THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 PAUL TURNER, U.S.M.C.R. 
 
 KILLED IN ACTION, SAIPAN 
 
 JUNE, 1944
 
 TWO YEARS AGO
 
 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY 
 
 ILontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1889 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 First printed (3 vols. Crown 8vo) Feb. 1857. Reprinted April 1S57. 
 
 New Edition (1 vol. Crown Svo) 1859. Iteprinted I860, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 
 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1887, 1SSS. 
 
 New Edition 1889. 
 Everslcy Edition (2 vols. Globe Svo) 1881.
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 T<?r 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 1 
 
 I. POETRY AND PROSE 18 
 
 II. STILL LIFE 38 
 
 III. ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE 52 
 
 IV. FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 63 
 
 Y. THE WAY TO WIN THEM 84 
 
 VI. AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE 95 
 
 VII. LA CORDIFIAMMA 100 
 
 VIII. TAKING ROOT 113 
 
 IX. 'AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?' .... 127 
 
 X. THE RECOGNITION 140 
 
 XI. THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEDT . . . 169 
 
 XII. A PEER IN TROUBLE 183 
 
 XIII. L'HOMME INCOMPRIS 191 
 
 XIV. THE DOCTOR AT BAY 201 
 
 XV. THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 235 
 
 XVI. COME AT LAST 272 
 
 XVII. BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET 284 
 
 XVIII. THE BLACK HOUND 299 
 
 XIX. BEDDGELERT . 311 
 
 84GCS3
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAOE 
 
 XX. BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 333 
 
 XXI. NATURE'S MELODRAMA ' 353 
 
 XXII. FOND, YET NOT FOOLISH 369 
 
 XXIII. THE BROAD STONE OF HONOUR 376 
 
 XXIV. THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER . . . 384 
 XXV. THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER . . . 403 
 
 XXVI. Too LATE 428 
 
 XXVII. A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER . . 445 
 
 XXVIII. LAST CHRISTMAS EVE . 458
 
 TWO YEAKS AGO 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 IT may seem a somewhat Irish method of beginning the story 
 of Tivo Years Ago by a scene which happened but a month 
 since. And yet, will not the story be on that very account a 
 better type of many a man's own experiences ? How few of us 
 had learnt the meaning of ' Two years ago ' until this late quiet 
 autumn time ; and till Christmas, too, with its gaps in the old 
 ring of friendly faces, never to be filled up again on earth, began 
 to teach us somewhat of its lesson. 
 
 Two years ago, while pestilence was hovering over us and 
 ours, while the battle -roar was ringing in our ears, who had 
 time to think, to ask what all that meant ; to seek for the deep 
 lesson which we knew must lie beneath ? Two years ago was 
 the time for work : for men to do with all their might what- 
 soever their hands found to do. But now the storm has lulled 
 once more ; the air has cleared awhile, and we can talk calmly 
 over all the wonders of that sudden, strange, and sad ' Two years 
 ago.' 
 
 So felt, at least, two friends who went down, just one week 
 before Christmas Day, to Whitbury in Berkshire. Two years 
 ago had come to one of them, as to thousands more, the crisis of 
 his life ; and he was talking of it with his companion ; and was 
 on his way, too, to learn more of that story which this book 
 contains, and in which he had borne his part. 
 
 They were both of them men who would at first sight interest 
 a stranger. The shorter of the two he might have seen before 
 at picture sales, Royal Academy meetings, dinner parties, even- 
 ing parties, anywhere and everywhere in town ; for Claude 
 Mellot is a general favourite, and a general guest. 
 
 He is a tiny, delicate-featured man, with a look of half -lazy 
 enthusiasm about his beautiful face, which reminds you much 
 of Shelley's portrait ; only he has what Shelley had not, cluster- 
 ing auburn curls, and a rich brown beard, soft as silk. You set 
 B T. Y. A. 

 
 2 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 him down at once as a man of delicate susceptibility, sweetness, 
 thoughtfulness ; probably (as he actually is) an artist. 
 
 His companion is a man of statelier stamp, tall, dark, and 
 handsome, with a very large forehead : if the face has a fault, it 
 is that the mouth is too small ; that, and the expression of face 
 too, and the tone of voice, seem to indicate over-refinement, 
 possibly a too aristocratic exclusiveness. He is dressed like a 
 very fine gentleman indeed, and looks and talks like one. Aris- 
 tocrat, however, in the common sense of the word, he is not ; 
 for he is a native of the Model Republic, and sleeping partner in 
 a great New York merchant firm. 
 
 He is chatting away to Claude Mellot, the artist, about Fre- 
 mont's election ; and on that point seems to be earnest enough, 
 though patient and moderate. 
 
 ' My dear Claude, our loss is gain. The delay of the next four 
 years was really necessary, that we might consolidate our party. 
 And T leave you to judge, if it lias grown to its present size in 
 but a few months, what dimensions it will have attained before 
 the next election. We require the delay, too, to discover who 
 are our really best men ; not merely as orators, but as workers ; 
 and you English ought to know, better than any nation, that the 
 latter class of men are those whom the world most needs that 
 though Aaron may be an altogether inspired preacher, yet it is 
 only slow-tongued, practical Moses, whose spokesman he is, who 
 can deliver Israel from their taskmasters. Besides, my dear 
 fellow, we really want the next four years "tell it not in Gath" 
 to look about us, and see what is to be done. Your wisest 
 Englishmen justly complain of us, that our "platform" is as yet 
 a merely negative one ; that we define what the South shall not 
 do, but not what the North shall. Ere four years be over, we 
 will have a " positive platform," at which you shall have no cause 
 to grumble.' 
 
 'I still think with Marie, that your "positive platform "is 
 already made for you, plain as the sun in heaven, as the light- 
 nings of Sinai. Free those slaves at once and utterly ! ' 
 
 ' Impatient idealist ! By what means ? By law, or by force? 
 Leave us to draw a cordon sanitaire round the tainted States, and 
 leave the system to die a natural death, as it rapidly will if it be 
 prevented from enlarging its field. Don't fancy that a dream of 
 mine. None know it better than, the Southerners themselves. 
 What makes them ready just now to risk honour, justice, even 
 the common law of nations and humanity, in the struggle for 
 new slave territory ? What but the consciousness that without 
 virgin soil, which will yield rapid and enormous profit to slave 
 labour, they and their institution must be ruined ! ' 
 
 ' Tho more reason for accelerating so desirable a consumma- 
 tion by freeing the slaves at once.' 
 
 'Humph !' said Stangrave, with a smile. 'Who so cruel at 
 times as your too-benevolent philanthropist ? Did you ever
 
 INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 count the meaning of those words ? Disruption of the Union, 
 an invasion of the South by the North ; and an internecine war, 
 aggravated by the horrors of a general rising of the slaves, and 
 such scenes as Hayti beheld sixty years ago. If you have ever 
 read them, you will pause ere you determine to repeat them on 
 a vaster scale.' 
 
 ' It is dreadful, Heaven knows, even in thought ! But, Stan- 
 grave, can any moderation on your part ward it off? Where 
 there is crime, there is vengeance ; and without shedding of 
 blood is no remission of sin.' 
 
 ' God knows ! It may be true : but God forbid that I should 
 ever do aught to hasten what may come. O Claude, do you 
 fancy that I, of all men, do not feel at moments the thirst for 
 brute vengeance ? ' 
 
 Claude was silent. 
 
 ' Judge for yourself, you who know all what man among us 
 Northerners can feel, as I do, what those hapless men may have 
 deserved 1 I who have day and night before me the brand of 
 their cruelty, filling my heart with fire ? I need all my strength, 
 all my reason, at times to say to myself, as I say to others 
 "Are not these slaveholders men of like passions with yourself? 
 What have they done which you would not have done in their 
 place ? " I have never read that Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. I 
 will not even read this Dred, admirable as I believe it to be.' 
 
 ' Why should you ? ' said Claude. ' Have you not a key to 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin more pathetic than any word of man's or 
 woman's ? ' 
 
 ' But I do not mean that ! I will not read them, because I 
 have the key to them in my own heart, Claude : because con- 
 science has taught me to feel for the Southerner as a brother, 
 who is but what I might have been ; and to sigh over his mis- 
 directed courage and energy, not with hatred, not with contempt, 
 but with pity, all the more intense the more he scorns that pity ; 
 to long, not merely for the slaves' sake, but for the masters' 
 sake, to see them the once chivalrous gentlemen of the South 
 delivered from the meshes of a net which they did not spread 
 for themselves, but which was round their feet, and round their 
 fathers', from the day that they were born. You ask me to 
 destroy these men. I long to save them from their certain 
 doom ! ' 
 
 ' You are right, and a better Christian than I am, I believe. 
 Certainly they do need pity, if any sinners do ; for slavery seems 
 to be to judge from Mr. Brooks' triumph a great moral curse, 
 and a heavier degradation to the slaveholder himself, than it 
 can ever be to the slave.' 
 
 ' Then I would free them from that curse, that degradation. 
 If the negro asks, " Am I not a man and a brother ? " have they 
 110 right to ask it also ? Shall I, pretending to love my country, 
 venture on any rash step which may shut out the whole Southern
 
 4 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 white population from their share in my country's future glory? 
 No ; have but patience with us, you comfortable liberals of the 
 Old World, who find freedom ready made to your hands, and we 
 will pay you all. Remember, we are but children yet ; our sins 
 are the sins of youth, greediness, intemperance, petulance, 
 self-conceit. When we are purged from our youthful sins, Eng- 
 land will not be ashamed or her child.' 
 
 ' Ashamed of you ? I often wish I could make Americans 
 understand the feeling of England to you the honest pride, as 
 of a mother who has brought into the world the biggest baby 
 that ever this earth beheld, and is rather proud of its stamping 
 about and beating her in its pretty pets. Only the old lady 
 does get a little cross when she hears you talk of the wrongs 
 which you have endured from her, and teaching your children to 
 hate us as their ancient oppressors, on the ground of a foolish 
 war, of which every Englishman is utterly ashamed, and in the 
 result of which he glories really as much as you do.' 
 
 'Dont talk of "you," Claude ! You know well what I think 
 on that point. Never did one nation make the o.mende honorable 
 to another more fully and nobly than you have to us ; and those 
 who try to keep up the quarrel are I won't say what. But the 
 truth is, Claude, we have had no real sorrows ; and therefore we 
 can afford to play with imaginary ones. God grant that we 
 may not have our real ones that we may not have to drink of 
 the cup of which our great mother drank two years ago ! ' 
 
 'It was a wholesome bitter for us ; and it may be so for you 
 likewise : but we will have no sad forbodings on the eve of the 
 blessed Christmas-tide. He lives, He loves, He reigns ; and all 
 is well, for we are His, and He is ours.' 
 
 ' Ah,' said Stangrave, ' when Emerson sneered at you English 
 for believing your Old Testament, lie little thought that that was 
 the lesson which it had taught you ; and that that same lesson 
 was the root of all your greatness. That that belief in God's 
 being, in some mysterious way, the living King of England and 
 of Christendom, has been the very idea which has kept you in 
 peace and safety now for many a hundred years, moving slowly 
 on from good to better, not without many backslidings and 
 many shortcomings, but still finding out, quickly enough, when 
 you were on the wrong road, and not ashamed to retrace your 
 steps, and to reform, as brave strong men should dare to do ; a 
 people who have been for many an age in the vanguard of all 
 the nations, and the champions of sure and solid progress 
 throughout the world ; because what is new among you is not 
 patched artificially on to the old, but grows organically out of 
 it, with a growth like th.it of your own English oak, whose 
 every new-year's leaf-crop is fed by roots which burrow deep in 
 many a buried generation, and the rich soil of full a thousand 
 years.' 
 
 ' Stay ! ' said the little artist. ' We are quite conceited enough
 
 INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 already, without your eloquent adulation, sir ! But there is a 
 truth in your words. There is a better spirit roused among us, 
 and that not merely of two years ago. I knew this part of the 
 country well in 1846-7-8, and since then, I can bear witness, a 
 spirit of self-reform has been awakened round here, in many a 
 heart which I thought once utterly frivolous. I find, in every 
 circle of every class, men and women asking to be taught their 
 duty, that they may go and do it ; I find everywhere schools, 
 libraries, and mechanics' institutes springing up : and rich and 
 poor meeting together more and more in the faith that God has 
 made them all. As for the outward and material improvements 
 you know as well as I, that since free trade and emigration, 
 the labourers confess themselves better off than they have been 
 for fifty years ; and though you will not see in the chalk counties 
 that rapid and enormous agricultural improvement which you 
 will in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, or the Lothians, yet you shall 
 see enough to-day to settle for you the question whether we old- 
 country folk are in a state of decadence and decay. Par 
 exemple ' 
 
 And Claude pointed to the clean large fields, with their neat 
 close-clipt hedge-rows, among which here and there stood cot- 
 tages, more than three-fourths of them new. 
 
 ' Those well-drained fallow fields, ten years ago, were poor 
 clay pastures, fetlock deep in mire six months in the year, and 
 accursed in the eyes of my poor dear old friend, Squire Laving- 
 ton ; because they were so full of old moles'-nests, that they threw 
 all horses down. I am no farmer : but they seem surely to be 
 somewhat altered since then.' 
 
 As he spoke, they turned off the main line of the rolling clays 
 toward the foot of the chalk-hills, and began to brush through 
 short cuttings of blue gault and ' green sand,' so called by geo- 
 logists, because its usual colours are bright brown, snow-white, 
 and crimson. 
 
 Soon they get glimpses of broad silver Whit, as she slides, 
 with divided streams, through bright water-meadows, and stately 
 groves of poplar, and abele, and pine ; while, far aloft upon the 
 left, the clowns rise steep, crowned with black fir spinnies, and 
 dotted with dark box and juniper. 
 
 Soon they pass old Whitford Priory, with its numberless 
 gables nestling amid mighty elms, and the Nunpool flashing and 
 roaring as of old, and the broad shallow below sparkling and 
 laughing in the low, but bright December sun. 
 
 ' So slides on the noble river, for ever changing, and yet for 
 ever the same always fulfilling its errand, which yet is never 
 fulfilled,' said Stangrave, he was given to half-mystic utter- 
 ances, and hankerings after pagan mythology, learnt in the 
 days when he worshipped Emerson, and tried (but unsuccess- 
 fully) to worship Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 'Those old Greeks 
 had a deep insight into nature, when they gave to each river
 
 6 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 not merely a name, but a semi-human personality, a river-god 
 of its own. It may be but a collection of ever-changing atoms 
 of water ; what is your body but a similar collection of atoms, 
 decaying and renewing every moment ? Yet you are a person ; 
 and is not the river, too, a person a live thing? It has an 
 individual countenance which you love, which you would recog- 
 nise again, meet it where you will ; it marks the whole land- 
 scape ; it determines probably the geography and the society of 
 a whole district. It draws you, too, to itself by an indefinable 
 mesmeric attraction. If you stop in a strange place, the first 
 instinct of your idle half -hour is, to lounge by the river. It is 
 a person to you ; you call it Scotchmen do, at least she, and 
 not it. How do you know that you are not philosophically 
 correct, and that the river has a spirit as well as you ? ' 
 
 ' Humph ! ' said Claude, who talks mysticism himself by the 
 hour, but snubs it in every one else. ' It has trout, at least ; 
 and they stand, I suppose, for its soul, as the raisins did for 
 those of Jean Paul's gingerbread bride and bridegroom and per- 
 ad venture baby.' 
 
 ' Oh you materialist English ! sporting-mad all of you, from 
 the duke who shooteth stags to the clod who poacheth rabbits ! ' 
 
 'And who therefore can fight Russians at Inkermann, duke 
 and clod alike, and side by side ; never better (says the chronicler 
 of old) than in their first battle. I can neither fight nor fish, and 
 on the whole agree with you : but I think it proper to be as 
 English as I can in the presence of an American.' 
 
 A whistle a creak a jar ; and they stop at the little Whit- 
 ford station, where a cicerone for the vale, far better than Claude 
 was, made his appearance, in the person of Mark Armsworth, 
 banker, railway director, and de facto king of Whitbury town, 
 long since elected by universal suffrage (his own vote included) 
 as permanent locum tenens of her gracious Majesty. 
 
 He hails Claude cheerfully from the platform, as he waddles 
 about, with a face as of the rising sun, radiant with good fun, 
 good humour, good deeds, good news, and good living. His coat 
 was scarlet once, but purple now. His leathers and boots were 
 doubtless clean this morning ; but are now afflicted with ele- 
 phantiasis, being three inches deep in solid mud, which his old 
 groom is scraping off as fast as he can. His cap is duntled in ; 
 his back bears fresh stains of peat ; a gentle rain distils from 
 the few angles of his person, and bedews the platform ; for Mark 
 Armsworth has ' been in Whit ' to-day. 
 
 All porters and guards touch their hats to him ; the station- 
 master rushes up and down frantically, shouting, ' Where are 
 those horse-boxes ? Now then, look alive ! ' for Mark is chair- 
 man of the line, and everybody's friend beside ; and as he 
 stands there being scraped, he finds time to inquire after every 
 one of the officials by turns, and after their wives, children, and 
 sweethearts beside.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 ' What a fine specimen of your English squire ! ' says Stan- 
 grave. 
 
 ' He is no squire ; he is the Whitbury banker, of whom I 
 told you.' 
 
 ' Armsworth ! ' said Stangrave, looking at the old man with 
 interest. 
 
 ' Mark Armsworth himself. He is acting as squire, though, 
 now ; for he has hunted the Whitford Priors ever since poor 
 old Lavington's death." 
 
 ' Now then those horse-boxes ! ' . . . 
 
 ' Very sorry, sir ; I telegraphed up, but we could get but one 
 down.' 
 
 ' Put the horses into that, then ; and there's an empty 
 carriage ! Jack, put the hounds into it, and they shall all go 
 second-class, as sure as I'm chairman ! ' 
 
 The grinning porters hand the strange passengers in, while 
 Mark counts the couples with his whip-point, 
 
 ' Ptavager Roysterer ; Melody Gay-lass ; all right. Why, 
 where's that old thief of a Goodman 1 ' 
 
 ' Went over a gate as soon as he saw the couples ; and 
 wouldn't come in at any price, sir,' says the huntsman. ' Gone 
 home by himself, I expect.' 
 
 ' Goodman, Goodman, boy ! ' And forthwith out of the 
 station-room slips the noble old hound, gray-nosed, gray-eye- 
 browed, who has hidden, for purposes of his own, till he sees all 
 the rest safe locked in. 
 
 Up he goes to Mark, and begins wriggling against his knees, 
 and looking up as only dogs can. ' Oh, want to go first-class 
 with me, eh ? Jump in, then ! ' And in jumps the hound, and 
 Mark struggles after him. 
 
 ' Hillo, sir ! Come out ! Here are your betters here before 
 you,' as he sees Stangrave, and a fat old lady in the opposite 
 corner. 
 
 ' Oh, no ; let the dog stay ! ' says Stangrave. 
 
 ' I shall wet you, sir, I'm afraid.' 
 
 ' Oh, no.' 
 
 And Mark settles himself, puffing, with the hound's head on 
 his knees, and begins talking fast and loud. 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Mellot, you're a stranger here. Haven't seen you 
 since poor Miss Honour died. Ah, sweet angel she was ! 
 Thought my Mary would never get over it. She's just such 
 another, though I say it, barring the beauty. Goodman, boy ! 
 You recollect old Goodman, son of Galloper, that the old squire 
 gave our old squire?' 
 
 Claude, of course, knows as all do who know those parts 
 who the Old Squire is ; long may he live, patriarch of the 
 chase ! The genealogy he does not. 
 
 ' Ah, well Miss Honour took to the pup, and used to walk 
 him out ; and a prince of a hound he is ; so now he's old we let
 
 8 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 him have his own way, for her sake ; and nobody '11 ever bully 
 you, will they, Goodman, my boy 1 ' 
 
 ' I want to introduce you to a friend of mine.' 
 
 'Proud to know any friend of yours, sir.' 
 
 'Mr. Stangrave Mr. Armswprth. Mr. Stangrave is an 
 American gentleman, who is anxious to see Whitbury and the 
 neighbourhood.' 
 
 ' Well, I shall be happy to show it him, then can't have a 
 better guide, though I say it know everything by this time, 
 and- everybody, man, woman, and child, as I hope Mr. Stan- 
 grave '11 find when he gets to know old Mark.' 
 
 ' You must not speak of getting to know you, my dear sir ; I 
 know you intimately already, I assure you ; and more, am under 
 very deep obligations to you, which, I regret to say, I can only 
 repay by thanks.' 
 
 ' Obligation to me, my dear sir ? ' 
 
 ' Indeed I am : I will tell you all when we are alone.' And 
 Stangrave glanced at the fat old woman, who seemed to be 
 listening intently. 
 
 ' Oh, never mind her,' says Armsworth ; ' deaf as a post : 
 very good woman, but so deaf ought to speak to her, though ' 
 and, reaching across, to the infinite amusement of his com- 
 panions, he roared in the fat woman's face, witli a voice as of a 
 speaking-trumpet, 'Glad to see you, Mrs. Grove! Got those 
 dividends ready for you next time you come into town.' 
 
 ' Yah ! ' screamed the hapless woman, who (as the rest saw) 
 heard perfectly well. ' What do you mean, frightening a lady 
 in that way ? Deaf, indeed ! ' 
 
 ' Why,' roared Mark again, ' ain't you Mrs. Grove, of Drytown 
 Dirty water ? ' 
 
 ' No, nor no acquaintance ! What business is it of your'n, 
 sir, to go hollering in ladies' faces at your age ? ' 
 
 ' Well : but I'll swear if you ain't her, you're somebody else. 
 I know you as well as the town clock.' 
 
 'Me? If you must know, sir, I'm Mrs. Pettigrew's mother, 
 the linendraper's establishment, sir ; a-going down for Christ- 
 mas, sir ! ' 
 
 'Humph!' says Mark; 'you see was sure I knew her 
 know everybody here. As I said, if she wasn't Mrs. Grove, she 
 was somebody else. Ever in these parts before ? ' 
 
 'Never: but I have heard a good deal of them; and very 
 much charmed with them I am. I have seldom seen a more 
 distinctive specimen of English scenery.' 
 
 ' And how you are improving round here ! ' said Claude, who 
 knew Mark's weak points, and wanted to draw him out. ' Your 
 homesteads seem all new ; three fields have been thrown into 
 one, I fancy, over half the farms.' 
 
 Mark broke out at once on his favourite topic. ' I believe 
 you ! I'm making the mare go here in Whitford, without the
 
 INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 money too, sometimes. I'm steward now, bailiff ha ! ha ! these 
 four years past to Mrs. Lavington's Irish husband ; I wanted 
 him to have a regular agent, a canny Scot, or Yorkshireman. 
 Faith, the poor man couldn't afford it, and so fell back on old 
 Mark. Paddy loves a job, you know. So I've the votes and 
 the fishing, and send him his rents, and manage all the rest 
 pretty much my own way.' 
 
 When the name of Lavington was mentioned, Mark observed 
 Stangrave start ; and an expression passed over his face difficult 
 to be defined it seemed to Mark mingled pride and shame. 
 He turned to Claude, and said, in a low voice, but loud enough 
 for Mark to hear, 
 
 ' Lavington 1 Is this their country also ? As I am going to 
 visit the graves of my ancestors, I suppose I ought to visit those 
 of hers.' 
 
 Mark caught the words which he was not intended to. 
 
 ' Eh ? Sir, do you belong to these parts ? ' 
 
 ' My family, I believe, lived in the neighbourhood of Whit- 
 bury, at a place called Stangrave-end.' 
 
 ' To be sure ! Old farmhouse now ; fine old oak carving in 
 it, though ; fine old family it must have been ; church full of 
 their monuments. Hum, ha ! Well ! that's pleasant, now ! 
 I've often heard there were good old families away there in New 
 England ; never thought that there were Whitbury people among 
 them. Hum well ! the world's not so big as people think, 
 after all. And you spoke of the Lavingtons ? They are great 
 folks here or were ' He was going to rattle on : but he saw 
 a pained expression on both the travellers' faces, and Stangrave 
 stopped him, somewhat drily 
 
 ' I know nothing of them, I assure you, or they of me. Your 
 country here is certainly charming, and shows little of those 
 signs of decay which some people in America impute to it.' 
 
 ' Decay ! ' Mark went off at score. ' Decay be hanged ! 
 There's life in the old dog yet, sir ! and dead pigs are looking 
 up since free trade and emigration. Cheap bread and high 
 wages now ; and instead of lands going out of cultivation, as 
 they threatened bosh ! there's a greater breadth down in wheat 
 in the vale now than there ever was ; and look at the roots. 
 Farmers must farm now, or sink ; and, by George ! they are 
 farming, like sensible fellows ; and a fig for that old turnip 
 ghost of Protection ! There was a fellow came down from the 
 Carlton you know what that is?' Stangrave bowed, and 
 smiled assent. 'From the Carlton, sir, two years since, and 
 tried it on, till he fell in with old Mark. I told him a thing or 
 two ; among the rest, told him to his face that he was a liar ; 
 for he wanted to make farmers believe they were ruined, when 
 he knew they were not ; and that he'd get 'em back Protection, 
 when he knew that he couldn't and, what's more, he didn't mean 
 to. So he cut up rough, and wanted to call me out.'
 
 10 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 'Did you go?' asked Stangrave, who was fast becoming 
 amused with his man. 
 
 ' I told him that that wasn't my line, unless he'd try Eley's 
 greens at forty yards ; and then I was his man : but if he laid 
 a finger on me, I'd give him as sound a horsewhipping, old as 1 
 am, as ever man had in his life. And so I would.' And Mark 
 looked complacently at his own broad shoulders. ' And since 
 then, my lord and I have had it all our own way ; and Min- 
 champstead and Co. is the only firm in the vale.' 
 
 ' What's become of a Lord Vieuxbois, who used to live some- 
 where hereabouts ? I used to meet him at Rome.' 
 
 ' Rome ? ' said Mark solemnly. ' Yes ; he was too fond of 
 Rome, awhile back : can't see what people want running into 
 foreign parts to look at those poor idolaters, and their Punch 
 and Judy plays. Pray for 'em, and keep clear of them, is the 
 best rule : but he has married my lord's youngest daughter ; 
 and three pretty children he has, ducks of children. Always 
 comes to see me in my shop, when he drives into town. Oh ! 
 he's doing pretty well. One of these new between-the-stools, 
 Peelites they call them hope they'll be as good as the name. 
 However, he's a free-trader, because he can't help it. So we 
 have his votes ; and as to his Conservatism, let him conserve 
 hips and haws if he chooses, like a 'pothecary. After all, why 
 pull down anything, before it's tumbling on your head? By 
 the by, sir, as you're a man of money, there's that Stangrave- 
 end farm in the market now. Pretty little investment, I'd see 
 that you got it cheap ; and my lord wouldn't bid against you, 
 of course, as you're a Liberal all Americans are, I suppose. 
 And so you'd oblige us, as well as yourself, for it would give us 
 another vote for the county.' 
 
 ' Upon my word, you tempt me ; but I do not think that this 
 is just the moment for an American to desert his own country, 
 and settle in England. I should not be here now, had I not this 
 autumn done all I could for America in America, and so crossed 
 the sea to serve her, if possible, in England.' 
 
 ' Well, perhaps not ; especially if you're a Fremonter.' 
 
 ' I am, I assure you.' 
 
 ' Thought as much, by your looks. Don't see what else an 
 honest man can be just now.' 
 
 Stangrave laughed. ' I hope every one thinks so in England.' 
 
 ' Trust us for that, sir ! We know a man when we see him 
 here ; I hope they'll do the same across the water.' 
 
 There was silence for a minute or two ; and then Mark began 
 again. 
 
 'Look ! there's the farm ; that's my lord's. I should like to 
 show you the shorthorns there, sir ! all my Lord Ducie's and 
 Sir Edward Knightley's stock ; bought a bull-calf of him the 
 other day myself for a cool hundred, old fool that I am. Never 
 mind, spreads the breed. And here are mills four pair of
 
 INTRODUCTORY 11 
 
 new stones. Old Whit don't know herself again. But I dare 
 say they look small enough to you, sir, after your American 
 water-power.' 
 
 'What of that? It is just as honourable in you to make the 
 most of a small river, as in us to make the most of a large one.' 
 
 'You speak like a book, sir. By the by, if you think of 
 taking home a calf or two, to improve your New England breed 
 there are a good many gone across the sea in the last few 
 years I think we could find you three or four beauties, not so 
 very dear, considering the blood.' 
 
 ' Thanks ; but I really am no farmer.' 
 
 ' Well no offence, I hope : but I am like your Yankees in 
 one thing, you see ; always have an eye to a bit of business. 
 If I didn't, I shouldn't be here now.' 
 
 ' How very tasteful ! our own American shrubs ! what a pity 
 that they are not in flower ! What is this,' asked Stan grave 
 ' one of your noblemen's parks 1 ' 
 
 And they began to run through the cutting in Minchampstead 
 Park, where the owner has concealed the banks of the rail for 
 nearly half a mile in a thicket of azaleas, rhododendrons, and 
 clambering roses. 
 
 ' Ah ! isn't it pretty ? His lordship let us have the land for 
 a song ; only bargained that we should keep low, not to spoil 
 his view ; and so we did ; and he's planted our cutting for us. 
 I call that a present to the county, and a very pretty one too ! 
 Ah, give me these new brooms that sweep clean ! ' 
 
 'Your old brooms, like Lord Vieuxbois, were new brooms 
 once, and swept well enough five hundred years ago,' said Stan- 
 grave, who had that filial reverence for English antiquity which 
 sits so gracefully upon many highly educated and far -sigh ted 
 Americans. 
 
 ' Worn to the stumps now, too many of them, sir ; and want 
 new-heathiiig, as our broom -squires would say; and I doubt 
 whether most of them are worth the cost of a fresh bind. Not 
 that I can say that of the young lord. He's foi'emost in all 
 that's good, if he had but money ; and when he hasn't, lie gives 
 brains. Gave a lecture in our institute at Whitford, last whiter, 
 on the four great Poets. Shot over my head a little, and other 
 people's too ; but my Mary my daughter, sir thought it 
 beautiful ; and there's nothing that she don't know.' 
 
 'It is very hopeful to see your aristocracy joining in the 
 general movement, and bringing their taste and knowledge to 
 bear on the lower classes.' 
 
 ' Yes, sir ! We're going all right now in the old country. 
 Only have to steer straight, and not put on too much steam. 
 But give me the newcomers, after all. They may be close men 
 of business ; how else could one live 1 But when it comes to 
 giving, I'll back them against the old ones for generosity, or 
 taste either. They've their proper pride, when they get hold of
 
 12 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 the land ; and they like to show it, and quite right they. You 
 must see my little place too. It's not in such bad order, though 
 I say it, and am but a country banker : but I'll back my 
 flowers against half the squires round my Mary's, that is 
 and my fruit, too. See, there ! There's my lord's new schools, 
 and his model cottages, with more comforts in them, saving the 
 size, than my father s house had ; arid there's his barrack, as he 
 calls it, for the unmarried men reading-room and dining- 
 room in common ; and a library of books, and a sleeping-room 
 for each.' 
 
 'It seems strange to complain of prosperity,' said Stangrave; 
 ' but I sometimes regret that in America there is so little room 
 for the very highest virtues ; all are so well off that one never 
 needs to give ; and what a man does here for others, they do 
 for themselves.' 
 
 'So much the better for them. There are other ways of 
 being generous besides putting your hand in your pocket, 
 sir ! By Jove ! there'll be room enough (if you'll excuse me) 
 for an American to do fine things, as long as those poor negro 
 slaves 
 
 ' I know it ; I know it,' said Stangrave, in the tone of a man 
 who had already made up his mind on a painful subject, and 
 wished to hear no more of it. ' You will excuse me ; but I am 
 come here to learn what I can of England. Of my own country 
 I know enough, I trust, to do my duty in it when I return.' 
 
 Mark was silent, seeing that he had touched a tender place ; 
 and pointed out one object of interest after another, as they ran 
 through the flat park, past the great house with its Doric 
 faqade, which the eighteenth century had raised above the quiet 
 cell of the Minchampstead recluses. 
 
 ' It is very ugly,' said Stangrave ; and truly. 
 
 ' Comfortable enough, though ; and as somebody said, people 
 live inside their houses, and not outside 'em. You should see 
 the pictures there, though, while you're in the country. I can 
 show you one or two, too, I hope. Never grudge money for 
 good pictures. The pleasantest furniture in the world, as long- 
 as you keep them ; and i-f you're tired of them, always fetch 
 double their price.' 
 
 After Minchampstead, the rail leaves the sands and clays, and 
 turns up between the chalk hills, along the barge river, which 
 it has rendered useless, save as a supernumerary trout-stream ; 
 and then along Whit, now flowing clearer and clearer, as we 
 approacli its springs amid the lofty downs. On through more 
 water-meadows, and rows of pollard willow, and peat-pits 
 crested with tall golden reeds, and still dykes each in summer 
 a floating flower-bed ; while Stangrave looks out of the window, 
 his face lighting up with curiosity. 
 
 ' How perfectly English ! At least, how perfectly un-Ameri- 
 can ! It is just Tennyson's beautiful dream
 
 INTRODUCTORY 13 
 
 ' " On either side the river lie 
 Long fields of barley and of rye, 
 Which clothe the wold and meet the sky, 
 And through the field the stream runs by, 
 To many-towered Camelot." ' 
 
 ' Why, what is this 1 ' as they stop again at a station, where 
 the board bears, in large letters, ' Shalott.' 
 ' Shalott ? Where are the 
 
 ' " Four gray walls and four gray towers," 
 
 which overlook a space of flowers 1 ' 
 
 There, upon the little island, are the castle-ruins, now con- 
 verted into a useful bone-mill. ' And the lady 1 is that she ? ' 
 
 It was only the miller's daughter, fresh from a boarding- 
 school, gardening in a broad straw hat. 
 
 'At least,' said Claude, 'she is tending far prettier flowers 
 than ever the lady saw ; while the lady herself, instead of 
 weaving and dreaming, is reading Miss Yonge's novels, and be- 
 coming all the wiser thereby, and teaching poor children in 
 Hemmelford National School.' 
 
 ' And where is her fairy knight ? ' asked Stangrave, ' whom 
 one half hopes to see riding down from that grand old house 
 which sulks there above among the beech-woods, as if frowning 
 on all the change and civilisation below 1 ' 
 
 'You do old Sidricstone injustice. Vieuxbois descends from 
 thence, nowadays, to lecture at mechanics' institutes, instead of 
 the fairy knight, toiling along in the blazing summer weather, 
 sweating in burning metal, like poor Perillus in his own bull.' 
 
 ' Then the fairy knight is extinct in England 1 ' asked Stan- 
 grave, smiling. 
 
 ' No man less ; only he (not Vieuxbois, but his younger 
 brother) has found a wide-awake cooler than an iron kettle, and 
 travels by rail when he is at home ; and, when he was in the 
 Crimea, rode a shaggy pony, and smoked cavendish all through 
 the battle of Inkermann.' 
 
 ' He showed himself the old Sir Lancelot there,' said Stan- 
 grave. 
 
 ' He did. Wherefore the lady married him when the Guards 
 came home ; and he will breed prize pigs ; and sit at the board 
 of guardians ; and take in the Times; clothed, and in his right 
 mind ; for the old Berserk spirit is gone out of him ; and he is 
 become respectable, in a respectable age, and is nevertheless 
 just as brave a fellow as ever.' 
 
 ' And so all things are changed, except the river ; where 
 still 
 
 ' " Willows whiten, aspens quiver. 
 Little breezes dash and shiver 
 On the stream that runneth ever." '
 
 14 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 'And,' said Claude, smiling, 'the descendants of mediaeval 
 trout snap at the descendants of mediaeval flies, spinning about 
 upon just the same sized and coloured wings on which their 
 forefathers spun a thousand years ago ; having become, in all 
 that while, neither bigger nor wiser.' 
 
 'But is it not a grand thought,' asked Stangrave, 'the 
 silence and permanence of nature amid the perpetual flux and 
 noise of human life? a grand thought that one generation 
 goeth, and another cometh, and the earth abideth for ever ? ' 
 
 ' At least it is so much the worse for the poor old earth, if her 
 doom is to stand still, while man improves and progresses from 
 age to age.' 
 
 ' May I ask one question, sir 1 ' said Stangrave, who saw that 
 their conversation was puzzling their jolly companion. ' Have 
 you heard any news yet of Mr. Thurnall 1 ' 
 
 Mark looked him full in the face. 
 
 ' Did you know him 1 ' 
 
 ' I did, in past years, most intimately.' 
 
 'Then you knew the finest fellow, sir, that ever walked 
 mortal earth.' 
 
 'I have discovered that, sir, as well as you. I am under 
 obligations to that man which my heart's blood will not repay. 
 I shall make no secret of telling you what they are at a fit time.' 
 
 Mark held out his broad red hand and grasped Stangrave's 
 till the joints cracked : his face grew as red as a turkey-cock's ; 
 his eyes filled with tears. 
 
 ' His father must hear that ! Hang it ; his father must hear 
 that ! And Grace too ! ' 
 
 ' Grace ! ' said Claude : ' and is she with you 1 ' 
 
 'With the old man, the angel ! tending him night and day.' 
 
 ' And as beautiful as ever 1 ' 
 
 ' Sir ! ' said Mark solemnly, ' when any one's soul is as beauti- 
 ful as hers is, one never thinks about her face.' 
 
 ' Who is Grace ? ' asked Stangrave. 
 
 ' A saint and a heroine ! ' said Claude. ' You shall know all ; 
 for you ought to know. But you have no news of Tom ; and I 
 have none either. I am losing all hope now.' 
 
 ' I'm not, sir ! ' said Mark fiercely. ' Sir, that boy's not dead ; 
 he can't be. He has more lives than a cat, and if you know 
 anything of him, you ought to know that.' 
 
 ' I have good reason to know it, none more : but 
 
 ' But, sir. But what ? Harm come to him, sir 1 The Lord 
 wouldn't harm him, for his father's sake ; and as for the devil ! 
 I tell you, sir, if he tried to fly away with him, he'd have to 
 drop him before he'd gone a mile ! ' And Mark began blowing 
 his nose violently, and getting so red that he seemed on the 
 point of going into a fit. 
 
 'Tell you what it is, gentlemen,' said he at last, 'you come 
 and stay with me, and see his father. It will comfort the old
 
 INTRODUCTORY 15 
 
 man and and comfort me too ; for I get down-hearted about 
 him at times.' 
 
 ' Strange attraction there was about that man,' says Stan- 
 grave, sotto voce, to Claude. 
 
 ' He was like a son to him 
 
 ' Now, gentlemen. Mr. Mellot, you don't hunt ? ' 
 
 'No, thank you,' said Claude. 
 
 ' Mr. Stangrave does, I'll warrant.' 
 
 ' I have at various times, both in England and in Virginia.' 
 
 ' Ah ! Do they keep up the real sport there, eh ? Well, that's 
 the best thing I've heard of them. Sir ! my horses are yours ! 
 A friend of that boy, sir, is welcome to lame the whole lot, 
 and I won't grumble. Three days a week, sir. Breakfast at 
 eight, dinner at 5.30 none of your late London hours for me, 
 Sir ; and after it the best bottle of port, though I say it, short 
 of my friend S 's, at Reading.' 
 
 ' You must accept,' whispered Claude, ' or he will be angry.' 
 
 So Stangrave accepted ; and all the more readily because he 
 wanted to hear from the good banker many things about the 
 lost Tom Thurnall. 
 
 ' Here we are,' cries Mark. ' Now, you must excuse me : see 
 to yourselves. I see to the puppies. Dinner at 5.30, mind ! 
 Come along, Goodman, boy ! ' 
 
 ' Is this Whitbury ? ' asks Stangrave. 
 
 It was Whitbury, indeed. Pleasant old town, which slopes 
 down the hillside to the old church, just ' restored,' though, by 
 Lords Minchampstead and Vieuxbois, not without Mark Arms- 
 worth's help, to its ancient beauty of gray flint and white clunch 
 chequer-work, and quaint wooden spire. Pleasant churchyard 
 round it, where the dead lie looking up to the bright southern 
 sun, among huge black yews, upon their knoll of white chalk 
 above the ancient stream. Pleasant white wooden bridge, with 
 its row of urchins dropping flints upon the noses of elephantine 
 trout, or fishing over the rail with crooked pins, while hapless 
 gudgeon come dangling upward between stream and sky, with a 
 look of sheepish surprise and shame, as of a schoolboy caught 
 stealing apples, in their foolish visages. Pleasant new national 
 schools at the bridge end, whither the urchins scamper at the 
 sound of the two o'clock bell. Though it be an ugly pile enough 
 of bright red brick, it is doing its work, as Whitbury folk know 
 well by now. Pleasant, top, though still more ugly, those long 
 red arms of new houses which Whitbury is stretching out along 
 its fine turnpikes, especially up to the railway station beyond 
 the bridge, and to the smart new hotel, which hopes (but hopes 
 in vain) to outrival the ancient ' Angler's Rest.' Away thither, 
 and not to the Railway Hotel, they trundle in a fly, leaving 
 Mark Armsworth all but angry because they will not sleep, as 
 well as breakfast, lunch, and dine with him daily, and settle in
 
 16 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 the good old inn, with its three white gables overhanging the 
 pavement, and its long lattice window buried deep beneath 
 them, like so Stangrave says to a shrewd kindly eye under a 
 bland white forehead. 
 
 No, good old inn ; not such shall be thy fate, as long as trout 
 are trout, and men have wit to catch them. For art thou not a 
 sacred house 1 ? Art thou not consecrate to the Whitbury 
 brotherhood of anglers ? Is not the wainscot of that long low 
 parlour inscribed with many a famous name? Are not its 
 walls hung with many a famous countenance 1 Has not its oak- 
 ribbed ceiling rung, for now a hundred years, to the laughter of 
 painters, sculptors, grave divines (unbending at least there), 
 great lawyers, statesmen, wits, even of Foote and Quin them- 
 selves ; while the sleek landlord wiped the cobwebs off another 
 magnum of that grand old port, and took in all the wisdom 
 with a quiet twinkle of his sleepy eye ? He rests now, good old 
 man, among the yews beside his forefathers ; and on his tomb 
 his lengthy epitaph, writ by himself ; for Barker was a poet in 
 his way. 
 
 Some people hold the same epitaph to be irreverent, because 
 in a list of Barker's many blessings occurs the profane word 
 ' trout : ' but those trout, and the custom which they brought 
 him, had made the old man's life comfortable, and enabled him 
 to leave a competence for his children ; and why should not a 
 man honestly thank Heaven for that which he knows has done 
 him good, even though it be but fish ? 
 
 He is gone : but the Whit is not, nor the Whitbury club ; nor 
 will, while old Mark Armsworth is king in Whitbury, and sits 
 every evening in the May-fly season at the table head, retailing 
 good stories of the great anglers of his youth, names which 
 you, reader, have heard many a time, and who could do many 
 things besides handling a blow-line. But though the club is 
 not what it was fifty years ago, before Norway and Scotland 
 became easy of access, yet it is still an important institution 
 of the town, to the members whereof all good subjects touch 
 their hats ; for does not the club bring into the town good 
 money, and take out again only fish, which cost nothing in the 
 breeding? Did not the club present the Town -hall with a 
 portrait of the renowned fishing sculptor ? and did it not (only 
 stipulating that the school should be built beyond the bridge to 
 avoid noise) give fifty pounds to the said school but five years 
 ago, in addition to Mark's own hundred ? 
 
 But enough of this : only may the Whitbury club, in recom- 
 pense for my thus handing them down to immortality, give me 
 another day next year, as they gave me this ; and may the May- 
 fly be strong on, and a south-west gale blowing ! 
 
 In the course of the next week, in many a conversation, the 
 three men compared notes as to the events of two years
 
 INTRODUCTORY 17 
 
 ago ; and each supplied the other with new facts, which shall 
 be duly set forth in this tale, saving, and excepting, of course, 
 the real reason why everybody did everything. For as every- 
 body knows who has watched life the true springs of all 
 human action are generally those which fools will not see, which 
 wise men will not mention ; so that, in order to present a 
 readable tragedy of Hamlet, you must always ' omit the part of 
 Hamlet,' and probably the ghost and the queen into the 
 bargain 
 
 T. Y. A.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 POETRY AND PROSE 
 
 Now, to tell my story if not as it ought to be told, at least as 
 I can tell it, I must go back sixteen years, to the days when 
 Whitbury boasted of forty coaches per diem, instead of one 
 railway, and set forth how in its southern suburb, there stood 
 two pleasant houses side by side, with their gardens sloping 
 down to the Whit, and parted from each other only by the high 
 brick fruit- wall, through which there used to be a door of com- 
 munication ; for the two occupiers were fast friends. In one of 
 these two houses, sixteen years ago, lived our friend Mark Arms- 
 worth, banker, solicitor, land-agent, churchwarden, guardian of 
 the poor, justice of the peace, in a word, viceroy of Whitbury 
 town, and far more potent therein than her gracious majesty 
 Queen Victoria. In the other, lived Edward Thurnall, esquire, 
 doctor of medicine, and consulting physician of all the country 
 round. These two men were as brothers ; and had been as 
 brothers for now twenty years, though no two men could be 
 more different, save in the two common virtues which bound 
 them to each other ; and that was, that they both were honest 
 and kind-hearted men. What Mark's character was, and is, I 
 have already shown, and enough of it, I hope, to make my 
 readers like the good old banker : as for Doctor Thurnall, a 
 purer or gentler soul never entered a sick-room, with patient 
 wisdom in his brain and patient tenderness in his heart. Be- 
 loved and trusted by rich and poor, he had made to himself a 
 practice large enough to enable him to settle two sons well in 
 his own profession ; the third and youngest was still in Whit- 
 bury. He was something of a geologist, too, and a botanist, 
 and an antiquarian ; and Mark Armsworth, who knew, and 
 knows still, nothing of science, looked up to the doctor as an 
 inspired sage, quoted him, defended his opinion, right or wrong, 
 and thrust him forward at public meetings, and in all places 
 and seasons, much to the modest doctor's discomfiture. 
 
 The good doctor was sitting in his study on the morning on 
 which my tale begins ; having just finished his breakfast, and
 
 CHAP, i POETRY AND PROSE 19 
 
 settled to his microscope in the bay-window, opening on the 
 lawn. 
 
 A beautiful October morning it was ; one of those in which 
 Dame Nature, healthily tired with the revelry of summer, is 
 composing herself, with a quiet satisfied smile, for her winter's 
 sleep. Sheets of dappled cloud were sliding slowly from the 
 west ; long bars of hazy blue hung over the southern chalk 
 downs which gleamed pearly gray beneath the low south-eastern 
 sun. In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist still hung over 
 the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the huge 
 elms and poplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering 
 down at the very rustle of the western breeze, spotting the 
 grass below. The river swirled along, glassy no more, but 
 dingy gray with autumn rains and rotting leaves. All beyond 
 the garden told of autumn ; bright and peaceful, even in decay : 
 but up the sunny slope of the garden itself, and to the very 
 window -sill, summer still lingered. The beds of red verbena 
 and geranium were still brilliant, though choked with fallen 
 leaves of acacia and plane ; the canary plant, still untouched 
 by frost, twined its delicate green leaves, and more delicate 
 yellow blossoms, through the crimson lacework of the Virginia- 
 creeper ; and the great yellow noisette swung its long canes 
 across the window, filling all the air with fruity fragrance. 
 
 And the good doctor, lifting his eyes from his microscope, 
 looked out upon it all with a quiet satisfaction, and though his 
 lips did not move, his eyes seemed to be thanking God for it all ; 
 and thanking Him, too, perhaps, that he was still permitted to 
 gaze upon that fair world outside. For as he gazed, he started, 
 as if with sudden pain, and passed his hand across his eyes, with 
 something like a sigh, and then looked at the microscope no 
 more, but sat, seemingly absorbed in thought, while upon his 
 delicate toil-worn features and high, bland, un wrinkled fore- 
 head, and the few soft gray locks which not time for he was 
 scarcely fifty-five but long labour of brain, had spared to him, 
 there lay a hopeful calm, as of a man who had nigh done his 
 work, and felt that he had not altogether done it ill ; an 
 autumnal calm, resigned, yet full of cheerfulness, which har- 
 monised fitly with the quiet beauty of the decaying landscape 
 before him. 
 
 'I say, daddy, you must drop that microscope, and put on 
 your shade. You are ruining those dear old eyes of yours again, 
 in spite of what Alexander told you.' 
 
 The doctor took up the green shade which lay beside him, 
 and replaced it with a sigh and a smile. 
 
 ' I must use the old things now and then, till you can take 
 my place at the microscope, Tom ; or till we have, as we ought 
 to have, a firstrate analytical chemist settled in every county 
 town, and paid, in part at least, out of the county rates.' 
 
 The ' Tom ' who had spoken was one of two youths of
 
 20 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 eighteen, who stood in opposite corners of the bay-window, 
 
 Sazing out upon the landscape, but evidently with thoughts as 
 ifferent as were their complexions. 
 
 Tom was of that bull-terrier type so common in England ; 
 sturdy, and yet not coarse ; middle-sized, deep-chested, broad- 
 shouldered ; with small, well-knit hands and feet, large jaw, 
 bright gray eyes, crisp brown hair, a heavy projecting brow ; 
 his face full of shrewdness and good -nature, and of humour 
 withal, which might be at whiles a little saucy and sarcastic, to 
 judge from the glances which he sent forth from the corners of 
 his wicked eyes at his companion on the other side of the 
 window. He was evidently prepared for a day's shooting, in 
 velveteen jacket and leather gaiters, and stood feeling about in 
 his pockets to see whether he had forgotten any of his tackle, 
 and muttering to himself amid his whistling, 'Capital day. 
 How the birds will lie. Where on earth is old Mark ? Why 
 must he wait to smoke his cigar after breakfast ? Couldn't he 
 have had it in the trap, the blessed old chimney that he is ? ' 
 
 The other lad was somewhat taller than Tom, aw_kwardly and 
 plainly dressed, but with a highly-developed Byronic turn-down 
 collar, and long black curling locks. He was certainly hand- 
 some, as far as the form of his features and brow and would 
 have been very handsome, but for the bad complexion which at 
 his age so often accompanies a sedentary life and a melancholic 
 temper. One glance at his face was sufficient to tell that ho 
 was moody, shy, restless, perhaps discontented, perhaps 
 ambitious and vain. He held in his hand a volume of Percy's 
 jReliques, which he had just taken down from Thurnall's 
 shelves ; yet he was looking not at it, but at the landscape. 
 Nevertheless, as he looked, one might have seen that he was 
 thinking not so much of it as of his own thoughts about it. His 
 eye, which was very large, dark, and beautiful, with heavy lids 
 and long lashes, had that dreamy look so common among men 
 of the poetic temperament ; conscious of thought, if not con- 
 scious of self ; and as his face kindled, and his lips moved more 
 and more earnestly, he began muttering to himself half-aloud, 
 till Tom Thurnall burst into an open laugh. 
 
 ' There's Jack at it again ! making poetry, I'll bet my head 
 to a China orange.' 
 
 'And why not?' said his father, looking up quietly, but re- 
 provingly, as Jack winced and blushed, and a dark shade of 
 impatience passed across his face. 
 
 'Oh! it's no concern of mine. Let everybody please them- 
 selves. The country looks very pretty, no doubt, I can tell 
 that ; only my notion is, that a wise man ought to go out and 
 enjoy it as I am going to dp with a gun on his shoulder, 
 instead of poking at home like a yard -dog, and behowling 
 oneself in po-o-oetry ; ' and Tom lifted up his voice into a 
 doleful mastiff's howl.
 
 i POETRY AND PROSE 21 
 
 ' Then be as good as your word, Tom, and let every one please 
 themselves,' said the doctor ; but the dark youth broke out in 
 sudden passion 
 
 ' Mr. Thomas Thurnal ! I will not endure this ! Why are 
 you always making me your butt, insulting me, sir, even in 
 your father's house ? You do not understand me ; and I do not 
 care to understand you. If my presence is disagreeable to you, 
 I can easily relieve you of it ! ' and the dark youth turned to go 
 away, like Naaman, in a rage. 
 
 'Stop, John,' said the doctor. 'I think it would be the 
 more courteous plan for Tom to relieve you of his presence. Go 
 and find Mark, Tom ; and please to remember that John Briggs 
 is my guest, and that I will not allow any rudeness to him in 
 my house.' 
 
 ' I'll go, daddy, to the world's end, if you like, provided you 
 won't ask me to write poetry. But Jack takes offence so soon. 
 Give us your hand, old tinder-box ! I meant no harm, and you 
 know it.' 
 
 John Briggs took the proffered hand sulkily enough ; and 
 Tom went out of the glass door, whistling as merry as a cricket. 
 
 ' My dear boy,' said the doctor, when they were alone, ' you 
 must try to curb this temper of yours. Don't be angry with 
 me, but 
 
 ' I should be an ungrateful brute if I was, sir. I can bear 
 anything from you. I ought to, for I owe everything to you ; 
 but 
 
 ' But, my dear boy " better is he that ruleth his spirit, than 
 he that taketh a city." ' 
 
 John Briggs tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. ' I 
 cannot help it, sir. It will drive me mad, I think, at times, 
 this contrast between what I might be, and what I am. I can 
 bear it no longer mixing medicines here, when I might be 
 educating myself, distinguishing myself for I can do it ; have 
 you not said as much yourself to me again and again 1 ' 
 
 ' I have, of course ; but 
 
 ' But, sir, only hear me. It is in vain to ask me to command 
 my temper while I stay here. I am not fit for this work ; not 
 fit for the dull country. I am not appreciated, not understood ; 
 and I shall never be, till I can get to London, till I can find 
 congenial spirits, and take my rightful place in the great parlia- 
 ment of mind. I am Pegasus in harness, here ! ' cried the vain, 
 discontented youth. 'Let me but once get there, amid art, 
 civilisation, intellect, and the company of men like that old 
 Mermaid Club, to hear and to answer 
 
 ' ' ' words, 
 
 So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, 
 As one had put his whole soul in a jest ; " 
 
 and then you shall see whether Pegasus has not wings, and can
 
 22 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 use them too ! ' And he stopped suddenly, choking with emotion, 
 his nostril and chest dilating, his foot stamping impatiently on 
 the ground. 
 
 The doctor watched him with a sad smile. 
 
 ' Do you remember the devil's temptation of our Lord " Cast 
 thyself down from hence : for it is written, He shall give his 
 angels charge over thee " ? 
 
 ' I do ; but what has that to do with me ? ' 
 
 ' Throw away the safe station in which God has certainly put 
 you, to seek, by some desperate venture, a new, and, as you 
 fancy, a grander one for yourself 1 Look out of that window, 
 lad ; is there not poetry enough, beauty and glory enough, in 
 that sky, those fields, ay, in every fallen leaf, to employ all 
 your powers, considerable as I believe them to be ? Why spurn 
 the pure, quiet, country life, in which such men as Wordsworth 
 have been content to live and grow old 1 ' 
 
 The boy shook his head like an impatient horse. ' Too slow 
 too slow for me, to wait and wait, as Wordsworth did, through 
 long years of obscurity, misconception, ridicule. No. What I 
 have, I must have at once ; and, if it must be, die like Chatterton 
 if only, like Chatterton, I can have my little day of success, 
 and make the world confess that another priest of the beautiful 
 has arisen among men.' 
 
 Now, it can scarcely be denied that the good doctor was 
 guilty of a certain amount of weakness in listening patiently to 
 all this rant. Not that the rant was very blameable in a lad of 
 eighteen ; for have we not all, while we are going through our 
 course of Shelley, talked very much the same abominable stuff, 
 and thought ourselves the grandest fellows upon earth on 
 account of that very length of ear which was patent to all the 
 world save our precious selves ; blinded by our self-conceit, and 
 wondering in wrath why everybody was laughing at us ? But 
 the truth is, the doctor was easy and indulgent to a fault, and 
 dreaded nothing so much, save telling a lie, as hurting people's 
 feelings ; beside, as the acknowledged wise man of Whitbury, 
 he was a little proud of playing the Maecenas ; and he had, and 
 not unjustly, a high opinion of John Briggs' powers. So he had 
 lent him books, corrected his taste in many matters, and, by 
 dint of petting and humouring, had kept the wayward youth 
 half-a-dozen times from running away from his father, who was 
 an apothecary in the town, and from the general practitioner, 
 Mr. Bolus, under whom John Briggs fulfilled the office of 
 co-assistant with Tom Thurnall. Plenty of trouble had both 
 the lads given the doctor in the last five years, but of very 
 different kinds. Tom, though he was in everlasting hot water, 
 as the most incorrigible scapegrace for ten miles round, con- 
 trived to confine his naughtiness strictly to play-hours, while he 
 learnt everything which was to be learnt with marvellous 
 quickness, and so utterly fulfilled the ideal of a bottle-boy (for
 
 I POETRY AND PROSE 23 
 
 of him, too, as of all things, I presume, an ideal exists eternally 
 in the supra -sensual Platonic universe), that Bolus told his 
 father, ' In hours, sir, he takes care of my business as well as 
 I could myself ; but out of hours, sir, I believe he is possessed 
 by seven devils.' 
 
 John Briggs, on the other hand, sinned in the very opposite 
 direction. Too proud to learn his business, and too proud also 
 to play the scapegrace as Tom did, he neglected alike work and 
 amusement for lazy mooning over books, and the dreams which 
 books called up. He made perpetual mistakes in the shop ; and 
 then considered himself insulted by an ' inferior spirit,' if poor 
 Bolus called him to account for it. Indeed, had it not been for 
 many applications of that ' precious oil of unity,' with which the 
 good doctor daily anointed the creaking wheels of Whitbury 
 society, John Briggs and his master would have long ago 
 ' broken out of gear,' and parted company in mutual wrath and 
 fury. And now, indeed, the critical moment seemed come at 
 last ; for the lad began afresh to declare his deliberate intention 
 of going to London to seek his fortune, in spite of parents and 
 all the world. 
 
 ' To live on here, and never to rise, perhaps, above the post 
 of correspondent to a country newspaper ! To publish a volume 
 of poems by subscription and have to go round, hat in hand, 
 begging five shillings' worth of patronage from every stupid 
 country squire intolerable ! I must go ! Shakspeare was never 
 Shakspeare till he fled from miserable Stratford, to become at 
 once the friend of Sidney and Southampton.' 
 
 ' But John Briggs will be John Briggs still, if he went to the 
 moon,' shouted Tom Thurnall, who had just come up to the 
 window. ' I advise you to change that name of yours, Jack, to 
 Sidney, or Percy, or Walker if you like ; anything but the illus- 
 trious surname of Briggs the poisoner ! ' 
 
 'What do you mean, sir ?' thundered John, while the doctor 
 himself jumped up ; for Tom was red with rage. 
 
 'What is this, Tom?' 
 
 ' What's that ? ' screamed Tom, bursting, in spite of his pas- 
 sion, into roars of laughter. ' What's that ? ' and he held out 
 a phial. ' Smell it ! taste it ! Oh, if I had but a gallon of it 
 to pour down your throat ! That's what you brought Mark 
 Armsworth last night, instead of his cough mixture, while your 
 brains were wool-gathering after poetry ! ' 
 
 ' What is it 1 ' gasped John Briggs. 
 
 ' Miss Twiddle's black dose ; strong enough to rive the giz- 
 zard out of an old cock ! ' 
 
 'It's not!' 
 
 ' It is ! ' roared Mark Armsworth from behind, as he rushed 
 in, in shooting- jacket and gaiters, his red face redder with fury, 
 his red whiskers standing on end with wrath like a tiger's, his 
 left hand upon his hapless hypogastric region, his right brand-
 
 24 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ishing an empty glass, which smelt strongly of brandy and 
 water. ' It is ! And you've given me the cholera, and spoilt my 
 day's shooting : and if I don't serve you out for it there s no law 
 in England ! ' 
 
 ' And spoilt my day's shooting, too ; the last I shall get before 
 I'm off to Paris ! To have a day in Lord Minchampstead's pre- 
 serves, and to be baulked of it in this way ! ' 
 
 John Briggs stood as one astonied. 
 
 ' If I don't serve you out for this ! ' shouted Mark. 
 
 ' If I don't serve you out for it ! You shall never hear the 
 last of it ! ' shouted Tom. ' I'll take to writing after all. I'll 
 put it in the papers. I'll make the name of Briggs the poisoner 
 an abomination in the land.' 
 
 John Briggs turned and fled. 
 
 ' Well ! ' said Mark, ' I must spend my morning at home, I 
 suppose. So I shall just sit and chat with you, doctor.' 
 
 ' And I shall go and play with Molly,' said Tom, and walked 
 off to Armsworth's garden. 
 
 ' I don't care for myself so much,' said Mark ; ' but I'm 
 sorry the boy's lost his last day's shooting.' 
 
 ' Oh, you will be well enough by noon, and can go then ; 
 and as for the boy, it is just as well for him not to grow too 
 fond of sports in which he can never indulge.' 
 
 ' Never indulge ? Why not ? He vows he'll go to the Rocky 
 Mountains, and shoot a grizzly bear ; and he'll do it.' 
 
 ' He has a great deal to do before that, poor fellow ; and a 
 great deal to learn.' 
 
 ' And he'll learn it. You're always down-hearted about the 
 boy, doctor.' 
 
 ' I can't help feeling the parting with him ; and for Paris, 
 too such a seat of temptation. But it is his own choice ; 
 and, after all, he must see temptation wherever he goes.' 
 
 ' Bless the man ! if a boy means to go to the bad, he'll go 
 just as easily in Whitbury as in Paris. Give the lad his head, 
 and never fear ; he'll fall on his legs like a cat, I'll warrant him, 
 whatever happens. He's as steady as old Time, I tell you ; 
 there's a gray head on green shoulders there.' 
 
 ' Steady ? ' said the doctor, with a smile and a shrug. 
 
 'Steady, I tell you, at heart ; as prudent as you or I ; and 
 never lost you a farthing, that you know. Hang good boys ! 
 give me one who knows how to be naughty in the right place ; 
 I wouldn't give sixpence for a good boy : I never was one myself, 
 and have no faith in them. Give me the lad who has more steam 
 up than he knows what to do with, and must needs blow oft' a 
 little in larks. When once he settles down on the rail, it'll send 
 him along as steady as a luggage-train. Did you never hear a 
 locomotive puffing and roaring before it gets under way 1 well, 
 that's what your boy is doing. Look at him now, with my poor 
 little Molly.'
 
 j POETRY AND PROSE 25 
 
 Tom was cantering about the garden with a little weakly 
 child of eight in his arms. The little thing was looking up in 
 his face with delight, screaming at his jokes. 
 
 ' You are right, Mark ; the boy's heart cannot be in the wrong 
 place while he is so fond of little children.' 
 
 ' Poor Molly ! How she'll miss him ! Do you think she'll 
 ever walk, doctor ? ' 
 
 ' I do indeed.' 
 
 ' Hum ! ah ! well ! if she grows up, doctor, and don't go to 
 join her poor dear mother up there, I don't know that I'd wish 
 her a better husband than your boy.' 
 
 ' It would be a poor enough match for her.' 
 
 ' Tut ! she'll have the money, and he the brains. Mark my 
 words, doctor, that boy'll be a credit to you ; he'll make a noise 
 in the world, or I know nothing. And if his fancy holds seven 
 years hence, and he wants still to turn traveller, let him. If 
 he's minded to go round the world, I'll back him to go, somehow 
 or other, or I'll eat my head, Ned Thurnall ! ' 
 
 The doctor acquiesced in this hopeful theory, partly to save 
 an argument ; for Mark's reverence for his opinion was confined 
 to scientific matters ; and he made up to his own self-respect by 
 patronising the doctor, and, indeed, taking him sometimes 
 pretty sharply to task on practical matters. 
 
 ' Best fellow alive is Thurnall ; but not a man of business, 
 poor fellow. None of your geniuses are. Don't know what 
 bed do without me.' 
 
 So Tom carried Mary about all the morning, and went to 
 Minchampstead in the afternoon, and got three hours' good 
 shooting ; but in the evening lie vanished ; and his father went 
 into Armsworth's to look for him. 
 
 'Why do you want to know where he is?' replied Mark, 
 looking sly. 'However, as you can't stop him now, I'll tell 
 you. He is just about this time sewing up Briggs' coat-sleeves, 
 putting copperas into his water-jug and powdered galls on his 
 towel, and making various other little returns for this morning's 
 favour.' 
 
 'I dislike practical jokes.' 
 
 ' So do I ; especially when they come in the form of a black 
 dose. Sit down, old boy, and we'll have a game at cribbage.' 
 
 In a few minutes Tom came in. ' Here's a good riddance. 
 The poisoner has fabricated his pilgrim's staff, to speak scientifi- 
 cally, and perambulated his calcareous strata.' 
 
 'Whatr 
 
 ' Cut his stick, and walked his chalks ; and is off to London.' 
 
 ' Poor boy,' said the doctor, much distressed. 
 
 ' Don't cry, daddy ; you can't bring him back again. He's 
 been gone these four hours. I went to his room at Bolus's 
 about a little business, and saw at once that he had packed up, 
 and carried off all he could. And, looking about, I found a
 
 26 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 letter directed to his father. So to his father I took it ; and 
 really I was sorry for the poor people. I left them all crying in 
 chorus.' 
 
 ' I must go to them at once ; ' and up rose the doctor. 
 
 'He's not worth the trouble you take for him the addle- 
 headed, ill-tempered coxcomb,' said Mark. ' But it's just like 
 your soft-heartedness. Tom, sit down, and finish the game with 
 me.' 
 
 So vanished from Whitbury, with all his aspirations, poor 
 John Briggs ; and save an occasional letter to his parents, 
 telling them that he was alive and well, no one heard anything 
 of him for many a year. The doctor tried to find him out in 
 London, again and again ; but without success. His letters had 
 no address upon them, and no clue to his whereabouts could be 
 found. 
 
 And Tom Thurnall went to Paris, and became the best pistol- 
 shot and billiard-player in the Quartier Latin ; and then went 
 to St. Mumpsimus' Hospital in London, and became the best 
 boxer therein, and captain of the eight-oar, besides winning 
 prizes and certificates without end, and becoming in due time 
 the most popular house-surgeon in the hospital : but nothing 
 could keep him permanently at home. Stay drudging in London 
 he would not. Settle down in a country practice lie would not. 
 Cost his father a farthing ,he would not. So he started forth 
 into the wide world with nothing but his wits and his science, 
 as anatomical professor to a new college in some South Ameri- 
 can republic. Unfortunately, when he got there, he found that 
 the annual revolution had just taken place, and that the party 
 who had founded the college had been all shot the week before. 
 Whereat he whistled, and started off again 3 no man knew 
 whither. 
 
 ' Having got round half the world, daddy,' he wrote home, 
 ' it's hard if I don't get round the other half. So don't expect 
 me till you see me ; and take care of your dear old eyes.' 
 
 With which he vanished into infinite space, and was only 
 heard of by occasional letters dated from the llocky Mountains 
 (where he did shoot a grizzly bear), the Spanish West Indies, 
 Otaheite, Singapore, the Falkland Islands, and all manner of 
 unexpected places ; sending home valuable notes (sometimes 
 accompanied by valuable specimens), zoological and botanical ; 
 and informing his father that he was doing very well ; that work 
 was plentiful, and that lie always found two fresh jobs before 
 he had finished one old one. 
 
 His eldest brother, John, died meanwhile. His second 
 brother, William, was in good general practice in Manchester. 
 His father's connections supported him comfortably ; and if the 
 old doctor ever longed for Tom to come home, he never hinted 
 it to the wanderer, but bade him go on and prosper, and 
 become (which he gave high promise of becoming) a distin-
 
 i POETRY AND PROSE 27 
 
 guished man of science. Nevertheless the old man's heart sunk 
 at last, when month after month, and at last two full years, had 
 passed without any letter from Tom. 
 
 At last, when full four years were passed and gone since Tom 
 started for South America, he descended from the box of the 
 day-mail, with a serene and healthful countenance ; and with 
 no more look of interest in his face than if he had been away on 
 a two days' visit, shouldered his carpet-bag, and started for his 
 father's house. He stopped, however, as there appeared from 
 the inside of the mail a face which he must surely know. A 
 second look told him that it was none other than John Briggs. 
 But how altered ! He had grown up into a very handsome man 
 tall and delicate-featured, with long black curls, and a black 
 moustache. There was a slight stoop about his shoulders, as of 
 a man accustomed to too much sitting and writing ; and he 
 carried an eye-glass, whether for fashion's sake, or for his eyes' 
 sake, was uncertain. He was wrapt in a long Spanish cloak, 
 new and good : wore well-cut trousers, and (what Tom, of course, 
 examined carefully) French boots, very neat, and very thin. 
 Moreover, he had lavender kid-gloves on. Tom looked and 
 wondered, and walked half round him, sniffing like a dog when 
 he examines into the character of a fellow-dog. 
 
 ' Hum ! his mark seems to be at present P. P. prosperous 
 party : so there can be no harm in renewing our acquaintance. 
 What trade on earth does he live by, though ? Editor of a 
 newspaper ? or keeper of a gambling-table ? Begging his pardon, 
 he looks a good deal more like the latter than the former. 
 However ' 
 
 And he walked up and offered his hand, with ' How d'e do, 
 Briggs ? Who would have thought of our falling from the skies 
 against each other in this fashion ? ' 
 
 Mr. Briggs hesitated a moment, and then took coldly the 
 offered hand. 
 
 ' Excuse me ; but the circumstances of my visit here are too 
 painful to allow me to wish for society.' 
 
 And Mr. Briggs withdrew, evidently glad to escape. 
 
 ' Has he vampoosed with the contents of a till, that he wishes 
 so for solitude ? asked Tom ; and, shouldering his carpet-bag a 
 second time, with a grim inward laugh, he went to his father's 
 house, and hung up his hat in the hall, just as if he had come in 
 from a walk, and walked into the study ; and not finding the 
 old man, stepped through the garden to Mark Armsworth's, and 
 in at the drawing-room window, frightening out of her wits a 
 short, pale, ugly girl of seventeen, whom he discovered to be his 
 old play-fellow, Mary. However, she soon recovered her equa- 
 nimity : he certainly never lost his. 
 
 'How d'e do, darling? How you are grown ! and how well 
 you look! How's your father 1 ? I hadn't any thing particular to do, 
 so I thought I'd come home and see you all, and get some fishing.'
 
 28 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 And Mary, who had longed to throw her arms round his neck, 
 as of old, and was restrained by the thought that she was grown 
 a great girl now, called in her father and all the household ; and 
 after a while the old doctor came home, and the fatted calf was 
 killed, and all made merry over the return of this altogether un- 
 repentant prodigal son, who, whether from affectation, or from 
 that blunted sensibility which often comes by continual change 
 and wandering, took all their affection and delight with the most 
 provoking coolness. 
 
 Nevertheless, though his feelings were not 'demonstrative,' as 
 fine ladies say nowadays, he evidently had some left in some 
 corner of his heart ; for after the fatted calf was eaten, and they 
 were all settled in the doctor's study, it came out that his car- 
 pet-bag contained little but presents, and those valuable ones 
 rare minerals from the Ural for his father ; a pair of Circassian 
 pistols for Mark ; and for little Mary, to her astonishment, a 
 Russian malachite bracelet, at which Mary's eyes opened wide, 
 and old Mark said 
 
 ' Pretty fellow you are, to go fooling your money away like 
 that. What did that gimcrack cost, pray, sir ? ' 
 
 ' That is no concern of yours, sir, or mine either ; for I didn't 
 pay for it.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said Mary doubtingly. 
 
 ' No, Mary. I killed a giant, who was carrying off a beautiful 
 princess ; and this, you see, he wore as a ring on one of his 
 lingers : so I thought it would just suit your wrist.' 
 
 ' Oh, Tom Mr. Thurnall what nonsense ! ' 
 
 ' Come, come,' said his father ; ' instead of telling us these 
 sort of stories, you ought to give an account of yourself, as you 
 seem quite to forget that we have not heard from you for more 
 than two years.' 
 
 ' Whew ! I wrote/ said Tom, ' whenever I could. However, 
 you can have all my letters in one now.' 
 
 So they sat round the fire, and Tom gave an account of him- 
 self ; while his father marked with pride that the young man 
 had grown and strengthened in body and in mind ; and that 
 under that nonchalant, almost cynical outside, the heart still 
 beat honest and kindly. For before Tom began, lie would 
 needs draw his chair closer to his father's, and half-whispered 
 to him, 
 
 ' This is very jolly. I can't be sentimental, you know. 
 Knocking about the world has beat all that out of me : but it is 
 very comfortable, after all, to find oneself with a dear old daddy, 
 and a good coal fire.' 
 
 ' Which of the two could you best do without ? ' 
 
 'Well, one takes things as one finds them. It don't do to 
 look too deeply into one's feelings. Like chemicals, the more 
 you analyse them, the worse they smell.' 
 
 So Tom began his story.
 
 j POETRY AND PROSE 29 
 
 ' You heard from me at Bombay ; after I'd been up to the 
 ' Himalaya with an old Mumpsimus friend ? ' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 'Well, I worked my way to Suez on board a ship whose 
 doctor had fallen ill ; and then I must needs see a little of 
 Egypt ; and there robbed was I, and nearly murdered too ; but 
 I take a good deal of killing.' 
 
 ' I'll warrant you do,' said Mark, looking at him with pride. 
 
 ' So I begged my way to Cairo ; and there I picked up a 
 Yankee a New Yorker, made of money, who had a yacht at 
 Alexandria, and travelled en prince; and nothing would serve 
 him but I must go with him to Constantinople ; but there he 
 and I quarrelled more fools, both of us ! I wrote to you from 
 Constantinople.' 
 
 ' We never got the letter.' 
 
 ' I can't help that ; I wrote. But there I was on the wide 
 world again. So I took up with a Russian prince, whom I met 
 at a gambling-table in Pera, a mere boy, but such a plucky 
 one, and went with him to Circassia, and up to Astrakhan, 
 and on to the Kirghis steppes ; and there I did see snakes.' 
 
 ' Snakes 1 ' says Mary. ' I should have thought you had seen 
 plenty in India already.' 
 
 ' Yes, Mary ! but these were snakes spiritual and meta- 
 phorical. For, poking about where we had no business, Mary, 
 the Tartars caught us, and tied us to their horses' tails, after 
 giving me this scar across the cheek, and taught us to drink 
 mares' milk, and to do a good deal of dirty work beside. So 
 there we stayed with them six months, and observed their 
 manners, which were none, and their customs, which were dis- 
 gusting, as the midshipman said in his diary ; and had the 
 honour of visiting a pleasant little place in No-man's Land, 
 called Khiva, which you may find in your atlas, Mary ; and of 
 very nearly being sold for slaves into Persia, which would not 
 have been pleasant ; and at last, Mary, we ran away or rather, 
 rode away, on two razor-backed Calmuc ponies, and got back to 
 Russia, vid Orenberg, for which consult your atlas again ; so 
 the young prince was restored to the bosom of his afflicted 
 family ; and a good deal of trouble I had to get him safe there, 
 for the poor boy's health gave way. They wanted me to stay 
 with them, and offered to make my fortune.' 
 
 ' I'm so glad you didn't,' said Mary. 
 
 'Well I wanted to see little Mary again, and two worthy 
 old gentlemen beside, you see. However, those Russians are 
 generous enough. They filled my pockets, and heaped me with 
 presents ; that bracelet among them. What's more, Mary, I've 
 been introduced to old Nick himself, and can testify, from per- 
 sonal experience, to the correctness of Shakespeare's opinion 
 that the prince of darkness is a gentleman.' 
 
 ' And now you are going to stay at home ? ' asked the doctor.
 
 30 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'Well, if you'll take me in, daddy, I'll send for my traps 
 from London, and stay a month or so.' 
 
 ' A month,' cried the forlorn father. 
 
 ' Well, Daddy, you see, there is a chance of more fighting in 
 Mexico, and I shall see such practice there ; beside meeting old 
 friends who were with me in Texas. And and I've got a little 
 commission, too, down in Georgia, that I should like to go and 
 do.' 
 
 'What is that?' 
 
 ' Well, it's a long story and a sad one ; but there was a poor 
 Yankee surgeon with the army in Circassia a Southerner, and 
 a very good fellow ; and he had taken a fancy to some coloured 
 girl at home poor fellow, he used to go half mad about her 
 sometimes, when he was talking to me, for fear she should have 
 been sold sent to the New Orleans market, or some other 
 devilry ; and what could I say to comfort him ? Well, he got 
 his mittimus by one of Schamyl's bullets ; and when he was 
 dying, he made me promise (I hadn't the heart to refuse) to take 
 all his savings, which he had been hoarding for years for no 
 other purpose, and see if I couldn't buy the girl, and get her 
 away to Canada. I was a fool for promising. It was no con- 
 cern of mine ; but the poor fellow wouldn't die in peace else. 
 So what must be, must.' 
 
 ' Oh, go ! go ! ' said Mary. ' You will let him go, Doctor 
 Thurnall, and see the poor girl free 1 Think how dreadful it 
 must be to be a slave.' 
 
 ' I will, my little Miss Mary ; and for more reasons than you 
 think of. Little do you know how dreadful it is to be a slave.' 
 
 ' Hum ! ' said Mark Armsworth. ' That's a queer story. Tom, 
 have you got the poor fellow's money ? Didn't lose it when you 
 were taken by those Tartars 1 ' 
 
 ' Not I. I wasn't so green as to carry it with me. It ought 
 to have been in England six months ago. My only fear is, it's 
 not enough.' 
 
 ' Hum ! ' said Mark. ' How much more do you think you'll 
 want ? ' 
 
 ' Heaven knows. There is a thousand dollars ; but if she be 
 half as beautiful as poor Wyse used to swear she was, I may 
 want more than double that.' 
 
 ' If you do, pay it, and I'll pay you again. No, by George ! ' 
 said Mark, 'no one shall say that while Mark Armsworth had a 
 
 balance at his bankers' he let a poor girl ' and, recollecting 
 
 Mary's presence, he finished his sentence by sundry stamps and 
 thumps on the table. 
 
 ' You would soon exhaust your balance, if you set to work to 
 free all poor girls who are in the same case in Georgia,' said the 
 doctor. 
 
 ' Well, what of that ? Them I don't know of, and so I ain't 
 responsible for them ; but this one I do know of, and so there
 
 31 
 
 I can't argue; but, Tom, if you want the money, you know 
 where to find it.' 
 
 ' Very good. By the by I forgot it till this moment who 
 should come down in the coach with me but the lost John 
 Briggs.' 
 
 'He is come too late, then,' said the doctor. 'His poor 
 father died this morning.' 
 
 ' Ah ! then Briggs knew that he was ill ? That explains the 
 Manfredic mystery and gloom with which he greeted me.' 
 
 'I cannot tell. He has written from time to time, but he 
 has never given any address ; so that no one could write in 
 return.' 
 
 'He may have known. He looked very downcast. Perhaps 
 that explains his cutting me dead.' 
 
 ' Cut you ?' cried Mark. 'I dare say he's been doing some- 
 thing he's ashamed of, and don't want to be recognised. That 
 fellow has been after no good all this while, I'll warrant. I 
 always say he's connected with the swell mob, or croupier at a 
 gambling-table, or something of that kind. Don't you think it's 
 likely, now ? ' 
 
 Mark was in the habit of so saying for the purpose of tor- 
 menting the doctor, who held stoutly to his old belief, that John 
 Briggs was a very clever man, and would turn up some day as 
 a distinguished literary character. 
 
 ' Well,' said Tom, ' honest or not, he's thriving , came down 
 inside the coach, dressed in the distinguished foreigner style, 
 with lavender kid-gloves, and French boots.' 
 
 'Just like a swell pickpocket,' said Mark. 'I always told 
 you so, Thurnall.' 
 
 'He had the old Byron collar, and Raphael hair, though.' 
 
 ' Nasty, effeminate, un-English foppery,' grumbled Mark ; ' so 
 he may be in the scribbling line after all.' 
 
 ' I'll go and see if I can find him,' quoth the doctor. 
 
 ' Bother you,' said Mark, ' always running out o' nights after 
 somebody else's business, instead of having a jolly evening. 
 You stay, Tom, like a sensible fellow, and tell me and Mary 
 some more travellers' lies. Had much sporting, boy ? ' 
 
 ' Hum ! I've shot and hunted every beast, I think, shootable 
 and huntable, from a humming-bird to an elephant ; and I had 
 some splendid fishing in Canada ; but, after all, give me a 
 Whitbury trout, on a single-handed Chevalier. We'll at them 
 to-morrow, Mr. Armsworth.' 
 
 ' We will, my boy ! never so many fish in the river as this 
 year, or in season so early.' 
 
 The good doctor returned ; but with no news which could 
 throw light on the history of the now mysterious Mr. John 
 Briggs. He had locked himself into the room with his father's 
 corpse, evidently in great excitement and gpief ; spent several 
 hours in walking up and down there alone ; and had then gone
 
 32 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 to an attorney in the town, and settled everything about the 
 funeral ' in the handsomest way,' said the man of law ; ' and 
 was quite the gentleman in his manner, but not much of a man 
 of business ; never had even thought of looking for his father's 
 will ; and was quite surprised when I told him that there ought 
 to be a fair sum eight hundred or a thousand, perhaps to 
 come in to him, if the stock and business were properly dis- 
 posed of. So he went off to London by the evening mail, and 
 told me to address him at the post-office in some street off the 
 Strand. Queer business, sir, isn't it ? ' 
 
 John Briggs did not reappear till a few minutes before his 
 father's funeral, witnessed the ceremony evidently with great 
 sorrow, bowed off silently all who attempted to speak to him, 
 and returned to London by the next coach, leaving matter for 
 much babble among all Whitbury gossips. One thing at least 
 was plain, that he wished to be forgotten in his native town ; 
 and forgotten he was, in due course of time. 
 
 Tom Thurnall stayed his month at home, and then went to 
 America ; whence he wrote home, in about six months, a letter, 
 of which only one paragraph need interest us. 
 
 ' Tell Mark I have no need for his dollars. I have done the 
 deed ; and, thanks to the underground railway, done it neai'ly 
 gratis ; which was both cheaper than buying her, and infinitely 
 better for me ; so that she has all poor Wyse's dollars to start 
 with afresh in Canada. I write this from New York. I could 
 accompany her no farther ; for I must get back to the South in 
 time for the Mexican expedition.' 
 
 Then came a long and anxious silence ; and then a letter, not 
 from Mexico, but from California, one out of several which 
 had been posted ; and then letters more regularly from Aus- 
 tralia. Sickened with Californian life, he had crossed the 
 Pacific once more, and was hard at work in the diggings, 
 doctoring and gold-finding by turns. 
 
 ' A rolling stone gathers no moss,' said his father. 
 
 ' He has the pluck of a hound, and the cunning of a fox,' said 
 Mark ; 'and he'll be a credit to you yet.' 
 
 And Mary prayed every morning and night for her old play- 
 fellow ; and so the years slipped on till the autumn of 1853. 
 
 As no one has heard of Tom now for eight months and more 
 (the pulse of Australian postage being of a somewhat inter- 
 mittent type), we may as well go and look for him. 
 
 A sheet of dark rolling ground, quarried into a gigantic 
 rabbit burrow, with hundreds of tents and huts dotted about 
 among the heaps of rubbish ; dark evergreen forests in the dis- 
 tance, and, above all, the great volcanic mountain of Buninyong 
 towering far aloft these are the ' Black Hills of Ballarat ; ' and 
 that windlass at that shaft's mouth belongs in part to Thomas 
 Thurnall. 
 
 At the windlass are standing two men, whom we may have
 
 i POETRY AND PROSE 83 
 
 seen in past years, self -satisfied in countenance, and spotless in 
 array, sauntering down Piccadilly any July afternoon, or loung- 
 ing in Haggis's stable-yard at Cambridge any autumn morning. 
 Alas ! how changed from the fast young under-graduates, with 
 powers of enjoyment only equalled by their powers of running 
 into debt, are those two black -bearded and mud -bespattered 
 ruffians, who once were Smith and Brown of Trinity. Yet who 
 need pity them, as long as they have stouter limbs, healthier 
 stomachs, and clearer consciences, than they have had since they 
 left Eton at seventeen ? Would Smith have been a happier 
 man as a briefless barrister in a dingy Inn of Law, peeping now 
 and then into thirdrate London society, and scribbling for the 
 daily press 1 Would Brown have been a happier man had he 
 been forced into those holy orders for which he never felt the 
 least vocation, to pay off his college debts out of his curate's 
 income, and settle down on his lees, at last, in the family living 
 of Nomansland-cum-Clayhole, and support a wife and five 
 children on five hundred a year, exclusive of rates and taxes ? 
 Let them dig, and be men. 
 
 The windlass rattles, and the rope goes down. A shout from 
 the bottom of the shaft proclaims all right ; and in due time, 
 sitting in the noose of the rope, up comes Thomas Thurnall, 
 bare-footed and bare-headed, in flannel trousers and red jersey, 
 begrimed with slush and mud ; with a mahogany face, a brick- 
 red neck, and a huge brown beard, looking, to use his own 
 expression, 'as jolly as a sandboy.' 
 
 ' A letter for you, doctor, from Europe.' 
 
 Tom takes it, and his countenance falls ; for it is black -edged 
 and black-sealed. The handwriting is Mary Armsworth's. 
 
 ' I suppose the old lady who is going to leave me a fortune is 
 dead,' says he drily, and turns away to read. 
 
 ' Bad luck, I suppose,' he says to himself. ' I have not had 
 any for full six months, so I suppose it is time for Dame For- 
 tune to give me a sly stab again. I only hope it is not my 
 father ; for, begging the dame's pardon, I can bear any trick of 
 hers but that.' And he sets his teeth doggedly, and reads. 
 
 ' My dear Mr. Thurnall My father would have written him- 
 self, but he thought, I don't know why, that I could tell you 
 better than he. Your father is quite well in health,' Thurnall 
 breathes freely again ' but he has had heavy trials since your 
 poor brother William's death.' 
 
 Tom opens his eyes and sets his teeth more firmly. ' Willy 
 dead ? I suppose there is a letter lost : better so ; better to 
 have the whole list of troubles together, and so get them sooner 
 over. Poor Will ! ' 
 
 ' Your father caught the scarlet fever from him, while he was 
 
 attending him, and was very ill after he came back. He is quite 
 
 well again now ; but if I must tell you the truth, the disease 
 
 has affected his eyes. You know how weak they always were, 
 
 D T. Y. A.
 
 34 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 and how much worse they have grown of late years ; and the 
 doctors are afraid that he has little chance of recovering the 
 sight, at least of the left eye.' 
 
 'Recovering? He's blind, then.' And Tom set his teeth 
 more tightly than ever. He felt a sob rise in his throat, but 
 choked it down, shaking his head like an impatient bull. 
 
 ' Wait a bit, Tom,' said he to himself, ' before you have it out 
 with Dame Fortune. There's more behind, I'll warrant. News 
 like this lies in pockets, and not in single nuggets.' And he 
 read on 
 
 'And for it is better you should know all something has 
 happened to the railroad in which he had invested so much. 
 My father has lost money in it also, but not much ; but I fear 
 that your poor dear father is very much straitened. My father 
 is dreadfully vexed about it, and thinks it all his fault in not 
 having watched the matter more closely, and made your father 
 sell out in time ; and he wants your father to come and live 
 with us, but he will not hear of it. So he has given up the old 
 house, and taken one in Water Street ; and oh ! I need not tell 
 you that we are there every day, and that I am trying to make 
 him as happy as I can but what can I do ? ' And then followed 
 kind womanly common-places, which Tom hurried over with 
 tierce impatience. 
 
 ' He wants you to come home ; but my father has entreated 
 him to let you stay. You know, while we are here, he is safe , 
 and my father begs you not to come home, if you are succeeding 
 as well as you have been doing.' 
 
 ' There was much more in the letter, which I need not repeat ; 
 and, after all, a short postscript by Mark himself followed : 
 
 ' Stay where you are, boy, and keep up heart ; while I have a 
 pound, your father shall have half of it ; and you know Mark 
 Armsworth.' 
 
 He walked away slowly into the forest. He felt that the 
 crisis of his life was come ; that he must turn his hand hence- 
 forth to quite new work ; and as he went lie ' took stock,' as it 
 were, of his own soul, to see what point he had attained what 
 he could do. 
 
 Fifteen years of adventure had hardened into wrought metal 
 a character never very ductile. Tom was now, in his own way, 
 an altogether accomplished man of the world, who knew (at 
 least in all companies and places where he was likely to find 
 himself) exactly what to say, to do, to make, to seek, and to 
 avoid. Shifty and thrifty as old Greek, or modern Scot, there 
 were few things he could not invent, and perhaps nothing lie 
 could not endure. He had watched human nature under every 
 disguise, from the pomp of the ambassador to the war-paint of 
 the savage, and formed his own clear, hard, shallow, practical esti- 
 mate thereof. He looked on it as his raw material, which he 
 had to work up into subsistence and comfort for himself. He
 
 i POETRY AND PROSE 35 
 
 did not wish to live on men, but live by them he must ; and for 
 that purpose he must study them, and especially their weak- 
 nesses. He would not cheat them ; for there was in him an 
 innate vein of honesty, so surly and explosive, at times, as to 
 
 give him much trouble. The severest part of his self-education 
 ad been the repression of his dangerous inclination to call a 
 sham a sham on the spot, and to answer fools according to their 
 folly. That youthful rashness, however, was now well-nigh 
 subdued, and Tom could flatter and bully also, when it served 
 his turn as who cannot ? Let him that is without sin among 
 my readers cast the first stone. Self-conscious he was, there- 
 fore, in every word and action ; not from morbid vanity, but a 
 necessary consequence of hi? mode of life. He had to use men, 
 and therefore to watch how he used them ; to watch every word, 
 gesture, tone of voice, and, in all times and places, do the fitting 
 thing. It was hard work ; but necessary for a man who stood 
 alone and self -poised in the midst of the universe ; fashioning 
 for himself everywhere, just as far as his arm could reach, some 
 not intolerable condition ; depending on nothing but himself, 
 and caring for little but himself and the father whom, to do him 
 justice, he never forgot. If I wished to define Tom Thurnall by 
 one epithet, I should call him specially an ungodly man were 
 it not that scriptural epithets have, nowadays, such altogether 
 conventional and official meanings, that one fears to convey, in 
 using them, some notion quite foreign to the truth. Tom was 
 certainly not one of those ungodly whom David had to deal with 
 of old, who robbed the widow, and put the fatherless to deah. 
 His morality was as high as that of the average ; his sense of 
 honour far higher. He was generous and kind-hearted. No 
 one ever heard him tell a lie ; and he had a blunt honesty about 
 him, half real, because he liked to be honest, and yet half affected 
 too, because he found it pay in the long run, and because it 
 threw off their guard the people whom he intended to make his 
 tools. But of godliness in its true sense of belief that any 
 Being above cared for him, and was helping him in the daily 
 business of life that it was worth while asking that Being's 
 advice, or that any advice would be given if asked for ; of any 
 practical notion of a Heavenly Father, or a Divine education 
 Tom was as ignorant as thousands of respectable people who go 
 to church every Sunday, and read good books, arid believe firmly 
 that the Pope is Antichrist. He ought to have learnt it, no 
 doubt, for his father was a religious man ; but he had not learnt 
 it, any more than thousands learn it, who have likewise reli- 
 gious parents. He had been taught, of course, the common 
 doctrines and duties of religion ; but early remembrances had 
 been rubbed out, as off" a schoolboy's slate, by the mere current 
 of new thoughts and objects, in his continual wanderings. 
 Disappointments he had had, and dangers in plenty ; but 
 only such as rouse a brave and cheerful spirit to bolder self-
 
 36 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 reliance and invention ; not those deep sorrows of the heart 
 which leave a man helpless in the lowest pit, crying for help 
 from without, for there is none within. He had seen men of 
 all creeds, and had found in all alike (so he held) the many 
 rogues, and the few honest men. All religions were, in his eyes, 
 equally true and equally false. Superior morality was owing 
 principally to the influences of race and climate ; and devo- 
 tional experiences (to judge, at least, from American camp- 
 meetings and popish cities) the results of a diseased nervous 
 system. 
 
 Upon a man so hard and strong this fearful blow had fallen, 
 and, to do him justice, he took it like a man. He wandered on 
 and on for an hour or more, up the hills, and into the forest, 
 talking to himself. 
 
 'Poor old Willy ! I should have liked to have looked into his 
 honest face before he went, if only to make sure that we were 
 good friends. I used to plague him sadly with my tricks. But 
 what is the use of wishing for what cannot be ? I recollect I 
 had just the same feeling when John died ; and yet I got over 
 it after a time, and was as cheerful as if he were alive again, or 
 had never lived at all. And so I shall get over this. Why 
 should I give way to what I know will pass, and is meant to 
 pass ? It is my father I feel for. But I couldn't be there ; and 
 it is no fault of mine that I was not there. No one told me 
 what was going to happen ; and no one could know ; so again, 
 why grieve over what can't be helped ? ' 
 
 And then, to give the lie to all his cool arguments, he sat 
 do*wn among the fern, and burst into a violent fit of crying. 
 ' Oli, my poor dear old daddy ! ' 
 
 Yes ; beneath all the hard crust of years, that fountain of 
 life still lay pure as when it came down from heaven love for 
 his father. 
 
 ' Come, come, this won't do ; this is not the way to take stock 
 of my goods, either mental or worldly. I can't cry the dear old 
 man out of this scrape.' 
 
 He looked up. The sun was setting. Beneath the dark roof 
 of evergreens the eucalyptus boles stood out, like basalt pillars, 
 black against a background of burning flame. The flying foxes 
 shot from tree to tree, and moths as big as sparrows whirred 
 about the trunks, one moment black against the glare beyond, 
 a?id vanishing the next, like imps of darkness, into their native 
 gloom. There was no sound of living thing around, save the 
 ghastly rattle of the dead bark tassels which swung from every 
 tree, and, far away, the faint clicking of the diggers at their 
 work, like the rustle of a gigantic ant-hill. Was there one 
 among them all who cared for him ? who would not forget him 
 in a week with 'Well, he was pleasant company, poor fellow,' 
 and go on digging without a sigh 1 What, if it were his fate to 
 die, as he had seen many a stronger man, there in that lonely
 
 i POETRY AND PROSE 37 
 
 wilderness, and sleep for ever, unhonoured and unknown, be- 
 neath that awful forest roof, while his father looked for bread 
 to others' hands ? 
 
 No man was less sentimental, no man less superstitious, than 
 Thomas Thurnall ; but crushed and softened all but terrified 
 (as who would not have been ?) by that day's news, he could 
 not struggle against the weight of loneliness which fell upon 
 him. For the first and last time, perhaps, in his life, he felt 
 fear ; a vague, awful dread of unseen and inevitable possibili- 
 ties. Why should not calamity fall on him, wave after wave ? 
 Was it not falling' on him already ? Why should he not grow 
 sick to-morrow, break his leg, his neck why not ? What 
 guarantee had he in earth or heaven that he might not be 
 ' snufted out silently,' as he had seen hundreds already, and die 
 and leave no sign ? And there sprung up in him at once the 
 intensest yearning after his father and the haunts of his boy- 
 hood, and the wildest dread that he should never see them. 
 Might riot his father be dead ere he could return ? if ever he 
 did return. That twelve thousand miles of sea looked to him a 
 gulf impassable. Oh, that he were safe at home ! that he could 
 start that moment ! And for one minute a helplessness, as of a 
 lost child, came over him. 
 
 Perhaps it had been well for him had he given that feeling 
 vent, and, confessing himself a lost child, cried out of the dark- 
 ness to a Father ; but the next minute he had dashed it proudly 
 away. 
 
 'Pretty baby I am, to get frightened, at my time of life, 
 because I find myself in a dark wood and the sun shining all 
 the while as jollily as ever away there in the west ! It is morn- 
 ing somewhere or other now, and it will be morning here again 
 to-morrow. "Good times and bad times, and all times pass 
 over ; " I learnt that lesson out of old Bewick's vignettes, and 
 it has stood me in good stead this many a year, and shall now. 
 Die ? Nonsense. I take more killing than that comes to. So 
 for one more bout with old Dame Fortune. If she throws me 
 again, why, I'll get up again, as I have any time these fifteen 
 years. Mark's right. I'll stay here and work till I make a hit, 
 or luck runs dry, and then home and settle ; and, meanwhile, 
 I'll go down to Melbourne to-morrow, and send the dear old 
 man two hundred pounds ; and then back again here, and to it 
 again.' 
 
 And with a fate-defiant smile, half bitter and half cheerful, 
 Tom rose and went down again to his mates, and stopped their 
 inquiries by 'What's done can't be mended, and needn't be 
 mentioned ; whining won't make me work the harder, and harder 
 than ever I must work.' 
 
 Strange it is, how mortal man, ' who cometh up and is cut 
 down like the flower,' can thus harden himself into stoical 
 security, and count on the morrow, which may never come.
 
 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Yet so it is ; and, perhaps, if it were not so, no work would get 
 done on earth, at least by the many who know not that God 
 is guiding them, while they fancy that they are guiding them- 
 selves. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 STILL LIFE 
 
 I MUST now, if I am to bring you to ' Two years ago,' and to 
 my story, as it was told to me, ask you to follow me into the 
 good old West Country, and set you down at the back of an old 
 harbour pier ; thirty feet of gray and brown boulders, spotted 
 aloft with bright yellow lichens, and black drops of tar, polished 
 lower down by the surge of centuries, and towards the foot of 
 the wall roughened with crusts of bai'nacles, and mussel-nests 
 in crack and cranny, and festoons of coarse dripping weed. 
 
 On a low rock at its foot, her back resting against the Cyclo- 
 pean wall, sits a young woman of eight -and -twenty, soberly, 
 almost primly dressed, with three or four tiny children cluster- 
 ing round her. In front of them, on a narrow spit of sand 
 between the rocks, a dozen little girls are laughing, romping, 
 and pattering about, turning the stones for 'shannies' and 
 ' bullies,' and other luckless fish left by the tide ; while the 
 pai-ty beneath the pier wall look steadfastly down into a little 
 rock-pool at their feet, full of the pink and green and purple 
 cut-work of delicate weeds and coraline, and starred with great 
 sea-dahlias, crimson and brown and gray, and with the waving 
 snake-locks of the Cereus, pale blue, and rose-tipped like the 
 fingers of the dawn. One delicate Medusa is sliding across the 
 pool, by slow pantings of its crystal bell ; and on it the eyes 
 of the whole group are fixed for it seems to be the subject of 
 some story which the village schoolmistress is finishing in a 
 sweet, half-abstracted voice 
 
 ' And so the cruel soldier was changed into a great rough red 
 starfish, who goes about killing the poor mussels, while nobody 
 loves him, or cares to take his part ; and the poor little girl was 
 changed into a beautiful bright jelly-fish, like that one, who 
 swims about all day in the pleasant sunshine, with a red cross 
 stamped on its heart.' 
 
 ' Oh, mistress, what a pretty story ! ' cry the little ones, 
 with tearful eyes. 'And what shall be we changed to when we 
 die?' 
 
 ' If we will only be good we shall go up to Jesus, and lie 
 beautiful angels, and sing hymns. Would that it might be 
 soon, soon ; for you and me, and all ! ' And she draws the 
 children to her, and looks upward, as if longing to bear them 
 with her aloft. 
 
 Let us leave the conversation where it is, and look into the
 
 ii STILL LIFE 39 
 
 face of the speaker, who, young as she is, has already meditated 
 so long upon the mystery of death that it has grown lovely in 
 her eyes. 
 
 Her figure is tall, graceful, and slight, the severity of its out- 
 lines suiting well with the severity of her dress, with the brown 
 stuff gown and plain gray whittle. Her neck is long, almost 
 too long ; but all defects are forgotten in the first look at her 
 face. We can see it fully, for her bonnet lies beside her on the 
 rock. 
 
 The masque, though thin, is perfect. The brow, like that of 
 Greek statue, looks lower than it really is, for the hair springs 
 from below the bend of the forehead. The brain is very long, 
 and sweeps backward and upward in grand curves, till it attains 
 above the ears a great expanse and height. She should be a 
 character more able to feel than to argue ; full of all a woman's 
 veneration, devotion, love of children, perhaps, too, of a woman's 
 anxiety. 
 
 The nose is slightly aquiline ; the sharp-cut nostrils indicate 
 a reserve of compressed strength and passion ; the mouth is 
 delicate ; the lips, which are full and somewhat heavy, not from 
 coarseness, but rather from languor, show somewhat of both the 
 upper and the under teeth. Her eyes are bent on the pool at 
 her feet so that we can see nothing of them but the large 
 sleepy lids, fringed with lashes so long and dark that the eye 
 looks as if it had been painted, in the Eastern fashion, with 
 antimony ; the dark lashes, dark eyebrows, dark hair, crisped 
 (as West-country hair so often is) to its very roots, increase the 
 almost ghost-like paleness of the face, not sallow, not snow-white, 
 but of a clear, bloodless, waxen hue. 
 
 And now she lifts her eyes dark eyes, of preternatural large- 
 ness ; brilliant, too, but not with the sparkle of the diamond ; 
 brilliant as deep clear wells are, in which the mellow moonlight 
 sleeps fathom-deep between black walls of rock ; and round 
 them, and round the wide-opened lips, and arching eyebrow, and 
 slightly wrinkled forehead, hangs an air of melancholy thought, 
 vague doubt, almost of startled fear ; then that expression 
 passes, and the. whole face collapses into a languor of patient 
 sadness, which seems to say, ' I cannot solve the mystery. Let 
 Him solve it as seems good to Him.' 
 
 The pier has, as usual, two stages ; the upper and narrower 
 for a public promenade, the lower and broader one for business. 
 Two rough collier lads, strangers to the place, are lounging on 
 the wall above, and begin, out of mere mischief, dropping pebbles 
 on the group below. 
 
 ' Hillo ! you young rascals,' calls an old man lounging like 
 them on the wall ; 'if you don't drop that, you're likely to get 
 your heads broken.' 
 
 ' Will you dp it 1 ' 
 
 ' I would thirty years ago ; but I'll find a dozen in five minutes
 
 40 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 who will do it now. Here, lads ! here's two Welsh vagabonds 
 pelting our schoolmistress.' 
 
 This is spoken to a group of Sea Titans, who are sitting 
 about on the pier- way behind him, in red caps, blue jackets, 
 striped jerseys, bright brown trousers, and all the picturesque 
 comfort of a fisherman's costume, superintending the mending 
 of a boat. 
 
 Up jumped half a dozen off the logs and baulkings, where 
 they have been squatting, doubled up knee to nose, after the 
 fashion of their class, and a volley of execrations, like a storm 
 of grape, almost blows the two offenders off the wall. The 
 bolder, however, lingers, anathematising in turn; whereon a 
 black -bearded youth, some six feet four in height catches up an 
 oar, makes a sweep at the shins of the lad above his head, and 
 brings him writhing down upon the upper pier-way, whence he 
 walks off howling, and muttering threats of ' taking the law.' 
 In vain ; there is not a magistrate within ten miles ; and 
 custom, lynch -law, and the coastguard lieutenant settle all 
 matters in Aberalva town, and do so easily enough ; for the 
 petty crimes which fill our gaols are all unknown among those 
 honest Vikings' sons ; and any man who covets his neighbour's 
 goods instead of stealing them has only to go and borrow them, 
 on condition, of course, of lending in his turn. 
 
 ' What's that collier lad hollering about, Captain Willis 1 ' 
 asks Mr. Tardrew, steward to Lord Scoutbush, landlord of Aber- 
 alva, as he comes up to the old man. 
 
 ' Gentleman Jan cut him over, for pelting the schoolmistress 
 below here.' 
 
 ' Serve him right ; hell have to cut over that curate next, I 
 reckon.' 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Tardrew, don't you talk so ; the young gentleman 
 is as kind a man as I ever saw, and comes in and out of our 
 house like a lamb.' 
 
 'Wolf in sheep's clothing,' growls Tardrew. 'What d'ye 
 think he says to me last week ? Wanted to turn the school- 
 mistress out of her place because she went to chapel sometimes.' 
 
 ' I know, I know,' replied Willis, in the tone of a man who 
 wished to avoid a painful subject. 'And what did you answer, 
 then, Mr. Tardrew?' 
 
 ' I told him he might if he liked ; but he'd make the place 
 too hot to hold him, if he hadn't done it already, with his bow- 
 ings and his crossings, and his chantings, and his popish 
 Gregories and tells one he's no papist ; called him Pope 
 Gregory himself. What do we want with popes' tunes here, 
 instead of the Old Hundred and Martyrdom ? I should like 
 to see any pope of the lot make a tune like them.' 
 
 Captain Willis listened with a face half sad, half slily amused. 
 He and Tardrew were old friends ; being the two most notable 
 persons in the parish, save Jones the lieutenant, Heale the
 
 IT STILL LIFE 41 
 
 doctor, and another gentleman, of whom we shall speak pre- 
 sently. Both of them, too, were thorough-going Protestants, and, 
 though Churchmen, walked sometimes into the Brianite Chapel 
 of an afternoon, and thought it no sin. But each took the cur- 
 ate's ' Puseyism ' in a different way, being two men as unlike 
 each other as one could well find. 
 
 Tardrew steward to Lord Scoutbush, the absentee landlord 
 was a shrewd, hard-bitten, choleric old fellow, of the shape, 
 colour, and consistence of a red brick ; one of those English 
 types which Mr. Emerson has so well hit off in his rather 
 confused and contradictory Traits : 
 
 ' He hides virtues under vices, or, rather, under the semblance 
 of them. It is the misshapen, hairy, Scandinavian Troll again 
 who lifts the cart out of the mire, or threshes the corn which 
 ten day-labourers could not end : but it is done in the dark, and 
 with muttered maledictions. He is a churl witli a soft place in 
 his heart, whose speech is a brash of bitter waters, but who 
 loves to help you at a pinch. He says, No ; and serves you, 
 and his thanks disgust you.' Such was Tardrew a true British 
 bull-dog, who lived pretty faithfully up to his Old Testament, 
 but had, somehow, forgotten the existence of the New. 
 
 Willis was a very different and a very much nobler person ; the 
 most perfect specimen which I ever have met (for I knew him 
 well, and loved him) of that type of British sailor which good 
 Captain Marryat has painted in his Masterman JReady, and 
 painted far better than I can, even though I do so from life. A 
 tall and graceful old man, though stooping much from lumbago 
 and old wounds ; with snow-white hair and whiskers, delicate 
 acquiline features, the manners of a nobleman, and the heart of 
 a child. All children knew that latter fact, and clung to him 
 instinctively. Even ' the Boys,' that terrible Berserk-tribe, self- 
 organised, self-dependent, and bound together in common ini- 
 quities and the dread of common retribution, who were in 
 Aberalva, as all fishing towns, the torment and terror of all 
 douce fogies, male and female even 'the Boys,' I say, respected 
 Captain Willis, so potent was the influence of his gentleness ; 
 nailed not up his shutters, nor tied fishing-lines across his door- 
 way ; tail-piped not his dog, nor sent his cat to sea on a barrel- 
 stave ; put not live crabs into his pocket, nor dead dog-fish into 
 his well ; yea, even when judgment, too long provoked, made 
 bare her red right hand, and the lieutenant vowed by his com- 
 mission that he would send half a dozen of them to the treadmill, 
 they would send up a deputation to ' beg Captain Willis to beg 
 the schoolmistress to beg them off.' For between Willis and 
 that fair young creature a friendship had grown up, easily to be 
 understood. Willis was one of those rare natures upon whose 
 purity no mire can cling ; who pass through the furnace, and yet 
 not even the smell of fire has passed upon them. Bred, almost 
 born, on board a smuggling cutter, in the old war-times ; then
 
 42 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 hunting, in the old coast-blockade service, the smugglers among 
 whom he had been trained ; watching the slow horrors of the 
 Walcheren ; fighting under Collingwood and Nelson, and many 
 another valiant Captain ; lounging away years of temptation 
 on the West-Indian station, as sailing-master of a ship-of-the- 
 line ; pensioned comfortably now for many a year in his native 
 town, lie had been always the same gentle, valiant, righteous 
 man ; sober in life, strict in duty, and simple in word ; a soul 
 as transparent as crystal, and as pure. He was the oracle of 
 Aberalva now ; and even Lieutenant Brown would ask his 
 opinion non-commissioned officer though he was in a tone 
 which was all the more patronising, because he stood a little in 
 awe of the old man. 
 
 But why, when the boys wanted to be begged off, was the 
 schoolmistress to be their advocate ? Because Grace Harvey 
 exercised, without intending anything of the kind, an almost 
 mesmeric influence on every one in the little town. Goodness 
 rather than talent had given her wisdom, and goodness rather 
 than courage a power of using that wisdom, which, to those 
 simple, superstitious folk, seemed altogether an inspiration. 
 There was a mystery about her, too, which worked strongly on 
 the hearts of the West-country people. She was supposed to be 
 at times ' not right ; ' and wandering intellect is with them, as 
 with many primitive peoples, an object more of awe than of pity. 
 Her deep melancholy alternated with bursts of wild eloquence, 
 with fantastic fables, with entreaties and warnings against sin, 
 full of such pity and pathos that they melted, at times, the 
 hardest hearts. A whole world of strange tales, half false, half 
 true, had grown up around her as she grew. She was believed 
 to spend whole nights in prayer ; to speak with visitors from 
 the other world ; even to have the power of seeing into futurity. 
 The intensity of her imagination gave rise to the belief that she 
 had only to will, and she could see whom she would, and all that 
 they were doing, even across the seas ; her exquisite sensibility, 
 it was whispered, made her feel every bodily suffering she wit- 
 nessed as acutely as the sufferer's self, and in the very limb in 
 which he suffered. Her deep melancholy was believed to be 
 caused by some dark fate by some agonising sympathy with 
 evil-doers; and it was sometimes said in Aberalva 'Don't 
 do that, for poor Grace's sake. She bears the sins of all the 
 parish.' 
 
 So it befell that Grace Harvey governed, she knew not how or 
 why, all hearts in that wild simple fishing town. Rough men, 
 fighting on the quay, shook hands at Grace's bidding. Wives 
 who could not lure their husbands from the beer -shop, sent 
 Grace in to fetch them home, sobered by shame ; and woe to the 
 stranger who fancied that her entrance into that noisy den gave 
 him a right to say a rough word to the fair girl ! The maidens, 
 instead of envying her beauty, made her the confidante of all
 
 n STILL LIFE 43 
 
 their loves ; for though many a man would gladly have married 
 her, to woo her was more than any dared ; and Gentleman Jan 
 himself, the rightful bully of the quay, as being the handsomest 
 arid biggest man for many a mile, besides owning a tidy trawler 
 and two good mackerel boats, had said openly, that if any man 
 had a right to her, he supposed he had ; but that he should as 
 soon think of asking her to marry him, as of asking the 
 moon. 
 
 But it was in the school, in the duty which lay nearest to her, 
 that Grace's inward loveliness shone most lovely. Whatever dark 
 cloud of melancholy lay upon her own heart, she took care that 
 it should never overshadow one of those young innocents, whom 
 she taught by love and ruled by love, always tender, always 
 cheerful, even gay and playful ; punishing, when she rarely 
 punished, with tears and kisses. To make them as happy as 
 she could in a world where there was nothing but temptation, 
 and disappointment, and misery ; to make them ' fit for heaven,' 
 and then to pray that they might go thither as speedily as 
 
 6)ssible, this had been her work for now seven years ; and that 
 anichseism which has driven darker and harder natures to 
 destroy young children, that they might go straight to bliss, 
 took in her the form of outpourings of gratitude (when the first 
 natural tears were dried), as often as one of her little lambs was 
 ' delivered out of the miseries of this sinful world.' But as long 
 as they were in the world, she was their guardian angel ; and 
 there was hardly a mother in Aberalva who did not confess her 
 debt to Grace, not merely for her children's scholarship, but for 
 their characters. 
 
 Frank Headley the curate, therefore, had touched altogether 
 the wrong chord when he spoke of displacing Grace. And when, 
 that same afternoon, he sauntered down to the pier-head, wearied 
 with his parish work, not only did Tardrew stump away in 
 silence as soon as he appeared, but Captain Willis's face 
 assumed a grave and severe look, which was not often to be 
 seen on it. 
 
 ' Well, Captain Willis 1 ' said Frank, solitary and sad ; long- 
 ing for a talk with some one, and not quite sure whether he was 
 welcome. 
 
 ' Well, sir ? ' and the old man lifted his hat, and made one 
 of his princely bows. ' You look tired, sir ; I am afraid you're 
 doing too much.' 
 
 ' I shall have more to do soon,' said the curate, his eye 
 glancing towards the schoolmistress, who, disturbed by the noise 
 above, was walking slowly up the beach, with a child holding to 
 every finger, and every fold of her dress. 
 
 Willis saw the direction of his eye, and came at once to the 
 point, in his gentle, straightforward fashion. 
 
 ' I hear you have thoughts of taking the school from her, 
 sir ? '
 
 44 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Why indeed I shall be very sorry ; but if she will persist 
 in going to the chapel, I cannot overlook the sin of schism.' 
 
 'She takes the children to church twice a Sundayj don't she ? 
 And teaches them all that you tell her 
 
 'Why yes I have taken the religious instruction almost 
 into my own hands now. : 
 
 Willis smiled quietly. 
 
 ' You'll excuse an old sailor, sir ; but I think that's more 
 than mortal man can do. There's no hour of the day but what 
 she's teaching them something. She's telling them Bible stories 
 now, I'll warrant, if you could hear her.' 
 
 Frank made no answer. 
 
 ' You wouldn't stop her doing that 1 Oh, sir,' and the old 
 man spoke with a quiet earnestness which was not without its 
 effect, 'just look at her now, like the Good Shepherd with His 
 lambs about His feet, and think whether that's not much too 
 pretty a sight to put an end to, in a poor sinful world like this.' 
 
 ' It is my duty,' said Frank, hardening himself. ' It pains 
 me exceedingly, Willis ; I hope I need not tell you that.' 
 
 ' If I know aught of Mr. Headley's heart by his ways, you 
 needn't indeed, sir.' 
 
 ' But I cannot allow it. Her mother a class leader among 
 these Dissenters, and one of the most active of them, too. The 
 school next door to her house. The preacher, of course, has 
 influence there, and must have. How am I to instil Church 
 principles into them, if he is counteracting me the moment my 
 back is turned ? I have made up my mind, Willis, to do nothing 
 in a hurry. Lady-day is past, and she must go on till Mid- 
 summer ; then I shall take the school into my own hands, and 
 teach them myself, for I can pay no mistress or master : and 
 Mr. St. Just- 
 Frank checked himself as he was going to speak the truth ; 
 namely, that his sleepy old absentee rector, Lord Scoutbush's 
 uncle, would yawn and grumble at the move, and wondering 
 why Frank ' had not the sense to leave ill alone,' would give 
 him no manner of assistance beyond his pittance of eighty 
 pounds a-year, and five pounds at Christmas to spend on the 
 poor. 
 
 ' Excuse me, sir, I don't doubt that you'll do your best in 
 teaching, as you always do : but I tell you honestly, you'll get 
 no children to teach.' 
 
 'No children?' 
 
 ' Their mothers know the worth of Grace too well, and the 
 children too, sir ; and they'll go to her all the same, do what 
 you will ; and never a one will enter the church door from that 
 day forth.' 
 
 ' On their own heads be it ! ' said Frank, a little testily ; ' but 
 I should not have fancied Miss Harvey the sort of person to set 
 up herself in defiance of me.'
 
 ii STILL LIFE 45 
 
 'The more reason, sir, if you'll forgive me, for your not 
 putting upon her.' 
 
 ' I do not want to put upon her or any one. I will do every- 
 thing. I will I do work day and night for these people, 
 Mr. Willis. I tell you, as I would my own father. I don't think 
 I have another object on earth if I have, I hope I shall for- 
 get it than the parish : but Church principles I must carry 
 out.' 
 
 ' Well, sir, certainly no man ever worked here as you do. If 
 all had been like you, sir, there would not be a Dissenter here 
 now ; but excuse me, sir, the Church is a very good thing, and 
 I keep to mine, having served under her Majesty, and her 
 Majesty's forefathers, and learnt to obey orders, I hope ; but 
 don't you think, sir, you're taking it as the Pharisees took the 
 Sabbath-day 1 ' 
 
 'How then?' 
 
 ' Why, as if man was made for the Church, and not the 
 Church for man.' 
 
 ' That is a shrewd thought, at least. Where did you pick it 
 up?' 
 
 ' 'Tis none of my own, sir ; a bit of wisdom that my maid let 
 fall ; and it has stuck to me strangely ever since.' 
 
 'Your maid?' 
 
 ' Yes, Grace there. I always call her my maid ; having no 
 father, poor thing, she looks up to me as one, pretty much the 
 dear soul. Oh, sir ! I hope you'll think over this again, before 
 you do anything. It's done in a day : but years won't undo it 
 again.' 
 
 So Grace's sayings were quoted against him. Her power was 
 formidable enough, if she dare use it. He was silent awhile, and 
 then 
 
 ' Do you think she has heard of this of my 
 
 ' Honesty's the best policy, sir : she has ; and that's the truth. 
 You know how things get round.' 
 
 ' Well ; and what did she say ? ' 
 
 ' I'll tell you her very words, sir ; and they were these, if 
 you'll excuse me. " Poor dear gentleman," says she, " if he 
 thinks chapel-going so wrong, why does he dare drive folks to 
 chapel ? I wonder, every time he looks at that deep sea, he 
 don't remember what the Lord said about it, and those who 
 cause his little ones to offend." ' 
 
 Frank was somewhat awed. The thought was new ; the ap- 
 plication of the text, as his own scholarship taught him, even 
 more exact than Grace had fancied, 
 
 ' Then she was not angry ? ' 
 
 ' She, sir 1 You couldn't anger her if you tore her in pieces 
 with hot pincers, as they did those old martyrs she's always 
 telling about.' 
 
 ' Good-bye, Willis,' said Frank, in a hopeless tone of voice,
 
 46 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 and sauntered to the pier-end, down the steps, and along the 
 lower pier-way, burdened with many thoughts. He came up to 
 the knot of chatting sailors. Not one of them touched his cap, 
 or moved out of the way for him. The boat lay almost across 
 the whole pier-way ; and he stopped, awkwardly enough, for 
 there was not room to get by. 
 
 ' Will you be so kind as to let me pass ? ' asked he, meekly 
 enough. But no one stirred. 
 
 ' Why don't you get up, Tom ? ' asked one. 
 
 ' I be lame.' 
 
 'So be I.' 
 
 ' The gentleman can step over me, if he likes,' said big Jan, 
 a proposition the impossibility whereof raised a horse-laugh. 
 
 ' Ain't you ashamed of yourselves, lads ? ' said the severe 
 voice of Willis, from above. The men rose sulkily ; and Frank 
 hastened on, as ready to cry as ever he had been in his life. 
 Poor fellow ! he had been labouring among these people for 
 now twelve months, as no man had ever laboured before, and 
 he felt that he had not won the confidence of a single human 
 being, not even of the old women, who took his teaching for 
 the sake of his charity, and who scented popery, all the while, 
 in words in which there was no popery, and in doctrines which 
 were just the same, on the whole, as those of the dissenting 
 preacher, simply because he would sprinkle among them certain 
 words and phrases which had become ' suspect,' as party badges. 
 His church was all but empty ; the general excuse was, that it 
 was a mile from the town ; but Frank knew that that was not 
 the true reason ; that all the parish had got it into their heads 
 that he had a leaning to popery ; that he was going over to 
 Rome ; that he was probably a Jesuit in disguise. 
 
 Now, be it always remembered, Frank Headley was a good 
 man, in every sense of the word. He had nothing, save the out- 
 side, in common with those undesirable coxcombs who have 
 not been bred by the High Church movement, but have taken 
 refuge in its cracks, as they would have done forty years ago in 
 those of the Evangelical, youths who hide their crass ignor- 
 ance and dulness under the cloak of Church infallibility, and 
 having neither wit, manners, learning, humanity, or any other 
 dignity whereon to stand, talk loud, pour pis aller, about the 
 dignity of the priesthood. Sucli men Frank had met at neigh- 
 bouring clerical meetings, overbearing and out-talking the 
 elder and the wiser members ; and finding that he got no good 
 from them, had withdrawn into his parish work, to eat his own 
 heart, like Bellerophon of old. For Frank was a gentleman, 
 and a Christian, if ever one there was. Delicate in person, all 
 but consumptive ; graceful and refined in all his works and 
 ways ; a scholar, elegant rather than deep, yet a scholar still ; 
 full of all love for painting, architecture, and poetry, he had 
 come down to bury himself in this remote curacy, in the honest
 
 n STILL LIFE 47 
 
 desire of doing good. He had been a curate in a fashionable 
 London church ; but finding the atmosphere thereof not over 
 wholesome to his soul, he had had the courage to throw off St. 
 Nepomuc's, its brotherhoods, sisterhoods, and all its gorgeous 
 and highly-organised appliances for enabling five thousand 
 rich to take tolerable care of five hundred poor ; and had 
 fled from 'the holy virgins' (as certain old ladies, who do 
 twice their work with half their noise, call them) into the wilder- 
 ness of Bethnal Green. But six months' gallant work there, 
 with gallant men (for there are High Churchmen there who are 
 an henour to England), brought him to death's door. The 
 doctors commanded some soft western air. Frank, as chival- 
 rous as a knight-errant of old, would fain have died at his post, 
 but his mother interfered ; and he could do no less than obey 
 her. So he had taken this remote West-country curacy ; all the 
 more willingly because he knew that nine-tenths of the people 
 were Dissenters. To recover that place to the Church would 
 be something worth living for. So he had come, and laboured 
 late and early ; and behold, he had failed utterly ; and seemed 
 further than ever from success. He had opened, too hastily, a 
 crusade against the Dissenters, and denounced where he should 
 have conciliated. He had overlooked indeed he hardly knew 
 the sad truth, that the mere fact of his being a clergyman 
 was no passport to the hearts of his people. For the curate 
 who preceded him had been an old man, mean, ignorant, incap- 
 able, remaining there simply because nobody else would have 
 him, and given to brandy-and- water as much as his flock. The 
 rector for the last fifteen years. Lord Scoutbush's uncle, was a 
 cypher. The rector before him had notoriously earned the 
 living by a marriage with a lady who stood in some question- 
 able relation to Lord Scoutbush's father, and who had never 
 had a thought above his dinner and his tithes ; and all that the 
 Aberalva fishermen knew of God or righteousness, they had 
 learnt from the soi-disant disciples of John Wesley. So Frank 
 Headley had to make up, at starting, the arrears of half a 
 century of base neglect ; but instead of doing so, he had con- 
 trived to awaken against himself that dogged hatred of 
 popery which lies inarticulate and confused, but deep and 
 firm, in the heart of the English people. Poor fellow ! if he 
 made a mistake, he suffered for it. There was hardly a sadder 
 soul than poor Frank, as he went listlessly up the village 
 street that afternoon, to his lodging at Captain Willis's, 
 which he had taken because he preferred living in the village 
 itself to occupying the comfortable rectory a mile out of 
 town. 
 
 However, we cannot set him straight ; after all, every man 
 must perform that office for himself. So the best thing we can 
 do, as we landed, naturally, at the pier-head, is to walk up-street 
 after him, and see what sort of a place Aberalva is.
 
 48 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Beneath us, to the left hand, is the quay-pool, now lying dry, 
 in which a dozen trawlers are lopping over on their sides, their 
 red sails drying in the sun, the tails of the trawls hauled up to 
 the topmast heads ; while the more handy of their owners are 
 getting on board by ladders, to pack away the said red sails ; 
 for it will blow to-night. In the long furrows which their keels 
 have left, and in the shallow muddy pools, lie innumerable frag- 
 ments of exenterated maids (not human ones, pitiful reader, 
 but belonging to the order Pisces, and the family Raia), and 
 some twenty non - exenterated ray - dogs and picked dogs 
 (Anglice, dog-fish), together with a fine basking shark, at least 
 nine feet long, out of which the kneeling Mr. George Thomas, 
 clothed in pilot cloth patches of every hue, bright scarlet, blue, 
 and brown (not to mention a large square of white canvas 
 which has been let into that part of his trousers which is now 
 uppermost), is dissecting the liver, for the purpose of greasing 
 his ' sheaves ' with the fragrant oil thereof. The pools in 
 general are bedded with black mud, and creamed over with 
 oily flakes which may proceed from the tar on the vessels' sides, 
 and may also from ' decomposing animal matter,' as we euphe- 
 mise it nowadays. The hot pebbles, at high tide mark, 
 crowned with a long black row of herring and mackerel boats, 
 laid up in ordinary for the present, are beautifully variegated 
 with mackerel's heads, gurnets' fins, old hag, lobworm, and 
 mussel -baits, and the inwards of a whole ichthyological 
 museum ; save at one spot where the Cloaca Maxima arid Port 
 Esquiline of Aberalva town (small enough, considering the 
 place holds fifteen hundred souls) murmurs from beneath a gray 
 stone arch toward the sea, not unfraught with dead rats and 
 cats, who, their ancient feud forgotten, combine lovingly at 
 last in increasing the health of the blue-trousered urchins who 
 are sailing upon that Acherontic stream bits of board with a 
 feather stuck in it, or of their tiny sisters, who are dancing 
 about in the dirtiest pool among the trawlers in a way which 
 (if your respectable black coat be seen upon the pier) will elicit 
 from one of the balconied windows above, decked with reeking 
 shirts and linen, some such shriek as 
 
 ' Patience Penberthy, Patience Pen berth y a ! You nasty, 
 dirty, little ondecent hussy a ! What be playing in the quay- 
 pool for a ? A pulling up your pesticoats before the quality 
 a ! ' Each exclamation being followed with that droning 
 grunt, with which the West-country folk, after having screamed 
 their lungs empty through their noses, recover their breath for 
 a fresh burst. 
 
 Never mind ; it is no nosegay, certainly, as a whole : but did 
 you ever see sturdier, rosier, nobler-looking children, rounder 
 faces, raven hair, bright gray eyes, full of fun and tenderness ? 
 As for the dirt, that cannot harm them ; poor people's children 
 must be dirty why not? Look on fifty yards to the left.
 
 ii STILL LIFE 49 
 
 Between two ridges of high pebble bank, some twenty yards 
 apart, comes Alva river rushing to the sea. On the opposite 
 ridge, a low white house, with three or four white canvas- 
 covered boats, and a flag-staff with sloping cross-yard, betokens 
 the coastguard station. Beyond it rise black jagged cliffs ; mile 
 after mile of iron-bound wall : and here and there, at the glens' 
 mouths, great banks and denes of shifting sand. In front of 
 it, upon the beach, are half a dozen great green and gray heaps 
 of Welsh limestone ; behind it, at the cliff foot, is the lime-kiln, 
 with res white dusty heaps, and brown dusty men, its quivering 
 mirage of hot air, its strings of patient hay-nibbling donkeys, 
 which look as if they had just awakened out of a flour bin. 
 Above, a green down stretches up to bright yellow furze-crofts 
 far aloft. Behind, a reedy marsh, covered with red cattle, 
 paves the valley till it closes in ; the steep sides of the hills are 
 clothed in oak and ash covert, in which, three months ago, you 
 could have shot more cocks in one day than you would in Berk 
 shire in a year. Pleasant little glimpses there are, too, of gray 
 stone farmhouses, nestling amongst sycamore and beech ; 
 bright -green meadows, alder -fringed ; squares of rich red 
 fallow-field, parted by lines of golden furze ; all cut out with a 
 peculiar blackness, and clearness, soft and tender withal, 
 which betokens a climate surcharged with rain. Only, in the 
 very bosom of the valley, a soft mist hangs, increasing the 
 sense of distance, and softening back one hill and wood behind 
 another, till the great brown moor which backs it all seems to 
 rise out of the empty air. For a thousand feet it ranges up, in 
 rude sheets of brown heather, and gray cairns and screes of 
 granite, all sharp and black-edged against the pale blue sky ; 
 and all suddenly cut off above by one long horizontal line of 
 dark gray cloud, which seems to hang there motionless, and yet 
 is growing to windward, and dying to leeward, for ever rushing 
 out of the invisible into sight, and into the invisible again, at 
 railroad speed. Out of nothing the moor rises, and into nothing 
 it ascends a great dark phantom between earth and sky, boding 
 rain and howling tempest, and perhaps fearful wreck for the 
 groundswell moans and thunders on the beach behind us, louder 
 and louder every moment. 
 
 Let us go on, and up the street, after we have scrambled 
 through the usual labyrinth of timber-baulks, rusty anchors, 
 boats which have been dragged, for the purpose of mending and 
 tarring, into the very middle of the road, and old spars stowed 
 under walls, in the vain hope that they may be of some use for 
 something some day, and have stood the stares and welcomes of 
 the lazy giants who are sitting about upon them, black-locked, 
 black-bearded, with ruddy, wholesome faces, and eyes as bright 
 as diamonds ; men who are on their own ground, and know it ; 
 who will not touch their caps to you, or pull the short black 
 pipe from between their lips as you pass, but expect you to 
 E T. Y. A.
 
 50 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 prove yourself a gentleman, by speaking respectfully to them ; 
 which, if you do, you will find them as hearty, intelligent, brave 
 fellows as ever walked this earth, capable of anything, from 
 working the naval-brigade guns at Sevastopol down to running 
 up to ... a hundred miles in a cockleshell lugger, to forestall 
 the early mackerel market. God be with you, my brave lads, 
 and with your children after you ; for as long as you are what 
 I have known you, Old England will rule the seas, and many a 
 land beside ! 
 
 But in going up Aberalva Street, you remark several things ; 
 first, that the houses were all whitewashed yesterday, except 
 where the snowy white is picked out by buttresses of pink and 
 blue ; next, that they all have bright green palings in front, 
 and bright green window-sills and frames ; next, that they are 
 all roofed with shining gray slate, and the space between the 
 window and the pales flagged with the same ; next, that where 
 such space is not flagged, it is full of flowers and shrubs which 
 stand the winter only in our greenhouses. The fuchsias are ten 
 feet high, laden with ripe purple berries running over (for there 
 are no birds to pick them off') ; and there, in the front of the 
 coast-guard lieutenant's house, is Cobpea scandens, covered with 
 purple claret-glasses, as it has been ever since Christmas : for 
 Aberalva knows no winter : and there are grown-up men in it 
 who never put on a skate, or made a snowball in their lives. A 
 most cleanly, bright -coloured, foreign -looking street, is that 
 long straggling one which runs up the hill towards Penalva 
 Court : only remark, that this cleanliness is gained by making 
 the gutter in the middle street the common sewer of the town, 
 and tread clear of cabbage-leaves, pilchard bones, et id genus 
 omne. For Aberalva is like Paris (if the answer of a celebrated 
 sanitary reformer to the Emperor be truly reported), ' fair with- 
 out but foul within.' 
 
 However, the wind is blowing dull and hollow from south- 
 west ; the clouds are rolling faster and faster up from the 
 Atlantic ; the sky to westward is brassy green ; the glass is 
 falling fast ; and there will be wind and rain enough to-night 
 to sweep even Aberalva clean for the next week. 
 
 Grace Harvey sees the coming storm, as she goes slowly 
 homewards, dismissing her little flock ; and she lingers long 
 and sadly outside her cottage door, looking out over the fast 
 blackening sea, and listening to the hollow thunder of the 
 groundswell against the back of the point which shelters 
 Aberalva Cove. 
 
 Far away on the horizon, the masts of stately ships stand out 
 against the sky, driving fast to the eastward with shortened 
 sail. They, too, know what is coming ; and Grace prays for 
 them as she stands, in her wild way, with half outspoken words. 
 
 'All those gallant ships, dear Lord ! and so many beautiful 
 men in them, and so few of them ready to die ; and all those
 
 IT STILL LIFE 51 
 
 gallant soldiers going to the war ; Lord, wilt thou not have 
 
 mercy 1 Spare them for a little time before Is not that 
 
 cruel, man-devouring sea full enough, Lord ; and brave men's 
 bones enough, strewn up and down all rocks and sands 1 And 
 is not that dark place full enough, O Lord, of poor souls cut off' 
 in a moment, as my two were ? Oh, not to-night, dear Lord ! 
 Do not call any one to-night give them a day more, one chance 
 more, poor fellows they have had so few, and so many tempta- 
 tions,"and, perhaps, no schooling. They go to sea so early, and 
 young things will be young things, Lord. Spare them but one 
 night more and yet He did not spare my two they had no 
 time to repent, and have no time for ever, evermore ! ' 
 
 And she stands looking out over the sea ; but she has lost 
 sight of everything, save her own sad imaginations. Her eyes 
 open wider and wider, as if before some unseen horror ; the eye- 
 brows contract upwards ; the cheeks sharpen ; the mouth parts ; 
 the lips draw back, showing the white teeth, as if in intensest 
 agony. Thus she stands long, motionless, awe-frozen, save when 
 a shudder runs through every limb, with such a countenance as 
 that ' fair terror ' of which Shelley sang 
 
 ' Its horror and its beauty are divine ; 
 Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie 
 Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, 
 Fiery and lucid, struggling underneath, 
 The agonies of anguish and of death. ' 
 
 Her mother comes out from the cottage door behind, and 
 lays her hand upon the girl's shoulder. The spell is broken ; 
 and hiding her face in her hands, Grace bursts into violent 
 weeping. 
 
 ' What are you doing, my poor child, here, in the cold night 
 air ? ' 
 
 ' My two, mother, my two ! ' said she ; ' and all the poor souls 
 at sea to-night ! ' 
 
 ' You mustn't think of it. Haven't I told you not to think of 
 it? One would lose one's wits if one did too often.' 
 
 ' If it is all true, mother, what else is there worth thinking of 
 in heaven or earth ? ' 
 
 And Grace goes in with a dull, heavy look of utter exhaus- 
 tion, bodily and mental, and quietly .sets the things for supper, 
 and goes about her cottage work, as one who bears a heavy 
 chain, but has borne it too long to let it hinder the daily drud- 
 gery of life. 
 
 Grace had reason to pray at least for the soldiers who were 
 going to the war. For as she prayed, the Orinoco, Ripon, and 
 Manilla were steaming down Southampton Water, witli the 
 Guards on board ; and but that morning little Lord Scoutbush, 
 left behind at the depot, had bid farewell to his best friend,
 
 52 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 opposite Buckingham Palace, while the bearskins were on the 
 bayonet-points, with 
 
 'Well, old fellow, you have the fun, after all, and I the work ;' 
 and had been answered with 
 
 ' Fun ? there will be no fighting ; and I shall only have lost 
 my season in town.' 
 
 Was there, then, no man among them that day, who 
 
 ' As the trees began to whisper and the wind began to roll, 
 Heard in the wild March morning the angels call his soul ' ? 
 
 Verily they are gone down to Hades, even many stalwart 
 souls of heroes. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE 
 
 PENAL VA COURT, about half a mile from the quay, is 'like a 
 house in a story ; ' a house of seven gables, and those very 
 shaky ones ; a house of useless long passages, useless turrets, 
 vast lumber attics where maids see ghosts, lofty garden and 
 yard walls of gray stone, round which the wind and rain are 
 lashing through the dreary darkness ; low oak-ribbed ceilings ; 
 windows which once were mullioned with stone, but now with 
 wood painted white ; walls which were once oak-wainscot, but 
 have been painted like the mullions, to the disgust of Elsley 
 Vavasour, poet, its occupant in March 1854, who forgot that, 
 while the oak was left dark, no man could have seen to read in 
 the rooms a yard from the window. 
 
 He has, however, little reason to complain of the one draw- 
 ing-room, where he and his wife are sitting, so pleasant has she 
 made it look, in spite of the plainness of the furniture. A 
 bright log-fire is burning on the hearth. There are a few good 
 books too, and a few handsome prints ; while some really valu- 
 able knick-knacks are set out, with pardonable ostentation, on 
 a little table covered with crimson velvet. It is only cotton 
 velvet, if you look close at it ; but the things are pretty enough 
 to catch the eye of all visitors ; and Mrs. Heale, the doctor's 
 wife (who always calls Mrs. Vavasour 'my lady,' though she 
 does not love her), and Mrs. Trebooze, of Trebooze, always finger 
 them over when they have any opportunity, and whisper to each 
 other, half contemptuously, 'Ah, poor thing ! there's a sign that 
 she has seen better days.' 
 
 And better days, in one sense, Mrs. Vavasour has seen. I am 
 afraid, indeed, that she has more than once regretted the morn- 
 ing when she ran away in a hack-cab from her brother Lord 
 Scoutbush's house in Eaton Square, to be married to Elsley 
 Vavasour, the gifted author of A Soul's Ac/onies, and other Poems.
 
 in ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE 53 
 
 He was a lion then, with foolish women running after him, and 
 turning* his head once and for all ; and Lucia St. Just was a 
 wild Irish girl, new to London society, all feeling and romance, 
 and literally all ; for there was little real intellect underlying 
 her passionate sensibility. So when the sensibility burnt itself 
 out, as it generally does ; and when children, and the weak 
 health which comes with them, and the cares of a household, 
 and money difficulties, were absorbing her little powers, Elsley 
 Vavasour began to fancy that his wife was a very common-place 
 person who was fast losing even her good looks and her good 
 temper. So, on the whole, they were not happy. Elsley was 
 an affectionate man, and honourable to a fantastic nicety ; but 
 he was vain, capricious, over-sensitive, craving for admiration 
 and distinction ; and it was not enough for him that his wife 
 loved him, bore him children, kept his accounts, mended and 
 moiled all day long for him and his ; he wanted her to act the 
 public for him exactly when he was hungry for praise ; and 
 that not the actual, but an altogether ideal, public ; to worship 
 him as a deity, ' live for him and him alone,' ' realise ' his poetic 
 dreams of marriage bliss, and talk sentiment with him, or listen 
 to him talking sentiment to her, when she would much sooner 
 be safe in bed burying all the petty cares of the day, and the 
 pain in her back too, poor thing! in sound sleep: and so it 
 befell that they often quarrelled and wrangled, and that they 
 were quarrelling and wrangling this very night. 
 
 Who cares to know how it began ? Who cares to hear how 
 it went on, the stupid, aimless skirmish of bitter words, be- 
 tween two people who had forgotten themselves ? I believe it 
 began with Elsley's being vexed at her springing up two or 
 three times, fancying that she heard the children cry, while he 
 wanted to be quiet, and sentimentalise over the roaring of the 
 wind outside. Then she thought of nothing but those children. 
 Why did she not take a book and occupy her mind 1 To which 
 she had her pert, though just answer, about her mind having 
 quite enough to do to keep clothes on the children's backs, and 
 so forth, let who list imagine the miserable little squabble ; 
 till she says, 'I know what has put you out so to-night; 
 nothing but the news of my sister's coming.' He answers, 
 ' That her sister is as little to him as to any man ; as welcome 
 to come now as she has been to stay away these three years.' 
 
 ' Ah, it's very well to say that ; but you have been a different 
 person ever since that letter came.' And so she torments him 
 into an angry self- justification (which she takes triumphantly 
 as a confession) that ' it is very disagreeable to have his thoughts 
 broken in on by one who has no sympathy with him and his 
 pursuits and who -' and at that point he wisely stops short, 
 for he was going to throw down a very ugly gage of battle. 
 
 Throw clown or not, Lucia snatches at it. 
 
 ' Ah, I understand ; poor Valentia ! You always hated her.'
 
 54 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' I did not : but she is so brusque, and excited, and 
 
 ' Be so kind as not to abuse my family. You may say what 
 you will of me ; but 
 
 ' And what have your family done for me, pray ? ' 
 
 'Why, considering that we are now living rent-free in my 
 brother's house, and She stops in her turn ; for her pride 
 and her prudence also will not let her tell him that Valentia has 
 been clothing her and the children for the last three years. He is 
 just the man to forbid her on the spot to receive any more pre- 
 sents, and to sacrifice her comfort to his own pride. But what 
 she has said is quite enough to bring out a very angry answer, 
 which she expecting, nips in the bud by 
 
 'For goodness' sake, don't speak so loud ; I don't want the 
 servants to hear.' 
 
 ' J am not speaking loud ' (he has not yet opened his lips). 
 ' That is your old trick to prevent my defending myself, while 
 you are driving one mad. How dare you taunt me with being 
 a pensioner on your brother's bounty ? I'll go up to town again 
 and take lodgings there. I need not be beholden to any aristo- 
 crat of them all. I have my own station in the real world, the 
 world of intellect ; I have my own friends ; I have made myself 
 a name without his help ; and I can live without his help, he 
 shall find ! ' 
 
 ' Which name were you speaking of 1 ' rejoins she, looking up at 
 him, with all her native Irish humour flashing up for a moment 
 in her naughty eyes. The next minute she would have given 
 her hand not to have said it ; for, with a very terrible word, 
 Elsley springs to his feet and dashes out of the room. 
 
 She hears him catch up his hat and cloak, and hurry out into 
 the rain, slamming the door behind him. She springs up to call 
 him back, but he is gone ; and she dashes herself on the floor, 
 and bursts into an agony of weeping over 'young bliss never to 
 return ' ! Not in the least. Her principal fear is, lest he should 
 catch cold in the rain. She takes up her work again, and 
 stitches away in the comfortable certainty that in half an hour 
 she will have recovei'ed her temper, and he also ; that they will 
 pass a sulky night ; and to-morrow, by about mid-day, without 
 explanation or formal reconciliation, have become as good 
 friends as ever. ' Perhaps,' says she to herself, with a woman's 
 sense of power, ' if he be very much ashamed and very wet, I'll 
 pity him and make friends to-night.' 
 
 Miserable enough are these little squabbles. Why will two 
 people, who have sworn to love and cherish each other utterly, 
 and who, on the whole, do what they have sworn, behave to 
 each other as they dare for very shame behave to no one else ? 
 Is it that, as every beautiful thing has its hideous antitype, this 
 mutual shamelessness is the devil's ape of mutual confidence ? 
 Perhaps it cannot be otherwise with beings compact of good 
 and evil. When the veil of reserve is withdrawn from between
 
 in ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE 55 
 
 two souls, it must be withdrawn for evil, as for good, till the two 
 natures, which ought to seek rest, each in the other's inmost 
 depths7may at last spring apart, confronting each other reck- 
 lessly with ' There, you see me as I am ; you know the worst of 
 me, and I of you ; take me as you find me what care I ?' 
 
 Elsley and Lucia have not yet arrived at that terrible crisis ; 
 though they are on the path toward it, the path of little care- 
 lessnesses, rudenesses, ungoverned words and tempers, and, 
 worst of all, of that half-confidence, which is certain to avenge 
 itself by irritation and quarrelling ; for if two married people 
 will not tell each other in love what they ought, they will be 
 sure to tell each other in anger what they ought not. It is plain 
 enough already that Elsley has his weak point, which must not be 
 touched ; something about ' a name,' which Lucia is to be expected 
 to ignore, as if anything which really exists could be ignored 
 while two people live together night and day, for better for 
 worse. Till the thorn is out, the wound will not heal ; and till 
 the matter (whatever it may be) is set right by confession and 
 absolution, there will be no peace for them, for they are living 
 in a lie ; and unless it be a very little one indeed, better, perhaps 
 that they should go on to that terrible crisis of open defiance. 
 It may end in disgust, hatred, madness ; but it may, too, end 
 in each falling again upon the other's bosom, and sobbing out 
 through holy tears ' Yes, you do know the worst of me, and yet 
 you love me still. This is happiness, to find oneself most loved 
 when one most hates oneself ! God, help us to confess our sins 
 to Thee, as we have done to each other, and to begin life again like 
 little children, struggling hand in hand out of this lowest pit, 
 up the steep path which leads to life, and strength, and peace.' 
 
 Heaven grant that it may so end ! But now Elsley has gone 
 raging out into the raging darkness ; trying to prove himself to 
 himself the most injured of men, and to hate his wife as much 
 as possible : though the fool knows the whole time that he loves 
 her better than anything on earth even than that 'fame,' 
 on which he tries to fatten his lean soul, snapping greedily at 
 every scrap which falls in his way, and in default snapping at 
 everybody and everything else. And little comfort it gives him. 
 Why should it ? What comfort, save in being wise and strong 1 
 And is he the wiser and stronger for being told by a reviewer 
 that he has written fine words, or has failed in writing them ; 
 or to have silly women writing to ask for his autograph, or for 
 leave to set his songs to music ? Nay, shocking as the question 
 may seem, is he the wiser and stronger man for being a poet 
 at all, and a genius ? provided, of course, that the word genius 
 is used in its modern meaning, of a person who can say prettier 
 things than his neighbours. I think not. Be it as it may, away 
 goes the poor genius ; his long cloak, picturesque enough in 
 calm weather, fluttering about uncomfortably enough, while the 
 rain washes his long curls into swabs ; out through the old
 
 56 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 garden, between storm-swept laurels, beneath dark groaning 
 pines, and through a door in the wall which opens into the 
 lane. 
 
 The road leads downward, on the right, into the village. He 
 is in no temper to meet his fellow-creatures even to see the 
 comfortable gleam through their windows, as the sailors close 
 round the fire with wife and child ; so he turns to the left, up 
 the deep stone-banked lane, which leads towards the cliff, dark 
 now as pitch, for it is overhung, right and left, with deep oak- 
 wood. 
 
 It is no easy matter to proceed, though, for the wind pours 
 down the lane as through a funnel, and the road is of slippery 
 bare slate, worn here and there into puddles of greasy clay, and 
 Elsley slips back half of every step, while his wrath, as he tires, 
 oozes out of his heels. Moreover, those dark trees above him, 
 tossing their heads impatiently against the scarcely less dark 
 sky, strike an awe into him, a sense of loneliness, almost of 
 fear. An uncanny, bad night it is ; and he is out on a bad 
 errand ; and he knows it, and wishes that he were home again. 
 He does not believe, of course, in those 'spirits of the storm,' 
 about whom he has so often written, any more than he does in 
 a great deal of his fine imagery ; but still, in such characters as 
 his, the sympathy between the moods of nature and those of the 
 mind is most real and important ; and Dame Nature's equinoc- 
 tial night-wrath is weird, gruesome, crushing, and can be faced 
 (if it must be faced) in real comfort only when one is going on 
 an errand of mercy, with a clear conscience, a light heart, a good 
 cigar, and plenty of mackintosh. 
 
 So, ere Elsley has gone a quarter of a mile, he turned back, 
 and resolved to go in, and take up his book once more. Perhaps 
 Lucia might beg his pardon ; and if not, why, perhaps he might 
 beg hers. The rain was washing the spirit out of him, as it does 
 out of a thin-coated horse. 
 
 Stay ! What was that sound above the roar of the gale 1 A 
 cannon 1 
 
 He listened, turning his head right and left to escape the 
 howling of the wind in his ears. A minute, and another boom 
 rose and rang aloft. It was near, too. He almost fancied that 
 he felt the concussion of the air. 
 
 Another, and another ; and then in the village below, he 
 could see lights hurrying to and fro. A wreck at sea 1 He 
 turned again up the lane. He had never seen a wreck. What 
 an opportunity for a poet ; and on such a night too : it would 
 be magnificent if the moon would but come out ! Just the scene, 
 too, for his excited temper ! He will work on upward, let it 
 blow and rain as it may. He is not disappointed. Ere lie has 
 gone a hundred yards, a mass of dripping oilskins runs full butt 
 against him, knocking him against the bank ; and, by the clank 
 of weapons, he recognises the coast-guard watchman.
 
 in ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE 57 
 
 ' Hillo ! who's that ? Beg your pardon, sir,' as the man re- 
 cognises Elsley's voice. 
 
 ' What is it ? what are the guns ? ' 
 
 'God knows, sir ! Overright the Chough and Crow on 'em, 
 I'm afeared. There they go again ! hard up, poor souls ! God 
 help them ! ' and the man runs shouting down the lane. 
 
 Another gun, and another ; but long ere Elsley reaches the 
 cliff', they are silent ; and nothing is to be heard but the noise 
 of the storm, which, loud as it was below -among the wood, is 
 almost intolerable now that he is on the open down. 
 
 He struggles up the lane toward the cliff', and there pauses, 
 gasping, under the shelter of a wall, trying to analyse that 
 enormous mass of sound which fills his ears and brain and flows 
 through his heart like maddening wine. He can bear the sight 
 of the dead grass on the cliff-edge, weary, feeble, expostulating 
 with its old tormentor the gale ; then the fierce screams of the 
 blasts as they rush up across the layers of rock below, like 
 hounds leaping up at their prey ; and, far beneath, the horrible, 
 confused battle-roar of that great leaguer of waves He cannot 
 see them, as he strains his eyes over the wall into the blank 
 depth, nothing but a confused welter and quiver of mingled 
 air, and rain, and spray, as if the very atmosphere were writh- 
 ing in the clutches of the gale : but he can hear, what can he 
 not hear 1 It would have needed a less vivid brain than Elsley's 
 to fancy another Badajos beneath. There it all is : the rush 
 of columns to the breach, officers cheering them on, pauses, 
 breaks, wild retreats, upbraiding calls, whispering consultations, 
 fresh rush on rush, now here, now there, fierce shouts above, 
 below, behind, shrieks of agony, choked groans and gasps of 
 dying men, scaling-ladders hurled down with all their rattling 
 freight, dull mine explosions, ringing cannon thunder, as the 
 old fortress blasts back its besiegers pell-mell into the deep. It 
 is all there : truly enough there, at least, to madden yet more 
 Elsley's wild angry brain, till he tries to add his shouts to the 
 great battle-cries of land and sea, and finds them as little audible 
 as an infant's wail. 
 
 Suddenly, far below him, a bright glimmer ; and, in a 
 moment, a blue-light reveals the whole scene, in ghastly hues, 
 blue leaping breakers, blue weltering sheets of foam, blue 
 rocks, crowded with blue figures, like ghosts, flitting to and fro 
 upon the brink of that blue seething Phlegethon, and rushing 
 up towards him through the air, a thousand flying blue foam- 
 sponges, which dive over the brow of the hill and vanish, like 
 delicate fairies fleeing before the wrath of the gale : but where 
 is the wreck ? The blue-light cannot pierce the gray veil of 
 mingled mist and spray which hangs to seaward ; and her guns 
 have been silent for half an hour and more. 
 
 Elsley hurries down, and finds half the village collected on 
 the long sloping point of clown below. Sailors wrapped in
 
 58 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 pilot-cloth, oil -skinned coast -guai-dsmen, women with their 
 gowns turned over their heads, staggering restlessly up and 
 down, and in and out, while every moment some freshcomer 
 stumbles down the slope, thrusting himself into his clothes as 
 he goes, and asks, ' Where's the wreck ? ' and gets no answer, 
 but a surly advice to ' hold his noise,' as if they had hope of 
 hearing the wreck which they cannot see : and kind women, 
 with their hearts full of mothers' instincts, declare that they 
 can hear little children crying, and are pooh-poohed down by 
 kind men, who man's fashion, don't like to believe anything too 
 painful, or, if they believe it, to talk of it. 
 
 ' What were the guns from, then, Brown ? ' asks the lieu- 
 tenant of the head-boatman. 
 
 ' Off the Chough and Crow, I thought, sir. God grant not!' 
 
 ' You thought, sir,' says the great man, willing to vent his 
 vexation on some one. ' Why didn't you make sure 1 ' 
 
 Why, just look, lieutenant,' says Brown, pointing into the 
 ' blank height of the dark ; ' ' and I was on the pier too, and 
 couldn't see ; but the look-out man here says ' A shift of 
 wind, a drift of cloud, and the moon flashes out a moment. 
 ' There she is, sir.' 
 
 Some three hundred yards out at sea lies a long curved black 
 line, beautiful, severe, and still, amid those white wild leaping 
 hills. A murmur from the crowd, which swells into a roar, as 
 they surge aimlessly up and down. 
 
 Another moment, and it is cut in two by a white line 
 covered lost all hold their breaths. No ; the sea passes on, 
 and still the black curve is there ; enduring. 
 
 ' A terrible big ship ! ' 
 
 'A Liverpool clipper, by the lines of her.' 
 
 ' God help the poor passengers, then ! ' sobs a woman. 
 ' They're past our help : she's on her beam ends.' 
 
 'And her deck upright towards us.' 
 
 ' Silence ! Out of the way you loafing long-shores ! ' shouts 
 the lieutenant. ' Brown the rockets ! ' 
 
 What though the lieutenant be somewhat given to strong 
 liquors, and stronger language. He wears the Queen's uniform ; 
 and what is more, he knows his work and can do it ; all make a 
 silent ring while the fork is planted ; the lieutenant, throwing 
 away the end of his cigar, kneels and adjusts the stick ; Brown 
 and his mates examine and shake out the coils of line. 
 
 Another minute, and the magnificent creature rushes forth 
 with a triumphant roar, and soars aloft over the waves in a long 
 stream of fire, defiant of the gale. 
 
 Is it over her? Xo ! A fierce gust, which all but hurls the 
 spectators to the ground ; the fiery stream sweeps away to the 
 left, in a grand curve of sparks, and drops into the sea. 
 
 ' Try it again ! ' shouts the lieutenant, his blood now up. 
 ' We'll see which will beat, wind or powder.'
 
 in ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE 59 
 
 Again a rocket is fixed, with more allowance for the wind ; 
 but the black curve has disappeared, and he must wait awhile. 
 
 'There it is again ! Fly swift and sure,' cries Elsley, 'thoti 
 fiery angel of mercy, bearing the saviour-line ! It may not be 
 too late yet.' 
 
 Full and true the rocket went across her ; and ' Three cheers 
 for the lieutenant ! ' rose above the storm. 
 
 ' Silence, lads ! Not so bad, though ; ' says he, rubbing his 
 wet hands. ' Hold on by the line, and watch for a bite, Brown.' 
 
 Five minutes pass. Brown has the line in his hand, waiting 
 for any signal toucli from the ship : but the line sways limp in 
 the surge. 
 
 Ten minutes. The lieutenant lights a fresh cigar, and paces 
 up and down, smoking fiercely. 
 
 A quarter of an hour ; and yet no response. The moon is 
 shining clearly now. They can see her hatchways, the stumps 
 of her masts, great tangles of rigging swaying and lashing down 
 across her deck ; but that delicate upper curve is becoming more 
 ragged after every wave ; and the tide is rising fast. 
 
 ' There's a pull ! ' shouts Brown. . . . ' No, there ain't ! 
 . . . God have mercy, sir ! She's going ! ' 
 
 The black curve boils up, as if a mine had been sprung on 
 board, leaps into arches, jagged peaks, black bars crossed and 
 tangled ; and then all melts away into the white seething 
 waste ; while the line floats home helplessly, as if disappointed ; 
 and the billows plunge more sullenly and sadly towards the 
 shore, as if in remorse for their dark and reckless deed. 
 
 All is over. What shall we do now 1 Go home, and pray 
 that God may have mercy on all drowning souls ? Or think 
 what a picturesque and tragical scene it was, and what a beauti- 
 ful poem it will make, when we have thrown it into an artistic 
 form, and bedizened it with conceits and analogies stolen from 
 all heaven and earth by our own self-willed fancy 1 
 
 Elsley Vavasour through whose spectacles, rather than with 
 my own eyes, I have been looking at the wreck, and to whose 
 account, not to mine, the metaphors and similes of the last two 
 pages must be laid took the latter course ; not that he was not 
 awed, calmed, and even humbled, as he felt how poor and petty 
 his own troubles were, compared with that great tragedy ; but 
 in his fatal habit of considering all matters in heaven and earth 
 as bricks and mortar for the poet to build with, he considered 
 that lie had ' seen enough ; ' as if men were sent into the world 
 to see, and not to act ; and going home too excited to sleep, 
 much more to go and kiss forgiveness to his sleeping wife, sat 
 up all night, writing ' The Wreck,' which may be (as the 
 reviewer in The Parthenon asserts) an exquisite poem ; but 1 
 cannot say that it is of much importance. 
 
 So the delicate genius sat that night, scribbling verses by a 
 warm fire, and the rough lieutenant settled himself down in his
 
 60 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 mackintoshes, to sit out those weary hours on the bare rock, 
 having done all that he could do, and yet knowing that his duty 
 was not to leave the place as long as there was a chance of 
 saving not a life, for that was past all hope but a chest of 
 clothes or a stick of timber. There he settled himself, grum- 
 bling yet faithful ; and filled up the time with sleepy maledic- 
 tions against some old admiral, who had or had not taken a 
 spite to him in the West Indies thirty years before, else lie 
 would have been a post captain by now, comfortably in bed on 
 board a crack frigate, instead of sitting all night put on a rock, 
 like an old cormorant, etc. etc. Who knows not the woes of 
 ancient coast-guard lieutenants ? 
 
 But as it befell, Elsley Vavasour was justly punished for 
 going home, by losing the most ' poetical ' incident of the whole 
 night. 
 
 For with the coast-guardsmen many sailors stayed. There 
 was nothing to be earned by staying : but still, who knew but 
 they might be wanted ? And they hung on with the same 
 feeling which tempts one to linger round a grave ere the earth 
 is filled in, loth to give up the last sight, and with it the last 
 hope. The ship herself, over and above her lost crew, was in 
 their eyes a person to be loved and regretted. And Gentleman 
 Jan spoke, like a true sailor 
 
 'Ah, poor dear ! And she such a beauty, Mr. Brown ; as 
 any one might see by her lines, even that way off. Ah, poor 
 dear ! ' 
 
 ' And so many brave souls on board ; and, perhaps, some of 
 them not ready, Mr. Beer,' says the serious elderly chief boat- 
 man. ' Eh, Captain Willis ? ' " 
 
 ' The Lord has had mercy on them, I don't doubt,' answers 
 the old man, in his quiet sweet voice. ' One can't but hope 
 that He would give them time for one prayer before all was 
 over ; and having been drowned myself, Mr. Brown, three times, 
 and taken up for dead that is, once in Gibraltar Bay, and once 
 when I was a total wreck in the old Sea/torse, that was in the 
 hurricane in the Indies ; after that, when I fell over quay-head 
 here, fishing for bass, why, I know well how quick the prayer 
 will run through a man's heart, when he's a-drowniiig, and the 
 light of conscience, too, all one's life in one minute, like 
 
 ' It arn't the men I care for,' says Gentleman Jan ; ' they're 
 gone to heaven, like all brave sailors do as dies by wreck and 
 battle : but the poor dear ship, d'ye see, Captain Willis, she 
 ha'n't no heaven to go to, and that's why I feel for her so.' 
 
 Both the old men shake their heads at Jan's doctrine, and 
 turn the subject off. 
 
 'You'd better go home, captain, 'fear of the rheumatics. It's 
 a rough night for your years ; and you've no call, like me.' 
 
 ' I would, but my maid there ; and I can't get her home ; and 
 I can't leave her.' And Willis points to the schoolmistress, who
 
 in A1STYTHING BUT STILL LIFE 61 
 
 sits upon the flat slope of rock, a little apart from the rest, with 
 her face resting on her hands, gazing intently out into the wild 
 waste. 
 
 ' Make her go ; it's her duty we all have our duties. Why 
 does her mother let her out at this time of night? I keep 
 my maids tighter than that, I warrant.' And disciplinarian 
 Mr. Brown makes a step towards her. 
 
 ' Ah, Mr. Brown, don't now ! She's not one of us. There's 
 no saying what's going on there in her. Maybe she's praying ; 
 maybe she sees more than we do, over the sea there.' 
 
 'What do you mean? There's no living body in those 
 breakers, be sure ! ' 
 
 ' There's more living things about on such a night than have 
 bodies to them, or than any but such as she can see. If any 
 one ever talked with angels, that maid does ; and I've heard her, 
 too ; I can say I have certain of it. Those that like may call 
 her an innocent : but I wish I were such an innocent, Mr. 
 Brown. I'd be nearer heaven then, here on earth, than I fear 
 sometimes I ever shall be, even after I'm dead and gone.' 
 
 ' Well, she's a good girl, mazed or not ; but look at her now ! 
 What's she after ? ' 
 
 The girl had raised her head, and was pointing, with one arm 
 stretched stiffly out, toward the sea. 
 
 Old Willis went down to her, and touched her gently on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 ' Come home, my maid, then, you'll take cold, indeed ; ' but 
 she did not move or lower her arm. 
 
 The old man, accustomed to her fits of fixed melancholy, 
 looked down under her bonnet, to see whether she was ' past,' as 
 lie called it. By the moonlight he could see her great eyes 
 steady and wide open. She motioned him away, half im- 
 patiently, and then sprang to her feet with a scream. 
 
 ' A man ! A man ! Save him ! ' 
 
 As she spoke, a huge wave rolled in, and shot up the sloping 
 end of the point in a broad sheet of foam. And out of it 
 struggled, on hands and knees, a human figure. He looked 
 wildly up, and round, and then his head dropped again on his 
 breast ; and he lay clinging with outspread arms, like Homer's 
 polypus in the Odyssey, as the wave drained back, in a thousand 
 roaring cataracts, over the edge of the rock. 
 
 ' Save him ! ' shrieked she again, as twenty men rushed for- 
 ward and stopped short. The man was fully thirty yards 
 from them ; but close to him, between them and him, stretched 
 a long ghastly crack, some ten feet wide, cutting the point 
 across. All knew it : its slippery edge, its polished upright 
 sides, the seething cauldrons within it ; and knew, too, that the 
 next wave would boil up from it in a hundred jets, and suck in 
 the strongest to his doom, to fall, with brains dashed out, into a 
 chasm from which was no return.
 
 62 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Ere they could nerve themselves for action, the wave had 
 come. Up the slope it went, one-half of it burying the wretched 
 mariner, and fell over into the chasm. The other half rushed 
 up the chasm itself, and spouted forth again to the moonlight in 
 columns of snow, in time to meet the wave from which it had 
 just parted, as it fell from above ; and then the two boiled up, 
 and round, and over, and swirled along the smooth rock to their 
 very feet. 
 
 The schoolmistress took one long look ; and as the wave 
 retired, rushed after it to the very brink of the chasm, and flung 
 herself on her knees. 
 
 ' She's mazed ! ' 
 
 ' No, she's not ! ' almost screamed old Willis, in mingled pride 
 and terror, as he rushed after her. ' The wave has carried him 
 across the crack, and she's got him ! ' And he sprang upon her, 
 and caught her round the waist. 
 
 ' Now, if you be men ! ' shouted he, as the rest hurried down. 
 
 ' Now, if you be men ; before the next wave comes ! ' shouted 
 big Jan. ' Hands together, and make a line ! ' And he took a 
 grip with one hand of the old man's waistband, and held out the 
 other for who would to seize. 
 
 Who took it? Frank Headley, the curate, who had been 
 watching all sadly apart, longing to do something which no one 
 could mistake. 
 
 'Be you man enough ?' asked big Jan doubtfully. 
 
 'Try,' said Frank. 
 
 'Really, you ben't, sir,' said Jan, civilly enough. 'Means no 
 offence, sir ; your heart's stout enough, I see ; but you don't 
 know what it'll be.' And he caught the hand of a huge fellow 
 next him, while Frank shrank sadly back into the darkness. 
 
 Strong hand after hand was clasped, and strong knee after 
 knee dropped almost to the rock, to meet the coming rush of 
 water ; and all who knew their business took a long breath, 
 they might have need of one. 
 
 It came, and surged over the man, and the girl, and up to old 
 Willis's throat, and round the knees of Jan and his neighbour ; 
 and then followed the returning out-draught, and every limb 
 quivered with the strain ; but when the cataract had dis- 
 appeared, the chain was still unbroken. 
 
 ' Saved ! ' and a cheer broKe from all lips, save those of the 
 girl herself ; she was as senseless as he whom she had saved, 
 They hurried her and him up the rock ere another wave could 
 come ; but they had much ado to open her hands, so firmly 
 clenched together were they round his waist. 
 
 Gently they lifted each, and laid them on the rock ; while old 
 Willis, having recovered his breath, set to work crying like a 
 child, to restore breath to ' his maiden.' 
 
 ' Run for Dr. Heale, some good Christian ! ' But Frank, 
 longing to escape from a company who did not love him, and to
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 63 
 
 be of some use ere the night was out, was already half-way to 
 the village on that very errand. 
 
 However, ere the doctor could be stirred out of his boozy 
 slumbers, and thrust into his clothes by his wife, the school- 
 mistress was safe in bed at her mother's house ; and the man, 
 weak, but alive, carried triumphantly up to Heale's door ; which 
 having been kicked open, the sailors insisted in carrying him 
 right upstairs, and depositing him on the best spare bed. 
 
 ' If you won't come to your patients, doctor, your patients 
 shall come to you. Why were you asleep in your liquors, in- 
 stead of looking out for poor wratches, like a Christian ? You 
 see whether his bones be broke, and gi un his medicines proper ; 
 and then go and see after the schoolmistress ; she'm worth a 
 dozen of any man, and a thousand of you ! We'll pay for 'un 
 like men ; and if you don't, we'll break every bottle in your shop.' 
 
 To which, what between bodily fear and real good-nature, 
 old Heale assented ; and so ended that eventful night. 
 
 CHAPTEK IV 
 
 FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 
 
 ABOUT nine o'clock the next morning, Gentleman Jan strolled 
 into Dr. Heale's surgery, pipe in mouth, with an attendant 
 satellite ; for every lion, poor as well as rich, in country as in 
 town, must needs have his jackal. 
 
 Heale's surgery or, in plain English, shop was a doleful 
 hole enough ; in such dirt and confusion as might be expected 
 from a drunken occupant, with a practice which was only not 
 decaying because there was no rival in the field. But monopoly 
 made the old man, as it makes most men, all the more lazy and 
 careless ; and there was not a drug on his shelves which could 
 be warranted to work the effect set forth in that sanguine and 
 too trustful book, the Pharmacopoeia, which, like Mr. Pecksniffs 
 England, expects every man to do his duty, and is, accordingly 
 (as the Lancet and Dr. Letheby know too well), grievously dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 In this kennel of evil savours Heale was slowly trying to 
 poke things into something like order ; and dragging out a few 
 old drugs with a shaky hand, to see if any one would buy them, 
 in a vague expectation that something must needs have 
 happened to somebody the night before, which would require 
 somewhat of his art. 
 
 And he was not disappointed. Gentleman Jan, without 
 taking his pipe out of his mouth, dropped his huge elbows on 
 the counter, and his black-fringed chin on his fists ; took a look 
 round the shop, as if to find something which would suit him ; 
 and then
 
 64 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'I say, doctor, gi's some tackleum.' 
 
 'Some diachylum plaster, Mr. Beer?' says Heale meekly. 
 'What for, then?' 
 
 'To tackle my shins. I barked 'em cruel against King 
 Arthur's nose last night. Hard in the bone he is ; wish I was 
 as hard.' 
 
 ' How much diachylum will you want, then, Mr. Beer ? ' 
 
 'Well, I don't know. Let's see ! ' and Jan pulls up his blue 
 trousers, and pulls down his gray rig and furrows, and considers 
 his broad and shaggy shins. 
 
 ' Matter of four pennies broad ; two to each leg ; ' and then 
 replaces his elbows, and smokes on. 
 
 ' I say, doctor, that 'ere curate came out well last night. I 
 shall go to church next Sunday.' 
 
 ' What,' asks the satellite, ' after you upset he that fashion 
 yesterday ? ' 
 
 ' I don't care what you thinks,' says Jan, who, of course, 
 bullies his jackal like most lions ; 'but I goes to church. He's 
 a good 'un, say I, little and good, like a Welshman's cow ; and 
 clapped me on the back when we'd got the man and the maid 
 safe, and says, " Well done our side, old fellow ! " and stands 
 something hot all round, what's more, in at the Mariner's Rest. 
 I say, doctor, where's he as we hauled ashore ? I'll go up and 
 see 'un.' 
 
 ' Not now, then, Mr. Beer ; not now, then. He's sleeping, 
 indeed he is, like any child.' 
 
 'So much the better. We wain't be bothered with his 
 hollering. But go up I will. Do ye let me now ; I'll be as still 
 as a maid.' 
 
 And Jan kicked off his shoes, and marched on tiptoe through 
 the shop, while Dr. Heale, moaning professional ejaculations, 
 showed him the way. 
 
 The shipwrecked man was sleeping sweetly ; and little was 
 to be seen of his face, so covered was it with dark tangled curls 
 and thick beard. 
 
 ' Ah ! a 'Stralian digger, by the beard of him, and his red 
 jersey,' whispered Jan, as he bent tenderly over the poor fellow, 
 and put his head on one side to listen to his breathing. ' Beau- 
 tiful he sleeps, to be sure ! ' said Jan ; ' and a tidy-looking chap, 
 too. 'Tis a pity to wake 'un, poor wratcli ; and he, perhaps, 
 with a sweetheart aboard, and drownded ; or else all his kit 
 lost. Let "un sleep so long as he can : he'll find all out soon 
 enough, God help him ! ' 
 
 And big Jan stole down the stairs gently and reverently, like 
 a true sailor ; and took his diachylum, and went off to plaster 
 his shins. 
 
 About ten minutes afterwards, Heale was made aware that 
 his guest was awake by sundry grunts and ejaculations, which 
 ended in a series of long and doleful whistles, and then broke
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 65 
 
 out into a song. So he went up, and found the stranger sitting 
 upright in bed, combing his curls with his fingers and chanting 
 unto himself a cheerful ditty. 
 
 'Good morning, doctor,' quoth he, as his host entered. 'Very 
 kind of you, this. Hope I haven't turned a better man than 
 myself put of his bed.' 
 
 ' Delighted to see you so well. Very near drowned, though. 
 We were pumping at your lungs for a full half hour.' 
 
 ' Ah ? nothing, though, for an experienced professional man 
 like you ! ' 
 
 ' Hum ! speaks well for your discrimination,' says Heale, 
 flattered. ' Very well-spoken young person, though his beard is 
 a bit wild. How did you know, then, that I was a doctor ? ' 
 
 ' By the reverend looks of you, sir. Besides, I smelt the rhu- 
 barb and senna all the way upstairs, and knew that I'd fallen 
 among professional brethren : 
 
 ' ' ' Oh, then this valiant mariner, 
 Which sailed across the sea, 
 He came home to his own sweetheart, 
 With his heart so full of glee ; 
 
 ' " With his heart so full of glee, sir, 
 
 And his pockets full of gold, 
 And his bag of drugget, with many a nugget, 
 As heavy as he could hold." 
 
 Don't you wish yours was, doctor ? ' 
 
 ' Eh, eh, eh,' sniggered Heale. 
 
 'Mine was last night. Now, doctor, let's have a glass of 
 brandy-and-water, hot with, and an hour's more sleep ; and then 
 kick me out, and into the workhouse. Was anybody else saved 
 from the wreck last night ? ' 
 
 ' Nobody, sir,' said Heale ; and said ' sir,' because, in spite of 
 the stranger's rough looks, his accent, or rather, his no-accent 
 showed him that he had fallen in with a very different, and 
 probably a very superior stamp of man to himself ; in the light 
 of which conviction (and being withal a good-natured old soul), 
 he went down and mixed him a stiff glass of brandy-and-water, 
 answering his wife's remonstrances by 
 
 'The party upstairs is a bit of a frantic party, certainly ; but 
 he is certainly a very superior party, and has the true gentle- 
 man about him, any one can see. Besides, he's shipwrecked, as 
 you and I may be any day ; and what's like brandy-and-water 1 ' 
 
 ' I should like to know when I'm like to be shipwrecked, or 
 you either ; ' says Mrs. Heale, in a tone slightly savouring of 
 indignation and contempt. ' You think of nothing but brandy- 
 and-water.' But she let the doctor take the glass upstairs, 
 nevertheless. 
 
 A few minutes afterwards, Frank came in, and inquired for 
 the shipwrecked man. 
 
 F T. Y. A.
 
 66 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Well enough in body, sir ; and rather requires your skill 
 than mine,' said the old time-server. 'Won't you walk up?' 
 
 So up Frank was shown. 
 
 The stranger was sitting up in bed. ' Capital your brandy is, 
 doctor. Ah, sir,' seeing I rank, 'it is very kind of you, I am 
 sure, to call on me ! I presume you are the clergyman ? ' 
 
 But before Frank could answer, Heale had broken forth into 
 loud praises of him, setting forth how the stranger owed his life 
 entirely to his superhuman strength and courage. 
 
 "Pon my word, sir,' said the stranger, looking them both 
 over and over, through and through, as if to settle how much of 
 all this he was to believe, ' I am deeply indebted to you for your 
 gallantry. I only wish it had been employed on a better 
 subject.' 
 
 ' My good sir,' said Frank, blushing, ' you owe your life not 
 to me. I would have helped if I could ; but was not thought 
 worthy by our sons of Anak here. Your actual preserver was a 
 young girl.' 
 
 And Frank told him the story. 
 
 ' Whew ! I hope she won't expect me to marry her as pay- 
 ment. Handsome ? ' 
 
 ' Beautiful,' said Frank. 
 
 'Money?' 
 
 ' The village schoolmistress.' 
 
 'Clever?' 
 
 ' A sort of half-baked body,' said Heale. 
 
 'A very puzzling intellect,' said Frank. 
 
 'Ah well that's a fair excuse for declining the honour. I 
 can't be expected to marry a frantic party, as you called me 
 downstairs just now, doctor.' 
 
 'I, sir?' 
 
 ' Yes, I heard : no offence, though, my good sir, but I've the 
 ears of a fox. I hope really, though, that she is none the worse 
 for her heroic flights.' 
 
 ' How is she this morning, Mr. Heale 1 ' 
 
 ' Well poor thing, a little light-headed last night : but kindly 
 when I went in last.' 
 
 ' Whew ! I hope she has not fallen in love with me. She 
 may fancy me her property a private waif and stray. Better 
 send for the coast-guard officer, and let him claim me as belong- 
 ing to the Admiralty, as notsorn, jetsom, and lagend ; for 1 was 
 all three last night.' 
 
 'You were indeed, sir,' said Frank, who began to be a little 
 tired of this levity ; ' and very thankful to Heaven you ought 
 to be.' 
 
 Frank spake this in a somewhat professional tone of voice ; 
 at which the stranger arched his eyebrows, screwed his lips up, 
 and laid his ears back, like a horse when lie meditates a kick. 
 
 ' You must be better acquainted with my affairs than I am,
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 67 
 
 my dear sir, if you are able to state that fact. Doctor ! I hear 
 a patient coming into the surgery.' 
 
 'Extraordinary power of hearing, to be sure,' said Heale, 
 toddling downstairs, while the stranger went on, looking Frank 
 full in the face. 
 
 'Now that old fogy's gone downstairs, my dear sir, let us 
 come to an understanding at the beginning of our acquaintance. 
 Of course, you're bound by your cloth to say that sort of thing 
 to me, just as I am bound by it not to swear in your company : 
 but you'll allow me to remark, that it would be rather trying 
 even to your faith, if you were to be thrown ashore with nothing 
 in the world but an old jersey and a bag of tobacco, two hundred 
 miles short of the port where you hoped to land with fifteen 
 hundred well-earned pounds in your pocket.' 
 
 ' My dear sir,' said Frank, after a pause, ' whatsoever comes 
 from our Father's hand must be meant in love. "The Lord 
 gave, and the Lord hath taken away." ' 
 
 A quaint wince passed over the stranger's face. 
 
 ' Father, sir ? That fifteen hundred pounds was going to my 
 father's hand, from whosesoever hand it came, or the loss of it. 
 And now what is to become of the poor old man, that hussy 
 Dame Fortune only knows if she knows her own mind an hour 
 together, which I very much doubt. I worked early and late for 
 that money, sir ; up to my knees in mud and water. Let it be 
 enough for your lofty demands on poor humanity, that I take 
 my loss like a man, with a whistle and a laugh, instead of howl- 
 ing and cursing over it like a baboon. Let's talk of something 
 else ; and lend me five pounds and a suit of clothes. I shan't 
 run away with them, for as I've been thrown ashore here, here 
 I shall stay.' 
 
 Frank almost laughed at the free and easy request, though he 
 felt at once pained by the man's irreligion, and abashed by his 
 stoicism ; would he have behaved even as well in such a case 1 
 
 'I have not five pounds in the world.' 
 
 ' Good ! we shall understand each other better.' 
 
 ' But the suit of clothes you shall have at once.' 
 
 ' Good again ! Let it be your oldest ; for I must do a little 
 rock-scrambling here, for purposes of my own.' 
 
 So off went Frank to fetch the clothes, puzzling over his new 
 parishioner. The man was not altogether well bred, either in 
 voice or manner ; but there was an ease, a confidence, a sense of 
 power, which made Frank feel that he had fallen in with a very 
 strong nature ; and one which had seen many men, and many 
 lands, and profited by what it had seen. 
 
 When he returned, he found the stranger busy at his ablu- 
 tions, and gradually appearing as a somewhat dapper, handsome 
 fellow, with a bright gray eye, a short nose, a firm, small mouth, 
 a broad and upright forehead, across the left side of which ran 
 a fearful scar.
 
 68 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' That's a shrewd mark,' said he, as he caught Frank's eye 
 fixed on it, while he sat coolly arranging himself on the bedside. 
 ' I got it in fair fight, though, by a Crow's tomahawk in the 
 Rocky Mountains. And here's another token' (lifting up his 
 black curls), ' which a Greek robber gave me in the Morea. I've 
 another under my head, for which I have to thank a Tartar, and 
 one or two more little remembrances of flood and field up and 
 down me. Perhaps they may explain to you why I take life and 
 death so coolly. I've looked too often at the little razor-bridge 
 which parts them, to care much for either. Now, don't let me 
 trouble you any longer. You have your flock to see to, I don't 
 doubt. You'll find me at church on Sunday. I always do at 
 Rome as Rome does.' 
 
 ' Then you will stay away,' said Frank, with a sad smile. 
 
 ' Ah ? No. Church is respectable and aristocratic ; and there 
 one don't get sent to a place unmentionable, ten times an hour, 
 by some inspired tinker. Beside, country people like the doctor 
 to go to church with their betters ; and the very fellows who go 
 to the Methodist meeting themselves would think it infra dig. 
 in me to walk in there. Now, good-bye though I haven't in- 
 troduced myself not knowing the name of my kind pre- 
 server.' 
 
 ' My name is Frank Headley, curate of the parish,' said Frank, 
 smiling : though he saw the man was rattling on for the purpose 
 of preventing his talking on serious mattery. 
 
 'And mine is Tom Thurnall, F.R.C.S., Licentiate of the 
 Universities of Paris, Glasgow, and whilome surgeon of the 
 good clipper Hesperus, which you saw wrecked last night. So, 
 farewell ! ' 
 
 ' Come over with me, and have some breakfast.' 
 
 ' No, thanks ; you'll be busy. I'll screw some out of old 
 bottles here.' 
 
 ' And now,' said Tom Thurnall to himself, as Frank left the 
 room, 'to begin life again with an old pen-knife and a pound of 
 honeydew. I wonder which of them got my girdle. I'll stick 
 here till I find out that one thing, and stop the notes by to- 
 day's post if I can but recollect them all ; if I could but stop 
 the nugget, too ! ' 
 
 So saying, he walked down into the surgery, and looked 
 round. Everything was in confusion. Cobwebs were over the 
 bottles, and armies of mites played at bo-peep behind them. 
 He tried a few drawers, and found that they stuck fast ; and 
 when he at last opened one, its contents were two old dried-up 
 horse -balls and a dirty tobacco-pipe. He took down a jar 
 marked Epsom salts, and found it full of Welsh snuff; the 
 next, which was labelled cinnamon, contained blue vitriol. The 
 spatula and pill-roller were crusted with deposits of every hue. 
 The pill-box drawer had not a dozen whole boxes in it ; and the 
 counter was a quarter of an inch deep in deposit of every vege-
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 69 
 
 table and mineral matter, including ends of string, tobacco 
 ashes, and broken glass. 
 
 Tom took up a dirty duster, and set to work coolly to clear 
 up, whistling away so merrily that he brought in Heale. 
 
 'I'm doing a little in the way of business, you see.' 
 
 ' Then you really are a professional practitioner, sir, as Mr. 
 Headley informs me : though, of course, I don't doubt the fact ? ' 
 said Heale, summoning up all the little courage he had to ask 
 the question with. 
 
 ' F.R.C.S. London, Paris, and Glasgow. Easy enough to write 
 and ascertain the fact. Have been medical officer to a poor-law 
 union, and to a Brazilian man-of-war. Have seen three choleras, 
 two army fevers, and yellow -jack without end. Have doctored 
 gunshot wounds in the two Texan wars, in one Paris revolution, 
 and in the Schleswig-Holstein row ; beside accident practice in 
 every country from California to China, and round the world 
 and back again. There's a fine nest of Mr. Weekes' friend (if 
 not creation), Acarus Horridus,' and Tom went on dusting and 
 arranging. 
 
 Heale had been fairly taken aback by the imposing list of 
 acquirements, and looked at his guest awhile with considerable 
 awe : suddenly a suspicion flashed across him, which caused him 
 (not unseen by Tom) a start and a look of self-congratulatory 
 wisdom. He next darted out of the shop, and returned as 
 rapidly, rather redder about the eyes, and wiping his mouth 
 with the back of his hand. 
 
 "But, sir, though, though' began he 'but, of course, you 
 will allow me, being a stranger and as a man of business all 
 I have to say is, if that is to say 
 
 ' You want to know why, if I've had all these good businesses, 
 why I haven't kept them ? ' 
 
 ' Ex actly,' stammered Heale, much relieved. 
 
 ' A very sensible and business-like question : but you needn't 
 have been so delicate about asking it as to want a screw before 
 beginning.' 
 
 ' Ah, you're a wag, sir,' keckled the old man. 
 
 ' I'll tell you frankly ; I have an old father, sir, a gentleman, 
 and a scholar, and a man of science ; once in as good a country 
 practice as man could have, till, God help him, he went blind, 
 sir, and I had to keep him, and have still. I went over the 
 world to make my fortune, and never made it ; and sent him 
 home what I did make, and little enough too. At last, in my 
 despair, I went to the diggings, and had a pretty haul I 
 needn't say how much. That matters little now ; for I suppose 
 it's at the bottom of the sea. There's my story, Sir, and a poor 
 one enough it is, for the dear old man, at least.' And Tom's 
 voice trembled so as he told it, that old Heale believed every 
 word, and what is more, being like most hard drinkers not 
 ' unused to the melting mood,' wiped his eyes fervently, and
 
 70 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 went off for another drop of comfort ; while Tom dusted and 
 arranged on, till the shop began to look quite smart and 
 business-like. 
 
 'Now, sir 1 ' when the old man came back 'business is 
 business, and beggars must not be choosers. I don't want to 
 meddle with your practice ; I know the rules of the profession : 
 but if you'll let me sit here, and mix your medicines for you, 
 you'll have the more time to visit your patients, that's clear,' 
 and, perhaps (thought he), to drink your brandy-and-water, 
 ' and when any of them are poisoned by me, it will be time to 
 kick me out. All I ask is, bed and board. Don't be frightened 
 for your spirit-bottle I can drink water ; I've done it many a 
 time for a week together in the prairies, and been thankful 
 for a half -pint in the day.' 
 
 ' But, sir, your dignity as a 
 
 ' Fiddlesticks for dignity ; I must live, sir. Only lend me a 
 couple of sheets of paper and two queen's heads, that I may tell 
 my friends my whereabouts, and go and talk it over with Mrs. 
 Heale. We must never act without consulting the ladies.' 
 
 That day Tom sent off the following epistle : 
 
 1 To CHARLES SHUTER, Esq., M.D., St. Mumpsimus' Hospital, 
 
 London. 
 'DEAR CHARLEY 
 
 ' " I do adjure thee, by old pleasant days, 
 
 Quartier Latin, and neatly-shod grisettes, 
 By all our wanderings in quaint by-ways, 
 By ancient frolics, and by ancient debts," 
 
 go to the United Bank of Australia forthwith, and stop the 
 notes whose numbers all, alas ! which I can recollect are 
 enclosed. Next, lend me five pounds. Next, send me down, as 
 quick as possible, five pounds' worth of decent drugs, as per list ; 
 and if you can borrow me one a tolerable microscope, and a 
 few natural history books, to astound the yokels here with : for 
 I was shipwrecked here last night, after all, at a dirty little 
 West-country port, and what's worse, robbed of all I had made 
 at the diggings, and start fair, once more, to run against cruel 
 Dame Fortune, as Colson did against the Indians, without a 
 shirt to my back. Don't be a hospitable fellow, and ask me to 
 come up and camp with you. Mumpsimus and all old faces 
 would be a great temptation : but here I must stick till I hear 
 of my money, and physic the natives for my daily bread.' 
 
 To his father he wrote thus, not having the heart to tell the 
 trutli : 
 
 ' To EDWARD THTJRNALL, Esq., M.D., Whitbury. 
 
 ' MY DEAREST OLD FATHER I hope to see you again in a few 
 weeks, as soon as I have settled a little business here, where I
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 71 
 
 have found a capital opening for a medical man. Meanwhile 
 let Mark or Mary write and tell me how you are ; and for 
 sending you every penny I can spare, trust me. I have not 
 had all the luck I expected ; but am as hearty as a bull, and as 
 merry as a cricket, and fall on my legs, as of old, like a cat. I 
 long to come to you ; but I mustn't yet. It is near three years 
 since I had a sight of that blessed white head, which is the only 
 thing I care for under the sun, except Mark and little Mary 
 big Mary I suppose she is now, and engaged to be married to 
 some "bloated aristocrat." Best remembrances to old Mark 
 Armsworth. Your affectionate son, T. T.' 
 
 ' Mr. Heale,' said Tom next, ' are we Whigs or Tories here ? ' 
 'Why ahem, sir, my Lord Scoutbush, who owns most 
 hereabouts, and my Lord Minchampstead, who has bought 
 Carcarrow moors above, very old Whig connections, both of 
 them ; but Mr. Trebooze, of Trebooze, he, again, thorough-going 
 Tory very good patient he was once, and may be again ha ! 
 ha ! Gay young man, sir careless of his health ; so yoii see as 
 
 a medical man, sir ' 
 
 ' Which is the liberal paper 1 This one ? Very good.' And 
 Tom wrote off to the liberal paper that evening a letter, which 
 bore fruit ere the week's end, in the shape of five columns, 
 headed thus : 
 
 ' WRECK OP THE " HESPERUS." 
 
 'The following detailed account of this lamentable catas- 
 trophe has been kindly contributed by the graphic pen of the 
 only survivor, Thomas Thurnal, Esquire, F.R.C.S., etc. etc. etc., 
 late surgeon on board the ill-fated vessel.' Which five columns 
 not only put a couple of guineas into Tom's pocket, but, as he 
 intended they should, brought him before the public as an 
 interesting personage, and served as a very good advertisement 
 to the practice which Tom had already established in fancy. 
 
 Tom had not worked long, however, before the coast-guard 
 lieutenant bustled in. He had trotted home to shave and get 
 his breakfast, and was trotting back again to the shore. 
 
 ' Hillo, Heale ! can I see the fellow who was saved last 
 night ? ' 
 
 ' I am that fellow,' says Tom. 
 
 'The dickens you are ! you seem to have fallen on your legs 
 quickly enough.' 
 
 ' It's a trick I've had occasion to learn, sir,' says Tom. ' Can 
 I prescribe for you this morning ? ' 
 
 'Medicine?' roars the lieutenant, laughing. 'Catch me at 
 it ! No ; I want you to come down to the shore, and help to 
 identify goods and things. The wind has chopped up north, 
 and is blowing dead on ; and, with this tide, we shall have a 
 good deal on shore. So, if you're strong enough 
 
 'I'm always strong enough to do my duty,' said Tom.
 
 72 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Hum ! Very good sentiment, young man. Always strong 
 enough for duty. Hum ! worthy of Nelson said pretty much 
 the same, didn't he ? something about duty I know it was, and 
 always thought it uncommon fine. Now, then, what can you 
 tell me about this business ? ' 
 
 It was a sad story ; but no sadder than hundreds besides. 
 They had been struck by the gale to the westward two days 
 before, with the wind south ; had lost their foretopmast and 
 boltsprit, and become all but unmanageable ; had tried during 
 a lull to rig a jury-mast, but were prevented by the gale, which 
 burst on them with fresh fury from the south-west, with very 
 heavy rain and fog ; had passed a light in the night, which they 
 took for Scilly, but which must have been the Longships ; had 
 still fancied that they were safe, running up Channel with a 
 wide berth, when, about sunset, the gale had chopped again to 
 north-west ; and Tom knew no more. ' I was standing on the 
 poop with the captain about ten o'clock. The last words he 
 said to me were, " If this lasts, we shall see Brest harbour to- 
 morrow," when she struck, and stopped dead. I was chucked 
 clean off the poop, and nearly overboard ; but brought up in 
 mizzen rigging. Where the captain went, poor fellow, Heaven 
 alone knows ; for I never saw him after. The mainmast went 
 like a carrot. The mizzen stood. I ran round to the cabin-doors. 
 There were four men steering ; the wheel had broke out of the 
 poor fellows' hands, and knocked them over, broken their 
 limbs, I believe. I was stooping to pick them up, when a sea 
 came into the waist, and then aft, washing me in through the 
 saloon-doors, among the poor half -dressed women and children. 
 Queer sight, lieutenant ! I've seen a good many, but never 
 worse than that. I bolted to my cabin, tied my notes and gold 
 round me, and out again.' 
 
 ' Didn't desert the poor things 1 ' 
 
 ' Couldn't if I'd tried ; they clung to me like a swarm of bees. 
 'Gad, sir, that was hard lines ! to have all the pretty women one 
 had waltzed with every evening through the Trades, and the 
 little children one had been making playthings for, holding 
 round one's knees, and screaming to the doctor to save them. 
 And how the . . . was I to save them, sir ? ' cried Tom, with a 
 sudden burst of feeling, which, as in so many Englishmen, 
 exploded in anger to avoid melting in tears. 
 
 ' Ought to be a law against it, sir,' growled the lieutenant ; 
 'against women-folk and children going to sea. It's murder 
 and cruelty. I've been wrecked, scores of times ; but it was 
 with honest men, who could shift for themselves, and if they 
 were drowned, drowned ; but didn't screech and catch hold I 
 couldn't stand that ! Well ? ' 
 
 ' Well, there was a pretty little creature, an officer's widow, 
 and two children. I caught her under one arm, and one of the 
 children under the other; said, "I can't take you all at once;
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEKD 73 
 
 I'll come back for the rest, one by one." Not that I believed 
 it ; but anything to stop the screaming ; and I did hope to put 
 some of them out of the reach of the sea, if I could get them 
 forward. I knew the forecastle was dry, for the chief officer 
 was firing there. You heard him ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, five or six times ; and then he stopped suddenly.' 
 
 ' He had reason. We got out. I could see her nose up in the 
 air forty feet above us, covered with fore-cabin, passengers. I 
 warped the lady and the children upward Heaven knows how, 
 for the sea was breaking over us very sharp till we were at 
 the mainmast stump, and holding on by the wreck of it. I felt 
 the ship stagger as if a whale had struck her, and heard a roar 
 and a swish behind me, and looked back just in time to see 
 mizzen, and poop, and all the poor women and children in it, go 
 bodily, as if they had been shaved off with a knife. I suppose 
 that altered her balance ; for before I could turn again she 
 dived forward, and then rolled over upon her beam ends to 
 leeward ; and I saw the sea walk in over her from stem to stern 
 like one white wall, and I was washed from my hold, and it was 
 all over.' 
 
 ' What became of the lady 1 ' 
 
 ' I saw a white thing flash by to leeward ; what's the use of 
 asking 1 ' 
 
 1 But the child you held 1 ' 
 
 ' I didn't let it go till there was good reason.' 
 
 'Eh?' 
 
 Tom tapped the points of his fingers smartly against the side 
 of his head, and then went on, in the same cynical drawl, which 
 he had effected throughout 
 
 ' I heard that against a piece of timber as we went over- 
 board. And, as a medical man, I considered after that, that I 
 had done my duty. Pretty little boy it was, just six years old ; 
 and such a fancy for drawing.' 
 
 The lieutenant was quite puzzled by Tom's seeming non- 
 chalance. 
 
 'What do you mean, sir? Did you leave the child to 
 perish 1 ' 
 
 ' Confound you, sir ! If you will have plain English, here it 
 is. I tell you I heard the child's skull crack like an egg-shell ! 
 There, let's talk no more about it, or the whole matter. It's a 
 bad business, and I'm not answerable for it, or you either ; so 
 let's go and do what we are answerable for, and identify 
 
 ' Sir ! you will be so good as to recollect,' said the lieutenant, 
 with ruffled plumes. 
 
 ' I do ; I do ! I beg your pardon a thousand times, I'm sure, 
 for being so rude ; but you know as well as I, sir, there are a 
 good many things in the world which won't stand too much 
 thinking over ; and last night was one.' 
 
 ' Very true, very true ; but how did you get ashore ? '
 
 74 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' I get ashore ? Oh, well enough ! Why not 1 ' 
 
 1 'Gad, sir, you were near enough being drowned at last ; 
 only that girl's pluck saved you.' 
 
 ' Well ; but it did save me ; and here I am, as I knew I should 
 be when I first struck out from the ship.' 
 
 ' Knew ! that is a bold word for mortal man at sea.' 
 
 ' I suppose it is ; but we doctors, you see, get into the way of 
 looking at things as men of science ; and the ground of science 
 is experience ; and, to judge from experience, it takes more to 
 kill me than I have yet met with. If I had been going to be 
 snuffed out, it would have happened long ago.' 
 
 ' Hum ! It's well to carry a cheerful heart ; but the pitcher 
 goes often to the well, and comes home broken at last.' 
 
 ' I must be a gutta-percha pitcher, I think, then, or else 
 
 ' "There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft," etc. 
 
 as Dibdin has it. Now, look at the facts yourself, sir,' con- 
 tinued the stranger, with a recklessness half true, half assumed, 
 to escape from the malady of thought. ' I don't want to boast, 
 sir ; I only want to show you that I have some practical reason 
 for wearing as my motto, " Never say die." I have had the 
 cholera twice, and yellow-jack beside ; five several times I have 
 had bullets through me ; I have been bayoneted and left for 
 dead ; I have been shipwrecked three times and once, as now, 
 I was the only man who escaped ; I have been fatted by savages 
 for baking and eating, and got away with a couple of friends 
 only a day or two before the feast. One really narrow chance 
 I had, which I never expected to squeeze through ; but, on the 
 whole, I have taken full precautions to prevent its recurrence.' 
 
 ' What was that, then ? ' 
 
 ' I have been hanged, sir,' said the doctor quietly. 
 
 ' Hanged 1 ' cried the lieutenant, facing round upon his 
 strange companion, with a visage which asked plainly enough, 
 ' You hanged ? I don't believe you ; and if you have been hanged, 
 what have you been doing to get hanged 1 ' 
 
 ' You need not take care of your pockets, sir neither robbery 
 nor murder was it which brought me to the gallows ; but inno- 
 cent bug-hunting. The fact is, I was caught by a party of 
 Mexicans, during the last war, straggling after plants and 
 insects, and hanged as a spy. I don't blame the fellows ; I had 
 no business where I was ; and they could not conceive that a 
 man would risk his life for a few butterflies.' 
 
 ' But if you were hanged, sir 
 
 ' Why did I not die ? By my usual luck. The fellows were 
 clumsy, and the noose would not work ; so that the Mexican 
 doctor, who meant to dissect me, brought me round again ; and 
 being a freemason, as I am, stood by me, got me safe off, and 
 cheated the devil.'
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 75 
 
 The worthy lieutenant walked on in silence, stealing furtive 
 glances at Tom, as if he had been a guest from the other world, 
 but not disbelieving his story in the least. He had seen, as 
 most old navy men, so many strange things happen, that he was 
 prepared to give credit to any tale when tola, as Tom's was, 
 with a straightforward and unboastful simplicity. 
 
 ' There lives the girl who saved you,' said he, as they passed 
 Grace Harvey's door. 
 
 ' Ah 1 I ought to call and pay my respects.' 
 
 But Grace was not at home. The wreck had emptied the 
 school ; and Grace had gone after her scholars to the beach. 
 
 ' We couldn't keep her away, weak as she was,' said a neigh- 
 bour, 'as soon as she heard the poor corpses were coming 
 ashore.' 
 
 ' Hum ! ' said Tom. ' True woman. Quaint that appetite 
 for horrors the sweet creatures have. Did you ever see a man 
 hanged, lieutenant ? No ? If you had, you would have seen 
 two women in the crowd to one man. Can you make out the 
 philosophy of that 1 ' 
 
 ' I suppose they like it, as some people do hot peppers.' 
 
 ' Or donkeys thistles find a little pain pleasant ! I had a 
 patient once in France, who read Dumas' Crimes Celebres all 
 the week, and the Vies des Saints on Sundays, and both, as far 
 as I could see, for just the same purpose to see how miserable 
 people could be, and how much pinching and pulling they could 
 bear.' 
 
 So they walked on, along a sheep-path, and over the Spur, 
 and down to the Cove. 
 
 It was such a morning as often follows a gale, when the great 
 firmament stares down upon the ruin which it has made, bright, 
 and clear, and bold ; and seems to say, with shameless smile, 
 'There, I have done it, and am as merry as ever after it 
 all !' Beneath a cloudless sky, the breakers, still gray and foul 
 from the tempest, were tumbling in before a cold northern 
 breeze. Half a mile out at sea, the rough backs of the Chough 
 and Crow loomed black and sulky in the foam. At their feet, 
 the rocks and shingle of the Cove were alive with human beings 
 groups of women and children clustering round a corpse or a 
 chest ; sailors, knee-deep in the surf, hauling at floating spars 
 and ropes ; oilskinned coast-guardsmen pacing up and down in 
 charge of goods, while groups of farmers' men, who had hurried 
 down from the villages inland, lounged about on the top of the 
 cliff, looking sulkily on, hoping for plunder ; and yet half afraid 
 to mingle with the sailors below, who looked on them as an 
 inferior race, and refused, in general, to intermarry with them. 
 
 The lieutenant plainly held much the same opinion ; for as 
 a party of them tried to descend the narrow patli to the beach 
 he shouted after them to come back. 
 
 ' Eh 1 you won't 1 ' and out rattled from its scabbard the old
 
 76 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 worthy's sword. 'Come back, I say, you loafing, miching, 
 wrecking crowkeepers ; there are no pickings for you here 
 Brown, send those fellows back with the bayonet. None but 
 blue-jackets allowed on the beach ! ' And the labourers go up 
 again, grumbling. 
 
 ' Can't trust those landsharks. They'll plunder even the rings 
 off a corpse's fingers. They think every wreck a godsend. I've 
 known them, after they've been driven off, roll great stones over 
 the cliff at night on the coast-guard, just out of spite ; while 
 these blue- jackets here, I can depend on them. Can you tell 
 me the reason of that, as you seem a bit of a philosopher ? ' 
 
 ' It is easy enough ; the sailors have a fellow-feeling with 
 sailors, and the landsmen have none. Besides, the sailors are 
 finer fellows, body and soul ; and the reason is that they have 
 been brought up to face danger, and the landsmen haven t.' 
 
 'Well,' said the lieutenant, 'unless a man has been taught 
 to look death in the face, he never will grow up, I believe, to be 
 much of a man at all.' 
 
 ' Danger, my good sir, is a better schoolmaster than all your 
 new model schools, diagrams, and scientific apparatus. It made 
 our forefathers the masters of the sea, though they never heard 
 of popular science ; and I dare say couldn't, one out of ten of 
 them, spell their own names.' 
 
 This sentiment elicited from the lieutenant a grunt of ap- 
 probation, as Tom intended that it should do ; shrewdly arguing 
 that the old martinet was no friend to the modern superstition, 
 that all which is required to cast out the devil is a smattering 
 of the 'ologies. 
 
 ' Will the gentleman see the corpses 1 ' asked Brown ; ' we 
 have fourteen already ; ' and he led the way to where, along 
 the shingle at high-water mark, lay a ghastly row, some fear- 
 fully bruised and mutilated, cramped together by the death 
 agony ; others with the peaceful smile which showed that they 
 had sunk to sleep in that strange water-death, amid a wilder- 
 ness of pleasant dreams. Strong men lay there, little children, 
 women, whom the sailors' wives had covered decently with 
 cloaks and shawls ; and at their heads stood Grace Harvey, 
 motionless, with folded hands, gazing into the dead faces with 
 her great solemn eyes. Her mother and Captain Willis stood 
 by, watching her with a sort of superstitious awe. She took no 
 notice either of Thurnall or of the lieutenant, as the doctor 
 identified the bodies one by one, without a remark which 
 indicated any human emotion. 
 
 'A very sensible man, Willis,' said the lieutenant apart, as 
 Tom knelt awhile to examine the crushed features of a sailor ; 
 and then looking up, said simply- 
 
 'James Macgillivray, second mate. Cause of death, contu- 
 sions ; probably by the fall of the mainmast.' 
 
 ' A very sensible man, and has seen a deal of life, and kept
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 77 
 
 his eyes open ; but a terrible hard-plucked one. Talked like a 
 book to me all the way ; but, be hanged if I don't think he has 
 a thirty-two pound shot under his ribs instead of a heart. 
 Doctor Thurnall, that is Miss Harvey, the young person who 
 saved your life last night.' 
 
 Tom rose, took off his hat (Frank Headley's), and made her a 
 bow, of which an ambassador need not have been ashamed. 
 
 ' I am exceedingly shocked that Miss Harvey should 
 have run so much danger for anything so worthless as my 
 life.' 
 
 She looked up at him, and answered, not him, but her own 
 thoughts. 
 
 ' Strange, is it not, that it was a duty to pray for all these 
 poor things last night, and a sin to pray for them this 
 morning 1 ' 
 
 ' Grace, dear ! ' interposed her mother, ' don't you hear the 
 gentleman thanking you ? ' 
 
 She started, as one awaking out of a dream, and looked into 
 his face, blushing scarlet. 
 
 ' Good heavens, what a beautiful creature ! ' said Tom to him- 
 self, as quite a new emotion passed through him. Quite new it 
 was, whatsoever it was ; and he was aware of it. He had had 
 his passions, his intrigues, in past years, and prided himself 
 few men more on understanding women ; but the expression 
 of the face, and the strange words with which she had greeted 
 him, added to the broad fact of her having offered her own life 
 for his, raised in him a feeling of chivalrous awe and admira- 
 tion, which no other woman had ever called up. 
 
 ' Madam,' he said again, ' I can repay you with nothing but 
 thanks; but, to judge from your conduct last night, you are 
 one of those people who will find reward enough in knowing 
 that you have done a noble and heroic action.' 
 
 She looked at him very steadfastly, blushing still. Thurnall, 
 be it understood, was (at least, while his face was in the state in 
 which Heaven intended it to be, half hidden in a silky-brown 
 beard) a very good-looking fellow ; and (to use Mark Arms- 
 worth's description) ' as hard as a nail ; as fresh as a rose ; and 
 stood on his legs like a game-cock.' Moreover, as Willis said 
 approvingly, he had spoken to her ' as if he was a duke, and she 
 was a duchess.' Besides, by some blessed moral law, the surest 
 way to make oneself love any human being is to go and do him 
 a kindness ; and therefore Grace had already a tender interest 
 in Tom, not because he had saved her, but she him. And so it 
 was, that a strange new emotion passed through her heart also, 
 though so little understood by her, that she put it forthwith 
 into words. 
 
 ' You might repay me,' she said, in a sad and tender tone. 
 
 ' You have only to command me,' said Tom, wincing a little 
 as the words passed his lips.
 
 78 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Then turn to God, now in the day of His mercies. Unless 
 you have turned to Him already ? ' 
 
 One glance at Tom's rising eyebrows told her what he thought 
 upon those matters. 
 
 She looked at him sadly, lingeringly, as if conscious that she 
 ought not to look too long, and yet unable to withdraw her 
 eyes. ' Ah ! and such a precious soul as yours must be ; a 
 precious soul all taken, and you alone left ! God must have 
 high things in store for you. He must have a great work for 
 you to do. Else, why are you not as one of these ? Oh, think ! 
 where would you have been at this moment if God had dealt 
 with you as with them 1 ' 
 
 ' Where I am now, I suppose,' said Tom quietly. 
 
 ' Where you are now 1 ' 
 
 'Yes ; where I ought to be. I am where I ought to be now. 
 I suppose if I had found myself any where else this morning, I 
 should have taken it as a sign that I was wanted there, and not 
 here.' 
 
 Grace heaved a sigh at words which were certainly startling. 
 The Stoic optimism of the world-hardened doctor was new and 
 frightful to her. 
 
 'My good madam,' said he, 'the part of Scripture which I 
 appreciate best, just now, is the case of poor Job, where Satan 
 has leave to rob and torment him to the utmost of his wicked 
 will, provided only he does not touch his life. I wish,' he went 
 on, lowering his voice, ' to tell you something which I do not 
 wish publicly talked of ; but in which you may help me. I 
 had nearly fifteen hundred pounds about me when I came 
 ashore last night, sewed in a belt round my waist. It is gone. 
 That is all.' 
 
 Tom looked steadily at her as he spoke. She turned pale, 
 red, pale again, her lips quivered : but she spoke no word. 
 
 ' She has it, as I live ! ' thought Tom to himself. ' " Frailty, 
 thy name is woman ! " The canting little methodistical hum- 
 bug ! She must have slipped it off' my waist as I lay senseless. 
 I suppose she means to keep it in pawn, till I redeem it by 
 marrying her. Well, I might take an uglier mate, certainly ; 
 but when I do enter into the bitter bonds of matrimony, I 
 should like to be sure, beforehand, that my wife was not a 
 thief ! ' 
 
 Why, then, did not Tom, if he were so very sure of Grace's 
 having the belt, charge her with the theft ? Because he had 
 found out already how popular she was, and was afraid of 
 merely making himself unpopular ; because, too, he took for 
 granted that whosoever had his belt, had hidden it already 
 beyond the reach of a search warrant ; and because, after all, 
 an honourable shame restrained him. It would be a poor return 
 to the woman who had saved his life to charge her with theft 
 the next morning ; and more, there was something about that
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 79 
 
 ghi's face which had made him feel that, if he had seen her put 
 the belt into her pocket before his eyes, he could not have found 
 the heart to have sent her to gaol. ' No ! ' thought he ; ' I'll get 
 it out of her, or whoever has it, and stay here till I do get it. 
 One place is as good as another to me.' 
 
 But what was Grace saying 1 
 
 She had turned, after two or three minutes' astonished silence, 
 to her mother and Captain Willis 
 
 'Belt! Mother! Uncle! What is this? The gentleman 
 has lost a belt ! ' 
 
 ' Dear me ! a belt ? Well, child, that's not much to grieve 
 over, when the Lord has spared his life and soul from the pit ! ' 
 said her mother, somewhat testily. 
 
 ' You don't understand. A belt, I say, full of money fifteen 
 hundred pounds ; he lost it last night. Uncle ? Speak, quick ! 
 Did you see a belt ? ' 
 
 Willis shook his head meditatively. ' I don't, and yet I do ; 
 and yet I don't again. My brains were well-nigh washed out of 
 me, I know. However, sir, I'll think, and talk it over with you 
 too ; for if it be in the village, found it ought to be, and will be, 
 with God's help.' 
 
 ' Found 1 ' cried Grace, in so high a key, that Tom entreated 
 her to calm herself, and not make the matter public. ' Found ? 
 yes ; and shall be found, if there be justice in heaven. Shame, 
 that West -country folk should turn robbers and wreckers ! 
 Mariners, too, and mariners' wives, who should be praying for 
 those who are wandering far away, each man with his life in 
 his hand ! Ah, what a world ! When will it end ? soon, too 
 soon, when West-country folk rob shipwrecked men ! But you 
 will find your belt ; yes, sir, you will find it. Wait till you 
 have learnt to do without it. Man does not live by bread alone. 
 Do you think he lives by gold 1 Only be patient and when 
 you are worthy of it, you shall find it again, in the Lord's good 
 time.' 
 
 To the doctor this seemed a mere burst of jargon, invented 
 for the purpose of hiding guilt ; and his faitli in womankind 
 was not heightened when he heard Grace's mother say, sotto voce 
 to Willis, that 'In wrecks, and fires, and such like, a many 
 people complained of having lost more than ever they had.' 
 
 ' Oh ho ! my old lady, is that the way the fox is gone 1 ' 
 quoth Tom to that trusty counsellor, himself ; and began care- 
 fully scrutinising Mrs. Harvey's face. It had been very hand- 
 some : it was still very clever : but the eyebrows, crushed 
 together downwards above her nose, and rising high at the 
 outer corners, indicated, as surely as the restless down-dropt 
 eye, a character self-conscious, furtive, capable of great incon- 
 sistencies, possibly of great deceits. 
 
 ' You don't look me in the face, old lady ! ' quotli Tom to 
 himself. ' Very well ! between you two it lies ; unless that
 
 80 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 old gentleman implicates himself also, in his approaching con- 
 fession.' 
 
 He took his part at once. ' Well, well, you will oblige me by 
 saying nothing more about it. After all, as this good lady says, 
 the loss of a little money is not worth complaining over, when 
 one has escaped with life. Good morning ; and many thanks 
 for all your kindness ! ' 
 
 And Tom made another grand bow, and went off to the lieu- 
 tenant. 
 
 Grace looked after him awhile, as one stunned ; and then 
 turned to her mother. 
 
 ' Let us go home.' 
 
 ' Go home ? Why there, dear 1 ' 
 
 ' Let me go home ; you need not come. I am sick of this 
 world. Is it not enough to have misery and death ' (and she 
 pointed to the row of corpses), 'but we must have sin, too, 
 wherever we turn ! Meanness and theft : and ingratitude too ! ' 
 she added, in a lower tone. 
 
 She went homeward ; her mother, in spite of her entreaties, 
 accompanied her ; and, for some reason or other, did not lose 
 sight of her all that day, or for several days after. 
 
 Meanwhile, Willis had beckoned the doctor aside. His face 
 was serious and sad, and his lips were trembling. 
 
 ' This is a very shocking business, sir. Of course, you've told 
 the lieutenant.' 
 
 ' Not yet, my good sir.' 
 
 ' But excuse my boldness ; what plainer way of getting it 
 back from the rascal, whoever he is ?' 
 
 ' Wait awhile,' said Tom ; ' I have my reasons.' 
 
 ' But, sir, for the honour of the place, the matter should be 
 cleared up ; and till the thief's found, suspicion will lie on a 
 dozen innocent men ; myself among the rest, for that matter.' 
 
 'You?' said Tom, smiling. 'I don't know who I have the 
 honour to speak to ; but you don't look much like a gentleman 
 who wishes for a trip to Botany Bay.' 
 
 The old man chuckled, and then his face dropped again. 
 
 ' I'm glad you take the thing so like a man, sir ; but it is 
 really no laughing matter. It's a scoundrelly job, only fit for a 
 Maltee off the Nix Mangeery. If it had been a lot of those 
 carter fellows that had carried you up, I could have understood 
 it ; wrecking's born in the bone of them : but for those four 
 sailors that carried you up, 'gad, sir, they'd have been shot 
 sooner. I've known 'em from boys ! ' and the old man spoke 
 quite fiercely, and looked up ; his lip trembling, and his eye 
 moist. 
 
 'There's no doubt that you are honest whoever is not,' 
 thought Tom ; so he ventured a further question. 
 
 ' Then you were by all the while ? ' 
 
 ' All the while ? Who more ? And that's j ust what puzzles me. '
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 81 
 
 ' Pray don't speak loud,' said Tom. ' I have my reasons for 
 keeping things quiet.' 
 
 'I tell you, sir. I held the maid, and big John Beer (Gentle- 
 man Jan they call him) held me ; and the maid had both her 
 hands tight in your belt. I saw it as plain as I see you, just 
 before the wave covered us, though little I thought what was in 
 it ; and should never have remembered you had a belt at all, if 
 I hadn't thought over things in the last five minutes.' 
 
 ' Well, sir, I am lucky in having come straight to the foun- 
 tain head ; and must thank you for telling me so frankly what 
 you know.' 
 
 ' Tell you, sir ? What else should one do but tell you ? I 
 only wish I knew more ; and more I'll know, please the Lord. 
 And you'll excuse an old sailor (though not of your rank, sir) 
 saying that he wonders a little that you don't take the plain 
 means of knowing more yourself.' 
 
 ' May I take the liberty of asking your name 1 ' said Tom ; 
 who saw by this time that the old man was worthy of his con- 
 fidence. 
 
 ' Willis, at your service, sir. Captain they call me, though 
 I'm none. Sailing-master I was, on board of His Majesty's ship 
 Niobe, 84 ; ' and Willis raised his hat with such an air, that Tom 
 raised his in return. 
 
 'Then, Captain Willis, let me have five words with you 
 apart ; first thanking you for having helped to save my life.' 
 
 ' I'm very glad I did, sir ; and thanked God for it on my 
 knees this morning : but you'll excuse me, sir, I was thinking 
 and no blame to me more of saving my poor maid's life than 
 yours, and no offence to you, for I hadn't the honour of know- 
 ing you ; but for her, I'd have been drowned a dozen times 
 over.' 
 
 ' No offence, indeed,' said Tom ; and hardly knew what to 
 say next. ' May I ask, is she your niece ? I heard her call you 
 uncle.' 
 
 ' Oh, no no relation only I look on her as my own, poor 
 thing, having no father ; and she always calls me uncle, as most 
 do us old men in the West.' 
 
 ' Well, then, sir,' said Tom, ' you will answer for none of the 
 four sailors having robbed me ? 
 
 ' I've said it, sir.' 
 
 ' W"as any one else close to her when we were brought ashore?' 
 
 ' No one but I. I brought her round myself.' 
 
 ' And who took her home ? ' 
 
 ' Her mother and I.' 
 
 ' Very good. And you never saw the belt after she had her 
 hands in it 1 ' 
 
 ' No ; I'm sure not.' 
 
 'Was her mother by her when she was lying on the rock 1 ' 
 
 ' No ; came up afterwards, just as I got her on her feet.' 
 
 'G T. Y. A.
 
 82 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Humph ! What sort of a character is her mother 1 ' 
 
 ' Oh, a tidy, God - fearing person enough. One of these 
 Methodist class-leaders, Brianites they call themselves. I don't 
 hold with them, though I do go to chapel at whiles ; but there 
 are good ones among them ; and I do believe she's one, though 
 she's a little fretful at times. Keeps a little shop that don't 
 pay over well ; and those preachers live on her a good deal, I 
 think. Creeping into widows' houses, and making long prayers 
 you know the text.' 
 
 'Well, now, Captain Willis, I don't want to hurt your feel- 
 ings ; but do you not see that one of two things I must believe 
 either that the belt was torn off my waist, and washed 
 back into the sea, as it may have been after all ; or else, 
 that ' 
 
 ' Do you mean that she took it ? ' asked Willis, in a voice of 
 such indignant astonishment that Tom could only answer by a 
 shrug of the shoulders. 
 
 ' Who else could have done so, on your own showing ? ' 
 
 ' Sir ! ' said Willis slowly. ' I thought I had to do with a 
 gentleman : but I have my doubts of it now. A poor girl risks 
 her life to drag you out of that sea, which but for her would have 
 hove your body up to lie along with that line there,' and 
 Willis pointed to the ghastly row ' and your soul gone to give 
 in its last account you only know what that would have been 
 like and the first thing you do in payment is to accuse her of 
 robbing you her, that the very angels in heaven, I believe, are 
 glad to keep company with ; ' and the old man turned and paced 
 the beach in fierce excitement. 
 
 'Captain Willis,' said Tom, 'I'll trouble you to listen 
 patiently and civilly to me a minute.' 
 
 Willis stopped, drew himself up, and touched his hat me- 
 chanically. 
 
 ' Just because I am a gentleman, I have not accused her ; but 
 held my tongue, and spoken to you in confidence. Now, 
 perhaps, you will understand why I have said nothing to the 
 lieutenant.' 
 
 Willis looked up at him. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, sir. I see now, and I'm sorry if I was 
 rude ; but it took me aback, and does still. I tell you, sir,' 
 quoth he, warming again, 'whatever's true, that's false. 
 You're wrong there, if you never are wrong again ; and you'll 
 say so yourself, before you've known her a week. No, sir ! If 
 you could make me believe that, I should never believe in good- 
 ness again on earth ; but hold all men, and women too, and 
 those above, for aught I know, that are greater than men and 
 women, for liars together." 
 
 What was to be answered ? Perhaps only what Tom did 
 answer. 
 
 ' My good sir, I will say no more. I would not have said
 
 iv FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND 83 
 
 that much if I had thought I should have pained you so. I 
 suppose that the belt was washed into the sea. Why 
 not?' 
 
 'Why not, indeed, sir? That's a much more Christian -like 
 way of looking at it than to blacken your own soul before God 
 by suspecting that sweet innocent creature.' 
 
 ' Be it so, then. Only say nothing about the matter ; and 
 beg them to say nothing. If it be jammed among the rocks (as 
 it might be, heavy as it is), talking about it will only set people 
 looking for it ; and I suppose there is a man or two, even in 
 Aberalva, who would find fifteen hundred pounds a tempting 
 bait. If, again, some one finds it, and makes away with it, he 
 will only be the more careful to hide it if he knows that I am on 
 the look-out. So just tell Miss Harvey and her mother that I 
 think it must have been lost, and beg them to keep my secret. 
 And now shake hands with me.' 
 
 ' The best plan, I believe, though bad, is the best,' said 
 Willis, holding out his hand ; and he walked away sadly. His 
 spirit had been altogether ruffled by the imputation on Grace's 
 character ; and, besides, the chances of Thurnall's recovering his 
 money seemed to him very small. 
 
 In five minutes he returned. 
 
 ' If you would allow me, sir, there's a man there of whom I 
 should like to ask one question. He who held me, and, after 
 that, helped to carry you up ; ' and he pointed to Gentleman 
 Jan, who stood, dripping from the waist downward, over a chest 
 which he had just secured. ' Just let us ask him, off-hand like, 
 whether you had a belt on when he carried you up. You may 
 trust him, sir. He'd knock you down as soon as look at you ; 
 but tell a lie, never.' 
 
 They went to the giant, and after cordial salutations, Tom 
 propounded his question carelessly, with something like a white 
 
 ' It's no great matter ; but it was an old friend, you see, with 
 fittings for my knife and pistols, and I should be glad to find it 
 again.' 
 
 Jan thrust his red hand through his black curls, and medi- 
 tated while the water surged round his ankles. 
 
 ' Never a belt seed I, sir ; leastwise while you were in my 
 hands. I had you round the waist all the way up, so no one 
 could have took it off. Why should they? And I undressed 
 you myself ; and nothing, save your presence, was there to get 
 off, but jersey and trousers, and a lump of backy against your 
 skin that looked the right sort.' 
 
 'Have some, then,' said Tom, pulling out the honeydew. 
 ' As for the belt, I suppose it's gone to choke the dog-fish.' 
 
 And there the matter ended, outwardly at least ; but only 
 outwardly. Tom had his own opinion, gathered from Grace's 
 seemingly guilty face, and to it he held, and called old Willis,
 
 84 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 in his heart, a simple-minded old dotard, who had been taken in 
 by her hypocrisy. 
 
 And Tom accompanied the lieutenant on his dreary errand 
 that day, and several days after, through depositions before a 
 justice, interviews with Lloyd's underwriters, and all the sad 
 details which follow a wreck. Ere the week's end, forty bodies 
 and more had been recovered, and brought up, ten or twelve at 
 a time, to the churchyard, and upon the down, and laid side by 
 side in one long shallow pit, where Frank Headley read over 
 them the blessed words of hope, amid the sobs of women, and 
 the grand silence of stalwart men, who knew not how soon their 
 turn might come ; and after each procession came Grace 
 Harvey, with all her little scholars two and two, to listen to the 
 funeral service ; and when the last corpse was buried, they 
 planted flowers upon the mound, and went their way again to 
 learn, hymns and read their Bible little ministering angels to 
 whom, as to most sailors' children, death was too common a 
 sight to have in it aught of hideous or strange. 
 
 And this was the end of the good ship Hesperus, and all her 
 gallant crew. 
 
 Verily, however important the mere animal lives of men may 
 be, and ought to be, at times, in our eyes, they never have been 
 so, to judge from floods and earthquakes, pestilence and storm, 
 in the eyes of Him who made and loves us all. It is a strange 
 fact : better for us, instead of shutting our eyes to it because it 
 interferes with our modern tenderness of pain, to ask honestly 
 what it means. 
 
 CHAPTEE V 
 
 THE WAY TO WIN THEM 
 
 So, for a week or more, Tom went on thrivingly enough, and 
 became a general favourite in the town. Heale had no reason 
 to complain of boarding him, for he had dinner and supper 
 thrust on him every day by one and another, who were glad 
 enough to have him for the sake of his stories, and songs, and 
 endless fun and good-humour. The lieutenant, above all, took 
 the newcomer under his special patronage, and was paid for 
 his services in some of Tom's incomparable honeydew. The 
 old fellow soon found that the doctor knew more than one old 
 foreign station of his, and ended by pouring out to him his 
 ancient wrongs, and the evil doings of the wicked admiral ; all 
 of which Tom heard with deepest sympathy, and surprise that 
 so much naval talent had remained unappreciated by the unjust 
 upper powers ; and the lieutenant, of course, reported of him 
 accordingly to Heale. 
 
 'A very civil spoken and intelligent youngster, Mr. Heale, 
 d'ye see, to my mind ; and you can't do better than accept his
 
 v THE WAY TO WIN THEM 85 
 
 offer; for you'll find him a great help, especially among the 
 ladies, d'ye see. They like a good-looking chap, eh, Mrs. 
 Jones ? ' 
 
 On the fourth day, by good fortune, what should come ashore 
 but Tom's own chest moneyless, alas ! but with many useful 
 matters still unspoilt by salt water. So all went well, and 
 indeed somewhat too well (if Tom would have let it), in the case 
 of Miss Anna Maria Heale, the doctor's daughter. 
 
 She was just such a girl as her father's daughter was likely 
 to be ; a short, stout, rosy, pretty body of twenty, with loose 
 red lips, thwart black eyebrows, and right naughty eyes under 
 them, of which Tom took good heed : for Miss Heale was 
 exceedingly inclined, he saw, to make use of them in his behoof. 
 Let others who have experience in, and taste for such matters, 
 declare how she set her cap at the dapper young surgeon ; how 
 she rushed into the shop with sweet abandon ten times a day, to 
 find her father ; and, not finding him, giggled, and blushed, and 
 shook her shoulders, and retired, to peep at Tom through the 
 glass door which led into the parlour ; how she discovered that 
 the muslin curtain of the said door would get out of order every 
 ten minutes ; and at last called Mr. Thurnall to assist her in 
 rearranging it ; how, bolder grown, she came into the shop to 
 help herself to various matters, inquiring tenderly for Tom's 
 health, and giggling vulgar sentiments about 'absent friends, 
 and hearts left behind ; ' in the hope of fishing out whether Tom 
 had a sweetheart or not. How, at last, she was minded to con- 
 fide her own health to Tom, and to instal him as her private 
 physician ; yea, and would have made him feel her pulse on the 
 spot, had he not luckily found some assafcetida, and therewith 
 so perfumed the shop, that her 'nerves' (of which she was 
 always talking, though she had nerves only in the sense wherein 
 a sirloin of beef has them) forced her to beat a retreat. 
 
 But she returned again to the charge next day, and rushed 
 bravely through that fearful smell, cleaver in hand, as the 
 carrier set down at the door a huge box, carriage paid, all the 
 way from London, and directed to Thomas Thurnall, Esquire. 
 She would help to open it ; and so she did, while old Heale and 
 his wife stood by curious, he with a maudlin wonder and awe 
 (for he regarded Tom already as an altogether awful and incom- 
 prehensible ' party '), and Mrs. Heale with a look of incredulous 
 scorn, as if she expected the box to be a mere sham, filled prob- 
 ably with shavings. For (from reasons best known to herself) 
 she had never looked pleasantly on the arrangement which 
 entrusted to Tom the care of the bottles. She had given way 
 from motives of worldly prudence, even of necessity ; for Heale 
 had been for the greater part of the week quite incapable of 
 attending to his business ; but black envy and spite were 
 seething in her foolish heart, and seethed more and more fiercely 
 when she saw that the box did not contain shavings, but valu-
 
 86 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ables of every sort and kind drugs, instruments, a large micro- 
 scope (which Tom delivered out of Miss Heale's fat clumsy 
 fingers only by strong warnings that it would go off and shoot 
 her), books full of prints of unspeakable monsters ; and finally, 
 a little packet, containing not one five-pound note, but four, 
 and a letter which Tom, after perusing, put into Mr. Heale's 
 hands with a look of honest pride. 
 
 The Mumpsimus men, it appeared, had ' sent round the hat ' 
 for him, and here were the results ; and they would send the 
 hat round again every month, if he wanted it ; or, if he would 
 come up, board, lodge, and wash him gratis. The great Doctor 
 Bellairs, House Physician, and Carver, the famous operator 
 (names at which Heale bowed his head and worshipped), sent 
 compliments, condolences, offers of employment never was so 
 triumphant a testimonial ; and Heale, in his simplicity, thought 
 himself (as indeed he was) the luckiest of country doctors ; 
 while Mrs. Heale, after swelling and choking for five minutes, 
 tottered into the back room, and cast herself on the sofa in 
 violent hysterics. 
 
 As she came round again, Tom could not but overhear a little 
 that passed. And this he overheard among other matters : 
 
 'Yes, Mr. Heale, I see, I see too well, which your natural 
 blindness, sir, and that fatal easiness of temper, will bring you 
 to a premature grave within the paupers' precincts ; and this 
 young designing infidel, with his science and his magnifiers, and 
 his callipers, and philosophy falsely so called, which in our true 
 Protestant youth there was none, nor needed none, to supplant 
 you in your old age, and take the bread out of your gray hairs, 
 which he will bring with sorrow to the grave, and mine like- 
 wise, which am like my poor infant here, of only too sensitive 
 sensibilities ! Oh, Anna Maria, my child, my poor lost child ! 
 which I can feel for the tenderness of the inexperienced heart ! 
 My Virgin Eve, which the Serpent has entered into your youth- 
 ful paradise, and you will find, alas ! too late, that you have 
 warmed an adder into your bosom ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, ma, how indelicate ! ' giggled Anna Maria, evidently not 
 displeased. 'If you don't mind he will hear you, and I should 
 never be able to look him in the face again.' And therewith 
 she looked round to the glass door. 
 
 What more passed, Tom did not choose to hear ; for he began 
 making all the bustle he could in the shop, merely saying to 
 himself 
 
 ' That flood of eloquence is symptomatic enough : I'll lay my 
 life the old dame knows her way to the laudanum bottle.' 
 
 Tom's next business was to ingratiate himself with the young 
 curate. He had found out already, cunning fellow, that any 
 extreme intimacy with Headley would not increase his general 
 popularity ; and, as we have seen already, he bore no great 
 affection to ' the cloth ' in general ; but the curate was an
 
 v THE WAY TO WIN THEM 87 
 
 educated gentleman, and Tom wished for some more rational 
 conversation than that of the lieutenant and Heale. Besides, 
 he was one of those men with whom the possession of power, 
 sought at first from self-interest, has become a passion, a species 
 of sporting, which he follows for its own sake. To whomsoever 
 he met he must needs apply the moral stethoscope ; sound him, 
 lungs, heart, and liver ; put 'his tissues under the microscope, 
 and try conclusions on him to the uttermost. They might be 
 useful hereafter ; for knowledge was power : or they might not. 
 What matter? Every fresh specimen of humanity which he 
 examined was so much gained in general knowledge. Very 
 true, Thomas Thurnall ; provided the method of examination be 
 the sound and the deep one, which will lead you down in each 
 case to the real living heart of humanity ; but what if your 
 method be altogether a shallow and a cynical one, savouring 
 much more of Gil Bias than of St. Paul, grounded not on faith 
 and love for human beings, but on something very like suspicion 
 and contempt ? You will be but too likely, doctor, to make the 
 coarsest mistakes, when you fancy yourself most penetrating ; 
 to mistake the mere scurf and disease of the character for its 
 healthy organic tissue, and to find out at last, somewhat to your 
 confusion, that there are more things, not only in heaven, but 
 in the earthiest of the earth, than are dreamt of in your philo- 
 sophy. You have already set down Grace Harvey as a hypo- 
 crite, and Willis as a dotard. Will you make up your mind, in 
 the same foolishness of over- wisdom, that Frank Headley is a 
 merely narrow-headed and hard-hearted pedant, quite unaware 
 that he is living an inner life of doubts, struggles, prayers, self- 
 reproaches, noble hunger after an ideal of moral excellence, such 
 as you, friend Tom, never yet dreamed of, which would be to 
 you as an unintelligible gibber of shadows out of dreamland, 
 but which is to him the only reality, the life of life, for which 
 everything is to be risked and suffered ? You treat his opinions 
 (though he never thrusts them on you) about ' the Church,' and 
 his duty, and the souls of his parishioners, with civil indiffer- 
 ence, as much ado about nothing ; and his rubrical eccentricities 
 as puerilities. You have already made up your mind to ' try 
 and put a little common sense into him,' not because it is any 
 concern of yours whether he has common sense or not, but 
 because you think that it will be better for you to have the 
 parish at peace ; but has it ever occurred to you how noble the 
 man is, even in his mistakes 1 How that one thought, that the 
 finest thing in the world is to be utterly good, and to make 
 others good also, puts him three heavens at least above you, you 
 most unangelic terrier-dog, bemired all day long by grubbing after 
 vermin! What if his idea of 'the Church' be somewhat too 
 narrow for the year of grace 1854, is it no honour to him that 
 he has such an idea at all ; that there has risen up before him 
 the vision of a perfect polity, a ' Divine and wonderful Order,'
 
 88 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 linking earth to heaven, and to the very throne of Him who 
 died for men ; witnessing to each of its citizens what the world 
 tries to make him forget, namely, that he is the child of God 
 himself ; and guiding and strengthening him, from the cradle to 
 the grave, to do his Father's work ? Is it a shame to him that 
 he has seen that such a polity must exist, that he believes that 
 it does exist ; or that he thinks he finds it in its highest, if not 
 its perfect form, in the most ancient and august traditions of 
 his native land ? True, he has much to learn, and you may 
 teach him something of it ; but you will find some day, Thomas 
 Thurnall, that, granting you to be at one pole of the English 
 character, and Frank Headley at the other, he is as good an 
 Englishman as you, and can teach you more than you can him. 
 
 The two soon began to pass almost every evening together, 
 pleasantly enough ; for the reckless and rattling manner which 
 Tom assumed with the mob, he laid aside with the curate, and 
 showed himself as agreeable a companion as man could need : 
 while Tom in his turn found that Headley was a rational and 
 sweet-tempered man, who, even where he had made up his mind 
 to differ, could hear an adverse opinion, put sometimes in a 
 startling shape, without falling into any of those male hysterics 
 of sacred horror, which are the usual refuge of ignorance and 
 stupidity, terrified by what it cannot refute. And soon Tom 
 began to lay aside the reserve which he usually assumed to 
 clergymen, and to tread on ground which Headley would gladly 
 have avoided. For, to tell the truth, ever since Tom had heard 
 of Grace's intended dismissal, the curate's opinions had assumed 
 a practical importance in his eyes ; and he had vowed in secret 
 that, if his cunning failed him not, turned out of her school 
 she should not be. Whether she had stolen his money or not, 
 she had saved his life ; and nobody should wrong her, if he 
 could help it. Besides, perhaps she had not his money. The 
 belt might have slipped off in the struggle ; some one else might 
 have taken it off in carrying him up ; he might have mistaken 
 the shame of innocence in her face for that of guilt. Be it as it 
 might, lie had not the heart to make the matter public, and 
 contented himself with staying at Aberalva, and watching for 
 every hint of his lost treasure. 
 
 By which it befell that he was thinking, the half of every clay 
 at least, about Grace Harvey ; and her face was seldom out of 
 his mind's eye : and the more he looked at it, either in fancy 
 or in fact, the more did it fascinate him. They met but rarely, 
 and then interchanged the most simple and modest of saluta- 
 tions : but Tom liked to meet her, would have gladly stopped 
 to chat with her ; however, whether from modesty or from a 
 guilty conscience, she always hurried on in silence. 
 
 And she ? Tom's request to her, through Willis, to say 
 nothing about the matter, she had obeyed, as her mother also 
 had done. That Tom suspected her was a thought which never
 
 v THE WAY TO WIN THEM ' 89 
 
 crossed her mind ; to suspect any one herself was in her eyes a 
 sin ; and if the fancy that this man or that, among the sailors 
 who had carried Tom up to Heale's, might have been capable of 
 the baseness, she thrust the thought from her, and prayed to be 
 forgiven for her uncharitable judgment. 
 
 But night and day there weighed on that strange and delicate 
 spirit the shame of the deed, as heavily, if possible, as if she 
 herself had been the doer. There was another soul in danger of 
 
 Eerdition ; another black spot of sin, making earth hideous to 
 er. The village was disgraced ; not in the public eyes, true : 
 but in the eye of heaven, and in the eyes of that stranger for 
 whom she was beginning to feel an interest more intense than 
 she ever had done in any human being before. Her saintliness 
 (for Grace was a saint in the truest sense of that word) had long 
 since made her free of that ' communion of saints ' which con- 
 sists not in Pharisaic isolation from ' the world,' not in the 
 mutual flatteries and congratulations of a self-conceited clique ; 
 but which bears the sins and carries the sorrows of all around : 
 whose atmosphere is disappointed hopes and plans for good, and 
 ,the indignation which hates the sin because it loves the sinner, 
 and sacred fear and pity for the self-inflicted miseries of those 
 who might be (so runs the dream, and will run till it becomes a 
 waking reality) strong, and free, and safe, by being good and 
 wise. To such a spirit this bold cunning man had come, stiff- 
 necked and heaven -defiant, a 'brand plucked from the burn- 
 ing : ' and yet equally unconscious of his danger, and thankless 
 for his respite. Given, too, as it were, into her hands ; tossed 
 at her feet out of the very mouth of the pit why but that she 
 might save him ? A far duller heart, a far narrower imagination 
 than Grace's would have done what Grace's did concentrate 
 themselves round the image of that man witli all the love of 
 woman. For, ere long, Grace found that she did love that man, 
 as a woman loves but once in her life ; perhaps in all time to 
 come. She found that her heart throbbed, her cheek flushed, 
 when his name was mentioned ; that she watched, almost un- 
 awares to herself, for his passing ; and she was not ashamed at 
 the discovery. It was a sort of melancholy comfort to her that 
 there was a great gulf fixed between them. His station, his 
 acquirements, his great connections and friends in London (for 
 all Tom's matters were the gossip of the town, as, indeed, he 
 took care that they should be), made it impossible that he 
 should ever think of her ; and therefore she held herself excused 
 for thinking of him, without any fear of that ' self-seeking,' and 
 'inordinate affection,' and 'unsanctified passions,' which her 
 religious books had taught her to dread. Besides, lie was not 
 'a Christian.' That five minutes on the shore had told her 
 that ; and even if her station had been the same as his, she 
 must not bo ' unequally yoked with an unbeliever.' And thus 
 the very hopelessness of her love became its food and strength ;
 
 90 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 the feeling which she would have checked with maidenly 
 modesty, had it been connected even remotely with marriage, 
 was allowed to take immediate and entire dominion ; and she 
 held herself permitted to keep him next her heart of hearts, 
 because she could do nothing for him but pray for his conversion. 
 
 And pray for him she did, the noble, guileless girl, day and 
 night, that he might be converted that he might prosper, and 
 become perhaps rich? at least useful ; a mighty instrument in 
 some good work. And then she would build up one beautiful 
 castle in the air after another, out of her fancies about what 
 such a man, whom she had invested in her own mind with all 
 the wisdom of Solomon, might do if his ' talents were sanctified.' 
 Then she prayed that he might recover his lost gold when it 
 was good for him : that he might discover the thief : no that 
 would only involve fresh shame and sorrow ; that the thief, 
 then, might be brought to repentance, and confession, and 
 restitution. That was the solution of the dark problem, and 
 for that she prayed ; while her face grew sadder and sadder day 
 by day. 
 
 For a while, over and above the pain which the theft caused 
 her, there came how could it be otherwise 1 sudden pangs of 
 regret that this same love was hopeless, at least upon this side 
 of the grave. Inconsistent they were with the chivalrous un- 
 selfishness of her usual temper ; and as such she dashed them 
 from her, and conquered them, after a while, by a method which 
 many a woman knows too well. It was but ' one cross more ; ' 
 a natural part of her destiny the child of sorrow and heaviness 
 of heart. Pleasure in joy she was never to find on earth ; she 
 would find it, then, in grief. And nursing her own melancholy, 
 she went on her way, sad, sweet, and steadfast, and lavished 
 more care and tenderness, and even gaiety, than ever upon her 
 neighbours' children, because she knew that she should never 
 have a child of her own. 
 
 But there is a third damsel, to whom, whether more or less 
 engaging than Grace Harvey or Miss Heale, my readers must 
 needs be introduced. Let Miss Heale herself do it, with eyes 
 full of jealous curiosity. 
 
 ' There is a foreign letter for Mr. Thurnall, marked Montreal, 
 and sent on here from Whitbury,' said she, one morning at 
 breakfast, and in a significant tone ; for the address was 
 evidently in a woman's hand. 
 
 'For me ah, yes ; I see,' said Tom, taking it carelessly, and 
 thrusting it into his pocket.' 
 
 'Won't you read it at once, Mr. Thurnall? I'm sure you 
 must be anxious to hear from friends abroad ;' with an emphasis 
 on the word friends. 
 
 ' I have a good many acquaintances all over the world, but 
 no friends that I am aware of,' said Tom, and went on with his 
 breakfast.
 
 v THE WAY TO WIN THEM 91 
 
 'Ah but some people are more than friends. Are the 
 Montreal ladies pretty, Mr. Thurnall ? ' 
 
 ' Don't know ; for I never was there.' 
 
 Miss Heale was silent, being mystified : and, moreover, not 
 quite sure whether Montreal was in India or in Australia, and 
 not willing to show her ignorance. 
 
 She watched Tom through the glass door all the morning to 
 see if he read the letter, and betrayed any emotion of its con- 
 tents : but Tom went about his business as usual, and, as far as 
 she saw, never read it at all. 
 
 However, it was read in due time ; for, finding himself in a 
 lonely place that afternoon, Tom pulled it out with an anxious 
 face, and read a letter written in a hasty ill-formed hand, under- 
 scored at every fifth word, and plentifully bedecked with notes 
 of exclamation. 
 
 'What? my dearest friend, and fortune still frowns upon 
 you ? Your father blind and ruined ! Ah, that I was there to 
 comfort him for your sake ! And ah, that I were anywhere, 
 doing any drudgery, which might prevent my being still a 
 burden to my benefactors. Not that they are unkind ; not that 
 they are not angels ! I told them at once that you could send 
 me no more money till you reached England, perhaps not then 
 and they answered that God would send it : that He who had 
 sent me to them would send the means of supporting me ; and 
 ever since they have redoubled their kindness : but it is intoler- 
 able, this dependence, and on you, too, who have a father to 
 support in his darkness. Oh, how I feel for you ! But to tell 
 you the truth, I pay a price for this dependence. I must needs 
 be staid and sober ; I must needs dress like any Quakeress ; I 
 must not read this book or that ; and my Shelley taken from 
 me, I suppose, because it spoke too much " Liberty," though, of 
 course, the reason given was its infidel opinions is replaced by 
 Law's Serious Call. 'Tis all right and good, I doubt not : but 
 it is very dreary ; as dreary as these black fir-forests, and brown 
 snake fences, and that dreadful, dreadful Canadian winter which 
 is past, which went to my very heart, day after day, like a sword 
 of ice. Another such winter, and I shall die, as one of my own 
 humming-birds would die, did you cage him here, and prevent 
 him from fleeing home to the sunny South when the first leaves 
 begin to fall. Dear children of the sun ! my heart goes forth to 
 them ; and the whir of their wings is music to me, for it tells 
 me of the South, the glaring South, with its glorious flowers, 
 and glorious woods, its luxuriance, life, fierce enjoyments let 
 fierce sorrows come with them, if it must be so ! Let me take 
 the evil with the good, and live my rich wild life through bliss 
 and agony, like a true daughter of the sun, instead of crys- 
 tallising slowly here into ice, amid countenances rigid with 
 respectability, sharpened by the lust of gain ; without taste, 
 without emotion, without even sorrow ! Let who will be the
 
 92 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 stagnant mill-head, crawling in its ugly spade-cut ditch to turn 
 the mill. Let me be the wild mountain brook, which foams and 
 flashes over the rocks what if they tear it? it leaps them 
 nevertheless, and goes laughing on its way. Let me go thus, for 
 weal or woe ! And if I sleep a while, let it be like the brook, 
 beneath the shade of fragrant magnolias and luxuriant A'ines, 
 and image, meanwhile, in my bosom nothing but the beauty 
 around. 
 
 ' Yes, my friend, I can live no longer this dull chrysalid life, 
 in comparison with which, at times, even that past dark dream 
 seems tolerable for amid its lurid smoke were Hashes of bright- 
 ness. A slave 1 Well ; I ask myself at times, and what were 
 women meant for but to be slaves ? Free them, and they en- 
 slave themselves again, or languish unsatisfied ; for they must 
 love. And what blame to them if they love a white man, tyrant 
 though he be, rather than a fellow-slave? If the men of our 
 own race will claim us, let them prove themselves worthy of us ! 
 Let them rise, exterminate their tyrants, or, failing that, show 
 that they know how to die. Till then, those who are the master* 
 of their bodies will be the masters of our hearts. If they crouch 
 before the white like brutes, what wonder if we look up to him 
 as to a god ? Woman must worship, or be wretched. Do I not 
 know it ? Have I not had my dream too beautiful for earth ? 
 Was there not one whom you knew, to hear whom call me slave 
 would have been rapture ; to whom I would have answered on 
 my knees, Master, I have no will but yours ? But that is past 
 past. One happiness alone was possible for a slave, and even 
 that they tore from me ; and now I have no thought, no purpose, 
 save revenge. 
 
 ' These good people bid me forgive my enemies. Easy enough 
 for them, who have no enemies to forgive. Forgive ? Forgive 
 injustice, oppression, baseness, cruelty? Forgive the devil, and 
 bid him go in peace, and work his wicked will ? Why have they 
 put into my hands, these last three years, books worthy of a free 
 nation ? books which call patriotism divine ; which tell me how 
 in every age and clime men have been called heroes who rose 
 against their conquerors ; women martyrs who stabbed their 
 tyrants, and then died ? Hypocrites ! Did their grandfathers 
 meekly turn the other cheek when your English taxed them 
 somewhat too heavily ? Do they not now teach every school- 
 child to glory in their own revolution, their own declaration of 
 independence, and to natter themselves into the conceit that 
 they are the lords of creation, and the examples of the world, 
 because they asserted that sacred right of resistance which is 
 discovered to be unchristian in the African ? They will free us, 
 forsooth, in good time (is it to be in God's good time, or in their 
 own ?), if we will but be patient, and endure the rice-swamp, the 
 scourge, the slave-market, and shame unspeakable, a few years 
 more, till all is ready and safe, for them. Dreamers as well as
 
 v THE WAY TO WIN THEM 93 
 
 hypocrites ! What nation was ever freed by others' help ? I 
 have been reading history to see, you do not know how much 
 I have been reading, and I find that freemen have always freed 
 themselves, as we must do ; and as they will never let us do, be- 
 cause they know that with freedom must come retribution ; that 
 our Southern tyrants have an account to render, which the cold 
 Northerner has no heart to see him pay. For, after all, he loves 
 the Southerner better than the slave ; and fears him more also. 
 What if the Southern aristocrat, who lords it over him as the 
 panther does over the ox, should transfer (as he has threatened 
 many a time) the cowhide from the negro's loins to his ? No ; 
 we must free ourselves ! And there lives one woman, at least, 
 who, having gained her freedom, knows how to use it in eternal 
 war against all tyrants. Oh, I could go down, I think at 
 moments, down to'New Orleans itself, with a brain and lips of 
 fire, and speak words you know how I could speak them 
 which would bring me in a week to the scourge, perhaps to the 
 stake. The scourge I could endure. Have I not felt it already 1 ? 
 Do I not bear its scars even now, and glory in them ; for they 
 were won by speaking as a woman should speak 1 And even 
 the fire ? Have not women been martyrs already ? and could 
 not I be one ? Might not my torments madden a people into 
 manhood, and my name become a war-cry in the sacred fight 1 
 And yet, oh my friend, life is sweet ! and my little day has 
 been so dark and gloomy ! may I not have one hour's sunshine 
 ere youth and vigour are gone, and my swift- vanishing Southern 
 womanhood wrinkles itself up into despised old age ? Oh, 
 council me, help me, my friend, my preserver, my true master 
 now, so brave, so wise, so all-knowing ; under whose mask of 
 cynicism lies hid (have I not cause to know it 1) the heart of a 
 hero. MARIE.' 
 
 If Miss Heale could have watched Tom's face as he read, much 
 more could she have heai'd his words as he finished, all jealousy 
 would have passed from her mind : for as he read, the cynical 
 smile grew sharper and sharper, forming a fit prelude for the 
 ' Little fool ! ' which was his only comment. 
 
 ' I thought you would have fallen in love with some honest 
 farmer years ago : but a martyr you shan't be, even if I have to 
 send for you hither ; though how to get you bread to eat I don't 
 know. However, you have been reading your book, it seems, 
 clever enough you always were, and too clever ; so you could go 
 out as governess, or something. Why, here's a postscript dated 
 three months afterwards ! Ah, I see ; this letter was written 
 last July, in answer to my Australian one. What's the meaning 
 of this ? ' And he began reading again. 
 
 ' I wrote so far ; but I had not the heart to send it ; it was so 
 full of repinings. And since then, must I tell the truth 1 I 
 have made a step ; do not call it a desperate one ; do not blame
 
 94 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 me, for your blame I cannot bear : but I have gone on the stage. 
 There was no other means of independence open to me ; and I 
 had a dream, I have it still, that there, if anywhere, I might do 
 my work. You told me that I might become a great actress : I 
 have set my heart on becoming one ; on learning to move the 
 hearts of men, till the time comes when I can tell them, show 
 them, in living flesh and blood, upon the stage, the secrets of a 
 slave's sorrows, and that slave a woman. The time has not 
 come for that yet here : but I have had my success already, 
 more than I could have expected ; and not only in Canada, but 
 in the States. I have been at New York, acting to crowded 
 houses. Ah, when they applauded me, how I longed to speak ! 
 to pour out my whole soul to them, and call upon them, as men, 
 
 to . But that will come in time. I have found a friend, 
 
 who has promised to write dramas especially ior me. Merely re- 
 publican ones at first ; in which I can give full vent to my pas- 
 sion, and hurl forth the eternal laws of liberty, which their 
 consciences may must at last, apply for themselves. But 
 soon, he says, we shall be able to dare to approach the real sub- 
 ject, if not in America, still in Europe ; and then, I trust, the 
 coloured actress will stand forth as the championess of her race, 
 of all who are oppressed, in every capital in Europe, save, alas ! 
 Italy and the Austria who crushes her. I have taken, I should 
 tell you, an Italian name. It was better, I thought, to hide my 
 African taint, forsooth, for awhile. So the wise New Yorkers 
 have been feting, as Maria Cordifiamma, the white woman (for am 
 I not fairer than many an Italian signora ?), whom they would 
 have looked on as an inferior being under the name of Marie 
 Lavington : though there is finer old English blood running in my 
 veins, from your native Berkshire they say, than in many a 
 Down-Easter's who hangs upon my lips. Address me henceforth, 
 then, as La Signora Maria Cordifiamma. I am learning fast, 
 by the by, to speak Italian. I shall be at Quebec till the end 
 of the month. Then, I believe, I come to London ; and we shall 
 meet once more ; and I shall thank you, thank you, thank you, 
 once more, for all your marvellous kindness.' 
 
 ' Humph ! ' said Tom, after a while. ' Well, she is old enough 
 to choose for herself. Five-and-twenty she must be by now. . . . 
 As for the stage, I suppose it is the best place for her ; better, 
 at least, than turning governess, and going mad, as she would 
 do, over her drudgery and her dreams. But who is this friend ? 
 Singing-master, scribbler, or political refugee ? or perhaps all 
 three together ? A dark lot, those fellows. I must keep my 
 eye on him, though it's no concern of mine. I've done my duty 
 by the poor thing ; the devil himself can't deny that. But 
 somehow, if this play-writing worthy plays her false, I feel very 
 much as if I should be fool enough to try whether I have for- 
 gotten my pistol-shooting.'
 
 vi AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE 95 
 
 CHAPTEK VI 
 
 AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE 
 
 ' THIS child's head is dreadfully hot ; and how yellow he does 
 look ! ' says Mrs. Vavasour, fussing about in her little nursery. 
 ' Oh, Clara, what shall I do 1 I really dare not give them any 
 more medicine myself ; and that horrid old Dr. Heale is worse 
 than no one.' 
 
 ' Ah, ma'am,' says Clara, who is privileged to bemoan herself, 
 and to have sad confidences made to her, 'if we were but in 
 town now, to see Mr. Chilvers, or any one that could be trusted ; 
 but in this dreadful out-of-the-way place 
 
 ' Don't talk of that, Clara ! Oh, what will become of the 
 poor children ? ' And Mrs. Vavasour sits down and cries, as she 
 does three times at least every week. 
 
 'But indeed, ma'am, if you thought you could trust him, 
 there is that new assistant 
 
 'The man who was saved from the wreck? Why, nobody 
 knows who he is." 
 
 ' Oh, but indeed, ma'am, he is a very nice gentleman, I can 
 say that ; and so wonderfully clever ; and has cured so many 
 people already, they say, and got down a lot of new medicines 
 (for he has great friends among the doctors in town), and such 
 a wonderful magnifying glass, with which he showed me himself, 
 as I dropped into the shop promiscous, such horrible things, 
 ma'am, in a drop of water, that I haven't dared hardly to wash 
 my face since.' 
 
 ' And what good will the magnifying glass do to us ? ' says 
 the poor little Irish soul, laughing up through its tears. ' He 
 won't want it to see how ill poor Frederick is, I'm sure ; but you 
 may send for him, Clara.' 
 
 'I'll go myself, ma'am, and make sure,' says Clara; glad 
 enough of a run, and chance of a chat with the young doctor. 
 
 And in half an hour Mr. Thurnall is announced. 
 
 Though Mrs. Vavasour has a flannel apron on (for she will 
 wash the children herself, in spite of Elsley's grumblings), Tom 
 sees that she is a lady ; and puts on, accordingly, his very best 
 manner, which, as his experience has long since taught him, is 
 no manner at all. 
 
 He does his work quietly and kindly, and bows himself out. 
 
 'You will be sure to send the medicine immediately, Mr. 
 Thurnall.' 
 
 ' I will bring it myself, madam ; and, if you like, administer 
 it. I think the young gentleman has made friends with me 
 sufficiently already.' 
 
 Tom keeps his word, and is back, and away again to his
 
 96 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 shop, in a marvellously short space, having 'struck a fresh 
 root,' as he calls it ; for 
 
 ' What a very well-behaved sensible man that Mr. Thurnall 
 is,' says Lucia to Elsley, an hour after, as she meets him coming 
 in from the garden, where he has been polishing his ' Wreck.' 
 ' I am sure he understands his business ; he was so kind and 
 quiet, and yet so ready, and seemed to know all the child's 
 symptoms beforehand, in such a strange way. I do hope he'll 
 stay here. I feel happier about the poor children than I have 
 for a long time.' 
 
 ' Thurnall 1 ' asks Elsley, who is too absorbed in the ' Wreck ' 
 to ask after the children ! but the name catches his ear. 
 
 'Mr. Heale's new assistant the man who was wrecked,' 
 answers she, too absorbed, in her turn, in the children to notice 
 her husband's startled face. 
 
 ' Thurnall ? Which Thurnall 1 ' 
 
 ' Do you know the name ? It's not a common one,' says she, 
 moving to the door. 
 
 ' No not a common one at all ! You said the children were 
 not well 1 ' 
 
 'I am glad that you thought of asking after the poor 
 things.' 
 
 'Why, really, my dear But before he can finish his 
 excuse (probably not worth hearing), she has trotted upstairs 
 again to the nest, and is as busy as ever. Possibly Clara might 
 do the greater part of what she does, and do it better ; but still, 
 are they not her children ? Let those who will call a mother's 
 care mere animal instinct, and liken it to that of the sparrow 
 or the spicier ; shall we not rather call it a Divine inspiration, 
 and doubt whether the sparrow and the spider must not have 
 souls to be saved, if they, too, show forth that faculty of 
 maternal love which is, of all human feelings, most inexplicable 
 and most self-sacrificing ; and therefore, surely, most heavenly 1 
 If that does not come down straight from heaven, a 'good and 
 perfect gift,' then what is heaven, and what the gifts which it 
 sends down 1 
 
 But poor Elsley may have had solid reasons for thinking 
 more of the name of Thurnall than of his children's health ; we 
 will hope so for his sake ; for, after sundry melodramatic 
 pacings and starts (Elsley was of a melodramatic turn, and fond 
 of a scene, even when he had no spectator, not even a looking- 
 glass) ; besides ejaculations of ' It cannot be ! ' 'If it were ! ' ' I 
 trust not ! ' ' A fresh ghost to torment me ! ' ' When will come 
 the end of this accursed coil which I have wound round my 
 life 1 ' and so forth, he decided aloud that the suspense was in- 
 tolerable ; and enclosing himself in his poetical cloak and 
 Mazzini wide-awake, strode down to the town, and into the 
 shop. And as he entered it, ' his heart sank to his midriff, and 
 his knees below were loosed.' For there, making up pills, in a
 
 vi AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE 97 
 
 pair of brown-holland sleeves of his own manufacture (for Tom 
 was a good seamster, as all travellers should be), whistled Lilli- 
 burlero, as of old, the Tom of other days, which Elsley's rouse 
 would fain have buried in a thousand Lethes. 
 
 Elsley came forward to the counter carelessly, nevertheless, 
 after a moment. ' What with my beard, and the lapse of time,' 
 
 thought he, ' he cannot know me.' So he spoke 
 
 'I understand you have been visiting my children, sir. I 
 hope you did not find them seriously indisposed ? ' 
 ' Mr. Vavasour ? ' says Tom, with a low bow. 
 ' I am Mr. Vavasour ! ' But Elsley was a bad actor, and hesi- 
 tated and coloured so much as he spoke, that if Tom had known 
 nothing, he might have guessed something. 
 
 ' Nothing serious, I assure you, sir ; unless you are come to 
 announce any fresh symptom.' 
 
 ' Oh, no not at all that is I was passing on my way to 
 the quay, and thought it as well to have your own assurance ; 
 Mrs. Vavasour is so over-anxious.' 
 
 ' You seem to partake of her infirmity, sir,' says Tom, with 
 a smile and a bow. ' However, it is one which does you both 
 honour.' 
 
 An awkward pause. 
 
 ' I hope I am not taking a liberty, sir ; but I think I am 
 
 bound to ' 
 
 'What in heaven is he going to say?' thought Elsley to 
 himself, feeling very much inclined to run away. 
 
 ' Thank you for all the pleasure and instruction which your 
 writings have given me in lonely hours, and lonely places too. 
 Your first volume of poems has been read by one man, at least, 
 beside wild watch-fires in the Rocky Mountains.' 
 
 Tom did not say that he pitched the said volume into the 
 river in disgust ; and that it was, probably, long since used up 
 as house material by the caddis-baits of those parts, for doubt- 
 less there are caddises there as elsewhere. 
 
 Poor Elsley rose at the bait, and smiled and bowed in 
 silence. 
 
 'I have been so long absent from England, and in utterly 
 wild countries, too, that I need hardly be ashamed to ask if you 
 have written anything since The Soul's Agonies ? No doubt 
 if you have, I might have found it at Melbourne, on my way 
 home ; but my visit there was a very hurried one. However, 
 the loss is mine, and the fault too, as I ought to call it.' 
 
 ' Pray make no excuses,' says Elsley delighted. ' I have 
 written, of course. Who can help writing, sir, while Nature is 
 so glorious, and man so wretched f One cannot but take refuge 
 from the pettiness of the real in the contemplation of the ideal. 
 Yes, I have written. I will send you my last book down. I 
 don't know whether you will find me improved.' 
 ' How can I doubt that I shall ? '
 
 98 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Saddened, perhaps ; perhaps more severe in my taste ; but 
 we will not talk of that. I owe you a debt, sir, for having fur- 
 nished me with one of the most striking " motifs " I ever had. 
 I mean that miraculous escape of yours. It is seldom enough, 
 in this dull every-day world, one stumbles on such an incident 
 ready made to one's hands, and needing only to be described as 
 one sees it.' 
 
 And the weak, vain man chatted on, and ended by telling 
 Tom all about his poem of ' The Wreck,' in a tone which seemed 
 to imply that he had done Tom a serious favour, perhaps raised 
 him to immortality, by putting him in a book. 
 
 Tom thanked him gravely for the said honour, bowed him at 
 last out of the shop, and then vaulted back clean over the 
 counter, as soon as Elsley was out of sight, and commenced an 
 Indian war-dance of frantic character, accompanying himself by 
 an extemporary chant, with which the name of John Briggs 
 was frequently intermingled : 
 
 ' " If I don't know you, Johnny, my boy, 
 
 In spite of all your beard ; 
 Why then I am a slower fellow, 
 Than ever has yet appeared." 
 
 ' Oh if it was but he ! what a card for me ! What a world it 
 is for poor honest rascals like me to try a fall with ! 
 
 ' ' ' Why didn't I take bad verse to make, 
 
 And call it poetry ; 
 And so make up to an earl's daughter, 
 Which was of high degree ? " 
 
 But perhaps I am wrong after all ; no I saw he knew mo, the 
 humbug ; though he never was a humbug, never rose above the 
 rank of fool. However, I'll make assurance doubly sure, and 
 then if it pays me not to tell him I know him, I won't tell 
 him ; and if it pays me to tell him, I will tell him. Just as 
 you choose, my good Mr. Poet.' And Tom returned to his work 
 singing an extempore parody of ' We met, 'twas in a crowd,' 
 ending with 
 
 ' And thou art the cause of this anguish, my pill-box,' 
 
 in a howl so doleful, that Mrs. Heale marched into the shop, 
 evidently making up her mind for an explosion. 
 
 ' I am very sorry, sir, to have to speak to you upon such a 
 subject, but I must say, that the profane songs, sir, which our 
 house is not at all accustomed to them ; not to mention that at 
 your time of life, and in your position, sir, as my husband's 
 assistant, though there's no saying' (with a meaning toss of the 
 head) ' how long it may last,' and there, her grammar having 
 got into a hopeless knot, she stopped.
 
 vr AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE 99 
 
 Tom looked at her cheerfully and fixedly. ' I had been ex- 
 pecting this,' said he to himself. ' Better show the old cat at 
 once that I carry claws as well as she.' 
 
 'There is saying, madam, humbly begging your pardon, how 
 long my present engagement will last. It will last just as long 
 as I like.' 
 
 Mrs. Heale boiled over with rage ; but ere the geyser could 
 explode, Tom had continued in that dogged, nasal Yankee 
 twang which he assumed when he was venomous : 
 
 ' As for the songs, ma'am, there are two ways of making one- 
 self happy in this life ; you can judge for yourself which is 
 best. One is to do one's work like a man, and hum a tune, to 
 keep one's spirits up ; the other is to let the work go to rack 
 and ruin, and keep one's spirits up, if one is a gentleman, by a 
 little too much brandy ; if one is a lady, by a little too much 
 laudanum.' 
 
 ' Laudanum, sir ? ' almost screamed Mrs. Heale, turning pale 
 as death. 
 
 ' The pint bottle of best laudanum, which I had from town a 
 fortnight ago, ma'am, is now nearly empty, ma'am. I will 
 make affidavit that I have not used a hundred drops, or drunk 
 one. I suppose it was the cat. Cats have queer tastes in the 
 West, I believe. I have heard the cat coming downstairs into 
 the surgery, once or twice after I was in bed ; so I set my door 
 ajar a little, and saw her come up again ; but whether she had 
 a vial in her paws ' 
 
 ' Oh, sir ! ' says Mrs. Heale, bursting into tears. ' And after 
 the dreadful toothache which I have had this fortnight, which 
 nothing but a little laudanum would ease it ; and at my time 
 of life, to mock a poor elderly lady's infirmities, which I did not 
 look for this cruelty and outrage ! ' 
 
 'Dry your tears, my dear madam,' says Tom, in his most 
 winning tone. ' You will always find me the thorough gentle- 
 man, I am sure. If I had not been one, it would have been 
 easy enough for me, with my powerful London connections, 
 though I won't boast, to' set up in opposition to your good 
 husband, instead of saving him labour in his good old age. 
 Only, my dear madam, how shall I get the laudanum-bottle re- 
 filled without the doctor's you understand ? ' 
 
 The wretched old woman hurried upstairs, and brought him 
 down a half-sovereign out of her private hoard, trembling like 
 an aspen leaf, and departed. 
 
 'So scotched, but not killed. You'll gossip and lie too. 
 Never trust a laudanum drinker. You'll see me, by the eye of 
 imagination, committing all the seven deadly sins ; and by the 
 tongue of inspiration go forth and proclaim the same at the 
 town-head. I can't kill you, and I can't cure you, so I must 
 endure you. What said old Goethe, in all the German I ever 
 cared to recollect
 
 100 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' " Der Wallfisch hat doch seino Laus ; 
 Muss auch die meine haben. " 
 
 ' Now, then, for Mrs. Penberthy's draughts. I wonder how 
 that pretty schoolmistress goes on. If she were but honest, 
 now, and had fifty thousand pounds why then, she wouldn't 
 marry me ; and so why now, I wouldn't marry she, as niy 
 native Berkshire grammar would render it.' 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LA CORDIFIAMMA 
 
 THIS chapter shall begin, good reader, with one of those startling 
 bursts of ' illustration,' with which our most popular preachers 
 are wont now to astonish and edify their hearers, and after 
 starting with them at the opening of the sermon from the north 
 pole, the Crystal Palace, or the nearest cabbage-garden, float 
 them safe, upon the gushing stream of oratory, to the safe and 
 well-known shores of doctrinal common-place, lost in admiration 
 at the skill of the good man who can thus make all roads lead, 
 if not to heaven, at least to strong language about its opposite. 
 True, the logical sequence of their periods may be, like that of 
 the coming one, somewhat questionable, reminding one at 
 moments of Fluellen's comparison between Macedon and Mon- 
 mouth, Henry the Fifth and Alexander : but, in the logic of the 
 pulpit, all's well that end's well, and the end must needs sanctify 
 the means. There is, of course, some connection or other be- 
 tween all things in heaven and earth, or how would the universe 
 hold together? And if one has not time to find out the true 
 connection, what is left but to invent the best one can for one- 
 self ? Thus argues, probably, the popular preacher, and fills 
 his pews, proving thereby clearly the excellence of his method. 
 So argue also, probably, the popular poets, to whose 'luxuriant 
 fancy ' everything suggests anything, and thought plays leap- 
 frog with thought down one page and up the next, till one 
 fancies at moments that they had got permission from the 
 higher powers, before looking at the universe, to stir it all up a 
 few times with a spoon. It is notorious, of course, that poets 
 and preachers alike pride themselves upon this method of 
 astonishing ; that the former call it, ' seeing the infinite in the 
 finite ; ' the latter, ' pressing secular matters into the service 
 of the sanctuary,' and other pretty phrases which, for rever- 
 ence' sake, shall be omitted. No doubt they have their reasons 
 and their reward. The style takes ; the style pays ; and what 
 more would you have? Let them go on rejoicing, in spite of 
 the cynical pedants in the Saturday Review, who dare to accuse 
 (will it be believed?) these luminaries of the age of talking
 
 viz LA CORDIFIAMMA 101 
 
 merely irreverent nonsense. Meanwhile, so evident is the 
 success (sole test of merit) which has attended the new method, 
 that it is worth while trying whether it will not be as taking in 
 the novel as it is in the chapel ; and therefore the reader is 
 requested to pay special attention to the following paragraph, 
 modelled carefully after the exordiums of a famous Irish 
 preacher, now drawing crowded houses at the West End of 
 Town. As thus : ' It is the pleasant month of May, when, as 
 in old Chaucer's time, the 
 
 ' "Smale foules maken melodie, 
 
 That slepen alle night with open eye 
 So priketh hem nature in their corages. 
 Then longen folk to goe on pilgrimages, 
 And specially from every shire's end 
 Of Englelond, to Exeter-hall they wend," ' 
 
 till the low places of the Strand blossom with white cravats, 
 those lilies of the valley, types of meekness and humility, at 
 least in the pious palmer and why not of similar virtues in the 
 undertaker, the concert-singer, the groom, the tavern-waiter, 
 the croupier at the gaming-table, and Frederick Augustus Lord 
 Scoutbush, who, white-era vated like the rest, is just getting 
 into his cab at the door of the Never-mind-what Theatre, to 
 spend an hour at Kensington before sauntering in to Lady 
 j| 'sball? 
 
 Why not, I ask, at least in the case of little Scoutbush 1 For 
 Guardsman though he be, coming from a theatre and going to 
 a ball, there is meekness and humility in him at this moment, 
 as well as in the average of the white-era vated gentlemen who 
 trotted along that same pavement about eleven o'clock this 
 forenoon. Why should not his white cravat, like theirs, be 
 held symbolic of that fact ? However, Scoutbush belongs 
 rather to the former than the latter of Chaucer's categories ; 
 for a 'smale foule ' he is, a little bird-like fellow, who maketh 
 melodie also, and warbles like a cock-robin ; we cannot liken 
 him to any more dignified songster. Moreover, he will sleep all 
 night with open eye ; for he will not be in bed till five to- 
 morrow morning ; and pricked he is, and that sorely, in his 
 courage ; for he is as much in love as his little nature can be, 
 with the new actress, La Signora Cordifiamma, of the Never- 
 mind-what Theatre. 
 
 How exquisitely, now (for this is one of the rare occasions 
 in which a man is permitted to praise himself), is established 
 hereby an. unexpected bond of linked sweetness long drawn out 
 between things which had, ere they came beneath the magic 
 touch of genius, no more to do with each other than this book 
 has with the Stock Exchange. Who would have dreamed of 
 travelling from the Tabard in Southwark to the last new 
 singer, vid Exeter-hall and the lilies of the valley, and touching
 
 102 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 en passant on two cardinal virtues and an Irish Viscount 1 
 But see ; given only a little impudence, and less logic, and hey 
 presto ! the thing is done ; and all that remains to be done is 
 to dilate (as the Rev. Dionysius O'Blareaway would do at this 
 stage of the process) upon the moral question which has been 
 so cunningly raised, and to inquire, firstly, how the virtues 
 of meekness and humility could be predicated of Frederick 
 Augustus St. Just, Viscount Scoutbush and Baron Torytown, 
 in the peerage of Ireland ; and secondly, how those virtues 
 were called into special action by his questionably wise attach- 
 ment to a new actress, to whom he had never spoken a word in 
 his life. 
 
 First, then, ' Little Freddy Scoutbush,' as his compeers irre- 
 verently termed him, was, by common consent of her Majesty's 
 Guards, a ' good fellow.' Whether the St. James' Street defini- 
 tion of that adjective be the perfect one or not, we will not 
 stay to inquire ; but in the Guards' club-house it meant this : 
 that Scoutbush had not an enemy in the world, because he 
 deserved none ; that he lent, and borrowed not ; gave, and 
 asked not again ; envied not ; hustled not ; slandered not ; never 
 bore malice, never said a cruel word, never played a dirty trick, 
 would hear a fellow's troubles out to the end, and if he could 
 not counsel, at least would not laugh at them, and at all times 
 and in all places lived and let live, and was accordingly a 
 general favourite. His morality was neither better nor worse 
 than the average of his companions ; but if lie was sensual, he 
 was at least not base ; and there were frail women who blessed 
 'little Freddy,' and his shy and secret generosity, for having 
 saved them from the lowest pit. 
 
 Au reste, he was idle, frivolous, useless : but with these two 
 palliating facts, that he knew it and regretted it, and that he 
 never had a chance of being aught else. His father and mother 
 had died when he was a child. He had been sent to Eton at 
 seven, where he learnt nothing, and into the Guards at seven- 
 teen, where he learnt less than nothing. His aunt, old Lady 
 Knockdown, who was a kind old Irish woman, an ex-blue and 
 ex-beauty, now a high evangelical professor, but as worldly as 
 her neighbours in practice, had tried to make him a good boy 
 in old times : but she had given him up, long before he left 
 Eton, as a ' vessel of wrath ' (which he certainly was, with his 
 hot Irish temper) ; and since then she had only spoken of him 
 with moans, and to him just as if he and she had made a 
 compact to be as worldly as they could, and as if the fact that 
 he was going, as she used to tell her private friends, straight 
 to the wrong place, was to be utterly ignored before the press- 
 ing reality of getting him and his sisters well married. And 
 so it befell that Lady Knockdown, like many more, having 
 begun with too high (or at least precise) a spiritual standard, 
 was forced to end practically in having no standard at all ;
 
 vir LA CORDIFIAMMA 103 
 
 and that for ten years of Scoutbush's life, neither she nor 
 any other human being had spoken to him as if he had a soul 
 to be saved, or any duty on earth save to eat, drink, and be 
 merry. 
 
 And all the while there was a quaint and pathetic conscious- 
 ness in the little man's heart that he was meant for something 
 better ; that he was no fool, and was not intended to be one. 
 He would thrust his head into lectures at the Polytechnic and 
 the British Institution, with a dim endeavour to guess what 
 they were all about, and a good-natured envy of the clever 
 fellows who knew about ' science, and all that.' He would sit 
 and listen, puzzled and admiring, to the talk of statesmen, and 
 confide his woe afterwards to some chum. 'Ah, if I had 
 had the chance now that my cousin Chalkclere has ? If I had 
 had two or three tutors, and a good mother, too, keeping 
 me in a coop, and cramming me with learning, as they cram 
 chickens for the market, I fancy I could have shown my 
 comb and hackles in the House as well as some of them. I 
 fancy I could make a speech in parliament now, with the help 
 of a little Irish impudence, if I only knew anything to speak 
 about.' 
 
 So Scoutbush clung, in a childish way, to any superior man who 
 would take notice of him, and not treat him as the fribble which 
 he seemed. He had taken to that well-known artist, Claude 
 Mellot, of late, simply from admiration of his brilliant talk 
 about art and poetry ; and boldly confessed that he preferred 
 one of Mellot's orations on the sublime and beautiful, though he 
 didn't understand a word of them, to the songs and jokes (very 
 excellent ones in their way) of Mr. Hector Harkaway, the dis- 
 tinguished Irish novelist, and boon companion of her Majesty's 
 Life Guards Green. His special intimate and Mentor, however, 
 was a certain Major Campbell, of whom more hereafter ; who, 
 however, being a lofty-minded and perhaps somewhat Pharisaic 
 person, made heavier demands on Scoutbush's conscience than 
 lie had yet been able to meet ; for fully as he agreed that Her- 
 cules' choice between pleasure and virtue was the right one, still 
 he could not yet follow that ancient hero along the thorny path, 
 and confined his conception of ' duty ' to the minimum guard 
 and drill. He had estates in Ireland, which had almost cleared 
 themselves during his long minority, but which, since the famine, 
 had cost him about as much as they brought him in ; and 
 estates in the West, which, with a Welsh slate-quarry, brought 
 him in some seven or eight thousand a year ; and so kept his 
 poor little head above water, to look pitifully round the universe, 
 longing for the life of him to make out what it all meant, and 
 hoping that somebody would come and tell him. 
 
 So much for his meekness and humility in general : as for the 
 particular display of those virtues which he has shown to-day, 
 it must be understood that he has given a promise to Mrs. Mellot
 
 104 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 not to make love to La Cordifiamma ; and, on that only con- 
 dition, has been allowed to meet her to-night at one of Claude 
 Mellot's petits soupers. 
 
 La Cordifiamma has been staying, ever since she came to 
 England, with the Mellots in the wilds of Brompton ; unap- 
 proachable there, as in all other places. In public, she is a very 
 Zenobia, who keeps all animals of the other sex at an awful 
 distance ; and of the fifty young puppies who are raving about 
 her beauty, her air, and her voice, not one has obtained an in- 
 troduction ; while Claude, whose studio used to be a favourite 
 lounge of young Guardsmen, has, as civilly as he can, closed his 
 doors to those magnificent personages ever since the new singer 
 became his guest. 
 
 Claude Mellot seems to have come into a fortune of late years, 
 large enough, at least, for his few wants. He paints no longer, 
 save when he chooses ; and has taken a little old house in one 
 of those back lanes of Brompton, where islands of primaeval 
 nursery garden still remain undevoured by the advancing surges 
 of the brick and mortar deluge. There he lives, happy in a 
 green lawn, and windows opening thereon ; in three elms, a 
 cork, an ilex, and a mulberry, with a great standard pear, for 
 flower and foliage the queen of all suburban trees. There he 
 lies on the lawn, upon strange skins, the summer's day, playing 
 with cats and dogs, and making love to his Sabina, who has not 
 lost her beauty in the least, though she is on the wrong side of 
 five-and-thirty. He deludes himself, too, into the belief that he 
 is doing something, because he is writing a treatise on the 
 ' Principles of Beauty ' ; which will be published, probably, 
 about the time the Thames is purified, in the season of Latter 
 Lammas and the Greek Kalends ; and the more certainly so, 
 because he has wandered into the abyss of conic sections and 
 curves of double curvature, of which, if the truth must be 
 spoken, he knows no more than his friends of the Life Guards 
 Green. 
 
 To this charming little nest has Lord Scoutbush procured an 
 evening's admission after abject supplication to Sabina, who 
 pets him because he is musical, and solemn promises neither to 
 talk or look any manner of foolishness. 
 
 'My dearest Mrs. Mellot,' says the poor wretch, 'I will be 
 good, indeed I will ; I will not even speak to her. Only let me 
 sit and look, and and, why, I thought you understood all 
 about such things, and could pity a poor fellow who was 
 spoony.' 
 
 And Sabina, who prides herself much on understanding such 
 things, and on having, indeed, reduced them to a science in 
 which she gives gratuitous lessons to all young gentlemen and 
 ladies of her acquaintance, receives him pityingly, in that 
 delicious little back drawing-room, whither whosoever enters is 
 in no hurry to go out again.
 
 vii LA CORDIFIAMMA 105 
 
 . Claude's house is arranged with his usual defiance of all con- 
 ventionalities. Dining or drawing-room proper there is none ; 
 the large front room is the studio, where he and Sabina eat and 
 drink, as well as work and paint ; but out of it opens a little 
 room, the walls of which are so covered with gems of art (where 
 the rogue finds money to buy them is a puzzle) that the eye can 
 turn nowhere without taking in some new beauty, and wander- 
 ing on from picture to statue, from portrait to landscape, dream- 
 ing and learning afresh after every glance. At the back, a glass 
 bay has been thrown out, and forms a little conservatory, for 
 ever fresh and gay with tropic ferns and flowers ; gaudy orchids 
 dangle from the roof, creepers hide the framework, and you 
 hardly see where the room ends and the winter-garden begins ; 
 and in the centre an ottoman invites you to lounge. It costs 
 Claude money, doubtless ; but he has his excuse ' Having once 
 seen the tropics, I cannot live without some love-tokens from 
 their lost paradises ; and which is the wiser plan, to spend 
 money on a horse and brougham, which we don't care to use, and 
 on scrambling into society at the price of one great stupid party 
 a year, or to make our little world as pretty as we can, and let 
 those who wish to see us, take us as they find us 1 ' 
 
 In this 'nest,' as Claude and Sabina call it, sacred to the 
 everlasting billing and cooing of that sweet little pair of human 
 love-birds who have built it, was supper set. La Cordifiamma, 
 all the more beautiful from the languor produced by the excite- 
 ment of acting, lay upon a sofa ; Claude attended, talking 
 earnestly ; Sabina, according to her custom, was fluttering in 
 and out, and arranging supper with her own hands ; both hus- 
 band and wife were as busy as bees ; and yet any one accus- 
 tomed to watch the little ins and outs of married life, could have 
 seen that neither forgot for a moment that the other was in the 
 room, but basked and purred, like two blissful cats, each in the 
 sunshine of the other s presence ; and he could have seen, too, 
 that La Cordifiamma was divining their thoughts, and studying 
 all their little expressions, perhaps that she might use them on 
 the stage ; perhaps, too, happy in sympathy with their happi- 
 ness : and yet there was a shade of sadness on her forehead. 
 
 Scoutbush enters, is introduced, and receives a salutation 
 from the actress, haughty and cold enough to check the for- 
 wardest ; puts on the air of languid nonchalance which is con- 
 sidered (or was before the little experiences of the Crimea) fit 
 and proper for young gentlemen of rank and fashion. So he 
 sits down, and feasts his foolish eyes upon his idol, hoping for a 
 few words before the evening is over. Did I not say well, then, 
 that there was as much meekness and humility under Scout- 
 bush's white cravat as under others? But his little joy is soon 
 dashed ; for the black boy announces (seemingly much to his 
 own pleasure) a tall personage, whom, from his dress and his 
 moustachio, Scoutbush takes for a Frenchman, till he hears him
 
 106 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 called Stan grave. The intruder is introduced to Lord Scout- 
 bush, which ceremony is consummated by a microscopic nod on 
 either side ; he then walks straight up to La Cordifiamma ; and 
 Scoutbush sees her cheeks flush as he does so. He takes her 
 hand speaks to her in a low voice, and sits down by her, Claude 
 making room for him ; and the two engage earnestly in con- 
 versation. 
 
 Scoutbush is much inclined to walk out of the room ; was 
 he brought there to see that ? Of course, however, he sits still, 
 keeps his own counsel, and makes himself agreeable enough all 
 the evening, like a good-natured kind-hearted little man, as he 
 is. Whereby he is repaid ; for the conversation soon becomes 
 deep, and even too deep for him ; and he is fain to drop out of 
 the race, and leave it to his idol and to the newcomer, who 
 seems to have seen, and done, and read everything in heaven 
 and earth, and probably bought everything also ; not to mention 
 that he would be happy to sell the said universe again, at a very 
 cheap price, if any one would kindly take it off his hands. Not 
 that he boasts, or takes any undue share of the conversation ; 
 he is evidently too well-bred for that ; but every sentence shows 
 an acquaintance with facts of which Eton has told Scoutbush 
 nothing, the barrack-room less, and after which lie still craves, 
 the good little fellow, in a very honest way, and would soon 
 have learnt, had he had a chance ; for of native Irish smartness 
 he had no lack. 
 
 ' Poor Flake was half mad about you, signora, in the stage- 
 box to-night,' said Sabina. ' He says that he shall not sleep till 
 he has painted you.' 
 
 'Do let him!' cried Scoutbush: 'what a picture he will 
 make ! ' 
 
 ' He may paint a picture, but not me ; it is quite enough, 
 Lord Scoutbush, to be some one else for two hours every night, 
 without going down to posterity as some one else for ever. If 
 I am painted, I will be painted by no one who cannot represent 
 my very self.' 
 
 ' You are right ! ' said Stangrave : ' and you will do the man 
 himself good by refusing ; he has some notion still of what a 
 portrait ought to be. If he once begins by attempting passing 
 expressions of passion, which is all stage portraits can give, he 
 will find them so much easier than honest representations of 
 character, that he will end, where all our moderns seem to do, in 
 merest melodrama.' 
 
 ' Explain ! ' said she. 
 
 'Portrait painters now depend for their effect on the mere 
 accidents of entourage; on dress, on landscape, even on broad 
 hints of a man's ocupation, putting a plan on the engineer's 
 table, and a roll in the statesman's hands, like the old Creek 
 who wrote "this is an ox" under his picture. If they wish to 
 give the face expression, though they seldom aim so high, all
 
 vn LA CORDIFIAMMA 107 
 
 they can compass is a passing emotion ; and one sitter goes down 
 to posterity with an eternal frown, another with an eternal 
 smile.' 
 
 ' Or, if he be a poet,' said Sabina, ' rolls his eye for ever in a 
 fine frenzy.' 
 
 ' But would you forbid them to paint passion 1 ' 
 'Not in its place ; when the picture gives the causes of the 
 passion, and the scene tells its own story. But then let us not 
 have merely Kean as Hamlet, but Hamlet's self ; let the painter 
 sit down and conceive for himself a Hamlet, such as Shak- 
 speare conceived ; not merely give us as much of him as could be 
 
 Gessed at a given moment into the face of Mr. Kean. He will 
 only unjust to both actor and character. If Flake paints 
 Marie as Lady Macbeth, he will give us neither her nor Lady 
 Macbeth ; but only the single point at which their two characters 
 can coincide.' 
 
 'How rude!' said Sabina, laughing: 'what is he doing but 
 hinting that La Signora's conception 01 Lady Macbeth is a very 
 partial and imperfect one ? ' 
 
 'And why should it not be?' asked the actress, humbly 
 enough. 
 
 'I meant,' he answered warmly, 'that there was more, far 
 more, in her than in any character which she assumes ; and I do 
 not want a painter to copy only one aspect, and let a part go 
 down to posterity as a representation of the whole.' 
 
 ' If you mean that, you shall be forgiven. No ; when she is 
 painted, she shall be painted as herself, as she is now. Claude 
 shall paint her.' 
 
 'I have not known La Signora long enough,' said Claude, 'to 
 aspire to such an honour. I paint no face which I have not 
 studied for a year.' 
 
 'Faith!' said Scoutbush, 'you would find no more in most 
 faces at the year's end, than you did the first day.' 
 
 ' Then I would not paint them. If I paint a portrait, which 
 I seldom do, I wish to make it such a one as the old masters 
 aimed at to give the sum total of the whole character ; traces 
 of every emotion, if it were possible, and glances of every ex- 
 pression which have passed over it since it was born into the 
 world. They are all here, the whole past and future of the man ; 
 and every man, as the Mohammedans say, carries his destiny on 
 his forehead.' 
 
 ' But who has eyes to see it 1 ' 
 
 ' The old masters had ; some of them at least. Raphael had, 
 Sebastian del Piombo had, and Titian, and Giorgione. There 
 are portraits painted by them which carry a whole life-history 
 concentrated into one moment.' 
 
 ' But they,' said Stangrave, ' are the portraits of men such as 
 they saw ai^ound them ; natures who were strong for good and 
 evil, who were not ashamed to show their strength. Where will
 
 108 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 a painter find such among the poor, thin, unable mortals who 
 come to him to buy immortality at a hundred and fifty guineas 
 apiece, after having spent their lives in religiously rubbing off 
 their angles against each other, and forming their characters, 
 as you form shot, by shaking them together in a bag till they 
 have polished each other into dullest uniformity ? ' 
 
 ' It s very true,' said Scoutbush, who suffered much at times 
 from a certain wild Irish vein, which stirred him up to kick 
 over the traces. ' People are horribly like each other ; and if a 
 poor fellow is bored, and tries to do anything spicy or original, 
 he has half a dozen people pooh-poohing him down on the score 
 of bad taste/ 
 
 'Men can be just as original now as ever,' said La Signora, 
 ' if they had but the courage, even the insight. Heroic souls in 
 old times had no more opportunities than we have ; but they 
 used them. There were daring deeds to be done then are there 
 none now ? Sacrifices to be made are there none now ? Wrongs 
 to be redressed are there none now 1 Let any one set his heart, 
 in these days, to do what is right, and nothing else ; and it will 
 not be long ere his brow is stamped with all that goes to make 
 up the heroical expression with noble indignation, noble self- 
 restraint, great hopes, great sorrows ; perhaps, even, with the 
 print of the martyr's crown of thorns.' 
 
 She looked at Stangrave as she spoke, with an expression 
 which Scoutbush tried in vain to read. The American made no 
 answer, and seemed to hang his head awhile. After a minute 
 he said tenderly 
 
 ' You will tire yourself if you talk thus, after the evening's 
 fatigue. Mrs. Mellot will sing to us, and give us leisure to think 
 over our lesson.' 
 
 And Sabina sang ; and then Lord Scoutbush was made to 
 sing ; and sang his best, no doubt. 
 
 So the evening slipped on, till it was past eleven o'clock, and 
 Stangrave rose. 'And now,' said he, 'I must go to Lady 
 M 's ball ; and Marie must rest.' 
 
 As he went, he just leaned over La Cordifiamma. 
 
 ' Shall I come in to-morrow morning ? We ought to read over 
 that scene together before the rehearsal.' 
 
 ' Early then, or Sabina will be gone out ; and she must play 
 soubrette to our hero and heroine.' 
 
 ' You will rest 1 Mi^s. Mellot, you will see that she does not 
 sit up ? ' 
 
 ' It is not very polite to rob us of her, as soon as you cannot 
 enjoy her yourself.' 
 
 ' I must take care of people who do not take care of them- 
 selves ; ' and Stangrave departed. 
 
 Great was Scoutbush's wrath when he saw Marie rise and 
 obey orders. ' Who was this man ? what right had he to com- 
 mand her 1 '
 
 vii LA CORDIFIAMMA 109 
 
 He asked as much of Sabina the moment La Cordifiamma had 
 retired. 
 
 ' Are you not going to Lady M 's, too ? ' 
 
 ' No ; that is, I won't go yet ; not till you have explained all 
 this to me.' 
 
 'Explained what?' asked Sabina, looking as demure as a 
 little brown mouse. 
 
 ' Why, what did you ask me here for ? ' 
 
 ' Lord Scoutbush should recollect that he asked himself.' 
 
 ' You cruel venomous creature ! do you think I would have 
 come, if I had known that I was to see another man making love 
 to her before my very eyes ? I could kill the fellow ; who 
 is he?' 
 
 ' A New York merchant, unworthy of your aristocratic powder 
 and ball.' 
 
 ' The confounded Yankee ! ' muttered Scoutbush. 
 
 'If people swear in my house, I fine them a dozen of kid 
 gloves. Did you not promise me that you would not make love 
 to her yourself ? ' 
 
 ' Well but, it is too cruel of you, before my very eyes.' 
 
 ' I saw no love-making to-night.' 
 
 ' None ? Were you blind ? ' 
 
 ' Not in the least ; but you cannot well see a thing making 
 which has been made long ago.' 
 
 ' What ! Is he her husband ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Engaged to her ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 'What then?' 
 
 ' Don't you know already that this is a house of mystery, full 
 of mysterious people ? I tell you this only, that if she ever 
 marries any one, she will marry him ; and that if I can, I will 
 make her.' 
 
 ' Then you are my enemy after all.' 
 
 'I ! Do you think that Sabina Mellot can see a young 
 viscount loose upon the universe, without trying to make up a 
 match for him ? No ; I have such a prize for you young, hand- 
 some, better educated than any woman whom you will meet 
 to-night. True, she is a Manchester girl ; but then she has 
 eighty thousand pounds.' 
 
 ' Eighty thousand nonsense ! I'd sooner have that divine 
 creature without a penny, than ' 
 
 'And would my lord viscount so far debase himself as to 
 marry an actress ? ' 
 
 ' Humph ! Faith, my grandmother was an actress ; and we 
 St. Justs are none the worse for that fact, as far as I can see 
 and certainly none the uglier the women at least. Oh Sabina 
 Mrs. Mellot, I mean only help me this once ! ' 
 
 ' This once ? Do you intend to marry by my assistance this
 
 110 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 time, and by your own the next 1 How many viscountesses are 
 there to be r 
 
 ' Don't laugh at me, you cruel woman ; you don't know ; you 
 fancy that I am not in love,' and the poor fellow began pouring 
 out these common-places, which one has heard too often to take 
 the trouble of repeating, and yet which are real enough, and 
 pathetic too ; for in every man, however frivolous, or even 
 worthless, love calls up to the surface the real heroism, the real 
 depth of character all the more deep because common to poet 
 and philosopher, guardsman and country clod. 
 
 Til leave town to-morrow. I'll go to the Land's end to 
 Norway, to Africa 
 
 ' And forget her in the bliss of lion-hunting.' 
 
 ' Don't, I tell you ; here I will not stay to be driven mad. 
 To think that she is here, and that hateful Yankee at her elbow. 
 I'll g o > 
 
 'To Lady M 'shall?' 
 
 ' No, confound it ; to meet that fellow there ! I should quarrel 
 with him, as sure as there is hot Irish blood in my veins. The 
 self-satisfied puppy ! to be flirting and strutting there, while 
 such a creature as that is lying thinking of him.' 
 
 ' Would you have him shut himself up in his hotel, and write 
 poetry ; or walk the streets all night, sighing at the moon 1 ' 
 
 ' No ; but the cool way in which he went off himself, and sent 
 her to bed. Confound him ! commanding her. It made my 
 blood boil.' 
 
 ' Claude, get Lord Scoutbush some iced soda-water.' 
 
 ' If you laugh at me, I'll never speak to you again.' 
 
 ' Or buy any of Claude's pictures ? ' 
 
 ' Why do you torment me so 1 I'll go, I say leave town to- 
 morrow only I can't with this horrid depot work ! What shall 
 I do ? It's too cruel of you, while Campbell is away in Ireland, 
 too ; and I have not a soul but you to ask advice of, for Valentia 
 is as great a goose as I am ; ' and the poor little fellow buried 
 his hands in his curls, and stared fiercely into the fire, as if to 
 draw from thence omens of his love, by the spodomantic augury 
 of the ancient Greeks ; while Sabina tripped up and down the 
 room, putting things to rights for the night, and enjoying his 
 torments as a cat does those of the mouse between her paws ; 
 and yet not out of spite, but from pure and simple fun. 
 
 Sabina is one of those charming bodies who knows every- 
 body's business, and manages it. She lives in a world of intrigue, 
 but without a thought of intriguing for her own benefit. She 
 has always a match to make, a disconsolate lover to comfort, a 
 young artist to bring forward, a refugee to conceal, a spend- 
 thrift to get out of a scrape ; and, like David in the mountains, 
 ' every one that is discontented, and every one that is in debt, 
 gather themselves to her.' The strangest people, on the strangest 
 errands, run over each other in that cosy little nest of hers.
 
 vir LA CORDIFIAMMA 111 
 
 Fine ladies with over-full hearts, and seedy gentlemen with 
 over-empty pockets, jostle each other at her door ; and she has 
 a smile, and a repartee, and good, cunning, practical wisdom for 
 each and every one of them, and then dismisses them to bill and 
 coo with Claude, and laugh over everybody and everything. 
 The only price which she demands for her services is, to be 
 allowed to laugh ; and if that be permitted, she will be as busy, 
 and earnest, and tender, as Saint Elizabeth .herself. 'I have no 
 children of my own,' she says, 'so I just make everybody my 
 children, Claude included ; and play with them, and laugh at 
 them, and pet them, and help them out of their scrapes, just as 
 I should if they were in my own nursery.' And so it befalls 
 that she is every one's confidante ; and though every one seems 
 on the point of taking liberties with her, yet no one does ; partly 
 because they are in her power, and partly because, like an 
 Eastern sultana, she carries a poniard, and can use it, though 
 only in self-defence. So, if great people, or small people either 
 (who can give themselves airs as well as their betters), take her 
 plain speaking unkindly, she just speaks a little more plainly, 
 once for all, and goes off smiling to some one else ; as a humming 
 bird, if a flower has no honey in it, whirs away, with a saucy 
 flirt of its pretty little tail, to the next branch on the bush. 
 
 'I must know more of this American,' said Scoutbush, at 
 last. 
 
 ' Well, he would be very improving company for you ; and I 
 know you like improving company.' 
 
 ' I mean what has he to do with her 1 ' 
 
 'That is just what I will not tell you. One thing I will tell 
 you, though, for it may help to quench any vain hopes on your 
 part ; and that is, the reason which she gives for not marrying 
 him.' 
 
 'Well?' 
 
 ' Because he is an idler.' 
 
 ' What would she say of me, then ? ' groaned Scoutbush. 
 
 ' Very true ; for, you must understand, this Mr. Stangrave is 
 not what you or I should call an idle man. He has travelled 
 over half the world, and made the best use of his eyes. He has 
 filled his house in New York, they say, with gems of art gathered 
 from every country in Europe. He is a finished scholar ; talks 
 half a dozen different languages, sings, draws, writes poetry, 
 reads hard every day at every subject, from gardening to 
 German metaphysics altogether, one of the most highly 
 cultivated men I know, and quite an Admiral Crichton in. his 
 way.' 
 
 ' Then why does she call him an idler 1 ' 
 
 ' Because, she says, he has no great purpose in life. She will 
 marry no one who will not devote himself, and all he has, to 
 some great, chivalrous, heroic enterprise ; whose one object is to 
 be of use, even if he has to sacrifice his life to it. She says that
 
 112 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 there must be such men still left in the world ; and that if she 
 finds one, him she will marry, and no one else.' 
 
 'Why, there are none such to be found nowadays, I 
 thought ? ' 
 
 ' You heard what she herself said on that very point.' 
 
 There was a silence for a minute or two. Scoutbush had 
 heard, and was pondering it in his heart. At last, 
 
 ' I am not cut out for a hero ; so I suppose I must give her 
 up. But I wish sometimes I could be of use, Mrs. Mellot ; but 
 what can a fellow do ? ' 
 
 ' I thought there was an Irish tenantry to be looked after, 
 my lord, and a Cornish tenantry too.' 
 
 ' That's what Campbell is always saying ; but what more can 
 I do than I do ? As for those poor Paddies, I never ask them 
 for rent ; if I did, I should not get it ; so there is no generosity 
 in that. And as for the Aberalva people, they have got on very 
 well without me for twenty years ; and I don't know them, nor 
 what they want ; nor even if they do want anything, except 
 fish enough, and I can't put more fish into the sea, Mrs. Mellot ? ' 
 
 ' Try and be a good soldier, then,' said she, laughing. ' Why 
 should not Lord Scoutbush emulate his illustrious countryman, 
 conquer at a second Waterloo, and die a duke ? ' 
 
 ' I'm not cut out for a general, I am afraid ; but if I don't 
 say if I could marry that woman I suppose it would be a 
 foolish thing though I shall break my heart, I believe, if I do 
 not. Oh, Mrs. Mellot, you cannot tell what a fool I have made 
 myself about her ; and I cannot help it ! It's not her beauty 
 merely ; but there is something so noble in her face, like one of 
 those Greek goddesses Claude talks of ; and when she is acting, 
 if she has to say anything grand or generous or you know 
 the sort of thing, she brings it out with such a voice, and such 
 a look, from the very bottom of her heart, it makes me 
 shudder ; just as she did when she told that Yankee, that every 
 one could be a hero, or a martyr, if he chose. Mrs. Mellot, I 
 am sure she is one, or she could not look and speak as she 
 does.' 
 
 ' She is one ! ' said Sabina ; 'a heroine, and a martyr too.' 
 
 ' If I could, that was what I was going to say, if I could 
 but win that woman's respect as I live, I ask no more ; only 
 to be sure she didn't despise me. I'd do I don't know what I 
 wouldn't do. I'd I'd study the art of war : I know there are 
 books about it. I'd get out to the East, away from this depot 
 work ; and if there is no fighting there, as every one says there 
 will not be, I'd go into a marching regiment, and see service. 
 I'd, hang it, if they'd have me, I'd even go to the senior 
 department at Sandhurst, and read mathematics ! ' 
 
 Sabina kept her countenance (though with difficulty) at this 
 magnificent bathos ; for she saw that the little man was really 
 in earnest, and that the looks and words of the strange actress
 
 via TAKING ROOT 113 
 
 had awakened in him something far deeper and nobler than the 
 mere sensual passion of a boy. 
 
 ' Ah, if I had but gone out to Varna with the rest ! I thought 
 myself a lucky fellow to be left here.' 
 
 ' Do you know that it is getting very late ? ' 
 
 So Frederick Lord Scoutbush went home to his rooms ; and 
 there sat for three hours and more with his feet on the fender, 
 rejecting the entreaties of Mr. Bowie, his servant, either to have 
 something, or to go to bed ; yea, he forgot even to smoke, by 
 which Mr. Bowie 'jaloused' that he was hit very hard indeed : 
 but made no remark, being a Scotchman, and of a cautious 
 temperament. 
 
 However, from that night Scoutbush was a changed man, 
 and tried to be so. He read of nothing but sieges and stockades, 
 brigade evolutions, and conical bullets ; he drilled his men till 
 he was an abomination in their eyes, and a weariness to their 
 flesh ; only every evening he went to the theatre, watched La 
 Cordifiamma with a heavy heart, and then went home to bed ; 
 for the little man had good sense enough to ask Sabina for no 
 more interviews with her. So in all things he acquitted himself 
 as a model officer, and excited the admiration and respect of 
 Serjeant- Major MacArthur, who began fishing at Bowie to dis- 
 cover the cause of this strange metamorphosis in the rackety 
 little Irishman. 
 
 'Your master seems to be qualifying himself for the 
 adjutant's post, Mr. Bowie. I'm jalousing he's fired with 
 martial ardour since the war broke out.' 
 
 To which Bowie, being a brother Scot, answered Scottice, by 
 a crafty paralogism. 
 
 ' I've always held it as my opeeeenion, that his lordship is a 
 youth of very good parts, if he was only compelled to employ 
 them.' 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TAKING HOOT 
 
 WHOSOEVER enjoys the sight of an. honest man doing his work 
 well, would have enjoyed the sight of Tom Thurnall for the next 
 two months. Indoors all the morning, and out of doors all the 
 afternoon, was that shrewd and good-natured visage, calling up 
 an answering smile on every face, and leaving every heart a 
 little lighter than he found it. Puzzling enough it was, alike to 
 Heale and to Headley, how Tom contrived, as if by magic, to 
 gain every one's good word, their own included. For Frank, 
 in spite of Tom's questionable opinions, had already made all 
 but a confidant of the doctor ; and Heale in spite of envy and 
 suspicion, could not deny that the young man was a very 
 valuable young man, if he wasn't given so much to those new- 
 fangled notions of the profession.
 
 114 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 By which term Heale indicated the, to him, astounding fact, 
 that Tom charged the patients as little, instead of as much as 
 possible, and applying to medicine the principles of an en- 
 lightened political economy, tried to increase the demand by 
 cheapening the supply. 
 
 ' Which is revolutionary doctrine, sir ' said Heale to Lieu- 
 tenant Jones, over the brandy-and- water, 'and just like what 
 the Cobden and Bright lot used to talk, and have been the ruin 
 of British agriculture, though don't say I said so, because of my 
 Lord Minchampstead. But conceive my feelings, sir, as the 
 father of a family who have my bread to earn, this very 
 morning. In comes old Dame Penaluna (which is good pay I 
 know, and has two hundred and more out on a merchant brig) 
 for something ; and what was my feelings, sir, to hear this 
 young party deliver himself " Well, ma'am," says he, as I am a 
 living man, " I can cure you, if you like, with a dozen bottles of 
 lotion, at eighteenpence a-piece ; but if you'll take my advice, 
 you'll buy twopennyworth of alum down street, dp what I tell 
 you with it, and cure yourself." It's robbery, sir, I say, all 
 these out-of-the-way cheap dodges, which arn't in the pharma- 
 copoeia, half of them ; it's unprofessional, sir quackery.' 
 
 'Tell you what, doctor, robbery or none, I'll go to him to- 
 morrow, d'ye see, if I live as long, for this old ailment of mine. 
 I never told you of it, old pill and potion, for fear of a swinging 
 bill : but just grinned and bore it, d'ye see.' 
 
 'There it is again,' cries Heale in despair. 'He'll ruin me.' 
 
 ' No, he won't, and you know it.' 
 
 ' What d'ye think he served me last week ? A young chap 
 comes in, consumptive, he said, and I dare say he's right he is 
 uncommonly 'cute about what he calls diagnosis. Says he, " You 
 ought to try Carrageen moss. It's an old drug, but it's a good 
 one." There was a drawer full of it to his hand ; had been lying 
 there any time this ten years. I go to open it : but what was 
 ray feelings when he goes on, as cool as a cucumber, "And 
 there's bushels of it here," says lie, "on every rock ; so if you'll 
 come down with me at low tide this afternoon, I'll show you the 
 trade, and tell you how to boil it." I thought I should have 
 knocked him down.' 
 
 ' But you didn't,' said Jones, laughing in every muscle of his 
 body. 'Tell you what, doctor, you've got a treasure he's just 
 getting back your custom, d'ye see, and when he's done that, 
 he'll lay on the bills sharp enough. Why, I hear he's up at 
 Mrs. Vavasour's every day.' 
 
 ' And not ten shillings' worth of medicine sent up to the house 
 any week.' 
 
 ' He charges for his visits, I suppose.' 
 
 ' Not he ! If you'll believe me, when I asked him if he wasn't 
 going to, he says, says he, that Mrs. Vavasour's company was 
 quite payment enough for him."
 
 vin TAKING ROOT 115 
 
 ' Shows his good taste. Why, what now, Mary ? ' as the maid 
 opens the door. 
 
 ' Mr. Thurnall wants Mi*. Heale.' 
 
 'Always wanting me,' groans Heale, hugging his glass, 
 ' driving me about like any negro slave. Tell him to come in.' 
 
 ' Here, doctor,' says the lieutenant, ' I want you to prescribe 
 for me, if you'll do it gratis, d'ye see. Take some brandy-and- 
 water.' 
 
 ' Good advice costs nothing,' says Tom, filling ; ' Mr. Heale, 
 read that letter.' 
 
 And the lieutenant details his ailments, and their supposed 
 cause, till Heale has the pleasure of hearing Tom answer 
 
 ' Fiddlesticks ! That's not what's the matter with you. I'll 
 cure you for half a crown, and toss you up double or quits.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' groans Heale, as he spells away over the letter, 
 
 ' Lord Minchampstead having been informed by Mr. Arms- 
 worth that Mr. Thurnall is now in the neighbourhood of his 
 estates of Pentremochyn, would feel obliged to him at his 
 earliest convenience to examine into the sanitary state of the 
 cottages thereon, which are said to be much haunted by typhus 
 and other epidemics, and to send him a detailed report, indicat- 
 ing what he thinks necessary for making them thoroughly 
 healthy. Mr. Thurnall will be so good as to make his own 
 charge.' 
 
 'Well, Mr. Thurnall, you ought to turn a good penny by 
 this,' said Heale, half envious of Tom's connection, half con- 
 temptuous at his supposed indifference to gain. 
 
 ' I'll charge what it's worth,' said Tom. ' Meanwhile, I hope 
 you're going to see Miss Beer to-night.' 
 
 ' Couldn't you just go yourself, my dear sir ? It is so late.' 
 
 ' No ; I never go near young women. I told you so at first, 
 and I stick to my rule. You'd better go, sir, on my word, or if 
 she's dead before morning, don't say it's my fault.' 
 
 ' Did you ever hear a poor old man so tyrannised over ? ' said 
 Heale, as Tom coolly went into the passage, brought in the old 
 man's greatcoat and hat, arrayed him and marched him out, 
 civilly but firmly. 
 
 ' Now, lieutenant, I've half an hour to spare ; let's have a 
 jolly chat about the West Indies.' 
 
 And Tom began with anecdote and joke, and the old seaman 
 laughed till he cried, and went to bed vowing that there never 
 was such a pleasant fellow on earth, and he ought to be physician 
 to Queen Victoria. 
 
 _ Up at five the next morning, the indefatigable Tom had all 
 his work done by ten ; and was preparing to start for Pentre- 
 mochyn ere Heale was out of bed, when a customer came in 
 who kept him half an hour. 
 
 He was a tall broad-shouldered young man, with a red face, 
 protruding bull's eyes, and a moustachio. He was dressed in a
 
 116 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 complete suit of pink and white plaid, cut jauntily enough. A 
 bright blue cap, a thick gold watch-chain, three or four large 
 rings, a dog-whistle from his buttonhole, a fancy cane in his 
 hand, and a little Oxford meerschaum in his mouth, completed 
 his equipment. He lounged in, with an air of careless superi- 
 ority, while Tom, who was behind the counter, cutting up his 
 day s provision of honeydew, eyed him curiously. 
 
 ' Who are you, now 1 A gentleman ? Not quite, I guess. 
 Some squireen of the parts adjacent, and look in somewhat of a 
 crapulocomatose state moreover. I wonder if you are the great 
 Trebooze, of Trebooze.' 
 
 ' I say,' yawned the young gentleman, ' where's old Heale ? ' 
 and an oath followed the speech, as it did every other one herein 
 recorded. 
 
 ' The playing half of old Heale is' in bed, and I'm his working 
 half. Can I do anything for you ? ' 
 
 'Cool fish,' thought the customer. 'I say what have you 
 got there ? ' 
 
 ' Australian honeydew. Did you ever smoke it ? ' 
 
 ' I've heard of it ; let's see : ' and Mr. Trebooze for it was he 
 put his hand across the counter unceremoniously, and clawed 
 up some. 
 
 'Didn't know you sold tobacco here. Prime stuff Too 
 strong for me, though, this morning, somehow.' 
 
 ' Ah ? A little too much claret last night ? I thought so. 
 We'll set that right in five minutes.' 
 
 ' Eh ? How did you guess that ? ' asked Trebooze, with a 
 larger oath than usual. 
 
 ' Oh, we doctors are men of the world,' said Tom, in a cheerful 
 and insinuating tone, as he mixed his man a draught. 
 
 ' You doctors ? You're a cock of a different hackle from old 
 Heale, then.' 
 
 ' I trust so,' said Tom. 
 
 ' By George, I feel better already. I say, you're a trump ; I 
 suppose you're Heale's new partner, the man who was washed 
 ashore ? ' 
 
 Tom nodded assent. 
 
 ' I say how do you sell that honeydew ? ' 
 
 'I don't sell it ; I'll give you as much as you like, only you 
 shan't smoke it till after dinner.' 
 
 ' Shan't ? ' said Trebooze, testy and proud. 
 
 ' Not with my leave, or you'll be complaining two hours hence 
 that I'm a humbug, and have done you no good. Get on your 
 horse, and have four hours' gallop on the downs, and you'll feel 
 like a buffalo bull by two o'clock.' 
 
 Trebooze looked at him with a stupid curiosity and a little 
 awe. He saw that Tom's cool self-possession was not meant for 
 impudence ; and something in his tone and manner told him 
 that the boast of being 'a man of the world' was not untrue.
 
 viir TAKING ROOT 117 
 
 And of all kinds of men, a man of the world was the man of 
 whom Trebooze stood most in awe. A small squireen, cursed 
 with six or seven hundreds a year of his own, never sent to 
 school, college, or into the army, he had grown up in a narrow 
 circle of squireens like himself, without an object save that of 
 gratifying his animal passions ; and had about six years before, 
 being then just of age, settled in life by marrying his housemaid 
 the only wise thing, perhaps, he ever did. For she, a clever 
 and determined woman, kept him, though not from drunken- 
 ness and debt, at least from delirium tremens and ruin, and was, 
 in her rough, vulgar way, his guardian angel such a one, at 
 least, as he was worthy of. More than once has one seen the 
 same seeming folly turn out in practice as wise a step as could 
 well have been taken ; and the coarse nature of the man, which 
 would have crushed and ill-used a delicate and high-minded 
 wif e, subdued to something like decency by a help literally meet 
 for it. 
 
 There was a pause. Trebooze fancied, and wisely, that the 
 doctor was a cleverer man than he, and of course would want 
 to show it. So, after the fashion of a country squireen, he felt 
 a longing to ' set him down.' ' He's been a traveller, they say,' 
 thought he in that pugnacious, sceptical spirit which is bred, 
 not, as twaddlers fancy, by too extended knowledge, but by the 
 sense of ignorance and a narrow sphere of thought, which 
 makes a man angry and envious of any one who has seen more 
 than he. 
 
 ' Buffalo bulls ? ' said he, half contemptuously ; ' what do you 
 know about buffalo bulls ? ' 
 
 ' I was one once myself,' said Tom, ' where I lived before.' 
 
 Trebooze swore. ' Don't you put your traveller's lies on me, 
 sir.' 
 
 ' Well, perhaps I dreamt it,' said Tom placidly ; ' I remember 
 I dreamt at the same time that you were a grizzly bear, fourteen 
 feet long, and wanted to eat me up : but you found me too 
 tough about the hump ribs.' 
 
 Trebooze stared at his audacity. 
 
 ' You're a rum hand.' 
 
 To which Tom made answer in the same elegant strain ; and 
 then began a regular word-battle of slang, in which Tom showed 
 himself so really witty a proficient, that Mr. Trebooze laughed 
 himself into good humour, and ended by 
 
 'I say, you're a good fellow, and I think you and I shall 
 suit.' 
 
 Tom had his doubts, but did not express them. 
 
 ' Come up this afternoon and see my child ; Mrs. Trebooze 
 thinks it's got swelled glands, or some such woman's nonsense. 
 Bother them, why can't they let the child alone, fussing and 
 doctoring : and she will have you. Heard of you from Mrs. 
 Vavasour, I believe. Our doctor and I have quarrelled, and she
 
 118 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 said, if I could get you, she'd sooner have you than that old 
 rum-puncheon Heale. And then, you'd better stop and take 
 pot-luck, and we'll make a night of it.' 
 
 ' I have to go round Lord Minchampstead's estates, and will 
 take you on my way : but I'm afraid I shall be too dirty to have 
 the pleasure or dining with Mrs. Trebooze coming back.' 
 
 ' Mrs. Trebooze ! She must take what I like ; and what's 
 good enough for me is good enough for her, I hope. Come as 
 you are Liberty-hall at Trebooze ; ' and out he swaggered. 
 
 ' Does he bully her ? ' thought Tom, ' or is he hen-pecked, and 
 wants to hide it? I'll see to-night, and play my cards ac- 
 cordingly.' 
 
 All which Miss Heale had heard. She had been peeping and 
 listening at the glass-door, and her mother also ; for no sooner 
 had Trebooze entered the shop, than she had run off to tell her 
 mother the surprising fact, Trebooze's custom having been, for 
 some years past, courted in vain by Heale. So Miss Heale 
 peeped and peeped at a man whom she regarded with delighted 
 curiosity, because he bore the reputation of being 'such a 
 naughty, wicked man ! ' and ' so very handsome too, and so dis- 
 tinguished as he looks ! ' said the poor little fool, to whose 
 novel-fed imagination Mr. Trebooze was an ideal Lothario. 
 
 But the surprise of the two dames grew rapidly as they heard 
 Tom's audacity towards the country aristocrat. 
 
 ' Impudent wretch ! ' moaned Mrs. Heale to herself. ' He'd 
 drive away an angel if he came into the shop.' 
 
 ' Oh, ma ! hear how they are going on now.' 
 
 ' I can't bear it, my dear. This man will be the ruin of us. 
 His manners are those of the pot-house, when the cloven foot is 
 sh6wn, which it's his nature as a child of wrath, and we can't 
 expect otherwise.' 
 
 ' Oh, ma ! do you hear that Mr. Trebooze has asked him to 
 dinner ? ' 
 
 ' Nonsense ! ' 
 
 But it was true. 
 
 ' Well ! if there ain't the signs of the end of the world, which 
 is ? All the years your poor father has been here-, and never so 
 much as send him a hare, and now this young penniless inter- 
 loper ; and he to dine at Trebooze off purple and fine linen.' 
 
 ' There is not much of that there, ma ; I'm sure they are poor 
 enough, for all his pride ; and as for her 
 
 ' Yes, my dear ; and as for her, though we haven't married 
 squires, my dear, yet we haven't been squire's housemaids, and 
 have adorned our own station, which was good enough for us, 
 and has no need to rise out of it, nor ride on Pharaoh's chariot- 
 wheels after filthy lucre 
 
 Miss Heale hated poor Mrs. Trebooze with a bitter hatred, 
 because she dreamed insanely that, but for her, she might have 
 secured Mr. Trebooze for herself. And though her ambition
 
 via TAKING ROOT 119 
 
 was now transferred to the unconscious Tom, that need not 
 make any difference in the said amiable feeling. 
 
 But that Tom was a most wonderful person, she had no 
 doubt. He had conquered her heart so she informed herself 
 passionately again and again as was very necessary, seeing 
 that the passion, having no real life of its own, required a good 
 deal of blowing to keep it alight. Yes, he had conquered her 
 heart, and he was conquering all hearts likewise. There must 
 be some mystery about him there should be. And she settled 
 in her novel-bewildered brain, that Tom must be a nobleman in 
 disguise probably a foreign prince, exiled for political offences. 
 Ban ! perhaps too many lines have been spent on the poor little 
 fool ; but as such fools exist, and people must be as they are, 
 there is no harm in drawing her and in asking, too Who will 
 help those young girls of the middle class who, like Miss Heale, 
 are often really less educated than the children of their parents' 
 workmen ; sedentary, luxurious, full of petty vanity, gossip, 
 and intrigue, without work, without purpose, except that of 
 getting married to any one who will ask them bewildering 
 brain and heart with novels, which, after all, one hardly grudges 
 them ; for what other means have they of learning that there 
 is any fairer, nobler life possible, at least on earth, than that of 
 the sordid money -getting, often the sordid puffery and adultera- 
 tion, which is the atmosphere of their home ? Exceptions there 
 are, in thousands, doubtless ; and the families of the great city 
 tradesmen stand, of course, on far higher ground, and are often 
 far better educated, and more high-minded, than the fine ladies, 
 their parents' customers. But, till some better plan of educa- 
 tion than the boarding-school is devised for them ; till our towns 
 shall see something like in kind to, though sounder and soberer 
 in quality than, the high schools of America ; till in country 
 villages the ladies who interest themselves about the poor will 
 recollect that the farmers' and tradesmen's daughters are just 
 as much in want of their influence as the charity children, and 
 will yield a far richer return for their labour, though the one 
 need not interfere with the other ; so long will England be full 
 of Miss Heales ; fated, when they marry, to bring up sons and 
 daughters as sordid and unwholesome as their mothers. 
 
 Tom worked all that day in and out of the Pentremochyn 
 cottages, noting down nuisances and dilapidations : but his 
 head was full of other thoughts, for he had received, the evening 
 before, news which was to him very important, for more reasons 
 than one. The longer he stayed at Aberalva, the longer he felt 
 inclined to stay. The strange attraction of Grace had, as we 
 have seen, something to do with his purpose : but he saw, too, 
 a good opening for one of those country practices in which he 
 seemed more and more likely to end. At his native Whitbury, 
 he knew, there was no room for a fresh medical man ; and 
 gradually he was making up his mind to settle at Aberalva ; to
 
 120 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 buy out Heale, either with his own money (if he recovered it), 
 or with money borrowed from Mark ; to bring his father down 
 to live with him, and in that pleasant wild western place, fold 
 his wings after all his wanderings. And therefore certain news 
 which he had obtained the night before was very valuable to 
 him, in that it put a fresh person into his power, and might, if 
 cunningly used, give him a hold upon the ruling family of the 
 place, and on Lord Scoutbush himself. He had found out that 
 Lucia and Elsley were unhappy together ; and found out, too, 
 a little more than was there to find. He could not, of course, 
 be a month among the gossips of Aberalva, without hearing 
 hints that the great folks at the court did not always keep their 
 tempers ; for of family jars, as of everything else on earth, the 
 great and just law stands true: 'What you do in the closet, 
 shall be proclaimed on the housetop.' 
 
 But the gossips of Aberalva, as women are too often wont to 
 do, had altogether taken the man's side in the quarrel. The 
 reason was, I suppose, that Lucia, conscious of having fallen 
 somewhat in rank, ' held up her head ' to Mrs. Trebooze and 
 Mrs. Heale (as they themselves expressed it), and to various 
 other little notabilities of the neighbourhood, rather more than 
 she would have done had she married a man of her own class. 
 She was afraid that they might boast of being intimate with 
 her ; that they might take to advising and patronising her as 
 an inexperienced young creature ; afraid, even, that she might 
 be tempted in some unguarded moment to gossip with them, 
 confide her unhappiness to them, in the blind longing to open 
 her heart to some human being ; for there were no resident 
 gentry of her own rank in the neighbourhood. She was too 
 high - minded to complain much to Clara ; and her sister 
 Valentia was the very last person to whom she would confess 
 that her runaway match had not been altogether successful. 
 So she lived alone and friendless, shrinking into herself more 
 and more, while the vulgar women round mistook her honour 
 for pride, and revenged themselves accordingly. She was an 
 uninteresting fine lady, proud and cross, and Elsley was a 
 martyr. ' So handsome and agreeable as he was ' (and, to do 
 him justice, he was the former, and lie could be the latter when 
 he chose), ' to be tied to that unsociable, stuck-up woman ; ' and 
 so forth. 
 
 All which Tom had heard, and formed his own opinion 
 thereof : which was, 
 
 ' All very fine ; but I flatter myself I know a little what 
 women are made of ; and this I know, that where man and 
 wife quarrel, even if she ends the battle, it is he who has begun 
 it. I never saw a case yet where the man was not the most in 
 fault ; and I'll lay my life John Briggs has led her a pretty life : 
 what else could one expect of him ?' 
 
 However, he held his tongue, and kept his eyes open withal
 
 vni TAKING ROOT 121 
 
 whenever he went up to Penalva Court, which he had to do 
 very often ; for though he had cured the children of their ail- 
 ments, yet Mrs. Vavasour was perpetually, more or less, unwell, 
 and he could not cure her. Her low spirits, headaches, general 
 want of tone and vitality, puzzled him at first, and would have 
 puzzled him longer, had he not settled with himself that their 
 cause was to be sought in the mind, and not in the body ; and 
 at last, gaining courage from certainty, he had hinted as much 
 to Miss Clara the night before, when she came down (as she 
 was very fond of doing) to have a gossip with him in his shop, 
 under the pretence of fetching medicine. 
 
 'I don't think I shall send Mrs. Vavasour any more, Miss 
 Clara. There is no use running up a long bill while I do no 
 good ; and, what is more, suspect that I can do none, poor 
 lady.' And he gave the girl a look which seemed to say, 'You 
 had better tell me the truth ; for I know everything already.' 
 
 To which Clara answered by trying to find out how much he 
 did know : but Tom was a cunninger diplomatist than she ; and 
 in ten minutes, after having given solemn promises of secrecy, 
 and having, by strong expressions of contempt for Mrs. Heale 
 and the village gossips, made Clara understand that he did not 
 at all take their view of the case, he had poured out to him 
 across the counter all Clara's long - pent indignation and 
 contempt. 
 
 ' I never said a word of this to a living soul, sir ; I was too 
 proud, for my mistress' sake, to let vulgar people know what 
 we suffered. We don't want any of their pity indeed ; but you, 
 sir, who have the feelings of a gentleman, and know what the 
 world is, like ourselves 
 
 ' Take care,' whispered Tom ; ' that daughter of Heale's may 
 be listening.' 
 
 'I'd pull her hair about her ears if I caught her!' quoth 
 Clara ; and then ran on to tell how Elsley ' never kept no hours, 
 nor no accounts either ; so that she has to do everything, poor 
 thing ; and no thanks either. And never knows when he'll 
 dine, or when he'll breakfast, or when he'll be in, wandering in 
 and out like a madman ; and sits up all night, writing his non- 
 sense. And she'll go down twice and three times a night in the 
 cold, poor dear, to see if he's fallen asleep ; and gets abused like 
 a pickpocket for her pains (which was an exaggeration) ; and 
 lies in bed all the morning, looking at the flies, and calls after 
 her if his shoes want tying, or his finger aches ; as helpless as 
 the babe unborn ; and will never do nothing useful himself, not 
 even to hang a picture or move a chair, and grumbles at her if 
 he sees her doing anything, because she ain't listening to his 
 prosodies, and snaps, and worrits, and won't speak to her some- 
 times for a whole morning, the brute.' 
 
 ' But is he not fond of his children ? ' 
 
 ' Fond ? Yes, his way, and smalls thanks to him, the little
 
 122 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 angels ! To play with 'em when they're good, and tell them 
 cock-and-a-bull fairy-tales wonder why he likes to put such 
 stuff into their heads and then send 'em out of the room if 
 they make a noise, because it splits his poor head, arid his 
 nerves are so delicate. Wish he had hers, or mine either, Doctor 
 Thurnall ; then he'd know what nerves was, in a frail woman, 
 which he uses us both as his negro slaves, or would if I didn't 
 stand up to him pretty sharp now and then, and give him a 
 piece of my mind, which I will do, like the faithful servant in 
 the parable, if he kills me for it, Doctor Thurnall ! ' 
 
 ' Does he drink ? ' asked Tom bluntly. 
 
 ' He ! ' she answered, in a tone which seemed to imply that 
 even one masculine vice would have raised him in her eyes. 
 ' He's not man enough, I think ; and lives on his slops, and his 
 coffee, and his tapioca ; and how's he ever to have any appetite, 
 always a sitting about, heaped up together over his books, with 
 his ribs growing into his backbone 1 If he'd only go and take 
 his walk, or get a spade and dig in the garden, or anything but 
 them everlasting papers, which I hates the sight of ; ' and so 
 forth. 
 
 From all which Tom gathered a tolerably clear notion of the 
 poor poet's state of body and mind ; as a self-indulgent, unme- 
 thodical person, whose ill-temper was owing partly to perpetual 
 brooding over his own thoughts, and partly to dyspepsia, 
 brought on by his own effeminacy in both cases, not a thing to 
 be pitied or excused by the hearty and valiant doctor. And 
 Tom's original contempt for Vavasour took a darker form, 
 perhaps one too dark to be altogether just. 
 
 ' I'll tackle him, Miss Clara.' 
 
 ' I wish you would : I'm sure he wants some one to look after 
 him just now. He's half wild about some review that some- 
 body s been and done of him in the Times, and has been flinging 
 the paper about the room, and calling all mankind vipers, and 
 adders, and hooting herds it's as bad as swearing, I say and 
 running to my mistress, to make her read it, and see how the 
 whole world's against him, and then forbidding her to defile her 
 eyes with a word of it ; and so on, till she's been crying all the 
 morning, poor dear ! ' 
 
 ' Why not laughing at him ! ' 
 
 'Poor thing; that's where it all is: she's just as anxious 
 about his poetry as he is, and would write it just as well as he, 
 I'll warrant, if she hadn't better things to do ; and all her fuss 
 is, that people should " appreciate " him. He's always talking 
 about appreciating, till I hate the sound of the word. How any 
 woman can go on so after a man that behaves as he does ! but 
 we're all soft fools, I'm afraid, Doctor Thurnall.' And Clara 
 began a languishing look or two across the counter, which made 
 Tom answer to an imaginary Doctor Heale, whom he heard 
 calling from within.
 
 vni TAKING ROOT 123 
 
 'Yes, doctor! coming this moment, doctor! Good-bye, 
 Miss Clara. I must hear more next time ; you may trust me, 
 you know ; secret as the grave, and always your friend, and 
 your lady's too, if you will allow me to do myself such an 
 honour. Coming, doctor ! ' 
 
 And Tom bolted through the glass door, till Miss Clara was 
 safe on her way up the street. 
 
 ' Very well,' said Tom to himself. ' Knowledge is power : but 
 how to use it ? To get into Mrs. Vavasour's confidence, and 
 show an inclination to take her part against her husband 1 If 
 she be a true woman, she would order me out of the house on 
 the spot, as surely as a fish-wife would fall tooth and nail on me 
 as a base intruder, if I dared to interfere with her sacred right 
 of being beaten by her husband when she chooses. No ; I must 
 go straight to John Briggs himself, and bind him over to keep 
 the peace ; and I think I know the way to do it.' 
 
 So Tom pondered over many plans in his head that day ; and 
 then went to Trebooze, and saw the sick child, and sat down to 
 dinner, where his host talked loud about the Treboozes of Tre- 
 booze, who fought in the Spanish Armada or against it ; and 
 showed an unbounded belief in the greatness and antiquity of 
 his family, combined with a historic accuracy about equal to 
 that of a good old dame of those parts, who used to say ' her 
 family corned over the water, that she knew ; but whether it 
 were with the Conqueror, or whether it were wi' Oliver, she 
 couldn't exactly say ! ' 
 
 Then he became great on the subject of old county families 
 in general, and poured out all the vials of his wrath on ' that 
 confounded upstart of a Newbroom, Lord Minchampstead,' sup- 
 planting all the fine old blood in the country. ' Why, sir, that 
 
 Pentremochyn, and Carcarrow moors too ( good shooting 
 
 there, there used to be), they ought to be mine, sir, if every man 
 had his rights ! ' And then followed a long story ; and a con- 
 fused one withal, for by this time Mr. Trebooze had drunk a 
 great deal too much wine, and as he became aware of the fact, 
 became proportionately anxious that Tom should drink too 
 much also ; out of which story Tom picked the plain facts, that 
 Trebopze's father had mortgaged Pentremochyn estate for more 
 than its value, and that Lord Minchampstead had foreclosed ; 
 while some equally respectable uncle, or cousin, just deceased, 
 had sold the reversion of Carcarrow to the same mighty cotton 
 Lord twenty years before. ' And this is the way, sir, the land 
 gets eaten up by a set of tinkers, and cobblers, and money-lend- 
 ing jobbers, who suck the blood of the aristocracy ! ' The oaths 
 \ye omit, leaving the reader to pepper Mr. Trebooze's conversa- 
 tion therewith, up to any degree of heat which may suit his 
 palate. 
 
 Tom sympathised with him deeply, of course ; and did not 
 tell him, as he might have done, that he thought the sooner such
 
 124 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 cumberers of the ground were cleared off, whether by an en- 
 cumbered estates' act, such as we may see yet in England, or by 
 their own suicidal folly, the better it would be for the universe 
 in general, and perhaps for themselves in particular. But he 
 only answered with pleasant effrontery 
 
 'Ah, my dear sir, I am sure there are hundreds of good 
 sportsmen who can sympathise with you deeply. The wonder 
 is, that you do not unite and defend yourselves. For not only 
 in the west of England, but in Ireland, and in Wales, and in the 
 north, too, if one is to believe those novels of Currer Bell's, and 
 her sister, there is a large and important class of landed pro- 
 prietors of the same stamp as yourself, and exposed to the very 
 same dangers. I wonder at times that you do not all join, and 
 use your combined influence on the Government.' 
 
 ' The Government ? All a set of Whig traitors ! Call them- 
 selves Conservative, or what they like. Traitors, sir ! from 
 that fellow Peel upwards all combined to crush the landed 
 gentry ruin the Church betray the country party D'Israeli 
 Derby Free-trade ruined, sir ! Maynooth Protection 
 treason help yourself, and pass the you know, old fellow 
 
 And Mr. Trebooze's voice died away, and he slumbered, but 
 not softly. 
 
 The door opened, and in marched Mrs. Trebooze, tall, tawdry, 
 and terrible. 
 
 ' Mr. Trebooze, it's past eleven o'clock ! ' 
 
 ' Hush, my dear madam ! He is sleeping so sweetly,' said 
 Tom, rising, and gulping down a glass, not of wine, but of strong 
 ammonia and water. The rogue had put a phial thereof in his 
 pocket that morning, expecting that, as Trebooze had said, he 
 would be required to make a night of it. 
 
 She was silent ; for to rouse her tyrant was more than she 
 dare do. If awakened, he would crave for brandy-and-water ; 
 and if he got that sweet poison, he would probably become 
 furious. She stood for half a minute ; and Tom, who knew her 
 story well, watched her curiously. 
 
 ' She is a fine woman : and with a far finer heart in her than 
 that brute. Her eyebrow and eye, now, have the true Siddons' 
 stamp ; the great white forehead, and sharp-cut little nostril, 
 breathing scorn and what a Siddons-like attitude ! I should 
 like, madam, to see the child again before I go.' 
 
 ' If you are tit, sir,' answered she. 
 
 ' Brave woman ; comes to the point at once. I am a poor 
 doctor, madam, and not a country gentleman ; and have neither 
 money nor health to spend in drinking too much wine.' 
 
 ' Then why do you encourage him in it, sir 1 I had expected 
 a very different sort of conduct from you, sir.' 
 
 Tom did not tell her what she would not (no woman will) 
 understand ; that it is morally and socially impossible to escape 
 from the table of a fool, till either he or you are conquered ; and
 
 vin TAKING ROOT 125 
 
 she was too shrewd to be taken in by common-place excuses ; so 
 he looked her very full in the face, and replied a little haughtily, 
 with a slow and delicate articulation, using his lips more than 
 usual, and yet compressing them : 
 
 'I beg your pardon, madam, if I have unintentionally dis- 
 pleased you : but if you ever do me the honour of knowing more 
 of me, you will be the first to confess that your words are unjust. 
 Do you wish me to see your son, or do you not ? ' 
 
 Poor Mrs. Trebooze looked at him with an eye which showed 
 that she had been accustomed to study character keenly, perhaps 
 in self-defence. She saw that Tom was sober ; he had taken 
 care to prove that, by the way in which he spoke ; and she saw, 
 too, that he was a better bred man than her husband, as well as 
 a cleverer. She dropped her eye before his ; heaved something 
 very like a sigh ; and then said, in her curt, fierce tone, which 
 yet implied a sort of sullen resignation 
 
 ' Yes ; come upstairs.' 
 
 Tom went up, and looked at the boy again, as he lay sleeping. 
 A beautiful child of four years old, as large and fair a child as 
 man need see ; and yet there was on him the curse of his father's 
 sins ; and Tom knew it, and knew that his mother knew it also. 
 
 ' What a noble boy ! ' said he, after looking, not without 
 honest admiration, upon the sleeping child, who had kicked off 
 his bedclothes, and lay in a wild graceful attitude, as children 
 are wont to lie ; just like an old Greek statue of Cupid. 'It all 
 depends upon you, madam, now.' 
 
 ' On me ? ' she asked, in a startled, suspicious tone. 
 
 ' Yes. He is a magnificent boy : but I can only give pallia- 
 tives. It depends upon your care now.' 
 
 'He will have that, at least, I should hope,' she said, nettled. 
 
 ' And on your influence ten years hence,' went on Tom. 
 
 ' My influence 1 ' 
 
 1 Yes ; only keep him steady, and he may grow up a magnifi- 
 cent man. If not you will excuse me but you must not let 
 him live as freely as his father ; the constitutions of the two are 
 very different.' 
 
 ' Don't talk so, sir. Steady 1 His father makes him drunk 
 now, if he can ; teaches him to swear, because it is manly God 
 help him and me ! ' 
 
 Tom's cunning and yet kind shaft had sped. He guessed that 
 with a coarse woman like Mrs. Trebooze his best plan was to 
 come as straight to the point as he could ; and he was right. 
 Ere half an hour was over, that woman had few secrets on earth 
 which Tom did not know. 
 
 'Let me give you one hint before I go, 1 said he at last. 
 ' Persuade your husband to go into a militia regiment.' 
 
 'Why ? He would see so much company, and it would be so 
 expensive.' 
 
 'The expense would repay itself ten times over. The com-
 
 126 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 pany which he would see would be sober company, in which he 
 would be forced to keep in order. He would have something to 
 do in the world ; and he'd do it well. He is just cut out for a 
 soldier, and might have made a gallant one by now, if he had 
 had other men's chances. He will find he does his militia work 
 well ; and it will be a new interest, and a new pride, and a new 
 life to him. And meanwhile, madam, what you have said to me 
 is sacred. I do not pretend to advise or interfere. Only tell 
 me if I can be of use how, when, and where and command 
 me as your servant.' 
 
 And Tom departed, having struck another root ; and was up 
 at four the next morning (he never worked at night ; for, he 
 said, he never could trust after-dinner brains), drawing out a 
 detailed report of the Pentremochyn cottages, which he sent to 
 Lord Minchampstead, with 
 
 ' And your Lordship will excuse my saying, that to put the 
 cottages into the state into which your Lordship, with your 
 known wish for progress of all kinds, would wish to see them, is 
 a responsibility which I dare not take on myself, as it would in- 
 volve a present outlay of not less than 450. This sum would 
 be certainly repaid to your Lordship and your tenants, in the 
 course of the next three years, by the saving in poor-rates ; an 
 opinion for which I subjoin my grounds drawn from the books 
 of the medical officer, Mr. Heale : but the responsibility and 
 possible unpopularity which employing so great a sum 
 would involve is more than I can, in the present dependent 
 condition of poor-law medical officers, dare to undertake, in 
 justice to Mr. Heale, my employer, save at your special com- 
 mand. I am bound, however, to inform your Lordship, that 
 this outlay would, I think, perfectly defend the hamlets, not 
 only from that visit of the cholera which we have every reason 
 to expect next summer, but also from those zymotic diseases 
 which (as your Lordship will see by my returns) make up more 
 than sixty-five per cent of the aggregate sickness of the estate.' 
 . Which letter the old cotton Lord put in his pocket, rode into 
 Whitbury therewith, and showed it to Mark Armsworth. 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Armsworth, what am I to do ? ' 
 
 ' Well, my Lord ; I told you what sort of a man you'd have to 
 do with ; one that does his work thoroughly ; and, I think, 
 pays you a compliment, by thinking that you want it done 
 thoroughly.' 
 
 Lord Minchampstead was of the same opinion ; but he did 
 not say so. Few, indeed, have ever heard Lord Minchampstead 
 give his opinion : though many a man has seen him act on it. 
 
 ' I'll send down orders to my agent.' 
 
 'Don't.' 
 
 ' Why, then, my good friend ? ' 
 
 ' Agents are always in league with farmers, or guardians, or 
 builders, or drain-tile makers, or attorneys, or bankers, or some-
 
 ix ' AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER 1 ' 127 
 
 body ; and either you'll be told that the work don't need 
 doing, or have a job brewed out of it, to get off a lot of unsale- 
 able drain-tiles, or cracked soil-pans ; or to get farm ditches dug, 
 and perhaps the highway rates saved building culverts, and fifty 
 dodges beside. I know their game ; and you ought, too, by now, 
 my Lord, begging your pardon.' 
 
 ' Perhaps I do, Mark,' said his Lordship with a chuckle. 
 
 ' So, I say, let the man that found the fox run the fox, and 
 kill the fox, and take the brush home.' 
 
 ' And so it shall be,' quoth my Lord Minchampstead. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 'AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?' 
 
 BUT what was the mysterious bond between La Cordifiamma 
 and the American, which had prevented Scoutbush from follow- 
 ing the example of his illustrious progenitor, and taking a 
 viscountess from off the stage ? 
 
 Certainly, any one who had seen her with him on the morning 
 after Scoutbush's visit to the Mellots, would have said that, if 
 the cause was love, the love was all on one side. 
 
 She was standing by the fireplace in a splendid pose, her arm 
 resting on the chimney-piece, the book from which she had been 
 reciting in one hand, the other playing in her black curls, as 
 her eyes glanced back ever and anon at her own profile in the 
 mirror. Stangrave was half sitting in a low chair by her side, 
 half kneeling on the footstool before her, looking up beseech- 
 ingly, as she looked down tyrannically. 
 
 ' Stupid, this reciting ? Of course it is ! I want realities, not 
 shams ; life, not the stage ; nature, not art.' 
 
 'Throw away the book, then, and words, and art, and 
 live ! ' 
 
 She knew well what he meant ; but she answered as if she 
 had misunderstood him. 
 
 ' Thanks, I live already, and in good company enough. My 
 ghost-husbands are as noble as they are obedient ; do all which 
 I demand of them, and vanish on my errands when I tell them. 
 Can you guess who my last is ? Since I tired of Egmont, I have 
 taken Sir Galahad, the spotless knight. Did you ever read the 
 Mart d' 'Arthur ? ' 
 
 ' A hundred times.' 
 
 ' Of course ! ' and she spoke in a tone of contempt so strong 
 that it must have been affected. 'What have you not read ? 
 And what have you copied ? No wonder that these English 
 have been what they have been for centuries, while their heroes 
 have been the Galahads, and their Homer the Mart d' Arthur.' 
 
 'Enjoy your Utopia ! ' said he bitterly. 'Do you fancy they
 
 128 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 acted up to their ideals ? They dreamed of the Quest of the 
 Sangreal : but which of them ever went upon it ? ' 
 
 ' And does it count for nothing that they felt it the finest 
 thing in the world to have gone on it, had it been possible 1 Be 
 sure if their ideal was so self-sacrificing, so lofty, their practice 
 was ruled by something higher than the almighty dollar.' 
 
 ' And so are some other men's, Marie.' answered he reproach- 
 fully. 
 
 'Yes, forsooth ; when the almighty dollar is there already, 
 and a man has ten times as much to spend every day as he can 
 possibly invest in French cookery, and wines, and fine clothes, 
 then he begins to lay out his surplus nobly on self -education, and 
 the patronage of art, and the theatre for merely aesthetic pur- 
 poses, of course ; and when the lust of the flesh has been satisfied, 
 thinks himself an archangel, because he goes on to satisfy the 
 lust of the eye and the pride of life. Christ was of old the 
 model, and Sir Galahad was the hero. Now the one is exchanged 
 for Goethe, and the other for Wilhelm Meister.' 
 
 ' Cruel ! You know that my Goethe fever is long past. How 
 would you have known of its existence if I had not confessed it 
 to you as a sin of old years 1 Have I not said to you, again and 
 again, show me the thing which you would have me do for 
 your sake, and see if I will not do it ! ' 
 
 'For my sake? A noble reason! Show yourself the thing 
 which you will do for its own sake ; because it ought to be done. 
 Show it yourself, I say ; I cannot show you. If your own eyes 
 cannot see the Sangreal, and the angels who are bearing it be- 
 fore you, it is because they are dull and gross ; and am I Milton's 
 archangel, to purge them with euphrasy and rue ? If you have 
 a noble heart, you will find for yourself the noblest Quest. If 
 not, who can prove to you that it is noble?' Arid tapping 
 impatiently with her foot, she went on to herself 
 
 ' A gentle sound, an awful light ! 
 
 Three angels bear the holy Grail : 
 With folded feet, in stoles of whito, 
 
 On sleeping wings they sail. 
 Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God ! 
 
 The spirit beats her mortal bars, 
 As down dark tides the glory slides, 
 
 And star-like mingles with the stars.' 
 
 ' Why, there was not a knight of the round table, was there, 
 who did not give up all to go upon that Quest, though only one 
 was found worthy to fulfil it ? But nowadays, the knights sit 
 drinking hock and champagne, or drive sulky-wagons, and never 
 fancy that there is a Quest at al!.' 
 
 ' Why talk in these parables ? ' 
 
 'So the Jews asked of their prophets. They are no parables
 
 ix ' AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER 1 ' 129 
 
 to my ghost-husband Sir Galahad. Now go, if you please ; I 
 must be busy, and write letters.' 
 
 He rose with a look, half of disappointment, half amused, and 
 yet his face bore a firmness which seemed to say, ' You will be 
 mine yet.' As he rose, he cast his eye upon the writing-table, 
 and upon a letter which lay there : and as he did so, his cheek 
 grew pale, and his brows knitted. 
 
 The letter was addressed to ' Thomas Thurnall, Esq., Aber- 
 alva.' 
 
 ' Is this, then, your Sir Galahad ? ' asked he, after a pause, 
 during which he had choked down his rising jealousy, while she 
 looked first at herself in the glass, and then at him, and then at 
 herself again, with a determined and triumphant air. 
 
 'And what if it be?' 
 
 ' So he, then, has achieved the Quest of the Sangreal ? ' 
 
 Stangrave spoke bitterly, and with an emphasis upon the 
 'he :' and 
 
 ' What if he have ? Do you know him ? ' answered she, while 
 her face lighted up with eager interest, which she did not care 
 to conceal, perhaps chose, in her woman's love of tormenting, 
 to parade. 
 
 ' I knew a man of that name once,' he replied, in a carefully 
 careless tone, which did not deceive her; 'an adventurer a 
 doctor, if I recollect who had been in Texas and Mexico, and 
 I know not where besides. Agreeable enough he was ; but as 
 for your Quest of the Sangreal, whatever it may be, he seemed 
 to have as little notion of anything beyond his own interest as 
 any Greek I ever met.' 
 
 ' Unjust ! Your words only show how little you can see ! 
 That man, of all men I ever met, saw the Quest at once, and 
 followed it, at the risk of his own life, as far at least as he was 
 concerned with it ay, even when he pretended to see nothing. 
 Oh, there is more generosity in that man's affected selfishness, 
 than in all the noisy good-nature which I have met with in the 
 world. Thurnall ! oh, you know his nobleness as little as he 
 knows it himself.' 
 
 ' Then he, I am to suppose, is your phantom-husband, for as 
 long, at least, as your present dream lasts ? ' asked he, with white, 
 compressed lips. 
 
 ' He might have been, I believe,' she answered carelessly, ' if 
 he had even taken the trouble to ask me.' 
 
 ' Marie, this is too much ! Do you not know to whom you 
 speak ? To one who deserves, if not common courtesy, at least 
 common mercy.' 
 
 ' Because he adores me, and so forth ? So has many a man 
 done ; or told me that he has done so. Do you know that I 
 might be a viscountess to-morrow, so Sabina informs me, if I 
 but chose.' 
 
 ' A viscountess 1 Pray accept your effete English aristocrat,, 
 K T. Y. A.
 
 130 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 and, as far as I am concerned, accept my best wishes for your 
 happiness.' 
 
 ' My effete English aristocrat, did I show him that pedigree 
 of mine which I have ere now threatened to show you, would 
 perhaps be less horrified at it than you are.' 
 
 ' Marie, I cannot bear this ! Tell me only what you mean. 
 What care I for pedigree ? I want you worship you and that 
 is enough, Marie ! ' 
 
 ' You admire me because I am beautiful. What thanks do I 
 owe you for finding out so patent a fact ? What do you do 
 more to me than I do to myself ? ' and she glanced back once 
 more at the mirror. 
 
 ' Marie, you know that your words are false ; I do more 
 
 'You admire me,' interrupted she, 'because I am clever. 
 What) thanks to you for that, again ? What do you do more to 
 me than you do to yourself ? ' 
 
 'And this, after all 
 
 'After what? After you found me, or rather I found you 
 you the critic, the arbiter of the green-room, the highly-organised 
 do-nothing teaching others how to do nothing most gracefully ; 
 the Avould-be Goethe who must, for the sake of his own self- 
 development, try experiments on every weak woman whom he 
 met. And I, the new phenomenon, whom you must appreciate 
 to show your own taste, patronise to show your own liberality, 
 develop to show your own insight into character. You found 
 yourself mistaken ! You had attempted to play with the tigress 
 and behold she was talons ; to angle for the silly fish and 
 behold the fish was the better angler, and caught you.' 
 
 ' Marie, have mercy ! Is your heart iron ? ' 
 
 ' No ; but fire, as my name shows : ' and she stood looking 
 down on him with a glare of dreadful beauty. 
 
 ' Fire, indeed ! ' 
 
 'Yes, fire, that I may scorch you, kindle you, madden you, 
 to do my work, and wear the heart of fire which I wear day and 
 night ! ' 
 
 Stangrave looked at her startled. Was she mad ? Her face 
 did not say so : her brow was white, her features calm, her eye 
 fierce and contemptuous, but clear, steady, full of meaning. 
 
 ' So you know Mr. Thurnall 1 ' said she, after a while. 
 
 ' Yes ; why do you ask ? 
 
 'Because he is the only friend I have on earth.' 
 
 ' The only friend, Marie ? ' 
 
 ' The only one,' answered she calmly, ' who, seeing the right, 
 lias gone and done it forthwith. When did you see him 
 last ? ' 
 
 'I have not been acquainted with Mr. Thurnall for some 
 years,' said Stangrave haughtily. 
 
 ' In plain words, you have quarrelled with him ? ' 
 
 Stangrave bit his lip.
 
 ix ' AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER 1 ' 131 
 
 ' He and I had a difference. He insulted my nation, and we 
 parted.' 
 
 She laughed a long, loud, bitter laugh, which rang through 
 Stangrave's ears. 
 
 ' Insulted your nation ? And on what grounds, pray ? ' 
 
 ' About that accursed slavery question ! ' 
 
 La Cordifiamma looked at him with firm-closed lips a 
 while. 
 
 ' So, then ! I was not aware of this ! Even so long ago you 
 saw the Sangreal, and did not know it when you saw it. No 
 wonder that since then you have been staring at it for months, 
 in your very hands, played with it, admired it, made verses 
 about it, to show off your own taste, and yet were blind to it 
 the whole time ! Farewell, then ! ' 
 
 ' Marie, what do you mean ? ' and Stangrave caught both her 
 hands. 
 
 ' Hush, if you please. I know you are eloquent enough, when 
 you choose, though you have been somewhat dumb and mono- 
 syllabic to-night in the presence of the actress whom you under- 
 took to educate. But I know that you can be eloquent, so spare 
 me any brilliant appeals, which can only go to prove that 
 already settled fact. Between you and me lie two great gulfs. 
 The one I have told you of ; and from it I shrink. The other I 
 have not told you of ; from it you would shrink.' 
 
 ' The first is your Quest of the Sangreal.' 
 
 She smiled assent, bitterly enough. 
 
 ' And the second ? ' 
 
 She did not answer. She was looking at herself in the mirror ; 
 and Stangrave, in spite of his almost doting affection, flushed 
 with anger, almost contempt, at her vanity. 
 
 And yet, was it vanity which was expressed in that face ? 
 No ; but dread, horror, almost disgust, as she gazed with side- 
 long, startled eyes, struggling, and yet struggling in vain, to 
 turn her face from some horrible sight, as if her own image had 
 been the Gorgon's head. 
 
 ' What is it 1 Marie, speak ! ' 
 
 But she answered nothing. For that last question she had 
 no heart to answer ; no heart to tell him that in her veins were 
 some drops, at least, of the blood of slaves. Instinctively she 
 had looked round at the mirror for might he not, if he had 
 eyes, discover that secret for himself ? Were there not in her 
 features traces of that taint ? And as she looked, was it the 
 mere play of her excited fancy, or did her eyelid slope more 
 and more, her nostril shorten and curl, her lips enlarge, her 
 mouth itself protrude 1 
 
 It was more than the play of fancy ; for Stangrave saw it as 
 well as she. Her actress's imagination, fixed on the African 
 type with an intensity proportioned to her dread of seeing it in 
 herself, had moulded her features, for the moment, into the
 
 132 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 very shape which it dreaded. And Stangrave saw it, and 
 shuddered as he saw. 
 
 Another half minute, and that face also had melted out of the 
 mirror, at least for Marie's eyes ; and in its place an ancient 
 negress, white-haired, withered as the wrinkled ape, but with 
 eyes closed in death. Marie knew that face well ; a face which 
 haunted many a dream of hers ; once seen, but never forgotten 
 since ; for to that old dame's coffin had her mother, the gay 
 quadroon woman, flaunting in finery which was the price of 
 shame, led Marie when she was but a three years' child ; and 
 Marie had seen her bend over the corpse, and call it her dear 
 old granny, and weep bitter tears. 
 
 Suddenly she shook off the spell, and looked round and down, 
 terrified, self-conscious. Her eye caught Stangrave's ; she saw, 
 or thought she saw, by the expression of his face, that he knew 
 all, and burst away with a shriek. 
 
 He sprang up and caught her in his arms. ' Marie ! Beloved 
 Marie ! She looked up at him struggling : the dark expression 
 had vanished, and Stangrave's love-blinded eyes could see no- 
 thing in that face but the refined and yet rich beauty of the 
 Italian. 
 
 ' Marie, this is mere madness ; you excite yourself till you 
 know not what you say, or what you are 
 
 ' I know what I am,' murmured she ; but he hurried on un- 
 heeding. 
 
 ' You love me, you know you love me ; and you madden your- 
 self by refusing to confess it ! ' He felt her heart throb as he 
 spoke, and knew that he spoke truth. ' What gulfs are these you 
 dream of ? No ; I will not ask. There is no gulf between me 
 and one whom I adore, who has thrown a spell over me which 
 I cannot resist, which I glory in not resisting ; for you have 
 been my guide, my morning star, which has awakened me to 
 new life. If I have a noble purpose upon earth, if I have roused 
 myself from that conceited dream of self -culture which now 
 looks to me so cold, and barren, and tawdry, into the hope of 
 becoming useful, beneficent to whom do I owe it but to you, 
 Marie 1 No ; there is no gulf, Marie ! You are my wife, and 
 you alone ! ' And he held her so firmly, and gazed down upon 
 her with such strong manhood, that her woman's heart quailed ; 
 and he might, perhaps, have conquered then and there, had not 
 Sabina, summoned by her shriek, entered hastily. 
 
 ' Good heavens ! what is the matter ? ' 
 
 ' Wait but one minute, Mrs. Mellot,' said he ; ' the next, I 
 shall introduce you to my bride.' 
 
 ' Never ! never ! never ! ' cried she, and breaking from him, 
 flew into Sabina's arms. ' Leave me, leave me to bear my curse 
 alone ! ' 
 
 And she broke out into such wild weeping, and refused so 
 wildly to hear another word from Stangrave, that he went
 
 rx ' AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER T 133 
 
 away in despair, the prize snatched from his grasp in the very 
 moment of seeming victory. 
 
 He went in search of Claude, who had agreed to meet him at 
 the Exhibition in Trafalgar Square. Thither Stangrave rolled 
 away in his cab, his heart full of many thoughts. Marie's 
 words about him, though harsh and exaggerated, were on the 
 whole true. She had fascinated him utterly. To marry her 
 was now the one object of his life ; she had awakened in him, 
 as he had confessed, noble desires to be useful ; but the discovery 
 that he was to be useful to the negro, that abolition was the 
 Sangreal in the quest of which he was to go forth, was as dis- 
 agreeable a discovery as he could well have made. 
 
 From public life in any shape, with all its vulgar noise, its 
 petty chicanery, its pandering to the mob whom he despised, he 
 had always shrunk, as so many Americans of his stamp have 
 done. He had no wish to struggle, unrewarded and disap- 
 pointed, in the ranks of the minority ; while to gain place and 
 power on the side of the majority was to lend himself to that 
 fatal policy which, ever since the Missouri Compromise of 1820, 
 has been gradually making the northern states more and more 
 the tools of the southern ones. He had no wish to be threatened 
 in Congress with having his Northerner's 'ears nailed to the 
 counter, like his own base coin/ or to be informed that he, with 
 the 17,000,000 of the north, were the 'White Slaves' of a 
 southern aristocracy of 350,000 slaveholders. He had enough 
 comprehension of, enough admiration for the noble principles of 
 the American Constitution to see that the democratic mobs of 
 Irish and Germans, who were stupidly playing into the hands of 
 the Southerners, were not exactly carrying them out but he had 
 no mind to face either Irish or Southerners. The former were 
 too vulgar for his delicacy ; the latter too aristocratic for his 
 pride. Sprung, as he held (and rightly), from as fine old English 
 blood as any Virginian (though it did happen to be Puritan, and 
 not Cavalier), he had no lust to come into contact with men 
 who considered him much further below them in rank than an 
 English footman is below an English nobleman ; who, indeed, 
 would some of them look down on the English nobleman him- 
 self as a mushroom of yesterday. So he compounded with his 
 conscience by ignoring the whole matter, and by looking on the 
 state of public affairs on his side of the Atlantic with a cynicism 
 which very soon (as is usual with rich men) passed into Epicure- 
 anism. Poetry and music, pictures and statues, amusement and 
 travel, became his idols, and cultivation his substitute for the 
 plain duty of patriotism ; and wandering luxuriously over the 
 world, he learnt to sentimentalise over cathedrals and monas- 
 teries, pictures and statues, saints and kaisers, with a lazy regret 
 that such 'forms of beauty and nobleness' were no longer 
 possible in a world of scrip and railroads ; but without any 
 notion that it was his duty to reproduce in his own life, or that
 
 134 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 of his country, as much as he could of the said beauty and noble- 
 ness. And now he was sorely tried. It was interesting enough 
 to ' develop ' the peculiar turn of Marie's genius, by writing for 
 her plays about liberty, just as he would have written plays 
 about jealousy, or anything else for representing which she had 
 ' capabilities.' But to be called on to act in that slavery ques- 
 tion, the one on which he knew (as all sensible Americans do) 
 that the life and death of his country depended, and which for 
 that very reason he had carefully ignored till a more convenient 
 season, finding in its very difficulty and danger an excuse for 
 leaving it to solve itself : to have this thrust on him, and by 
 her, as the price of the thing which he must have, or die ! If 
 she had asked for his right hand, he would have given it sooner ; 
 and he entered the Royal Academy that day in much the same 
 humour as that of a fine lady who should find herself suddenly 
 dragged from the ballroom into the dust-hole, in her tenderest 
 array of gauze and jewels, and there peremptorily compelled to 
 sift the cinders, under the superintendence of the sweep and the 
 pot-boy. 
 
 Glad to escape from questions which he had rather not 
 answer too soon, he went in search of Claude, and found him 
 before one of those pre-Raphaelite pictures, which Claude does 
 not appreciate as he ought. 
 
 ' Desinit in Culicem mulier formosa superne,' said Stangrave, 
 as he looked over Claude's shoulder ; ' but I suppose he followed 
 nature, and copied his model.' 
 
 ' That he didn't,' said Claude, ' for I know who his model was ; 
 but if he did, he had no business to do so. I object on principle 
 to these men's notion of what copying nature means. I don't 
 deny him talent. I am ready to confess that there is more 
 imagination and more honest work in that picture than in any 
 one in the room. The hysterical, all but grinning joy upon the 
 mother's face is a miracle of truth : I have seen the expression 
 more than once ; doctors see it often, in the sudden revulsion 
 from terror and agony to certainty and peace ; I only marvel 
 where he ever met it ; but the general effect is unpleasing, 
 marred by patches of sheer ugliness, like that child's foot. 
 There is the same mistake in all his pictures. Whatever they 
 are, they are not beautiful ; and no magnificence of surface- 
 colouring will make up, in my eyes, for wilful ugliness of form. 
 I say that nature is beautiful ; and therefore nature cannot 
 have been truly copied, or the general effect would have been 
 beautiful also. I never found out the fallacy till the other day, 
 when looking at a portrait by one of them. The woman for 
 whom it was meant was standing by my side, young and lovely ; 
 the portrait hung there neither young nor lovely, but a wrinkled 
 caricature twenty years older than the model.' 
 
 'I surely know the portrait you mean ; Lady D V 
 
 ' Yes. He had simply, under pretence of following nature,
 
 ix ' AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER 1 ' 135 
 
 caricatured her into a woman twenty years older than 
 she is.' 
 
 ' But did you ever see a modern portrait which more perfectly 
 expressed character ; which more completely fulfilled the re- 
 quirements which you laid down a few evenings since ? ' 
 
 ' Never ; and that makes me all the more cross with the 
 wilful mistake of it. He had painted every wrinkle.' 
 
 ' Why not, if they were there ? ' 
 
 ' Because he had painted a face not one-twentieth of the size 
 of life. What right had he to cram into that small space all the 
 marks which nature had spread over a far larger one ? ' 
 
 ' Why not, again, if he diminished the marks in proportion ? ' 
 
 ' Just what neither he nor any man could do, without mak- 
 ing them so small as to be invisible, save under a microscope : 
 and the result was, that he had caricatured every wrinkle, 
 as his friend has in those horrible knuckles of Shem's wife. 
 Besides, I deny utterly your assertion that one is bound to 
 paint what is there. On that very fallacy are they all making 
 shipwreck.' 
 
 ' Not paint what is there 1 And you are the man who talks 
 of art being highest when it copies nature.' 
 
 ' Exactly. And therefore you must paint, not what is there, 
 but what you see there. They forget that human beings are 
 men with two eyes, and not daguerreotype lenses with one eye, 
 and so are contriving and striving to introduce into their 
 pictures the very defect of the daguerreotype which the stereo- 
 scope is required to correct.' 
 
 ' I comprehend. They forget that the double vision of our 
 two eyes gives a softness, and indistinctness, and roundness, to 
 every outline.' 
 
 ' Exactly so ; and therefore, while for distant landscapes, 
 motionless,. and already softened by atmosphere, the daguerreo- 
 type is invaluable (I shall do nothing else this summer, but 
 work at it), yet for taking portraits, in any true sense, it will 
 be always useless, not only for the reason I just gave, but for 
 another one which the pre-Raphaelites have forgotten.' 
 
 ' Because all the features cannot be in focus at once ? ' 
 
 ' Oh no, I am not speaking of that. Art, for aught I know, 
 may overcome that ; for it is a mere defect in the instrument. 
 What I mean is this : it tries to represent as still what never 
 yet was still for the thousandth part of a second : that is, the 
 human face ; and as seen by a spectator who is perfectly still, 
 which no man ever yet was. My dear fellow, don t you see that 
 what some painters call idealising a porti^ait is, if it be wisely 
 done, really painting for you the face which you see, and know, 
 and love ; her ever-shifting features, with expression varying 
 more rapidly than the gleam of the diamond on her finger ; 
 features which you, in your turn, are looking at with ever-shift- 
 ing eyes ; while, perhaps, if it is a face which you love and
 
 136 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 have lingered over, a dozen other expressions equally belonging 
 to it are hanging in your memory, and blending themselves 
 with the actual picture on your retina : till every little angle 
 is somewhat rounded, every little wrinkle somewhat softened, 
 every little shade somewhat blended with the surrounding 
 light, so that the sum total of what you see, and are intended 
 by Heaven to see, is something far softer, lovelier younger, per- 
 haps, thank Heaven than it would look if your head was 
 screwed down in a vice, to look with one eye at her head 
 screwed down in a vice also : though even that, thanks to the 
 muscles of the eye, would not produce the required ugliness ; 
 and the only possible method of fulfilling the pre-Raphaelite 
 ideal would be, to set a petrified Cyclops to paint his petrified 
 brother.' 
 
 ' You are spiteful.' 
 
 ' Not at all. I am standing up for art, and for nature too. 
 For instance : Sabina has wrinkles. She says, too, that she 
 lias gray hairs coming. The former I won't see, and therefore 
 don't. The latter I can't see, because I am not looking for 
 them.' 
 
 ' Nor I either,' said Stangrave, smiling. ' I assure you the 
 announcement is new to me.' 
 
 ' Of course. Who can see wrinkles in the light of those eyes, 
 that smile, that complexion 1 ' 
 
 ' Certainly,' said Stangrave, ' if I asked for her portrait, as I 
 shall do some day, and the artist sat down and painted the said 
 " wastes of time," on pretence of their being there, I should con- 
 sider it an impertinence on his part. What business has 
 he to spy out what nature is taking such charming trouble to 
 conceal ? ' 
 
 'Again,' said Claude, 'such a face as Cordifiamma's. When 
 it is at rest, in deep thought, there are lines in it which utterly 
 puzzle one touches which are Eastern, Kabyle, almost Quad- 
 roon.' 
 
 Stangrave started. Claude went on unconscious : 
 
 ' But who sees them in the light of that beauty 1 They are 
 defects, no doubt, but defects which no one would observe 
 without deep study of the face. They express her character 
 no more than a scar would ; and therefore when I paint her, as 
 I must and will, I shall utterly ignore them. If, on the other 
 hand, I met the same lines in a face which I knew to have 
 Quadroon blood in it, I should religiously copy them ; because 
 then they would be integral elements of the face. You under- 
 stand ? ' 
 
 ' Understand ? yes,' answered Stangrave, in a tone which 
 made Claude look up. 
 
 That strange scene of half an hour before flashed across him. 
 What if it were no fancy 1 What if Marie had African blood 
 in her veins 1 And Stangrave shuddered, and felt for the mo-
 
 ix 'AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER 1 ?' 137 
 
 ment that thousands of pounds would be a cheap price to pay 
 for the discovery that his fancy was a false one. 
 
 ' Yes oh I beg your pardon,' said he, recovering himself. 
 ' I was thinking of something else. But, as you say, what if 
 she had Quadroon blood ? ' 
 
 ' 1 1 I never said so, or dreamt of it.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I mistook. Do you know, though, where she came 
 from?' 
 
 ' I ? You forget, my dear fellow, that you yourself introduced 
 her to us.' 
 
 ' Of course ; but I thought Mrs. Mellot might women always 
 make confidences.' 
 
 ' All we know is, what I suppose you knew long ago, that 
 her most intimate friend, next to you, seems to be an old friend 
 of ours, named Thurnall.' 
 
 ' An old friend of yours ? ' 
 
 ' Oh yes ; we have known him these fifteen years. Met him 
 first at Paris ; and after that went round the world with him, 
 and saw infinite adventures. Sabina and I spent three months 
 with him once, among the savages in a South-sea Island, and a 
 very pretty romance our stay and our escape would make. We 
 were all three, I believe, to have been cooked and eaten, if Tom 
 had not got us off by that wonderful address which, if you know 
 him, you must know well enough.' 
 
 ' Yes,' answered Stangrave coldly, as in a dream ; ' I have 
 known Mr. Thurnall in past years ; but not in connection with 
 La Signora Cordifiamma. I was not aware till this moment 
 this morning, I mean that they knew each other.' 
 
 ' You astound me ; why, she talks of him to us all day long, 
 as of one to whom she has the deepest obligations ; she was 
 ready to rush into our arms when she first found that we knew 
 him. He is a greater hero in her eyes, I sometimes fancy, than 
 even you are. She does nothing (or fancies that she does no- 
 thing, for you know her pretty wilfulness) without writing for 
 his advice.' 
 
 ' I a hero in her eyes ? I was really not aware of that fact,' 
 said Stangrave, more coldly than ever ; for bitter jealousy had 
 taken possession of his heart. ' Do you know, then, what this 
 same obligation may be 1 ' 
 
 ' I never asked. I hate gossiping, and I make a rule to 
 inquire into no secrets but such as are voluntarily confided to 
 me ; and I know that she has never told Sabina.' 
 
 ' I suppose she is married to him. That is the simplest ex- 
 planation of the mystery.' 
 
 ' Impossible ! What can you mean 1 If she ever marries 
 living man, she will marry you.' 
 
 'Then she will never marry living man,' said Stangrave to 
 himself. ' Good-bye, my dear fellow ; I have an engagement at 
 the Traveller's.' And away went Stangrave, leaving Claude
 
 138 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 sorely puzzled, but little dreaming of the powder-magazine into 
 which he had put a match. 
 
 But he was puzzled still more that night, when by the latest 
 post a note came 
 
 'From Stangrave ! ' said Claude. 'Why, in the name of all 
 wonders ! ' and he read : 
 
 'Good-bye. I am just starting for the Continent, on sudden 
 and urgent business. What my destination is I hardly can 
 tell you yet. You will hear from me in the course of the 
 summer.' 
 
 Claude's countenance fell, and the note fell likewise. Sabina 
 snatched it up, read it, and gave La Cordifiamma a look which 
 made her spring from the sofa, and snatch it in turn. 
 
 She read it through, with trembling hands and blanching 
 cheeks, and then dropped fainting upon the floor. 
 
 They laid her on the sofa, and while they were recovering her, 
 Claude told Sabina the only clue which he had to the American's 
 conduct, namely, that afternoon's conversation. 
 
 Sabina shook her head over it ; for to her, also, the Ameri- 
 can's explanation had suggested itself. Was Marie Thurnall's 
 wife ? Or did she it was possible, however painful stand to 
 him in some less honourable relation, which she would fain 
 forget now, in a new passion for Stangrave ? For that Marie 
 loved Stangrave, Sabina knew well enough. 
 
 The doubt was so ugly that it must be solved and when she 
 had got the poor thing safe into her bedroom she alluded to it 
 as gently as she could. 
 
 Marie sprang up in indignant innocence. 
 
 ' He 1 Whatever he may be to others, I know not : but to me 
 he has been purity and nobleness itself a brother, a father. 
 Yes ; if I had no other reason for trusting him, I should love 
 him for that alone ; that however tempted he may have been, 
 and Heaven knows he was tempted, he could respect the honour 
 of his friend, though that friend lay sleeping in a soldier's grave 
 ten thousand miles away.' 
 
 And Marie threw herself upon Sabina's neck, and under the 
 pressure of her misery sobbed out to her the story of her life. 
 YVhat it was need not be told. A little common sense, and a 
 little knowledge of human nature, will enable the reader to fill 
 up for himself the story of a beautiful slave. 
 
 Sabina soothed her, and cheered her ; and soothed and cheered 
 her most of all by telling her in return the story of her own life ; 
 not so dark a one, but almost as sad and strange. And poor 
 Marie took heart, when she found in her great need a sister in 
 the communion of sorrows. 
 
 'And you have been through all this, so beautiful and bright 
 as you are ! You whom I should have fancied always living the 
 life of the humming-bird : and yet not a scar or a wrinkle has 
 it left behind ! '
 
 ix ' AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER ? ' 189 
 
 ' They were there once, Marie ; but God and Claude smoothed 
 them away.' 
 
 ' I have no Claude, and no God, I think, at times.' 
 
 ' No God, Marie ! Then how did you come hither 1 ' 
 
 Marie was silent, reproved ; and then passionately 
 
 ' Why does He not right my people ? ' 
 
 That question was one to which Sabina's little scheme of the 
 universe had no answer ; why should it, while many a scheme 
 which pretends to be far vaster and more infallible has none 
 as yet ? 
 
 So she was silent, and sat with Marie's head upon her bosom, 
 caressing the black curls, till she had soothed her into sobbing 
 exhaustion. 
 
 ' There ; lie there and rest : you shall be my child, my poor 
 Marie. I have a fresh child every week ; but I shall find plenty 
 of room in my heart for you, my poor hunted deer.' 
 
 ' You will keep my secret ? ' 
 
 ' Why keep it ? No one need be ashamed of it here in free 
 England.' 
 
 ' But he he you do not know, Sabina ! Those Northerners, 
 with all their boasts of freedom, shrink from us just as much as 
 our own masters.' 
 
 ' Oh, Marie, do not be so unjust to him ! He is too noble, and 
 you must know it yourself.' 
 
 ' Ay, if he stood alone ; if he were even going to live in Eng- 
 land ; if he would let himself be himself ; but public opinion,' 
 sobbed the poor self-tormentor. ' It has been his God, Sabina, 
 to be a leader of taste and fashion admired and complete the 
 Crichton of Newport and Brooklyn. And he could not bear 
 scorn, the loss of society. Why should he bear it for me ? If lie 
 had been one of the Abolitionist party, it would have been 
 different ; but he has no sympathy with them, good, narrow, 
 pious people, or they with him : he could not be satisfied in their 
 society or I either, for I crave after it all as much as he 
 wealth, luxury, art, brilliant company, admiration oh, incon- 
 sistent wretch that I am ! And that makes me love him all the 
 more, and yet makes me so harsh to him, wickedly cruel, as I was 
 to-day ; because when I am reproving his weakness, I am 
 reproving my own, and because I am angry with myself, I grow 
 angry with him too envious of him, I do believe at moments, 
 and all his success and luxury ! ' 
 
 And so poor Marie sobbed out her confused confession of that 
 strange double nature which so many Quadroons seem to owe 
 to their mixed blood ; a strong side of deep feeling, ambition, 
 energy, and intellect rather Greek in its rapidity than English in 
 sturcliness ; and withal a weak side, of instability, inconsistency, 
 hasty passion, love of present enjoyment, sometimes, too, a 
 tendency to untruth, which is the mark, not perhaps of the 
 African specially, but of every enslaved race.
 
 140 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Consolation was all that Sabina could give. It was too late 
 to act. Stangrave was gone, and week after week rolled by 
 without a line from the wanderer. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE RECOGNITION 
 
 ELSLEY VAVASOUR is sitting one morning in his study, every 
 comfort of which is of Lucia's arrangement and invention, beat- 
 ing the home-preserve of his brains for pretty thoughts. On he 
 struggles through that wild and too luxuriant cover ; now 
 brought up by a "lawyer," now stumbling over a root, now 
 bogged in a green spring, now flushing a stray covey of birds of 
 Paradise, now a sphinx, chinisera, strix, lamia, firedrake, flying- 
 donkey, two-headed eagle (Austrian, as will appear shortly), or 
 other portent only to be seen nowadays in the recesses of that 
 enchanted forest, the convolutions or a poet's brain. Up they 
 whir and rattle, making, like most game, more noise than they 
 are worth. Some get back, some dodge among the trees ; the 
 fair shots are few and far between : but Elsley blazes away 
 right and left with trusty quill ; and, to do him justice, seldom 
 misses his aim, for practice has made him a sure and quick 
 marksman in his own line. Moreover, all is game which gets up 
 to-day ; for he is shooting for the kitchen, or rather for the 
 London market, as many a noble sportsman does nowadays, and 
 thinks no sjiame. His new volume of poems (' The Wreck ' in- 
 cluded) is in the press ; but behold, it is not as long as the 
 publisher thinks fit, and Messrs. Brown and Younger have written 
 down to entreat in haste for some four hundred lines more, on 
 any subject which Mr. Vavasour may choose. And therefore is 
 Elsley beating his home covers, heavily shot over though they 
 have been already this season, in hopes that a few head of his 
 own game may still be left : or in default (for human nature is 
 the same, in poets and in sportsmen), that a few head may have 
 strayed in out of his neighbours' manors. 
 
 At last the sport slackens ; for the sportsman is getting tired, 
 and hungry also, to carry on the metaphor ; for he has seen the 
 postman come up the front walk a quarter of an hour since, and 
 the letters have not been brought in yet. 
 
 At last there is a knock at the door, which he answers by a 
 somewhat testy ' come in.' But he checks the coming grumble, 
 when not the maid, but Lucia enters. 
 
 Why not grumble at Lucia ? He has done so many a time. 
 
 Because she looks this morning so charming ; really quite 
 pretty again, so radiant is her face with smiles. And because, 
 also, she holds triumphant above her head a newspaper. 
 
 She dances up to him
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 141 
 
 ' I have something for you.' 
 
 ' For me ? Why, the post has been in this half -hour.' 
 
 'Yes, for you, and that's just the reason why I kept it myself. 
 D'ye understand my Irish reasoning ? ' 
 
 ' No, you pretty creature,' said Elsley, who saw that whatever 
 the news was, it was good news. 
 
 ' Pretty creature, am I ? I was once, I know ; but I thought 
 you had forgotten all about that. But I was not going to let 
 you have the paper till I had devoured every word of it myself 
 first.' 
 
 ' Every word of what ? ' 
 
 ' Of what you shan't have unless you promise to be good for 
 a week. Such a Review ; and from America ! What a dear man 
 he must be who wrote it ! I really think I should kiss him if I 
 met him.' 
 
 ' And I really think he would not say no. But as he's not 
 here, I shall act as his proxy.' 
 
 ' Be quiet, and read that, if you can, for blushes ; ' and she 
 spread out the paper before him, and then covered his eyes with 
 her hands. 'No, you shan't see it : it will make you vain.' 
 
 Elsley had looked eagerly at the honeyed columns (as who 
 would not have done ?), but the last word smote him. What was 
 he thinking of ? his own praise, or his wife's love ? 
 
 'Too true,' he cried, looking up at her. 'You dear creature ! 
 Vain I am, God forgive me ; but before I look at a word of this 
 I must have a talk with you.' 
 
 ' I can't stop ; I must run back to the children. No ; now 
 don't look cross,' as his brow clouded, ' I only said that to tease 
 you. I'll stop with you ten whole minutes, if you won't look so 
 very solemn and important. I hate tragedy faces. Now, what 
 is it?' 
 
 All this was spoken while botli her hands were clasped round 
 Elsley's neck, and with looks and tones of the very sweetest as 
 well as the very sauciest, no offence was given, and none taken : 
 but Elsley's voice was sad as he asked 
 
 ' So you really do care for my poems ? ' 
 
 ' You great silly creature ! Why else did I marry you at all 1 
 As if I cared for anything in the world but your poems ; as if I 
 did not love everybody who praises them ; and if any stupid 
 reviewer dares to say a word against them I could kill him on 
 the spot. I care for nothing in the world but what people say 
 of you. And yet I don't care one pin ; I know what your poems 
 are, if nobody else does ; and they belong to me, because you 
 belong to me, and I must be the best judge, and care for nobody, 
 no, not I ! ' And she began singing, and then hung over him, 
 tormenting him lovingly while he read. 
 
 It was a true American review, utterly extravagant in its 
 laudations, whether from over-kindness, or from a certain love 
 of exaggeration and magniloquence, which makes one suspect
 
 142 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 that a large proportion of the Transatlantic gentlemen of the 
 press must be natives of the sister isle ; but it was all the more 
 pleasant to the soul of Elsley. 
 
 ' There,' said Lucia, as she clung croodling to him, ' there is a 
 pretty character of you, sir ! Make the most of it, for it is all 
 those Yankees will ever send you.' 
 
 'Yes,' said Elsley, 'if they would send one a little money, 
 instead of making endless dollars by printing one's books, and 
 then a few more by praising one at a penny a line.' 
 
 ' That's talking like a man of business : if, instead of the 
 review, now, a cheque for fifty pounds had come, how I would 
 have rushed out and paid the bills ! ' 
 
 ' And liked it a great deal better than the review ? ' 
 
 'You jealous creature! No. If I could always have you 
 praised, I'd live in a cabin, and go about the world barefoot, 
 like a wild Irish girl.' 
 
 ' You would make a very charming one.' 
 
 ' I used to, once, I can tell you. Valentia and I used to run 
 about without shoes and stockings at Kilanbaggan, and you 
 can't think how pretty and white this little foot used to look 
 on a nice soft carpet of green moss.' 
 
 ' I shall write a sonnet to it.' 
 
 ' You may if you choose, provided you don't publish it.' 
 
 ' You may trust me for that. I am not one of those who 
 anatomise their own married happiness for the edification of the 
 whole public, and make fame, if not money, out of their own 
 wives' hearts.' 
 
 ' How I should hate you, if you did ! Not that I believe 
 their tine stories about themselves. At least, I am certain it's 
 only half the story. They have their quarrels, my dear, just as 
 you and I have : but they take care not to put them into 
 poetry.' 
 
 ' Well, but who could 1 Whether they have a right or not to 
 publish the poetical side of their married life, it is too much to 
 ask them to give you the unpoetical also.' 
 
 ' Then they are all humbugs ; and I believe, if they really 
 love their wives so very much, they would not be at all that 
 pains to persuade the world of it.' 
 
 ' You are very satirical and spiteful, ma'am.' 
 
 'I always am when I am pleased. If I am particularly 
 happy, I always long to pinch somebody. I suppose it's 
 Irish 
 
 ' "Comes out, meets a friend, and for love knocks him down." ' 
 
 ' But you know, you rogue, that you care to read no poetry 
 but love poetry.' 
 
 ' Of course not ; every woman does ; but let me find you 
 publishing any such about me, and see what I will do to you ! 
 There, now I must go to my work, and you go and write some-
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 143 
 
 thing extra-superfine! y grand, because I have been so good to 
 you. No. Let me go ; what a bother you are. Good-bye.' 
 
 And away she tripped, and he returned to his work, happier 
 than he had been for a week past. 
 
 His happiness, truly, was only on the surface. The old 
 wound had been salved as what wound cannot be? by 
 woman's love and woman's wit : but it was not healed. The 
 cause of his wrong-doing, the vain, self-indulgent spirit, was 
 there still unchastened ; and he was destined, that very day, to 
 find that he had still to bear the punishment of it. 
 
 Now the reader must understand, that though one may laugh 
 at Elsley Vavasour, because it is more pleasant than scolding at 
 him, yet have Philistia and Fogeydom neither right nor reason 
 to consider him a despicable or merely ludicrous person, or to 
 cry, ' Ah, if he had been as we are ! ' 
 
 Had he been merely ludicrous, Lucia would never have 
 married him ; and he could only have been spoken of with 
 indignation, or left utterly out of the story, as a simply un- 
 pleasant figure, beyond the purposes of a novel, though 
 admissible now and then into tragedy. One cannot heartily 
 laugh at a man if one has not a lurking love for him, as one 
 really ought to have for Elsley. How much value is to be 
 attached to his mere power of imagination and fancy, and so 
 forth, is a question ; but there was in him more than mere 
 talent : there was, in thought at least, virtue and magnanimity. 
 
 True, the best part of him, perhaps almost all the good part 
 of him, spent itself in words, and must be looked for, not in his 
 life, but in his books. But in those books it can be found ; and 
 if you look through them, you will see that he has not touched 
 upon a subject without taking, on the whole, the right, and pure, 
 and lofty view of it. Howsoever extravagant he may be in his 
 notions of poetic licence, that licence is never with him a syno- 
 nym for licentiousness. Whatever is tender and true, whatever 
 is chivalrous and high-minded, he loves at first sight, and repro- 
 duces it lovingly. And it may be possible that his own estimate 
 of his poems was not altogether wrong ; that his words may 
 have awakened here and there in others a love for that which is 
 morally as well as physically beautiful, and may have kept alive 
 in their hearts the recollection that, both for the bodies and the 
 souls of men forms of life far nobler and fairer than those which 
 we see now are possible ; that they have appeared, in fragments 
 at least, already on the earth ; that they are destined, perhaps, 
 to reappear and combine themselves in some ideal state, and in 
 
 ' One far-off divine event, 
 Toward which the whole creation moves.' 
 
 This is the special and proper function of the poet ; that lie 
 may do this, does God touch his lips with that which, however
 
 144 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 it may be misused, is still fire from off the altar beneath which 
 the^ spirits of his saints cry, ' Lord, how long ? ' If he ' re- 
 produce the beautiful ' with this intent, however so little, then 
 is he of the sacred guild. And because Vavasour had this gift, 
 therefore he was a poet. 
 
 But in this he was weak : that he did not feel, or at least was 
 forgetting fast, that this gift had been bestowed on him for any 
 practical purpose. No one would demand that he should have 
 gone forth with some grand social scheme, to reform a world 
 which looked to him so mean and evil. He was not a man of 
 business, and was not meant to be one. But it was ill for him 
 that in his fastidiousness and touchiness he had shut himself 
 out from that world, till he had quite forgotten how much good 
 there was in it as well as evil ; how many people common- 
 place and unpoetical it may be but still heroical in God's sight, 
 were working harder than he ever worked, at the divine 
 drudgery of doing good, and that in dens of darkness and 
 sloughs of filth from which he would have turned with disgust ; 
 so that the sympathy with the sinful and fallen which marks 
 his earlier poems, and which perhaps verges on sentimentalism, 
 gradually gives place to a Pharisaic and contemptuous tone ; a 
 tone more lofty and manful in seeming, but far less divine in 
 fact. Perhaps comparative success had injured him. Whilst 
 struggling himself against cii-cumstances, poor, untaught, un- 
 happy, he had more fellow-feeling with those whom circumstances 
 oppressed. At least, the pity which he could once bestow upon 
 the misery which he met in his daily walks, he now kept for 
 the more picturesque woes of Italy and Greece. 
 
 In this, too, he was weak ; that he had altogether forgotten 
 that the fire from off the altar could only be kept alight by con- 
 tinual self-restraint and self-sacrifice, by continual gentleness 
 and humility, shown in the petty matters of every-day home- 
 life ; and that he who cannot rule his own household can never 
 rule the Church of God. And so it befell, that amid the little 
 cross-blasts of home squabbles the sacred spark was fast going 
 out. The poems written after he settled at Penalva are marked 
 by a less definite purpose, by a lower tone of feeling : not, 
 perhaps, by a lower moral tone ; but simply by less of any 
 moral tone at all. They are more and more full of merely 
 sensuous beauty, mere word-painting, mere word-hunting. The 
 desire of finding something worth saying gives place more and 
 more to that of saying something in a new fashion. As the 
 originality of thought (which accompanies only vigorous moral 
 purpose) decreases, the attempt at originality of language 
 increases. Manner, in short, has taken the place of matter. 
 The art, it may be, of his latest poems is greatest : but it lias 
 been expended on the most unworthy themes. The later are 
 mannered caricatures of the earlier, without their soul ; and 
 the same change seems to have passed over him which (with Mr.
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 145 
 
 Ruskin's pardon) transformed the Turner of 1820 into the 
 Turner of 1850. 
 
 Thus had Elsley transferred what sympathy he had left from 
 needle- women and ragged schools, dwellers in Jacob's Island and 
 sleepers in the dry arches of Waterloo Bridge, to sufferers of a 
 more poetic class. Whether his sympathies showed thereby that 
 he had risen or fallen, let my readers decide each for himself. 
 It is a credit to any man to feel for any human being ; and 
 Italy, as she is at this moment, is certainly one of the most 
 tragic spectacles which the world has ever seen. Elsley need 
 not be blamed for pitying her only for holding, with most of 
 our poets, a vague notion that her woes were to be cured by a 
 hair of the dog that bit her ; viz. by homoeopathic doses of that 
 same ' art ' which had been all along her morbid and self -deceiv- 
 ing substitute for virtue and industry. So, as she had sung 
 herself down to the nether pit, Elsley would help to sing her up 
 again ; and had already been throwing off, ever since 1848, a 
 series of sonnets which he entitled Eurydice, intimating, of 
 course, that he acted as the Orpheus. Whether he had hopes of 
 drawing iron tears down Pluto Radetzky's cheek, does not 
 appear ; but certainly the longer poem which had sprung from 
 his fancy, at the urgent call of Messrs. Brown and Younger, 
 would have, been likely to draw nothing but iron balls from 
 Radetzky's cannon ; or failing so vast an effect, an immediate 
 external application to the poet himself of that famous herb 
 Pantagruelion, cure for all public ills and private woes, which 
 men call hemp. Nevertheless, it was a noble subject ; one 
 which ought surely to have been taken up by some of our poets, 
 for if they do not make a noble poem of it, it will be their own 
 fault. I mean that sad and fantastic tragedy of Fra Dolcino 
 and Margaret, which Signer Mariotti lias lately given to the 
 English public, in a book which, both for its matter and its 
 manner, should be better known than it is. Elsley's soul had 
 been tilled (it would have been a dull one else) with the con- 
 ception of the handsome and gifted patriot -monk, his soul 
 delirious with the dream of realising a perfect Church on earth ; 
 battling with tongue and pen, and at last with sword, against 
 the villanies of pope and kaiser, and all the old devourers of the 
 earth, cheered only by the wild love of her who had given up 
 wealth, fame, friends, all which render life worth having, to 
 die with him a death too horrible for words. And he had con- 
 ceived (and not altogether ill) a vision in which, wandering 
 along some bright Italian bay, he met Dolcino sitting, a spirit 
 at rest but not yet glorified, waiting for the revival of that dead 
 land for which he had died ; and Margaret by him, dipping her 
 scorched feet for ever in the cooling wave, and looking up to the 
 hero for whom she had given up all, with eyes of everlasting 
 love. There they were to prophesy to him sucli things as 
 seemed fit to him, of the future of Italy and of Europe, of the 
 L T. Y. A.
 
 146 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 doom of priests and tyrants, of the sorrows and rewards of 
 genius unappreciated and before its age ; for Elsley's secret 
 vanity could see in himself a far greater likeness to Dolcino 
 than Dolcino the preacher, confessor, bender of all hearts, man 
 of the world and man of action, at last crafty and all but un- 
 conquerable guerilla warrior would ever have acknowledged 
 in the self-indulgent dreamer. However, it was a fair concep- 
 tion enough ; though perhaps it never would have entered 
 Elsley's head, had Shelley never written the opening canto of 
 the Revolt of Islam. 
 
 So Elsley, on a burning July forenoon, strolled up the lane 
 and over the down to King Arthur's Nose, that he might find 
 materials for his seashore scene. For he was not one of those 
 men who live in such quiet, everyday communication with 
 nature, that they drink in her various aspects as unconsciously 
 as the air they breathe ; and so can reproduce them, out of an 
 inexhaustible stock of details, simply and accurately, and yet 
 freshly too, tinged by the peculiar hue of the mind in which 
 they have been long sleeping. He walked the world, either 
 blind to the beauty round him, and trying to compose instead 
 some little scrap of beauty in his own self-imprisoned thoughts ; 
 or else he was looking out consciously and spasmodically for 
 views, effects, emotions, images ; something striking and un- 
 common which would suggest a poetic figure, or nelp out a 
 description, or in some way re-furnish his mind with thought. 
 From which method it befell, that his lamp of truth was too 
 often burnt out just when it was needed : and that, like the 
 foolish virgins, he had to go and buy oil when it was too late ; or 
 failing that, to supply its place with some baser artificial material. 
 
 That day, however, he was fortunate enough ; for wandering 
 and scrambling among the rocks, at a dead low spring tide, he 
 came upon a spot which would have made a poem of itself 
 better than all Elsley ever wrote, had he, forgetting all about 
 Fra Dolcino, Italy, priests, and tyrants, set down in black and 
 white just what he saw ; provided, of course, that he had 
 patience first to see the same. 
 
 It was none other than that ghastly chasm across which 
 Thurnall had been so miraculously swept on the night of his 
 shipwreck. The same ghastly chasm ; but ghastly now no 
 longer ; and as Elsley looked down, the beauty below invited 
 him, and the coolness also ; for the sun beat on the flat rock 
 above till it scorched the feet, and dazzled the eye, and crisped 
 up the blackening sea-weeds ; while every sea-snail crept to 
 hide itself under the bladder-tangle, and nothing dared to peep 
 or stir save certain grains of gunpowder, which seemed to have 
 gone mad, so merrily did they hop about upon the surface of the 
 fast evaporating salt-pools. That wonder, indeed, Elsley stooped 
 to examine, and drew back his hands with an ' Ugh ! ' and a 
 gesture of disgust, when he found that they were 'nasty little
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 147 
 
 insects.' For Elsley held fully the poet's* right to believe that 
 all things are not very good ; none, indeed, save such as suited 
 his eclectic and fastidious taste ; and to hold (on high aesthetic 
 grounds, of course) toads arid spiders in as much abhorrence as 
 does any boarding-school girl. However, finding some rock 
 ledges which formed a natural ladder, down he scrambled, gin- 
 gerly enough, for he was neither an active nor a courageous 
 man. But, once down, I will do him the justice to say, that for 
 five whole minutes he forgot all about Fra Dolcino, and, what 
 was better, about himself also. 
 
 The chasm may have been fifteen feet deep, and above, about 
 half that breadth ; but below, the waves had hollowed it into 
 dark overhanging caverns. Just in front of him a huge boulder 
 spanned the crack, and formed a natural doorway, through 
 which he saw, like a picture set in a frame, the far-off blue sea 
 softening into the blue sky among brown Eastern haze. Amid 
 the haze a single ship hung motionless, like a white cloud. 
 Nearer, a black cormorant floated sleepily along, and dived, and 
 rose again. Nearer again, long lines of flat tide-rock, glittering 
 and quivering in the heat, sloped gradually under the waves, till 
 they ended in half-sunken beds of olive oar-weed, which bent 
 their tangled stems into a hundred graceful curves, and swayed 
 to and fro slowly and sleepily. The low swell slid whispering 
 among their floating palms, and slipped on toward the cavern's 
 mouth, as if asking wistfully (so Elsley fancied) when it would 
 be time for it to return to that cool shade, and hide from all 
 the blinding blaze outside. But when his eye was enough 
 accustomed to the shade within, it withdrew gladly from the 
 glaring sea and glaring tide-rocks to the walls of the chasm 
 itself ; to curved and polished sheets of stone, rich brown, with 
 snow-white veins, on which danced for ever a dappled network 
 of pale yellow light : to crusted beds of pink coralline ; to 
 caverns in the dark crannies of which, hung branching sponges 
 and tufts of purple sea-moss ; to strips of clear white sand, 
 bestrewn with shells ; to pools, each a gay flower-garden of all 
 hues, where branching sea- weed reflected blue light from every 
 point, like a thousand damasked sword-blades ; while among 
 them dahlias and chrysanthemums, and many another mimic 
 of our earth-born flowers, spread blooms of crimson, and purple, 
 and lilac, and creamy gray, half -buried among feathered weeds 
 as brightly coloured as they ; and strange and gaudy fishes shot 
 across from side to side, and chased each other in and out of 
 hidden cells. 
 
 Within and without all was at rest ; the silence was broken 
 only by the timid whisper of the swell, and by the chime of 
 dropping water within some unseen cave ; but what a different 
 rest ! Without, all lying breathless, stupified, sun-stricken, in 
 blinding glare ; within, all coolness and refreshing sleep. With- 
 out, all simple, broad, and vast ; within, all various, with infinite
 
 148 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 richness of form and colour. An Hairoun Alraschid's bower 
 looking out upon the 
 
 Bother the fellow ! Why will he go on analysing and figuring 
 in this way ? Why not let the blessed place tell him what it 
 means, instead of telling it what he thinks 1 And why, he is 
 actually writing verses, though not about Fra Dolcino ! 
 
 ' How rests yon rock, whose half-day's bath is done, 
 With broad bright side, beneath the broad bright sun, 
 
 Like sea-nymph tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping. 
 Yet, nearer drawn, beneath her purple tresses, 
 
 From down-bent brows we find her slowly weeping. 
 So many a heart for cruel man's caresses 
 
 Must only pine and pine, and yet must bear 
 
 A gallant front beneath life's gaudy glare. ' 
 
 Silly fellow ! Do you think that Nature had time to think of 
 such a far-fetched conceit as that while it was making that rock 
 and peopling it with a million tiny living things, of which not 
 one falleth to the ground without your Father's knowledge, and 
 each more beautiful than any sea-nymph whom you ever fancied ? 
 For, after all, you cannot fancy a whole sea-nymph (perhaps in 
 that case you could make one), but only a very little scrap of 
 her outside. Or if, as you boast, you are inspired by the Creative 
 Spirit, tell us what the Creative Spirit says about that rock, and 
 not such verse as that, the lesson of which you don't yourself 
 really feel. Pretty enough it is, perhaps ; but in your haste to 
 say a pretty thing, just because it was pretty, you have not 
 cared to condemn yourself out of your own mouth. Why were 
 you sulky, sir, with Mrs. Vavasour this very morning, after all 
 that passed, because she would look over the washing -books, 
 while you wanted her to hear about Fra Dolcino ? And why, 
 though she was up to her knees among your dirty shirts when 
 you went out, did you not give her one parting kiss, which would 
 have transfigured her virtuous drudgery for her into a sacred 
 pleasure ? One is heartily glad to see you disturbed, cross 
 though you may look at it, by that sturdy step and jolly whistle 
 which burst in on you from the other end of the chasm, as Tom 
 Thurnall, with an old smock frock over his coat and a large 
 basket on his arm, comes stumbling and hopping towards you, 
 dropping every now and then on hands and knees, and turning 
 over on his back, to squeeze his head into some muddy crack, 
 and then withdraw it with the salt water dripping down his nose. 
 
 Elsley closed his eyes, and rested his head on his hand in a 
 somewhat studied 'pose.' But as he wished not to be inter- 
 rupted, it may not have been altogether unpardonable to pretend 
 sleep. However, the sleeping posture had exactly the opposite 
 effect to that which he designed. 
 
 ' Ah, Mr. Vavasour ! ' 
 
 ' Humph ! ' quoth he slowly, if not sulkily.
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 149 
 
 'I admire your taste, sir; a charming summer-house old 
 Triton has vacated for your use ; but let me advise you not to 
 go to sleep in it.' 
 
 'Why then, sir?' 
 
 ' Because it's no business of mine, of course ; but the tide 
 lias turned already ; and if a breeze springs up, old Triton will 
 be back again in a hurry, and in a rage also ; and I may 
 possibly lose a good patient.' 
 
 Elsley, who knew nothing about the tides, save that 'the 
 moon wooed the ocean,' or some such important fact, thanked 
 him coolly enough, and returned to a meditative attitude. Tom 
 saw that he was in the seventh heaven, and went on ; but he 
 had not gone three steps before he pulled up short, slapping his 
 hands together once, as a man does who has found what he 
 wants ; and then plunged up to his knees in a rock pool, and 
 then began working very gently at something under water. 
 
 Elsley watched him for full five minutes with so much curi- 
 osity that, despite of himself, he asked him what he was doing. 
 
 Tom had his whole face under water, and did not hear till 
 Elsley had repeated the question. 
 
 ' Only a rare zoophyte,' said he at last, lifting his dripping 
 visage and gasping for breath ; and then he dived again. 
 
 'Inexplicable pedantry of science!' thought Elsley to him- 
 self, while Tom worked on steadfastly, and at last rose, and 
 taking put a phial from his basket, was about to deposit in it 
 something invisible. 
 
 ' Stay a moment ; you really have roused my curiosity by 
 your earnestness. May I see what it is for which you have taken 
 so much trouble ? ' 
 
 Tom held out on his finger a piece of slimy crust the size of a 
 halfpenny. Elsley could only shrug his shoulders. 
 
 ' Nothing to you, sir, I doubt not ; but worth a guinea to me, 
 even if it be only to mount bits of it as microscopic objects.' 
 
 ' So you mingle business with science 1 ' said Elsley, rather 
 in a contemptuous tone. 
 
 ' Why not ? I must live, and my father too ; and it is as 
 Honest a way of making money as any other ; I poach in no 
 man's manor for my game.' 
 
 ' But what is your game ? What possible attraction in that 
 bit of dirt can make men spend their money on it ? ' 
 
 ' You shall see,' said Tom, dropping it into the phial of salt 
 water, and offering it to Elsley, with his pocket magnifier. 
 
 ' Judge for yourself.' 
 
 Elsley did so, and beheld a new wonder a living plant of 
 crystal, studded with crystal bells, from each of which waved a 
 orown of delicate arms. It was the first time that Elsley had 
 ever seen one of those exquisite zoophytes which stud every rock 
 and every tuft of weed. 
 
 ' This is most beautiful,' said he at length.
 
 150 TWO YEARS AGO . CHAP. 
 
 ' Humph ! why should not Mr. Vavasour write a poem about 
 it?' 
 
 'Why not, indeed ?' thought Elsley. 
 
 ' It's no business of mine, no man's less : but I often wonder 
 why you poets don't take to the microscope, and tell us a little 
 more about the wonderful tilings which are here already, and 
 not about those which are not, and which, perhaps, never 
 will be.' 
 
 'Well,' said Elsley, after another look : 'but, after all, these 
 things have no human interest in them.' 
 
 ' I don't know that ; they have to me, for instance. These 
 are the things which I would write about if I had any turn for 
 verse, not about human nature, of which I know, I'm afraid, a 
 little too much already. I always like to read old Darwin's 
 Loves of the Plants ; bosh as it is in a scientific point of view, it 
 amuses one's fancy without making one lose one's temper, as 
 one must when one begins to analyse the microscopic ape called 
 self and friends.' 
 
 'You would like, then, the old cosmogonies, the Eddas and 
 the Vedas,' said Elsley, getting interested, as most people did 
 after five minutes' talk with the cynical doctor. 'I suppose 
 you would not say much for their science ; but, as poetry, they 
 are just what you ask for the expression of thoughtful spirits, 
 who looked round upon nature with awe-struck, child-like eyes, 
 and asked of all heaven and earth the question, " What are you 1 
 How came you to be?" Yet it may be my fault while I 
 admire them, I cannot sympathise with them. To me, this 
 zoophyte is as a being of another sphere ; and till I can create 
 some link in my own mind between it and humanity it is as 
 nothing in my eyes.' 
 
 'There is link enough, sir, don't doubt, and chains of iron 
 and brass too.' 
 
 'You believe, then, in the development theory of the 
 "Vestiges"?' 
 
 ' Doctors who have their bread to earn never commit them- 
 selves to theories. No ; all I meant was, that this little zoophyte 
 lives by the same laws as yovi and I ; and that he and the sea- 
 weeds, and so forth, teach us doctors certain little rules concern- 
 ing life and death, which you will have a chance soon of seeing 
 at work on the most grand and poetical, and indeed altogether 
 tragic scale.' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? ' 
 
 'When the cholera comes here, as it will, at its present pace, 
 before the end of the summer, then I shall have the zoophytes 
 rising up in judgment against me, if I have not profited by a 
 leaf out of their book.' 
 
 'The cholera?' said Elsley in a startled voice, forgetting 
 Tom's parables in the new thought. For Elsley had a dread 
 more nervous than really coward of infectious diseases ; and he
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 151 
 
 had also (and prided himself, too, on having) all Goethe's dislike 
 of anything terrible or horrible, of sickness, disease, wounds, 
 death, anything which jarred with that ' beautiful ' which was 
 his idol. 
 
 'The cholera?' repeated he. 'I hope not; I wish you 'had 
 not mentioned it, Mr. Thurnall.' 
 
 ' I am very sorry that I did so, if it offends you. I had 
 thought that forewarned was forearmed. After all, it is no 
 business of mine ; if I have extra labour, as I shall have, I shall 
 have extra experience ; and that will be a fair set-off, even if 
 the board of guardians don't vote me an extra remuneration, as 
 they ought to do.' 
 
 Elsley was struck dumb ; first by the certainty which Tom's 
 words expressed, and next by the coolness of their temper. At 
 last he stammered out, ' Good heavens, Mr. Thurnall ! you do 
 not talk of that frightful scourge so disgusting, too, in its 
 character as a matter of profit and loss? It is sordid, cold- 
 hearted ! ' 
 
 ' My dear sir, if I let myself think, much more talk, about 
 the matter in any other tone, I should face the thing poorly 
 enough when it came. I shall have work enough to keep my 
 head about the end of August or beginning of September, and I 
 must not lose it beforehand, by indulging in any horror, disgust, 
 or other emotion perfectly justifiable in a layman.' 
 
 ' But are not doctors men ? ' 
 
 ' That depends very much on what " a man " means.' 
 
 ' Men with human sympathy and compassion.' 
 
 ' Oh, I mean by a man, a man with human strength. My 
 dear sir, one may be too busy, and at doing good too (though 
 that is not my line, save professionally, because it is my only 
 way of earning money) ; but one may be too busy at doing good 
 to have time for compassion. If while I was cutting a man's 
 leg off' I thought of the pain which he was suffering 
 
 ' Thank Heaven ! ' said Elsley, ' that it was not my lot to 
 become a medical man.' 
 
 Tom looked at him with the quaintest smile : a flush of 
 mingled anger and contempt had been rising in him as he heard 
 the ex -bottle boy talking sentiment : but he only went on 
 quietly, 
 
 ' No, sir ; with your more delicate sensibilities, you may 
 thank Heaven that you did not become a medical man ; your 
 life would have been one of torture, disgust, and agonising sense 
 of responsibility. But do you not see that you must thank 
 Heaven for the sufferer's sake also ? I will not shock you again 
 by talking of amputation ; but even in the smallest matter 
 even if you were merely sending medicine to an old maid sup- 
 pose that your imagination were preoccupied by the thought of 
 her old age, her sufferings, her disappointed hopes, her regretful 
 dream of bygone youth, and beauty, and love, and all the tender
 
 152 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 fancies which might well spring out of such a mournful spec- 
 tacle, would you not be but too likely (pardon the pathos) to end 
 by sending her an elderly gentleman's medicine after all, and so 
 either frightfully increasing her sufferings, or ending them once 
 for all?' 
 
 Tom said this in the most quiet and natural tone, without 
 even a twinkle of his wicked eye : but Elsley heard him begin 
 with reddening face ; and as he went on, the red had turned to 
 purple, and then to deadly yellow ; till making a half -step 
 forward he cried fiercely 
 
 ' Sir ! ' and then stopped suddenly ; for his feet slipped upon 
 the polished stone, and on his face he fell into the pool at 
 Thurnall's feet. 
 
 ' Well for both of us geese ! ' said Tom inwardly, as he went 
 to pick him up. ' I verily believe he was going to strike me, 
 and that would have done for neither of us. I was a fool to say 
 it ; but the temptation was so exquisite ; and it must have come 
 some day.' 
 
 But Vavasour staggered up of his own accord, and dashing 
 away Tom's proffered hand, was rushing off without a word. 
 
 ' Not so, Mr. John Briggs ! ' said Tom, making up his mind in 
 a moment that he must have it out now, or never ; and that lie 
 might have everything to fear from Vavasour if he let him go 
 home furious. ' We dp not part thus, sir ! ' 
 
 'We will meet again, if you will,' foamed Vavasour, 'but it 
 shall end in the death of one of us ! ' 
 
 'By each other's potions? I can doctor myself, sir, thank 
 you. Listen to me, John Briggs ! You shall listen ! ' and Tom 
 sprang past him, and planted himself at the foot of the rock 
 .steps, to prevent his escaping upward. 
 
 ' What, do you wish to quarrel with me, sir 1 It is I who 
 ought to quarrel with you. I am the aggrieved party, and not 
 you, sir ! I have not seen the son of the man who, when I was 
 an apothecary's boy, petted him, lent me books, introduced me 
 as a genius, turned my head for me which was just what I was 
 vain enough to enjoy I have not seen that man's son cast 
 ashore penniless and friendless, and yet never held out to him a 
 helping hand, but tried to conceal my identity from him, from 
 a dirty shame of my honest father's honest name.' 
 
 Vavasour dropped his eyes, for was it not true 1 but lie raised 
 them again more fiercely than ever. 
 
 ' Curse you ! I owe you nothing. It was you who made me 
 ashamed of it. You rhymed 011 it, and laughed about poetry 
 coming out of such a name.' 
 
 'And what if I did 1 Are poets to be made of nothing but 
 tinder and gall ? Why could you not take an honest joke as it 
 was meant and go your way like other people, till you had 
 shown yourself worth something, and won honour even for the 
 name of Briggs ? '
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 153 
 
 ' And I have ! I have my own station now, my own fame, 
 sir, and it is nothing to you what I choose to call myself. I 
 have won my place, I say, and your mean envy cannot rob me 
 of it.' 
 
 ' You have your station. Very good,' said Tom, not caring 
 to notice the imputation ; ' you owe the greater part of it to 
 your having made a most fortunate marriage, for which I 
 respect you, as a practical man. Let your poetry be what it 
 may (and people tell me that it is really very beautiful), your 
 match shows me that you are a clever, and therefore a successful 
 person.' 
 
 ' Do you take me for a sordid schemer, like yourself 1 I loved 
 what was worthy of me, and won it because I deserved it.' 
 
 ' Then, having won it, treat it as it deserves,' said Tom, with 
 a cool, searching look, before which Vavasour's eyes fell again. 
 ' Understand me, Mr. John Briggs ; it is of no consequence to 
 me what you call yourself : but it is of consequence to me that 
 I should not have a patient in my parish whom I cannot cure ; 
 for I cannot cure broken hearts, though they will be simple 
 enough to come to me for medicine.' 
 
 ' You shall have no chance ! You shall never enter my 
 house ! You shall not ruin me, sir, by your bills ! ' 
 
 Tom made no answer to this fresh insult. He had another 
 game to play. 
 
 ' Take care what you say, Briggs ; remember that, after all, 
 you are in my power, and I had better remind you plainly of 
 the fact.' 
 
 ' And you mean to make me your tool ? I will die first ! ' 
 
 ' I believe that,' said Tom, who was very near adding, ' that 
 he should be sorry to work with such tools.' 
 
 ' My tools are my lancet and my drugs,' said he quietly, ' and 
 all I have to say refers to them. It suits my purpose to become 
 the principal medical man in this neighbourhood 
 
 ' And I am to tout for introductions for you ? ' 
 
 'You are to be so very kind as to allow me to finish my 
 sentence, just as you would allow any other gentleman ; and 
 because I wish for practice, and patients, and power, you will 
 be so kind as to treat me henceforth as one high-minded man 
 would treat another to whom he is obliged. For you know, 
 John Briggs, as well as I,' said Tom, drawing himself up to his 
 full height, ' look me in the face, if you can, ere you deny it, 
 that I was, while you knew me, as honourable a man and as 
 kind-hearted a man, as you ever were ; and that now consider- 
 ing the circumstances under which we meet you have more 
 reason to trust me, than I have, primd facie, to trust you.' 
 
 Vavasour answered not a word. 
 
 'Good-bye, then,' said Tom, drawing aside from the step; 
 ' Mrs. Vavasour will be anxious about you ! And mind ! With 
 regard to her first of all, sir, and then with regard to other
 
 154 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 matters as long, and only as long, as you remember that you 
 are John Briggs of Whitbury, I shall be the first to forget it. 
 There is my hand, for old acquaintance' sake.' 
 
 Vavasour took the proffered hand coldly, paused a moment, 
 and then wrung it in silence, and hurried away home. 
 
 ' Have I played my ace ill after all ? ' said Tom, sitting down 
 to consider. ' As for whether I should have played it at all, that's 
 no business of mine now. Madame Might-have-been may see to 
 that. But did I play ill 1 for if I did, I may try a new lead yet. 
 Ought I to have twitted him about his wife 1 If he's venomous, 
 it may only make matters worse ; and still worse if he be sus- 
 picious. I don't think he was either in old times ; but vanity 
 will make a man so, and it may have made him. Well, I must 
 only ingratiate myself all the more with her ; and find out, top, 
 whether she has his secret as well as I. What I am most afraid 
 of is my having told him plainly that he was in my power ; it's 
 apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere 
 hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it's only to their 
 miserable selves. Never mind ; lie can't break my tackle ; and 
 besides, that grip of the hand seemed to indicate that the poor 
 wretch was beat, and thought himself let off easily as indeed he 
 is. We'll hope so. Now, zoophytes, for another turn with you!' 
 
 To tell the truth, however, Tom is looking for more than 
 zoophytes, and has been doing so at every dead low tide since 
 he was wrecked. He has heard nothing yet of his belt. The 
 notes have not been presented at the London bank ; nobody in 
 the village has been spending more money than usual ; for 
 cunning Tom has contrived already to know now many pints of 
 ale every man of whom he has the least doubt has drunk. Per- 
 haps, after all, the belt may have been torn off in the life 
 struggle ; it may have been for a moment in Grace's hands, and 
 then have been swept back into the sea. What more likely 1 
 And what more likely, in that case, that, sinking by its weight, 
 it is wedged away in some cranny of the rocks 1 So spring-tide 
 after spring-tide Tom searches, and all the more carefully 
 because others are searching too, for waifs and strays from the 
 wreck. Sad relics of mortality he finds at times, as others do : 
 once, even, a dressing-case, full of rings and pins and chains, 
 which belonged, he fancied, to a gay young bride with whom he 
 had waltzed many a time on deck, as they slipped along before 
 the soft trade-wind : but no belt. He sent the dressing-case to 
 the Lloyd's underwriters, and searched on : but in vain. 
 Neither could he find that any one else had forestalled him ; and 
 that very afternoon, sulky and disheartened, he determined to 
 waste no more time about the matter, and strode home, vowing 
 signal vengeance against the thief, if he caught him. 
 
 ' And I will catch him ! These West-country yokels, to fancy 
 that they can do Tom Thurnall ! It's adding insult to injury, 
 as Sam Weller's parrot has it.'
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 155 
 
 Now his shortest way home lay across the shore, and then 
 along the beach, and up the steps by the little waterfall, past 
 Mrs. Harvey's door ; and at that door sat Grace, sewing in the 
 sun. She looked up and bowed as he passed, smiling modestly, 
 and little dreaming of what was passing in his mind ; and when 
 a very lovely girl smiled and bowed to Tom, he must needs do 
 the same to her : whereon she added 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, sir : have you heard anything of the 
 money you lost ? I we have been so ashamed to think of 
 such a thing happening here.' 
 
 Tom's evil spirit was roused. 
 
 ' Have you heard anything of it, Miss Harvey ? For you 
 seem to me the only person in the place who knows anything 
 about the matter.' 
 
 ' I, sir 1 ' cried Grace, fixing her great startled eyes full on 
 him. 
 
 'Why, ma'am,' said Tom, with a courtly smile, 'you may 
 possibly recollect, if you will so far tax your memory, that you 
 had it in your hands at least a moment, when you did me the 
 kindness to save my life ; and as you were kind enough to in- 
 form me that I should recover it when I was worthy of it, I 
 suppose I have not yet risen in your eyes to the required state 
 of conversion and regeneration.' And swinging impatiently 
 away, he walked on, really afraid lest he should say something 
 rude. 
 
 Grace half called after him, and then suddenly checking her- 
 self, rushed in to her mother with a wild and pale face. 
 
 'What is this Mr. Thurnall has been saying to me about his 
 belt and money which he lost 1 ' 
 
 ' About what ? Has he been rude to you, the bad man ? ' 
 cried Mrs. Harvey, dropping the pie -dish in some confusion, 
 and taking a long while to pick up the pieces. 
 
 ' About the belt the money which he lost ! Why don't you 
 speak, mother ? ' 
 
 ' Belt money ? Ah, I recollect now. He has lost some 
 money, he says.' 
 
 ' Of course he has.' 
 
 ' How should you know anything ? I recollect there was 
 some talk of it, though. But what matter what he says ? He 
 was quite passed away, I'll swear, when they carried him up.' 
 
 ' But mother ! mother ! he says that I know about it ; that I 
 had it in my hands ! ' 
 
 ' You 1 O the wicked wretch, the false, ungrateful, slander- 
 ous child of wrath, with adder's poison under his lips ! No, my 
 child ! Though we're poor, we're honest ! Let him slander us, 
 rob us of our good name, send us to prison if lie will he cannot 
 rob us of our souls. We'll be silent ; we'll turn the other cheek, 
 and commit our cause to One above who pleads for the orphan 
 and the widow. We will not strive nor cry, my child. Oh,
 
 156 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 no!' And Mrs. Harvey began fussing over the smashed pie- 
 dish. 
 
 'I shall not strive nor cry, mother,' said Grace, who had 
 recovered her usual calm ; ' but he must have some cause for 
 these sti*ange words. Do you recollect seeing me with the belt?' 
 
 ' Belt, what's a belt 1 I know nothing about belts. I tell 
 you he's a villain, and a slanderer. Oh, that it should have 
 come to this, to have my child's fair fame blasted by a wretch 
 that comes nobody knows where from, and has been doing 
 nobody knows what, for ought I know ! ' 
 
 ' Mother, mother ! we know no harm of him. If he is mis- 
 taken, God forgive him ! ' 
 
 ' If he is mistaken 1 ' went on Mrs. Harvey, still over the pie- 
 dish : but Grace gave her no answer. She was deep in thought. 
 She recollected now, that as she had gone up the path from the 
 cove on that eventful morning, she had seen Willis and Thur- 
 nall whispering earnestly together ; and she recollected now, 
 for the first time, that there had been a certain sadness and per- 
 plexity, almost reserve, about Willis ever since. Good heavens ! 
 could he suspect her too 1 She would find out that at least ; 
 and no sooner had her mother fussed away, talking angrily to 
 herself, into the back kitchen, than Grace put on her bonnet 
 and shawl, and went forth to find the captain. 
 
 In an hour she returned. Her lips were firm set, her cheeks 
 pale, her eyes red with weeping. She said nothing to her 
 mother, who for her part did not seem inclined to allude again 
 to the matter. 
 
 ' Where have you been, child ? You look quite poorly, and 
 your eyes red.' 
 
 ' The wind is very cold, mother,' said she, and went into her 
 room. Her mother looked sharply after her, and muttered to 
 herself. 
 
 Grace went in, and sat down on the bed. 
 
 ' What a coldness this is at my heart ! ' she said aloud to 
 herself, trying to smile ; but she could not ; and she sat on the 
 bedside, without taking off her bonnet and shawl, her hands 
 hanging listlessly by her side, her head drooping on her bosom, 
 till her mother called her to tea : then she was forced to rouse 
 herself, and went out, composed, but utterly wretched. 
 
 Tom walked up homeward, very ill at ease. He had played, 
 to use his nomenclature, two trump cards running, and was by 
 no means satisfied that he had played them well. He had no 
 right, certainly, to be satisfied with either move ; for both had 
 been made in a somewhat evil spirit, and certainly for no very 
 disinterested end. 
 
 That was a view of the matter, however, which never entered 
 his mind ; there was only that general dissatisfaction with him- 
 self which is, though men try hard to deny the fact, none other 
 than the supernatural sting of conscience. He tried 'to lay
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 157 
 
 to his soul the flattering unction ' that he might, after all, be of 
 use to Mrs. Vavasour, by using his power over her husband ; 
 but lie knew in his secret heart that any move of his in that direc- 
 tion was likely only to make matters worse ; that to-day's ex- 
 plosion might only have sent home the hapless Vavasour in a 
 more irritable temper than ever. And thinking over many 
 things, backward and forward, he saw his own way so little, 
 that he actually condescended to go and 'pump' Frank Headley. 
 So he termed it : but after all, it was only like asking advice of 
 a good man, because he did not feel himself quite good enough 
 to advise himself. 
 
 The curate was preparing to sally forth, after his frugal 
 dinner. The morning he spent at the schools, or in parish secu- 
 larities ; the afternoon, till dusk, was devoted to visiting the 
 poor ; the night, not to sleep, but to reading and sermon writ- 
 ing. Thus, by sitting up till two in the morning, and rising 
 again at six for his private devotions, before walking a mile and 
 a half up to church for the morning service, Frank Headley 
 burnt the candle of life at both ends very effectually, and 
 showed that he did so by his pale cheeks and red eyes. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said Tom, as he entered. ' As usual : poor nature is 
 being robbed and murdered by rich grace.' 
 
 ' What do you mean now ? ' asked Frank, smiling, for he had 
 become accustomed enough to Tom's quaint parables, though he 
 had to scold him often enough for their irreverence. 
 
 'Nature says, " after dinner sit awhile ;" and even the dumb 
 animals hear her voice, and lie by for a siesta when their stomachs 
 are full. Grace says, " Jump up and rush out the moment you 
 have swallowed your food ; and if you get an indigestion, abuse 
 poor Nature for it, and lay the blame on Adam's fall." 
 
 ' You are irreverent, my good sir, as usual ; but you are un- 
 just also this time.' 
 
 ' How then 1 ' 
 
 1 Unjust to grace, as you phrase it,' answered Frank, with a 
 quaint sad smile. ' I assure you on my honour that grace has 
 nothing whatsoever to do witli my "rushing out" just now, but 
 simply the desire to do my good works that they may be seen 
 of men. I hate going out. I should like to sit and read the 
 whole afternoon : but I am afraid lest the dissenters should say, 
 " He has not been to see so-and-so for the last three clays ; " so 
 off I go, and no credit to me.' 
 
 Why had Frank dared, upon a month's acquaintance, to lay 
 bare his own heart thus to a man of no creed at all ? Because, 
 I suppose, amid all differences, he had found one point of like- 
 ness between himself and Thurnall ; he had found that Tom at 
 heart was a truly genuine man, sincere and faithful to his own . 
 scheme of the universe. 
 
 How that man, through all his eventful life, had been 
 enabled to
 
 158 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Bate not a jot of heart or hope, 
 But steer right onward,' 
 
 was a problem which Frank longed curiously, and yet fearfully 
 withal, to solve. There were many qualities in him which Frank 
 could not but admire, and long to imitate ; and, ' Whence 
 had they come 1 ' was another problem at which he looked, 
 trembling as many a new thought crossed him. He longed, 
 too, to learn from Tom somewhat at least of that savoirfaire, 
 that power of ' becoming all things to all men,' which St. Paul 
 had ; and for want of which Frank had failed. He saw, too, 
 with surprise, that Tom had gained in one month more real 
 insight into the characters of his parishioners than he had done 
 in twelve ; and besides all, there was the craving of the lonely 
 heart for human confidence and friendship. So it befell that 
 Frank spoke out his inmost thought that day, and thought no 
 shame ; and it befell also, that Tliurnall, when he heard it, said 
 in his heart 
 
 ' What a noble, honest fellow you are, when you 
 
 But he answered enigmatically 
 
 ' Oh, I quite agree with you that Grace has nothing to do 
 with it. I only referred it to that source because I thought you 
 would do so.' 
 
 ' You ought to be ashamed of your dishonesty, then.' 
 
 ' I know it ; but my view of the case is, that you rush out 
 after dinner for the very same reason that the Yankee store- 
 keeper does from You 11 forgive me if I say it ? 
 
 ' Of course. You cannot speak too plainly to me.' 
 
 ' Conceit ; the Yankee fancies himself such an important 
 person that the commercial world will stand still unless he flies 
 back to its help after ten minutes' gobbling, with his mouth full 
 of pork and pickled peaches. And you fancy yourself so im- 
 portant in your line that the spiritual world will stand still 
 unless you bolt back to help it in like wise. Substitute a 
 half-cooked mutton chop for the pork, and the cases are exact 
 parallels.' 
 
 ' Your parallel does not hold good, doctor. The Yankee goes 
 back to his store to earn money for himself, and not to keep 
 commerce alive.' 
 
 ' While you go for utterly disinterested motives. I see.' 
 
 'Do you ?' said Frank. ' If you think that I fancy myself a 
 better man than the Yankee, you mistake me ; but at least you 
 will confess that I am not working for money.' 
 
 ' No ; you have your notions ot reward, and lie has his. He 
 wants to be paid by material dollars, payable next month ; you 
 by spiritual dollars, payable when you die. I don't see the great 
 difference.' 
 
 'Only the slight difference between what is material and 
 what is spiritual.'
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 159 
 
 ' They seem to me, from all I can hear in pulpits, to be only 
 two different sorts of pleasant things, and to be sought after, 
 both alike, simply because they are pleasant. Self-interest, if 
 you will forgive me, seems to me the spring of both ; only, to do 
 you justice, you are a farther-sighted and more prudent man 
 than the Yankee store-keeper ; and having more exquisitely 
 developed notions of what your true self-interest is, are content 
 to wait a little longer than he.' 
 
 'You stab with a jest, Thurnall. You little know how your 
 words hit home.' 
 
 ' Well, then, to turn from a matter of which I know nothing 
 I must keep you in, and give you parish business to do at 
 home. I am come to consult you as my spiritual pastor and 
 master.' 
 
 Frank looked a little astonished. 
 
 ' Don't be alarmed. I am not going to confess my own sins 
 only other people's.' 
 
 ' Pray don't, then. I know far more of them already than I 
 can cure. I am worn out with the daily discovery of fresh evil 
 wherever I go.' 
 
 'Then why not comfort yourself by trying to find a little 
 fresh good wherever you go ? ' 
 
 Frank sighed. 
 
 'Perhaps, though, you don't care for any sort of good except 
 your own sort of good. You are fastidious. Well, you have 
 your excuses. But you can understand a poor fellow like me, 
 who has been dragged through the slums and sewers of this 
 wicked world for fifteen years and more, being very well content 
 with any sort of good which I can light on, and not particular 
 as to either quantity or quality.' 
 
 'Perhaps yours is the healthier state of mind, if you can only 
 find the said good. The vulturine nose, which smells nothing 
 but corruption, is no credit to its possessor. And it would be 
 pleasant, at least, to find good in every man.' 
 
 ' One can't do that in one's study. Mixing with them is the 
 only plan. No doubt they're inconsistent enough. The more 
 you see of them, the less you trust them ; and yet the more you 
 see of them, the more you like them. Can you solve that para- 
 dox f rom your books ? ' 
 
 ' I will try,' said Frank. ' I generally have more than one to 
 think over when you go. But, surely, there are men so fallen 
 that they are utterly insensible to good.' 
 
 ' Very likely. There's no saying in this world what may not 
 be. Only I never saw one. I'll tell you a story ; you may 
 apply it as you like. When I was on the Texan expedition, and 
 raw to soldiering and camping, we had to sleep in low ground, 
 and suffered terribly from a miasma. Deadly cold it was, when 
 it came ; and the man who once got chilled through with it, just 
 died. I was lying on the bare ground one night, and chilly enough
 
 160 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 I was for I was short of clothes, and had lost my buffalo robe 
 but fell asleep : and on waking the next morning, I found my- 
 self covered up in my comrade's blankets, even to his coat, while 
 he was sitting shivering in his shirt sleeves. The cold fog had 
 come down in the night, and the man had stripped himself, and 
 sat all night with death staring him in the face, to save my life. 
 And all the reason he gave was, that if one of us must die, it 
 was better the older should go first, and not a youngster 
 like me. And,' said Tom, lowering his voice, 'that man was a 
 murderer ! ' 
 
 ' A murderer ! ' 
 
 'Yes; a drunken, gambling, cut-throat rowdy as ever grew 
 ripe for the gallows. Now, will you tell me that there was 
 nothing in that man but what the devil put there 1 ' 
 
 Frank sat meditating awhile on this strange story, which is 
 moreover a true one ; and then looked up with something like 
 tears in his eyes. 
 
 'And he did not die?' 
 
 'Not he! I saw him die afterwards shot through the 
 heart, without time even to cry out. But I have not forgotten 
 what he did for me that night ; and I'll tell you what, sir ! I 
 do not believe that God has forgotten it either.' 
 
 Frank was silent for a few moments, and then Tom changed 
 the subject. 
 
 'I want to know what you can tell me about this Mr. 
 Vavasour.' 
 
 ' Hardly anything, I am sorry to say. I was at his house at 
 tea, two or three times, when I first came ; and I had very 
 agreeable evenings, and talks on art and poetry : but I believe 
 I offended him by hinting that he ought to come to church, 
 which he never does, and since then our acquaintance has all 
 but ceased. I suppose you will say, as usual, that I played my 
 cards badly there also.' 
 
 'Not at all ! ' said Tom, who was disposed to take any one's 
 part against Elsley. ' If a clergyman has not a right to tell a 
 man that, I don't see what right he has of any kind. Only,' 
 added he, with one of his quaint siniles, ' the clergyman, if he 
 compels a man to deal at his store, is bound to furnish him with 
 the articles which he wants.' 
 
 ' Which he needs, or which he likes ? For " wanting " has 
 botli those meanings.' 
 
 ' With something that he finds by experience does him 
 good : and so learns to like it, because he knows that he needs 
 it, as my patients do my physic.' 
 
 ' I wish my patients would do so by mine : but, unfortun- 
 ately, half of them seem to me not to know what their disease 
 is, and the other half do not think they are diseased at all.' 
 
 ' Well,' said Tom drily, 'perhaps some of them are more right 
 than you fancy. Every man knows his own business best.'
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 161 
 
 ' If it were so, they would go about it somewhat differently 
 from what most of the poor creatures do.' 
 
 ' Do you think so ? I fancy myself that not one of them does 
 a wrong thing, but what he knows it to be wrong just as well 
 as you do, and is much more ashamed and frightened about it 
 already, than you can ever make him by preaching at him.' 
 
 ' Do you ?' ' 
 
 ' I do. I judge of others by myself.' 
 
 ' Then would you have a clergyman never warn his people of 
 their sins ? ' 
 
 ' If I were lie, I'd much sooner take the sins for granted, and 
 say to them, " Xow, my friends, I know you are all, ninety-nine 
 out of the hundred of you, not such bad fellows at bottom, and 
 would all like to be good, if you only knew how ; so I'll tell you 
 as far as I know, though I don't know much about the matter. 
 For the truth is, you must have a hundred troubles every day 
 which I never felt in my life : arid it must be a very hard thing 
 to keep body and soul together, and to get a little pleasure on 
 this side the grave without making blackguards of yourselves. 
 Therefore I don't pretend to set myself up as a better or a wiser 
 man than you at all : but I do know a thing or two which I 
 fancy may be useful to you. You can but try it. So come up, 
 if you like, any of you, and talk matters over with me as 
 between gentleman and gentleman. I shall keep your secret, 
 of course ; and if you find I can't cure your complaint, why, 
 you can but go away and try elsewhere."' 
 
 ' And so the doctor's model sermon ends in proposing private 
 confession ! ' 
 
 ' Of course. The thing itself which will do them good, with- 
 out the red rag of an official name, which sends them cackling 
 off like frightened turkeys. Such private confession as is going 
 on between you and me now. Here am I confessing to you all 
 my unorthodoxy.' 
 
 'And I my ignorance,' said Frank ; 'for I really believe you 
 know more about the matter than I do.' 
 
 ' Not at all. I may be all wrong. But the fault of your cloth 
 seems to- me to be that they apply their medicines without 
 deigning, most of them, to take the least diagnosis of the case. 
 How could I cure a man without first examining what was the 
 matter with him ? ' 
 
 ' So say the old casuists, of whom I have read enough some 
 would say too much ; but they do not satisfy me. They deal 
 with actions, and motives, and so fortli ; but they do not go 
 down to the one root of wrong which is the same in every man.' 
 
 ' You are getting beyond me : but why do you not apply a 
 little of the worldly wisdom which these same casuists taught 
 you?' 
 
 ' To tell you the truth, I have tried in past years, and found 
 that the medicine would not act.' 
 
 M r. Y. A.
 
 162 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Humph ! Well, that would depend, again, on the previous 
 diagnosis of human nature being correct ; and those old monks, 
 I should say, would know about as much of human nature as so 
 many daws in a steeple. Still, you wouldn't say that what was 
 the matter with old Heale was the matter also with Vavasour?' 
 
 ' I believe from my heart that it is.' 
 
 ' Humph ! Then you know the symptoms of his complaint ? ' 
 
 ' I know that he never comes to church.' 
 
 ' Nothing more 1 I am really speaking in confidence. You 
 surely have heard of disagreements between him and Mrs. 
 Vavasour 1 ' 
 
 ' Never, I assure you ; you shock me.' 
 
 ' I am exceedingly sorry, then, that I said a word about it : 
 but the whole parish talks of it,' answered Tom, who was sur- 
 prised at this fresh proof of the little confidence which Aberalva 
 put in their parson. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said Frank sadly, ' I am the last person in the parish 
 to hear any news ; but this is very distressing.' 
 
 ' Very, to me. My honour, to tell you the truth, as a medical 
 man, is concerned in the matter ; for she is growing quite ill 
 from unhappiness, and I cannot cure her ; so I come to you, as 
 soul-doctor, to do what I, the body-doctor, cannot.' 
 
 Frank sat pondering for a minute, and then 
 
 ' You set me on a task for which I am as little fit as any man, 
 by your own showing. What do I know of disagreements 
 between man and wife 1 And one has a delicacy about offering 
 her comfort. She must bestow her confidence on me before I 
 can use it ; while he 
 
 ' While he, as the cause of the disease, is what you ought to 
 treat ; and not her unhappiness, which is only a symptom of it.' 
 
 'Spoken like a wise doctor: but to tell you the truth, 
 Thurnall, I have no influence over Mr. Vavasour, and see no 
 means of getting any. If he recognised my authority, as his 
 parish priest, then I should see my way. Let him be as bad as 
 he might, I should have a fixed point from which to work ; but 
 with his free-thinking notions, I know well one can judge it 
 too easily from his poems lie would look on me as a pedant 
 assuming a spiritual tyranny to which I have no claim.' 
 
 Tom sat awhile nursing his knee, and then 
 
 'If you saw a man fallen into the water, what do you think 
 would be the shortest way to prove to him that you had author- 
 ity from heaven to pull him out 1 Do you give it up ? Pulling 
 him out, would it not be, without more ado ? ' 
 
 'I should be happy enough to pull poor Vavasour out, if ho 
 would let me. But till he believes that I can do it, how can I 
 even begin ? ' 
 
 ' How can you expect him to believe, if he has no proof ? ' 
 
 'There are proofs enough in the Bible and elsewhere, if he 
 will but accept them. If he refuses to examine into the creden-
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 163 
 
 tials, the fault is his, not mine. I really do not wish to be hard : 
 but would not you do the same, if any one refused to employ 
 you, because he chose to deny that you were a legally qualified 
 practitioner ? ' 
 
 ' Not so badly put ; but what should I do in that case 1 Go 
 on quietly curing his neighbours, till he began to alter his mind 
 as to my qualifications, and came in to be cured himself. But 
 here's this difference between you and me. I am not bound to 
 attend to any one who don't send for me ; while you think that 
 you are, and carry the notion a little too far, for I expect you to 
 kill yourself by it some day.' 
 
 ' Well ? ' said Frank, with something of that lazy Oxford tone, 
 which is intended to save the speaker the trouble of giving his 
 arguments, when he has already made up his mind, or thinks 
 that he has so done. 
 
 ' Well, if I thought myself bound to doctor the man, willy- 
 nilly, as you do, I would certainly go to him, and show him, at 
 least, that I understood his complaint. That would be the first 
 step towards letting me cure him. How else on earth do you 
 fancy that Paul cured those Corinthians about whom I have 
 been reading lately ? ' 
 
 ' Are you, too, going to quote Scripture against me ? I am 
 glad to find that your studies extend to St. Paul.' 
 
 ' To tell you the truth, your sermon last Sunday puzzled me. 
 I could not comprehend (on your showing) how Paul got that 
 wonderful influence over those pagans which he evidently had ; 
 and as how to get influence is a very favourite study of mine, 
 I borrowed the book when I went home, and read for myself ; 
 and the matter at last seemed clear enough, on Paul's own 
 showing.' 
 
 ' I don't doubt that ; but I suspect your interpretation of the 
 fact and mine would not agree.' 
 
 ' Mine is simple enough. He says that what proved him to 
 be an apostle was his power. He is continually appealing to his 
 power ; and what can he mean by that, but that he could do, 
 and had done, what he professed to do ? He promised to make 
 those poor heathen rascals of Greeks better, and wiser, and 
 happier men ; and, I suppose, lie made them so ; and then, tlrere 
 was no doubt of his commission, or his authority, or anything 
 else. He says himself he did riot require any credentials, for 
 they were his credentials, read and known of every one ; he had 
 made good men of them out of bad ones, and that was proof 
 enough whose apostle he was.' 
 
 'Well,' said Frank, half sadly, 'I might say a great deal, of 
 course, on the other side of the question, but I prefer hearing 
 what you laymen think about it all.' 
 
 ' Will you be angry if I tell you honestly 1 ' 
 
 ' Did you ever find me angry at anything you said 1 ' 
 
 'No. I will do you the justice to say tliat. Well, what we
 
 164 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 laymen say is this. If the parsons have the authority of which 
 they boast, why don't they use it ? If they have commission to 
 make bad people good, they must have power too ; for He whose 
 commission they claim is not likely, I should suppose, to set 
 a man to do what he cannot do.' 
 
 'And we can do it if people would but submit to us. It all 
 comes round again to the same point.' 
 
 ' So it does. How to get them to listen. I tried to rind out 
 how Paul achieved that first step ; and when I looked he told 
 me plainly enough. By becoming all things to all men ; by 
 showing these people that he understood them, and knew what 
 was the matter with them. Now do you go and do likewise 
 by Vavasour, and then exercise your authority like a practical 
 man. If you have power to bind and loose, as you told us 
 last Sunday, bind that fellow's ungovernable temper, and loose 
 him from the real slavery which lie is in to his miserable con- 
 ceit and self-indulgence ! and then, if he does not believe in 
 your "sacerdotal power," he is even a greater fool than I take 
 him for.' 
 
 ' Honestly, I will try : God help me,' added Frank in a lower 
 voice ; ' but as for quarrels between man and wife, as I told you, 
 no one understands them less than I.' 
 
 ' Then marry a wife yourself and quarrel a little with her for 
 experiment, and then you'll know all about it.' 
 
 Frank laughed in spite of himself. 
 
 ' Thank you. No man is less likely to try that experiment 
 than I.' 
 
 ' Hum ! ' 
 
 ' I have quite enough as a bachelor to distract me from my 
 work, without adding to them those of a wife and family, and 
 those little home lessons in the frailty of human nature, in which 
 you advise me to copy Mr. Vavasour.' 
 
 'And so,' said Tom, 'having to doctor human beings, nine- 
 teen-twentieths of whom are married ; and being aware that 
 three parts of the miseries of human life come either from 
 wanting to be married, or from married cares and troubles you 
 think that you will improve your chance of doctoring your flock 
 rightly by avoiding carefully the least practical acquaintance 
 with the chief cause of their disease. Philosophical and logical, 
 truly!' 
 
 'You seem to have acquired a little knowledge of men and 
 women, my good friend, without encumbering yourself with a 
 wife and children.' 
 
 ' Would you like to go to the same school to which I went 1 ' 
 asked Thurnall, with a look of such grave meaning that Frank's 
 pure spirit shuddered within him. 'And I'll tell you this; 
 whenever I see a woman nursing her baby, or a father with his 
 child upon his knees, I say to myself they know more, at this 
 minute, of human nature, as of the great law of " C'est Tamom 1 ,
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 165 
 
 1'amour, 1'amour, which makes the world go round," than I am 
 likely to do for many a day. I'll tell you what, sir ! These 
 simple natural ties, which are common to us and the dumb 
 animals as I live, sir ! they are the divinest things I see in the 
 world ! I have but one, and that is love to my poor old father ; 
 that's all the religion I have as yet : but I tell you it alone has 
 kept me from being a ruffian and a blackguard. And I'll tell 
 you more,' said Tom, warming, ' of all diabolical dodges for pre- 
 venting the parsons from seeing who they are, or what human 
 beings are, or what their work in the world is, or anything else, 
 the neatest is that celibacy of the clergy, I should like to have 
 you with me in Spanish America, or in France either, and see 
 what you thought of it then. How it ever came into mortal 
 brains is to me the puzzle. I've often fancied, when I've watched 
 those priests and very good fellows, too, some of them are 
 that there must be a devil after all abroad in the world, as you 
 say ; for no human insanity could ever have hit upon so com- 
 plete and 'cute a device for making parsons do the more harm, 
 the more good they try to do. There, I've preached you a ser- 
 mon, and made you angry.' 
 
 ' Not in the least : but I must go now and see some sick.' 
 
 ' Well, go, and prosper ; only recollect that the said sick are 
 men and women.' 
 
 And away Tom went, thinking to himself : ' Well, that is a 
 noble, straightforward, honest fellow, and will do yet, if he'll 
 only get a wife. He is not one of those asses who have made up 
 their minds by book that the world is square, and won't believe 
 it to be round for any ocular demonstration. He'll find out what 
 shape the world is before long, and behave as such, and act 
 accordingly.' 
 
 Little did Tom think as lie went home that day in full-blown 
 satisfaction with his sermon to Frank, of the misery he had 
 caused, and was going to cause for many a day, to poor Grace 
 Harvey. It was a rude shock to her to find herself thus sus- 
 pected ; though perhaps it was one which she needed. She had 
 never, since one first trouble ten years ago, known any real grief ; 
 and had therefore had all the more time to make a luxury of 
 unreal ones. She was treated by the simple folk around her as 
 all but inspired ; and being possessed of real powers as miracu- 
 lous in her own eyes as those which were imputed to her were in 
 theirs (for what are real spiritual experiences but daily miracles?), 
 she was just in that temper of mind in which she required, as 
 ballast, all her real goodness, lest the moral balance should topple 
 headlong after the intellectual, and the downward course of 
 vanity, excitement, deception, blasphemous assumptions, be 
 entered on. Happy for her that she was in Protestant and 
 common-sense England, and in a country parish, where mesmer- 
 ism and spirit-rapping were unknown. Had she been an 
 American, she might have become one of the most lucrative
 
 166 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' mediums ; ' had she been born in a Romish country, she would 
 have probably become an even more famous personage. There 
 is no reason why she should not have equalled, or surpassed, the 
 ecstasies of St. Theresa, or of St. Hildegardis, or any other 
 sweet dreamer of sweet dreams ; have founded a new order of 
 charity, have enriched the clergy of a whole province, and have 
 died in seven years, maddened by alternate paroxysms of self- 
 conceit and revulsions of self-abasement. Her own preachers 
 and class-leaders, indeed (so do extremes meet), would not have 
 been sorry to make use of her in somewhat the same manner, 
 however feebly and coarsely ; but her innate self-respect and 
 modesty had preserved her from the snares of such clumsy 
 
 Soachers ; and more than one good-looking young preacher had 
 ed desperately from a station where, instead of making a tool 
 of Grace Harvey, he could only madden his own foolish heart 
 with love for her. 
 
 So Grace had reigned upon her pretty little throne of not 
 unbearable sorrows, till a real and bitter woe came ; one which 
 could not be hugged and cherished, like the rest ; one which she 
 tried to fling from her angrily, scornfully, and found to her 
 horror that, instead of her possessing it, it possessed her, and 
 coiled itself round her heart, and would not be flung away. 
 She she, of all beings, to be suspected as a thief, and by the 
 very man whose life she had saved ! She was willing enough to 
 confess herself and confessed herself night and morning a 
 miserable sinner, and her heart a cage of unclean birds, deceit- 
 ful, and desperately wicked except in that. The conscious 
 innocence flashed up in pride and scorn, in thoughts, even when 
 she was alone, in words, of which she would not have believed 
 herself capable. With hot brow and dry eyes she paced her 
 little chamber, sat down on the bed, staring into vacancy, sprang 
 up and paced again ; but she went into no trance she dare not. 
 The grief was too great ; she felt that, if she once gave way 
 enough to lo%se her self-possession, she should go mad. And the 
 first, and perhaps not the least good effect of that fiery trial was, 
 that it compelled her to a stern self-restraint, to which her will, 
 weakened by mental luxuriousness, had been long a stranger. 
 
 But a fiery trial it was. That first wild (and yet not unnatural) 
 fancy, that heaven had given Thurnall to her, had deepened day 
 by day by the mere indulgence of it. But she never dreamt of 
 him as her husband : only as a friendless stranger to be helped 
 and comforted. And that he was worthy of help, that some 
 great future was in store for him, that he was a chosen vessel 
 marked out for glory, she had persuaded herself utterly ; and 
 the persuasion grew in her day by day, as she heard more and 
 more of his cleverness, honesty, and kindliness, mysterious and, 
 to her, miraculous learning. Therefore she did not make haste ; 
 she did not even try to see him, or to speak to him : a civil 
 bow in passing was all that she took or gave ; and she was
 
 x THE RECOGNITION 167 
 
 content with that, and waited till the time came when she was 
 destined to do for him what she knew not ; but it would be 
 done if she were strong enough. So she set herself to learn, 
 and read, and trained her mind and temper more earnestly than 
 ever, and waited in patience for God's good time. And now, 
 behold, a black, unfathomable gulf of doubt and shame had 
 opened between them, perhaps for ever. And a tumult arose in 
 her soul, which cannot be, perhaps ought not to be, analysed in 
 words ; but which made her know too well, by her own crimson 
 cheeks, that it was none other than human love strong as death, 
 and jealousy cruel as the grave. 
 
 At last long and agonising prayer brought gentler thoughts, 
 and mere physical exhaustion a calmer mood. How wicked she 
 had been ; how rebellious ! Why not forgive him, as One 
 greater than she had forgiven ? It was ungrateful of him ; but 
 was he not human ? Why should she expect his heart to be 
 better than hers ? Besides, he might have excuses for his sus- 
 picion. He might be the best judge, being a man, and such a 
 clever one too. Yes ; it was God's cross, and she would bear it ; 
 she would try and forget him. No ; that was impossible ; she 
 must hear of him, if not see him, day by day ; besides, was not 
 her fate linked up with his ? And yet shut out from him by 
 that dark wall of suspicion ! It was very bitter. But she could 
 pray for him ; she would pray for him now. Yes ; it was God's 
 cross, and she would bear it. He would right her if He thought 
 fit ; and if not, what matter 1 Was she not born to sorrow ? 
 Should she complain if another drop, and that the bitterest of 
 all, was added to the cup ? 
 
 And bear her cross she did, about with her, coming in, and 
 going out, for many a weary day. There was no change in her 
 habits or demeanour ; she was never listless for a moment in 
 her school ; she was more gay and amusing than ever, when she 
 gathered her little ones around her for a story ; but still there 
 was the unseen burden, grinding her heart slowly, till she felt 
 as if every footstep was stained with a drop of her heart's blood. 
 . . . Why not ? It would be the sooner over. 
 
 Then, at times came that strange woman's pleasure in mar- 
 tyrdom, the secret pride of suffering unjustly ; but even that, 
 after a while, she cast away from her as a snare, and tried to 
 believe that she deserved all her sorrow deserved it, that is, in 
 the real honest sense of the word ; that she had worked it out, 
 and earned it, and brought it on herself how, she knew not, 
 but longed and strove to know. No ; it was no martyrdom. 
 She would not allow herself so silly a cloak of pride ; and she 
 went daily to her favourite Book of Martyrs, to contemplate 
 there the stories of those who, really innocent, really suffered for 
 well-doing. And out of that book she began to draw a new and 
 a strange enjoyment, for she soon found that her intense imagi- 
 nation enabled her to re-enact those sad and glorious stories in
 
 168 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 her own person ; to tremble, agonise, and conquer with those 
 heroines who had been for years her highest ideals and what 
 higher ones could she have ? And many a night, after extin- 
 guishing the light and closing her eyes, she would lie motion- 
 less for hours on her little bed, not to sleep, but to feel with 
 Perpetua the wild bull's horns, to hang with St. Maura on the 
 cross, or lie with Julitta on the rack, or see with triumphant 
 smile, by Anne Askew's side, the fire nare up around her at the 
 Smithfield stake, or to promise, with dying Dorothea, celestial 
 roses to the mocking youth, whose face too often took the form 
 of Thurnall's ; till every nerve quivered responsive to her fancy 
 in agonies of actual pain, which died away at last into heavy 
 slumber, as body and mind alike gave way before the strain. 
 Sweet fool ! she knew not how could she know 1 that she 
 might be rearing in herself the seeds of idiocy and death ; but 
 who that applauds a Rachel or a Piistori for being able to make 
 awhile their souls and their countenances the homes of the 
 darkest passions, can blame her for enacting in herself, and for 
 herself alone, incidents in which the highest and holiest virtue 
 takes shape in perfect tragedy 1 
 
 But soon another, and yet darker cause of sorrow arose in 
 her. It was clear, from what Willis had told her, that she had 
 held the lost belt in her hand. The question was, how had she 
 lost it ? 
 
 Did her mother know anything about it 1 ? That question 
 could not but arise in her mind, though for very reverence she 
 dared not put it to her mother ; and with it arose the recollec- 
 tion of her mother's strange silence about the matter. Why had 
 she put away the subject carelessly, and yet peevishly, when- 
 ever it was mentioned 1 Yes. Why ? Did her mother know 
 
 anything? Was she ? Grace dared not pronounce the 
 
 adjective, even in thought ; clashed it away as a temptation of 
 the devil ; dashed away, too, the thought which had forced itself 
 on her too often already, that her mother was not altogether 
 one who possessed the single eye ; that in spite of her deep 
 religious feeling, her assurance of salvation, her fits of bitter 
 self-humiliation and despondency, there was an inclination to 
 scheming and intrigue, ambition, covetousness ; that the secrets 
 which she gained as class-leader too, were too often (Grace could 
 but fear) used to her own advantage ; that in her dealings her 
 morality was not above the average of little country shop- 
 keepers ; that she was apt to have two prices ; to keep her 
 books with unnecessary carelessness when the person against 
 whom the account stood was no scholar. Grace had more than 
 once remonstrated in her gentle way ; and had been silenced, 
 rather than satisfied, by her mother's common-places as to the 
 right of 'making those who could pay, pay for those who could 
 not ; ' that 'it was very hard to get a living, and the Lord knew 
 her temptations,' and 'that God saw no sin in His elect,' and
 
 XT THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT 169 
 
 ' Christ's merits were infinite,' and ' Christians always had been 
 a backsliding generation ; ' and all the other common-places by 
 which such people drug their consciences to a degree which is 
 utterly incredible, except to those who have seen it with their 
 own eyes, and heard it with their own ears, from childhood. 
 
 Once, too, in those very days, some little meanness on her 
 mother's part brought the tears into Grace's eyes, and a gentle 
 rebuke to her lips ; but her mother bore the interference less 
 patiently than usual, and answered, not by cant, but by counter- 
 reproach. 'Was she the person to accuse a poor widowed 
 mother, struggling to leave her child something to keep her out 
 of the workhouse ? A mother that lived for her, would die for 
 her, sell her soul for her, perhaps 
 
 And there Mrs. Harvey stopped short, turned pale, and burst 
 into such an agony of tears that Grace, terrified, threw her arms 
 round her neck and entreated forgiveness, all the more intensely 
 on account of those thoughts within which she dared not reveal. 
 So the storm passed over. But not Grace's sadness. For she 
 could not but see, with her clear pure spiritual eye, that her 
 mother was just in that state in which some fearful and shame- 
 ful fall is possible, perhaps wholesome. ' She would sell her 
 soul for me ? What if she have sold it, and stopped short just 
 now, because she had not the heart to tell me that love for me 
 had been the cause 1 Oh ! if she have sinned for my sake ! 
 Wretch that I am ! Miserable myself, and bringing misery 
 with me ! Why was I ever born ? Why cannot I die and the 
 world be rid of me 1 ' 
 
 No, she would not believe it. It was a wicked, horrible 
 temptation of the devil. She would rather believe that she her- 
 self had been the thief, tempted during her unconsciousness ; 
 that she had hidden it somewhere ; that she should recollect, 
 confess, restore all some day. She would carry it to him herself, 
 grovel at his feet, and entreat forgiveness. 'He will surely 
 forgive, when he finds that I was not myself when that it was 
 not altogether my fault not as if I had been waking yes, he 
 will forgive ! ' And then on that thought followed a dream of 
 what might follow, so wild that a moment after she had hid her 
 blushes in her hands, and fled to books to escape from thoughts. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT 
 
 WE must now return to Elsley, who had walked home in a state 
 of mind truly pitiable. He had been flattering his soul with the 
 hope that Thurnall did not know him ; that his beard, and the 
 change which years had made, formed a sufficient disguise ; but 
 lie could not conceal from himself that the very same alterations
 
 170 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 had not prevented his recognising Thurnall ; and he had been 
 living for two months past in continual fear that that would 
 come. which now had come. 
 
 His rage and terror knew no bounds. Fancying Thurnall a 
 merely mean and self-interested worldling, untouched by those 
 higher aspirations which stood to him in place of a religion, he 
 imagined him making every possible use of his power ; and 
 longed to escape to the uttermost ends of the earth from his old 
 tormentor, whom the very sea would not put out of the way, 
 but must needs cast ashore at his very feet, to plague him 
 afresh. 
 
 What a net he had spread around his own feet by one act of 
 foolish vanity ! He had taken his present name, merely as a 
 nom de guerre., when first he came to London as a penniless and 
 friendless scribbler. It would hide him from the ridicule (and, 
 as he fancied, spite) of Thurnall, whom he dreaded meeting 
 every time he walked London streets, and who was for years, to 
 his melancholic and too intense fancy, his bete noir, his Franken- 
 stein's familiar. Besides, he was ashamed of the name of Briggs. 
 It certainly is not an euphonious or aristocratic name ; and 
 ' The Soul's Agonies, by John Briggs,' would not have sounded as 
 well as ' The /Soul's Agonies, by Elsley Vavasour.' Vavasour was 
 a very pretty name, and one of those which is supposed by 
 novelists and young ladies to be aristocratic ; why so is a 
 puzzle ; as its plain meaning is a tenant-farmer, and nothing 
 more nor less. So he had played with the name till lie became 
 fond of it, and considered that he had a right to it, through 
 seven long years of weary struggles, penury, disappointment, as 
 he climbed the Parnassian Mount, writing for magazines and 
 newspapers, sub-editing this periodical and that ; till he began 
 to be known as a ready, graceful, and trustworthy workman, 
 and was befriended by one kind-hearted litterateur after 
 another. For in London, at this moment, any young man of 
 real power will find friends enough, and too many, among his 
 fellow-bookwrights, and is more likely to have his head turned 
 by flattery, than his heart crushed by envy. Of course, whatso- 
 ever flattery he may receive, he is expected to return ; and 
 whatsoever clique he may be tossed into on his (frbut, he is 
 expected to stand by, and fight for, against the universe ; but 
 that is but fair. If a young gentleman, invited to enrol him- 
 self in the Mutual-puffery Society which meets every Monday 
 and Friday in Hatchgoose the publisher's drawing-room, is 
 willing to pledge himself thereto in the mystic cup of tea, is he 
 not as solemnly bound thenceforth to support those literary 
 Catilines in their efforts for the subversion of common sense, 
 good taste, and established tilings in general, as if lie had 
 pledged them, as he would have done in Rome of old, in his own 
 life-blood ? Bound he is, alike by honour and by green tea ; and 
 it will be better for him to fulfil his bond. For if association is
 
 xi THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT 171 
 
 the cardinal principle of the age, will it not work as well in 
 book -making as in clothes-making ? And shall not the motto of 
 the poet (who will also do a little reviewing on the sly) be 
 henceforth that which shines triumphant over all the world, on 
 many a valiant Scotchman's shield 
 
 ' Caw me, and I'll caw thee ' ? 
 
 But to do John Briggs justice, he kept his hands, and his 
 heart also, cleaner than most men do during this stage of his 
 career. After the first excitement of novelty, and of mixing 
 with people who could really talk and think, and who freely 
 spoke out whatever was in them, right or wrong, in language 
 which at least sounded grand and deep, he began to find in the 
 literary world about the same satisfaction for his inner life 
 which he would have found in the sporting world or the 
 commercial world, or the religious world, or the fashionable 
 world, or any other world, and to suspect strongly that where- 
 soever a world is, the flesh and the devil are not very far off. 
 Tired of talking when he wanted to think, of asserting when 
 he wanted to discover, and of hearing his neighbours do the 
 same ; tired of little meannesses, envy ings, intrigues, jobberies 
 (for the literary world, too, has its jobs), he had been for 
 some time withdrawing himself from the Hatchgoose soirees 
 into his own thoughts, when his Soul's Agonies appeared, and 
 he found himself, if not a lion, at least a lion's cub. 
 
 There is a house or two in town where you may meet, on 
 certain evenings, everybody ; where duchesses and unfledged 
 poets, bishops and red republican refugees, fox-hunting noble- 
 men and briefless barristers who have taken to politics, are 
 jumbled together for a couple of hours, to make what they can 
 out of each other, to the exceeding benefit of them all. For 
 each and every one of them finds his neighbour a pleasanter 
 person than he expected ; and none need leave those rooms 
 without knowing something more than he did when he came 
 in, and taking an interest in some human being who may need 
 that interest. To one of these houses, no matter which, Elsley 
 was invited on the strength of the SouVs Agonies ; found 
 himself, for the first time, face to face with high-bred English- 
 women ; and fancied small blame to him that he was come 
 to the mountains of the Peris, and to Fairy Land itself. He 
 had been flattered already : but never with such grace, such 
 sympathy, or such seeming understanding ; for there are few 
 high-bred women who cannot seem to understand, and delude 
 a hapless genius into a belief in their own surpassing brilliance 
 and penetration, while they are cunningly retailing again to 
 him the thoughts which they have caught up from the man to 
 whom they spoke last ; perhaps for this is the very triumph 
 of their art from the very man to whom they are speaking. 
 (Small blame to bashful, clumsy John Briggs, if he did not
 
 172 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 know his own children ; and could not recognise his own stam- 
 mered and fragmentary fancies, when they were re-echoed to 
 him the next minute, in the prettiest shape, and with the most 
 delicate articulation, from lips which (like those in the fairy 
 tale) never opened without dropping pearls and diamonds. 
 
 Oh, what a contrast, in the eyes of a man whose sense of 
 beauty and grace, whether physical or intellectual, was true 
 and deep, to that ghastly ring of prophetesses in the Hatch- 
 goose drawing-room ; strongminded and emancipated women, 
 who prided themselves on having cast off conventionalities, 
 and on being rude, and awkward, and dogmatic, and irreverent, 
 and sometimes slightly improper ; women who had missions to 
 mend everything in heaven and earth, except themselves ; who 
 had quarrelled with their husbands, and had therefore felt a 
 mission to assert women's rights, and reform marriage in 
 general ; or who had never been able to get married at all, and 
 therefore were especially competent to promulgate a model 
 method of educating the children whom they never had had ; 
 women who wrote poetry about Lady Blanches whom they 
 never had met, and novels about male and female blackguards 
 whom (one hopes) they never had met, or about whom (if they 
 had) decent women would have held their peace ; and every one 
 of whom had, in obedience to Emerson, 'followed her im- 
 pulses,' and despised fashion, and was accordingly clothed and 
 bedizened as was right in the sight of her own eyes, and prob- 
 ably in those of no one else. 
 
 No wonder that Elsley, ere long, began drawing comparisons, 
 and using his wit upon ancient patronesses, of course behind 
 their backs, likening them to idols fresh from the car of Jugger- 
 naut, or from the stern of a South-sea canoe ; or, most of all, 
 to that famous wooden image of Freya, which once leapt lum- 
 bering forth from her bullock-cart, creaking and rattling in 
 every oaken joint, to belabour the too daring Viking who 
 was flirting with her priestess. Even so, whispered Elsley, 
 did those brains and tongues creak and rattle, lumbering 
 before the blasts of Pythonic inspiration ; and so, he verily 
 believed, would the awkward arms and legs have done likewise, 
 if one of the Pythonesses had ever so far degraded herself as 
 to dance. 
 
 No wonder, then, that those gifted dames had soon to com- 
 plain of Elsley Vavasour as a traitor to the cause of progress 
 and civilisation ; a renegade who had Heel to the camp of aris- 
 tocracy, nunkeydom, obscurantism, frivolity, and dissipation ; 
 though there was not one of them but would have given an eye 
 perhaps no great loss to the aggregate loveliness of the 
 universe for one of his invitations to 999 Cavendish Street, 
 south-east, witli the chance of being presented to the Duchess 
 of Lyonesse. 
 
 To do Elsley justice, one reason why he liked his new ac-
 
 xi THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT 173 
 
 quaintances so well was, that they liked him. He behaved well 
 himself, and therefore people behaved well to him. He was, as 
 I have said, a very handsome fellow in his way ; therefore it 
 was easy to him, as it is to all physically beautiful persons, to 
 acquire a graceful manner. Moreover, he had steeped his 
 whole soul in old poetry, and especially in Spenser's Faery 
 Queen. Good for him, had he followed every lesson which he 
 might have learnt out of that most noble of English books : 
 but one lesson at least he learnt from it ; and that was, to be 
 chivalrous, tender, and courteous to all women, however old or 
 ugly, simply because they were women. The Hatchgoose 
 Pythonesses did not wish to be women, but very bad imitations 
 or men ; and therefore he considered himself absolved from all 
 knightly duties toward them : but toward these Peris of the 
 west, and to the dowagers who had been Peris in their time, 
 what adoration could be too great? So he bowed down and 
 worshipped ; and, on the whole, he was quite right in so doing. 
 Moreover, he had the good sense to discover that though the 
 young Peris were the prettiest to look at, the elder Peris were 
 the better company : and that it is, in general, from married 
 women that a poet or any one else will ever learn what woman's 
 heart is like. And so well did he carry out his creed, that 
 before his first summer was over he had quite captivated the 
 heart of old Lady Knockdown, aunt to Lucia St. Just, and wife 
 to Lucia's guardian ; a charming old Irishwoman, who affected 
 a pretty brogue, perhaps for the same reason that she wore a 
 wig, and who had been, in her day, a beauty and a blue, a friend 
 of the Miss Berrys, arid Tommy Moore, and Grattan, and Lord 
 Edward Fitzgerald, and Dan O'Connell, and all other lions 
 and lionesses which had roared for the last sixty years about 
 the Emerald Isle. There was no one whom she did not know, 
 and nothing she could not talk about. Married up, when a 
 girl, to a man for whom she did not care, and having no 
 children, she had indemnified herself by many flirtations, and 
 the writing of two or three novels, in which she penned on 
 paper the superfluous feeling which had no vent in real life. 
 She had deserted, as she grew old, the novel for unfulfilled pro- 
 phecy ; and was a distinguished leader in a distinguished reli- 
 gious coterie : but she still prided herself upon having a green 
 head upon gray shoulders, and not without reason ; for under- 
 neath all the worldliness and intrigue, and petty affectation 
 of girlislmess, which she contrived to jumble in with her 
 religiosity, beat a young and kindly heart. So she was 
 charmed with Mr. Vavasour's manners, and commended them 
 much to Lucia, who, a shrinking girl of seventeen, was peeping 
 at her first season from under Lady Knockdown's sheltering 
 wing. 
 
 ' Me dear, let Mr. Vavasour be who lie will, lie lias not only 
 the intellect of a true genius, but what is a great deal better
 
 174 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 for practical purposes ; that is, the manners of one. Give me 
 the man who will let a woman of our rank say what we like to 
 him, without supposing that he may say what he likes in 
 return ; and considers one's familiarity as an honour, and not 
 as an excuse for taking liberties. A most agreeable contrast, 
 indeed, to the young men of the present day ; who come in 
 their shooting jackets, and talk slang to their partners though 
 really the girls are just as bad and stand with their backs to 
 the tire, and smell of smoke, and go to sleep after dinner, and 
 pay no respect to old age, nor to youth either, I think. Ton 
 me word, Lucia, the answers I've heard young gentlemen 
 make to young ladies, this very season they'd have been 
 called out the next morning in my time, me dear. As for the 
 age of chivalry, nobody expects that to be restored : but 
 really one might have been spared the substitute for it which 
 we had when I was young, in the grand air of the old school. 
 It was a " sham," I dare say, as they call everything nowadays : 
 but really, me dear, a pleasant sham is better to live with 
 than an unpleasant reality, especially when it smells of 
 cigars.' 
 
 So it befell that Elsley Vavasour was asked to Lady Knock- 
 down's, and that there he fell in love with Lucia, and Lucia fell 
 in love with him. 
 
 The next winter old Lord Knockdown, who had been de- 
 crepit for some years past, died ; and his widow, whose income 
 was under five hundred a year for the estates were entailed, 
 and mortgaged, and everything else which can happen to an 
 Irish property came to live with her nephew, Lord Scoutbush, 
 in Eaton Square, and take such care as she could of Lucia 
 and Valentia. 
 
 So, after a dreary autumn and winter of parting and silence, 
 Elsley found himself the next season invited to Eaton Square ; 
 there the mischief, if mischief it was, was done ; and Elsley and 
 Lucia started in life upon two hundred a year. He had inherited 
 some fifty of his own ; she had about a hundred and fifty, which, 
 indeed, was not yet her own by right ; but little Scoutbush 
 (who was her sole surviving guardian) behaved on the whole 
 very well for a young gentleman of twenty -two, in a state of 
 fury and astonishment. The old lord had, wisely enough, settled 
 in his will that Lucia was to enjoy the interest of her fortune 
 from the time that she came out, provided she did not marry 
 without her guardian's leave ; and Scoutbush, to avoid esclandro 
 and misery, thought it as well to waive the proviso, and paid 
 her her dividends as usual. 
 
 But how had she contrived to marry at all without his leave ? 
 That is an ugly question. I will not say that she had told a 
 falsehood, or that Elsley had forsworn himself when he got the 
 licence ; but certainly both of them were guilty of something- 
 very like a white lie, when they declared that Lucia had the
 
 xi THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT 175 
 
 consent of her sole surviving guardian, on the strength of a 
 half -angry, half -jesting expression of Scoutbush's, that she might 
 marry whom she chose, provided she did not plague him. In 
 the fii-st triumph of success and intoxication of wedded bliss, 
 Lucia had written him a saucy letter, reminding him of his 
 permission, and saying that she had taken him at his word : but 
 her conscience smote her ; and Elsley's smote him likewise ; and 
 smote him all the more, because he had been married under a 
 false name, a fact which might have ugly consequences in law 
 which he did not like to contemplate. To do him justice, he 
 had been, half a dozen times during his courtship, on the point 
 of telling Lucia his real name and history. Happy for him had 
 lie done so, whatever might have been the consequences ; but 
 he wanted moral courage ; the hideous sound of Briggs had 
 become horrible to him ; and once his foolish heart was fright- 
 ened away from honesty, just as honesty was on the point of 
 conquering, by old Lady Knockdown's saying that she could 
 never have married a man with an ugly name, or let Lucia 
 marry one. 
 
 ' Conceive becoming Mrs. Natty Bumppo, me dear, even for 
 twenty thousand a year. If you could summon up courage to 
 do the deed, I couldn't summon up courage to continue my 
 correspondence with ye.' 
 
 Elsley knew that that was a lie ; that the old lady would have 
 let her marry the most triumphant snob in England, if he had 
 half that income ; but unfortunately Lucia capped her aunt's 
 nonsense with ' There is no fear of my ever marrying any one 
 who has not a graceful name,' and a look at Vavasour, which 
 said, ' And you have one, and therefore I For the matter 
 had then been settled between them. This was too much for 
 his vanity, and too much, also, for his fears of losing Lucia by 
 confessing the truth. So Elsley went on, ashamed of his real 
 name, ashamed of having concealed it, ashamed of being afraid 
 that it would be discovered in a triple complication of shame, 
 which made him gradually, as it makes every man, moody, 
 suspicious, apt to take offence where none is meant. Besides, 
 they were very poor. He, though neither extravagant nor pro- 
 fligate, was, like most literary men who are accustomed to live 
 from hand to mouth, careless, self-indulgent, unmethodical. 
 She knew as much of housekeeping as the Queen of Oude does ; 
 and her charming little dreams of shopping for herself were 
 rudely enough broken, ere the first week was out, by the horri- 
 fied looks of Clara, when she returned from her first morning's 
 marketing for the weekly consumption, with nothing but a 
 woodcock, some truffles, and a bunch of celery. Then the land- 
 lady of the lodgings robbed her, even under the nose of the 
 faithful Clara, who knew as little about housekeeping as her 
 mistress ; and Clara, faithful as she was, repaid herself by 
 grumbling and taking liberties for being degraded from the
 
 176 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 luxurious post of lady's maid to that of servant of all work, with 
 a landlady and 'marchioness' to wrestle with all day long. Then, 
 what with imprudence and anxiety, Lucia of course lost her 
 first child ; and after that came months of illness, during which 
 Elsley tended her, it must be said for him, as lovingly as a 
 mother ; and perhaps they were both really happier during that 
 time of sorrow than they had been in all the delirious bliss of 
 the honeymoon. 
 
 Valentia meanwhile defied old Lady Knockdown (whose 
 horror and wrath knew no bounds), and walked off one morning 
 with her maid to see her prodigal sister ; a visit which not only 
 brought comfort to the weary heart, but important practical 
 benefits. For going home, she seized upon Scoutbush, and so 
 moved his heart with pathetic pictures of Lucia's unheard-of 
 penury and misery, that his heart was softened ; and though lie 
 absolutely refused to call on Vavasour, he made him an otter, 
 through Lucia, of Penalva Court for the time being ; and thither 
 they went perhaps the best thing they could have done. 
 
 There, of course, they were somewhat more comfortable. A 
 very cheap country, a comfortable house rent free, and a lovely 
 neighbourhood, were a pleasant change, after dear London 
 lodgings ; but it is a question whether the change made Elsley 
 a better man. 
 
 In the first place, he became a more idle man. The rich 
 enervating climate began to tell upon his mind, as it did upon 
 Lucia's health. He missed that perpetual spur of nervous ex- 
 citement, change of society, influx of ever-fresh objects, which 
 makes London, after all, the best place in the world for hard 
 working ; and which makes even a walk along the streets an 
 intellectual tonic. In the soft and luxurious West-country, 
 nature invited him to look at her, and dream ; and dream he 
 did, more and more, day by day. He was tired, too as who 
 would not be ? of the drudgery of writing for his daily bread ; 
 and relieved from the importunities of publishers and printers' 
 devils, he sent up fewer and fewer contributions to the maga- 
 zines. He would keep his energies for a great work ; poetry 
 was, after all, his forte ; he would not fritter himself away on 
 prose and periodicals, but would win for himself, etc. etc. If 
 lie made a mistake, it was at least a pardonable one. 
 
 But Elsley became not only a more idle, but a more morose 
 man. He began to feel the evils of solitude. There was no one 
 near with whom he could hold rational converse, save an anti- 
 quarian parson or two ; and parsons were not to his taste. So, 
 never measuring his wits against those of his peers, and despis- 
 ing the few men whom he met as inferior to himself, lie grew 
 more and more wrapt up in his own thoughts and his own tastes. 
 His own poems, even to the slightest turn of expression, became 
 more and more important to him. He grew more jealous of 
 criticism, more confident in his own little theories, about this
 
 xi THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT 177 
 
 and that, more careless of the opinion of his fellow-men, and, as 
 a certain consequence, more unable to bear the little crosses and 
 contradictions of daily life ; and as Lucia, having brought one 
 and another child safely into the world, settled down into 
 motherhood, he became less and less attentive to her, and more 
 and more attentive to that self which was fast becoming the 
 centre of his universe. 
 
 True, there were excuses for him ; for whom are there none 1 
 He was poor and struggling ; and it is much more difficult (as 
 Becky Sharp, I think, pathetically observes) to be good when 
 one is poor than when one is rich. It is (and all rich people 
 should consider the fact) much more easy, if not to go to heaven, 
 at least to think one is going thither, on three thousand a year, 
 than on three hundred. Not only is respectability more easy, 
 as is proved by the broad fact that it is the poor people who fill 
 the gaols, and not the rich ones ; but virtue, and religion of 
 the popular sort. It is undeniably more easy to be resigned to 
 the will of Heaven, when that will seems tending just as we 
 would have it ; much more easy to have faith in the goodness 
 of Providence, when that goodness seems safe in one's pocket in 
 the form of bank-notes ; and to believe that one's children are 
 under the protection of Omnipotence, when one can hire for 
 them in half an hour the best medical advice in London. One 
 need only look into one's own heart to understand the disciples' 
 astonishment at the news that 'How hardly shall they that 
 have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven.' 
 
 ' Who then can be saved ? ' asked they, being poor men, 
 accustomed to see the wealthy Pharisees in possession of ' the 
 highest religious privileges, and means of grace.' Who, indeed, 
 if not the rich ? If the noblemen, and the bankers, and the 
 dowagers, and the young ladies who go to church, and read 
 good books, and have been supplied from youth with the very 
 best religious articles which money can procure, and have time 
 for all manner of good works, and give their hundreds to chari- 
 ties, and head reformatory movements, and build churches, and 
 work altar-cloths, and can taste all the preachers and father- 
 confessors round London, one after another, as you would taste 
 wines, till they find the spiritual panacea which exactly suits 
 their complaint if they are not sure of salvation, who can be 
 saved ? 
 
 Without further comment, the fact is left for the consiclei'a- 
 tion of all readers ; only let them not be too hard upon Elsley 
 and Lucia, if, finding themselves sometimes literally at their 
 wits' end, they went beyond their poor wits into the region 
 where foolish things are said and done. 
 
 Moreover, Elsley's ill-temper (as well as Lucia's) had its 
 excuses in physical ill-health. Poor fellow ! Long years of 
 sedentary work had begun to tell upon him ; and while Tom 
 Thurnall's chest, under the influence of hard work and oxygen, 
 
 N T. V. A.
 
 178 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 measured round perhaps six inches more than it had done six- 
 teen years ago, Elsley's, thanks to stooping and carbonic acid, 
 measured six inches less. Short breath, lassitude, loss of 
 appetite, heartburn, and all that fair company of miseries 
 which Mr. Cockle and his antibilious pills profess to cure, are 
 no cheering bosom friends ; but when a man's breast-bone is 
 gradually growing into his stomach, they will make their ap- 
 pearance ; and small blame to him whose temper suffers from 
 their gentle hints that he has a mortal body as well as an 
 immortal soul. 
 
 But most fretting of all was the discovery that Lucia knew 
 if not all about his original name still enough to keep him in 
 dread lest she should learn more. 
 
 It was now twelve months and more that this new terror had 
 leapt up and stared in his face. He had left a letter about a 
 thing which he was apt to do in which the Whitbury lawyer 
 made some allusions to his little property ; and he was sure that 
 Lucia had seen it, the hated name of Briggs certainly she had 
 not seen ; for Elsley had torn it out the moment lie opened 
 the letter ; but she had seen enough, as he soon found, to be 
 certain that he had, at some time or other, passed under a 
 different name. 
 
 If Lucia had been a more thoughtful or high-minded woman, 
 she would have gone straight to her husband, and quietly and 
 lovingly asked him to tell her all ; but in her left-handed Irish 
 fashion, she kept the secret to herself, and thought it a very 
 good joke to have him in her power, and to be able to torment 
 him about that letter when he got out of temper. It never 
 occurred, however, to her that his present name was the feigned 
 one. She fancied that he had, in some youthful escapade, 
 assumed the name to which the lawyer alluded. So the next 
 time he was cross, she tried laughingly the eti'ect of her newly- 
 discovered spell ; and was horror-struck at the storm which she 
 evoked. In a voice of thunder Elsley commanded her never to 
 mention the subject again ; and showed such signs of terror and 
 remorse, that she obeyed him from that day forth, except when 
 'now and then she lost her temper as completely, too, as he. 
 Little she thought, in her heedlessness, what a dark cloud of 
 fear and suspicion, ever deepening and spreading, she had put 
 between his heart and hers. 
 
 But if Elsley had dreaded her knowledge of his story, he 
 dreaded ten times more Tom's knowledge of it. What if Thur- 
 nall should tell Lucia ? What if Lucia should make a confidant 
 of Thurnall ? Women told their doctors everything ; and Lucia, 
 he knew too well, had cause to complain of him. Perhaps, 
 thought he, maddened into wild suspicion by the sense of his 
 own wrong-doing, she might complain of him ; she might com- 
 bine with Thurnall against him for what purpose lie knew not ; 
 but the wildest imaginations flashed across him, as he hurried
 
 xi THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT 179 
 
 desperately home, intending as soon as he got there to forbid 
 Lucia's ever calling in his dreaded enemy. No, Thurnall should 
 never cross his door again ! On that one point he was deter- 
 mined, but on nothing else. 
 
 However, his intention was never fulfilled. For long before 
 he reached home he began to feel himself thoroughly ill. His 
 was a temperament upon which mental anxiety acts rapidly and 
 severely ; and the burning sun and his rapid walk combined 
 with rage and terror to give him such a ' turn ' that, as he hur- 
 ried down the lane, he found himself reeling like a drunken man. 
 He had just time to hurry through the garden, and into his 
 study, when pulse and sense failed him, and he rolled over on 
 the sofa in a dead faint. 
 
 Lucia had seen him come in, and heard him fall, and rushed 
 in. The poor little thing was at her wits' end, and thought that 
 he had had nothing less than a coup-de-soleil. And when he 
 recovered from his faintness, he began to be so horribly ill that 
 Clara, who had been called in to help, had some grounds for the 
 degrading hypothesis (for which Lucia all but boxed her ears) 
 that 'Master had got away into the woods, and gone eating 
 toadstools, or some such poisonous stuff;' for he lay a full half- 
 hour on the sofa, death cold, and almost pulseless ; moaning, 
 shuddering, hiding his face in his hands, and refusing cordials, 
 medicines, and, above all, a doctor's visit. 
 
 However, this could not be allowed to last. Without Elsley's 
 knowledge, a messenger was despatched for Thurnall, and luckily 
 met him in the lane ; for he was returning to the town in the 
 footsteps of his victim. 
 
 Elsley's horror was complete when the door opened, and Lucia 
 brought in none other than his tormentor. 
 
 'My dearest Elsley, I have sent for Mr. Thurnall. I knew 
 you would not let me, if I told you ; but you see I have done it, 
 and now you must really speak to him.' 
 
 Elsley's first impulse was to motion them botli away angrily ; 
 but the thought that he was in Thurnall's power stopped him. 
 He must not show his disgust. What if Lucia were to ask its 
 cause, even to guess it 1 for to his fears even that seemed pos- 
 sible. A fresh misery ! Just because he shrank so intensely 
 from the man, he must endure him ! 
 
 ' There is nothing the matter with me,' said he languidly. 
 
 'I should be the best judge of that, after what Mrs. Vavasour 
 has just told me,' said Tom, in his most professional and civil 
 voice ; and slipped, cat-like, into a seat beside the unresisting 
 poet. 
 
 He asked question on question ; but Elsley gave such unsatis- 
 factory answers, that Lucia had to detail everything afresh for 
 him, with 'You know, Mr. Thurnall, he is always overtasking 
 his brain, and will never confess himself ill ' and all a woman's 
 anxious comments.
 
 180 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Rogue Tom knew all the while well enough what was the 
 cause ; but he saw, too, that Elsley was very ill. He felt that 
 he must have the matter out at once ; and, by a side glance, sent 
 the obedient Lucia out of the room to get a table-spoonful of 
 brandy. 
 
 ' Now, my dear sir, that we are alone,' began he blandly. 
 
 ' Now, sir ! ' answered Vavasour, springing off the sofa, his 
 whole pent-up wrath exploding in hissing steam, the moment 
 the safety-valve was lifted. 'Now, sir! What what is the 
 meaning of this insolence, this intrusion ? ' 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, Mr. Vavasour,' answered Tom, rising, in 
 a tone of bland and stolid surprise. 
 
 ' What do you want here, with your mummery and medicine, 
 when you know the cause of my malady well enough already ! 
 Go, sir ! and leave me to myself.' 
 
 ' My dear sir,' said Tom firmly, ' you seem to have forgotten 
 what passed between us this morning.' 
 
 ' Will you insult me beyond endurance 1 ' cried Elsley. 
 
 ' I told you that, as long as you chose, you were Elsley Vava- 
 sour, and I the country doctor. We have met in that character. 
 Why not sustain it 1 You are really ill ; and if I know the cause, 
 I am all the more likely to know the cure.' 
 
 'Cure?' 
 
 ' Why not ? Believe me, it is in your power to become a much 
 happier man, simply by becoming a healthier one.' 
 
 ' Impertinence ! ' 
 
 ' Pish ! What can I gain by being impertinent, sir 1 I know 
 very well that you have received a severe shock ; but I know 
 equally well, that if you were as you ought to be, you would not 
 feel it in this way. When one sees a man in the state of pros- 
 tration in which you are, common sense tells one that the body 
 must have been neglected, for the mind to gain such power 
 over it.' 
 
 Elsley replied with a grunt ; but Tom went on, bland and 
 impei^turbable. 
 
 ' Believe me, it may be a very materialist view of tilings ; but 
 fact is fact the corpus sanum is father to the mens sana tonics 
 and exei-cise make the ills of life look marvellously smaller. 
 You have the frame of a strong and active man and all you 
 want to make you light-hearted and cheerful is to develop what 
 nature has given you.' 
 
 ' It is too late,' said Elsley, pleased, as most men are, by being- 
 told that they might be strong and active. 
 
 'Not in the least. Three months would strengthen your 
 muscles, open your chest again, settle your digestion, and make 
 you as fresh as a lark, and able to sing like one. Believe me, 
 the poetry would be the better for it, as well as the stomach. 
 Now, positively, I shall begin questioning you.' 
 
 So Elsley was won to detail the symptoms of internal malaise,
 
 xi THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT 181 
 
 which he was only too much in the habit of watching himself ; 
 but there were some among them which Tom could not quite 
 account for on the ground of mere effeminate habits. A thought 
 struck him. 
 
 ' You sleep ill, I suppose ? ' said he carelessly. 
 
 'Very ill.' 
 
 ' Did you ever try opiates ? ' 
 
 ' No yes that is, sometimes.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' said Tom, more carelessly still, for he wished to hide, 
 by all means, the importance of the confession. 'Well, they 
 give relief for a time ; but they are dangerous things disorder 
 the digestion, and have their revenge on the nerves next morn- 
 ing, as spitefully as brandy itself. Much better try a glass of 
 strong ale or porter just before going to bed. I've known it 
 give sleep, even in consumption try it, and exercise. You 
 shoot?' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Pity ; there ought to be noble cocking in these woods. 
 However, the season's past. You fish ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Pity again. I hear Alva is full of trout. Why not try sail- 
 ing ? Nothing oxygenates the lungs like a sail, and your friends 
 the fishermen would be delighted to have you as supercargo. 
 They are always full of your stories to them, and your picking 
 their brains for old legends and adventures.' 
 
 ' They are noble fellows, and I want no better company ; but, 
 unfortunately, I am always sea-sick.' 
 
 ' Ah ! wholesome, but unpleasant : you are fond of gardening?' 
 
 ' Very ; but stooping makes my head swim.' 
 ' True, and I don't want you to s 
 
 stoop. I hope to see you soon 
 as erect as a Guardsman. Why not try walks ? ' 
 
 ' Abominable bores lonely, aimless 
 
 'Well, perhaps you're right. I never knew but three men 
 who took long constitutionals on principle, and two of them 
 were cracked. But why not try a companion ; and persuade 
 that curate, who needs just the same medicine as you, to accom- 
 pany you ; I don't know a more gentleman-like, agreeable, well- 
 informed man than he is.' 
 
 ' Thank you. I can choose my acquaintances for myself.' 
 
 ' You touchy ass ! ' said Thurnall to himself. ' If we were in 
 the blessed state of nature now, wouldn't I give you ten minutes' 
 double thonging, and then set you to work, as the runaway 
 nigger did his master, Bird o' freedom Sawin, till you'd learnt a 
 thing or two.' But blandly still he went on. 
 
 ' Try the dumb-bells then. Nothing like them for opening 
 your chest. And do get a high desk made, and stand to your 
 writing instead of sitting.' And Tom actually made Vavasour 
 promise to do both, and bade him farewell with 
 
 ' Now, I'll send you up a little tonic, and trouble you with
 
 182 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 no more visits till you send for me. I shall see by one glance at 
 your face whether you are following my prescriptions. And, I 
 say, I wouldn't meddle with those opiates any more ; try good 
 malt and hops instead.' 
 
 ' Those who drink beer, think beer,' said Elsley, smiling ; for 
 he was getting more hopeful of himself, and his terrors were 
 vanishing beneath Tom's skilful management. 
 
 ' And those who drink water, think water. The Elizabethans 
 Sidney and Shakspeare, Burleigh and Queen Bess, worked on 
 beef and ale and you would not class them among*the muddle- 
 headed of the earth. Believe me, to write well, you must live 
 well. If you take it out of your brain, you must put it in 
 again. It's a question of fact. Try it for yourself.' And off 
 Tom went ; while Lucia rushed back to her husband, covered 
 him with caresses, assured him that he was seven times as ill as 
 he really was, and so nursed and petted him, that he felt him- 
 self, for that time at least, a beast and a fool for having suspected 
 her for a moment. Ah, woman, if you only knew how you carry 
 our hearts in your hands, and would but use your power for our 
 benefit, what angels you might make us all ! 
 
 ' So,' said Tom, as he went home, ' he has found his way to 
 the elevation-bottle, has he, as well as Mrs. Heale ? It's no con- 
 cern of mine : but as a professional man, I must stop that. You 
 will certainly be no credit to me if you kill yourself under my 
 hands.' 
 
 Tom went straight home, showed the blacksmith how to make 
 a pair of dumb-bells, covered them himself with leather, and 
 sent them up the next morning with directions to be used for 
 half an hour morning and evening. 
 
 And something whether it was the dumb-bells, or the tonic, 
 or wholesome fear of the terrible doctor kept Elsley for the 
 next month in better spirits and temper than he had been in 
 for a long while. 
 
 Moreover, Tom set Lucia to coax him into walking with 
 Headley. She succeeded at last ; and, on the whole, each of 
 them soon found that he had something to learn from the other. 
 Elsley improved daily in health, and Lucia wrote to Valentia 
 flaming accounts of the wonderful doctor who had been cast on 
 shore in their world's end ; and received from her after a while 
 this, amid much more for fancy is not exuberant enough to 
 reproduce the whole of a young lady's letter. 
 
 - I am so ashamed. I ought to have told you of that 
 doctor a fortnight ago ; but, rattle-pate as I am, I forgot all 
 about it. Do you know, he is Sabina Mellot's dearest friend ; 
 and she begged me to recommend him to you : but I put it off, 
 and then it slipped my memory, like everything else good. She 
 has told me the most wonderful stories of his courage and good- 
 ness ; and conceive she and her husband were taken prisoners 
 with him by the savages in the South Seas, and going to be
 
 xii A PEER IN TROUBLE 183 
 
 eaten, she says : but he helped them to escape in a canoe such 
 a story and lived with them for three months on the most 
 beautiful desert island it is all like a fairy tale. I'll tell it you 
 when I come, darling which I shall do in a fortnight, and we 
 shall be all so happy. I have such a box ready for you and the 
 chicks, which I shall bring with me ; and some pretty things 
 from Scoutbush besides, who is very low, poor fellow, I cannot 
 conceive what about : but wonderfully tender about you. I 
 fancy he must be in love ; for he stood up the other day about 
 you to my aunt, quite solemnly, with, " Let her alone, my lady. 
 She's not the first whom love has made a fool of, and she won't 
 be the last : and I believe that some of the moves which look most 
 foolish, turn out best after all. Live and let live ; everybody 
 knows his own business best ; anything is better than marriage 
 without real affection." Conceive my astonishment at hearing 
 the dear little fellow turn sage in that way ! 
 
 ' By the way, I have had to quote his own advice against him ; 
 for I have refused Lord Chalkclere after all. I told him (C. not 
 S.), that he was much too good for me ; far too perfect and com- 
 plete a person ; that I preferred a husband whom I could break 
 in for myself, even though he gave me a little trouble. Scout- 
 bush was cross at first ; but he said afterwards that it was just 
 like Baby Blake (the wretch always calls me Baby Blake now, 
 after that dreadful girl in Lever's novel) ; and I told him 
 frankly that it was, if he meant that I had sooner break in a 
 thorough-bred for myself, even though I had a fall or two in the 
 process, than jog along on the most finished little pony on earth, 
 who would never go out of an amble. Lord Chalkclere may be 
 very finished, and learned, and excellent, and so forth : but, ma 
 chere, I want, not a white rabbit (of which he always reminds 
 me), but a hero, even though he be a naughty one. I always 
 fancy people must be very little if they can be finished off so 
 rapidly ; if there was any real verve in them, they would take 
 somewhat longer to grow. Lord Chalkclere would do very well 
 to bind in Russian leather, and put on one's library shelves, to 
 be consulted when one forgot a date ; but really even your 
 Ulysses of a doctor provided, of course, he turned out a prince 
 in disguise, and don't leave out his h's would be more to the 
 taste of your naughtiest of sisters.' 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A PEER IN TROUBLE 
 
 SOMEWHERE in those days, so it seems, did Mr. Bowie call 
 unto himself a cab at the barrack-gate, and, dressed in his best 
 array, repair to the wilds of Brompton, and request to see either 
 Claude or Mrs. Mellot.
 
 184 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Bowie is an ex-Scots Fusilier, who, damaged by the kick of a 
 horse, has acted as valet, first to Scoutbush's father, and next to 
 Scoutbush himself. He is of a patronising habit of mind, as 
 befits a tolerably ' leeterary ' Scotsman of forty-five years of age 
 and six feet three in height, who has full confidence in the 
 integrity of his own virtue, the infallibility of his own opinion, 
 and the strength of his own right arm ; for Bowie, though he 
 has a rib or two ' dinged in,' is mighty still as Theseus' self ; and 
 both astonished his red-bearded compatriots, and won money 
 for his master, by his prowess in the late feat of arms at Holland 
 House. 
 
 Mr. Bowie is asked to walk into Sabina's boudoir (for Claude 
 is out in the garden), to sit down, and deliver his message ; 
 which he does after a due military salute, sitting bolt upright 
 in his chair, and in a solemn and sonorous voice. 
 
 'Well, madam, it's just this, that his lordship would be very 
 glad to see ye and Mr. Mellot, for he's vary ill indeed, and 
 that's truth ; and if he winna tell ye the cause, then I will 
 and it's just a' for love of this play-acting body here, and more's 
 the pity.' 
 
 ' More's the pity, indeed ! ' 
 
 'And it's my opeenion the puir laddie will just die, if nobody 
 sees to him ; and I've taken the liberty of writing to Major 
 Cawmill mysel', to beg him to come up and see to him, for it's a 
 pity to see his lordship cast away, for want of an understanding 
 body to advise him.' 
 
 ' So I am not an understanding body, Bowie 1 ' 
 
 ' Oh, madam, ye're young and bonny,' says Bowie, in a tone 
 in which admiration is not unmingled with pity. 
 
 ' Young indeed ! Mr. Bowie, do you know that I am almost 
 as old as you ? ' 
 
 ' Hoot, hut, hut -' says Bowie, looking at the wax-like com- 
 plexion and bright hawk-eyes. 
 
 ' .Really I am. I'm past five - and - thirty this many a 
 day.' 
 
 'Weel, then, madam, if you'll excuse me, ye're old enough 
 to be wiser than to let his lordship be inveigled with any such 
 play-acting.' 
 
 ' Really he's not inveigled,' says Sabina, laughing. ' It is all 
 his own fault, and I have warned him how absurd and impos- 
 sible it is. She has refused even to see him ; and you know 
 yourself he has not been near our house for these three weeks.' 
 
 ' Ah, rnadam, you'll excuse me : but that's the way with that 
 sort of people, just to draw back and draw back, to make a poor 
 young gentleman follow them all the keener, as a trout does a 
 minnow, the faster you spin it.' 
 
 ' I assure you no. I can't let you into ladies' secrets : but 
 there is no more chance of her listening to him than of me. 
 And as for me, I have been trying all the spring to marry him
 
 xii A PEER IN TROUBLE 185 
 
 to a young lady with eighty thousand pounds ; so you can't 
 complain of me.' 
 
 ' Eh ? No. That's more like and fitting.' 
 
 ' Well, now. Tell his lordship that we are coming ; and trust 
 us, Mr. Bowie : we do not look very villainous, do we 1 ' 
 
 4 Faith, 'deed then, and I suppose not,' said Bowie, using the 
 verb which, in his cautious, Scottish tongue, expresses complete 
 certainty. The truth is, that Bowie adores both Sabina and her 
 husband, who are, he says, ' just fit to be put under a glass case 
 on the sideboard, like twa wee china angels.' 
 
 In half an hour they were in Scoutbush's rooms. They found 
 the little man lying on his sofa in his dressing-gown, looking 
 pale and pitiable enough. He had been trying to read ; for the 
 table by him was covered with books : but either gunnery and 
 mathematics had injured his eyes, or he had been crying ; 
 Sabina inclined to the latter opinion. 
 
 ' This is very kind of you both ; but I don't want you, Claude. 
 I want Mrs. Mellot. You go to the window with Bowie.' 
 
 Bowie and Claude shrugged their shoulders at each other, 
 and departed. 
 
 ' Now, Mrs. Mellot, I can't help looking up to you as a 
 mother.' 
 
 ' Complimentary to my youth,' says Sabina, who always calls 
 herself young when she is called old, and old when she is called 
 young. 
 
 ' I didn't mean to be rude. But one does long to open one's 
 heart. I never had any mother to talk to, you know ; and I 
 can't tell my aunt ; and Valentia is so flighty ; and I thought 
 you would give me one chance more. Don't laugh at me, I say. 
 I am really past laughing at.' 
 
 ' I see you are, you poor creature,' says Sabina, melting ; and 
 a long conversation follows, while Claude and Bowie exchange 
 confidences, and arrive at no result beyond the undeniable 
 assertion, 'it is a very bad job.' 
 
 Presently Sabina comes out, and Scoutbush calls cheerfully 
 from the sofa 
 
 ' Bowie, get my bath and things to dress ; and order me the 
 cab in half an hour. Good-bye, you dear people, I shall never 
 thank you enough.' 
 
 Away go Claude and Sabina in a hack-cab. 
 
 ' What have you done ? ' 
 
 'Given him what he entreated for another chance with 
 Marie.' 
 
 ' It will only madden him all the more. Why let him try, 
 when you know it is hopeless ? ' 
 
 'Why, I had not the heart to refuse, that's the truth ; and 
 besides, I don't know that it is hopeless.' 
 
 'All the naughtier of you, to let him run the chance of 
 making a fool of himself.'
 
 186 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' I don't know that he will make such a great fool of himself. 
 As he says, his grandfather married an actress, and why should 
 not he?' 
 
 ' Simply because she won't marry him.' 
 
 ' And how do you know that, sir 1 You fancy that you 
 understand all the women's hearts in England, just because you 
 have found out the secret of managing one little fool.' 
 
 ' Managing her, quotha ! Being managed by her, till my 
 quiet house is turned into a perfect volcano of match-making. 
 Why, I thought he was to marry Manchestrina.' 
 
 ' He shall marry who he likes ; and if Marie changes her 
 mind, and revenges herself on this American by taking Lord 
 Scoutbush, all I can say is, it will be a just judgment on him. 
 I have no patience with the heartless fellow, going off thus, and 
 never even leaving his address.' 
 
 'And because you have no patience, you think Marie will 
 have none 1 ' 
 
 ' What do you know about women's hearts 1 Leave us to 
 mind our own matters.' 
 
 ' Mr. Bowie will kill you outright, if your plot succeeds.' 
 
 ' No, he won't. I know who Bowie wants to marry ; and if 
 he is not good, he shan't have her. Besides, it will be such fun 
 to spite old Lady Knockdown, who always turns up her nose at 
 me. How mad she will be ! Here we are at home. Now, I 
 shall go and prepare Marie.' 
 
 An hour after, Scoutbush was pleading his cause with Marie ; 
 and had been met, of course, at starting, with the simple 
 rejoinder 
 
 ' But, my lord, you would not surely have me marry where I 
 do not love ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, of course not ; but, you see, people very often get love 
 after they are married : and I am sure I would do all to make 
 you love me. I know I can't bribe you by promising you 
 carriages and jewels, and all that : but you should have what 
 you would like pictures and statues, and books and all that I 
 can buy. Oh, madam, I know I am not worthy of you I never 
 have had any education as you have ! ' 
 
 Marie smiled a sad smile. 
 
 'But I would learn I know I could for I am no fool, 
 though I say it : I like all that sort of thing, and and if I had 
 you to teach me, I should care about nothing else. I have given 
 up all my nonsense since I knew you ; indeed I have I am 
 trying all day long to read ever since you said something about 
 being useful, and noble, and doing one's work : I have never 
 forgotten that, madam, and never shall ; and you Avould find 
 me a pleasant person to live with, I do believe. At all events, 
 I would oh, madam I would be your servant, your dog I 
 would fetcli and carry for you like a negro slave ! ' 
 
 Marie turned pale, and rose.
 
 xii A PEER IN TROUBLE 187 
 
 ' Listen to me, my lord ; this must end. You do not know 
 to whom you are speaking. You talk of negro slaves. Know 
 that you are talking to one ! ' 
 
 Scoutbush looked at her in blank astonishment. 
 
 ' Madame ? Excuse me : but my own eyes ' 
 
 'You are not to trust them ; I tell you fact.' 
 
 Scoutbush was silent. She misunderstood his silence : but 
 went on steadily. 
 
 ' I tell you, my lord, what I expect you to keep secret ; and I 
 know that I can trust your honour.' 
 
 Scoutbush bowed. 
 
 'And what I should never have told you, were it not my 
 only chance of curing you of this foolish passion. I am an 
 American slave ! ' 
 
 ' Curse them ! Who dared make you a slave 1 ' cried Scout- 
 bush, turning as red as a game-cock. 
 
 ' I was born a slave. My father was a white gentleman of 
 good family : my mother was a quadroon ; and therefore I am 
 a slave ; a negress, a runaway slave, my lord, who, if I returned 
 to America, should be seized, and chained, and scourged, and 
 sold. Do you understand me ? ' 
 
 ' What an infernal shame ! ' cried Scoutbush, to whom the 
 whole thing appeared simply as a wrong done to Marie. 
 
 'Well, my lord?' 
 
 'Well, madam?' 
 
 ' Does not this fact put the question at rest for ever ? ' 
 No, madam ! What do I know about slaves ? No one is 
 a slave in England. No, madam ; all that it does is to make 
 me long to cut half a dozen fellows' throats ' and Scoutbush 
 stamped with rage. ' No, madam, you are you : and if you 
 become my viscountess, you take my rank, I trust, and my 
 name is yours, and my family yours ; and let me see who dare 
 interfere ! ' 
 
 'But public opinion, my lord?' said Marie, half -pleased, 
 half -terrified to find the shaft which she had fancied fatal fall 
 harmless at her feet. 
 
 ' Public opinion ! You don't know England, madam ! What's 
 the use of my being a peer, if I can't do what I like, and make 
 public opinion go my way, and not I its ? Though I am no 
 great prince, madam, but only a poor Irish viscount, it's hard if 
 I can't marry whom I like in reason, that is and expect all 
 the world to call on her, and treat her as she deserves. Why, 
 madam, you will have all London at your feet after a season or 
 two, and all the more if they know your story : or if you don't 
 like that, or if fools did talk at first, why, we'd go and live 
 quietly at Kilanbaggan, or at Penalva, and you'd have all the 
 tenants looking up to you as a goddess, as I do, madam. O 
 madam, I would go anywhere, live anywhere, only to be with 
 you !'
 
 188 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Marie was deeply affected. Making all allowances for the 
 wilf ulness of youth, she could not but see that her origin formed 
 no bar whatever to her marrying a nobleman ; and that he 
 honestly believed that it would form none in the opinion of Ids 
 compeers, if she proved herself worthy of his choice ; and, full 
 of new emotions, she burst into tears. 
 
 ' There, now, you are melting : I knew you would ! Madam ! 
 Signora ! ' and Scoutbush advanced to take her hand. 
 
 ' Never less,' cried she, drawing back. ' Do not ; you only 
 make me miserable ! I tell you it is impossible. I cannot tell 
 you all. You must not do yourself and yours such an injustice ! 
 Go, I tell you ! ' 
 
 Scoutbush still tried to take her hand. 
 
 'Go, I entreat you,' cried she, at her wits' end, 'or I will 
 really ring the bell for Mrs. Mellot ! ' 
 
 'You need not do that, madam,' said he, drawing himself 
 up ; ' I am not in the habit of being troublesome to ladies, or 
 
 being turned out of drawing-rooms. I see how it is ' and 
 
 his tone softened ; ' you despise me, and think me a vain, 
 frivolous puppy. Well ; I'll do something yet that you shall 
 not despise ! ' And he turned to go. 
 
 ' I do not despise you ; I think you a generous, high-hearted 
 gentleman nobleman in all senses.' 
 
 Scoutbush turned again. 
 
 ' But, again, impossible ! I shall always respect you ; but we 
 must never meet again.' 
 
 She held out her hand. Little Freddy caught and kissed it 
 till he was breathless, and then rushed out, and blundered over 
 Sabina in the next room. 
 
 ' No hope 1 ' 
 
 'None.' And though he tried to squeeze his eyes to- 
 gether very tight, the great tears would come dropping 
 down. 
 
 Sabina took him to a sofa, and sat him down while he made 
 his little moan. 
 
 ' I told you that she was in love with the American.' 
 
 ' Then why don't he come back and marry her ? Hang him, 
 I'll go after him and make him ! ' cried Scoutbush, glad of any 
 object on which to vent his wrath. 
 
 ' You can't, for nobody knows where he is. Now do be good 
 and patient ; you will forget all this.' 
 
 ' I shan't ! ' 
 
 ' You will not at first, but gradually ; and marry some one 
 really more fit for you.' 
 
 ' Ah, but if I marry her I shan't love her ; and then, you 
 know, Mrs. Mellot, I shall go to the bad again, just as much as 
 ever. Oh, I was trying to be steady for her sake ! ' 
 
 ' You can be that still.' 
 
 ' Yes, but it's so hard, with nothing to hope for. I'm not lit
 
 xii A PEER IN TROUBLE 189 
 
 to take care of myself, I'm fit for nothing, I beliove, but to go 
 out and be shot by those Russians : and 1 11 do it !' 
 
 ' You must not ; you are not strong enough. The doctors 
 would not let you go as you are.' 
 
 'Then I'll get strong ; I'll 
 
 ' You'll go home, and be good.' 
 
 ' Ain't I good now ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, you are a good, sensible fellow, and have behaved nobly, 
 and I honour you for it, and Claude shall come and see you 
 every day.' 
 
 That evening a note came from Scoutbush. 
 
 'DEAR MRS. MELLOT Whom should I find when I went 
 home but Campbell 1 I told him all ; and he says that you and 
 everybody have done quite right, so I suppose you have ; and 
 that I am quite right in trying to get out to the East, so I shall 
 do it. But the doctor says I must rest for six weeks at least. 
 So Campbell has persuaded me to take the yacht, which is at 
 Southampton, and go down to Aberalva, and then round to 
 Snowdon, where I have a little slate-quarry, and get some 
 fishing. Campbell is coming with me, and I wish Claude would 
 come too. He knows that brother-in-law of mine, Vavasour, 
 I think, and I shall go and make friends with him. I've got 
 very merciful to foolish lovers lately, and Claude can help me 
 to face him ; for I am a little afraid of geniuses, you know. 
 So there we'll pick up my sister (she goes down by land this 
 week), and then go on to Snowdon ; and Claude can visit his 
 old quarters at the Royal Oak at Bettws, where he and I had 
 that jolly week among the painters. Do let him come, and beg 
 La Signora not to be angry with me. That's all I'll ever ask 
 of her again.' 
 
 ' Poor fellow ! But I can't part with you, Claude.' 
 ' Let him,' said La Cordifiamma. ' He will comfort his lord- 
 ship : and do you come with me.' 
 ' Come with you 1 Where ?' 
 ' I will tell you when Claude is gone.' 
 ' Claude, go and smoke in the garden. Now 1 ' 
 ' Come with me to Germany, Sabina.' 
 ' To Germany ? Why on earth to Germany 1 ' 
 ' I I only said Germany because it came first into my mind. 
 Any where for rest ; anywhere to be out of that poor man's way.' 
 ' He will not trouble you any more ; and you will not surely 
 throw up your engagement ? ' 
 
 ' Of course not ! ' said she, half peevishly. ' It will be over in 
 a fortnight ; and then I must have rest. Don't you see how I 
 want rest 1 ' 
 
 Sabina had seen it for some time past. That white cheek had 
 been fading more and more to a wax-like paleness ; those black
 
 190 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 eyes glittered with fierce unhealthy light ; and dark rings round 
 them told, not merely of late hours and excitement, but of wild 
 
 Eassion and midnight tears. Sabina had seen all, and could not 
 ut give way, as Marie went on. 
 
 ' I must have rest, I tell you ! I am beginning I can confess 
 all to you to want stimulants. I am beginning to long for 
 brandy-and-water pah ! to nerve me up to the excitement of 
 acting, and then for morphine to make me sleep after it. The 
 very eau de Cologne flask tempts me ! They say that the fine 
 ladies use it, before a ball, for other purposes than scent. You 
 would not like to see me commence that practice, would you 1 ' 
 
 'There is no fear, dear.' 
 
 'There is fear! You do not know the craving for exhil- 
 aration, the capability of self-indulgence, in our wild Tropic 
 blood. Oh, Sabina, I feel at times that I could sink so low 
 that I could be so wicked, so utterly wicked, if I once began ! 
 Take me away, dearest creature, take me away, and let me have 
 fresh air, and fair quiet scenes, and rest rest oh, save me, 
 Sabina ! ' and she put her hands over her face, and burst into 
 tears. 
 
 ' We will go, then : to the Rhine, shall it be ? I have not 
 been there now for these three years, and it will be such fun 
 running about the world by myself once more, and knowing all 
 the while that -' and Sabina stopped ; she did not like to re- 
 mind Marie of the painful contrast between them. 
 
 ' To the Rhine ? Yes. And I shall see the beautiful old 
 world, the old vineyards, and castles, and hills which he used to 
 tell me of taught me to read of in those sweet, sweet books of 
 Longfellow's ! So gentle, and pure, and calm so unlike 
 me ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, we will see them ; and perhaps 
 
 Marie looked up at her, guessing her thoughts, and blushed 
 scarlet. 
 
 ' You too, think then, that that -' she could not finish her 
 sentence. 
 
 Sabina stooped over her, and the two beautiful mouths met. 
 
 ' There, darling, we need say nothing. We are both women, 
 and can talk without words.' 
 
 ' Then you think there is hope ? ' 
 
 ' Hope ? Do you fancy that he is gone so very far ? or that 
 if he were, I could not hunt him out ? Have I wandered half 
 round the world alone for nothing ? 
 
 ' No, but hope hope that 
 
 ' Not hope, but certainty ; if some one I know had but 
 courage.' 
 
 ' Courage to do what ? ' 
 
 ' To trust him utterly.' 
 
 Marie covered her face with her hands, and shuddered in 
 every limb.
 
 xni L'HOMME INCOMPRIS 191 
 
 'You know my story. Did I gain or lose by telling my 
 Claude all?' 
 
 ' I will ! ' she cried, looking up pale but firm. ' I will ! ' and 
 she looked steadfastly into the mirror over the chimney-piece, 
 as if trying to court the reappearance of that ugly vision which 
 haunted it, and so to nerve herself to the utmost, and face the 
 whole truth. 
 
 In little more than a fortnight, Sabina and Marie, with maid 
 and courier (for Marie was rich now), were away in the old 
 Antwerpen. And Claude was rolling down to Southampton by 
 rail, with Campbell, Scoutbush, and last, but not least, the 
 faithful Bowie ; who had under his charge what he described to 
 the puzzled railway guard as ' goads and cleiks, and pirns and 
 creels, and beuks and heuks, enough for a' the cods o' Neufund- 
 land.' 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 L'HOMME INCOMPEIS 
 
 ELSLEY went on, between improved health and the fear of Tom 
 Thurnall, a good deal better for the next month. He began to 
 look forward to Valentia's visit with equanimity, and, at last, 
 with interest ; and was rather pleased than otherwise when, in 
 the last week of July, a fly drove up to the gate of old Penalva 
 Court, and he handed out therefrom Valentia, and Valentia's 
 maid. 
 
 Lucia had discovered that the wind was east, and that she 
 was afraid to go to the gate for fear of catching cold ; her real 
 purpose being that Valentia should meet Elsley first. 
 
 ' She is so impulsive,' thought the good little creature, always 
 plotting about her husband, ' that she will rush upon me, and 
 never see him for the first five minutes ; and Elsley is so sen- 
 sitive how can he be otherwise, in his position, poor dear 1 ' 
 So she refrained herself, like Joseph, and stood at the door till 
 Valentia was half-way down the garden-walk, having taken 
 Elsley's somewhat shyly-offered arm ; and then she could restrain 
 herself no longer, and the two women ran upon each other, and 
 kissed, and sobbed, and talked, till Lucia was out of breath ; 
 but Valentia was not so easily silenced. 
 
 ' My darling ! and you are looking so much better than I 
 expected ; but not quite yourself yet. That naughty baby is 
 killing you, I am sure ! And Mr. \ avasour too, I shall begin to 
 call him Elsley to-morrow, if I like him as much as I do now 
 but lie is looking quite thin wearing himself out witli writing so 
 many beautiful books, that " Wreck " was perfect ! And where 
 are the children 1 I must rush upstairs and devour them ! and 
 what a delicious old garden ! and clipt yews, too, so dark and 
 romantic, and such dear old-fashioned flowers ! Mr. Vavasour
 
 192 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 must show me all over it, and over that hanging wood, too. 
 What a duck of a place ! And oh, my dear, I am quite out of 
 breath ! ' 
 
 And so she swept in, with her arm round Lucia's waist ; while 
 Elsley stood looking after her, well enough satisfied with her 
 reception of him, and only hoping that the stream of words 
 would slacken after a while. 
 
 ' What a magnificent creature ! ' said he to himself. ' Who 
 would have believed that the three years would make such a 
 change ! ' 
 
 And he was right. The tall lithe girl had bloomed into full 
 glory ; and Valentia St. Just, though not delicately beautiful, 
 was as splendid an Irish damsel as men need look upon, with a 
 grand masque, aquiline features, luxuriant black hair, and 
 though it was the fag-end of the London season the unrivalled 
 Irish complexion, as of the fair dame of Kilkenny, whose 
 
 ' Lips were like roses, her cheeks were the same, 
 Like a dish of fresh strawberries smother' d in crame. ' 
 
 Her figure was perhaps too tall, and somewhat too stout also ; 
 but its size was relieved by the delicacy of those hands and feet 
 of which Miss Valentia was most pardonably proud, and by 
 that indescribable lissomeness and lazy grace which Irishwomen 
 inherit, perhaps, with their tinge of southern blood ; and when, 
 in half an hour, she reappeared, with broad straw hat, and gown 
 tucked up a la bergere over the striped Welsh petticoat, perhaps 
 to show off the ankles, which only looked the finer for a pair of 
 heavy laced boots, Elsley honestly felt it a pleasure to look at 
 her, and a still greater pleasure to talk to her, and to be talked 
 to by her ; while she, bent on making herself agreeable, partly 
 from real good taste, partly from natural good -nature, and 
 partly, too, because she saw in his eyes that he admired her, 
 chatted sentiment about all heaven and earth. 
 
 For to Miss Valentia it is sad to have to say it admiration 
 had been now, for three years, her daily bread. She had lived 
 in the thickest whirl of the world, and, as most do for a while, 
 found it a very pleasant place. 
 
 She had flirted with how many must not be told; and 
 perhaps with more than one with whom she had no business to 
 flirt. Little Scoutbush had remonstrated with her on some such 
 affair, but she had silenced him with an Irish jest, 'You're a 
 fisherman, Freddy ; and when you can't catch salmon, you catch 
 trout ; and when you can't catch trout, you'll whip on the 
 shallow for poor little gubbahawns, and say that it is all to keep 
 your hand in and so do I.' 
 
 The old ladies said that this was the reason why she had not 
 married the men, however, asserted that no one dare marry 
 her ; and one club-oracle had given it as his opinion that no man 
 in his rational senses was to be allowed to have anything to do
 
 xin L'HOMME INCOMPRIS 193 
 
 with her, till she had been well jilted two or three times, to take 
 the spirit out of her : but that catastrophe had not yet occurred, 
 and Miss Valentia still reigned ' triumphant and alone,' though 
 her aunt, old Lady Knockdown, moved all the earth, and some 
 dirty places, too, below the earth, to get the wild Irish girl off 
 her hands; 'for,' quoth she, 'I feel with Valentia, indeed, just 
 like one of those men who carry about little dogs in the Quad- 
 rant. I always pity the poor men so, and think how happy they 
 must be when they have sold one. It is one chance less, you 
 know, of having it bite them horribly, and then run away after 
 all.' 
 
 There was, however, no more real harm in Valentia than 
 there is in every child of Adam. Town frivolity had not cor- 
 rupted her. She was giddy, given up to enjoyment of the pre- 
 sent : but there was not a touch of meanness about her ; and if 
 she was selfish, as every one must needs be whose thoughts are 
 of pleasure, admiration, and success, she was so unintentionally ; 
 and she would have been shocked and pained at being told that 
 she was anything but the most kind-hearted and generous crea- 
 ture on earth. Major Campbell, who was her Mentor as well as 
 her brother's, had certainly told her so more than once ; at 
 which she had pouted a good deal, and cried a little, and pro- 
 mised to amend ; then packed up a heap of cast-off things to 
 send to Lucia half of it much too fine to be of any use to the 
 quiet little woman and lastly, gone out and bought fresh 
 finery for herself, and forgot all her good resolutions. Whereby 
 it befell that she was tolerably deep in debt at the end of every 
 season, and had to torment and kiss Scoutbush into paying her 
 bills ; which he did like a good brother, and often before he 
 had paid his own. 
 
 But, howsoever f ull Valentia's head may have been of fine gar- 
 ments and London flirtations, she had too much tact and good 
 feeling to talk that evening of a world of which even Elsley 
 knew more than her sister. For poor Lucia had been but 
 eighteen at the time of her escapade, and had not been pre- 
 sented twelve months ; so that she was as ' inexperienced ' as 
 any one can be, who has only a husband, three children, and a 
 household to manage on less than three hundred a year. There- 
 fore Valentia talked only of things which would interest Elsley; 
 asked him to read his last new poem which, I need not say, he 
 did ; told him how she devoured everything he wrote ; planned 
 walks with him in the country ; seemed to consult his pleasure 
 in every way. 
 
 ' To-morrow morning I shall sit with you and the children, 
 Lucia ; of course I must not interrupt Mr. Vavasour : but really 
 in the afternoon I must ask him to spare a couple of hours from 
 the Muses.' 
 
 Vavasour was delighted to do any thing ' Where would she 
 walk?' 
 
 T. V. A.
 
 194 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 1 Where ? of course to see the beautiful schoolmistress who 
 saved the man from drowning ; and then to see the chasm 
 across which he was swept. I shall understand your poem so 
 much better, you know, if I can but realise the people and the 
 place. And you must take me to see Captain Willis, too, and 
 even the lieutenant if he does not smell too much of brandy. 
 I will be so gracious and civil, quite the lady of the castle.' 
 
 ' You will make quite a royal progress,' said Lucia, looking 
 at her with sisterly admiration. 
 
 'Yes, I intend to usurp as many of Scoutbush's honours as I 
 can till he comes. I must lay down the sceptre in a fortnight, 
 you know, so I shall make as much use of it as I can mean- 
 while.' 
 
 And so on, and so on ; meaning all the while to put Elsley 
 quite at his ease, and let him understand that bygones were 
 bygones, and that with her any reconciliation at all was meant 
 to be a complete one ; which was wise and right enough. But 
 Valentia had not counted on the excitable and vain nature with 
 which she was dealing and Lucia, who had her own fears from 
 the first evening, was the last person in the world to tell her of 
 it ; first from pride in herself, and then from pride in her 
 husband. For even if a woman has made a foolish match, it is 
 hard to expect her to confess as much ; and, after all, a husband 
 is a husband, and let his faults be what they might, lie was still 
 her Elsley ; her idol once ; and perhaps (so she hoped) her idol 
 again hereafter, and if not, still he was her husband, and that 
 was enough. 
 
 ' By which you mean, sir, that she considered herself bound 
 to endure everything and anything from him, simply because 
 she had been married to him in church 1 ' 
 
 Yes, and a great deal more. Not merely being married in 
 church ; but what being married in church means, and what 
 every woman who is a woman understands ; and lives up to 
 without flinching, though she die a martyr for it, or a confessor; 
 a far higher saint, if the truth was known, as it will be some 
 day, than all the holy virgins who ever fasted and prayed in a 
 convent since the days when Macarius first turned fakeer. For, 
 to a true woman, the mere fact of a man's being her husband, 
 put it on the lowest ground that you choose, is utterly sacred, 
 divine, all-powerful ; in the might of which she can conquer 
 self in a way which is an every clay miracle ; and the man who 
 does not feel about the mere fact of a woman's having given 
 herself utterly to him, just what she herself feels about it, ought 
 to be despised by all his fellows ; were it not that, in that case, 
 it would be necessary to despise more human beings than is safe 
 for the soul of any man. 
 
 That fortnight was the sunniest which Elsley had passed 
 since lie made secret love to Lucia in Eaton Square. Romantic 
 walks, the company of a beautiful woman as ready to listen
 
 xiii L'HOMME INCOMPRIS 195 
 
 as she was to talk, free licence to pour out all his fancies, sure 
 of admiration, if not of flattery, and pardonably satisfied vanity 
 all these are comfortable things for most men, who have 
 nothing better to comfort them. But, on the whole, this feast 
 did not make Elsley a better or wiser man at home. Why 
 should it ? Is a boy's digestion improved by turning him loose 
 into a confectioner's shop ? And thus the contrast between 
 what he chose to call Valentia's sympathy and Lucia's want 
 of sympathy made him, unfortunately, all the more cross to her 
 when they were alone ; and who could blame the poor little 
 woman for saying one night, angrily enough : 
 
 ' Ah, yes ! Valentia Valentia is imaginative Valentia 
 understands you Valentia sympathises Valentia thinks . . . 
 Valentia has no children to wash and dress, no accounts to 
 keep, no linen to mend Valentia's back does not ache all day 
 long, so that she would be glad enough to lie on the sofa from 
 morning till night, if she was not forced to work whether she 
 can work or not. No, no ; don't kiss me, for kisses will not 
 make up for injustice, Elsley. I only trust that you will not 
 tempt me to hate my own sister. No : don't talk to me now, 
 let me sleep if I can sleep ; and go and walk and talk sentiment 
 with Valentia to-morrow, and leave the poor little brood hen to 
 sit on her nest and be despised.' And refusing all Elsley's 
 entreaties for pardon, she sulked herself to sleep. 
 
 Who can blame her 1 If there is one thing more provoking 
 than another to a woman, it is to see her husband Strass-engel, 
 Haus-teufel, an angel of courtesy to every woman but herself ; 
 to see him in society all smiles and good stories, the most 
 amiable and self -restraining of men ; perhaps to be compli- 
 mented on his agreeableness : and to know all the while that 
 he is penning up all the accumulated ill-temper of the day, to 
 let it out on her when they get home ; perhaps in the very 
 carriage as soon as it leaves the door. Hypocrites that you are, 
 some of you gentlemen ! Why cannot the act against cruelty to 
 women, corporal punishment included, be brought to bear on 
 such as you ? And yet, after all, you are not most to blame in 
 the matter : Eve herself tempts you, as at the beginning ; for 
 who does not know that the man is a thousand times vainer 
 than the woman ? He does but follow the analogy of all nature. 
 Look at the Red Indian, in that blissful state of nature from 
 which (so philosophers inform those who choose to believe them) 
 we all sprung. Which is the boaster, the strutter-, the bedizener 
 of his sinful carcase with feathers and beads, fox -tails and 
 bears' claws the brave, or his poor little squaw ? An Aus- 
 tralian settler's wife bestows on some poor slaving gin a cast-off 
 French bonnet ; before she has gone a hundred yards, her 
 husband snatches it off, puts it on his own mop, quiets her for 
 its loss with a tap of the wadclie, and struts on in glory. Why 
 not ? Has he not the analogy of all nature on his side ?
 
 196 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 not the male birds and the male moths the fine feathers, while 
 the females go soberly about in drab and brown 1 Does the 
 lioness, or the lion, rejoice in the grandeur of a mane ; the hind, 
 or the stag, in antlered pride 1 How know we but that, in some 
 more perfect and natural state of society, the women will dress 
 like so many quakeresses ; while the frippery shops will become 
 the haunts of men alone, and ' browches, pearls, and owches ' be 
 consecrate to the nobler sex ? There are signs already, in the 
 dress of our young gentlemen, of such a return to the law of 
 nature from the present absurd state of things, in which the 
 human peahens carry about the gaudy trains which are the pea- 
 cocks' right. 
 
 For there is a secret feeling in woman's heart that she is in 
 her wrong place ; that it is she who ought to worship the man, 
 and not the man her ; and when she becomes properly conscious 
 of her destiny, has not he a right to be conscious of his 1 If 
 the gray hens will stand round in the mire clucking humble 
 admiration, who can blame the old black cock for dancing and 
 drumming on the top of a moss hag, with outspread wings and 
 flirting tail, glorious and self-glorifying? He is a splendid fel- 
 low ; and he was made splendid for some purpose, surely 1 Why 
 did Nature give him his steel-blue coat arid his crimson crest, 
 but for the very same purpose that she gave Mr. A - his 
 intellect to be admired by the other sex; ? And if young 
 damsels, overflowing with sentiment and Ruskinism, will crowd 
 round him, ask his opinion of this book and that picture, 
 treasure his boti-mots, beg for his autograph, looking all the 
 while the praise which they do not speak (though they speak a 
 good deal of it), and when they go home write letters to him on 
 matters about which in old times girls used to ask only their 
 mothers ; who can blame him if he finds the little wife at 
 home a very uninteresting body, whose head is so full of petty 
 cares and gossip, that he and all his talents are quite unappre- 
 ciated 1 Les femmes incom]yrises of France used to (perhaps do 
 now) form a class of married ladies, whose sorrows were espe- 
 cially dear to the novelists, male or female ; but what are their 
 woes compared to those of Uhomnie incompris ? What higher 
 vocation for a young maiden than to comfort the martyr during 
 his agonies ? And, most of all, where the sufferer is not merely 
 a genius, but a saint ; persecuted, perhaps, abroad by vulgar 
 tradesmen and Philistine bishops, and snubbed at home by a 
 stupid wife, who is quite unable to appreciate his magnificent 
 projects for regenerating all heaven and earth ; and only, hum- 
 drum, practical creature that she is, tries to do justly, and love 
 mercy, and walk humbly with her God ? Fly to his help, all 
 pious maidens, and pour into the wounded heart of the holy 
 man the healing balm of self-conceit ; cover his table with con- 
 fidential letters, choose him as your father-confessor, and lock 
 yourself up alone with him for an hour or two every week,
 
 xn t L' HOMME INCOMPRIS 197 
 
 while the wife is mending his shirts upstairs. True, you may 
 break the stupid wife's heart by year-long misery, as she slaves 
 on, bearing the burden and heat of the day, of which you never 
 dream ; keeping the wretched man, by her unassuming good 
 example, from making a fool of himself three times a week ; and 
 sowing the seed of which you steal the fruit. What matter ? 
 If your mortal soul requires it, what matter what it costs her 
 carnal heart 1 She will suffer in silence ; at least, she will not 
 tell you. You think she does not understand you. Well ; and 
 she thinks in return that you do not understand her, and her 
 married joys and sorrows, and her five children, and her 
 butcher's bills, and her long agony of fear for the husband of 
 whom she is ten times more proud than you could be ; for whom 
 she has slaved for years ; whose defects she has tried to cure, 
 while she cured her own ; for whom she would die to-morrow, 
 did he fall into disgrace, when you had flounced off to find some 
 new idol : and so she will not tell you : and what the ear hear- 
 eth not, that the heart grieveth not. Go on and prosper ! You 
 may, too, ruin the man's spiritual state by vanity ; you may 
 pamper his discontent with the place where God has put him, 
 till he ends by flying off to ' some purer Communion,' and taking 
 you with him. Never mind. He is a most delightful person, 
 and his intercourse is so improving. Why were sweet things 
 made, but to be eaten ? Go on and prosper. 
 
 Ah, young ladies, if some people had (as it is perhaps well for 
 them that they have not) the ordering of this same British 
 nation, they would certainly follow your example, and try to 
 restore various ancient institutions. And first among them 
 would be that very ancient institution of the cucking-stool ; to 
 be employed, however, not as of old, against married scolds (for 
 whom those who have been behind the scenes have all respect 
 and sympathy), but against unmarried prophetesses, who, under 
 whatsoever high pretence of art or religion, flirt with their 
 neighbours' husbands, be they parson or poet. 
 
 Not, be it understood, that Valentia had the least suspicion 
 that Elsley considered himself ' incompris.' If he had hinted 
 the notion to her, she would have resented it as an insult to the 
 St. Justs in general, and to her sister in particular ; and would 
 have said something to him in her off-hand way, the like whereof 
 he had seldom heard, even from adverse reviewers. 
 
 Elsley himself soon divined enough of her character to see that 
 he must keep his sorrows to himself, if he wished for Valentia' s 
 good opinion ; and soon so easily does a vain man lend himself 
 to meanness he found himself trying to please Valentia, by 
 praising to her the very woman with whom he was discontented. 
 He felt shocked and ashamed when first his own baseness flashed 
 across him : but the bait was too pleasant to be left easily : and, 
 after all, he was trying to say to his guest what lie knew his 
 guest would like ; and what was that but following those very
 
 198 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 rules of good society, for breaking which Lucia was always call- 
 ing him gauche and morose ? So he actually quieted his own 
 conscience by the fancy that he was bound to be civil, and to 
 keep up appearances, 'even for Lucia's sake,' said the self-deceiver 
 to himself. And thus the mischief was done ; and the breach 
 between Lucia and her husband, which had been somewhat 
 bridged over during the last month or two, opened more wide 
 than ever, without a suspicion on Valentia's part that she was 
 doing all she could to break her sister's heart. 
 
 She, meanwhile, had plenty of reasons which justified her new 
 intimacy to herself. How could she better please Lucia 1 How 
 better show that bygones were to be bygones, and that Elsley 
 was henceforth to be considered as one of the family, than by 
 being as intimate as possible with him 1 What matter how 
 intimate ? For, after all, he was only a brother, and she his 
 sister. 
 
 She had law on her side in that last argument, as well as love 
 of amusement. Whether she had either common sense or Scrip- 
 ture is a very different question. 
 
 Poor Lucia, too, tried to make the best of the matter ; and to 
 take the new intimacy as Valentia would have had her take it, 
 in the light of a compliment to herself ; and so, in her pride, she 
 said to Valentia, and told her that she should love her for ever 
 for her kindness to Elsley, while her heart was ready to burst. 
 
 But ere the fortnight was over the Nemesis had come, and 
 Lucia, woman as she was, could not repress a thrill of malicious 
 joy, even though Elsley became more intolerable than ever at 
 the change. 
 
 What was the Nemesis, then 1 
 
 Simply that this naughty Miss St. Just began to smile upon 
 Frank Headley the curate, even as she had smiled upon Elsley 
 Vavasour. 
 
 It was very naughty ; but she had her excuses. She had 
 found Elsley out ; and it was well for both of them that she had. 
 done so. Already, upon the strength of their supposed relation- 
 ship, she had allowed him to talk a great deal more nonsense to 
 her harmless perhaps, but nonsense still than she would 
 have listened to from any other man ; and it was well for both 
 of them that Elsley was a man without self-control, who began 
 to show the weak side of his character freely enough, as soon as 
 he became at ease with his companion, and excited by conversa- 
 tion. Valentia quickly saw that he was vain as a peacock, and 
 weak enough to be led by her in any and every direction, when 
 she chose to work on his vanity. And she despised him accord- 
 ingly, and suspected, too, that her sister could not be very happy 
 with such a man. 
 
 Xone are more quick than sisters-in-law to see faults in the 
 brother-in-law, when once they have begun to look for them ; 
 and Valentia soon remarked that Elsley showed Lucia no pet if*
 
 xni L'HOMME INCOMPRIS 199 
 
 soins, while he was ready enough to show them to her ; that he 
 took no real trouble about his children, or about anything else ; 
 and twenty more faults, which she might have perceived in the 
 first two days of her visit, if she had not been in such a hurry 
 to amuse herself. But she was too delicate to ask Lucia the 
 truth, and contented herself with watching all parties closely, 
 and in amusing herself meanwhile for amusement she must 
 have in 
 
 ' Breaking a country heart 
 For pastime, ere she went to town.' 
 
 She had met Frank several times about the parish and in the 
 schools, and had been struck at once with his grace and high 
 breeding, and with that air of melancholy which is always 
 interesting in a true woman's eyes. She had seen, too, that 
 Elsley tried to avoid him, naturally enough not wishing an in- 
 trusion on their pleasant tetes-a-tete. Whereon, half to spite 
 Elsley, and half to show her own right to chat with whom she 
 chose, she made Lucia ask Frank to tea ; and next contrived to 
 go to the school when he was teaching there, and to make Elsley 
 ask him to walk with them ; and all the more because she had 
 discovered that Elsley had discontinued his walks with Frank 
 as soon as she had appeared at Penalva. 
 
 Lucia was not sorry to countenance her in her naughtiness ; 
 it was a comfort to her to have a fourth person in the room at 
 times, and thus to compel Elsley and Valentia to think of some- 
 thing beside each other ; and when she saw her sister gradually 
 transferring her favours from the married to the unmarried 
 victim, she would have been more than woman if she had not 
 rejoiced thereat. Only, she began soon to be afraid for Frank, 
 and at last told Valentia so. 
 
 ' Do take care that you do not break his heart ! ' 
 
 ' My dear ! You forget that I sit under Mr. O'Blareaway, 
 and am to him as a heathen and a publican. Fresh from St. 
 Nepomuc's as he is, lie would as soon think of falling in love 
 with an " Oirish Prodestant," as with a malignant and a tur- 
 baned Turk. Besides, my dear, if the mischief is going to be 
 done, it's done already.' 
 
 ' I dare say it is, you naughty beautiful thing. If anybody 
 is goose enough to fall in love with you, he'll be also goose 
 enough, I don't doubt, to do so at first sight. There, don't look 
 perpetually in that glass : but take care ! ' 
 
 'What use? If it -is going to happen at all, I say, it has 
 happened already ; so I shall just please myself, as usual.' 
 
 And it had happened : and poor Frank had been, ever since 
 the first day he saw Valentia, over head and ears in love. His 
 time had come, and there was no escaping his fate. 
 
 But to escape he tried. Convinced, with many good men of 
 all ages and creeds, that a celibate life was the fittest one for a
 
 200 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 clergyman, he had fled from St. Nepomuc's into the wilderness 
 to avoid temptation, and beheld at his cell-door a fairer fiend 
 than ever came to St. Dunstan. A fairer fiend, no doubt ; for 
 St. Dunstan 's imagination created his temptress for him, but 
 Valentia was a reality ; and fact and nature may be safely backed 
 to produce something more charming than any monk's brain can 
 do. One questions whether St. Dunstan's apparition was not 
 something as coarse as his own mind, clever though that mind 
 was. At least, he would never have had the heart to apply the 
 hot tongs to such a nose as Valentia's, but at most have bowed 
 her out pityingly, as Frank tried to bow out Valentia from the 
 sacred place of his heart, but failed. 
 
 Hard he tried, and humbly too. He had no proud contempt 
 for married parsons. He was ready enough to confess that he, 
 too, might be weak in that respect, as in a hundred others. He 
 conceived that he had no reason, from his own inner life, to 
 believe himself worthy of any higher vocation proving his own 
 real nobleness of soul by that very humility. He had rather 
 not marry. He might do so some day ; but he would sacrifice 
 much to avoid the necessity. If he was weak, lie would use 
 what strength he had to the uttermost ere he yielded. And all 
 the more, because he felt, arid reasonably enough, that Valentia 
 was the last woman in the world to make a parson's wife. He 
 had his ideal of what such a wife should be, if she were to be 
 allowed to exist at all the same ideal which Mr. Paget has 
 drawn in his charming little book (would that all parsons' wives 
 would read and perpend), the Owlet of Oivhtmw Edge. But 
 Valentia would surely not make a Beatrice. Beautiful she was, 
 glorious, lovable, but not the helpmeet whom he needed. And 
 he fought against the new dream like a brave man. He fasted, 
 lie wept, he prayed ; but his prayers seemed not to be heard. 
 Valentia seemed to have enthroned herself, a true Venus victrix, 
 in the centre of his heart, and would not be dispossessed. He 
 tried to avoid seeing her ; but even for that lie had not strength : 
 he went again and again when asked, only to come home more 
 miserable each time, as fierce against himself and his own weak- 
 ness as if he had given way to wine or to oaths. In vain, too, 
 he represented to himself the ridiculous hopelessness of his 
 passion ; the impossibility of the London beauty ever stooping 
 to marry the poor country curate. Fancies would come in, how 
 such things, strange as they might seem, had happened already ; 
 might happen again. It was a class of marriage for which he 
 had always felt a strong dislike, even suspicion and contempt ; 
 and though he was far more fitted, in family as well as personal 
 excellence, for such a match, than three out of four who make 
 them, yet he shrunk with disgust from the notion of being him- 
 self classed at last among the match-making parsons. Whether 
 there was ' carnal pride ' or not in that last thought, his soul so 
 loathed it that he would gladly have thrown up his cure at
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 201 
 
 Aberalva ; and would have done so actually, but for one word 
 which Tom Thurnall had spoken to him, and that was 
 Cholera. 
 
 That the cholera might come ; that it probably would come, 
 in the course of the next two months, was news to him which 
 was enough to keep him at his post, let what would be the con- 
 sequence. And gradually he began to see a way out of his diffi- 
 culty and a very simple one ; and that was, to die. 
 
 'That is the solution after all,' said he. 'I am not strong 
 enough for God's work ; but I will not shrink from it, if I can 
 help. If I cannot master it, let it kill me ; so at least I may 
 have peace. I have failed utterly here ; all my grand plans 
 have crumbled to ashes between my fingers. I find myself a 
 cumberer of the ground, where I fancied that I was going forth 
 like a very Michael fool that I was ! leader of the armies of 
 heaven. And now, in the one remaining point on which I 
 thought myself strong, I find myself weakest of all. Useless 
 and helpless ! I have one chance left, one chance to show these 
 poor souls that I really love them, really wish their good sel- 
 fish that I am ! What matter whether I do show it or not 1 
 What need to justify myself to them? Self, self, creeping in 
 everywhere ! I shall begin next, I suppose, longing for the 
 cholera to come, that I may show off myself in it, and make 
 spiritual capital out of their dying agonies ! Ah me ! that it 
 were all over ! That this cholera, if it is to come, would wipe 
 out of this head what I verily believe nothing but death will 
 do ! ' And therewith Frank laid his head on the table, and cried 
 till he could cry no more. 
 
 It was not over manly ; but he was weakened with overwork 
 and sorrow ; and, on the whole, it was perhaps the best thing 
 he could do ; for he fell asleep there, with his head on the table, 
 and did not wake till the dawn blazed through his open window. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE DOCTOR AT BAY 
 
 DID you ever, in a feverish dream, climb a mountain which 
 grew higher and higher as you climbed ; and scramble through 
 passages which changed perpetually before you, and up and 
 down break-neck stairs which broke off perpetually behind you ? 
 Did you ever spend the whole night, foot in stirrup, mounting 
 that phantom hunter which never gets mounted, or, if he does, 
 turns into a pen between your knees ; or in going to fish that 
 phantom stream^ which never gets fished? Did you ever, late 
 for that mysterious dinner-party in some enchanted castle, 
 wander disconsolately, in unaccountable rags and dirt, in search 
 of that phantom carpet-bag which never gets found ? Did you
 
 202 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ever ' realise ' to yourself the sieve of the Danaides, the stone of 
 Sisyphus, the wheel of Ixion ; the pleasure of shearing that 
 domestic animal who (according to the experience of a very 
 ancient observer of nature) produces more cry than wool ; the 
 perambulation of that Irishman's model bog, where you slip 
 two steps backward for one forward, and must, therefore, in 
 order to progress at all, turn your face homeward, and progress 
 as a pig does into a steamer, by going the opposite way ? Were 
 you ever condemned to spin ropes of sand to all eternity, like 
 Tregeagle the wrecker or to extract the cube roots of a million 
 or two of hopeless suras, like the mad mathematician ; or last, 
 and worst of all, to work the Nuisances Removal Act 1 Then 
 you can enter as a man and a brother, into the sorrows of Tom 
 Thurnall, in the months of June and July 1854. 
 
 He had made up his mind, for certain good reasons of his 
 own, that the cholera ought to visit Aberalva in the course of 
 the summer ; and, of course, tried his best to persuade people 
 to get ready for their ugly visitor ; but in vain. The cholera 
 come there 1 Why, it never had come yet, which signified, when 
 lie inquired a little more closely, that there had been only one 
 or two doubtful cases in 1837, and five or six in 1849. In vain 
 he answered, ' Very well ; and is not that a proof that the 
 causes of cholera are increasing here ? If you had one case the 
 first time, and five times as many the next, by the same rule 
 you will have five times as many more if it comes this 
 summer.' 
 
 ' Nonsense ! Aberalva was the healthiest town on the coast.' 
 
 'Well but,' would Tom say, 'in the census before last, you 
 had a population of 1300 in 112 houses, and that was close 
 packing enough, in all conscience ; and in the last- census I find 
 you had a population, of over 1400, which must have increased 
 since ; and there are eight or nine old houses in the town pulled 
 down, or turned into stores ; so you are- more closely packed 
 than ever. And mind, it may seem no very great difference, 
 but it is the last drop that fills the cup.' 
 
 What had that to do with cholera ? And more than one gave 
 him to understand that he must be either a very silly or a very 
 impertinent person, to go poking into how many houses there 
 were in the town, and how many people lived in each. Tardrew, 
 the steward, indeed, said openly that Mr. Thurnall was making 
 disturbance enough in people's property up at Pentremochyn, 
 without bothering himself with Aberalva too. He had no 
 opinion of people who had a finger in everybody's pie. Whom 
 Tom tried to soothe with honeyed words, knowing him to be of 
 the original British bulldog breed, which, once stroked against 
 the hair, shows his teeth at you for ever afterwards. 
 
 But staunch was Tardrew, unfortunately on the wrong side ; 
 and backed by the collective ignorance, pride, laziness, and 
 superstition of Aberalva, showed to his new assailant that
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 203 
 
 terrible front of stupidity, against which, says Schiller, 'the 
 gods themselves fight in vain.' 
 
 ' Does he think we was all fools afore he came here 1 ' 
 
 That was the rallying cry of the Conservative party, wor- 
 shippers of Baalzebub, god of flies, and of that (so say Syrian 
 scholars) from which flies are bred. And, indeed, there were 
 excuses for them, on the Yankee ground, that ' there's a deal of 
 human natur' in. man.' It is hard to human nature to make all 
 the humiliating confessions which must precede sanitary re- 
 pentance to say, ' I have been a very nasty, dirty fellow. I 
 have livea contented in evil smells, till I care for them no more 
 than my pig does. I have refused to understand nature's 
 broadest hints, that anything which is so disagreeable is not 
 meant to be left about. I have probably been more or less the 
 cause of half my own illnesses, and of three-fourths of the ill- 
 ness of my children ; for aught I know, it is very much my 
 fault that my own baby has died of scarlatina, and two or three 
 of my tenants of typhus. No, hang it ! that's too much to make 
 any man confess to ! I'll prove my innocence by not reforming ! ' 
 So sanitary reform is thrust out of sight, simply because its 
 necessity is too humiliating to the pride of all, too frightful to 
 the consciences of many. 
 
 Tom went to Trebooze. 
 
 ' Mr. Trebooze, you are a man of position in the county, and 
 own some houses in Aberalva. Don't you think you could use 
 your influence in this matter 1 ' 
 
 ' Own some houses 1 Yes,' and Mr. Trebooze consigned the 
 said cottages to a variety of unmentionable places ; ' cost me 
 more in rates than they bring in. in rent, even if I get the rent 
 paid. I should like to get a six- pounder, and blow the whole 
 lot into the sea. Cholera coming, eh ? D'ye think it will be 
 there before Michaelmas ? ' 
 
 'I do.' 
 
 'Pity I can't clear 'em out before Michaelmas. Else I'd 
 have ejected the lot, and pulled the houses down.' 
 
 ' I think something should be done meanwhile, though, to- 
 wards cleansing them.' 
 
 '. . . Let 'em cleanse them themselves ! Soap's cheap enough 
 with your . . . free trade, ain't it ? No, sir ! That sort of talk 
 will do well enough for my Lord Minchampstead, sir, the old 
 money-lending Jew ! . . . but gentlemen, sir, gentlemen, that 
 are half-ruined with free trade, and your Whig policy, sir, you 
 must give 'em back their rights before they can afford to throw 
 away their money on cottages. Cottages, indeed ! . . . upstart 
 of a cotton-spinner, coming down here, buying the land over 
 our heads, and pretends to show us how to manage our estates ; 
 old families that have been in the county this four hundred 
 years, with the finest peasantry in the world ready to die for 
 them, sir, till these new revolutionary doctrines came in pride
 
 204 TWO YEARS ACO CHAP. 
 
 and purse-proud conceit, just to show off his money ! What do 
 they want with better cottages than their fathers had ? Only 
 put notions into their heads, raise 'em above their station ; 
 more they have, more they'll want. . . . Sir, make chartists of 
 'em all before he's done ! I'll tell you what, sir,' and Mr. 
 Trebooze attempted a dignified and dogmatic tone ' I never 
 told it you before, because you were my very good friend, sir ; 
 but my opinion is, sir, that by what you're doing up at Pentre- 
 mochyn, you're just spreading chartism chartism, sir! Of 
 course I know nothing. Of course I'm nobody, in these days ; 
 but that's my opinion, sir, and you've got it ! ' 
 
 By which motion Torn took little. Mighty is envy always, 
 and mighty ignorance ; but you become aware of their truly 
 Titanic grandeur only when you attempt to touch their owner's 
 pocket. 
 
 Tom tried old Heale, but took as little in that quarter. 
 Heale had heard of sanitary reform, of course ; but he knew 
 nothing about it, and gave a general assent to Tom's doctrines, 
 for fear of exposing his own ignorance ; acting on them was a 
 very different matter. It is always hard for an old medical man 
 to confess that anything has been discovered since the days of 
 his youth ; and besides, there were other reasons behind, which 
 Heale tried to avoid giving ; and therefore fenced off, and 
 fenced off, till, pressed hard by Tom, wrath came forth, and 
 truth with it. 
 
 ' And what be you thinking of, sir, to expect me to offend all 
 my best patients? and not one of 'em but rents some two 
 cottages, some a dozen. And what'll they say to me if I go a 
 routing and rookling in their drains, like an old sow by the way- 
 side, beside putting 'em to all manner of expense 1 And all on 
 the chance of this cholera coming, which I have no faith in, 
 nor in this new-fangled sanitary reform neither, which is all 
 a dodge for a lot of young Government puppies to fill their 
 pockets, and rule and ride over us : and my opinion always 
 was with the Bible, that 'tis jidgment, sir, a jidgment of God, 
 and we can't escape His holy will, and that's the plain truth 
 of it.' 
 
 Tom made no answer to that latter argument. He had heard 
 that ' 'tis jidgment ' from every mouth during the last few days ; 
 and had mortally offended the Brianite p readier that very 
 morning, by answering his "tis jidgment' with 
 
 'But, my good sir! the Bible, I thought, says that Aaron 
 stayed the plague among the Israelites, and David the one at 
 Jerusalem.' 
 
 'Sir, those was miracles, sir ! and they was under the law, 
 sir, and we'm under the Gospel, you'll be pleased to re- 
 member.' 
 
 'Humph!' said Tom, 'then, by your showing, they were 
 better off under the law than we are now, if they could have
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 205 
 
 their plagues stopped by miracles ; and we cannot have ours 
 stopped at all.' 
 
 ' Sir, be you an infidel ? ' 
 
 To which there was no answer to be made. 
 
 In this case, Tom answered Heale with 
 
 ' But, my dear sir, if you don't like (as is reasonable enough) 
 to take the responsibility on yourself, why not go to the Board 
 of Guardians, and get them to put the act in force ? ' 
 
 ' Boord, sir ? and do you know so little of Boords as that ? 
 Why, there ain't one of them but owns cottages themselves, 
 and it's as much as my place is worth 
 
 'Your place as medical officer is just worth nothing, as you 
 know ; you'll have been out of pocket by it seven or eight 
 pounds this year, even if no cholera comes. 
 
 Tom knew the whole state of the case ; but he liked torment- 
 ing Heale now and then. 
 
 'Well, sir ! but if I get turned out next year, in steps that 
 Drew over at Carcarrow Churchtown into my district, and into 
 the best of my practice, too. I wonder what sort of a Poor Law 
 district you were medical officer of, if you don't know yet that 
 that's why we take to the poor.' 
 
 ' My dear sir, I know it, and a good deal more besides.' 
 
 ' Then why go bothering me this way ? ' 
 
 ' Why,' said Tom, ' it's pleasant to have old notions confirmed 
 as often as possible 
 
 ' " Life is a jest, and all things show it ; 
 I thought so once, but now I know it." 
 
 What an ass the fellow must have been who had that put on 
 his tombstone, not to have found it out many a year before he 
 died ! ' 
 
 He went next to Headley the curate, and took little by that 
 move ; though more than by any other. 
 
 For Frank already believed his doctrines, as an educated 
 London parson of course would ; was shocked to hear that they 
 were likely to become fact so soon and so fearfully ; ottered to 
 do all he could : but confessed that he could do nothing. 
 
 ' I have been hinting to them, ever since I came, improve- 
 ments in cleanliness, in ventilation, and so forth : but I have 
 been utterly unheeded : and bully me as you will, doctor, about 
 my cramming doctrines down their throats, and roaring like a 
 Pope's bull, I assure you that, on sanitary reform, my roaring 
 was as of a sucking dove, and ought to have prevailed, if soft 
 persuasion can.' 
 
 'You were a dove where you ought to have been a bull, and 
 a bull where you ought to have been a dove. But roar now, if 
 ever you roared, in the pulpit and out. W T hy not preach to 
 them on it next Sunday 'I '
 
 206 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'Well, I'd give a lecture gladly, if I could get anyone to 
 come and hear it ; but that you could do better than me.' 
 
 ' I'll lecture them myself, and show them bogies, if my 
 quarter-inch will do its work. If they want seeing to believe, 
 see they shall ; I have half a dozen specimens of water 
 already which will astonish them. Let me lecture, you must 
 preach.' 
 
 'You must know, that there is a feeling you would call it a 
 prejudice against introducing such purely secular subjects 
 into the pulpit.' 
 
 Tom gave a long whistle. 
 
 ' Pardon me, Mr. Headley ; you are a man of sense ; and I 
 can speak to you as one human being to another, which I have 
 seldom been able to do with your respected cloth.' 
 
 ' Say on ; I shall not be frightened.' 
 
 ' Well, don't you put up the Ten Commandments in your 
 church ? ' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' And don't one of them run : " Thou shalt not kill" 1 ' 
 
 'Well?' 
 
 ' And is not murder a moral offence what you call a sin ? : 
 
 ' Sans doute.' 
 
 'If you saw your parishioners in the habit of cutting each 
 other's throats, or their own, shouldn't you think that a matter 
 spiritual enough to be a fit subject for a little of the drum 
 ecclesiastic ? ' 
 
 'Well?' 
 
 ' Well ? Ill ! Thei'e are your pai-ishioners about to commit 
 wholesale murder and suicide, and is that a secular question ? 
 If they don't know the fact, is not that all the more reason for 
 your telling them of it ? You pound away, as I warned you 
 once, at the sins of which they are just as well aware as you ; 
 why on earth do you hold your tongue about the sins of which 
 they are not aware ? You tell us every Sunday that we do 
 Heaven only knows how many more wrong things than we 
 dream of. Tell it us again now. Don't strain at gnats like 
 want of faith and resignation, and swallow such a camel as 
 twenty or thirty deaths. It's no concern of mine ; I've seen 
 plenty of people murdered, and may again : I am accustomed 
 to it ; but if it's not your concern, what on earth you are here 
 for is more than I can tell.' 
 
 'You are right you are right ; but how to put it on religious 
 grounds 
 
 Tom whistled again. 
 
 ' If your doctrines cannot bs made to fit such plain matters 
 as twenty deaths, tant pis pour eu.f. If they have nothing to 
 say on such scientific facts, why, the facts must take care of 
 themselves, and the doctrines may, for aught I care, go and 
 But won't be reall rude. Only think over the matter : if
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 207 
 
 you are God's minister, you ought to have something to say 
 about God's view of a fact which certainly involves the lives 
 of His creatures, not by twos and threes, but by tens of 
 thousands.' 
 
 So Frank went home, and thought it through ; and went once 
 and again to Thurnall, and condescended to ask his opinion of 
 what he had said, and whether he said ill or well. What Thur- 
 nall answered was ' Whether that's sound Church doctrine is 
 your business ; but if it be, I'll say, with the man there in the 
 Acts what was his name 1 " Almost thou persuadest me to be 
 a Christian." ' 
 
 'Would God that you were one ! for you would make a right 
 good one.' 
 
 'Humph ! at least you see what you can do, if you'll only 
 face fact as it stands, and talk about the realities of life. I'll 
 puff your sermon beforehand, I assure you, and bring all I can 
 to hear it.' 
 
 So Frank preached a noble sermon, most rational, and most 
 spiritual withal ; but he, too, like his tutor, took little by his 
 motion. 
 
 All the present fruit upon which he had to congratulate him- 
 self was, that the Brianite preacher denounced him in chapel 
 next Sunday as a German Rationalist, who impiously pretended 
 to explain away the Lord's visitation into a carnal matter of 
 drains, and pipes, and gases, and such like ; and that his rival 
 of another denomination, who was a fanatic on the teetotal 
 question, denounced him as bitterly for supporting the cause of 
 drunkenness, by attributing cholera to want of cleanliness, 
 while all rational people knew that its true source was intem- 
 perance. Poor Frank ! he had preached against drunkenness 
 many a time and oft : but because he would not add a Moham- 
 medan eleventh commandment to those ten which men already 
 find difficulty enough in keeping, he was set upon at once 
 by a fanatic whose game it was as it is that of too many 
 to snub sanitary reform, and hinder the spread of plain scien- 
 tific truth, for the sake of pushing their own nostrum for all 
 human ills. 
 
 In despair, Tom went off to Elsley Vavasour. Would he 
 help 1 Would he join, as one of two householders, in making a 
 representation to the proper authorities ? 
 
 Elsley had never mixed in local matters : and if he had, lie 
 knew nothing of how to manage men, or to read an Act of Par- 
 liament ; so, angry as Tom was inclined to be with him, he 
 found it useless to quarrel with a man so utterly unpractical, 
 who would, probably, had he been stirred into exertion, have 
 done more harm than good. 
 
 ' Only come with me, and satisfy yourself as to the existence 
 of one of these nuisances, and then you will have grounds on 
 which to go,' said Tom, who had still hopes of making a cat's
 
 208 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 paw of Elsley, and by his power over him, pulling the strings 
 from behind. 
 
 Sorely against his will, Elsley went, saw, and smelt ; came 
 home again ; was very unwell ; and was visited nightly for a 
 week after by that most disgusting of all phantoms, sanitary 
 nightmare ; which some who have worked in the foul places of 
 the earth know but too well. Evidently his health could not 
 stand it. There was no work to be got out of him in that 
 direction. 
 
 ' Would he write, then, and represent matters to Lord Scout- 
 bush?' 
 
 How could he ? He did not know the man ; not a line had 
 ever been exchanged between them. Their relations were so 
 very peculiar. It would seem sheer impertinence on his part to 
 interfere with the management of Lord Scoutbush's property. 
 Really there was a great deal to be said, Tom felt, for poor 
 Elsley's dislike of meddling in that quarter. 
 
 ' Would Mrs. Vavasour write, then ? ' 
 
 ' For Heaven's sake, do not mention it to her. She would be 
 so terrified about the children ; she is worn out with anxiety 
 already,' and so forth. 
 
 Tom went back to Frank Headley. 
 
 'You see a good deal of Miss St. Just.' 
 
 ' I ? No why ? what ? ' said poor Frank, blushing. 
 
 ' Only that you must make her write to her brother about 
 this cholera.' 
 
 ' My dear fellow, it is such a subject for a lady to meddle 
 with.' 
 
 ' It has no scruple in meddling with ladies ; so ladies ought 
 to have none in meddling with it. You must do it as delicately 
 as you will : but done it must be : it is our only chance. Tell 
 her of Tardrew's obstinacy, or Scoutbush will go by his opinion ; 
 and tell her to keep the secret from her sister.' 
 
 Frank did it, and well. Valentia was horror-struck, and 
 wrote. 
 
 Scoutbush was away at sea, nobody knew where ; and a full 
 fortnight elapsed before an answer came. 
 
 ' My dear, you are quite mistaken if you think I can dp any- 
 thing. Nine-tenths of the houses in Aberalva are not in my 
 lianas : but copyholds and long leases, over which I have 110 
 power. If the people will complain to me of any given nuisance, 
 111 right it if I can ; and if the doctor wants money, and sees 
 any ways of laying it out well, he shall have what lie wants, 
 though I am very high in Queer Street just now, ma'am, having 
 paid your bills before I left town, like a good brother : but I 
 tell you again, I have no more power than you have, except over 
 a few cottages, and Tardrew assured me, three weeks ago, that 
 they were as comfortable as they ever had been.'
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 209 
 
 So Tardrew had forestalled Thurnall in writing to the Vis- 
 count. Well, there was one more chance to be tried. 
 
 Tom gave his lecture in the schoolroom. He showed them 
 magnified abominations enough to frighten all the children into 
 fits, and dilated on horrors enough to spoil all appetites : he 
 proved to them that, though they had the finest water in the 
 world all over the town, they had contrived to poison almost 
 every drop of it ; he waxed eloquent, witty, sarcastic ; and the 
 net result was a general grumble. 
 
 ' How did he get hold of all the specimens, as he calls them ? 
 What business has he poking his nose down people's wells and 
 waterbutts ? ' 
 
 But an unexpected ally arose at this juncture, in the coast- 
 guard lieutenant, who, being valiant after his evening's brandy- 
 and-water, rose and declared 'that Dr. Thurnall was a very 
 clever man ; that by what he'd seen himself in the West Indies, 
 it was all as true as gospel ; that the parish might have the 
 cholera if it liked,' and here a few expletives occurred ' but 
 that he'd see that the coast-guard houses were put to rights at 
 once ; for he would not have the lives of her Majesty's servants 
 endangered by such dirty tricks, not fit for heathen savages,' 
 etc. etc. 
 
 Tom struck while the iron was hot. He saw that the great 
 man's speech had produced an impression. 
 
 ' Would he ' (so he asked the lieutenant privately), ' get some 
 one to join him, and present a few of these nuisances 1 ' 
 
 He would do anything in his contempt for ' a lot of long-shore 
 merchant-skippers and herringers, who went about calling them- 
 selves captains, and fancy themselves, sir, as good as if they 
 wore the Queen's uniform.' 
 
 ' Well, then, can't we find another householder some cantan- 
 kerous dog Avho don't mind a row ? ' 
 
 Yes, the cantankerous dog was found, in the person of Mr. 
 John Penruddock, coal-merchant, who had quarrelled with Tar- 
 drew, because Tardrew said he gave short weight -which he 
 very probably did -and had quarrelled also with Thomas Beer 
 senior, ship-builder, about right of passage through a back-yard. 
 
 Mr. Penruddock suddenly discovered that Mr. Beer kept up a 
 dirt-heap in the said back-yard, and with virtuous indignation 
 vowed ' he'd sarve the old beggar out at last.' 
 
 So far so good. The weapons of reason and righteousness 
 having failed, Tom felt at liberty to borrow the devil's tools. 
 Now to pack a vestry, and to nominate a local committee. 
 
 The vestry was packed ; the committee nominated : of course 
 half of them refused to act they 'didn't want to go quarrelling 
 with their neighbours.' 
 
 Tom explained to them cunningly and delicately that they 
 would have nothing to do ; that one or two (lie did not say that 
 he was the one, and the two also) would do all the work, and 
 P T. Y. A.
 
 210 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 bear all the odium : whereon the malcontents subsided, con- 
 sidering it likely that, after all, nothing would be done. 
 
 Some may fancy that matters were now getting somewhat 
 settled. Those who do so know little of the charming machinery 
 of local governments. One man has ' summat to say,' utterly 
 irrelevant ; another must needs answer him with something 
 equally irrelevant ; a long chatter ensues, in spite of all cries to 
 order and question. Soon one and another gets personal, and 
 temper shows here and there. You would fancy that the go- 
 ahead party try to restore order, and help business on. Not in 
 the least. They have begun to cool a little. They are a little 
 afraid that they have committed themselves. If people quarrel 
 with each other, perhaps they may quarrel with them too. And 
 they begin to be wonderfully patient and impartial, in the hope 
 of staving off the evil day, and finding some excuse for doing 
 nothing after all. ' Hear 'mun out !'...' Vair and zof t, let 
 ev'ry man ha' his zay !'...' There's vary gude rason in it ! ' 
 ' I didn't think of that avore,' and so fortli ; till in a quarter 
 of an hour the whole question has to be discussed over again, 
 through the fog of a dozen fresh fallacies, and the miserable 
 earnest man finds himself considerably worse off than when he 
 began. Happy for him if one chance word is not let drop 
 which will afford the whole assembly an excuse for falling on. 
 him open-mouthed, as the cause of all their woes ! 
 
 That chance word came. Mr. Penruddock gave a spiteful 
 hit, being, as he said, of a cantankerous turn, to Mr. Treluddra, 
 principal 'jowder,' i.e. fish salesman, of Aberalva. Whereon 
 Treluddra, whose conscience told him that there was at present 
 in his back-yard a cart-load and more of fish in every stage of 
 putrefaction, which he had kept rotting there rather than lower 
 the market-price, rose in wrath. 
 
 'An' if any committee puts its noz into my back-yard, if it 
 doant get the biggest cod's innards as I can collar hold on about 
 its ears, my name is not Treluddra ! A man's house is his castle, 
 says I, and them as takes up with any o' this open -day burglary, 
 for it's nothing else, has to do wi' me, that's all, and them as 
 knows their interest, knows me ! ' 
 
 Terrible were these words ; for old Treluddra, like most jow- 
 ders, combined the profession of money-lender with that of 
 salesman ; and there were dozens in the place who were in debt 
 to him for money advanced to buy boats and nets, after wreck 
 and loss. Besides, to offend one jowder was to offend all. They 
 combined to buy the fish at any price they chose : if angered, 
 they would combine now and then not to buy it at all. 
 
 'You old twenty per cent rascal,' roared the lieutenant, 
 ' after making a fortune out of these poor fellows' mishaps, do 
 you want to poison 'em all with your stinking fish 1 ' 
 
 ' I say, lieutenant,' says old Beer, whose son owed Treluddra 
 fifty pounds at that moment, ' fair's fair. You mind your coast-
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 211 
 
 guard, and we'm mind our trade. We'm free fishermen, by 
 charter and right ; you'm not our master, and you shall know 
 it.' 
 
 ' Know it ? ' says the lieutenant, foaming. 
 
 ' Iss ; you put your head inside my presences, and I'll split 
 'mun open, if I be hanged for it.' 
 
 ' You split my head open ! ' 
 
 'Iss, by .' And the old gray-bearded sea-king set his 
 
 arms akimbo. 
 
 ' Gentlemen, gentlemen, for Heaven's sake !' cries poor Head- 
 ley, 'this is really going too far. Gentlemen, the vestry is 
 adjourned ! ' 
 
 ' Best thing too ! oughtn't never to have been called,' says 
 one and another. 
 
 And some one, as he went out, muttered something about 
 'interloping strange doctors, colloquies with popish curates,' 
 which was answered by a ' Put 'mun in the quay pule,' from 
 Treluddra. 
 
 Tom stepped up to Treluddra instantly. ' What were you so 
 kind as to say, sir ? ' 
 
 Treluddra turned very pale. ' I didn't say nought.' 
 
 ' Oh, but I assure you I heard ; and I shall be most happy to 
 jump into the quay pule this afternoon, if it will afford you the 
 slightest amusement. Say the word, and I'll borrow a flute, 
 and play you the Rogue's March all the while with my right 
 hand, swimming with my left. Now, gentlemen, one word 
 before we part ! ' 
 
 ' Who be you ? ' cries some one. 
 
 ' A man, at least, and ought to have a fair hearing. Now, I 
 ask you, what possible interest can I have in this matter 1 I 
 knew when I began that I should give myself a frightful quan- 
 tity of trouble, and get only what I have got.' 
 
 ' Why did you begin at all, then ? ' 
 
 ' Because I was a very foolish, meddlesome ass, who fancied 
 that I ought to do my duty once in a way by my neighbours. 
 Now, I have only to say, that if you will but forgive and forget, 
 and let bygones be bygones, I promise you solemnly, I'll never 
 do my duty by you again as long as I live, nor interfere witli 
 the sacred privilege of every free-born Englishman, to do that 
 which is right in the sight of his own eyes, and wrong 
 too!' 
 
 ' You'm making fun at us,' said old Beer dubiously. 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Beer, and isn't that better than quarrelling with 
 you ? Come along, we'll all go home and forget it, like good 
 Christians. Perhaps the cholera won't come ; and if it does, 
 what's the odds so long as you're happy, eh 1 ' 
 
 And to the intense astonishment both of the lieutenant and 
 Frank, Tom walked home witli the malcontents, making him- 
 self so agreeable that he was forgiven freely on the spot.
 
 212 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'What does the fellow mean? He's deserted us, sir, after 
 bringing us here to make fools of us ! ' 
 
 Frank could give no answer ; but Thurnall gave one himself 
 that evening, both to Frank and the lieutenant. 
 
 'The cholera will come ; and these fellows are just mad ; but 
 I mustn't quarrel with them, mad or not.' 
 
 'Why, then?' 
 
 ' For the same reason that you must not. If we keep our 
 influence, we may be able to do some good at the last, which 
 means, in plain English, saving a few human lives. As for you, 
 lieutenant, you have behaved like a hero, and have been served 
 as heroes generally are. What you must do is this. On the 
 first hint of disease, pack up your traps and your good lady, and 
 go and live in the watch-house across the river. As for the 
 men's houses, I'll set them to rights in a day, if you'll get the 
 commander of the district to allow you a little chloride of lime 
 and whitewash.' 
 
 And so the matter ended. 
 
 ' You are a greater puzzle than ever to me, Thurnall,' said 
 Frank. 'You are always pretending to care for nothing but 
 your own interest, and yet here you have gone out of your way 
 to incur odium, knowing, you say, that your cause was all but 
 hopeless.' 
 
 ' Well, I do it because I like it. It's a sort of sporting with 
 your true doctor. He blazes away at a disease where he sees 
 one, as he would at a bear or a lion ; the very sight of it excites 
 his organ of destructiveness. Don't you understand me ? You 
 hate sin, you know. Well, I hate disease. Moral evil is your 
 devil, and physical evil is mine. I hate it, little or big ; I hate 
 to see a fellow sick ; I hate to see a child rickety and pale ; 1 
 hate to see a speck of dirt in the street ; I hate to see a woman's 
 gown torn ; I hate to see her stockings down at heel ; I hate to 
 see anything wasted, anything awry, anything going wrong ; I 
 hate to see water-power wasted, manure wasted, land wasted, 
 muscle wasted, pluck wasted, brains wasted ; I hate neglect, 
 incapacity, idleness, ignorance, and all the disease and misery 
 which spring out of that. There's my devil ; and I can't help 
 it, for the life of me, going right at his throat, wheresoever I 
 meet him ! ' 
 
 Lastly, rather to clear his reputation than in the hope of 
 doing good, Tom wrote up to London, and detailed the case to 
 that much-calumniated body, the General Board of Health, 
 informing them civilly that the Nuisances Removal Act was 
 simply waste paper ; that he could not get it to bear at all on 
 Aberalva ; and that if he had done so, it would have been equally 
 useless, for the simple reason that it constituted the ofl'enders 
 themselves judge and jury in their own case. 
 
 To which the Board returned for answer, that they were per- 
 fectly aware of the fact, and deeply deplored the same : but that
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 213 
 
 as soon as cholera broke out in Aberalva, they should be most 
 happy to send down an inspector. 
 
 To which Tom replied courteously, that he would not give 
 them the trouble, being able, he trusted, to perform without 
 assistance the not uncommon feat of shutting the stable-door 
 after the horse was stolen. 
 
 And so was Aberalva left 'a virgin city,' undefiled by 
 Goverment interference, to the blessings of that ' local govern- 
 ment ' which signifies, in plain English, the leaving the few to 
 destroy themselves and the many by the unchecked exercise of 
 the virtues of pride and ignorance, stupidity and stinginess. 
 
 But to Tom, in his sorest need, arose a new and most un- 
 expected coadjutor ; and this was the way in which it came to 
 pass. 
 
 For it befell in that pleasant summer time, ' when small birds 
 sing, and shaughs are green,' that Thurnall started, one bright 
 Sunday eve, to see a sick child at an upland farm, some few 
 miles from the town. And partly because he liked the walk, 
 and partly because he could no other, having neither horse nor 
 gig, he went on foot ; and whistled as he went like any throstle- 
 cock, along the pleasant vale, by flowery banks and ferny walls, 
 by oak and ash and thorn, while Alva flashed and swirled 
 between green boughs below, clear coffee -brown from last 
 night's rain. Some miles up the turnpike road he went, and 
 then away to the right, through the ash-woods of Trebooze, up 
 by the rill which drips from pool to pool over the ledges of gray 
 slate, deep-bedded in dark sedge, and broad bright burdock 
 leaves, and tall angelica, and ell-broad rings and tufts of king, 
 and crown, and lady-fern, and all the semi- tropic luxuriance of 
 the fat western soil, and steaming western woods ; out into the 
 boggy moor at the gleri head, all fragrant with the gold-tipped 
 gale, where the turf is enamelled with the hectic marsh violet, 
 and the pink pimpernel, and the pale yellow leaf -stars of the 
 butterwort, and the blue bells and green threads of the ivy- 
 leaved campanula ; out upon the steep smooth down above, and 
 away over the broad cattle -pastures ; and then to pause a 
 moment, and look far and wide over land and sea. 
 
 It was a ' day of God.' The earth lay like one great emerald, 
 ringed and roofed with sapphire ; blue sea, blue mountain, blue 
 sky overhead. There she lay, not sleeping, but basking in her 
 quiet Sabbath joy, as though her two great sisters of the sea 
 and air had washed her weary limbs with holy tears, and purged 
 away the stains of last week's sin and toil, and cooled her hot 
 worn forehead witli their pure incense-breath, and folded her 
 within their azure robes, and brooded over her with smiles of 
 pitying love, till she smiled back in answer, and took heart and 
 hope for next week's weary work. 
 
 Heart and hope for next week's work. That was the sermon 
 which it preached to Tom Thurnall, as he stood there alone, a
 
 214 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 stranger and a wanderer, like Ulysses of old ; but, like him, 
 self-helpful, cheerful, fate-defiant. In one respect, indeed, he 
 knew less than Ulysses, and was more of a heathen than he ; 
 for he knew not what Ulysses knew, that a heavenly guide was 
 with him in his wanderings j still less what Ulysses knew not, 
 that what he called the malicious sport of fortune was, in truth, 
 the earnest education of a father : but who will blame him for 
 getting strength and comfort from such merely natural founts, 
 or say that the impulse came from below, and not from above, 
 which made him say 
 
 ' Brave old world she is, after all, and right well made : and 
 looks right well to-day, in her go-to-meeting clothes ; and plenty 
 of room and chance in her for a brave man to earn his bread, if 
 he will but go right on about his business, as the birds and the 
 flowers do, instead of peaking and pining over what people 
 think of him, like that miserable Briggs. Hark to that jolly 
 old missel-thrush below ! he's had his nest to build, and his 
 supper to earn, and his young ones to feed, and all the crows 
 and kites in the wood to drive away, the sturdy John Bull that 
 he is ; and yet he can find time to sing as merrily as an abbot, 
 morning and evening, since he sang the new year in last January. 
 And why should not 1 1 ' 
 
 Let him be a while ; there are sounds of deeper meaning in 
 the air, if his heart had ears to hear them ; far off church-bells 
 chiming to even-song ; hymn-tunes floating up the glen from 
 the little chapel in the vale. He may learn what they, too, 
 mean some .day. Honour to him at least, that he has learnt 
 what the missel-thrush below can tell him. If he accept cheer- 
 fully and manfully the things which he does see, he will be all 
 the more able to enter hereafter into the deeper mystery of 
 things unseen. The road toward true faith and reverence for 
 God's kingdom of heaven does not lie through Manichsean con- 
 tempt and slander of God's kingdom of earth. 
 
 So let him stride over the down, enjoying the mere fact of 
 life, and health, and strength, and whistling shrilly to the bird 
 below, who trumpets out a few grand ringing notes, and repeats 
 them again and again, in saucy self-satisfaction ; and then stops 
 to listen for the answer to this challenge ; and then rattles on 
 again with a fresh passage, more saucily than ever, in a tone 
 which seems to ask, ' You could sing that, eh 1 but can you 
 sing this, my fine fellow on the down above ?' So he seems to 
 Tom to say ; and, tickled with the fancy, Tom laughs, and 
 whistles, and laughs, and has just time to compose his features 
 as he steps up to the farmyard gate. 
 
 Let him be, I say again. He might have better Sunday 
 thoughts ; perhaps he will have some day. At least he is a 
 man, and a brave one ; and as the greater contains the less, 
 surely before a man can be a good man, he must be a brave one 
 first, much more a man at all. Cowards, old Odin held, iiievit-
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 215 
 
 ably went to the very bottom of Hela-pool, and by no possibility, 
 unless of course they became brave at last, could rise out of that 
 everlasting bog, but sank whining lower and lower like mired 
 cattle, to all eternity in the unfathomable peat-slime. And if 
 the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Revelation, and the 
 eighth verse, is to be taken as it stands, their doom has not 
 altered since Odin's time, unless to become still worse. 
 
 Tom came up, over the home-close and through the barton- 
 gate, through the farmyard, and stopped at last at the porch. 
 The front door was open, and the door beyond it ; and ere he 
 knocked, he stopped, looking in silence at a picture which held 
 him spellbound for a moment by its rich and yet quiet beauty. 
 
 Torn was no artist, and knew no more of painting, in spite of 
 his old friendship with Claude, than was to be expected of a 
 keen and observant naturalist who had seen hall the globe. 
 Indeed, he had been in the habit of snubbing Claude's pro- 
 fession ; and of arriving, on pre-Raphaelite grounds, at a by no 
 means pre-Raphaelite conclusion. ' A picture, you say, is worth 
 nothing unless you copy nature. But you can't copy her. She 
 is ten times more gorgeous than any man can dare represent 
 her. Ergo, every picture is a failure ; and the nearest hedge- 
 bush is worth all your galleries together ' a syllogism of sharp 
 edge, which he would back up by Byron's 
 
 ' I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, 
 Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal. ' 
 
 But here was one of nature's own pictures, drawn and 
 coloured by more than mortal hand, and framed over and above, 
 ready to his eye, by the square of the dark doorway, beyond 
 which all was flooded with the full glory of the low north- 
 western sun. 
 
 A dark oak-ribbed ceiling ; walls of pale fawn-yellow ; an 
 open window, showing a corner of rich olive-stone wall, enam- 
 elled with golden lichens, orange and green combs of polypody, 
 pink and gray tufts of pellitory, all glowing in the sunlight. 
 
 Above the window-sill rose a bush of maiden-blush roses ; a 
 tall spire of blue monkshood ; and one head of scarlet lychnis, 
 like a spark of fire ; and, behind all, the dark blue sea, which 
 faded into the pale-blue sky. 
 
 At the window stood a sofa of old maroon leather, its dark 
 hue throwing out in strong relief two figures who sat upon it. 
 And when Tom had once looked at them, he looked at nothing 
 else. 
 
 There sat the sick girl, her head nestling upon the shoulder 
 of Grace Harvey ; a tall, delicate thing of seventeen, with thin 
 white cheeks, the hectic spot aflame on each, and long fair curls, 
 which mingled lovingly with Grace's dark tresses, as they sat 
 cheek against cheek, and hand in hand. Her eyes were closed ; 
 Tom thought at first that she was asleep ; but there was a quiet
 
 216 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 smile about her pale lips ; and every now and then her left hand 
 left Grace's, to move toward a leaf full of strawberries which 
 lay on Grace's lap ; and Tom could see that she was listening 
 intently to Grace, who told and told, in that sweet measured 
 voice of hers, her head erect, her face in the full blaze of sun- 
 shine, her great eyes looking out far away beyond the sea, 
 beyond the sky, into some infinite which only she beheld. 
 
 Tom had approached unheard across the farmyard straw. 
 He stood and looked his fill. The attitude of the two girls was 
 so graceful, that he was loth to disturb it ; and loth, too, to dis- 
 turb a certain sunny calm which warmed at once and softened 
 his stout heart. 
 
 He wished, too he scarce knew why to hear what Grace 
 was saying ; and as he listened, her voice was so distinct and deli- 
 cate in its modulations, that every word came clearly to his ear. 
 
 It was the beautiful old legend of St. Dorothea 
 
 ' So they did all sorts of dreadful things to her, and then led 
 her away to die ; and they stood laughing there. But after a 
 little time there came a boy, 'the prettiest boy that ever was seen 
 on earth, and in his hand a basket full of fruits and flowers, 
 more beautiful than tongue can tell. And he said, " Dorothea 
 sends you these, out of the heavenly garden which she told you 
 of ; will you believe her now ? " And then, before they could 
 reply, he vanished away. And Theophilus looked at the flowers, 
 and tasted the fruit, and a new heart grew up within him ; and 
 he said, " Dorothea's God shall be my God, and I will die for 
 Him like her." 
 
 ' So you see, darling, there are sweeter fruits than these, and 
 gayer flowers, in the place to which you go ; and all the lovely 
 things in this world here will seem quite poor and worthless 
 beside the glory of that better land which He will show you ; 
 and yet you will not care to look at them ; for the sight of Him 
 will be enough, and you will care to think of nothing else.' 
 
 'And you are sure He will accept me, after all?' asked the 
 sick girl, opening her eyes, and looking up at Grace. She 
 saw Thurnall standing in the doorway, and gave a little scream. 
 
 Tom came forward, bowing. ' I am very sorry to have dis- 
 turbed you. I suspect Miss Harvey was giving you better 
 medicine than I can give.' 
 
 Now why did Tom say that, to whom the legend of St. 
 Dorothea, and, indeed, that whole belief in a better land, was as 
 a dream fit only for girls 1 
 
 Not altogether because he must needs say something civil. 
 True, he felt, on the whole, about the future state as Goethe did 
 -' To the able man this world is not dumb ; why should he 
 ramble off into eternity? Such incomprehensible subjects lie 
 too far off, and only disturb our thoughts, if made the subject 
 oi daily meditation.' That there was a future state he had no 
 doubt. Our having been born once, he used to say, is the
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 217 
 
 strongest possible presumption in favour of our being born 
 again ; and probably, as nature always works upward and 
 develops higher forms, in some higher state. Indeed, for aught 
 he knew, the old ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs might be alive 
 now as lions, or as men. He himself, indeed, he had said, ere 
 now had been probably a pterodactyle of the Lias, neither fish, 
 flesh, nor good red herring, but crocodile and bat in one, able 
 alike to swim, or run, or fly, eat anything, and live in any 
 element. Still it was no concern of his. He was here, and here 
 was his business. He had not thought of this life before he 
 came into it ; and it would be time enough to think of the next 
 life when he got into it. Besides, he had all a doctor's dislike 
 of those terrors of the unseen world with which some men are 
 wont to oppress still more failing nature, and break the bruised 
 reed. His business was to cure his patients' bodies ; and if he 
 could not do that, at least to see that life was not shortened in 
 them by nervous depression and anxiety. Accustomed to see 
 men of every character die under every possible circumstance, 
 he had come to the conclusion that the ' safety of a man's soul ' 
 could by no possibility be inferred from his death-bed temper. 
 The vast majority, good or bad, died in peace ; why not let them 
 die so ? If nature kindly took off the edge of sorrow, by blunt- 
 ing the nervous system, what right had man to interfere with 
 so merciful an arrangement ? Every man, he held in his easy 
 optimism, would go wliere he ought to go ; and it could be no 
 possible good to him indeed, it might be a very bad thing for 
 him, as in this life to go where he ought not to go. So he used 
 to argue, with three-fourths of mankind, mingling truth and 
 falsehood and would, on these grounds, have done his best to 
 turn the dissenting preacher out of that house, had he found 
 him in it. But to-day he was in a more lenient, perhaps in a 
 more human, and therefore more spiritual mood. It was all 
 very well for him, full of life, and power, and hope, to look on 
 death in that cold, careless way ; but for that poor young thing, 
 cut off just as life opened from all that made life lovely was 
 not death for her a painful, ugly anomaly? Could she be 
 blamed, if she shuddered at going forth into the unknown 
 blank, she knew not whither ? All very well for the old emperor 
 of Home, who had lived his life and done his work, to play with 
 the dreary question 
 
 ' Animula, vagula, blandula, 
 Hospes comesque corporis, 
 Quae iiunc abibis in loca, 
 Rigidula, nudula, pallida ? ' 
 
 But she, who had lived no life, and done no work only had 
 pined through weary years of hideous suffering ; crippled and 
 ulcerated with scrofula, now dying of consumption ; was it not 
 a merciful dream, a beautiful dream, a just dream so beautiful
 
 218 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 and just that perhaps it might be true that in some fairer 
 world, all this, and more, might be made up to her ? If not, was 
 it not a mistake and an injustice, that she should ever have come 
 into the world at all ? And was not Grace doing a rational as 
 well as a loving work, in telling her, under whatever symbols, 
 that such a home of rest and beauty awaited her 1 It was not 
 the sort of place to which he expected, perhaps even wished, to 
 go ; but it fitted well enough with a young girl's hopes, a young 
 girl's powers of enjoyment. Let it be ; perhaps there was such 
 a place why not ? fitted for St. Dorothea, and those cut off in 
 youth like her ; and other places fit for such as he. And he 
 spoke more tenderly than usual (though he was never un tender), 
 as he said 
 
 ' And you feel better to-day ? I am sure you must, with such 
 a kind friend to tell you such sweet tales.' 
 
 ' I do not feel better, thank you. And why should I wish to 
 do so ? You all take too much trouble about me ; why do you 
 want to keep me here ? ' 
 
 ' We are loth to lose you ; and besides, while you can be kept 
 here, it is a sign that you ought to be here.' 
 
 ' So Grace tells me. Yes, I will be patient, and wait till He 
 lias done His work. I am more patient now ; am I not, Grace ?' 
 And she fondled Grace's hand, and looked up in her face. 
 
 ' Yes,' said Grace, who was standing near, with downcast face, 
 trying to avoid Tom's eye. ' Yes, you are very good ; but you 
 must not talk ; ' but the girl went on, with kindling eye 
 
 ' Ah ! I was very fretful at first, because I could not go to 
 heaven at once ; but Grace showed me how it was good to be 
 here, as well as there, as long as He thought that I might be 
 made perfect by sufferings. And since then my pain has become 
 quite pleasant to me, and I am ready to wait and bear wait 
 and bear.' 
 
 ' You must not talk ; see, you are beginning to cough,' said 
 Tom, who wished somehow to stop a form of thought which so 
 utterly puzzled him. Not that he had not heard it before ; 
 common-place enough indeed it is, thank God ; but that day the 
 words came home to him with spirit and power, all the more 
 solemnly from their contrast with the scene around without, 
 all sunshine, joy, and glory, all which could tempt a human 
 being to linger here ; and within, that young girl longing to 
 leave it all, and yet content to stay and suffer. What mysteries 
 there were in the human spirit mysteries to which that know- 
 ledge of mankind on which he prided himself gave him no key. 
 
 ' What if I were laid on my back to-morrow for life, by a fall, 
 a blow, as I have seen many a better man than me, should I not 
 wish to have one to talk to me, as she was talking to that child ? ' 
 And for a moment a yearning after Grace came over him, as it 
 had done before, and swept from his mind the dark cloud of 
 suspicion.
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 219 
 
 ' Now I must talk with your mother,' said he, ' for you have 
 better company than mine, and I hear her just coming in.' 
 
 He settled little matters for his patient's comfort with the 
 farmer's wife. When he returned to bid her good-bye Grace 
 was gone. 
 
 1 1 hope I have not driven her away.' 
 
 ' Oh no ; she had been here an hour, and she must go back 
 now, to get her mother's supper.' 
 
 ' That is a good girl,' said Tom, looking after her as she went 
 down the field. 
 
 ' She's an angel from heaven, sir. Not a three days go over 
 without her walking up here all this way after her work to 
 comfort my poor maid, and all of us as well. It's like the dew 
 of heaven upon us. Pity, sir, you didn't see her home.' 
 
 ' I should have liked it well enough ; but folks might talk, if 
 two young people were seen walking together Sunday evening.' 
 
 ' Oh, sir, they know her too well by now, for miles round, and 
 you too, sir, I'll make bold to say.' 
 
 ' Well, at least I'll go after her.' 
 
 So Tom went, and kept Grace in sight till she had crossed the 
 little moor, and disappeared in the wood below. 
 
 He had gone about an hundred yards into the wood, when 
 he heard voices and laughter, then a loud shriek. He hurried 
 forward. In another minute, Grace rushed up to him, her eyes 
 wide with terror and indignation. 
 
 ' What is it ? ' cried he, trying to stop her, but, not seeming to 
 see him, she dashed past him, and ran on. Another moment, 
 and a man appeared in full pursuit. 
 
 It was Trebooze, of Trebooze, an evil laugh upon his face. 
 
 Tom planted himself across the narrow path in an attitude 
 which there was no mistaking. 
 
 Not a word passed between them. Silently and instinctively, 
 like two fierce dogs, the two men flew upon each other ; Tom 
 full of righteous wrath, and Trebooze of half-drunken passion, 
 turned to fury by the interruption. 
 
 He was a far taller and heavier man than Thurnall, and, as 
 the bully of the neighbourhood, counted on an easy victory. 
 But he was mistaken. After the first rush was over, he found 
 it impossible to close with his foe, and saw in the doctor's face, 
 now grown cool and business-like as usual, the wily smile of 
 superior science and expected triumph. 
 
 ' Brand y-and-water in the morning ought not to improve the 
 wind,' said Tom to himself, as his left hand countered provok- 
 ingly, while his right rattled again and again upon Trebooze's 
 watch-chain. 'Justice will overtake you in the offending part, 
 which I take to be the epigastric region.' 
 
 In a few minutes more the scuffle ended shamefully enough 
 for the sottish squireen. 
 
 Tom stood over him for a minute, as he sat grovelling and
 
 220 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 groaning among the long grass. ' I may as well see that I have 
 not killed him. No, he will do as well as ever which is not 
 saying much. . . . Now, sir ! Go home quietly, and ask Mrs. 
 Trebooze for a little rhubarb and salvolatile. I'll call up in the 
 course of to-morrow to see how you are.' 
 
 ' I'll kill you, if I catch you ! ' 
 
 'As a man, I am open of course to be killed by any fair 
 means : but as a doctor, I am still bound to see after my 
 patient's health.' And Tom bowed civilly, and walked back 
 up the path to find Grace, after washing face and hands in the 
 brook. 
 
 He found her up at Tolchard's farm, trembling and thankful. 
 
 ' I cannot do less than see Miss Harvey safe home.' 
 
 Grace hesitated. 
 
 ' Mrs. Tolchard, I am sure, will walk with us ; it would be 
 safer, in case you felt faint again.' 
 
 But Mrs. Tolchard would not come to save Grace's notions of 
 propriety ; so Tom passed Grace's arm through his own. She 
 offered to withdraw it. 
 
 ' No ; you will require it. You do not know yet how much 
 you have gone through. My fear is, that you will feel it all the 
 more painfully when the excitement is past. I shall send you 
 up a cordial ; and you must promise me to take it. You owe 
 me a little debt you know, to-day ; you must pay it by taking 
 my medicines.' 
 
 Grace looked up at him sidelong ; for there was a playful 
 tenderness in his voice which was new to her, and which 
 thrilled her through and through. 
 
 ' I will indeed, I promise you. But I am so much better now. 
 Really, I can walk alone ! ' And she withdrew her arm from 
 his, but not hastily. 
 
 After that they walked on awl die in silence. Grace kept her 
 veil down, for her eyes were full of tears. She loved that man 
 intensely, utterly. She did not seek to deny it to herself. God 
 had given him to her, and hers he was. The very sea, the de- 
 vourer whom she hated, who hungered to swallow up all young 
 fair life, the very sea had yielded him up to her, alive from the 
 dead. And yet that man, she knew, suspected her of a base and 
 hateful crime. It was top dreadful ! She could not exculpate 
 herself, save by blank denial and what would that avail ? The 
 large hot drops ran down her cheeks. She had need of all her 
 strength to prevent sobbing. 
 
 She looked round. In the bright summer evening, all things 
 were full of joy and love. The hedge-banks were gay as flower 
 gardens ; the swifts chased each other, screaming harsh delight ; 
 the ring-dove murmured in the wood beneath his world-old 
 song, which she had taught the children a hundred times 
 
 ' Curucluty coo, curuck coo ; 
 You love me, and I love you ! '
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 221 
 
 The woods slept golden in the evening sunlight ; and overhead 
 brooded, like one great smile of God, the everlasting blue. 
 
 ' He will right me ! ' she said. ' " Hold thee still in the Lord, 
 and abide patiently, and He will make thy righteousness clear 
 as the light, and thy just dealing as the noon-day !" And 
 after that thought she wept no more. 
 
 Was it as a reward for her faith that Tom began to talk to 
 her ? He had paced on by her side, serious, but not sad. True, 
 he had suspected her ; lie suspected her still. But that scene 
 with the dying child had been no sham. There, at least, there 
 was nothing to suspect, nothing to sneer at. The calm purity, 
 self-sacrifice, hope, which was contained in it, had softened his 
 world-hardened spirit, and woke up in him feelings which were 
 always pleasant, feelings which the sight of his father, or the 
 writing to his father, could only awaken. Quaintly enough, the 
 thought of Grace and of his father seemed intertwined, inextric- 
 able. If the old man had but such a nurse as she ! And for a 
 moment he felt a glow of tenderness toward her, because he 
 thought she would be tender to his father. She had stolen his 
 money, certainly ; or, if not, she knew where it was, and would 
 not tell him. Well, what matter just then ? He did not want 
 the money at that minute. How much pleasanter and wiser to 
 take things as they came, and enjoy himself while he could ; 
 and fancy that she was always what he had seen her that day. 
 After all, it was much more pleasant to trust people than to 
 suspect them : ' Handsome is who handsome does ! And be- 
 sides, she did me the kindness of saving my life ; so it would 
 but be civil to talk to her a little.' 
 
 He began to talk to her about the lovely scene around ; and 
 found, to his surprise, that she saw as much of it as he, and saw 
 a great deal more in it than he. Her answers were short, 
 modest, faltering ; but each one of them suggestive ; and Tom 
 soon found that he had met with a mind which contained all 
 the elements of poetry, and needed only education to develop 
 them. 
 
 ' What a blue stocking, pre-Raphaelite, seventh-heavenarian 
 she would have been, if she had had the misfortune to be born in 
 that station of life ! ' But where a clever man is talking to a 
 beautiful woman, talk he will, and must, for the mere sake of 
 showing off, though she be but a village schoolmistress ; and 
 Tom soon found himself, with a secret sneer at his own vanity, 
 displaying before her all the much finer things that he had seen 
 in his travels ; and as he talked, she answered, with quiet ex- 
 pressions of wonder, sympathy, regret at her own narrow sphere 
 of experience, till, as if the truth was not enough, he found 
 himself running to the very edge of exaggeration, and a little 
 over it, in the enjoyment of calling out her passion for the mar- 
 vellous, especially when called out in honour of himself. 
 
 And she, simple creature, drank it all in as sparkling wine,
 
 222 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 and only dreaded lest the stream should cease. Adventures 
 with noble savages in palm-fringed coral-islands, with greedy 
 robbers amid the fragrant hills of Greece, with fierce Indians 
 beneath the snow-peaks of the Far West, with coward Mexicans 
 among tunals of cactus and agave, beneath the burning tropic 
 sun What a man he was ! Where had he not been ? and 
 what had he not seen ? And how he had been preserved for 
 her ? And his image seemed to her utterly beautful and 
 glorious, clothed as it was in the beauty and glory of all that he 
 had seen, and done, and suffered. O Love, Love, Love, the 
 same in peasant and in peer ! The more honour to you, then, 
 old Love, to be the same thing in this world which is common 
 to peasant and to peer. They say that you are blind ; a 
 dreamer, an exaggerator a liar, in short. They know just 
 nothing about you, then. You will not see people as they seem, 
 and as they have become, no doubt : but why ? because you see 
 them as they ought to be, and are, in some deep way, eternally, 
 in the sight of Him who conceived and created them. 
 
 At last she started, as if waking from a pleasant dream, and 
 spoke, half to herself 
 
 ' Oh, how foolish of me to be idling away this opportunity ; 
 the only one, perhaps, which I may have ! O Mr. Thurnall, 
 tell me about this cholera ! ' 
 
 'What about it?' 
 
 'Everything. J^ver since I heard of what you have been 
 saying to the people, ever since Mr. Headley's sermon, it has 
 been like fire in my ears ! ' 
 
 ' I am truly glad to hear it. If all parsons had preached 
 about it for the last fifteen years as Mr. Headley did last Sun- 
 day, if they had told people plainly that, if the cholera was 
 God's judgment at all, it was His judgment of the sin of dirt, 
 and that the repentance which He required was to wash and be 
 clean in literal earnest, the cholera would be impossible in 
 England by now.' 
 
 ' O Mr. Thurnall : but is it not God's doing ? and can we 
 stop His hand 1 ' 
 
 'I know nothing about that, Miss Harvey. I only know 
 that wheresoever cholera breaks out, it is some one's fault : and 
 if deaths occur, some one ought to be tried for manslaughter I 
 had almost said murder and transported for life.' 
 
 'Someone? Who?' _ 
 
 ' That will be settled in the next generation, when men have 
 common sense enough to make laws for the preservation of their 
 own lives, against the dirt, and covetousness, and idleness, of a 
 set of human hogs.' 
 
 Grace was silent for a while. 
 
 ' But can nothing be done to keep it off now? Must it come ? ' 
 
 ' I believe it must. Still, one may do enough to save many 
 lives in the meanwhile.'
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 223 
 
 ' Enough to save many lives lives ? immortal souls, too ? 
 Oil, what could I do ? ' 
 
 'A great deal, Miss Harvey/ said Tom, across whom the 
 recollection of Grace's influence flashed lor the first time. 
 What a help she might be to him ! 
 
 And he talked on and on to her, and found that she entered 
 into his plans with all her wild enthusiasm, but also with sound 
 practical common sense ; and Tom began to respect her intellect 
 as well as her heart. 
 
 At last, however, she faltered 
 
 ' Oh, if I could but believe all this ! Is it not fighting against 
 God?' 
 
 'I do not know what sort of God yours is, Miss Harvey. I 
 believe in some One who made all that ! ' and he pointed round 
 him to the glorious woods and glorious sky ; ' I should have 
 fancied from your speech to that poor girl, that you believed in 
 Him also. You may, however, only believe in the same being 
 in whom the Methodist parson believes, one who intends to hurl 
 into endless agony every human being who has not had a chance 
 of hearing the said preacher's nostrum for delivering men out of 
 the hands of Him who made them ! ' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? ' asked Grace, startled alike by Tom's 
 words, and the intense scorn and bitterness of his tone. 
 
 ' That matters little. What do you mean in turn ? What did 
 you mean by saying that saving lives is saving immortal souls ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, is it not giving them time to repent ? What will become 
 of them, if they are cut off' in the midst of their sins ? ' 
 
 ' If you had a son whom it was not convenient to you to keep 
 at home, would his being a bad fellow the greatest scoundrel 
 on the earth be a reason for your turning him into the streets 
 to live by thieving, and end by going to the dogs for ever and a 
 day?' 
 
 ' No ; but what do you mean ? ' 
 
 ' That I do not think that God, when he sends a human being 
 out of this world, is more cruel than you or I would be. If we 
 transport a man because he is too bad to be in England, and he 
 shows any signs of mending, we give him a fresh chance in the 
 colonies, and let him start again, to try if he cannot do better 
 next time. And do you fancy that God, when He transports a 
 man out of this world, never gives him a fresh chance in another 
 especially when nine out of ten poor rascals have never had a 
 fair chance yet ? ' 
 
 Grace looked up in his face astonished. 
 
 ' Oh, if I could but believe that ! Oh ! it would give me some 
 
 gleam of hope for my two ! But no it's not in Scripture. 
 
 Where the tree falls there it lies.' 
 
 ' And as the fool dies, so dies the wise man ; and there is one 
 account to the righteous and to the wicked. And a man lias no 
 pre-eminence over a beast, for both turn alike to dust ; and
 
 224 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Solomon does not know, he says, or any one else, anything 
 about the whole matter, or even whether there be any life after 
 death at all ; and so, he says, the only wise thing is to leave 
 such deep questions alone, for Him who made us to settle in His 
 own way, and just to fear God and keep His commandments, 
 and do the work which lies nearest us with all our might.' 
 
 Grace was silent. 
 
 'You are surprised to hear me quote Scripture, and well 
 you may be : but that same Book of Ecclesiastes is a very old 
 favourite with me ; for I am no Christian, but a worldling, if 
 ever there was one. But it does puzzle me why you, who are a 
 Christian, should talk one half -hour as you have been talking 
 to that poor girl, and the next go for information about the 
 next life to poor old disappointed, broken-hearted Solomon, 
 with his three hundred and odd idolatrous wives, who confesses 
 fairly that this life is a failure, and that he does not know 
 whether there is any next life at all.' 
 
 Whether Tom were altogether right or not, is not the ques- 
 tion here ; the novelist's business is to represent the real 
 thoughts of mankind, when they are not absolutely unfit to be 
 told ; and certainly Tom spoke the doubts of thousands when 
 he spoke his own. 
 
 Grace was silent still. 
 
 ' Well,' he said, ' beyond that I can't go, being no theologian. 
 But when a preacher tells people in one breath of a God who so 
 loves men that He gave His own Son to save them, and in the 
 next, that the same God so hates men that he will cast nine- 
 tenths of them into hopeless torture for ever (and if that is not 
 hating, T don't know what is), unless he, the preacher, gets a 
 chance of talking to them for a few minutes Why, I should 
 like, Miss Harvey, to put that gentleman upon a real tire for ten 
 minutes, instead of his comfortable Sunday's dinner, which 
 stands ready frying for him, and which he was going home to 
 eat, as jolly as if all the world was not going to destruction ; 
 and there let him feel what fire was like, and reconsider his 
 statements.' 
 
 Grace looked up at him no more : but walked on in silence, 
 pondering many things. 
 
 ' Howsoever that may be, sir, tell me what to do in this 
 cholera, and I will do it, if I kill myself with work or infec- 
 tion!' 
 
 ' You shan't do that. We cannot spare you from Aberalva, 
 Grace,' said Tom ; ' you must save a few more poor creatures 
 ere you die, out of the hands of that Good Being who made 
 little children, and love, and happiness, and the flowers, and the 
 sunshine, and the fruitful earth ; and who, you say, redeemed 
 them all again, when they were lost, by an act of love which 
 passes all human dreams.' 
 
 ' Do not talk so ! ' cried Grace. ' It frightens me ; it puzzles
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 225 
 
 me, and makes me miserable. Oh, if you would but become a 
 Christian ! ' 
 
 ' And listen to the gospel 1 ' 
 
 ' Yes oh yes ! ' 
 
 'A gospel means good news, I thought. When you have 
 any to tell me, I will listen. Meanwhile, the news that three 
 out of four of those poor fellows down town are going to a 
 certain place, seems to me such terribly bad news, that I can't 
 help fancying that it is not the gospel at all ; and so get on the 
 liest way I can, listening to the good news about God which 
 this grand old world, arid my microscope, and my books, tell me. 
 > No, Grace, I have more good news than that, and I'll confess it 
 to you.' 
 
 He paused, and his voice softened. 
 
 ' Say what the preacher may, He must be a good God who 
 makes such creatures as you, and sends them into the world to 
 comfort poor wretches. Follow your own sweet heart, Grace, 
 and torment yourself no more with these dark dreams ! ' 
 
 ' My heart ? ' cried she, looking down ; ' it is deceitful and 
 desperately wicked.' 
 
 'I wish mine were too, then,' said Tom ; ' but it cannot be, as 
 long as it is so unlike yours. Now stop, Grace, I want to speak 
 to you.' 
 
 There was a gate in front of them, leading into the 
 road. 
 
 As they came to it, Tom lingered with his hand upon the top 
 bar, that Grace might stop. She did stop, half frightened. 
 Why did he call her Grace ? 
 
 ' I wish to speak to you on one matter, on which I believe I 
 ought to have spoken long ago.' 
 
 She looked up at him, surprise in her large eyes ; and turned 
 pale as x he went on. 
 
 ' I ought long ago to have begged your pardon for something 
 rude which I said to you at your own door. This day has made 
 me quite ashamed of 
 
 But she interrupted him, quite wildly, gasping for breath. 
 
 'The belt? The belt? Oh, my God! my God! Have you 
 heard anything more? anything more?' 
 
 ' Not a word ; but 
 
 To his astonishment, she heaved a deep sigh, as if relieved 
 from a sudden fear. His face clouded, and his eyebrows rose. 
 Was she guilty, then, after all ? ' 
 
 With the quick eyes of love, she saw the change ; and broke 
 out passionately 
 
 'Yes; suspect me! suspect me, if you will! only give me 
 time ! send me to prison, innocent as I am innocent as that 
 child there above would God I were dying like her ! Only 
 give me time ! O misery ! I had hoped you had forgotten 
 that it was lost in the sea that what am I saying ? Only give 
 Q T. Y. A.
 
 226 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 me time ! ' .and she dropped on her knees before him, wringing 
 her hands. 
 
 ' Miss Harvey ! This is not worthy of you. If you be inno- 
 cent, as I don't doubt, what more do you need or I ? ' 
 
 He took her hands, and lifted her up ; but she still kept look- 
 ing down, round, upwards, like a hunted deer, and pleading in 
 words which seemed sobbed out as by some poor soul on the 
 rack between choking spasms of agony. 
 
 ' Oh, I don't know God help me ! O Lord, help me ! I will 
 try and find it I know I shall find it ! only have patience ; have 
 patience with me a little, and I know I shall bring it you ; and 
 then and then you will forgive 1 forgive ? ' 
 
 And she laid her hands upon his arms, and looked up in his 
 face with a piteous smile of entreaty. 
 
 She had never looked so beautiful as at that moment. The 
 devil saw it ; and entered into the heart of Thomas Thurnall. 
 He caught her in his arms, kissed away her tears, stopped her 
 mouth with kisses. ' Yes ! I'll wait wait for ever, if you will ! 
 I'll lose another belt, for such another look as that ! ' 
 
 She was bewildered for a moment, poor fond wretch, at find- 
 ing herself where she would gladly have stayed for ever ; but 
 quickly she recovered her reason. 
 
 ' Let me go ! ' she cried, struggling. ' This is not right ! Let 
 me go, sir ! ' and she tried to cover her burning cheeks with her 
 1 lands. 
 
 ' I will not, Grace ! I love you ! I love you, I tell you ! ' 
 
 ' You do not, sir ! ' and she struggled still more fiercely. ' Do 
 not deceive yourself ! Me you cannot deceive ! Let me go, 
 I say ! You could not demean yourself to love a poor girl 
 like me ! ' 
 
 Utterly losing his head, Tom ran on with passionate 
 words. 
 
 ' No, sir ! you know that I am not fit to be your wife ; and 
 do you fancy that I 
 
 Maddened now, Tom went on, ere he was aware, from a 
 foolish deed to a base speech. 
 
 ' I know nothing, but that I shall keep you in pawn for my 
 belt. Till that is at least restored, you are in my power, Grace ! 
 Remember that ! ' 
 
 She thrust him away with so sudden and desperate a spasm, 
 that he was forced to let her go. She stood gazing at him, a 
 trembling deer no longer, but rather a lioness at bay, her face 
 flashing beautiful indignation. 
 
 ' In your power ! Yes, sir ! My character, my life, for aught 
 I. know ; but not my soul. Send me to Bodmm gaol if you 
 will ; but offer no more insults to a modest maiden ! Oh ! ' and 
 her expression changed to one of lofty sorrow and pity ' Oh ! 
 to find all men alike at heart ! After having fancied you 
 fancied you ' (what she had fancied him her woman's modesty
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 227 
 
 dare not repeat) 'to find you even such another as Mr. 
 Trebooze ! ' 
 
 Tom was checked. As for mere indignation, in such cases, ho 
 had seen enough of that to trust it no more than ' ice that is one 
 night old ; ' but pity for him was a weapon of defence to which 
 he was unaccustomed. And there was no contempt in her pity, 
 and no affectation either. Her voice was solemn, but tender, 
 gently upbraiding, like her countenance. Never had he felt 
 Grace's mysterious attraction so strong upon him ; and for the 
 first and last time, perhaps, for many a year, he answered with 
 downcast eyes of shame. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, Miss Harvey. I have been rude mad. 
 If you will look in your glass when you go home, and have a 
 woman's heart in you, you may at least see an excuse for me ; 
 but like Mr. Trebooze I am not. Forgive and forget, and let us 
 walk home rationally.' And he offered to take her hand. 
 
 'No : not now ! Not till I can trust you, sir ! ' said she. The 
 words were lofty enough ; but there was a profound melancholy 
 in their tone which humbled Tom still more. Was it possible 
 she seemed to have hinted it that she had thought him a very 
 grand personage till now, and that he had disgraced himself in 
 her eyes ? 
 
 If a man had suspected Tom of such a feeling, I fear lie would 
 have cared little, save how to restore the balance by making a 
 fool of the man who fancied him a fool ; but no male self- 
 sufficiency or pride is proof against the contempt of woman ; 
 and Tom slunk along by the schoolmistress' side, as if he had 
 been one of her naughtiest school-children. He tried, of course, 
 to brazen it out to his own conscience. He had done no harm, 
 after all ; indeed, never seriously meant any. She was making 
 a ridiculous fuss about nothing. It was all part and parcel of 
 her methodistical cant. He dared say that she was not as 
 prudish with the methodist parson. And at that base thought 
 he paused ; for a flush of rage, and a strong desire on such 
 hypothesis to slay the said methodist parson, or any one else 
 who dared even to look sweet on Grace, showed him plainly 
 enough what he had long been afraid of, that he was really in 
 love with her ; and that, as he put it, if she did not make a fool of 
 herself about him, he was but too likely to end in making a fool 
 of himself about her. However, he must speak, to support his 
 own character as a man of the world, it would never do to 
 knock under to a country girl in this way, she might go and 
 boast of it all over the town, besides, foiled or not, he would not 
 give in without trying her mettle somewhat further. 
 
 ' Miss Harvey, will you forgive me 1 ' 
 
 ' I have forgiven you.' 
 
 'Will you forget?' 
 
 ' If I can ! ' she said, with a marked expression, which signi- 
 fied (though, of course, she did not mean Tom to understand it).
 
 228 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' some of what is past is too precious, and some too painful, to 
 forget.' 
 
 ' I do not ask you to forget all which has passed ! ' 
 
 ' I am afraid that there is nothing which would be any credit 
 to you, sir, to have remembered.' 
 
 'Credit or none,' said Tom, unabashed, 'do not forget one 
 word that I said.' 
 
 She looked hastily and sidelong round, ' That I am in your 
 power 1 ' 
 
 ' No ! curse it ! I wish I had bitten out my tongue 
 before I had said that. No ! that I am in your power, Miss 
 Harvey.' 
 
 ' Sir ! I never heard you say that ; and if you had, the sooner 
 anything so untrue is forgotten the better.' 
 
 ' I said that I loved you, Grace ; and if that does not mean 
 that ' 
 
 ' Sir ! Mr. Thurnall ! I cannot, I will not hear ! You only 
 insult me, sir, by speaking thus, when you know that that you 
 consider me a thief ! ' and the poor girl burst into tears again. 
 
 ' I do not ! I do not ; ' cried Tom, growing really earnest at 
 the sight of her sorrow. ' Did I not begin this unhappy talk 
 by begging your pardon for ever having let such a thought cross 
 my mind 1 ' 
 
 ' But you do ! you do ! you told me as much at my own door ; 
 and I have seen it ever since, till I have almost gone mad 
 under it ! ' 
 
 ' I will swear to you by all that is sacred that I do not ! O 
 Grace, the first moment I saw you my heart told me that it was 
 impossible ; and now, this afternoon, as I listened to you with 
 that sick girl, I felt a wretch for ever having Grace, I tell 
 you, you made me feel, for the moment, a better man than I 
 ever felt in my life before. A poor return I have made for that, 
 truly ! ' 
 
 Grace looked up in his face gasping. 
 
 ' Oh, say that ! say that again. O good Lord, merciful Lord, 
 at last ! Oh, if you knew what it was to have even one weight 
 lifted off, among all my heavy burdens, and that weight the 
 hardest to bear. God forgive me that it should have been so ! 
 Oh, I can breathe freely now again, that I know I am not 
 suspected by you.' 
 
 'By you?' Tom could not but see what, after all, no 
 human being can conceal, that Grace cared for him. And the 
 devil came and tempted him once more ; but this time it was in 
 vain. Tom's better angel had returned ; Grace's tender guile- 
 lessness, which would with too many men only have marked her 
 out as the easier prey, Avas to him as a sacred shield before her 
 innocence. So noble, so enthusiastic, so pure ! He could not 
 play the villain with that woman. 
 
 But there was plainly a mystery. What were the burdens,
 
 XTV THE DOCTOR AT BAY 229 
 
 heavier even than unjust suspicion, of which she had spoken 1 
 There was no harm in asking. 
 
 ' But, Grace Miss Harvey You will not be angry with me 
 if I ask 1 Why speak so often, as if finding this money depended 
 on you alone ? \ ou wish me to recover it, I know ; and if you can 
 counsel me, why not do so ? Why not tell me whom you suspect?' 
 
 Her old wild terror returned in an instant. She stopped 
 short 
 
 'Suspect? I suspect? Oh, I have suspected too many 
 already ! Suspected till I began to hate my fellow-creatures 
 hate life itself, when I fancied that I saw " thief " written on 
 every forehead. Oh, do not ask me to suspect any more ! ' 
 
 Tom was silent. 
 
 ' Oh,' she cried, after a moment's pause. ' Oh, that we were 
 back in those old times I have read of, when they used to put 
 people to the torture to make them confess ! ' 
 
 'Why, in Heaven's name ?' 
 
 'Because then I should have been tortured, and have con- 
 fessed it, true or false, in the agony, and have been hanged. 
 They used to hang them then, and put them out of their misery ; 
 and I should have been put out of mine, and no one have been 
 blamed but me for evermore.' 
 
 ' You forget,' said Tom, lost in wonder, ' that then I should 
 have blamed you, as well as every one else.' 
 
 ' True ; yes, it was a foolish faithless word. I did not take it, 
 and it would have been no good to my soul to say I did. Lies 
 cannot prosper, cannot prosper, Mr. Thurnall ! ' and she stopped 
 short again. 
 
 ' What, my dear Grace ? ' said he, kindly enough ; for lie 
 began to fear that she was losing her wits. 
 
 ' I saved your life ! ' 
 
 ' You did, Grace.' 
 
 ' Then, I never thought to ask for payment ; but, oh, I must 
 now. Will you promise me one thing in return ? ' 
 
 ' What you will, as I am a man and a gentleman ; I can trust 
 you to ask nothing which is not worthy of you.' 
 
 Tom spoke truth. He felt, perhaps love made him feel it 
 all the more easily, that whatever was behind, he was safe in 
 that woman's hands. 
 
 'Then promise me that you will wait one month, only one 
 month : ask no questions ; mention nothing to any living soul. 
 And if, before that time, I do not bring you that belt back, send 
 me to Bodmin gaol, and let me bear my punishment.' 
 
 'I promise,' said Tom. And the two walked on again in 
 silence, till they neared the head of the village. 
 
 Then Grace went forward, like Nausicaa when she left 
 Ulysses, lest the townsfolk should talk ; and Tom sat down 
 upon a bank and watched her figure vanishing in the dusk. 
 
 Much he puzzled, hunting up and down in his cunning head
 
 230 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 for an explanation of the mystery. At last he found one which 
 seemed to fit the facts so well, that he rose with a whistle of 
 satisfaction, and walked homewards. 
 
 Evidently, her mother had stolen the belt ; and Grace was, if 
 not a repentant accomplice for that he could not believe at 
 least aware of the fact. 
 
 ' Well, it is a hard knot for her to untie, poor child ; and on 
 the strength of having saved my life, she shall untie it her own 
 way. I can wait. I hope the money won't be spent meanwhile, 
 though, and the empty leather returned to me when wanted no 
 longer. However, that's done already, if done at all. I was a 
 fool for not acting at once ; a double fool for suspecting her ! 
 Ass that I was, to take up with a false scent, and throw myself 
 off the true one ! My everlasting unbelief in people has 
 punished itself this time. I might have got a search-warrant 
 three months ago, and had that old witch safe in the bilboes. 
 But no I might not have found it, after all, and there would 
 have been only an esclandre ; and if I know that girl's heart, 
 she would have been ten times more miserable for her mother 
 than for herself, so it's as well as it is. Besides, it's really good 
 fun to watch how such a pretty plot will work itself out ; as 
 
 food as a pack of harriers with a cold scent and a squatted hare, 
 o, live and let live. Only, Thomas Thurnall, if you go for to 
 come for to go for to make such an abominable ass of yourself 
 with that young lady any more, like a miserable school-boy, you 
 will be pleased to make tracks, and vanish out of these parts for 
 ever. For my purse can't afford to have you marrying a school- 
 mistress in your impoverished old age ; and my character, which 
 also is my purse, can't afford worse.' 
 
 One word of Grace's had fixed itself in Tom's memory. What 
 did she mean by ' her two ' ? 
 
 He contrived to ask Willis that very evening. 
 
 ' Oh, don't you know, sir ? She had a young brother drowned, 
 a long while ago, when she was sixteen or so. He went out 
 fishing on the Sabbath, with another like him, and both were 
 swamped. Wild young lads, both, as lads will be. But she, 
 sweet maid, took it so to heart, that she never held up her head 
 since ; nor will, I think, at times, to her dying day.' 
 
 ' Humph ! Was she fond of the other lad, then 1 ' 
 
 'Sir,' said Willis, 'I don't think it's fair like not decent, if 
 you'll excuse an old sailor to talk about young maids' affairs, 
 that they wouldn't talk of themselves, perhaps not even to 
 themselves. So I never asked any questions myself.' 
 
 'And think it rude in me to ask any. Well, I believe you're 
 right, good old gentleman that you are. What a nobleman 
 you'd have made, if you had had the luck to have been born in 
 that station of life ! ' 
 
 'I have found too much trouble, in doing my duty in my 
 humble place, to wisli to be in any higher one.'
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 231 
 
 'So!' thought Tom to himself, 'a girl's fancy: but it ex- 
 plains so much in the character, especially when the tempera- 
 ment is melancholic. However, to quote Solomon once more, 
 "A live dog is better than a dead lion ;" and I have not much 
 to fear from a rival who has been washed out of this world ten 
 years since. Heyday ! Eival ! quotha ? Tom Thurnall, you are 
 going to make a fool of yourself. You must go, sir ! I warn 
 you ; you must flee, till you have recovered your senses.' 
 
 There appeared next morning in Tom's shop a new phenome- 
 non. A smart youth, dressed in what he considered to be the 
 newest London fashion ; but which was really that translation 
 of last year's fashion which happened to be current in the 
 windows of the Bodmin tailors. Tom knew him by sight and 
 name one Mr. Creed, a squireen like Trebooze, and an especial 
 friend of Trebooze's, under whose tutelage he had learned to 
 smoke cavendish assiduously from the age of fifteen, thereby 
 improving neither his stature nor his digestion, his nerves, nor 
 the intelligence of his countenance. 
 
 He entered with a lofty air, and paused awhile as he spoke. 
 
 'Is it possible,' said Tom to himself, 'that Trebooze has sent 
 me a challenge ? It would be too good fun. I'll wait and see.' 
 So he went on rolling pills. 
 
 'I say, sir,' quoth the youth, who had determined, as an 
 owner of land, to treat the doctor duly de. haut en 6as, and had 
 a vague notion that a liberal use of the word ' sir ' would both 
 help thereto, and be consonant with professional style of duel 
 diplomacy, whereof he had read in novels. 
 
 Tom turned slowly, and then took a long look at him over 
 the counter through half-shut eyelids, with chin upraised, as if 
 he had been suddenly afflicted with short sight ; and worked 
 on meanwhile steadily at his pills. 
 
 ' That is, I wish to speak to you, sir ahem ! ' went on Mr. 
 Creed ; being gradually but surely discomfited by Tom's steady 
 gaze. 
 
 1 Don't trouble yourself, sir : I see your case in your face. 
 A slight nervous affection will pass as the digestion improves. 
 I will make you up a set of pills for the night ; but I should 
 advise a little ammonia and valerian at once. May I mix it?' 
 
 ' Sir ! you mistake me, sir ! ' 
 
 ' Not in the least ; you have brought me a challenge from 
 Mr. Trebooze.' 
 
 ' I have, sir ! ' said the youth with a grand air, at onco 
 relieved by having the awful words said for him, and exalted 
 by the dignity of his first, and perhaps last, employment in 
 that line. 
 
 ' Well, sir,' said Tom deliberately, ' Mr. Trebooze does me a 
 kindness for which I cannot sufficiently thank him, and you 
 also, as his second. It is full six months since I fought, and I 
 was getting hardly to know myself again.'
 
 232 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' You will have to fight now, sir ! ' said the youth, trying to 
 brazen off by his discourtesy increasing suspicion that he had 
 ' caught a Tartar.' 
 
 ' Of course, of course. And of course, too, I fight you after- 
 wards.' 
 
 ' I I, sir ? I am Mr. Trebpoze's friend, his second, sir. You 
 do not seem to understand, sir ! ' 
 
 ' Pardon me, young gentleman,' said Tom, in a very quiet, 
 determined voice : ' it is I who have a right to tell you that you 
 do not understand in such matters as these. I had fought my 
 man, and more than one of them, while you were eating black- 
 berries in a short jacket.' 
 
 ' ; What do you mean, sir 1 ' quoth the youth in fury ; and 
 began swearing a little. 
 
 ' Simple fact. Are you not about twenty -three years old ? ' 
 
 ' What is that to you, sir ? ' 
 
 ' No business of mine, of course. You may be growing into 
 your second childhood for aught I care : but if, as I guess, you 
 are about twenty-three, I, as I know, am thirty -six: then I 
 fought my first duel when you were five years old, and my tenth, 
 I should say, when you were fifteen ; at which time, I suppose, 
 you were not ashamed either of the jacket or the blackberries.' 
 
 'You will find me a man now, sir, at all events,' said Creed, 
 justly wroth at what was, after all, a sophism ; for if a man is 
 not a man at twenty, he never will be one. 
 
 Tant mieux. You know, I suppose, that as the challenged, 
 I have the choice of weapons 1 ' 
 
 'Of course, sir,' said Creed, in an off-hand generous tone, 
 because he did not very clearly know. 
 
 ' Then, sir, I always fight across a handkerchief. You will 
 tell Mr. Trebooze so ; he is, I really believe, a brave man, and 
 will accept the terms. You will tell yourself the same, whether 
 you be a brave man or not.' 
 
 The youth lost the last words in those which went before 
 them. He was no coward : would have stood up to be shot at, 
 at fifteen paces, like any one else ; but the deliberate butchery 
 of fighting across a handkerchief 
 
 ' Do I understand you, sir ? ' 
 
 ' That depends on whether you are clever enough, or not, to 
 comprehend your native tongue. Across a handkerchief, I say, 
 do you hear that 1 ' And Tom rolled on at his pills. 
 
 'I do.' 
 
 'And when I have fought him, I fight you ! ' And the pills 
 rolled steadily at the same pace. 
 
 ' But sir ? Why sir ? ' 
 
 'Because,' said Tom, looking him full in the face, 'because 
 you, calling yourself a gentleman, and being, more shame for 
 you, one by birth, dare to come here, for a foolish vulgar super- 
 stition called honour, to ask me, a quiet medical man, to go and
 
 xiv THE DOCTOR AT BAY 233 
 
 be shot at by a man whom you know to be a drunken, profligate, 
 blackguard ; simply because, as you know as well as I, I inter- 
 fered to prevent his insulting a poor helpless girl ; and in so 
 doing, was forced to give him what you, if you are (as I believe) 
 a gentleman, would have given him also, in my place.' 
 
 ' I don't understand you, sir ! ' said the lad, blushing all the 
 while, as one honestly conscience-stricken ; for Tom had spoken 
 the exact truth, and he knew it. 
 
 ' Don't lie, sir, and tell me that you don't understand ; you 
 understand every word which I have spoken, and you know 
 that it is true.' 
 
 'Lie?' 
 
 ' Yes, lie. Look you, sir, I have no wish to fight 
 
 ' You will fight, though, whether you wish it or not,' said the 
 youth with a hysterical laugh, meant to be defiant. 
 
 4 But I can snuff a candle ; I can split a bullet on a pen- 
 knife at fifteen paces.' 
 
 'Do you mean to frighten us by boasting? We shall see 
 what you can do when you come on the ground.' 
 
 ' Across a handkerchief ; but on no other condition ; and, 
 unless you will accept that condition, I will assuredly, the next 
 time I see you, be we where we may, treat you as I treated your 
 friend Mr. Trebooze. I'll do it now ! Get out of my shop, 
 sir ! What do you want here, interfering with my honest 
 business 1 ' 
 
 And, to the astonishment of Mr. Trebooze's second, Tom 
 vaulted clean over the counter, and rushed at him open- 
 mouthed. 
 
 Sacred be the honour of the gallant West country ; but, 
 1 both being friends,' as Aristotle has it, ' it is a sacred duty to 
 speak the truth.' Mr. Creed vanished through the open door. 
 
 ' I rid myself of the fellow jollily,' said Tom to Frank that 
 day, after telling him the whole story. ' And no credit to me. 
 I saw from the minute he came in there was no tight in 
 him.' 
 
 ' But suppose he had accepted or suppose Trebooze accepts 
 still ?' 
 
 ' There was my game to frighten him. He'll take care Tre- 
 l>ooze shan't fight, for he knows that he must fight next. He'll 
 go home and patch the matter up, trust him. Meanwhile, the 
 oaf had not even savoir faire enough to ask for my second. 
 Lucky for me ; for I don't know where to have found one, save 
 the lieutenant ; and though he would have gone out safe 
 enough, it would have been a bore for the good old fellow.' 
 
 ' And,' said Frank, utterly taken aback by Tom's business- 
 like levity, 'you would actually have stood to shoot, and be 
 shot at, .across a handkerchief ? ' 
 
 Tom stuck out his great chin, and looked at him with one of 
 his quaint sidelong moues.
 
 234 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' You are my very good friend, sir ; but not my father- 
 confessor.' 
 
 'I know that ; but really as a mere question of human 
 curiosity 
 
 ' Oh, if you ask me on the human ground, and not on the 
 sacerdotal, I'll tell you. I've tried it twice, and I should be 
 sorry to try it again ; though it's a very easy dodge. Keep 
 your right elbow up up to your ear and the moment you hear 
 the word, fire. A high elbow and a cool heart that's all ; and 
 that wins.' 
 
 'Wins? Good heavens? As you are here alive you must 
 have killed your man ? ' 
 
 'No. I only shot my men each through the body ; and each 
 of them deserved it ; but it is an ugly chance ; I should have 
 been sorry to try it on that yokel. The boy may make a man 
 yet. And what's more,' said Tom, bursting into a great laugh, 
 ' he will make a man, and go down to his fathers in peace, quant 
 a moi ; and so will that wretched Trebooze. For I'll bet you 
 my head to a China orange, I hear no more of this matter ; and 
 don't even lose Tre booze's custom.' 
 
 ' Upon my word, I envy your sanguine temperament ! ' 
 
 ' Mr. Headley, I shall quietly make my call at Trebooze to- 
 morrow, as if nothing had happened. What will you bet me 
 that I am not received as usual ? ' 
 
 ' I never bet,' said Frank. 
 
 'Then you do well. It is a foolish and a dirty trick ; playing 
 with edge tools, and cutting one's own fingers. Nevertheless, I 
 speak truth, as you will see.' 
 
 'You are a most extraordinary man. All this is so contrary 
 to your usual caution.' 
 
 ' When you are driven against the ropes, " hit out " is the old 
 rule of Fistiana and common sense. It is an extreme bore ; all 
 the more reason for showing such an ugly front as to give 
 people no chance of its happening again. Nothing so dangerous 
 as half-measures, Headley. "Resist the devil and he will flee 
 from you," your creed says. Mine only translates it into practice.' 
 
 ' I have no liking for half-measures myself.' 
 
 'Did you ever,' said Tom, 'hear the story of the two Sand- 
 hurst broomsquires ? ' 
 
 ' Broomsquires ? ' 
 
 SSo we call, in Berkshire, squatters on the moor who live by 
 tying heath into brooms. Two of them met in Reading market 
 once, and fell out : 
 
 ' " How ever do you manage to sell your brooms for three- 
 halfpence? I steals the heth, and 1 steals the binds, and I 
 steals the handles, and yet I can't afoord to sell them under 
 twopence." 
 
 '"All, but you see," says the other, "I steals mine ready 
 made."
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 235 
 
 ' Moral If you're going to do a thing, do it outright.' 
 
 That very evening, Torn came in again. 
 
 ' Well I ve been to Trebooze.' 
 
 ' And fared how 1 ' 
 
 ' Just as I warned you. Inquired into his symptoms ; pre- 
 scribed for his digestion if he goes on as lie is doing, he will 
 soon have none left to prescribe for ; and finally, plastered, 
 with a sublime generosity, the nose which my own knuckles had 
 contused.' 
 
 ' Impossible ! you are the most miraculously impudent of 
 men !' 
 
 ' Pish ! simple common sense. I knew that Mrs. Trebooze 
 would suspect that the world had heard of his mishap, and took 
 care to let her know that I knew, by coming up to inquire for 
 him.' 
 
 'C^libono?' 
 
 'Power. To have them, or any one, a little more in my 
 power. Next, I knew that he dared not fly out at me, for fear 
 I should tell Mrs. Trebooze what he had been after you see 1 
 Ah, it was delicious to have the great oaf sitting sulking under 
 my fingers, longing to knock my nead off, and I plastering away, 
 with words of deepest astonishment and condolence. I verily 
 believe that, before we parted, I had persuaded him that his 
 black eye proceeded entirely from his having run up against a 
 tree in the dark.' 
 
 'Well,' said Frank, half sadly, though enjoying the joke in 
 spite of himself, ' I cannot help thinking it would have been a 
 fit moment for giving the poor wretch a more solemn lesson.' 
 
 ' My dear sir a good licking and he had one, and some- 
 thing over is the best lesson for that manner of biped. That's 
 the way to school him ; but as we are on lessons, I'll give you a 
 hint.' 
 
 ' Go on, model of self-sufficiency ! ' said Frank. 
 
 'Scoff at me if you will, I am proof. But hearken you 
 mustn't turn out that schoolmistress. She's an angel, and I 
 know it ; and if I say so of any human being, you may be sure 
 I have pretty good reasons.' 
 
 ' I am beginning to be of your mind myself,' said Frank. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 
 
 THE middle of August is come at last ; and with it the solemn 
 day on which Frederick Viscount Scoutbush may be expected to 
 revisit the home of his ancestors. Elsley has gradually made up 
 his mind to the inevitable, witli a stately s-ulkiness : and com- 
 forts himself, as the time draws near, with the thought that,
 
 236 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 after all, his brother-in-law is not a very formidable person- 
 age. 
 
 But to the population of Aberalva in general, the coming 
 event is one of awful jubilation. The shipping is all decked 
 with flags ; all the Sunday clothes have been looked out, and 
 many a yard of new ribbon and pound of bad powder bought ; 
 there have been arrangements for a procession, which could not 
 be got up ; for a speech which nobody would undertake to pro- 
 nounce ; and, lastly, for a dinner, about which last there was no 
 hanging back. Yea, also, they have hired from Carcarrow 
 Churchtown, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of 
 music ; for Frank has put down the old choir band at Aberalva 
 another of his mistakes and there is but one fiddle and a 
 clarionet now left in the town. So the said town waits all the 
 day on tiptoe, ready to worship, till out of the soft brown haze 
 the stately Watenvitch comes sliding in, like a white ghost, to 
 fold her wings in Aberalva bay. 
 
 And at that sight the town is all astir. Fishermen shake 
 themselves up out of their mid-day snooze, to admire the beauty, 
 as she slips on and on through water smooth as glass, her hull 
 hidden by the vast curve of the balloon-jib, and her broad wings 
 boomed out alow and aloft, till it seems marvellous how that 
 vast screen does not topple headlong, instead of floating (as it 
 seems) self-supporting above its image in the mirror. Women 
 hurry to put on their best bonnets ; the sexton toddles up with 
 the church key in his hand, and the ringers at his heels ; the 
 coast-guard lieutenant bustles down to the Manby's mortar, 
 which he lias hauled out in readiness on the pebbles. Old Willis 
 hoists a flag before his house, and half a dozen merchant skip- 
 pers do the same. Bang goes the harmless mortar, burning the 
 British nation's powder without leave or licence ; and all the 
 rocks and woods catch up the echo, and kick it from cliff to cliff, 
 playing at football with it till its breatli is beaten out ; a rolling 
 fire of old muskets and bird-pieces crackles along the shore, and 
 in five minutes a poor lad has blown a ramrod through his hand. 
 Never mind, lords do not visit Penalva every day. Out burst 
 the bells above witli merry peal ; Lord Scoutbush and the Water- 
 witch are duly ' rung in ' to the home of his lordship's ancestors ; 
 and he is received, as he scrambles up the pier steps from his 
 boat, by the curate, the churchwardens, the lieutenant, and old 
 Tarclrew, backed by half a dozen ancient sons of Anak, lineal 
 descendants of the free fishermen to whom, six hundred years 
 before, St. Just of Penalva did grant privileges hard to spell, 
 and harder to understand, on the condition of receiving, when- 
 soever he should land at the quay head, three brass farthings 
 from the 'free fishermen of Aberalva.' 
 
 Scoutbush shakes hands with curate, lieutenant, Tardrew, 
 churchwardens ; and then come forward the three farthings, in 
 an ancient leather purse.
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 237 
 
 1 Hope your lordship will do us the honour to shake hands 
 with us too ; we are your lordship's free fishermen, as we have 
 been your forefathers',' says a magnificent old man, gracefully 
 acknowledging the feudal tie, while he claims the exemption. 
 
 Little Scoutbush, who is the kindest-hearted of men, clasps 
 the great brown fist in his little white one, and shakes hands 
 heartily with every one of them, saying, ' If your forefathers 
 were as much taller than mine, as you are than me, gentlemen, 
 I shouldn't wonder if they took their own freedom, without 
 asking his leave for it ! ' 
 
 A lord who begins his progress with a jest ! That is the 
 sort of aristocrat to rule in Aberalva ! And all agree that even- 
 ing, at the Mariners' Rest, that his lordship is as nice a young 
 gentleman as ever trod deal board, and deserves such a yacht as 
 he's got, and long may he sail her ! 
 
 How easy it is to buy the love of men ! Gold will not do it : 
 but there is a little angel, may be, in the corner of every man's 
 eye, who is worth more than gold, and can do it free of all 
 charges : unless a man drives him out, and ' hates his brother ; 
 and so walks in darkness ; not knowing whither he goeth,' but 
 running full butt against men's prejudices, and treading on their 
 corns, till they knock him down in despair and all just because 
 he will not open his eyes, and use the light which comes by 
 common human good-nature ! 
 
 Presently Tom hurries up, having been originally one of the 
 deputation, but kept by the necessity of binding up the three 
 fingers which the ramrod had spared to poor Jem Burman's 
 hand. He bows, and the lieutenant who (Frank being a little 
 shy) acts as her Majesty's representative introduces him as 
 'deputy medical man to our district of the union, sir Mr. 
 Thurnall.' 
 
 ' Dr. Heale was to have been here, by the by. Where is Dr. 
 Heale ? ' says some one. 
 
 ' Very sorry, my lord ; I can answer for him professional 
 calls, I don't doubt nobody more devoted to your lordship.' 
 
 One need not inquire where Dr. Heale was : but if elderly 
 men will drink much braudy-and-water in hot summer days, 
 after a heavy early dinner, then will those men be too late for 
 deputations and for more important employments. 
 
 ' Never mind the doctor, daresay he's asleep after dinner : 
 do him good !' says the Viscount, hitting the mark with a ran- 
 dom shot ; and thereby raising his repute for sagacity immensely 
 with his audience, who laughed outright. 
 
 'Ah ! Is it so, then ? But Mr. Thurnall, I think, you said ? 
 I am glad to make your acquaintance, sir. I have heard 
 your name often : you are my friend Mellot's old friend, are 
 you not ? ' 
 
 'I am a very old friend of Claude Mellot's.' 
 
 'Well, and there he is on board, and will be delighted to do
 
 238 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 the honours of my yacht to you whenever you like to visit her. 
 You and I must know each other better, sir.' 
 
 Tom bows low his lordship does him too much honour : the 
 cunning fellow knows that his fortune is made in Aberalva, if 
 he chooses to work it out : but he humbly slips into the rear, for 
 Frank has to be supported, not being over popular ; and the 
 lieutenant may ' turn crusty,' unless he has his lordship to 
 himself before the gaze of assembled Aberalva. 
 
 Scoutbush progresses up the street, bowing right and left, 
 and stopped half a dozen times by red-cloaked old women, who 
 curtsey under his nose, and will needs inform him how they 
 knew his grandfather, or nursed his uncle, or how his 'dear 
 mother, God rest her soul, gave me this very cloak as I have 
 on,' and so forth ; still Scoutbush comes to the conclusion that 
 they are a very loving and lovable set of people as indeed 
 they are and his heart smites him somewhat for not having 
 seen more of them in past years. 
 
 No sooner is Thurnall released than he is off' to the yacht as 
 fast as oars can take him, and in Claude's arms. 
 
 ' Now ! ' (after all salutations and inquiries have been gone 
 through) 'let me introduce you to Major Campbell.' And Tom 
 was presented to a tall and thin personage, who sat at the cabin 
 table, bending over a microscope. 
 
 ' Excuse my rising,' said he, holding out a left hand, for the 
 right was busy. 'A single jar will give me ten minutes' work 
 to do again. I am delighted to meet you : Mellot has often 
 spoken to me of you as a man who has seen more, and faced 
 death more carelessly, than most men.' 
 
 ' Mellot flatters, sir. Whatsoever I have done, I have given 
 up being careless about death ; for I have some one beside 
 myself to live for.' 
 
 ' Married at last ? has Diogenes found his Aspasia ? ' cried 
 Claude. 
 
 Tom did not laugh. 
 
 ' Since my brothers died, Claude, the old gentleman has only 
 me to look to. You seem to be a naturalist, sir.' 
 
 'A dabbler,' said the major, with eye and hand still busy. 
 
 'I ought not to begin our acquaintance by doubting your 
 word : but these things are no dabbler's work ; ' and Tom 
 pointed to some exquisite photographs of minute corallines, 
 evidently taken under the microscope. 
 
 ' They are Mellot's.' 
 
 ' Mellot turned man of science ? Impossible ! ' 
 
 ' No ; only photographer. I am tired of painting nature 
 clumsily, and then seeing a sun-picture outdo all my efforts so 
 I am turned photographer, and have made a vow against paint- 
 ing for three years and a day.' 
 
 'Why, the photographs only give you light and shade.' 
 
 ' They will give you coloui 1 , too, before seven years are over
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATEEWITCH ' 239 
 
 .and tliat is more than I can do, or any one else. No I yield to 
 the new dynasty. The artist's occupation is gone henceforth, 
 and the painter s studio, like " all charms, must fly, at the mere 
 touch of cold philosophy." So Major Campbell prepares the 
 charming little cockyoly birds, and I call in the sun to immor- 
 talise them.' 
 
 ' And perfectly you are succeeding ! They are quite new to 
 me, recollect. When I left Melbourne, the art had hardly risen 
 there above guinea portraits of bearded desperadoes, a nugget 
 in one hand and a 50 note in the other : but this is a new, and 
 what a forward step for science ! ' 
 
 ' You are a naturalist, then ? ' said Campbell, looking up with 
 interest. 
 
 ' All my profession are, more or less,' said Tom carelessly ; 
 ' and I have been lucky enough here to fall on untrodden 
 ground, and have hunted up a few sea-monsters this summer.' 
 
 ' Really ? You can tell me where to search then, and where 
 to dredge, I hope. I have set my heart on a fortnight's work 
 here, and have been dreaming at night, like a child before a 
 twelfth-night party, of all sorts of impossible hydras, gorgons 
 and chimseras dire, fished up from your western deeps.' 
 
 'I have none of them ; but I can give you Turbinolia Mille- 
 tiana and Zoanthus Couchii. I have a party of the last gentle- 
 men alive on shore.' 
 
 The major's face worked with almost childish delight. 
 'But I shall be robbing you.' 
 
 ' They cost me nothing, my dear sir. I did very well, more- 
 over, without them, for nve-and-thirty years ; and I may do 
 equally well for five-and-thirty more.' 
 
 ' I ought to be able to say the same, surely,' answered the 
 major, composing his face again, and rising carefully. ' I have 
 to thank you, exceedingly, my dear sir, for your prompt gener- 
 osity : but it is better discipline for a man, in many ways, to 
 find things for himself than to have them put into his hands. 
 So, with a thousand thanks, you shall let me see if I can dredge 
 a Turbinolia for myself.' 
 
 This was spoken with so sweet and polished a modulation, 
 and yet so sadly and severely withal, that Tom looked at the 
 speaker with interest. 
 
 He was a very tall and powerful man, and would have been 
 a very handsome man, both in face and figure, but for the high 
 cheekbone, long neck, and narrow shoulders, so often seen north 
 of Tweed. His brow was very high and full ; his eyes grave, 
 but very gentle, with large drooping eyelids were buried under 
 shaggy gray eyebrows. His mouth was gentle as his eyes ; but 
 compressed, perhaps by the habit of command, perhaps by 
 secret sorrow ; for of that, too, as well as of intellect and mag- 
 nanimity, Thurnall thought he could discern the traces. His 
 face was bronzed by long exposure to the sun ; his close-cut
 
 240 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 curls, which had once been auburn, were fast turning white, 
 though his features looked those of a man under five-and-forty; 
 his cheeks were as smooth shaven as his chin. A right, self- 
 possessed, valiant soldier he looked ; one who could be very 
 loving to little innocents, and very terrible to full-grown 
 knaves. 
 
 ' You are practising at self-denial, as usual,' said Claude. 
 
 ' Because I may, at any moment, have to exercise it in ear- 
 nest. Mr. Thurnall, can you tell me the name of this little glass 
 arrow, which I just found shooting about in the sweeping net?' 
 
 Tom did know the wonderful little link between the fish 
 and the insect ; and the two chatted over its strange form till 
 the boat returned to take them ashore. 
 
 ' Do you make any stay here 1 ' 
 
 1 1 propose to spend a fortnight here in my favourite pursuit. 
 I must draw on your kindness and knowledge of the place to 
 point me out lodgings.' 
 
 Lodgings, as it befell, were to be found, and good ones, close 
 to the beach, and away from the noise of the harbour, on Mrs. 
 Harvey's first floor ; for the local preacher, who generally 
 occupied them, was away. 
 
 ' But Major Campbell might dislike the noise of the school 1 ' 
 
 ' The school ? What better music for a lonely old bachelor 
 than children's voices 1 ' 
 
 So, by sunset the major was fairly established over Mrs. 
 Harvey's shop. It was not the place which Tom would have 
 chosen; he was afraid of 'running over' poor Grace, if he 
 came in and out as often as he could have wished. Nevertheless, 
 he accepted the major's invitation to visit him that very 
 evening. 
 
 ' I cannot ask you to dinner yet, sir ; for my mnias/e will be 
 hardly settled : but a cup of coffee, and an exceedingly good 
 cigar, I think my establishment may furnish you by seven 
 o'clock to-night ; if you think them worth walking down for.' 
 
 Tom, of course, said something civil, and made his appearance 
 in due time. He found the coffee ready, and the cigars also : 
 but the major was busy, in his shirt sleeves, unpacking and 
 arranging jars, nets, microscopes, and what not of scientific 
 lumber ; and Tom proffered his help. 
 
 ' I am ashamed to make use of you the first moment that you 
 become my guest.' 
 
 ' I shall enjoy the mere handling of your tackle,' said Tom ; 
 and began breaking the tenth commandment over almost every 
 article he touched ; for everything was tirstrate of its 
 kind. 
 
 ' You seem to have devoted money, as well as thought, plen- 
 tifully to the pursuit.' 
 
 'I have little else to which to devote either; and more of 
 both than is, perhaps, safe for me.'
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 241 
 
 'I should hardly complain of a superfluity of thought, if 
 superfluity of money was the condition of it.' 
 
 'Pray understand me. I am no Dives ; but I have learned 
 to want so little, that I hardly know how to spend the little 
 which I have.' 
 
 ' I should hardly have called that an unsafe state.' 
 
 4 The penniless Faquir who lives on chance handf uls of rice 
 has his dangers, as well as the rich Parsee who has his ventures 
 out from Madagascar to Canton. Yes, I have often envied the 
 schemer, the man of business, almost the man of pleasure ; their 
 many wants at least absorb them in outward objects, instead of 
 leaving them too easily satisfied, to sink in upon themselves, 
 and waste away in useless dreams.' 
 
 ' You found out the best cure for that malady when you took 
 up the microscope and the collecting-box.' 
 
 ' So I fancied once. I took up natural history in India years 
 ago to drive away thought, as other men might take to opium, 
 or to brandy-pawnee, but, like them, it has become a passion 
 now and a tyranny : and I go on hunting, discovering, wondering, 
 craving for more knowledge; and cui bono? I sometimes 
 ask 
 
 ' Why, this at least, sir ; that, without such men as you, who 
 work for mere love, science would be now fifty years behind 
 her present standing-point ; and we doctors should not know a 
 thousand important facts which you have been kind enough to 
 tell us, while we have not time to find them out for ourselves.' 
 
 ' Sic vos non volns 
 
 'Yes, you have the work, and we have the pay, which is a 
 very fair division of labour, considering the world we live in.' 
 
 ' And have you been skilful enough to make science pay you 
 here, in such an out-of-the-way little world as that of Aberalva 
 must be ? ' 
 
 'She is a good stalking-horse anywhere ;' and Tom detailed, 
 with plenty of humour, the effect of his microscope and his lec- 
 ture on the drops of water. But his Avit seemed so much lost 
 on Campbell, that he at last stopped almost short, not quite 
 sure that he had not taken a liberty. 
 
 ' No ; go on, I beg you ; and do not fancy that I am not 
 interested and amused too, because my laughing muscles are a 
 little stiff' from want of use. Perhaps, too, I am apt to take 
 things too much an grand scrieux : but I could not help think- 
 ing, while you were speaking, how sad it was that people were 
 utterly ignorant of matters so vitally necessary to health.' 
 
 ' And I, perhaps, ought not to jest over the subject : but, 
 indeed, with cholera staring us in the face here, I must indulge 
 in some emotion: and as it is unprofessional to weep, I must 
 laugh as long as I dare.' 
 
 The major dropped his coffee-cup upon tlie floor, and looked 
 
 at Thurnall with so horrified a gaze, that Tom could hardly 
 
 R
 
 242 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 believe him to be the same man. Then recollecting himself, he 
 darted down upon the remains of his cup ; and looking up again 
 ' A thousand pardons ; but did I hear you aright ? cholera 
 staring us in the face ? ' 
 
 ' How can it be otherwise ? It is drawing steadily on from 
 the eastward week by week ; and, in the present state of the 
 town, nothing but some miraculous caprice of Dame Fortune's 
 can deliver us.' 
 
 ' Don't talk of fortune, sir ! at such a moment. Talk of 
 God ! ' said the major, rising from his chair, and pacing the 
 room. ' It is too horrible ! Intolerable ! When do you expect 
 it here?' 
 
 'Within the month, perhaps, hardly before. I should have 
 warned you of the danger, I assure you, had I not understood 
 from you that you were only going to stay a fortnight.' 
 
 The major made an impatient gesture. 
 
 'Do you fancy that I am afraid for myself? No; but the 
 thought of its coming to to the poor people in the town, you 
 know. It is too dreadful. I have seen it in India among my 
 own men among the natives. Good heavens, I never shall for- 
 get and to meet the fiend again here, of all places in the 
 world ! I fancied it so clean and healthy, swept by fresh sea- 
 breezes.' 
 
 'And by nothing else. A half -hour's walk round would con- 
 vince you, sir ; I only wish that you could persuade his lordship 
 to accompany you.' 
 
 ' Scoutbush ! Of course he will, he shall, he must. Good 
 heavens ! whose concern is it more than his ? You think, then, 
 that there is a chance of staving it off by cleansing, I mean 1 ' 
 
 ' If we have heavy rains during the next week or two, yes. 
 If this drought last, better leave ill alone ; we shall only pro- 
 voke the devil by stirring him up.' 
 
 ' You speak confidently,' said the major, gradually regaining 
 his own self-possession, as he saw Tom so self-possessed. ' Have 
 you allow me to ask so important a question have you seen 
 much of cholera ? ' 
 
 'I have worked through three. At Paris, at St. Petersburg, 
 and in the West Indies ; and I have been thinking up my old 
 experience for the last six weeks, foreseeing what would come.' 
 
 'I am satisfied, sir ; perhaps I ought to ask your pardon for 
 the question.' 
 
 'Not at all. How can you trust a man, unless you know 
 him ? ' 
 
 'And you expect it within the month ? You shall go witli 
 me to Lord Scoutbush to-morrow, and and now we will talk of 
 something more pleasant.' And he began again upon the 
 /oophites. 
 
 Tom, as they chatted on, could not help wondering at the 
 major's unexpected passion ; and could not help remarking,
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 243 
 
 also, that in spite of his desire to be agreeable, and to interest 
 his guest in his scientific discoveries, he was yet distraught, and 
 full of other thoughts. What could be the meaning of it ? Was 
 it mere excess of human sympathy ? The countenance hardly 
 betokened that ; but still, who can trust altogether the expres- 
 sion of a weather-hardened visage of forty-five ? So the doctor 
 set it down to tenderness of heart, till a fresh vista opened 
 on him. 
 
 Major Campbell, he soon found, was as fond of insects as of 
 sea-monsters ; and he began inquiring about the woods, ^ the 
 heaths, the climate, which seemed to the doctor, for a long time, 
 to mean nothing more than the question which he put plainly, 
 ' Where have I a chance of rare insects ? ' But he seemed, after 
 a while, to be trying to learn the geography of the parish in 
 detail, and especially of the ground round Vavasour's house. 
 ' However, it's no business of mine,' thought Thurnall, and told 
 him all he wanted, till 
 
 ' Then the house lies quite in the bottom of the glen ? Is 
 there a good fall to the stream, for a stream I suppose there is?' 
 
 Thurnall shook his head. 'Cold boggy stewponds in the 
 garden, such as our ancestors loved, damming up the stream. 
 They must needs have fish in Lent, we know; and paid the 
 penalty of it by ague and fever/ 
 
 ' Stewponds damming up the stream ? Scoutbush ought to 
 drain them instantly ! ' said the major, half to himself. ' But 
 still the house lies high, with regard to the town, I mean. No 
 chance of malaria coming up 1 ' 
 
 ' Upon my word, sir, as a professional man, that is a thing 
 that I dare not say. The chances are not great ; the house is 
 two hundred yards from the nearest cottage ; but if there be an 
 east wind 
 
 ' I cannot bear this any longer. It is perfect madness ! ' 
 
 ' I trust, sir, that you do not think that I have neglected the 
 matter. I have pointed it all out, I assure you, to Mr. 
 Vavasour.' 
 
 ' And it is not altered ? ' 
 
 ' I believe it is to be altered that is the truth is, sir, that 
 Mr. Vavasour shrinks so much from the very notion of cholera, 
 that 
 
 ' That he does not like to do anything which may look liko 
 believing in its possibility ? ' 
 
 ' He says,' quoth Tom, parrying the question, but in a some- 
 what dry tone, ' that he is afraid of alarming Mrs. Vavasour and 
 the servants.' 
 
 The major said something under his breath, which Tom did 
 not catch, and then, in an appeased tone of voice 
 
 'Well, that is at least a fault on the right side. Mrs. Vava- 
 sour's brother, as owner of the place, is of course the proper 
 person to make the house fit for habitation.' And he relapsed
 
 244 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 into silence, while Thurnall, who suspected more than met the 
 ear, rose to depart. 
 
 'Are you going? It is not late not ten o'clock yet.' 
 
 'A medical man, Avho may be called up at any moment, must 
 make sure of his "beauty sleep."' 
 
 ' I will walk with you, and smoke my last cigar.' 
 
 So they went out, and up to Heale's. Tom went in, but he 
 observed that his companion, after standing awhile in the street 
 irresolutely, went on up the hill, and, as far as he could see, 
 turned up the lane to Vavasour's. 
 
 ' A mystery here,' thought he, as he put matters to rights in 
 the surgery ere going upstairs. ' A mystery which I may as 
 well fathom. It may be of use to poor Tom, as most other 
 mysteries are. That is, though, if I can do it honourably ; for 
 the man is a gallant gentleman. I like him, and I am inclined 
 to trust him. Whatsoever his secret is, I don't think that it is 
 one which he need be ashamed of. Still, " there's a deal of 
 human natur' in man," and there may be in him ; and what 
 matter if there is ? ' 
 
 Half an hour afterwards the major returned, took the candle 
 from Grace, who was sitting up for him, and went upstairs with 
 a gentle ' good-night,' but without looking at her. 
 
 He sat down at the open window, and looked out leaning on 
 the sill. 
 
 'Well, I was too late ; I daresay there was some purpose in 
 it. When shall I learn to believe that God takes better care of 
 His own than I can do 1 I was faithless and impatient to-night. 
 I am afraid I betrayed myself before that man. He looks like 
 one, certainly, who could be trusted with a secret ; yet I had 
 rather that he had not mine. It is my own fault, like every- 
 thing else ! Foolish old fellow that you are, fretting and fussing 
 to the end ! Is not that scene a message from above, saying, 
 " Be still, and know that I am God " ? ' 
 
 And the major looked out upon the summer sea, lit by a 
 million globes of living fire, and then upon the waves which 
 broke in flame upon the beach, and then up to the spangled 
 stars above. 
 
 'What do I know of these, with all my knowing ? Not even 
 a twentieth part of those medusre, or one in each thousand of 
 those sparks among the foam. Perhaps I need not know. And 
 yet why was the thirst awakened in me, save to be satisfied at 
 last ? Perhaps to become more intense with every fresh delicious 
 draught of knowledge. . . . Death, beautiful, wise, kind death ; 
 when will you come and tell me what I want to know? 1 
 courted you once and many a time, brave old Death, only to 
 give rest to the weary. That was a coward's wish, and so you 
 would not come. I ran you close in Afghanistan, old Death, 
 and at Sobraon, too, I was not far behind you ; and I thought 1 
 had you safe among that jungle grass at Aliwal ; but you
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 245 
 
 slipped through my hand ; I was not worthy of you. And now 
 I will not hunt you any more, old Death ; do you bide .your 
 time, and I mine ; though who knows if I may not meet you 
 here 1 Only when you come, give me not rest, but work. Give 
 work to the idle, freedom to the chained, sight to the blind ! 
 Tell me a little about finer things than zoophytes perhaps 
 about the zoophytes as well and you shall still be 
 brave old Death, my good camp-comrade now for many a 
 year.' 
 
 Was Major Campbell mad ? That depends upon the way in 
 which the reader may choose to define the adjective. 
 
 Meanwhile Scoutbush had walked into Penalva Court 
 where an affecting scene of reconciliation took place? 
 
 Not in the least. Scoutbush kissed Lucia, shook hands with 
 Elsley, hugged the children, and then settled himself in an arm- 
 chair, and talked about the weather, exactly as if he had been 
 running in .and out of the house every week for the last three 
 years, and so the matter was done ; and for the first time a 
 partie carree was assembled in the dining-room. 
 
 The evening passed off at first as uncomfortably as it could, 
 where three out of the four were well-bred people. Elsley was, 
 of course, shy before Lord Scoutbusli, and Scoutbusli was 
 equally shy before Elsley, though as civil as possible to him ; 
 for the little fellow stood in extreme awe of Elsley's talents, and 
 was afraid of opening his lips before a poet. Lucia was nervous 
 for both their sakes, as well she might be ; and Valentia had to 
 make all the talking, and succeeded capitally in drawing out 
 both her brother and her brother-in-law, till both of them found 
 the other, on the whole, more like other people than he had 
 expected. The next morning's breakfast, therefore, was easy 
 and gracious enough ; and when it was over, and Lucia fled to 
 household matters 
 
 'You smoke, Vavasour?' asked Scoutbush. 
 
 Vavasour did not smoke. 
 
 ' lleally ? I thought poets always smoked. You will not for- 
 bid my having a cigar in your garden, nevertheless, I suppose? 
 Do walk round with me, too, and show me the place, unless you 
 are going to be busy.' 
 
 Oh no ; Elsley was at Lord Scoutbush's service, of course, and 
 had really nothing to do. So out they went. 
 
 ' Charming old pigeon-hole it is,' said its owner. ' 1 have not 
 seen it since I went into the Guards. Campbell says it's a 
 shame of me, and so it is one, I suppose ; but how beautiful you 
 have made the garden look ! ' 
 
 'Lucia is very fond of gardening,' said Elsley, who was very 
 fond of it also, and had great taste therein ; but he was afraid 
 to confess any such tastes before a man who, he thought, would 
 not understand him.
 
 246 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' And that fine old wood full of cocks it used to be I hope 
 you worked it well last year.' 
 
 Elsley did not shoot ; but he had heard there was plenty of 
 game there. 
 
 ' Plenty of cocks,' said his guest, correcting him ; ' but for 
 game, the less we say about that the better. I really 
 wonder you do not shoot ; it fills up time so in the 
 winter.' 
 
 'There is really no winter to fill up here, thanks to this 
 delicious climate ; and I have my books. 
 
 ' Ah ! I wish I had. I wish heartily,' said he, in a confidential 
 tone, 'you, or Campbell, or some of your clever men, would sell 
 me a little of their book-learning ; as Valentia says to me, 
 " brains are so common in the world, I wonder how none fell to 
 your share." ' 
 
 ' I do not think that they are an article which is for sale, if 
 Solomon is to be believed.' 
 
 'And if they were, I couldn't afford to buy, with this Irish 
 Encumbered Estates' Bill. But now, this is one thing I wanted 
 to say. Is everything here just as you would wish 1 Of course 
 no one could wish a better tenant ; but any repairs, you know, 
 or improvements which I ought to do, of course ? Only tell me 
 what you think should be done ; for, of course, you know more 
 about these things than I do can't know less.' 
 
 ' Nothing, I assure you, Lord Scoutbush. I have always left 
 those matters to Mr. Tardrew.' 
 
 'Ah, my dear fellow, you shouldn't do that. He is such a 
 screw, as all honest stewards are. Screws me, I know, and I 
 dare say has screwed you too.' 
 
 ' Never, I assure you. I never gave him the opportunity, 
 and he has been most civil.' 
 
 'Well, in future, just order him to do what you like, and 
 just as if you were landlord, in fact ; and if the old man 
 haggles, write to me, and I'll blow him up. Delighted to 
 have a man of taste like you here, who can improve the place 
 for me.' 
 
 'I assure you, Lord Scoutbush, I need nothing, nor does the 
 place. I am a man of very few wants.' 
 
 'I wish I were,' sighed Scoutbush, pulling out another of 
 Hudson's highest-priced cigars. 
 
 'And I am bound to say' and here Elsley choked a little ; 
 but the Viscount's frankness and humility had softened him, 
 and he determined to be very magnanimous 'I am bound in 
 honour, after owing to your kindness such an exquisite retreat 
 all that either I or Lucia could have fancied for ourselves, and 
 more not to trouble you by asking for little matters which we 
 really do not need.' 
 
 And so Elsley, instead of simply asking to have the house- 
 drains set right, which Lord Scoutbush would have had done
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH 247 
 
 updn the spot, chose to be lofty -minded, at the risk of killing 
 Ins wife and children. 
 
 ' My dear fellow, you really must not " lord " me any more ; I 
 hate it. I must be plain Scoutbush here among my own people, 
 just as I am in the Guards' mess-room. And as for owing me 
 any, really, it is we that are in your debt, to see my sister so 
 happy, and such beautiful children, and so well too and alto- 
 gether and Valentia so delighted with your poems and, and 
 altogether -' and there Lord Scoutbush stopped, having 
 hoisted, as he considered, the flag of peace once and for all, and 
 very glad that the thing was over. 
 
 Elsley was going to say something in return ; but his guest 
 turned the conversation as fast as he could. 'And now, I know 
 you want to be busy, though you are too civil to confess it ; and 
 1 must be with that old fool Tardrew at ten, to settle accounts ; 
 he'll scold me if I do not the precise old pedant just as if I 
 was his own child. Good-bye.' 
 
 'Where are you going, Frederick?' called Lucia, from the 
 window ; she had been watching the interview anxiously 
 enough, and could see that it had ended well. 
 
 ' To old Stot-and-kye at the farm ; do you want anything ? ' 
 
 ' No ; only I thought you might be going to the yacht ; and 
 Valentia would have walked down with you. She wants to 
 find Major Campbell.' 
 
 ' I want to scold Major Campbell,' said Valentia, tripping out 
 on the lawn in her walking dress. ' Why has he not been here 
 an hour ago 1 I will undertake to say that he was up at four 
 this morning.' 
 
 ' He waits to be invited, I suppose,' said Scoutbush. 
 
 ' I suppose I must do it,' said Elsley to himself, sighing. 
 
 'Just like his primness,' said Valentia. 'I shall go down and 
 bring him up myself this minute, and Mr. Vavasour shall come 
 with me. Of course you will ! You do not know what a 
 delightful person lie is, when once you can break the ice.' 
 
 Elsley, like most vain men, was of a jealous temper ; and 
 Valentia's eagerness to see Major Campbell jarred on him. He 
 wanted to keep the exquisite creature to himself, and Headley 
 was .quite enough of an intruder already. Besides, the accounts 
 of the newcomer, his learning, his military prowess, the rever- 
 ence with which all, even Scoutbush, evidently regarded him, 
 made him prepared to dislike the Major ; and all the more, now 
 he heard there was an ice-crust to crack. Impulsive men like 
 Elsley, especially when their self-respect and certainty of their 
 own position is not very strong, have instinctively a defiant fear 
 of the strong, calm, self-contained man, especially if he has seen 
 the world ; and Elsley set down Major Cnmpljell as a proud, 
 sarcastic fellow, before whom he must be at the pains of being 
 continually on his guard. He wished him a hundred miles 
 away. However, there was no refusing Vuleutiu, anything ; so
 
 248 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 he got his hat, but with so bad a grace, that Valentia saw his 
 chagrin, and from mere naughtiness of heart amused herself 
 with it by talking all the way of nothing but Major Campbell. 
 
 'And Lucia,' she said at last, 'will be so glad to see him 
 again. We knew him so well, you know, in Eaton Square years 
 ago.' 
 
 ' .Really,' said Elsley, wincing, ' I never met him there.' He 
 recollected that Lucia had expressed more pleasure at Major 
 Campbell's coming than even at that of her brother : and a dark, 
 undefined phantom entered his heart, which, though he would 
 have been too proud to confess it to himself, was none other 
 than jealousy. 
 
 'Oh did you not? No; it was the year before we first 
 knew you. And we used to laugh at him together, behind his 
 back, and christened him the wild Indian, because he was so 
 gauche and shy. He was a major in the Indian army then : but 
 a few months afterwards he sold out and went into the line no 
 one could tell why, for he threw away very brilliant prospects, 
 they say, and might have been a general by now, instead of a 
 mere major still. But he is so improved since then ; he is like 
 an elder brother to Scoutbush ; guides him in everything. I 
 call him the blind man, and the major his dog ! ' 
 
 'So much the worse,' thought Elsley, who disliked the notion 
 of Campbell's having power over a man to whom he was indebted 
 for his house-room ; but by this time they were at Mrs. Harvey's 
 door. 
 
 Mrs. Harvey opened it, curtseying to the very ground ; and 
 Valentia ran upstairs, and knocked at the sitting-room door 
 herself. 
 
 ' Come in,' shouted a pre-occupied voice inside. 
 
 'Is that a proper way in which to address a lady, sir 1 ?' 
 answered she, putting in her beautiful head. 
 
 Major Campbell was sitting, Elsley could see, in his shirt 
 sleeves, cigar in mouth, bent over his microscope ; but instead 
 of the unexpected prim voice, he heard a very gay and arch one 
 answer, ' Is that a proper way in which to come peeping into 
 an old bachelor's sanctuary, ma'am ? Go away this moment, 
 till I make myself fit to be seen.' 
 
 Valentia shut the door again, laughing. 
 
 'You seem very intimate with Major Campbell,' said Elsley. 
 
 'Intimate? I look on him as my father almost. Now, may 
 we come in?' said she, knocking again in pretty petulance. 'I 
 want to introduce Mr. Vavasour.' 
 
 'I shall be only too happy,' said the major, opening his door 
 (this time with his coat on) ; ' there are few persons in the world 
 whom I have more wished to know than Mr. Vavasour.' And he 
 held out his hand, and quite led Elsley in. He spoke in a tone 
 of grave interest, looking intently at Elsley as lie spoke. 
 Valentia remarked the interest Elsley only the compliment.
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 249 
 
 ' It is a great kindness of you to call on me so soon,' said he. 
 ' I met Mrs. Vavasour several times in years past ; and though 
 I saw very little of her, I saw enough to long much for the 
 acquaintance of the man who has been worthy to become her 
 husband.' 
 
 Elsley blushed, for his conscience smote him a little at that 
 word 'worthy,' and muttered some common -place civility in 
 return. Valentia saw it, and attributing it to his usual awk- 
 wardness, drew off the conversation to herself. 
 
 'Really, Major Campbell ! You bring in Mr. Vavasour, and 
 let me walk behind as I can ; and then let me sit three whole 
 minutes in your house without deigning to speak to me ! ' 
 
 'Ah ! my dear Queen Whims !' answered he, returning sud- 
 denly to Ins gay tone ; ' and how have you been misbehaving 
 yourself since we met last ? ' 
 
 ' I have not been misbehaving myself at all, mon cher Saint 
 Pere, as Mr. Vavasour will answer for me, during the most 
 delightful fortnight I ever spent ! ' 
 
 'Delightful indeed ! ' said Elsley, as he was bound to say ; but 
 he said it with an earnestness which made the major fix his eyes 
 on him. ' Why should he not find any and every fortnight as 
 delightful as his last ? ' said he to himself ; but now Valentia 
 began bantering him about his books and his animals ; wanting 
 to look through nis microscope, pulling off her hat for the purpose, 
 laughing when her curls blinded her, letting them blind her in 
 order to toss them back in the prettiest way, jesting at him about 
 ' his old fogies ' at the Linnsean Society ; clapping her hands in 
 ecstasy when he answered that they were not old fogies at all, 
 but the most charming set of men in England, and that (with no 
 offence to the name of Scoutbusli) he was prouder of being an 
 F.L.S., than if he were a peer of the realm and so forth ; all 
 which harmless pleasantry made Elsley cross, and more cross 
 first, because he did not mix in it ; next, because he could not 
 mix in it if he tried. He liked to be always in the seventh 
 heaven ; and if other people were anywhere else, he thought 
 them bores. 
 
 At last ' Now, if you will be good for five minutes,' said the 
 major, ' I will show you something really beautiful.' 
 
 ' I can see that,' answered she, with the most charming impu- 
 dence, 'in another glass besides your magnifying one.' 
 
 ' Be it so : but look here, and see what an exquisite world 
 there is, of which you never dream ; and which behaves a great 
 deal better in its station than the world of which you do dream ! ' 
 
 When Campbell spoke in that way, Valentia was good at 
 once ; and as she went immediately to the microscope, she 
 whispered, ' Don't be angry with me, mon Saint Pere.' 
 
 'Don't be naughty, then, ma chcre enfant,' whispered lie ; for 
 he saw something about Elsley's face which gave nim a painful 
 suspicion.
 
 250 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 She looked long, and then lifted up her head suddenly ' Do 
 come and look, Mr. Vavasour, at this exquisite little glass fairy, 
 like I cannot tell what like, but a pure spirit hovering in some 
 nun's dream ! Come ! ' 
 
 Elsley came, and looked ; and when he looked he started, for 
 it was the very same zoophyte which Thurnall had shown him 
 on a certain memorable day. 
 
 ' Where did you find the fairy, mon Saint Pere 1 ' 
 
 ' I had no such good fortune. Mr. Thurnall, the doctor, gave 
 it me.' 
 
 ' Thurnall ? ' said she, while Elsley kept still looking, to hide 
 cheeks which were growing very red. ' He is such a clever man, 
 they say. Where did you meet him 1 I have often thought of 
 asking Mr. Vavasour to invite him up for an evening with his 
 microscope. He seems so superior to the people round him. It 
 would be a charity, really, Mr. Vavasour.' 
 
 Vavasour kept his eyes fixed on the zoophyte, and said 
 
 ' I shall be only too delighted, if you wish it.' 
 
 'You will wish it yourself a second time,' chimed in Camp- 
 bell, 'if you try it once. Perhaps you know nothing of him 
 but professionally. Unfortunately for professional men, that 
 too often happens.' 
 
 ' Know anything of him 1 1 I assure you not, save that he 
 attends Mrs. Vavasour and the children,' said Vavasour looking 
 up at last : but with an expression of anger which astonished 
 both Valentia and Campbell. 
 
 Campbell thought that he was too pi*oud to allow i*ank as a 
 gentleman to a country doctor and despised him from that 
 moment, though, as it happened, unjustly. But he answered 
 quietly 
 
 ' I assure you, that whatever some country practitioners may 
 be, the average of them, as far as I have seen, are cleverer men, 
 and even of higher tone than their neighbours ; and Thurnall is 
 beyond the average : he is a man of the world even too much 
 of one and a man of science ; and I fairly confess that, what 
 with his wit, his savoir vivre, and his genial good temper, I have 
 quite fallen in love with him in a single evening ; we began last 
 night on the microscope, and ended on all heaven and earth.' 
 
 ' How I should like to make a third ! ' 
 
 ' My dear Queen Whims would hear a good deal of sober 
 sense, then ; at least on one side : but I shall not ask her : for 
 Mr. ThuiTiall and I have our deep secrets together.' 
 
 So spoke the major, in the simple wish to exalt Tom in a 
 quarter where he hoped to get him practice ; and his ' secret ' 
 was a mere jest, unnecessary, perhaps, as he thought afterwards, 
 to pass off Tom's want of orthodoxy. 
 
 ' I was a babbler then,' said he to himself the next moment ; 
 'how much better to have simply held my tongue ! ' 
 
 'Ah, yes ; I know men. have their secrets, as well as women,'
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 251 
 
 said Valentia, for the mere love of saying something : but as she 
 looked at Vavasour, she saw an expression in his face which she 
 had never seen before. What was it? All that one can picture 
 for oneself branded into the countenance of a man unable to 
 repress the least emotion, who had worked himself into the 
 belief that Thurnall had betrayed his secret. 
 
 4 My dear Mr. Vavasour,' cried Campbell, of course unable to 
 guess the truth, and supposing vaguely that he was ' ill ; ' 'I am 
 sure that that the sun has overpowered you ' (the only possible 
 thing he could think of). ' Lie down on the sofa a minute ' 
 (Vavasour was actually reeling with rage and terror), 'and I 
 will run up to Thurnall's for salvolatile.' 
 
 Elsley, who thought him the most consummate of hypocrites, 
 cast on him a look which he intended to have been wither- 
 ing, and rushed out of the room, leaving the two staring at each 
 other. 
 
 Valentia was half inclined to laugh, knowing Elsley's petu- 
 lance and vanity : but the impossibility of guessing a cause kept 
 her quiet. 
 
 Major Campbell stood for full five minutes ; not as one 
 astounded, but as one in deep and anxious thought. 
 
 'What can be the matter, mon Saint Perer asked she at 
 last, to break the silence. 
 
 ' That there are more whims in the world than yours, dear 
 Queen Whims ; and I fear darker ones. Let us walk up to- 
 gether after this man. I have offended him." 
 
 ' Nonsense ! I dare say he wanted to get home to write 
 poetry, as you did not praise what he had written. I know his 
 vanity and flightiness.' 
 
 ' You do ? ' asked he quickly, in a painful tone. ' However, 
 I have offended him, I can see ; and deeply. I must go up, and 
 make things right, for the sake of for everybody's sake.' 
 
 ' Then do not ask me anything. Lucia loves him intensely, 
 and let that be enough for us.' 
 
 The major saw the truth of the last sentence no more than 
 Valentia herself did ; for Valentia would have been glad enough 
 to pour out to him, with every exaggeration, her sister's woes 
 and wrongs, real and fancied, had not the sense of her own 
 folly with vavasour kept her silent and conscience-stricken. 
 
 Valentia remarked the major's pained look as they walked 
 up the street. 
 
 'You dear conscientious Saint Pere, why will you fret yourself 
 about such a foolish matter ? He will have forgotten it all in 
 an hour ; I know him well enough.' 
 
 Major Campbell was not the sort of person to admire Elsley 
 the more for throwing away capriciously such deep passion as 
 he had seen him show, any more than for showing the same. 
 
 ' He must be of a very volatile temperament.' 
 
 ' Oh, all geniuses are.'
 
 252 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'I have no respect for genius, Miss St. Just ; I do not even 
 acknowledge its existence when there is no strength and steadi- 
 ness of character. If any one pretends to be more than a man, 
 he must begin by proving himself a man at all. Genius 1 Give 
 me common sense and common decency ! Does he give Mrs. 
 Vavasour, pray, the benefit of any of these pretty flights of 
 genius ? ' 
 
 Valentia was frightened. She had never heard her Saint 
 Pere speak so severely and sarcastically ; and she feared that if 
 he knew the truth, he would be terribly angry. She had never 
 seen him angry ; but she knew well enough that that passion, 
 when it rose in him in a righteous cause, would be very awful 
 to see ; and she was one of those women who always grow angry 
 when they are frightened. So she was angry at his calling her 
 Miss St. Just ; she was angry because she chose to think he was 
 talking at her ; though she reasonably might have guessed it, 
 seeing that he had scolded her a hundred times for want of 
 steadiness of character. She was more angry than all, because 
 she knew that her own vanity had caused at least disagree- 
 ment between Lucia and Elsley. All which (combined with 
 her natural wish not to confess an unpleasant truth about her 
 sister) justified her, of course, in answering 
 
 ' Miss St. Just does not intrude into the secrets of her sister's 
 married life ; and if she did, she would not repeat them.' 
 
 Major Campbell sighed, and walked on a few moments in 
 silence, then 
 
 ' Pardon, Miss St. Just ; I asked a rude question, and I am 
 sorry for it.' 
 
 ' Pardon you, my dear Saint Pere 1 ' cried she, almost catching 
 at his hand. ' Never ! I must either believe you infallible, or 
 hate you eternally. It is I that was naughty ; I always am ; 
 but you will forgive Queen Whims?' 
 
 'Who could help it?' said the major, in a sad, sweet tone. 
 ' But here is the postman. May I open my letters 1 ' 
 
 ' You may do as you like, now you have forgiven me. Why, 
 what is it, mon Saint Pere ? ' 
 
 A sudden shock of horror had passed over the major's face, as 
 he read his letter : but it had soon subsided into stately calm. 
 
 ' A gallant officer, whom we and all the world knew well, is 
 dead of cholera at his post, where a man should die. . . . And, 
 my dear Miss St. Just, we are going to the Crimea.' 
 
 'We? you?' 
 
 'Yes. The expedition will really sail, I find.' 
 
 ' But not you ? ' 
 
 ' I shall offer my services. My leave of absence will, in any 
 case, end on the first of September : and even if it did not, my 
 health is quite enough restored to enable me to walk up to a 
 cannon's mouth.' 
 
 ' Ah, mon Saint Pero, what words are these ? '
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 253 
 
 ' The words of an old soldier, Queen Whims, who has been so 
 long at his trade that he has got to take a strange pleasure in 
 it.' 
 
 'In killing?' 
 
 ' No ; only in the chance of . But I will not cast an 
 
 unnecessary shadow over your bright soul. There will l>e 
 shadows enough over it soon, without my help.' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? ' 
 
 ' That you, and thousands more as delicate, if not as fair as 
 you, will see, ere long, what the realities of human life are ; and 
 in a way of which you have never dreamed.' 
 
 And he murmured, half to himself, the words of the prophet, 
 ' " Thou saidst, I shall sit as a lady for ever : but these two 
 things shall come upon thee in one day, widowhood and the loss 
 of children. They shall even come upon thee." No ! not in 
 their fulness ! There are noble elements underneath the crust, 
 which will come out all the purer from the fire ; and we shall 
 have heroes and heroines rising up among us as of old, sincere 
 and earnest, ready to face their work, and to do it, and to call 
 all things by their right names once more ; and Queen Whims 
 herself will become what Queen Whims might be ! ' 
 
 Valentia was awed, as well she might have been ; for there 
 was a very deep sadness about Campbell's voice. 
 
 ' You think there will be def disasters ? ' said .she at last. 
 
 ' How can I tell ? That we are what we always were, I doubt 
 not. Scoutbush will fight as merrily as I. But we owe the 
 penalty of many sins, and we shall pay it. 1 
 
 It would be as unfair, perhaps, as easy, to make Major Camp- 
 bell a prophet after the fact, by attributing to him any distinct 
 expectation of those mistakes which have been but too notorious 
 since. Much of the sadness in his tone may have been clue to 
 his habitual melancholy ; his strong belief that the world was 
 deeply diseased, and that some terrible purgation would surely 
 come, when it was needed. But it is difficult, again, to conceive 
 that those errors were altogether unforeseen by many an officer 
 of Campbell's experience and thoughtfulness. 
 
 'We will talk no more of it just now.' And they walked up 
 to Penalva Court, seriously enough. 
 
 'Well, Scoutbush, any letters from town ?' said the major. 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 'You have heard what has happened at D - Barracks?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' You had better take care, then, that the like of it does not 
 happen here.' 
 
 'Here?' 
 
 'Yes. I'll tell you all presently. Have you hoard from head- 
 quarters ? ' 
 
 'Yes ; all right,' said Scoutbush, who did not like to let out 
 the truth before Valentia.
 
 254 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Campbell saw it, and signed to him to speak out. 
 
 ' All right ? ' asked Valentia. ' Then you are not going ? ' 
 
 'Ay, but I am ! Orders to join my regiment by the first of 
 October, and to be shot as soon afterwards as is fitting for the 
 honour of my country. So, Miss Val, you must be quick in 
 making good friends with the heir-at-law ; or else you won't get 
 your bills paid any more.' 
 
 ' Oh, dear, dear ! ' And Valentia began to cry bitterly. It 
 was her first real sorrow. 
 
 Strangely enough, Major Campbell, instead of trying to com- 
 fort her, took Scoutbush out with him, and left her alone with 
 her tears. He could not rest till he had opened the whole 
 cholera question. 
 
 Scoutbush was honestly shocked. Who would have dreamed 
 it ? No one had ever told him that the cholera had really been 
 there before. What could he do ? Send for Thurnall ? 
 
 Tom was sent for ; and Scoutbush found, to his horror, that 
 what little he could have ever done ought to have been done 
 three months ago, with Lord Minchampstead's improvements 
 at Pentremochyn. 
 
 The little man walked up and down, and rung his hands. 
 He cursed Tardrew for not telling him the truth ; he cursed 
 himself for letting the cottages go out of his power ; he cursed 
 A, B, and C, for taking the said cottages off his hands ; he 
 cursed up, he cursed down, he cursed all around, things which 
 ought to have been cursed, and things which really ought not 
 for half of the worst sanatory sinners, in this blessed age of 
 ignorance, yclept of progress and science (how our grand- 
 children will laugh at the epithets !), are utterly unconscious and 
 guiltless ones. 
 
 But cursing leaves him, as it leaves other men, very much 
 where he had started. 
 
 To do him justice, he was in one thing a true nobleman, for 
 he was above all pride ; as are most men of rank, who know 
 what their own rank means. It is only the upstart, unaccus- 
 tomed to his new eminence, who stands on his dignity, and 
 ' asserts his power.' 
 
 So Scoutbush begged humbly of Thurnall only to tell him 
 what he could do. 
 
 'You might use your moral influence, my lord.' 
 ' Moral influence ? ' in a tone which implied naively enough, 
 ' I'd better get a little morals myself before I talk of using the 
 same.' 
 
 ' Your position in the parish 
 
 ' My good sir ! ' quoth Scoutbush in his shrewd way ; ' do 
 you not know yourself what these fine fellows who were ready 
 yesterday to kiss the dust off my feet would say, if I asked leave 
 to touch a single hair of their rights ? " Tell you what, my 
 lord ; we pays you your rent, and you takes it. You mind your
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 255 
 
 business, and we'll mind our'n." You forget that times are 
 changed since my seventeenth progenitor was lord of life and 
 limb over man and maid in Aberalva.' 
 
 ' And since your seventeenth progenitor took the trouble to 
 live at Penalva Court,' said Campbell, 'instead of throwing 
 away what little moral influence he had by going into the 
 Guards, and spending his time between Kotteu Row and 
 Cowes.' 
 
 ' Hardly fair, Major Campbell ! ' quoth Tom ; you forget 
 that in the old times, if the Lord of Aberalva was responsible 
 for his people, he had also by law the power of making them 
 obey him.' 
 
 ' The long and the short of it is, then,' said Scoutbush, a little 
 tartly, 'that I can do nothing.' 
 
 ' \ ou can put to rights the cottages which are still in your 
 hands, my lord. For the rest, my only remaining hope lies in 
 the last person whom one would usually depute on such an 
 errand.' 
 
 'Who is that?' 
 
 ' The schoolmistress.' 
 
 ' The who ? ' asked Scoutbush. 
 
 'The schoolmistress ; at whose house Major Campbell lodges.' 
 
 And Tom told them, succinctly, enough to justify his strange 
 assertion. 
 
 ' If you doubt me, my lord, I advise you to ask Mr. Headley. 
 He is no friend of hers ; being a high churchman, while she is 
 a little inclined to be schismatic ; but an enemy's opinion will 
 be all the more honest.' 
 
 ' She must be a wonderful woman,' said Scoutbush ; ' I 
 should like to see her.' 
 
 ' And I too,' said Campbell. ' I passed a lovely girl on the 
 stairs last night, and thought no more of it. Lovely girls are 
 common enough in West-country ports.' 
 
 ' We'll go and see her,' quoth his lordship. 
 
 Meanwhile Aberalva pier was astonished by a strange pheno- 
 menon. A boat from the yacht landed at the pier-head not 
 only Claude Mellot, whose beard was an object of wonder to 
 the fishermen, but a tall three-legged box and a little black 
 tent ; which, being set upon the pier, became the scene of 
 various mysterious operations, carried on by Claude and a sailor 
 lad. 
 
 ' I say ! ' quoth one of the fishing elders, after long suspicious 
 silence ; ' I say, lads, this won't do. We can't have no out- 
 landish foreigners taking observations here ! ' 
 
 And then dropped out one wild suspicion after another. 
 
 ' Maybe he's surveying for a railroad !' 
 
 ' Maybe he's from the Trinity House, going to make .1 new 
 harbour ; or maybe a lighthouse. And then we'd better not 
 meddle wi' him.'
 
 256 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' I'll tell you what he be. He's that here government chap 
 as the doctor said he'd bring down to set our drains right.' 
 
 ' If he goes meddling with our drains, and knocking of our 
 back -yards about, he'll find himself over quay before he's done.' 
 
 'Steady ! steady ! He come with my loord, mind.' 
 
 ' He might a' taken in his loordship, and be a Roossian spy 
 to the bottom of him after all. They mak' munselves up into 
 all manner of disguisements, specially beards. I've seed the 
 Roossians with their beards many a time.' 
 
 ' Maybe 'tis witchcraft. Look to mun, putting mun's head 
 under that black bag now ! He'm after no good, I'll warrant. 
 If they be'nt works of darkness, what be ?' 
 
 'Leastwise he'ra no right to go spying here on our quay, and 
 never ax with your leave, or by your leave. I'll just goo mak' 
 mun out.' 
 
 And Claude, who had just retreated into his tent, had the 
 pleasure of finding the curtain suddenly withdrawn, and as a 
 flood of light rushed in, spoiling his daguerreotype plate, hearing 
 a voice as of a sleepy bear 
 
 'Ax your pardon, sir ; but what be you arter here ?' 
 
 ' Murder ! shut the screen ! ' But it was too late ; and 
 Claude came out, while the eldest-born of Anak stood sternly 
 inquiring 
 
 ' I say, what be you arter here, mak' so boold ? ' 
 
 'Taking sun-pictures, my good sir ; and you have spoilt one 
 for me.' 
 
 ' Sun-picturs, saith a?' in a very incredulous tone. 
 
 ' Daguerreotypes of the place for Lord Scout-bush.' 
 
 ' Oh ! if it's his lordship's wish, of course ! Only things is 
 very well as they are, and needs no mending, thank God. Only, 
 ax pardon, sir. You see, we don't generally allow no interfering 
 on our pier without lave, sir ; the pier being purn, we pays for 
 the repairing. So if his lordship intends making of alterations, 
 he'd better to have spoken to us first.' 
 
 'Alterations?' said Claude, laughing; 'the place is far too 
 pretty to need any improvement.' 
 
 ' Glad you think so, sir ! But whatever be you arter here ? ' 
 
 'Taking views! I'm a painter, an artist! I'll take your 
 portrait, if you like !' said Claude, laughing more and more. 
 
 ' Bless my heart, what vules we be ! 'Tis a painter gentle- 
 man, lads ! ' roared lie. 
 
 'What on earth did you take me for? A Russian spy?' 
 
 The elder shook his head, grinned solemnly, and peace was 
 concluded. ' We'm old-fashioned folks here, you see, sir ; and 
 don't like no new-fangled meddlecomes. You'll excuse us ; 
 you'm very welcome to do what you like, and glad to see you 
 here.' And the old fellow made a stately bow, and moved away. 
 
 ' No, no ! you must stay and have your portrait taken ; you'll 
 make a fine picture.'
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 257 
 
 ' Hum ; might ha', they used to say, thirty years agone ; I'm 
 over old now. Still, my old woman might like it. Make so 
 bold, sir, but what's your charge ?' 
 
 ' I charge nothing. Five minutes' talk with an honest man 
 will pay me.' 
 
 ' Hum : if you'd a let me pay you, sir, well and good ; but I 
 maunt take up your time for nought ; that's not fair.' 
 
 However, Claude prevailed, and in ten minutes he had all 
 the sailors on the quay round him ; and one after another came 
 forward blushing ana grinning to be 'taken off.' Soon the 
 children gathered round, and when Valentia and Major Camp- 
 bell came on the pier, they found Claude in the midst of 
 a ring of little dark-haired angels ; while a dozen honest fellows 
 grinned when their own visages appeared, and chaffed each 
 other about the sweethearts who were to keep them while they 
 were out at sea. And in the midst little Claude laughed and 
 joked, and told good stories, and gave himself up, the simple, 
 the sunny-hearted fellow, to the pleasures of pleasing, till he 
 earned from one and all the character of ' the pleasantest- 
 spokenest gentleman that was ever into the town.' 
 
 ' Here's her ladyship ! make room for her ladyship ! ' But 
 Claude held up a warning hand. He had just arranged a 
 masterpiece half a dozen of the prettiest children, sitting be- 
 neath a broken boat, on spars, sails, blocks, lobster-pots, and 
 what not, arranged in picturesque confusion ; while the black- 
 bearded sea-kings round were promising them rock and bulls- 
 eyes, if they would only sit still like ' gude maids.' 
 
 But at Valentia's coming the children all looked round, and 
 jumped up and curtsied, and then were afraid to sit down 
 again. 
 
 'You have spoilt my group, Miss St. Just, and you must 
 mend it ! ' 
 
 Valentia caught the humour, regrouped them all forthwith ; 
 and then placed herself in front of them by Claude's side. 
 
 ' Now, be good children ! Look straight at me, and listen ! ' 
 And lifting up her finger, she began to sing the first song of 
 which she could think, ' The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.' 
 
 She had no need to bid the children look at her and listen ; 
 for not only they, but every face upon the pier was fixed upon 
 her ; breathless, spell-bound, at once by her magnificent beauty 
 and her magnificent voice, as up rose, leaping into the clear 
 summer air, and rolling away over the still blue sea, that 
 glorious melody which has now become the national anthem 
 to the nobler half of the New World. Honour to woman, and 
 honour to old England, that from Felicia Hemans came the 
 song which will last, perhaps, when modern Europe shall have 
 shared the fate of ancient Koine and Greece ! 
 
 Valentia's singing was the reflex of her own character ; and 
 therefore, perhaps, all the more fitted to the song, the place, 
 S T. Y. A.
 
 258 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 and the audience. It was no modest cooing voice, tender, sug- 
 gestive, trembling with suppressed emotion, such as, even 
 though narrow in compass, and dull in quality, will touch the 
 deepest fibres of the heart, and, as delicate scents will some- 
 times do, wake up long-forgotten dreams, which seem memories 
 of some antenatal life. 
 
 It was clear, rich, massive, of extraordinary compass, and yet 
 full of all the graceful ease, the audacious frolic, of perfect 
 physical health, and strength, and beauty ; had there been a 
 trace of effort in it, it might have been accused of ' bravura ' : 
 but there was no need of effort where nature had bestowed 
 already an all but perfect organ, and all that was left for science 
 was to teach not power, but control. Above all, it was a voice 
 which you trusted ; after the first three notes you felt that that 
 perfect ear, that perfect throat, could never, even by the thou- 
 sandth part of a note, fall short of melody ; and you gave your 
 soul up to it, and cast yourself upon it, to bear you up and 
 away, like a fairy steed, whither it would, down into the abysses 
 of sadness, and up to the highest heaven of joy ; as did those 
 wild and rough, and yet tender-hearted and imaginative men 
 that day, while every face spoke new delight, and hung upon 
 those glorious notes 
 
 ' As one who drinks from a charmed cup 
 
 Of sparkling, and foaming, and murmuring wine ' 
 
 and not one of them, had he had the gift of words, but might 
 have said witli the poet 
 
 ' I have no life, Constaiitia, now but tliee, 
 
 While, like the world-surrounding air, thy song 
 
 Flows on, and fills all things with melody. 
 Now is thy voice tempest swift aud strong, 
 
 On which, like one in a trance upborne, 
 Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep, 
 
 Rejoicing like a cloud of morn. 
 
 Now 'tis the breath of summer night, 
 
 Which, when the starry waters sleep 
 
 Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, 
 Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.' 
 
 At last it ceased : and all men drew their breaths once more ; 
 while a low murmur of admiration ran through the crowd, too 
 well-bred to applaud openly, as they longed to do. 
 
 ' Did you ever hear the like of that, Gentleman Jan ? ' 
 
 1 Or see ? I used to say no one could hold a candle to our 
 Grace but she she looked like a born queen all the time ! ' 
 
 'Well, she belongs to us, too, so we've a right to be proud of 
 her. Why, here's our Grace all the while ! ' 
 
 True enough Grace has been standing among the crowd all 
 the while, rapt, like them, her eyes fixed on Valentia, and full,
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 259 
 
 too, of tears. They had been called up first by the melody 
 itself, and then, by a chain of thought peculiar to Grace, by the 
 faces round her. 
 
 4 Ah ! if Grace had been here ! ' cried one, ' we'd have had 
 her clra'ed off in tbe midst of the children.' 
 
 4 Ah ! that would ha' been as nat'ral as life ! ' 
 
 4 Silence, you ! ' says Gentleman Jan, who generally feels a 
 mission to teach the rest of the quay good manners. "Tis the 
 gentleman's pleasure to settle who he'll dra' off, and not wer'n.' 
 
 To which abnormal possessive pronoun Claude rejoined 
 
 ' Not a bit ! whatever you like. I could not have a better 
 figure for the centre. I'll begin again.' 
 
 4 Oh, do come and sit among the children, Grace ! ' says 
 Valentia. 
 
 4 No, thank your ladyship.' 
 
 Valentia began urging her ; and many a voice round, old as 
 well as young, backed the entreaty. 
 
 ' Excuse me, my lady,' and she slipped into the crowd ; but 
 as she went she spoke low, but clear enough to be heard by all : 
 4 No : it will be time enough to flatter me, and ask for my 
 picture, when you do what I tell you what God tells you ! ' 
 
 4 What's that, then, Grace dear ? ' 
 
 ' You know ! I've asked you to save your own lives from 
 cholera, and you have not the common sense to do it. Let me 
 go home and pray for you ! ' 
 
 There was an awkward silence among the men, till some 
 fellow said 
 
 4 She'm gone mad after that doctor, I think, with his muck- 
 hunting notions.' 
 
 And Grace went home, to await the hour of afternoon school. 
 
 4 What a face ! ' said Mellot. 
 
 4 Is it not 1 Come and see her in her school, when the 
 children go in at two o'clock. Ah ! there are Scoutbush and 
 Saint Pere.' 
 
 4 We are going to the school, my lord. Don't you think that, 
 as patron of tilings in general here, it would look well if you 
 walked in, and signified your full approbation of what you 
 know nothing about 1 ?' 
 
 4 So much so, that I was just on my way there with Campbell. 
 But I must just speak to that lime-burning fellow. He wants 
 a new lease of the kiln, and I suppose he must have it. At 
 least, here he comes, running at me open-mouthed, and as dry 
 as his own waistband. It makes one thirsty to look at him. 
 I'll catch you up in five minutes ! ' 
 
 So the three went off to the school. 
 
 Grace was telling, in her own sweet way, that charming 
 story of the Three Trouts, which, by the by, has been lately 
 pirated (us many things are) by a religious author, whose book
 
 260 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 differs sufficiently from the liberal and wholesome morality of 
 the true author of the tale. 
 
 ' What a beautiful story, Grace ! ' said Valentia. ' You will 
 surpass Hans Andersen some day.' 
 
 Grace blushed, and was silent a moment. 
 
 ' It is not my own, my lady.' 
 
 ' Not your own ? I should have thought that no one but you 
 and Andersen could have made such an ending to it.' 
 
 Grace gave her one of those beseeching, half -reproachful 
 looks, with which she always answered praise ; and then 
 ' Would you like to hear the children repeat a hymn, my lady ? ' 
 
 ' No. I want to know where that story came from.' 
 
 Grace blushed, and stammered. 
 
 ' I know where,' said Campbell. ' You need not be ashamed 
 of having read the book, Miss Harvey. I doubt not that you 
 took all the good from it, and none of the harm, if harm there 
 be.' 
 
 Grace looked at him ; at once surprised and relieved. . 
 
 ' It was a foolish romance-book, sir, as you seem to know. It 
 was the only one which I ever read, except Hans Andersen's 
 which are not romances, after all. But the beginning was so 
 full of God's truth, sir romance though it was and gave me 
 such precious new light about educating children, that I was 
 led on unawares. I hope I was not wrong.' 
 
 ' This schoolroom proves that you were not,' said Campbell. 
 ' " To the pure, all things are pure." ' 
 
 ' What is this mysterious book 1 I must know ! ' said 
 Valentia. 
 
 ' A very noble romance, which I made Mellot read once, con- 
 taining the ideal education of an English nobleman in the 
 middle of the last century.' 
 
 ' The Fool of Quality ? ' said Mellot. ' Of course ! I thought 
 I had heard the story before. What a well-written book it is, 
 too, in spite of all extravagance and prolixity. And how 
 wonderfully ahead of his generation the man who wrote it, in 
 politics as well as in religion?' 
 
 ' I must read it,' said Valentia. ' You must lend it me, 
 Saint Pere.' 
 
 ' Not yet, I think.' 
 
 ' Why 1 ' whispered she, pouting. ' T suppose I am not as 
 pure as Grace Harvey 1 ' 
 
 ' She has the children to educate, who are in daily contact 
 with coarse sins, of which you know nothing of which she 
 cannot help knowing. It was written in an age when the 
 morals of our class (more shame to us) were on the same level 
 with the morals of her class now. Let it alone. I often have 
 fancied I should edit a corrected edition of it. When I do, you 
 shall read that.' 
 
 ' Now, Miss Harvey,' said Mellot, who had never taken his
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 261 
 
 eves off her face, ' I want to turn schoolmaster, and give your 
 children a drawing lesson. Get your slates, all of you ! ' 
 
 And taking possession of the black board and a piece of chalk, 
 Claude began sketching them imps and angels, dogs and horses, 
 till the school rang with shrieks of delight. 
 
 ' Now,' said he, wiping the board, ' Til draw something, and 
 you shall copy it.' 
 
 And without taking off his hand, he drew a single line ; and 
 a profile head sprang up, as if by magic, under his firm, unerring 
 touch. 
 
 ' Somebody ! ' 'A lady ! ' ' No, 'taint ; 'tis schoolmistress ! ' 
 
 ' You can't copy that ; I'll draw you another face.' And he 
 sketched a full face on the board. 
 
 'That's my lady.' 'No, it's schoolmistress again !' 'No, it's 
 not!' 
 
 ' Not quite sure, my dears 1 ' said Claude, half to himself. 
 ' Then here ! ' and wiping the board once more, he drew a three- 
 quarters face, which elicited a shout of approbation. 
 
 ' That's schoolmistress, her very self ! ' 
 
 ' Then you cannot do anything better than try and draw it. 
 I'll show you how.' And going over the lines again, one by one, 
 the crafty Claude pretended to be giving a drawing lesson, 
 while he was really studying every feature of his model. 
 
 ' If you please, my lady,' whispered Grace to Valentia ; ' I 
 wish the gentleman would not.' 
 
 'Why not?' 
 
 ' O madam, I do not judge any one else ; but why should 
 this poor perishing flesh be put into a picture 1 We wear it but 
 for a little while, and are blessed when we are rid of its burden. 
 Why wish to keep a copy of what we long to be delivered 
 from ? ' 
 
 'It will please the children, Grace,' said Yalentia, puzzled. 
 ' See how they are all trying to copy it, from love of you.' 
 
 'Who am I? I want them to do things from love of God. 
 No, madam, I was pained (and no offence to you) when I was 
 asked to have my likeness taken on the quay. There's no sin in 
 it, of course ; but let those who ai-e going away to sea, and have 
 friends at home, liave their pictures taken ; not one who wishes 
 to leave behind her no likeness of her own, only Christ's likeness 
 in these children ; and to paint Him to other people, not to be 
 painted herself. Do ask him to rub it out, my lady ! ' 
 
 'Why, Grace, we were all just wishing to have a likeness of 
 you. Lvery one has their picture taken for a remembrance.' 
 
 'The saints and martyrs never had theirs, as far as I ever 
 heard, and yet they are not forgotten yet. I know it is the wav 
 of great people like you. I saw your picture once, in a book 
 Miss Heale had ; and did not wonder, when I saw it, that people 
 wished to remember such a face as yours ; and since I have seen 
 you, I wonder still less.'
 
 262 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' My picture 1 where 1 ' 
 
 ' In a book ; The Book of Beauty, I believe they called it.' 
 
 ' My dear Grace,' said Valentia, laughing and blushing, ' if 
 you ever looked in your glass, you must Know that you are quite 
 as worthy of a place in The Book of Beauty as I am.' 
 
 Grace shook her head with a serious smile. ' Every one in 
 their place, madam. I cannot help knowing that God has 
 given me a gift, but why, I cannot tell. Certainly not for the 
 same purpose as He gave it to you for a simple country girl 
 like me. If He have any use for it, He will use it, as He does 
 all His creatures, without my help. At all events it will not 
 last long ; a few years more, perhaps a few months, and it will 
 be food for worms ; and then people will care as little about 
 my looks as I care now. I wish, my lady, you would stop the 
 gentleman ! ' 
 
 ' Mr. Mellot, draw the children something simpler, please ; a 
 dog or a cat.' And she gave Claude a look which he obeyed. 
 
 Valentia felt in a more solemn mood than usual as she walked 
 home that day. 
 
 ' Well,' said Claude, ' I have here every line and shade, and 
 she cannot escape me. I'll go on board and paint her right off 
 from memory, while it is fresh. Why, here come Scoutbush and 
 the major.' 
 
 ' Miss Harvey,' said Scoutbush, trying, as he said to Camp- 
 bell, 'to look as grand as a sheep-dog among a pack of fox- 
 hounds, and very thankful all the while lie had no tail to be 
 bitten off ' ' Miss Harvey, I we have heard a great deal in 
 praise of your school, and so I thought I should like to come 
 and see it.' 
 
 'Would your lordship like to examine the children?' says 
 Grace, curtseying to the ground. 
 
 ' No thanks that is I have no doubt you teach them all 
 that's right, and we are exceedingly gratified with the way in 
 which you conduct the school. I say, Val,' cried Scoutbush, 
 who could support the part of patron no longer, 'what pretty 
 little ducks they are, I wish I had a dozen of them ! Come you 
 here ! ' and down he sat on a bench, and gathered a group round 
 him. 
 
 'Now, are you all good children? I'm sure you look so !' 
 said he, looking round into the bright pure faces, fresh from 
 heaven, and feeling himself the nearer heaven as lie did so. 
 'Ah! I see Mr. Mellot's been drawing you pictures. He's a 
 clever man, a wonderful man, isn't lie ? I can't draw you 
 pictures, nor tell you stories, like your schoolmistress. What 
 shall I do?' 
 
 ' Sing to them, Fred ! ' said Valentia. 
 
 And he began warbling a funny song, with a child on each 
 knee, and his arms round three or four more, while the little 
 faces looked up into his, half awe-struck at the presence of a
 
 XV THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 263 
 
 live lord, half longing to laugh, but not sure whether it would 
 be right. 
 
 Valentia and Campbell stood close together, exchanging 
 looks. 
 
 ' Dear fellow ! ' whispered she, ' so simple and good when he 
 is himself ! And he must go to that dreadful war ! ' 
 
 'Never mind. Perhaps by this very act he is earning per- 
 mission to come back again, a wiser and a more useful man. 
 
 'How then?' 
 
 'Is he not making friends with angels who always behold 
 our Father's face 1 At least he is showing capabilities of good, 
 which God gave ; and which therefore God will never waste.' 
 
 ' Now, shall I sing you another song ? ' 
 
 ' Oh yes, please ! ' rose from a dozen little mouths. 
 
 ' You must not be troublesome to his lordship,' says Grace. 
 
 'Oh no, I like it. I'll sing them one more song, and then 
 I want to speak to you, Miss Harvey.' 
 
 Grace curtsied, blushed, and shook all over. What could 
 Lord Scoutbush want to say to her ? 
 
 That indeed was not very easy to discover at first ; for Scout- 
 bush felt so strongly the oddity of taking a pretty young woman 
 into his counsel on a question of sanitary reform, that he felt 
 mightily inclined to laugh, and began beating about the bush 
 in a sufficiently confused fashion. 
 
 'Well, Miss Harvey, I am exceedingly pleased with with 
 what I have seen of the school that is, what my sister tells, 
 and the clergyman 
 
 'The clergyman?' thought Grace, surprised, as she well 
 might be, at what was entirely an impromptu invention of his 
 lordship's. 
 
 'And and there is ten pounds towards the school, and 
 and, I will give an annual subscription the same amount.' 
 
 ' Mr. Headley receives the subscriptions, my lord,' said Grace, 
 drawing back from the proffered note. 
 
 'Of course,' quoth Scoutbush, trusting again to an im- 
 promptu ; ' but this is for yourself a small mark of our sense of 
 your your usefulness.' 
 
 If any one has expected that Grace is about to conduct herself, 
 during this interview, in any wise like a prophetess, tragedy 
 queen, or other exalted personage ; to stand upon her native in- 
 dependence, and scorning the bounty of an aristocrat, to read 
 the said aristocrat a lecture on his duties and responsibilities, as 
 landlord of Aberalva town ; then will that person be altogether 
 disappointed. It would have looked very well, doubtless ; but it 
 would have been equally untrue to Grace's womanhood, and to 
 her notions of Christianity. Whether all men were or were not 
 equal in the sight of Heaven, was a notion which had nevercrossed 
 her mind. She knew th.it they would all be equal in heaven, 
 and that was enough for her. Meanwhile, she found lords and
 
 264 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ladies on earth, and seeing no open sin in the fact of their being 
 richer and more powerful than she was, she supposed that God 
 had put them where they were ; and she accepted them simply 
 as facts of His kingdom. Of course they had their duties, as 
 every one has ; but what they were she did not know, or care to 
 know. To their own master they stood or fell : her business 
 was with her own duties, and with her own class, whose good 
 and evil she understood by practical experience. So when a 
 live lord made his appearance in her school, she looked at him 
 with vague wonder and admiration, as a being out of some other 
 planet, for whom she had 110 gauge or measure ; she only believed 
 that he had vast powers of doing good unknown to her ; and was 
 delighted by seeing him condescend to play with her children. 
 The truth may be degrading, but it must be told. People, of 
 course, who know the hollowness of the world, and the vanity 
 of human wealth and honour, and are accustomed to live with 
 lords and ladies, see through all that, just as clearly as any 
 American republican does ; and care no more about walking 
 down Pall Mall with the Marquis of Carabas, who can get them 
 a place or a living, than with Mr. Two-shoes, who can only 
 borrow ten pounds of them ; but Grace was a poor simple West- 
 country girl, and as sucli we must excuse her, if, curtseying to 
 the very ground, with tears of gratitude in her eyes, she took 
 the ten-pound note, saying to herself, ' Thank the Good Lord ! 
 This will just pay mother's account at the mill.' 
 
 Likewise we must excuse her if she trembled a little, being a 
 young woman though being also a lady, she lost no jot of self- 
 possession when his lordship went on in as important a tone 
 as he could 
 
 'And and I hear, Miss Harvey, that you have a great 
 influence over these children's parents.' 
 
 ' I am afraid some one has misinformed your lordship,' said 
 Grace, in a low voice. 
 
 ' Ah ! ' quoth Scoutbush, in a tone meant to be reassuring ; 
 'it is quite proper in you to say so. What eyes she has ! and 
 what hair ! and what hands, too ! ' (This was, of course, spoken 
 mentally.) ' But we know better ; and we want you to speak 
 to them, whenever you can, about keeping their houses clean, 
 and all that, in case the cholera should come.' And Scoutbush 
 stopped. It was a quaint errand enough ; and besides, as 
 he told Mellot frankly, 'I could think of nothing but 
 those wonderful eyes of hers, and how like they were to La 
 Siguora's.' 
 
 Grace had been looking at the ground all the while. Now 
 she threw upon him one of her sudden, startled looks, and 
 answered slowly, as her eyes dropped again 
 
 ' I have, my lord ; but they will not listen to me.' 
 
 ' Won't listen to you ? Then to whom will they listen ? ' 
 
 ' To God, when He speaks Himself,' said she, still looking on
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCII ' 265 
 
 the ground. Scoutbush winced uneasily. He was not accus- 
 tomed to solemn words, spoken so solemnly. 
 
 ' Do you hear this, Campbell ? Miss Harvey has been talking 
 to these people already, and they won't hear her.' 
 
 ' Miss Harvey, I dare say, is not astonished at that. It is the 
 usual fate of those who try to put a little common sense into 
 their fellow-men.' 
 
 ' Well, and I shall, at all events, go off and give them my mind 
 on the matter ; though I suppose (with a glance at Grace) ' I 
 can't expect to be heard where Miss Harvey has not been.' 
 
 'O my lord,' cried Grace, 'if you would but speak And 
 there she stopped ; for was it her place to tell him his duty 1 
 No doubt he had wiser people than her to counsel him. 
 
 But the moment the party left the school, Grace dropped 
 into her chair ; her head fell on the table, and she burst into an 
 agony of weeping, which brought the whole school round her. 
 
 ' O my darlings ! my darlings ! ' cried she at last, looking 
 up, and clasping them to her by twos and threes ; ' is there no 
 way of saving you ? No way ? Then we must make the more 
 haste to be good, and be all ready when Jesus comes to take us.' 
 And shaking off her passion with one strong effort, she began 
 teaching those children as she had never taught them before, 
 with a voice, a look, as of Stephen himself when he saw the 
 heavens opened. 
 
 For that burst of weeping was the one single overflow of long 
 pent passion, disappointment, and shame. 
 
 She had tried, i)ideed. Ever since Tom's conversation and 
 Frank's sermon had poured in a flood of new light on the mean- 
 ing of epidemics, and bodily misery, and death itself, she had 
 been working as only she could work ; exhorting, explaining, 
 coaxing, warning, entreating with tears, offering to perform 
 with her own hands the most sickening offices ; to become, if no 
 one else would, the common scavenger of the town. There was 
 no depth to which, in her noble enthusiasm, she would not have 
 gone down. And behold, it had been utterly in vain ! Ah ! the 
 bitter disappointment of finding her influence fail her utterly, 
 the first time that it was required for a great practical work ! 
 They would let her talk to them about their souls, then ! They 
 would even amend a few sins here and there, of which they had 
 been all along as well aware as she. But to be convinced of a 
 new sin ; to have their laziness, pride, covetousness, touched ; 
 that, she found, was what they would not bear ; and where she 
 had expected, if not thanks, at least a fair hearing, she had been 
 met with peevishness, ridicule, even anger and insult. 
 
 Her mother had turned against her. 'Why would she go 
 getting a bad name from every one, and driving away customers?' 
 The preachers, who were (as is too common in West-country vil- 
 lages) narrow, ignorant, and somewhat unscrupulous men, 
 turned against her. They had considered the cholera, if it was
 
 266 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 to come, as so much spiritual capital for themselves ; an occasion 
 which they could ' improve ' into a sensation, perhaps a ' revival' ; 
 and to explain it upon mere physical causes was to rob them of 
 their harvest. Coarse viragos went even further still, and dared 
 to ask her ' whether it was the curate or the doctor she was 
 setting her cap at ; for she never had anything in her mouth 
 now but what they had said ? ' And those words went through 
 her heart like a sword. Was she disinterested ? Was not love 
 for Thurnall, the wish to please him, mingling with all her 
 earnestness ? And again, was not self-love mingling with it 'I 
 and mingling, too, with the disappointment, even indignation, 
 which she felt at having failed ? Ah what hitherto hidden 
 spots of self-conceit, vanity, pharisaic pride, that bitter trial laid 
 bare, or seemed to lay, till she learned to thank her unseen Guide 
 even for it ! 
 
 Perhaps she had more reason to be thankful for her humilia- 
 tion than she could suspect, with her narrow knowledge of the 
 world. Perhaps that sudden downfall of her fancied queenship 
 was needed, to shut her out, once and for all, from that downward 
 path of spiritual intoxication, followed by spiritual knavery, 
 which, as has been hinted, was but too easy for her. 
 
 But meanwhile the whole thing was but a fresh misery. To 
 bear the burden of Cassandra day and night, seeing in fancy 
 which yet was truth the black shadow of death hanging over 
 that doomed place ; to dream of whom it might sweep oft' 
 perhaps, worst of all, her mother, unconfessed and impenitent ! 
 
 Too dreadful ! And dreadful, too, the private troubles which 
 were thickening fast ; and which seemed, instead of drawing her 
 mother to her side, to estrange her more and more, for some 
 mysterious reason. Her mother was heavily in debt. This ten 
 
 Eounds of Lord Scoutbush's would certainly clear off' the miller's 
 ill. Her scanty quarter's salary, which was just due, would 
 clear off" a little more. But there was a long-standing account of 
 the wholesale grocer's for five-and-twenty pounds, for which Mrs. 
 Harvey had given a two months' bill. That bill would become 
 due early in September ; and how to meet it, neither mother nor 
 daughter knew ; it lay like a black plague-spot on the future, 
 only surpassed in horror by the cholera itself. 
 
 It might have been three or four days after, that Claude, 
 lounging after breakfast on deck, Avas hailed from a dingy, 
 which contained Captain Willis and Gentleman Jan. 
 
 ' Might we take the liberty of coming aboard to speak with 
 your honour ? ' 
 
 ' By all means ! ' and up the side they came ; their faces 
 evidently big with some great purpose, and each desirous that 
 the other should begin. 
 
 'You speak, captain,' says Jan, 'you'm oldest ;' and then lie 
 began himself. l Tf you please, sir, we'm come on a sort of 
 deputation Why don't you tell the gentleman, captain ?'
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 267 
 
 Willis seemed either doubtful of the success of his deputation 
 or not over desirous thereof ; for, after trying to put John Beer 
 forward as spokesman, he began : 
 
 ' I'm sorry to trouble you, sir, but these young men will have 
 it so and no shame to them on a matter which I think will 
 come to nothing. But the truth is, they have heard that you 
 are a great painter, and they have taken it into their heads to 
 ask you to paint a picture for them.' 
 
 ' Not to ask you a favour, sir, mind ! ' interrupted Jan ; ' we'd 
 scorn to be so forward ; we'll subscribe and pay for it, in 
 course, any price in reason. There's forty and more promised 
 already.' 
 
 ' You must tell me, first, what the picture is to be about,' said 
 Claude, puzzled and amused. 
 
 ' Why didn't you tell the gentleman, captain ? ' 
 
 ' Because I think it is no use ; and I told them all so from 
 the first. The truth is, sir, they want a picture of my of 
 our schoolmistress, to hang up in the school or somewhere 
 
 ' That's it, dra'ed out all natural, in paints, and her bonnet, 
 and her shawl, and all, just like life ; we was a going to ax you 
 to do one of they garrytypes ; but she would have'n noo price ; 
 besides tan't cheerful looking they sort, with your leave ; too 
 much blackamoor wise, you see, ana over thick about the nozzes, 
 most times, to my liking ; so we'll pay you and welcome, all 
 you ask.' 
 
 ' Too much blackamoor wise, indeed ! ' said Claude, amused. 
 ' And how much do you think I should ask 1 ' 
 
 No answer. 
 
 'We'll settle that presently. Come down into the cabin 
 with me.' 
 
 ' Why, sir, we couldn't make so bold. His lordship 
 
 ' Oh, his lordship's on shore, and I am skipper for the time ; 
 and if not, he'd be delighted to see two good seamen here. So 
 come along.' 
 
 And down they went. 
 
 ' Bowie, bring these gentlemen some sherry ! ' cried Claude, 
 turning over his portfolio. ' Now then, my worthy friends, is 
 that the sort of thing you want 1 ' 
 
 And he spread on the table a water-colour sketch of Grace. 
 
 The two worthies gazed in silent delight, and then looked at 
 each other, and then at Claude, and then at the picture. 
 
 ' Why, sir,' said Willis ; ' I couldn't have believed it ! You've 
 got the very smile of her, and the sadness of her too, as if you'd 
 known her a hundred year ! ' 
 
 "Tis beautiful!' sighed Jan, half to himself. Poor fellow, 
 he had cherished, perhaps, hopes of winning Grace after all. 
 
 ' Well, will that suit you ? ' 
 
 'Why, sir, make so bold : but what we thought on was to 
 have her drawn from head to foot, and a child standing by her
 
 268 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 like, holding to her hand, for a token as she was schoolmistress ; 
 and the pier behind, may be, to signify as she was our maid, and 
 belonged to Aberalva.' 
 
 ' A capital thought ! Upon my word, you're men of taste 
 here in the West ; but what do you think I should charge for 
 such a picture as that ? ' 
 
 'Name your price, sir,' said Jan, who was in high good 
 humour at Claude's approbation. 
 
 ' Two hundred guineas ? ' 
 
 Jan gave a long whistle. 
 
 'I told you so, Captain Beer,' said Willis, 'or ever we got 
 into the boat.' 
 
 'Now,' said Claud, laughing, 'I've two prices, one's two 
 hundred, and the other is just nothing ; and if you won't agree 
 to the one, you must take the other.' 
 
 ' But we wants to pay, we'd take it an honour to pay, if we 
 could afford it.' 
 
 ' Then wait till next Christmas.' 
 
 ' Christmas ? ' 
 
 ' My good friend, pictures are not painted in a day. Next 
 Christmas, if I live, I'll send you what you shall not be ashamed 
 of, or she either, and do you club your money and put it into a 
 handsome gold frame.' 
 
 ' But, sir,' said Willis, ' this will give you a sight of trouble, 
 and all for our fancy.' 
 
 ' I like it, and I like you ! You're fine fellows, who know a 
 noble creature when God sends her to you ; and I should be 
 ashamed to ask a farthing of your money. There, no more 
 words ! ' 
 
 'Well, you are a gentleman, sir ! ' said Gentleman Jan. 
 
 'And so are you,' said Claude. 'Now I'll show you some 
 more sketches.' 
 
 'I should like to know, sir,' asked Willis, 'how you got at 
 that likeness. She would not hear of the thing, and that's why 
 I had no liking to come troubling you about nothing.' 
 
 Claude told them, and Jan laughed heartily, while Willis 
 said 
 
 'Do you know, sir, that's a relief to my mind. There is no 
 sin in being drawn, of course ; but I didn't like to think my 
 maid had changed her mind, when once she'd made it up.' 
 
 So the deputation retired in high glee, after Willis had 
 entreated Claude and Beer to keep the tiling a secret from 
 Grace. 
 
 It befell that Claude, knowing no reason why he should not 
 tell Frank Headley, told him the whole story, as a proof of the 
 chivalry of his parishioners, in which he would take delight. 
 
 Frank smiled, but said little ; his opinion of Grace was alter- 
 ing fast. A circumstance which occurred a few days after 
 altered it still more.
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE 'WATERWITCH ' 269 
 
 Scoutbush had gone forth, as lie threatened, and exploded in 
 every direction, with such effect as was to be supposed. Every- 
 body promised his lordship to do everything. But when his 
 lordship's back was turned, everybody did just nothing. They 
 knew very well that he could not make them do anything ; and 
 what was more, in some of the very worst cases, the evil was 
 past remedy now, and better left alone. For the drought went 
 on pitiless. A copper sun, a sea of glass, a brown easterly 
 blight, day after clay, while Thurnall looked grimly aloft and 
 mystified the sailors with 
 
 ' Fine weather for the Flyiny Dutchman this ! ' 
 
 'Coffins sail fastest in a calm.' 
 
 'You'd best all out to the quay -head, and whistle for a 
 wind : it would be an ill one that would blow nobody good just 
 now ! ' 
 
 But the wind came not, nor the rain ; and the cholera crept 
 nearer and nearer : while the hearts of all in Aberalva were 
 hardened, and out of very spite against the agitators, they did 
 less than they would have done otherwise. Even the inhabitants 
 of the half a dozen cottages which Scoutbush, finding that they 
 were in his own hands, whitewashed by main force, filled the 
 town with lamentations over his lordship's tyranny. True 
 their pigstyes were either under their front windows, or within 
 two feet of the wall : but to pull down a poor man's pigstye ! 
 they might ever so well be Rooshian slaves ! and all the town 
 was on their side ; for pigs were the normal inhabitants of 
 Aberalva back -yards. 
 
 Tardrew's wrath, of course, knew no bounds ; and meeting 
 Thurnall standing at Willis's door, with Frank and Mellot, he 
 fell upon him open-mouthed. 
 
 'Well, sir ! I've a crow to pick with you.' 
 
 ' Pick away ! ' quoth Tom. 
 
 ' What business have you meddling between his lordship and 
 me?' 
 
 'That is my concern,' quoth Tom, who evidently was not 
 disinclined to quarrel. ' I'm not here to give an account to you 
 of what I choose to do.' 
 
 ' I'll tell you what, sir ; ever since you've been in this parish 
 you've been meddling, you and Mr. Headley too, 111 say it to 
 your faces, I'll speak the truth to any man, gentle or simple ; 
 and that ain't enough for you, but you must come over that 
 poor half -crazed girl, to set her plaguing honest people, witli 
 telling 'em they'll all be dead in a month, till nobody can eat 
 their suppers in peace : and that again ain't enough for you, but 
 you must go to my lord with your 
 
 ' Hold hard ! ' quoth Tom. ' Don't start two hares at once. 
 Let's hear that about Miss Harvey again ! ' 
 
 'Miss Harvey? Why, you shoukrknow better than I.' 
 
 ' Let's hear what you know.'
 
 270 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'Why, ever since that night Trebooze caught you and her 
 together 
 
 ' Stop ! ' said Tom, ' that's a lie ! ' 
 
 'Everybody says so.' 
 
 ' Then everybody lies, that's all ; and you may say I said so, 
 and take care you don't say it again yourself. But what ever 
 since that night ? ' 
 
 'Why, I suppose you come over the poor thing somehow, as 
 you seem minded to do over every one as you can. But she's 
 been running up and down the town ever since, preaching to 
 : em about windilation, and drains, and smells, and cholera, and 
 it's being a judgment of the Lord against dirt, till she's fright- 
 ened all the women so, that many's the man as has had to forbid 
 her his house. But you know that as well as I.' 
 
 ' I never heard a word of it before ; but now I have, I'll give 
 you my opinion on it. That she is a noble, sensible girl, and 
 that you are all a set of fools who are not worthy of her ; and 
 that the greatest fool of the whole is you, Mr. Tardrew. And 
 when the cholera comes, it will serve you exactly right if you 
 are the first man carried off by it. Now, sir, you have given me 
 your mind, and I have given you mine, and I do not wish to 
 hear anything more of you. Good morning ! ' 
 
 ' You hold your head mighty high, to be sure, since you've 
 had the run of his lordship's yacht.' 
 
 ' If you are impertinent, sir, you will repent it. I shall take 
 care to inform his lordship of this conversation.' 
 
 ' My dear Thurnall,' said Headley, as Tardrew withdrew, 
 muttering curses, ' the old fellow is certainly right on one point.' 
 
 'What then?' 
 
 'That you have wonderfully changed your tone. Who was 
 to eat any amount of dirt, if he could but save his influence 
 thereby ? ' 
 
 ' I have altered my plans. I shan't stay here long ; I shall 
 just see this cholera over, and then vanish.' 
 
 'No?' 
 
 ' Yes. I cannot sit here quietly, listening to the war-news. 
 It makes me mad to be up and doing. I must eastward-ho, and 
 see if trumps will not turn up for me at last. Why, I know the 
 whole country, half a dozen of the languages oh, if I could get 
 some secret-service work ! Go I must ! At worst I can turn 
 my hand to doctoring Bashi-bazouks.' 
 
 'My dear Tom, when will you settle down like other men ?' 
 cries Claude. 
 
 ' I would now, if there was an opening at Whitbury, and low 
 as life would be, I'd face it for my father's sake. But here I 
 cannot stay. 
 
 Both Claude and Headley saw that Tom had reasons which 
 lie did not choose to reveal. However, Claude was taken into 
 his confidence that verv afternoon.
 
 xv THE CRUISE OF THE ' WATERWITCH ' 271 
 
 ' I shall make a fool of myself with that schoolmistress. I 
 have been near enough to it a dozen times already ; and this 
 magnificent conduct of hers about the cholera has given the 
 finishing stroke to my brains. If I stay on here, I shall marry 
 her : I know I shall! and I won't! I'd go to-morrow, if it 
 were not that I'm bound, for my own credit, to see the cholera 
 safe into the town and out again.' 
 
 Tom did not hint a word of the lost money, or of the month's 
 delay which Grace had asked of him. The month was drawing 
 fast to a close now, however : but no sign of the belt. Still, 
 Tom had honour enough in him to be silent on the point, even 
 to Claude. 
 
 ' By the by, have you heard from the wanderers this week ?' 
 
 ' I heard from Sabina this morning. Marie is very poorly, I 
 fear. They have been at Kissingen, bathing ; and are going to 
 Bertrich : somebody has recommended the baths there.' 
 
 ' Bertrich ! Where's Bertrich ? ' 
 
 'The most delicious little nest of a place, half way up the 
 Moselle, among the volcano craters.' 
 
 ' Don't know it. Have they found that Yankee ? ' 
 
 'No.' 
 
 ' Why, I thought Sabina had a whole detective force of pets 
 and proteges, from Boulogne to Rome.' 
 
 'Well, she has at least heard of him at Baden ; and then 
 again at Stuttgard : but he has escaped them as yet.' 
 
 ' And poor Marie is breaking her heart all the while 1 I'll 
 tell you what, Claude, it will be- well for him if lie escapes me 
 as well as them.' 
 
 ' What do you mean ? ' 
 
 ' I certainly shan't go to the East without shaking hands once 
 more with Marie and Sabina ; and if in so doing I pass that 
 fellow, it's a pity if I don't have a snap shot at him.' 
 
 ' Tom ! Tom ! I had hoped your duelling days were over.' 
 
 ' They will be over, when one can get the law to punish such 
 puppies ; but not till then. Hang the fellow ! What business 
 had he with her at all, if he didn't intend to marry her?' 
 
 ' I tell you, as I told you before, it is she who will not marry 
 him.' 
 
 'And yet she's breaking her heart for him. I can see it all 
 plain enough, Claude. She has found him out only too late. I 
 know him luxurious, selfish, blase; would give a thousand 
 dollars to-morrow, I believe, like the old Roman, for a new 
 pleasure : and then amuses himself with her till he breaks her 
 heart ! Of course she won't marry him : because she knows 
 that if he found out her Quadroon blood ah, that's it! I'll 
 lay my life he has found it out already, and that is why he has 
 bolted ! ' 
 
 Claude had no answer to give. That talk at the Exhibition 
 made it only too probable.
 
 272 TWO YEARS AGO CHAV. 
 
 ' You think so yourself, I see ! Very well. You know that 
 whatever I have been to others, that girl has nothing against 
 me.' 
 
 ' Nothing against you ? Why, she owes you honour, life, 
 everything.' 
 
 ' Never mind that. Only when I take a fancy to begin, I'll 
 carry it through. I took to that girl, for poor Wyse's sake ; and 
 I'll behave by her to the last as he would wish ; and he who 
 insults her, insults me. I won't go out of my way to find 
 Stangrave : but if I do, I'll have it out ! ' 
 
 'Then you will certainly fight. My dearest Tom, do look 
 into your own heart, and see whether you have not a grain or 
 two of spite against him left. I assure you you judge him too 
 harshly.' 
 
 ' Hum -that must take its chance. At least, if we fight, we 
 fight fairly and equally. He is a brave man I will do him that 
 justice and a cool one ; and used to be a sweet shot. So he has 
 just as good a chance of shooting me, if I am in the wrong, as I 
 have of shooting him, if he is.' 
 
 ' But your father ? ' 
 
 ' I know. That is very disagreeable ; and all the more so 
 because I am going to insure my life a pretty premium they 
 will make me pay ! and if I'm killed in a duel, it will be for- 
 feited. However, the only answer to that is, that either I 
 shan't fight, or if I do, I shan't be killed. You know, I don't 
 believe in being killed, Claude.' 
 
 ' Tom ! Tom ! The same as ever ! ' said Claude sadly. 
 
 'Well, old man, and what else would you have me? Nobody 
 could ever alter me, you know ; and why should I alter myself 1 
 Here I am, after all, alive and jolly ; and there is old daddy, as 
 comfortable as he ever can be on earth ; and so it will be to the 
 end of the chapter. There ! let's talk of something else.' 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 COME AT LAST 
 
 Now, as if in all things Tom Thurnall and John Briggs were 
 fated to take opposite sides, Campbell lost ground with Elsley 
 as fast as he gained it with Thurnall. Elsley had never forgiven 
 himself for his passion that first morning. He had shown 
 Campbell his weak side, and feared and disliked him accordingly. 
 Beside, what might not Thurnall have told Campbell about him ? 
 And what use might not the major make of his secret ? Be- 
 sides, Elsley's dread and suspicion increased rapidly when he 
 discovered that Campbell was one of those men who live on 
 terms of peculiar intimacy with many women ; whether for his 
 own good or not, still for the good of the women concerned
 
 xvi COME AT LAST 273 
 
 For only by honest purity, and moral courage superior to that 
 of the many, is that dangerous post earned ; and women will 
 listen to the man who will tell them the truth, however sternly ; 
 and will bow, as before a guardian angel, to the strong insight 
 of him whom they have once learned to trust. But it is a 
 dangerous office, after all, for layman as well as for priest, that 
 of father-confessor. The experience of centuries has shown that 
 they must needs exist, wherever fathers neglect their daughters, 
 husbands their wives ; wherever the average of the women can- 
 not respect the average of the men. But the experience of 
 centuries should likewise have taught men, that the said father- 
 confessors are no objects of envy ; that their temptations to 
 become spiritual coxcombs (the worst species of all coxcombs), 
 if not intriguers, bullies, and worse, are so extreme, that the 
 soul which is proof against them must be either very great or 
 very small indeed. Whether Campbell was altogether proof 
 will be seen hereafter. But one day Elsley found out that such 
 was Campbell's influence, and did not love him the more for the 
 discovery. 
 
 They were walking round the garden after dinner ; Scout- 
 bush was licking his foolish lips over some common-place tale of 
 scandal. 
 
 'I tell you, my dear fellow, she's booked ; and Mellot knows 
 it as well as I. He saw her that night at Lady A 's.' 
 
 'We saw the third act of the comi- tragedy. The fourth 
 is playing out now. We shall see the fifth before the 
 winter.' 
 
 ' Non sine sanguine ! ' said the major. 
 
 'Serve the wretched stick right, at least,' said Scoutbush. 
 ' What right had he to marry such a pretty woman ? ' 
 
 ' What right had they to marry her up to him ? ' said Claude. 
 ' I don't blame poor January. I suppose none of us, gentleman, 
 would have refused such a pretty toy, if we could have afforded 
 it as he could.' 
 
 ' Whom do you blame then ? ' asked Elsley. 
 
 ' Fathers and mothers who prate hypocritically about keeping 
 their daughters' minds pure ; and then abuse a girl's ignorance, 
 in order to sell her to ruin. Let them keep her mind pure, in 
 heaven's name ; but let them consider themselves till the more 
 bound in honour to use on her behalf the experience in which 
 she must not share.' 
 
 'Well,' drawled Scoutbush, 'I don't complain of her bolting ; 
 she's a very sweet creature, and always was ; but, as Longreach 
 says, and a very witty fellow he is, though you laugh at him, 
 " If she'd kept to us, I shouldn't have minded ; but as Guards- 
 men, we must throw her over. It's an insult to the whole 
 Guards, my dear fellow, after refusing two of us, to ma,rry an 
 attorney, and after, all to bolt with a plunger.'' ' 
 
 What bolting with a plunger might signify, Elsley knew 
 T T. Y. A.
 
 274 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 not ; but ere he could ask, the major rejoined, in an abstracted 
 voice 
 
 ' God help us all ! And this is the girl I recollect, two years 
 ago, singing there in Cavendish Square, as innocent as a nestling 
 thrush ! ' 
 
 ' Poor child ! ' said Mellot, ' sold at first perhaps sold again 
 now. The plunger has bills out, and she has ready money. I 
 know her settlements.' 
 
 'She shan't do it,' said the major quietly ; Til write to her 
 to-night.' 
 
 Elsey looked at him keenly. ' You think then, sir, that you 
 can, by simply writing, stop this intrigue ? ' 
 
 The major did not answer. He was deep in thought. 
 'I shouldn't wonder if he did,' said Scoutbush ; 'two to one 
 on his baulking the plunger ! ' 
 
 'She is at Lord 's now, at those silly private theatricals. 
 
 Is he there ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Mellot ; ' he tried hard for an invitation stooped 
 to work me and Sabina. I believe she told him that she would 
 sooner see him in the Morgue than help him ; and he is gone to 
 the moors now, I believe.' 
 
 'There is time then : I will write to her to-night;' and Camp- 
 bell took up his hat and went home to do it. 
 
 'Ah,' said Scoutbush, taking his cigar meditatively from his 
 mouth, ' I wonder how he does it ! It's a gift, I always say, a 
 wonderful gift ! Before he has been a week in a house, he'll have 
 the confidence of every woman in it and 'gad, he does it by 
 saying the rudest things ! and the confidence of alltheyoungsters 
 the week after.' 
 
 'A somewhat dangerous gift,' said Elsley drily. 
 'Ah, yes ; he might play tricks if lie chose : but there's the 
 wonder, that he don't. I'd answer for him witli my own sister. 
 I do every day of my life for I believe he knows how many 
 pins she puts into her dress and yet there 1 he is. As I said 
 once in the mess-room there was a youngster there who took 
 on himself to be witty, and talked about the still sow supping 
 the milk the snob ! You recollect him, Mellot 1 the attorney's 
 son from Brompton, who sold out we shaved his mustachios, 
 put a bear in his bed, and sent him home to his ma. And he 
 said that Major Campbell might be very pious, and all that: 
 but he'd warrant they were the fellow's own words that lie 
 took his lark on the sly, like other men the snob ! so I told 
 him, I was no better than the rest, and no more I am ; but if 
 any man dared to say that the major was not as honest as his 
 own sister, I w f as his man at fifteen paces. And so I am, Claude ! ' 
 All which did not increase Elsley's love to the major, con- 
 scious as he was that Lucia's confidence was a thing which lie 
 had not wholly ; and which it would be very dangerous to him 
 for any other man to have at all.
 
 xvi COME AT LAST 275 
 
 Into the drawing-room they went. Frank Headley had been 
 asked up to tea ; and he stood at the piano, listening to Valentia's 
 singing. 
 
 As they came in, the maid came in also. ' Mr. Thurnall 
 wished to speak to Major Campbell.' 
 
 Campbell went out, and returned in two minutes somewhat 
 hurriedly. 
 
 ' Mr. Thurnall wishes Lord Scoutbush to be informed at once, 
 and I think it is better that you should all know it that it is 
 a painful surprise : but there is a man ill in the street, whose 
 symptoms he does not like, he says.' 
 
 'Cholera?' said Elsley. 
 
 ' Call him in,' said Scoutbush. 
 
 ' He had rather not come in, he says.' 
 
 ' What ! is it infectious ?' 
 
 'Certainly not, if it be cholera, but 
 
 ' He don't wish to frighten people, quite right ' (with a half 
 glance at Elsley) ; ' but is it cholera, honestly 1 ' 
 
 ' I fear so.' 
 
 'O my children ! ' said poor Mrs. Vavasour. 
 
 ' Will five pounds help the poor fellow ? ' said Scoutbush. 
 
 ' How far off is it ? ' asked Elsley. 
 
 ' Unpleasantly near. I was going to advise you to move at 
 once.' 
 
 ' You hear what they are saying ?' asked Valentia of Frank. 
 
 ' Yes, I hear it,' said Frank, in a quiet meaning tone. 
 
 Valentia thought that he was half pleased with the news. 
 Then she thought him afraid ; for he did not stir. 
 
 ' You will go instantly, of course ? ' 
 
 ' Of course I shall. Good-bye ! Do not be afraid. It is not 
 infectious.' 
 
 ' Afraid ? And a soldier's sister ? ' said Valentia, with a toss 
 of her beautiful head, by way of giving force to her somewhat 
 weak logic. 
 
 Frank left the room instantly, and met Thurnall in the 
 passage. 
 
 'Well, Headley, it's here before we sent for it, as bad luck 
 usually is.' 
 
 ' I know. Let me go ! Where is it ? Whose house ? ' asked 
 Frank in an excited tone. 
 
 'Humph!' said Thurnall, looking intently at him, 'that is 
 just what I shall not tell you.' 
 
 ' Not tell me.' 
 
 ' No, you are too pale, Headley. Go back and get two or 
 three glasses of wine, and then we will talk of it.' 
 
 'What do you mean ? I must go instantly ! It is my duty 
 my parishioner ! ' 
 
 'Look here, Headley! Are you and I to work together in 
 this business, or are we not 1 '
 
 276 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Why not, in heaven's name 1 ' 
 
 ' Then I want you, not for cure, but for prevention. You can 
 do them no good when they have once got it. You may pre- 
 vent dozens from having it in the next four-and -twenty hours, 
 if you will be guided by me.' 
 
 ' But my business is with their souls, Thurnall.' 
 
 ' Exactly ; to give them the consolations of religion, as 
 they call it. You will give them to the people who have not 
 taken it. You may bring them safe through it by simply 
 keeping up their spirits ; while if you waste your time on poor 
 dying wretches 
 
 ' Thurnall, you must not talk so ! I will do all you ask : 
 but my place is at the death-bed, as well as elsewhere. These 
 perishing souls are in my care.' 
 
 ' And how do you know, pray, that they are perishing ? ' 
 answered Tom, with something very like a sneer. 'And if 
 they were, do you honestly believe that any talk of yours can 
 change in five minutes a character which has been forming for 
 years, or prevent a man's going where he ought to go, which, 
 I suppose, is the place to which lie deserves to go ? ' 
 
 ' I do,' said Frank firmly. 
 
 'Well. It is a charitable and hopeful creed. My great 
 dread was, lest you should kill the poor wretches before their 
 time, by adding to the fear of cholera the fear of hell. I 
 caught the methodist parson at that work an hour ago, took 
 him by the shoulders and shot him out into the street. But 
 my dear Headley ' (and Tom lowered his voice to a whisper), 
 'wherever poor Tom Beer deserved to go to, he is gone to it 
 already. He has been dead this twenty minutes.' 
 
 ' Tom Beer dead ? One of the finest fellows in the town ! 
 And I never sent for ? ' 
 
 'Don't speak so loud, or they will hear you. I had no time 
 to send for you ; and if I had, I should not have sent, for he was 
 past attending to you from the first. He brought it with him, I 
 
 suppose, from . Had had warnings for a week, and 
 
 neglected them. Now listen to me : that man was but two 
 hours ill ; as sharp a case as I ever saw, even in the West 
 Indies. You must summon up all your good sense, and play the 
 man for a fortnight ; for it's coming on the poor souls like 
 hell ! ' said Tom between his teeth, and stamped his foot upon 
 the ground. Frank had never seen him show so much feeling ; 
 he fancied he could see tears glistening in his eyes. 
 
 ' I will, so help me dod ! ' said Frank. 
 
 Tom held out his hand, and grasped Frank's. 
 
 ' I know you will. You're all right at heart. Only mind 
 three tilings : don't frighten them ; don't tire yourself ; don't go 
 about on an empty stomach ; .and then we can face the worst 
 like men. And now go in, and say nothing to these people. If 
 they take a panic, we shall have some of them down to-night as
 
 xvi COME AT LAST 277 
 
 sure as fate. Go in, keep quiet, persuade them to bolt anywhere 
 on earth by daylight to-morrow. Then go home, eat a good 
 supper, and come across to me ; and if I'm out, I'll leave word 
 where.' 
 
 Frank went back again ; he found Campbell, who had had 
 his cue from Tom, urging immediate removal as strongly as he 
 could, without declaring the extent of the danger. Valentia was 
 for sending instantly for a fly to the nearest town, and going to 
 stay at a watering-place some forty miles off. Elsley was willing 
 enough at heart, but hesitated ; he knew not, at the moment, 
 poor fellow, where to find the money. His wife knew that she 
 could borrow of Valentia but she, too, was against the place. 
 The cholera would be in the air for miles round. The journey 
 in the hot sun would make the children sick and ill ; and 
 watering-place lodgings were such horrid holes, never ventilated, 
 and full of smells people caught fevers at them so often. 
 Valentia was inclined to treat this as 'mother's nonsense ;' but 
 Major Campbell said gravely that Mrs. Vavasour was perfectly 
 right as to fact, and her arguments full of sound reason ; whereon 
 Valentia said that ' of course if Lucia thought it, Major Camp- 
 bell would prove it ; and there was no arguing with such Solons 
 as lie 
 
 Which Elsley heard, and ground his teeth. Whereon little 
 Scoutbush cried joyfully 
 
 ' I have it ; why not go by sea 1 Take the yacht, and go ! 
 Where? Of course, I nave it again. Ton my word I'm 
 growing clever, Valentia, in spite of all your prophecies. Go up 
 the Welsh coast. Nothing so healthy and airy as a sea voyage : 
 sea as smooth as a mill-pond, too, and likely to be. And then 
 land, if you like, at Port Madoc, as I meant to do ; and there 
 are my rooms at Beddgelert lying empty. Engaged them a week 
 ago, thinking I should be there by now ; so you may as well 
 keep them aired for me. Come, Valentia, pack up your milli- 
 nery ! Lucia, get the cradles ready, and we il have them all on 
 board by twelve. Capital plan, Vavasour, isn't it? and, by 
 Jove, what stunning poetry you will write there under Snow- 
 don ! ' 
 
 1 But will you not want your rooms yourself, Lord Scout- 
 bush 1 ' said Elsley. 
 
 'My dear fellow, never mind me. I shall go across the 
 country, I think, see an old friend, and get some otter-hunting. 
 Don't think of me till you're there, and then send the yacht 
 back for me. She must be doing something, you know ; and 
 the men are only getting drunk every day here. Come no 
 arguing about it, or I shall turn you all out of doors into the 
 lane, eli 1 ' 
 
 And the little fellow laughed so good-naturedly, that Elsley 
 could not help liking him : and feeling that he would be both a 
 fool, and cruel to his family, if he refused so good an offer, he
 
 278 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 gave in to the scheme, and went out to arrange matters : while 
 Scoutbush went out into the hall with Campbell, and scrambled 
 into his pea-jacket, to go off' to the yacht that moment. 
 
 'You'll see to them, there's a good fellow,' as they lighted 
 their cigars at the door. ' That Vavasour is greener than grass, 
 you know, tant pis for my poor sister." 
 
 ' I am not going.' 
 
 ' Not going ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly not ; so my rooms will be at their service ; and 
 you had much better escort them yourself. It will be much less 
 disagreeable for Vavasour, who knows nothing of commanding 
 sailors,' or himself, thought the major, 'than finding himself 
 master of your yacht in his absence, and you will get your 
 fishing as you intended.' 
 
 ' But why are you going to stay 1 ' 
 
 ' Oh, I have not half done with the sea-beasts here. I found 
 two new ones yesterday.' 
 
 ' Quaint old beetle-hunter you are, for a man who has fought 
 in half a dozen battles ! ' and Scoutbush walked on silently for 
 five minutes. 
 
 Suddenly he broke out 
 
 ' I cannot ! By George, I cannot ; and what's more, I won't ! ' 
 
 'What?' 
 
 ' Run away. It will look so so cowardly, and there's the 
 truth of it, before those fine fellows down there : and just as I 
 am come among them, too ! The commander-iii-chief to turn 
 tail at the first shot ! Though I can't be of any use, I know, 
 and I should have liked a fortnight's fishing so,' said he in a 
 dolorous voice, ' before going to be eaten up with flies at Varna 
 for this Crimean expedition is all moonshine.' 
 
 ' Don't be too sure of that,' said Campbell. ' We shall go ; 
 and some of us who go will never come back, Freddy. I know 
 those Russians better than many, and I have been talking them 
 over lately with Thurnall, who has been in their service.' 
 
 ' Has he been at Sevastopol ? ' 
 
 ' No. Almost the only place on earth where lie has not 
 been : but from all he says, arid from all I know, we are under- 
 valuing our foes, as usual, and shall smart for it ! ' 
 
 ' We'll lick them, never fear ! ' 
 
 'Yes ; but not at the first round. Scoutbush, your life has 
 been child's play as yet. You are going now to see life in 
 earnest, the sort of life which average people have been living, 
 in every age and country, since Adam s fall ; a life of sorrow 
 and danger, tears and blood, mistake, confusion, and perplexity ; 
 and you will find it a very new sensation ; and, at first, a very 
 ugly one. All the more reason for doing what good deeds you 
 can before you go ; for you may have no time left to do any on 
 the other side of the sea.' 
 
 Scoutbush was silent awhile.
 
 xvt COME AT LAST 279 
 
 ' Well ; I'm afraid of nothing, I hope : only I wish one could 
 meet this cholera face to face, as one will those Russians, with 
 a good sword in one's hand, and a good horse between one's 
 knees ; and have a chance of giving him what he brings, instead 
 of being kicked off' by the cowardly Rockite, no one knows how ; 
 and not even from behind a turf dyke, but out of the very 
 clouds.' 
 
 ' So we all say, in every battle, Scoutbush. Who ever sees 
 the man who sent the bullet through him ? And yet we fight 
 on. Do you not think the greatest terror, the only real terror, 
 in any battle, is the chance shots which come from no one knows 
 where, and hit no man can guess whom 1 If you go to the 
 Crimea, as you will, you will feel what I felt at the Cape, and 
 Cabul, and the Punjab, twenty times, the fear of dying like a 
 dog, one knew not how.' 
 
 'And yet I'll fight, Campbell ! ' 
 
 1 Of course you will, and take your chance. Do so now ! ' 
 
 ' By Jove, Campbell I always say it you're the most sen- 
 sible man I ever met ; and, by Jove, the doctor comes the next. 
 My sister shall have the yacht, and I'll go up to Penalva.' 
 
 ' You will do two good deeds at once, then,' said the major. 
 ' You will do what is right, and you will give heart to many a 
 poor wretch here. Believe me, Scoutbush, you will never repent 
 of this.' 
 
 ' By Jove, it always does one good to hear you talk in that 
 way, Campbell ! One feels I don't know so much of a man 
 when one is with you ; not that I shan't take uncommonly good 
 care of myself, old fellow ; that is but fair : but as for running 
 away, as I said, why why why, I can't, and so I won't ! ' 
 
 ' By the by,' said the major, ' there is one tiling which I have 
 forgotten, and which they will never recollect. Is the yacht 
 victualled with fresh meat and green stuff, I mean ? ' 
 
 ' Whew w 
 
 'I will go back, borrow a lantern, and forage in the garden, 
 like an old campaigner. I have cut a sahad with my sword 
 before now.' 
 
 'And made it in your helmet, with macassar sauce 1 ?' And 
 the two went their ways. 
 
 Meanwhile, before they had left the room, a notable conversa- 
 tion had been going on between Valentia and Headley. 
 
 Headley had re-entered the room so much paler than he went 
 out, that everybody noticed his altered looks. Valentia chose 
 to attribute them to fear. 
 
 'So! Are you returned from the sick man already, Mr. 
 Headley 1 ' asked she, in a marked tone. 
 
 'I have been forbidden by the doctor to go near him at 
 present, Miss St. Just,' said he quietly, but in a sort of under- 
 voice, which hinted that he wished her to ask no more questions. 
 A shade passed over her forehead, and she begun chatting rather
 
 280 TWO YEARS A0 CHAP. 
 
 noisily to the rest of the party, till Elsley, her brother, and 
 Campbell went out. 
 
 Valentia looked up at him, expecting him to go too. Mrs. 
 Vavasour began bustling about the room, collecting little valu- 
 ables, and looking over her shoulders at the now unwelcome 
 guest. But Frank leant back in a cosy arm-chair, and did not 
 stir. His hands were clasped on his knees ; he seemed lost in 
 thought ; very pale : but there was a firm set look about his 
 lips which attracted Valentia's attention. Once he looked up in 
 Valentia's face, and saw that she was looking at him. A flush 
 came over his cheeks for a moment, and then he seemed as im- 
 passive as ever. What could he want there ? How very gauche 
 and rude of him : so unlike him, too ! And she said, civilly 
 enough, to him, 'I fear, Mr. Headley, we must begin packing 
 up now.' 
 
 ' I fear you must, indeed,' answered he, as if starting from a 
 dream. He spoke in a tone, and with a look, which made both 
 the women start ; for what they meant it was impossible to 
 doubt. 
 
 ' I fear you must. I have foreseen it a long time ; and so, I 
 fear' (and he rose from his seat), 'must I, unless I mean to be very 
 rude. You will at least take away with you the knowledge 
 that you have given to one person's existence, at least for a few 
 weeks, pleasure more intense than he thought earth could hold.' 
 
 ' I trust that pretty compliment was meant for me,' said 
 Lucia, half playful, half reproving. 
 
 ' I am sure that it ought not to have been meant for me,' 
 said Valentia, more downright than her sister. Both could see 
 for whom it was meant, by the look of passionate worship which 
 Frank fixed on a face which, after all, seemed made to be 
 worshipped. 
 
 'I trust that neither of you,' .answered he quietly, 'think me 
 impertinent enough to pretend to make love, as it is called, to 
 Miss St. Just. I know who she is, and who I am. Gentleman 
 as I am, and the descendant of gentlemen' (and Frank looked a 
 little proud, as he spoke, and very handsome), 'I see clearly 
 enough the great gulf fixed between us ; and 1 like it ; for it 
 enables me to say truth which I otherwise dare not have 
 spoken ; as a brother might say it to a sister, or a subject to a 
 queen. Either analogy will do equally well, and equally ill.' 
 
 Frank, without the least intending it, had taken up the very 
 strongest military position. Let a man once make a woman 
 understand, or fancy, that he knows that he is nothing to her ; 
 and confess boldly that there is a great gulf fixed between them, 
 which he has no mind to bridge over : and then there is little 
 that he may not see or do, for good or for evil. 
 
 And therefore it was that Lucia answered gently, 'I am sun; 
 you are not well, Mr. Headley. The excitement of the night 
 has been too much for you.'
 
 xvi COME AT LAST i>8l 
 
 ' Do I look excited, my dear madam ? ' he answered quietly ; 
 ' I assure you that I am as calm as a man must be who believes 
 that he has but a few days to live, and trusts, too, that when he 
 dies, he will be infinitely happier than he has ever been on 
 earth, and lay down an office which he has never discharged 
 otherwise than ill ; which has been to him a constant source of 
 shame and sorrow.' 
 
 ' Do not speak so ! ' said Valentia, with her Irish impetuous 
 generosity; 'you are unjust to yourself. We have watched 
 you, felt for you, honoured you, even when we differed from 
 you.' What more she would have said, I know not, but at that 
 moment Elsley's peevish voice was heard calling over the stairs, 
 ' Lucia ! Lucia ! ' 
 
 ' Oh clear ! He will wake the children ! ' cried Lucia, looking 
 ;it her sister, as much as to say, 'how can I leave you ?' 
 
 ' Run, run, my dear creature ! ' said Valentia, with a self- 
 confident smile : and the two were left alone. 
 
 The moment that Mrs. Vavasour quitted the room there 
 vanished from Frank's face that intense look of admiration 
 which had made even Valentia uneasy. He dropped his eyes, 
 and his voice faltered as he spoke again. He acknowledged the 
 change in their position, and Valentia saw that he did so, and 
 liked him the better for it. 
 
 'I shall not repeat, Miss St. Just, now that we are alone, 
 what I said just now of the pleasure which I have had during 
 the last month. I am not poetical, or given to string metaphors 
 together ; and I could only go over the same dull words once 
 more. But I could ask, if I were not asking too much, leave to 
 prolong at least a shadow of that pleasure to the last moment. 
 That I shall die shortly, and of this cholera, is with me a fixed 
 idea, which nothing can remove. No, madam it is useless to 
 combat it ! But had I anything, by which to the last moment I 
 could bring back to my fancy what has been its sunlight for so 
 long ; even if it were a scrap of the hem of yi ur garment, aye, 
 a grain of dust off your feet God forgive me ! He ana His 
 mercy ought to be enough to keep me up : but one's weakness 
 may be excused for clinging to such slight floating straws of 
 comfort.' 
 
 Valentia paused, startled, and yet affected. How she had 
 played with this deep pure heart ! And yet, was it pure ? Did 
 lie wish, by exciting her pity, to trick her into giving him what 
 he might choose to consider a token of affection ? 
 
 And she answered coldly enough 
 
 ' I should be sorry, after what you have just said, to chance 
 hurting you by refusing. I put it to your own good feeling 
 have you not asked somewhat too much ? ' 
 
 ' Certainly too much, madam, in any common case,' said he, 
 quite unmoved. 'Certainly too much, if 1 asked you for it, as 
 I do not, as the token of an affection which 1 know well you do
 
 282 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 not, cannot feel. But take my words as they stand were you 
 to it would be returned if I die, in a few weeks ; and returned 
 still sooner if I live. And, madam,' said he, lowering his voice, 
 ' I vow to you, before Him who sees us both, that, as far as I am 
 concerned, no human being shall ever know of the fact.' 
 
 Frank had at last touched the wrong chord. 
 
 ' What, Mr. Headley ? Can you think that I am to have 
 secrets in common with you, or with any other man ? No, sir ! 
 If I granted your request, I should avow it as openly as I shall 
 refuse it.' 
 
 And she turned sharply toward the door. 
 
 Frank Headley was naturally a shy man : but extreme need 
 sometimes bestows on shyness a miraculous readiness (else why, 
 in the long run, do the shy men win the best wives 1 which is a 
 fact, and may be proved by statistics, at least as well as any- 
 thing else can) so he quietly stepped to Valentia's side, and said 
 in a low voice 
 
 ' You cannot avow the refusal half as proudly as I shall avow 
 the request, if you will but wait till your sister's return. Both 
 are unnecessary, I think : but it will only be an honour to me 
 to confess that, poor curate as I am 
 
 ' Hush ! ' and Valentia walked quietly up to the table, and 
 began turning over the leaves of a book, to gain time for her 
 softened heart and puzzled brain. 
 
 In five minutes Frank was beside her again. The book was 
 Tennyson's Princess. She had wandered who can tell why 1 
 to that last exquisite scene, which all know ; and as Valentia 
 read, Frank quietly laid a finger on the book, and arrested her 
 eyes at last 
 
 ' If you be, what I think yon, sonic sweet dream, 
 Stoop down, and seem to kiss me ere I die ! ' 
 
 Valentia shut the book up hurriedly and angrily. A moment 
 after she had made up her mind what to do, and with the 
 slightest gesture in the world, motioned Frank proudly and 
 coldly to follow her back into the window. Had she been a 
 country girl, she would have avoided the ugly matter ; but she 
 was a woman of the world enough to see that she must, for her 
 own sake and his, talk it out reasonably. 
 
 ' What do you mean, Mr. Headley 1 I must ask ! You told me 
 just now that you had no intention of making love to me.' 
 
 ' I told you the truth,' said he, in his quiet impassive voice. 
 ' I fixed on these lines as a pis alter ; and they have done all, 
 and more than I wished, by bringing you back here for at least 
 a moment.' 
 
 'And do you suppose you speak like a rational man, 
 therefore I must treat you as one that I can grant your 
 request ? '
 
 xvt COME AT LAST 283 
 
 ' Why not ? It is an uncommon one. If I have guessed your 
 character aright, you are able to do uncommon things. Had 1 
 thought you enslaved by etiquette, and by the fear of a world 
 which you can make bow at your feet if you will, I should not 
 have asked you. But' and here his voice took a tone of 
 deepest earnestness 'grant it only grant it, and you shall 
 never repent it. Never, never, never will I cast one shadow 
 over a light which has been so glorious, so life-giving ; which I 
 watched with delight, and yet lose without regret. Go your 
 way, and God be with you ! I go mine ; grant me but a fort- 
 night's happiness, and then let what will come ! ' 
 
 He had conquered. The quiet earnestness of the voice, the 
 child-like simplicity of the manner, of which every word con- 
 veyed the most delicate flattery yet, she could see, without 
 intending to flatter, without an afterthought all these had 
 won the impulsive Irish nature. For all the dukes and mar- 
 quises in Belgravia she would not have done it ; for they would 
 have meant more than they said, even when they spoke more 
 clumsily : but for the plain country curate she hesitated, and 
 asked herself, ' What shall I give him ? ' 
 
 The rose from her bosom ? No. That was too significant at 
 once, and too common-place ; besides, it might wither, and he 
 find an excuse for not restoring it. It must be something valu- 
 able, stately, formal, which he must needs return. And she 
 drew oft' a diamond hoop, and put it quietly into his hand. 
 
 ' You promise to return it ? 
 
 ' I promised long ago.' 
 
 He took it, and lifted it she thought that he was going to 
 press it to his lips. Instead, he put it to his forehead, bowing 
 forward, and moved it slightly. She saw that he made with it 
 the sign of the Cross. 
 
 ' I thank you,' he said, with a look of quiet gratitude. ' I 
 expected as much, when you came to understand my request. 
 Again, thank you ! ' and he drew back humbly, and left her 
 there alone ; while her heart smote her bitterly for all the 
 foolish encouragement which she had given to one so tender, 
 and humble, and delicate and true. 
 
 And so did Frank Headley get what he wanted ; by that 
 plain earnest simplicity, which has more power (let worldlings 
 pride themselves as they will on their knowledge of women) 
 than all the cunning wiles of the most experienced rake ; and 
 only by aping which, after all, can the rake conquer. It was a 
 strange thing for Yalentia to do, no doubt ; but the strange; 
 tilings which are done in the world (which are some millions 
 daily) are just what keep the world alive.
 
 284 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 CHAPTEK XVII 
 
 BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET 
 
 THE next day there were three cholera cases ; the day after 
 there were thirteen. 
 
 He had come at last, Baalzebub, god of flies, and of what 
 flies are bred from ; to visit his self-blinded worshippers, and 
 bestow on them his own Cross of the Legion of Dishonour. He 
 had come suddenly, capriciously, sportively, as lie sometimes 
 comes ; as he had come to Newcastle the summer before, while 
 yet the rest of England was untouched. He had wandered all 
 but harmless about the West-country that summer ; as if his 
 maw had been full glutted five years before, when he sat for 
 many a week upon the Dartmoor hills, amid the dull brown 
 haze, and sunburnt bents, and dried-up water-courses of white 
 dusty granite, looking far and wide over the plague-struck 
 land, and listening to the dead -bell booming all day long in 
 Tavistock churchyard. But lie was come at last, with appetite 
 more tierce than ever, and had darted aside to seize on Aber- 
 alva, and not to let it go till lie had sucked his fill. 
 
 And all men moved about the streets slowly, fearfully ; con- 
 scious of some awful unseen presence, which might spring on 
 them from round every corner ; some dreadful inevitable spell, 
 which lay upon them like a nightmare weight ; and walked to 
 and fro warily, looking anxiously into each other's faces, not to 
 
 ask, ' How are you ? ' but ' How am 1 1 ' ' Do I look as if 1 ' 
 
 and glanced up ever and anon restlessly, as if they expected to 
 see, like the Greeks, in their tainted camp by Troy, the pitiless 
 Sun-god shooting his keen arrows down on beast and man. 
 
 All night long the curdled cloud lay low upon the hills, 
 wrapping in its hot blanket the sweltering breathless town ; 
 and rolled off sullenly when the sun rose high, to let him pour 
 down his glare, and quicken into evil life all evil things. For 
 Baalzebub is a sunny fiend ; and loves not storm and tempest, 
 thunder, and lashing rains ; but the broad bright sun, and 
 broad blue sky, under which he can take his pastime merrily, 
 and laugh at all the shame and agony below ; and, as he did at 
 his great banquet in New Orleans once, madden all hearts the 
 more by the contrast between the pure heaven above and the 
 foul hell below. 
 
 And up and down the town the foul fiend sported, now here, 
 now there ; snapping daintily at unexpected victims, as if to 
 make confusion worse confounded ; to belie Thurnall's theories 
 and prognostics, and harden the hearts of fools by fresh excuses 
 for believing that he had nothing to do with drains and water ; 
 that he was ' only ' such an only ! ' the Visitation of God.'
 
 xvn BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET 285 
 
 He has taken old Beer's second son ; and now he clutches at 
 the old man himself ; then across the street to Gentleman Jan, 
 his eldest ; but he is driven out from both houses by chloride of 
 lime and peat dust, and the colony of the Beers lias peace 
 awhile. 
 
 Alas ! there are victims enough and to spare beside them, too 
 ready for the sacrifice, and up the main street he goes un- 
 abashed, springing in at one door and at another, on either side 
 of the street, but fondest of the western side, where the hill 
 slopes steeply down to the house-backs. 
 
 He fleshes his teeth on every kind of prey. The drunken 
 cobbler dies, of course ; but spotless cleanliness and sobriety 
 does not save the mother of seven children, who has been 
 soaking her brick floor daily with water from a poisoned well, 
 defiling where she meant to clean. Youth does not save the 
 buxom lass, who has been filling herself, as girls will do, with 
 unripe fruit ; nor innocence the two fair children who were 
 sailing their feather-boats yesterday in the quay-pools, as they 
 have sailed them for three years past, and found no hurt ; piety 
 does not save the bedridden old dame, bedridden in the lean-to 
 garret, who moans, ' It is the Lord ! ' and dies. It is ' the Lord ' 
 to her, though Baalzebub himself be the angel of release. 
 
 And yet all the while sots and fools escape where wise men 
 fall ; weakly women, living amid all wretchedness, nurse, un- 
 harmed, strong men who have breathed fresh air all day. Of 
 one word of Scripture at least Baalzebub is mindful ; for 'one 
 is taken and another left.' 
 
 Still, there is a method in his seeming madness. His eye falls 
 on a blind alley, running back from the main street, backed at 
 the upper end by a high wall of rock. There is a Godsend for 
 him a devil's-send, rather, to speak plain truth ; and in he 
 dashes ; and never leaves that court, let brave Tom wrestle with 
 him as he may, till he has taken one from every house. 
 
 That court belonged to Treluddra, the old fish-jowder. He 
 must do something. Thurnall attacks him ; Major Campbell, 
 Headley ; the neighbours join in the cry ; for there is no mis- 
 taking cause and effect there, and no one bears a great love to 
 him ; besides, terrified and conscience-stricken men are glad of 
 a scapegoat ; and some of those who were his stoutest backers 
 in the vestry are now, in their terror, the loudest against him, 
 ready to impute the whole cholera to him. Indeed, old Beer is 
 ready to declare that it was Treluddra's fish-heaps which poisoned 
 him and his ; so, all but mobbed, the old sinner goes up to set 
 the houses to rights ? No ; to curse the whole lot for a set of 
 pigs, and order them to clean the place out themselves, or lie 
 will turn them into the street. He is one of those base natures, 
 whom fact only lashes into greater fury a Pharaoh whose heart 
 the Lord himself can only harden ; such men there are, .and 
 women, too, grown gray in lies, to reap at last the fruit of lies.
 
 286 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 But he carries back with him to his fish-heaps a little invisible 
 somewhat which he did not bring ; and ere nightfall lie is dead 
 hideously, he, his wife, his son ; and now the Beers are down 
 again, and the whole neighbourhood of Treluddra's house is wild 
 with disgusting agony. 
 
 Now the fiend is hovering round the fish-curing houses ; but 
 turns back, disgusted with the pure scent of the tanyard, where 
 not hides, but nets are barked ; skips on board of a brig in the 
 quay-pool ; and a poor collier's 'prentice dies, and goes to his 
 own place. What harm has he done ? Is it his sin that, ill-fed 
 and well-beaten daily, he has been left to sleep on board, just 
 opposite the sewer's mouth, in a berth some four feet long by 
 two feet high and broad ? 
 
 Or is it that poor girl's sin who was just now in Heale's shop, 
 talking to Miss Heale safe and sound, that she is carried back 
 into it, in half an hour's time, fainting, shrieking ? One must 
 draw a veil over the too hideous details. 
 
 No, not her fault ; but there, at least, the curse has not come 
 without a cause. For she is Tardrew's daughter. 
 
 But whither have we got ? How long has the cholera been in 
 Aberalva? Five days, five minutes, or five years 1 How many 
 suns have risen and set since Frank Headley put into his bosom 
 Valentia's pledge ? 
 
 It would be hard for him to tell, and hard for many more ; 
 for all the days have passed as in a fever dream. To cowards 
 the time has seemed endless ; and every moment, ere their term 
 shall come, an age of terror, of self-reproach, of superstitious 
 prayers and cries, which are not repentance. And to some 
 cowards, too, the days have seemed but as a moment ; for they 
 have been drunk day and night. 
 
 Strange and hideous, yet true. 
 
 It has now become a mere common-place, the strange power 
 which great crises, pestilences, famines, revolutions, invasions, 
 have to call out in their highest power, for evil and for good 
 alike, the passions and virtues of man ; how, during their stay, 
 the most desperate recklessness, the most ferocious crime, side 
 by side with the most heroic and unexpected virtue, are followed 
 generally by a collapse and a moral death, alike of virtue and 
 of vice. We should explain this nowadays, and not ill, by saying 
 that these crises put the human mind into a state of exaltation ; 
 but the truest explanation, after all, lies in the old Bible belief, 
 that in these times there goes abroad the unquenchable fire of 
 God, literally kindling up all men's hearts to the highest activity, 
 and showing, by the light of their own strange deeds, the inmost 
 recesses of their spirits, till those spirits burn down again, self- 
 consumed, while the chaff and stubble are left as ashes, not 
 valueless after all, as manure for some future crop ; and the 
 pure gold, if gold there be, alone remains behind. 
 
 Even so it was in Aberalva during that fearful week. The
 
 xvn BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET 287 
 
 drunkards drank more- the swearers swore more than ever; 
 the unjust shopkeeper clutched more greedily than ever at the 
 last few scraps of mean gain which remained for him this side 
 the grave ; the selfish wrapped themselves up more brutally 
 than ever in selfishness ; the shameless women mingled des- 
 perate debauchery with fits of frantic superstition ; and all 
 base souls cried out together, ' Let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die ! ' 
 
 But many a brave man and many a weary worn/in possessed 
 their souls in patience, and worked on, and found that as their 
 day their strength should be. And to them the days seemed 
 short indeed ; for there was too much to be done in them for any 
 note of time. 
 
 Headley and Campbell, Grace and old Willis, and last, but 
 not least, Tom Thurnall, these and three or four brave women, 
 organised themselves into a right gallant and well-disciplined 
 band, and commenced at once a visitation from house to house, 
 saving thereby, doubtless, many a life ; but ere eight-and-forty 
 hours were passed, the house visitation languished. It was as 
 much as they could do to attend to the acute cases. 
 
 And little Scoutbush ? He could not nurse, nor doctor ; but 
 what he could, he did. He bought, and fetched all that money 
 could procure. He galloped over to the justices, and obtained 
 such summary powers as he could ; and then, like a true Irish- 
 man, exceeded them recklessly, breaking into premises right and 
 left, in an utterly burglarious fashion ; he organised his fatigue- 
 party, as he called them, of scavengers, and paid the cowardly 
 clods five shillings a day each to work at removing all removable 
 nuisances ; he walked up and down the streets for hours, giving 
 the sailors cigars from his own case, just to show them that he 
 was not afraid, and therefore they need not be : and if it was 
 somewhat his fault that the horse was stolen, he at least did his 
 best after the event to shut the stable-door. The five real 
 workers toiled on, meanwhile, in perfect harmony and implicit 
 obedience to the all-knowing Tom, but with the most different 
 inward feelings. Four of them seemed to forget death and 
 danger ; but each remembered them in his own fashion. 
 
 Major Campbell longed to die, and courted death. Frank 
 believed that he should die, and was ready for death. Grace 
 longed to die, but knew that she should not die till she had 
 found Tom's belt, and was content to wait. Willis was of 
 opinion that an 'old man must die some day, and somehow, as 
 good one way as another ; ' and all his concern was to run about 
 after his maid, seeing that she did not tire herself, and obeying 
 all her orders with sailor-like precision and cleverness. 
 
 And Tom ? He just thought nothing about death and danger 
 at all. Always smiling, always cheerful, always busy, yet never 
 in a hurry, he went up and clown, seemingly ubiquitous. Sleep 
 he got when he could, and food as often as he could ; into the
 
 288 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 sea he leapt, morning and night, and came out fresher every 
 time ; the only person in the town who seemed to grow healthier, 
 and actually happier, as the work went on. 
 
 ' You really must be careful of yourself,' said Campbell at 
 last. ' You carry no charmed life.' 
 
 ' My dear sir, I am the most cautious and selfish man in the 
 town. I am living by rule ; I have got and what greater 
 pleasure ? a good stand-up tight with an old enemy ; and be 
 sure I shall keep myself in condition for it. I have written oft' 
 for help to the Board of Health, and I shall not be shoved against 
 the ropes till the government man comes down.' 
 
 ' And then ? ' 
 
 ' I shall go to bed and sleep for a month. Never mind me ; 
 but mind yourself : and mind that curate ; he's a noble brick 
 if all parsons in England were like him, I'd What's here now ? ' 
 
 Miss Heale came shrieking down the street. 
 
 ' O Mr. Thurnall ! Miss Tardrew ! Miss Tardrew ! ' 
 
 ' Screaming will only make you ill, too, miss. Where is Miss 
 Tardrew ? ' 
 
 ' In the surgery, and my mother ! ' 
 
 ' I expected this,' said Tom. ' The old man will go next.' 
 
 He went into the surgery. The poor girl was in collapse 
 already. Mrs. Heale was lying on the sofa, stricken. The old 
 man hanging over her, brandy bottle in hand. 
 
 ' Put away that trash ! ' cried Tom ; ' you've had too much 
 already.' 
 
 ' O Mr. Thurnall, she's dying, and I shall die too ! ' 
 
 ' You ! you were all right this morning.' 
 
 ' But I shall die ; I know I shall, and go to hell ! ' 
 
 'You'll go where you ought: and if you give way to this 
 miserable cowardice, you'll go soon enough. Walk out, sir ! 
 Make yourself of some use, and forget your fear ! Leave Mrs. 
 Heale to me.' 
 
 The wretched old man obeyed him, utterly cowed, and went 
 out ; but not to be of use : he had been hopelessly boozy from 
 the first half to fortify his body against infection, half to fortify 
 his heart against conscience. Tom had never reproached him 
 for his share in the public folly. Indeed, Tom had never re- 
 proached a single soul. Poor wretches who had insulted him 
 had sent for him with abject shrieks. ' O doctor, doctor, save 
 me ! Oh, forgive me ! oh, if I'd minded what you said ! Oh, 
 don't think of what I said ! ' And Tom had answered cheerfully, 
 'Tut-tut; never mind what might have been; let's feel your 
 pulse.' 
 
 But though Tom did not reproach Heale, Heale reproached 
 himself. He had just conscience enough left to feel the whole 
 weight of his abused responsibility, exaggerated and defiled by 
 superstitious horror ; and maudlin tipsy, he wandered about the 
 street, moaning that he had murdered his wife, and all the town,
 
 xvii BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET 289 
 
 .and asking pardon of every one he met ; till seeing one of the 
 meeting-houses open, he staggered in, in the vain hope of 'com- 
 fort which he knew he did not deserve. 
 
 In half an hour Tom was down the street again to Headley's. 
 ' Where is Miss Harvey ? ' 
 
 'At the Beers'.' 
 
 ' She must go up to Heale's instantly. The mother will die. 
 Those cases of panic seldom recover. And Miss Heale may very 
 likely follow her. She has shrieked and sobbed herself into it, 
 poor fool ! and Grace must go to her at once ; she may bring her 
 to common sense and courage, and that is the only chance. 
 
 Grace went, and literally talked and prayed Miss Heale into 
 life again. 
 
 'You are an angel,' said Tom to her that very evening, when 
 he found the girl past danger. 
 
 ' Mr. Thurnall ! ' said Grace, in a tone of sad and most mean- 
 ing reproof. 
 
 ' But you are ! And these owls are not worthy of you.' 
 
 ' This is no time for such language, sir ! After all, what am 
 1 doing more than you?' And Grace went upstairs again, with 
 a cold hard countenance which belied utterly the heart within. 
 
 That was the critical night of all. The disease seemed to have 
 done its worst in the likeliest spots : but cases of panic increased 
 all the afternoon ; and the gross number was greater than ever. 
 
 Tom did not delay inquiring into the cause ; and he discovered 
 it. Headley, coming out the next morning, after two hours' 
 fitful sleep, met him at the gate ; his usual business-like trot was 
 exchanged for a fierce and hurried stamp. When he saw Frank, 
 he stopped short, and burst out into a story which was hardly 
 intelligible, so interlarded was it with oaths. 
 
 ' For Heaven's sake ! Thurnall, calm yourself, and do not 
 swear so frightfully ; it is so unlike you ! What can have upset 
 you thus?' 
 
 ' Why should I not curse and swear in the street,' gasped he, 
 ' while every fellow who calls himself a preacher is allowed to 
 do it in the pulpit with impunity ! Fine him five shillings for 
 every curse, as you might, if people had courage and common 
 sense, and then complain of me ! I am a fool, I know, though. 
 But I cannot stand it ! To have all my work undone by a brutal 
 ignorant fanatic ! It is too much ? Here, if you will believe it, 
 are those preaching fellows getting up a revival, or some such 
 invention, just to make money out of the cholera ! They have 
 got down a great gun from the county town. Twice a-day they 
 are preaching at them, telling them that it is all God's wrath 
 against their sins ; that it is impious to interfere, and that I am 
 lighting against God, and the end of the world is coming, and 
 they and the devil only know what. If I meet one of them, I'll 
 wring his neck, and be hanged for it ! O you parsons ! you 
 parsons !' and Torn ground his teeth with rage. 
 
 U T . Y. A.
 
 290 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Is it possible ? How did you find this out 1 ' 
 
 'Mrs. Heale had been in, listening to their howling, just 
 before she was taken. Heale went in when I turned him out 
 of doors : carne home raving mad, and is all but blue now. Three 
 cases of women have I had this morning, all frightened into 
 cholera, by their own confession, by last night's tomfoolery. 
 Came home howling, fainted, and were taken before morning. 
 One is dead, the other two will die. You must stop it, or I 
 shall have half a dozen more to-night ! Go into the meeting, 
 and curse the cur to his face ! ' 
 
 ' I cannot,' cried Frank, with a gesture of despair, ' I cannot ! ' 
 
 'Ah, your cloth forbids you, I suppose, to enter the non- 
 conformist opposition shop.' 
 
 ' You are unjust, Thurnall ! What are such rules at a moment 
 like this ? I'd break them, and the bishop would hold me guilt- 
 less. But I cannot speak to these people. I have no eloquence 
 no readiness they do not trust me would not believe me 
 God help me ! ' and Frank covered his face with his hands, and 
 burst into tears. 
 
 ' Not that, for Heaven's sake ! ' said Tom, ' or we shall have 
 you blue next, my good fellow. I'd go myself, but they'd not 
 hear me, for certain ; I am no Christian, I suppose ; at least, I 
 can't talk their slang but I know who can ! We'll send 
 Campbell ! ' 
 
 Frank hailed the suggestion with rapture, and away they 
 went ; but they had an hour's good search from sufferer to 
 sufferer before they found the major. 
 
 He heard them quietly. A severe gloom settled over his face. 
 ' I will go,' said he. 
 
 At six o'clock that evening the meeting-house was filled with 
 terrified women, and half-curious, half-sneering men ; and among 
 them the tall figure of Major Campbell, in his undress uniform 
 (which he had put on, wisely, to give a certain dignity to his 
 mission), stalked in, and took his seat in the back benches. 
 
 The sermon was what he expected. There is no need to 
 transcribe it. Such discourses may be heard often enough in 
 churches as well as chapels. The preacher's object seemed to be 
 for some purpose or other which we have no right to judge 
 to excite in his hearers the utmost intensity of selfish fear, by 
 language which certainly, as Tom had said, came under the law 
 against profane cursing and swearing. He described the next 
 world iu language which seemed a strange jumble of Virgil's 
 ^Eneid, the Koran, the dreams of those rabbis who crucified our 
 Lord, and of those mediaeval inquisitors who tried to convert 
 sinners (and on their own ground, neither illogically nor over- 
 harshly) by making this world for a few hours as like as pos- 
 sible to what, so they held, God was going to make the world to 
 come for ever. 
 
 At last he stopped suddenly, when he saw that the animal
 
 xvii BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET 291 
 
 excitement was at the very highest, and called on all who felt 
 ' convinced ' to come forward and confess their sins. 
 
 In another minute there would have been (as there have been 
 ere now) four or five young girls raving and tossing upon the 
 floor, in mad terror and excitement ; or, possibly, half the con- 
 gregation might have rushed out (as a congregation has rushed 
 out ere now) headed by the preacher himself, and ran headlong 
 down to the quay pool, with shrieks and shouts, declaring that 
 they had cast the devil out of Betsy Pennington, and were 
 hunting him into the sea ; but Campbell saw that the madness 
 must be stopped at once, and rising, he thundered, in a voice 
 which brought all to their senses in a moment 
 
 ' Stop ! I, too, have a sermon to preach to you ; I trust I am 
 a Christian man, and that not of last year's making, or the year 
 l>efore. Follow me outside, if you be rational beings, and let me 
 tell you the truth God's truth ! Men ! ' he said, with an em- 
 phasis on the word, 'y u > at least, will give me a fair hearing, 
 and you too, modest married women ! Leave that fellow with 
 the shameless hussies who like to go into tits at his feet.' 
 
 The appeal was not in vain. The soberer majority followed 
 him out ; the insane minority soon followed, in the mere hope 
 of fresh excitement : while the preacher was fain to come also, 
 to guard his flock from the wolf. Campbell sprang upon a 
 large block of stone, and taking off his cap, opened his mouth, 
 and spake unto them. 
 
 Readers will doubtless desire to hear what Major Campbell 
 said : but they will be disappointed ; and perhaps it is better 
 for them that they should be. Let each of them, if they think 
 it worth while, write for themselves a discourse fitting for a 
 Christian man, who loved and honoured his Bible too much to 
 find in a few scattered texts, all misinterpreted, and some mis- 
 translated, excuses for denying fact, reason, common justice, 
 the voice of God in his own moral sense, and the whole remainder 
 of the Bible from beginning to end. 
 
 Whatsoever words he spoke they came home to those wild 
 hearts with power. And when he paused, and looked intently 
 into the faces of his auditory, to see what effect he was produc- 
 ing, a murmur of assent and admiration rose from the crowd, 
 which had now swelled to half the population of the town. 
 And no wonder ; no wonder that, as the men were enchained 
 by the matter, so were the women by the manner. The grand 
 head, like a gray granite peak against the clear blue sky ; the 
 tall figure, with all its martial stateliness and ease ; the gesture 
 of his long arm, so graceful, and yet so self-restrained ; the tones 
 of his voice?, which poured from beneath that proud moustache, 
 now tender as a girl's, now ringing like a trumpet over roof and 
 sea. There were old men there, old beyond the years of man, 
 who said they had never seen nor heard the like : but it must
 
 292 TWO YEARS AGO CHAI-. 
 
 be like what their fathers had told them of, when John Wesley, 
 on the cliffs of St. Ives, out-thundered the thunder of the gale. 
 To Grace he seemed one of the old Scotch Covenanters of whom 
 she had read, risen from the dead to preach there from his rock 
 beneath the great temple of God's air, a wider and a juste r creed 
 than theirs. Frank drew Thurnall's arm through his, and 
 whispered, ' I shall thank you for this to my dying day : ' but 
 Thurnall held down his head. He seemed deeply moved. At 
 last, half to himself 
 
 'Humph! I believe that between this man and that girl 
 you will make a Christian even of me some day ! ' 
 
 But the lull was only for a moment. For Major Campbell, 
 looking round, discerned among the crowd the preacher, 
 whispering and scowling amid a knot of women ; and a sudden 
 fit of righteous wrath came over him. 
 
 'Stand out there, sir, you preacher, and look me in the face, 
 if you can ! ' thundered lie. ' We are here on common ground 
 as free men, beneath God's heaven and God's eye. Stand out, 
 sir ! and answer me if you can ; or be for ever silent ! ' 
 
 Half in unconscious obedience to the soldier -like word of 
 command, half in jealous rage, the preacher stepped forward, 
 gasping for breath 
 
 ' Don't listen to him ! He is a messenger of Satan sent to 
 damn you a lying prophet ! Let the Lord judge between me 
 and him ! Stop your ears a messenger of Satan a Jesuit in 
 disguise ! ' 
 
 'You lie, and you know that you lie!' answered Campbell, 
 twirling slowly his long moustache, as he always did when 
 choking down indignation. ' But you have called on the Lord 
 to judge ; so do I. Listen to me, sir ! Dare you, in the 
 presence of God, answer for the words which you have spoken 
 this day ? ' 
 
 A strange smile came over the preacher's face. 
 
 ' I read my title clear, sir, to mansions in the skies. Well for 
 you if you could do the same.' 
 
 Was it only the setting sun, or was it some inner light from 
 the depths of that great spirit, which shone out in all his coun- 
 tenance, and filled his eyes with awful inspiration, as he spoke, 
 in a voice calm and sweet, sad and regretful, and yet terrible 
 from the slow distinctness of every vowel and consonant ? 
 
 'Mansions in the skies? You need not wait till then, sir, for 
 the presence of God. Now, here, you and T are before God's 
 judgment-seat. Now, here, I call on you to answer to Him for 
 the innocent lives which you have endangered and destroyed, 
 for the innocent souls to whom you have slandered their 
 heavenly Father by your devil's doctrines this day ! You have 
 said it. Let the Lord judge between you and me. He knows 
 best how to make His judgment manifest.' 
 
 He bowed his head awhile, as if overcome by the awful words
 
 BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET 293 
 
 which he had uttered, almost in spite of himself, and then 
 stepped slowly down from the stone, and passed through the 
 crowd, which reverently made way for him ; while many voices 
 cried, ' Thank you, sir ! Thank you ! ' and old Captain Willis, 
 stepping forward, held out his hand to him, a quiet pride in his 
 gray eye. 
 
 ' You will not refuse an old fighting man's thanks, sir ! This 
 has been like Elijah's day with Baal's priests on Carmel.' 
 
 Campbell shook his hand in silence: but turned suddenly, for 
 another and a coarser voice caught his ear. It was Jones, the 
 lieutenant's. 
 
 'And now, my lads, take the methodist parson, neck and 
 heels, and heave him into the quay pool, to think over his 
 summons ! ' 
 
 Campbell went back instantly. 'No, my dear sir, let me en- 
 treat you for my sake. What has passed has been too terrible 
 to me already ; if it has done any good, do not let us break it by 
 spoiling the law.' 
 
 ' I believe you're right, sir : but my blood is up, and no 
 wonder. Why, where is the preacher 1 ' 
 
 He had stood quite still for several minutes after Campbell's 
 adjuration. He had, often, perhaps, himself hurled forth such 
 words in the excitement of preaching ; but never before had he 
 heard them pronounced in spirit and in truth. And as he stood, 
 Thurnall, who had his doctor's eye on him, saw him turn paler 
 and more pale. Suddenly he clenched his teeth, and stooped 
 slightly forwards for a moment, drawing his breath. Thurnall 
 walked quickly and steadily up to him. 
 
 Gentleman Jan and two other riotous fellows had already 
 laid hold of him, more with the intention of frightening, than of 
 really ducking him. 
 
 ' Don't ! don't ! ' cried he, looking round with eyes wild but 
 not with terror. 
 
 ' Hands off, my good lads,' said Tom quietly. ' This is my 
 business now, not yours, I can tell you.' 
 
 And passing the preacher's arm through his own, with a 
 serious face, Tom led him off into the house at the back of the 
 chapel. 
 
 In two hours more he was blue ; in four lie was a corpse. 
 The judgment, as usual, had needed no miracle to enforce it. 
 
 Tom went to Campbell that night, and .apprised him of the 
 fact. ' Those words of yours went through him, sir, like a 
 -Minii; bullet. I was afraid of what would happen when I heard 
 them.' 
 
 ' So was I, the moment after they were spoken. Put, sir, I 
 felt a power upon me you may think it a fancy that there 
 was no resisting.' 
 
 'I dare impute no fancies, when I hear such truth and reason 
 as you spoke upon that stone, sir.'
 
 294 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Then you do not blame me ? ' asked Campbell, with a sub- 
 dued, almost deprecatory voice, such as Thurnall had never 
 heard in him before. 
 
 ' The man deserved to die, and he died, sir. It is well that 
 there are some means left on earth of punishing offenders whom 
 the law cannot touch.' 
 
 ' It is an awful responsibility.' 
 
 'Not more awful than killing a man in battle, which we both 
 have done, sir, and yet have felt no sting of conscience.' 
 
 'An awful responsibility still. Yet what else is life made up 
 of, from morn to night, but of deeds which may earn heaven or 
 hell? . . . Well, as he did to others, so was it done to him. 
 God forgive him ! At least, our cause will be soon tried and 
 ju,dged : there is little fear of my not meeting him again soon 
 enough.' And Campbell, with a sad smile, lay back in his chair 
 and was silent. 
 
 ' My dear sir,' said Tom, ' allow me to remind you, after this 
 excitement comes a collapse ; and that is not to be trifled Avith 
 just now. Medicine I dare not give you. Food I must.' 
 
 Campbell shook his head. 
 
 ' You must go now, my dear fellow. It is now half -past ten, 
 and I will be at Pennington's at one o'clock, to see how he goes 
 on ; so you need not go there. And, meanwhile, I must take a 
 little medicine.' 
 
 ' Major, you are not going to doctor yourself 1 ' cried 
 Tom. 
 
 ' There is a certain medicine called prayer, Mr. Thurnall an 
 old specific for the heartache, as you will find one day which 
 I have been neglecting much of late, and which 1 must return 
 to in earnest before midnight. Good-bye, God bless and keep 
 you ! ' And the major retired to his bedroom, and did not stir 
 off his knees for two full hours. After which he went to Pen- 
 nington's, and thence somewhere else ; and Tom met him at f cm- 
 o'clock that morning musing amid unspeakable horrors, quiet, 
 genial, almost cheerful. 
 
 ' You are a man,' said Tom to himself ; 'and I fancy at times 
 something more than a man ; more than me at least.' 
 
 Tom was right in his fear that after excitement would come 
 collapse ; but wrong as to the person to whom it would come. 
 When he arrived at the surgery door, Headley stood waiting for 
 him. 
 
 'Anything fresh ? Have you seen the Heales ?' 
 
 ' I have been praying with them. Don't be frightened. 1 
 am not likely to forget the lesson of this afternoon.' 
 
 'Then go to bed. It is full twelve o'clock.' 
 
 'Not yet, I fear. I want you to see old Willis. All is not, 
 right.' 
 
 'All ! I thought the poor dear old man would kill himself. 
 He has been working too hard, and presuming on his sailor's
 
 xvii BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET 295 
 
 power of tumbling in and taking a dog's nap whenever lie 
 chose.' 
 
 'I have warned him again and again : but he was working 
 so magnificently, that one had hardly heart to stop him. And 
 beside, nothing would part him from his maid.' 
 
 ' I don't wonder at that,' quoth Tom to himself. ' Is she 
 with him?' 
 
 ' No : he found himself ill ; slipped home on some pretence ; 
 and will not hear of our telling her.' 
 
 ' Noble old fellow ! Caring for every one but himself to the 
 last.' And they went in. 
 
 It was one of those rare cases, fatal, yet merciful withal, in 
 which the poison seems to seize the very centre of the life, and 
 to preclude the chance of lingering torture, by one deadening 
 blow. 
 
 The old man lay paralysed, cold, pulseless, but quite collected 
 and cheerful. Tom looked, inquired, shook his head, and called 
 for a hot bath of salt and water. 
 
 'Warmth we must have, somehow. Anything to keep the 
 fire alight.' 
 
 ' Why so, sir 1 ' asked the old man. ' The fire's been flicker- 
 ing down this many a year. Why not let it go out quietly, at 
 threescore years and ten ? You're sure my maid don't know?' 
 
 They put him into his bath, and he revived a little. 
 
 ' No ; I am not going to get well ; so don't you waste your 
 time on me, sirs ! I'm taken while doing my duty, as I hoped 
 to be. And I've lived to see my maid do hers, as I knew she 
 would, when the Lord called on her. I have but don't tell 
 her, she's well employed, and has sorrows enough already, some 
 that you'll know of some day 
 
 4 You must not talk,' quoth Tom, who guessed his meaning, 
 and wished to avoid the subject. 
 
 'Yes, but I must, sir. I've no time to lose. If you'd but go 
 and see after those poor Heales, and come again. I'd like to 
 have one word with Air. Headley ; and my time runs short.' 
 
 'A hundred, if you will,' said Frank. 
 
 'And now, sir, when they were alone, 'only one thing, if 
 you'll excuse an old sailor,' and Willis tried vainly to make his 
 usual salutation ; but the cramped hand refused to obey ' and 
 a dying one too.' 
 
 'What is it?' 
 
 ' Only don't be hard on the people, sir ; the people here. 
 They're good-hearted souls, with all their sins, if you'll only 
 take them as you find them, and consider that they've had no 
 chance.' 
 
 ' Willis, Willis, don't talk of that ! I shall be a wiser man 
 henceforth, I trust. At least I shall not trouble Aberalva 
 long.' 
 
 ' O sir, don't talk so ; and you just getting a hold of them ! '
 
 296 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 If 
 
 ' Yes, you, sir. They've found you out at last, thank God. 
 I always knew what you were, and said it. They've found you 
 out in the last week : and there's not a man in the town but 
 what would die for you, I believe.' 
 
 This announcement staggered Frank. Some men it would 
 have only hardened in their pedantry, and have emboldened 
 them to say : 'Ah ! then these men see that a High Churchman 
 can work like any one else, when there is a practical sacrifice 
 to be made. Now I have a standing ground which no one can 
 dispute, from which to go on and enforce my idea of what he 
 ought to be.' 
 
 But, rightly or wrongly, no such thought crossed Frank's 
 mind. He was just as good a churchman as ever why not 1 ? 
 Just as fond of his own ideal of what a parish and a church 
 service ought to be why not 1 But the only thought which 
 did rise in his mind was one of utter self -abasement. 
 
 ' Oh, how blind I have been ! How I have wasted my time 
 in laying down the law to these people ; fancying myself infal- 
 lible, as if God were not as near to them as He is to me 
 certainly nearer than to any book on my shelves offending 
 their little prejudices, little superstitions, in my own cruel self- 
 conceit and self-will ! And now, the first time that I forget 
 my own rules ; the first time that I forget almost that I am a 
 priest, even a Christian at all ! that moment they acknowledge 
 me as a priest, as a Christian. The moment I meet them upon 
 the commonest human ground, helping them as one heathen 
 would help another, simply because he was his own flesh and 
 blood, that moment they soften to me, and show me how much 
 I might have done with them twelve months ago, had I had but 
 common sense ! ' 
 
 He knelt down and prayed by the old man, for him and for 
 himself. 
 
 ' Would it be troubling you, sir 1 ' said the old man at last. 
 ' But I'd like to take the sacrament before I go.' 
 
 ' Of course. Whom shall I ask in 1 ' 
 
 The old man paused awhile. 
 
 ' I fear it's selfish : but it seems to me I would not ask it, 
 but that I know I'm going. I should like to take it with my 
 maid, once more before I die.' 
 
 'I'll go for her,' said Frank, 'the moment Thurnall comes 
 back to watch you.' 
 
 'What need to go yourself, sir? Old Sarah will go, and 
 willing.' 
 
 Thurnall came in at that moment. 
 
 'I am going to fetch Miss Harvey. Where is she, captain ? ' 
 
 'At Janey Headon's, along with her two poor children/ 
 
 'Stay,' said Tom, 'that's a bad quai'ter, just at the fish-house 
 back. Have some brandy before you start ?'
 
 xvn BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET 297 
 
 ' No ! no Dutch courage ! ' and Frank was gone. He had a 
 word to say to Grace Harvey, and it must be said at once. 
 
 He turned down the silent street, and turned up over stone 
 stairs, through quaint stone galleries and balconies such as are 
 often huddled together, on the clitf sides in fishing towns ; into 
 a stifling cottage, the door of which had been set wide open, in 
 the vain hope of fresh air. A woman met him, and clasped 
 both his hands, with tears of joy. 
 
 'They're mending, sir ! They're mending, else I'd have sent 
 to tell you. I never looked for you so late.' 
 
 There was a gentle voice in the next room. It was Grace's. 
 
 'Ah, she's praying by them now. She'm giving them all 
 their medicines all along ! Whatever I should have done with- 
 out her ! and in and out all day long, too ; till one fancies at 
 whiles the Lord must have changed her into five or six at once, 
 to be everywhere to the same minute.' 
 
 Frank went in, and listened to her prayer. Her face was as 
 pale and calm as the pale, calm faces of the two worn-out babes, 
 whose heads lay on the pillow close to hers : but her eyes were 
 lit up with an intense glory, which seemed to till the room with 
 love and light. 
 
 Frank listened : but would not break the spell. 
 
 At last she rose, looked round and blushed. 
 
 'I beg your pardon, sir, for taking the liberty. If I had 
 known that you were about, I would have sent : but hearing 
 that you were gone home, I thought you would not be offended, 
 if I gave thanks for them myself. They are my own, sir, as it 
 were 
 
 ' O Miss Harvey, do not talk so ! While you can pray as 
 you were praying then, he who would silence you might be 
 silencing unawares the Lord himself !' 
 
 She made no answer, though the change in Frank's tone 
 moved her ; and when he told her his errand, that thought also 
 passed from her mind. 
 
 At last, ' Happy, happy man ! ' she said calmly ; and putting 
 on her bonnet, followed Frank out of the house. 
 
 ' Miss Harvey,' said Frank, as they hurried up the street, ' I 
 must say one word to you, before we take that sacrament 
 together.' 
 
 'Sii-r 
 
 ' It is well to confess all sins before the Eucharist, and I 
 will confess mine. I have been unjust to you. I know that you 
 hate to be praised ; so I will not tell you what has altered my 
 opinion. But heaven forbid that I should ever do so Iwse a 
 tiling as to take the school away from one who is far more fit 
 to rule in it than ever I shall be ! ' 
 
 Grace burst into tears. 
 
 'Thank God! And I thank you, sir! Oh, there's never a 
 storm but what some gleam breaks through it ! And now, sir,
 
 298 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 I would not have told you it before, lest you should fancy that 
 I changed for the sake of gain though, perhaps, that is pride, 
 as too much else has been. But you will never hear of me inside 
 either of those chapels again.' 
 
 ' What has altered your opinion of them, then 1 ' 
 
 ' It would take long to tell, sir : but what happened this 
 morning filled the cup. I begin to think, sir, that their God 
 and mine are not the same. Though why should I judge them, 
 who worshipped that other God myself till no such long time 
 since ; and never knew, poor fool, that the Lord's name was 
 Love?' 
 
 ' I have found out that, too, in these last days. More shame 
 to me than to you that I did not know it before.' 
 
 ' Well for us both that we do know it now, sir. For if we 
 believed Him now, sir, to be aught but perfect love, how could 
 we look round here to-night, and not go mad ? ' 
 
 ' Amen ! ' said Frank. 
 
 And now had the pestilence, of all things on earth, revealed 
 to those two noble souls that God is Love ? 
 
 Let the reader, if he have supplied Campbell's sermon, answer 
 the question for himself. 
 
 They went in, and upstairs to Willis. 
 
 Grace bent over the old man tenderly, but with no sign of 
 sorrow. Dry-eyed, she kissed the old man's forehead ; arranged 
 his bed-clothes, woman-like, before she knelt down ; and then 
 the three received the sacrament together. 
 
 'Don't turn me out,' whispered Tom. 'It's no concern of 
 mine, of course : but you are all good creatures, and somehow, 
 I should like to be with you.' 
 
 So Tom stayed ; and what thoughts passed through his heart 
 are no concern of ours. 
 
 Frank put the cup to the old man's lips ; the lips closed, 
 sipped, then opened . . . the jaw had fallen. 
 
 ' Gone,' said Grace quietly. 
 
 Frank paused, awe-struck. 
 
 'Go on, sir,' said she, in a low voice. 'He hears it all more 
 clearly than he ever did befoi-e.' And by the dead man's side, 
 Frank finished the Communion Service. 
 
 Grace rose when it was over, kissed the calm forehead, and 
 went out without a word. 
 
 ' Tom,' said Frank, in a whisper, ' come into the next room 
 with me.' 
 
 Tom hardly heard the tone in which the words were spoken, 
 or lie would perhaps have answered otherwise than he did. 
 
 ' My father takes the Communion," said he, half to himself. 
 ' At least, it is a beautiful old 
 
 Howsoever the sentence would have been finished, Tom 
 stopped short 
 
 'Hev ? -What does that mean ?'
 
 xvni THE BLACK HOUND 299 
 
 ' At last ? ' gasped Frank, gently enough. ' Excuse me ! ' He 
 was bowed almost double, crushing Thurnall's arm in the fierce 
 grip of pain. 
 
 'Pish! Hang it! Impossible There, you are all right 
 now ! ' 
 
 ' For the time. I can understand many things now. Curious 
 sensation it is, though. Can you conceive a sword put in on one 
 side of the waist, just above the hip-bone, and drawn through, 
 handle arid all, till it passes out at the opposite point ? ' 
 
 ' I have felt it twice ; and therefore you will be pleased to 
 hold your tongue and go to bed. Have you had any warn- 
 ings ? ' 
 
 'Yes n0 that is this morning ; but I forgot. Never 
 mind ! What matter a hundred years hence t There it is 
 again ! God help me ! ' 
 
 4 Humph ! ' growled Thurnall to himself. ' I'd sooner have 
 lost a dozen of these herring-hogs, whom nobody misses, and 
 who are well out of their life-scrape ; but the parson, just as lie 
 was making a man ! ' 
 
 There is no use in complaints. In half an hour Frank is 
 screaming like a woman, though he has bitten his tongue half 
 through to stop his screams. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE BLACK HOUND 
 
 PAH ! Let us escape anywhere for a breath of fresh air, for 
 even the scent of a clean turf. We have been watching saints 
 and martyrs perhaps not long enough for the good of our souls, 
 but surely too long for the comfort of our bodies. Let us away 
 up the valley, where we shall tind, if not indeed a fresh health- 
 ful breeze (for the drought lasts on), at least a cool refreshing 
 down-draught from Carcarrow Moor before the sun gets up. It 
 is just half-past four o'clock, on a glorious August morning. We 
 shall have three hours at least before the heavens become one 
 great Dutch-oven again. 
 
 We shall have good company, too, in our walk ; for here 
 cpmos Campbell fresh from his morning's swim, swinging up the 
 silent street toward Frank Headley's lodging. 
 
 He stops, and tosses a pebble against the window-pane. In 
 a minute or two Thurnall opens the street door and slips out to 
 him. 
 
 'Ah, major ! Overslept myself at last ; that sofa is wonder- 
 fully comfortable. No time to go down and bathe. I'll get my 
 header somewhere up the stream.' 
 
 ' How is he ? ' 
 
 ' He ? sleeping like a babe, and getting well as fast as his
 
 300 TWO YEARS AGO CHAV. 
 
 soul will allow his body. He has something on his mind. 
 Nothing to be ashamed of, though, I will warrant ; for a purer, 
 nobler fellow I never in.et.' 
 
 ' When can we move him ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, to-morrow, if lie will agree. You may all depart and 
 leave me and the government man to make out the returns of 
 killed and wounded. We shall have no more cholera. Eight 
 days without a new case. We shall do now. I'm glad you are 
 coming up with us.' 
 
 'I will just see the hounds throw off', and then go back and 
 get Headley's breakfast.' 
 
 ' No, no ! you mustn't, sir ; you want a day's play.' 
 
 'Not half as much as you. And I am in no hunting mood 
 just now. Do you take your till of the woods and the streams, 
 and let me see our patient. I suppose you will be back by 
 noon 1 ' 
 
 ' Certainly.' And the two swing up the street, and out of 
 the town, along the vale toward Trebooze. 
 
 For Trebooze, of Trebooze, has invited them, and Lord Scout- 
 bush, and certain others, to come out otter-hunting ; and otter- 
 hunting they will go. 
 
 Trebooze has been sorely exercised, during the last fortnight, 
 between fear of the cholera and desire of calling upon Lord 
 Scoutbush ' as I ought to do, of course, as one of the gentry 
 round ; he's a Whig, of course, and no more to me than anybody 
 else ; but one don't like to let . politics interfere ; ' by which 
 Trebooze glosses over to himself and friends the deep flunkey - 
 dom with which lie lusteth after a live loi'd's acquaintance, and 
 one especially in whom he hopes to find even such a one as him- 
 self. . . . 'Good fellow, I hear he is, too good sportsman, 
 smokes like a chimney,' and so forth. 
 
 So at last, when the cholera has all but disappeared, he comes 
 down to Penalva, and introduces himself, half swaggering, half 
 servile ; begins by a string of apologies for not having called 
 before ' Mrs. Trebooze so afraid of infection, you see, my lord,' 
 which is a lie : then blunders out a few fulsome compliments 
 to Scoutbush's courage in staying ; then takes heart at a little 
 joke of Scoutbush's, and tries the free and easy style ; fingers 
 his lordship's high-priced Hudsons, and gives a broad hint that 
 lie would like to smoke one on the spot ; which hint is not taken, 
 any more than the bet of a ' pony ' which he offers five minutes 
 afterwards, that he will jump his Irish mare in and out of 
 Aberalva pound; is utterly 'thrown on his haunches' (as he 
 informs his friend Mr. Creed afterwards) by Scoutbush's praise 
 of Tom Thurnall, as an 'invaluable man, a treasure in such an 
 out-of-the-way place, and really better company than ninety- 
 nine men out of a hundred ; ' recovers himself again when Scout- 
 bush asks after his otter-hounds, of which he has heard much 
 praise from Tardrew ; and launches out once more into sporting
 
 xviii THE MACK HOUND 301 
 
 conversation of that graceful and lofty stamp which may be 
 perused and perpendea in the pa^es of Handley Cros*, and Mr. 
 Sponge's Sporting Tour, books painfully true to that uglier and 
 baser side of sporting life which their clever author has chosen 
 so wilfully to portray. 
 
 So, at least, said Scoutbush to himself, when his visitor had 
 departed. 
 
 ' He's just like a page out of Sponge's Tour, though he's not 
 half as good a fellow as Sponge himself ; for Sponge knew he 
 was a snob, and lived up to his calling honestly : but this fellow 
 wants all the while to play at being a gentleman ; and Ugh ! 
 how the fellow smelt of brandy, and worse ! His hand, too, 
 shook as if he had the palsy, and he chattered and fidgetted 
 like a man with St. Vitus' dance.' 
 
 ' Did he, my lord ? ' quoth Tom Thurnall, when he heard the 
 same, in a very meaning tone. 
 
 And Trebooze, 'for his part, couldn't make out that lord 
 uncommonly agreeable, and easy, and all that : but shoves a 
 fellow off, and sets him down somehow, and in such a ... civil 
 way, that you don't know where to have him.' 
 
 However, Trebooze departed in high spirits ; for Lord Scout 
 bush has deigned to say that he will be delighted to see the 
 otter-hounds work any morning that Trebooze likes, and any- 
 how no time too early for him. ' He will bring his friend 
 Major Campbell ? ' 
 
 ' By all means.' 
 
 'Expect two or three sporting gentlemen from the neigh- 
 bourhood, too. Kegular good ones, my lord though they are 
 county bucks very much honoured to make your lordship's 
 acquaintance.' 
 
 Scoutbush expresses himself equally honoured by making 
 their acquaintance, in a tone of bland simplicity, which utterly 
 puzzles Trebooze, who goes a step further. 
 
 'Your lordship '11 honour us by taking pot luck afterwards. 
 Can't show you French cookery, you know, and your souffleys 
 and glacys, and all that. Honest saddle o' mutton, and the 
 grounds of old port. My father laid it down, and I take it up, 
 eh 1 ' And Trebooze gave a wink and a nudge of his elbow, 
 meaning to be witty. 
 
 His lordship was exceedingly sorry ; it was the most unfor- 
 tunate accident : but he had the most particular engagement 
 that very afternoon, and must return early from the otter-hunt, 
 and probably sail the next day for Wales. ' But,' says the little 
 man, who knows all about Trebooze's household, ' I shall not 
 fail to do myself the honour of calling on Mrs. Trebooze, and 
 expressing my regret,' etc. 
 
 So to the otter-hunt is Scoutbush gone, and Camplx 1 !! and 
 Thurnall after him ; for Trebooze has said to himself, ' Must ask 
 that blackguard of a doctor hang him ! I wish he were an
 
 302 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 otter himself ; but if lie's so thick with his lordship, it won't do 
 to quarrel.' For, indeed, Thurnall might tell tales. So Trebooze 
 swallows his spite and shame, as do many folk who call them- 
 selves his betters, when they have to deal with a great man's 
 hanger-on, and sends down a note to Tom : 
 
 'Mr. Trebooze requests the pleasure of Mr. Thurnall's com- 
 pany with his hounds at . . .' 
 
 And Tom accepts why not? and chats with Campbell, as 
 they go, on many things ; and among other things on this 
 
 ' By the by,' said he, ' I got an hour's shore- work yesterday 
 afternoon, and refreshing enough it was. And I got a prize, 
 too. The sucking barnacle which you asked for : I was certain 
 I should get one or two, if I could have a look at the pools this 
 week. Jolly little dog ! he was paddling and spinning about 
 last night, and enjoying himself, "ere age with creeping "- 
 what is it ? " hath clawed him in his clutch." That fellow's 
 destiny is not a hopeful analogy for you, sir, who believe that 
 we shall rise after we die into some higher and freer state.' 
 
 'Why not?' 
 
 ' Why, which is better off, the free swimming larva, or the 
 perfect cirrhipod, rooted for ever motionless to the rock ? ' 
 
 'Which is better off, the roving young fellow who is sowing 
 his wild oats, or the man who has settled down, and become a 
 respectable landowner with a good house over his head? ' 
 
 'And begun to propagate his species? Well, you have me 
 there, sir, as far as this life is concerned ; but you will confess 
 that the barnacle's history proves that all crawling grubs don't 
 turn into butterflies.' 
 
 ' I dare say the barnacle turns into what is best for him ; at 
 all events, what he deserves. That rule of yours will apply to 
 him, to whomsoever it will not.' 
 
 'And so does penance for the sins of his youth, as some of us 
 are to do in the next world ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps yes ; perhaps no ; perhaps neither.' 
 
 ' Do you speak of us or the barnacle ? ' 
 
 ' Of both.' 
 
 'I am glad of that ; for on the popular notion of our being 
 punished a million years hence for what we did when we were 
 lads, I never could see anything but a misery and injustice in 
 our having come into the world at all.' 
 
 'I can,' said the major quietly. 
 
 'Of course I meant nothing rude; but I had to buy my 
 experience, and paid for it dearly enough in folly.' 
 
 ' Ho had I to buy mine.' 
 
 ' Then why be punished over and above ? Why have to pay 
 for the folly, which was itself only the necessary price of 
 experience ? ' 
 
 'For being, perhaps, so foolish as not, to use the experience 
 after it has cost you so dear.'
 
 xvni THE BLACK HOUND 303 
 
 ' And will punishment cure me of the foolishness ? ' 
 
 ' That depends on yourself. If it does, it must needs be so 
 much the better for you. But perhaps you will not be punished, 
 but forgiven.' 
 
 'Let off'? That would be a very bad thing for me, unless I 
 become a very different man from what I have been as yet. I 
 am always right glad now to get a fall whenever I make a 
 stumble. I should have gone to sleep in my tracks long ago 
 else, as one used to do in the backwoods on a long elk hunt." 
 
 ' .Perhaps you may become a very 'different man.' 
 
 ' I should be sorry for that, even if it were possible.' 
 
 ' Why ? Do you consider yourself perfect 1 
 
 1 No. . . . But somehow, Thomas Thurnall is an old friend of 
 mine, the first I ever had ; and I should be sorry to lose his 
 company.' 
 
 ' I don't think you need fear doing so. You have seen an 
 insect go through strange metamorphoses, and yet remain the 
 same individual : why should not you and I do so likewise ?' 
 
 'Well?' 
 
 'Well there are some points about you, I suppose, which 
 you would not be sorry to have altered ? ' 
 
 'A few,' quoth Tom, laughing. 'I do not consider myself 
 quite perfect yet.' 
 
 'What if those points were not really any part of your 
 character, but mere excrescences of disease ; or if that be too 
 degrading a notion, mere scars of old wounds, and of the wear 
 and tear of life ; and what if, in some future life, all those dis- 
 appeared, and the true Mr. Thomas Thurnall, pure and simple, 
 were alone left ? ' 
 
 'It is a very hopeful notion. Only, my dear sir, one is quite 
 self-conceited enough in this imperfect state. What intolerable 
 coxcombs we should all be if we were perfect, and could sit 
 admiring ourselves for ever and ever ! ' 
 
 ' But what if that self-conceit and self-dependence were the 
 very root of all the disease, the cause of all the scars, the very 
 thing which will have to be got rid of, before our true character 
 and true manhood can be developed 1 ' 
 
 ' Yes, I understand. Faith and humility. . . . You will for- 
 give me, Major Campbell. I shall learn to respect those virtues 
 when good people have defined them a little more exactly, and 
 can show me somewhat more clearly in what faith differs from 
 superstition, and humility from hypocrisy.' 
 
 ' I do not think any man will ever define them for you. But 
 you may go through a course of experiences, more severe, prob- 
 ably, than pleasant, which may enable you at last to define 
 them for yourself.' 
 
 ' Have you defined them 1 ' asked Tom bluntly, glancing round 
 at his companion. 
 
 ' Faith ? Yes, I trust. Humility ? Xo, I fear.'
 
 304 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' I should like to hear your definition of the former, at least.' 
 
 'Did I not say that you must discover it for yourself?' 
 
 ' Yes. Well. When the lesson comes, if it does come, I sup- 
 pose it will come in some learnable shape ; and till then, I must 
 shift for myself and if self-dependence be a punishable sin, I 
 shall, at all events, have plenty of company whithersoever I go. 
 There is Lord Scoutbush and Trebooze ! ' 
 
 Why did not Campbell speak his mind more clearly to 
 Thurnall ? 
 
 Because he knew that with such men words are of little avail. 
 The disease was entrenched too strongly in the very centre of 
 the man's being. It seemed- at moments as if all his strange 
 adventures and hair-breadth escapes had been sent to do him 
 harm and not good ; to pamper and harden his self-confidence, 
 not to crush it. Therefore Campbell seldom argued witli him ; 
 but he prayed for him often ; for he had begun, as all did who 
 saw much of Tom Thurnall, to admire and respect him, in spite 
 of all his faults. 
 
 And now, turning through a woodland path, they descend 
 toward the river, till they can hear voices below them ; Scout- 
 bush laughing quietly, Trebooze laying down the law at the top 
 of his voice. 
 
 ' How noisy the fellow is, and how he is hopping about ! ' says 
 Campbell. 
 
 ' No wonder ; he has been soaking, I hear, for the last fort- 
 night, with some worthy compeers, by way of keeping off 
 cholera. I must have my eye on him to-day.' 
 
 Scrambling down through the brushwood, they found them- 
 selves in such a scene as Creswick alone knows how to paint ; 
 though one element of beauty, which Creswick uses full well, 
 was wanting ; and the whole place was seen, not by slant sun- 
 rays gleaming through the boughs, and dappling all the pebbles 
 with a lacework of leaf shadows, but in the uniform and sober 
 gray of dawn. 
 
 A broad bed of shingle, looking just now more like an ill- 
 made turnpike road than the bed of Alva stream ; above it, 
 a long shallow pool, which showed every stone through the 
 transparent water ; on the right, a craggy bank, bedded with 
 deep wood sedge and orange-tipped king ferns, clustering' 
 beneath sallow and maple bushes already tinged with gold ; on 
 the left, a long bar of gravel, covered with giant 'butterbur' 
 leaves ; in and out of which the hounds are brushing beautiful 
 black-and-tan dogs, of which poor Trebooze may be pardonably 
 proud ; while round the bur-leaf -bed dances a rough white Irish 
 terrier, seeming, by his frantic self-importance, to consider him- 
 self the master of the hounds. 
 
 Scoutbush is standing with Trebooze beyond the bar, upon 
 a little lawn set thick with alders. Trebooze is fussing and 
 ficlgetting about, wiping his forehead perpetually ; telling every-
 
 xvin THE BLACK HOUND 305 
 
 bodv to get out of the way, and not to interfere ; then catching 
 hold of Scoutbush's button to chatter in his face : then starting 
 aside to put some part of his dress to rights. His usual lazy 
 drawl is exchanged for foolish excitement. Two or three more 
 gentlemen, tired of Trebooze's absurdities, are scrambling over 
 the rocks above in search of spraints. Old Tardrew waddles 
 stooping along the line where grass and shingle meet, his bull- 
 dog visage bent to his very knees. 
 
 4 Tardrew out hunting ? ' says Campbell. ' Why, it is but a 
 week since his daughter was buried ! ' 
 
 'And why not? I like him better for it. Would he bring 
 her back again by throwing away a good day's sport ? Better 
 turn out, as he has done, and forget his feelings, if he has 
 any.' 
 
 ' He has feelings enough, don't doubt. But you are right. 
 There is something very characteristic in the way in which the 
 English countryman never shows grief, never lets it interfere 
 with business, even with pleasure.' 
 
 ' Hillo ! Mr. Trebooze ! ' says the old fellow, looking up. 
 ' Here it is ! ' 
 
 'Spraint? Spraint? Spraint? Where? Eh what?' cries 
 Trebooze. 
 
 ' No ; but what's as good : here on this alder stump, not an 
 hour old. I thought they beauties' starns weren't flemishing for 
 nowt.' 
 
 ' Here ! here ! here ! here ! Musical, Musical ! Sweetlips ! 
 Get out of the way ! ' and Trebooze runs down. 
 
 Musical examines, throws her nose into the air, and answers 
 by the rich bell-like note of the true otter-hound ; and all the 
 woodlands ring as the pack dashes down the shingle to her 
 call. 
 
 ' Over ! ' shouts Tom. ' Here's the fresh spraint our side ! ' 
 
 Through the water splash squire, viscount, steward, and 
 hounds, to the horror of a shoal ot par, the only visible tenants 
 of a pool which, after a shower of rain, would be alive witli 
 trout. Where those trout are in the meanwhile is a mystery 
 yet unsolved. 
 
 Over dances the little terrier, yapping furiously, and expend- 
 ing his superfluous energy by snapping right ^and left at the 
 par. 
 
 ' Hark to Musical ! hark to Sweetlips ! Down the stream ? 
 No ! the old girl has it ; right up the bank ! ' 
 
 'How do, doctor? How do, Major Campbell? Forward! 
 Forward ! Forward ! ' shouts Trebooze, glad to escape a longer 
 parley, as with his spear in his left hand, he clutches at the 
 overhanging boughs with his right, and swings himself up, 
 with Peter, the huntsman, after him. Tom follows him ; and 
 why ? 
 
 Because he does not like his looks. That bull-eye is red, 
 
 X T. Y. A.
 
 306 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 and almost bursting ; his cheeks are flushed, his lips blue, his 
 hand shakes ; and Tom's quick eye has already remarked, from 
 a distance, over and above his new fussiness, a sudden shudder, 
 a quick, half -frightened glance behind him ; and perceived, too, 
 that the moment Musical gave tongue, he put the spirit-flask to 
 his mouth. 
 
 Away go the hounds at score through tangled cover, their 
 merry peal ringing from brake and briar, clashing against the 
 rocks, moaning musically away through distant glens aloft. 
 
 Scoutbush and Tardrew 'take down' the river-bed, followed 
 by Campbell. It is in his way home ; and though the major 
 has stuck many a pig, shot many a gaur, rhinoceros, and 
 elephant, he disdains not, like a true sportsman, the less dan- 
 gerous but more scientific excitement of an otter-hunt. 
 
 ' Hark to the merry merry Christchurch bells ! She's up by 
 this time ; that don't sound like a drag now ! ' cries Tom, burst- 
 ing desperately, with elbow-guarded visage, through the tangled 
 scrub. ' What's the matter, Trebooze ? No, thanks ! " Modest 
 quenchers " won't improve the wind just now.' 
 
 For Trebooze has halted, panting and bathed in perspiration ; 
 has been at the brandy flask again ; and now offers Tom a 
 ' quencher,' as he calls it. 
 
 'As you like,' says Trebooze sulkily, having meant it as a 
 token of reconciliation, and pushes on. 
 
 They are now upon a little open meadow, girdled by green 
 walls of wood ; and along the river-bank the hounds are fairly 
 racing. Tom and Peter hold on ; Trebooze slackens. 
 Your master don't look right this morning, Peter.' 
 
 Peter lifts his hand to his mouth, to signify the habit of 
 drinking ; and then shakes it in a melancholy fashion, to signify 
 that the said habit has reached a lamentable and desperate 
 point. 
 
 Tom looks back. Trebooze has pulled up, and is walking, 
 wiping still at his face. The hounds have overrun the scent, 
 and are back again, flemishing about the plashed fence on the 
 river brink. 
 
 ' Over ! over ! over ! ' shouts Peter, tumbling over the fence 
 into the stream, and staggering across. 
 
 Trebooze comes up to it, tries to scramble over, mutters 
 something, and sits down astride of a bough. 
 
 ' You are not well, squire ? ' 
 
 ' Well as ever I was in my life. Only a little sick have been 
 several times lately ; couldn't sleep either haven't slept an 
 hour this week. Don't know what it is.' 
 
 ' What ducks of hounds these are ! ' says Tom, trying, for 
 ulterior purposes, to ingratiate himself. 'How they are work- 
 ing there all by themselves, like so many human beings. 
 Perfect ! 
 
 ' Yes don't want us may as well sit here a minute. Awfully
 
 xvni THE BLACK HOUND 307 
 
 hot, eh ? What a splendid creature that Miss St. Just is ! I say, 
 Peter ! ' 
 
 ' Yes, sir,' shouts Peter, from the other side. 
 
 ' Those hounds ain't right ! ' with an oath. 
 
 4 Not right, sir 1 ' 
 
 ' Didn't I tell you ? five couple and a half no, live couple 
 no, six. Hang it ! I can't see, I think ! How many hounds did 
 I tell you to bring out?' 
 
 ' Five couple, sir.' 
 
 ' Then . . . why did you bring out that other 1 ' 
 
 'Which other?' shouts Peter, while Thurnall eyes Trebooze 
 keenly. 
 
 ' Why, that ! He's none o' mine ! Nasty black cur, how did 
 lie get here ? ' 
 
 ' Where 1 There's never no cur here ! ' 
 
 'You lie, you oaf no why doctor How many hounds are 
 there here * ' 
 
 ' I can't see,' says Tom, ' among those bushes.' 
 
 'Can't see, eh? Why don't those brutes hit it off?' says 
 Trebooze, drawling, as if he had forgotten the matter, and 
 lounging over the fence, drops into the stream, followed by Tom, 
 and wades across. 
 
 The hounds are all round him, and he is couraging them on, 
 fussing again more than ever ; but without success. 
 
 'Gone to hole somewhere here,' says Peter. 
 
 ' . . . ! ' cries Trebooze, looking round, with a sudden shudder, 
 and face of terror. ' There's that black brute again ! there, 
 behind me ! Hang it, he'll bite me next ! ' and he caught up 
 his leg, and struck behind him with his spear. 
 
 There was no dog there. 
 
 Peter was about to speak, but Tom silenced him by a look, 
 and shouted 
 
 ' Here we are ! Gone to holt in this alder root ! ' 
 
 ' Now then, little Carlingford ! Out of the way, puppies ! ' 
 cries Trebooze, righted again for the moment by the excitement, 
 and thrusting the hounds right and left, he stoops down to put 
 in the little terrier. 
 
 Suddenly he springs up, with something like a scream, and 
 then bursts out on Peter with a volley of oaths. 
 
 ' Didn't I tell you to drive that cur away ?' 
 
 'Which cur, sir?' cries Peter, trembling, and utterly con- 
 founded. 
 
 ' That cur ! . . . Can't I believe my own eyes ? Will you tell 
 me that the beggar didn't bolt between my legs this moment, 
 and went into the hole before the terrier ? ' 
 
 Neither answered. Peter from utter astonishment ; Tom 
 because he saw what was the matter. 
 
 ' Don't stoop, squire. You'll make the blood tly to your head. 
 Let me '
 
 308 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 But Trebooze thrust him back with curses. 
 ' I'll have the brute out, and send the spear through him ! ' 
 and flinging himself on his knees again, Trebooze began tearing 
 madly at the roots and stones, shouting to the half-buried 
 terrier to tear the intruder. 
 
 Peter looked at Tom, and then wrung his hands in despair. 
 ' Dirty work beastly work ! ' muttered Trebooze. ' Nothing 
 but slugs and evats ! Toads, too, hang the toads ! What a 
 plague brings all this vermin 1 Curse it ! ' shrieked he, spring- 
 ing back, 'there's an adder ! and he's gone up my sleeve ! Help 
 me ! doctor ! Thurnall ! or I'm a dead man ! ' 
 
 Tom caught the arm, thrust his hand up the sleeve, and 
 seemed to snatch out the snake, and hurl it back into the 
 river. 
 
 'All right now ! a near chance, though ! ' 
 Peter stood open mouthed. 
 ' I never saw no snake ! ' cried he. 
 
 Tom caught him a buffet which sent him reeling. ' Look 
 after your hounds, you blind ass ! How are you now, Trebooze ?' 
 And he caught the squire round the waist, for he was 
 reeling. 
 
 ' The world ! The world upside down ! rocking and swing- 
 ing ! Who's put me feet upwards, like a fly on a ceiling ? .I'm 
 falling, falling off, into the clouds into hell-lire hold me! 
 Toads and adders ! and wasps to go to holt in a wasp's nest ! 
 Drive 'em away, get me a green bough ! I shall be stung to 
 death ! ' 
 
 And tearing off a green bough, the wretched man rushed into 
 the river, beating wildly right and left at his fancied tormentors. 
 'What is it?' cry Campbell and Scoutbush, who have run 
 up breathless. 
 
 'Delirium tremens. Campbell, get home as fast as you can, 
 and send me up a bottle of morphine. Peter, take the hounds 
 home. I must go after him.' 
 
 ' I'll go home with Campbell, and send the bottle up by a 
 man and horse,' cries Scoutbush ; and away the two trot at a 
 gallant pace, for a cross-countiy run home. 
 
 ' Mr. Tardrew, come with me, there's a good man ! I shall 
 want help.' 
 
 Tardrew made no reply, but dashed through the river at his 
 heels. 
 
 Trebooze had already climbed the plashed fence, and was 
 running wildly across the meadow. Tom dragged Tardrew up- 
 it after him. 
 
 'Thank 'ee, sir,' but nothing more. The two had not met 
 since the cholera. 
 
 Trebooze fell, and lay rolling, trying in vain to shield his face 
 from the phantom wasps. 
 
 They lifted him up, and spoke gently to him.
 
 xvni THE BLACK HOUND 309 
 
 ' Better get home to Mrs. Trebooze, sir,' said Tardrew, with 
 as much tenderness as his gruff voice could convey. 
 
 ' Yes, home ! home to Molly ! My Molly's always kind. She 
 won't let me be eaten up alive. Molly, Molly ! ' 
 
 And shrieking for his wife, the wretched man started to run 
 again. 
 
 ' Molly, I'm in hell ! Only help me ! you're always right ! 
 only forgive me ! and I'll never, never again 
 
 And then came out hideous confessions ; then fresh hideous 
 delusions. 
 
 Three weary up-hill miles lay between them and the house : 
 but home they got at last. 
 
 Trebooze dashed at the house, tore it open ; slammed and 
 bolted it behind him, to shut out the pursuing fiends. 
 
 ' Quick, round by the back-door ! ' said Tom, who had not 
 opposed him for fear of making him furious, but dreaded some 
 tragedy if he were left alone. 
 
 But his fear was needless. Trebooze looked into the break- 
 fast-room. It was empty ; she was not out of bed yet. He 
 rushed upstairs into her bedroom, shrieking her name ; she 
 leaped up to meet him ; and the poor wretch buried his head in 
 that faithful bosom, screaming to her to save him from he knew 
 not what. 
 
 She put her arms round him, soothed him, wept over him 
 sacred tears. ' My William ! my own William ! Yes I will 
 take care of you ! Nothing shall hurt you, my own, own ! ' 
 
 Vain, drunken, brutal, unfaithful. Yes : but her husband 
 still. 
 
 There was a knock at the door. 
 
 ' Who is that ? ' she cried, with her usual fierceness, terrified 
 for his character, not terrified for herself. 
 
 'Mr. Thurnall, madam. Have you any laudanum in the 
 house 1 ' 
 
 'Yes, here! Oh, come in! Thank God you are come ! What 
 is to be done ? ' 
 
 Tom looked for the laudanum bottle, and poured out a heavy 
 dose. 
 
 'Make him take that, madam, and put him to bed. I will 
 wait downstairs awhile ! ' 
 
 'Thurnall, Thurnall!' calls Trebooze: 'don't leave me, old 
 fellow ! you are a good fellow. I .say, forgive and forget. 1 )on't 
 leave me ! Only don't leave me, for the room is as full of devils 
 as 
 
 'An hour after, Tom and Tardrew were walking home to- 
 gether. 
 
 ' He is quite quiet now, and fast asleep.' 
 'Will he mend, sir? ' asks Tardrew.
 
 310 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'Of course he will : and perhaps in more ways than one. 
 Best thing that could have happened will bring him to his 
 senses, and he'll start fresh.' 
 
 'We'll hope so, he's been mad, I think, ever since he heard 
 of that cholera.' 
 
 ' So have others : but not with brandy,' thought Tom : but 
 he said nothing. 
 
 'I say, siiV quoth Tardrew after a while, 'how's Parson 
 Headley?' 
 
 ' Getting well, I'm happy to say.' 
 
 ' Glad to hear it, sir. He's a good man, after all ; though we 
 did have our differences. But he's a good man, and worked like 
 one.' 
 
 'He did.' 
 
 Silence again. 
 
 'Never heard such beaxitiful prayers in all my life, as he 
 made over my poor maid.' 
 
 ' I don't doubt it,' said Tom. ' He understands his business 
 at heart, though he may have his fancies.' 
 
 'And so do some others,' said Tardrew in a gruff tone, as if 
 half to himself, ' who have no fancies. . . . Tell you what it is, 
 sir : you was right this time ; and that's plain truth. I'm sorry 
 to hear talk of your going.' 
 
 ' My good sir,' quoth Tom, ' I shall be very sorry to go. I 
 have found place and people here as pleasant as man could wish: 
 but go I must.' 
 
 ' Glad you're satisfied, sir ; wish you was going to stay,' says 
 Tardrew. ' Seen Miss Harvey this last day or two, sir ? ' 
 
 'Yes. You know she's to keep her school ?' 
 
 'I know it. Nursed my girl like an angel.' 
 
 ' Like what she is,' said Tom. 
 
 'You said 'one true word once : that she was too good for us.' 
 
 'For this world,' said Tom ; and fell into a great musing. 
 
 By those curt and surly utterances did Tardrew, in true 
 British bulldog fashion, express a repentance too deep for 
 words ; too deep for all confessionals, penances, and emotions 
 or acts of contrition ; the repentance not of the excitable and 
 theatric southern, unstable as water, even in his most violent 
 remorse : but of the still, deep-hearted northern, whose pride 
 breaks slowly and silently, but breaks once for all ; who tells to 
 God what he will never tell to man ; and having told it, is a 
 new creature from that day forth for ever.
 
 xix BEDDGELERT 311 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 BEDDGELERT 
 
 THE pleasant summer voyage is over. The Watertvitch is 
 lounging off' Port Madoc, waiting for her crew. The said crew 
 are busy on shore drinking the ladies' healths, with a couple of 
 sovereigns which Valentia has given them, in her sister's name 
 and her own. The ladies, under the care of Elsley, and the far 
 more practical care of Mr. Bowie, are rattling along among 
 children, maids, and boxes, over the sandy flats of the Traeth 
 Mawr, beside the long reaches of the lazy stream, with the blue 
 surges of the hills in front, and the silver sea behind. Soon 
 they begin to pass wooded knolls, islets of rock in the alluvial 
 plain. The higher peaks of Snowdon sink down behind the 
 lower spurs in front ; the plain narrows closes in, walled round 
 with woodlands clinging to the steep hillsides : and, at last, 
 they enter the narrow gorge of Pont- Aberglaslyn pretty 
 enough, no doubt, but much over -praised ; for there are in 
 Devon alone a dozen passes far grander, both for form and size. 
 
 Soon they emerge again on flat meadows, mountain-cradled ; 
 and the grave of the mythic greyhound, and the fair old church, 
 shrouded in tall trees ; and last, but not least, at the famous 
 Leek Hotel, where ruleth Mrs. Lewis, great and wise, over the 
 four months' Babylon of guides, cars, chambermaids, tourists, 
 artists, and reading - parties, camp-stools, telescopes, poetry- 
 books, blue uglies, red petticoats, and parasols of every hue. 
 
 There they settle down in the best rooms in the house, and 
 all goes as merrily as it can, while the horrors which they have 
 left behind them hang, like a black background, to all their 
 thoughts. However, both Scoutbush and Campbell send as 
 cheerful reports as they honestly can ; and gradually the ex- 
 ceeding beauty of the scenery, and the amusing bustle of the 
 village, make them forget, perhaps, a good deal which they 
 ought to have remembered. 
 
 As for poor Lucia, no one will complain of her for being 
 happy ; for feeling that she has got a holiday, the first for now 
 four years, and trying to enjoy it to the utmost. She has no 
 household cares. Mr. Bowie manages everything, and does so, 
 in order to keep up the honour of the family, on a somewhat 
 magnificent scale. The children, in that bracing air, are better 
 than she lias ever seen them. She lias Valentia all to herself ; 
 and Elsley, in spite of the dark fancies over which he has been 
 brooding, is better behaved, on the whole, than usual. 
 
 He has escaped so he considers escaped from Campbell, 
 above all from Thurnall. From himself, indeed, he has not 
 escaped ; but the company of self is, on the whole, more pleasant
 
 312 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 to him than otherwise just now. For though he may turn up 
 his nose at tourists and reading-parties, and long for contem- 
 plative solitude, yet there is a certain pleasure to some people, 
 and often strongest in those who pretend most shyness, in the 
 ' digito monstrari, et dicier, hie est : ' in taking for granted that 
 everybody has read his poems ; that everybody is saying in their 
 hearts, 'There goes Mr. Vavasour, the distinguished poet. I 
 wonder what he is writing now ! I wonder where he has been 
 to-day, and what he has been thinking of.' 
 
 So Elsley went up Hebog, and looked over the glorious vista 
 of the vale, over the twin lakes, and the rich sheets of wood- 
 land, with Aran and Moel Meirch guarding them right and left, 
 and the graystone glaciers of the Glyder Availing up the valley 
 miles above. And they went up Snowdon, too, and saw little 
 beside fifty fog -blinded tourists, five -and -twenty dripping 
 ponies, and five hundred empty porter bottles ; wherefrom they 
 returned, as do many, disgusted, and with great colds in their 
 heads. But most they loved to scramble up the crags of Dinas 
 Emrys, and muse over the ruins of the old tower, ' where Merlin 
 taught Vortigern the courses of the stars ; ' till the stars set and 
 rose as they had done for Merlin and his pupil, behind the four 
 great peaks of Ai*an, Siabod, Cnicht, and Hebog, which point 
 to the four quarters of the heavens : or to lie by the side of the 
 boggy spring, which once was the magic well of the magic 
 castle, till they saw in fancy the white dragon and the red rise 
 from its depths once more, and fight high in the air the battle 
 which foretold the fall of the Cymry before the Sassenach 
 invader. 
 
 One thing, indeed, troubled Elsley, that Claude was his 
 only companion ; for Valentia avoided carefully any more 
 tete-a-tete walks with him. She had found out her mistake, 
 and devoted herself now to Lucia. She had a fair excuse 
 enough, for Lucia was not just then in a state for rambles and 
 scrambles ; and of that Elsley certainly had no right to com- 
 plain ; so that he was forced to leave them botli at home, with 
 as good grace as he could muster, and to wander by himself, 
 scribbling his fancies, while they lounged and worked in the 
 pleasant garden of the hotel, with Bowie fetching and carrying 
 for them all day long, and intimating pretty roundly to Miss 
 Clara his 'opeeenion,' that he 'was very proud and thankful 
 of the ofiice : but lie did think that he had to do a great many 
 things for Mrs. Vavasour every day which would come with 
 a much better grace from Mr. Vavasour himself ; and that, 
 when he married, he should not leave his wife to be nursed 
 by other men.' 
 
 Which last words were spoken with an ulterior object, well 
 understood by the hearer ; for between Clara and Bowie there 
 was one of those patient and honourable attachments so common 
 between worthy servants. . They hud both 'kept company,
 
 xrx BEDDGELEKT 313 
 
 though only by letter, for the most part, for now five years ; 
 they had both saved a fair sum of money ; and Clara might 
 have married Bowie when she chose, had she not thought it Tier 
 duty to take care of her mistress ; while Bowie considered him- 
 self equally indispensable to the welfare of that ' puir feckless 
 laddie,' his master. 
 
 So they waited patiently, amusing the time by little squabbles 
 of jealousy, real or pretended : and Bowie was faithful, though 
 Clara was past thirty now, and losing her good looks. 
 
 ' So ye'll see your lassie, Mr. Bowie ! ' said Sergeant Mac- 
 Arthur, his intimate, when he started for Aberalva that summer. 
 ' I'm thinking ye'd better put her out of her pain soon. Five 
 years is ower lang courting, and she's na pullet by now, saving 
 your pardon.' 
 
 ' Hoooo ,' says Bowie ; ' leave the green gooseberries to 
 
 the lads, and gi' me the ripe fruit, sergeant.' 
 
 However, he found love-making in his own fashion so 
 pleasant that, not content with carrying Mrs. Vavasour's 
 babies about all day long, he had several times to be gently 
 turned out of the nursery, where he wanted to assist in wash- 
 ing and dressing them, on the ground that an old soldier could 
 turn his hand to anything. 
 
 So slipped away a fortnight and more, during which Valentia 
 was the cynosure of all eyes, and knew it also : for Claude Mellot, 
 half to amuse her, and half to tease Elsley, made her laugh many 
 a time by retailing little sayings and doings in her praise and 
 dispraise, picked up from rich Manchester gentlemen, who 
 would fain have married her without a penny, and from strong- 
 minded Manchester ladies, who envied her beauty a little, and 
 set her down, of course, as an empty-minded worldling, and a 
 proud aristocrat. The majority of the reading-parties, mean- 
 while, thought a great deal more about Valentia than about 
 their books. The Oxford men, it seemed, though of the same 
 mind as the Cambridge men in considering her the model of all 
 perfection, were divided as to their method of testifying the 
 same. Two or three of them, who were given to that simpering 
 and flirting tone with young ladies to which Oxford would-be- 
 tine gentlemen are so pitiably prone, hung about the inn-door 
 to ogle her ; contrived always to be walking in the garden 
 when she was there, dressed out as if for High Street at four 
 o'clock on a May afternoon ; tormented Claude by fruitless 
 attempts to get from him an introduction, which he had neither 
 the right nor the mind to give ; and at last (so Bowie told 
 Claude one night, and Claude told the whole party next 
 morning) tried to bribe and Hatter Valentia's maid into giving 
 them a bit of ribbon, or a cast-off glove, which had belonged to 
 the idol. Whereon that maiden, in virtuous indignation, told 
 Mr. Bowie, and complained moreover (as maids are hound to do 
 to valets for whom they have a jHnc/iant) of their having
 
 314 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 dared to compliment her on her own good looks : by which act 
 succeeded, of course, in making Mr. Bowie understand that 
 other people still thought her pretty, if he did not ; and also in 
 arousing in him that jealousy which is often the best helpmate 
 of sweet love. So Mr. Bowie went forth in his might that very 
 evening, and finding two of the Oxford men, informed them in 
 plain Scotch, that, 'Gin he caught them, or any ither such 
 skellums, philandering after his leddies, or his leddies' maids, 
 he'd jist knock their empty pows togither.' To which there was 
 no reply but silence ; for Mr. Bowie stood six feet four without 
 his shoes, and had but the week before performed, for the 
 edification of the Cambridge men, who held him in high honour, 
 a few old Guards' feats : such as cutting in two at one sword- 
 blow a suspended shoulder of mutton, lifting a long table by his 
 teeth, squeezing a quart pewter pot flat between his fingers, 
 and other little recreations of those who are ' born unto 
 liapha.' 
 
 But the Cantabs, and a couple of gallant Oxford boating men 
 who had fraternised with them, testified their admiration in 
 their simple honest way, by putting down their pipes whenever 
 they saw Valentia coming, and just lifting their hats when they 
 met her close. It was taking a liberty, no doubt. ' But I tell 
 you, Mellot,' said Wynd, as brave and pure-minded a fellow as 
 ever pulled in the University eight, 'the Arabs, when they see 
 such a creature, say, " Praise Allah for beautiful women," 
 and quite right ; they may remind some fellows of worse things, 
 but they always remind me of heaven and the angels ; and my 
 hat goes off to her by instinct, just as it does when I go into a 
 church.' 
 
 That was all ; simple chivalrous admiration, and delight in 
 her loveliness, as in that of a lake, or a mountain sunset ; but 
 nothing more. The good fellows had no time, indeed, to fancy 
 themselves in love with her, or her with them, for every day 
 was too short for them ; what with reading all the morning, 
 and starting out in the afternoon in strange garments (which 
 became shabbier and more ragged very rapidly as the weeks 
 slipped on) upon all manner of desperate errands ; walking 
 unheard-of distances, and losing their way upon the mountains; 
 scrambling cliff's, and now and then falling down them ; camp- 
 ing all night by unpronounceable lakes, in the hope of catching 
 mythical trout ; trying in all ways how hungry, thirsty, dirty, 
 and tired a man could make himself, and how far he could go 
 without breaking his neck, any approach to which catastrophe 
 was hailed (as were all other mishaps) as 'all in the day's work,' 
 and ' the finest fun in the world,' by that unconquerable English 
 ' lebensgliickseligkeit,' which is a perpetual wonder to our sober 
 German cousins. Ah, glorious twenty-one, with your inex- 
 haustible powers of doing and enjoying, eating and hungering, 
 sleeping and sitting up, reading and playing ! Happy are those
 
 xix BEDDGELERT 315 
 
 who still possess you, and can take their fill of your golden cup, 
 steadied, but not saddened, by the remembrance, that for all 
 things a good and loving God will bring them into judgment. 
 Happier still those who (like a few) retain in body and soul the 
 health and buoyancy of twenty-one on to the very verge of 
 forty, and seeming to grow younger -hearted as they grow 
 older-headed, can cast oft' care and work at a moment's warning, 
 laugh and frolic now as they did twenty years ago, and say with 
 Wordsworth 
 
 ' So was it when my life began . . . 
 So be it when I shall grow old, 
 Or let me die ! ' 
 
 Unfortunately, as will appear hereafter, Elsley's especial betes 
 noirs were this very Wynd and his inseparable companion, Nay- 
 lor, who happened to be not only the best men of the set, but 
 Mellot's especial friends. Both were Rugby men, now reading 
 for their degree. Wynd was a Shropshire squire's son, a lissom 
 fair-haired man, the handiest of lx>xers, rowers, riders, shots, 
 fishermen, with a noisy superabundance of animal spirits, which 
 maddened Elsley. Yet Wynd had sentiment in his way, though 
 he took good care never to show it Elsley ; could repeat Tenny- 
 son from end to end ; spouted the Mart d 'Arthur up hill and 
 down dale, and chanted rapturously, ' Come into the garden, 
 Maud ! ' while he expressed his opinion of Maud's lover in terms 
 more forcible than delicate. Naylor, fidus Achates, was a 
 Gloucestershire parson's son, a huge heavy-looking man, with 
 a thick curling lip and a sleepy eye ; but he had brains enough 
 to become a firstrate classic : and in that same sleepy eye and 
 heavy lip lay an infinity or quiet humour ; racy old country 
 stories, quaint scraps of out-of-the-way learning, jovial old 
 ballads, which he sang with the mellowest of voices, and a 
 slang vocabulary, which made him the dread of all bargees from 
 Newnham pool to Upware. Him also Elsley hated, because 
 Naylor looked always as if he was laughing at him, which 
 indeed he was. 
 
 And the worst was, that Elsley had always to face them both 
 at once. If Wynd vaulted over a gate into his very face, with a 
 * How d'ye do, Mr. Vavasour 1 Had any verses this morning 1 ' 
 in the same tone as if he had asked, 'Had any sport?' Naylor's 
 round face was sure to look over the stone-wall, pipe in mouth, 
 with a ' Don't disturb the gentleman, Tom ; don't you see he's 
 a composing of his rhymes ? ' in a strong provincial dialect put 
 on for the nonce. In fact, the two young rogues, having no 
 respect whatsoever for genius, perhaps because they had each 
 of them a little genius of their own, made a butt of the poet, as 
 soon as they found out that he was afraid of them. 
 
 But worse betes noirs than either Wynd or Naylor were on 
 their way to fill up the cup of Elsley's discomfort. And at 
 last, without a note of warning, appeared in Beddgelert a
 
 316 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 phenomenon which rejoiced some hearts, but perturbed also the 
 spirits not only of the Oxford ' philanderers,' but those of Elsley 
 Vavasour, and, what is more, of Valentia herself. 
 
 She was sitting one evening at the window with Lucia, 
 looking out into the village and the pleasure-grounds before the 
 hotel. They were both laughing and chatting over the groups 
 of tourists in their pretty Irish way, just as they had done when 
 they were girls ; for Lucia's heart was expanding under the 
 quiet beauty of the place, the freedom from household care, and 
 what was more, from money anxieties ; for Valentia had slipped 
 into her hand a cheque for fifty pounds from Scoutbush, and 
 assured her that he would be quite angry if she spoke of paying 
 the rent of the rooms ; Elsley was mooning down the river by 
 himself ; Claude was entertaining his Cambridge acquaintances, 
 as he did every night, with his endless fun and sentiment. 
 Gradually the tourists slipped in one by one, as the last rays of 
 the sun faded off the peaks of Aran, and the mist settled down 
 upon the dark valley beneath, and darkness fell upon that rock- 
 girdled paradise ; when up to the door below there drove a car, 
 at sight whereof out rushed, not waiters only and landlady, but 
 Mr. Bowie himself, who helped out a very short figure in a pea- 
 jacket and a shining boating hat, and then a very tall- one in a 
 wild shooting-coat and a military cap. 
 
 ' My brother and mon Saint Pere ! Lucia ! too delightful ! 
 This is why they did not write.' And Valentia sprang up, and 
 was going to run downstairs to them, when she paused at 
 Lucia's call. 
 
 ' Who have they with them 1 Val, come and look ! who can 
 it be?' 
 
 Campbell and Bowie were helping out carefully a tall man, 
 covered up in many wrappers. It was too dark to see the face ; 
 but a fancy crossed Valentia's mind which made her look grave, 
 in spite of her pleasure. 
 
 He was evidently weak, as from recent illness ; for his two 
 supporters led him up the steps, and Scoutbush seemed full of 
 directions and inquiries, and fussed about Avith the landlady, 
 till she was tired of curtseying to ' my lord.' 
 
 A minute afterwards Bowie threw open the door grandly. 
 ' My lord, my ladies ! ' and in trotted Scoutbush, and begun 
 kissing them fiercely, and then dancing about. 
 
 ' O my dears ! Here at last out of that horrid city of the 
 
 plague ! Such sights as I have seen ' and then he paused. 
 
 ' Do you know, Val and Lucia, I'm glad I've seen it ; I don't 
 know, but I feel as if I should be a better man all my life ; and 
 those poor people, how well they did behave ! And the major, 
 he's an angel ! And so's that brick of a doctor, and the mad 
 schoolmistress, and the curate. Everybody, I think, but me. 
 Hang it, Val! but your words shan't come true! F will 
 be of some use yet before I die ! But I've -' and Valentia
 
 xix BEDDGELERT 317 
 
 went up to him and -kissed him, while he ran on, and Lucia 
 said 
 
 ' You have been of use already, dear Fred. You have sent me 
 and the dear children to this sweet place, where we have been 
 safer and happier than -' (she checked herself); 'and your 
 generous present too. I feel quite a girl again, thanks to you. 
 Val and I have done nothing but laugh all day long ; ' and she 
 began kissing him too. 
 
 ' How happy coiiUt I be with either, 
 Were t'other dear charmer away ! ' 
 
 broke out Scoutbush. 'What a pity it is now, that I should 
 have two such sweet creatures making love to me, and can't 
 many either of them ? Why did ye go and be my father's 
 daughters, mavourneen ? I'd have made a peeress of the one of 
 ye, if ye'd had the sense to be anybody else's sisters.' 
 
 At which they all laughed, and laughed, and chattered broad 
 Irish together as they used to do for fun in old Kilanbaggan 
 Castle, before Lucia was a weary wife, and Valentia a worldly 
 fine lady, and Scoutbush a rackety guardsman, breaking haft' 
 of the ten commandments every week, rather from ignorance 
 than vice. 
 
 4 Well, I'm glad ye're pleased with me, asthore,' said he at last 
 to Lucia ; 'but I've done another little good deed, I flatter my- 
 self ; for I've brought away the poor spalpeen of a priest, and 
 have got him safe in the house.' 
 
 Valentia stopped short in her fun. 
 
 ' Why, what have ye to say against that, Miss Val 1 ' 
 
 ' Why, won't he bo a little in the way ? ' said Valentia, not 
 knowing what to say. 
 
 ' Faith, he needn't trouble you ; and I shall take very good 
 care I wonder when the supper is coming that neither he nor 
 any one else troubles me. But really,' said he, in his natural 
 voice, and with some feeling, ' I was ashamed to go away and 
 leave him there. He would have died if we had. He worked 
 day and night. Talk of saints and martyrs ! Campbell himself 
 said he was an idler by the side of him.' 
 
 ' Oh ! I hope Major Campbell has not over-exerted himself ! ' 
 
 'He? nothing hurts him. Hes as hard as his own sword. 
 Hut the poor curate worked on till he got the cholera himself. 
 He always expected it, longed for it ; Campbell said wanted 
 to die. Some love affair, I suppose, poor fellow ! and a terrible 
 bout he had for eight-and-forty hours. Thurnall thought him 
 gone again and again ; but he pulled the poor fellow through, 
 after all ; and we got some one (that is, Campbell did) to take 
 his duty : and brought him away, after a good deal of persua- 
 sion ; for he would not move as long as there was a fresh case 
 in the town ; that is why we never wrote. We did not know 
 till the last hour when we should start : and we expected to be
 
 318 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 with you in two days, and give you a pleasant surprise. He 
 was half dead when we got him on board ; but the week's sea- 
 air helped him through ; so I must not grumble at these 
 northerly breezes. " It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," 
 they say ! ' 
 
 Valentia heard all this as in a dream, and watched her chat- 
 tering brother with a stupefied air. She comprehended all now; 
 and bitterly she blamed herself. He had really loved her, then : 
 set himself manfully to die at his post, that he might forget her 
 in a better world. How shamefully she had trifled with that 
 noble heart ! How should she ever meet how have courage to 
 look him in the face 1 And not love, or anything like love, but 
 sacred pity and self-abasement filled her heart, as his fair, deli- 
 cate face rose up before her, all wan and shrunken, with sad 
 upbraiding eyes ; and round it such a halo, pure and pale, as 
 crowns, in some old German picture, a martyr's head. 
 
 ' He has had the cholera ! he has been actually dying 1 ' asked 
 she at last, with that strange wish to hear over again bad news, 
 which one knows too well already. 
 
 ' Of course he has. Why, you are not going away, Valentia 1 
 You need not be afraid of infection. Campbell, and Thurnall, 
 too, says that's all nonsense ; and they must know, having seen 
 it so often. Here comes Bowie at last with supper ! ' 
 
 ' Has Mr. Headley had anything to eat ? ' asked Valentia, who 
 longed to run away to her own room, but dared not. 
 
 'He is eating now like any ged, ma'am ; and Major Camp- 
 bell's making him eat too.' 
 
 ' He must be very ill,' thought she, ' for mon Saint Pere never 
 to have come near us yet:' and then she thought with terror 
 that her Saint Pere might have guessed the truth, and be angry 
 with her. And yet she trusted in Frank's secrecy. He would 
 not betray her. 
 
 Take care, Valentia. When a woman has to trust a man not 
 to betray her, and does trust him, she may soon find it not only 
 easy, but necessary, to do more than trust him. 
 
 However, in five minutes Campbell came in. Valentia saw at 
 once that there was no change in his feelings to her : but he 
 could talk of nothing but Headley, his self-devotion, coin-age, 
 angelic gentleness, and humility ; and every word of his praise 
 was a fresh arrow in Valentia's conscience ; at last 
 
 ' One knows well enough what is the matter,' said he almost 
 bitterly ; ' what is the matter, I sometimes think, witli half the 
 noblest men in the world, and nine-tenths of the noblest women ; 
 and with many a one, too, God help them ! who is none of the 
 noblest, and therefore does not know how to take the bitter cup, 
 as he knows 
 
 'What does the philosopher mean now?' asked Scoutbush, 
 looking up from the cold lamb. Valentia knew but too well 
 what he meant.
 
 xix BEDDOELERT 319 
 
 ' He has a history, my dear lord.' 
 
 'A history ? What ! is lie writing a book 1 ' 
 
 Campbell laughed a quiet under-laugh,half sad, half humorous. 
 
 ' I am very tired,' said Valentia ; 'I really think I shall go 
 to bed.' 
 
 She went to her room, but to bed she did not go ; she sat 
 down and cried till she could cry no more, and lay awake the 
 greater part of the night, tossing miserably. She would have 
 done better if she had prayed ; but prayer, about such a matter, 
 was what Valentia knew nothing or. She was regular enough 
 at church, of course, and said her prayers and confessed her sins 
 in a general way, and prayed about her ' soul,' as she had been 
 taught to do, unless she was too tired : but to pray really, 
 about a real sorrow, a real sin like this, was a thought which 
 never entered her mind ; and if it had, she would have driven 
 it away again : just because the anxiety was so real, practical, 
 human, it was a matter which had nothing to do with religion ; 
 which it seemed impertinent almost wrong to lay before the 
 throne of God. 
 
 So she came downstairs next morning, pale, restless, unre- 
 freshed in body or mind ; and her peace of mind was not 
 improved by seeing, seated at the breakfast -table, Frank 
 Headley, whom Lucia and Scoutbush were stuffing with all 
 manner of good things. 
 
 She blushed scarlet do what she would she could not help it 
 when he rose and bowed to her. Half-choked, she came tor- 
 ward and offered her hand. She was ' so shocked to hear that 
 lie had been so dangerously ill, no one had even told them of 
 it, it had come upon them so suddenly ;' and so forth. 
 
 She spoke kindly, but avoided the least tone of tenderness ; for 
 she felt that if she gave way, she might be only too tender; and 
 to re-awaken hope in his heart would be only cruelty. And, 
 therefore, and for other reasons also, she did not look him in the 
 face as she spoke. 
 
 He answered so cheerfully that she was half disappointed, in 
 spite of her remorse, at his not being as miserable as she had 
 expected. Still, if lie had overcome the passion, it was so much 
 better for him. But yet Valentia hardly wished that he should 
 have overcome it, so self-contradictory is woman's heart ; and 
 her pity had sunk to half-ebb, and her self -complacency was 
 rising with a flowing tide, as he chatted on quietly, but genially, 
 about the voyage, and the scenery, and Snowdon, which he had 
 never seen, and which he would ascend that very day. 
 
 ' You will do nothing of the kind, Mr. Headley ! ' cried Lucia. 
 ' Is lie not mad, Major Cainplx;!!, quite mad ?' 
 
 ' I know I am mad, my dear Mrs. Vavasour ; T have been so 
 a long time : but Snowdon ponies are in their sober senses 
 and 1 shall take one of them.' 
 
 ' Fulfil the old pun ? Begin beside yourself, and end beside
 
 320 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 your horse ! I am sure he is not strong enough to sit over those 
 rocks. No, you shall stay at home comfortably here : Valentia 
 and I will take care of you.' 
 
 ' And mon Saint Pere too. I have a thousand things to say 
 to him.' 
 
 ' And so has he to Queen Whims.' 
 
 So Scoutbush. sent Bowie for ' John Jones Clerk,' the fisher- 
 man (may his days be as many as his salmon and as good as 
 his flies) ! and the four stayed at home, and talked over the 
 Aberalva tragedies, till, as it befell, both Lucia and Campbell 
 left the room awhile. 
 
 Immediately Frank rose, and walking across to Valentia, laid 
 the fatal ring on the arm of her chair, and returned to his seat 
 without a word. 
 
 ' You are very . I hope that it ,' stammered Valentia. 
 
 ' You hope that it was a comfort to me 'I It was ; and I shall 
 be always grateful to you for it.' 
 
 Valentia heard an emphasis on the ' was.' It checked the 
 impulse (foolish enough) which rose in her, to bid him keep the 
 ring. 
 
 So, prim and dignified, she slipped it into its place on her 
 finger, and went on with her work ; merely saying 
 
 ' I need not say that I am happy that anything which I could 
 do should have been of use to you in such a fearful time.' 
 
 ' It was a fearful time ! but for myself, I cannot be too glad 
 of it. God grant that it may have been as useful to others as 
 to me ! It cured me of a great folly. Now I look back, I am 
 astonished at my own absurdity, rudeness, presumption. You 
 must let me say it ! I do not know how to thank you enough. 
 I cannot trust myself with the fit words, they would be so 
 strong ! but I owe this confession to you, and to your exceeding 
 goodness and kindness, when you would have been justified in 
 treating me as a madman. I was mad, I believe : but I am in 
 my right mind now, I assure you,' said he gaily. ' Had I not 
 been, I need hardly say you would not have seen me here. 
 What a prospect this is ! ' And he rose and looked out of the 
 window. 
 
 Valentia had heard all this with downcast eyes and unmoved 
 face. Was she pleased at it ? Not in the least, the naughty 
 child that she was ; and more, she grew quite angry with her- 
 self, ashamed of herself, for having thought and felt so much 
 about him the night before. ' How silly of me ! He is very 
 well, and does not care for me. And who is he, pray, that I 
 should even look at him ? ' 
 
 And, as if in order to put her words into practice, she looked 
 at him there and then. He was gazing out of the window, 
 leaning gracefully and yet feebly against the shutter with the 
 full glory of the forenoon sun upon his sharp-cut profile and 
 rich chestnut locks ; and after all, having looked at him once,
 
 xix BEDDGELERT 321 
 
 she could not help looking at him again. He was certainly a 
 most gentleman-like man, elegant from head to foot ; there was 
 not an ungraceful line about him, to his very boots, and the 
 white nails of his slender lingers : even the defects of his figure 
 the too great length of the neck and slope of the shoulders 
 increased nis likeness to those saintly pictures with which he 
 had been mixed up in her mind the night before. He was at 
 one extreme pole of the different types of manhood, and that 
 burly doctor who had saved his life at the other : but her Saint 
 Pere alone perfectly combined the two. There was nobody like 
 him, after all. Perhaps her wisest plan, as Headley had for- 
 gotten his fancy, was to confess all to the Saint Pere (as she 
 usually did her little sins), and get some sort of absolution from 
 him. 
 
 However, she must say something in answer 
 
 ' Yes, it is a very lovely view : but really I must say one 
 more word about this matter. I have to thank you, you know, 
 for the good faith which you have kept with me.' 
 
 He looked round, seemingly amused. ' Ce la va sans dire!' 
 and he bowed ; ' pray do not say any more about the matter ; ' 
 and he looked at her with such humble and thankful eyes, that 
 Valentia was sorry not to hear more from him than 
 
 'Pray tell me for of course you know the name of this 
 exquisite valley up which I am looking.' 
 
 ' Gwynnant. You must go up it when you are well enough, 
 and see the lakes ; they are the only ones in Snowdon from the 
 banks of which the primaeval forest has not disappeared.' 
 
 4 Indeed 1 I must make shift to go there this very after- 
 noon, for do not laugh at me but I never saw a lake in my 
 life.' 
 
 4 Never saw a lake ? ' 
 
 4 No. I am a true Lowlander : born and bred among bleak 
 Norfolk sands and fens so much the worse for this chest of 
 mine ; and this is my first sight of mountains. It is all like 
 a dream to me, and a dream which I never expected to be 
 realised.' 
 
 'Ah, you should see our Irish lakes and mountains you 
 should see Killarney ! ' 
 
 ' I am content with these ; I suppose it is as wrong to break 
 the tenth commandment about scenery, as about anything else.' 
 
 'Ah, but it seems so hard that you, who I am sure would 
 appreciate tine scenery, should have been debarred from it, 
 while hundreds of stupid people run over the Alps and Italy 
 every summer, and come home, as far as I can see, rather more 
 stupid than they went ; having made confusion worse con- 
 founded by filling their poor brains with hard names out of 
 Murray.' 
 
 ' Not quite so hard as that thousands, every day, who would 
 enjoy a meat dinner, should have nothing but dry bread, and 
 Y T. Y. A.
 
 322 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 not enough of that. I fancy sometimes, that in some myste- 
 lious way, that want will be made up to them in the next life ; 
 and so with all the beautiful things which travelled people talk 
 of I comfort myself with the fancy that I see as much as is 
 good for me here, and that if I make good use of that, 1 shall 
 see the Alps and the Andes in the world to come, or something 
 much more worth seeing. Tell me now, how far may that range 
 of crags be from us 1 I am sure that I could walk there after 
 luncheon, this mountain air is strengthening me so.' 
 
 'Walk thither? I assure you they are at least four miles 
 off.' 
 
 'Four? And I thought them one! So clear and sharp as 
 they stand out against the sky, one fancies that one could almost 
 stretch out a hand and touch those knolls and slabs of rock, as 
 distinct as in a photograph ; and yet so soft and rich withal, 
 dappled with pearly-gray stone and purple heath. Ah ! So it 
 must be, I suppose. The first time that one sees a glorious 
 thing, one's heart is lifted up towards it in love and awe, till it 
 seems near to one ground on which one may freely tread, 
 because one appreciates and admires ; and so one forgets the 
 distance between its grandeur and one's own littleness.' 
 
 The allusion was palpable : but did he intend it ? Surely 
 not, after what he had just said. And yet there was a sadness 
 in the tone which made Valentia fancy that some feeling for 
 her might still linger ; but he evidently had been speaking to 
 himself, forgetful, for the moment, of her presence ; for he 
 turned to her with a start and a blush ' But now I have been 
 troubling you too long with this stupid tete-a-tete sentimentality 
 of mine. I will make my bow, and find the major. I am 
 afraid, if it be possible for him to forget any one, he has for- 
 gotten me in some new moss or other.' 
 
 He went out, and to Valentia's chagrin she saw him no more 
 that day. He spent the forenoon in the garden, and the after- 
 noon in lying down, and at night complained of fatigue, and 
 stayed in his own room the whole evening, while Campbell read 
 him to sleep. Next morning, however, he made his appearance 
 at breakfast, well and cheerful. 
 
 'I must play at sick man no more, or I shall rob you, I see, 
 of Major Campbell's company; and I owe you all far too much 
 already.' 
 
 'Unless you are better than you were last night, you must 
 play at sick man,' said the major. 'I cannot conceive what 
 exhausted you so; unless you ladies are better nurses, I must 
 let no one come near him but myself. If you had been scolding 
 him the whole morning, instead of praising him as lie deserves, 
 he could not have been more tired last night.' 
 
 'Pray do not ! ' cried Frank, evidently much pained : 'I had 
 such a delightful morning, and every one is so kind you only 
 make me wretched, when I feel all the trouble I am giving.'
 
 xix BEDDGELERT 323 
 
 ' My dear fellow,' said Scoutbush, en grand serieiur, ' after all 
 that you have done for our people at Aberalva, I should be very 
 much shocked if any of my family thought any service shown 
 to you a trouble.' 
 
 'Pray do not speak so,' said Frank, 'I am fallen among 
 angels, when I least expected.' 
 
 ' Scoutbush as an angel ! ' shouted Lucia, clapping her hands. 
 ' Elsley, don't you see the wings sprouting already, under his 
 shooting-jacket ? ' 
 
 'They are my braces, I suppose, of course,' said Scoutbush, 
 who never understood a joke about himself, though he liked one 
 about other people ; while Elsley, who hated all jokes, made no 
 answer at least none worth recording. In fact, as the reader 
 may have discovered, Elsley, save tete-a-tete with some one who 
 took his fancy, was somewhat of a silent and morose animal, 
 and, as little Scoutbush confided to Mellot, there was no getting 
 a rise out of him. All which Lucia saw as keenly as any one, 
 and tried to pass off by chatting nervously and fussily for him, 
 as well as for herself ; whereby she only made him the more 
 cross, for lie could not the least understand her argument 
 ' Why, my dear, if you don't talk to people, I must ! ' 
 
 ' But why should people be talked to?' 
 
 'Because they like it, and expect it!' 
 
 ' The more foolish they. Much better to hold their tongues 
 and think.' 
 
 'Or read your poetry, I suppose,' and then would begin a 
 squabble. 
 
 Meanwhile there was one, at least, of the party, who was 
 watching Lucia with most deep and painful interest. Lord 
 Scoutbush was too busy with his own comforts, especially with 
 his fishing, to think much of this moroseness of Elsley's. 'If he 
 suited Lucia, very well. His taste and hers differed : but it was 
 her concern, not his ' was a very easy way of freeing himself 
 from all anxiety on the matter : but not so with Major Camp- 
 bell. He saw all this ; and knew enough of human nature to 
 suspect that the self-seeking which showed as moroseness in 
 company, might show as downright bad temper in private. 
 Longing to know more of Elsley, if possible, to guide and help 
 him, he tried to be intimate with him, as he had tried at Aber- 
 alva ; paid him court, asked his opinion, talked to him on all 
 subjects which lie thought would interest him. His conclusion 
 was more favourable to Elsley's head than to his heart. He saw 
 that Elsley was vain, and liked his attentions ; and that lowered 
 him in his eyes : but he saw too that Elsley shrank from him ; 
 at first he thought it pride, but he soon found that it was fear ; 
 and that lowered him still more in his eyes. 
 
 Perhaps Campbell was too hard on the poet : but his own 
 purity itself told against Elsley. ' Who am I, that any one 
 should be afraid of me, unless they have done something
 
 324 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 wrong ? ' So, with his dark suspicions roused, he watched in- 
 tently every word and every tone of Elsley's to his wife ; and 
 here he came to a more unpleasant conclusion still. He saw 
 that they were, sometimes at least, not happy together ; and 
 from this he took for granted, too hastily, that they were never 
 happy together; that Lucia was an utterly ill-used person; 
 that Elsley was a bad fellow, who ill-treated her : and a black 
 and awful indignation against the man grew up within him ; all 
 the more fierce because it seemed utterly righteous, and because, 
 too, it had, under heavy penalties, to be utterly concealed be- 
 neath a courteous and genial manner : till many a time lie felt 
 inclined to knock Elsley down for little roughnesses to her, 
 which were really the fruit of mere gaucherie; and then accused 
 himself for a hypocrite, because he was keeping up the cour- 
 tesies of life with such a man. For Campbell, like most men of 
 his temperament, was over-stern, and sometimes a little cruel 
 and unjust, in demanding of others the same lofty code which 
 he had laid down for himself, and in demanding it, too, of some 
 more than of others, by a very questionable exercise of private 
 judgment. On the whole, he was right, no doubt, in being as 
 indulgent as he dared to the publicans and sinners like Scout- 
 bush ; and in being as severe as he dared on all Pharisees, and 
 pretentious persons whatsoever : but he was too much inclined 
 to draw between the two classes one of those strong lines of de- 
 marcation which exist only in the fancies of the human brain. ; 
 for sins, like all diseased matters, are complicated and confused 
 matters ; many a seeming Pharisee is at heart a self-condemned 
 publican, and ought to be comforted, and not cursed ; while 
 many a publican is, in the midst of all his foul sins, a thorough 
 exclusive and self-complacent Pharisee, and needs riot the right 
 hand of mercy, but the strong arm of punishment. 
 
 Campbell, like other men, had his faults : and his were those 
 of a man wrapped up in a pure and stately, but an austere and 
 lonely creed, disgusted with the world in all its forms, and look- 
 ing down upon men in general nearly as much as Thurnall did. 
 So he set down Elsley for a bad man, to whom he was forced by 
 hard circumstances to behave as if he were a good one. 
 
 The only way, therefore, in which he could vent his feeling, 
 was by showing to Lucia that studied attention which sympathy 
 and chivalry demand of a man toward an injured woman. Not 
 that he dared, or wished, to conduct himself witli her as lie did 
 with Valentia, even had she not been a married woman ; he did 
 not know her as intimately as he did her .sister : but still lie had 
 a right to behave as the most intimate friend of her family, and 
 lie asserted that right ; and all the more determinedly because 
 Elsley seemed now and then not to like it. ' I will teach him 
 how to behave to a charming woman,' said he to himself ; and 
 perhaps he had been wiser if he had not said it : but every man 
 lias his weak point, and chivalry was Major Campbell's.
 
 xix BEDDOELERT 325 
 
 ' What do you think of that poet, Mellot ? ' said he once, on 
 returning from a picnic, during which Elsley had never noticed 
 his wife ; and at last, finding valentia engaged with Headley, 
 had actually gone off, pour pis alter, to watch Lord Scoutbush 
 fishing. 
 
 ' Oh, clever enough, and to spare ; and as well read a man as 
 I know. One of the Sturm-und-drang party, of course ; the ex- 
 press locomotive school, scream-and-go-ahead : and thinks me, 
 with my classicism, a benighted pagan. Still, every man has a 
 right to his opinion. Live and let live.' 
 
 'I don't care about his taste,' said the major impatiently. 
 1 What sort of man is he ? man, Claude ? ' 
 
 ' Ahem, humph ! " Irritabile genus poetarum." But one is so 
 accustomed to that among literary men, one never expects them 
 to be like anybody else, and so takes their whims and oddities 
 for granted.' 
 
 ' And their sins, too, eh 1 ' 
 
 ' Sins ? I know of none on his part.' 
 
 ' Don't you call temper a sin ? ' 
 
 ' No ; I call it a determination of blood to the head, or of 
 animal spirits to the wrong place, or my dear major, I am no 
 moralist. I take people, you know, as I find them. But he is 
 a bore j and I should not wonder if that sweet little woman had 
 found it out ere now.' 
 
 Campbell ground something between his teeth. He fancied 
 himself full of righteous wrath : he was really in a very un- 
 christian temper. Be it so : perhaps there were excuses for him 
 (as there are for many men), of which we know nothing. 
 
 Elsley, meanwhile, watched Campbell with fast Towering 
 brow. Losing a woman's affections 1 He who does so deserves 
 his fate. Had he been in the habit of paying proper attention 
 to Lucia, he would have liked Campbell all the more for his 
 conduct. There are few greater pleasures to a man who is what 
 he should be to his wife, than to see other men admiring what 
 lie admires, and trying to rival him where he knows that he can 
 have no rival. Let them worship as much as they will. Let 
 her make herself as charming to them as she can. What matter 1 ? 
 He smiles at them in his heart ; for has he not, over and above 
 all the pretty things which he can say and do ten times as well 
 as they, a talisman a dozen talismans which are beyond their 
 reach ? in the strength of which he will go home and laugh 
 over with her, amid sacred caresses, all which makes mean men 
 mad 1 But Elsley, alas for him, had neglected Lucia himself, 
 and therefore dreaded comparison with any other man ; and the 
 suspicions which had taken root in him at Aberalva grew into 
 ugly shape and strength. However, he was silent, and contented 
 himself with coldness and all but rudeness. 
 
 There were excuses for him. In the first place, it would have 
 l>een an ugly thing to take notice of any man's attentions to a
 
 326 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 wife ; it could not be done but upon the strongest grounds, and 
 done in a way which would make a complete rupture necessary, 
 so breaking up the party in a sufficiently unpleasant way. Be- 
 sides, to move in the matter at all would be to implicate Lucia ; 
 for of whatsoever kind Campbell's attentions were, she evidently 
 liked them ; and a quarrel with her on that score was more than 
 Elsley dared face. He was not a man of strong moral courage ; 
 he hated a scene of any kind ; and he was afraid of being 
 worsted in any really serious quarrel, not merely by Campbell, 
 but by Lucia. It may seem strange that he should be afraid of 
 her, though not so that he should be afraid of Campbell. But 
 the truth is, that the man who bullies his wife very often does 
 so as Elsley had done more than once simply to prove to him- 
 self his own strength, and hide his fear of her. He knew well 
 that woman's tongue, when once the ' fair beast ' is brought to 
 bay, is a weapon far too trenchant to be faced by any shield but 
 that of a very clear conscience toward her ; which Avas more 
 than Elsley had. 
 
 Besides and it is an honour to Elsley Vavasour, amid all his 
 weakness, that he had justice and chivalry enough left to know 
 what nine men out of ten ignore behind all, let the worst come 
 to the worst, lay one just and terrible rejoinder, which he, though 
 lie had been no worse than the average of men, could only answer 
 by silent shame 
 
 ' At least, sir, I was pure when I came to you ! You best 
 know whether you were so likewise.' 
 
 And yet even that, so all-forgiving is woman, might have 
 been faced by some means ; but the miserable complication 
 about the false name still remained. Elsley believed that he 
 was in his wife's power ; that she could, if she chose, turn upon 
 him, and proclaim him to the world as a scoundrel and an im- 
 postor. And, as it is of the nature of man to hate those whom 
 he fears, Elsley began to have dark and ugly feelings toward 
 Lucia. Instead of throwing them away, as a strong man would 
 have done, he pampered them almost without meaning to do so. 
 For he let them run riot through his too vivid imagination, in 
 the form of possible speeches, possible scenes, till he had looked 
 and looked through a hundred thoughts which no man has a 
 right to entertain for a moment. True ; he had entertained 
 them with horror ; but he ought not to have entertained them 
 at all ; he ought to have kicked them contemptuously out and 
 back to the devil, from whence they came. It may be, again, 
 that this is impossible to man ; that prayer is the only refuge 
 against that Walpurgis-daiice of the witches and the fiends, which 
 will, at hapless moments, whirl unbidden through a mortal 
 brain ; but Elsley did not pray. 
 
 So, leaving these fancies in his head too long, lie soon became 
 accustomed to them ; and accustomed, too, to the Nemesis which 
 they bring with them, of chronic moodiness and concealed rage.
 
 xix BEDDGELERT 327 
 
 Day by day he was lashing himself up into fresh fury, and yet 
 day by day he was becoming more careful to conceal that fury. 
 He had many reasons : moral cowardice, which made him shrink 
 from the tremendous consequences of an explosion equally 
 tremendous, were he right or wrong. Then the secret hope, 
 perhaps the secret consciousness, that he was wrong, and was 
 only saying to God, like the self-deceiving prophet, ' I do well 
 to be angry ; ' then the honest fear of going too far ; of being 
 surprised at last into some hideous and irreparable speech or 
 deed, which he might find out too late was utterly unjust ; then 
 at moments (for even that would cross him) the devilish notion 
 that, by concealment, he might lure Lucia on to give him a safe 
 ground for attack. All these, and more, tormented him for a 
 wretched fortnight, during which he became, at such an expense 
 of self-control as he had not exercised for years, courteous to 
 Campbell more than courteous to Lucia ; hiding under a smiling 
 face wrath which increased with the pressure brought to bear 
 upon it. 
 
 Campbell and Lucia, Mellot, Valentia, and Frank, utterly de- 
 ceived, went on more merrily than ever, little dreaming that 
 they walked and talked daily with a man who was fast becom- 
 ing glad to flee to the pit of hell, but for the fear that ' God 
 would be there also.' 
 
 They, meanwhile, chatted on, enjoying, as human souls are 
 allowed to do at rare and precious moments, the mere sensation 
 of being ; of which they would talk at times in a way which led 
 them down into deep matters : for instance 
 
 ' How pleasant to sit here for ever ! ' said Claude, one after- 
 noon, in the inn garden at Beddgelert, ' and say, not with Des- 
 cartes, " I think, therefore I exist ; " but simply, " I enjoy, there- 
 fore I exist." I almost think those Emersonians are right at 
 times when they crave the " life of plants, and stones, and rain." 
 Stangrave said to me once, that his ideal of perfect bliss was 
 that of an oyster in the Indian seas, drinking the warm salt 
 water motionless, and troubling himself about nothing, while 
 nothing troubled itself about him.' 
 
 ' Till a diver came and tore him up for the sake of his pearls ! ' 
 said Valentia. 
 
 ' He did not intend to contain any pearls. A pearl, you know, 
 is a disease of the oyster, the product of some irritation. He 
 wished to be the oyster pure and simple, a part of nature.' 
 
 ' And to be of no use ? ' asked Frank. 
 
 ' Of none whatsoever. Nature had made him what he was, 
 and all besides was her business, and not his. I don't deny that 
 [ laughed at him, and made him wroth by telling him that his 
 doctrine was "the apotheosis of loafing." But my heart went 
 with him, and the jolly oyster too. It is very beautiful after 
 all, that careless nymph and shepherd life of the old (Jreeks, 
 and that Marquesas romance of Herman Melville's to enjoy
 
 328 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 the simple fact of living, like a Neapolitan lazzaroni, or a fly 
 upon a wall.' 
 
 ' But the old Greek heroes fought and laboured to till the 
 land, and rid it of giants and monsters,' said Frank. 'And as 
 for the Marquesas, Mr. Melville found out, did he not as you 
 did once that they were only petting and fattening him for 
 the purpose of eating him ? There is a dark side to that pretty 
 picture, Mr. Mellot.' 
 
 ' Tant pis pour eux ! But that is an unnecessary appendage 
 to the idea, surely. It must be possible to realise such a simple, 
 rich, healthy life, without wickedness, if not without human 
 sorrow. It is no dream, and no one shall rob me of it. I have 
 seen fragments of it scattered up and down the world ; and I 
 believe they will all meet in Paradise where and when I care 
 not ; but they will meet. I was very happy in the South Sea 
 Islands, after that, when nobody meant to eat me ; and I am 
 very happy here, and do not intend to be eaten, unless it will be 
 any pleasure to Miss St. Just. No ; let man enjoy himself when 
 he can, and take his fill of those flaming red geraniums, and 
 glossy I'hododendrons, and feathered crown ferns, and the gold 
 green lace of those acacias tossing and whispering overhead, and 
 the purple mountains sleeping there aloft, and the murmur of 
 the brook over the stones : and drink in scents with every 
 breath what was liis nose made for, save to smell 1 I used to 
 torment myself once by asking them all what they meant. 
 Now, I am content to have done with symbolisms, and say, 
 " What you all mean, I care not, all I know is, that I can draw 
 pleasure from the mere sight of you, as, perhaps, you do from 
 the mere sight of me ; so let us sit together, nature and I, and 
 stare into each other's eyes like two young lovers, careless 
 of the morrow and its griefs." I will not even take the trouble 
 to paint her. Why make ugly copies of perfect pictures ? Let 
 those who wish to see her take a railway ticket, and save us 
 academicians colours and canvas. Quant a moi, the public 
 must go to the mountains, as Mahomet had to do ; for the 
 mountains shall not come to the public.' 
 
 ' One of your wilful paradoxes, Mr. Mellot ; why, you are 
 photographing them all day long.' 
 
 'Not quite all day long, madam. And after all, ilfaut vivre: 
 I want a few luxuries ; I have no capacity for keeping a shop ; 
 photographing pays better than painting, considering the time 
 it takes ; and it is only nature reproducing herself, not carica- 
 turing her. But if any one will ensure me a poor two thousand 
 a year, I will promise to photograph no more, but vanish to 
 Sicily or Calabria, and sit with Sabina in an orchard all my 
 days, twining rose garlands for her pretty head, like Theocritus 
 and his friends, while the " pears drop on our shoulders, and the 
 apples by our side." ' 
 
 ' What do you think of all this ! ' asked Valentia of Frank.
 
 xix BEDDGELERT 329 
 
 ' That I am too like the Emersonian oyster here, very happy, 
 and very useless ; and, therefore, very anxious to be gone.' 
 
 ' Surely you have earned the right to be idle awhile ? ' 
 
 ' No one has a right to be idle. ' 
 
 'Oh!' groaned Claude; 'where did you find that eleventh 
 commandment ? ' 
 
 ' I have done with all eleventh commandments ; for I find it 
 quite hard work enough to keep the ancient ten. But I find it, 
 Mellot, in the deepest abyss of all ; in the very depth from which 
 the commandments sprang. But we will not talk about it 
 here.' 
 
 'Why not?' asked Valentia, looking up. 'Are we so very 
 naughty as to be unworthy to listen V 
 
 'And are these mountains,' asked Claude, 'so ugly and ill- 
 made that they are an unfit pulpit for a sermon ? No ; tell me 
 what you mean. After all, I am half in jest.' 
 
 ' Do not courtesy, pity, chivalry, generosity, self-sacrifice in 
 short, being of use do not our hearts tell us that they are the 
 most beautiful, noble, lovely things in the world ? ' 
 
 ' I suppose it is so,' said Valentia. 
 
 ' Why does one admire a soldier ? Nor for his epaulettes and 
 red coat, but because one knows that, coxcomb though he be at 
 home here, there is the power in him of that same self-sacrifice ; 
 that, when he is called, he will go and die, that he may be or 
 use to his country. And yet it may seem invidious to say so 
 just now but there are other sorts of self-sacrifice, less showy, 
 but even more beautiful.' 
 
 ' O Mr. Headley, what can a man do more than die for his 
 countrymen 1 ' 
 
 ' Live for them. It is a longer Avork, and therefore a more 
 difficult and a nobler one.' 
 
 Frank spoke in a somewhat sad and .abstracted tone. 
 
 ' But tell me,' she said, ' what all this has to do with with 
 the deep matter of which you spoke 1 ' 
 
 'Simply that it is the law of all earth, and heaven, and Him 
 who made them. That God is perfectly powerful, because He is 
 perfectly and infinitely of use ; and perfectly good, because He 
 delights utterly .and always in being of use ; and that, therefore, 
 we can become like God as the very heathens felt that we can, 
 and ought to become only in proportion as we become of use. 
 I did not see it once. I tried to be good, not knowing what good 
 meant. I tried to be good, because I thought it would pay me 
 in the world to come. But, at last, I saw that all life, all devo- 
 tion, all piety, were only worth anything, only Divine, and God- 
 like, and God-beloved, as they were means to that one end to 
 be of use.' 
 
 'It is a noble thought, Headley,' said Claude: but Valentia 
 was silent. 
 
 'It is a noble thought, Mellot, and all thoughts In-come c-lear
 
 330 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 in the light of it ; even that most difficult thought of all, which 
 so often torments good people, when they feel, " I ought to love 
 God, and yet I do not love Him." Easy to love Him, if one can 
 once think of Him as the concentration, the ideal perfection of 
 all which is most noble, admirable, lovely in human character ! 
 And easy to work, too, when one once feels that one is working 
 for such a Being, and with such a Being as that ! The whole 
 world round us, and the future of the world, too, seem full of 
 light, even down to its murkiest and foulest depths, when we 
 can but remember that great idea An infinitely useful God 
 over all, who is trying to make each of us useful in his place. 
 If that be not the beatific vision of which old mystics spoke so 
 rapturously, one glimpse of which was perfect bliss, I at least 
 know none nobler, desire none more blessed. Pray forgive me, 
 Miss St. Just ! I ought not to intrude thus ! ' 
 
 ' Go on ! ' said Valentia. 
 
 ' I I really have no more to say. I have said too much. I 
 do not know how I have been betrayed so far,' stammered 
 Frank, who had the just dislike of his school of anything like 
 display on such solemn matters. 
 
 1 Can you tell us too much truth ? Mr. Headley is right, 
 Mr. Mellot, and you are wrong.' 
 
 ' It will not be the first time, Miss St. Just. But what I 
 spoke in jest, he has answered in earnest.' 
 
 ' He was quite right. We are none of us half earnest enough. 
 There is Lucia with the children.' And she rose and walked 
 across the garden. 
 
 ' You have moved the fair trifler somewhat,' said Claude. 
 
 ' God grant it ! but I cannot think what made me.' 
 
 ' Why think ? You spoke out nobly, and I shall not forget 
 your sermon.' 
 
 ' I was not preaching at you, most affectionate and kindly of 
 men.' 
 
 'And laziest of men, likewise. What can I do now, at this 
 moment, to be of use to any one ? Set me my task.' 
 
 But Frank was following with his eyes Valentia, as she went 
 hurriedly across to Lucia. He saw her take two of the children 
 at once off her sister's hands, and carry them away down a walk. 
 A few minutes afterwards he could hear her romping with them ; 
 but he could not have guessed, from the silver din of those merry 
 voices, that Valentia's heart was heavy within her. 
 
 For her conscience was really smitten. Of what use was she 
 in the world? Major Campbell had talked to her often about 
 her duties to this person and to that, of this same necessity of 
 being useful ; but she had escaped from the thought, as we have 
 seen her, in laughing at poor little Scoutbush on the very same 
 score. But why had not Major Campbell's sermons touched her 
 heart as this one had 1 Who can tell ? Who is there among us 
 to whom an oft-heard truth has not become a tiresome and super-
 
 xix BEDDGELERT 331 
 
 fluous common-place, till one day it has flashed before us utterly 
 new, indubitable, not to be disobeyed, written in letters of tire 
 across the whole vault of heaven ! All one can say is, that her 
 time was not come. Besides, she looked on Major Campbell as 
 a being utterly superior to herself ; arid that very superiority, 
 while it allowed her to be as familiar with him as she chose, 
 excused her in her own eyes from opening to him her real heart. 
 She could safely jest with him, let him pet her, play at being his 
 daughter, while she felt that between him and her lay a gulf as 
 wide as between earth and heaven : and that very notion com- 
 forted her in her naughtiness ; for in that case, of course, his 
 code of morals was not meant for her ; and while she took his 
 warnings (as many of them at least as she chose), she thought 
 herself by no means bound to follow his examples. She all but 
 worshipped him as her guardian angel : but she was not meant 
 for an angel herself ; so she could indulge freely in those little 
 escapades and frivolities for which she was born, and then, 
 whenever frightened, run for shelter under his wings. But to 
 hear the same, and even loftier words, from the lips of the 
 curate, whom she had made her toy, almost her butt, was to 
 have them brought down unexpectedly and painfully to her own 
 level. If this was his ideal, why ought it not to be hers 1 Was 
 she not his equal, perhaps his superior 1 And so her very pride 
 humbled her, as she said to herself, ' Then I ought to be useful. 
 I can be : I will be ! ' 
 
 'Lucia,' asked she, that very afternoon, 'will you let me take 
 the children oft' your hands while Clara is busy in the morning?' 
 
 ' O you dear good creature ! but it would be such a gene ! 
 They are really stupid, I am afraid, sometimes, or else I am. 
 They make me so miserably cross at times.' 
 
 ' I will take them. It would be a relief to you, would it not ? ' 
 
 ' My dear ! ' said poor Lucia, with a doleful smile, which 
 seemed to Valentia's self-accusing heart to say, ' Have you only 
 now discovered that fact ?' 
 
 From that day Yalentia courted Headley's company more and 
 more. To fall in love with him was of course absurd ; and he 
 had cured himself of his passing fancy for her. There could be 
 no harm, then, in her making the most of conversation so difter- 
 ent from what she heard in the world, and which in her 
 heart of hearts she liked so much better. For it was with 
 Valentia as with all women ; in this common fault of frivolity, 
 .as in most others, the men rather than they arc to blame. 
 Valentia had cultivated in herself those qualities which she 
 saw admired by the men whom she met, and some one of whom, 
 of course, she meant to marry ; and as their female ideal was a 
 butterfly ideal, a butterfly she became. But beneath all lay, 
 deep and strong, the woman's love of nobleness and wisdom, the 
 woman's longing to learn and to IK; led, which has shown itself 
 in every age in so many a fantastic and even ugly shape, and
 
 332 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 which is their real excuse for the flirting with ' geniuses,' casting 
 themselves at the feet of directors ; which had tempted her to 
 coquette with Elsley, and was now bringing her into ' undesir- 
 able ' intimacy with the poor curate. 
 
 She had heard that day, with some sorrow, his announce- 
 ment that he wished to be gone ; but as he did not refer to it 
 again, she left the thought alone, and all but forgot it. The 
 subject, however, was renewed about a week afterwards. ' When 
 you return to Aberalva,' she had said, in reference to some com- 
 mission. 
 
 ' I shall never return to Aberalva.' 
 
 ' Not return ? ' 
 
 ' No ; I have already resigned the curacy. I believe your 
 uncle has appointed to it the man whom Campbell found for 
 me : and an excellent man, I hear, lie is. At least he will do 
 better there than I.' 
 
 ' But what could have induced you ? How sorry all the 
 people will be.' 
 
 ' I am not sure of that,' said he with a smile. ' I did what 
 I could at last to win back at least their respect, and to leave at 
 least not hatred behind me : but I am unfit for them. I did not 
 understand them. I meant no matter what I meant ; but I 
 failed. God forgive me ! I shall now go somewhere where I 
 shall have simpler work to do ; where I shall at least have a 
 chance of practising the lesson which I learnt there. I learnt 
 it all, strange to say, from the two people in the parish from 
 whom I expected to learn least.' 
 
 ' Whom do you mean ? ' 
 
 ' The doctor and the schoolmistress.' 
 
 'Why from them less than from any in the parish? She so 
 good, and he so clever 1 ' 
 
 'That I shall never tell to anyone now. Suffice it that I 
 was mistaken.' 
 
 Valentia could obtain no further answer ; and so the days 
 ran on, every one becoming more and more intimate, till a 
 certain afternoon, on which they were all to go and picnic, 
 under Claude's pilotage, above the lake of Gwynnant. Scout- 
 bush was to have been with them ; but a heavy day's rain in 
 the meanwhile swelled the streams into fishing order ; so the 
 little man ordered a car, and started at three in the morning 
 for Bettws with Mr. .Howie, who, however loth to give up the 
 arrangement of plates and the extraction of champagne corks, 
 considered his presence by the river-side a natural necessity. 
 
 ' My dear Miss Clara, ye see, there'll be nobody to see that 
 his lordship pits on dry stockings ; and lie's always getting over 
 the tops of his water-boots, being young and daft, as we've all 
 been, and no offence to you ; and to tell you truth, I can stand 
 fill temptations in moderation, that is, save an' except the 
 chance o' cleikiny a fish.'
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 333 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 
 
 THE spot which Claude had chosen for the picnic was on ono 
 of the lower spurs of that great mountain of The Maiden's 
 Peak, which bounds the vale of Gwynnant to the south. 
 Above, a wilderness of gnarled volcanic dykes and purple 
 heather ledges ; below, broken into glens, in which still linger 
 pale green ash-woods, relics of that great prhmeval forest in 
 which, in Bess's days, great Leicester used to rouse the hart 
 with hound and horn. 
 
 Among these Claude had found a little lawn, guarded by 
 great rocks, out of every cranny of which the ashes grew as 
 freely as on flat ground. Their feet were bedded deep in sweet 
 fern and wild raspberries, and golden-rod, and purple scabious, 
 and tall blue campanulas. Above them, and before them, and 
 below them, the ashes shook their green filagree in the bright 
 sunshine ; and through them glimpses were seen of the purple 
 clift's above, and, right in front, of the great cataract of Nant 
 Gwynnant, a long snow-white line zigzagging down coal-black 
 cliffs for many a hundred feet, and above it, depth beyond 
 depth of purple shadow away into the very heart of Snowdon, 
 up the long valley of Cwm-dyli, to the great amphitheatre of 
 Clogwyn-y-Garnedd ; while over all the cone of Snowdon rose, 
 in perfect symmetry, between his attendant peaks of Lliwedd 
 and Crib Coch. 
 
 There they sat, and laughed, and talked, the pleasant summer 
 afternoon, in their pleasant summer bower ; and never regretted 
 the silence of the birds, so sweetly did Valencia's song go up 
 in many a rich sad Irish melody ; while the lowing of the milch 
 kine, and the wild cooing of the herd-boys, came softly up from 
 the vale below, ' and all the air was tilled with pleasant noise of 
 waters.' 
 
 Then Claude must needs photograph them all, as they sat, 
 and group them tirst according to his fancy ; and among his 
 fancies was one, that Valentia should sit as queen, with Head ley 
 and the major at her feet. And Headley lounged there, and 
 looked into the grass, and thought it well for him could he lie 
 there for ever. 
 
 Then Claude must photograph the mountain itself ; and all 
 began to talk of it. 
 
 ' See the breadth of light and shadow,' said Claude : ' how 
 the purple depth of the great lap of the mountain is thrown 
 back by the sheet of green light on Lliwedd, and the red glory 
 on the dill's of Crib Coch, till you seem to look away into the 
 bosom of the hill, mile after mile.'
 
 334 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'And so you do,' said Headley. 'I have learnt to distinguish 
 mountain distances since I have been here. That peak is four 
 miles from us now ; and yet the shadowed cliffs at its foot seem 
 double that distance.' 
 
 'And look, look,' said Valentia, 'at the long line of glory with 
 which the western sun is gilding the edge of the left hand slope, 
 bringing it nearer and nearer to us every moment, against the 
 deep blue sky ! ' 
 
 ' But what a form ! Perfect lightness, perfect symmetry ! ' 
 said Claude. ' Curve sweeping over curve, peak towering over 
 peak, to the highest point, and then sinking down again as 
 gracefully as they rose. One can hardly help fancying that the 
 mountain moves ; that those dancing lines are not instinct with 
 life.' 
 
 'At least,' said Headley, ' that the mountain is a leaping wave, 
 frozen just ere it fell.' 
 
 ' Perfect,' said Valentia. ' That is the very expression ! So 
 concise, and yet so complete.' 
 
 And Headley, poor fool, felt as happy as if lie had found a 
 gold mine. 
 
 ' To me,' said Elsley, ' the fancy rises of some great Eastern 
 monarch sitting in royal state ; with ample shoulders sloping 
 right and left, he lays his purple-mantled arms upon the heads 
 of two of those Titian guards who stand on either side his foot- 
 stool.' 
 
 'While from beneath his throne,' said Headley, 'as Eastern 
 poets would say, flow everlasting streams, life-giving, to fertilise 
 broad lands below.' 
 
 ' I did not know that you, too, were a poet,' said Valentia. 
 
 'Nor I, madam. But if such scenes as these, and in such 
 company, cannot inspire the fancy of even a poor country curate 
 to something of exaltation, he must be dull indeed.' 
 
 ' Why not put some of these thoughts into poetry ? ' 
 
 ' What use ? ' answered he in so low, sad, and meaning a tone, 
 meant only for her ear, that Valentia looked down at him : but 
 he was gazing intently upon the glorious scene. Was he hint- 
 ing at the vanity and vexation of poor Elsley 's versifying 1 Or 
 did he mean that he had now no purpose in life no prize for 
 which it was worth while to win honour ? 
 
 She did not answer him : but he answered himself perhaps 
 to explain away his own speech 
 
 ' No, madam ! God has written the poetry already ; and 
 there it is before me. My business is not to re-write it clumsily, 
 but to read it humbly, and give Him thanks for it.' 
 
 More and more had Valentia been attracted by Headley 
 during the last few weeks. Accustomed to men who tried to 
 make the greatest possible show of what small wits they pos- 
 sessed, she was surprised to find one who seemed to think it 
 a duty to keep his knowledge and taste in the background.
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 335 
 
 She gave him credit for more talent than appeared ; for more, 
 perhaps, than he really had. She was piqued, too, at his very 
 modesty and self-restraint. Why did not he, like the rest who 
 dangled about her, spread out his peacock's train for her eyes, 
 and try to show his worship of her by setting himself off in his 
 brightest colours ? and yet this modesty awed her into respect 
 of him ; for she could not forget that, whether he had sentiment 
 much or little, sentiment was not the staple of his manhood : 
 she could not forget his cholera work ; and she knew that, 
 under that delicate and bashful outside, lay virtue and heroism, 
 enough and to spare. 
 
 ' But, if you put these thoughts into words, you would teach 
 others to read that poetry.' 
 
 ' My business is to teach people to do right ; and if I cannot, 
 to pray God to find some one who can.' 
 
 ' Right, Headley ! ' said Major Campbell, laying his hand on 
 the curate's shoulder. ' God dwells no more in books written 
 Avith pens than in temples made with hands ; and the sacrifice 
 which pleases Him is not verse, but righteousness. Do you 
 recollect, Queen Whims, what I wrote once in your album ? 
 
 ' " Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever, 
 Do noble things, not dream them, all day long, 
 So making life, death, and that vast forever, 
 One grand, sweet song." ' 
 
 ' But, you naughty, hypocritical Saint Pere, you write poetry 
 yourself, and beautifully. 
 
 ' Yes, as I smoke my cigar, to comfort my poor rheumatic old 
 soul. But if I lived only to write poetry, I should think myself 
 as wise as if I lived only to smoke tobacco.' 
 
 Valentia's eyes could not help glancing at Elsley, who had 
 wandered away to the neighbouring brook, and was gazing with 
 all his eyes upon a ferny rock, having left Lucia to help Claude 
 with his photographing. 
 
 Frank saw her look, and read its meaning ; and answered her 
 thoughts, perhaps too hastily. 
 
 'And what a really well-read and agreeable man he is, all 
 the while ! What a mine of quaint learning, and beautiful old 
 legend ! If he would but bring it into the common stock for 
 every one's amusement, instead of hoarding it up for himself ! ' 
 
 ' Why, what else does he do but bring it into the common 
 stock, when he publishes a book which everyone can read?' 
 said Valentia, half out of the spirit of contradiction. 
 
 ' And few understand,' said Headley quietly. 
 
 'You are very unjust ; he is a very discerning and agreeable 
 person, and I shall go and talk to him.' And away went 
 Valentia to Elsley, somewhat cross. Woman-like, she allowed, 
 for the sake of her sister's honour, no one but herself to
 
 336 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 depreciate Vavasour, and chose to think it impertinent on 
 Headley's part. 
 
 Headley began quietly talking to Major Campbell about 
 botany, while Valentia, a little ashamed of herself all the while, 
 took her revenge 011 Elsley by scolding him for his unsocial 
 ways, in the very terms which Headley had been using. 
 
 At last Claude, having finished his photographing, departed 
 downward to get some new view from the road below, and 
 Lucia returned to the rest of the party. Valentia joined them 
 at once, bringing up Elsley, who was not in the best of humours 
 after her diatribes ; and the whole party wandered about the 
 woodland, and scrambled down beside the torrent beds. 
 
 At last they came to a point where they could descend no 
 farther ; for the stream, falling over a cliff', had worn itself a 
 narrow chasm in the rock, and thundered down it into a deep 
 narrow pool. 
 
 Lucia, who was basking in the sunshine and the flowers as 
 simply as a child, would needs peep over the brink, and made 
 Elsley hold her while she looked down. A quiet happiness, as 
 of old recollections, came into her eyes, as she watched the 
 sparkling and foaming water 
 
 ' And beauty, born of murmuring sound, 
 Did pass into her face.' 
 
 Campbell started. The Lucia of seven years ago seemed to 
 bloom out again in that pale face and wrinkled forehead ; and 
 a smile came over his face, too, as lie looked. 
 
 ' Just like the dear old waterfall at Kilanbaggan. You recol- 
 lect it, Major Campbell?' 
 
 Elsley always disliked recollections of Kilanbaggan ; recol- 
 lections of her life before he knew her ; recollections of pleasures 
 in which he had not shared ; especially recollections of her old 
 acquaintance with the major. 
 
 'I do not, I am ashamed to say,' replied the major. 
 
 ' Why, you were there a whole summer. Ah ! I suppose you 
 thought about nothing but your salmon fishing. If Elsley had 
 been there he would not have forgotten a rock or a pool. 
 Would you, Elsley 1 ' 
 
 ' Really, in spite of all salmon, I have not forgotten a rock or 
 a pool about the place which I ever saw : but at the waterfall I 
 never was.' 
 
 'So he has not forgotten ? What cause had he to remember 
 .so carefully?' thought Elsley. 
 
 ' O Elsley, look ! What is that exquisite flower, like a ball 
 of gold, hanging just over the water ?' 
 
 If Elsley had not had the evil spirit haunting about him, lie 
 would have joined in Lucia's admiration of the beautiful crea- 
 ture, as it dropped into the foam from its narrow ledge, with its
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 337 
 
 fan of palmate leaves bright green against the black mosses of 
 the rock, and its golden petals glowing like a tiny sun in the 
 darkness of the chasm : as it was, he answered 
 
 ' Only a buttercup.' 
 
 ' I am sure it's not a buttercup ! It is three times as large, 
 and a so much paler yellow ! Is it a buttercup, now, Major 
 Campbell?' 
 
 Campbell looked down. 
 
 ' Very nearly one, after all : but its real name is the globe 
 flower. It is common enough here in spring ; you may see the 
 leaves in every pasture. But I suppose this plant, hidden from 
 the light, has kept its flowers till the autumn.' 
 
 ' And till I came to see it, darling that it is ! I should like to 
 reward it by wearing it home.' 
 
 ' I dare say it would be very proud of the honour ; especially 
 if Mr. Vavasour would embalm it in verse, after it had done 
 service to you.' 
 
 'It is doing good enough service where it is,' said Elsley. 
 ' Why pluck out the very eye of that perfect picture ? ' 
 
 ' Strange,' said Lucia, ' that such a beautiful thing should be 
 born there all alone upon these rocks, with no one to look at it.' 
 
 'It enjoys itself sufficiently without us, no doubt,' said 
 Elsley. 
 
 ' Yes ; but I want to enjoy it. Oh, if you could but get it for 
 me ! ' 
 
 Elsley looked down. There was fifteen feet of somewhat 
 slippery rock ; then a ragged ledge a foot broad, in a crack of 
 which the flower grew ; then the dark boiling pool. Elsley 
 shrugged his shoulders, and said, smiling, as if it were a fine 
 thing to say, 'Really, my dear, all men are not knight errants 
 enough to endanger their necks for a bit of weed ; and I cannot 
 say that such rough toiirs de fwce are at all to my fancy.' 
 
 Lucia turned away : but she was vexed. Campbell could see 
 that a strange fancy for the plant had seized her. As she 
 walked from the spot, he could hear her talking about its beauty 
 to Valentia. 
 
 Campbell's blood boiled. To be asked by that woman by 
 any woman to get her that flower : and to be afraid ! It was 
 bad enough to be ill-tempered ; but to be a coward, and to be 
 proud thereof ! He yielded to a temptation, which he had much 
 better have left alone, seeing that Lucia had not asked him ; 
 swung himself easily enough down the ledge ; got the flower, 
 and put it, quietly bowing, into Mrs. Vavasour's hand. 
 
 He was frightened when he had done it ; for he saw, to his 
 surprise, that she was frightened. She took the flower, smiling 
 thanks, and expressing a little common-place horror and aston- 
 ishment at his having gone clown such a dangerous cliff: but 
 she took.it to Elsley, drew his arm through hers, and seemed 
 determined to make as much of him as possible for the rest of 
 Z T. v. A.
 
 338 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 the afternoon. ' The fellow was jealous, then, in addition to his 
 other sins ! ' And Campbell, who felt that he had put himself 
 unnecessarily forward between husband and wife, grew more 
 and more angry and somehow, unlike his usual wont, refused 
 to confess himself in the wrong, because he was in the wrong. 
 Certainly it was not pleasant for poor Elsley ; and so Lucia felt, 
 and bore with him when he refused to be comforted, and 
 rendered blessing for railing when he said to her more than one 
 angry word ; but she had been accustomed to angry words by 
 this time. 
 
 All might have passed off, but for that careless Yalentia, who 
 had not seen the details of what had passed ; and so advised 
 herself to ask where Lucia got that beautiful plant ? 
 
 'Major Campbell picked it up for her from the cliff," said 
 Elsley drily. 
 
 ' Ah ! at the risk of his neck, I don't doubt. He is the most 
 matchless cavalier e servente.' 
 
 ' I shall leave Mrs. Vavasour to his care, then that is, for the 
 present/ said Elsley, drawing his arm from Lucia's. 
 
 ' I assure you,' answered she, roused in her turn by his deter- 
 mined bad temper, ' I am not the least afraid of being left in 
 the charge of so old a friend.' 
 
 Elsley made no answer, but sprang down through the 
 thickets, calling loudly to Claude Mellot. 
 
 It was very naughty of Lucia, no doubt : but even a worm 
 will turn ; and there are times when people who have not 
 courage to hold their peace must say something or other ; and 
 do not always, in the hurry, get out what they ought, but only 
 what they have time to think of. And she forgot what she had 
 said the next minute, in Major Campbell's question 
 
 'Am I, then, so old a friend, Mrs. Vavasour?' 
 
 ' Of course ; who older 1 ' 
 
 Campbell was silent a moment. If he was inclined to choke, 
 at least Lucia did not see it. 
 
 'I trust I have not offended your Mr. Vavasour? ' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' she said, Avith a forced gaiety, ' only one of his poetic 
 fancies. He wanted so much to see Mr. Mellot photograph the 
 waterfall. I hope he will be in time to find him.' 
 
 'I am a plain soldier, Mrs. Vavasour, and I only ask because 
 I do not understand. What are poetic fancies 1 ' 
 
 Lucia looked up in his face puzzled, and saw there an expres- 
 sion so grave, pitying, tender, that her heart leaped up toward 
 him, and then sank back again. 
 
 ' Why do you ask ? Why need you know ? You are no 
 poet.' 
 
 ' And for that very cause I ask you.' 
 
 ' Oil, but,' said she, guessing at what was in his mind, and 
 trying, woman-like, to play purposely at cross purposes, and to 
 defend her husband at all risks; 'lie lias an extraordinary
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 339 
 
 poetic faculty, all the world agrees to that, Major Camp- 
 bell.' 
 
 'What matter?' said he. Lucia would have been very 
 angry, and perhaps ought to have been so ; for what business 
 of Campbell's was it whether her husband were kind to her or 
 not ? But there was a deep sadness, almost despair, in the tone, 
 which disarmed her. 
 
 'O Major Campbell, is it not a glorious thing to be a poet? 
 And is it not a glorious thing to be a poet's wife ? Oh, for the 
 sake of that if I could but see him honoured, appreciated, 
 famous, as he will be some day ! Though I think ' (and she 
 spoke with all a woman's pride) ' he is somewhat famous now, 
 is he not ? ' 
 
 ' Famous ? Yes,' answered Campbell, with an abstracted 
 voice, and then rejoined quickly, ' If you could but see that, 
 what then ? ' 
 
 ' Why then,' said she, with a half smile (for she had nearly 
 entrapped herself into an admission of what she was deter- 
 minea to conceal), 'why then, I should be still more what I 
 am now, his devoted little wife, who cares for nobody and 
 nothing but putting his study to rights, and bringing up his 
 children.' 
 
 ' Happy children ! ' said he, after a pause, and half to himself, 
 ' who have such a mother to bring them up.' 
 
 ' Do you really think so ? But flattery used not to be one of 
 your sins. Ah, I wish you could give me some advice about 
 how I am to teach them.' 
 
 ' So it is she who has the work of education, not he ! ' 
 thought Campbell to himself, and then answered gaily 
 
 ' My dear madam, what can a confirmed old bachelor like me 
 know about children ? ' 
 
 ' Oh, don't you know ' (and she gave one of her pretty Irish 
 laughs) ' that it is the old maids who always write the children's 
 books, for the benefit of us poor ignorant married women ? But ' 
 (and she spoke earnestly again) ' we all know how wise and good 
 you are. I did not know it in old times. I am afraid I used 
 to torment you when I was young and foolish.' 
 
 ' Where on earth can Mellot and Mr. Vavasour be ? ' asked 
 Campbell. 
 
 'Oil, never mind ; Mr. Mellot has gone wandering down the 
 glen with his apparatus, and my Elsley has gone wandering 
 after him, and will find him in due time, with his head in a black 
 bag, and a great bull just going to charge him from behind,like 
 that hapless man in Punch. I always tell Mr. Mellot that will 
 be his end.' 
 
 Campbell was deeply shocked to hear the light tone in which 
 she talked of the passionate temper of a man whom she so surely 
 loved. How many outbursts of it there must have been ; how 
 many paroxysms of astonishment, shame, grief perhaps, alas !
 
 340 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 counter-bursts of anger ere that heart could have become thus 
 proof against the ever-lowering thunderstorm ! 
 
 ' Well,' he said, ' all we can do is to walk down to the car, 
 and let them follow ; and, meanwhile, I will give you my wise 
 opinion about this education question, whereof I know nothing.' 
 
 ' It will be all oracular to me, for I know nothing either ; ' 
 and she put her arm through his, and walked on. 
 
 ' Did you hurt yourself then ? I am sure you are in pain.' 
 
 ' I ? Never less free from it, with many thanks to you. 
 What made you think so ? ' 
 
 ' I heard you breathe so hard, and quite stamp your feet, I 
 thought. I suppose it was fancy.' 
 
 It was not fancy, nevertheless. Major Campbell was stamp- 
 ing down something, and succeeded, too, in crushing it. 
 
 They walked on toward the car, Valentia and Headley follow- 
 ing them ; ere they arrived at the place where they were to meet 
 it, it was quite dark ; but what was more important, the car was 
 not there. 
 
 'The stupid man must have mistaken his orders, and gone 
 home.' 
 
 ' Or let the horse go home of itself, while he was asleep 
 inside. He was more than half tipsy when we started.' 
 
 So spoke the major, divining the exact truth. There was 
 nothing to be done but to walk the four miles home, and let the 
 two truants follow as they could. 
 
 ' We shall have plenty of time for our educational lecture,' 
 said Lucia. 
 
 ' Plenty of time to waste, then, my dear lady.' 
 
 ' Oh, I never talk with you five minutes I do not know why 
 without feeling wiser and happier. I envy Valentia for having 
 seen so much of you of late.' 
 
 Little thought poor Lucia, as she spoke those innocent words, 
 that within four yards of her, crouched behind the wall, his face 
 and every limb writhing with mingled curiosity and rage, was 
 none other but her husband. 
 
 He had given place to the devil : and the devil (for the 
 'superstitious' and 'old world' notion which attributes sucli 
 frenzies to the devil has not yet been superseded by a better one) 
 had entered into him, and concentrated all the evil habits and 
 passions which lie had indulged for years into one naming hell 
 within him. 
 
 Miserable man ! His torments were sevenfold : and if lie had 
 sinned, he was at least punished. Not merely by all which a 
 husband has a right to feel in such a case, or fancies that lie has 
 a right ; not merely by tortured vanity and self-conceit, by the 
 agony of seeing any man preferred to him, which to a man of 
 Elsley's character was of itself unbearable not merely by the 
 loss of trust in one whom he had once trusted utterly but, over 
 and above all, and worst of all, by the feeling of shame, self-
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 341 
 
 reproach, self-hatred, which haunts a jealous man, and which 
 ought to haunt him ; for few men lose the love of women who 
 have once loved them, save by their own folly or baseness by 
 the recollection that he had traded on her trust ; that he had 
 drugged his own conscience with the fancy that she must love 
 him always, let him do what he would ; and had neglected and 
 insulted her affection, because he fancied, in his conceit, that it 
 was inalienable. And with the loss of self-respect, came reck- 
 lessness of it, and drove him on, as it has jealous men in all ages, 
 to meannesses unspeakable, which have made them for centuries, 
 poor wretches, the butts of worthless play-wrights, and the scorn 
 of their fellow-men. 
 
 Elsley had wandered, he hardly knew how or whither, for his 
 calling to Mellot was the merest blind, stumbling over rocks, 
 bruising himself against tree-trunks, to this wall. He knew 
 they must pass it. He waited for them, and had his reward. 
 Blind with rage, he hardly waited for the sound of their foot- 
 steps to die away before he had sprung into the road, and hur- 
 ried up in the opposite direction, anywhere, everywhere, to 
 escape from them, and from self. Whipt b^ the furies, he fled 
 along the road and up the vale, he cared not whither. 
 
 And what were Headley and Valentia, who of necessity had 
 paired off together, doing all the while ? 
 
 They walked on silently side by side for ten minutes ; then 
 Frank said 
 
 'I have been impertinent, Miss St. Just, and I beg your 
 pardon.' 
 
 ' No, you have not,' said she, quite hastily. ' You were right, 
 too right, has it not been proved within the last five minutes ? 
 My poor sister ! What can be done to mend Mr. Vavasour's 
 temper? I wish you could talk to him, Mr. Headley.' 
 
 ' He is beyond my art. His age, and his talents, and his his 
 consciousness of them,' said Frank, using the mildest term he 
 could find, 'would prevent so insignificant a person as me 
 having any influence. But what I cannot do, God's grace may.' 
 
 ' Can it change a man's character, Mr. Headley ? It may 
 make good men tetter but can it cure temper?' 
 
 ' Major Campbell must have told you that it can do anything.' 
 
 ' Ah, yes : with men as wise, and strong, and noble as he is ; 
 but with such a weak, vain man 
 
 ' Miss St. Just, I know one who is neither wise, nor strong, 
 nor noble, but as weak and vain as any man ; in whom God has 
 conquered as He may conquer yet in Mr. Vavasour all which 
 makes man cling to life.' 
 
 'What, all ?' asked she, suspecting, and not wrongly, that he 
 spoke of himself. 
 
 'All, I suppose, which it is good for them to have crushed. 
 There are feelings which last on, in spite of all struggles to 
 quench them I suppose, because they ought to last ; because,
 
 342 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 while they torture, they still ennoble. Death will quench 
 them : or if not, satisfy them : or if not, set them at rest 
 somehow.' 
 
 ' Death ? ' answered she, in a startled tone. 
 
 'Yes. Our friend, Major Campbell's friend, death. We 
 have been seeing a good deal of him together lately, and have 
 come to the conclusion that he is the most useful, pleasant, and 
 instructive of all friends.' 
 
 ' O Mr. Headley, do not speak so ! Are you in earnest 1 ' 
 
 ' So much in earnest, that I have resolved to go out as an 
 army chaplain, to see in the war somewhat more of my new 
 friend.' 
 
 ' Impossible ! Mr. Headley ; it will kill you ! All that hor- 
 rible fever and cholera ! ' 
 
 'And what possible harm can it do me, if it does kill me, 
 Miss St. Just ! ' 
 
 ' Mr. Headley, this is madness ! I we cannot allow you to 
 throw away your life thus so young, and a-nd such prospects 
 before you ! And there is nothing that my brother would not 
 do for you, were n\only for your heroism at Aberalva. There is 
 not one of the family who does not love and respect you, and 
 long to see all the world appreciating you as we do ; and your 
 poor mother 
 
 'I have told my mother all, Miss St. Just. And she has said, 
 Go ; it is your only hope. She has other sons to comfort her. 
 Let us say no more of it. Had I thought that you would have 
 disapproved of it, I would never have mentioned the thing.' 
 
 ' Disapprove of your going to die ? You shall not ! And for 
 me, too : for I guess all all is my fault ! ' 
 
 ' All is mine/ said he quietly : ' who was fool enough to fancy 
 that I could forget you conquer my love for you ; ' and at 
 these words his whole voice and manner changed in an instant 
 into wildest passion. ' I must speak now and never more I 
 love you still, fool that I am ! Would God I had never seen 
 you ! No, not that. Thank God for that to the last : but 
 would God I had died of that cholera ! that I had never come 
 here, conceited fool that I was, fancying that it was possible, 
 after having once - No ! Let me go, go anywhere, where 
 I may burden you no more with my absurd dreams ! You, who 
 have had the same thing said to you, and in finer words, a 
 hundred times, by men who would not deign to speak to me ! ' 
 and covering his face in his hands, lie strode on, as if to 
 escape. 
 
 ' I never had the same thing said to me ! ' 
 
 ' Never ? How often have tine gentlemen, noblemen, sworn 
 that they were dying for you \ ' 
 
 ' They never have said to me what you have done.' 
 
 ' No I am clumsy, I suppose 
 
 ' Mr. Headley, indeed you are unjust to yourself unjust to me !'
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 343 
 
 ' I to you ? Never ! I know you better than you know 
 yourself see in you what no one else sees. Oh, what fools they 
 are who say that love is blind ! Blind ? He sees souls with 
 God's own light : not as they have become : but as they ought 
 to become can become are already in the sight of Him who 
 made them ! ' 
 
 ' And what might I become ? ' asked she, half- frightened by 
 the new earnestness of his utterance. 
 
 ' How can I tell ? Something infinitely too high for me, at 
 least, who even now am not worthy to kiss the dust off your 
 feet.' 
 
 ' Oh, do not speak so : little do you know ! No, Mr. 
 
 Headley, it is you who are too good for me ; too noble, single- 
 eyed, self-sacrificing, to endure my vanity and meanness for a 
 day.' 
 
 ' Madam, do not speak thus ! Give me no word which my 
 folly can distort into a ray of hope, unless you wish to drive me 
 mad. No ! it is impossible ; and, were it possible, what but 
 ruin to my soul ? I should live for you, ana not for my work. 
 I should become a schemer, ambitious, intriguing, in the vain 
 hope of proving myself to the world worthy of you. No : let 
 it be. "Let the dead bury their dead, and follow thou me.' ' 
 
 She made no answer what answer was there to make ? And 
 he strode 011 by her side in silence for full ten minutes. At last 
 she was forced to speak. 
 
 ' Mr. Headley, recollect that this conversation has gone too 
 far for us to avoid coming to some definite understanding 
 
 ' Then it shall, Miss St. Just. Then it shall, once and for all : 
 formally and deliberately, it shall end now. Suppose I only 
 say suppose that I could, without failing in my own honour, 
 my duty to my calling, make myself such a name among good 
 men, that, poor parson though I be, your family need be ashamed 
 of nothing about me, save my poverty. Tell me, now and for 
 ever, could it be possible 
 
 He stopped. She walked on, silent, in her turn. 
 
 ' Say no, as a matter of course, and end it ! ' said he bitterly. 
 
 She drew a long breath, as if heaving off a weight. 
 
 ' I cannot dare not say it.' 
 
 ' It ? Which of the two 1 yes, or no ? ' 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 He stopped, and spoke calmly and slowly. ' Say that 
 again, and tell me that I am not dreaming. You ? the ad- 
 mired ! the worshipped ! the luxurious ! and no blame to you 
 that you are what you were born could you endure a little 
 parsonage, the teaching village school-children, tending dirty 
 old women, and petty cares the whole year round ?' 
 
 ' Mr. Headley,' answered she, slowly and calmly, in her turn, 
 ' I could endure a cottaere a prison, I fancy, at moments to 
 escape from this world of which I aru tired, which will soon
 
 344 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 be tired of me ; from women who envy me, impute to me am- 
 bitions as base as their own ; from men who admire not me, 
 for they do not know me, and never will but what in me I 
 hate them ! will give them pleasure. I hate it all, despise it 
 all ; despise myself for it all every morning when 1 wake ! 
 What does it do for me, but rouse in me the very parts of my 
 own character which are most despicable, most tormenting 1 
 If it goes on, I feel I could become as frivolous, as mean, ay, 
 as wicked as the worst. You do not know you do not 
 
 know . I have envied the nuns their convents. I have 
 
 envied Selkirk his desert island. I envy now the milkmaids 
 there below : anything to escape and be in earnest, anything 
 for some one to teach me to be of use ! Yes, this cholera 
 and this war though only, only its coming shadow has 
 passed over me and your words too ' cried she, and stopped 
 and hesitated, as if afraid to tell too much 'they have 
 wakened me to a new life at least to the dream of a new 
 life ! ' 
 
 'Have you not Major Campbell?' said Headley, with a 
 terrible effort of will. 
 
 'Yes but has he taught me? He is dear, and good, and 
 wise ; but he is too wise, too great for me. He plays with me 
 as a lion might with a mouse ; he is like a grand angel far 
 above in another planet, who can pity and advise, but who 
 cannot What am I saying ? ' and she covered her face with her 
 hand. 
 
 She dropped her glove as she did so. Headley picked it up 
 and gave it to her : as he did so their hands met ; and their 
 hands did not part again. 
 
 ' You know that I love you, Valentia St. Just.' 
 
 ' Too well ! too well ! ' 
 
 ' But you know, too, that you do not love me.' 
 
 ' Who told you so ? What do you know ? What do I know ? 
 Only that I long for some one to make nie to make me .as good 
 as you are ! ' And she burst into tears. 
 
 ' Valentia, will you trust me ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ! ' cried she, looking up at him suddenly : ' if you will 
 not go to the war.' 
 
 ' No no no ! Would you have me turn traitor and coward 
 to God ; and now, of all moments in my life 1 ' 
 
 ' Noble creature ! ' said she ; ' you will make me love you 
 whether I wish or not.' 
 
 What was it, after all, by which Frank Headley won Yalentia's 
 love ? I cannot tell. Can you tell, sir, how you won the love of 
 your wife ? As little as you can tell of that still greater miracle 
 how you have kept her love since she found out what manner 
 of man you were. 
 
 So they paced homeward, hand in hand, beside the shining 
 ripples, along the Dinas shore. The birches breathed fragrance
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 345 
 
 on them ; the night-hawk churred softly round their path ; the 
 stately mountains smiled above them in the moonlight, and 
 seemed to keep watch and ward over their love, and to shut out 
 the noisy world, and the harsh babble and vain fashions of the 
 town. The summer lightning flickered to the westward ; but 
 round them the rich soft night seemed full of love ? as full of 
 love as their own hearts were, and like them, brooding silently 
 upon its joy. At last the walk was over ; the kind moon sank 
 low behind the hills ; and the darkness hid their blushes as they 
 paced into the sleeping village, and their hands parted unwil- 
 lingly at last. 
 
 When they came into the hall through the group of lounging 
 gownsmen and tourists, they found Bowie arguing with Mrs. 
 Lewis, in his dogmatic Scotch way 
 
 ' So ye see, madam, there's no use defending the drunken loon 
 any more at all ; and here will my leddies have just walked their 
 bonny legs oft', all through that carnal sin of drunkenness, which 
 is the curse of your Welsh populaaation.' 
 
 ' And not quite unknown north of Tweed either, Bowie,' said 
 Valentia, laughing. 'There now, say no more about it. We 
 have had a delightful walk, and nobody is the least tired. 
 Don't say any more, Mrs. Lewis : but tell them to get us some 
 supper. Bowie, so my lord has come in ? ' 
 
 'This half -hour good ! ' 
 
 ' Has he had any sport 1 ' 
 
 ' Sport ! ay, troth ! Five fish in the day. That's a river 
 indeed at Bettws ! Not a pawky wee burn, like this Aberglas- 
 lyn thing.' 
 
 ' Only five fish ? ' said Valentia in a frightened tone. 
 
 'Fish, my leddy, not trouts, I said. I thought ye knew 
 better than that by this time.' 
 
 ' Oh, salmon ? ' cried Valentia, relieved. ' Delightf ul. I'll go 
 to him this moment.' 
 
 And upstairs to Scoutbush's rooms she went. 
 
 He was sitting in dressing-gown and slippers, sipping his 
 claret, and fondling his fly-book (the only one he ever studied 
 con (tmore) with a most complacent face. She came in and 
 stood demurely before him, holding her broad hat in both hands 
 before her knees, like a schoolgirl, her face half-hidden in the 
 black curls. Scoutbush looked up and smiled affectionately, as 
 he caught the light of her eyes and the arch play of her lips. 
 
 'Ah ! there you are, at a pretty time of night ! How beauti- 
 ful you look, Val ! I wish my wife may be half as pretty ! ' 
 
 Valentia made him a prim courtsey. 
 
 'I am delighted to hear of my lord's good sport. He will 
 choose to be in a good humour, I suppose.' 
 
 ' Good humour '? ra va sans dire ! Three stone of lish in three 
 hours ! ' 
 
 'Then his little sister is going to do a very foolish thing, and
 
 346 TWO YEARS AGO CIIAP. 
 
 wants his leave to do it ; which if he will grant, she will let him 
 do as many foolish things as he likes without scolding him, as 
 long as they both shall live.' 
 
 ' Do it then, I beg. What is it ? Do you want to go up 
 Snowdon. with Headley to-morrow, to see the sun rise ? You'll 
 kill yourself ! ' 
 
 ' No,' said Valentia very quietly ; ' I only want to marry 
 him.' 
 
 ' Marry him ! ' cried Scoutbush, starting up. 
 
 'Don't try to look majestic, my dear little brother, for you 
 are really not tall enough ; as it is, you have only hooked all 
 your flies into your dressing-gown.' 
 
 Scoutbush dashed himself clown into his chair again. 
 
 Til be shot if you shall!' 
 
 ' You may be shot just as surely, whether I do or not,' said 
 she softly ; and she knelt down before him, and put her arms 
 round him, and laid her head upon his lap. ' There, you can't 
 run away now ; so you must hear me quietly. And you know 
 it may not be often that we shall be together again thus ; and 
 O Scoutbush ! brother ! if anything was to happen to you I 
 only say if in this horrid war, you would not like to think 
 that you had refused the last thing your little Val asked for, 
 and that she was miserable and lonely at home.' 
 
 ' I'll be shot if you shall ! ' was all the poor viscount could get 
 out. 
 
 ' Yes, miserable and lonely ; you gone away, and mon Saint 
 Pere too ; and Lucia, she has her children and I am so wild 
 and weak I must have some one to guide me and protect me 
 indeed I must ! ' 
 
 ' Why, that was what I always said ! That was why I 
 wanted you so to marry this season ! Why did not you take 
 Chalkclere, or half a dozen good matches who were dying for 
 you, and not this confounded black parson, of all birds in the 
 air?' 
 
 ' I did not take Lord Chalkclere for the very reason that I do 
 take Mr. Headley. I want a husband who will guide me, not 
 one whom I must guide.' 
 
 'Guide?' said Scoutbush bitterly, witli one of those little, 
 sparks of practical shrewdness which sometimes fell from him. 
 'Ay, I see how it is! These intriguing rascals of parsons 
 they begin as father confessors, like so many popish priests ; 
 and one fine morning they blossom out into lovers, and so they 
 get all the pretty women, and all the good fortunes the sneak- 
 ing, ambitious, low-bred 
 
 'He is neither ! You are unjust, Scoutbush ! ' cried Valentia, 
 looking up. ' He is the very soul of honour. He might be rich 
 now, and have had a line living, if he had not been too con- 
 scientious to let his uncle buy him one ; and that offended his 
 uncle, and he would allow him nothing. And as for being low-
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 347 
 
 bred, ho is a gentleman, as you know ; and if his uncle be in 
 business, his mother is a lady, and he will be well enough oil' 
 one day.' 
 
 ' You seem to know a great deal about his affairs.' 
 
 ' He told me all, months ago before there was any dream of 
 this. And, my dear,' she went on, relapsing into her usual arch 
 tone, 'there is no fear but his uncle will be glad enough to 
 patronise him again, when he finds that he has married a vis- 
 count's sister.' 
 
 Scoutbush laughed. 'You scheming little Irish rogue ! But 
 I won't. I've said it, and I won't. It's enough to have one 
 sister married to a poor poet, without having another married 
 to a poor parson. Oh ! what have I done that I should be 
 bothered in this way ? Isn't it bad enough to be a landlord, and 
 to have an estate, and be responsible for a lot of people that 
 will die of the cholera, and have to vote in the house about a 
 lot of things I don't understand, nor anybody else, I believe, but 
 that, over and above, I must be the head of the family, and 
 answerable to all the world for whom my mad sisters marry ? I 
 won't, I say ! ' 
 
 'Then I shall just go and marry without your leave ! I'm of 
 age, you know, and my fortune's my own ; and then we shall 
 come in as the runaway couples do in a play, while you sit 
 there in your dressing-gown as the stern father won't you 
 borrow a white wig for the occasion, my lord ? and we shall 
 fall down on our knees so,' and she put herself in the prettiest 
 attitude in the world, ' and beg your blessing please forgive 
 us this time, and we'll never do so any more ! And then you 
 will turn your face away, like the baron in the ballad 
 
 ' ' ' And brushed away the springing tear 
 He proudly strove to hide," 
 
 etcetera, etcetera. Finish the scene for yourself, with a " Bless 
 ye, my children ; bless ye ! " ' 
 
 ' Go along, and marry the cat if you like ! You are mad ; 
 and I ana mad ; and all the world's mad, I think.' 
 
 ' There,' she said, ' I knew that he would be a good boy at 
 last ! ' And she sprang up, threw her arms round his neck, 
 and, to his great astonishment, burst into the most violent fit of 
 crying. 
 
 ' Good gracious, Valentia ! do be reasonable ! You'll go into 
 a fit, or sonvebody will hear you ! You know how I hate a scene. 
 Do be good, there's a darling ! Why didn't you tell me at first 
 how much you wished for it, and I would have said yes in a 
 moment.' 
 
 ' Because I didn't know myself,' cried she passionately. 
 ' There, I will be good, and love you better than all the world, 
 except one. And if you let those horrid llussians hurt you, I
 
 348 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 will hate you as long as I live, and be miserable all my life 
 afterwards.' 
 
 'Why, Valentia, do you know, that sounds very like a bull ?' 
 
 'Am I not a wild Irish girl?' said she, and hurried out, 
 leaving Scoutbush t return to his flies. 
 
 She bounded into Lucia's room, there to pour out a bursting 
 heart and stopped short. 
 
 Lucia was sitting on the bed, her shawl and bonnet tossed 
 upon the floor, her head sunk on her bosom, her arms sunk by 
 her side. 
 
 ' Lucia, what is it ? Speak to me, Lucia ! ' 
 
 She pointed faintly to a letter on the floor. Valentia caught 
 it up : Lucia made a gesture as if to stop her. 
 
 ' No, you must not read it. Too dreadful ! ' 
 
 But Valentia read it ; while Lucia covered her face in her 
 hands, and uttered a long, low, shuddering moan of bitter 
 agony. 
 
 Valentia read, with flashing eyes and bursting brow. It was 
 a hideous letter. The words of a man trying to supply the place 
 of strength by virulence. A hideous letter, unfit to be written 
 here. 
 
 'Valentia ! Valentia ! It is false a mistake ; he is dreaming. 
 You know it is false ! You will not leave me too ? ' 
 
 Valentia dashed it on the ground, clasped her sister in her 
 arms, and covered her head with kisses. 
 
 ' My Lucia ! My own sweet good sister ! Base, cowardly,' 
 sobbed she in her rage ; while Lucia's agony began to lind a 
 vent in words, and she moaned on 
 
 ' What have I done 1 All that flower, that hoi-rid flower ; 
 but who would have dreamed and Major Campbell, too, of all 
 men upon earth ? Valentia, it is some horrid delusion of the 
 devil. Why, he was there all the while, and you too. Could 
 he think that I should before his very face 1 What must he 
 fancy me ? Oh, it is a delusion of the devil, and nothing else ! ' 
 
 ' He is a wretch ! I will take the letter to my brother ; he 
 shall right you ! ' 
 
 ' Ah no ! no ! never ! Let me tear it to atoms hide it ! It 
 is all a mistake ! He did not mean it ! He will recollect him- 
 self to-morrow and come back.' 
 
 ' Let him come back if he dare ! ' cried Valentia, in a tone 
 which said, ' I could kill him with my own hands ! ' 
 
 'Oh, he will comeback ! He cannot have the heart to leave 
 his poor little Lucia. O cruel, cowardly, not to have said one 
 word not one word to explain all ; but it was all my fault, my 
 wicked, odious temper ; and after I had seen how vexed he was, 
 too ! O Elsley, Elsley, come back, only come back, and I will 
 beg your pardon on my knees ! anything ! Scold me, beat me, 
 if you will ! I deserve it all ! Only come back, and let me see 
 your face, and hear your voice, instead of leaving me here all
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 349 
 
 alone, and the poor children too ! Oh, what shall I say to them 
 to-morrow, when they wake and find no father 1 ' 
 
 Valentia's indignation had no words. She could only sit on 
 the bed, with Lucia in her arms, looking defiance at all the 
 world above that fair head which one moment dropped on her 
 bosom, and the next gazed up into her face in pitiful childlike 
 pleading. 
 
 ' Oh, if I but knew where he was gone ! If I could but find 
 him ! One word one word would set all right ! It always 
 did, Valentia, always ! He was so kind, so dear in a moment, 
 when I put away my naughty, naughty temper, and smiled in 
 his face like a good wife. Wicked creature that I was ! and 
 this is my punishment. O Elsley, one word, one word ! I 
 must find him if I went barefoot over the mountains. I must 
 go, I must 
 
 And she tried to rise ; but Valentia held her down, while she 
 entreated piteously 
 
 ' I will go, and see about finding him ! ' she said at last, as her 
 only resource. 'Promise me to be quiet here, and I will.' 
 
 ' Quiet 1 Yes, quiet here ! ' and she threw herself upon her 
 face on the floor. 
 
 She looked up eagerly. ' You will not tell Scoutbush ? ' 
 
 'Why not?' 
 
 ' He is so so hasty. He will kill him ! Valentia, he will 
 kill him ! Promise me not to tell him, or I shall go mad ! ' And 
 she sat up again, pressing her hands upon her head, and rocking 
 from side to side. 
 
 ' O Valentia, if I dared only scream ! but keeping it in kills 
 me. It is like a sword through my brain now ! ' 
 
 ' Let me call Clara.' 
 
 ' No, no ! not Clara. Do not tell her. I will be quiet ; 
 indeed I will ; only come back soon, soon, for I am all alone, 
 alone!' And she threw herself down again upon her face 
 
 Valentia went out. Certain as she was of her sister's inno- 
 cence, there was one terrible question in her heart which must 
 be answered, or her belief in all truth, goodness, religion, would 
 reel and rock to its very foundations. And till she had an 
 answer to that, she could not sit still by Lucia. 
 
 She walked hurriedly, with compressed lips, but quivering 
 limbs, downstairs, and into the sitting-room. Scoutbush was 
 gone to bed. Campbell and Mellot sat chatting still. 
 
 ' Where is my brother 1 ' 
 
 ' Gone to l^ed, as some one else ought to be ; for it is past 
 twelve. Is Vavasour come in yet?' 
 
 'No!' 
 
 'Very odd/ said Claude; 'I never saw him after I left 
 you.' 
 
 ' He said certainly that he was going to find you,' said 
 Campbell.
 
 350 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' There is no need for speculating,' said Valentia quietly ; ' my 
 sister has a note from Mr. Vavasour at Pen-y-gwryd.' 
 
 ' Pen-y-gwryd ? ' cried both men at once. 
 
 'Yes. Major Campbell, I wish to show it to you.' 
 
 Valentia's tone and manner was significant enough to make 
 Claude Mellot bid them both good-night. 
 
 When he had shut the door behind him, Valentia put the 
 letter into the major's hand. 
 
 He was too much absorbed in it to look up at her ; but if he 
 had done so, he would have been startled by the fearful capacity 
 of passion which changed, for the moment, that gay Queen 
 Whims into a terrible Roxana, as she stood, leaning against the 
 mantelpiece, but drawn up to her full height, her lips tight 
 shut, eyes which gazed through and through him in awful 
 scrutiny, holding her very breath, while a nervous clutching of 
 the little hand said, ' If you have tampered with my sister's 
 heart, better for you that you were dead ! ' 
 
 He read it through, once, twice, with livid face ; then dashed 
 it on the floor. 
 
 ' Fool ! cur ! liar ! she is as pure as God's sunlight.' 
 
 ' You need not tell me that,' said Valentia, through her closed 
 teeth. 
 
 ' Fool ! fool ! ' And then, in a moment, his voice changed 
 from indignation to the bitterest self-reproach. ' And fool I ; 
 thrice fool ! Who am I, to rail on him ? O God ! what have I 
 done ? ' And he covered his face with his hands. 
 
 ' What have you done ? ' literally shrieked Valentia. 
 
 ' Nothing that you or man can blame, Miss St. Just ! Can 
 you dream that, sinful as I am, I could ever harbour a thought 
 toward her of which I should be ashamed before the angels of 
 God?' 
 
 He looked up as he spoke, with an utter humility and an 
 intense honesty which unnerved her at once. 
 
 ' O my Saint Pere ! ' and she held out both her hands. 
 ' Forgive me, if -only for a moment 
 
 ' I am not your Saint Pere, nor any one's ! I am a poor, 
 weak, conceited, miserable man, who by his accursed impertin- 
 ence has broken the heart of the being whom lie loves best on 
 earth.' 
 
 Valentia started : but ere she could ask for an explanation, 
 he rejoined wildly- 
 
 ' How is she 1 Tell me only that, this once ! Has it killed 
 her 1 Does she hate him ? ' 
 
 'Adores him more than ever. O Major Campbell! it is 
 too piteous, too piteous.' 
 
 He covered his face with his hands, shuddering. 'Thank 
 God ! yes, thank God ! So it should be. Let her love him to 
 the last, and win her martyr's crown ! Now, Valentia St. Just, 
 sit down, if but for five minutes ; and listen, once for all, to the
 
 xx BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE 351 
 
 last words, perhaps, you will ever hear me speak ; unless she 
 wants you 1 
 
 ' No, no ! Tell me all, Saint Pere ! ' said Valentia, ' for I am 
 walking in a dream a double dream ! ' as the new thought of 
 Headley, and that walk, came over her. 'Tell me all at once, 
 while I have wits left to comprehend.' 
 
 ' Miss St. Just,' said he, in a clear calm voice. ' It is fit, for 
 her honour and for mine, that you should know all. The first 
 day that I ever saw your sister, I loved her ; as a man loves who 
 can never cease to love, or love a second time. I was a raw, 
 awkward Scotchman then, and she used to laugh at me. Why 
 not ? I kept my secret, and determined to become a man at 
 whom no one would wish to laugh. I was in the Company's 
 service then. You recollect her jesting once about the Indian 
 army, and my commanding black people, and saying that the 
 Line only was fit for some girl's jest ? ' 
 
 ' No ; I recollect nothing of it.' 
 
 ' I never forgot it. I threw up all my prospects, and went 
 into the Line. Whether I won honour there or not, I need not 
 tell you. I came back to England years after, not unworthy, 
 as I fancied, to look your sister in the face as an equal. I found 
 her married.' 
 
 He paused a little, and then went on, in a quiet business-like 
 tone. 
 
 ' Good. Her choice was sure to be a worthy one, and that 
 was enough for me. You need not doubt that I kept my secret 
 then more sacredly than ever. I returned to India, and tried to 
 die. I dared not kill myself, for I was a soldier and a Christian, 
 and belonged to God and my Queen. The Sikhs would not kill 
 rne, do what I would to help them. Then I threw myself into 
 science, that I might stifle passion : and I stifled it. I fancied 
 myself cured, and I was cured ; and I returned to England 
 again. I loved your brother for her sake ; I loved you at first 
 for her sake, then for your own. But I presumed upon my cure ; 
 I accepted your brother's invitation ; I caught at the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing her again happy as I fancied ; and of prov- 
 ing to myself my own soundness. I considered myself a sort of 
 Melchisedek, neither young nor old, without passions, without 
 purpose on earth a f^akeer who had licence to do and to dare 
 what others might not. But I kept my secret proudly inviolate. 
 I do not believe at this moment sue dreams that do you 1 ' 
 
 'She does not.' 
 
 ' Thank God ! I was a most conceited fool, puffed up with 
 spiritual pride, tempting God needlessly. I went, I saw her. 
 Heaven is my witness that, as far as passion goes, my heart is as 
 pure as yours : but I found that I still cared more for her than 
 for any being on earth : and I found too the sort of man upon 
 whom God forgive me ! I must not talk of that I despised 
 him, hated him, pretended to teach him his duty, by behaving
 
 352 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 better to her than he did the spiritual coxcomb that I was ! 
 What business had I with it ? Why not have left all to God 
 and her good sense 1 The devil tempted me to-day, in the shape 
 of an angel of courtesy and chivalry ; and here the end is come. 
 I must rind that man, Miss St. Just, if I travel the world in 
 search of him. I must ask his pardon frankly, humbly, for my 
 impertinence. Perhaps so I may bring him back to her, and not 
 die with a curse on my head for having parted those whom God 
 has joined. And then to the old fighting-trade once more the 
 only one, I believe, I really understand ; and see whether a 
 Russian bullet will not fly straighter than a clumsy Sikh's.' 
 
 Valentia listened, awe-stricken ; and all the more so because 
 this was spoken in a calm, half -abstracted voice, without a note 
 of feeling, save where he alluded to his own mistakes. When it 
 was over, she rose without a word, and took both his hands in 
 her own, sobbing bitterly. 
 
 ' You forgive me, then, all the misery which I have caused ? ' 
 
 ' Do not talk so ! Only forgive me having fancied for one 
 moment that you were anything but what you are, an angel out 
 of heaven.' 
 
 Campbell hung down his head. 
 
 ' Angel, truly ! Azrael, the angel of death, then. Go to her 
 now go, and leave a humble penitent man alone with God.' 
 
 ' O my Saint Pere ! ' cried she, bursting into tears. ' This 
 is too wretched all a horrid dream and when, too when I 
 had been counting on telling you something so different ! I 
 cannot now, I have not the heart.' 
 
 ' What, more misery ? ' 
 
 'Oh no! no! no! You will know all to-morrow. Ask 
 Scoutbush.' 
 
 ' I shall be gone in search of that man long before Scoutbush 
 is awake.' 
 
 ' Impossible ! you do not know whither he is gone.' 
 
 ' If I employ every detective in Bow Sti*eet, I will rind him.' 
 
 ' Wait, only wait, till the post comes in to-morrow. He will 
 surely write, if not to her, wretch that he is ! at least to some 
 of us.' 
 
 ' If he be alive. No. I must go up to Pen-y-gwryd, where 
 lie was last seen, and find out what I can.' 
 
 ' They will all be in bed at this hour of the night ; and if if 
 anything has happened, it will be over by now,' added she 
 with a shudder. 
 
 'God forgive me! It will indeed : but he may write per- 
 haps to me. He is no coward, I believe : and he may send me 
 a challenge. Yes, I will wait for the post.' 
 
 ' Shall you accept it if lie does ? ' 
 
 Major Campbell smiled sadly. 
 
 ' No, Miss St. Just ; you may set your mind at rest upon 
 that point. I have done quite enough harm already to your
 
 xxi NATURE'S MELODRAMA 353 
 
 family. Now, good-bye ! I will wait for the post to-morrow : 
 do you go to your sister.' 
 
 Valentia went, utterly bewildered. She had forgotten Frank, 
 but Frank had not forgotten her. He had hurried to his room ; 
 lay till morning, sleepless with delight, and pouring out his 
 pure spirit in thanks for this great and unexpected blessing. A 
 new life had begun for him, even in the jaws of death. He 
 would still go to the East. It seemed easy to him to go there 
 in search of a grave ; how much more now, when he felt so full 
 of magic life, that fever, cholera, the chances of war, could not 
 harm him ! After this proof of God's love, how could he doubt, 
 how fear 1 
 
 Little he thought that, three doors off from him, Valentia 
 was sitting up the whole night through, vainly trying to quiet 
 Lucia, who refused to undress, and paced up and down her 
 room, hour after hour, in wild misery, which I have no skill to 
 detail. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI 
 
 NATURE'S MELODRAMA 
 
 WHAT, then, had become of Elsley ? And whence had he 
 written the fatal letter 1 He had hurried up the high road for 
 half an hour and more, till the valley on the left sloped upward 
 more rapidly, in dark dreary bogs, the moonlight shining on 
 their runnels ; while the mountain on his right sloped down- 
 wards more rapidly in dark dreary down, strewn with rocks 
 which stood out black against the sky. He was nearing the 
 head of the watershed : soon he saw slate roofs glittering in the 
 moonlight, and found himself at the little inn of Pen-y-gwryd, 
 at the meeting of the three great valleys, the central heart of 
 the mountains. 
 
 And a genial, jovial little heart it is, and an honest, kindly 
 little heart too, with warm life-blood within. So it looked that 
 night, with every window red with comfortable light, and a long 
 stream of glare pouring across the road from the open door, 
 gilding the fir-tree tops in front : but its geniality only made 
 him shudder. He had been there more than once, and knew 
 the place and the people ; and knew, too, that of all people in 
 the world, they were the least like him. He hurried past the 
 doorway, and caught one glimpse of the bright kitchen. A 
 sudden thought struck him. He would go in and write his 
 letter there. But not yet he could not go in yet ; for through 
 the open door came some sweet Welsh air, so sweet, that even he 
 paused to listen. Men were singing in three parts, in that rich 
 metallic temper of voice, and that perfect time and tune, which 
 is the one gift still left to that strange Cymry race, worn out 
 with the long burden of so many thousand years. He knew the 
 2 A T. Y. A..
 
 354 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 air ; it was ' The rising of the Lark.' Heavens ! what a bitter 
 contrast to his own thoughts ! But he stood rooted, as if spell- 
 bound, to hear it to the end. The lark's upward flight was 
 over ; and Elsley heard him come quivering down from heaven's 
 gate, fluttering, sinking, trilling self-complacently, springing 
 aloft in one bar, only to sink lower in the next, and call more 
 softly to his brooding mate below ; till, worn out with his 
 ecstasy, he murmured one last sigh of joy, and sank into the 
 nest. The picture flashed through Elsley's brain as swiftly as 
 the notes did through his ears. He breathed more freely when 
 it vanished with the sounds. He strode hastily in, and down 
 the little passage to the kitchen. 
 
 It was a low room, ceiled with dark beams, from which hung 
 bacon and fishing-rods, harness and drying stockings, and all 
 the miscellanea of a fishing inn kept by a farmer, and beneath 
 it the usual happy, hearty, honest group. There was Harry 
 Owen, bland and stalwart, his baby in his arms, smiling upon 
 the world in general ; old Mrs. Pritchard, bending over the fire, 
 putting the last touch to one of those miraculous soufflets, com- 
 pact of clouds and nectar, which transport alike palate and 
 fancy, at the first mouthful, from Snowdon to Belgrave Square. 
 A sturdy fair-haired Saxon Gourbannelig sat with his back to 
 the door, and two of the beautiful children on his knee, their 
 long locks flowing over the elbows of his shooting-jacket, as, 
 with both arms round them, he made Punch for them with his 
 handkerchief and his fingers, and chattered to them in English, 
 while they chattered in Welsh. By him sat another Englishman, 
 to whom the three tuneful Snowdon guides, their music-score 
 upon their knees, sat listening approvingly, as lie rolled out, 
 with voice as of a jolly blackbird, or jollier monk of old, the 
 good old Wessex song 
 
 ' My dog he has his master's nose, 
 To smell a knave through silken hose ; 
 If friends or honest men go by, 
 Welcome, quoth my dog and I ! 
 
 ' Of foreign tongues let scholars brag, 
 With fifteen names for a pudding-bag : 
 Two tongues I know ne'er told a lie ; 
 And their wearers be, my dog and I ! ' 
 
 ' That ought to be Harry's song, and the colly's too, eli ? ' said 
 he, pointing to the dear old dog, who sat with his head on 
 Owen's knee 'eh, my men? Here's a health to the honest 
 man and his dog ! ' 
 
 And all laughed and drank ; while Elsley's dark face looked 
 in at the doorway, and half turned to escape. Handsome lady- 
 like Mrs. Owen, bustling out of the kitchen witli a supper-tray, 
 van full against him, and uttered a Welsh scream.
 
 xxr NATURE'S MELODRAMA 355 
 
 ' Show me a room, and bring me a pen and paper,' said he ; 
 and then started in his turn, as all had started at him ; for the 
 two Englishmen looked round, and, behold, to his disgust, the 
 singer was none other than Naylor : the actor of Punch was 
 Wynd. 
 
 To have found his betes noires even here, and at such a 
 moment ! And what was worse, to hear Mrs. Owen say, ' We 
 have no room, sir, unless these gentlemen 
 
 'Of course,' said Wynd, jumping up, a child under each arm. 
 ' Mr. Vavasour ! we shall be most happy to have your company, 
 for a week if you will ! ' 
 
 ' Ten minutes' solitude is all I ask, sir, if I am not intruding 
 too far.' 
 
 ' Two hours, if you like. We'll stay here. Mrs. Owen, the 
 thicker the merrier.' But Elsley had vanished into a chamber 
 bestrewn with plaids, pipes, hobnail boots, fishing - tackle, 
 mathematical books, scraps of ore, and the wild confusion of a 
 gownsman's den. 
 
 ' The party is taken ill with a poem,' said Wynd. 
 
 Naylor stuck out his heavy under-lip, and glanced sidelong 
 at his friend. 
 
 ' With something worse, Ned. That man's eye and voice had 
 something uncanny in them. Mellot said he would go crazed 
 some day ; and be hanged if I don't think he is so now.' 
 
 Another five minutes, and Elsley rang the bell violently for 
 hot brandy-and-water. 
 
 Mrs. Owen came back looking a little startled, a letter in her 
 hand. 
 
 'The gentleman had drunk the liquor off at one draught, and 
 ran out of the house like a wild man. Harry Owen must go 
 down to Beddgelert instantly with the letter : and there was 
 five shillings to pay for all.' 
 
 Harry Owen rises, like a strong and patient beast of burden, 
 ready for any amount of walking, at any hour in the twenty- 
 four. He has been up Snowclon once to-day already. He is 
 going up again at twelve to-night, with a German who wants 
 to see the sun rise ; he deputes that office to John Roberts, and 
 strides out. 
 
 'Which way did the gentleman go, Mrs. Owen?' asks Naylor. 
 
 ' Capel Curig road.' 
 
 Naylor whispers to Wynd, who sets the two little girls on the 
 table, and hurries out with him. They look up the road, and 
 see no one ; run a couple of hundred yards, where they catch a 
 sight of the next turn, clear in the moonlight. There is no one 
 on the road. 
 
 ' Run to the bridge, Wynd,' whispers Naylor. ' He may have 
 thrown himself over.' 
 
 ' Tally ho ! ' whispers Wynd in return, laying his hand on 
 Naylor's arm, and pointing to the left of the road.
 
 356 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 A hundred yards from them, over the boggy upland, among 
 scattered boulders, a dark figure is moving. Now he stops short, 
 gesticulating ; turns right and left irresolutely. At last he 
 hurries on and upward ; he is running, springing from stone to 
 stone. 
 
 'There is but one thing, Wynd. After him, or he'll drown 
 himself in Llyn Cwm Fynnon.' 
 
 'No, he's striking to the right. Can he be going up the 
 Glyder ?' 
 
 ' We'll see that in five minutes. All in the day's work, my 
 boy ! I could go up Mont Blanc with such a dinner in me.' 
 
 The two gallant men run in, struggle into their wet boots 
 again, and provisioned with meat and bread, whisky, tobacco, 
 and plaids, are away upon Elsley's tracks, having left Mrs. Owen 
 disconsolate by their announcement, that a sudden fancy to 
 sleep on the Glyder has seized them. Nothing more will they 
 tell her, or any one, being gentlemen, however much slang they 
 may talk in private. 
 
 Elsley left the door of Pen-y-gwryd, careless whither he went, 
 if he went only far enough. 
 
 In front of him rose the Glyder Vawr, its head shrouded in 
 soft mist, through which the moonlight gleamed upon the 
 checquered quarries of that enormous desolation, the dead bones 
 of the eldest-born of time. A wild longing seized him ; he 
 would escape up thither ; up into those clouds, up anywhere to 
 be alone -alone with his miserable self. That was dreadful 
 enough : but less dreadful than having a companion ay, even 
 a stone by him which could remind him of the scene which he 
 had left ; even remind him that there was another human being 
 on earth beside himself. Yes to put that cliff between him 
 and all the world ! Away he plunged from the high road, 
 splashing over boggy uplands, scrambling among scattered 
 boulders, across a stormy torrent bed, and then across another 
 and another : when would he reach that dark marbled wall, 
 which rose into the infinite blank, looking within a stone- 
 throw of him, and yet no nearer after he had walked a mile 1 
 
 He reached it at last, and rushed up the talus of boulders, 
 springing from stone to stone ; till his breath failed him, and he 
 was forced to settle into a less frantic pace. But upward he 
 would go, and upward he went, with a strength which he never 
 had felt before. Strong ? How should he not be strong, while 
 every vein felt filled with molten lead ; while some unseen 
 power seemed not so much to attract him upwards, as to drive 
 him by magical repulsion from all that he had left below 1 
 
 So upward and upward ever, driven on by the terrible gad- 
 fly, like lo of old he went ; stumbling upwards along torrent 
 beds of slippery slate, writhing himself upward through crannies 
 Avhero the waterfall plashed cold upon his chest and face, yet 
 could not cool the inward fire ; climbing, hand and knee, up
 
 xxi NATURE'S MELODRAMA 357 
 
 cliffs of sharp-edged rock ; striding over downs where huge 
 rocks lay crouched in the grass, like fossil monsters of some 
 ancient world, and seemed to stare at him with still and angry 
 brows. Upward still, to black terraces of lava, standing out 
 hard and black against the gray cloud, gleaming, like iron in 
 the moonlight, stair above stair, like those over which Vathek 
 and the princess climbed up to the halls of Eblis. Over their 
 crumbling steps, up through their cracks and crannies, out upon 
 a dreary slope of broken stones, and then before he dives up- 
 ward into the cloud ten yards above his head one breathless 
 look back upon the world. 
 
 The horizontal curtain of mist ; gauzy below, fringed with 
 white tufts and streamers, deepening above into the blackness of 
 utter night. Below it a long gulf of soft yellow haze, in which, 
 as in a bath of gold, lie delicate bars of far-off western cloud : 
 and the faint glimmer of the western sea, above long knotted 
 spurs of hill, in deepest shades, like a bunch of purple grapes 
 flecked here and there from behind with gleams of golden 
 light ; and beneath them again, the dark woods sleeping over 
 Gwynnant, and their dark double sleeping in the bright lake 
 below. 
 
 On the right hand Snowdon rises. Vast sheets of utter 
 blackness vast sheets of shining light. He can see every crag 
 which juts from the green walls of Galt-y-Wennalt ; and far past 
 it into the Great Valley of Cwm Dyli ; and then the red peak, 
 now as black as night, shuts out the world with its huge mist- 
 topped cone. But on the left hand all is deepest shade. From 
 the highest saw-edges where Moel Meirch cuts the golden sky, 
 down to the very depths of the abyss, all is lustrous darkness, 
 sooty, and yet golden still. Let the darkness lie upon it for 
 ever ! Hidden be those woods where she stood an nour ago ! 
 Hidden that road down which, even now, they may be pacing 
 home together ! Curse the thought ! He covers his face in his 
 hands and shudders in every limb. 
 
 He lifts his hands from his eyes at last : what has befallen ? 
 
 Before the golden haze a white veil is falling fast. Sea, 
 mountain, lake, are vanishing, fading as in a dream. Soon he 
 can see nothing but the twinkle of a light in Pen-y-gwryd, a 
 thousand feet below ; happy children are nestling there in 
 innocent sleep. Jovial voices are chatting round the tire. 
 What has he to do witli youth, and health, and joy ? Lower, 
 lower, ye clouds ! Shut out that insolent and intruding spark, 
 till nothing be seen but the silver sheet of Cwm Fynnon, and 
 the silver zig-zag lines which wander into it among black 
 morass, while down the mountain side go, softly sliding, troops 
 of white mist-angels. Softly they slide, swift and yet motion- 
 less, as if by some inner will, which needs no force of limbs ; 
 gliding gently round the crags, diving gently off into the abyss, 
 their long white robes trailing about their feet in upward-
 
 358 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 floating folds. ' Let us go hence,' they seem to whisper to the 
 God -forsaken, as legends say they whispered when they left 
 their doomed shrine in old Jerusalem. "Let the white fringe 
 fall between him and the last of that fair troop ; let the gray 
 curtain follow, the black pall above descend ; till he is alone in 
 darkness that may be felt, and in the shadow of death. 
 
 Now he is safe at last ; hidden from all living things hidden, 
 it may be, from God ; for at least God is hidden from him. 
 He has desired to be alone : and he is alone ; the centre of the 
 universe, if universe there be. All created things, suns and 
 planets, seem to revolve round him, and he a point of darkness, 
 not of light. He seems to float self-poised in the centre of the 
 boundless nothing, upon an ell-broad slab of stone and yet not 
 even on that : for the very ground on which he stands he does 
 not feel. He does not feel the mist which wets his cheek, the 
 blood which throbs within his veins. He only is ; and there is 
 none besides. 
 
 Horrible thought ! Permitted but to few, and to them 
 thank God! but rarely. For two minutes of that absolute 
 self-isolation would bring madness ; if, indeed, it be not the 
 very essence of madness itself. 
 
 There he stood ; he knew not how long ; without motion, 
 without thought, without even rage or hate, now in one blank 
 paralysis of his whole nature ; conscious only of self, and of a 
 dull, inward fire, as if his soul were a dark vault, lighted with 
 lurid smoke. 
 
 What was that 1 He started : shuddered as well he might. 
 Had he seen heaven opened 1 or another place ? So momentary 
 was the vision, that he scarce knew what he saw 
 
 There it was again. ! Lasting but for a moment : but long 
 enough to let him see the whole western heaven transfigured 
 into one sheet of pale blue gauze, and before it Snowdon tower- 
 ing black as ink, with every saw and crest cut out, hard and 
 terrible, against the lightning -glare : and then the blank of 
 darkness. 
 
 Again ! The awful black giant, towering high in air, before 
 the gates of that blue abyss of flame : but a black crown of 
 cloud has settled upon his head ; and out of it the lightning 
 sparks leap to and fro, ringing his brows with a coronet of fire. 
 
 Another moment, and the roar of that great battle between 
 earth and heaven crashed full on Elsley's ears. 
 
 He heard it leap from Snowdon, sharp and rattling, across 
 the gulf toward him, till it crashed full upon the Glycler over- 
 head, and rolled and flapped from crag to crag, and died away 
 along the dreary downs. No ! There it boomed out again, 
 thundering full against Siabod on the left ; and Siabod tossed it 
 on to Moel Meirch, who answered from all her clefts and peaks 
 with a long confused battle-growl, and then tossed it across
 
 xxi NATURE'S MELODRAMA 359 
 
 to Aran ; and Aran, with one dull, bluff report from her flat 
 cliff, to nearer Lliwedd ; till, worn out with the long buffetings 
 of that giant ring, it sank and died on Gwynnant far below 
 but ere it died, another and another thunder-crash burst, 
 sharper and nearer every time, to hurry round the hills after 
 the one which roared before it. 
 
 Another minute, and the blue glare filled the sky once more : 
 but no black Titan towered before it now. The storm had leapt 
 Llanberris pass, and all around Elsley was one howling chaos of 
 cloud, and rain, and blinding flame. He turned and fled again. 
 
 By the sensation of his feet, he knew that he was going up- 
 hill ; and if he but went upward, he cared not whither he went. 
 The rain gushed through, where the lightning pierced the cloud, 
 in drops like musket balls. He was drenched to the skin in a 
 moment ; dazzled and giddy from the flashes ; stunned by the 
 everlasting roar, peal over-rushing peal, echo out-shooting echo, 
 till rocks and air quivered alike beneath the continuous battle- 
 cannonade. ' What matter ? What fitter guide for such a 
 path as mine than the blue lightning flashes ? ' 
 
 Poor wretch ! He had gone out of his way for many a year, 
 to give himself up, a willing captive, to the melodramatic view 
 of nature, and had let sights and sounds, not principles and 
 duties, mould his feelings for him : and now, in his utter need 
 and utter weakness, he nad met her in a mood which was too 
 awful for such as he was to resist. The Nemesis had come ; 
 and swept away helplessly, without faith and hope, by those 
 outward impressions of things on which he had feasted his soul 
 so long, he was the puppet of his own eyes and ears ; the slave 
 of glare and noise. 
 
 Breathless, but still untired, he toiled up a steep incline, 
 where he could feel beneath him neither moss nor herb. Now 
 and then his feet brushed through a soft tuft of parsley fern : 
 but soon even that sign of vegetation ceased ; his feet only 
 rasped over rough bare rock, and he was alone in a desert of 
 stone. 
 
 What was that sudden apparition above him, seen for a 
 moment dim and gigantic through the mist, hid the next in 
 darkness 1 The next flash showed him a line of obelisks, like 
 giants crouching side by side, staring down on him from the 
 clouds. Another five minutes, he was at their feet, and past 
 them ; to see above them again another line of awful watchers 
 through the storms and rains of many a thousand years, wait- 
 ing, grim and silent, like those doomed senators in the Capitol 
 of Home, till their own turn should come, and the last lightning 
 stroke hurl them too clown, to lie for ever by their fallen 
 brothers, whose mighty bones bestrewed the screes below. 
 
 He groped his way between them ; saw some fifty yards 
 beyond a higher peak ; gained it by fierce struggles and many 
 falls ; saw another beyond that ; and, rushing down and up two
 
 360 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 slopes of moss, reached a region where the upright lava-ledges 
 had been split asunder into chasms, crushed together again into 
 caves, toppled over each other, hurled up into spires, in such 
 chaotic confusion that progress seemed impossible. 
 
 A flash of lightning revealed a lofty cairn above his head. 
 There was yet, then, a higher point ! He would reach it, if he 
 broke every limb in the attempt ! and madly he hurried on, 
 feeling his way from ledge to ledge, squeezing himself through 
 crannies, crawling on hands and knees along the sharp chines 
 of the rocks, till he reached the foot of the cairn ; climbed it, 
 and threw himself at full length on the summit of the Glyder 
 Vawr. 
 
 An awful place it always is ; and Elsley saw it at an awful 
 time, as the glare unveiled below him a sea of rock-waves, all 
 sharp on edge, pointing toward him on every side : or rather 
 one wave-crest of a sea ; for twenty yards beyond, all sloped 
 away into the abysmal dark. 
 
 Terrible were those rocks below ; and ten times more terrible 
 as seen through the lurid glow of his distempered brain. All 
 the weird peaks and slabs seemed pointing up at him : sharp- 
 toothed jaws gaped upward tongues hissed upward arms 
 pointed upward hounds leaped upward -monstrous snake- 
 heads peered upward out of cracks and caves. Did he not see 
 them move, writhe? or was it the ever -shif ting light of the 
 flashes 1 Did he not hear them howl, yell at him 1 or was it but 
 the wind, tortured in their labyrinthine caverns 1 
 
 The next moment, and all was dark again : but the images 
 which had been called up remained, and fastened on his brain, 
 and grew there ; and when, in the light of the next flash, the 
 scene returned, he could see the red lips of the phantom hounds, 
 the bright eyes of the phantom snakes ; the tongues wagged in 
 mockery ; the hands brandished great stones to hurl at him ; 
 the mountain-top was instinct with fiendish life a very Blocks- 
 berg of all hideous shapes and sins. 
 
 And yet lie did not shrink. Horrible it was ; lie was going 
 mad before it. And yet he took a strange and fierce delight in 
 making it more horrible ; in maddening himself yet more and 
 more ; in clothing those fantastic stones with every fancy which 
 could inspire another man with dread. But he had no dread. 
 Perfect rage, like perfect love, casts out fear. He rejoiced in 
 his own misery, in his own danger. His life hung on a thread ; 
 any instant might hurl him from that cairn, a blackened corpse. 
 
 What better end 1 Let it come ! He was Prometheus on the 
 peak of Caucasus, hurling defiance at the unjust Jove ! His 
 hopes, his love, his very honour curse it ! ruined ! Let the 
 lightning stroke come ! He were a coward to shrink from it. 
 Let him face the worst, unprotected, bare-headed, naked, and do 
 battle, himself, and nothing but himself, against the universe ! 
 And, as men at such moments will do, in the mad desire to free
 
 xxi NATURE'S MELODRAMA SGI 
 
 the self-tortured spirit from some unseen and choking bond, ho 
 began wildly tearing off' his clothes. 
 
 But merciful nature brought relief, and stopped him in his 
 mad efforts, or he had been a frozen corpse long ere the dawn. 
 His hands, stiff with cold, refused to obey him : as he delayed 
 he was saved. After the paroxysm came the collapse ; he sank 
 upon the top of the cairn half senseless. He felt himself falling 
 over its edge ; and the animal instinct of self-preservation, un- 
 consciously to him, made him slide down gently, till he sank 
 into a crack between two rocks, sheltered somewhat, as it befell 
 happily, from the lashing of the rain. 
 
 Another minute, and he slept a dreamless sleep. 
 
 But there are two men upon that mountain, whom neither 
 rock nor rain, storm nor thunder, have conquered, because they 
 are simply brave honest men ; and who are, perhaps, far more 
 'poetic' characters at this moment than Elsley Vavasour, or 
 any dozen of mere verse- writers, because they are hazarding their 
 lives on an errand of mercy ; and all the while have so little 
 notion that they are hazarding their lives, or doing anything 
 dangerous or heroic, that, instead of being touched for a moment 
 by nature's melodrama, they are jesting at each other's troubles, 
 greeting each interval of darkness with mock shouts of misery 
 and despair, likening the crags to various fogies of their 
 acquaintance, male and female, and only pulling the cutty 
 pipes out of their mouths to chant snatches of jovial songs. 
 They are Wynd and Naylor, the two Cambridge boating-men, 
 in bedrabbled flannel trousers, and shooting-jackets pocketful 
 of water ; who are both fully agreed that hunting a mad poet 
 over the mountains in a thunderstorm is, on the whole, 'the 
 jolliest lark they ever had in their lives.' 
 
 'He must have gone up here somewhere. I saw the poor 
 beggar against the sky as plain as I see you which I don't 
 for darkness cut the speech short. 
 
 ' Where be you, William ? says the keeper.' 
 
 ' Here I be, sir, says the beater, with my 'eels above my 'ed.' 
 
 'Wery well, William; when you get your 'ed above your 
 'eels, gae on.' 
 
 ' But I'm stuck fast between two stones ! Hang the stones ! ' 
 And Naylor bursts into an old seventeenth century ditty, of th<; 
 days of ' three-man glees.' 
 
 ' "They stoans, they stonns, they stoans, they stoans 
 They stoans that built George Riddler's oven, 
 O they was fetched from Blackeney qnarr' ; 
 And George he was a jolly old man, 
 And his head did grow above his liar'. 
 "Olio thing in George Riddler I must commend, 
 And I hold it for a valiant thing ; 
 With any throe brothers in Gloucestershire 
 lie swore that his three sons should sing.
 
 362 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' " There was Dick the tribble, and Tom the mane, 
 Let every man sing in his own place ; 
 And William he was the eldest brother, 
 And therefore he should sing the base. 
 
 I'm down again ! This is my thirteenth fall.' 
 
 'So am I ! I shall just lie and light a pipe.' 
 
 ' Come on, now, and look round the lee side of this crag. We 
 shall find him bundled up under the lee of one of them.' 
 
 ' He don't know lee from windward, I dare say.' 
 
 ' He'll soon find out the difference by his skin ; if it's half as 
 wet, at least, as mine is.' 
 
 ' I'll tell you what, Naylor, if the poor fellow has crossed the 
 ridge, and tried to go down on the Twll du, he's a dead man by 
 this time.' 
 
 ' He'll have funked it, when he comes to the edge, and sees 
 nothing but mist below. But if he has wandered on to the 
 cliffs above Trifaen, he's a dead man, then, at all events. Get 
 out of the way of that flash ! A close shave that ! I believe 
 my whiskers are singed.' 
 
 ' Ton my honour, Wynd, we ought to be saying our prayers 
 rather than joking in this way.' 
 
 ' We may do both, and be none the worse. As for coming to 
 grief, old boy, we're on a good errand, I suppose, and the devil 
 himself can't harm us. Still, shame to him who's ashamed of 
 saying his prayers, as Arnold used to say.' 
 
 And all the while, these two brave lads have been thrusting 
 their laiithorn into every crack and cranny, and beating round 
 every crag carefully and cunningly, till long past two in the 
 morning. 
 
 ' Here's the ordnance cairn at last ; and here am I astride 
 of a carving-knife, I think ! Come and help me off, or I shall 
 be split to the chin ! ' 
 
 ' I'm coming ! What's this soft under my feet 1 Who-o-o-oop ! 
 Run him to earth at last ! ' 
 
 And diving down into a crack, Wynd drags out by the collar 
 the unconscious Elsley. 
 
 ' What a swab ! Like a piece of wet blotting-paper. Lucky 
 he's not made of salt.' 
 
 ' He's dead ! ' says Xaylor. 
 
 ' Not a bit. I can feel his heart. There's life in the old dog 
 yet.' 
 
 And they begin, under the lee of a rock, chafing him, wrap- 
 ping him in their plaids, and pouring whisky clown his throat. 
 
 It was some time before Vavasour recovered his conscious- 
 ness. The first use which he made of it was to bid his pre- 
 servers leave him ; querulously at first ; and then fiercely, when 
 he found out who they were. 
 
 ' Leave me, I say ! Cannot I be alone if I choose 1 What 
 right have you to dog me in this way 1 '
 
 xxi NATURE'S MELODRAMA . 363 
 
 ' My dear sir, we have as much right here as any one else ; 
 and it we find a man dying here of cold and fatigue 
 
 'What business of yours, if I choose to die?' 
 
 'There is no harm in your dying, sir,' says Naylor. 'The 
 harm is in our letting you die ; I assure you it is entirely to 
 satisfy our own consciences we are troubling you thus ; ' and he 
 begins pressing him to take food. 
 
 ' No, sir ; nothing from you ! You have shown me impertin- 
 ence enough in the last few weeks, without pressing on me 
 benefits for which I do not wish. Let me go ! If you will not 
 leave me, I shall leave you I ' 
 
 And he tried to rise ; bu^ stiffened with cold, sank back again 
 upon the rock. 
 
 In vain they tried to reason with him ; begged his pardon 
 for all past jests : he made effort after effort to get up ; and at 
 last, his limbs, regaining strength by the fierceness of his passion, 
 supported him ; and he struggled onward toward the northern 
 slope of the mountain. 
 
 'You must not go down till it is light ; it is as much as your 
 life is worth.' 
 
 ' I am going to Bangor, sir ; and go I will ! ' 
 
 ' I tell you there are fifteen hundred feet of slippery screes 
 below you.' 
 
 'As steep as a house-roof, and with every tile on it loose. 
 You will roll from top to bottom before you have gone a hundred 
 yards.' 
 
 ' What care 1 1 Let me go, I say ! Curse you, sir ! Do you 
 mean to use force ? ' 
 
 ' I do,' said Wynd quietly, as he took him round arms and 
 body, and set him down on the rock like a child. 
 
 'You have assaulted me, sir! The law shall avenge this 
 insult, if there be law in England ! ' 
 
 'I know nothing about law : but I suppose it will justify me 
 in saving any man's life who is rushing to certain death.' 
 
 ' Look here, sir ! ' said Naylor. ' Go down, if you will, when 
 it grows light : but from this place you do not stir yet. What- 
 ever you may think of our conduct to-night, you will thank us 
 for it to-morrow morning, when you see where you are.' 
 
 The unhappy man stamped with rage. The red glare of the 
 lanthorn showed him his two powerful warders, standing right 
 and left. He felt that there was no escape from them, but in 
 darkness ; and suddenly he dashed at the lanthorn, and tried to 
 tear it out of Wynd's hands. 
 
 ' Steady, sir ! said Wynd, springing back, and parrying his 
 outstretched hand. 'If you wish us to consider you in your 
 senses, you will be quiet.' 
 
 ' And if you don't choose to appear sane,' said Naylor, ' you 
 must not be surprised if we treat you as men are treated who 
 you understand me.'
 
 364 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Elsley was silent awhile ; his rage finding itself impotent, 
 subsided into dark cunning. 'Really, gentlemen,' he said at 
 length, ' I believe you are right ; I have been very foolish, and 
 you very kind ; but you would excuse my absurdities if you 
 knew their provocation.' 
 
 ' My dear sir,' said Naylor, ' we are bound to believe that you 
 have good cause enough for what you are doing. We have no 
 wish to interfere impertinently. Only wait till daylight, and 
 wrap yourself in one of our plaids, as the only possible method 
 of carrying out your own intentions ; for dead men can't go to 
 Bangor, whithersoever else they may go.' 
 
 'You really are too kind : but I believe I must accept your 
 offer, under penalty of being called mad ; ' and Elsley laughed a 
 hollow laugh ; for he was by no means sure that he was not 
 mad. He took the proffered wrapper, lay down, and seemed to 
 sleep. 
 
 Wynd and- Naylor, congratulating themselves on his better 
 mind, lay down also beneath the other plaid, intending to watch 
 him. But worn out with fatigue, they were both fast asleep ere 
 ten minutes had passed. 
 
 Elsley had determined to keep himself awake at all risks ; 
 and he paid a bitter penalty for so doing ; for now that the fury 
 had passed away, his brain began to work freely again, and 
 inflicted torture so exquisite, that he looked back with regret at 
 the unreasoning madness of last night, as a less fearful hell than 
 that of thought ; of deliberate, acute recollections, suspicions, 
 trains of argument, which he tried to thrust from him, and yet 
 could not. Who has not known in the still, sleepless hours of 
 night, how dark thoughts will possess the mind with terrors, 
 which seem logical, irrefragable, inevitable ? 
 
 So it was then with the wretched Elsley ; within his mind a 
 whole train of devil's advocates seemed arguing, with triumphant 
 subtlety, the certainty of Lucia's treason ; and justifying to him 
 his rage, his hatred, his flight, his desertion of his own children 
 if indeed (so far had the devil led him astray) they were his 
 own. At last he could bear it no longer. He would escape to 
 Bangor, and then to London, cross to France, to Italy, and there 
 bury himself amid the forests of the Apennines, or the sunny 
 glens of Calabria. And for a moment the vision of a poet's life 
 in that glorious land brightened his dark imagination. Yes ! 
 He would escape thither, and be at peace ; and if the world 
 heard of him again, it should be in such a thunder- voice as those 
 with which Shelley and Byron, from their southern seclusion, 
 had shaken the ungrateful motherland which cast them out. 
 He would escape ; and now was the time to do it ! For the rain 
 had long since ceased ; the dawn was approaching fast ; the 
 cloud was thinning from black to pearly gray. Now was his 
 time were it not for those two men ! To be kept, guarded, 
 stopped by them, or by any man ! Shameful ! intolerable ! He
 
 xxi NATURE'S MELODRAMA 365 
 
 had fled hither to be free, and even here he found himself a 
 prisoner. True, they had promised to let him go if he waited 
 till daylight ; but perhaps they were deceiving him, as he was 
 deceiving them way not ? They thought him mad. It was a 
 ruse, a stratagem to keep him quiet awhile, and then bring him 
 back ' restore him to his afflicted friends.' His friends, truly ! 
 He would be too cunning for them yet. And even if they meant 
 to let him go, would he accept liberty from them, or any man ? 
 No ; he was free. He had a right to go ; and go he would, that 
 moment ! 
 
 He raised himself cautiously. The lanthorn had burned to 
 the socket ; and he could not see the men, though they were not 
 four yards off ; but by their regular and heavy breathing he 
 could tell that they both slept soundly. He slipped from under 
 the plaid, drew off his shoes for fear of noise among the rocks, 
 and rose. What if he did make a noise ? What if they woke, 
 chased him, brought him back by force ? Curse the thought ! 
 And gliding close to them, he listened again to their heavy 
 breathing. 
 
 How could he prevent their following him 1 
 
 A horrible, nameless temptation came over him. Every vein 
 in his body throbbed fire ; his brain seemed to swell to burst- 
 ing ; and ere he was aware, he found himself feeling about in 
 the darkness for a loose stone. 
 
 He could not find one. Thank God that he could not find 
 one ! But after that dreadful thought had once crossed his 
 mind, he must flee from that place ere the brand of Cain be on 
 his brow. 
 
 With a cunning and activity utterly new to him, he glided 
 away like a snake ; downward over crags and boulders, he knew 
 not how long or how far ; all he knew was, that he was going 
 down, down, down, into a dim abyss. There was just light 
 enough to discern the upper surface of a rock within arm's 
 length beyond that all was blank. He seemed to be hours 
 descending- to be going down miles after miles; .and still he 
 reached no level spot. The mountain-side was too steep for him 
 to stand upright, except at moments. It seemed one uniform 
 quarry of smooth broken slate, slipping down for ever beneath 
 his feet. Whither ? He grew giddy, and more giddy j and a 
 horrible fantastic notion seized him, that he had lost his way ; 
 that somehow the precipice had no bottom, no end at all ; that 
 lie was going down some infinite abyss, into the very depths of 
 the earth, and the molten roots of the mountains, never to re- 
 ascend. He stopped, trembling, only to slide down again ; 
 terrified, he tried to struggle upward, but the shale gave way 
 beneath his feet, and go he must. 
 
 What was that noise above his head 1 A falling stone 1 Were 
 his enemies in pursuit ? Down to the depth of hell rather than 
 that they should take him ! He drove his heels into the slippery
 
 366 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 shale, and rushed forward blindly, springing, slipping, falling, 
 rolling, till he stopped breathless on a jutting slab. 
 
 And lo ! below him, through the thin pearly veil of cloud, a 
 dim world of dark cliffs, blue lakes, gray mountains with their 
 dark heads wrapped in cloud, and the straight vale of Nant 
 Francon, magnified in mist, till it seemed to stretch for hundreds 
 of leagues towards the rosy north-east dawning and the shining 
 sea. 
 
 With a wild shout he hurried onward. In five minutes he 
 was clear of the cloud. He reached the foot of that enormous 
 slope, and hurried over rocky ways, till he stopped at the top 
 of a precipice, full six hundred feet above the lonely tarn of 
 Idwal. 
 
 Never mind. He knew where he was now ; he knew that 
 there was a passage somewhere, for he had once seen one from 
 below. He found it, and almost ran along the boggy shore of 
 Idwal, looking back every now and then at the black wall of the 
 Twll du, in dread lest he should see two moving specks in hot 
 pursuit. 
 
 And now he had gained the shore of Ogwen, and the broad 
 coach-road ; and down it he strode, running at times, past the 
 roaring cataract, past the enormous cliffs of the Carnedds, past 
 Tin-y-maes, where nothing was stirring but a barking dog ; on 
 through the sleeping streets of Bethesda, past the black stairs 
 of the Penrhyn quarry. The huge clicking ant-heap was silent 
 now, save for the roar of Ogwen, as he swirled and bubbled 
 down, rich coffee-brown from last night's rain. 
 
 On, past rich woods, past trim cottages, gardens gay with 
 flowers ; past rhododendron shrubberies, broad fields of golden 
 stubble, sweet clover, and gray swedes, with Ogwen making 
 music far below. The sun is up at last, and Colonel Pennant's 
 grim slate castle, towering above black woods, glitters metallic 
 in its rays, like Chaucer's house of fame. He stops, to look back 
 once. Far up the vale, eight miles away, beneath a roof of 
 cloud, the pass of Nant Francon gapes high in air between the 
 great jaws of the Carnecld and the Glyder, its cliffs marked with 
 the upright white line of the waterfall. He is clear of the 
 mountains ; clear of that cursed place, and all its cursed 
 thoughts ! On, past Llandegai and all its rose-clad cottages ; 
 past yellow quarrymen walking out to their work, who stare as 
 they pass at his haggard face, drenched clothes, and streaming 
 hair. He does not see them. One fixed thought is in his mind, 
 and that is, the railway station at Bangor. 
 
 He is striding through Bangor streets now, beside the summer 
 sea, from which fresh scents of shore-weed greet him. He had 
 rather smell the smoke and gas of the Strand. 
 
 The station is shut. He looks at the bill outside. There is 
 no train for full two hours ; and he throws himself, worn-out 
 with fatigue, upon the doorstep.
 
 xxi NATURE'S MELODRAMA 367 
 
 Now a new terror seizes him. Has he money enough to 
 reach London 1 Has he his purse at all ? Too dreadful to find 
 himself stopped short, on the very brink of deliverance ! A 
 cold perspiration breaks from his forehead, as he feels in every 
 pocket. Yes, his purse is there ; but he turns sick as he opens 
 it, and dare hardly look. Hurrah ! Five pounds, six eight ! 
 That will take him as far as Paris. He can walk, beg the rest 
 of the way, if need be. 
 
 What will he do now? Wander over the town, and gaze 
 vacantly on one little object and another about the house fronts. 
 One thing he will not look at ; and that is the bright summer 
 sea, all golden in the sun rays, flecked with gay white sails. 
 From all which is bright and calm, and cheerful, his soul shrinks 
 as from an impertinence; he longs for the lurid gas-light of 
 London, and the roar of the Strand, and the everlasting stream 
 of faces, among whom he may wander free, sure that no one will 
 recognise him, the disgraced, the desperate. 
 
 The weary hours roll on. Too tired to stand longer, he sits 
 down on the shafts of a cart, and tries not to think. It is not 
 difficult. Body and mind are alike worn out, and his brain 
 seems filled with uniform dull mist. 
 
 A shop-door opens in front of him ; a boy comes out. He 
 sees bottles inside, and shelves, the look of which he knows too 
 well. 
 
 The bottle-boy, whistling, begins to take the shutters down. 
 How often, in Whitbury of old, had Elsley done the same ! 
 Half amused, he watched the lad, and wondered how he spent 
 his evenings, and what works he read, and whether he ever 
 thought of writing poetry. 
 
 And as he watched, all his past life rose up before him, ever 
 since he served out medicines fifteen years ago his wild aspir- 
 ations, heavy labours, struggles, plans, brief triumphs, long 
 disappointments; and here was what it had all come to a 
 failure a miserable, shameful failure ! Not that he thought of 
 it with repentance, with a single wish that he had done other- 
 wise ; but only with disappointed rage. ' Yes ! ' he said bitterly 
 to himself 
 
 ' " We poets in our youth begin in gladness, 
 But after come despondency and madness." 
 
 This is the way of the world with all who have nobler feelings 
 in them than will fit into its cold rules. Curse the world ! what 
 on earth had I to do with mixing myself up in it, and marrying 
 a fine lady ? Fool that I was ! I might have known from the 
 first that she could not understand me ; that she would go back 
 to her own ! Let her go ! I will forget her, and the world, and 
 everything and I know how ! ' 
 
 And, springing up, he walked across to the druggist's shop. 
 
 Years before, Elsley had tried opium, and found, unhappily
 
 368 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 for him, that it fed his fancy without inflicting those tortures of 
 indigestion which keep many, happily for them, from its magic 
 snare. He had tried it more than once of late ; but Lucia had 
 had a hint of the fact from Thurnall : and in just terror had 
 exacted from him a solemn promise never to touch opium again. 
 Elsley was a man of honour, and the promise had been kept. 
 But now ' I promised her, and therefore I will break my pro- 
 mise ! She has broken hers, and I am free ! ' 
 
 And he went in and bought his opium. He took a little on 
 the spot, to allay the cravings of hunger. He reserved a full 
 dose for the railway-carriage. It would bridge over the weary 
 gulf of time which lay between him and town. 
 
 He took his second-class place at last ; not without stares and 
 whispers from those round at the wild figure which was starting 
 for London without bag or baggage. But as the clerks agreed, 
 ' If he was running away from his creditors, it was a shame to 
 stop him. If he was running from the police, they would have 
 the more sport the longer the run. At least, it was no business 
 of theirs.' 
 
 There was one thing more to do, and lie did it. He wrote to 
 Campbell a short note. 
 
 ' If, as I suppose, you expect from me " the satisfaction of a 
 gentleman," you will find me at ... Adelphi. I am not escap- 
 ing from you, but from the whole world. If, by shooting me, you 
 can quicken my escape, you will do me the first and last favour 
 which I am likely to ask for from you.' 
 
 He posted his letter, settled himself in a corner of the carriage, 
 and took his second dose of opium. From that moment he 
 recollected little more. A confused whirl of hedges and woods, 
 rattling stations, screaming and flashing trains, great red towns, 
 white chalk cuttings ; while the everlasting roar and rattle of 
 the carriages shaped themselves in his brain into a hundred 
 snatches of old tunes, all full of a strange merriment, as if mock- 
 ing at his misery, striving to keep him awake and conscious of 
 who and what he was. He closed his eyes and shut out the 
 hateful, garish world ; but that sound he could not shut out. 
 Too tired to sleep, too tired even to think, he could do nothing 
 but submit to the ridiculous torment ; watching in spite of him- 
 self every note, as one jig-tune after another was fiddled by all 
 the imps close to his ear, mile after mile, and county after 
 county, for all that weary day, which seemed full seven years 
 long. 
 
 At Euston Square the porter called him several times ere he 
 could rouse him. He could hear nothing for awhile but that 
 same imps' melody, even though it had stopped. At last he got 
 out, staring round him, shook himself awake by one strong 
 effort, and hurried away, not knowing whither he went. 
 
 Wrapt up in self, he wandered on till dark, slept on a door- 
 step, and awoke, not knowing at first where he was. Gradually
 
 xxn FOND, YET NOT FOOLISH 369 
 
 all the horror came back to him, and with the horror the craving 
 for opium wherewith to forget it. 
 
 He looked round to see his whereabouts. Surely this must 
 be Golden Square ? A sudden thought struck him. He went 
 to a chemist's shop, bought a fresh supply of his poison, and, 
 taking only enough to allay the cravings of his stomach, hurried 
 tottering in the direction of Drury Lane. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 FOND, YET NOT FOOLISH 
 
 NEXT morning, only Claude and Campbell made their appear- 
 ance at breakfast. 
 
 Frank came in ; found that Valentia was not down : and, too 
 excited to eat, went out to walk till she should appear. Neither 
 did Lord Scoutbush come. Where was he 1 
 
 Ignorant of the whole matter, he had started at four o'clock 
 to fish in the Traeth Mawr ; half for fishing's sake, half (as he 
 confessed) to gain time for his puzzled brains before those 
 explanations with Frank Headley, of which he stood in mortal 
 fear. 
 
 Mellot and Campbell sat down together to breakfast ; but 
 in silence. Claude saw that something had gone very wrong ; 
 Campbell ate nothing, and looked nervously out of the window 
 every now and then. 
 
 At last Bowie entered with the letters and a message. There 
 were two gentlemen from Pen-y-gwryd must speak with Mr. 
 Mellot immediately. 
 
 He went out and found Wynd and Naylor. What they told 
 him we know already. He returned instantly, and met Camp- 
 bell leaving the room. 
 
 'I have news of Vavasour,' whispered he. 'I have a letter 
 from him. Bowie, order me a car instantly for Bangor. I am 
 off to London, Claude. You and Bowie will take care of my 
 things, and send them after me.' 
 
 'Major Cawmill has only to command,' said Bowie, and 
 vanished down the stairs. 
 
 ' Now, Claude, quick ; read that, and counsel me. I ought 
 to ask Scoutbush's opinion ; but the poor dear fellow is out, 
 you see.' 
 
 Claude read the note written at Bangor. 
 
 'Fight him I will not ! I detest the notion : a soldier should 
 never fight a duel. His life is the Queen's, and not his own. 
 And yet, if the honour of the family has been compromised 
 by my folly, I must pay the penalty, if Scoutbush thinks it 
 proper.' 
 
 So said Campbell, who, in the over-sensitiveness of his con- 
 
 2 B T. Y. A.
 
 370 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 science, had actually worked himself round during the past 
 night into this new fancy, as a chivalrous act of utter self- 
 abasement. The proud self-possession of the man. was gone, 
 and nothing but self-distrust and shame remained. 
 
 ' In the name of all wit and wisdom, what is the meaning of 
 all this ? ' 
 
 ' You do not know, then, what passed last night 1 ' 
 
 ' I ? I can only guess that Vavasour has had one of his 
 rages.' 
 
 ' Then you must know,' said Campbell with an effort : ' for 
 you must explain all to Scoutbush when he returns ; and I 
 know no one more fit for the office.' And he briefly told him 
 the story. 
 
 Mellot was much affected. ' The wretched ape ! Campbell, 
 your first thought was the true one : you must not fight that 
 cur. After all, it's a farce : you won't fire at him and lie can't 
 hit you so leave ill alone. Beside, for Scoutbush's sake, her 
 sake, every one's sake, the thing must be hushed up. If the 
 fellow chooses to duck under into the London mire, let him lie 
 there, and forget him ! ' 
 
 'No, Claude ; his pardon I must beg, ere I go out to the 
 war : or I shall die with a sin upon my soul.' 
 
 ' My dear, noble creature ! if you must go, I go with you. I 
 must see fair play between you and that madman ; and give 
 him a piece of my mind, too, while I am about it. He is in my 
 power, or if not quite that, I know one in whose power he is ! 
 and to reason he shall be brought.' 
 
 ' No ; you must stay here. I cannot trust Scoutbush's head, 
 and these poor dear souls will have no one to look to but you. 
 I can trust you with them, I know. Me you will perhaps never 
 see again.' 
 
 ' You can trust me ! ' said the affectionate little painter, the 
 tears starting to his eyes, as he wrung Campbell's hand. 
 
 ' Mind one thing ! If that Vavasour shows his teeth, there 
 is a spell will turn him to stone. Use it ! ' 
 
 ' Heaven forbid ! Let him show his teeth. It is I who am 
 in the wrong. Why should I make him more my enemy than 
 lie is?' 
 
 ' Be it so. Only, if the worst comes to the worst, call him 
 not Elsley Vavasour, but plain John Briggs and see what 
 follows.' 
 
 Valentia entered. 
 
 'The post has come in! O dear Major Campbell, is there 
 a letter ? ' 
 
 He put the note into her hand in silence. She i'ead it, and 
 darted back to Lucia's room. 
 
 ' Thank God that she did not see that I was going ! One 
 more pang on earth spared ! ' said Campbell to himself. 
 
 Valentia hurried to Lucia's door. She was holding it ajar
 
 xxii FOXD, YET NOT FOOLISH 371 
 
 and looking out with pale face, and wild hungry eyes. 'A 
 letter ? Don't be silent, or I shall go mad ! Tell me the worst ! 
 Is he alive ? ' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 She gasped, and staggered against the door-post. 
 
 'Where? Why does lie not come back to me?' asked she, in 
 a confused, abstracted way. 
 
 It was best to tell the truth, and have it over. 
 
 ' He has gone to London, Lucia. He will think over it all 
 there, and be sorry for it, and then all will be well again.' 
 
 But Lucia did not hear the end of that sentence. Murmuring 
 to herself, ' To London ! To London ! ' she hurried back into 
 the room. 
 
 'Clara ! Clara ! have the children had their breakfast?' 
 
 ' Yes, ma'am ! ' says Clara, appearing from the inner room. 
 
 ' Then help me to pack up, quick ! Your master is gone to 
 London on business ; and we are to follow him immediately.' 
 
 And she began bustling about the room. 
 
 ' My dearest Lucia, you are not fit to travel now ! ' 
 
 'I shall die if I stay here ; die if I do nothing ! I must find 
 him ! ' whispered she. ' Don't speak loud, or Clara will hear. I 
 can find him, and nobody can but me ! Why don't you help me 
 to pack, Valentia ? ' 
 
 ' My dearest ! but what will Scoutbush say when he comes 
 home, and finds you gone ? ' 
 
 ' What right has he to interfere ? I am Elsley's wife, am I 
 not ? and may follow my husband if I like ; ' and she went on 
 desperately collecting, not her own things, but Elsley's. 
 
 Valentia watched her with tear-brimming eyes ; collecting 
 all his papers, counting over his clothes, murmuring to herself 
 that he would want this and that in London. Her sanity 
 seemed failing her, under the fixed idea that she had only to 
 see him, and set all right with a word. 
 
 ' I will go and get you some breakfast,' said she at last. 
 
 'I want none. I am too busy to eat. Why don't you help 
 me?' 
 
 Valentia had not the heart to help, believing, as she did, that 
 Lucia's journey would be as bootless as it would be dangerous 
 to her health. 
 
 'I will bring you some breakfast, and you must try ; then I 
 will help to pack : ' and utterly bewildered she went out ; and 
 the thought uppermost in her mind was, ' Oh, that I could find 
 Frank Headley ! ' 
 
 Happy was it for Frank's love, paradoxical as it may seem, 
 that it had conquered just at that niOTnent of terrible distress. 
 Valentia's acceptance of him had been hasty, founded rather on 
 sentiment and admiration than on deep atl'ection ; and her feel- 
 ing might have faltered, waned, died away in self-distrust of its 
 own reality, if giddy amusement, if mere easy happiness, had
 
 372 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 followed it. But now the fire of affliction was branding in the 
 thought of him upon her softened heart. 
 
 Living at the utmost strain of her character, Campbell gone, 
 her brother useless, and Lucia and the children depending utterly 
 on her, there was but one to whom she could look for comfort 
 while she needed it most utterly ; and happy for her and for 
 her lover that she could go to him. 
 
 ' Poor Lucia ! thank God that I have some one who will never 
 treat me so ! who will lift me up and shield me, instead of 
 crushing me ! dear creature ! Oh that I may find him ! ' And 
 her heart went out after Frank with a gush of tenderness which 
 she had never felt before. 
 
 ' Is this, then, love ? ' she asked herself ; and she found time 
 to slip into her own room for a moment and arrange her 
 dishevelled hair, ere she entered the breakfast-room. 
 
 Frank was there, luckily alone, pacing nervously up and 
 down. He hurried up to her, caught both her hands in his, and 
 gazed into her wan and haggard face with the intensest tender- 
 ness and anxiety. 
 
 Valentia's eyes looked into the depths of his, passive and 
 confiding, till they failed before the keenness of his gaze, and 
 swam in glittering mist. 
 
 'Ah!' thought she; 'sorrow is a light price to pay for the 
 feeling of being so loved by such a man ! ' 
 
 ' You are tired ill ? What a night you must have had ! 
 Mellot has told me all.' 
 
 ' O my poor sister ! ' and wildly she poured out to Frank 
 her wrath against Elsley, her inability to comfort Lucia, and all 
 the misery and confusion of the past night. 
 
 ' This is a sad dawning for the day of my triumph ! ' thought 
 Frank, who longed to pour out his heart to her on a thousand 
 very different matters : but he was content ; it was enough for 
 him that she could tell him all, and confide in him ; a truer sign 
 of affection than any selfish love-making ; and lie asked, and 
 answered, with suclv tenderness and thoughtfulness for poor 
 Lufta, with such a deep comprehension of Elsley's character, 
 pitying while he blamed, that he won his reward at last. 
 
 ' Oh ! it would be intolerable, if I had not through it all 
 
 the thought ' and blushing crimson, her head drooped on her 
 
 bosom. She seemed ready to drop with exhaustion. 
 
 ' Sit down, sit down, or you will fall ! ' said Frank, leading 
 her to a chair ; and as he led her, he whispered with fluttering 
 heart, new to its own happiness, and longing to make assurance 
 sure ' What thought ? ' 
 
 She was silent still ; but he felt her hand tremble in his. 
 
 ' The thought of me ? ' 
 
 She looked up in his face ; how beautiful ! And in another 
 moment, neither knew how, she was clasped to his bosom. 
 
 He covered her face, her hair with kisses : she did not
 
 XXH FOND, YET NOT FOOLISH 373 
 
 move; from that moment she felt that he was her hus- 
 band. 
 
 ' Oil, guide me ! counsel me ! prajr for me ! ' sobbed she. ' I 
 am all alone, and my poor sister, she is going mad, I think, and 
 I have no one to trust but you ; and you you will leave me to 
 go to those dreadful wars ; and then, what will become of me 1 
 Oh, stay ! only a few days ! ' and holding him convulsively, she 
 answered his kisses with her own. 
 
 Frank stood as in a dream, while the room reeled round and 
 vanished ; and he was alone for a moment upon earth with her 
 and his great love. 
 
 'Tell me,' said he at last, trying to awaken himself to 
 action. ' Tell me ! Is she really going to seek him ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, selfish and forgetful that I am ! You must help me ! 
 she will go to London, nothing can stop her ; and it will kill 
 her ! ' 
 
 ' It may drive her mad to keep her here.' 
 
 ' It will ! and that drives me mad also. What can I choose ? ' 
 
 'Follow where God leads. It is she, after all, who must 
 reclaim him. Leave her in God's hands, and go with her to 
 London.' 
 
 ' But my brother ? ' 
 
 ' Mellot or I will see him. Let it be me. Mellot shall go 
 with you to London.' 
 
 ' Oh that you were going ! ' 
 
 ' Oh that I were ! I will follow, though. Do you think that 
 I can be long away from you ? . . . But I must tell your 
 brother. I had a very different matter on which to speak to 
 him this morning,' said he with a sad smile : ' but better as it 
 is. He shall find me, I hope, reasonable and trustworthy in this 
 matter ; perhaps enough so to have my Valentia committed to 
 me. Precious jewel ! I must learn to be a man now, at least ; 
 now that I have you to care for.' 
 
 ' And yet you go and leave me ? ' 
 
 ' Valentia ! Because God lias given us to each other, shall 
 our thank-offering be to shrink cowardly from His work ?' 
 
 He spoke more sternly than he intended, to awe into obedience 
 rather himself than her ; for lie felt, poor fellow, his courage 
 failing fast, while he held that treasure in his arms. 
 
 She shuddered in silence. 
 
 'Forgive me ! ' he cried ; 'I was too harsh, Valentia ! ' 
 
 ' No ! ' she cried, looking up at him with a glorious smile. 
 ' Scold me ! Be harsh to me ! It is so delicious now to be 
 reproved by you.' And as she spoke she felt as if she would 
 rather endure torture from that man's hand than bliss from any 
 other. How many strange words of Lucia's that new feeling 
 explained to her ; words at which she had once grown angry, as 
 doting weaknesses, unjust and degrading to self-respect. Poor 
 Lucia ! She might be able to comfort her now, for she had
 
 374 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 learnt to sympathise with her by experience the very opposite 
 to hers. \et there must have been a time when Lucia clung to 
 Elsley as she to Frank. How horrible to have her eyes opened 
 thus ! To be torn and flung away from the bosom where she 
 longed to rest ! It could never happen to her. Of course her 
 Frank was true, though all the world was false : but poor 
 Lucia ! She must go to her. This was mere selfishness at such 
 a moment. 
 
 ' You will find Scoutbush, then 1 ' 
 
 'This moment. I will order the car now, if you will only 
 eat. You must ! ' 
 
 And he rang the bell, and then made her sit down and eat, 
 almost feeding her with his own hand. That, too, was a new 
 experience ; and one so strangely pleasant, that when Bowie 
 entered, and stared solemnly at the pair, she only looked up 
 smiling, though blushing a little. 
 
 'Get a car instantly,' said she. 
 
 ' For Mrs. Vavasour, my lady 1 She has ordered hers already.' 
 
 ' No ; for Mr. Headley. He is going to find my lord. Frank, 
 pour me out a cup of tea for Lucia.' 
 
 Bowie vanished, mystified. ' It's no concern of mine ; but 
 better tak a up wi' a godly meenister than a godless pawet,' 
 said the worthy warrior to himself as he marched down- 
 stairs. 
 
 ' You see that I am asserting our rights already before all the 
 world,' said she, looking up. 
 
 ' I see you are not ashamed of me.' 
 
 ' Ashamed of you 1 ' 
 
 ' And now I must go to Lucia.' 
 
 ' And to London.' 
 
 Valentia began to cry like any baby ; but rose and carried 
 away the tea in her hand. 'Must I go? and before you come 
 back, too 1 ' 
 
 ' Is she determined to start instantly 1 ' 
 
 ' I cannot stop her. You see she has ordered the car.' 
 
 'Then go, my darling! My own! my Valentia! Oh, a 
 thousand things to ask you, and no time to ask them in ! I 
 can write?' said Frank, with an inquiring smile. 
 
 'Write? Yes; every day twice a day. I shall live upon 
 those letters. Good-bye ! ' And out she went, while Frank sat 
 himself down at the table, and laid his head upon his hands, 
 stupefied with delight, till Bowie entered. 
 
 'The car, sir.' 
 
 'Which ? Who?' asked Frank, looking up as from a dream. 
 
 ' The car, sir.' 
 
 Frank rose, and walked downstairs abstractedly. Bowie 
 kept close to his side. 
 
 'Ye'll pardon me, sir,' said he in a low voice ; 'but I see 
 how it is the more blessing for you. Ye'll be pleased, I trust,
 
 xxn FOND, YET NOT FOOLISH 375 
 
 to take more care of this jewel than others have of that one : 
 or 
 
 ' Or you'll shoot me yourself, Bowie ? ' said Frank, half 
 amused, half awed, too, by the stern tone of the guardsman. 
 ' I'll give you leave to do it if I deserve it.' 
 
 ' It's no my duty, either as a soldier or as a valet. And, in- 
 deed, I've that opeenion of you, sir, that I don't think it'll need 
 to be any one else's duty either.' 
 
 And so did Mr. Bowie signify his approbation of the new 
 family romance, and went off to assist Mrs. Clara in getting the 
 trunks downstairs. 
 
 Clara was in high dudgeon. She had not yet completed her 
 flirtation with Mr. Bowie, and felt it hard to have her one 
 amusement in life snatched out of her hard-worked hands. 
 
 ' I'm sure I don't know why we're moving. I don't believe 
 it's business. Some of his tantrums, I dare say. I heard her 
 walking up and down the room all last night, I'll swear. 
 Neither she nor Miss Valentia has been to bed. He'll kill her 
 at last, the brute ! ' 
 
 ' It's no concern of either of us, that. Have you got another 
 trunk to bring down ? ' 
 
 ' No concern ? Just like your hard-heartedness, Mr. Bowie. 
 And as soon as I'm gone, of course you will be flirting with 
 these impudent Welshwomen, in their horrid hats.' 
 
 ' May be, yes ; may be, no. But flirting's no marrying, Mrs. 
 Clara.' 
 
 ' True for you, sir ! Men were deceivers ever,' quotli Clara, 
 and flouncea upstairs'; while Bowie looked after her with a 
 grim smile, and caught her, when she came down again, long 
 enough to give her a great kiss ; the only language which he 
 used in wooing, and that but rarely. 
 
 4 Dinna fash, lassie. Mind your lady and the poor bairns, 
 like a godly handmaiden, and I'll buy the ring when the saw- 
 mon fishing's over, and we'll just be married ere I start for the 
 Crimee.' 
 
 ' The sawmon ! ' cried Clara. ' I'll see you turned into a mer- 
 maid first, and married to a sawmon ! ' 
 
 'And ye won't do any tiling o' the kind,' said Bowie to him- 
 self, and shouldered a valise. 
 
 In ten minutes the ladies were packed into the carriage, and 
 away, under Mellot's care. Frank watched Valentia looking 
 back, and smiling through her tears, as they rolled through the 
 village ; and then got into his car, and rattled down the 
 southern road to Pont Aberglaslyn, his hand still tingling with 
 the last pressure of Yalentia's.
 
 376 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE BROAD STONE OF HONOUR 
 
 BUT where has Stangrave been all this while ? 
 
 Where any given bachelor has been, for any given month, is 
 difficult to say, and no man's business but his own. But where 
 he happened to be on a certain afternoon in the first week of 
 October, on which he had just heard the news of Alma, was 
 upon the hills between Ems and Coblentz. Walking over a 
 high tableland of stubbles, which would be grass in England ; 
 and yet with all its tillage is perhaps not worth more than 
 English grass would be, thanks to that small-farm system much 
 be-praised by some who know not wheat from turnips. Then 
 along a road, which might be a Devon one, cut in the hillside, 
 through authentic ' Devonian ' slate, where the deep chocolate 
 soil is lodged on the top of the upright strata, and a thick coat 
 of moss and wood sedge clusters about the oak-scrub roots, 
 round which the delicate and rare oak-fern mingles its fronds 
 with great blue campanulas ; while the ' white admirals ' and 
 silver- washed ' f ritillaries ' flit round every bramble bed, and the 
 great ' purple emperors ' come down to drink in the road 
 puddles, and sit fearless, flashing off their velvet wings a blue 
 as of that empyrean which is ' dark by excess of light.' 
 
 Down again through cultivated lands, corn and clover, flax 
 and beet, and all the various crops with which the industrious 
 German yeoman ekes out his little patch of soil. Past the 
 thrifty husbandman himself, as he guides the two milch-kine in 
 his tiny plough, and stops at the furrow's end, to greet you with 
 the hearty German smile and bow ; while the little fair-haired 
 maiden, walking beneath the shade of standard cherries, wal- 
 nuts, and pears, all gray with fruit, fills the cows' mouths with 
 chicory, and wild carnations, and pink saintfoin, and many a 
 fragrant weed which richer England wastes. 
 
 Down once more into a glen ; but such a glen as neither 
 England nor America has ever seen ; or, please God, ever will 
 see, glorious as it is. Stangrave, who knew all Europe well, had 
 walked the path before ; but he stopped then, as he had done 
 the first time, in awe. On the right, slope up the bare slate 
 downs, up to the foot of cliffs : but only half of those cliffs God 
 has made. Above the gray slate ledges rise cliffs of man's handi- 
 work, pierced with a hundred square black embrasures ; and 
 above them the long barrack-ranges of a soldiers' town ; which 
 a foernan stormed once, when it was young : but what foeman 
 will ever storm it again 1 What conqueror's foot will ever tread 
 again upon the ' broad stone of honour,' and call Ehrenbreitsteiii 
 his?
 
 xxni THE BROAD STONE OF HONOUR 377 
 
 On the left the clover and the corn range on, beneath the 
 orchard boughs, up to yon knoll of chestnut and acacia, tall 
 poplar, feathered larch : but what is that stonework which 
 gleams gray beneath their stems ? A summer-house for some 
 great duke, looking out over the glorious Khine vale, and up the 
 long vineyards of the bright Moselle, from whence he may bid 
 his people eat, drink, and take their ease, for they have much 
 goods laid up for many years ? 
 
 Bank over bank of earth and stone, cleft by deep embrasures, 
 from which the great guns grin across the rich gardens, studded 
 with standard fruit-trees, which close the glacis to its topmost 
 edge. And there, below him, lie the vineyards : every rock- 
 ledge and narrow path of soil tossing its golden tendrils to the 
 sun, gray with ripening clusters, rich with noble wine ; but 
 what is that wall which winds among them, up and down, 
 creeping and sneaking over every ledge and knoll of vantage 
 ground, pierced with eyelet-holes, backed by strange stairs and 
 galleries of stone ; till it rises close before him, to meet the 
 low round tower full in his path, from whose deep casemates, 
 as from dark scowling eye-holes, the ugly cannon-eyes stare up 
 the glen ? 
 
 Stangrave knows them all as far as any man can know. 
 The wards of the key which locks apart the nations ; the yet 
 maiden Troy of Europe ; the greatest fortress of the world. 
 
 He walks down, turns into the vineyards, and lies down 
 beneath the mellow shade of vines. He has no sketch-book 
 article forbidden ; his passport is in his pocket ; and he speaks 
 all tongues of German men. So, fearless of gendarmes and 
 soldiers, he lies down, in the blazing German afternoon, upon 
 the shaly soil ; and watches the bright-eyed lizards hunt flies 
 along the roasting walls, 'and the great locusts buzz and pitch 
 and leap ; green locusts with red wings, and gray locusts with 
 blue wings ; he notes the species, for he is tired and lazy, and 
 has so many thoughts within his head that he is glad to toss 
 them all away, and give up his soul, if possible, to locusts and 
 lizards, vines and shade. 
 
 And far below him fleets the mighty Rhine, rich with the 
 memories of two thousand stormy years ; and on its further 
 bank the gray-walled Coblentz town, and the long arches of the 
 Moselle bridge, and the rich flats of Kaiser Franz, and the long 
 poplar-crested uplands, which look so gay, and are so stern ; for 
 everywhere between the poplar-stems the saw-toothed outline 
 of the western forts cuts the blue sky. 
 
 And far beyond it all sleeps, high in air, the Eifel with its 
 hundred crater peaks ; blue mound behind blue mound, molting 
 into white haze. Stangrave has walked upon those hills, and 
 stood upon the crater-lip of the great Moselkopf, and dreamed 
 beside the Laacher See, beneath the ancient abbey walls ; and 
 his thoughts flit across the Moselle flats towards his ancient
 
 378 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 haunts, as he asks himself How long has that old Eifel lain in 
 such soft sleep ? How long ere it awake again ? 
 
 It may awake, geologists confess why not ? and blacken all 
 the skies with smoke of Tophet, pouring its streams of boiling 
 mud once more to dam the Rhine, whelming the works of men 
 in flood, and ash, and fire. Why not ? The old earth seems so 
 solid at first sight : but look a little nearer, and this is the stuff 
 of which she is made ! The wreck of past earthquakes, the 
 leavings of old floods, the washings of cold cinder heaps which 
 are smouldering still below. 
 
 Stangrave knew that well enough. He had climbed Vesuvius, 
 Etna, Popocatepetl. He had felt many an earthquake shock ; 
 and knew how far to trust the everlasting hills. And was old 
 David right, he thought that day, when he held the earthquake 
 and the volcano as the truest symbols of the history of human 
 kind, and of the dealings of their Maker with them ? All the 
 magnificent Plutonic imagery of the Hebrew poets, had it no 
 meaning for men now 1 Did the Lord still uncover the founda- 
 tions of the world, spiritual as well as physical, Avith the breath 
 of his displeasure ? Was the solfa-tara of Tophet still ordained 
 for tyrants 1 And did the Lord still arise out of his place to 
 shake terribly the earth ? Or had the moral world grown as 
 sleepy as the -physical one had seemed to have done? Would 
 anything awful, unexpected, tragical, ever burst forth again 
 from the heart of earth, or from the heart of man ? 
 
 Surprising question ! What can ever happen henceforth, save 
 infinite railroads and crystal palaces, peace and plenty, cockaigne 
 and dilettantism, to the end of time f Is it not full sixty whole 
 years since the first French revolution, and six whole years since 
 the revolution of all Europe? Bah ! change is a thing of the 
 past, and tragedy a myth of our forefathers ; war a bad habit of 
 old barbarians, eradicated by the spread of an enlightened phil- 
 anthropy. Men know now how to govern the world far too 
 well to need any divine visitations, much less divine punish- 
 ments ; and Stangrave was a Utopian dreamer, only to be 
 excused by the fact that he had in his pocket the news that 
 three great nations were gone forth to tear each other as of 
 yore. 
 
 Nevertheless, looking round upon those grim earth-mounds 
 and embrasures, he could not but give the men who put them 
 there credit for supposing that they might be wanted. Ah ! but 
 that might be only one of the direful necessities of the decaying 
 civilisation of the old world. What a contrast to the unarmed 
 and peaceful prosperity of his own country ! Thank heaven, 
 New England needed no fortresses, military roads, or standing 
 armies ! True, but why that flush of contemptuous pity for the 
 poor old world, which could only hold its own by such expensive 
 and ugly methods ? 
 
 He asked himself that very question, a moment after, angrily;
 
 xxni THE BROAD STONE OF HONOUR 379 
 
 for he was out of humour with himself, with his country, and 
 indeed with the universe in general. And across his mind 
 flashed a memorable conversation at Constantinople long since, 
 during which he had made some such unwise remark to Thumall, 
 and received from him a sharp answer, which parted them for years. 
 
 It was natural enough that that conversation should come 
 back to him just then ; for, in his jealousy, he was thinking of 
 Tom Thurnall often enough every day ; and in spite of his 
 enmity, he could not help suspecting more and more that 
 Thurnall had had some right on his side of the quarrel. 
 
 He had been twitting Thurnall with the miserable condition 
 of the labourers in the south of England, and extolling his own 
 country at the expense of ours. Tom, unable to deny the fact, 
 had waxed all the more wroth at having it pressed on him ; and 
 at last had burst forth 
 
 'Well, and what right have you to crow over us on that 
 score? I suppose, if you could hire a man in America for 
 eighteen-pence a day, instead of a dollar and a half, you would 
 do it ? \ ou Americans are not accustomed to give more for a 
 thing than it's worth in the market, are you ? ' 
 
 'But,' Stangrave had answered, 'the glory of America is, 
 that you cannot get the man for less than the dollar and a half ; 
 that he is too well fed, too prosperous, too well educated, to be 
 made a slave of.' 
 
 'And therefore makes slaves of the niggers instead ? I'll tell 
 
 B)u what, I'm sick of that shallow fallacy the glory of America ! 
 o you mean, by America, the country or the people ? You 
 boast, all of you, of your country, as if you had made it your- 
 selves ; and quite forget that God made America, and America 
 has made you.' 
 
 ' Made us, sir ? ' quoth Stangrave fiercely enough. 
 ' Made you ! ' replied Thurnall, exaggerating his half truth 
 from anger. 'To what is your comfort, your high feeding, your 
 very education, owing, but to your having a thin population, a 
 virgin soil, and unlimited means of emigration 1 What credit 
 to you if you need no poor laws, when you pack oft'your children, 
 as fast as they grow up, to clear more ground westward ? What 
 credit to your yeomen that they have read more books than our 
 clods have, while they can earn more in four hours than our poor 
 fellows in twelve ? It all depends on the mere physical fact of 
 your being in a new country, and we in an old one : and as for 
 moral superiority, I shan't believe in that while I see the whole 
 of the northern states so utterly given up to the "almighty 
 dollar," that they leave the honour of their country to be made 
 ducks and drakes of by a few southern slave-holders. Moral 
 superiority ? We hold in England that an honest man is a 
 match for three rogues. If the same law holds good in the 
 United States, I leave you to settle whether Northerners or 
 Southerners are the honester men.'
 
 380 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Whereupon (and no shame to Stangrave) there was a heavy 
 quarrel, and the two men had not met since. 
 
 But now, those words of Thurnall's, backed by far bitterer 
 ones of Marie's, were fretting Stangrave's heart. What if they 
 were true ? They were not the whole truth. There was beside, 
 and above them all, a nobleness in the American's heart, which 
 could, if he chose, and when it chose, give the lie to that bitter 
 taunt : but had it done so already 1 
 
 At least, he himself had not. ... If Thurnall and Marie 
 were unjust to his nation, they had not been unjust to him. 
 He, at least, had been making, all his life, mere outward 
 blessings causes of self-congratulation, and not of humility. He 
 had been priding himself on wealth, ease, luxury, cultivation, 
 without a thought that these were God's gifts, and that God 
 would require an account of them. If Thurnall were right, 
 was he himself too truly the typical American 1 And bitterly 
 enough he accused at once himself and his people. 
 
 ' Noble ? Marie is right ! We boast of our nobleness : 
 better to take the only opportunity of showing it which we 
 have had since we have become a nation ! Heaped with every 
 blessing which God could give ; beyond the reach of sorrow, a 
 check, even an interference ; shut out from all the world in 
 God's new Eden, that we might freely eat of all the trees of the 
 gaixlen, and grow and spread, and enjoy ourselves like the birds 
 of heaven God only laid on us one duty, one command, to 
 right one simple, confessed, conscious wrong. . . . 
 
 ' And what have we done 1 what have even I done 1 We 
 have steadily, deliberately, cringed at the feet of the wrong-doer, 
 even while we boasted our superiority to him at every point, and 
 at last, for the sake of our own selfish ease, helped him to forge 
 new chains for his victims, and received as our only reward fresh 
 insults. White slaves ! We, perhaps, and not the English 
 peasant, are the white slaves ? At least, if the Irishman emi- 
 grates to England, or the Englishman to Canada, lie is not hunted 
 out with blood-hounds, and delivered back to his landlord to be 
 scourged and chained. He is not practically out of the pale of 
 law, unrepresented, forbidden even the use of books ; and even 
 if he were, there is an excuse for the old country ; for she was 
 founded on no political principles, but discovered what she 
 knows step by step a sort of political Topsy, as Claude Mellot 
 calls her, who has "kinder growed," doing from hand to mouth 
 what seemed best. But that we, who profess to start as an ideal 
 nation, on tixed ideas of justice, freedom, and equality that 
 we should have been stultifying ever since every great principle 
 of which we so loudly boast ! 
 
 'The old Jew used to say of his nation, "It is God that hath 
 made us, and not we ourselves." We say, "It is we that have 
 made ourselves, while God All, yes ; I recollect. God's
 
 xxiu THE BROAD STONE OF HONOUR 381 
 
 work is to save a soul here and a soul there, and to leave America 
 to be saved by the Americans who made it. We must have a 
 broader and deeper creed than that if we are to work out our 
 destiny. The battle against Middle Age slavery was fought by 
 the old Catholic Church, which held the Jewish notion, and 
 looked upon the Deity as the actual King of Christendom, and 
 every man in it as God's own child. I see now ! No wonder 
 that the battle in America has as yet been fought by the 
 Quakers, who believe that there is a divine light and voice in 
 every man while the Calvinist preachers, with their isolating 
 and individualising creed, have looked on with folded hands, 
 content to save a jriegro's soul here and there, whatsoever might 
 become of the bodies and the national future of the whole negro 
 race. No wonder, while such men have the teaching of the 
 people, that it is necessary still in the nineteenth century, in a 
 Protestant country, amid sane human beings, for such a man as 
 Mr. Sumner to rebut, in sober earnest, the argument that the 
 negro was the descendant of Canaan, doomed to eternal slavery 
 by Noah's curse ! ' 
 
 He would rouse himself. He would act, speak, write, as 
 many a noble fellow-countryman was doing. He had avoided 
 them of old as bores and fanatics who would needs wake him 
 from his luxurious dreams. He had even hated them, simply 
 because they were more righteous than he. He would be a new 
 man henceforth. 
 
 He strode down the hill through the cannon-guarded vine- 
 yards, among the busy groups of peasants. 
 
 ' Yes, Marie was right. Life is meant for work, and not for 
 ease ; to labour in danger and in dread, to do a little good ere 
 the night comes, when no man can work ; instead of trying to 
 realise for oneself a Paradise ; not even Bunyan's shepherd- 
 paradise, much less Fourier's casino-paradise : and perhaps least 
 of all, because most selfish and isolated of all, my own heart- 
 paradise -the apotheosis of loafing, as Claude calls it. Ah, 
 Tennyson's Palace of Art is a true word too true, too true ! 
 
 'Art ? What if the most necessary of human art, next to the 
 art of agriculture, be, after all, the art of war ? It has been so 
 in all ages. What if I have been befooled what if all the 
 Anglo-Saxon world has been befooled by forty years of peace ? 
 We have forgotten that the history of the world has been as yet 
 written in blood that the history of the human race is the story 
 of its heroes and its martyrs the slayers and the slain. Is it 
 not becoming such once more in Europe now ? And what divine 
 exemption can we claim from the law? What right have we to 
 suppose that it will be aught else, as long as there are wrongs 
 unredressed on earth ; as long as anger and ambition, cupidity 
 and wounded pride, canker the hearts of men '( What if the 
 wise man's attitude, and the wise nation's attitude, is that of the
 
 382 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Jews rebuilding their ruined walls the tool in one hand, and 
 the sword in the other ; for the wild Arabs are close outside, and 
 the time is short, and the storm has only lulled awhile in mercy, 
 that wise men may prepare for the next thunder-burst ? It is an 
 ugly fact : but I have thrust it away too long, and I must accept 
 it now and henceforth. This, and not luxurious Broadway ; 
 this, and not the comfortable New England village, is the normal 
 type of human life : and this is the model city ! Armed in- 
 dustry, which tills the corn and vine among the cannons' mouths ; 
 which never forgets their need, though it may mask and beautify 
 their terror ; but knows that as long as cruelty and wrong exist 
 on earth, man's destiny is to dare and suffer, .and, if it must be 
 so, to die. . . . 
 
 ' Yes, I will face my work ; my danger, if need be. I will 
 find Marie. I will tell her that I accept her quest ; not for her 
 sake, but for its own. Only I will demand the right to work at 
 it as I think best, patiently, moderately, wisely if I can ; for a 
 fanatic I cannot be, even for her sake. She may hate these 
 slaveholders she may have her reasons but I cannot. I can- 
 not deal witli them as feras natures. I cannot deny that they 
 are no worse men than I ; that I should have done what they 
 are doing, have said what they are saying, had I been bred up, 
 as they have been, with irresponsible power over the souls and 
 bodies of human beings. God ! I shudder at the fancy ! The 
 brute that I might have been that I should have been ! 
 
 ' Yes ; one tiling at least I have learnt, in all my experiments 
 on poor humanity never to see a man do a wrong thing, with- 
 out feeling that I could do the same in his place. I used to 
 pride myself on that once, fool that I was, and call it compre- 
 hensiveness. I used to make it an excuse for sitting by, and 
 seeing the devil have it all his own way, and call that toleration. 
 I will see now whether I cannot turn the said knowledge to a 
 better account, as common sense, patience, and charity ; and yet 
 do work of which neither I nor my country need be ashamed.' 
 
 He walked down, and on to the bridge of boats. They opened 
 in the centre ; as he reached it a steamer was passing. He 
 lounged on the rail as the boat passed through, looking carelessly 
 at the groups of tourists. 
 
 Two ladies were standing on the steamer, close to him, look- 
 ing up at Ehrenbreitstein. Was it ? Yes, it was Sabina, and 
 Marie by her ! 
 
 But ah, how changed ! The cheeks were pale and hollow ; 
 dark rings he could see them but too plainly as the face was 
 lifted up toward the light were round those great eyes, bright 
 no longer. Her face was listless, careworn ; looking all the 
 more sad and impassive by the side of Sabina's, as she pointed, 
 smiling and sparkling, up to the fortress ; and seemed trying to 
 interest Marie in it, but in vain. 
 
 He called out. He waved his hand wildly, to the amusement
 
 xxni THE BROAD STONE OF HONOUR 383 
 
 of the officers and peasants who waited by his side ; and who, 
 looking first at his excited face, and then at the two beautiful 
 women, were not long in making up their minds about him ; 
 and had their private jests accordingly- 
 
 They did not see him, but turned away to look at Coblentz ; 
 and the steamer swept by. 
 
 Stangrave stamped with rage upon a Prussian officer's thin 
 boot. 
 
 ' Ten thousand pardons ! ' 
 
 ( You are excused, dear sir, you are excused,' says the good- 
 natured German, with a wicked smile, which raises a blush on 
 Stangrave's cheek. ' Your eyes were dazzled ; why not ? it is 
 not often that one sees two such suns together in the same sky. 
 But calm yourself, the boat stops at Coblentz.' 
 
 Stangrave could not well call the man of war to account for 
 his impertinence ; he had had his toes half crushed, and had a 
 right to indemnify himself as he thought fit. And with a hun- 
 dred more apologies, Stangrave prepared to dart across the 
 bridge as soon as it was closed. 
 
 Alas ! after the steamer, as the fates would have it, came 
 lumbering down one of those monster timber rafts ; and it was 
 a full half hour before Stangrave could get across, having suffered 
 all the while the torments of Tantalus, as he watched the boat 
 sweep round to the pier and discharge its freight, to be scattered 
 whither he knew not. At last he got across, and went in chase 
 to the nearest hotel j but they were not there ; thence to the 
 next, and the next, till he had hunted half the hotels in the 
 town ; but hunted all in vain. 
 
 He is rushing wildly back again, to try if he can obtain any 
 clue at the steamboat pier, through the narrow, dirty street at 
 the back of the Rhine Cavalier, when he is stopped short by a 
 mighty German embrace, and a German kiss on either cheek, as 
 the kiss of a housemaid's broom ; while a jolly voice shouts in 
 English 
 
 'Ah, my dear, dear friend ! and you would pass me ! Whither 
 the hangman so fast are you running in the mud ! ' 
 
 ' My dear Salomon ! But let me go, I beseech you ; I am in 
 search 
 
 'In search?' cries the jolly Jew banker, 'for the philoso- 
 pher's stone? You had all that man could want a week since, 
 except that. Search no more, but come home with me ; and we 
 will have a night as of the gods on Olympus ! ' 
 
 ' My dearest fellow, I am looking for two ladies ! ' 
 
 ' Two ? ah, rogue ! shall not one suffice 1 ' 
 
 1 Don't, my dearest fellow ! I am looking for two English 
 ladies.' 
 
 ' Potz ! You shall find two hundred in the hotels, ugly and 
 fair ; but the two fairest are gone this two hours.' 
 
 ' When ? which ? ' cries Stangrave, suspecting at once.
 
 384 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Sabina Mellot, and a Sultana. I thought her of The Nation, 
 and would have offered my hand on the spot ; but Madame 
 Mellot says she is a Gentile.' 
 
 ' Gone ? And you have seen them ? Where ? ' 
 
 ' To Bertrich. They had luncheon with my mother, and then 
 started by private post.' 
 
 ' I must follow.' 
 
 ' Ach lieber ? But it will be dark in an hour.' 
 
 ' What matter ? ' 
 
 ' But you shall find them to-morrow, just as well as to-day. 
 They stay at Bertrich for a fortnight more. They have been 
 there now a month, and only left it last week for a pleasure 
 tour, across to the Ahrthal, and so back by Andernach.' 
 
 ' Why did they leave Coblentz, then, in such hot haste 1 ' 
 
 'Ah, the ladies never give reasons. There were letters 
 waiting for them at our house ; and no sooner read, but they 
 leaped up, and would forth. Come home now, and go by the 
 steamer to-morrow morning.' 
 
 ' Impossible ! most hospitable of Israelites.' 
 
 ' To go to-night for see the clouds ! Not a postilion will 
 dare to leave Coblentz, under that quick-coming allgemein und 
 ungeheuer henker-hund-und-teufeVs-gewitter' 
 
 Stangrave looked up, growling ; and gave in. A Rhine-storm 
 was rolling up rapidly. 
 
 'They will be caught in it.' 
 
 ' No. They are far beyond its path by now ; while you shall 
 endure the whole visitation ; and if you try to proceed, pass the 
 night in a flea-pestered post-house, or in a ditch of water.' 
 
 So Stangrave went home with Herr Salomon, and heard from 
 him, amid clouds of Latakia, of wars and rumours of wars, dis- 
 tress of nations, and perplexity, seen by the light, not of the 
 gospel, but of the stock-exchange ; while the storm fell without 
 in lightning, hail, rain, of right Rhenish potency. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 WE must go back a week or so, to England, and to the last day 
 of September. The world is shooting partridges, and asking 
 nervously, when it comes home, what news from the Crimea ? 
 The flesh who serves it is bathing at Margate. The devil is 
 keeping up his usual correspondence with both. Eaton Square 
 is a desolate wilderness, where dusty sparrows alone disturb the 
 dreams of frowzy charwomen, who, like Anchorites amid the 
 tombs of the Thebaid, fulfil the contemplative life eacli in her 
 subterranean cell. Beneath St. Peter's spire the cabman sleeps 
 within his cab, the horse without ; the waterman, seated on his
 
 xxiv THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER 385 
 
 empty bucket, contemplates the untrodden pavement between 
 his feet, and is at rest. The blue butcher's boy trots by, with 
 empty cart, five miles an hour, instead of full fifteen, and stops 
 to chat with the red postman, who, his occupation gone, smokes 
 with the green gatekeeper, and reviles the Czar. Along the 
 whole north pavement 01 the square only one figure moves, and 
 that is Major Campbell. 
 
 His face is haggard and anxious ; he walks with a quick, 
 excited step ; earnest enough, whoever else is not. For in front 
 of Lord Scoutbush's house the road is laid with straw. There is 
 sickness there, anxiety, bitter tears. Lucia has not found her 
 husband, but she has lost her child. 
 
 Trembling, Campbell raises the muffled knocker, and Bowie 
 appears. ' What news to-day ? ' he whispers. 
 
 'As well as can be expected, sir, and as quiet as a lamb now, 
 they say. But it has been a bad time, and a bad man is he that 
 caused it.' 
 
 'A bad time, and a bad man. How is Miss St. Just ?' 
 
 'Just gone to lie down, sir. Mrs. Clara is on the stairs, if 
 you'd like to see her.' 
 
 ' No ; tell Miss St. Just that I have no news yet.' And the 
 major turns wearily away. 
 
 Clara, who has seen him from above, hurries down after him 
 into the street, and coaxes him to come in. ' I am sure you 
 have had no breakfast, sir ; and you look so ill and worn. And 
 Miss St. Just will be so vexed not to see you. She will get up 
 the moment she hears you are here.' 
 
 'No, my good Miss Clara,' says Campbell, looking down with 
 a weary smile. ' I should only make gloom more gloomy. 
 Bowie, tell his lordship that I shall be at the afternoon train 
 to-morrow, let what will happen.' 
 
 ' Ay, ay, sir. We're a' ready to march. The major looks very 
 ill, Miss Clara. I wish he'd have taken your counsel. And I 
 wish ye'd take mine, and marry me ere I march, just to try 
 what it's like.' 
 
 ' I must mind my mistress, Mr. Bowie,' says Clara. 
 
 'And how should I interfere with that, as I've said twenty 
 times, when I'm safe in the Crimea ? I'll get the licence this 
 day, say what ye will ; and then ye would not have the 
 heart to let me spend two pounds twelve and sixpence for 
 nothing.' 
 
 Whether the last most Caledonian argument conquered or 
 not, Mr. Bowie got the licence, was married before breakfast 
 the next morning, and started for the Crimea at four o'clock in 
 the afternoon ; most astonished, as he confided in the train to 
 Sergeant MacArthur, 'to see a lassie that never gave him a kind 
 word in her life, and had not been married but barely six hours, 
 greet and greet at his going, till she vanished away into 
 hystericals. They're a very unfathomable species, sergeant, are 
 2 C r. Y. A.
 
 386 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 they women ; and if they were taken out o' man, they took 
 the best part o' Adam wi' them, and left us to shift with the 
 worse.' 
 
 But to return to Campbell. The last week has altered him 
 frightfully. He is no longer the stern, self -possessed warrior 
 which he was ; he no longer even walks upright ; his cheek is 
 pale, his eye dull ; his whole countenance sunken together. 
 And now that the excitement of anxiety is past, he draws his 
 feet along the pavement slowly, his hands clasped behind him, 
 his eyes fixed on the ground, as if the life was gone from out of 
 him, and existence was a heavy weight. 
 
 ' She is safe, at least, then ! One burden off my mind. And 
 yet had it not been better if that pure spirit had returned to 
 Him who gave it, instead of waking again to fresh misery 1 I 
 must find that man ! Why, I have been saying so to myself for 
 seven days past, and yet no ray of light. Can the coward have 
 given me a wrong address ? Yet why give me an address at all 
 if he meant to hide from me 1 Why, 1 have been saying that, 
 too, to myself every day for the last week ! Over and over 
 again the same round of possibilities and suspicions. However, 
 I must be quiet now, if I am a man. I can hear nothing before 
 the detective conies at two. How to pass the weary, weary 
 time ? For I am past thinking almost past praying though 
 not quite, thank God ! ' 
 
 He paces up still noisy Piccadilly, and then up silent Bond 
 Street ; pauses to look at some strange fish on Groves's counter 
 anything to while away the time ; then he plods on toward 
 the top of the street, and turns into Mr. Pillischer's shop, and 
 upstairs to the microscopic club-room. There, at least, he can 
 forget himself for an hour. 
 
 He looks round the neat pleasant little place, with its cases of 
 curiosities, and its exquisite photographs, and bright brass in- 
 struments ; its glass vases stocked with delicate water-plants 
 and animalcules, with the sunlight gleaming through the green 
 and purple seaweed fronds, while the air is fresh and fragrant 
 with the seaweed scent ; a quiet, cool little hermitage of science 
 amid that great, noisy, luxurious west-end world. At least, it 
 brings back to him the thought of the summer sea, and Aber- 
 alva, and his shore-studies : but he cannot think of that any 
 more. It is past ; and may God forgive him ! 
 
 At one of the microscopes on the slab opposite him stands a 
 sturdy bearded man, his back toward the major ; while the wise 
 little German, hopeless of customers, is leaning over him in his 
 shirt sleeves. 
 
 'But I never have seen its like; it had just like a painter's 
 easel in its stomach yesterday ! ' 
 
 ' Why, it's an Echinus Larva ; a sucking sea-urchin ! Hang 
 it, if I had known you hadn't seen one, I'd have brought up 
 half a dozen of them ! '
 
 xxiv THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER 387 
 
 ' May I look, sir ? ' asked the major ; ' I, too, never have seen 
 an Echinus Larva.' 
 
 The bearded man looks up. 
 
 ' Major Campbell ! ' 
 
 ' Mr. Thurnall ! I thought I could not be mistaken in the 
 voice.' 
 
 ' This is too pleasant, sir, to renew our watery loves together 
 here,' said Tom : but a second look at the major's face showed 
 him that he was in no jesting mood. ' How is the party at 
 Beddgelert 1 I fancied you with them still.' 
 
 ' They are all in London, at Lord Scoutbush's house, in Eaton 
 Square.' 
 
 ' In London, at this dull time ? I trust nothing unpleasant 
 has brought them here.' 
 
 ' Mrs. Vavasour is very ill. We had thoughts of sending for 
 you, as the family physical! was out of town : but she was out 
 of danger, thank God, in a few hours. Now let me ask in turn 
 after you. I hope no unpleasant business brings you up three 
 hundred miles from your practice ? ' 
 
 ' Nothing, I assure you. Only I have given up my Aberalva 
 practice. I am going to the East.' 
 
 ' Like the rest of the world.' 
 
 ' Not exactly. You go as a dignified soldier of her Majesty's ; 
 I as an undignified Abel Drugger, to dose Bashi-Bazouks.' 
 
 ' Impossible ! and with such an opening as you had there ! 
 You must excuse me ; but my opinion of your prudence must 
 not be so rudely shaken.' 
 
 'Why do you not ask the question which Balzac's old Touran- 
 geois judge asks, whenever a culprit is brought before him, 
 "Who is she?"' 
 
 ' Taking for granted that there was a woman at the bottom of 
 every mishap ? I understand you,' said the major, with a sad 
 smile. ' Now let you and I walk a little together, and look at 
 the Echinoid another day or when I return from Sevasto- 
 pol- 
 Tom went out with him. A new ray of hope had crossed the 
 major's mind. His meeting with Thurnall might be provi- 
 dential ; for he recollected now, for the first time, Mellot's 
 parting hint. 
 
 ' You knew Elsley Vavasour well ? ' 
 
 ' No man better.' 
 
 ' Did you think that there was any tendency to madness in 
 him r 
 
 ' No more than in any other selfish, vain, irritable man, with 
 a strong imagination left to run riot.' 
 
 ' TT umph ! you seem to have divined his character. May I 
 ask if you knew him l>efore you met him at Aberalva?' 
 
 Tom looked up sharply in the major's face. 
 
 ' You would ask, what cause I have for inquiring 1 I will
 
 388 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 tell you presently. Meanwhile I may say, that Mellot told me 
 frankly that you had some power over him ; and mentioned, 
 mysteriously, a name John Briggs, I think which it appears 
 that he once assumed.' 
 
 ' If Mellot thought fit to tell you anything, I may frankly tell 
 you all. John Briggs is his real name. I have known him from 
 childhood.' And then Tom poured into the ears of the surprised 
 and somewhat disgusted major all he had to tell. 
 
 'You have kept your secret mercifully, and used it wisely, 
 sir ; and I and others shall be always your debtors for it. Now 
 I dare tell you in turn, in strictest confidence of course - 
 
 'I am far top poor to afford the luxury of babbling.' 
 
 And the major told him what we all know. 
 
 'I expected as much,' said he drily. ' Now, I suppose that 
 you wish me to exert myself in finding the man 1 ' 
 
 'I do.' 
 
 ' Were Mrs. Vavasour only concerned, I should say Not I ! 
 Better that she should never set eyes on him again.' 
 
 ' Better, indeed ! ' said he bitterly : ' but it is I who must see 
 him, if but for five minutes. I must ! ' 
 
 ' Major Campbell's wish is a command. Where have you 
 searched for him ? ' 
 
 ' At his address, at his publisher's, at the houses of various 
 literary friends of his, arid yet no trace.' 
 
 ' Has he gone to the Continent 1 ' 
 
 ' Heaven knows ! I have inquired at every passport office 
 for news of any one answering his description ; indeed, I have 
 two detectives, I may tell you, at this moment, watching every 
 possible place. There is but one hope, if he be alive. Can he 
 have gone home to his native town 1 ' 
 
 ' ' Never ! Anywhere but there.' 
 
 'Is there any old friend of the lower class with whom he may 
 have taken lodgings ? ' 
 
 Tom pondered. 
 
 'There was a fellow, a noisy blackguard, whom Briggs was 
 asking after this very summer a fellow who went off from 
 Whitbury with some players. I know Briggs used to go to the 
 theatre with him as a boy what was his name? He tried 
 acting, but did not succeed ; and then became a scene-shifter, 
 or something of the kind, at the Adelphi. He has some com- 
 plaint, I forget what, which made him an out-patient at St. 
 Mumpsimus's, some months every year. I know that he was 
 there this summer, for I wrote to ask, at Briggs's request, and 
 Briggs sent him a sovereign through me. 
 
 ' But what makes you fancy that he can have taken shelter 
 with such a man, and one who knows his secret ? ' 
 
 ' It is but a chance : but he may have done it from the mere 
 feeling of loneliness just to hold by some one whom he knows 
 in this great wilderness ; especially a man in whose eyes he will
 
 xxiv THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER 389 
 
 be a great man, and to whom he has done a kindness ; still, it is 
 the merest chance.' 
 
 'We will take it, nevertheless, forlorn hope though it 
 be.' 
 
 They took a cab to the hospital, and, with some trouble, got 
 the man's name and address, and drove in search of him. They 
 had some difficulty in landing his abode, for it was up an alley 
 at the back of Drury Lane, in the top of one of those foul old 
 houses which hold a family in every room ; but, by dint of 
 knocking at one door and the other, and bearing meekly much 
 reviling consequent thereon, they arrived, l j>er modvm tollendi,' 
 at a door which must be the right one, as all the rest were 
 wrong. 
 
 ' Does John Barker live here 1 ' asks Thurnall, putting his 
 head in cautiously for fear of drunken Irishmen, who mignt be 
 seized with the national impulse to ' slate ' him. 
 
 ' What's that to you ? ' answers a shrill voice from among 
 soapsuds and steaming rags. 
 
 ' Here is a gentleman wants to speak to him.' 
 
 ' So do a many as won't have that pleasure, and would be 
 little the better for it if they had. Get along witli you, I knows 
 your lay.' 
 
 'We really want to speak to him, and to pay him, if he 
 will ' 
 
 'Go along ! I'm up to the something -to -your -ad vantage 
 dodge, and to the mustachio dodge too. Do you fancy I don't 
 know a bailiff, because he's dress'd like a swell 1 ' 
 
 ' But, my good woman ! ' said Tom, laughing. 
 
 ' You put your crocodile foot in here, and I'll hit the hot 
 water over the both of you ! ' and she caught up the pan of 
 soapsuds. 
 
 ' My dear soul ! I am a doctor belonging to the hospital 
 which your husband goes to ; and have known him since he was 
 a boy, down in Berkshire.' 
 
 ' You ? ' and she looked keenly at him. 
 
 ' My name is Thurnall. I was a medical man once in Whit- 
 bury, where your husband was born.' 
 
 'You?' said she again, in a softened tone. 'I knows that 
 name well enough.' 
 
 'You do? What was your name, then?' said Tom, who 
 recognised the woman's Berkshire accent beneath its coat of 
 cockneyism. 
 
 ' Never you mind : I'm no credit to it, so I'll let it be. But 
 come in, for the old county's sake. Can't offer you a chair, he's 
 pawned 'em all. Pleasant old place it was down there, when I 
 was a young girl ; they say it's growed a grand place now, wi' a 
 railroad. I think many times I'd like to go down and die 
 there.' She spoke in a rough, sullen, careless tone, as if life- 
 weary.
 
 390 TWO YEARS AOO CHAP. 
 
 ' My good woman,' said Major Campbell, a little impatiently, 
 ' can you find your husband for us ? ' 
 
 ' Why, then ? ' asked she sharply, her suspicion seeming to 
 return. 
 
 'If he will answer a few questions, I will give him five 
 shillings. If he can find out for me what I want, I will give 
 him five pounds.' 
 
 ' Shouldn't I do as well ? If you gi' it he, it's little out of it 
 I shall see, but he coming home tipsy when it's spent. Ah, 
 dear ! it was a sad day for me when I first fell in with they 
 play-goers ! ' 
 
 ' Why should she not do it as well ? ' said Thurnall. ' Mrs. 
 Barker, do you know anything of a person named Briggs John 
 Briggs, the apothecary's son, at Whitbury ? ' 
 
 She laughed a harsh bitter laugh. 
 
 'Know he? yes, and too much reason. That was where it 
 all begun, along of that play-going of he's and my master's.' 
 
 ' Have you seen him lately 1 ' asked Campbell eagerly. 
 
 ' I seen 'un 1 I'd hit this water over the fellow, and all his 
 play-acting merryandrews, if ever he sot a foot here ! ' 
 
 ' But have you heard of him 1 ' 
 
 'Ees ' said she carelessly ; ' he's round here now, I heard 
 
 my master say, about the 'Delpliy, with my master : a drinking, 
 I suppose. No good, I'll warrant.' 
 
 ' My good woman,' said Campbell, panting for breath, ' bring 
 me face to face with that man, and I'll put a five-pound note in 
 your hand there and then.' 
 
 'Five pounds is a sight to me ; but it's a sight more than the 
 sight of he's worth,' said she suspiciously again. 
 
 'That's the gentleman's concern,' said Tom. 'The money's 
 yours. I suppose you know the worth of it by now ? ' 
 
 ' Ees, none better. But I don't want he to get hold of it ; 
 he's made away with enough already ; ' and she began to think. 
 
 ' Curiously impassive people, we Wessex worthies, when we 
 are a little ground down with trouble. You must give her time, 
 and she will do our work. She wants the money, but she is long 
 past being excited at the prospect of it.' 
 
 ' What's that you're whispering ? ' asked she sharply. 
 
 Campbell stamped with impatience. 
 
 ' You don't trust us yet, eh 1 then, there ! ' and lie took five 
 sovereigns from his pocket, and tossed them on the table. 
 'There's your money! I trust you to do the work, as you've 
 been paid beforehand.' 
 
 She caught up the gold, rang every piece on the table to see 
 if it was sound ; and then 
 
 'Sally, you go down with these gentlemen to the Jonson's 
 Head, and if he ben't there, go to the Fighting Cocks ; and if he 
 ben't there, go to the Duke of Wellington ; and tell he there's 
 two gentlemen has heard of his poetry, and wants to hear 'un
 
 xxiv THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER 391 
 
 excite. And then you give he a glass of liquor, and praise up 
 his nonsense, and he'll tell you all he knows, and a sight more. 
 Gi' 'un plenty to drink. It'll be a saving and a charity, for if he 
 don't get it out of you, he will out of me.' 
 
 And she returned doggedly to her washing. 
 
 ' Can't I do anything for you ? ' asked Tom, whose heart 
 always yearned over a Berkshire soul. ' I have plenty of friends 
 down at Whitbury still.' 
 
 ' More than I have. No, sir,' said she sadly, and with the 
 first touch of sweetness they had yet heard in her voice. ' I've 
 cured my own bacon, and I must eat it. There's none down 
 there minds me, but them that would be ashamed of me. And 
 I couldn't go without he, and they wouldn't take he in ; so I 
 must just bide.' And she went on washing. 
 
 'God help her ! ' said Campbell, as he went down- 
 stairs. 
 
 ' Misery breeds that temper, and only misery, in our people. 
 I can show you as thorough gentlemen and ladies, people round 
 Whitbury, living on ten shillings a week, as you will show me 
 in Belgravia living on five thousand a year.' 
 
 'I don't doubt it,' said Campbell. ... 'So "she couldn't go 
 without he," drunken dog as he is ! Thus it is with them all the 
 world over.' 
 
 ' So much the worse for them,' said Tom cynically, ' and for 
 the men too. They make fools of us first with our over-fondness 
 of them ; and then they let us make fools of ourselves with their 
 over-fondness of us.' 
 
 'I fancy sometimes that they were all meant to be the 
 mates of angels, and stooped to men as a jris aUer ; reversing 
 the old story of the sons of heaven and the daughters of 
 men.' 
 
 ' And accounting for the present degeneracy. When the sons 
 of heaven married the daughters of men, their offspring were 
 giants and men of renown. Xow the sons of men marry the 
 daughters of heaven, and the offspring is Wiggle, Waggle, Wind- 
 bag, and Iledtape.' 
 
 They visited one public-house after another, till the girl found 
 for them the man they wanted, a shabby, sodden- visaged fellow, 
 with a would-l>e jaunty air of conscious shrewdness and vanity, 
 who stood l>efore the bar, his thumbs in his armholes, and laying 
 down the law to a group of coster-boys, for want of a better 
 audience. 
 
 The girl, after sundry plucks at his coat-tail, stopped him in 
 the midst of his oration, and explained her errand somewhat 
 fearfully. 
 
 Mr. Barker bent down his head on one side, to signify that 
 he was absorbed in attention to her news ; and then drawing 
 himself up once more, lifted his greasy hat high in air, bowed to 
 the A'ery floor, and broke forth
 
 392 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Most potent, grave, anil reverend signiors : 
 A man of war, and eke a man of peace 
 That is, if you come peaceful ; and if not, 
 Have we not Hiren liere ? ' 
 
 And the fellow put himself into a fresh attitude. 
 
 'We come in peace, my good sir,' said Tom ; 'first to listen 
 to your talented effusions, and next for a little private conver- 
 sation on a subject on which ' but Mr. Barker interrupted 
 
 ' To listen, and to drink ? The muse is dry, 
 And Pegasus doth thirst for Hippocrene, 
 And fain would paint imbibe the vulgar call 
 Or hot or cold, or long or short Attendant ! ' 
 
 The bar girl, who knew his humour, came forward. 
 
 ' Glasses all round these noble knights will pay 
 Of hottest hot, and stifi'est stiff. Thou mark st me ? 
 Now to your quest ! ' 
 
 And he faced round with a third attitude. 
 
 ' Do you know Mr. Briggs 1 ' asked the straightforward 
 major. 
 
 He rolled his eyes to every quarter of the seventh sphere, 
 clapped his hand upon his heart, and assumed an expression of 
 angelic gratitude 
 
 ' My benefactor ! Were the world a waste, 
 A thistle-waste, ass-nibbled, goldfinch-pecked, 
 And all the men and women merely asses, 
 I still could lay this hand upon this heart 
 And cry, " Not yet alone ! 1 know a man 
 A man Jove-fronted, and Hyperion-curled 
 A gushing, flushing, blushing human heart ! " ' 
 
 ' As sure as you live, sir,' said Tom, ' if you won't talk honest 
 prose, I won't pay for the brandy -and- water.' 
 
 ' Base is the slave who pays, and baser prose 
 Hang uninspired patter ! Tis in verse 
 That angels praise, and fiends in Limbo curse. ' 
 
 And asses bray, I think,' said Tom, in despair. ' Do you 
 know where Mr. Briggs is now 1 ' 
 
 ' And why the devil do you want to know ? 
 For that's a verse, sir, although somewhat slow. ' 
 
 The two men laughed in spite of themselves. 
 'Better tell the fellow the plain truth,' said Campbell to 
 Thurnall. 
 
 ' Come out with us, and I will tell you.' And Campbell
 
 xxiv THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER 393 
 
 threw down the money, and led him off, after he had gulped 
 down his own brandy, and half Tom's beside. 
 
 1 What ? leave the nepenthe untasted ? ' 
 
 They took him out, and he tucked his arms through theirs, 
 and strutted down Drury Lane. 
 
 'The fact is, sir I speak to you, of course, in confidence, as 
 one gentleman to another- - 
 
 Air. Barker replied by a lofty and gracious bow. 
 
 'That his family are exceedingly distressed at his absence, 
 and his wife, who, as you may know, is a lady of high family, 
 dangerously ill ; and he cannot be aware of the fact. This 
 gentleman is the medical man of her family, and I I am an 
 intimate friend. We should esteem it, therefore, the very 
 greatest service if you would give us any information which 
 
 ' Weep no more, gentle shepherds, weep no more ; 
 For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, 
 Sunk though he be upon a garret floor, 
 With fumes of Morpheus' crown about his head.' 
 
 ' Fumes of Morpheus' crown ? ' asked Thurnall. 
 
 ' That crimson flower which crowns the sleepy god, 
 And sweeps the soul aloft, though flesh may nod. ' 
 
 ' He has taken to opium ! ' said Thurnall to the bewildered 
 major. 'What I should have expected.' 
 
 ' God help him ! we must save him out of that last lowest 
 deep ! ' cried Campbell. ' Where is he, sir ? ' 
 
 ' A vow ! a vow ! I have a vow in heaven ! 
 Why guide the hounds toward the trembling hare ? 
 Our Adonais hath drunk poison ; Oh ! 
 What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 
 Life's early cup with such a draught of woe ? ' 
 
 ' As I live, sir,' cried Campbell, losing his self-possession in 
 disgust at the fool ; 'you may rhyme your own nonsense as long 
 as you will, but you shan't quote the Adonais about that fellow 
 in my presence.' 
 
 Mr. Barker shook himself fiercely free of Campbell's .arm, and 
 faced round at him in a lighting attitude. Campbell stood eye- 
 ing him sternly, but at his wit's end. 
 
 'Mr. Barker,' said Tom blandly, 'will you have another glass 
 of brandy-and- water, or shall I call a policeman ?' 
 
 ' Sir,' sputtered he, speaking prose at last, ' this gentleman 
 has insulted me ! He has called my poetry nonsense, and my 
 friend a fellow. And blood shall not wipe out what liquor 
 may ! ' 
 
 The hint was sufficient : but ere he had drained another glass, 
 Mr. Barker was decidedly incapable of managing his affairs,
 
 394 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 much less theirs ; and became withal exceedingly quarrelsome, 
 returning angrily to the grievance of Briggs having been called 
 a fellow ; in spite of all their entreaties, he talked himself into 
 a passion, and at last, to Campbell's extreme disgust, rushed out 
 of the bar into the street. 
 
 ' This is too vexatious ! To have kept half an hour's company 
 with such an animal, and then to have him escape me after all ! 
 A just punishment on me for pandering to his drunkenness.' 
 
 Tom made no answer, but went quietly to the door, and 
 peeped out. 
 
 ' Pay for his liquor, major, and follow. Keep a few yards 
 behind me ; there will be less chance of his recognising us than 
 if he saw us both together.' 
 
 ' Why, where do you think he's going ? ' 
 
 ' Not home, I can see. Ten to one that he will go raging off 
 straight to Briggs, to put him on his guard against us. Just 
 like a drunkard's cunning it would be. There, he has turned up 
 that side street. Now follow me quick. Oh that he may only 
 keep his legs ! ' 
 
 They gained the bottom of that street before he had turned 
 out of it ; and so through another, and another, till they ran 
 him to earth in one of the courts out of St. Martin's Lane. 
 
 Into a doorway he went, and up a stair. Tom stood listening 
 at the bottom, till he heard the fellow knock at a door far above, 
 and call out in a drunken tone. Then he beckoned to Camp- 
 bell, and both, careless of what might follow, ran upstairs, 
 and pushing him aside, entered the room without ceremony. 
 
 Their chances of being on the right scent were small enough, 
 considering that, though every one was out of town, there were 
 a million and a half of people in London at that moment ; and, 
 unfortunately, at least fifty thousand who would have considered 
 Mr. John Barker a desirable visitor ; but somehow, in the ex- 
 citement of the chase, both had forgotten the chances against 
 them, and the probability that they would have to retire down- 
 stairs again, apologising humbly to some wrathful Joseph 
 Buggins, whose convivialities they might have interrupted. 
 But no ; Tom's cunning had, as usual, played him true ; and as 
 they entered the door, they beheld none other than the lost 
 Elsley Vavasour, alias John Briggs. 
 
 Major Campbell advanced bowing, hat in hand, with a cour- 
 teous apology on his lips. 
 
 It was a low lean-to garret ; there was a deal table and an 
 old chair in it, but no bed. The windows were broken ; the 
 paper hanging down in strips. Elsley was standing before the 
 empty fireplace, his hand in his bosom, as if lie had been startled 
 by the scuffle outside. He had not shaved for some days. 
 
 So much Tom could note ; but no more. He saw the glance 
 of recognition pass over Elsley's face, and that an ugly one. lie 
 saw him draw something from his bosom, and spring like a rat
 
 xxiv THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER 395 
 
 almost upon the table. A flash a crack. He had fired a pistol 
 full in Campbell's face. 
 
 Tom was startled, not at the thing, but that such a man 
 should have done it. He had seen souls, and too many, flit out 
 of the world by that same tiny crack, in Californian taverns, 
 Arabian deserts, Australian gullies. He knew all about that : 
 but he liked Campbell : and he breathed more freely the next 
 moment, when he saw him standing still erect, a quiet smile on 
 his face, and felt the plaster dropping from the wall upon his 
 own head. The bullet had gone over the major. All was right. 
 
 'He is not man enough for a second shot,' thought Tom 
 quietly, ' while the major's eye is on him.' 
 
 'I beg your pardon, Mr. vavasour,' he heard the major say, 
 in a gentle unmoved voice, 'for this intrusion. I assure you 
 that there is no cause for any anger on your part ; and I am 
 come to entreat you to forget and forgive any conduct of mine 
 which may have caused you to mistake either me or a lady 
 whom I am unworthy to mention.' 
 
 ' I am glad the beggar fired at him,' thought Tom. ' One 
 spice of danger, and he's himself again, and will overawe the 
 poor cur by mere civility. I was afraid of some abject methodist 
 parson humility, which would give the other party a handle.' 
 
 Elsley heard him with a stupefied look, like that of a trapped 
 wild beast, in which rage, shame, suspicion, and fear, were 
 mingled with the vacant glare of the opium-eater's eye. Then 
 his eye drooped beneath Campbell's steady gentle gaze, and he 
 looked uneasily round the room, still like a trapped wild beast, 
 as if for a hole to escape by ; then up again, but sidelong, at 
 
 ** rv in 
 
 Major Campbell. 
 
 ' I assure you, sir, on the word of a Christian and a soldier, 
 that you are labouring under an entire misapprehension. For 
 God's sake and Mrs. Vavasour's sake, come back, sir, to those 
 who will receive you with nothing but affection ! Your wife has 
 been all but dead ; she thinks of no one but you, asks for no one 
 but you ! In God's name, sir, what are you doing here, while a 
 wife who adores you is dying from your I do not wish to be 
 rude, sir, but. let me say at least neglect?' 
 
 Elsley looked at him still askance, puzzled, inquiring. Sud- 
 denly his great beautiful eyes opened to preternatural wideness, 
 as it trying to grasp a new thought. He started, shifted his 
 feet to and fro, his arms straight down by his sides, his fingers 
 clutching after something. Then he looked up hurriedly again 
 at Campbell ; and Thurnall looked at him also ; and his face 
 was as the face of an angel. 
 
 ' Miserable ass ! ' thought Tom ; ' if he don't see innocence in 
 that man's countenance, he wouldn't see it in his own 
 child's.' 
 
 Elsley suddenly turned his back to them, and thrust his hand 
 into his bosom. Now was Tom's turn.
 
 396 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 In a moment he had vaulted over the table, and seized 
 Elsley's wrist ere he could draw the second pistol. 
 
 ' No, my dear Jack,' whispered he quietly, ' once is enough in 
 a day ! ' 
 
 ' Not for him, Tom, for myself ! ' moaned Elsley. 
 
 ' For neither, dear lad ! Let bygones be bygones, and do you 
 be a new man, and go home to Mrs. Vavasour.' 
 
 ' Never, never, never, never, never, never ! ' shrieked Elsley 
 like a baby, every word increasing in intensity, till the whole 
 house rang ; and then threw himself into the crazy chair, and 
 dashed his head between his hands upon the table. 
 
 'This is a case for me, Major Campbell. I think you had 
 better go now.' 
 
 ' You will not leave him ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir. It is a very curious psychological study, and he is 
 a Whitbury man.' 
 
 Campbell knew quite enough of the would-be cynical doctor, 
 to understand what all that meant. He came up to Elsley. 
 
 ' Mr. Vavasour, I am going to the war, from which I expect 
 never to return. If you believe me, give me your hand before 
 I go.' 
 
 Elsley, without lifting his head, beat on the table with his 
 hand. 
 
 ' I wish to die at peace with you and all the world. I am 
 innocent in word, in thought. I shall not insult another 
 person by saying that she is so. If you believe me, give me 
 your hand.' 
 
 Elsley stretched his hand, his head still buried. Campbell 
 took it, and went silently downstairs. 
 
 'Is he gone ?' moaned he, after a while. 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' Does she does she care for him ? ' 
 
 ' Good heavens ! How did you ever dream sucli an ab- 
 surdity ? ' 
 
 Elsley only beat upon the table. 
 
 ' She has been ill 1 ' 
 
 ' Is ill. She has lost her child.' 
 
 ' Which ? ' shrieked Elsley. 
 
 ' A boy whom she should have had." 
 
 Elsley only beat on the table ; then 
 
 ' Give me the bottle, Tom ! ' 
 
 'What bottle?' 
 
 ' The laudanum ; there, in the cupboard.' 
 
 ' I shall do no such thing. You are poisoning yourself.' 
 
 ' Let me, then ! I must, I tell you ! I can live on nothing 
 else. I shall go mad if I do not have it. I should have been 
 mad by now. Nothing else keeps off these lits ; I feel one 
 coming now. Curse you ! give me the bottle ! ' 
 
 'What fits?'
 
 xxiv THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER 397 
 
 ' How do I know ? Agony and torture ever since I got wet 
 on that mountain.' 
 
 Tom knew enough to guess his meaning, and felt Elsley's 
 pulse and forehead. 
 
 ' I tell you it turns every bone to red-hot iron ! ' almost 
 screamed he. 
 
 ' Neuralgia ; rheumatic, I suppose,' said Tom to himself. 
 'Well, this is not the thing to cure you ; but you shall have it 
 to keep you quiet.' And he measured him out a small dose. 
 
 ' More, I tell you, more ! ' said Elsley, lifting up his head, and 
 looking at it. 
 
 ' Not more while you are with me.' 
 
 ' With you ! Who the devil sent you here 1 ' 
 
 'John Briggs, John Briggs, if I did not mean you good, 
 should I be here now ? Now do, like a reasonable man, tell me 
 what you intend to do.' 
 
 ' What is that to you, or any man ? ' said Elsley, writhing with 
 neuralgia. 
 
 ' No concern of mine, of course : but your poor wife you 
 must see her.' 
 
 ' I can't, I won't ! that is, not yet ! I tell you I cannot face 
 the thought of her, much less the sight of her, and her family 
 that Valentia ! I'd rather the earth should open and swallow 
 me ! Don't talk to me, I say ! ' 
 
 And hiding his face in his hands, he writhed with pain, while 
 Thurnall stood still patiently watching him, as a pointer dog 
 does a partridge. He had found his game, and did not intend 
 to lose it. 
 
 ' I am better now ; quite well ! ' said he, as the laudanum 
 began to work. ' Yes ! I'll go that will be it go to ... at 
 once. He'll give me an order for a magazine article ; I'll earn 
 ten pounds, and then off to Italy.' 
 
 ' If you want ten pounds, my good fellow, you can have them 
 without racking your brains over an article.' 
 
 Elsley looked up proudly. 
 
 ' I do not borrow, sir ! ' 
 
 'Well I'll give you five for those pistols. They are of no 
 use to you, and I shall want a spare brace for the East.' 
 
 'Ah ! I forgot them. I spent my last money on them,' 
 said he with a shudder ; ' but I won't sell them to you at a 
 fancy price no dealings between gentleman and gentleman. 
 I'll go to a shop, and get for them what they are worth.' 
 
 ' Very good. I'll go with you, if you like. I fancy I may 
 get you a better price for them than you would yourself : being 
 rather a knowing one about the pretty little barkers.' And 
 Tom took his arm, and walked him quietly down into the 
 street. 
 
 ' If you ever go up those kennel-stairs again, friend,' said he 
 to himself, 'my name's not Tom Thurnall.'
 
 398 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 They walked to a gunsmith's shop in the Strand, where Tom 
 had often dealt, and sold the pistols for some three pounds. 
 ' Now then, let's go into 333, and get a mutton chop.' 
 
 r'No.' 
 
 Elsley was too shy ; he was ' not fit to be seen.' 
 
 ' Come to my rooms, then, in the Adelphi, and have a wash 
 and a shave. It will make you as fresh as a lark again, 
 and then we'll send out for the eatables, and have a quiet 
 chat.' 
 
 Elsley did not say no. Thurnall took the thing as a matter 
 of course, and he was too weak and tired to argue with him. 
 Beside, there was a sort of relief in the company of a man who, 
 though lie knew all, chatted on to him cheerily and quietly, 
 as if nothing had happened ; who at least treated him as a sane 
 man. From any one else he would have shrunk, lest they 
 should find him out : but a companion, who knew the worst, 
 at least saved him suspicion and dread. His weakness, now 
 that the collapse after passion had come on, clung to any human 
 friend. The very sound of Tom's clear sturdy voice seemed 
 pleasant to him, after long solitude and silence. At least it 
 kept off the fiends of memory. 
 
 Tom, anxious to keep Elsley's mind employed on some subject 
 which should not be painful, began chatting about the war and 
 its prospects. Elsley soon caught the cue, and talked with wild 
 energy and pathos, opium-fed, of the coming struggle between 
 despotism and liberty, the arising of Poland and Hungary, and 
 all the grand dreams which then haunted minds like his. 
 
 ' By Jove ! ' said Tom, ' you are yourself again now. Why 
 don't you put all that into a book ?' 
 
 ' I may, perhaps,' said Elsley proudly. 
 
 'And if it comes to that, why not come to the war, and see 
 it for yourself 1 A new country one of the finest in the world. 
 New scenery, new actors, why, Constantinople itself is a poem ! 
 Yes, there is another " lievolt of Islam " to be written yet. Why 
 don't you become our war poet ? Come and see the fighting ; 
 for there'll be plenty of it, let them say what they will. The 
 old bear is not going to drop his dead donkey without a snap 
 and a hug. Come along, and tell people what it's all really 
 like. There will be a dozen Cockneys writing battle songs, I'll 
 warrant, who never saw a man shot in their lives, not even 
 a hare. Come and give us the real genuine grit of it, for if 
 you can't, who can?' 
 
 ' It is a grand thought ! The true war poets, after all, have 
 been warriors themselves. Korner and Alcseus fought as well 
 as sang, and sang because they fought. Old Homer, too, who 
 can believe that he had not hewn his way through the very 
 battles which he describes, and seen every wound, every shape 
 of agony? A noble thought, to go out with that army against 
 the northern Anarch, singing in the van of battle, as Taillefer
 
 xxiv THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER 399 
 
 sang the song of Roland before William's knights, and to die 
 like him, the proto-martyr of the crusade, with the melody yet 
 upon one's lips ! ' 
 
 And his face blazed up with excitement. 
 
 ' What a handsome fellow lie is, after all, if there were but 
 more of him ! ' said Tom to himself. ' I wonder if he'd fight, 
 though, when the singing-fever was off him.' 
 
 He took Elsley upstairs into his bedroom, got him washed 
 and shaved, and sent out the woman of the house for mutton 
 chops and stout, and began himself setting out the luncheon 
 table, while Elsley in the room within chanted to himself 
 snatches of poetry. 
 
 ' The notion has taken ; he's composing a war song already, 
 I believe.' 
 
 It actually was so : but Elsley's brain was weak and wander- 
 ing ; and he was soon silent ; and motionless so long, that Tom 
 opened the door and looked in anxiously. 
 
 He was sitting on a chair, his hands fallen on his lap, the 
 tears running down his face. 
 
 ' Well ? ' asked Tom smilingly, not noticing the tears ; ' how 
 goes on the opera? I heard through the door the orchestra 
 tuning for the prelude.' 
 
 Elsley looked up in his face with a puzzled piteous expression. 
 
 ' Do you know, Thurnall, I fancy at moments that my mind 
 is not what it was. Fancies flit from me as quickly as they 
 come. I had twenty verses five minutes ago, ana now I cannot 
 recollect one.' 
 
 'No Avonder,' thought Tom to himself. 'My dear fellow, 
 recollect all that you have suffered with this neuralgia. Believe 
 me, all you want is animal strength. Chops and porter will 
 bring all the verses back, or better ones instead of them.' 
 
 He tried to make Elsley eat ; and Elsley tried himself : but 
 failed. The moment the meat touched his lips he loathed it, 
 and only courtesy prevented his leaving the room to escape the 
 smell. The laudanum had done its work upon his digestion. 
 He tried the porter, and drank a little : then, suddenly stopping, 
 he pulled out a phial, dropped a heavy dose of his poison into 
 the porter, and tossed it off. 
 
 'Sold, am I?' said Tom to himself. 'He must have hidden 
 the bottle as he came out of the room with me. Oh, the cunning 
 of those opium-eaters ! However, it will keep him quiet just 
 now, and to Eaton Square I must go.' 
 
 ' You had better be quiet now, my clear fellow, after your 
 dose ; talking will only excite you. Settle yourself on my bed, 
 and I'll be back in an hour.' 
 
 So he put Elsley on his bed, carefully removing razors and 
 pistols (for he had still his fears of an outburst of passion), then 
 locked him in, ran down into the Strand, threw himself into a 
 cab for Eaton Square, and asked for Valentia.
 
 400 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Campbell had been there already ; so Tom took care to tell 
 nothing which he had not told, expecting, and rightly, that he 
 would not mention Elsley's having fired at him. Lucia was still 
 all but senseless, too weak even to ask for Elsley ; to attempt 
 any meeting between her and her husband would be madness. 
 
 ' What will you do with the unhappy man, Mr. Thurnall 1 ' 
 
 'Keep him under my eye, day and night, till he is either 
 rational again, or 
 
 ' Do you think that he may ? Oh, my poor sister ! ' 
 
 ' I think that he may yet end very sadly, madam. There is 
 no use concealing the truth from you. All I can promise is, 
 that I will treat him as my own brother.' 
 
 Valentia held out her fair hand to the young doctor. He 
 stooped, and lifted the tips of her fingers to his lips. 
 
 ' I am not worthy of such an honour, madam. I shall study 
 to deserve it.' And he bowed himself out, the same sturdy, self- 
 confident Tom, doing right, he hardly knew why, save that it 
 was all in the way of business. 
 
 And now arose the puzzle, what to do with Elsley ? He had 
 set his heart on going down to Whitbury the next day. He had 
 been in England nearly six months, and had not yet seen his 
 father ; his heart yearned, too, after the old place, and Mark 
 Armsworth, and many an old friend, whom he might never see 
 again. ' However, that fellow I must see to, come what will : 
 business first and pleasure afterwards. If I make him all right 
 -if I even get him out of the world decently, I get the Scout- 
 bush interest on my side though I believe I have it already. 
 Still, it's as well to lay people under as heavy an obligation as 
 possible. I wish Miss Valentia had asked me whether Elsley 
 wanted any money : it's expensive keeping him myself. How- 
 ever, poor thing, she has other matters to think of ; and, I dare 
 say, never knew the pleasures of an empty purse. Here we are ! 
 Three-and-sixpence eh, cabman ? I suppose you think I was 
 born Saturday night ? There's three shillings. Now, don't chaff 
 me, my excellent friend, or you will find you have met your 
 match, and a leetle more ! ' 
 
 And Tom hurried into his rooms, and found Elsley still 
 sleeping. 
 
 He set to work, packing and arranging, for with him every 
 moment found its business ; and presently heard his patient call 
 faintly from the next room. 
 
 'Thurnall!' said he; 'I have been a long journey. I have 
 been to Whitbury once more, and followed my father about his 
 garden, and sat upon my mother's knee. And she taught me 
 one text, and no more. Over and over again she said it, as she 
 looked down at me with still sad eyes, the same text which she 
 spoke the day I left her for London. I never saw her again. 
 " By this, my son, be admonished ; of making of books there is 
 no end ; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us
 
 xxiv THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER 401 
 
 hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, and keep 
 His commandments ; for this is the whole duty of man." . . . 
 Yes, I will go down to Whitbury, and be a little child once more. 
 I will take poor lodgings, and crawl out day by day, down the 
 old lanes, along the old river-banks, where I fed my soul with 
 fair and mad dreams, and reconsider it all from the beginning ; 
 and then die. No one need know me ; and if they do, they 
 need not be ashamed of me, I trust ashamed that a poet has 
 risen up among them, to speak words which have been heard 
 across the globe. At least, they need never know my shame 
 never know that I have broken the heart of an angel, who gave 
 herself to me, body and soul attempted the life of a man wnose 
 shoes I am not worthy to unloose never know that I have 
 killed my own child ! that a blacker brand than Cain's is on 
 my brow ! Never know Oh, my God, what care I ? Let them 
 know all, as long as I can have done with shams and affecta- 
 tions, dreams, and vain ambitions, and be just my own self once 
 more for one day, and then die ! ' 
 
 And he burst into convulsive weeping. 
 
 ' No, Tom, do not comfort me ! I ought to die, and I shall 
 die. I cannot face her again ; let her forget me, and find a 
 husband who will and be a father to the children whom I 
 neglected ! Oh, my darlings, my darlings ! If I could but see 
 you once again : but no ! you too would ask me where I had 
 been so long. You too would ask me your innocent faces at 
 least would why I had killed your little brother! Let me 
 weep it out, Thurnall ; let me face it all ! This very misery is 
 a comfort, for it will kill me all the sooner.' 
 
 ' If you really mean to go to Whitbury, my poor dear fellow,' 
 said Tom at last, ' I will start with you to-morrow morning. 
 For I too must go ; I must see my father.' 
 
 'You will really?' asked Elsley, who began to cling to him 
 like a child. 
 
 ' I will indeed. Believe me, you are right ; you will find 
 friends there, and admirers too. I know one.' 
 
 ' You do 1 ' asked he, looking up. 
 
 ' Mary Armsworth, the banker's daughter.' 
 
 ' What ! That purse-proud, vulgar man ? ' 
 
 'Don't be afraid of him. A truer and more delicate heart 
 don't beat. No one has more cause to say so than I. He will 
 receive you with open arms, and need be told no more than is 
 necessary : while, as his friend, you may defy gossip, and do just 
 what you like.' 
 
 Tom slipped put that afternoon, paid Elsley 's pittance of rent 
 at his old lodgings ; bought him a few necessary articles, and 
 lent him, without saying any tiling, a few more. Elsley sat all 
 day as one in a dream, moaning to himself at intervals, and 
 following 1 Tom vacantly with his eyes, as he moved about the 
 room. Excitement, misery, and opium, were fast wearing out 
 
 2 D T. Y. A.
 
 402 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 body and mind, and Tom put him to bed that evening, as he 
 would have put a child. 
 
 Tom walked out into the Strand to smoke in the fresh air, 
 and think, in spite of himself, of that fair saint from whom he 
 was so perversely flying. Gay girls slithered past him, looked 
 round at him, but in vain ; those two great sad eyes hung in his 
 fancy, and he could see nothing else. All if she had but given 
 him back his money why, what a fool he would have made of 
 himself ! Better as it was. He was meant to be a vagabond 
 and an adventurer to the last ; and perhaps to find at last the 
 luck which had flitted away before him. 
 
 He passed one of the theatre doors ; there was a group out- 
 side, more noisy and more earnest than such groups are wont 
 to be ; and ere he could pass through them, a shout from 
 within rattled the doors with its mighty pulse, and seemed 
 to shake the very walls. Another ; and another ! What was 
 it? Fire? 
 
 No. It was the news of Alma. 
 
 And the group surged to and fro outside, and talked, and 
 questioned, and rejoiced ; and smart gents forgot their vulgar 
 pleasures, and looked for a moment as if they too could have 
 fought had fought at Alma ; and sinful girls forgot their 
 shame, and looked more beautiful than they had done for many 
 a day, as, beneath the flaring gas-light, their faces glowed for 
 a while with noble enthusiasm and woman's sacred pity, while 
 they questioned Tom, taking him for an oflicer, as to whether 
 he thought there were many killed. 
 
 ' I am no officer : but I have been in many a battle, and I 
 know the liussians well, and have seen how they fight ; and 
 there is many a brave man killed, and many a one more will be.' 
 
 'Oh, does it hurt them much?' asked one poor thing. 
 
 ' Not often,' quoth Tom. 
 
 ' Thank God, thank God ! ' and she turned suddenly away, 
 and with the impulsive nature of her class, burst into violent 
 sobbing and weeping. 
 
 Poor thing ! perhaps among the men who fought and fell 
 that day was he to whom she owed the curse of her young life ; 
 and after him her lonely heart went forth once more, faithful 
 even in the lowest pit. 
 
 ' You are strange creatures, women, women ! ' thought Tom : 
 'but I knew that many a year ago. Now then the game is 
 growing fast and furious, it seems. Oh, that I may find myself 
 soon in the thickest of it ! ' 
 
 So said Tom Thurnall ; and so said Major Campbell, too, that 
 night, as he prepared everything to start next morning to South- 
 ampton. 'The better the day, the better the deed,' quoth he. 
 'When a man is travelling to a better world, he need not be 
 afraid of starting on a Sunday.'
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 403 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 
 
 TOM and Elsley are safe at Whitbury at last ; and Tom, ere he 
 has seen his father, lias packed Elsley safe away in lodgings 
 with an old dame whom he can trust. Then he asks his way to 
 his father's new abode ; a small old-fashioned house, with low 
 bay windows jutting out upon the narrow pavement. 
 
 Tom stops, and looks in the window. His father is sitting 
 close to it, in his arm-chair, his hands upon his knees, his face 
 lifted to the sunlight, with chin slightly outstretched, and his 
 pale eyes feeling for the light. The expression would have 
 been painful, but for its perfect sweetness and resignation. 
 His countenance is not, perhaps, a strong one ; but its delicacy 
 .and calm, and the high forehead, and the long white locks, are 
 most venerable. With a blind man's exquisite sense, he feels 
 Tom's shadow fall on him, and starts, and calls him by name 
 for he has been expecting him, and thinking of nothing else all 
 the morning, and takes for granted that it must be he. 
 
 In another moment Tom is at his father's side.. What need 
 to describe the sacred joy of those first few minutes, even if it 
 were possible ? But unrestrained tenderness between man and 
 man, rare as it is, and, as it were, unaccustomed to itself, has 
 no passionate fluency, no metaphor or poetry, such as man pours 
 put to woman, and woman again to man. All its language lies 
 in the tones, the looks, the little half-concealed gestures, hints 
 which pass themselves oft' modestly in jest ; and such was Tom's 
 first interview with his father ; till the old Isaac, having felt 
 Tom's head and hands again and again, to be sure whether it 
 were his very son or no, made him sit down by him, holding 
 him still fast, and began 
 
 ' Now tell me, tell me, while Jane gets you something to eat. 
 No, Jane, you musn't talk to Master Tom yet, to bother about 
 how much he's grown ; nonsense, I must have him all to myself, 
 Jane. Go and get him some dinner. Now, Tom,' as if he was 
 afraid of losing a moment, 'you have been a dear boy to write 
 to me every week ; but there are so many questions which only 
 word of mouth will answer, and I have stored up dozens of 
 them ! I want to know what a coral reef really looks like, and 
 if you saw any trepangs upon them ? And what sort of strata 
 is the gold really in ? And you saw one of those giant rays ; I 
 want a whole hour's talk about the fellow. And what an old 
 babbler I am ! talking to you when you should lx) talking to 
 me. Now begin. Let us have the trepangs first. Are they 
 real Holothurians or not?' 
 
 And Tom began, and told for a full half-hour, interrupted then
 
 404 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 by some little comment of the old man's, which proved how 
 prodigious was the memory within, imprisoned and forced to 
 feed upon itself. 
 
 ' You seem to know more about Australia than I do, father,' 
 said Tom at last. 
 
 ' No, child ; but Mary Armsworth, God bless her ! comes 
 down here almost every evening to read your letters to me ; 
 and she has been reading to me a book of Mrs. Lee's Adven- 
 tures in Australia, which reads like a novel ; delicious book 
 to me at least. Why, there is her step outside, I do believe, and 
 her father's with her ! ' 
 
 The lighter woman's step was inaudible to Tom : but the 
 heavy, deliberate waddle of the banker was not. He opened 
 the house-door, and then the parlour-door, without knocking ; 
 but when he saw the visitor, he stopped on the threshold with 
 outstretched arms. 
 
 ' Hillo, ho ! who have we here 1 Our prodigal son returned, 
 with his pockets full of nuggets from the diggings. Oh, mum's 
 the word, is it ? ' as Tom laid his finger on his lips. ' Come 
 here, then, and let's have a look at you ! ' And he catches both 
 Tom's hands in his, and almost shakes them off. ' I knew you 
 were coming, old boy ! Mary told me she's in all the old man's 
 secrets. Come along, Mary, and see your old playfellow. She 
 has got a little fruit for the old gentleman. Mary, where are 
 you ? always colloguing with Jane.' 
 
 Mary comes in : a little dumpty body, with a yellow face, 
 and a red nose, the smile of an angel, and a heart full of many 
 little secrets of other people's and of one great one of her own, 
 which is no business of any man's and with fifty thousand 
 pounds as her portion, for she is an only child. But no man 
 will touch that fifty thousand ; for ' no one would marry me 
 for myself,' says Mary ; ' and no one shall marry me for my 
 money.' 
 
 So she greets Tom shyly and humbly, without looking in his 
 face, yet very cordially ; and then slips away to deposit on the 
 table a noble pine-apple. 
 
 'A little bit of fruit from her greenhouse,' says the old man 
 in a disparaging tone: 'and, oh Jane, bring me a saucer. 
 Here's a sprat I just capered out of Hemmelford mill-pit ; per- 
 haps the doctor would like it fried for supper, if it's big enough 
 not to fall through the gridiron.' 
 
 Jane, who knows Mark Armsworth's humour, brings in the 
 largest dish in the house, and Mark pulls out of his basket a 
 great three-pound trout. 
 
 'Aha ! my young rover ; old Mark's right hand hasn't forgot 
 its cunning, eh ? And this is the month for them ; fish all quiet 
 now. When fools go a-shooting, wise men go a-iishing ! Eli ? 
 Come here, and look me over. How do I wear, eh ? As like a 
 Muscovy duck as ever, you young rogue ? Do you recollect
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 405 
 
 asking me, at the Club dinner, why I was like a Muscovy duck 1 
 Because I was a fat thing in green velveteen, with a bald red 
 head, that was always waddling about the river bank. Ah, 
 those were days ! We'll have some more of them. Come up 
 to-night and try the old '21 bin.' 
 
 1 1 must have him myself to-night ; indeed I must, Mark,' 
 says the doctor. 
 
 ' All to yourself, you selfish old rogue ? ' 
 
 'Why no ' " 
 
 ' We'll come down, then, Mary and I, and bring the '21 with 
 us, and hear all his cock-and-bull stories. Full of travellers' 
 lies as ever, eh ? Well, I'll come and smoke my pipe with you. 
 Always the same old Mark, my lad,' nudging Tom with his 
 elbow ; ' one fellow comes and borrows my money, and goes out 
 and calls me a stingy old hunks because I won't let him cheat 
 me ; another comes, and eats my pines, and drinks my port, 
 goes home, and calls me a purse-proud upstart, because he can't 
 match 'em. Never mind ; old Mark's old Mark ; sound in the 
 heart, and sound in the liver, just the same as thirty years ago, 
 and will be till he takes his last quietus est 
 
 ' " And drops into his grassy uest. " 
 
 Bye, bye, doctor ! Come, Mary ! ' 
 
 And out he toddled, with silent little Mary at his heels. 
 
 ' Old Mark wears well, body and soul,' said Tom. 
 
 ' He is a noble, generous fellow, and as delicate-hearted as a 
 woman withal, in spite of his conceit and roughness. Fifty and 
 odd years now, Tom, have we been brothers, and I never found 
 him change. And brothers we shall be, I trust, a few years 
 more, till I see you back again from the East, comfortably 
 settled. And then ' 
 
 ' Don't talk of that, sir, please ! ' said Tom, quite quickly and 
 sharply. ' How ill poor Mary looks ! ' 
 
 ' So they say, poor child ; and one hears it in her voice. Ah, 
 Tom, that girl is an angel ; she has been to me daughter, doctor, 
 clergyman, eyes, and library ; and would have been nurse, too, if 
 it had not been for making old Jane jealous. But she is ill. 
 Some love affair, I suppose 
 
 ' How quaint it is, that the father has kept all the animal 
 vigour to himself, and transmitted none to the daughter.' 
 
 ' He has not kept the soul to himself, Tom, or the eyes either. 
 She will bring me in wild flowers, and talk to me about them, 
 till I fancy I can see them as well as ever. Ah, well ! It is 
 a sweet world still, Tom, and there are sweet souls in it. A 
 sweet world : I was too fond of looking at it once, I suppose, so 
 God took away my sight, that I might learn to look at Him.' 
 And the old man lay back in his chair, and covered his face 
 with his handkerchief, and was quite still awhile. And Tom
 
 406 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 watched hirn, and thought that he would give all his cunning 
 and power to be like that old rnan. 
 
 Then Jane came in, and laid the cloth a coarse one enough 
 and Tom picked a cold mutton bone with a steel fork, and 
 drank his pint of beer from the public-house, and lighted his 
 father's pipe and then Ids own, and vowed that he had never 
 dined so well in his life, and began his traveller's stories 
 again. 
 
 And in the evening Mark came in, with a bottle of the '21 in 
 his coat-tail pocket ; and the three sat and chatted, while Mary 
 brought out her work, and stitched, listening silently, till it was 
 time to lead the old man upstairs. 
 
 Tom put his father to bed, and then made a hesitating 
 request 
 
 ' There is a poor sick man whom I brought down witli me, 
 sir, if you could spare me half an hour. It really is a profes- 
 sional case ; he is under my charge, I may say.' 
 
 ' What is it, boy ? ' 
 
 ' Well, laudanum and a broken heart.' 
 
 'Exercise and ammonia for the lirst. For the second, God's 
 grace and the grave ; and those latter medicines you can't ex- 
 hibit, my dear boy. Well, as it is professional duty, I suppose 
 you must : but don't exceed the hour ; I shall lie awake till you 
 return, and then you must talk me to sleep.' 
 
 So Tom went out and homeward with Mark and Mary, for 
 their roads lay together ; and as he went, he thought good to 
 tell them somewhat of the history of John Briggs, alias Elsley 
 Vavasour. 
 
 ' Poor fool ! ' said Mark, who listened in silence to the end. 
 'Why didn't he mind his bottles, and just do what Heaven sent 
 him to do 1 Is he in want of the rhino, Tom 1 ' 
 
 ' He had not five shillings left after he had paid his fare ; and 
 he refuses to ask his wife for a farthing.' 
 
 ' Quite right very proper spirit.' And Mark walked on in 
 silence a few minutes. 
 
 'I say, Tom, a fool and his money are soon parted. There's 
 a five-pound note for him, you begging, insinuating dog, and be 
 hanged to you both ! I shall die in the workhouse at this rate.' 
 
 ' Oh, father, you will never miss 
 
 ' Who told you I thought I should, pray ? Don't you go 
 giving another five pounds out of your pocket-money behind 
 my back, ma'am. I know your tricks of old. Tom, I'll come 
 and see the poor beggar to-morrow with you, and call him Mr. 
 Vavasour Lord Vavasour, if he likes if you'll warrant me 
 against laughing in his face.' And the old man did laugh, till 
 he stopped and held his sides again. 
 
 'Oh, father, father, don't be so cruel. Ilemember how 
 wretched the poor man is.' 
 
 ' I can't think of anything but old Bolus's boy turned poet.
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 407 
 
 Why did you tell me, Tom, you bad fellow 1 It's too much for 
 a man at my time of life, and after his dinner too.' 
 
 And with that he opened the little gate by the side of the 
 grand one, and turned to ask Tom 
 
 ' Won't come in, boy, and have one more cigar ? ' 
 
 ' I promised my father to be back as quickly as possible.' 
 
 ' Good lad that's the plan to go on 
 
 ' "You'll be churchwarden before all's over, 
 And so arrive at wealth and fame." 
 
 Instead of writing po-o-o-etry ! Do you recollect that morning, 
 and the black draught 1 Oh dear, my side ! ' 
 
 And Tom heard him keckling to himself up the garden walk 
 to his house ; went off to see that Elsley was safe ; and then 
 home, and slept like a top ; no wonder, for he would have done 
 so the night before his execution. 
 
 And what was little Mary doing all the while 1 
 
 She had gone up to the room, after telling her father, with a 
 kiss, not to forget to say his prayers. And then she fed her 
 canary bird, and made up the Persian cat's bed ; and then sat 
 long at the open window, gazing out over the shadow-dappled 
 lawn, away to the poplars sleeping in the moonlight, and the 
 shining silent stream, and the shining silent stars, till she 
 seemed to become as one of them, and a quiet heaven within 
 her eyes took counsel with the quiet heaven above. And then 
 she drew in suddenly, as if stung by some random thought, and 
 shut the window. A picture hung over her mantelpiece a 
 portrait of her mother, who had been a country beauty in her 
 time. She glanced at it, and then at the looking-glass. Would 
 she have given her fifty thousand pounds to have exchanged 
 her face for such a face as that 1 
 
 She caught up her little Thomas a Kempis, marked through 
 and through with lines and references, and sat and read stead- 
 fastly for an hour and more. That was her school, as it has 
 been the school of many a noble soul. And, for some cause or 
 other, that stinging thought returned no more ; and she knelt 
 and prayed like a little child ; and like a little child slept 
 sweetly all the night, and was away before breakfast the next 
 morning, after feeding the canary and the cat, to old women 
 who worshipped her as their ministering angel, and said, 
 looking after her, l That dear Miss Mary, pity slie is so plain ! 
 Such a match as she might have made ! But she'll be handsome 
 enough when she is a blessed angel in heaven.' 
 
 Ah, true sisters of mercy, whom the world sneers at as ' old 
 maids,' if you pour out on cats and dogs .and parrots a little of 
 the love which is yearning to spend itself on children of your 
 own nesli and blood ! As long as such as you walk this lower 
 world, one needs no Butler's Analogy to prove to us that there
 
 408 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 is another world, where such as you will have a fuller and a 
 fairer (I dare not say a juster) portion. 
 
 Next morning Mark started with Tom to call on Elsley, 
 chatting and puffing all the way. 
 
 ' I'll butter him, trust me. Nothing comforts a poor beggar 
 like a bit of praise when he's down ; and all fellows that take 
 to writing are as greedy after it as trout after the drake, even if 
 they only scribble in county newspapers. I've watched them 
 when I've been electioneering, my boy ! ' 
 
 'Only,' said Tom, 'don't be angry with him if he is proud 
 and peevish. The poor fellow is all but mad with misery.' 
 
 ' Poh ! quarrel with him ? whom did I ever quarrel with 1 
 If he barks, I'll stop his mouth with a good dinner. I suppose 
 he's gentleman enough to invite ?' 
 
 ' As much a gentleman as you and I ; not of the very first 
 water, of course. Still, he eats like other people, and don't 
 break many glasses during a sitting. Think ! he couldn't have 
 been a very great cad to marry a nobleman's daughter ! ' 
 
 ' Why, no. Speaks well for him, that, considering his 
 breeding. He must be a very clever fellow to have caught the 
 trick of the thing so soon.' 
 
 'And so he is, a very clever fellow ; too clever by half ; and 
 a very fine-hearted fellow, too, in spite of his conceit and his 
 temper. But that don't prevent his being an awful fool ! ' 
 
 ' You speak like a book, Tom ! ' said old Mark, clapping him 
 on the back. ' Look at me ! no one can say I was ever troubled 
 with genius : but I can show my money, pay my way, eat my 
 dinner, kill my trout, hunt my hounds, help a lame dog over a 
 stile ' (which was Mark's phrase for doing a generous thing), 
 ' and thank God for all ; and who wants more, I should like to 
 know 1 But here we are you go up first ! ' 
 
 They found Elsley crouched up over the empty grate, his 
 head in his hands, and a few scraps of paper by him, on which 
 he had been trying to scribble. He did not look up as they 
 came in, but gave a sort of impatient half-turn, as if angry at 
 being disturbed. Tom was about to announce the banker ; but 
 he announced himself. 
 
 'Come to do myself the honour of calling on you, Mr. Vava- 
 sour. I am sorry to see you so poorly ; I hope our Whitbury 
 air will set all right.' 
 
 ' You mistake me, sir ; my name is Briggs ! ' said Elsley, 
 without turning his head ; but a moment after he looked up 
 angrily. 
 
 ' Mr. Armsworth ? I beg your pardon, sir ; but what brings 
 you here 1 Are you come, sir, to use the rich successful man's 
 right, and lecture me in my misery?' 
 
 ' Ton my word, sir, you must have forgotten old Mark 
 Armsworth, indeed, if you fancy him capable of any such dirt.
 
 xxv THE HANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 409 
 
 No, sir, I came to pay my respects to you, sir, hoping that 
 you'd come up and take a family dinner. I could do no less,' 
 ran on the banker, seeing that Elsley was preparing a peevish 
 answer, ' considering the honour that, I hear, you have been to 
 your native town. A very distinguished person, our friend Tom 
 tells me and we ought to be proud of you, and behave to you 
 as you deserve, for I am sure we don't send too many clever 
 fellows out of Whitbury.' 
 
 ' Would that you had never sent me ! ' said Elsley in his 
 bitter way. 
 
 ' Ah, sir, that's matter of opinion ! You would never have 
 been heard of down here, never have had justice done you, I 
 mean ; for heard of you have been. There's my daughter has 
 read your poems again and again always quoting them ; and 
 very pretty they sound too. Poetry is not in my line, of course ; 
 still, it's a credit to a man to do anything well, if he has the gift ; 
 and she tells me that you have it, and plenty of it. And though 
 she's no fine lady, thank Heaven, I'll back her for good sense 
 against any woman. Come up, sir, and judge for yourself if I 
 don't speak the truth ; she will be delighted to meet you, and 
 bade me say so.' 
 
 By this time good Mark had talked himself out of breath ; 
 and Elsley flushing up, as of old, at a little praise, began to 
 stammer an excuse. ' His nerves were so weak, and his spirits 
 so broken with late troubles.' 
 
 ' My dear sir, that's the very reason I want you to come. A 
 bottle of port will cure the nerves, and a pleasant chat the 
 spirits. Nothing like forgetting all for a little time ; and then 
 to it again with a fresh lease of strength, and beat it at last like 
 a man? 
 
 ' Too late, my dear sir ; I must pay the penalty of my own 
 folly,' said Elsley, really won by the man's cordiality. 
 
 ' Never too late, sir, while there's life left in us. And,' he 
 went on in a gentler tone, ' if we all were to pay for our own 
 follies, or lie down and die when we saw them coming full cry 
 at our heels, where would any one of us be by now ? I have 
 been a fool in my time, young gentleman, more than once or 
 twice ; and that too when I was old enough to be your father ; 
 and down I went, and deserved what I got : but my rule always 
 was Fight fair ; fall soft ; know when you've got enough ; and 
 don't cry out when you've got it: but just go home ; train again ; 
 and say better luck next fight.' And so old Mark's sermon 
 ended (as most of them did) in somewhat Socratic allegory, 
 savouring rather of the market than of the study ; but Elsley 
 understood him, and looked up with a smile. 
 
 'You too are somewhat of a poet in your way, I see, 
 sir ! ' 
 
 ' I never thought to live to hear that, sir. I can't doubt now 
 that you are cleverer than your neighbours, for you have found
 
 410 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 out something which they never did. But you will come ? for 
 that's my business.' 
 
 Elsley looked inquiringly at Tom ; he had learnt now to con- 
 sult his eye, and lean on him like a child. Tom looked a stout 
 yes, and Elsley said languidly 
 
 'You have given me so much new and good advice in a few 
 minutes, sir, that I must really do myself the pleasure of coming 
 and hearing more.' 
 
 4 Well done, our side ! ' cried old Mark. ' Dinner at half -past 
 five. No London late hours here, sir. Miss Armsworth will be 
 out of her mind when she hears you're coming.' 
 
 And off he went. 
 
 4 Do you think he'll come up to the scratch, Tom 1 ' 
 
 ' I am very much afraid his courage will fail him. I will 
 see him again, and bring him up with me : but now, my dear 
 Mr. Armsworth, do remember one thing ; that if you go on 
 with him at your usual rate of hospitality, the man will as 
 surely be drunk, as his nerves and brain are all but ruined ; 
 and if he is so, he will most probably destroy himself to-morrow 
 morning.' 
 
 4 Destroy himself ? ' 
 
 ' He will. The shame of making a fool of himself just now 
 before you will be more than he could bear. So be stingy for 
 once. He will not wish for it unless you press him ; but if he 
 talks (and he will talk after the first half-hour), he will forget 
 himself, and half a bottle will make him mad ; and then I won't 
 answer for the consequences.' 
 
 4 Good gracious ! why, these poets want as tender handling 
 as a bag of gunpowder over the fire.' 
 
 ' You speak like a book there in your turn.' And Tom went 
 home to his father. 
 
 He.returned in due time. A new difficulty had arisen. Elsley, 
 under the excitement of expectation, had gone out and deigned 
 to buy laudanum so will an unhealthy craving degrade a man ! 
 of old Bolus himself, who luckily did not recognise him. He 
 had taken his fullest dose, and was now unable to go anywhere 
 or do anything. Tom did not disturb him : but went away, 
 sorely perplexed, and very much minded to tell a white lie to 
 Armsworth, in whose eyes this would be an ofi'ence not un- 
 pardonable, for nothing with him was unpardonable, save lying 
 or cruelty but very grievous. If a man had drunk too much 
 wine -in his house, he would have simply kept his eye on him 
 afterwards, as a fool who did not know when he had his 
 'quotum' , but laudanum drinking involving, too, the break- 
 ing of an engagement, which, well managed, might have been of 
 immense use to Elsley was a very different matter. So Tom 
 knew not what to say or do ; and not knowing, determined to 
 wait on Providence, smartened himself as best he could, went 
 up to the great house, and found Miss Mary.
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 411 
 
 'I'll tell her. She will manage it somehow, if she is a 
 woman ; much more if she is an angel, as my father says.' 
 
 Mary looked very much shocked and grieved ; answered 
 hardly a word ; but said at last, ' Come in while I go and see 
 my father.' He came into the smart drawing-room, which he 
 could see was seldom used ; for Mary lived in her own room, 
 her father in his counting-house, or in his 'den.' In ten 
 minutes she came down. Tom thought she had been crying. 
 
 ' I have settled it. Poor unhappy man ! We will talk of 
 something more pleasant. Tell me about your shipwreck, and 
 that place Aberalva, is it not 1 What a pretty name ! ' 
 
 Tom told her, wondering then, and wondering long after- 
 wards, how she had ' settled it ' with her father. She chatted 
 on artlessly enough, till the old man came in, and to dinner, in 
 capital humour, without saying one word of Elsley. 
 
 ' How has the old lion been tamed ? ' thought Tom. ' The 
 two greatest affronts you could offer him in old times were, to 
 break an engagement, arid to despise his good cheer.' He did 
 not know what the quiet oil on the waters of such a spirit as 
 Mary's can effect. 
 
 The evening passed pleasantly enough till nine, in chatting 
 over old times, and listening to the history of every extra- 
 ordinary trout and fox which had been killed within twenty 
 miles, when the footboy entered with a somewhat scared face. 
 
 ' Please, sir, is Mr. Vavasour here ? ' 
 
 ' Here? Who wants him ? ' 
 
 ' Mrs. Brown, sir, in Hemmelford Street. Says he lodges 
 with her, and lias been to seek for him at Dr. Thurnall's.' 
 
 ' I think you had better go, Mr. Thurnall,' said Mary quietly. 
 
 'Indeed you had, boy. Bother poets, and the day they first 
 began to breed in Whitbury ! Such an evening spoilt ! Have 
 a cup of coffee ? No 1 then a glass of sherry ?' 
 
 Out went Tom. Mrs. Brown had been up, and seen him 
 seemingly sleeping then had heard him run downstairs hur- 
 riedly. He passed her in the passage, looking very wild. 
 'Seemed, sir, just like my nevy's wife's brother, Will Ford, 
 before he made away with hes'self.' 
 
 Tom goes off post haste, revolving many things in a crafty 
 heart. Then lie steers for Bolus's shop. Bolus is at ' The Angler's 
 Arms' ; but his assistant is in. 
 
 'Did a gentleman call here just now, in a long cloak, with a 
 felt wide-awake 1 ' 
 
 'Yes.' And the assistant looks confused enough for Tom 
 to rejoin 
 
 ' And you sold him laudanum ? ' 
 
 ' Why-all 
 
 'And you had sold him laudanum already this afternoon, you 
 young rascal ! How dare you, twice in six hours 1 I'll hold 
 you responsible for the man's life ! '
 
 412 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 ' You dare call me a rascal ? ' blusters the youth, terror-stricken 
 at finding how much Tom knows. 
 
 'I am a member of the College of Surgeons,' says Tom, 
 recovering his coolness, 'and have just been dining with Mr. 
 Armsworth. I suppose you know him 1 ' 
 
 The assistant shook in his shoes at the name of that terrible 
 justice of the peace and of the war also ; and meekly and con- 
 tritely he replied 
 
 ' Oh, sir, what shall I do ? ' 
 
 ' You're in a very neat scrape ; you could not have feathered 
 your nest better,' says Tom, quietly filling his pipe, and think- 
 ing. ' As you behave now, I will get you out or it, or leave you 
 to you know what, as well as I. Get your hat.' 
 
 He went out, and the youth followed trembling, while Tom 
 formed his plans in his mind. 
 
 ' The wild beast goes home to his lair to die, and so may he ; 
 for I fear it's life and deatli now. I'll try the house where he 
 was born. Somewhere in Water Lane it is, I know.' 
 
 And toward Water Lane he hurried. It was a low -lying 
 offshoot of the town, leading along the water-meadows, with a 
 straggling row of houses on each side, the perennial haunts of 
 fever and ague. Before them, on eacli side of the road, and 
 fringed with pollard willows and tall poplars, ran a tiny branch 
 of the Whit, to feed some mill below ; and spread out, mean- 
 while, into ponds and mires full of offal and duckweed and rank 
 floating grass. A thick mist hung knee-deep over them, and 
 over the gardens right and left ; and as Tom came down on the 
 lane from the main street above, he could see the mist spreading 
 across the water-meadows and reflecting the moon-beams like 
 a lake ; and as he walked into it, he felt as if lie were walking 
 down a well. And he hurried down the lane, looking out 
 anxiously ahead for the long cloak. 
 
 At last he came to a better sort of house. That might be it. 
 He would take the chance. There was a man of the middle class, 
 and two or three women, standing at the gate. He went up 
 
 ' Pray, sir, did a medical man named Briggs ever live here ? ' 
 
 ' What do you want to know for ? ' 
 
 ' Why ' Tom thought matters were too serious for delicacy 
 ' I am looking for a gentleman, and thought lie might have 
 come here.' 
 
 'And so he did, if you mean one in a queer hat and a 
 cloak.' 
 
 ' How long since 1 ' . 
 
 'Why, he came up our garden an hour or more ago ; walked 
 right into the parlour without with your leave, or by your leave, 
 and stared at us all round like one out of his mind ; and so 
 away, as soon as ever I asked him what he Avas at 
 
 'Which way?' 
 
 ' To the river, I expect : 1 ran out, and saw him go down the
 
 xxv THE BANKER AXD HIS DAUGHTER 413 
 
 lane, but I was not going far by night alone with any such 
 strange customers.' 
 
 ' Lend me a lanthorn, then, for Heaven's sake ! ' 
 
 The lanthorn is lent, and Torn starts again down the lane. 
 
 Now to search. At the end of the lane is a cross road parallel 
 to the river. A broad still ditch lies beyond it, with a little 
 bridge across, where one gets minnows for bait ; then a broad 
 water-meadow ; then silver Whit. 
 
 The bridge-gate is open. Tom hurries across the road to it. 
 The lanthorn shows him fresh footmarks going into the meadow. 
 Forward ! 
 
 Up and down in that meadow for an hour or more did Tom 
 and the trembling youth beat like a brace of pointer dogs, 
 stumbling into gripes, and over sleeping cows ; and more than 
 once stopping short just in time, as they were walking into 
 some broad and deep feeder. 
 
 Almost in despair, and after having searched down the river 
 bank for full two hundred yards, loin was on the point of 
 returning, when his eye rested on a part of the stream where 
 the mist lay higher than usual, and let the reflection of the 
 moonlight off the water reach his eye ; and in the moonlight 
 ripples, close to the farther bank of the river what was that 
 black lump ? 
 
 Tom knew the spot well ; the river there is very broad, and 
 very shallow, flowing round low islands of gravel and turf. It 
 was very low just now too, as it generally is in October ; there 
 could not be four inches of water where the black lump lay, but 
 on the side nearest him the water was full knee deep. 
 
 The thing, whatever it was, was forty yards from him ; and it 
 was a cold night for wading. It might be a hassock of rushes ; 
 a tuft of the great water-dock ; a dead clog ; one of the ' hangs ' 
 with which the club-water was studded, torn up and stranded : 
 but yet, to Tom, it had not a canny look. 
 
 'As usual! Here am I getting wet, dirty, and miserable, 
 about matters which are not the slightest concern of mine ! I 
 believe I shall end by getting hanged or shot in somebody else's 
 place, with this confounded spirit of meddling. Yah ! how cold 
 the water is ! ' 
 
 For in he went, the grumbling honest dog ; stepped across to 
 the black lump ; and lifted it up hastily enough for it was 
 Elsley Vavasour. 
 
 Drowned ? 
 
 No. But wet through, a:id senseless from mingled cold and 
 laudanum. 
 
 Whether he had meant to drown himself, and lighting on the 
 shallow, had stumbled on till he fell exhausted, or whether he 
 had merely blundered into the stream, careless whither he went, 
 Tom knew not, and never knew ; for Elsley himself could not 
 recollect.
 
 414 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Tom took him in his arms, carried him ashore and up through 
 the water-meadow ; borrowed a blanket and a wheelbarrow at 
 the nearest cottage ; wrapped him up ; and made the offending 
 surgeon's assistant wheel him to his lodgings. 
 
 He sat witli him there an hour ; and then entered Mark's 
 house again with his usual composed face, to find Mark and 
 Mary sitting up in great anxiety. 
 
 ' Mr. Armsworth, does the telegraph work at this time of 
 night ? ' 
 
 ' I'll make it, if it is wanted. But what's the matter ? ' 
 
 ' You will indeed ? ' 
 
 ' 'Gad, I'll go myself and kick up the station-master. What's 
 the matter ? ' 
 
 ' That if poor Mrs. Vavasour wishes to see her husband alive, 
 she must be here in four-and-twenty hours. I'll tell you all 
 presently 
 
 ' Mary, my coat and comforter ! ' cries Mark, jumping up. 
 
 'And, Mary, a pen and ink to write the message,' says 
 Tom. 
 
 ' Oil ! cannot I be of any use ? ' says Mary. 
 
 'No, you angel.' 
 
 'You must not call me an angel, Mr. Thurnall. After all, 
 what can I do which you have not done already ?' 
 
 Tom started. Grace had once used to him the very same 
 words. By the by, what was it in the two women which made 
 them so like ? Certainly, neither face nor fortune. Something 
 in the tones of their voices. 
 
 ' Ah ! if Grace had Mary's fortune, or Mary Grace's face ! ' 
 thought Tom, as lie hurried back to Elsley, and Mark rushed 
 down to the station. 
 
 Elsley was conscious when he returned, and only too conscious. 
 All night he screamed in agonies of rheumatic fever ; by the 
 next afternoon he was failing fast ; his heart was alfected ; and 
 Tom knew that lie might die any hour. 
 
 The evening train brings two ladies, Valentia and Lucia. At 
 the risk of her life, the poor faithful wife has come. 
 
 A gentleman's carriage is waiting for them, though they have 
 ordered none ; and as they go through the station-room, a plain 
 little well-dressed body comes humbly up to them 
 
 ' Is either of these ladies Mrs. Vavasour ? ' 
 
 ' Yes ! I ! I ! is he alive ? ' gasps Lucia. 
 
 'Alive, and better ! and expecting you 
 
 'Better? expecting me?' almost shrieks she, as Valentia 
 and Mary (for it is she) help her to the carriage. Mary puts 
 them in, and turns away. 
 
 ' Are you not coming too ? ' asks Valentia, who is puzzled. 
 
 'No, thank you, madam ; I am going to take a walk. John, 
 you know where to drive these ladies.' 
 
 Little Mary does not think it necessary to say that she, with
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 415 
 
 her father's carriage, has been down to two other afternoon 
 trains, upon the chance of finding them. 
 
 But why is not Frank Headley with them, when lie is needed 
 most? And why are Valentia's eyes uiore red with weeping 
 than even her sister's sorrow need have made them ? 
 
 Because Frank Headley is rolling away in a French railway 
 on his road to Marseilles, and to what Heaven shall find for him 
 to do. 
 
 Yes, he is gone Eastward Ho among the many ; will he come 
 Westward Ho again among the few ? 
 
 They are at the door of Elsley's lodgings now. Tom Thurnall 
 meets them there, and bows them upstairs silently. Lucia is so 
 weak that she has to cling to the banister a moment ; and then, 
 with a strong shudder, the spirit conquers the flesh, and she 
 hurries up before them both. 
 
 It is a small low room Valentia had expected that : but she 
 had expected, too, confusion and wretchedness : for a note from 
 Major Campbell, ere he started, had told her of the condition 
 in which Elsley had been found. Instead, she finds neatness 
 even gaiety ; fresh damask linen, comfortable furniture, a vase 
 of hothouse flowers, while the air is full of cool perfumes. No 
 one is likely to tell her that Mary has furnished all at Tom's 
 hint 'We must smarten up the place, for the poor wife's sake. 
 It will take something off the shock ; and I want to avoid 
 shocks for her.' 
 
 So Tom had worked with his own hands that morning ; 
 arranging the room as carefully as any woman, with that true 
 doctor's forethought and consideration, which often issues in the 
 loftiest, because the most unconscious, benevolence. 
 
 He paused at the door. 
 
 'Will you go in ?' whispered he to Valentia, in a tone which 
 meant 'you had better not.' 
 
 ' Not yet I daresay he is too weak.' 
 
 Lucia darted in, and Tom shut the door behind her, and 
 waited at the stair-head. ' Better,' thought he, 'to let the two 
 poor creatures settle their own concerns. It must end soon, in 
 any case.' 
 
 Lucia rushed to the bedside, drew back the curtains 
 
 ' Tom ! ' moaned Elsley. 
 
 ' Not Tom ! Lucia ! ' ' 
 
 ' Lucia ? Lucia St. Just ! ' answered he, in a low abstracted 
 voice, as if trying to recollect. 
 
 ' Lucia Vavasour ! your Lucia ! ' 
 
 Elsley slowly raised himself upon his elbow, and looked into 
 her face with a sad inquiring gaze. 
 
 'Elsley darling Elsley ! don't you know mu ?' 
 
 'Yes, very well indeed ; better than you know me. T am 
 not Vavasour at all. My name is Briggs John Briggs, the 
 apothecary's son, come home to Whitbury to die.'
 
 416 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 She did not hear, or did not care for those last words. 
 
 ' Elsley ! 'I am your wife ! your own wife ! who never loved 
 any one but you never, never, never ! ' 
 
 'Yes, my wife at least! Curse them, that they cannot 
 deny ! ' said he, in the same abstracted voice. 
 
 'Oh God ! is he mad ?' thought she. 'Elsley, speak to me ! 
 I am your Lucia your love- 
 
 And she tore off her bonnet, and threw herself beside him on 
 the bed and clasped him in her arms, murmuring ' Your wife ! 
 who never loved any one but you ! ' 
 
 Slowly his frozen heart and frozen brain melted beneath the 
 warmth of her great love : but he did not speak : only he passed 
 his weak arm round her neck ; and she felt that his cheek was 
 wet with tears, while she murmured on, like a cooing dove, the 
 same sweet words again 
 
 ' Call me your love once more, and I shall know that all is 
 past.' 
 
 ' Then call me no more Elsley, love ! ' whispered lie. ' Call 
 me John Briggs, and let us have done with shams for 
 ever.' 
 
 ' No ; you are my Elsley my Vavasour ! and I am your wife 
 once more ! ' and the poor thing fondled his head as it lay upon 
 the pillow. ' My own Elsley, to whom I gave myself, body and 
 soul ; for whom I would die now oh, such a death ! any 
 death ! ' 
 
 ' How could I doubt you ? fool that I was ! ' 
 
 ' No, it was all my fault. It was all my odious temper ! But 
 we will be happy now, will we not 1 ' 
 
 Elsley smiled sacfly, and began babbling Yes, they would 
 take a farm, and he would plough, and sow, and be of some use 
 before he died. ' But promise me one tiling ! ' cried he, with 
 sudden strength. 
 
 'What?' 
 
 'That you will go home and burn all the poetry all the 
 manuscripts, and never let the children write a verse a verse 
 when I am dead?' And his head sank back, and his jaw 
 dropped. 
 
 ' He is dead ! ' cried the poor impulsive creature, with a shriek 
 which brought in Tom and Valentia. 
 
 ' He is not dead, madam ; but you must be very gentle witli 
 him, if we are to 
 
 Tom saw that there was little hope. 
 
 ' I will do anything only save him ! save him ! Mr Thur- 
 nall, till I have atoned for all.' 
 
 ' You have little enough to atone for, madam,' said Tom, as he 
 busied himself about the sufferer. He saw that all would soon 
 be over, and would have had Mrs. Vavasour withdraw ; but she 
 was so really good a nurse as long as she could control herself, 
 that he could hardly spare her.
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 417 
 
 So they sat together by the sick bedside, as the short hours 
 passed into the long, ana the long hours into the short again, 
 and the October dawn began to shine through the shutterless 
 window. 
 
 A weary eventless night it was, a night as of many years, as 
 worse and worse grew the weak frame ; and Tom looked alter- 
 nately at the heaving chest, and shortening breath, and rattling 
 throat, and then at the pale still face of the lady. 
 
 'Better she should sit by,' thought he, 'and watch him till 
 she is tired out. It will come on her the more gently, after all. 
 He will die at sunrise, as so many die.' 
 
 At last he began gently feeling for Elsley's pulse. Her eye 
 caught his movement, and she half sprang up ; but at a gesture 
 from him she sank quietly on her knees, holding her husband's 
 hand in her own. 
 
 Elsley turned toward her once, ere the film of death had 
 fallen, and looked her full in the face, with his beautiful eyes 
 full of love. Then the eyes paled and faded ; but still they 
 sought for her painfully long after she had buried her head in 
 the coverlet, unable to bear the sight. 
 
 And so vanished away Elsley Vavasour, poet and genius, into 
 his own place. 
 
 ' Let us pray,' said a deep voice from behind the curtain : it 
 was Mark Arnisworth's. He had come over with the first dawn, 
 to bring the ladies food ; had slipped upstairs to ask what news, 
 found the door open, and entered in time to see the last gasp. 
 
 Lucia kept her head still buried ; and Tom, for the first time 
 for many a year, knelt, as the old banker commended to God the 
 soul of our dear brother just departing this life. Then Mark 
 glided quietly downstairs, and Valentia, rising, tried to lead 
 Mrs. Vavasour away. 
 
 But then broke out in all its wild passion the Irish tempera- 
 ment. Let us pass it over ; why try to earn a little credit by 
 depicting the agony and the weakness of a sister ? 
 
 At last Thurnall got her downstairs. Mark was there still, 
 having sent off for his carriage. He quietly put her arm through 
 his, led her off, worn out and unresisting, drove her home, de- 
 livered her and Valentia into Mary's keeping, and then asked 
 Tom to stay and sit with him. 
 
 ' I hope I've no very bad conscience, boy ; but Mary's busy 
 with the poor young thing, mere child she is, too, to go through 
 such a night ; and, somehow, I don't like to be left alone after 
 such a sight as that ! ' 
 
 ' Tom ! ' said Mark, as they sat smoking in silence, after 
 breakfast, in the study. ' Tom ! ' 
 'Yes, sir!' 
 
 ' That was an awful death-bed, Tom ! ' 
 Tom was silent. 
 
 2 E T. Y. A.
 
 418 TWO YEARS AGO CUAP. 
 
 ' I don't mean that he died hard, as we say ; but so young, 
 Tom. And I suppose poets' souls are worth something, like 
 other people's perhaps more. I can't understand 'em : but my 
 Mary seems to, and people, like her, who think a poet the finest 
 thing in the world. I laugh at it all when I am jolly, and call 
 it sentiment and cant : but I believe that they are nearer heaven 
 than I am : though I think they don't quite know where heaven 
 is, nor where ' (with a wicked wink, in spite of the sadness of 
 his tone) 'where they themselves are either.' 
 
 ' I'll tell you, sir. I have seen men enough die we doctors 
 are hardened to it : but I have seen unprofessional deaths men 
 we didn't kill ourselves ; I have seen men drowned, shot, hanged, 
 run over, and worse deaths than that, sir, too ; and, somehow, 
 I never felt any death like that man's. Granted, he began by 
 trying to set the world right, when he hadn't yet set himself 
 right ; but wasn't it some credit to see that the world was 
 wrong ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know that. The world's a very good world.' 
 
 ' To you and me ; but there are men who have higher notions 
 than I of what this world ought to be ; and, for aught I know, 
 they are right. That Aberalva curate, Headley, had ; and so 
 had Briggs, in his own way. I thought him once only a poor 
 discontented devil, who quarrelled with his bread and butter 
 because he hadn't teeth to eat it with ; but there was more in 
 the fellow, coxcomb as he was. 'Tisn't often that I let that 
 croaking old bogy. Madam -might-have-been, trouble me ; but I 
 cannot help thinking that if, fifteen years ago, I had listened to 
 his vapourings more, and bullied him about them less, he might 
 have been here still.' 
 
 ' You wouldn't have been, then. Well for you that you didn't 
 catch his fever.' 
 
 'And write verses too? Don't make me laugh, sir, on such a 
 day as this ; I always comfort myself with " It's no business of 
 mine : " but, somehow, I can't do so just now.' And Tom sat 
 silent, more softened than he had been for years. 
 
 ' Let's talk of something else,' said Mark at last. ' You had 
 the cholera very bad down there, I hear 1 ' 
 
 'Oh, sharp, but short,' said Tom, who disliked any subject 
 which brought Grace to his mind. 
 
 'Any on my lord's estate with the queer name?' 
 
 ' Not a case. We stopped the devil out there, thanks to his 
 lordship.' 
 
 'So did we here. We were very near in for it, though, I 
 fancy. At least, I chose to fancy so thought it a good oppor- 
 tunity to clean Whitbury once for all.' 
 
 ' It's just like you. Well ? ' 
 
 'Well, I offered the Town Council to drain the whole town at 
 my own expense, if they'd let me have the sewage. And that 
 only made things worse ; for as soon as the beggars found out
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 419 
 
 the sewage was worth anything, they were down on me, as if I 
 wanted to do them I, Mark Armsworth ! and would sooner 
 let half the town rot with an epidemic, than have reason to 
 fancy I'd made any money out of them. So a pretty fight I had, 
 for half a dozen meetings, till I called in my lord ; and, sir, he 
 came down by the next express ; like a trump, all the way from 
 town, and gave them such a piece of his mind was going to 
 have the Board of Health down, and turn on the Government 
 tap, commissioners and all, and cost 'em hundreds : till the 
 fellows shook in their shoes ; and so I conquered, and here we 
 are, as clean as a nut and a fig for the cholera ! except down 
 in Water Lane, which I don't know what to do with ; for if 
 tradesmen will run up houses on spec in a water-meadow, who 
 can stop them ? There ought to be a law for it, say I ; but I say 
 a good many things in the twelve months that nobody minds. 
 But, my dear boy, if one man in a town has pluck and money, 
 he may do it. It'll cost him a few : I've had to pay the main 
 part myself, after all : but I suppose God will make it up to a 
 man somehow. That's old Mark's faith, at least. Now I want 
 to talk to you about yourself. My lord comes into town to-day, 
 and you must see him.' 
 
 ' Why, then ? He can't help me with the Bashi-Bazouks, can 
 he?' 
 
 ' Bashi-fiddles ! I say, Tom, the more I think over it, the 
 more it won't do. It's throwing yourself away. They say that 
 Turkish contingent is getting on terribly ill.' 
 
 ' More need of me to make them well. 
 
 'Hang it I mean hasn't justice done it, and so on. The 
 papers are full of it.' 
 
 'Well,' quoth Tom, 'and why should it?' 
 
 'Why, man alive, if England spends all this money on the 
 men, she ought to do her duty by them.' 
 
 'I don't see that. As Pecksniff says, "If England expects 
 every man to do his duty, she's very sanguine, and will be much 
 disappointed." They don't intend to do their duty by her, any 
 more than I do ; so why should she do her duty by them ? ' 
 
 ' Don't intend to do your duty ? ' 
 
 ' I'm going out because England's money is necessary to me ; 
 and England hires me because my skill is necessary to her. I 
 didn't think of duty when I settled to go, and why should she ? 
 I'll get all out of her I can in the way of pay and practice, and 
 she may get all she can out of me in the way of work. As for 
 being ill-used, I never expect to be anything else in this life. 
 I'm sure I don't care ; and I'm sure she don't ; so live and let 
 live ; talk plain truth, and leave bunkum for right honourables 
 who keep their places thereby. Give me another weed.' 
 
 ' Queer old philosopher you are ; but go you shan't ! ' 
 
 ' Go I will, sir ; don't stop me. I've my reasons, and they're 
 good ones enough.'
 
 420 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 The conversation was interrupted by the servant ; Lord 
 Minchampstead was waiting at Mr. Armsworth's office. 
 
 ' Early bird, his lordship, and gets the worm accordingly,' says 
 Mark, as he hurries off to attend on his ideal hero. 'You come 
 over to the shop in half an hour, mind.' 
 
 'But why?' 
 
 ' Confound you, sir ! you talk of having your reasons : I have 
 mine ! ' 
 
 Mark looked quite cross ; so Tom gave way, and went in due 
 time to the bank. 
 
 Standing with his back to the fire in Mark's inner room, lie 
 saw the old cotton prince. 
 
 'And a prince he looks like,' quoth Tom to himself, as lie 
 waited in the bank outside, and looked through the glass screen. 
 ' How well the old man wears ! I wonder how many fresh 
 thousands he has made since I saw him last, seven years ago.' 
 
 And a very noble person Lord Minchampstead did look ; one 
 to whom hats went oS' almost without their owners' will ; tall 
 and portly, witli a soldier-like air of dignity and command, 
 which was relieved by the good-nature of the countenance. Yet 
 it was a good-nature which would stand no trifling. The jaw 
 was deep and broad, though finely shaped ; the mouth firm set ; 
 the nose slightly aquiline ; the brow of great depth and height, 
 though narrow ; altogether a Julius Caesar's type of head ; that 
 of a man born to rule self, and therefore to rule all he met. 
 
 Tom looked over his dress, not forgetting, like a true English- 
 man, to mark what sort of boots he wore. They were boots not 
 quite fashionable, but carefully cleaned on trees ; trousers 
 strapped tightly over them, which had adopted the military 
 stripe, but retained the slit at the ankle which was in vogue 
 forty years ago ; frock coat with a velvet collar, buttoned up, 
 but not too far ; high and tight blue cravat below an immense 
 shirt collar ; a certain care and richness of dress throughout, 
 but soberly behind the fashion : while the hat was a very shabby 
 and broken one, and the whip still more shabby and broken ; 
 all which indicated to Tom that his lordship let his tailor and 
 his valet dress him ; and though not unaware that it behoved 
 him to set out his person as it deserved, was far too fine a 
 gentleman to trouble himself about looking fine. 
 
 Mark looks round, sees Tom, and calls him in. 
 
 ' Mr. Thurnall, I am glad to meet you, sir. You did me good 
 service at Pentremochyn, and did it cheaply. I was agreeably 
 surprised, I confess, at receiving a bill for four pounds seven 
 shillings and sixpence, where I expected one of twenty or 
 thirty.' 
 
 ' I charged according to what my time was really worth 
 there, my lord. I heartily wish it had been worth more.' 
 
 'No doubt,' says my lord, in the blandest, but the driest 
 tone.
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 421 
 
 Some men would have, under a sense of Tom's merits, sent 
 him a cheque off-hand for five-and-twenty pounds ; but that is 
 not Lord Minchampstead's way of doing business. He had paid 
 simply the sum asked : but he had set Tom down in his memory 
 as a man whom he could trust to do good work, and to do it 
 cheaply ; and now 
 
 ' You are going to join the Turkish contingent ? ' 
 
 'lam.' 
 
 ' You know that part of the world well, I believe ? ' 
 
 ' Intimately.' 
 
 ' And the languages spoken there ? ' 
 
 ' By no means all. Russian and Tartar well ; Turkish toler- 
 ably ; with a smattering of two or three Circassian dialects.' 
 
 ' Humph ! A fair list. Any Persian ? ' 
 
 ' Only a few words.' 
 
 ' Humph ! If you can learn one language, I presume you can 
 learn another. Now, Mr. Thurnall, I have no doubt that you 
 will do your duty in the Turkish contingent.' 
 
 Tom bowed. 
 
 'But I must ask you if your resolution to join it is fixed ?' 
 
 ' I only join it because I can get no other employment at the 
 seat of war.' 
 
 ' Humph ! You wish to go, then, in any case, to the seat of war?' 
 
 ' Certainly.' 
 
 ' No doubt you have sufficient reasons. . . . Armsworth, this 
 puts the question in a new light.' 
 
 Tom looked round at Mark, and, behold, his face bore a ludi- 
 crous mixture of anger and disappointment and perplexity. He 
 seemed to be trying to make signals to Tom, and to be afraid of 
 doing so openly before the great man. 
 
 ' He is as wilful and as foolish as a girl, my lord ; and I've 
 told him so.' 
 
 'Everybody knows his own business best, Armsworth ; Mr. 
 Thurnall, have you any fancy for the post of Queen's mes- 
 senger ? ' 
 
 ' I should esteem myself only too happy as one.' 
 
 ' They are not to be obtained now as easily as they were fifty 
 years ago ; and are given, as you may know, to a far higher 
 class of men than they were formerly. But I .shall do my best 
 to obtain you one, when an opportunity offers.' 
 
 Tom was beginning his profusest thanks : for was not his 
 fortune made ? but Lord Minchampstead stopped him with an 
 uplifted finger. 
 
 'And, meanwhile, there are foreign employments of which 
 neither those who bestow them, nor those who accept them, are 
 expected to talk much ; but for which you, if I am rightly in- 
 formed, would be especially fitted.' 
 
 Tom bowed ; and his face spoke a hundred assents. 
 
 ' Very well ; if you will come over to Minchampstead to-
 
 422 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP, 
 
 morrow, I will give you letters to friends of mine in town. I 
 trust that they may give you a better opportunity than the 
 Bashi-Bazouks will, of displaying that courage, address, and self- 
 command which, I understand, you possess in so uncommon 
 a degree. Good morning ! ' And forth the great man went. 
 
 Most opposite were the actions of the two whom he had left 
 behind him. 
 
 Tom dances about the room, hurrahing in a whisper 
 
 ' My fortune's made ! The secret service ! Oh, what bliss ! 
 The thing I've always longed for ! ' 
 
 Mark dashes himself desperately back in his chair, and shoots 
 his angry legs straight out, almost tripping up Tom. 
 
 'You abominable ass ! You have done it with a vengeance ! 
 Why, he has been pumping me about you this month! One 
 word from you to say you'd have stayed, and he was going to 
 make you agent for all his Cornish property.' 
 
 ' Don't he wish he may get it ? Catch a fish climbing trees ! 
 Catch me staying at home when I can serve my Queen and my 
 country, and find a sphere for the full development of my 
 talents ! Oh, won't I be as wise as a serpent ? Won't I be 
 complimented by ... himself as his best lurcher, worth any 
 ten needy Poles, greedy Armenians, traitors, renegades, rag-tag 
 and bob-tail ! I'll shave my head to-morrow, and buy me an 
 assortment of wigs of every hue ! ' 
 
 Take care, Tom Thurnall. After pride comes a fall ; and he 
 who digs <i pit may fall into it himself. Has this morning's 
 death-bed given you no lesson that it is as well not to cast 
 ourselves down from where God has put us, for whatsoever 
 seemingly fine ends of ours, lest, doing so, we tempt God once 
 too often 1 
 
 Your father quoted that text to John Briggs, here, many 
 years ago. Might he not quote it now to you 1 True, not one 
 word of murmuring, not even of regret, or fear, has passed his 
 good old lips about your self-willed plan. He has such utter 
 confidence in you, such utter carelessness about himself, such 
 utter faith in God, that he can let you go without a sigh. But 
 will you make his courage an excuse for your own rashness ? 
 Again, beware ; after pride may come a fall. 
 
 On the fourth day Elsley was buried. Mark and Tom were 
 the only mourners ; Lucia and Valentin stayed at Mark's house, 
 to return next day under Tom's care to Eaton Square. 
 
 The two mourners walked back sadly from the churchyard. 
 'I shall put a stone over him, Tom. He ought to rest quietly 
 now ; for he had little rest enough in this life. ... 
 
 'Now I want to talk to you about something; when I've 
 taken oft' my hatband, that is ; for it would be hardly lucky to 
 mention such matters with a hatband on.' 
 
 Tom looked up, wondering.
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 423 
 
 ' Tell me about his wife, meanwhile. What made him marry 
 her ? Was she a pretty woman ? ' 
 
 ' Pretty enough, I believe, before she married : but I hardly 
 think he married her for her face.' 
 
 'Of course not!' said the old man with emphasis : 'of 
 course not ! Whatever faults he had, he'd be too sensible for 
 that. Don't you marry for a face, Tom ! I didn't.' 
 
 Tom opened his eyes at this last assertion ; but humbly 
 expressed his intention of not falling into that snare. 
 
 ' Ah 1 you don't believe me : well, she was a beautiful 
 woman. I'd like to see her fellow now in the county ! and 
 I won't deny I was proud of her. But she had ten thousand 
 pounds, Tom. And as for her looks, why, if you'll believe me, 
 after we'd been married three months, I didn't know whether 
 she had any looks or not. What are you smiling at, you young 
 rogue ? ' 
 
 'Report did say that one look of Mrs. Armsworth's, to the 
 last, would do more to manage Mr. Armsworth than the 
 opinions of the whole bench of bishops.' 
 
 ' Report's a liar, and you're a puppy ! You don't know yet 
 whether it was a pleasant look, or a cross one, lad. But still 
 well, she was an angel, and kept old Mark straighter than he's 
 ever been since : not that he's so very bad, now. Though I 
 sometimes think Mary's better even than her mother. That 
 girl's a good girl, Tom.' 
 
 ' Report agrees with you in that, at least.' 
 
 ' Fool if it didn't. And as for looks I can speak to you as 
 to my own son Why, handsome is that handsome does.' 
 
 'And that handsome has; for you must honestly put that 
 into the account.' 
 
 'You think so? So do I ! Well, then, Tom,' and here 
 Mark was seized with a tendency to St. Vitus's dance, and 
 began overhauling every button on his coat, twitching up his 
 black gloves, till (as undertakers' gloves are generally meant to 
 dp) they burst in half a dozen places ; taking oft' his hat, wiping 
 his head fiercely, and putting the hat on again behind before ; 
 till at last he snatched his arm from Tom's, and gripping him 
 by the shoulder, recommenced 
 
 ' You think so, eh 1 Well, I must say it, so I'd better have 
 it out now, hatband or none ! What do you think of the man 
 who married my daughter, face and all ? ' 
 
 ' I should think,' quoth Tom, wondering who the happy man 
 could l>e, 'that he would be so lucky in possessing such a heart, 
 that he would be a fool to care about the face.' 
 
 'Then be as good as your word, and take her yourself. I've 
 watched you this last week, and you'll make her a good husband. 
 There, I have spoken ; let mo hear no more about it.' 
 
 And Mark half pushed Tom from him, and puffed on by his 
 side, highly excited.
 
 424 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 If Mark had knocked the young doctor down, he would have 
 been far less astonished and far less puzzled too. 'Well,' 
 thought he, ' I fancied nothing could throw my steady old 
 engine off the rails ; but I am off them now, with a vengeance.' 
 What to say he knew not ; at last 
 
 ' It is just like your generosity, sir ; you have been a brother 
 to my father ; and now 
 
 'And now I'll be a father to you ! Old Mark does nothing 
 by halves.' 
 
 'But, sir, however lucky I should be in possessing Miss 
 Armsworth's heart, what reason have I to suppose that I do so 1 
 I never spoke a word to her. I needn't say that she never did 
 to me which 
 
 ' Of course she didn't, and of course you didn't. Should like 
 to have seen you making love to my daughter, indeed ! No, 
 sir ; it's my will and pleasure. I've settled it, and done it shall 
 be ! I shall go home and tell Mary, and she'll obey me I 
 should like to see her do anything else ! Hoity, toity, fathers 
 must be masters, sir ! even in these fly-away new times, when 
 young ones choose their own husbands, and their own politics, 
 and their own hounds, and their own religion too, and be 
 hanged to them ! ' 
 
 What did this unaccustomed bit of bluster mean ? for un- 
 accustomed it was ; and Tom knew well that Mary Armsworth 
 had her own way, and managed her father as completely as 
 lie managed Whitbury. 
 
 ' Humph ! It is impossible ; and yet it must be. This 
 explains his being so anxious that Lord Minchampstead should 
 approve of me. I have found favour in the poor dear tiling's 
 eyes, I suppose : and the good old fellow knows it, and won't 
 betray her, and so shams tyrant. Just like him ! ' But that 
 Mary Armsworth should care for him ! Vain fellow that he 
 was to fancy it ! And yet, when lie began to put things to- 
 gether, little silences, little looks, little nothings, which all 
 together might make something. He would not slander her 
 to himself by supposing that her attentions to his father 
 were paid for his sake : but he could not forget that it was 
 she, always, who read his letters aloud to the old man : or that 
 she had taken home and copied out the story of his ship- 
 wreck. Beside, it was the only method of explaining Mark's 
 conduct, save on the supposition that he had suddenly been 
 ' changed by the fairies ' in his old age, instead of in the cradle, 
 as usual. 
 
 It was a terrible temptation ; and to no man more than to 
 Thomas Thurnall. He was no boy, to hanker after mere animal 
 beauty : he had no delicate visions or lofty aspirations ; and 
 he knew (no man better) the plain English of fifty thousand 
 pounds, and Mark Armsworth's daughter a good house, a good 
 consulting practice (for he would take his M.D. of course), a
 
 xxv THE JUNKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 425 
 
 good station in the county, a good clarence with a good pair 
 of horses, good plate, a good dinner with good company thereat ; 
 and, over and above all, his father to live with him ; and with 
 Mary, whom he loved as a daughter, in luxury and peace to 
 his life's end. Why, it was all that he had ever dreamed of, 
 three times more than he ever hoped to gain ! Not to men- 
 tion (for how oddly little dreams or selfish pleasure slip in at 
 such moments !) that he would buy such a Koss's microscope ! 
 and keep such a horse for a sly by-day with the Whitford 
 Priors ! Oh, to see once again a fox break from Coldharbour 
 gorse ! 
 
 And then rose up before his imagination those drooping 
 steadfast eyes ; and Grace Harvey, the suspected, the despised, 
 seemed to look through and through his inmost soul, as 
 through a home which belonged of right to her, and where no 
 other woman must dwell, or could dwell ; for she was there ; 
 and he knew it ; and knew that, even if he never married till his 
 dying day, he should sell his soul by marrying any one but her. 
 ' And why should I not sell my soul ? ' asked he, almost fiercely. 
 ' I sell my talents, iny time, my strength ; I'd sell my life to- 
 morrow, and go to be shot for a shilling a day, if it would make 
 the old man comfortable for life ; and why not my soul too ? 
 Don't that belong to me as much as any other part of me ? 
 Why am I to be condemned to sacrifice my prospects in life to a 
 girl of whose honesty I am not even sure ? What is this intoler- 
 able fascination ? Witch ! I .almost believe in mesmerism 
 now ! Again, I say, why should I not sell my soul, as I'd sell 
 my coat, if the bargain's but a good one ? ' 
 
 And if he did, who would ever know 1 Not even Grace her- 
 self. The secret was his, and no one else's. Or if they did 
 know, what matter ? Dozens of men sell their souls every year, 
 and thrive thereon : tradesmen, lawyers, squires, popular 
 preachers, great noblemen, kings and princes. He would be in 
 good company, at all events : and while so many live in glass 
 houses, who dare throw stones ? 
 
 But then, curiously enough, there came over him a vague 
 dread of possible evil, such as he had never felt before. He had 
 been trying for years to raise himself above the powerof fortune ; 
 and he had succeeded ill enough : but he had never lost heart. 
 Robbed, shipwrecked, lost in deserts, cheated at cards, shot in 
 revolutions, begging his bread, he had always been the same 
 unconquerable light-hearted Tom, whose motto was, ' Fall light, 
 and don't whimper : better luck next round.' But now, what 
 if lie played his last court-card, and Fortune, out of her close- 
 hidden hand, laid down a trump thereon with quiet sneering 
 smile ? And she would ! He knew, somehow, that he should 
 not thrive. His children would die of the measles, his horses 
 break their knees, his plate be stolen, his house catch fire, and 
 Mark Armsworth die insolvent. What a fool he was, to fancy
 
 426 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 such nonsense ! Here lie had been slaving all his life to keep 
 his father : and now he could keep him ; why, he would be 
 justified, right, a good son, in doing the thing. How hard, how 
 unjust of those upper Powers in which he believed so vaguely, 
 to forbid his doing it ! 
 
 And how did he know that they forbid him ? That is too 
 deep a question to be analysed here : but this thing is note- 
 worthy, that there came next over Tom's mind a stranger feeling 
 still a fancy that if he did this thing, and sold his soul, he 
 could not answer for himself thenceforth on the score of merest 
 respectability ; could not answer for himself not to drink, gamble, 
 squander his money, neglect his father, prove unfaithful to his 
 wife ; that the innate capacity for blackguardism, which was as 
 strong in him as in any man, might, and probably would, run 
 utterly riot thenceforth. He felt as if he should cast away his 
 last anchor, and drift helplessly down into utter shame and ruin. 
 It may have been very fanciful : but so he felt ; and felt it so 
 strongly too, that in less time than I have taken to write this 
 he had turned to Mark Armsworth 
 
 ' Sir, you are what I have always found you. Do you wish 
 me to be what you have always found me 1 ' 
 
 ' I'd be sorry to see you anything else, boy.' 
 
 ' Then, sir, I can't do this. In honour, I can't.' 
 
 ' Are you married already 1 ' thundered Mark. 
 
 ' Not quite as bad as that ; ' and in spite of his agitation Tom 
 laughed, but hysterically, at the notion. ' But fool I am ; for 
 I am in love with another woman. I am, sir,' went he on 
 hurriedly. ' Boy that I am ! and she don't even know it : but 
 if you be the man I take you for, you may be angry with me, 
 but you'll understand me. Anything but be a rogue to you 
 and to Mary, and to my own self too. Fool I'll be, but rogue I 
 won't ! ' 
 
 Mark strode on in silence, frightfully red in the face for full 
 five minutes. Then lie turned sharply on Tom, and catching 
 him by the shoulder, thrust him from him. 
 
 ' There go ! and don't let me see or hear of you ; that is, till 
 I tell you ! Go along, I say ! Hum-hum ! ' (in a tone half of 
 wrath, and half of triumph) ' his father's child ! If you will 
 ruin yourself, I can't help it.' 
 
 'Nor I, sir,' said Tom, in a really piteous tone, bemoaning 
 the day he ever saw Aberalva, as he watched Mark stride into 
 his own gate. ' If I had but had common luck ! If I had but 
 brought my 1500 safe home here, and never seen Grace, and 
 married this girl out of hand ! Common luck is all I ask, and I 
 never get it ! ' 
 
 And Tom went home sulkier than a bear : but he did not let 
 his father find out his trouble. It was his last evening with the 
 old man. To-morrow he must go to London, and then to 
 scramble and twist about the world again till he died ? ' Well,
 
 xxv THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER 427 
 
 why not ? A man must die somehow : but it's hard on the poor 
 old father,' said Tom. 
 
 As Tom was packing his scanty carpet-bag next morning, 
 there was a knock: at the door, He looked out, and saw Arms- 
 worth's clerk. What could that mean ? Had the old man 
 determined to avenge the slight, and to do so on his father, by 
 claiming some old debt ? There might be many between him 
 and the doctor. And Tom's heart beat fast as Jane put a letter 
 into his hand. 
 
 ' No answer, sir, the clerk says." 
 
 Tom opened it, and turned over the contents more than once 
 ere he could believe his own eyes. 
 
 It was neither more nor less than a cheque on Mark's London 
 banker for just five hundred pounds. 
 
 A half sheet was wrapped round it, on which were written 
 these words : 
 
 ' To Thomas Thurnall, Esq., for behaving like a gentleman. 
 The cheque will be duly honoured at Messrs. Smith, Brown, and 
 Jones, Lombard Street. No acknowledgment is to be sent. 
 Don't tell your father. MARK ARMSWORTH.' 
 
 ' Queer old world it is ! ' said Tom, when the first burst of 
 childish delight was over. 'And jolly old flirt, Dame Fortune, 
 after all ! If I had written this in a book now, who'd have 
 believed it ? ' 
 
 'Father,' said he, as he kissed the old man farewell, 'I've a 
 little money come in. I'll send you fifty from London in a day 
 or two, and lodge a hundred and fifty more with Smith and Co. 
 So you'll be quite in clover while I am poisoning the Turkeys, 
 or at some better work.' 
 
 The old man thanked God for his good son, and only hoped 
 that lie was not straitening himself to buy luxuries for a useless 
 old fellow. 
 
 Another sacred kiss on that white head, and Tom was away 
 for London, with a fuller purse, and a more self-contented heart 
 too, then he had known for many a year. 
 
 And Elsley was left behind, under the gray church spire, 
 sleeping with his fathers, and vexing his soul with poetry no 
 more. Mark has covered him now with a fair Portland slab. 
 He took Claude Mellot to it this winter before church time, and 
 stood over it long with a puzzled look, as if dimly discovering 
 that there were more things in heaven and earth than were 
 dreamed of in his philosophy. 
 
 'Wonderful fellow he was, after all ! Mary shall read us out 
 some of his verses to-night. But, I say, why should people be 
 born clever, only to make them all the more miserable?' 
 
 ' Perhaps they learn the more, papa, by their sorrows,' said 
 quiet little Mary ; ' and so they are the gainers after all.'
 
 428 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 And none of them having any better answer to give, they all 
 three went into the church, to see if one could be found there. 
 
 And so Tom Thurnall, too, went Eastward Ho, to take, like 
 all the rest, what God might send. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 TOO LATE 
 
 AND how was poor Grace Harvey prospering the while ? While 
 comfortable folks were praising her, at their leisure, as a 
 heroine, Grace Harvey was learning, so she opined, by fearful 
 lessons, how much of the unheroic element was still left in her. 
 The first lesson had come just a week after the yacht sailed for 
 Port Madoc, when the cholera had all but subsided ; and it 
 came in this wise. Before breakfast one morning she had to go 
 up to Heale's shop for some cordial. Her mother had passed, so 
 she said, a sleepless night, and come downstairs nervous and 
 without appetite, oppressed with melancholy, both in the 
 spiritual and the physical sense of the word. It was not often 
 so with her now. She had escaped the cholera. The remote- 
 ness of her house ; her care never to enter the town ; the purity 
 of the water, which trickled always fresh from the clift' close by; 
 and last, but not least, the scrupulous cleanliness which (to do 
 her justice) she had always observed, and in which she had 
 trained up Grace all these had kept her safe. 
 
 But Grace could see that her dread of the cholera was in- 
 tense. She even tried at first to prevent Grace from entering 
 an infected house ; but that proposal was answered by a look of 
 horror which shamed her into silence, and she contented herself 
 with all but tabooing Grace ; making her change her clothes 
 whenever she came in ; refusing to sit with her, almost to eat 
 with her. But, over and above all this, she had grown moody, 
 peevish, subject to violent bursts of crying, fits of superstitious 
 depression ; spent, sometimes, whole days in reading experi- 
 mental books, arguing with the preachers, gadding to and fro to 
 every sermon, Arminian or Calvinist ; and at last even to 
 church walking in dry places, poor soul ; seeking rest, and 
 finding none. 
 
 All this betokened some malady of the mind, rather than of 
 the body ; but what that malady was, Grace dare not even try 
 to guess. Perhaps it was one of the fits of religious melancholy 
 so common in the West country like her own, in fact : perhaps 
 it was all 'nerves.' Her mother was growing old, and had a 
 great deal of business to worry her ; and so Grace thrust away 
 the horrible suspicion by little self-deceptions. 
 
 She went into the shop. Tom was busy upon his knees be- 
 hind the counter. She made her request.
 
 xxvi TOO LATE 429 
 
 ' Ah, Miss Harvey ! ' and he sprang up. ' It will be a plea- 
 sure to serve you once more in one's life. I am just going.' 
 
 ' Going where ? ' 
 
 'To Turkey. I find this place too pleasant and too poor. 
 Not work enough, and certainly not pay enough. So I have got 
 an appointment as surgeon in the Turkish contingent, and shall 
 be off in an hour.' 
 
 ' To Turkey ! to the war ? 
 
 ' Yes. It's a long time since I have seen any fighting. I am 
 quite out of practice in gunshot wounds. There is the medicine. 
 Good-bye ! You will shake hands once, for the sake of our late 
 cholera work together.' 
 
 Grace held out her hand mechanically across the counter, and 
 lie took it. But she did not look into his face. Only she said, 
 half to herself 
 
 ' Well, better so. I have no doubt you will be very useful 
 among them.' 
 
 ' Confound the icicle ! ' thought Tom. ' I really believe that 
 she wants to get rid of me.' And he would have withdrawn his 
 hand in a pet : but she held it still. 
 
 Quaint it was ; those two strong natures, each loving the 
 other better than anything else on earth, and yet parted by the 
 thinnest pane of ice, which a single look would have melted. 
 She longing to follow that man over the wide world, slave for 
 him, die for him ; he longing for the least excuse for making a 
 fool of himself, and crying, ' Take me, as I take you, without a 
 penny, for better, for worse ! ' If their eyes had but met ! But 
 they did not meet ; and the pane of ice kept them asunder as 
 surely as a wall of iron. 
 
 Was it that Tom was piqued at her seeming coldness : or did 
 he expect, before he made any advances, that she should show 
 that she wished at least for his respect, by saying something to 
 clear up the ugly question which lay between them ? Or was 
 he, as I suspect, so ready to melt, and make a fool of himself, 
 that he must needs harden his own heart by help of the devil 
 himself ? And yet there are excuses for him. It would have 
 been a sore trial to any man's temper to quit Aberalva in the 
 belief that he left fifteen hundred pounds behind him. Be that 
 as it may, he said carelessly, after a moment's pause 
 
 ' Well, farewell ! And, by the by, about that little money 
 matter. The month of which you spoke once was up yesterday. 
 I suppose I am not worthy yet ; so I shall be humble, and 
 wait patiently. Don't hurry yourself, I beg of you, on my 
 account.' 
 
 She snatched her hand from his without a word, and rushed 
 out of the shop. 
 
 He returned to his packing, whistling away as shrill as any 
 blackbird. 
 
 Little did he think that Grace's heart was bursting, as she
 
 430 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 hurried down the street, covering her face in her veil, as if every 
 one would espy her dark secret in her countenance. 
 
 But she did not go home to hysterics and vain tears. An 
 awful purpose had arisen in her mind, under the pressure of 
 that great agony. Heavens, how she loved that man ! To be 
 suspected by him was torture. But she could bear that. It was 
 her cross ; she could carry it, lie down on it, and endure : but 
 wrong him she could not would not ! It was sinful enough 
 while he was there ; but doubly, unbearably sinful, when he was 
 going to a foreign country, when he would need every farthing 
 he had. So not for her own sake, but for his, she spoke to her 
 mother when she went home, and found her sitting over her 
 Bible in the little parlour, vainly trying to find a text which 
 suited her distemper. 
 
 ' Mother, you have the Bible before you there.' 
 
 ' Yes, child ! Why ? What ? ' asked she, looking up un- 
 easily. 
 
 Grace fixed her eyes on the ground. She could not look her 
 mother in the face. 
 
 ' Do you ever read the thirty-second Psalm, mother ? ' 
 
 'Which? Why not, child ?' 
 
 ' Let us read it together then, now.' 
 
 And Grace, taking up her own Bible, sat quietly down and 
 read, as none in that parish save she could react : 
 
 ' Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin 
 is covered. 
 
 'Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not 
 iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. 
 
 ' When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my 
 groaning all the day long. 
 
 'For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me : my mois- 
 ture is turned to the drought of summer. 
 
 ' I acknowledge my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I 
 not hid. 
 
 ' I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord ; and 
 Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.' 
 
 Grace stopped, choked with tears which the pathos of her 
 own voice had called up. She looked at her mother. There 
 were no tears in her eyes : only a dull thwart look of terror and 
 suspicion. The shaft, however bravely and cunningly sped, had 
 missed its mark. 
 
 Poor Grace ! Her usual eloquence utterly failed her, as most 
 things do in which one is wont to trust, before the pressure of 
 a real and horrible evil. She had no heart to make fine sen- 
 tences, to preach a brilliant sermon of commonplaces. What 
 could she say that her mother had not known long before she 
 was born ? And throwing herself on her knees at her mother's 
 feet, she grasped both her hands and looked into her face im- 
 ploringly ' Mother ! mother ! mother ! ' was all that she could
 
 xxvi TOO LATE 431 
 
 say : but their tone meant more than all words, lleproof, 
 counsel, comfort, utter tenderness, and under-current of clear 
 deep trust, bubbling up from beneath all passing suspicions, 
 however dark and foul, were in it : but they were vain. 
 
 Baser terror, the parent of baser suspicion, had hardened that 
 woman's heart for the while ; and all she answered was 
 
 ' Get up ! What is this foolery ? ' 
 
 ' I will not ! I will not rise till you have told me.' 
 
 'What?' 
 
 ' Whether ' and she forced the words slowly out in a low 
 whisper ' whether you know anything of of Mr. Thurnall's 
 money his belt ? ' 
 
 ' Is the girl mad ? Belt 1 Money ? Do you take me for a 
 thief, wench 1 ' 
 
 ' No ! no ! no ! Only say you you know nothing of it ! ' 
 
 ' Psha ! girl ! Go to your school : ' and the old woman tried 
 to rise. 
 
 ' Only say that ! only let me know that it is a dream a 
 hideous dream which the devil put into my wicked, wicked heart 
 and let me know that I am the basest, meanest of daughters 
 for harbouring sucli a thought a moment ! It will be comfort, 
 bliss, to what I endure ! Only say that, and I will crawl to 
 your feet, and beg for your forgiveness, ask you to beat me, 
 like a child, as I shall deserve ! Drive me out, if you will, and 
 let me die, as I shall deserve ! Only say the word, and take 
 this tire from before my eyes, which burns day and night, till 
 my brain is dried up with misery and shame ! Mother, mother, 
 speak ! ' 
 
 But then burst out the horrible suspicion, which falsehood, 
 suspecting all others of being false as itself, had engendered in 
 that mother's heart. 
 
 ' Yes, viper ! I see your plan ! Do you think I do not know 
 that you are in love with that fellow r \ ' 
 
 Grace started as if she had been shot, and covered her face 
 with her hands. 
 
 'Yes! and want me to betray myself to tell a lie about 
 myself, that you may curry favour with him a penniless, un- 
 believing 
 
 ' Mother ! ' almost shrieked Grace, ' I can bear no more ! 
 Say that it is a lie, and then kill me if you will ! ' 
 
 ' It is a lie, from beginning to end ! What else should it be 1 ' 
 And the woman, in the hurry of her passion, confirmed the 
 equivocation with an oath ; and then ran on, as if to turn her 
 own thoughts, as well as Grace's, into commonplaces about 'a 
 poor old mother, who cares for nothing but you ; who has worked 
 her fingers to the bone for years to leave you a little money when 
 she is gone ! I wish I were gone ! I wish I were out of this 
 wretched ungrateful world, I do ! To have my own child turn 
 against me in my old age ! '
 
 432 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 Grace lifted her hands from her face, and looked steadfastly 
 at her mother. And behold, she knew not how or why, she felt 
 that her mother had forsworn herself. A strong shudder passed 
 through her ; she rose and was leaving the room in silence. 
 
 ' Where are you going, hussy ? Stop ! ' screamed her mother 
 between her teeth, her rage and cruelty rising, as it will with 
 weak natures, in the very act of triumph, 'to your young 
 man ? ' 
 
 ' To pray,' said Grace quietly ; and locking herself into the 
 empty schoolroom, gave vent to all her feelings, but not in 
 tears. 
 
 How she upbraided herself ! She had not used her strength ; 
 she had not told her mother all her heart. And yet how could 
 she tell her heart ? How face her mother with such vague sus- 
 picions, hardly supported by a single fact ? How argue it out 
 against her like a lawyer, and convict her to her face ? What 
 daughter could do that, who had human love and reverence left 
 in her ? No ! to touch her inward witness, as the Quakers well 
 and truly term it, was the only method : and it had failed. 
 ' God help me ! ' was her only cry : but the help did not come 
 yet ; there came over her instead a feeling of utter loneliness. 
 Willis dead ; Thurnall gone ; her mother estranged ; and, like 
 a child lost upon a great moor, she looked round all heaven and 
 earth, and there was none to counsel, none to guide perhaps 
 not even God. For would He help her as long as she lived in 
 sin ? And was she not living in sin, deadly sin, as long as she 
 knew what she was sure she knew, and left the wrong un- 
 righted? 
 
 It is sometimes true, the popular saying, that sunshine 
 comes after storm. Sometimes true, or who could live ? but not 
 always : not even often. Equally true is the popular antithet, 
 that misfortunes never come single ; that in most human lives 
 there are periods of trouble, blow following blow, wave following 
 wave, from opposite and unexpected quarters, with no natural 
 or logical sequence, till all God's billows have gone over the 
 soul. 
 
 How paltry and helpless, in such dark times, are all theories 
 of mere self-education ; all proud attempts, like that of Goethe's 
 Wilhelm Meister, to hang self-poised in the centre of the abyss, 
 and there organise for oneself a character by means of circum- 
 stances ! Easy enough and graceful enough does that dream 
 look, while all the circumstances themselves all which stands 
 around are easy and graceful, obliging and commonplace, like 
 the sphere of petty experiences with which Goethe surrounds his 
 insipid hero. Easy enough it seems for a man to educate him- 
 self without God, as long as he lies comfortably on a sofa, with 
 a cup of coffee and a review: but what if that 'daemonic 
 element of the universe,' which Goethe confessed, and yet in his 
 luxuriousness tried to ignore, because he could not explain
 
 xxvi TOO LATE 433 
 
 what if that broke forth over the graceful and prosperous 
 student, as it may any moment 1 ? What if some thing, or 
 some person, or many things, or many persons, one after the 
 other (questions which he must get answered then, or die), took 
 him up and dashed him down, again, and again, and again, till 
 he was ready to cry, ' I reckoned till morning that like a lion he 
 will break all my bones : from morning till evening he will 
 make an end of me ? ' What if he thus found himself hurled 
 perforce amid the real universal experiences of humanity ; and 
 made free, in spite of himself, by doubt and fear and horror of 
 great darkness, of the brotherhood of woe, common alike to the 
 simplest peasant- woman, and to every great soul, perhaps, who 
 has left his impress and sign-manual upon the hearts of after 
 generations ? Jew, Heathen, or Christian ; men of the most 
 opposite creeds and aims ; whether it be Moses or Socrates, 
 Isaiah or Epictetus, Augustine or Mohammed, Dante or Bernard, 
 Shakspeare or Bacon, or Goethe's self, no doubt, though in his 
 tremendous pride he would not confess it even to himself, 
 each and all of them have this one fact in common that once 
 in their lives, at least, they have gone down into the bottomless 
 pit and ' stato all' inferno as the children used truly to say of 
 Dante ; and there, out of the utter darkness, have asked the 
 question of all questions ' Is there a God 1 And if there be, what 
 is He doing with me ? ' 
 
 What refuge, then, in self-education ; when a man feels himself 
 powerless in the gripe of some unseen and inevitable power, and 
 knows not whether it be chance, or necessity, or a devouring 
 fiend? To wrap himself sternly in himself, and cry, 'I will 
 endure, though all the universe be against me ; ' how fine it 
 sounds ! But who has done it 1 Could a man do it perfectly 
 but for one moment, could he absolutely and utterly for one 
 moment isolate himself, and accept his own isolation as a fact, 
 lie were then and there a madman or a suicide. As it is, his 
 nature, happily too weak for that desperate self-assertion, falls 
 back recklessly on some form, more or less graceful according to 
 the temperament, of the ancient panacea, 'Let us eat and drink, 
 for to-morrow we die.' Why should a man educate self, when 
 he knows not whither he goes, what will befall him to-night? 
 No. There is but one escape, one chink through which we may 
 see light, one rock on which our feet may find standing-place, 
 even in the abyss : and that is the belief, intuitive, inspired, due 
 neither to reasoning nor to study, that the billows are God's 
 billows ; and that though we go down to hell, He is there also ; 
 the belief that not we, but He, is educating us ; that these 
 seemingly fantastic and incoherent miseries, storm following 
 earthquake, and earthquake fire, as if the caprice of all the 
 demons were let loose against us, have in His mind a spiritual 
 coherence, an organic unity and purpose (though we see it not) ; 
 that sorrows do not come singly, only Ijecause He is making 
 2 F r. Y. A.
 
 434 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 short work with our spirits ; and because the more effect He sees 
 produced by one blow, the more swiftly He follows it up by 
 another ; till, in one great and varied crisis, seemingly long to 
 us, but short enough compared with immortality, our spirits 
 may be 
 
 ' Heated hot with burning fears, 
 And bathed in baths of hissing tears, 
 And battered with the strokes of doom, 
 To shape and use. ' 
 
 And thus, perhaps, it was with poor Grace Harvey. At least, 
 happily for her, she began after a while to think that it was so. 
 Only after a while, though. There was at first a phase of 
 repining, of doubt, almost of indignation against high heaven. 
 Who shall judge her? What blame if the crucified one writhe 
 when the first nail is driven ? What blame if the stoutest turn 
 sick and giddy at the first home-thrust of that sword which 
 pierces the joints and marrow, and lays bare to self the secrets 
 of the heart ? God gives poor souls time to recover their breaths, 
 ere He strikes again ; and if He be not angry, why should we 
 condemn ? 
 
 Poor Grace ! Her sorrows had been thickening fast during 
 the last few months. She was schoolmistress .again, true ; but 
 where were her children ? Those of them whom she loved best, 
 were swept away by the cholera ; and could she face the remnant, 
 each in mourning for a parent or a brother 1 That alone was 
 grief enough for her ; and yet that was the lightest of all her 
 
 griefs. She loved Tom Thurnall how much, she dared not tell 
 erself ; she longed to 'save' him. She had thought, and not 
 untruly, during the past cholera weeks, that he was softened, 
 opened to new impressions : but he had avoided her more than 
 ever perhaps suspected her again more than ever and now he 
 was gone, gone for ever. That, too, was grief enough alone. 
 But darkest and deepest of all, darker and deeper than the past 
 shame of being suspected by him she loved, was the shame of 
 suspecting her own mother of believing herself, as she did, 
 privy to that shameful theft, and yet unable to make restitution. 
 There was the horror of all horrors, the close prison which 
 seemed to stifle her whole soul. The only chink through which 
 a breath of air seemed to come, and keep her heart alive, was 
 the hope that somehow, somewhere, she might find that belt, 
 and restore it without her mother's knowledge. 
 
 But more the first of September was come and gone ; the 
 bill for five-and-twenty pounds was due, and was not met. Grace, 
 choking down her honest pride, went oft' to the grocer, and, with 
 tears which he could not resist, persuaded him to renew the bill 
 for one month more ; and now that month was all but past, and 
 yet there was no money. Eight or ten people who owed Mrs. 
 Harvey money had died of the cholera. Some, of course, had 
 left no effects ; and all hope of their working out their debts
 
 xxvt TOO LATE 435 
 
 was gone. Some had left money behind them : but it was 
 still in the lawyer's hands, some of it at sea, some on mort- 
 gage, some in houses which must be sold ; till their affairs 
 were wound up (a sadly slow affair when a country attorney 
 has a poor man's unprofitable business to transact) nothing 
 could come in to Mrs. Harvey. To and fro she went with 
 knitted brow and heavy heart ; and brought home again only 
 promises, as she had done a hundred times before. One day she 
 went up to Mrs. Heale. Old Heale owed her thirteen pounds 
 and more : but that was not the least reason for paying. His 
 cholera patients had not paid him ; and whether Heale had the 
 money by him or not, he was not going to pay his debts till 
 other people paid theirs. Mrs. Harvey stormed ; Mrs. Heale 
 gave her as good as she brought ; and Mrs. Harvey threatened to 
 County Court her husband; whereon Mrs. Heale, en revanche, 
 dragged out the books, and displayed to the poor widow's horror- 
 struck eyes an account for medicine and attendance, on her and 
 Grace, which nearly swallowed up the debt. Poor Grace was 
 overwhelmed when her mother came home and upbraided her, in 
 her despair, with being a burden. Was she not a burden ? 
 Must she not be one henceforth 1 No, she would take in needle- 
 work, labour in the fields, heave bsillast among the coarse 
 pauper-girls on the quay-pool, anything rather : but how to 
 meet the present difficulty ? 
 
 ' We must sell our furniture, mother ! ' 
 
 ' For a quarter of what it's worth ? Never, girl ! No ! The 
 Lord will provide,' said she, between her clenched teeth, with a 
 sort of hysteric chuckle. 'The Lord will provide ! ' 
 
 ' I believe it ; I believe it,' said poor Grace ; ' but faitli is 
 weak, and the day is very dark, mother.' 
 
 ' Dark, ay ? And may be darker yet ; but the Lord will pro- 
 vide. He prepares a table in the wilderness for his saints that 
 the world don t think of.' 
 
 'Oh, mother! and do you think there is any door of hope 1 ?' 
 
 ' Go to bed, girl ; go to bed, and leave me to see to that . 
 Find my spectacles. Wherever have you laid them to, now .' 
 I'll look over the books awhile.' 
 
 ' Do let me go over them for you.' 
 
 'No, you shan't! I suppose you'll be wanting to make out 
 your poor old mother's been cheating somebody. Why not, if 
 I'm a thief, miss, eh ?' 
 
 ' Oh, mother ! mother ! don't say that again.' 
 
 And Grace glided out meekly to her own chamber, whicli 
 was on the ground-floor adjoining the parlour, and there spent 
 more than one hour in prayer, from which no present comfort 
 seemed to come ; yet who shall say that it was all unanswered .- 
 
 At last her mother came upstairs, and put her head in 
 angrily : 'Why ben't you in bed, girl ? sitting up this way '?' 
 
 ' I was praying, mother,' says Grace, looking up as she knelt.
 
 436 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'Praying! What's the use of praying? and who'll hear you 
 if you pray 1 What you want's a husband, to keep you out of 
 the workhouse ; and you won't get that by kneeling here. Get 
 to bed, I say, or I'll pull you up ! ' 
 
 Grace obeyed uncomplaining, but utterly shocked ; though 
 she was not unacquainted with those frightful tits of morose 
 unbelief, even of fierce blasphemy, to which the excitable West- 
 country mind is liable, after having been over-strained by 
 superstitious self-inspection, and by the desperate attempt to 
 prove itself right and safe from frames and feelings, while fact 
 and conscience proclaim it wrong. 
 
 The West-country people are apt to attribute these paroxysms 
 to the possession of a devil ; and so did Grace that night. 
 
 Trembling with terror and loving pity, she lay down, and 
 began to pray afresh for that poor wild mother. 
 
 At last the fear crossed her that her mother might make 
 away with herself. But a few years before, another class-leader 
 in Aberalva had attempted to do so, and had all but succeeded. 
 The thought was intolerable. She must go to her ; face re- 
 proaches, blows, anything. She rose from her bed, and went to 
 the door. It was fastened on the outside. 
 
 A cold perspiration stood on her forehead. She opened her 
 lips to shriek to her mother ; but checked herself when she 
 heard her stirring gently in the outer room. Her pulses 
 throbbed too loudly at first for her to hear distinctly : but she 
 felt that it was no moment for giving way to emotion ; by a 
 strong effort of will, she conquered herself ; and then, with that 
 preternatural acuteness of sense which some women possess, she 
 could hear everything her mother was doing. She heard her 
 put on her shawl, her bonnet ; she heard her open the front 
 door gently. It was now long past midnight. Whither could 
 she be going at that hour ? 
 
 She heard her go gently to the left, past the window ; and 
 yet her footfall was all but inaudible. No rain had fallen, and 
 her shoes ought to have sounded on the hard earth. She must 
 have taken them off. There, she was stopping, just by the 
 school-door. Now she moved again. She must have stopped to 
 put on her shoes ; for now Grace could hear her stops distinctly, 
 down the earth bank, and over the rattling shingle of the beach. 
 Where was she going 1 Grace must follow ! 
 
 The door was fast ; but in a moment she had removed the 
 table, opened the shutter and the window. 
 
 'Thank God that I stayed here on the ground-floor, instead 
 of going back to my own room when Major Campbell left. It 
 is a providence ! The Lord has not forsaken mo yet ! ' said the 
 sweet saint, as, catching up her shawl, she wrapped it round 
 her, and slipping through the window, crouched under the 
 shadow of the house, and looked for her mother. 
 
 She was hurrying over tho rocks, a hundred yards oft'.
 
 xxvi TOO LATE 437 
 
 Whither? To drown herself in the sea? No; she held on 
 along the mid-beach, right across the cove, toward Arthur's 
 Nose. But why ? Grace must know. 
 
 She felt, she knew not why, that this strange journey, that 
 wild 'The Lord will provide,' had to dp with the subject of her 
 suspicion. Perhaps this was the crisis ; perhaps all will be 
 cleared up to-night, for joy or for utter shame. 
 
 The tide was low ; the beach was bright in the western moon- 
 light : only along the cliff' foot lay a strip of shadow a quarter 
 of a mile long, till the Nose, like a great black wall, buried the 
 corner of the cove in darkness. 
 
 Along that strip of shadow she ran, crouching ; now stumbling 
 over a boulder, now crushing her bare feet between the sharp 
 pebbles, as, heedless where she stepped, she kept her eye fixed 
 on her mother. As if fascinated, she could see nothing else in 
 heaven or earth but that dark figure, hurrying along with a 
 dogged determination, and then stopping a moment to look 
 round, as if in fear of a pursuer. And then Grace lay down on 
 the cold stones, and pressed herself into the very earth ; and 
 the moment her mother turned to go forward, sprang up and 
 followed. 
 
 And then a true woman's thought flashed across her, and 
 shaped itself into a prayer. For herself she never thought : but 
 if tlie coast-guardsman above should see her mother, stop her, 
 
 auestion her ? God grant that he might be on the other side of 
 le point ! And she hurried on again. 
 
 Near the Nose the rocks ran high and jagged ; her mother 
 held on to them, passed through a narrow chasm, and dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Grace now, not fifty yards from her, darted out of the shadow 
 into the moonlight, and ran breathlessly toward the spot where 
 she had seen her mother last. Like Anderssen's little sea- 
 maiden she went, every step on sharp knives, across the rough 
 beds of barnacles ; but she felt no pain, in the greatness of her 
 terror and her love. 
 
 She crouched between the rocks a moment ; heard her mother 
 slipping and splashing among the pools ; and glided after her 
 like a ghost a guardian angel rather till she saw her emerge 
 again for a moment into the moonlight, upon a strip of beach 
 beneath the Nose. 
 
 It was a weird and lonely spot ; and a dangerous spot withal. 
 For only at low spring-tide could it be reached from the land, 
 and then the flood rose far up the cliff', covering all the shingle, 
 and tilling the mouth of a dark cavern. Had her mother gone 
 to that cavern ? It was impossible to see, so utterly was the cliff 
 shrouded in shadow. 
 
 Shivering with cold and excitement, Grace crouched down, 
 and gazed into the gloom, till her eyes swam, and a hundred 
 fantastic figures, and sparks of tire, seemed to dance between
 
 438 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 her and the rock. Sparks of fire ! yes ; but that last one was 
 no fancy. An actual flash ; the crackle and sputter of a match ! 
 What could it mean ? Another match was lighted ; and a 
 moment after, the glare of a lanthorn showed her her mother 
 entering beneath trie polished arch of rock which glared lurid 
 overhead, like the gateway of the pit of fire. 
 
 The light vanished into the windings of the cave. And then 
 Grace, hardly knowing what she did, rushed up the beach, and 
 crouched down once more at the cave's mouth. There she sat, 
 she knew not how long, listening, listening, like a hunted hare ; 
 her whole faculties concentrated in the one sense of hearing ; her 
 eyes wandering vacantly over the black saws of rock, and glis- 
 tening oar-weed beds, and bright phosphoric sea. Thank Heaven, 
 there was not a ripple to break the silence. Ah, what was that 
 sound within ? She pressed her ear against the rock, to hear 
 more surely. A rumbling as of stones rolled down. And then 
 was it a fancy, or were her powers of hearing, intensified by 
 excitement, actually equal to discern the chink of coin 1 Who 
 knows? but in another moment she had glided in, silently, 
 swiftly, holding her very breath ; and saw her mother kneeling 
 on the ground, the lanthorn by her side, and in her hand the 
 long-lost belt. 
 
 She did not speak, she did not move. She always knew, in 
 her heart of hearts, that so it was : but when the sin took bodily 
 shape, and was there before her very eyes, it was too dreadful 
 to speak of, to act upon yet. And amid the most torturing 
 horror and disgust of that great sin, rose up in her the divinest 
 love for the sinner she felt strange paradox that she had 
 never loved her mother as she did at that moment. ' Oh, that 
 it had been I who had done it, and not she ! ' And her mother's 
 sin was to her her own sin, her mother's shame her shame, till 
 all sense of her mother's guilt vanished in the light of her divine 
 love. ' Oh, that I could take her up tenderly, tell her that all is 
 forgiven and forgotten by man and God ! serve her as I have 
 never served her yet ! nurse her to sleep on my bosom, and 
 then go forth and bear her punishment, even if need be on the 
 gallows-tree ! ' And there she stood, in a silent agony of tender 
 pity, drinking her portion of the cup of Him who bore the sins 
 of all the world. 
 
 Silently she stood ; and silently she turned to go, to go 
 home ana pray for guidance in that dark labyrinth of con- 
 fused duties. Her mother heard the rustle ; looked up ; and 
 sprang to her feet with a scream, dropping gold pieces on the 
 ground. 
 
 Her first impulse was wild terror. She was discovered ; by 
 whom, she knew not. She clasped her evil treasure to her 
 bosom, and thrusting Grace against the rock, fled wildly 
 out. 
 
 'Mother! mother!' shrieked Grace, rushing after lier. The
 
 xxvi TOO LATE 439 
 
 shawl fell from her shoulders. Her mother looked back, and 
 saw the white figure. 
 
 ' God's angel ! God's angel, come to destroy rne ! as he came 
 to Balaam ! ' and in the madness of her guilty fancy she saw in 
 Grace's hand the fiery sword which was to smite her. 
 
 Another step, looking backward still, and she had tripped 
 over a stone. She fell, and striking the back of her head against 
 the rock, lay senseless. 
 
 Tenderly Grace lifted her up : went for water to a pool near 
 by ; bathed her face, calling on ner by every term of endearment. 
 Slowly the old woman recovered her consciousness, but showed 
 it only in moans. Her head was cut and bleeding. Grace bound 
 it up, and then taking that fatal belt, bound it next to her own 
 heart, never to be moved from thence till she should put it into 
 the hands of him to whom it belonged. 
 
 And then she lifted up her mother. 
 
 ' Come home, darling mother ; ' and she tried to make her 
 stand and walk. 
 
 The old woman only moaned, and waved her away impa- 
 tiently. Grace put her on her feet ; but she fell again. The 
 lower limbs seemed all but paralysed. 
 
 Slowly that sweet saint lifted her, and laid her on her own 
 back ; and slowly she bore her homeward, with aching knees 
 and bleeding feet ; while before her eyes hung the picture of 
 Him wlx> bore His cross up Calvary, till a solemn joy and pride 
 in that sacred burden seemed to intertwine itself with her deep 
 misery. And fainting every moment with pain and weakness, 
 she still went on, as if by supernatural strength ; and mur- 
 mured 
 
 ' Thou didst bear more for me, and shall not I bear even this 
 for Thee?' 
 
 Surely, if blest spirits can weep and smile over the woes and 
 heroisms of us mortal men, faces brighter than the stars looked 
 down on that fair girl that night, and in loving sympathy called 
 her, too, blest. 
 
 At last it was over. Undiscovered she reached home, laid 
 her mother on the bed, and tended her till morning : but long 
 ere morning dawned stupor had changed into delirium, ana 
 Grace's ears were all on fire with words which those who have 
 ever heard will have no heart to write. 
 
 And now, by one of those strange vagaries, in which epidemics 
 so often indulge, appeared other symptoms ; and by day-dawn 
 cholera itself. 
 
 Heale, though recovering, was still too weak to be of use : 
 but, happily, the medical man sent down by the Board of Health 
 was still in the town. 
 
 Grace sent for him ; but he shook his head after the first 
 look. The wretched woman's ravings at once explained the 
 case, and made it, in his eyes, all but hopeless.
 
 440 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 The sudden shock to body and mind, the sudden prostration 
 of strength, had brought out the disease which she had dreaded 
 so intensely, and against which she had taken so many pre- 
 cautions, and which yet lay, all the while, lurking unfelt in her 
 system. 
 
 A hideous eight-and-forty hours followed. The preachers 
 and class-leaders came to pray over the dying woman : but she 
 screamed to Grace to send them away. She had just sense 
 enough left to dread that she might betray her own shame. 
 Would she have the new clergyman then ? No ; she would have 
 no one ; no one could help her ! Let her only die in peace ! 
 
 And Grace closed the door upon all but the doctor, who 
 treated the wild sufferer's wild words as the mere fancies of 
 delirium ; and then Grace watched and prayed, till she found 
 herself alone with the dead. 
 
 She wrote a letter to Thurnall 
 
 ' SIR I have found your belt, and all the money, I believe 
 and trust, which it contained. If you will be so kind as to tell 
 me where and how I shall send it to you, you will take a heavy 
 burden off the mind of 
 
 ' Your obedient humble servant, 
 
 who trusts that you will forgive her having been unable to fulfil 
 her promise.' 
 
 She addressed the letter to Whitbury ; for thither Tom had 
 ordered his letters to be sent ; but she received no answer. 
 
 The day after Mrs. Harvey was buried, the sale of all her 
 effects was announced in Aberalva. 
 
 Grace received the proceeds, went round to all the creditors, 
 and paid them all which was due. She had a few pounds left. 
 What to do with that she knew full well. 
 
 She showed no sign of sorrow : but she spoke rarely to any 
 one. A dead dull weight seemed to hang over her. To preachers, 
 class-leaders, gossips, who upbraided her for not letting them 
 see her mother, she replied by silence. People thought her 
 becoming idiotic. 
 
 The day after the last creditor was paid she packed up her 
 little box : hired a cart to take her to the nearest coach ; and 
 vanished from Aberalva, without bidding farewell to a human 
 being, even to her school-children. 
 
 Vavasour had been buried more than a week. Mark and 
 
 Mary were sitting in the dining-room, Mark at his port and 
 
 Mary at her work, when the footboy entered. 
 
 ' Sir, there's a young woman wants to speak with you.' 
 'Show her in, if she looks respectable,' said Mark, who had 
 
 slippers on, and his feet on the fender, and was, therefore, loth 
 
 to move.
 
 xxvr TOO LATE 441 
 
 ' Oh, quite respectable, sir, as ever I see ; ' and the lad ushered 
 in a figure, dressed and veiled in deep black. 
 
 ' Well, ma'am, sit down, pray ; and what can I do for you ? ' 
 
 'Can you tell me, sir,' answered a voice of extraordinary 
 sweetness arid gentleness, very firm and composed withal, 'if 
 Mr. Thomas Thurnall is in Whitbury ?' 
 
 ' Thurnall ? He has sailed for the East a week ago. May I 
 ask your business with him 1 Can I help you in it 1 ' 
 
 The black damsel paused so long, that both Mary and her 
 father felt uneasy, ana a cloud passed over Mark's brow. 
 
 ' Can the boy have been playing tricks ? ' said he to himself. 
 
 'Then, sir, as I hear that you have influence, can you get 
 me a situation as one of the nurses who are going out thither, 
 so I hear ? ' 
 
 ' Get you a situation ? Yes, of course, if you are competent.' 
 
 ' Thank you, sir. Perhaps, if you could be so very kind as 
 to tell me to whom I am to apply in town ; for I shall go thither 
 to-night.' 
 
 ' My goodness ! ' cried Mark. ' Old Mark don't do things 
 in this off-hand, cold-blooded way. Let us know who you are, 
 my dear, and about Mr. Thurnall. Have you anything against 
 him?' 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 ' Mary, just step into the next room.' 
 
 ' If you please, sir,' said the same gentle voice, ' I had sooner 
 that the lady should stay. I have nothing against Mr. Thurnall, 
 God knows. He has rather something against me.' 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 Mary rose, and went up to her and took her hand. 
 
 ' Do tell us who you are, and if we can do anything for you.' 
 
 And she looked winningly up into her face. 
 
 The stranger drew a long breath and lifted her veil. Mary 
 and Mark both started at the beauty of the countenance which 
 she revealed but in a different way. Mark gave a grunt of 
 approbation : Mary turned pale as death. 
 
 I suppose that it is but right and reasonable that I should 
 tell you, at least give proof of my being an honest person. For 
 my capabilities as a nurse I believe you know Mrs. Vavasour? 
 I heard that she has been staying here.' 
 
 ' Of course. Do you know her 1 ' 
 
 A sad smile passed over her face. 
 
 'Yes, well enough, at least for her to speak for me. I should 
 have asked her or Miss St. Just to help me to a nurse's place : 
 but I did not like to trouble them in their distress. How is the 
 poor lady now, sir ? ' 
 
 ' I know who she is ! ' cried Mary, by a sudden inspiration. 
 ' Is not your name Harvey ? Are you not the schoolmistress 
 who saved Mr. Thurnall's life? who behaved so nobly in the 
 cholera? Yes! I knew you were! Come and sit down, and
 
 442 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 tell me all ! I have so longed to know you ! Dear creature, I 
 have felt q,s if you were my own sister. He Mr. Thurnall 
 wrote often about all your heroism.' 
 
 Grace seemed to choke down somewhat : and then answered 
 steadfastly 
 
 'I did not come here, my dear lady, to hear such kind words, 
 but to do an errand to Mr. Thurnall. You have heard, perhaps, 
 that when he was wrecked last spring, he lost some money. 
 Yes ? Then, it was stolen. Stolen ! ' she repeated with a great 
 gasp : ' never mind by whom. Not by me.' 
 
 ' You need not tell us that, my dear,' interrupted Mark. 
 
 ' God kept it. And I have it ; here ! ' and she pressed her 
 hands tight over her bosom. 'And here I must keep it till I 
 give it into his hands, if I follow him round the world ! ' And 
 as she spoke her eyes shone in the lamplight, with an unearthly 
 brilliance which made Mary shudder. 
 
 Mark Armsworth poured a libation to the goddess of Puzzle- 
 dom, in the shape of a glass of port, which first choked him, and 
 then descended over his clean shirt-front. But after he had 
 coughed himself black in the face, he began 
 
 'My good girl, if you are Grace Harvey, you're welcome to 
 my roof, and an honour to it, say I : but as for taking all that 
 money with you across the seas, and such a pretty helpless 
 young thing as you are, God help you, it mustn't be, and shan't 
 be, and that's flat.' 
 
 ' But I must go to him ! ' said she, in so naive half-wild a 
 fashion, that Mary, comprehending all, looked imploringly at 
 her father, and putting her arm round Grace, forced her into a 
 seat. 
 
 ' I must go, sir, and tell him tell him myself. No one knows 
 what I know about it.' 
 
 Mark shook his head. 
 
 'Could I not write to him? He knows me as well as he 
 knows his own father.' 
 
 Grace shook her head, and pressed her hand upon her heart, 
 where Tom's belt lay. 
 
 ' Do you think, madam, that after having had the dream of 
 this belt, the shape of this belt, and of the money which is in it, 
 branded into my brain for months years it seems like by God's 
 fire of shame and suspicion ; and seen him poor, miserable, 
 fretful, unbelieving, for the want of it O God ! I can't tell even 
 your sweet face all. Do you think that now I have it in my 
 hands, I can part witli it, or rest till it is in his ? No, not 
 though I walked barefoot after him to the ends of the earth.' 
 
 ' Let his father have the money, then, and do you take him 
 the belt as a token, if you must 
 
 'That's it, Mary!' shouted Mark Armsworth, 'you always 
 come in with the right hint, girl ! ' and the two, combining their 
 forces, at last talked poor Grace over. But upon going out her-
 
 xxvi TOO LATE 443 
 
 self she was bent. To ask his forgiveness in her mother's name, 
 was her one fixed idea. He might die, and not know all, not 
 have forgiven all, and go she must. 
 
 'But it is a thousand to one against your seeing him. We, 
 even, don't know exactly where he is gone.' 
 
 Grace shuddered a moment ; and then recovered her calm- 
 ness. 
 
 ' I did not expect this : but be it so. I shall meet him if 
 God wills ; and if not, I can still work work.' 
 
 ' I think, Mary, you'd better take the young woman upstairs, 
 and make her sleep here to-night,' said Mark, glad of an excuse 
 to get rid of them ; which, when he had done, he pulled his 
 chair round in front of the fire, put a foot on each hob, and 
 began rubbing his eyes vigorously. 
 
 ' Dear me ! Dear me ! What a lot of good people there are 
 in this old world, to be sure ! Ten times better than me, at 
 least make one ashamed of oneself : and if one isn't even 
 good enough for this world, how's one to be good enough for 
 heaven ? ' 
 
 And Mary carried Grace upstairs, and into her own bedroom. 
 ' A bed should be made up there for her. It would do her 
 good just to have anything so pretty sleeping in the same room.' 
 And then she got Grace supper, ana tried to make her talk : but 
 she was distrait, reserved ; for a new and sudden dread had 
 seized her at the sight of that fine house, fine plate, fine friends. 
 These were his acquaintances, then : no wonder that he would 
 not look on such as her. And as she cast her eye round the 
 really luxurious chamber, and (after falteringly asking Mary 
 whether she had any brothers and sisters) guessed that she must 
 l)e the heiress of all that wealth, she settled in her heart that 
 Tom was to marry Mary ; and the intimate tone in which Mary 
 spoke of him to her, and her innumerable inquiries about him, 
 made her more certain that it was a settled thing. Handsome; 
 she was not, certainly ; but so sweet and good ; .and that her 
 own beauty (if she was aware that she possessed any) could have 
 any weight with Tom, she would have considered as an insult to 
 his sense ; so she made up her mind slowly, but steadily, that 
 thus it was to be ; and every fresh proof of Mary's sweetness 
 and goodness was a fresh pang to her, for it showed the more 
 how probable it was that Tom loved her. 
 
 Therefore she answered all Mary's questions carefully and 
 honestly, as to a person who had a right to ask ; and at last went 
 to her bed, and, worn out in body and mind, was asleep in a 
 moment. She had not remarked the sigh which escaped Mary, 
 as she glanced at that beautiful head, and the long black tresses 
 which streamed down for a moment over the white shoulders 
 ere they were knotted back for the night, and then at her own 
 poor countenance in the glass opposite.
 
 444 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 It was long past midnight when Grace woke, she knew not 
 how, and looking up, saw a light in the room, and Mary sitting 
 still over a book, her head resting on her hands. She lay quiet 
 and thought she heard a sob. She was sure she heard tears 
 drop on the paper. She stirred, and Mary was at her side in a 
 moment. 
 
 ' Did you want anything 1 ' 
 
 ' Only to to remind you, ma'am, it is not wise to sit up so 
 late.' 
 
 'Only that?' said Mary, laughing. 'I dp that every night, 
 alone with God ; and I do not think He will be the farther oft' 
 for your being here ! ' 
 
 ' One thing I had to ask,' said Grace. ' It would lessen my 
 labour so, if you could give me any hint of where he might be.' 
 
 ' We know, as we told you, as little as you. His letters are 
 to be sent to Constantinople. Some from Aberalva are gone 
 thither already.' 
 
 ' And mine among them ! ' thought Grace. ' It is God's will ! 
 . . . Madam, if it would not seem forward on my part if you 
 could tell him the truth, and what I have for him, and where I 
 am, in case he might wish wish to see me when you were 
 writing.' 
 
 'Of course I will, or my father will,' said Mary, who did not 
 like to confess either to herself or to Grace that it was very 
 improbable that she would ever write again to Tom Thurnall. 
 
 And so the two sweet maidens, so near that moment to an 
 explanation, which might have cleared up all, went on each in 
 her ignorance ; for so it was to be. 
 
 The next morning Grace came down to breakfast, modest, 
 cheerful, charming. Mark made her breakfast witli them ; gave 
 her endless letters of recommendation ; wanted to take her to 
 see old Doctor Thurnall, which she declined, and then sent her 
 to the station in his own carriage, paid her fare first-class to 
 town, and somehow or other contrived, with Mary's help, that, 
 she should find in her bag two ten-pound notes, which she had 
 never seen before. After which lie went out to his counting- 
 house, only remarking to Mary 
 
 'Very extraordinary young woman, and very handsome, too. 
 Will make some man a jewel of a wife, if she don't go mad, or 
 die of the hospital fever.' 
 
 To which Mary fully assented. Little she guessed, and little 
 did her father, that it was for Grace's sake that Tom had refused 
 her hand. 
 
 A few days more, and Grace Harvey also had gone Eastward 
 Ho.
 
 xxvn A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER 445 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER 
 
 IT is, perhaps, a pity for the human race in general that some 
 enterprising company cannot buy up the Moselle (not the wine, 
 but the river), cut it into five-mile lengths, and distribute them 
 over Europe, wherever there is a demand for lovely scenery. 
 For lovely is its proper epithet ; it is not grand, not exciting 
 so much the better ; it is scenery to live and die in ; scenery to 
 settle in, and study a single landscape, till you know every rock, 
 and walnut-tree, and vine-leaf by heart: not merely to run 
 through in one hasty steam-trip, as you now do, in a long burn- 
 ing day, which makes you not 'drunk' but weary 'with 
 excess of beauty.' Besides, there are two or three points so 
 superior to the rest, that having seen them, one cares to see 
 nothing more. That paradise of emerald, purple, and azure, 
 which opens behind Treis ; and that strange heap of old-world 
 houses at Berncastle, which have scrambled up to the top of a 
 rock to stare at the steamer, and have never been able to get 
 down again between them, and after them, one feels like a 
 child who, after a great mouthful of pine-apple jam, is con- 
 demned to have poured down its throat an everlasting stream 
 of treacle. 
 
 So thought Stangrave on board the steamer, as he smoked 
 his way up the shallows, and wondered which turn of the river 
 would bring him to his destination. When would it all be over? 
 And he never leaped on shore more joyfully than he did at Alf 
 that afternoon, to jump into a carriage, and trundle up the gorge 
 of the Issbach some six lonely weary miles, till he turned at last 
 into the wooded caldron of the liomer-kessel, and saw the little 
 chapel crowning the central knoll, with the white high-roofed 
 houses of Bertrich nestling at its foot. 
 
 He drives up to the handsome old Kurhaus, nestling close 
 beneath heather-clad rocks, upon its lawn shaded with huge 
 horse-chestnuts, and set round with dahlias, and geraniums, and 
 delicate tinted German stocks, which fill the air with fragrance ; 
 a place made only for young lovers certainly not for those 
 black-pet ticoated worthies, each with that sham of a sham, the 
 modern tonsure, pared down to a poor florin's breadth among 
 their bushy, well-oiled curls, who sit at little tables, passing 
 the la/y day ' muyiietter leu bo^tr(/eoisex' of Sarrebruck and 
 Treves, and sipping the fragrant Josephshofer perhaps at the 
 good bourgeois' expense. 
 
 Past them Stangrave slips angrily ; for that 'development of 
 humanity ' can find no favour in his eyes ; being not human at 
 ;ill, but professedly superhuman, and therefore, practically, some-
 
 446 TWO YEARS AGO 
 
 times inhuman. He hurries into the public room ; seizes on the 
 visitor's book. 
 
 The names are there, in their own handwriting : but where 
 are they ? 
 
 Waiters are seized and questioned. The English ladies came 
 back last night, and are gone this afternoon. 
 
 ' Where are they gone ? ' 
 
 Nobody recollects : not even the man from whom they hired 
 the carriage. But they are not gone far. Their servants and 
 their luggage are still here. Perhaps the Herr Ober-Badmeister. 
 
 Lieutenant D , will know. ' Oh, it will not trouble him. An 
 
 English gentleman 1 Der Herr Lieutenant will be only too 
 happy ; ' and in ten minutes der Herr Lieutenant appears, really 
 only too happy ; and Stangrave finds himself at once in the 
 company of a soldier and a gentleman. Had their acquaintance 
 been a longer one, he would have recognised likewise the man 
 of taste and of piety. 
 
 ' I can well appreciate, sir,' says he, in return to Stangrave's 
 anxious inquiries, 'your impatience to rejoin your lovely country- 
 women, who have been for the last three weeks the wonder and 
 admiration of our little paradise ; and whose four days' absence 
 was regarded, believe me, as a public calamity.' 
 
 ' I can well believe it ; but they are not countrywomen of 
 mine. The one lady is an Englishwoman ; the other I believe 
 an Italian.' 
 
 ' And der Herr ? ' 
 
 'An American.' 
 
 ' Ah ! A still greater pleasure, sir. I trust that you will 
 carry back across the Atlantic a good report of a spot all but 
 unknown, I fear, to your compatriots. You will meet one, I 
 think, on the return of the ladies.' 
 
 'A compatriot?' 
 
 ' Yes. A gentleman who arrived here this morning, and who 
 seemed, from his conversation with them, to belong to your 
 noble fatherland. He went out driving with them this after- 
 noon, whither I unfortunately know not. Ah ! good Saint 
 Nicholas ! For though I am a Lutheran, I must invoke him 
 now Look out yonder ! ' 
 
 Stangrave looked, and joined in the general laugh of lieu- 
 tenant, waiters, priests, and bourgeoises. 
 
 For under the chestnuts strutted, like him in Struwelpeter, 
 as though he were a very king of Ashantee, Sabina's black boy, 
 who had taken to himself a scarlet umbrella and a great cigar ; 
 while after him came, also like them in Struwelpeter, Caspar, 
 bretzel in hand, and Ludwig with his hoop, and all the naughty 
 boys of Bertrich town, hooting and singing in chorus, after the 
 fashion of German children. 
 
 The resemblance to the well-known scene in the German 
 child's book was perfect, and as the children shouted
 
 xxvn A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER 447 
 
 1 Ein kohlpechrabenschwarzer Mobr, 
 Die Sonne schien ihin ins geliirn, 
 Da nahm er seinen Sonneuschirm ' 
 
 more than one grown person ioined therein. 
 
 Stangrave longed to catch hold of the boy, and extract from 
 him all news ; but the blackamoor was not quite in respectable 
 company enough at that moment ; and Stangrave had to wait 
 till he strutted proudly up to the door, and entered the hall with 
 a bland smile, evidently having taken the hooting as a homage 
 to his personal appearance. 
 
 'Ah? Mas' Stangrave? glad see you, sir! Quite a party of 
 us now, 'mong dese 'barian heathen foreigners. Mas' Thurnall 
 he come dis mornin' ; gone up pickin' bush wid de ladies. He ! 
 he ! Not seen him dis tree year afore.' 
 
 'Thurnall!' Stangrave's heart sunk within him. His first 
 impulse was to order a carriage, and return whence he came ; 
 but it would look so odd, and, moreover, be so foolish, that he 
 made up his mind to stay and face the worst. So he swallowed 
 a hasty dinner, and then wandered up the narrow valley, with 
 all his suspicions of Thurnall and Marie seething more fiercely 
 than ever in his heart. 
 
 Some half mile up, a path led out of the main road to a 
 wooden bridge across the stream. He followed it, careless 
 whither he went ; and in five minutes found himself in the 
 quaintest little woodland cavern he ever had seen. 
 
 It was simply a great block of black lava, crowned with 
 brushwood, and supported on walls and pillars of Dutch cheeses, 
 or what should have been Dutch cheeses by all laws of shape 
 and colour, had not his fingers proved to them that they were 
 stone. How they got there, and what they were, puzzled him ; 
 for he was no geologist ; and finding a bench inside, he sat 
 down and speculated thereon. 
 
 There was more than one doorway to the ' Cheese Cellar.' 
 It stood beneath a jutting knoll, and the path ran right 
 through : so that, as he sat, he could see up a narrow gorge to 
 his left, roofed in with trees ; and down into the main valley on 
 his right, where the Issbach glittered clear and smooth beneath 
 red-berried mountain ash and yellow leaves. 
 
 There he sat, and tried to forget Marie in the tinkling of the 
 streams, and the sighing of the autumn leaves, and the cooing 
 of the sleepy cloves , while the ice-bird, as the Germans call the 
 water-ousel, sat on a rock in the river below, and warbled his 
 low sweet song, and then flitted up the grassy reach to perch 
 and sing again on the next rock above. 
 
 And, whether it was that he did forget Marie awhile ; or 
 whether he were tired, as he well might have been ; or whether 
 he had too rapidly consumed his bottle of red Walporzheimer, 
 forgetful that it alone of German wines combines the delicacy 
 of the Khine sun with the potency of its Burgundian vinestock,
 
 448 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 transplanted to the Ahrby Charlemagne ; whether it were any 
 of these causes, or whether it were not, Stangrave fell fast asleep 
 in the Kaise-kellar, and slept till it was dark, at the risk of 
 catching a great cold. 
 
 How long he slept, he knew not : but what wakened him he 
 knew full well. Voices of people approaching ; and voices 
 which he recognised in a moment. 
 
 Sabina 1 Yes ; and Marie too, laughing merrily ; and among 
 their shriller tones the voice of Thurnall. He had not heard it 
 for years ; but, considering the circumstances under which he 
 had last heard it, there was no fear of his forgetting it again. 
 
 They came down the side glen ; and before he could rise, they 
 had turned the sharp corner of the rock, and were in the Kaise- 
 kellar, close to him, almost touching him. He felt the awkward- 
 ness of his position. To keep still was, perhaps, to overhear, 
 and that too much. To discover himself was to produce a 
 scene ; and he could not trust his temper that the scene would 
 not be an ugly one, and such as women must not witness. 
 
 He was relieved to find that they did not stop. They were 
 laughing about the gloom ; about being out so late. 
 
 ' How jealous some one whom I know would be,' said Sabina, 
 ' if he found you and Tom together in this darksome den ! ' 
 
 ' I don't care,' said Tom ; ' I have made up my mind to shoot 
 him out of hand, and marry Marie myself. Shan't I now, 
 
 my ' and they passed on ; and down to their carriage, which 
 
 had been waiting for them in the road below. 
 
 What Marie's answer was, or by what name Thurnall was 
 about to address her, Stangrave did not hear : but he had heard 
 quite enough. 
 
 He rose quietly after a while, and followed them. 
 
 He was a dupe, an ass ! The dupe of those bad women, and 
 of his ancient enemy ! It was maddening ! Yet, how could 
 Sabina be in fault ? She had not known Marie till he himself 
 had introduced her ; and he could not believe her capable of 
 such baseness. The crime must lie between the other two. 
 Yet- 
 However that might be mattered little to him now. He 
 would return, order his carriage once more, and depart, shaking 
 off the dust of his feet against them ! ' Pah ! There were other 
 women in the world ; and women, too, who would not demand 
 of him to become a hero.' 
 
 He reached the Kurhaus, and went in ; but not into the 
 public room, for fear of meeting people whom lie had no heart 
 to face. 
 
 He was in the passage, in the act of settling his account with 
 the waiter, when Thurnall came hastily out, and ran against 
 him. 
 
 Stangrave stood by the passage lamp, so that he saw Tom's 
 face at once.
 
 xxvii A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER 449 
 
 Tom drew back ; begged a thousand pardons ; and saw Stan- 
 grave's face in turn. 
 
 The two men looked at each other for a few seconds. Stan- 
 grave longed to say, ' You intend to shoot me 1 Then try at 
 once ; ' but he was ashamed, of course, to make use of words 
 which he had so accidentally overheard. 
 
 Tom looked carefully at Stangrave, to divine his temper from 
 his countenance. It was quite angry enough to give Tom excuse 
 for saying to himself 
 
 ' The fellow is mad at being caught at last. Very well.' 
 
 ' I think, sir,' said he, quietly enough, ' that you and I had 
 better walk outside for a few minutes. Allow me to retract the 
 apology I just made, till we have had some very explicit con- 
 versation on other matters.' 
 
 ' Curse his impudence ! ' thought Stangrave. ' Does he 
 actually mean to bully me into marrying her 1 ' and he replied 
 haughtily enough 
 
 ' I am aware of no matters on which I am inclined to be 
 explicit with Mr. Thurnall, or on which Mr. Thurnall has a 
 right to be explicit with me.' 
 
 'I am, then,' quoth Tom, his suspicion increasing in turn. 
 ' Do you wish, sir, to have a scene before this waiter and the 
 whole house, or will you be so kind as to walk outside with 
 me?' 
 
 ' I must decline, sir ; not being in the habit of holding inter- 
 course with an actress's bully.' 
 
 Tom did not knock him down : but replied smilingly 
 enough 
 
 'I am far too much in earnest in this matter, sir, to be 
 stopped by any coarse expressions. Waiter, you may go. Now 
 will you fight me to-morrow morning, or will you not ? ' 
 
 'I may tight a gentleman : but not you.' 
 
 ' Well, I shall not call you a coward, because I know that 
 you are none ; and I shall not make a row here, for a gentle- 
 man's reasons, which you, calling yourself a gentleman, seem 
 to have forgotten. But this I will do ; I will follow you till 
 you do tight me, if I have to throw up my own prospects in 
 life for it. I will proclaim you, wherever we meet, for what 
 you are a mean and base intriguer ; I will insult you in 
 Kursaals, and cane you on public places ; I will be Franken- 
 stein's man to you day and night, till I have avenged the 
 wrongs of this poor girl, the dust of whose feet you are not 
 worthy to kiss off.' 
 
 Stangrave "was surprised at his tone. It was certainly not 
 that of a conscious villain : but he only replied sneeringly 
 
 'Arid pray what may give Mr. Thurnall the right to consider 
 himself the destined avenger of this frail beauty's wrongs ? ' 
 
 ' I will tell you that after we have fought ; and somewhat 
 more. Meanwhile, that expression, " frail beauty," is a fresh 
 2 G T. Y. A.
 
 450 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 offence, for which I should certainly cane you, if she were not 
 in the house.' 
 
 'Well,' drawled Stangrave, feigning an ostentatious yawn, 
 ' I believe the wise method of ridding oneself of impertinents 
 is to grant their requests. Have you pistols ? I have none.' 
 
 'I have botli duellers and revolvers cat your service. 
 
 'Ah? I think we'll try the revolvers then,' said Stangrave, 
 savage from despair, and disbelief in all human goodness. 
 ' After what has passed, five or six shots apiece will be hardly 
 oiitre.' 
 
 ' Hardly, I think,' said Tom. ' Will you name your second 1 ' 
 
 ' I know no one. I have not been here two hours ; but I 
 suppose they do not matter much.' 
 
 'Humph ! it is as well to have witnesses in case of accident. 
 There are a couple of roystering Burschen in the public room, 
 who, I think, would enjoy the office. Both have scars on their 
 faces, so they will be au fait at the thing. Shall I have the 
 honour of sending one of them to you ? ' 
 
 'As you will, sir ; my number is 34.' And the two fools 
 turned on their respective heels, and walked off. 
 
 At sunrise next morning Tom and his second are standing on 
 the Falkenhohe, at the edge of the vast circular pit, blasted out 
 by some explosion which has torn the slate into mere dust and 
 shivers, now covered with a thin coat of turf. 
 
 'Schone aussicht ! ' says the Bursch, waving Ins hand round, 
 in a tone which is benevolently meant to withdraw Tom's mind 
 from painful considerations. 
 
 ' Very pretty prospect indeed. You're sure you understand 
 that revolver thoroughly ? ' 
 
 The Bursch mutters to himself something about English 
 nonchalance, and assures Thurnall that he is competently 
 acquainted with the weapon ; as indeed he ought to be ; for 
 having never seen one before, he has been talking and thinking 
 of nothing else since they left Bertrich. 
 
 And why does not Tom care to look at the prospect ? Cer- 
 tainly not because lie is afraid. He slept as soundly as ever last 
 night ; and knows not what fear means. But somehow, the 
 glorious view reminds him of another glorious view, which he 
 saw last summer walking by Grace Harvey's side from Tolchard's 
 farm. And that subject he will sternly put away. He is not 
 sure but what it might unman even him. 
 
 The likeness certainly exists ; for the rock, being the same in 
 both places, has taken the same general form ; and the wanderer 
 in Rhine -Prussia and Nassau might often fancy himself in 
 Devon or Cornwall. True, here there is no sea : and there no 
 Moselkopf raises its huge crater-cone far above the uplands, all 
 golden in the level sun. But that brown Taunus far away, or 
 that brown Hundsruck opposite, with its deep-wooded gorges
 
 xxvii A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER 451 
 
 barred with level gleams of light across black gulfs of shade, 
 might well be Dartmoor, or Carcarrow moor itself, high over 
 Aberalva town, which he will see no more. True, in Cornwall 
 there would be no slag-cliffs of the Falkenley beneath his feet, 
 as black and blasted at this day as when yon orchard meadow 
 was the mouth of hell, and the south-west wind dashed the great 
 flame against the cinder-cliff behind, and forged it into walls of 
 time-defying glass. But that might well be Alva stream, that 
 Issbach in its green gulf far below, winding along toward the 
 green gulf of the Moselle he will look at it no more, lest he see 
 Grace herself come to him across the down, to chide him, with 
 sacred horror, for the dark deed which he has come to do. 
 
 And yet he does not wish to kill Stangrave. He would like 
 to ' wing him.' He must punish him for his conduct to Marie ; 
 punish him for last night's insult. It is a necessity, but a dis- 
 agreeable one ; he would be sorry to go to the war with that 
 man's blood upon his hand. He is sorry that he is out of 
 practice. 
 
 ' A year ago I could have counted on hitting him where I 
 liked. I trust I shall not blunder against his vitals now. How- 
 ever, if I do, lie has himself to blame ! ' 
 
 The thought that Stangrave may kill him never crosses his 
 mind. Of course, out of six shots, fired at all distances from 
 forty paces to fifteen, one may hit him : but as for being 
 killed! . . . 
 
 Tom's heart is hardened ; melted again and again this summer 
 for a moment, only to freeze again. He all but believes that he 
 bears a charmed life. All the miraculous escapes of his past 
 years, instead of making him believe in a living, guiding, pro- 
 tecting Father, have become to that proud hard heart the excuse 
 for a deliberate, though unconscious, atheism. His fall is surely 
 near. 
 
 At last Stangrave and his second appear. Stangrave is 
 haggard, not from fear, but from misery, and rage, and self- 
 condemnation. This is the end of all his fine resolves ! Pah ! 
 what use in them 1 What use in being a martyr in this world '] 
 All men are liars, and all women too ! 
 
 Tom and Stangrave stand a little apart from eacli other, while 
 one of the seconds paced the distance. He steps out away from 
 them, across the crater floor, carrying Tom's revolver in his 
 hand, till he reaches the required point, and turns. 
 
 He turns : but not to come back. Without a gesture or an 
 exclamation which could explain his proceedings, he faces about 
 once more, and rushes up the slope as hard as legs and wind 
 permitted. 
 
 Tom is confounded with astonishment : either the Bursch is 
 seixed with terror at the whole business, or he covets the much- 
 admired revolver ; in either case he is making ofl' with it before 
 the owner's eyes.
 
 452 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Stop ! Hillo ! Stop thief ! He's got my pistol ! ' and away 
 goes Thurnall in chase after the Bursch, who, never looking 
 behind, never sees that he is followed : while Stangrave and the 
 second Bursch look on with wide eyes. 
 
 Now the Bursch is a ' gymnast,' and a capital runner ; and 
 so is Tom likewise ; and brilliant is the race upon the Falken- 
 hohe. But the victory, after a while, becomes altogether a 
 question of wind ; for it was all up hill. The crater, being one 
 of 'explosion, and not of elevation, as the geologists would 
 say, does not slope downward again, save on one side, from its 
 outer lip ; and Tom and the Bursch were breasting a fair hill, 
 after they had emerged from the ' kessel ' below. 
 
 Now the Bursch had had too much Thronerhofberger the 
 night before ; and possibly, as Burschen will in their vacations, 
 the night before that also ; whereby his diaphragm surrendered 
 at discretion, while his heels were yet unconquered ; and he 
 suddenly felt a strong gripe, and a stronger kick, which rolled 
 him over on the turf. 
 
 The hapless youth, who fancied himself alone upon the moun- 
 tain tops, roared mere incoherences ; and Tom, too angry to 
 listen, and too hurried to punish, tore the revolver out of his 
 grasp ; whereon one barrel exploded 
 
 ' I have done it now ! ' 
 
 No : the ball had luckily buried itself in the ground. 
 
 Tom turned, to rush down hill again, and meet the impatient 
 Stangrave. 
 
 Crack whing g g ! 
 
 'A bullet!' 
 
 Yes ! And, prodigy on prodigy, up the hill towards him 
 charged, as he would upon a whole army, a Prussian gendarme, 
 with bayonet fixed. 
 
 Tom sat down upon the mountain-side, and burst into inex- 
 tinguishable laughter, while the gendarme came charging up, 
 right toward his very nose. 
 
 But up to his nose he charged not ; for his wind was 
 short, and the noise of his roaring went before him. More- 
 over, he knew that Tom had a revolver, and was a ' mad 
 Englishman.' 
 
 Now lie was not afraid of Tom, or of a whole army : but he 
 was a man of drills and of orders, of rules and of precedents, as 
 a Prussian gendarme ought to be ; and for the modes of attack- 
 ing infantry, cavalry, and artillery, man, woman, and child, thief 
 and poacher, stray pig, or even stray wolf, he had drill and 
 orders sufficient : but for attacking a Colt's revolver, none. 
 
 Moreover, for arresting all manner of riotous Burschen, 
 drunken boors, French red republicans, Mazzini-hatted Italian 
 refugees, suspect Polish incendiaries, or other feras naturw, he 
 had precedent and regulation : but for arresting a mad English- 
 man, none. He held fully the opinion of his superiors, that
 
 xxvn A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER 453 
 
 there was no saying what an Englishman might not, could not, 
 and would not do. He was a sphinx, a chimera, a lunatic broke 
 loose, who took unintelligible delight in getting wet, and dirty, 
 and tired, and starved, and all but killed ; and called the same 
 ' taking exercise : ' who would see everything that nobody ever 
 cared to see, and who knew mysteriously everything about 
 everywhere ; whose deeds were like his opinions, utterly sub- 
 versive of all constituted order in heaven and earth ; being, 
 probably, the inhabitant of another planet ; possibly the man 
 in the moon himself, who had been turned out, having made his 
 native satellite too hot to hold him. All that was to be done 
 with him was to inquire whether his passport was correct, and 
 then (with a due regard to self-preservation) to endure his 
 vagaries in pitying wonder. 
 
 So the gendarme paused panting ; and not daring to approach, 
 walked slowly and solemnly round Tom, keeping the point of 
 his bayonet carefully towards him, and roaring at intervals 
 
 'You have murdered the young man ! ' 
 
 ' But I have not ! ' said Tom. ' Look and see.' 
 
 ' But I saw him fall ! ' 
 
 ' But he has got up again, and run away. 1 
 
 ' So ! Then where is your passport ? ' 
 
 That one other fact, cognisable by the mind of a Prussian 
 gendarme, remained as an anchor for his brains under the new 
 and trying circumstances, and he used it. ' Here ! ' quoth Tom, 
 pulling it out. 
 
 The gendarme stepped cautiously forward. 
 
 'Don't be frightened. I'll stick it on your bayonet- 
 point ; ' and suiting the action to the word, Tom caught the 
 bayonet-point, put the passport on it, and pulled out his cigar- 
 case. 
 
 ' Mad Englishman ! ' murmured the gendarme. ' So ! The 
 passport is correct. But der Herr must consider himself under 
 arrest. Der Herr will give up his death-instrument.' 
 
 ' By all means,' says Tom : and gives up the revolver. 
 
 The gendarme takes it very cautiously ; meditates awhile how 
 to carry it ; sticks the point of his bayonet into its muzzle, and 
 lifts it aloft. 
 
 ' Schon ! Das kriegt ! Has der Herr any more death - 
 instruments?' 
 
 ' Dozens ! ' says Tom, and begins fumbling in his pockets ; 
 from whence he pulls a case of surgical instruments, another of 
 mathematical ones, another of lancets, and a knife with in- 
 numerable blades, saws, and pickers, every one of which he 
 opens carefully, and then spreads the whole fearful array upon 
 the gi'ass before him. 
 
 The gendarme scratches his head over those too plain proofs 
 of some tremendous conspiracy. 
 
 ' So ! Man must have a dozen hands ! lie is surely Pal-
 
 454 TWO YEARS AGO CHAV. 
 
 merston himself ; or at least Hecker, or Mazzini ! ' murmurs he, 
 as he meditates how to stow them all. 
 
 He thinks now that the revolver may be safe elsewhere ; and 
 that the knife will do best on the bayonet-point. So he unships 
 the revolver. 
 
 Bang goes barrel number two, and the ball goes into the turf 
 between his feet. 
 
 ' You will shoot yourself soon, at that rate,' says Tom. 
 
 ' So ! Der Herr speaks German like a native,' says the 
 gendarme, growing complimentary in his perplexity. ' Perhaps 
 der Herr would be so good as to carry his death-instruments 
 himself and attend on the Herr Polizeirath, who is waiting to 
 see him.' 
 
 ' By all means ! ' And Tom picks up his tackle, while the 
 prudent gendarme reloads ; and Tom marches down the hill, 
 the gendarme following, with his bayonet disagreeably near the 
 small of Tom's back. 
 
 ' Don't stumble ! Look out for the stones, or you'll have that 
 skewer through me ! ' 
 
 ' So ! Der Herr speaks German like a native,' says the gen- 
 darme, civilly. ' It is certainly der Palmerston,' thinks he, ' his 
 manners are so polite.' 
 
 Once at the crater edge, and able to see into the pit, the 
 mystery is, in part at least, explained : for there stand not only 
 Stangrave and Bursch number two, but a second gendarme, two 
 elderly gentlemen, two ladies, and a black boy. 
 
 One is Lieutenant D , by his white moustache. He is 
 
 lecturing the Bursch, who looks sufficiently foolish. The other 
 is a portly and awful-looking personage in uniform, evidently 
 the Polizeirath of those parts, armed with the just terrors of 
 the law but Justice has, if not her eyes bandaged, at least her 
 hands tied ; for on his arm hangs Sabina, smiling, chatting, 
 entreating. The Polizeirath smiles, bows, ogles, evidently a 
 willing captive. Venus had disarmed Rhadamanthus, as she 
 has Mars so often ; and the sword of justice must rust in its 
 scabbard. 
 
 Some distance behind them is Stangrave, talking in a low 
 voice, earnestly, passionately- to whom but to Marie ? 
 
 And lastly, opposite each other, and like two dogs who are- 
 uncertain whether to make friends or fight, are a gendarme and 
 Sabina's black boy : the gendarme, with shouldered musket, is 
 trying to look as stiff and cross as possible, being scandalised by 
 his superior officer's defection from the path of duty ; and still 
 more by the irreverence of the black boy, who is dancing, grin- 
 ning, snapping his fingers, in delight at having discovered and 
 prevented the coming tragedy. 
 
 Tom descends, bowing courteously, apologises for having been 
 absent when the highly distinguished gentleman arrived ; and 
 turning to the Bursch, begs him to transmit to his friend who
 
 xxvn A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER 455 
 
 has run away his apologies for the absurd mistake which led 
 him to, etc. etc 
 
 The Polizeirath looks at him with much the same blank 
 astonishment as the gendarme had done ; and at last ends by 
 lifting up his hands, and bursting into an enormous German 
 laugh ; and no one on earth can laugh as a German can, so 
 genially and lovingly, and with such intense self -enjoyment. 
 
 ' Oh, you English ! you English ! You are all maa, I think ! 
 Nothing can shame you, and nothing can frighten you ! Potz ! 
 I believe when your Guards at Alma walked into that battery, 
 the other day, every one of them was whistling your Jim Crow, 
 even after he was shot dead ! ' And the jolly Polizeirath 
 laughed at his own joke, till the mountain rang. 'But you 
 must leave the country, sir ; indeed you must. We cannot 
 permit such conduct here I am very sorry.' 
 
 ' I entreat you not to apologise, sir. In any case, I was going 
 to Alf by eight o'clock, to meet the steamer for Treves. I am 
 on my way to the war in the East, via Marseilles. If you would, 
 therefore, be so kind as to allow the gendarme to return me 
 that second revolver, which also belongs to me 
 
 ' Give him his pistol ! ' shouted the magistrate. ' Potz ! Let 
 us be rid of him at any cost, and live in peace, like honest 
 Germans. Ah, poor Queen Victoria ! What a lot ! To have 
 the government of five-and-twenty million such ! ' 
 
 'Not five-and-twenty millions,' says Sabina. 'That would 
 include the ladies ; and we are not mad too, surely, your Excel- 
 lency?' 
 
 The Polizeirath likes to be called your Excellency, of course, 
 or any other mighty title which does or does not belong to him ; 
 and that Sabina knows full well. 
 
 'Ah, my dear madam, how do I know that? The English 
 ladies do every clay here what no other dames would dare or 
 dream what then must you be at home? Ach ! your poor 
 husbands ! ' 
 
 ' Mr. Thurnall ! ' calls Marie, from behind. 'Mr. Thurnall ! ' 
 
 Tom comes with a quaint, clogged smile on his face. 
 
 ' You see him, Mr. Stangrave ! You see the man who risked 
 for me liberty, life who rescued me from slavery, shame, 
 suicide who was to me a brother, a father, for years ! with- 
 out whose disinterested heroism you would never have set eyes 
 on the face which you pretend to love. And you repay him by 
 suspicion insult. Apologise to him, sir ! Ask his pardon 
 now, here, utterly, humbly : or never speak to Marie Lavington 
 again ! ' 
 
 Tom looked first at her, and then at Stangrave. Marie was 
 convulsed with excitement ; her thin checks were crimson, her 
 eyes Hashed very fiame. Stangrave was pale calm outwardly, 
 but evidently not within. He was looking on the ground, in 
 thought so intense that he hardly seemed to hear Marie. Poor
 
 456 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 fellow ! he had heard enough in the last ten minutes to bewilder 
 any brain. 
 
 At last he seemed to have strung himself for an effort, and 
 spoke, without looking up. 
 
 ' Mr. Thurnall ! ' 
 
 'Sir?' 
 
 ' I have done you a great wrong ! ' 
 
 ' We will say no more about it, sir. It was a mistake, and 
 I do not wish to complicate the question. My true ground of 
 quarrel with you is your conduct to Miss Lavington. She 
 seems to have told you her true name, so I shall call her by it.' 
 
 ' What I have done, I have undone ! ' said Stangrave, looking 
 up. ' If I have wronged her, I have offered to right her ; if I 
 have left her, I have sought her again ; and if I left her when I 
 knew nothing, now that I know all, I ask her here, before you, 
 to become my wife ! ' 
 
 Tom looked inquiringly at Marie. 
 
 ' Yes ; I have told him all all ! ' and she hid her face in her 
 hands. 
 
 ' Well,' said Tom, ' Mr. Stangrave is a very enviable person ; 
 and the match, in a worldly point of view, is a most fortunate 
 one for Miss Lavington ; and that stupid rascal of a gendarme 
 has broken my revolver.' 
 
 ' But I have not accepted him,' cried Marie ; ' and I will not, 
 unless you give me leave.' 
 
 Tom saw Stangrave's brow lower, and pardonably enough, 
 at this. 
 
 ' My dear Miss Lavington, as I have never been able to settle 
 my own love affairs satisfactorily to myself, I do not feel at all 
 competent to settle other people's. Good-bye. I shall be late 
 for the steamer.' And, bowing to Stangrave and Marie, he 
 turned to go. 
 
 ' Sabina ! stop him ! ' cried she ; ' he is going, without even a 
 kind word ! ' 
 
 ' Sabina,' whispered Tom as he passed her, ' a bad business 
 selfish coxcomb ; when her beauty goes, won't stand her temper 
 and her flightiness : but I know you and Claude will take care 
 of the poor thing, if anything happens to me.' 
 
 'You're wrong prejudiced indeed ! ' 
 
 ' Tut, tut, tut ! Good-bye, you sweet little sunbeam. Good 
 morning, gentlemen ! ' 
 
 And Tom hurried up the slope and out of sight, while Marie 
 burst into an agony of weeping. 
 
 ' Gone, without a kind word ! ' 
 
 Stangrave bit his lip, not in anger, but in manly self- 
 reproach. 
 
 ' It is my fault, Marie ! my fault ! He knew me too well of 
 old, and had too much reason to despise me ! But he shall have 
 reason no longer. He will come back, and find me worthy of
 
 XXVH A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER 457 
 
 you ; and all will be forgotten. Again I say it, I accept your 
 quest, for life and death. So help me God above, as I will not 
 fail or falter, till I have won justice for you and for your race, 
 Marie ! ' 
 
 He conquered : how could he but conquer ; for he was man, 
 and she was woman ; and he looked more noble in her eyes, 
 while he was confessing his past weakness, than he had ever 
 done in his proud assertion of strength. 
 
 But she spoke no word in answer. She let him take her 
 hand, pass her arm through his, and lead her away, as one who 
 had a right. 
 
 They walked down the hill behind the rest of the party, blest, 
 but silent and pensive ; he with the weight of the future, she 
 with that of the past. 
 
 'It is very wonderful,' she said at last. 'Wonderful . . . 
 that you can care for me. . . . Oh, if I had known how noble 
 you were, I should have told you all at once.' > 
 
 ' Perhaps I should have been as ignoble as ever,' said Stan- 
 grave, ' if that young English viscount had not put me on my 
 mettle by his own nobleness.' 
 
 ' No ! no ! Do not belie yourself. You know what he does 
 not what I would have died sooner than tell him.' 
 
 Stangrave drew the arm closer through his, and clasped the 
 hand. Marie did not withdraw it. 
 
 ' Wonderful, wonderful love ! ' she said, quite humbly. Her 
 theatric passionateness had passed 
 
 ' Nothing was left of her, 
 Now, but pure womanly. ' 
 
 ' That you can love me-^-me, the slave ; me, the scourged ; the 
 scarred Oh, Stangrave ! it is not much not much really ; only 
 a little mark or two . . .' 
 
 ' I will prize them,' he answered, smiling through tears, ' more 
 than all your loveliness. I will see in them God's command- 
 ment to me, written not on tables of stone, but on fair, pure, 
 noble flesh. My Marie ! You shall have cause even to rejoice 
 in them ! ' 
 
 ' I glory in them now ; for, without them, I never should 
 have known all your woi'th.' 
 
 The next day Stangrave, Marie, and Sabina were hurrying 
 home to England ! while Tom Thurnall was hurrying to Mar- 
 seilles, to vanish Eastward Ho. 
 
 He has escaped once more ; but his heart is hardened still. 
 What will his fall be like ?
 
 458 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 LAST CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 AND now two years and more are past and gone ; and all whose 
 lot it was have come Westward Ho once more, sadder and wiser 
 men to their lives' end ; save one or two, that is, from whom not 
 even Solomon's pestle and mortar discipline would pound out 
 the innate folly. 
 
 Frank has come home stouter and browner, as well as heartier 
 and wiser, than he went forth. He is Valentia's husband now, 
 and rector, not curate, of Aberalva town ; and Valentia makes 
 him a noble rector's wife. 
 
 She, too, has had her sad experiences of more than absent 
 love ; for when the news of Inkerman arrived, she was sitting 
 by Lucia's death-bed ; and when the ghastly list came home, 
 and with it the news of Scoutbush 'severely wounded by a 
 musket-ball,' she had just taken her last look of the fair face, 
 and seen in fancy the fair spirit greeting in the eternal world 
 the soul of him whom she loved unto the death. She had hur- 
 ried out to Scutari, to nurse her brother ; had seen there many 
 a sight she best knows what she saw. She sent Scoutbush 
 back to the Crimea, to try his chance once more ; and then came 
 home to be a mother to those three orphan children, from whom 
 she vowed never to part. So the children went with Frank and 
 her to Aberalva, and Valentia had learnt half a mother's duties 
 ere she had a baby of her own. 
 
 And thus to her, as to all hearts, has the war brought a disci- 
 pline from heaven. 
 
 Frank shrank at first from returning to Aberalva, when 
 Scoutbush offered him the living on old St. Just's death. But 
 Valentia all but commanded him ; so he went : and behold, his 
 return was a triumph. 
 
 All was understood now, all forgiven, all forgotten, save his 
 conduct in the cholera, by the loving, honest, brave West-country 
 hearts ; and when the new-married pair were rung into the 
 town, amid arches and garlands, flags and bonfires, the first 
 man to welcome Frank into his rectory was old Tardrew. 
 
 Not a word of repentance or apology ever passed the old bull- 
 dog's lips. He was an Englishman, and kept his opinions to 
 himself. But he had had his lesson like the rest, two years ago, 
 in his young daughter's death ; and Frank had thenceforth no 
 faster friend than old Tardrew. 
 
 Frank is still as High Church as ever ; and likes all pomp and 
 circumstance of worship. Some few whims he has given up, 
 certainly, for fear of giving offence ; but he might indulge them 
 once more, if he wished, without a quarrel. For now that the
 
 xxvur LAST CHRISTMAS EVE 459 
 
 people understand him, lie does just what he likes. His congre- 
 gation is the best in the archdeaconry ; one meeting-house is 
 dead, and the other dying. His choir is admirable ; for Valentia 
 has had the art of drawing to her all the musical talent of the 
 tuneful West-country folk ; and all that he needs, he thinks, to 
 make his parish perfect, is to see Grace Harvey schoolmistress 
 once more. 
 
 What can have worked the change? It is difficult to say, 
 unless it be that Frank has found out, from cholera and 
 hospital experiences, that his parishioners are beings of like 
 passions with himself ; and found out, too, that his business is 
 to leave the gospel of damnation to those whose hapless lot it 
 is to earn their bread by pandering to popular superstition ; 
 and to employ his independent position, as a free rector, in 
 telling his people the gospel of salvation that they have a 
 Father in heaven. 
 
 Little Scputbush comes down often to Aberalva now, and 
 oftener to his Irish estates. He is going to marry the Manches- 
 ter lady after all, and to settle down ; and try to be a good 
 landlord ; and use for the benefit of his tenants the sharp 
 experience of human hearts, human sorrows, and human duty, 
 which he gained in the Crimea two years ago. 
 
 And Major Campbell ? 
 
 Look on Cathcart's Hill. A stone is there, which is the only 
 earthly token of that great experience of all experiences which 
 Campbell gained two years ago. 
 
 A little silk bag was found, hung round his neck, and lying 
 next his heart. He seemed to have expected his death ; for he 
 had put a label on it 
 
 *lo be sent to Viscount Scoutbush for Miss St. Just.' 
 
 Scoutbush sent it home to Valentia, who opened it, blind 
 with tears. 
 
 It was a note, written seven years before ; but not by her ; 
 by Lucia ere her marriage. A simple invitation to dinner in 
 Eaton Square, written for Lady Knockdown, but with a post- 
 script from Lucia herself : ' Do come, and I will promise not to 
 tease you as I did last night.' 
 
 That was, perhaps, the only kind or familiar word which he 
 had ever had from his idol ; and he had treasured it to the last. 
 Women can love, as this book sets forth : but now and then men 
 can love too, if they be men, as Major Campl>ell was. 
 
 And Trebooze of Trebooze ? 
 
 Even Trebooze got his new lesson two years ago. Terrified 
 into sobriety, he went into the militia, and soon took delight 
 therein. He worked, for the first time in his life, early and late, 
 at a work which was suited for him. He soon learnt not to 
 swear and rage, for his men would not stand it ; and not to get 
 drunk, for his messmates would not stand it. He got into better 
 society and better health than he ever had had before. With
 
 460 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 new self -discipline has come new self-respect ; and he tells his 
 wife frankly, that if he keeps straight henceforth, he has to 
 thank for it his six months at Aldershot. 
 
 And Mary ? 
 
 When you meet Mary in heaven, you can ask her there. 
 
 But Frank's desire, that Grace should become his school- 
 mistress once more, is not fulfilled. 
 
 How she worked at Scutari and at Balaklava, there is no need 
 to tell. Why mark her out from the rest, when all did more 
 than nobly ? The lesson which she needed was not that which 
 hospitals could teach ; she had learnt that already. It was a 
 deeper and more dreadful lesson still. She had set her heart on 
 finding Tom ; on righting him, on righting herself. She had to 
 learn to be content not to find him ; not to right him, not to 
 right herself. 
 
 And she learnt it. Tearless, uncomplaining, she ' trusted in 
 God, and made no haste.' She did her work, and read her 
 Bible ; and read too, again and again, at stolen moments of rest, 
 a book which some one lent her, and which was to her as the 
 finding of an unknown sister Longfellow's Evangeline. She 
 was Evangeline ; seeking as she sought, perhaps to find as she 
 found No ! merciful God ! Not so ! yet better so than not at 
 all. And often and often, when a new freight of agony was 
 landed, she looked round from bed to bed, if his face, too, might 
 be there. And once, at Balaklava, she knew she saw him : but 
 not on a sick-bed. 
 
 Standing beneath the window, chatting merrily with a group 
 of officers It was he ! Could she mistake that figure, though 
 the face was turned away 1 
 
 Her head swam, her pulses beat like church bells, her eyes 
 were ready to burst from their sockets. But she was assisting 
 at an operation. It was God's will, and she must endure. 
 
 When the operation was over, she darted wildly down the 
 stairs without a word. 
 
 He was gone. 
 
 Without a word she came back to her work, and possessed 
 her soul in patience. 
 
 Inquiries, indeed, she made, as she had a right to do ; but no 
 one knew the name. She questioned, and caused to be ques- 
 tioned, men from Varna, from Sevastopol, from Kertch, from the 
 Circassian coast ; English, French, and Sardinian, Pole and Turk. 
 No one had ever heard the name. She even found at last, and 
 questioned, one of the officers who had formed that group be- 
 neath the window. 
 
 ' Oh ! that man 1 He was a Pole, Michaelowyzcki, or some 
 such name. At least, so he said ; but he suspected the man to 
 be really a Russian spy.' 
 
 Grace knew that it was Tom : but she went back to her work 
 again, and in due time went home to England.
 
 xxviir LAST CHRISTMAS EVE 461 
 
 Home, but not to Aberalva. She presented herself one day 
 at Mark Armsworth's house in Whitbury, and humblv begged 
 him to obtain her a place as servant to old Dr. Thurnall. What 
 her purpose was therein she did not explain; perhaps she 
 hardly knew herself. 
 
 Jane, the old servant who had clung to the doctor through 
 his reverses, was growing old and feeble, and was all the more 
 jealous of an intruder : but Grace disarmed her. 
 
 ' I do not want to interfere ; I will be under your orders. I 
 will be kitchen-maid maid-of-all-work. I want no wages. I 
 have brought home a little money with me ; enough to last me 
 for the little while I shall be here.' 
 
 And, by the help of Mark and Mary, she took up her abode 
 in the old man's house ; and ere a month was past she was to 
 him as a daughter. 
 
 Perhaps she had told him all. At least, there was some deep 
 and pure confidence between them ; and yet one which, so per- 
 fect was Grace's humility, did not make old Janejealous. Grace 
 cooked, swept, washed, went to and fro as Jane bade her ; 
 submitted to all her grumblings and tossings ; and then came at 
 the old man's bidding to read to him every evening, her hand in 
 his ; her voice cheerful, her face full of quiet light. But her 
 hair was becoming streaked with gray. Her face, howsoever 
 gentle, was sharpened, as if with continual pain. No wonder ; 
 for she had worn that belt next her heart for now two years 
 and more, till it had almost eaten into the heart above which it 
 lay. It gave her perpetual pain : and yet that pain was a per- 
 petual joy a perpetual remembrance of him, and of that walk 
 with him from Tolchard's farm. 
 
 Mary loved her wanted to treat her as an equal to call her 
 sister : but Grace drew back lovingly, but humbly, from all 
 advances ; for she had divined Mary's secret with the quick eye 
 of woman ; she saw how Mary grew daily paler, thinner, sadder, 
 and knew for whom she mourned. Be it so ; Mary had a right 
 to him, and she had none. 
 
 And where was Tom Thurnall all the while ? 
 
 No man could tell. 
 
 Mark inquired ; Lord Minchampstead inquired ; great per- 
 sonages who had need of him at home and abroad inquired ; but 
 all in vain. 
 
 A few knew, and told Lord Minchampstead, who told Mark, 
 in confidence, that he had been heard or last in the Circassian 
 mountains, about Christmas 1854 ; but since then all was blank. 
 He had vanished into the infinite unknown. 
 
 Mark swore that he would come home some day ; but two 
 full years were past, and Tom came not. 
 
 The old man never seemed to regret him ; never mentioned 
 his name after a while.
 
 462 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 ' Mark,' he said once, ' remember David. Why weep for the 
 child ? I shall go to him, but he will not come to me.' 
 
 None knew, meanwhile, why the old man needed not to talk 
 of Tom to his friends and neighbours ; it was because he and 
 Grace never talked of anything else. 
 
 So they had lived, and so they had waited, till that week 
 before last Christmas Day, when Mellot and Stangrave made 
 their appearance in Whitbury, and became Mark Armsworth's 
 guests. 
 
 The week slipped on. Stangrave hunted on alternate clays ; 
 and on the others went with Claude, who photographed (when 
 there was sun to do it with) Stangrave End, and Whitford 
 Priory, interiors and exteriors ; not forgetting the Stangrave 
 monuments in Whitbury Church ; and sat, too, for many a 
 pleasant hour with the good doctor, who took to him at once, as 
 all men did. It seemed to give fresh' life to the old man to 
 listen to Tom's dearest friend. To him, as to Grace, he could 
 talk openly about the lost son, and live upon the memory of his 
 prowess and his virtues ; and ere the week was out, the doctor, 
 and Grace too, had heard a hundred gallant feats, to tell all 
 which would add another volume to this book. 
 
 And Grace stood silently by the old man's chair, and drank 
 all in without a smile, without a sigh, but not without full 
 many a prayer. 
 
 It is the blessed Christmas Eve ; the light is failing fast ; 
 when down the High Street comes the mighty Roman-nosed 
 rat-tail which carries Mark's portly bulk, and by him Stangrave, 
 on a right good horse. 
 
 They shog on side by side not home, but to the doctor's 
 house. For every hunting evening Mark's groom meets him at 
 the doctor's door to lead the horses home, while he, before he 
 will take his bath and dress, brings to his blind friend the 
 gossip of the field, and details to him every joke, fence, find, 
 kill, hap, and mishap of the last six hours. 
 
 The old man, meanwhile, is sitting quietly, with Claude by 
 him, talking as Claude can talk. They are not speaking of 
 Tom just now : but the eloquent artist's conversation suits well 
 enough the temper of the good old man, yearning after fresh 
 knowledge, even on the brink of the grave : but too feeble now, 
 in body and in mind, to do more than listen. Claude is telling 
 him about the late Photographic Exhibition ; and the old man 
 listens with a triumphant smile to wonders which he will never 
 behold with mortal eyes. At last 
 
 ' This is very pleasant to feel surer and surer, day by day, 
 that one is not needed ; that science moves forward swift and 
 sure, under a higher guidance than one's own ; that the sacred 
 torch-race never can stand still ; that He has taken the lamp
 
 xxvin LAST CHRISTMAS EVE 463 
 
 out of old and failing hands, only to put it into young and 
 brave ones, who will not falter till they reach the goal.' 
 
 Then he lies back again, with closed eyes, waiting for more 
 facts from Claude. 
 
 ' How beautiful ! ' says Claude.' I must compliment you, sir- 
 to see the childlike heart thus still beating fresh beneath the 
 honours of the gray head, without envy, without vanity, with- 
 out ambition, welcoming every new discovery, rejoicing to see 
 the young outstripping them.' 
 
 ' And what credit, sir, to us ? Our knowledge did not belong 
 to us, but to Him who made us, and the universe ; and our sons' 
 belonged to Him likewise. If they be wiser than their teachers, 
 it is only because they, like their teachers, have made His testi- 
 monies their study. When we rejoice in the progress of science, 
 we rejoice not in ourselves, not in our children, but in God our 
 Instructor.' 
 
 And all the while, hidden in the gloom behind, stands Grace, 
 her arms folded over her bosom, watching every movement of 
 the old man ; and listening, too, to every word. She can under- 
 stand but little of it : but she loves to hear it, for it reminds 
 her of Tom Thurnall. Above all she loves to hear about the 
 microscope, a mystery inseparable in her thoughts from him 
 who first showed her its wonders. 
 
 At last the old man speaks again 
 
 ' Ah ! How delighted my boy will be when he returns, to 
 find that so much has been done during his absence.' 
 
 Claude is silent awhile, startled. 
 
 ' You are surprised to hear me speak so confidently 1 Well, I 
 can only speak as I feel. I have had, for some days past, a pre- 
 sentiment you will think me, doubtless, weak for yielding to 
 it. I am not superstitious.' 
 
 ' Not so,' said Claude, ' but I cannot deny that such things 
 as presentiments may be possible. However miraculous they 
 may seem, are they so very much more so than the daily fact of 
 memory ? I can as little guess why we can remember the past 
 as why we may not, at times, be able to foresee the future.' 
 
 ' True. You speak, if not like a physician, yet like a meta- 
 physician ; so you will not laugh at me, and compel the weak 
 old man and his fancy to take refuge with a girl who is not 
 weak. Grace, darling, you think still that he is coming ? ' 
 
 She came forward and leaned over him. 
 
 'Yes,' she half whispered. 'He is coming soon to us : or else 
 we are soon going to him. It may mean that, sir. Perhaps it 
 is better that it should.' 
 
 'It matters little, child, if he be near, as near he is. I tell 
 you, Mr. Mellot, this conviction has become so intense durincr 
 the last week, that that I believe I should not be thrown oil' 
 my balance if he entered at this moment ... I feel him so near 
 me, sir, that that I could swear, did not I know how the weak
 
 464 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 brain imitates expected sounds, that I heard his footstep outside 
 now.' 
 
 'I heard horses' footsteps,' says Claude. 'Ah, there comes 
 Stangrave and our host.' 
 
 ' I heard them : but I heard my boy's likewise,' said the old 
 man quietly. 
 
 The next minute he seemed to have forgotten the fancy, as 
 the two hunters entered, and Mark began open-mouthed as 
 usual 
 
 ' Well, Ned ! In good company, eh ? That's right. Mortal 
 cold I am ! We shall have a white Christmas, I expect. Snow's 
 coming.' 
 
 ' What sport ? ' asked the doctor blandly. 
 
 ' Oh ! Nothing new. Bothered about Sidricstone till one. 
 Got away at last with an old fox, and over the downs into the 
 vale. I think Mr. Stangrave liked it ? ' 
 
 ' Mr. Stangrave likes the vale better than the vale likes him. 
 I have fallen into two brooks following, Claude ; to the delight 
 of all the desperate Englishmen.' 
 
 ' Oh ! You rode straight enough, sir ! You must pav for your 
 fun in the vale : but then you have your fun. But there were 
 a good many falls the last ten minutes : ground heavy, and pace 
 awful ; old Rat-tail had enough to do to hold his own. Saw one 
 fellow ride bang into a pollard- window, when there was an open 
 gate close to him cut his cheek open, and lay ; but some one 
 said it was only Smith of Ewebury, so I rode on.' 
 
 'I hope you English showed more pity to your wounded 
 friends in the Crimea,' quoth Stangrave, laughing, ' I wanted to 
 stop and pick him up : but Mr. Armsworth would not hear of it.' 
 
 'Oh, sir, if it had been a stranger like you, half the field 
 would have been round you in a minute : but Smith don't count 
 he breaks his neck on purpose three days a week. By the 
 by, doctor, got a good story of him for you. Suspected his 
 keepers last month. Slips out of bed at two in the morning ; 
 into his own covers, and blazes away for an hour. Nobody 
 comes. Home to bed, and tries the same thing next night. Not 
 a soul comes near him. Next morning lias up keepers, watchers, 
 beaters, the whole posse ; and " Now, you rascals ! I've been 
 poaching my own covers two nights running, and you've been 
 all drunk in bed. There are your wages to the last penny ; and 
 vanish ! I'll be my own keeper henceforth ; and never let me 
 see your faces again ! " ' 
 
 The old doctor laughed cheerily. 'Well: but did you kill 
 your fox 1 ' 
 
 ' All right : but it was a burster just what I always tell Mr. 
 Stangrave. Afternoon runs are good runs ; pretty sure of an 
 empty fox and a good scent after one o'clock.' 
 
 ' Exactly,' answered a fresh voice from behind ; ' and fox- 
 hunting is an epitome of human life. You chop or lose your
 
 xxviri LAST CHRISTMAS EVE 465 
 
 first two or three : but keep up your pluck, and you'll run into 
 one before sundown ; and I seem to have run into a whole 
 earthful ! ' 
 
 All looked round ; for all knew that voice. 
 
 Yes ! There he was, in bodily flesh and blood ; thin, sallow, 
 bearded to the eyes, dressed in ragged sailor's clothes : but Tom 
 himself. 
 
 Grace uttered a long, low, soft, half-laughing cry, full of the 
 delicious agony of sudden relief ; a cry as of a mother when her 
 child is born ; and then slipped from the room past the unheed- 
 ing Tom, who had no eyes but for his father. Straight up 
 to the old man he went, took both his hands, and spoke in the 
 old cheerful voice 
 
 ' Well, my dear old daddy ! So you seem to have expected 
 me ; and gathered, I suppose, all my friends to bid me welcome. 
 I'm afraid I have made you very anxious : but it was not my 
 fault ; and I knew you would be certain I should come at last, 
 eh?' 
 
 ' My son ! my son ! Let me feel whether thou be my very 
 son Esau or riot ! ' murmured the old man, finding half-playful 
 expression in the words of Scripture, for feelings l>eyond his 
 failing powers. 
 
 Tom Knelt down : and the old man passed his hands in silence 
 over and over the forehead, and face, and beard ; while all stood 
 silent. 
 
 Mark Armsworth burst out blubbering like a great boy 
 
 ' I said so ! I always said so ! The devil could not kill him, 
 and God wouldn't ! ' 
 
 ' You won't go away again, dear boy ? I'm getting old 
 and and forgetful ; and I don't think I could bear it again, 
 you see.' 
 
 Tom saw that the old man's powers were failing. 'Never 
 again, as long as I live, daddy ! ' said he, and then, looking 
 round, ' I think that we are too many for my father. I will 
 come and shake hands with you all presently.' 
 
 ' No, no,' said the doctor. ' You forget that I cannot see you, 
 and so must only listen to you. It will be a delight to hear your 
 voice and theirs ; they all love you.' 
 
 A few moments of breathless congratulation followed, during 
 which Mark had seized Tom by both his shoulders, and held him 
 admiringly at arm's length. 
 
 ' Look at him, Mr. Mellpt ! Mr. Stangrave ! Look at him ! 
 As they said of Liberty Wilkes, you might rob him, strip him, 
 and hit him over London Bridge : and you find him the next 
 day in the same place, with a laced coat, a sword by his side, 
 and money in his pocket ! But how did you come in without 
 our knowing ? ' 
 
 M waited outside, afraid of what I might hear for how 
 could I tell 1 ' said he, lowering his voice ; ' but when I saw you 
 2 H T. Y. A.
 
 466 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 go in, I knew all was right, and followed you ; and when I heard 
 my father laugh, I knew that he could bear a little surprise. 
 But, Stangrave, did you say ? Ah ! this is too delightful, old 
 fellow ! How's Marie and the children ? 
 
 Stangrave, who was very uncertain as to how Tom would 
 receive him, had been about to make his amende honorable in 
 a fashion graceful, magnificent, and, as he expressed it after- 
 wards laughingly to Thurnall himself, ' altogether highfalutin ' : 
 but whatsoever chivalrous and courtly words had arranged 
 themselves upon the tip of his tongue, were so utterly upset by 
 Tom's matter-of-fact bonhomie, and by the cool way in which 
 he took for granted the fact of his marriage, that he burst out 
 laughing, and caught both Tom's hands in his 
 
 ' It is delightful ; and all it needs to make it perfect is to 
 have Marie and the children here.' 
 
 ' How many ? ' asked Tom. 
 
 'Two.' 
 
 ' Is she as beautiful as ever 1 ' 
 
 ' More so, I think.' 
 
 ' I dare say you're right ; you ought to know best, cer- 
 tainly.' 
 
 'You shall judge for yourself. She is in London at this 
 moment.' 
 
 ' Tom ! ' says his father, who has been sitting quietly, his 
 face covered in his handkerchief, listening to all, while holy 
 tears of gratitude steal down his face. 
 
 'Sir! 5 
 
 ' You have not spoken to Grace yet ! ' 
 
 ' Grace ? ' cries Tom, in a very different tone from that in 
 which he had yet spoken. 
 
 'Grace Harvey, my boy. She was in the room when you 
 came in.' 
 
 ' Grace ? Grace ? What is she doing here 1 ' 
 
 ' Nursing him, like an angel as she is ! ' said Mark. 
 
 ' She is my daughter now, Tom ; and has been these twelve 
 months past.' 
 
 Tom was silent, as one astonished. 
 
 'If she is not, she will be soon,' said he quietly, between 
 his clenched teeth. ' Gentlemen, if you'll excuse me for five 
 minutes, and see to my father : ' and he walked straight out of 
 the room, closing the door behind him to find Grace waiting 
 in the passage. 
 
 She was trembling from head to foot, stepping to and fro, her 
 hands and face all but convulsed ; her left hand over her bosom, 
 clutching at her dress, which seemed to have been just dis- 
 arranged ; her right drawn back, holding something ; her lips 
 parted, struggling to speak ; her great eyes opened to preter- 
 natural wideness, fixed on him with an intensity of eagerness ; 
 was she mad ?
 
 xxvni LAST CHRISTMAS EVE 467 
 
 At last words bubbled forth : ' There ! there ! There it is ! 
 the belt ! your belt ! Take it ! take it, I say ! ' 
 
 He stood silent and wondering ; she thrust it into his hand. 
 
 ' Take it ! I have carried it for you worn it next my heart, 
 till it has all but eaten into my heart. To Varna, and you were 
 not there ! Scutari, Balaklava, and you were not there ! 
 I found it, only a week after ! I told you I should ! and you 
 were gone ! Cruel, not to wait ! And Mr. Armsworth has the 
 money every farthing and the gold : he has had it these 
 two years ! I would give you the belt myself ; and now I have 
 done it, and the snake is unclasped from my heart at last, at 
 last, at last ! ' 
 
 Her arms dropped by her side, and she burst into an agony of 
 tears. 
 
 Tom caught her in his arms : but she put him back, and 
 looked up in his face again. 
 
 'Promise me!' she said, in a low clear voice ; 'promise me 
 this one thing only, as you are a gentleman ; as you have a 
 man's pity, a man's gratitude, in you 
 
 'Anything ! ' 
 
 'Promise me that you will never ask, or seek to know, who 
 had that belt.' 
 
 ' I promise : but, Grace ! 
 
 ' Then my work is over,' said she in a calm collected voice. 
 'Amen. So lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. Good- 
 bye, Mr. Thurnall. I must go and pack up my few things now. 
 You will forgive and forget r 
 
 ' Grace ! ' cried Tom ; ' stay ! ' and he girdled her in a grasp of 
 iron. ' You and I never part more in this life, perhaps not in 
 all lives to come ! ' 
 
 ' Me ? I ? let me go ! I am not worthy of you ! ' 
 
 ' I have heard that once already ; the only folly which ever 
 came out of those sweet lips. No ! Grace. I love you, as man 
 can love but once ; and you shall not refuse me ! You will not 
 have the heart, Grace ! Y r ou will not dare, Grace ! For you 
 have begun the work ; and you must finish it.' 
 
 'Work? What work?' 
 
 'I don't know,' said Tom. ' How should I? I want you to 
 tell me that.' 
 
 She looked up in his face, puzzled. His old self-confident 
 look seemed strangely past away. 
 
 'I will tell you,' he said, 'because I love you. I don't like 
 to show it to them ; but I've been frightened, Grace, for the 
 first time in my life.' 
 
 She paused for an explanation ; but she did not struggle to 
 escape from him. 
 
 'Frightened ; beat; run to earth myself, though I talked so 
 bravely of running others to earth just now. Grace, I've been 
 in prison ! '
 
 468 TWO YEARS AGO CHAP. 
 
 'In prison ? In a Russian prison ? Oh, Mr. Thurnall ! ' 
 
 ' Aye, Grace, I'd tried everything but that ; and I could not 
 stand it. Death was a joke to that. Not to be able to get out ! 
 To rage up and down for hours like a wild beast ; long to fly 
 at one's gaoler and tear his heart out ; beat one's head against 
 the wall in the hope of knocking one's brains out ; anything to 
 get rid of that horrid notion, night and day over one I can't 
 get out ! ' 
 
 Grace had never seen him so excited. 
 
 'But you are safe now,' said she soothingly. 'Oh, those 
 horrid Russians ! ' 
 
 ' But it was not Russians ! If it had been, I could have 
 borne it. That was all in my bargain ; the fair chance of war, 
 but to be shut up by a mistake ! at the very outset, too by a 
 boorish villain of a khan, on a drunken suspicion ; a fellow whom 
 I was trying to serve, and who couldn't, or wouldn't, or daren't 
 understand me Oh, Grace, I was caught in my own trap ! I 
 went out full blown with self conceit. Never was any one so 
 cunning as I was to be ! Such a game as I was going to play, 
 and make my fortune by it ! And this brute to stop me short 
 to make a fool of me to keep me there eighteen months 
 threatening to cut my head off once a quarter, and wouldn't 
 understand me, let me talk with the tongue of the old serpent ! ' 
 
 ' He did not stop you : God stopped you ! ' 
 
 ' You're right, Grace ; I saw that at last ! I found out that 
 I had been trying for years which was the stronger, God or I ; I 
 found out I had been trying whether I could not do well enough 
 without Him : and there I found that I could not, Grace ; 
 could not ! I felt like a child who had marched oft' from home, 
 fancying it can find its way, and is lost at once. I felt like a 
 lost child in Australia once, for one moment : but not as I felt 
 in that prison ; for I had not heard you, Grace, then. I did 
 not know that I had a Father in heaven, who had been looking 
 after me, when I fancied that I was looking after myself ;- I 
 don't half believe it now If I did, I should not have lost my 
 nerve as I have done ! Grace, I dare hardly stir about now, lest 
 some harm should come to me. I fancy at every turn, what if 
 that chimney fell ? what if that horse kicked out 1 and, Grace, 
 you, and you only, can cure me of my new cowardice. I said 
 in that prison, and all the way home, If I can but find her ! 
 let me but see her ask her let her teach me ; and I shall be 
 sure ! Let her teach me, and I shall be brave again ! Teach 
 me, Grace ! and forgive me ! ' 
 
 Grace was looking at him with her great soft eyes opening 
 slowly, like a startled hind's, as if the wonder and delight were 
 too great to be taken in at once. The last words unlocked her 
 lips. 
 
 ' Forgive you ? What 1 Do you forgive me ? ' 
 
 ' You 1 It is I am the brute ; ever to have suspected you.
 
 xxvin LAST CHRISTMAS EVE 469 
 
 My conscience told me all along I was a brute ! And you 
 have you not proved it to me in this last minute, Grace? 
 proved to me that I am not worthy to kiss the dust from off 
 your feet ? ' 
 
 Grace lay silent in his arms : but her eyes were fixed upon 
 him ; her hands were folded on her bosom ; her lips moved as if 
 in prayer. 
 
 He put back her long tresses tenderly, and looked into her 
 deep glorious eyes. 
 
 ' There ! I have told you all. Will you forgive my base- 
 ness ; and take me, and teach me, about this Father in heaven, 
 through poverty and wealth, for better, for worse, as my wife 
 my wife f ' 
 
 She leapt up at him suddenly as if waking from a dream, 
 and wreathed her arms about his neck. 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Thurnall ! my dear, brave, wise, wonderful Mr. 
 Thurnall ! come home again ! home to God ! and home to me ! 
 I am not worthy ! Too much happiness, too much, too much : 
 but you will forgive, will you not, and forget forget 1 ' 
 
 And so the old heart passed away from Thomas Thurnall : 
 and instead of it grew up a heart like his father's ; even the 
 heart of a little child. 
 
 THE END 
 
 i l<y R. & K. CLAKK, Edinburgh
 
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