 thirty, and a general favorite. Her popular- 
 ity was well deserved, for she was always 
 ready to do a kind action, and often went out 
 of her way to halp people who had not the 
 slightast claim upon her. There was, however, 
 no repose about Mrs. Milton- Cleave, and an 
 acute observer would have discovered that her 
 universal readiness to help was caused to some 
 extent by her good heart, but in a very large 
 degree by her restless and over-active brain. 
 Her sphere was scarcely large enough for her, 
 she would have made an excellent head of an 
 orphan asylum or manager of some large in- 
 stitution, but her quiet country life offered far 
 too narrow a field for her energy. 
 
 " It is really quite a treat to watch Mr. Za- 
 luski's play," she remarked, as they walked to 
 the refreshment tent at the other end of the
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 31 
 
 lawn. " Certainly foreigners know how to 
 move much better than we do ; our best play- 
 ers look awkward beside them." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " said Mr. Blackthorne. 
 " I am afraid I am full of prejudice, and con- 
 sider that no one can equal a true-born Briton." 
 
 " And I quite agree with you in the main," 
 said Mrs. Milton-Cleave. " Though I confess 
 that it is rather refreshing to have a little 
 variety." 
 
 The curate was silent, but his silence merely 
 covered his absorption in me, and I began to 
 exercise a faint influence through his mind on 
 the mind of his companion. This caused her at 
 length to say : 
 
 "I don't think you quite like Mr. Zaluski. 
 Do you know much about him ? " 
 
 " I have met him several times this summer," 
 said the curate, in the tone of one who could 
 have said much more if he would. 
 
 The less satisfying his replies, the more Mrs. 
 Milton-Cleave's curiosity grew. 
 
 " Now, tell me candidly," she said, at length, 
 "is there not some mystery about our new 
 neighbor ? Is he quite what he seems to be ? " 
 
 " I fear he is not," said Mr. Blackthorne, 
 making the admission in a tone of reluctance,
 
 32 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 though, to tell the truth, he had been long-ing 
 to pass me on for the last five minutes. 
 
 " You mean that he is fast ? " 
 
 " Worse than that," said James Blackthorne, 
 lowering his voice as they walked down one of 
 the shady garden paths. " He is a dangerous, 
 unprincipled fellow, and into the bargain an 
 avowed Nihilist. All that is involved in that 
 word you perhaps scarcely realize." 
 
 " Indeed I do," she exclaimed, with a shocked 
 expression. " I have just been reading a review 
 of that book of Stepniak. Their social and re- 
 ligious views are terrible; free love, atheism, 
 everything that could bring ruin on the human 
 race. Is he indeed a Nihilist ? " 
 
 Mr. Blackthorne's conscience gave him a sharp 
 prick, for he knew that he ought not to have 
 passed me on. He tried to pacify it with the 
 excuse that he had only promised not to tell 
 that Miss Houghton had been his informant. 
 
 " I assure you," he said, impressively, " it is 
 only too true. I know it on the best authority." 
 
 And here I cannot help remarking that it has 
 always seemed to me strange that even experi- 
 enced women of the world, like Mrs. Milton- 
 Cleave, can be so easily hood-winked by that 
 vague nonentity, " The Best Authority." I am
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 33 
 
 inclined to think that, were I a human being, I 
 should retort with an expressive motion of the 
 finger and thumb, " Oh, you know it on the best 
 authority, do you ? Then that for your story ! " 
 
 However, I thrived wonderfully en the best 
 authority, and it would be ungrateful of me to 
 speak evil of that powerful though imaginary 
 being. 
 
 At right angles with the garden-walk down 
 which the two were pacing there was another 
 wide pathway, bordered by high, closely clipped 
 shrubs. Down this paced a very different couple. 
 Mrs. Milton-Cleave caught sight of them, and 
 so did the curate. Mrs. Milton-Cleave sighed. 
 
 "I am afraid h? is running after Gertrude 
 Morley ! Poor girl ! I hope she will not be 
 deluded into encouraging him." 
 
 And then they made just the same little set 
 remarks about tha desirability of stopping so 
 dangerous an acquaintance, and the impossi- 
 bility of interfering with other people's affairs, 
 and the sad necessity of standing by with folded 
 hands. I laughed so much over their hollow 
 little phrases that at last I was fain to beat a 
 retreat, and, prompted by curiosity to know a 
 little of the truth, I followed Sigismund and 
 Gertrude down the broad grassy pathway.
 
 34: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 I knew of course a good deal of Zaluski's char- 
 acter, because my own existence and growth 
 pointed out what he was not. Still, to study a 
 man by a process of negation is tedious, and 
 though I knew that he was not a Nihilist, or a 
 free-lover, or an atheist, or an unprincipled fel- 
 low with a dangerous temper, yet I was curious 
 to see him as he really was. 
 
 " If you only knew how happy you had made 
 me ! " he was saying. And indeed, as far as hap- 
 piness went, there was not much to choose be- 
 tween them, I fancy ; for Gertrude Morley looked 
 radiant, and in her dove-like eyes there was the 
 reflection of the love which flashed in his. 
 
 " You must talk to my mother about it," she 
 said, after a minute's silence. " You see, I am 
 still under age, and she and Uncle Henry, my 
 guardian, must consent before we are actually 
 betrothed ! " 
 
 "I will see them at once," said Zaluski, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " You could see my mother," she replied. 
 " But Uncle Henry is still in Sweden, and will 
 not be in town for another week." 
 
 " Must we really wait so long ? " sighed Sigis^ 
 mund, impatiently. 
 
 She laughed at him gently.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 35 
 
 " A whole week ! But then we are sure of each 
 other. I do not think we ought to grumble." 
 
 " But perhaps they may think that a merchant 
 is no fitting match for you," he suggested. " I 
 am nothing but a plain merchant, and my peo- 
 ple have been in the same business for four gen- 
 erations. As far as wealth goes I might per- 
 haps satisfy your people, but for the rest I am 
 but a prosaic fellow, with neither noble blood, 
 nor the brain of a genius, nor anything out of 
 the common." 
 
 " It will be enough for my mother that we love 
 each other," she said, shyly. 
 
 " And your uncle ? " 
 
 " It will be enough for him that you are up- 
 right and honorable enough that you are your- 
 self, Sigismund." 
 
 They were sitting now in a little sheltered re- 
 cess clipped out of the yew-trees. When that 
 softly spoken " Sigismund " fell from her lips, 
 Zaluski caught her in his arms and kissed her 
 again and again. 
 
 " I have led such a lonely life," he said, after 
 a few minutes, during which their talk had 
 baffled my comprehension. " All my people 
 died while I was still a boy." 
 
 " Then who brought you up ? " she inquired.
 
 36 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 " An uncle of mine, the head of our firm in St. 
 Petersburg 1 . He was very good to me, but he 
 had children of his own, and of course I could 
 not be to him as one of them. I have had many 
 friends and much kindness shown to me, but 
 love ! none till to-day." 
 
 And then again they fell into the talk which 
 I could not fathom. And so I left them in their 
 brief happiness, for my time of idleness was 
 over, and I was ordered to attend Mrs. Milton- 
 Cleave without a moment's delay. 
 
 MY FOURTH STAGE. 
 
 Oh, the little more, and how much it is ! 
 
 E. BROWNING. 
 
 MBS. MILTON-CLEAVE had one weakness she 
 was possessed by an inordinate desire for in- 
 fluence. This made her always eagerly anxious 
 to be interesting both in her conversation and 
 in her letters, and to this end she exerted her- 
 self with unwearying activity. She liked in- 
 fluencing Mr. Blackthorne, and spared no pains 
 on him that afternoon ; and indeed the curate 
 was a good deal flattered by her friendship, and
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 37 
 
 considered her one of the most clever and 
 charming women he had ever met. 
 
 Sigismund and Gertrude returned to the or- 
 dinary world just as Mrs. Milton-Cleave was 
 saying 1 good-by to the hostess. She glanced at 
 them searchingly. 
 
 " Good-by, Gertrude," she said, a little cold- 
 ly. " Did you win at tennis ? " 
 
 "Indeed we did," said Gertrude, smiling. 
 " "We came off with flying colors. It was a love 
 set." 
 
 The girl looked more beautiful than ever, and 
 there was a tell-tale color in her cheeks and an 
 unusual light in her soft gray eyes. As for 
 Zaluski, he was so evidently in love, and had the 
 audacity to look so supremely happy, that Mrs. 
 Milton-Cleave was more than ever impressed 
 with the gravity of the situation. The curate 
 handed her into her victoria, and she drove 
 home through the sheltered lanes musing sadly 
 over the story she had heard, and wondering 
 what Gertrude's future would be. "When she 
 reached home, however, the affair was driven 
 from her thoughts by her children, of whom 
 she was devotedly fond. They came running to 
 meet her, frisking like so many kittens round 
 her as she went upstairs to her room, and beg-
 
 33 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 ging to stay with her while she dressed for din- 
 ner. During dinner 'she was engrossed with her 
 husband ; but afterward, when she was alone in 
 the drawing-room, I found my opportunity for 
 working- on her restless mind. 
 
 " Dear me," she exclaimed, throwing 1 aside 
 the newspaper she had just taken up, "I ought 
 to write to Mrs. Selldon at Dulminster about 
 that G. F. S. girl ! " 
 
 As a matter of fact, she ought not to have 
 written then, the letter might well have waited 
 till the morning, and she was overtired and 
 needed rest. But I was glad to see her take up 
 her pen, for I knew I should come in most con- 
 veniently to fill up the second side of the sheet. 
 
 Before long Jane Stiggins, the member who 
 had migrated from Muddleton to Dulminster, 
 had been duly reported, wound up, and made 
 over to the archdeacon's wife. Then the tired 
 hand paused. "What more could she say to her 
 friend ? 
 
 " We are leading our usual quiet life here," 
 she wrote, " with the ordinary round of tennis 
 parties and picnics to enliven us. The children 
 have been wonderfully well, and I think you 
 will see a great improvement in your god-
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 39 
 
 daughter when you next come to stay with us." 
 " Oh, dear ! " sighed Mrs. Milton-Cleave, " how 
 dull and stupid I am to-night ! I can't think of 
 a single thing to say." Then at length I flashed 
 into her mind, and with a sigh of relief and a 
 little rising flush of excitement, she went on 
 much more rapidly. 
 
 " It is such a comfort to be quite at rest about 
 them, and to see them all looking so well. But 
 I suppose one can never be without some cause 
 of worry, and just now I am very unhappy about 
 that nice girl Gertrude Morley, whom you ad- 
 mired so much when you were last here. The 
 whole neighborhood has been dominated this 
 year by a young Polish merchant named Sigis- 
 mund Zaluski, w r ho is very clever and musical, 
 and knows well how to win popularity. He has 
 taken Ivy Cottage for four months, and is, I 
 fear, doing great mischief. The Morleys are 
 his special friends, and I greatly fear he is 
 making love to Gertrude. Now, I know pri- 
 vately, on the best authority, that although he 
 has so completely deceived everyone, and has 
 managed so cleverly to pose as a respectable 
 man, that Mr. Zaluski is really a Nihilist, a free- 
 lover, an atheist, and altogether a most unprin- 
 cipled man. He is very clever, and speaks
 
 40 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 English most fluently, indeed ; he has lived in 
 London since the spring 1 of 1881 he told me so 
 himself. I cannot help fancying that he must 
 have been concerned in the assassination of the 
 late czar, which you will remember took place in 
 that year, early in March. It is terrible to think 
 of the poor Morleys entering blindfold on such 
 an undesirable connection ; but, at the same 
 time, I really do not feel that I can say anything 
 about it. Excuse this hurried note, dear Char- 
 lotte, and with love to yourself and kindest re- 
 membrances to the archdeacon, 
 
 " Believe me, very affectionately yours, 
 " GEORGINA MILTON-CLEAVE. 
 
 " P.S. It may perhaps be as well not to men- 
 tion this affair about Gertrude Morley and Mr. 
 Zaluski. They are not yet engaged, as far as I 
 know, and I sincerely trust it may prove to be a 
 mere flirtation." 
 
 I had now grown to such enormous dimen- 
 sions that anyone who had known me in my 
 infancy would scarcely have recognized me, 
 while naturally, the more I grew the more 
 powerful I became, and the more capable both 
 of impressing the minds which received me 
 and of injuring Zaluski. Poor Zaluski, who was
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 41 
 
 so foolishly, thoughtlessly happy. He little 
 dreamed of the fate that awaited him ! His 
 
 whole world was bright and full of promise; 
 
 
 
 each hour of love seemed to improve him, to 
 deepen his whole character, to tone down his 
 rather flippant manner, to awaken for him new 
 and hitherto unthought-of realities. 
 
 But while he basked in his new happiness I 
 travelled in my close, stuffy envelope to Dul- 
 minster, and after having been tossed in and 
 out of bags, shuffled, stamped, thumped, tied 
 up, and generally shaken about, I arrived one 
 morning at Dulminster Archdeaconry, and was 
 laid on the breakfast-table among other ap- 
 petizing things to greet Mrs. Selldon when she 
 came downstairs. 
 
 MY FIFTH STAGE. 
 
 Also it is wise not to believe everything you hear, nor 
 immediately to cany to the ears of others what you have 
 either heard or believed. THOMAS A KEMPIS. 
 
 THOUGH I was read in silence at the break- 
 fast-table and not passed on to the archdeacon, 
 I lay dormant in Mrs. Selldon's mind all day, 
 and came to her aid that night when she was at 
 her wits' end for something to talk about.
 
 42 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 Mrs. Selldon, though a most worthy and 
 estimable person, was of a phlegmatic temper- 
 ament ; her sympathies were not easily aroused, 
 her mind was lazy and torpid, in conversation 
 she was unutterably dull. There were times 
 when she was painfully conscious of this, and 
 would have given much for the ceaseless flow 
 of words which fell from the lips of her friend 
 Mrs. Milton-Cleave. And that evening after my 
 arrival, chanced to be one of these occasions, 
 for there was a dinner-party at the archdeacon- 
 ry, given in honor of a well-known author who 
 was spending a few days in the neighborhood. 
 
 " I wish you could have Mr. Shrewsbury at 
 your end of the table, Thomas," Mrs. Selldon 
 had remarked to her husband with a sigh, as 
 she was arranging the guests on paper that 
 afternoon. 
 
 " Oh, he must certainly take you in, my dear," 
 said the archdeacon. " And he seems a very 
 clever, well-read man ; I am sure you will find 
 him easy to talk to." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Selldon thought that she would 
 rather have had someone who was neither 
 clever nor well read. But there was no help 
 for her, and, whether she would or not, she had 
 to go in to dinner with the literary lion.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 43 
 
 Mr. Mark Shrewsbury was a novelist of great 
 ability. Some twenty years before he had 
 been called to the bar, and, conscious of real 
 talent, had been greatly embittered by the im- 
 possibility of getting on in his profession. At 
 length, in disgust, he gave up all hopes of suc- 
 cess and devoted himself instead to literature. 
 In this field he won the recognition for which 
 he craved; his books were read everywhere, 
 his name became famous, his income steadily 
 increased, and he had the pleasant conscious- 
 ness that he had found his vocation. Still, in 
 spite of his success, he could not forget the 
 bitter years of failure and disappointment 
 which had gone before, and though his novels 
 were full of genius they were pervaded by an 
 under-tone of sarcasm, so that people after 
 reading them were more ready than before to 
 take cynical views of life. 
 
 He was one of those men whose quiet, im- 
 passive faces reveal scarcely anything of their 
 character. He was neither tall nor short, 
 neither dark nor fair, neither handsome nor the 
 reverse ; in fact his personality was not in the 
 least impressive ; while, like most true artists, 
 he observed all things so quietly that you 
 rarely discovered that he was observing at all.
 
 44: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 " Dear me ! " people would say, " is Mark 
 Shrewsbury really here? Which is he? I 
 don't see anyone at all like my idea of a 
 novelist." 
 
 " There he is that man in spectacles," would 
 be the reply. 
 
 And really the spectacles were the only note- 
 worthy thing about him. 
 
 Mrs. Selldon, who had seen several authors 
 and authoresses in her time, and knew that they 
 were as a rule most ordinary, humdrum kind of 
 people, was quite prepared for her fate. She 
 remembered her astonishment as a girl when, 
 having laughed and cried at the play, and tak- 
 ing the chief actor as her ideal hero, she had 
 had him pointed out to her one day in Eegent 
 Street, and found him to be a most common- 
 place-looking man, the very last person one 
 would have supposed capable of stirring the 
 hearts of a great audience. 
 
 Meanwhile dinner progressed, and Mrs. Sell- 
 don talked to an empty-headed but loquacious 
 man on her left, and racked her brains for some- 
 thing to say to the alarmingly silent author 
 on her right. She remembered hearing that 
 Charles Dickens would often sit silent through 
 the whole of dinner, observing quietly those
 
 TUB AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 45 
 
 about him, but that at dessert he would sud- 
 denly come to life and keep the whole table in 
 roars of laughter. She feared that Mr. Shrews- 
 bury meant to imitate the great novelist in the 
 first particular, but was scarcely likely to fol- 
 low his example in the last. At length she 
 asked him what he thought of the cathedral, 
 and a few tepid remarks followed. 
 
 " How unutterably this good lady bores me ! " 
 thought the author. 
 
 " How odd it is that his characters talk so 
 well in his books, and that he is such a stick ! " 
 thought Mrs. Selldon. 
 
 " I suppose it's the effect of cathedral-town 
 atmosphere," reflected the author. 
 
 " I suppose he is eaten up with conceit and 
 won't trouble himself to talk to me," thought 
 the hostess. 
 
 By the time the fish had been removed they 
 had arrived at a state of mutual contempt. 
 Mindful of the reputation they had to keep 
 up, however, they exerted themselves a little 
 more while the entrees went round. 
 
 "Seldom reads, I should fancy, and never 
 thinks ! " reflected the author, glancing at Mrs. 
 Selldon's placid, unintellectual face. "What 
 on earth can I say to her ? "
 
 46 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 " Very unpractical, I am sure," reflected Mrs. 
 Selldon. The sort of man who lives in a world 
 of his own, and only lays down his pen to take 
 up a book. What subject shall I start ? " 
 
 " "What delightful weather we have been hav- 
 ing the last few days ! " observed the author. 
 " Real, genuine summer weather at last." The 
 same remark had been trembling on Mrs. Sell- 
 don's lips. She assented with great cheerful- 
 ness and alacrity ; and over that invaluable 
 topic, which is always so safe and so congenial, 
 and so ready to hand, they grew quite friendly, 
 and the conversation for full five minutes was 
 animated. 
 
 An interval of thought followed. 
 
 " How wearisome is society ! " reflected Mrs. 
 Selldon. " It is hard that we must spend so 
 much money in giving dinners, and have so 
 much trouble for so little enjoyment." 
 
 " One pays dearly for fame," reflected the 
 author. " What a confounded nuisance it is to 
 waste all this time when there are the last 
 proofs of ' What Caste ? ' to be done for the nine- 
 o'clock post to-morrow morning! Goodness 
 knows what time I shall get to bed to-night ! " 
 
 Then Mrs. Selldon thought regretfully of the 
 comfortable easy-chair that she usually enjoyed
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 47 
 
 after dinner, and the ten minutes' nap and the 
 congenial needle-work. And Mark Shrewsbury 
 thought of his chambers in Pump Court, and 
 longed for his type-writer, and his books, and 
 his swivel-chair, and his favorite meerschaum. 
 
 <: I should be less afraid to talk if there were 
 not always the horrible idea that he may take 
 down what one says," thought Mrs. Selldon. 
 
 " I should be less bored if she would only be 
 her natural self," reflected the author. "And 
 would not talk prim platitudes." (This was 
 hard, for he had talked nothing else himself.) 
 "Does she think she is so interesting that I 
 am likely to study her for my next book ? " 
 
 " Have you been abroad this summer ? " in- 
 quired Mrs. Selldon, making another spasmodic 
 attempt at conversation. 
 
 "No; I detest travelling," replied Mark 
 Shrewsbury. " When I need change I just settle 
 down in some quiet country district for a few 
 months some where near Windsor, or Reigate, 
 or Muddleton. There is nothing to my mind 
 like our English scenery." 
 
 "Oh, do you know Muddleton?" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Selldon. "Is it not a charming little 
 place "? I often stay in the neighborhood with 
 the Milton-Cleaves."
 
 48 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 " I know Milton-Cleave well," said the author. 
 "A capital fellow, quite the typical country 
 gentleman." 
 
 " Is he not ? " said Mrs. Selldon, much relieved 
 to have found this subject in common. " His 
 wife is a great friend of mine ; she is full of life 
 and energy, and does an immense amount of 
 good. Did you say you had stayed with them ? " 
 
 " No ; but last year I took a house in that 
 neighborhood for a few months ; a most charm- 
 ing little place it was, just fit for a lonely 
 bachelor. I dare say you remember it Ivy 
 Cottage, on the Newton Road." 
 
 " Did you stay there ? Now, what a curious 
 coincidence ! Only this morning I heard from 
 Mrs. Milton-Cleave that Ivy Cottage had been 
 taken this summer by a Mr. Sigismund Zaluski, 
 a Polish merchant, who is doing untold harm in 
 the neighborhood. He is a very clever, unscru- 
 pulous man, and has managed to take in almost 
 everyone." 
 
 " Why, what is he ? A swindler ? Or a bur- 
 glar in disguise, like the ' House on the Marsh ' 
 fellow ? " asked the author, with a little twinkle 
 of amusement in his face. 
 
 " Oh, much worse than that," said Mrs. Selldon, 
 lowering her voice. " I assure you, Mr. Shrews-
 
 TUB AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 49 
 
 bury, you would hardly credit the story if I wero 
 to tell it you, it is really stranger than fiction." 
 Mark Shrewsbury pricked up his ears he no 
 longer felt bored, he began to think that, after 
 all, there might be some compensation for this 
 wearisome dinner-party. He was always glad 
 to seize upon material for future plots, and 
 somehow the notion of a mysterious Pole sud- 
 denly making his appearance in that quiet 
 country neighborhood and winning undeserved 
 popularity rather took his fancy. He thought 
 he might make something of it. However, he 
 knew human nature too well to ask a direct 
 question. 
 
 " I am sorry to hear that," he said, becoming 
 all at once quite sympathetic and approachable. 
 " I don't like the thought of those simple, un- 
 sophisticated people being hoodwinked by a 
 scoundrel." 
 
 "No; is it not sad?" said Mrs. Selldon. 
 " Such pleasant, hospitable people as they are ! 
 Do you remember the Morleys ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! There was a pretty daughter who 
 played tennis well." 
 
 " Quite so Gertrude Morley. Well, would 
 you believe it, this miserable fortune-hunter ia 
 actually either engaged to her or on the eve of
 
 50 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 being engaged ! Poor Mrs. Milton-Cleave is 
 so unhappy about it, for she knows, on the 
 best authority, that Mr. Zaluski is unfit to en- 
 ter a respectable house." 
 
 " Perhaps he is really some escaped crim- 
 inal ? " suggested Mr. Shrewsbury, tentatively. 
 
 Mrs. Selldon hesitated. Then, under the 
 cover of the general roar of com'ersation, she 
 said, iu a low voice : 
 
 " You have guessed quite rightly. He is one 
 of the Nihilists who were concerned in the as- 
 sassination of the late czar." 
 
 " You don't say so ! " exclaimed Mark Shrews- 
 bury, much startled. " Is it possible ? " 
 
 " Indeed, it is only too true," said Mrs. Sell- 
 don. " I heard it only the other morning, and 
 on the very best authority. Poor Gertrude 
 Morley ! My heart bleeds for her." 
 
 Now, I can't help observing here that this 
 must have been the merest figure of speech, for 
 just then there was a comfortable little glow 
 of satisfaction about Mrs. Selldon's heart. 
 She was so delighted to have " got on well," as 
 she expressed it, with the literary lion, and by 
 this time dessert was on the table, and soon tho 
 tedious ceremony would be happily over. 
 
 " But how did ho escape ? " asked Mark
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 51 
 
 Shrewsbury, still with the thought of " copy " 
 in his mind. 
 
 " I don't know the details," said Mrs. Sell- 
 don. " Probably they are only known to him- 
 self. But he managed to escape somehow in 
 the month of March, 1891, and to reach Eng- 
 land safely. I fear it is only too often the case 
 in this world wickedness is apt to be success- 
 ful." 
 
 " To flourish like a green bay -tree," said 
 Mark Shrewsbury, congratulating himself on 
 the aptness of the quotation, and its suitability 
 to the archdiaconal dinner-table. " It is the 
 strangest story I have heard for a long time." 
 Just then there was a pause in the general con- 
 versation, and Mrs. Selldon took advantage of 
 it to make the sign for rising, so that no more 
 passed with regard to Zaluski. 
 
 Shrewsbury, flattering himself that he had 
 left a good impression by his last remark, 
 thought better not to efface it later in the even- 
 ing by any other conversation with his hostess. 
 But in the small hours of the night, when he 
 had finished his bundle of proofs, he took up 
 his note-book, and, strangling his yawns, made 
 two or three brief, pithy notes of the story Mrs. 
 Selldon had told him, adding a further develop-
 
 52 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 ment which occurred to him, and wondering 1 to 
 himself whether " Like a Green Bay Tree " 
 would be a selling title. 
 
 After this he went to bed, and slept the sleep 
 of the just, or the unbroken sleep which goes 
 by that name. 
 
 MY SIXTH STAGE. 
 
 But whispering tongues can poison truth. 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 LONDON in early September is a somewhat 
 trying place. Mark Shrewsbury found it less 
 pleasing in reality than in his visions during 
 the dinner-party at Dulminster. True, his 
 chambers were comfortable, and his type-writer 
 was as invaluable a machine as ever, and his 
 novel was drawing to a successful conclusion ; 
 but though all these things were calculated to 
 cheer him, he w r as nevertheless depressed. 
 Town was dull, the heat was trying, and he had 
 never in his life found it so difficult to settle 
 down to work. He began to agree with the 
 preacher, that " of making many books there is 
 no end," and that, in spite of his favorite 
 " Remington's perfected No. 2," novel-writing 
 was a weariness to the flesh. Soon he drifted
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 53 
 
 into a sort of vague idleness, which was not a 
 good, honest holiday, but just a lazy waste of 
 time and brains. I was pleased to observe 
 this, and was not slow to take advantage of it. 
 Had he stayed in Pump Court he might have 
 forgotten me altogether in his work, but in the 
 soft luxury of his club life I found that I had a 
 very fair chance of being passed on to some 
 one else. 
 
 One hot afternoon, on waking from a com- 
 fortable nap in the depths of an arm-chair at 
 the club, Shrewsbury was greeted by one of 
 his friends. 
 
 "I thought you were in Switzerland, old 
 fellow ! " he exclaimed, yawning and stretching 
 himself. 
 
 " Came back yesterday awfully bad season 
 confoundedly dull," returned the other. 
 " Where have you been ? " 
 
 " Down with Warren near Dulminster. 
 Deathly dull hole." 
 
 " Do for your next novel. Eh ? " said the 
 other, with a laugh. 
 
 Mark Shrewsbury smiled good-naturedly. 
 
 " Talking of novels," he observed, with an- 
 other yawn, "I heard such a story down 
 there ! "
 
 54: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 "Did you? Let's hear it. A nice little 
 scandal would do instead of a pick-me-up." 
 
 "It's not a scandal. Don't raise your ex- 
 pectations. It's the story of a successful 
 scoundrel." 
 
 And then I came out again in full vigor; 
 nay, with vastly increased powers ; for though 
 Mark Shrewsbury did not add very much to 
 me or alter my appearance, yet his graphic 
 words made me much more impressive than I 
 had been under the management of Mrs. Sell- 
 don. 
 
 " H'm ! that's a queer story," said the limp- 
 looking young man from Switzerland. " I say, 
 have a game of billiards, will you ? " 
 
 Shrewsbury, with a prodigious yawn, drag- 
 ged himself up out of his chair, and the two 
 went off together. As they left the room the 
 only other man present looked up from his 
 newspaper, following them with his eyes. 
 
 " Shrewsbury the novelist," he thought to 
 himself. "A sterling fellow! And he heard 
 it from an archdeacon's wife. Confound it all ! 
 the thing must be true, then. I'll write and 
 make full inquiries about this Zaluski before 
 consenting to the engagement." 
 
 And, being a prompt, business-like man,
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 55 
 
 Gertrude Morley's uncle sat down and wrote the 
 following- letter to a Kussian friend of his who 
 lived at St. Petersburg, and who might very 
 likely be able to give some account of Zaluski : 
 
 " DEAR LEONOFF : Some very queer stories 
 are afloat about a young Polish merchant, by 
 name Sigisnmnd Zaluski, the head of the Lon- 
 don branch of the firm of Zaluski & Zernoff, at 
 St. Petersburg. Will you kindly make inquiries 
 for me as to his true character and history ? I 
 would not trouble you with this affair, but the 
 fact is Zaluski has made an offer of marriage 
 to one of my wards, and before consenting to 
 any betrothal I must know what sort of man he 
 really is. I take it for granted that ' there is 
 no smoke without fire,' and that there must be 
 something in the very strange tale which I 
 have just heard on the best authority. It is 
 said that this Sigismund Zaluski left St. Peters- 
 burg in March, 1881, after the assassination of 
 the late czar, in which he was seriously com- 
 promised. He is said to be an out-and-out Ni- 
 hilist, an atheist, and, in short, a dangerous, 
 disreputable fellow. Will you sift the matter 
 for me ? I don't wish to dismiss the fellow 
 without good reason, but of course I could not
 
 56 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 think of permitting 1 him to be engaged to my 
 niece until these charges are entirely dis- 
 proved. 
 
 " With kind remembrances to your father, 
 " I am yours faithfully, 
 
 " HENKY CRICHTON-MORLEY." 
 
 MY SEVENTH STAGE. 
 
 Yet on the dull silence breaking 
 
 With a lightning flash, a word, 
 Bearing endless desolation 
 
 On its blighting wings, I heard ; 
 Earth can forge no keener weapon, 
 
 Dealing surer death and pain, 
 And the cruel echo answered 
 
 Through long years again. 
 
 A. A. PROCTOB. 
 
 CURIOUSLY enough, I must actually have 
 started for Kussia on the same day that Sigis- 
 mund Zaluski was summoned by his uncle at 
 St. Petersburg to return on a matter of urgent 
 business. I learned afterward that the tele- 
 gram arrived at Muddleton on the afternoon of 
 one of those sunny September days, and found 
 Zaluski as usual at the Morleys'. He was veiy 
 much annoyed at being called away just then,
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 57 
 
 and before he had received any reply from 
 Gertrude's uncle as to the engagement. How- 
 ever, after a little ebullition of auger, he re- 
 gained his usual philosophic tone, and, re- 
 minding Gertrude that he need not be away 
 from England for more than a fortnight, he 
 took leave of her and set off in a prompt, manly 
 fashion, leaving most of his belongings at Ivy 
 Cottage, which was his for another six weeks, 
 and to which he hoped shortly to return. 
 
 After a weary time of imprisonment in my 
 envelope, I at length reached my destination at 
 St. Petersburg, and was read by Dmitry Leon- 
 off. He was a very busy man, and by the same 
 post received dozens of other letters. He 
 merely muttered : " That well-known firm ! A 
 most unlikely story ! " and then thrust me into 
 a drawer with other letters which had to be 
 answered. Very probably I escaped his mem- 
 ory altogether for the next few days ; however, 
 there I was, a startling accusation, in black and 
 white ; and, as everybody knows, St. Peters- 
 burg is not London. 
 
 The Leonoff family lived on the third story 
 of a large block of buildings in the Sergeff- 
 skaia. About two o'clock in the morning, on 
 the third day after my arrival, the whole house-
 
 58 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER, 
 
 hold was aroused from sleep by thundering 
 raps on the door, and the dreaded cry of " Open 
 to the police ! " 
 
 The unlucky master was forced to allow him- 
 self, his wife, and his children to be made pris- 
 oners, while every corner of the house was 
 searched, every book and paper examined. 
 
 Leonoff had nothing whatever to do with the 
 revolutionary movement, but absolute inno- 
 cence does not free people from the police in- 
 quisition, and five or six years ago, when the 
 search mania was at its height, a case is on 
 record of a poor lady whose house was searched 
 seven times within twenty -four hours, though 
 there was no evidence whatever that she was 
 connected with the Nihilists ; the whole affair 
 was, in fact, a misunderstanding, as she was 
 perfectly innocent. 
 
 This search in Dmitry Leonoff's house was 
 also a misunderstanding, and in the dominions 
 of the czar misunderstandings are of frequent 
 occurrence. 
 
 Leonoff knew himself to be innocent, and he 
 felt no fear, though considerable annoyance, 
 while the search was prosecuted; he could 
 hardly believe the evidence of his senses when, 
 without a word of explanation, he was informed
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 59 
 
 tliat lie must take leave of his wife and chil- 
 dren, and go in charge of the gendarmes to the 
 House of Preventive Detention. 
 
 Being a sensible man, he kept his temper, 
 remarked courteously that some mistake must 
 have been made, embraced his weeping wife, 
 and went off passively, while the pristav carried 
 away a bundle of letters in which I occupied 
 the most prominent place. 
 
 Leonoff remained a prisoner only for a few 
 days ; there was not a shred of evidence against 
 him, and, having suffered terrible anxiety, he 
 was finally released. But Mr. Crichton-Mor- 
 ley's letter was never restored to him, it re- 
 mained in the hands of the authorities, and the 
 night after LeonofFs arrest the pristav, the 
 procurator, and the gendarmes made their 
 way into the dwelling of Sigismund Zaluski's 
 uncle, where a similar search was prosecuted. 
 
 Sigismund was asleep and dreaming of Ger- 
 trude and of his idyllic summer in England, 
 when his bedroom door was forced open and he 
 was roughly roused by the gendarmes. 
 
 His first feeling was one of amazement, his 
 second, one of indignation ; however, he was 
 obliged to get up at once and dress, the police- 
 men rigorously keeping guard over him the
 
 60 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 whole time for fear lie should destroy any trea- 
 sonable document. 
 
 " How I shall make them laugh in England 
 when I tell them of this ridiculous affair ! " re- 
 flected Sigismund, as he was solemnly marched 
 into the adjoining room, where he found his 
 uncle and cousins, each guarded by a police- 
 man. 
 
 He made some jesting remark, but was 
 promptly reprimanded by his jailer, and in 
 wearisome silence the household waited while 
 the most rigorous search of the premises was 
 made. 
 
 Of course nothing was found; but, to the 
 amazement of all, Sigismund was formally ar- 
 rested. 
 
 " There must be some mistake," he exclaimed. 
 "I have been resident in England for some 
 time. I have no connection whatever with 
 Russian politics." 
 
 " Oh, we are well aware of your residence in 
 England," said the pristav. " You left St. 
 Petersburg early in March, 1881. We are well 
 aware of that." 
 
 Something in the man's tone made Sigis- 
 mund's heart stand still. Could he possibly 
 be suspected of complicity in the plot to as-
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 61 
 
 sassinate the late czar 1 The idea would have 
 made him. laugh had he been in England. In 
 St. Petersburg, and under these circumstances, 
 it made him tremble. 
 
 "There is some terrible mistake," he said. 
 "I have never had the slightest connection 
 with the revolutionary party." 
 
 The pristav shrugged his shoulders, and 
 Sigismund, feeling like one in a dream, took 
 leave of his relations, and was escorted at once 
 to the House of Preventive Detention. 
 
 Arrived at his destination, he was examined 
 in a brief, unsatisfactory way; but when he 
 angrily asked for the evidence, he was merely 
 told that information had been received charg- 
 ing him with being concerned in the assassina- 
 tion of the late emperor, and of being an ad- 
 vanced member of the Nihilist party. His 
 vehement denials were received with scornful 
 incredulity, his departure for England just 
 after the assassination, and his prolonged ab- 
 sence from Russia, of course gave color to the 
 accusation, and he was ordered off to his cell 
 " to reflect."
 
 62 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 MY TRIUMPHANT FINALE. 
 
 "Words are mighty, words are living ; 
 
 Serpents with their venomous stings, 
 Or bright angels crowding round us, 
 
 With heaven's light upon their wings. 
 Every word has its own spirit, 
 
 Time or false, that never dies ; 
 Every word man's lips have tittered, 
 
 Echoes in God's skies. 
 
 A. A. PROCTOR. 
 
 MY labors were now nearly at an end, and 
 being-, so to speak, off duty, I could occupy 
 myself just as I pleased. I therefore resolved 
 to keep watch over Zaluski in his prison. 
 
 For the first few hours after his arrest lie 
 was in a violent passion : he paced up and 
 down his tiny cell like a lion in his cage- : ho 
 was beside himself with indignation, and the 
 blood leaped through his veins like wildfire. 
 
 Then he became a little ashamed of himself 
 and tried to grow quiet, and after a sleepless 
 night he passed to the opposite extreme and 
 sat all day long on the solitary stool in his 
 grim abode, his head resting on his hands, and 
 his mind a prey to the most fearful melancholy.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 63 
 
 The second night, however, he slept and 
 awoke with a steady" resolve in his mind. 
 
 " It will never do to give way like this, or I 
 shall be in a brain fever in no time," he re- 
 flected. "I will get leave to have books and 
 writing materials. I will make the best of a 
 bad business." 
 
 He remembered how pleased he had been 
 when Gertrude had once smiled on him be- 
 cause, when all the others in the party were 
 grumbling at the discomforts of a certain pic- 
 nic where the provisions had gone astray, he 
 had gayly made the best of it and ransacked 
 the nearest cottages for bread and cheese. He 
 set to work bravely now; hoped daily for his 
 release ; read all the books he was allowed to 
 receive, invented solitary games, began a novel, 
 and drew caricatures. 
 
 Tn October he was again examined ; but, 
 having nothing to reveal, it was inevitable 
 that he could reveal nothing ; and lie \\ MS 
 ag-ain sent back to his cell " to reflect." 
 
 O 
 
 I perceived that after this his heart began 
 to fail him. 
 
 There existed in the House of Preventive De- 
 tention a system of communication between 
 the luckless prisoners carried on by means of
 
 64 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 tapping on the wall. Sigismund, being a 
 clever fellow, had become a great adept at this 
 telegraphic system, and had struck up ;i 
 friendship with a young student in the next 
 cell. This poor fellow had been imprisoned 
 three years, his sole offence being that he had 
 in his possession a book which the govern- 
 ment did not approve, and that he was first- 
 cousin to a well-known Nihilist. 
 
 The two became as devoted to each other as 
 Silvio Pellico and Count Oroboni ; but it soon 
 became evident to Valerian Vasilowitch that, 
 unless Zaluski was released, he would soon 
 succumb to the terrible restrictions of prison 
 life. 
 
 " Keep up your heart, my friend," he used to 
 say. "I have borne it three years, and am 
 still alive to tell the tale." 
 
 "But you are stronger both in mind and 
 body," said Sigismund ; " and you are not mad- 
 ly in love as I am." 
 
 And then he would pour forth a rhapsody 
 about Gertrude, and about English life, and 
 about his hopes and fears for the future ; to all 
 of which Valerian, like the brave fellow he 
 was, replied with words of encouragement. 
 
 But at length there came a day when his
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 65 
 
 friend made no answer to his usual morning- 
 greeting. 
 
 " Are you ill ? " he asked. 
 
 For some time there was no reply, but after 
 a while Sigisinund rapped faintly the despair- 
 ing words : 
 
 " Dead beat ! " 
 
 Valerian felt the tears start to his eyes. It 
 was what he had all along expected, and for a 
 time grief and indignation and his miserable 
 helplessness made him almost beside himself. 
 At last he remembered that there was at least 
 one thing in his power. Each day he was es- 
 corted by a warder to a tiny square, walled off 
 in the exercising ground, and was allowed to 
 walk for a few minutes; he would take this 
 opportunity of begging the warder to get the 
 doctor for his friend. 
 
 But unfortunately the doctor did not think 
 very seriously of Zaluski's case. In that 
 dreary prison he had patients in the last 
 stages of all kinds of disease, and Sigismund, 
 who had been in confinement too short a time 
 to look as ill as the others, did not receive 
 much attention. Certainly, the doctor ad- 
 mitted, his lungs were affected ; probably the 
 sudden change of climate and the lack of good
 
 66 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY Of A SLANDER. 
 
 food and fresh air had been too much for him , 
 so the solemn farce ended, and he was left to 
 his fate. " If I were indeed a Nihilist, and suf- 
 fered for a cause which I had at heart," he 
 telegraphed to Valerian, "I could bear it 
 better. But to be kept here for an imaginary 
 offence, to bear cold and hunger and illness all 
 to no purpose that beats me. There can't be 
 a God, or such things would not be allowed." 
 
 " To me it seems," said Valerian, " that we 
 are the victims of violated law. Others have 
 shown tyranny, or injustice, or cruelty, and we 
 are the victims of their sin. Don't say there is 
 no God. There must be a God to avenge such 
 hideous wrong." 
 
 So they spoke to each other through their 
 prison wall as men in the free outer world 
 seldom care to speak ; and I, who knew no 
 barriers, looked now on Valerian's gaunt 
 figure, and brave but prematurely old face, 
 now on poor Zaluski, who, in his weary im- 
 prisonment had wasted away till one could 
 scarcely believe that he was indeed the same 
 lithe, active fellow who had played tennis at 
 Mrs. Courtenay's garden party. 
 
 Day and night Valerian listened to the terri- 
 ble cough which came from the adjoining cell.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 67 
 
 It became perfectly apparent to him that his 
 friend was dying ; he knew it as well as if he 
 had seen the burning 1 hectic flush on his hollow 
 cheeks, and heard the panting, hurried breaths, 
 and watched the unnatural brilliancy of his 
 dark eyes. 
 
 At length he thought the time had come for 
 another sort of comfort. 
 
 " My friend," he said one day, " it is too 
 plain to me now that you are dying. Write to 
 the procurator and tell him so. In some cases 
 men have been allowed to go home to die." 
 
 A wild hope seized on poor Sigismund ; he 
 sat down to the little table in his cell and 
 wrote a letter to the procurator a letter 
 which might almost have drawn tears from 
 a flint. Again and again he passionately as- 
 serted his innocence, and begged to know on 
 what evidence he was imprisoned. He began 
 to think that he could die content if he might 
 leave this terrible cell, might be a free agent 
 once more, if only for a few days. At least he 
 might in that case clear his character, and 
 convince Gertrude that his imprisonment had 
 been all a hideous mistake ; nay, he fancied 
 that he might live through a journey to Eng- 
 land and see her oiice again.
 
 68 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 But the procurator would not let him be set 
 free, and refused to believe that his case was 
 really a serious one. 
 
 Sigismund's last hope left him. 
 
 The days and weeks dragged slowly on, and 
 when, according to English reckoning, New- 
 year's -eve arrived, he could scarcely believe 
 that only seventeen weeks ago he had actually 
 been with Gertrude, and that disgrace and 
 imprisonment had seemed things that could 
 never come near him, and death had been a far- 
 away possibility, and life had been full of bliss. 
 
 As I watched him a strong desire seized me 
 to revisit the scenes of which he was thinking, 
 and I winged my way back to England, and 
 soon found myself in the drowsy, respectable 
 streets of Muddleton. 
 
 It was New-year's-eve, and I saw Mrs. 
 O'Reilly preparing presents for her grand- 
 children, and talking, as she tied them up, of 
 that dreadful Nihilist who had deceived them 
 in the summer. I saw Lena Houghton, and 
 Mr. Blackthorne, and Mrs. Milton-Clcavo. 
 kneeling in church on that Friday morning, 
 praying that pity might be shown " upon all 
 prisoners and captives, and all that are deso- 
 late or oppressed."
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 69 
 
 It never occurred to them that they were 
 responsible for the sufferings of one weary 
 prisoner, or that his death would be laid at 
 their door. 
 
 I flew to Dulminster, and saw Mrs. Selldon 
 kneeling in the cathedral at the late evening 
 service, and rigorously examining herself as 
 to the shortcomings of the dying year. She 
 confessed many things in a vague, untroubled 
 way; but had anyone told her that she had 
 cruelly wronged her neighbor, and helped to 
 bring an innocent man to shame, and prison, 
 and death, she would not have believed the 
 accusation. 
 
 I sought out Mark Shrewsbury. He was at 
 his chambers in Pump Court, working away 
 with his type-writer ; he had a fancy for work- 
 ing the old year out and the new year in, and 
 now he was in the full swing of that novel 
 which had suggested itself to his mind when 
 Mrs. Selldon described the rich and mysterious 
 foreigner who had settled down at Ivy Cottage. 
 Most happily he labored on, never dreaming 
 that his careless words had doomed a fellow- 
 niau to a painful and lingering death; never 
 dreaming that while his fingers flew to and fro 
 over his dainty little key-board, describing the
 
 70 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 clever doings of the unscrupulous foreigner, 
 another man, the victim of his idle gossip, 
 tapped dying messages on a dreary prison wall. 
 
 For the end had come. 
 
 Through the evening Sigismund rested 
 wearily on his truckle-bed. He could not lie 
 down because of his cough, and, since there 
 were no extra pillows to prop him up, he had 
 to rest his head and shoulders against the wall. 
 There was a gas-burner in the tiny cell, and by 
 its light he looked round the bare walls of his 
 prison with a blank, hopeless, yet wistful gaze ; 
 there was the stool, there was the table, there 
 were the clothes he should never wear again, 
 there was the door through which his lifeless 
 body would soon be earned. He looked at 
 everything lingeringly, for he knew that this 
 desolate prison was the last bit of the world 
 he should ever see. 
 
 Presently the gas was turned out. He 
 sighed as he felt the darkness close in upon 
 him, for he knew that his eyes would never 
 again see light knew that in this dark, lonely 
 cell he must lie and wait for death. And he 
 was young and wished to live, and he was iu 
 love and longed most terribly for the presence 
 of the woman he loved.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 71 
 
 The awful desolateness of the cell was more 
 than he could endure ; he tried to think of his 
 past life, he tried to live once again through 
 those happy weeks with Gertrude ; but always 
 he came back to the aching misery of the pros 
 ent the cold and the pain, and the darkness 
 and the terrible solitude. 
 
 His nerveless fingers felt their way to the 
 wall and faintly rapped a summons. 
 
 " Valerian ! " he said, " I shall not live 
 through the night. Watch with me." 
 
 " The faint raps sounded clearly in the still- 
 ness of the great building, and Valerian 
 dreaded lest the warders should hear them and 
 deal out punishment for an offence which by 
 day they were forced to wink at. 
 
 But he would not for the world have deserted 
 his friend. He drew his stool close to the wall, 
 wrapped himself round in all the clothes he 
 could muster, and, shivering with cold, kept 
 watch through the long winter night. 
 
 " I am near you, " he telegraphed. " I will 
 watch with you till morning." 
 
 From time to time Sigismund rapped faint 
 messages, and Valerian replied with comfort 
 and sympathy. Once he thought to himself, 
 " My friend is better ; there is more power in
 
 72 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 his hand." And indeed he trembled, fearing 
 that the sharp, emphatic raps must certainly 
 attract notice and put an end to their com- 
 munion. 
 
 " Tell my love that the accusation was false 
 false ! " the word was vehemently repeated. 
 " Tell her I died broken-hearted, loving her to 
 the end." 
 
 " I will tell her all when I am free," said poor 
 Valerian, wondering with a sigh when this un- 
 just imprisonment would end. " Do you suffer 
 much ? " he asked. 
 
 There was a brief interval. Sigismund hesi- 
 tated to tell a falsehood in his last extremity. 
 
 " It will soon be over. Do not be troubled 
 for me," he replied. And after that there was 
 a long, long silence. 
 
 Poor fellow ! he died hard ; and I wished that 
 those comfortable English people could have 
 been dragged from their warm beds and 
 brought into the cold, dreary cell where their 
 victim lay, fighting for breath, suffering cruelly 
 both in mind and body. Valerian, listening in 
 sad suspense, heard one more faint word rapped 
 by the dying man : 
 
 " Farewell ! " 
 
 " God be with you ! " he replied, unable to
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 73 
 
 check the tears which rained down as he 
 thought of the life so sadly ended, and of his 
 own bereavement. 
 
 He heard no more. Sigismund's strength 
 failed him, and I, to whom the darkness made 
 no difference, watched him through the last 
 dread struggle ; there was no one to raise him, 
 or hold him, no one to comfort him. Alone in 
 the cold and darkness of that first morning of 
 the year 1887, he died. 
 
 Valerian did not hear through the wall his 
 last faint, gasping cry, but I heard it, and its 
 exceeding bitterness would have made mortals 
 weep. 
 
 " Gertrude I " he sobbed. " Gertrude ! " 
 
 And with that his head sank on his breast, 
 and the life which but for me might have been 
 so happy and prosperous, was ended. 
 
 Prompted by curiosity, I instantly returned 
 to Muddletou and sought out Gertrude Morley. 
 I stole into her room. She lay asleep, but her 
 dreams were troubled, and her face, once so 
 fresh and bright, was worn with pain and 
 anxiety. 
 
 Scarcely had I entered the room when, to my
 
 74 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 
 
 amazement, I saw the spirit of Sigismund 
 Zaluski. 
 
 I saw him bend down and kiss the sleeping 
 girl, and for a moment her sad face lighted up 
 with a radiant smile. 
 
 I looked again ; he was gone. Then Ger- 
 trude threw up both her arms and, with a bitter 
 cry awoke from her dream. 
 
 " Sigismund ! " she cried. " Oh, Sigismund ! 
 Now I know that you are dead indeed ! " 
 
 For a long, long time she lay in a sort of 
 trance of misery. It seemed as if the life had 
 been almost crushed out of her, and it was not 
 until the bells began to ring for the six o'clock 
 service, merrily pealing out their welcome of 
 the New-year morning, that full consciousness 
 returned to her again. But, as she clearly real- 
 ized what had happened, she broke into such a 
 passion of tears as I had never before wit- 
 nessed, while still in the darkness the New- 
 year bells rang gayly, and she knew that they 
 heralded for her the beginning of a lonely life. 
 
 And so my work ended; my part in this 
 world was played out. Nevertheless, I still 
 live ; and there will come a day when Sigis- 
 mund and Gertrude shall be comforted and the 
 slanderers punished.
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SLANDER. 75 
 
 For poor Valerian was right, and there is an 
 Avenger, in whom even my progenitor be- 
 lieves, and before whom he trembles. 
 
 There will come a time when those self- 
 satisfied ones, whose hands are all the time 
 steeped in blood, shall be confronted with me, 
 and shall realize to the full all that their idle 
 words have brought about. 
 
 For that day I wait ; and though afterward 
 I shall be finally destroyed in the general de- 
 struction of all that is unmitigatedly evil, I 
 promise myself a certain satisfaction and pleas- 
 ure (a feeling I doubtless inherit from my pro- 
 genitor), when I watch the shame, and horror, 
 and remorse of Mrs. O'Reilly and the rest of 
 the people to whom I owe my existence and 
 rapid growth. 
 
 THE END.
 
 IX SOUTHERN REGKMM. UBRARY FAOUTY 
 
 A 000126892 9