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 THE 
 
 FORTUNES OF GLENCORE
 
 "Per Banco! 1 have made a good thing of it! 
 
 FOKTUNKa 0» GLKNCOKK,
 
 THE 
 
 FORTUNES OF GLENCORE 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES LEVER 
 
 AUTHOR OF " CHARLES o'mALLEiT " 
 
 . . o , . ., - ' , 
 
 " 5 J 3 
 
 • . 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE ROUT LEDGE AND SONS 
 
 The Broadway, Ludgate 
 
 NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 > > 

 
 LOKDOK : 
 PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER, 
 , V*FPRB J.A\r STRAND. V." '.'. 

 
 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 
 I AM unwilling to suffer this tale to leave my hands withoub 
 a word of explanation to my reader. If I have never dis- 
 guised from myself the grounds of any humble success I 
 have attained to as a writer of fiction — if I have always 
 i^~ had before me the fact that to movement and action, the 
 
 CM . 
 
 stir of incident, and a certain light-heai'tedness and gaiety 
 of temperament, more easy to impart to others than to 
 repress in one's self, I have owed much, if not all, of what- 
 ever popularity I have enjoyed, I have yet felt, or fancied 
 that I felt, that it would be in the delineation of very dif- 
 ferent scenes, and the portraitui'e of very different emo- 
 tions, that I should reap what I would reckon as a real 
 u success. This conviction, or impression if you will, has 
 become stoonger with years and with the knowledge of 
 life ; years have imparted, and time has but confirmed me 
 in, the notion, that any skill I possess lies ir. the detection 
 of character, and the unravelment of that tangled skein 
 which makes up human motives. 
 
 I am well aware that no error is more common than to 
 mistake one's own powers ; nor does anything more con- 
 tribute to this error than a sense of self-depreciation for 
 what the world has been pleased to deem successful in us. 
 To test my conviction, or to abandon it as a delusion for 
 ever, I have written the present story of " Glencore." 
 ft. ^fytfyt^y^i 
 
 1st SJ ■"'*_-' *^ S 9
 
 VI PKEFACE. 
 
 I make but little pretension to the claim of interesting — 
 as little do I aspire to the higher credit of instructing. 
 All I have attempted — all I have striven to accomplish — 
 is the faithful portraiture of character, the close analysis 
 of motives, and correct observation as to some of the 
 manners and modes of thought which mark the age we 
 live in. 
 
 Opportunities of society, as well as natural inclination, 
 have alike disposed me to such studies. I have stood 
 over the game of life very patiently for many a year, and 
 though I may have grieved over the narrow fortune which 
 has prevented me from "cutting in," I have consoled 
 myself by the thought of all the anxieties defeat might 
 have cost me, all the chagrin I had suffered were I to have 
 risen a loser. Besides this, I have leaimed to know and 
 estimate what are the qualities which win success in life, 
 aud what the gifts by which men dominate above their 
 fellows. 
 
 If in the world of well-bred life the incidents and events 
 be fewer, because the friction is less than in the classes 
 where vicissitudes of fortune are more frequent, the play 
 of passion, the moods of temper, and the changeful varie- 
 ties of natui'e are often very strongly developed, shadowed 
 and screened though they be by the polished convention- 
 alities of society. To trace and mark these has long 
 constituted one of the pleasures of my life ; if I have been 
 able to impart even a portion of that gratification to my 
 reader, I will not deem the effort in vain, nor the " For- 
 tunes of Glencore " a failure. 
 
 Let me add, that although certain traits of character in 
 some of the individuals of my story may seem to indicate 
 sketches of real personages, there is but one character in
 
 PREFACE. VII 
 
 the whole hook drawn entirely from life. This is Billy 
 Tray ii or. Not only have I had a sitter for this picture, 
 hut he is alive and hearty at the hour I am writing. For 
 the others, they are purely, entirely fictitious. Certain 
 details, certain characteristics, I have of course bori'owed 
 — as he who would mould a human face must needs have 
 copied an eye, a nose, or a chin, from some existent model ; 
 but heyond this I have not gone, nor, indeed, have I found, 
 in all my experience of life, that fiction ever suggests 
 what has not been implanted, unconsciously, by memory ; 
 originality in tho.. delineation of character heing little 
 beyond a new combination of old materials derived from 
 that source. 
 
 I wish I could as easily apologize for the faults and 
 blemishes of my story as I can detect and deplore them ; 
 but, like the failings in one's nature, they are very often 
 difficult to correct even when acknowledged. I have, 
 therefore, but to throw myself once more upon the indul- 
 gence which, " old offender " that I am, has never forsaken 
 me, and subscribe myself, 
 
 Your devoted friend and servant, 
 
 C. L.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 , ! 
 
 -*♦- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Lonely Landscape 7 . 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Glexcore Castle 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Billy Traynor — Poet, Pedlar akd Physician . . . .18 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 A Visitor .25 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Colonel Harcocrt's Letter 33 
 
 CHAPTER VI, 
 Qoeer Companionship 39
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAOH 
 
 A Grfat Diplomatist . . . . .' . 46 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Great Man's Arrival 51 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 A Medical Visit CO 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 A Disclosure 68 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Some Lights and Shadows op Diplomatic Life ... 78 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 A Niciit at Sea , 94 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 A "Vow" Accomplished 104 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Billy Traynor and the Colonel 112
 
 CONTEXTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 A Sick Co 117 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The "Project" 121 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 A T£te-a-T£tk. 130 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Bill? Trayncr as Orator 135 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 The Cascine at Florence 142 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 Tue Villa Fossohbrohi . 150 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 Soiie Traits of Life . . 157 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 An U»tosiah DrsPATCH . . 1(33
 
 XII CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TACK 
 
 The Tutor and his Pupil lfiS 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 tlow a "Reception" oomes to its Close . . . .17. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 A Duke and his Minister 185 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI, 
 Italian Troubles 105 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 Carrara 201 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 A Night Scene 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 A Council of State 215 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 Tup Life they led at Massa 221
 
 CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 At Massa , 227 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 Tilt Pavilion in the Garden 234 
 
 ^CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Night Thoughts = \ . . 240 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 A Minister's Letter 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 HarooDrt's Loggings ,....,., 2,53 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 A Fevered Mind ,....,... 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIT. 
 The Villa at Sorrento . 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 A Diplomatist's Dinner ..,„,,,, 2S3
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A veiiy Brokek Narrative 294 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 Uptoxism • .305 
 
 CHAPTER XL I. 
 As Evening ix Florence 31: 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 Madame de Sabloukoff in me Morning ..... 324 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 Doing3 in Downing Street 334 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 The Subtleties of Statecraft 342 
 
 CHAPTER XLY. 
 Some Sad Reveries 35 3 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 The Flood in the Magra ....... 862
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A FRAGMENT OF A Letter 372 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 How a Sovereign Treats with his Minister . . . . 379 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 Social Diplomacies 386 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 Ante-Dinner Reflections 394 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 Conflicting Thoughts 399 
 
 CHAPTER LI I. 
 Major Scaresby's Visit 409 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 A Mask in Carnival Time 416 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 The End 430
 
 THE 
 
 FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 
 
 Wheke that singularly beautiful inlet of the sea known 
 in the west of Ireland as the Killeries, after narrowing to 
 a mere strait, expands into a bay, stands the ruin of the 
 ancient Castle of Glencore. With the bold steep sides of 
 Ben Creggan behind, and the broad blue Atlantic in front, 
 the proud keep would seem to have occupied a spot that 
 miffht have bid defiance to the boldest assailant. The 
 estuary itself here seems entirely landlocked, and resembles, 
 in the wild, fantastic outline of the mountains around, a 
 Norwegian fiord, rather than a scene in our own tamer 
 landscape. The small village of Leenane, which stands 
 on the Galway shore, opposite to Glencore, presents the 
 only trace of habitation in this wild and desolate district, 
 for the country around is poor, and its soil offers little to 
 repay the task of the husbandman. Fishing is then the 
 chief, if Lot the sole resource of those who pass their lives 
 in this solitary region ; and thus, in every little creek or 
 inlet of the shore may be seen the stout craft of some 
 hardy venturer, and nets, and tackle, and such-like gear, 
 lie drying on every rocky eminence. We have said that 
 Glencore was a ruin, but still its vast proportions, yet 
 traceable in massive fragments of masonry, displayed 
 
 B
 
 2 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 specimens of various eras of architecture, from the rudest 
 tower of the twelfth century to the more ornate style of 
 a later ppjitfd ; w&ilej artificial embankments and sloped 
 sides of grass showed the remains of what once had been 
 terrace 'nTM 1 . " ," the successors, it might be pre- 
 
 sume d] of fosse ;md paiapet.' "Many a tale of cruelty and 
 oppression, many a story of suffering and sorrow clung to 
 those old walls, for they had formed the home of a haughty 
 and a cruel race, the last descendant of which died at the 
 close of the past century. The Castle of Glencore, with 
 the title, had now descended to a distant relation of the 
 house, who had repaired and so far restored the old resi- 
 dence as to make it habitable — that is to say, four bleak 
 and lofty chambers were rudely furnished, and about as 
 many smaller ones fitted for servant accommodation, but no 
 effort at embellishment, not even the commonest attempt 
 at neatness, was bestowed on the grounds or the garden ; 
 and in this state it remained for some five-and-twenty or 
 thirty years, when the tidings reached the little village of 
 Leenane that his lordship was about to return to Glencore, 
 and fix his residence there. 
 
 Such an event was of no small moment in such a locality, 
 and many were the speculations as to what might be the 
 consequence of his coming. Little, or indeed nothing, 
 was known of Lord Glencore ; his only visit to the neigh- 
 bourhood had occurred many years before, and lasted but 
 for a day. He had arrived suddenly, and, taking a boat 
 at the ferry, as it was called, crossed over to the Castle, 
 whence he returned at nightfall, to depart as hurriedly as 
 he came. 
 
 Of those who had seen him in this brief visit the accounts 
 were vague and most contradictory. Some called him hand- 
 some and well built ; others said he was a dark-looking, 
 downcast man, with a sickly and forbidding aspect. None, 
 however, could record one single word he had spoken, nor 
 could even gossips pretend to say that he gave utterance 
 to any opinion about the place or the people. The mode 
 in which the estate was managed gave as little insight 
 into the character of the proprietor. If no severity was 
 displayed to the few tenants on the property, there was no 
 encouragement given to their efforts at improvement ; a 
 kind of cold neglect was the only feature discernible, and
 
 A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 6 
 
 many went so far as to say that if any cared to forget the 
 payment of his rent, the chances were it might never be 
 demanded of him ; the great security against such a 
 venture, however, lay in the fact that the land was held at 
 a mere nominal rental, and few would have risked his 
 tenure by such an experiment. 
 
 It was little to be wondered at that Lord Grlencore was 
 not better known in that secluded spot, since even in 
 England his name was scarcely heard of. His fortune was 
 very limited, and be had no political influence whatever, 
 not possessing a seat in the Upper House ; so that, as he 
 spent his life abroad, he was almost totally forgotten in his 
 own country. 
 
 All that Debrett could tell of him was comprised in a 
 few lines, recording simply that he was sixth Viscount 
 Glencore and Loughdooner ; born in the month of February, 
 180 — , and married in August, 18 — , to Clarissa Isabella, 
 second daughter of Sir Guy Clifford, of Wytchley, Baronet; 
 by whom he had issue, Charles Conyngham Massey, born 
 6th June, 18—. There closed the notice. 
 
 Strange and quaint things are these short biographies, 
 with little beyond the barren fact that " he had lived " and 
 " he had died ; " and yet with all the changes of this work- 
 a-day world, with its din, and turmoil, and gold-seeking, 
 and "progress," men cannot divest themselves of rever- 
 ence for birth and blood, and the veneration for high 
 descent remains an instinct of humanity. Sneer as men 
 will at " heaven-born legislators," laugh as you may at the 
 "tenth transmitter of a foolish face," there is something 
 eminently impressive in the fact of a position acquired by 
 deeds that date back to centuries, and preserved inviolate 
 to the successor of him who fouo-ht at Aarincourt or at 
 Cressy. If ever this religion shall be impaired, the fault 
 be with those who have derogated from their great prero- 
 gative, and forgotten to make illustrious by example what 
 they have inherited illustrious by descent. 
 
 When the news first reached the neighbourhood that 
 a lord was about to take up his residence in the Castle, 
 the most extravagant expectations were conceived of the 
 benefits to arise from such a source. The very humblest 
 already speculated on the advantages his wealth was to 
 diffuse, and the thousand little channels into which his 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 affluence would be directed. The ancient traditions of the 
 place spoke of a time of boundless profusion, when troops 
 of mounted followers used to accompany the old barons, 
 and when the lough itself used to be covered with boats, 
 with the armorial bearings of Glencore floating proudly 
 from their mastheads. There were old. men then living 
 who remembered as many as two hundred labourers being 
 daily employed on the grounds and gardens of the Castle ; 
 and the most fabulous stories were told of" fortunes ac- 
 cumulated by those who were lucky enough to have saved 
 the x'ich eai'nings of that golden period. 
 
 Coloured as such speculations were with all the imagina- 
 tive warmth of the west, it was a terrible shock to such 
 sanguine fancies when they beheld a middle-aged, sad- 
 looking man arrive in a simple postchaise, accompanied 
 by his son, a child of six or seven years of age, and a 
 single servant — a grim-looking old dragoon corporal, who 
 neither invited intimacy nor rewarded it. It was not, 
 indeed, for a long time that they could believe that this 
 was " my lord," and that this solitary attendant was the 
 whole of that great retinue they had so long been expect- 
 ing ; nor, indeed, could any evidence less strong than Mrs. 
 Mulcahy's, of the Post-office, completely satisfy them on 
 the subject. The addi'ess of certain letters and news- 
 papers to the Lord Viscount Glencore was, however, a 
 testimony beyond dispute ; so that nothing remained but 
 to revenue themselves on the unconscious author of their 
 self-deception for the disappointment he gave them. This, 
 it is true, required some ingenuity, for they scarcely ever 
 saw him, nor could they ascertain a single fact of his habits 
 or mode of life. 
 
 He never crossed the " Lough," as the inlet of the sea, 
 about three miles in width, was called. He as rigidly ex- 
 cluded the peasantry from the grounds of the Castle ; and, 
 save an old fisherman, who carried his letter-bag to and 
 fro, and a few labourers in the spring and autumn, none 
 ever invaded the forbidden precincts. 
 
 Of course, such privacy paid its accustomed penalty ; 
 and many an explanation, of a kind little flattering, was 
 circulated to account for so ungenial an existence. Some 
 alleged that he had committed some heavy crime against 
 the State, and was permitted to pass his life there, on the
 
 A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 5 
 
 condition of perpetual imprisonment ; others, that his wife 
 had deserted him, and that in his forlorn condition he had 
 sought out a spot to live and die in, unnoticed and un- 
 known; a few ascribed his solitude to debt; while others 
 were divided in opinion between charges of misanthropy 
 and avarice — to either of which accusations his lonely and 
 simple life fully exposed him. 
 
 In time, however, people grew tired of repeating stories 
 to which no new evidence added any features of interest. 
 They lost the zest for a scandal which ceased to astonish, 
 and " my lord " was as much forgotten, and his existence 
 as unspoken of, as though the old towers had once again 
 become the home of the owl and the jackdaw. 
 
 It was now about eight years since " the lord " had taken 
 up his abode at the Castle, when one evening, a raw and 
 gusty night of December, the little skiff of the fisherman 
 was seen standing in for shore — a sight somewhat uncom- 
 mon, since she always crossed the " Lough " in time for 
 the morning's mail. 
 
 " There's another man aboard, too," said a bystander 
 from the*little group that watched the boat, as she neared 
 the harbour ; " I think it's Mr. Craggs." 
 
 " You're right enough, Sam — it's the Corporal ; I know 
 his cap, and the short tail of hair he wears under it. 
 "What can bring him at this time of night ? " 
 
 " He's going to bespeak a quarter of Tim Healey's beef, 
 maybe," said one, with a grin of malicious drollery. 
 
 " Mayhap it's askin' us all to spend the Christmas he'd 
 be," said another. 
 
 " "Whisht ! or he'll hear you," muttered a third ; and at 
 the same instant the sail came clattering down, and the 
 boat glided swiftly past, and entered a little natural creek 
 close beneath where they stood. 
 
 " Who has got a horse and a jaunting-car ? " cried the 
 Corporal, as he jumped on shore. " I want one for Clifden 
 directly." 
 
 " It's fifteen miles — devil a less," cried one. 
 
 " Fifteen ! no. but eighteen ! Kiely's bridge is bruck 
 down, and you'll have to go by Gortnamuck." 
 
 "Well, and if he has, can't he take the cut?" 
 
 "He can't." 
 
 " Why not ? Didn't I go that way last week ? "
 
 b THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 '' Well, and if you did, didn't you lame your baste ?" 
 
 " 'Twasn't the cut did it." 
 
 " It was — sure I know better — Billy Moore tould me." 
 
 " Billy's a liar ! " 
 
 Such and suclx-like comments and contradictions were 
 very rapidly exchanged, and already the debate was 
 waxing warm, when Mr. Craggs's authoritative voice 
 interposed with — 
 
 " Billy Moore be blowed ! I want to know if I can 
 have a car and horse? " 
 
 " To be sure ! why not ? — who says you can't ! " chimed 
 in a chorus. 
 
 " If you go to Clifden under five hours, my name isn't 
 Terry Lynch," said an old man in rabbitskin breeches. 
 
 " I'll engage, if Barny will give me the blind mare, to 
 drive him there under four." 
 
 " Bother ! " said the Rabbitskin, in a tone of contempt. 
 
 " But where's the horse ? " cried the Corporal. 
 
 " Ay, that's if," said another ; " where's the horse ? " 
 
 " Is there none to be found in the village ? " asked 
 Craggs, eagerly. 
 
 " I)ivil a horse, barrin' an ass. Barny's mare has the 
 staggers the last fortnight, and Mrs. Kyle's pony broke his 
 two knees on Tuesday, carrying sea- weed up the rocks." 
 
 " But I must go to Clifden; I must be there to-night," 
 said Crao'Sfs. 
 
 " It's on foot, then, you'll have to do it,' said the Rabbit- 
 skin. 
 
 " Lord Glencoi'e's dangerously ill, and needs a doctor," 
 said the Corporal, bursting out with a piece of most un- 
 common communicativeness. " Is there none of you will 
 give his horse for such an errand ? " 
 
 " Arrah, musha ! — it's a pity!" and such-like expres- 
 sions of compassionate import, were muttered on all sides ; 
 but no more active movement seemed to flow from the 
 condolence, while in a lower tone were added such ex- 
 pressions as, " Sorra mend him — if he wasn't a naygar, 
 wouldn't he have a horse of his own ? It's a droll lord he 
 is, to be begging the loan of a baste ! " 
 
 Something like a malediction arose to the Corporal's 
 lips ; but restraining it, and with a voice thick from passion, 
 he said, —
 
 A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 7 
 
 " I'm ready to pay j'ou — to pay you ten times over the 
 worth of your " 
 
 "You needn't curse the horse, anyhow," interposed 
 Rabbitskin, while with a significant glance at his friends 
 around him, he slyly intimated that it would be as well to 
 adjourn tire debate — a motion as quickly obeyed as it was 
 mooted ; for in less than five minutes Craggs was standing 
 beside the quay, with no other companion than a blind 
 beggar-woman, who, perfectly regardless of his distress, 
 continued energetically to draw attention to her own. 
 
 " A little fivepenny bit, my lord — the last trifle your 
 honour's glory has in the corner of your pocket, that you'll 
 never miss, and that'll sweeten ould Molly's tay to-night P 
 There, acushla, have pity on ' the dark,' and that you may 
 see glory " 
 
 But Craggs did not wait for the remainder, but, deep in 
 his own thoughts, sauntered down towards the village. 
 Already had the others retreated within their homes ; and 
 now all was dark and cheerless along the little straggling 
 street. 
 
 " And this is a Christian country ! — this a land that 
 people tell you abounds in kindness and good-nature ! " 
 said he, in an accent of sarcastic bitterness. 
 
 " And who'll say the reverse ? " answered a voice from 
 behind, and, turning, he beheld the little hunchbacked 
 fellow who carried the mail on foot from Oughterard, a 
 distance of sixteen miles, over a mountain, and who was 
 popularly known as" Billy the Bag," from the little leather 
 sack which seemed to form part of his attire. " Who'll 
 stand up and tell me it's not a fine country in every sense 
 — for natural beauties, for antiquities, for elegant men and 
 lovely females, for quarries of marble and mines of gould ?" 
 
 Craggs looked contemptuously at the figure who thus 
 declaimed of Ireland's wealth and grandeur, and, in a 
 sneering tone, said, — 
 
 "And with such riches on every side, why do you go 
 barefoot — wdiy are you in rags, my old fellow ? " 
 
 " Isn't there poor everywhere ? If the world was all 
 gould and silver, what would be the precious metals — tell 
 me that ? Is it because there's a little cripple like myself 
 here, that them mountains yonder isn't of copper, and 
 iron, and cobalt? Come over with me after I lave the
 
 8 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 bags at the office, and I'll show you bits of every one I 
 speak of." 
 
 " I'd rather you'd show me a doctor, nay worthy fellow," 
 said Craggs, sighing. 
 
 " I'm the nearest thing to that same going," replied 
 Billy. " I can breathe a vein against any man in the 
 barony. I can't say, that for any articular congestion of 
 the aortic valves, or for a sero-pulrnonic diathesis — d'ye 
 mind ? — that there isn't as good as me ; but for the ould 
 school of physic, the humoral diagnostic touch, who can 
 beat me ? " 
 
 " Will you come with me across the lough, and see my 
 lord, then ? " said Craggs, who was glad even of such aid 
 in his emergency. 
 
 " And why not, when I lave the bags ? " said Billy, 
 touching the leather sack as he spoke. 
 
 If the Corporal was not without his misgivings as to 
 the skill and competence of his companion, there was 
 something in the fluent volubility of the little fellow that 
 overawed and impressed him, while his words were uttered 
 'in a rich mellow voice, that gave them a sort of solemn 
 persuasiveness. 
 
 " Were you always on the road ? " asked the Corporal, 
 curious to learn some particulars of his history. 
 
 "No, sir; I was twenty things before I took to the 
 bags. I was a poor scholar for four years ; I kept school 
 in Erris ; I was ' on ' the ferry in Dublin with my fiddle 
 for eighteen months ; and I was a bear in Liverpool for 
 part of a winter." 
 
 " A bear ! " exclaimed Craggs. 
 
 " Yes, sir. It was an Italian — one Pipo Chiassi by 
 name — that lost his beast at Manchester, and persuaded 
 me, as I was about the same stature, to don the sable, and 
 perform in his place. After that I took to writin' for the 
 papers — The Skilbcreen Celt — and supported myself very 
 well till it broke. But here we are at the office, so I'll 
 step in, and get my fiddle, too, if you've no objection." 
 
 The Corporal's meditations scarcely were of a kind to 
 reassure him, as he thought over the versatile character of 
 his new friend ; but the case offered no alternative — it was 
 Billy or nothing — since to reach Clifden on foot would be 
 the labour of many hours, and in the interval his master
 
 A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 9 
 
 should be left utterly alone. While he was thus musing 
 Billy reappeared, with a violin under one arm, and a much- 
 worn quarto under the other. 
 
 " This," said he, touching the volume, " is the ' Whole 
 Art and Mystery of Physic,' by one Fabricius, of Aqua- 
 pendente ; and if we don't find a cure for the case down 
 here, take my word for it, it's among the morba ignota, as 
 Paracelsus says." 
 
 " Well, come along," said Craggs, impatiently, and set off 
 at a speed that, notwithstanding Billy's habits of foot- 
 travel, kept him at a sharp trot. A few minutes more 
 saw them, with canvas spread, skimming across the lough, 
 towards Glencore. 
 
 " Glencore — Glencore ! " muttered Billy once or twice 
 to himself, as the swift boat bounded through the hissing 
 surf. " Did you ever hear Lady Lucy's Lament? " And 
 he struck a few chords with his fingers as he sang: — 
 
 " 'I care not for your trellised vine, 
 
 I love the dark woods on the shore, 
 Nor all the towers along the Rhine 
 
 Are dear to me as old Glencore. 
 The rugged cliff, Ben-Creggan high, 
 
 Re-echoing the Atlantic roar, 
 Are mingling with the seagull's cry 
 
 My welcome back to old Glencore.' " 
 
 And then there's a chorus." 
 
 " That's a signal to us to make haste," said the Cor- 
 poral, pointing to a bright flame which suddenly shot up 
 on the shore of the lough. " Put out an oar to leeward 
 there, and keep her up to the wind." 
 
 And Billy, perceiving his minstrelsy unattended to, 
 consoled himself by humming over, for his own amuse- 
 ment, the remainder of his ballad. 
 
 The wind freshened as the night grew darker, and 
 heavy seas repeatedly broke on the bow, and swept over 
 the boat in sprayey showers. 
 
 " It's that confounded song of yours has got the wind 
 up," said Craggs, angrily ; " stand by the sheet, and stop 
 your croning !" 
 
 " That's an error vulgaris, attributing to music marine 
 disasters," said Billy, calmly ; " it arose out of a mistake 
 about one Orpheus,
 
 10 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 " Slack off there! " cried Craggs, as a squall struck tlie 
 boat, and laid her almost over. 
 
 Billy, however, had obeyed the mandate promptly, and 
 she soon righted, and held on her course. 
 
 " I wish they'd show the light again on shore, "muttered 
 the Corporal ; " the night is black as pitch." 
 
 " Keep the top of the mountain a little to windward, 
 and you're all right," said Billy. " I know the lough 
 well ; I used to come here all hours, day and night, once, 
 spearing salmon." 
 
 "And smuggling, too!" added Craggs. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; brandy, and tay, and pigtail, for Mistei 
 Sheares, in Oughterard." 
 
 " What became of him ?" asked Craggs. 
 
 " He made a fortune and died, and his son married a 
 lady !" 
 
 " Here comes another ; throw her head up in the wind," 
 cried Craggs. 
 
 This time the order came too late ; for the squall struck 
 her with the suddenness of a shot, and she canted over 
 till her keel lay out of water, and, when she righted, it 
 was with the white surf boiling over her. 
 
 " She's a good boat, then, to stand that," said Billy, as 
 he struck a light for his pipe, with all the coolness of one 
 perfectly at his ease ; and Craggs, from that very moment, 
 conceived a favourable opinion of the little hunchback. 
 
 " Now we're in the smooth water, Corporal," cried 
 Billy ; " let her go a little free." 
 
 And, obedient to the advice, he ran the boat swiftly 
 along till she entered a small creek, so sheltered by the 
 highlands that the water within was still as a mountain 
 tarn. 
 
 " You never made the passage on a worse night, I'll be 
 bound," said Craggs, as- he sprang on shore. 
 
 " Indeed and I did, then," replied Billy. "I remember 
 ■ — it was two days before Christmas — we were blown out 
 to say in a small boat, not more than the half of this, and 
 we only made the west side of Arran Island after thirty- 
 six hours' beating and tacking. I wrote an account of it 
 for the Tyrawly Regenerator, commencing with — 
 
 " ' The elemential conflict that with tremendious 
 violence raged, ravaged, and ruined the adamantine
 
 A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 11 
 
 foundations of our western coast, on Tuesday, the 23rd 
 of December 
 
 " Come along, come along," said Craggs ; " we've some- 
 thing else to think of." 
 
 And with this admonition, very curtly bestowed, he 
 stepped out briskly on the path towards Glencore.
 
 12 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GLENCORE CASTIE. 
 
 When the Corporal, followed by Billy, entered the gloomy 
 hall of the Castle, they found two or three country people 
 conversing in a low but eager voice together, who speedily 
 turned towards them, to learn if the doctor had come. 
 
 " Here's all I could get in the way of a doctor," said 
 Craggs, pushing Billy towards them as he spoke. 
 
 '' Faix, and ye might have got worse," muttered a very 
 old man ; " Billy Traynor has the ' lucky hand.' " 
 
 " How is my lord, now, Nelly ? " asked the Corporal of 
 a woman who, with bare feet, and dressed in the humblest 
 fashion of the peasantry, appeared. 
 
 " He's getting weaker and weaker, sir ; I believe he's 
 sinking. I'm glad it's Billy is come ; I'd rather see him 
 than all the doctors in the country." 
 
 " Follow me," said Craggs, giving a signal to step 
 lightly. And he led the way up a nai'row stone stair, with 
 a wall on either hand. Traversing a long, low corridor, 
 they reached a door, at which having waited for a second 
 or two to listen, Crae^s turned the handle and entered. 
 The room was very large and lofty, and, seen in the dim 
 light of a small lamp upon the hearthstone, seemed even 
 more spacious than it was. The oaken floor was uncar- 
 peted, and a very few articles of furniture occupied the 
 walls. In one corner stood a large bed, the heavy curtains 
 of which had been gathered up on the roof, the better to 
 admit air to the sick man. 
 
 As Billy drew nigh with cautious steps, he perceived 
 that, although worn and wasted by long illness, the patient 
 was a man still in the very prime of life. His dark hair 
 and beard, which he wore long, were untinged with grey, 
 and his forehead showed no touch of age. His dark eyes 
 were wide open, and his lips slightly parted, his whole 
 features exhibiting an expression of energetic action,
 
 GLENCORE CASTLE. 13 
 
 even to wildness. Still he was sleeping ; and, as Craggs 
 whispered, he seldom slept otherwise, even when in health. 
 With all the quietness of a trained practitioner, Billy took 
 down the watch that was pinned to the curtain and pro- 
 ceeded to count the pulse. 
 
 "A hundred and thirty-eight," muttered he, as he 
 finished ; and then gently displacing the bedclothes, laid 
 his hand upon the heart. 
 
 With a long-drawn sigh, like that of utter weariness, 
 the sick man moved his head round and fixed his eyes 
 upon him. 
 
 " The doctor ! " said he, in a deep-toned but feeble voice. 
 " Leave me, Craggs — leave me alone with him." 
 
 And the Corporal slowly retired, turning as he went 
 to look back towards the bed, and evidently going with 
 reluctance. 
 
 " Is it fever ? " asked the sick man, in a faint but un- 
 faltering accent. 
 
 " It's a kind of cerebral congestion — a matter of them 
 membranes that's over the brain, with, of course, febrilis 
 geveralis." 
 
 The accentuation of these words, marked as it was by 
 the strongest provincialism of the peasant, atti'acted the 
 sick man's attention, and he bent upon him a look at once 
 searching and severe. 
 
 " What are you — who are you ? " cried he, angrily. 
 
 " What I am isn't so aisy to say ; but who I am is clean 
 beyond me." 
 
 " Are you a doctor ? " asked the sick man, fiercely. 
 
 " I'm afear'd I'm not, in the sense of a gradual Univer- 
 sitatis — a diplomia ; but sure maybe Paracelsus himself 
 just took to it, like me, having a vocation, as one might 
 say." _ 
 
 " Ring that bell," said the other, peremptorily. 
 
 And Billy obeyed without speaking. 
 
 "What do you mean by this, Craggs ? " said the Vis- 
 count, trembling with passion. "Who have you brought 
 me? What beggar have you picked off the highway? 
 Or is he the travelling fool of the district ? " 
 
 But the anger that supplied strength hitherto now failed 
 to impart energy, and he sank back wasted and exhausted. 
 The Corporal bent over him, and spoke something in a
 
 14 TEE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 low whisper, but whether the words were heard or not, 
 the sick man now lay still, breathing heavily. 
 
 " Can you do nothing for him ? " asked Craggs, pee- 
 vishly — "nothing but anger him?" 
 
 " To be sure I can if you let me," said Billy, producing 
 a very ancient lancet-case of boxwood tipped with ivory. 
 " I'll just take a dash of blood from the temporial artery, 
 to relieve the cerebrum, and then we'll put cowld on his 
 head, and keep him quiet." 
 
 And with a promptitude that showed at least self-con- 
 fidence, he proceeded to accomplish the operation, every 
 step of which he effected skilfully and well. 
 
 " There, now," said he, feeling the pulse, as the blood 
 continued to flow freely, " the circulation is relieved at 
 once ; it's the same as opening a sluice in a mill-dam. 
 He's better already." 
 
 " He looks easier," said Craggs. 
 
 " Ay, and he feels it," continued Billy. " Just notice 
 the respiratory organs, and see how easy the intercostials 
 is doing their work now. Bring me a bowl of clean water, 
 some vinegar, and any ould rags you have." 
 
 Craggs obeyed, but not without a sneer at the direction, 
 
 " All over the head," said Billy ; " all over it — back and 
 front — and with the blessing of the Virgin, I'll have that 
 hair off of him if he isn't cooler towards evening." 
 
 So saying, he covered the sick man with the wetted 
 cloths, and bathed his hands in the cooling fluid. 
 
 " Now to exclude the light and save the brain from 
 stimulation and excitation," said Billy, with a pompous 
 enunciation of the last syllables ; " and then quies — rest — • 
 peace ! " 
 
 And with this direction, imparted with a caution to 
 enforce its benefits, he moved stealthily towards the door 
 and passed out. 
 
 "What do you think of him?" asked the Corporal, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " He'll do — he'll do," said Billy. " He's a sanguineous 
 temperament, and he'll bear the lancet. It's just like 
 weatherin' a point at say. If you have a craft that will 
 carry canvas, there's always a chance for you." 
 
 " He perceived that you were not a doctor," said Craggs, 
 when they reached the corridor.
 
 GLENCORE CASTLE. 15 
 
 *\ 
 
 " Did lie, faix ? " cried Billy, half indignantly. " He 
 might have perceived that I didn't come in a coach ; that 
 I hadn't my hair powdered, nor gold knee-buckles in my 
 smallcloths ; but, for all that, it would be going too far to 
 say that I wasn't a doctor! 'Tis the same with physic and 
 poetry — you take to it, or }'on don't take to it ! There's 
 chaps, ay, and far from stupid ones either, that couldn't 
 compose you ten hexameters if ye'd put them on a hot 
 griddle for it ; and there's others that would talk rhyme 
 rather than rayson! And so with the ars medicatrix — • 
 everybody hasn't an eye for a hectic, or an ear for a cough 
 — non contujit cuique adire Corintlieum. 'Tisn't every one 
 can toss pancakes, as Horace says." 
 
 " Hush — be still ! " muttered Craggs, " here's the young 
 master." And as he spoke, a youth of about fifteen, well 
 grown and handsome, but poorly, even meanly clad, 
 approached them. 
 
 " Have you seen my father ? What do you think of 
 him ?" asked he, eagerly. 
 
 " 'Tis a critical state he's in, your honour," said Billy, 
 bowing; "but I think he'll come round — deflation, de- 
 plat ion, deflation — actio, actio, actio; relieve the gorged 
 vessels, and don't drown the grand hydraulic machine, the 
 heart — them's my sentiments." 
 
 Turning from the speaker with a look of angry impa- 
 tience, the boy whispered some words in the Corporal's ear. 
 
 " What could I do, sir ? " was the answer ; " it was this 
 fellow or nothing." 
 
 " And better, a thousand times better, nothing," said 
 the boy, "than trust his life to the coarse ignorance of 
 this wretched quack." And in his passion the words were 
 uttered loud enough for Billy to overhear them. 
 
 "Don't be hasty, your honour," said Billy, submissively, 
 " and don't be unjust. The realms of disaze is like an 
 unknown tract of country, or a country that's only known 
 a little, jusb round the coast, as it might be; once ye'ro 
 bej-ond that, one man is as good a guide as another, cceteris 
 paribus, that is, with ' equal lights.' " 
 
 " What have you done ? Have you given him any- 
 thing ? ' ' broke in the boy, hurriedly. 
 
 " I took a bleeding from him, little short of sixteen 
 ounces, from the temporial," said Billy, proudly, " and I'll
 
 IS THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCORE. 
 
 give liim now a concoction of meadow saffron with a pinch 
 of saltpetre in it, to cause diaphoresis, d'ye mind ? Mean- 
 while, we're disgorging the arachnoid membranes with 
 cowld applications, and we're relievin' the cerebellum by 
 repose. I challenge the Hall," added Billy, stoutly, "to 
 say isn't them the grand principles of ' traitment.' Ah ! 
 young gentleman," said he, after a few seconds' pause, 
 " don't be hard on me, because I'm poor and in rags, nor 
 think manely of me because I spake with a brogue, and 
 maybe bad grammar, foi-, you see, even a crayture of my 
 kind can have a knowledge of disaze, just as he may have 
 a knowledge of nature, by observation. What is sickness, 
 after all, but just one of the phenomenons of all organic 
 and inorganic matter — a regular sort of shindy in a man's 
 inside, like a thunderstorm, or a hurry-cane outside ? 
 Watch what's coining, look out and see which way the 
 mischief is brewin', and make your preparations. That's 
 the great study of physic." 
 
 The boy listened patiently and even attentively to this 
 speech, and when Billy had concluded, he turned to the 
 Corporal and said, " Look to him, Craggs, and let him 
 have his supper, and when he has eaten it send him to 
 my room." 
 
 Billy bowed an acknowledgment, and followed the 
 Corporal to the kitchen. 
 
 _ " That's my lord's son, I suppose," said he, as he seated 
 himself, " and a fine young crayture too — puer ingenuus, 
 with a grand frontal development." And with this re- 
 flection he addressed himself to the coarse but abundant 
 fare which Craggs placed before him, and with an appetite 
 that showed how much he relished it. 
 
 " This is elegant living ye have here, Mr. Craggs," said 
 Billy, as he drained his tankard of beer, and placed it 
 with a sigh on the table; " many happy years of it to ye 
 — I couldn't wish ye anything better." 
 
 " The life is not so bad," said Craggs, " but it's lonely 
 sometimes." 
 
 " Life need never be lonely so long as a man has health 
 and his faculties," said Billy ; " give me nature to admire, 
 a bit of baycon for dinner, and my fiddle to amuse me, and 
 I wouldn't change with the King of Sugar ' Candy.' " 
 
 "I was there," said Craggs, "it's a fine island."
 
 GLENCOEE CASTLE. 17 
 
 " My lord wants to see the doctor," said a woman, 
 entering hastily. 
 
 " And the doctor is ready for him," said Billy, rising 
 and leaving the kitchen with all the dignity he could 
 assume.
 
 18 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BILLY TRAYNOR— POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN. 
 
 '-' Didn't I tell you how it would be ? " said Billy, as he 
 re-entered the kitchen, now crowded by the workpeople, 
 anxious for tidings of the sick man. " The head is re- 
 leaved, the conjestive symptoms is allayed, and when the 
 artarial excitement subsides, he'll be out of danger." 
 
 " Musha, but I'm glad," muttered one ; " he'd be a great 
 loss to us." 
 
 " True for you, Patsey ; there's eight or nine of us here 
 would miss him if he was gone." 
 
 " Troth, he doesn't give much employment, but -\ve 
 couldn't spare him," croaked out a third, when the en- 
 trance of the Corporal cut short further commentary; 
 and the party gathered around the cheerful turf fire, 
 with that instinctive sense of comfort impressed by the 
 swooping wind and rain that beat against the windows. 
 
 "It's a dreadful night outside ; I wouldn't like to cross 
 the lough in it," said one. 
 
 "Then that's just what I'm thinking of this minit," 
 said Billy. " I'll have to be up at the office for the bags 
 at six o'clock." 
 
 " Faix, you'll not see Leenane at six o'clock to-morrow." 
 
 " Sorra taste of it," muttered another; "there's a sea 
 runnin' outside now that would swamp a life-boat." 
 
 " I'll not lose an illigant situation of six pounds ten a 
 year, and a pair of shoes at Christmas, for want of a bit 
 of courage," said Billy ; " I'd have my dismissal if I 
 wasn't there as sure as my name i3 Billy Trayncr." 
 
 " And better for you than lose your life, Billy," said 
 one. 
 
 "And it's not alone myself I'd be thinking of," said 
 Billy; "but every man in this world, high and low, has 
 his duties. My duty," added he, somewhat pretentiously, 
 " is to carry the King's mail ; and if anything was to ob-
 
 BILLY TRAYNOB — POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN. 19 
 
 struckt, or impade, or delay the coirespoudicn.ee, it's on 
 me the blame would lie." 
 
 "The letters wouldn't go the faster because you were 
 drowned," broke in the Corporal. 
 
 "No, six-," said Billy, rather staggered by the grin of 
 approval that met this remark — " no, sir, what you obsarve 
 is true ; but nobody reflects on the sintry that dies at his 
 pose. 
 
 " If you must and will go, I'll give you the yawl," said 
 Craggs ; " and I'll go with you myself." 
 
 " Spoke like a British Grenadier," cried Billy, with 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 " Carbineer, if the same to you, master," said the other, 
 quietly; " I never served in the infantry." 
 
 " Tros Tyrmsve mihi" cried Billy ; " which is as much 
 as to say, — 
 
 " ' To storm the skies, or lay siege to the moon, 
 Give me one of the line, or a heavy dragoon,' 
 
 it's the same to me, as the poet says." 
 
 And a low murmur of the company seemed to accord 
 approval to the sentiment. 
 
 " I wish you'd give us a tune, Billy," said one, coax- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Or a song would be better," observed another. 
 
 " Faix," cried a third, " 'tis himself could do it, and in 
 Frinch or Latin if ye wanted it." 
 
 " The Germans was the best I ever knew for music," 
 broke in Craggs. "I was brigaded with Arentschild's 
 Hanoverians in Spain ; and they used to sit outside the 
 tents every evening, and sing. By Jove ! how they did 
 sing — all together, like the swell of a church organ." 
 
 " Yes, you're right," said Billy, but evidently yielding 
 an unwilling assent to this doctrine. " The Germans has 
 a fine national music, and they're great for harmony. But 
 harmony and melody is two different things." 
 
 " And which is best, Billy ? " asked one of the company. 
 
 " Musha, but I pity your ignorance," said Billy, with 
 a degree of confusion that raised a hearty laugh at hi3 
 expense. 
 
 " "Well, but where's the song ? " exclaimed another. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " Ay," said Craggs, " we are forgetting the song. Now 
 for it,, Billy. Since all is going on so well above stairs, 
 I'll draw you a gallon of ale, boys, and we'll drink to the 
 master's speedy recovery." 
 
 It was a rare occasion when the Corporal suffered him- 
 self to expand in this fashion, and great was the applause 
 at the unexpected munificence. 
 
 Billy at the same moment took out his fiddle and began 
 that process of preparatory screwing and scraping which, 
 no matter how distressing to the surrounders, seems to 
 afford intense delight to perfonuers on this instrument. 
 In the present case, it is but fair to say, there was neither 
 comment nor impatience ; on the contrary, they seemed 
 to accept these convulsive throes of sound as an earnest 
 of the grand flood of melody that was coming. That 
 Billy was occupied with other thoughts than those of 
 tuning was, however, apparent, for his lips continued to 
 move rapidly ; and at moments he was seen to beat time 
 with his foot, as though measuring out the rhythm of a 
 verse. 
 
 " I have it now, ladies and gentlemen," he said, making 
 a low obeisance to the company ; and so saying, he struck 
 up a very popular tune, the same to which a reverend 
 divine wrote his words of " The Night before Larry was 
 Stretched ; " and in a voice of a deep and mellow fulness, 
 managed with considerable taste, sang — - 
 
 " ' A fig for the chansons of France, 
 
 Whose meaning is always a riddle ; 
 The music to sing or to dance 
 
 Is an Irish tune played on the fiddle. 
 To your songs of the Rhine and the Rh6ne 
 
 I'm ready to cry out jam satis; 
 Just give us something of our own 
 In praise of our Land of Potatoes. 
 
 Tol lol de lol, &c. 
 
 " ' What care I for sorrows of those 
 
 Who speak of their heart as a cuore; 
 How expect me to feel for the woes 
 Of him who calls love an amove ! 
 Let me have a few words about home, 
 
 With music whose strains I'd remember, 
 And I'll give you all Florence and Rome, 
 Tho' they have a blue sky in December. 
 Tol lol de lol, &c.
 
 BILLY TRAYXOR — POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN. 21 
 
 " 'With a pretty face close to your own, 
 
 I'm sure there's no rayson for sighing ; 
 Nor when walkin' beside her alone, 
 
 Why the blazes be talking of dying ! 
 That's the way tho', in France and in Spain, 
 
 Where love is not real, but acted, 
 You must always purtend you're insane, 
 Or at laste that you're partly distracted. 
 
 Tol lol de lol, &c.' " 
 
 It is very unlikely that the reader will estimate Billy's 
 impromptu as did the company ; in fact, it possessed the 
 greatest of all claims to their admiration, for it was partly 
 incomprehensible, and by the artful introduction of a word 
 here and there, of which his hearers knew nothing, the 
 poet was well aware -that he was securing their heartiest 
 approval. Nor was Billy insensible to such flatteries. 
 The " irritabile genus" has its soft side, and can enjoy to 
 the uttermost its own successes. It is possible, if Billy 
 had been in another sphere, with much higher gifts, and 
 surrounded by higher associates, that he might have 
 accepted the homage tendered him with more graceful 
 modesty, and seemed at least less confident of his own 
 merits ; but under no possible change of places or people 
 could the praise have bestowed more sincere pleasure. 
 
 "You're right, there, Jim Morris," said he, turning 
 suddenly round towards one of the company ; " you never 
 said a truer thing than that. The poetic temperament is 
 riches to a poor man. Wherever I go — in all weathers, 
 wet and dreary, and maybe footsore, with the bags full, 
 and the mountain streams all flowin' over — I can just go 
 into my own mind, just the way you'd go into an inn, and 
 order whatever you wanted. I don't need to be a king, 
 to sit on a throne ; I don't want ships, nor coaches, nor 
 horses, to convay me to foreign lands. I can bestow king- 
 doms. When I haven't tuppence to buy tobacco, and 
 without a shoe to my foot, and my hair through my hat, 
 I can be dancin' wid princesses, and handin' empresses in 
 to tay." 
 
 " Musha, musha ! " muttered the surrounders, as though 
 they were listening to a magician, who in a moment of 
 unguarded familiarity condescended to discuss his own 
 miraculous gifts. 
 
 " And," resumed Billy, " it isn't only what ye are to
 
 22 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 yourself and your own heart, but what ye are to others, 
 that without that sacret bond between you, wouldn't think 
 of you at all. I remember, once on a time, I was in the 
 north of England travelling, partly for pleasure, and 
 ' partly with a view to a small speculation in Sheffield ware 
 — cheap penknives and scissors, pencil-cases, bodkins, and 
 the like — and I wandered about for weeks through what 
 they call the Lake Country, a very handsome place, but 
 nowise grand or sublime, like what we have here in Ire- 
 land — more wood, forest timber, and better-off people, but 
 nothing beyond that ! 
 
 " "Well, one evening — it was in August — I came down 
 by a narrow path to the side of a lake, where there was a 
 stone seat, put up to see the view from, and in front was 
 three wooden steps of stairs going down into the water, 
 where a boat might come in. It was a lovely spot, and 
 well chosen, for you could count as many as five promon- 
 taries running out into the lake ; and there was two 
 islands, all wooded to the water's edge ; and behind all, in 
 the distance, was a great mountain, with clouds on the 
 top ; and it was just the season when the trees is begin- 
 nin' to change their colours, and there was shades of deep 
 gold, and dark olive, and russet brown, all mingling to- 
 gether with the green, and glowing in the lake below 
 under the setting sun, and all was quiet and still as mid- 
 night ; and over the water the only ripple was the track of 
 a water-hen, as she scudded past between the islands ; and 
 if ever there was peace and tranquillity in the world it was 
 just there ! Well, I put down my pack in the leaves, for 
 I didn't like to see or think of it, and I stretched myself 
 down at the water's •edge, and I fell into a fit of musing. 
 It's often and often I tried to remember the elegant fan- 
 cies that came through my head, and the beautiful things 
 that I thought I saw that night out on the lake fornint 
 me ! Te see I was fresh and fastin'; I never tasted a bit 
 the whole day, and my brain, maybe, was all the better ; 
 for somehow janius, real janius, thrives best on a little 
 starvation. And from musing I fell off asleep ; and it 
 was the sound of voices near that first awoke me ! For a 
 minute or two I believed I was dreaming, the words came 
 so softly to my car, for they were spoken in a low, gentle 
 voice, and blended in with the slight splash of oars that
 
 BILLY TRAYNOR — POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN. 23 
 
 moved through the water carefully, as though not to lose 
 a word of him that was speakin'. 
 
 " It's clean beyond vie to tell you what he said ; and, 
 maybe, if I could, ye wouldn't be able to follow it, for he 
 was discoorsin' about night and the moon, and all that 
 various poets said about them ; ye'd think that he had 
 books, and was reading out of them, so glibly came the 
 verses from his lips. I never listened to such a voice 
 before, so soft, so sweet, so musical, and the words came 
 droppin' down, like the clear water filterin' over a rocky 
 ledge, and glitterin' like little spangles over moss and 
 wild flowers. 
 
 " It wasn't only in English but Scotch ballads, too, 
 and once or twice in Italian that he recited, till at last he 
 gave out, in all the fulness of his liquid voice, them elegant 
 lines out of Pope's Homer : — 
 
 " ' As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, 
 O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, 
 When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, 
 And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene, 
 Around her throne the vivid planets roll, 
 And stars unuumbered gild the glowing pole: 
 O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, 
 And top with silver every mountain's head ; 
 Then shine the vales ; the rocks in prospect rise — 
 A Hood of glory bursts from all the skies ; 
 The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, 
 Eye the blue vault and bless the useful light.' 
 
 " The Lord forgive me, but when he came to the last 
 words and said, ' useful light,' I couldn't restrain myself, 
 but broke out, ' That's mighty like a bull, anyhow, and 
 reminds me of the ould song : — 
 
 " ' Good luck to the moon, she's a fine noble creature, 
 And gives us the daylight all night in the dark.' 
 
 " Before I knew where I was, the boat glided in to the 
 steps, and a tall man, a little stooped in the shoulders, 
 stood before me. 
 
 " ' Is it you,' said he, with a quiet laugh, ' that accuses 
 Pope of a bull?' 
 
 "'It is,' says I; ' and, what's more, there isn't a poet 
 from Horace downwards that I won't show bulls in;
 
 24 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 there's bulls in Shakspeare and in Milton ; there's bulls 
 in the ancients ; I'll point out a bull in Aristophanes.' 
 
 '"What have we here ?' said he, turning to the others. 
 
 " 'A poor crayture,' says I, 'like Goldsmith's chest of 
 drawers, — 
 
 " ' With brains reduced a double debt to pay, 
 To dream by night, sell Sheffield ware by day.' 
 
 " Well, with that he took a fit of laughing, and handing 
 the rest out of the boat, he made me come along at his 
 side, discoorsin' me about my thravels, and all I seen, and 
 all I read, till we reached an elegant little cottage on a 
 bank right over the lake ; and then he brought me in and 
 made me take tay with the family ; and I spent the night 
 there ; and when I started the next morning there wasn't 
 a ' screed ' of my pack that they didn't buy, penknives, 
 and whistles, and nut-crackers, and all, just, as they said, 
 for keepsakes. Good s luck to them, and happy hearts, 
 wherever they are, for they made mine happy that day ; 
 ay, and for many an hour afterwards, when I just think 
 over their kind words and pleasant faces." 
 
 More than one of the company had dropped off asleep 
 during Billy's narrative, and of the others, their com- 
 plaisance as listeners appeared taxed to the utmost, 
 while the Corporal snored loudly, like a man who had a 
 right to indulge himself to the fullest extent. 
 
 " There's the bell again," muttered one, " that's from 
 the ' lord's room ; ' " and Oraggs, starting up by the in- 
 stinct of his office, hastened off to his master's chamber. 
 " My lord says you are to remain here," said he, as he 
 re-entered a few minutes later ; " he is satisfied with your 
 skill, and I'm to send off a messenger to the post, to let 
 them know he has detained you." 
 
 " I'm obaydient," said Billy, with a low bow ; " and 
 now for a brief repose ! " And so saying, he drew a long 
 woollen nightcap from his pocket, and putting it over his 
 eyes, resigned himself to sleep with the practised air of 
 one who needed but very little preparation to secure 
 slumber.
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A VISITOR. 
 
 The old Castle of Glencore contained but one spacious 
 room, and this served all the purposes of drawing-room, 
 dining-room, and library. It was a long and lofty chamber, 
 witb a raftered ceiling, from which a heavy chandelier hung 
 by a massive chain of iron. Six windows, all in the same 
 ■wall, deeply set and narrow, admitted a sparing light. In 
 the opposite wall stood two fireplaces, large, massive, and 
 monumental ; the carved supporters of the richly-chased 
 pediment being of colossal size, and the great shield of 
 the house crowning the pyramid of strange and uncouth 
 objects that were grouped below. The walls were partly 
 occupied by bookshelves, partly covered by wainscot, and 
 here and there displayed a worn-out portrait of some by- 
 gone warrior or dame, who little dreamed how much the 
 colour of their effigies should be indebted to the sad effects 
 of damp and mildew. The furniture consisted of every 
 imaginable type, from the carved oak and ebony console, 
 to the white and gold of Versailles taste, and the modern 
 compromise of comfort with ugliness which chintz and soft 
 cushions accomplish. Two great screens, thickly covered 
 with prints and drawings, most of them political carica- 
 tures of some fifty years back, flanked each fireplace, 
 making as it were, in this case, two different apartments. 
 
 At one of those, on a low sofa, sat, or rather lay, Lord 
 Glencore, pale and wasted by long illness. His thin hand 
 held a letter, to shade his eyes from the blazing wood fire, 
 and the other hand hung listlessly at his side. The ex- 
 pression of the sick man's face was that of deep melan- 
 choly — not the mere gloom of recent suffering, but the 
 deep-cut traces of a long-carried affliction, a sorrow which 
 had eaten into his very heart, and made its home there. 
 
 At the second fireplace sat his son, and, though a mere 
 boy, the lineaments of his father marked the youth's face
 
 26 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 with a painful exactness. The same intensity was in the 
 eyes — the same haughty character sat on the brow ; and 
 there was in the whole countenance the most extraordinary 
 counterpart of the gloomy seriousness of the older face. 
 He had been reading, but the fast falling night obliged 
 him to desist, and he sat now contemplating the bright 
 embers of the wood fire in dreamy thought. Once or 
 twice was he disturbed from his reverie by the whispered 
 voice of an old serving man, asking for something with 
 that submissive manner assumed by those who are con- 
 tinually exposed to the outbreaks of another's temper ; 
 and at last the boy, who had hitherto scarcely deigned to 
 notice the appeals to him, flung a bunch of keys con- 
 temptuously on the ground, with a muttered malediction 
 on his tormentor. 
 
 " What's that ? " cried out the sick man, startled at the 
 sound. 
 
 " Tis nothing, my lord, but the keys that fell out of 
 my hand," replied the old man, humbly. "Mr. Craggs 
 is away to Leenane, and I was going to get out the wine 
 for dinner." 
 
 " Where's Mr. Charles? " asked Lord Grlencore. 
 
 " He's there beyant," muttered the other, in a low voice, 
 while he pointed towards the distant fireplace ; " but he 
 looks tired and weary, and I didn't like to disturb him." 
 
 " Tired ! weary ! — with what ? — where has he been ? — 
 what has he been doing?" cried he, hastily. "Charles, 
 Chaides, I say! " 
 
 And slowly rising from his seat, and with an air of 
 lansmid indifference, the bov came towards him. 
 
 Lord Glencore's face darkened as he gazed on him. 
 
 " Where have you been ? " asked he, sternly. 
 
 " Yonder," said the boy, in an accent like the echo of 
 his own. 
 
 " There's Mr. Craggs, now, my lord," said the old 
 butler, as he looked out of the window, and eagerly 
 seized the opportunity to interrupt the scene; "there 
 he is, and a gentleman with him." 
 
 "Ha! go and meet him, Charles — it's Harcourt. Go 
 and receive him, show him his room, and then bring him 
 here to me." 
 
 The boy heard without a word, and left the room with
 
 A VISITOR. 27 
 
 the same slow step and the same look of apathy. Just 
 as he reached the hall the stranger was entering it. He 
 was a tall, well-built man, with the mingled ease and 
 stiffness of a soldier in his bearing ; his face was hand- 
 some, but somewhat stern, and his voice had that tone 
 which implies the long ha>it of command. 
 
 " You're a Massy, that I'll swear to," said he, frankly, 
 as he shook the boy's hand ; "the family face in every 
 lineament. And how is your father ? " 
 
 " Better : he has had a severe illness." 
 
 " So his letter told me. I was up the Rhine when I 
 received it, and started at once for Ireland." 
 
 " He has been very impatient for your coming," said the 
 boy ; " he has talked of nothing else." 
 
 "Ay, we are old friends. Glencore and I have been 
 schoolfellows, chums at college, and messmates in the same 
 regiment," said he, with a slight touch of sorrow in his 
 tone. " "Will he be able to see me now? Is he confined 
 to bed ? " 
 
 "No, he will dine with you. I'm to show you your 
 room, and then bring you to him." 
 
 " That's better news than I hoped foi', boy. By the way, 
 what's your name ? " 
 
 "Charles Conyngham." 
 
 "To be sure, Charles; how could I have forgotten it! 
 So, Charles, this is to be my quarters ; and a glorious view 
 there is from this window. What's the mountain yonder? " 
 
 "Ben Creggan." 
 
 "We must climb that summit some of these days, 
 Chai-ley. I hope you're a good walker. You shall be my 
 guide through this wild region here, for I have a passion 
 for explorings." 
 
 And he talked away rapidly, while he made a brief 
 toilet, and refreshed himself from the fatigues of the road. 
 
 " Now, Charley, I am at your orders ; let us descend to 
 the drawing-room." 
 
 " You'll find my father there," said the boy, as he stopped 
 short at the door; and Harcourt, staring at him for a 
 second or two in silence, turned the handle and entered. 
 
 _ Lord Glencore never turned his head as the other drew 
 nigh, but sat with his forehead resting on the table, ex- 
 tending his hand only in welcome.
 
 28 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 " My poor fellow ! " said Harcourt, grasping the thin 
 and wasted fingers, — " my poor fellow, how glad I am to 
 be with you again." And he seated himself at his side as 
 he spoke. " You had a relapse after you wrote to me ? " 
 
 Glencore slowly raised his head, and, pushing back a 
 small velvet skull-cap that he wore, said, — 
 
 " You'd not have known me, George. Eh ? see how 
 grey I am ! I saw myself in the glass to-day for the first 
 time, and I really couldn't believe my eyes." 
 
 " In another week the change will be just as great the 
 other way. It was some kind of a fever, was it not?" 
 
 " I believe so," said the other, sighing. 
 
 "And they bled you and blistered you, of course. 
 These fellows are like the farriers — they have but the one 
 system for everything. Who was your torturer? — where 
 did you get him from ? " 
 
 " A practitioner of the neighbourhood, the wild growth 
 of the mountain," said Glencore, with a sickly smile ; " but 
 I mustn't be ungrateful ; he saved my life, if that be a 
 cause for gratitude." 
 
 " And a right good one, I take it. How like you that 
 boy is, Glencore. I started back when he met me. It 
 was just as if I was transported again to old school-days, 
 and had seen yourself as you used to be long ago ! Do 
 you remember the long meadow, Glencore ? " 
 
 "Harcourt," said he, falteringly, "don't talk to me of 
 long ago — at least not now." And then, as if thinking 
 aloud, added, " How strange that a man without a hope 
 should like the future better than the past !" 
 
 "How old is Charley?" asked Harcourt, anxious to 
 engage him on some other theme. 
 
 " He'll be fifteen, I think, his next birthday ; he seems 
 older, doesn't he ? " 
 
 " Yes, the boy is well grown and athletic. What has he 
 been doing? — have you had him at a school ? " 
 
 " At a school ! " said Glencore, starting ; " no, he has 
 lived always here with myself. I have been his tutor — I 
 read with him every day, till that illness seized me." 
 
 " He looks clever ; is he so? " 
 
 " Like the rest of us, George, he may learn, but he 
 can't be taught. The old obstinacy of the race is strong 
 in him, and to rouse him to rebel all you have to do is to
 
 A VISITOR. 29 
 
 give him a task ; but his faculties are good, his appre- 
 hension quick, and his memory, if he would but tax it, 
 excellent. Here's Craggs come to tell us of dinner ; give 
 me your arm, George, we haven't far to go — this one room 
 serves us for everything." 
 
 " You're better lodged than I expected — your letters 
 told me to look for a mere barrack ; and the place stands 
 so well." 
 
 " Yes, the spot was well chosen, although I suppose its 
 founders cared little enough about the picturesque." 
 
 The dinner-table was spread behind one of the massive 
 screens, and under the careful direction of Craggs and 
 old Simon, was well and amply supplied — fish and game, 
 the delicacies of other localities, being here in abundance. 
 Harcourt had a traveller's appetite, and enjoyed himself 
 thoroughly, while Glencore never touched a morsel, and 
 the boy ate sparingly, watching the stranger with that 
 intense curiosity which comes of living estranged from 
 all society. 
 
 " Charley will treat you to a bottle of Burgundy, Har- 
 court," said Glencore, as they drew round the fire; "he 
 keeps the cellar key." 
 
 " Let us have two, Charley," said Harcourt, as the boy 
 arose to leave the room, " and take care that you carry 
 them steadily." 
 
 The boy stood for a second and looked at his father, 
 as if interrogating, and then a sudden flush suffused his 
 face as Glencore made a gesture with his hand for him 
 to go. 
 
 " You don't perceive how you touched him to the quick 
 there, Harcourt ? You talked to him as to how he should 
 carry the wine ; he thought that office menial and beneath 
 him, and he looked at me to know what he should do." 
 
 " What a fool you have made of the boy ! " said Har- 
 court, bluntly. " By Jove ! it was time I should come 
 here!" 
 
 When the boy came back he was followed by the old 
 butler, carefully carrying in a small wicker contrivance, 
 Hibernice called a cooper, three cobwebbed and well- 
 crusted bottles. 
 
 " Now, Charley," said Harcourt, gaily, " if you want to 
 see a man thoroughly happy, just step up to my room and
 
 30 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 fetch me a small leather sack you'll find there of tobacco, 
 and on the dressing-table you'll see my meerschaum pipe ; 
 be cautions with it, for it belonged to no less a man than 
 Poniatowski, the poor fellow who died at Leipsic." 
 
 The lad stood again irresolute and confused, when a 
 signal from his father motioned him away to acquit the 
 errand. 
 
 "Thank you," said Harcourt, as he re-entered; "you 
 see I am not vain of my meerschaum without reason. The 
 carving of that bull is a work of real art ; and if you 
 were a connoisseur in such matters, you'd say the colour 
 was perfect. Have you given up smoking, Glencore ? — you 
 used to be fond of a weed." 
 
 " I care but little for it," said Glencore, sighing. 
 
 " Take to it again, my dear fellow, if only that it is a 
 bond 'tween yourself and every one who whiffs his cloud. 
 There are wonderfully few habits — I was going to say 
 enjoyments, and I might say so, but I'll call them habits — 
 that consort so well with every condition and every cir- 
 cumstance of life, that become the prince and the peasant, 
 suit the garden of the palace, and the red watch-fire of 
 the bivouac, relieve the weary hours of a calm at sea, or 
 refresh the tired hunter in the prairies." 
 
 " You must tell Charley some of your adventures in the 
 West. — The Colonel has passed two years in the Eocky 
 Mountains," said Glencore to his son. 
 
 " Ay, Charley, I have knocked about the world as much 
 as most men, and seen, too, my share of its wonders. If 
 accidents by sea and land can interest you, if you care 
 for stories of Indian life and the wild habits of a prairie 
 hunter, I'm your man. Your father can tell you more of 
 salons and the great world, of what may be termed the 
 high game of life " 
 
 " I have forgotten it, as much as if I had never seen 
 it," said Glencore, interrupting, and with a severity of 
 voice that showed the theme displeased him. And now a 
 pause ensued, painful perhaps to the others, but scarcely 
 felt by Harcourt, as he smoked away peacefully, and 
 seemed lost in the windings of his own fancies. 
 
 "Have you shooting here, Glencore?" asked he, at 
 length. 
 
 " There might be, if I were to preserve the game."
 
 A VISITOR. 31 
 
 " And you do not. Do you fish?" 
 
 "No ; never." 
 
 " You give yourself up to farming, then ? " 
 
 "Not even that; the truth is, Harcourt, I literally do 
 nothing. A few newspapers, a stray review or so, reach 
 me in these solitudes, and keep me in a measure informed 
 as to the course of events ; but Charley and I con over 
 our classics together, and scrawl sheets of paper with 
 algebraic signs, and puzzle our heads over strange for- 
 mulas, wonderfully indifferent to what the world is doing 
 at the other side of this little estuary." 
 
 " You of all men living to lead such a life as this ! a 
 fellow that never could cram occupation enough into his 
 short twenty-four hours," broke in Harcourt. 
 
 Glencore's pale cheek flushed slightly, and an impatient 
 movement of his fingers on the table showed how ill he 
 relished any allusion to his own former life. 
 
 " Charley will show you to-morrow all the wonders of 
 our erudition, Harcourt," said he, changing the subject ; 
 " we have got to think ourselves very learned, and I hope 
 you'll be polite enough not to undeceive us." 
 
 " You'll have a merciful critic, Charley," said the Colonel, 
 lauo-hing, " for more reasons than one. Had the question 
 been how to track a wolf, or wind an antelope, to out- 
 manoeuvre a scout party, or harpoon a calf- whale, I'd not 
 yield to many, but if you throw me amongst Greek roots, 
 or double equations, I'm only Samson with his hair 
 en crop I " 
 
 The solemn clock over the mantelpiece struck ten, and 
 the boy arose as it ceased. 
 
 " That's Charley's bedtime," said Glencore, " and we 
 are determined to make no stranger of you, George. 
 He'll say good night." 
 
 And with a manner of mingled shyness and pride the 
 boy held out his hand, which the soldier shook cordially, 
 saying,— 
 
 " To-morrow, then, Charley, I count upon you for my 
 day, and so that it be not to be passed in the library I'll 
 acquit myself creditably." 
 
 " I like your boy, Glencore," said he, as soon as they 
 were alone. " Of course I have seen very little of him ; 
 and if I had seen more I should be but a sorry judge of
 
 82 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE 
 
 what people would call his abilities ; but he is a good 
 stamp ; ' Gentleman ' is written on him in a hand that any 
 can read; and, by Jove! let them talk as they will, but 
 that's half the battle of life ! " 
 
 " He is a strange fellow ; you'll not understand him in 
 a moment," said Glencore, smiling half sadly to himself. 
 
 "Not understand him, Glencore? I read him like 
 print, man ; you think that his shy, bashful manner imposes 
 upon me ; not a bit of it ; I see the fellow is as proud as 
 Lucifer. All your solitude and estrangement 1'rom the 
 world haven't driven out of his head that he's to be a 
 Viscount one of these days ; and, somehow, wherever he 
 has picked it up, he has got a very pretty notion of the 
 importance and rank that same title confers." 
 
 " Let us not speak of this now, Harcourt ; I'm far too 
 weak to enter upon what it would lead to. It is, however, 
 the great reason for which I entreated you to come here. 
 And to-morrow — at all events in a day or two — we can 
 speak of it fully. And now I must leave you. You'll 
 have to rough it here, George ; but as there is no man can 
 do so with a better grace, I can spare my apologies ; only, 
 I beg, don't let the place be worse than it need be. Give 
 your orders ; get what you can ; and see if your tact and 
 knowledge of life cannot remedy many a difficulty which 
 our ignorance or apathy have served to perpetuate." 
 
 " I'll take the command of the garrison with pleasure," 
 said Harcourt, filling up his glass, and replenishing the 
 fire. " And now a good night's rest to you, for 1 half 
 suspect I have already jeopardied some of it." 
 
 The old campaigner sat till long past midnight. The 
 generous wine, his pipe, the cheerful wood fire, were all 
 companionable enough, and well suited thoughts which 
 took no high or heroic range, but were chiefly reveries of 
 the past, some sad, some pleasant, but all tinged with the 
 one philosophy, which made him regard the world as a 
 campaign, wherein he who grumbles or repines is but a 
 sorry soldier, and unworthy of his cloth. 
 
 It was not till the last glass was drained that he arose 
 to seek his bed, and presently humming some old air to 
 himself, he slowly mounted the stairs to his chamber.
 
 33 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 COLONEL HARCOURl'S LETTER. 
 
 As we desire throughout this tale to make the actors 
 themselves, wherever it be possible, the narrators, using 
 their words in preference to our own, we shall now placo 
 before the reader a letter written by Colonel Harcourt 
 about a week after hi3 arrival at Glencore, which will at 
 least serve to rescue him and ourselves from the task of 
 repetition. 
 
 Tt was addressed to Sir Horace Upton, Her Majesty's 
 Envoy at Stuttgard, one who had formerly served in the 
 same regiment with Glencore and himself, but who left 
 the army early, to follow the career of diplomacy, wherein, 
 still a young man, he had risen to the rank of a minister. 
 It is not important, at this moment, to speak more par- 
 ticularly of his character, than that it was in almost every 
 respect the opposite of his correspondent's. Where the 
 one was frank, open, and unguarded, the other was cold, 
 cautious, and reserved ; where one believed, the other 
 doubted ; where one was hopeful, the other had nothing 
 but misgivings. Harcourt would have twenty times a day 
 wounded the feelings, or jarred against the susceptibility, 
 of his best friend ; Upton could not be brought to trench 
 upon the slightest prejudice of his greatest enemy. We 
 might continue this contrast to every detail of their 
 characters, but enough has now been said, and we proceed 
 to the letter in question : — 
 
 ' ' Glencore Castle. 
 
 " Dear Upton, — True to my promise to give you early 
 tidings of our old friend, I sit down to pen a few lines, 
 which if a rickety table and some infernal lampblack for 
 ink should make illegible, you'll have to wait for the eluci- 
 dation till my arrival. I found Glencore terribly altered ; 
 I'd not have known him. He used to be muscular and 
 
 D
 
 84 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 rather full in habit ; he is now a mere skeleton. His 
 hair and moustache were coal black ; they are a motley 
 grey. He was straight as an arrow — pretentiously erect, 
 many thought; he is stooped now, and bent nearly double. 
 His voice, too, the most clear and ringing in the squadron, 
 is become a hoarse whisper. You remember what a 
 passion he had for dress, and how heartily we all deplored 
 the chance of his being colonel, well knowing what precious 
 caprices of costly costume would be the consequence ; well, 
 a discharged corporal, in a cast-off mufti, is stylish com- 
 pared to him. I don't think he has a hat — I have only 
 seen an oilskin cap ; but his coat, his one coat, is a curi- 
 osity of iudustrious patchwork ; and his trousers are a 
 pair of our old overalls, the same pattern we wore at 
 Hounslow when the King- reviewed us. 
 
 " Great as these changes are, they are nothing to the 
 alteration in the poor fellow's disposition. He that was 
 generous to munificence, is now an absolute miser, 
 descending to the most pitiful economy, and moaning 
 over every trifling outlay. He is irritable, too, to a 
 degree. Ear from the jolly, light-hearted comrade, ready 
 to join in the laugh against himself, and enjoy a jest of 
 which he was the object:, he suspects a slight in every 
 allusion, and bristles up to resent a mere familiarity, as 
 though it were an insult. 
 
 " Of course I put much of this down to the score of 
 illness, and of bad health before he was so ill ; but, depend 
 upon it, he's not the man we knew him. Heaven knows 
 if he ever will be so again. The night I arrived here he was 
 more natural — more like himself, in fact, than he has ever 
 been since. His manner was heartier, and in his welcome 
 there was a touch of the old jovial good fellow, who never 
 was so happy as when sharing his quarters with a com- 
 rade. Since that he has grown punctilious, anxiously 
 asking me if I am comfortable, and teasing me with 
 apologies for what I don't miss, and excuses about things 
 that I should never have discovered wanting. 
 
 " I think I see what is passing within him ; he wants to 
 be confidential, and he doesn't know how to go about it. 
 I suppose he looks on me as rather a rough father to con- 
 fess to ; he isn't quite sure what kind of sympathy, if any, 
 he'll meet with from me, and he more than half dreads a
 
 COLONEL HARCOURT's LETTER. 85 
 
 certain careless, outspoken way in which I have now and 
 then addressed his boy, of whom more anon. 
 
 " I may be right, or I may be wrong, in this conjecture ; 
 but certain it is, that nothing like confidential conversa- 
 tion has yet passed between us, and each day seems to 
 render the prospect of such only less and less likely. I 
 wish from my heart you were here ; you are just the 
 fellow to suit him — just calculated to nourish the suscep- 
 tibilities that I only shock. I said as much t'other day, 
 in a half-careless way, and. he immediately caught it up, 
 and said — ' Ay, George, Upton is a man one wants now 
 and then in life, and when the moment comes, there is no 
 such thing as a substitute for him.' In a joking manner, 
 I then remarked, ' Why not come over to see him ? ' 
 ' Leave this ! ' cried he ; ' venture in the world again ; expose 
 myself to its brutal insolence, or still more brutal pity ! ' 
 In a torrent of passion, he went on in this strain, till I 
 heartily regretted that I had ever touched this unlucky 
 topic. 
 
 " I date his greatest reserve from that same moment ; 
 and I am sure he is disposed to connect me with the 
 casual suggestion to go over to Stuttgard, and deems me, 
 in consequence, one utterly deficient in all true feeling 
 and delicacy. 
 
 " I needn't tell you that my stay here is the reverse of 
 a pleasure. I'm never, what fine people call, bored any- 
 where : and I could amuse myself gloriously in this queer 
 spot. I have shot some half-dozen seals, hooked the 
 heaviest salmon I ever saw rise to a fly, and have had rare 
 coursing, not to say that Glencore's table, with certain 
 reforms I have introduced, is very tolerable, and his cellar 
 unimpeachable. I'll back his chambertin against your 
 Excellency's ; and I have discovered a bin of red hermit- 
 age that would convert a whole vineyard of the smallest 
 Lafitte into Sneyd's claret ; but with all these seductions, 
 I can't stand the life of continued restraint I'm reduced 
 to. Glencore evidently sent for me to make some revela- 
 tions, which, now that he sees me, he cannot accomplish. 
 For aught I know, there may be as many changes in 
 me to his eyes, as to mine there are in him. I only 
 can vouch for it, that if I ride three stone heavier, I 
 haven't the worse place, and I don't detect any striking 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE FOETUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 falling off in my appreciation of good fare and good 
 fellows. 
 
 " I spoke of the boy ; he is a fine lad — somewhat 
 haughty, perhaps ; a little spoiled by the country people 
 calling him the young lord ; but a generous fellow, and 
 very like Glencore, when he first joined us at Canterbury. 
 By way of educating him himself, Glencore has been 
 driving Virgil and decimal fractions into him ; and the 
 boy, bred in the country — never out of it for a day — ■ 
 can't load a gun or tie a hackle. Not the worst thing 
 about the lad is his inordinate love for Glencore, whom 
 he imagines to be about the greatest and most gifted being 
 that ever lived. I can scarcely help smiling at the im- 
 plicitness of this honest faith ; but I take good care not 
 to smile ; on the contrary, I give every possible encourage- 
 ment to the belief. I conclude the disenchantment will 
 arrive only too early at last. 
 
 " You'll not know what to make of such a lengthy epistle 
 from me, and you'll doubtless torture that fine diplomatic 
 intelligence of yours to detect the secret motive of my 
 long-windedness ; but the simple fact is, it has rained 
 incessantly for the last three days, and promises the same 
 cheering weather for as many more. Glencore doesn't 
 fancy that the boy's lessons should be broken in upon — 
 and hinc istce litterce — that's classical for you. 
 
 " I wish I could say when I am likely to beat my 
 retreat. I'd stay — not very willingly, perhaps, but still 
 I'd stay — if I thought myself of any use , but I cannot 
 persuade myself that I am such. Glencore is now about 
 again, feeble of course, and much pulled down, but able to 
 go about the house and the garden. I can contribute 
 nothing to his recovery, and I fear as little to his comfort. 
 I even doubt if he desires me to prolong my visit; but 
 such is my fear of offending him, that I actually dread to 
 allude to my departure, till I can sound my way as to 
 how he'll take it. This fact alone will show you how much 
 he is changed from the Glencore of long ago. Another 
 feature in him, totally unlike his former self, struck me 
 the other evening. We were talking of old messmates — 
 Croydon, Stanhope, Loftus, and yourself — and instead of 
 dwelling, as he once would have done, exclusively on your 
 traits of character and disposition, he discussed nothing
 
 COLONEL HARCOURT's LETTER. 37 
 
 but your abilities, and the capacity by which you could 
 win your way to honours and distinction. I needn't say 
 how, in such a valuation, you came off best. Indeed he 
 professes the highest esteem for your talents, and says, 
 ' You'll see Upton either a cabinet minister or ambassador 
 at Paris yet;' and this he repeated in the same words last 
 night, as if to show it was not dropped as a mere random 
 observation. 
 
 " I have some scruples about venturing to offer any- 
 thing bordering on a suggestion to a great and wily diplo- 
 matist like yourself ; but if an illustrious framerof treaties 
 and protocols would condescend to take a hint from an old 
 dragoon colonel, I'd say that a few lines from your crafty 
 pen might possibly unlock this poor fellow's heart, and 
 lead him to unburthen to yow what he evidently cannot 
 persuade himself to reveal to me. I can see plainly 
 enough that there is something on his mind ; but I know 
 it just as a stupid old hound feels there is a fox in the 
 cover, but cannot for the life of him see how he's to 
 * draw ' him. 
 
 "A letter from you would do him good, at all events ; 
 even the little gossip of your gossiping career would cheer 
 and amuse him. He said, very plaintively, two nights 
 ago, ' They've all forgotten me. When a man retires from 
 the world he begins to die, and the great event, after all, 
 is only the coup de grace to a long agony of torture.' Do 
 write to him, then ; the address is ' Glencore Castle, 
 Leenane, Ireland,' where, I suppose, I shall be still a 
 resident for another fortnight to come. 
 
 " Glencore has just sent for me ; but I must close this 
 for the post, or it will be too late. 
 
 " Yours ever truly, 
 
 "George Harcourt. 
 
 " I open this to say that he sent for me to ask your 
 address — whether through the Foreign Office, or direct to 
 Stuttgard. You'll probably not hear for some days, for 
 he writes with extreme difficulty, and I leave it to your 
 wise discretion to write to him or not in the interval. 
 
 " Poor fellow, he looks very ill to-day. He says that he 
 never slept the whole night, and that the laudanum he 
 
 432277
 
 88 THE FOETUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 took to induce drowsiness, only excited and maddened 
 him. I counselled a hot jorum of mulled porter before 
 getting into bed ; but he deemed me a monster for the 
 recommendation, and seemed quite disgusted besides. 
 Couldn't you send him over a despatch ? I think such 
 a document from Stuttgard ought to be an unfailing 
 soporific."
 
 89 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 QUEER COMPANIONSHIP, 
 
 WnE^r Harcourt repaired to Glencore's bedroom, where he 
 still lay, wearied and feverish after a bad night, he was 
 struck by the. signs of suffering in the sick man's face. 
 The cheeks were bloodless and fallen in, the lips pinched, 
 and in the eyes there shone that unnatural brilliancy which 
 results from an over-wrought and over-excited brain. 
 
 " Sit down here, George," said he, pointing to a chair 
 beside the bed ; " I want to talk to you. I thought every 
 day that I could muster courage for what I wish to say ; 
 but somehow, when the time arrived, I felt like a criminal 
 who entreats for a few hours more of life, even though it 
 be a life of misery." 
 
 " It strikes me that you were never less equal to the 
 effort than now," said Harcourt, laying his hand on the 
 other's pulse. 
 
 " Don't believe my pulse, George," said Glencore, 
 smiling faintly. " The machine may work badly, but it 
 has wonderful holding out. I've gone through enough," 
 added he, gloomily, " to kill most men, and here I am still, 
 breathing and suffering." 
 
 " This place doesn't suit you, Glencore. There are not 
 above two days in the month you can venture to take the 
 air." 
 
 " And where would you have me go, sir ? " broke he in, 
 fiercely. " Would you advise Paris and the Boulevards, 
 or a palace in the Piazza di Spagna at Rome ? or perhaps 
 the Chiaja at Naples would be public enough ? Is it that 
 I may parade disgrace and infamy through Europe, that 
 I should leave this solitude ? " 
 
 " I want to see you in a better climate, Glencore ; in a 
 place where the sun shines occasionally." 
 
 " This suits me," said the other, bluntly ; " and here I 
 have the security that none can invade — none molest
 
 40 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 me. But it is not of myself I wish, to speak — it is of 
 my boy." 
 
 Harcourfc made no reply, but sat patiently to listen to 
 what was coming. 
 
 " It is time to think of him," added Glencore, slowly. 
 "The other day — it seems but the other day — and he was 
 a mere child ; a few years more — to seem when past like a 
 long dreary night — and he will be a man." 
 
 "Very true," said Harcourt ; "and Charley is one of 
 those fellows who only make one plunge from the bov into 
 all the responsibilities of manhood. Throw him into a 
 college at Oxford, or the mess of a regiment to-morrow, 
 and this day week you'll not know him from the 
 rest." 
 
 Glencore was silent; if he had heard, he never noticed 
 Harcourt 's remark. 
 
 "Has he ever spoken to you about himself, Harcourt?" 
 asked he, after a pause. 
 
 " Never, except when I led the subject in that direction ; 
 and even then reluctantly, as though it were a topic he 
 would avoid." 
 
 " Have you discovered any strong inclination in him 
 for a particular kind of life, or any career in preference to 
 another? " 
 
 " None ; and if I were only to credit what I see of him, 
 I'd say that this dull monotony, and this dreary unevent- 
 ful existence, is what he likes best of all the world." 
 
 " You really think so ? " cried Glencore, with an eager- 
 ness that seemed out of proportion to the remark. 
 
 " So far as I see," rejoined Harcourt, guardedly, and 
 not wishing to let his observation carry graver conse- 
 cpaences than he might suspect. 
 
 " So that you deem him capable of passing a life of 
 a quiet, unambitious tenour — neither seeking for distinc- 
 tions, nor fretting after honours ? " 
 
 "How should he know of their existence, Glencore? 
 What has the boy ever heard of life and its struggles ? It's 
 not in Homer, or Sallust, he'd learn the strife of parties 
 and public men." 
 
 " And why need he ever know them ? " broke in Glen- 
 core, fiercely. 
 
 " If he doesn't know them now, he's sure to be taught
 
 QUEER COMPANIONSHIP. 41 
 
 tliem nereafter. A young fellow who will succeed to a 
 title and a good fortune " 
 
 " Stop, Harcourt ! " cried Glencore, passionately. '"Has 
 anything of this kind ever escaped you in intercourse with 
 the boy?" 
 
 "Not a word — not a syllable." 
 
 " Has he himself ever, by a hint, or by a chance word, 
 implied that he was aware of " 
 
 Glencore faltered and hesitated, for the word he sought 
 for did not present itself. Harcourt, however, released 
 him from all embarrassment, by saying, — ■ 
 
 "With me, the boy is rarely anything but a listener; 
 he hears me talk away of tiger-shooting, and buffalo-hunt- 
 ing, scarcely ever interrupting me with a question. But 
 I can. see in his manner with the country people, when 
 they salute him, and call him ' my lord ' " 
 
 " But he is not ' my lord,' " broke in Glencore. 
 
 " Of course he is not; that I am well aware of." 
 
 " He never will — never shall be," cried Glencore, in a 
 voice to which a long pent-up passion imparted a terrible 
 energy. 
 
 " How ! — what do you mean, Glencore? " said Harcourt, 
 eagerly. "Has he any malady? — is there any deadly 
 taint?" 
 
 " That there is, by Heaven ! " cried the sick man, grasp- 
 ing the curtain with one hand, while he held the other 
 firmly clenched upon his forehead. " A taint, the deadliest 
 that can stain a human heart ! Talk of station, rank, title 
 — what are they, if they are to be coupled with shame, 
 ignominy, and sorrow ? The loud voice of the herald calls 
 his father Sixth Viscount of Glencore, but a still louder 
 voice proclaims his mother a " 
 
 With a wild burst of hysteric laughter, he threw himself, 
 face downwards, on the bed ; and now scream after scream 
 burst from him, till the room was filled by the servants, in 
 the midst of whom appeared Billy, who had only that 
 same clay returned from Leenane, whither he had gone to 
 make a formal resignation of his functions as letter-carrier. 
 
 " This is nothing but an 'accessio nervosa,' 1 " said Billy; 
 " clear the room, ladies and gentlemen, and lave me with 
 the patient." And Harcourt gave the signal for obedience 
 by first taking his departure.
 
 42 TIIE FORTUNES OP GLENCOTtE. 
 
 Lord Glencore's attack was more serious than at first it 
 was apprehended, and for three days there was every threat 
 of a relapse of his late fever ; but Billy's skill was once 
 more successful, and on the fourth day he declared that 
 the danger was past. During this period, Harcourt's 
 attention was, for the first time, drawn to the strange 
 creature who officiated as the doctor," and who, in despite 
 ■ of all the detracting influences of his humble garb and 
 : mean attire, aspired to be treated with the deference due 
 to a great physician. 
 
 " If it's the crown and the sceptre makes the king," 
 said he, " 'tis the same with the science that makes the 
 doctor ; and no man can be despised when he has a rag 
 of ould Galen's mantle to cover his shoulders." 
 
 "So you're going to take blood from him?" asked 
 Harcourt, as he met him on the stairs, where he had 
 awaited his coming one night when it was late. 
 
 " No, sir ; 'tis more a disturbance of the great nervous 
 centres than any derangement of the heart and arteries," 
 said Billy, pompously ; " that's what shows a real doctor, 
 to distinguish between the effects of excitement and 
 inflammation, which is as different as fireworks is from a 
 bombardment." 
 
 " Not a had simile, Master Billy ; come in and drink a 
 glass of brandy-and-water with me," said Harcourt, right 
 glad at the prospect of such companionship. 
 
 Billy Traynor, too, was flattered by the invitation, and 
 seated himself at the fire with an air at once proud and 
 submissive. 
 
 "You've a difficult patient to treat there," said 
 Harcourt, when he had furnished his companion with a 
 pipe, and twice filled his glass ; " he's hard to manage, I 
 take it?" 
 
 " Yer' right," said Billy ; " every touch is a blow, every 
 breath of air is a hurricane with him. There's no such 
 thing as traitin' a man of that timperament ; it's the same 
 with many of them ould families as with our racehorses, 
 they breed them too fine." 
 
 'Egad ! I think you are right," said Harcourt, pleased 
 with an illustration that suited his own modes of thinking'. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Billy, gaining confidence by the ap- 
 proval ; " a man is a ma-chine, and all the parts ought
 
 QUEER COMPANIONSHIP. 43 
 
 to be balanced, and, as the ancients say, in equilibrio. If 
 pi'e-ponderance here or there, whether it be brain or 
 spinal marrow, cardiac functions or digestive ones, you 
 disthroy him, and make that dangerous kind of constitu- 
 tion that, like a horse with a hard mouth, or a boat with 
 a weather helm, always runs to one side." 
 
 "That's well put, well explained," said Harcourt, who 
 really thought the illustration appropriate. 
 
 " Now my lord, there," continued Billy, " is all out of 
 balance, every bit of him. Bleed him, and he sinks ; 
 stimulate him, and he goes rag-in' mad. 'Tis their 
 physical conformation makes their character ; and to 
 know how to cure them in sickness, one ought to have 
 some knowledge of them in health." 
 
 " How came you to know all this ? You are a very 
 remarkable fellow, Billy." 
 
 " I am, sir ; I'm a phenumenon in a small way. And 
 many people thinks, when they see and convarse with me, 
 what a pity it is I hav'n't the advantages of edication and 
 instruction, and that's just where they're wrong — com- 
 plately wrong." 
 
 " Well, I confess I don't perceive that." 
 
 " I'll show you, then. There's a kind of janius natural 
 to men like myself, in Ireland I mean, for I never heerd 
 of it elsewhere. That's just like our Irish emerald or 
 Irish diamond, wonderful if one considers where you find 
 it — astonishin' if you only think how azy it is to get, but a 
 regular disappointment, a downright take-in, if you intend 
 to have it cut, and polished, and set. No, sir ; with all 
 the care and culture in life, you'll never make a precious 
 stone of it ! " 
 
 " You've not taken the right way to convince me, by 
 using such an illustration, Billy." 
 
 "I'll try another, then," said Billy. "We are like I 
 Willy-the-Whisps, showing plenty of light where there's ' ; 
 no road to travel, but of no manner of use on the high- 
 way, or in the dark streets of a village where one has 
 business." 
 
 " Your own services here are the refutation to your 
 argument, Billy," said HarGOurt, filling his glass. 
 
 " 'Tis your kindness to say so, sir," said Billy, with 
 gratified pride . " but the sacrat was, he thrusted me —
 
 44 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 that was the whole of it. All the miracles of physic is 
 confidence, just as all the magic of eloquence is convic- 
 tion." 
 
 "You have reflected profoundly, I see," said Harcourt. 
 
 " I made a great many observations at one time of my 
 life — the opportunity was favourable." 
 
 " When and how was that ?" 
 
 " I travelled with a baste caravan for two years, sir ; 
 and there's nothing taches one to know mankind like the 
 study of bastes ! " 
 
 " Not complimentary to humanity, certainly," said Har 
 court, laughing. 
 
 " Yes, but it is, though ; for it is by a con-sideration of 
 the fercB naturae that you get at the raal nature of mere 
 animal existence. You see there man in the rough, as a 
 body might say, just as he was turned out of the first 
 workshop, and before he was infiltrated with the divinus 
 afflatus, the ethereal essence, that makes him the first of 
 creation. There's all the qualities good and bad — love, 
 hate, vengeance, gratitude, grief, joy, ay, and mirth — there 
 they are in the brutes ; but they're in no subjection, except 
 by fear. Now it's out of man's motives his character is 
 moulded, and fear is only one amongst them. D'ye appre- 
 hend me ? " 
 
 "Perfectly; fill your pipe." And he pushed the to- 
 bacco towards him. 
 
 " I will ; and I'll drink the memory of the great and 
 good man that first intro-duced the weed amongst us — 
 Here's Sir Walter Raleigh. By the same token, I was in 
 his house last week." 
 
 " In his house ! whei'e ? " 
 
 " Down at Greyhall. You Englishmen, savin' your 
 presence, always forget that many of your celebrities lived 
 years in Ireland. For it was the same long ago as now — ■ 
 a place of decent banishment for men of janius — a kind 
 of straw-yard where ye turned out your intellectual 
 hunters till the say son came on at home." 
 
 " I'm sorry to see, Billy, that, with all your enlighten- 
 ment, you have the vulgar prejudice against the Saxon." 
 
 " And that's the rayson I have it, because it is vulgar," 
 said Billy, eagerly. " Vulgar means populai*, common to 
 many ; and what's the best test of truth in anything but
 
 QUEER COMPANIONSHIP. 45 
 
 universal belief, or whatever comes nearest to it. I wish 
 I was in Parliament — I just wish I was there the first 
 night one of the nobs calls out ' That's vulgar ; ' and I'd 
 just say to him, ' Is there anything as vulgar as men and 
 women ? Show me one good thing in life that isn't 
 vulgar! Show me an object a painter copies, or a poet 
 describes, that isn't so!' Ayeh," cried he, impatiently, 
 " when they wanted a hard word to fling at us, why didn't 
 they take the right one ? " 
 
 " But you are unjust, Billy ; the ungenerous tone you 
 speak of is fast disappearing. Gentlemen, now-a-days, 
 use no disparaging epithets to men poorer or less happily 
 circumstanced than themselves." 
 
 " Faix," said Billy, "it isn't sitting here at the same 
 table with yourself, that I ought to gainsay that re- 
 mark." 
 
 And Harcourt was so struck by the air of good breeding 
 in which he spoke, that he grasped his hand, and shook it 
 warmly. 
 
 " And, what is more," continued Billy, " from this day 
 out I'll never think so." 
 
 He drank off his glass as he spoke, giving to the liba- 
 tion all the ceremony of a solemn vow. 
 
 " D'ye hear that ? — them's oars ; there's a boat com- 
 ing in." 
 
 " You have sharp hearing, master," said Harcourt, 
 laughing. 
 
 " I got the gift when I was a smuggler," replied he. 
 " I could put my ear to the ground of a still night, and 
 tell you the tramp of a revenue boot as well as if I seen 
 it. And now I'll lay sixpence it's Pat Morissy is at the 
 bow oar there ; he rows with a short jerking stroke there's 
 no timing. That's himself, and it must be something 
 urgent from the post-office that brings him over the lough 
 to-nisdit." 
 
 The words were scarcely spoken when Craggs entered 
 with a letter in his hand. 
 
 " This is for you, Colonel," said he ; " it was marked 
 'immediate/ and the post-mistress despatched it by an 
 express." 
 
 The letter was a very brief one ; but, in honour to the 
 writer, we shall give it a chapter to itself.
 
 46 THE FORTUNES OF GLEN CORE. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A GREAT DIPLOMATIST. 
 
 " My dear Harcourt, — I arrived here yesterday, and by 
 good fortune caught your letter at F. 0., where it was 
 awaiting the departure of the messenger for Germany. 
 
 " Your account of poor Glencore is most distressing. 
 At the same time, my knowledge of the man and his 
 temper in a measure prepared me for it. You say that he 
 wishes to see me, and intends to write. Now, there is a 
 small business matter between us, which bis lawyer seems 
 much disposed to push on to a difficulty, if not to worse. 
 To prevent this, if possible — at all events to see whether 
 a visit from me mio-ht not be serviceable — I shall cross 
 over to Ireland on Tuesday, and be with you by Friday, 
 or, at latest, Saturday. Tell him that I am coming, but 
 only for a day. My engagements are such that I must be 
 bere again early in the following week. On Thursday I 
 go down to Windsor. 
 
 " There is wonderfully little stirring bere, but I keep 
 that little for our meeting. You are aware, my dear 
 friend, what a poor, shattered, broken-down fellow I 
 am ; so that I need not ask you to give me a comfortable 
 quarter for my one night, and some sbell-fish, if easily 
 procurable, for my one dinner. 
 
 " Yours, ever and faithfully, 
 
 "H. U." 
 
 We bave already told our reader that the note was a 
 brief one, and yet was it not altogether uncharacteristic. 
 Sir Horace Upton — it will spare us both some repetition 
 if we present him at once — was one of a very composite 
 order of human architecture ; a kind of being, in fact, of 
 which many would deny the existence, till they met and 
 knew them, so full of contradictions, real and apparent, 
 was his nature. Chivalrous in sentiment and cunning in
 
 A GREAT DIPLOMATIST. 47 
 
 action, noble in aspiration and utterly sceptical as regards 
 motives, one-half of his temperament was the antidote to 
 the other. Fastidious to a painful extent in matters of 
 taste, he was simplicity itself in all the requirements of 
 his life, and with all a courtier's love of great people, not 
 only tolerating, but actually preferring, the society of men 
 beneath him. In person he was tall, and with that air of 
 distinction in his manner that belongs only to those who 
 unite natural graces with long habits of high society. 
 His features were finely formed, and would have been 
 Strikingly handsome, were the expression not spoiled by a 
 look of astuteness- — a something that implied a tendency 
 to overreach — which marred their repose and injured their 
 uniformity. Not that his manner ever betrayed this weak- 
 ness ; far from it — his was a most polished courtesy. It 
 was impossible to conceive an address more bland or more 
 conciliating. His very gestures, his voice, languid by a 
 slight habit of indisposition, seemed as though exerted 
 above their strength in the desire to please, and making 
 the object of his attentions to feel himself the mark of 
 peculiar honour. There ran through all his nature, through 
 everything he did, or said, or thought, a certain haughty 
 humility, which served, while it assigned an humble place 
 to himself, to mark out one still more humble for those 
 about him. There were not many things he could not do ; 
 indeed he had actually done most of those which win 
 honour and distinction in life. He had achieved a very 
 gallant but brief military career in India, made a most 
 brilliant opening in Parliament, where his abilities at once 
 marked him out for office, was suspected to be the writer 
 of the cleverest political satire, and more than suspected 
 to be the author of " the novel " of the day. With all 
 this, he had great social success. He was deep enough 
 for a ministerial dinner, and "fast" enough for a party of 
 young Guardsmen at Greenwich. With women, too, he 
 was especially a favourite ; there was a Machiavelian 
 subtlety which he could throw into small things — a mode 
 of making the veriest trifles little Chinese puzzles of inge- 
 nuity that flattered and amused them. In a word, he had 
 great adaptiveness, and it was a quality he indulged less 
 tor the gratification of others than for the pleasure it 
 afforded himself.
 
 48 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORB. 
 
 He had mixed largely in society, not only of his own, 
 but of every country of Europe. He knew every chord 
 of that complex instrument which people call the world, 
 like a master ; and although a certain jaded and wearied 
 look, a tone of exhaustion and fatigue, seemed to say that 
 he was tired of it all, that he had found it barren and 
 worthless, the real truth was, he enjoyed life to the full as 
 much as on the first day in which he entered it; and for 
 this simple reason, that he had started with an humble 
 opinion of mankind, their hopes, fears, and ambitions, and 
 so he continued, not disappointed, to the end. 
 
 The most governing notion of his own life was an im- 
 pression that he had a disease of the chest, some subtle 
 and mysterious affection which had defied the doctors, 
 and would go on to defy them to the last. He had been 
 dangerously wounded in the Burmese war, and attributed 
 the origin of his malady to this cause. Others there were 
 who said that the want of recognition to his services in 
 that campaign was the direst of all the injuries he had 
 received. And true it was, a most brilliant career had 
 met with neither honours nor advancement, and Upton 
 left the service in disgust, carrying away with him only 
 the lingering sufferings of his wound. To suggest to 
 him that his malady had any affinity to any known 
 affection, was to outrage him, since the mere supposition 
 would reduce him to a species of equality with some one 
 else — a thought infinitely worse than any mere physical 
 suffering ; and, indeed, to avoid this shocking possibility, 
 he vacillated as to the locality of his disorder, making it 
 now in the lung, now in the heart — at one time in the 
 bronchial tubes, at another in the valves of the aorta. It 
 was his pleasure to consult for this complaint every great 
 physician of Europe, and not alone consult, but commit 
 himself to their direction, and this with a credulity which 
 he could scarcely have summoned in any other cause. 
 
 It was difficult to say how far he himself believed in 
 this disorder — the pressure of any momentous event, the 
 necessity of action, never finding him unequal to any 
 effort, no matter how onerous. Give him a difficulty — a 
 minister to outwit, a secret scheme to unravel, a false 
 move to profit by — and he rose above all his pulmonary 
 symptoms, and could exert himself with a degree of
 
 A GREAT DIPLOMATIST* 49 
 
 power and perserverance that very few men could equal, 
 none surpass. Indeed it seemed as though he kept this 
 malady for the pastime of idle hours, as other men do a 
 novel or a newspaper, but would never permit it to inter- 
 fere with the graver business of life. 
 
 We have, perhaps, been prolix in our description, but 
 we have felt it the more requisite to be thus diffuse, since 
 the studious simplicity which marked all his manner 
 might have deceived our reader, and which the impression 
 of his mere words have failed to convey. 
 
 " You will be glad to hear Upton is in England, Glen- 
 core," said Harcourt, as the sick man was assisted to his 
 seat in the library, " and, what is more, intends to pay 
 you a visit." 
 
 "Upton coming here!" exclaimed Glencore, with an 
 expression of mingled astonishment and confusion ; " how 
 do you know that ? " 
 
 " He writes me from Long's to say that he'll be with us 
 by Friday, or, if not, by Saturday." 
 
 " What a miserable place to receive him ! " exclaimed 
 Glencore. " As for you, Harcourt, you know how to rough 
 it, and have bivouacked too often under the stars to care 
 much for satin curtains. But think of Upton here ! How 
 is he to eat ? — where is he to sleep ? " 
 
 " By Jove ! we'll treat him handsomely. Don't you 
 fret yourself about his comforts ; besides, I've seen a 
 great deal of Upton, and, with all his fastidiousness and 
 refinement, he's a thorough good fellow at taking things 
 for the best. Invito him to Chatsworth, and the chances 
 are he'll find fault with twenty things — with the place, 
 the cookery, and the servants ; but take him down to the 
 Highlands, lodge him in a shieling, with bannocks for 
 breakfast and a Fyne herring for supper, and I'll wager 
 my life you'll not see a ruffle in his temper, nor hear a 
 word of impatience out of his mouth." 
 
 " I know that he is a well-bred gentleman," said Glen- 
 core, half pettishly ; " but I have no fancy for putting 
 his good manners to a severe test, particularly at the cost 
 of my own feelings." 
 
 " I tell you again he shall be admirably treated ; he 
 shall have my room ; and, as for his dinner, Master Billy 
 and I are going to make a raid amongst the lobster-pots. 
 
 E
 
 50 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 And what with turbot, oysters, grouse-pie, and mountain 
 mutton, I'll make the diplomatist sorrow that he is not 
 accredited to some native sovereign in the Arran islands, 
 instead of some ' mere German Hertzog.' He can only 
 stay one day." 
 
 " One day ! " 
 
 " That's all ; he is over head and ears in business, and 
 he goes down to Windsor on Thursday, so that there is 
 no help for it." 
 
 " I wish I may be strong enough ; I hope to Heaven 
 
 that I may rally " Grlencore stopped suddenly as he 
 
 got thus far, but the agitation the words cost him seemed 
 most painful. 
 
 " I say again, don't distress yourself about Upton — ■ 
 leave the care of entertaining him to me. I'll vouch for 
 it that he leaves us well satisfied with his welcome." 
 
 " It was not of that I was thinking," said he, impa- 
 tiently ; "I. have much to say to him — things of great 
 importance. It may be that I shall be unequal to the 
 effort ; I cannot answer for my strength for a day — not 
 for an hour. Could you not write to him, and ask him to 
 defer his coming till such time as he can spare me a week, 
 or at least some days ? " 
 
 " My dear Grlencore, you know the man well, and that 
 we are lucky if we can have him on his own terms, not to 
 think of imposing ours; he is sure to have a number of 
 engagements while he is in England." 
 
 " Well, be it so," said Glencore, sighing, with the air of 
 a man resigning himself to an inevitable necessity. 
 
 -gsMfr— < -
 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER YITL 
 
 THE GREAT MAN'S ARRIVAL. 
 
 "Not come, Craggs!" said Harcourt, as late on the 
 Saturday evening the Corporal stepped on shore, after 
 crossing the lough. 
 
 "No, sir, no sign of him. I sent a boy away to the 
 top of ' the Devil's Mother,' where you have a view of 
 the road for eight miles, but there was nothing to be 
 seen." 
 
 " You left orders at the post-office to have a boat in 
 readiness if he arrived ? " 
 
 " Yes, Colonel," said he, with a military salute ; and 
 Harcourt now turned moodily towards the Castle. 
 
 Grlencore had scarcely ever been a very cheery resi- 
 dence, but latterly it had become far gloomier than 
 before. Since the night of Lord Clencore's sudden 
 illness, there had grown up a degree of constraint between 
 the two friends, which to a man of Harcourt's disposition 
 was positive torture. They seldom met, save at dinner, 
 and then their reserve was painfully evident. 
 
 The boy, too, in unconscious imitation of his father, 
 grew more and more distant ; and poor Harcourt saw 
 himself in that position, of all others the most intolerable 
 — the unwilling guest of an unwilling host. 
 
 " Come or not come/' muttered he to himself, "I'll bear 
 this no longer. There is, besides, no reason why I should 
 bear it. I'm of no use to the poor fellow ; he does not 
 want — he never sees me. If anything, my presence is 
 irksome to him ; so that, happen what will, I'll start to- 
 morrow, or next day at farthest." 
 
 He was one of those men to whom deliberation on any 
 subject was no small labour ; but who, once that they 
 have come to a decision, feel as if they had acquitted a 
 debt, and need give themselves no further trouble in the 
 matter. In the enjoyment of this newly purchased im- 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 munity lie entered the room, where Glencore sat impa- 
 tiently awaiting him. 
 
 " Another disappointment ! " said the Viscount, anx- 
 iously. 
 
 "Yes; Craggs has just returned, and says there's no 
 sign of a carriage for miles on the Oughterard road." 
 
 " I ought to have known it," said the other, in a voice 
 of guttural sternness. "He was ever the same; an 
 appointment with him was an engagement meant only to 
 be binding on those who expected him." 
 
 " Who can say what may have detained him ? He was 
 in London on business — public business, too ; and even if 
 he had left town, how many chance delays there are in 
 travelling." 
 
 " I have said every one of these things over to myself, 
 Harcourt ; but they don't satisfy me. This is a habit 
 with Upton. I've seen him do the same with his Colonel, 
 when he was a subaltern ; I've heard of his arrival late to 
 a Court dinner, and only smiling at the dismay of the 
 horrified courtiers." 
 
 " Egad," said Harcourt, bluntly, "I don't see the advan- 
 tage of the practice. One is so certain of doing fifty 
 things in this daily life to annoy one's friends, through 
 mere inadvertence or forgetfulness, that I think it is but 
 sorry fun to incur their ill-will by malice prepense." 
 
 " That is precisely why he does it." 
 
 " Come, come, Glencore ; old Rixson was right when he 
 said, ' Heaven help the man whose merits are canvassed 
 while they wait dinner for him.' I'll order up the soup, 
 for if we wait any longer we'll discover Upton to be the 
 most graceless vagabond that ever walked." 
 
 " I know his qualities, good and bad," said Glencore, 
 rising, and pacing -the room with slow, uncertain steps ; 
 "few men know him better. None need teil me of his 
 abilities ; none need instruct me as to his faults. What 
 others do by accident, he does by design. He started in 
 life by examining how much the world would bear from 
 him ; he has gone on, profiting by the experience, and im- 
 proving on the practice." 
 
 " Well, if I don't mistake me much, he'll soon appear 
 to plead his own cause. I hear oai's coming speedily in 
 this direction."
 
 THE GREAT MAN'S ARRIVAL. 53 
 
 And so saying, Harcourt hurried away to resolve his 
 doubt* at once. As he reached the little jetty, over which 
 a large signal-fire threw a strong red light, he perceived 
 that he was correct, and was just in time to grasp Upton's 
 hand as he stepped on shore. 
 
 " How picturesque all this, Harcourt," said he, in his 
 soft, low voice ; " a leaf out of ' Rob Roy.' Well, am I 
 not the mirror of punctuality, eh ?" 
 
 " We looked for you yesterday, and Glencore has been 
 so impatient." 
 
 " Of course he has ; it is the vice of your men who do 
 nothing. How is he ? Does he dine with us ? Fritz, 
 take care those leather pillows are properly aired, and see 
 that my bath is ready by ten o'clock. Give me your arm, 
 Harcourt ; what a blessing it is to be such a strong fellow !" 
 
 " So it is, by Jove ! I am always thankful for it. And 
 you — how do you get on? You look well." 
 
 "Do I?" said he, faintly, and pushing back his hair 
 with an almost fine-ladylike affectation. " I'm glad you 
 say so. It always rallies me a little to hear I'm better. 
 You had my letter about the fish ?" 
 
 "Ay, and I'll give you such a treat." 
 
 " No, no, my dear Harcourt ; a fried mackerel, or a 
 whiting and a few crumbs of bread — nothing more." 
 
 " If you insist, it shall be so ; but I promise you I'll 
 not be of your mess, that's all. This is a glorious spot 
 for turbot — and such oysters ! " 
 
 " Oysters are forbidden me, and don't let me have the 
 torture of temptation. What a charming place this seems 
 to be! — very wild, very rugged." 
 
 "Wild — rugged ! I should think it is," muttered Har- 
 court. 
 
 " This pathway, though, does not bespeak much care. 
 I wish our friend yonder would hold his lantern a little 
 lower. How I envy you the kind of life you lead here — 
 so tranquil, so removed from all bores. By the way, you 
 get the newspapers tolerably regularly?" 
 
 " Yes, every day." 
 
 " That's all right. If there be a luxury left to any man 
 after the age of forty, it is to be let alone. It's the best 
 thing I know of. What a terrible bit of road! They 
 might have made a pathway."
 
 54 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " Come, don't grow fainthearted. Here we are ; this is 
 Glencore." 
 
 " Wait a moment. Just let him raise that lantern. 
 Really this is very striking — a very striking scene alto- 
 gether. The doorway excellent, and that little watch- 
 tower, with its lone-star light, a perfect picture." 
 
 " You'll have time enough to admire all this ; and we 
 are keeping poor Glencore waiting," said Harcourt, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " Very true ; so we are." 
 
 " Glencore's son, Upton," said Harcourt, presenting the 
 boy, who stood, half pride, half bashfulness, in the porch. 
 
 " My dear boy, you see one of your father's oldest 
 friends in the world," said Upton, throwing one arm on 
 the boy's shoulder, apparently caressing, but as much to 
 aid himself in ascending the stair. " I'm charmed with 
 your old Schloss here, my dear," said he, as they moved 
 along. " Modern architects cannot attain the massive 
 simplicity of these structures. They have a kind of con- 
 fectionery style, with false ornament, and inappropriate 
 decoration, that bears about the same relation to the ori- 
 ginal that a suit of Drury Lane tinfoil does to a coat of 
 Milanese mail armour. This gallery is in excellent taste." 
 
 And as he spoke, the door in front of him opened, and 
 the pale, sorrow-struck, and sickly figure of Glencore 
 stood before him. Upton, with all his self-command, 
 could scarcely repress an exclamation at the bight of one 
 whom he had seen last in all the pride of youth and great 
 personal powers ; while Glencore, with the instinctive 
 acuteness of his morbid, temperament, as quickly saw the 
 impression he had produced, and said, with a deep sigh, — ■ 
 
 " Ay, Horace — a sad wreck." 
 
 " Not so, my dear fellow," said the other, taking the 
 thin, cold hand within both his own ; " as seaworthy as 
 ever, after a little dry-docking and refitting. It is only a 
 craft like that yonder,'' and he pointed to Harcourt, " that 
 can keep the sea in all weathers, and never care for the 
 carpenter. You and I are of another build." 
 
 " And you — how are you?" asked Glencore, relieved to 
 tin n attention away from himself, while he drew his arm 
 within the other's. 
 
 ' The same poor ailing mortal you always knew me,"
 
 THE GREAT MAN S ARRIVAL. 55 
 
 said Upton, languidly ; " doomed to a life of uncongenial 
 labour, condemned to climates totally unsuited to me, I 
 drag along existence, only astonished at the trouble I take 
 to live, knowing pretty well as I do what life is worth." 
 
 "'Jolly companions every one!' By Jove!" said 
 Harcourt, " for a pair of fellows who were born on the 
 sunny side of the road, I must say you are marvellous 
 instances of gratitude." 
 
 "That excellent hippopotamus," said Upton, "has no 
 thought for any calamity if it does not derange his diges- 
 tion ! How glad I am to see the soup ! Now, Glencore, 
 you shall witness no invalid's appetite." 
 
 As the dinner proceeded, the tone of the conversation 
 grew gradually lighter and pleasanter. Upton had only 
 to permit his powers to take their free course to be agree- 
 able, and now talked away on whatever came uppermost, 
 with a charming union of reflectiveness and repartee. If 
 a very rigid purist might take occasional Gallicisms in 
 expression, and a constant leaning to French modes of 
 thought, none could fail to be delighted with the graceful 
 ease with which he wandered from theme to theme, adorn- 
 ing each with some trait of that originality which was his 
 chief characteristic. Harcourt was pleased without well 
 knowing how or why, while to Glencore it brought back 
 the memory of the days of happy intercourse with the 
 world, and all the brilliant hours of that polished circle in 
 which he had lived. To the pleasure, then, which his 
 powers conferred, there succeeded an impression of deep 
 melancholy, so deep as to attract the notice of Harcourt, 
 who hastily asked — 
 
 " If he felt ill ? " 
 
 " Not worse," said he, faintly, "but weak — weary; and 
 I know Upton will forgive me if I say good-night." 
 
 " What a wreck indeed ! "exclaimed Upton, as Glencore 
 left the room with his son. " I'd not have known him ! " 
 
 " And yet until the last half-hour I have not seen him 
 so well for weeks past. I'm afraid something you said 
 about Alicia Villars affected him," said Harcourt. 
 
 " My dear Harcourt, how young you are in all these 
 things," said Upton, as he lighted his cigarette. " A poor 
 heart-stricken fellow, like Glencore, no more cares for 
 what you would think a painful allusion, than an old
 
 56 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 weather-beaten sailor would for a breezy morning on the 
 Downs at Brighton. His own sorrows lie too deeply 
 moored to be disturbed by the light winds that ruffle the 
 surface. And to think that all this is a woman's doinsr ! 
 Isn't that what's passing in your mind, eh, most gallant 
 Colonel?" 
 
 " By Jove, and so it was ! They were the very words 
 I was on the point of uttering," said Harcourt, half- 
 nettled at the ease with which the other read him. 
 
 "And of course you understand the source of the sor- 
 row ? " 
 
 " I'm not quite so sure of that," said Harcourt, more 
 and more piqued at the tone of bantering superiority with 
 which the other spoke. 
 
 " Yes, you do, Harcourt ; I know you better than you 
 know yourself. Your thoughts were these : Here's a 
 fellow with a title, a good name, good looks, and a fine 
 fortune, going out of the world of a broken heart, and 
 all for a woman ! " 
 
 "You knew her," said Harcourt, anxious to divert the 
 discussion from himself. 
 
 " Intimately. Ninetta della Torre was the belle of 
 Florence — what am I saying? of all Italy — when Glen- 
 core met her, about eighteen years ago. The Palazzo 
 della Torre was the best house in Florence. The old 
 prince, her grandfather — her father was killed in the 
 Russian campaign — was spending the last remnant of an 
 immense fortune in every species of extravagance. Enter- 
 tainments that surpassed those of the Pitti Palace in 
 splendour, fetes that cost fabulous sums, banquets volup- 
 tuous as those of ancient Rome, were things of weekly 
 occurrence. Of course every foreigner, witli any preten- 
 sion to distinction, sought to be presented there, and we 
 English happened just at that moment to stand tolerably 
 high in Italian estimation. I am speaking of some eigh- 
 teen or twenty years back, before we sent out that swarm 
 of domestic economists, who, under the somewhat ei'rone- 
 ous notion of foreign cheapness, by a system of incessant 
 higgle and bargain, cutting down every one's demand to 
 the measure of their own pockets, end by making the word 
 Englishman a synonyme for all that is mean, shabby, and 
 contemptible. The English of that day were of another
 
 THE GREAT MAN'S ARRIVAL. 57 
 
 class ; and assuredly their characteristics, as regards 
 munificence and high dealing, must have been strongly- 
 impressed upon the minds of foreigners, seeing how their 
 successors, very different people, have contrived to trade 
 upon the mere memory of these qualities ever since." 
 
 " Which all means, that ' my lord ' stood cheating better 
 than those who came after him," said Harcourt, bluntly. 
 
 " He did so ; and precisely for that very reason he con- 
 veyed the notion of a people who do not place money in 
 the first rank of all their speculations, and who aspire to 
 no luxury that they have not a just right to enjoy. But 
 to come back to Glencore. He soon became a favoured 
 guest at the Palazzo della Torre. His rank, name, and 
 station, combined with very remarkable personal qualities, 
 obtained for him a high place in the old Prince's favour, 
 and Ninetta deigned to accord him a little more notice 
 than she bestowed on any one else. I have, in the course 
 of my career, had occasion to obtain a near view of royal 
 personages and their habits, and I can say with certainty, 
 that never in any station, no matter how exalted, have I 
 seen as haughty a spirit as in that girl. To the pride of 
 her birth, rank, and splendid mode of life, were added the 
 consciousness of her surpassing beauty, and the graceful 
 charm of a manner quite uuequalled. She was incom- 
 parably superior to all around her, and, strangely enough, 
 she did not offend by the bold assertion of this superiority. 
 It seemed her due, and no more. Nor was it the assump- 
 tion of mere flattered beauty. Her house was the resort 
 of persons of the very highest station, and in the midst 
 of them — some even of royal blood — she exacted all the 
 deference and all the homage that she required from 
 others." 
 
 "And they accorded it?" asked Harcourt, half con- 
 temptuously. 
 
 " They did ; and so had you also if you had been in 
 their place ! Believe me, most gallant Colonel, there is 
 a wide difference between the empty pretension of mere 
 vanity and the claiming assumption of conscious power. 
 This erirl saw the influence she wielded. As she moved 
 amongst us she beheld the homage, not always wdling, 
 that awaited her. She felt that she had but to distinguish 
 any one man there, and he became for the time as illus-
 
 53 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 trious as though touched by the sword or ennobled by the 
 star of his sovereign. The courtier-like attitude of men, 
 in the presence of a very beautiful woman, is a spectacle 
 full of interest. In the homage vouchsafed to mere rank 
 there enters always a sense of humiliation, and in the 
 observances of respect men tender to royalty, the idea of 
 vassalage presents itself most prominently ; whereas in 
 the other case, the chivalrous devotion is not alloyed by 
 this meaner servitude, and men never lift their heads more 
 haughtily than after they have bowed them in lowly 
 deference to loveliness." 
 
 A thick, short snort from Harcourt here startled the 
 speaker, who, inspired by the sounds of his own voice and 
 the flowing periods he uttered, had fallen into one of those 
 paroxysms of loquacity which now and then befell him. 
 That his audience should have thought him tiresome or 
 prosy, would, indeed, have seemed to him something 
 strange ; but that his hearer should have gone off asleep, 
 was almost incredible. 
 
 " It is quite true," said Upton to himself; "he snores 
 ' like a warrior taking his rest.' What wonderful gifts 
 some fellows are endowed with ! and, to enjoy life, there 
 is none of them all like dulness. Can you show me to 
 my room ? " said he, as Craggs answered his ring at the 
 bell. 
 
 The Corporal bowed an assent. 
 
 "The Colonel usually retires early, I suppose?" said 
 Upton. 
 
 "Yes, sir; at ten to a minute." 
 
 " Ah ! it is one — nearly half-past one — now, I perceive," 
 said he, looking at his "watch. " That accounts for his 
 drowsiness," muttered he, between his teeth. " Curious 
 vegetables are these old campaigners. Wish him good 
 night for me when he awakes, will you ? " 
 
 And so saying, he proceeded on his way, with all that 
 lassitude and exhaustion which it was his custom to throw 
 into every act which demanded the slightest exertion. 
 
 " Any more stairs to mount, Mr. Craggs ? " said he, with 
 a bland but sickly smile. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; two flights more." 
 
 "Oh, dear! couldn't you have disposed of me on the 
 lower floor ? — I don't care where or how, but something
 
 THE GEEAT MAN'S ARRIVAL. 59 
 
 that requii'es no climbing. It matters little, however, for 
 I'm only here for a day." 
 " " We could fit up a small room, sir, off the library." 
 
 " Do so, then. A most humane thought ; for if I should 
 
 remain another night ■ Not at it yet ? " cried he, 
 
 peevishly, at the aspect of an almost perpendicular stair 
 before him. 
 
 " This is the last flight, sir ; and you'll have a splendid 
 view for your trouble, when you awake in the morning." 
 
 " There is no view ever repaid the toil of an ascent, Mr. 
 Craggs, whether it be to an attic or the Bighi. Would 
 you kindly tell my servant, Mr. Schofer, where to find me, 
 and let him fetch the pillows, and put a little rosemary in 
 a glass of water in the room — it corrects the odour of the 
 night-lamp. And I should like my coffee early — say at 
 seven, though I don't wish to be disturbed afterwards. 
 Thank you, Mr. Craggs — good night. Oh ! one thing 
 more. You have a doctor here — would you just mention 
 to him that I should like to see him to-morrow about nine 
 or half-past? Good night — good night." 
 
 And with a smile, worthy of bestowal upon a court 
 beauty, and a gentle inclination of the head, the very 
 ideal of gracefulness, Sir Horace dismissed Mr. Craggs, 
 and closed the door,
 
 60 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A MEDICAL VISIT. 
 
 Mr. Schofer moved through the dimly-lighted chamber 
 with all the cat-like stealthiness of an accomplished valet, 
 arranging the various articles of his master's wardrobe, 
 and giving, so far as he was able, the semblance of an 
 accustomed spot to this new and strange locality. Already, 
 indeed, it was very unlike what it had been during Har- 
 court's occupation. Guns, whips, fishing-tackle, dog- 
 leashes, and landing-nets, had all disappeared, as well as 
 uncouth specimens of costume for boating or the chase ; 
 and in their place were displayed all the accessories of an 
 elaborate toilet, laid out with a degree of pomp and osten- 
 tation somewhat in contrast to the place. A richly- 
 embroidered dressing-gown lay on the back of a chair, 
 before which stood a pair of velvet slippers worked in 
 gold. On the table in front of these, a whole regiment 
 of bottles, of varied shape and colour, were ranged, 
 the contents being curious essences and delicate odours, 
 every one of which entered into some peculiar stage of 
 that elaborate process Sir Horace Upton went through, 
 each morning of his life, as a preparation for the toils of 
 the day. 
 
 Adjoining the bed stood a smaller table covered with 
 various medicaments, tinctures, essences, infusions, and 
 extracts, whose subtle qualities he was well skilled in, and 
 for whose timely assistance he would not have believed 
 himself capable of surviving throughout the day. Beside 
 these was a bulky file of prescriptions, the learned docu- 
 ments of doctors of every country of Europe, all of whom 
 had enjoyed their little sunshine of favour, and all of 
 whom had ended by " mistaking his case." These had now 
 been placed in readiness for the approaching consultation 
 with " Glencore's doctor ; " and Mr. Schofer still glided 
 noiselessly from place to place, preparing for that event.
 
 A MEDICAL VISIT. Gl 
 
 "I'm not asleep, Fritz," said a weak, plaintive voice 
 from the bed. " Let me have my aconite — eighteen 
 drops ; a full dose to-day, for this journey has brought 
 back the pains." 
 
 " Yes, Excellenz," said Fritz, in a voice of broken ac- 
 centuation. 
 
 " I slept badly," continued his master, in the same 
 complaining tone. " The sea beat so heavily against the 
 rocks, and the eternal plash, plash, all night irritated and 
 worried me. Are you giving me the right tincture ? " 
 
 " Tes, Excellenz," was the brief reply. 
 
 "You have seen the doctor — what is he like, Fritz?" 
 
 A strange grimace and a shrug of the shoulders were 
 Mr. Schoier's only answer. 
 
 "I thought as much," said Upton, with a heavy sigh. 
 " They called him the wild growth of the mountains last 
 night, and I fancied what that was like to prove. Is he 
 young ? " 
 
 A shake of the head implied not. 
 
 " Nor old F " 
 
 Another similar movement answered the question. 
 
 " Give me a comb, Fritz, and fetch the glass here." 
 And now Sir Horace arranged his silky hair more becom- 
 ingly, and having exchanged one or two smiles with his 
 image in the mirror, lay back on the pillow, saying, " Tell 
 him I am ready to see him." 
 
 Mr. Schofer proceeded to the door, and at once pre- 
 sented the obsequious figure of Billy Traynor, who, having 
 heard some details of the rank and quality of his new 
 patient, made his approaches with a most deferential 
 humility. It was true, Billy knew that my Lord Glen- 
 core's rank was above that of Sir Horace, but to his eyes 
 there was the far higher distinction of a man of undoubted 
 ability — a great speaker, a great writer, a great diplo- 
 matist — and Billy Traynor, for the first time in his life, 
 found himself in the presence of one whose claims to dis- 
 tinction stood upon the lofty basis of personal superiority. 
 Now, though bashfulness was not the chief characteristic 
 of his nature, he really felt abashed and timid as he drew 
 near the bed, and shrank under the quick but searching 
 glance of the sick man's cold, grey eyes. 
 
 " Place a chair, and leave us, Fritz," said Sir Horace ;
 
 62 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 and then turning slowly round, smiled as he said, " I'm 
 happy to make your acquaintance, sir. My friend, Lord 
 Glencore, has told me with what skill you treated him, 
 and I embrace the fortunate occasion to profit by your 
 professional ability." 
 
 " I'm your humble slave, sir," said Billy, with a deep, 
 rich brogue; and the manner of the speaker, and his 
 accent, seemed so to surprise Upton, that he continued to 
 stare at him fixedly for some seconds without speaking. 
 
 " You studied in Scotland, I believe ?" said he, with one 
 of the most engaging smiles, while he hazarded the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Indeed, then, I did not, sir," said Billy, with a heavy 
 sigh ; " all I know of the ars medicalrix I picked up — 
 currendo per campos — as one may say, vagabondizing 
 through life, and watching my opportunities. Nature 
 gave me the Hippocratic turn, and I did my best to im- 
 prove it." 
 
 " So that you never took out a regular diploma ? " said 
 Sir Horace, with another and still blander smile. 
 
 " Sorra one, sir ! I'm a doctor just as a man is a poet — 
 by sheer janius ! "lis the study of nature makes both one 
 and the other ; that is, when there's the raal stuff — the 
 divinus afflatus— inside. Without you have that you're 
 only a rhymester or a quack." 
 
 " Tou would, then, trace a parallel between them ? " said 
 Upton, graciously. 
 
 " To be sure, sir ! ould Heyric says, that the poet and 
 the physician is one : — 
 
 ' ' ' For he who reads the clouded skies, 
 
 And knows the utterings of the deep, 
 Can surely see in human eyes 
 
 The sorrows that so heart-locked sleep.' 
 
 The human system is just a kind of universe of its own ; 
 and the very same faculties that investigate the laws of 
 nature in one case is good in the other." 
 
 " I don't think the author of 'King Arthur' supports 
 your theory," said Upton, gently. 
 
 " Blackmoor was an ass ; but maybe he was as great a 
 bosthoon in physic as in poetry," rejoined Billy, promptly.
 
 A MEDICAL VISIT. 63 
 
 ""Well, doctor," said Sir Horace, with one of those 
 plaintive sighs in which he habitually opened the narrative 
 of his own suffering, " let us descend to meaner things, 
 and talk of myself. You see before you one who, in some 
 degree, is the repi'oach of medicine. That file of prescrip- 
 tions beside you will show that I have consulted almost 
 every celebrity in Europe ; and that I have done so unsuc- 
 cessfully, it is only necessai^y that you should look on these 
 worn looks — these wasted fingers — this siekly, feeble frame. 
 Vouchsafe me a patient hearing for a few moments, while 
 I give you some insight into one of the most intricate 
 cases, perhaps, that has ever engaged the faculty." 
 
 It is not our intention to follow Sir Horace through his 
 statement, which in reality comprised a sketch of half the 
 ills that the flesh is heir to. Maladies of heart, brain, liver, 
 lungs, the nerves, the arteries, even the bones, contributed 
 their aid to swell the dreary catalogue, which, indeed, con- 
 tained the usual contradictions and exaggerations inci- 
 dental to such histories. We could not assuredly expect from 
 our reader the patient attention with which Billy listened to 
 this narrative. Never by a word did he interrupt the de- 
 scription ; not even a syllable escaped him as he sat ; and 
 even when Sir Horace had finished speaking, ho remained 
 with slightly drooped head and clasped hands in deep 
 meditation. 
 
 " It's a strange thing," said he, at last ; " but the more I 
 see of the aristocracy, the more I'm convinced that they 
 ought to have doctors for themselves alone, just as they 
 have their own tailors and coachmakers — chaps that could 
 devote themselves to the study of physic for the peerage, 
 and never think of any other disorders but them that 
 befall people of rank. Your mistake, Sir Horace, was in 
 consulting the regular middle -class practitioner, who in- 
 variably imagined there must be a disease to treat." 
 
 " And you set me down as a hypochondriac, then ? " 
 said Upton, smiling. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind ! You have a malady sure enough, 
 but nothing organic. 'Tis the oceans of tinctures, the 
 sieves full of pills, the quarter-casks of bitters you're 
 takin', has played the divil with you. The human ma- 
 chine is like a clock, and it depends on the proportion the 
 parts bear to each other, whether it keeps time. You may
 
 64 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 make the spring too strong, or the chain too thick, or the 
 balance too heavy for the rest of the works, and spoil 
 everything just by over security. That's what your 
 doctors was doing with their tonics and cordials. They 
 didn't see, here's a poor washy frame, with a wake circula- 
 tion and no vigour. If we nourish him his heart will go 
 quicker, to be sure, but what will his brain be at? There's 
 the rub ! His brain will begin to go fast, too, and already 
 it's going the pace. 'Tis soothin' and calmin' you want; 
 allaying the irritability of an irrascible, fretful nature, 
 always on the watch for self-torment. Say-bathin', early 
 hours, a quiet, mopin' kind of life, that would, maybe, tend 
 to torpor and sleepiness — them's the first things you need ; 
 and for exercise, a little work in the garden that you'd 
 take intei'est in." 
 
 " And no physic ? " asked Sir Horace. 
 
 " Sorra screed! not as much as a powder or a draught, 
 barrin'," said he, suddenly catching the altered expression 
 of the sick man's face, " a little mixture of hyoscyamus 
 I'll compound for you myself. This, and friction over the 
 region of the heart, with a mild embrocation, is all my 
 tratement ! " 
 
 "And you have hopes of my recovery?" asked Sir 
 Horace, faintly. 
 
 "My name isn't Billy Traynor, if I'd not send you out 
 of this hale and hearty before two months. I read you 
 like a printed book." 
 
 " Yon really give me great confidence, for I perceive 
 you understand the tone of my temperament. Let us try 
 this same embrocation at once ; I'll most implicitly obey 
 you in everything." 
 
 " My head on a block, then, but I'll cure you," said 
 Billy, who determined that no scruples on his side should 
 mar the trust reposed in him by the patient. " But you 
 must give yourself entirely up to me, not only as to your 
 eatin' and drinkin', but your hours of recreation and study, 
 exercise, amusement, and all, must be at my biddin'. It 
 is the principle of harmony between the moral and physi- 
 cal nature constitutes the whole sacret of my system. To 
 be stimulatin' the nerves, and lavin' the arteries dormant, 
 is like playing a jig to minuet time — all must move in 
 simultaneous action, and the cerebellum, the great flywheel
 
 A MEDICAL VISIT. 65 
 
 of the whole, must be made to keep orderly time, cl've 
 mind?" J 
 
 "I follow you with great interest," said Sir Horace, to 
 whose subtle nature there was an intense pleasure in the 
 thought of having discovered what he deemed a man of 
 original genius under this unpromising exterior. " There 
 is but one bar to these arrangements — I must leave this 
 at once ; I ought to go to-day. I must be off to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Then I'll not take the helm when I can't pilot you 
 through the shoals," said Billy. " To begin my system, 
 and see you go away before I developed my grand invigo- 
 ratin' arcanum, would be only to destroy your confidence 
 in an elegant discovery." 
 
 " Were I only as certain as you seem to be " began 
 
 Sir Horace, and then stopped. 
 
 " You'd stay and be cured, you were goin' to sa}^. Well, 
 if you didn't feel that same trust in me, you'd be ri^ht 
 to go ; for it is that very confidence that turns the 
 balance. Ould Babbington used to say that between a 
 good physician and a bad one there was just the difference 
 between a pound and a guinea. But between the one you 
 trust and the one you don't, there's all the way between 
 Billy Traynor and the Bank of Ireland ! " 
 
 " On that score every advantage is with you," said 
 Upton, with all the winning grace of his incomparable 
 manner ; "and I must now bethink me how I can manage 
 to prolong my stay here." And with this he fell into a 
 musing fit, letting drop occasionally some stray word or 
 two, to mark the current of his thoughts— " The Duke of 
 Headwater's on the thirteenth — Ardroath Castle the Tues- 
 day after — Morehampton for the Derby day. These easily 
 disposed of. Prince Boratinsky, about that Warsaw affair, 
 must be attended to ; a letter, yes, a letter, will keep that 
 question open. Lady Grencliffe is a difficulty; if I plead 
 illness, she'll say I'm not strong enough to go to Russia. 
 I'll think it over." And with this he rested his head 
 on his hands, and sank into profound reflection. " Yes, 
 doctor," said he, at length, as though summing up his 
 secret calculations, "health is the first requisite. If you 
 can but restore, me, you. will be — I am above the mere 
 personal consideration — you will betho means of conferring 
 
 P
 
 63 THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCORE. 
 
 an important service on the King's Government. A variety 
 of questions, some of them deep and intricate, are now 
 pending, of which I alone understand the secret meaning. 
 A new hand would infallibly spoil the game ; and yet, in 
 my present condition, how could I hear the fatigues of 
 long interviews, ministerial deliberations, incessant note- 
 writing, and evasive conversations?" 
 
 " Utterly unpossible ! " exclaimed the doctor. 
 
 "As you observe, it is utterly impossible," rejoined Sir 
 Horace, with one of his own dubious smiles ; and then, in 
 a manner more natural, resumed : " We public men have 
 the sad necessity of concealing the sufferings on which 
 others trade for sympathy. We must never confess to an 
 ache or a pain, lest it be rumoured that we are unequal to 
 the fatigues of office, and so is it that we are condemned 
 to run the race with broken health and shattered frame* 
 alleging all the while that no exertion is too much, no effort 
 too great for us." 
 
 " And maybe, after all, it's that very struggle that 
 makes you more than common men," said Billy. " There's 
 a kind of irritability that keeps the brain at stretch, and 
 renders it equal to higher efforts than ever accompany 
 good every-day health. Dyspepsia is the soul of a prose- 
 writer, and a slight ossification of the aortic valves is a 
 great help to the imagination." 
 
 "Do you really say so ? " asked Sir Horace, with all 
 the implicit confidence with which he accepted any marvel 
 that had its origin in medicine. 
 
 " Don't you feel it yourself, sir ? " asked Billy. " Do you 
 ever pen a reply to a knotty state-paper as nately as when 
 you've the heartburn ? — are you ever as epigrammatic as 
 when you're driven to" a listen slipper ? — and when do you 
 give a minister a jobation as purtily as when you are 
 labourin' under a slight indigestion ? Not that it would 
 sarve a man to be permanently in gout or the colic ; but 
 for a spurt like a cavalry charge, there's nothing like eatin' 
 something that disagrees with you." 
 
 " An ingenious notion," said the diplomatist, smiling. 
 
 "And now I'll take my lave," said Billy, rising. "I'm 
 
 going out to gather some mountain- col chicum and sorrel, 
 
 to make a diaphoretic infusion ; and I've to give Master 
 
 Charles his Greek lesson j and blister the colt — he's thrown
 
 A MEDICAL VISIT. 67 
 
 out a bone spavin ; and, after that, Handy Carr's daughter 
 has the shakin' ague, and the smith at the forge is to be 
 bled — all before two o'clock, when ' the lord' sends for 
 me ; but the rest of the day, and the night, too, I'm your 
 honour's obaydient." 
 
 And with a low bow, repeated in a inore reverential 
 manner at the door, Billy took his leave and retired. 
 
 P2
 
 68 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOKE. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A DISCLOSURE. 
 
 "Have you seen Upton?" asked Glencore eagerly of 
 Harcourt, as he entered his bedroom. 
 
 " Yes ; he vouchsafed me an audience during his toilet, 
 just as the old kings of France were accustomed to honour 
 a favourite with one." 
 
 " And is he full of miseries at the dreary place, the 
 rough fare, and deplorable resources of this wild spot? " 
 
 " Quite the reverse ; he is charmed with everything and 
 everybody. The view from his window is glorious ; the 
 air has already invigorated him. For years he has not 
 breakfasted with the same appetite ; and he finds, that of 
 all the places he has ever chanced upon, this is the one 
 veritable exact spot which suits him." 
 
 " This is very kind on his part," said Glencore, with a 
 faint smile. " Will the humour last, Harcourt ? That is 
 the question." 
 
 " I trust it will ; at least it may well endure for the 
 short period he means to stay ; although already he has 
 extended that, and intends remaining till next week," 
 
 " Better still," said Glencore, with more animation of 
 voice and manner. " I was already growing nervous 
 about the brief space in which I was to crowd in all that 
 I w r ant to say to him ; but if he will consent to wait a 
 day or two, I hope I shall be equal to it." 
 
 " In his present mood there is no impatience to be off; 
 on the contrary, he has been inquiring as to all the avail- 
 able means of locomotion, and by what convenience he is 
 to make various sea and land excursions." 
 
 " We have no carriage — we have no roads, even," said 
 Glencore, peevishly. 
 
 "He knows all that; but he is concerting measures 
 about a certain turf-kish, I think they call it, which, by 
 the aid of pillows to lie on, and donkeys to drag, can be
 
 A DISCLOSURE. 69 
 
 made a most useful vehicle; while, for longer excursions, 
 he has suggested a ' convenience' of wheels and axles to 
 the punt, rendering it equally eligible on land or water 
 Then he has been designing great improvements in horti 
 culture, and giving orders about a rake, a spade, and a 
 hoe for himself. I'm quite serious," said Harcourt, as 
 Grleucore smiled with a kind of droll incredulity. " It is 
 perfectly true ; and as he hears that the messenger occa- 
 sionally crosses the lough to the post — when there are no 
 letters there, he hints at a little simple telegraph for 
 Leenane, which should announce what the mail contains, 
 and which might be made useful to convey other intelli- 
 gence. In fact, all my changes here will be as for nothing 
 to his reforms, and between us you'll not know your own 
 house again, if you even be able to live in it." 
 
 " You have already done much to make it more habit- 
 able, Harcourt," said Glencore, feelingly ; " and if I had 
 not the grace to thank you for it, I'm not the less grateful. 
 To say truth, my old friend, I half doubted whether it was 
 an act of friendship to attach me ever so lightly to a life 
 of which I am well weary. Ceasing as 1 have done for 
 years back to feel interest in anything, I dread whatever 
 may again recall me to the world of hopes and fears — that 
 agitated sea of passion, wherein I have no longer vigour 
 to contend. To speak to me, then, of plans to carry out, 
 schemes to accomplish, was to point to a future of activity 
 and exertion ; and I " — here he dropped his voice to a 
 deep and mournful tone — "can have but one future ! — the 
 dark and dreary one before the grave." 
 
 Harcourt was too deeply impressed by the solemnity of 
 these words to venture on a reply, and he sat silently con- 
 templating the sorrow-struck, but placid features of the 
 sick man. 
 
 " There is nothing to prevent a man struggling, and 
 successfully, too, against mere adverse fortune," continued 
 Glencore. " I feel at times that if I had been suddenly 
 reduced to actual beggary — left without a shilling in the 
 world — that there are many ways in which I could eke out 
 subsistence. A great defeat to my personal ambition I 
 could resist. The casualty that should exclude me from a 
 proud position and public life, I could bear up against 
 with patience, and I hope with dignity. Loss of fortune
 
 70 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 —loss of influence — loss of station — loss of health, even, 
 dearer than them all, can he borne. There is but one intol- 
 erable ill — one that no time alleviates, no casuistry dimin- 
 ishes — loss of honour ! Ay, Harcourt, rank and riches do 
 little for him who feels himself the inferior of the meanest 
 that elbows him in a crowd ; and the man whose name is 
 a scoff and a jibe has but one part to fill — to make himself 
 forgotten." 
 
 " I hope I'm not deficient in a sense of personal honour, 
 Glencore," said Harcourt; "but I must say, that I think 
 your reasoning on this point is untenable and wrong." 
 
 " Let us not speak more of it," said Glencore, faintly. 
 " I know not how I have been led to allude to what it is 
 better to bear in secret, than to confide even to friendship ; " 
 and he pressed the strong fingers of the other as he spoke, 
 in his own feeble grasp. " Leave me now, Harcourt. and 
 send Upton here. It may be that the time is come when 
 I shall be able to speak to him." 
 
 " You are too weak to-day, Glencore — too much agi- 
 tated. Pray defer this interview." 
 
 " No, Harcourt ; these are my moments of strength. 
 The little energy now left to me is the fruit of strong 
 excitement. Heaven knows how I shall be to-morrow." 
 
 Harcourt made no farther opposition, but left the room 
 in search of Upton. 
 
 It was full an hour later when Sir Horace Upton made 
 his appearance in Glencore's chamber, attired in a purple 
 dressing-gown, profusely braided with gold, loose trousers 
 as richly brocaded, and a pair of real Turkish slippers, 
 resplendent with costly embroidery ; a small fez of blue 
 velvet, with a deep gold tassel, covered the top of his 
 head, at either side of which his soft silky hair descended 
 in long massy waves, apparently negligently, but in reality 
 arranged with all the artistic regard to effect of a consum- 
 mate master. From the gold girdle at his waist depended 
 a watch, a bunch of keys, a Turkish purse, an embroidered 
 tobacco-bag, a gorgeously chased smelling-bottle, and a 
 small stiletto, with a topaz handle. In one hand he 
 carried a meerschaum, the other leaned upon a cane, and 
 with all the dependence of one who could not walk with- 
 out its aid. The greeting was cordial and affectionate on 
 both sides ; and when Sir Horace, after a variety of pre
 
 A DISCLOSURE. 71 
 
 parations to ensure his comfort, at length seated himself 
 beside the bed, his features beamed with all their wonted 
 gentleness and kindness. 
 
 " I'm charmed at what Harconrt has been telling me, 
 Upton," said Glencore ; " and that you really can exist in 
 all the savagery of this wild spot." 
 
 " I'm in ecstasy with the place, Glencore. My memory 
 cannot recall the same sensations of health and vigour I 
 have experienced since I came here. Tour cook is first- 
 rate ; your fare is exquisite ; the quiet is a positive bless- 
 ing ; and that queer creature, your doctor, is a verv re- 
 markable genius." 
 
 " So he is," said Glencore, gravely. 
 
 " One of those men of original mould, who leave culti- 
 vation leagues behind, and arrive at truth by a bound." 
 
 " He certainly treated me with considerable skill." 
 
 " I'm satisfied of it ; his conversation is replete with 
 shrewd and intelligent observation ; and he seems to have 
 studied his art more like a philosopher than a mere physi- 
 cian of the schools; and depend upon it, Glencore, the 
 curative art must mainly depend upon the secret instinct 
 which divines the malady, less by the rigid rules of 
 acquired skill than by that prerogative of genius, which, 
 however exerted, arrives at its goal at once. Our conver- 
 sation had scarcely lasted a quarter of an hour, when he 
 revealed to me the exact seat of all my sufferings, and the 
 most perfect picture of my temperament. And then his 
 suggestions as to treatment were all so reasonable — so 
 well argued." 
 
 " A clever fellow — no doubt of it," said Glencore. 
 
 " But he is far more than that, Glencore. Cleverness 
 is only a manufacturing quality — that man supplies the 
 raw article also. It has often struck me as very singular 
 that such heads are not found in our class — they belong 
 to another order altogether. It is possible that the stim- 
 ulus of necessity engenders the greatest of all efforts, 
 calling to the operations of the mind the continued strain 
 for contrivance ; and thus do we find the most remarkable 
 men are those, every step of whose knowledge has been 
 gained with a struggle." 
 
 " I suspect you are right," said Glencore ; " and that 
 our old system of school education, wherein all was rough,
 
 72 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 rno-ored, and difficult, turned out better men than the 
 present-day habit of everything-made-easy and everybody* 
 made-anything. Flippancy is the characteristic of our 
 age, and we owe it to our teaching." 
 
 " By the way, what do you mean to do with Charley ? 
 said Upton. " Do you intend him for Eton?" 
 
 " 1 scarcely know — I make plans only to abandon them," 
 said Grlencore, gloomily. 
 
 " I'm greatly struck with him. He is one of those 
 fellows, however, who require the nicest management, and 
 who either rise superior to all around them, or drop down 
 into an indolent, dreamy existence, conscious of power, 
 but too bashful or too lazy to exert it." 
 
 " You have hit him off, Upton, with all your own 
 subtlety ; and it was to speak of that boy I have been so 
 eager to see you." 
 
 Glencore paused as he said these words, and passed his 
 hand over his brow, as though to prepare himself for the 
 task before him. 
 
 " Upton," said he, at last, in a voice of deep and solemn 
 meaning, " the resolution I am about to impart to you is 
 not unlikely to meet your strenuous opposition; you will 
 be disposed to show me strong reasons against it on every 
 ground ; you may refuse me that amount of assistance I 
 shall ask of you to carry out my purpose ; but if your 
 arguments were all unanswerable, and if your denial to 
 aid me was to sever the old friendship between us, I'd still 
 persist in my determination. For more than two years 
 the project has been before my mind. The long hours of 
 the day, the longer ones of the night, have found me deep 
 in the consideration of it. I have repeated over to my- 
 self everything that my ingenuity could suggest against 
 it — I have said to my own heart all that my worst enemy 
 could utter, were he to read the scheme and detect my 
 plan — I have done more — I have struggled with myself 
 to abandon it; but in vain. My heart is linked to it; it 
 forms the one sole tie that attaches me to life. With- 
 out it, the apathy that I feel stealing over me would 
 be complete, and my existence become a mournful 
 dream. In a word, Upton, all is passionless within 
 me, save one sentiment ; and I drag on life merely for 
 a ' Vendetta: "
 
 A DISCLOSURE. 78 
 
 Upton shook his head mournfully, as the other paused 
 here, and said, — 
 
 " This is disease, Glencore ! " 
 
 "Be it so; the malady is beyond cure," said he, sternly. 
 
 "Trust me it is not so," said Upton, gently; "you 
 listened to my persuasions on a more " 
 
 " Ay, that I did ! " cried Glencore, interrupting; " and 
 have I ever ceased to rue the day I did so ? But for your 
 arguments, and I had not lived this life of bitter, self- 
 reproaching misery ; but for you, and my vengeance had 
 been sated ere this ! " 
 
 " Remember, Glencore," said the other, " that you had 
 obtained all the world has decreed as satisfaction. He 
 met you and received your fire ; you shot him through the 
 chest ; not mortally, it is true, but to carry to his grave a 
 painful, lingering disease. To have insisted on his again 
 meeting you would have been little less than murder. No 
 man could have stood your friend in such a quarrel. I 
 told you so then, I repeat it now, lie could not fire at you ; 
 what, then, was it possible for you to do ? " 
 
 "Shoot him — shoot him like a dog ! " cried Glencore, 
 while his eyes gleamed like the glittering eyes of an 
 enraged beast. " You talk of his lingering life of pain ; 
 think of mine; have some sympathy for what J suffer! 
 Would all the agony of his whole existence equal one hour 
 of the torment he has bequeathed to me, its shame and 
 ignominy ? " 
 
 " These are things which passion can never treat of, my 
 dear Glencore." 
 
 " Passion alone can feel them," said the other, sternly. 
 " Keep subtleties for those who use like weapons. As for 
 me, no casuistry is needed to tell me I am dishonoured, 
 and just as little to tell me I must be avenged ! If you 
 think differently, it were better not to discuss this question 
 further between us ; but I did think I could have reckoned 
 upon you, for I felt you had barred my first chance of a 
 vengeance." 
 
 " Now, then, for your plan, Glencore," said Upton, who, 
 with all the dexterity of his calling, preferred opening a 
 new channel in the discussion, to aggravating difficulties 
 by a further opposition. 
 
 " I must rid myself of her! There's my plan! " cried
 
 74 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 Glencore, savagely. " Tou have it all in that resolution. 
 Of no avail is it that 1 have separated my fortune from 
 hers so long as she bears my name, and renders it infamous 
 in every city of Europe. Is it to you, who live in the 
 world — who mix with men of every country — that I need 
 tell this ? If a man cannot throw off such a shame, he 
 must sink under it." 
 
 " But you told me you had an unconquerable aversion 
 to the notion of seeking a divorce ? " 
 
 " So I had — so I have ! The indelicate, the ignominious 
 course of a trial at law, with all its shocking exposure, 
 would be worse than a thousand deaths ! To survive the 
 suffering of all the licensed ribaldry of some gowned 
 coward, aspersing one's honour, calumniating, inventing, 
 and, when invention failed, suggesting motives, the very 
 thought of which in secret had driven a man to madness ! 
 to endure this — to read it — to know it went published 
 over the wide globe, till one's shame became the gossip of 
 millions — and then — with a verdict extorted from pity, 
 damages awarded to repair a broken heart and a sullied 
 name — to carry this disgrace before one's equals, to be 
 again discussed, sifted, and cavilled at! No, Upton; this 
 poor, shattered brain would give way under such a trial, 
 to compass it in mere fancy is already nigh to madness ! 
 It must be by other means than these that I attain my 
 object ! " 
 
 The terrible energy with which he spoke actually 
 frightened Upton, who fancied that his reason had already 
 begun to show signs of decline. 
 
 "The world has decreed," resumed Glencore, " that in 
 these conflicts all the shame shall be the husband's, but it 
 shall not be so here ! she shall have her share, ay, and, by 
 Heaven ! not the smaller share either ! " 
 
 " Why, what would you clo ? " asked Upton, eagerly. 
 
 "Deny my marriage — call her my mistress!" cried 
 Glencore, in a voice shaken with passion and excitement. 
 
 " But your boy- — your son, Glencore ? " 
 
 " He shall be a bastard ! You may hold up your hands 
 in horror, and look with all your best got-up disgust at 
 such a scheme ; but if you wish to see me swear to ac- 
 complish it, I'll do so now before you, ay, on my knees 
 before you ! When we eloped from her father's house at
 
 A DISCLOSURE. 75 
 
 Castellamare, we were married by a priest at Capri ; of 
 the marriage no trace exists. The more legal ceremony- 
 was performed before you, as Charge d' Affaires at Naples 
 ■ — of that I have the registry here ; nor, except my courier, 
 Sanson, is there a living witness. If you determine to 
 assert it, you will do so without a fragment of proof, 
 since every document that could substantiate it is in my 
 Keeping. You shall see them for yourself. She is, there- 
 fore, in my power ; and will any man dare to tell me how 
 T should temper that power? " 
 
 " But your boy, Glencore, your boy." 
 " Is my boy's station in the world a prouder one by 
 being the son of the notorious Lady Glencore, or as the 
 offspring of a nameless mistress? What avail to him 
 that he should have a title stained by her shame ? Where 
 is he to go ? In what land is he to live, where her infamy 
 has not reached ? la it not a thousand times better that 
 he enter life ignoble and unknown — to start in the world's 
 race with what lie may of strength and power — than drag 
 on an unhonoured existence, shunned by his equals, and 
 only welcome where it is disgrace to find companion- 
 ship ? " 
 
 " But you sui'ely have never contemplated all the con- 
 sequences of this rash resolve. It is the extinction of an 
 ancient title, the alienation of a great estate, when once 
 you have declaimed your boy illegitimate." 
 
 " He is a beggar ; I know it ; the penalty he must pay 
 is a heavy one : but think of her, Upton, think of the 
 haughty Viscountess, revelling in splendour, and, even in 
 all her shame, the nattered, welcomed guest of that rotten, 
 corrupt society she lives in. Imagine her in all the pride 
 of wealth and beauty, sought after, adulated, worshipped 
 as she is, suddenly struck down by the brand of this dis- 
 grace, and left upon the world without fortune, without 
 rank, without even a name. To be shunned like a leper 
 by the very meanest of those it had once been an honour 
 when she recognized them. Picture to yourself this 
 woman, degraded to the position of all that is most vile 
 and contemptible. She, that scarcely condescended to 
 acknowledge as her equals the best-born and the highest, 
 sunk down to the hopeless infamy of a mistress. They 
 tell me she laughed on the day I fainted at seeing her
 
 76 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 entering the San Carlos, at Naples — laughed as they 
 carried me down the steps into the fresh air ! Will she 
 laugh now, think you ? Shall I be called ' Le Pauvre 
 Sire ' when she hears this ? Was there ever a vengeance 
 more terrible — more complete ? " 
 
 " Again, I say, Glencore, you have no right to involve 
 others in the penalty of her fault. Laying aside every 
 higher motive, you can have no more right to deny your 
 boy's claim to his l'ank and fortune than I, or any one 
 else. It cannot be alienated nor extinguished ; by his birth 
 he became the heir to your title and estates." 
 
 " He has no birth, sir, he is a bastard— who shall deny 
 it ? You may," added he, after a second's pause ; " but 
 where's your proof? Is not every probability as much 
 against you as all documentary evidence, since none will 
 ever believe that I could rob myself of the succession, 
 and make over my fortune to Heaven knows what remote 
 relation r " 
 
 " And do you expect me to become a party to this 
 crime ? " asked Upton, gravely. 
 
 " You baulked me in one attempt at vengeance, and I 
 think you owe me a reparation ! " 
 
 " Glencore," said Upton, solemnly, " we are both of us 
 men of the world ; men who have seen life in all its varied 
 aspects, sufficiently to know the hollowness of more than 
 half the pretension men trade upon as principle ; we have 
 witnessed mean actions and the very lowest motives 
 amongst the highest in station ; and it is not for either of 
 us to affect any overstrained estimate of men's honour and 
 good faith ; but I say to you, in all sincerity, that not 
 alone do I refuse you all concurrence in the act you medi- 
 tate, but I hold myself open to denounce and frustrate it." 
 
 " You do ! " cried Gleucore, wildly, while with a bound 
 he sat up in his bed, grasping the curtain convulsively lor 
 support. 
 
 " Be calm, Glencore, and listen to me patiently." 
 
 " You declare that you will use the confidence of this 
 morning against me," cried Glencore, while the lines in 
 his face became indented more deeply, and his bloodless 
 lips quivered with passion. " You take your part with 
 her." 
 
 " I only ask that you would hear me."
 
 A DISCLOSURE. 77 
 
 " You owe me four thousand five hundred pounds, Sir 
 Horace Upton," said Glencore, in a voice barely above a 
 whisper, but every accent of which was audible. 
 
 "I know it, Glencore," said Upton, calmly. " You 
 helped me by a loan of that sum in a moment of great 
 difficulty. Your generosity went farther, for you took, 
 what nobody else would, my personal security." 
 
 Glencore made no reply, bat throwing back the bed- 
 clothes, slowly and painfully arose, and with tottering and 
 uncertain steps, approached a table. With a tremblino- 
 hand he unlocked a drawer, and taking out a paper, 
 opened and scanned it over. 
 
 "There's your bond, sir," said he, with a hollow, 
 cavernous voice, as he threw it into the fire, and crushed 
 it down into the flames with a poker. " There is now 
 nothing between us. You are free to do your worst!" 
 And as he spoke, a few drops of dark blood trickled from, 
 his nostril, and he fell senseless uoon the floor.
 
 78 TIIE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 
 
 There is a trait in the lives of great diplomatists, of 
 which it is just possible some one or other of my readers 
 may not have heard, which is, that none of them have 
 ever attained to any great eminence without an attach- 
 ment — we can find no better word for it — to some woman 
 of superior understanding, who has united within herself 
 givat talents for society, with a high and soaring ambition. 
 
 They who only recognize in the world of politics the 
 dry details of ordinary parliamentary business, poor-law 
 questions, sanitary rules, railroad bills, and colonial grants, 
 can form but a scanty notion of the excitement derived 
 from the high interests of party, and the great game 
 played by about twenty mighty gamblers, with the whole 
 world for the table, and kingdoms for counters. In this 
 "grand role" women perform no ignoble part; nay, it 
 were not too much to say that theirs is the very motive- 
 power of the whole vast machinery. 
 
 Had we any right to step beyond the limits of our story 
 for illustration, it would not be difficult to quote names 
 enough to show that we are speaking not at hazard, but 
 "from book;" and that great events derive far less of 
 their impulse from "the lords" than from "the ladies of 
 creation." Whatever be the part they take in these con- 
 tests, their chief attention is ever directed, not to the 
 smaller battle-field of home questions, but to the greater 
 and wider campaign of international politics. Men may 
 wrangle and hair-split, and divide about a harbour bill or 
 a road session ; but women occupy themselves in devising 
 how thrones may be shaken and dynasties disturbed — how 
 frontiers may be changed, and nationalities trafficked ; 
 for, strange as it may seem, the stupendous incidents 
 which mould human destinies -are more under the in-
 
 SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 79 
 
 flucuce of passion and intrigue, than the commonest 
 events of every-day life. 
 
 Our readers may, and not very unreasonably, begin to 
 suspect that it was in some moment of abstraction we 
 wrote " Glencore " at the head of these pages, and that 
 these speculations are but the preface to some very ab- 
 struse reflections upon the political condition of Europe. 
 But no : they are simply intended as a prelude to the fact, 
 that Sir Horace Upton was not exempt from the weakness 
 of his order, and that he, too, reposed his trust upon a 
 woman's judgment. 
 
 The name of his illustrious guide was the Princess 
 Sabloukoff, by birth a Pole, but married to a Russian of 
 vast wealth and high family, from whom she separated 
 early in life, to mingle in the world with all the "prestige" 
 of position, riches, and — greater than either — extreme 
 beauty, and a manner of such fascination, as made her 
 name of European celebrity. 
 
 When Sir Hoi'ace first met hei*, he was the junior 
 member of our Embassy at Naples, and she the distin- 
 guished leader of fashion in that city. We are not about 
 to busy ourselves with the various narratives which pro- 
 fessed to explain her influence at Court, or the secret 
 means to which she owed her ascendency over royal high- 
 nesses, and her sway over cardinals. Enough that she 
 possessed such, and that the world knew it. The same 
 success attended her at Vienna and at Paris. She was 
 courted and sought after everywhere; and if her arrival 
 was not feted with the public demonstrations that await 
 royalty, it was assuredly an event recognized with all that 
 could flatter her vanity, or minister to her self-esteem. 
 
 When Sir Horace was presented to her as an Attache, 
 she simply bowed and smiled. He renewed his acquaint- 
 ance some ten years later as a Secretary, when she vouch- 
 safed to say she remembered him. A third time, after a 
 lapse of years, he came before her as a Charge d' Affaires, 
 when she conversed with him ; and lastly, when time had 
 made him a Minister, and with less generosity had laid its 
 impress upon herself, she gave him her hand, and said, — 
 
 " My dear Horace, how charming to see an old friend, if 
 you be good enough to let me call you so." 
 
 And he was so ; he accepted the friendship as frankly
 
 80 THE FOKTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 as it was proffered. He knew that time was, when he 
 could have no pretension to this distinction ; but the 
 beautiful Princess was no longer young; the fascinations 
 she had wielded were already a kind of Court tradition ; 
 archdukes and ambassadors were no more her slaves ; nor 
 was she the terror of jealous queens and Court favourites. 
 Sir Horace knew all this ; but he also knew that, she 
 Deing such, his ambition had never dared to aspire to her 
 friendship, and it was only in her days of declining fortune 
 that he could hope for such distinction. 
 
 All this may seem very strange and very odd, dear 
 reader; but we live in very strange and very odd times, 
 and more than one-half the world is only living on 
 "second-hand" — second-hand shawls and second-hand 
 speeches, second-hand books, and Court suits and opinions 
 are a'l rife ; and why not second-hand friendships ? 
 
 Now, the friendship between a bygone beauty of forty 
 — and we will not say how many more years — and a 
 hackneyed, half-disgusted man of the world, of the same 
 age, is a very curious contract. There is no love in it ; 
 as little is there any strong tie of esteem ; but there is a 
 wonderful bond of self-interest and mutual convenience. 
 Each seems to have at last found " one that understands 
 him ;" similarity of pui'suit has engendered similarity of 
 taste. They have each seen the world from exactly the 
 same point of view, and they have come out of it equally 
 heart-wearied and tired, stored with vast resources of 
 social knowledge, and with a keen insight into every 
 phase of that complex machinery by which one-half the 
 world cheats the other. 
 
 Madame de Sabloukoff was still handsome — she had far 
 more than what is ill-naturedly called the remains of good 
 looks. She had a brilliant complexion, lustrous dark eyes, 
 and a profusion of the most beautiful hair. She was, 
 besides, a most splendid dresser. Her toilet was the very 
 perfection of taste, and if a little inclining to over-mag- 
 nificence, not the less becoming to one whose whole air 
 and bearing assumed something of queenly dignity. 
 
 In the world of society there is a very great prestige 
 attends those who have at some one time played a great 
 part in life. The deposed king, the ex-minister, the 
 banished general, and even the bygone beauty, receive a
 
 BOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OP DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 81 
 
 species of respectful homage, which the wider world witb- 
 out-doors is not always ready to accord them. Good 
 breeding, in fact, concedes what mere justice might deny; 
 and they who have to fall back upon "souvenirs" for 
 their greatness, always find their advantage in associating 
 with the class whose prerogative is good manners. 
 
 The Princess Sabloukoff was not, however, one of those 
 who can live upon the interest of a bygone fame. She saw 
 that, when the time of coquetry and its fascinations has 
 passed, that still, with faculties like hers, there was yet a 
 great game to be played. Hitherto she had only studied 
 characters ; now she began to reflect upon events. The 
 transition was an easy one, to which her former know- 
 ledge contributed largely its assistance. There was 
 scarcely a royalty, hardly a leading personage in 
 Europe, she did not know personally and well. She had 
 lived in intimacy with ministers, and statesmen, and 
 great politicians. She knew them in all that " life of 
 the salon " where men alternately expand into frankness, 
 and practise the wily devices of their crafty callings. 
 She had seen them in all the weaknesses, too, of inferior 
 minds, eager after small objects, tormented by insignifi- 
 cant cares. They who habitually dealt with these mighty 
 personages, only beheld them in their dignity of station, 
 or surrounded by the imposing accessories of office. What, 
 an advantage, then, to regard them closer and nearer — to 
 be aware of their shortcomings, and acquainted with the 
 secret springs of their ambitions ! 
 
 The Princess and Sir Horace very soon saw that each 
 needed the other. When Robert Macaire accidentally 
 met an accomplished gamester, who "turned the king" 
 as often as he did, and could reciprocate every trick and 
 artifice with him, he threw down the cards, saying, 
 "Embrassons-nous, nous sommes freres ! " jSTow, the 
 illustration is a very ignoble one, but it conveys no very 
 inexact idea of the bond which united these two distin- 
 guished individuals. 
 
 Sir Horace was one of those fine, acute intelligences 
 which may be gapped and blunted if applied to rough 
 woik, but are splendid instruments where you would cut 
 cleanly, and cut deep. She saw this at once. He, too, 
 recognized in her a wonderful knowledge of life, joined 
 
 a'
 
 82 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 to vast powers of employing it with profit. No more 
 was wanting to establish a friendship between them. 
 Dispositions must be, to a certain degree, different 
 between those who are to live together as friends, but 
 tastes mnst be alike. Theirs were so. They bad the 
 same veneration for the same things, the same regard 
 for the same celebrities, and the same contempt for the 
 small successes which were engaging the minds of many 
 around them. If the Princess had a real appreciation of 
 the fine abilities of Sir Horace, he estimated, at their full 
 value, all the resources of her wondrous tact and skill, 
 and the fascinatious which even yet surrounded her. 
 
 Have we said enough to explain the terms of this 
 alliance ? or must we make one more confession, and own 
 that her insidious praise — a flattery too delicate and fine 
 ever to be committed to absolute eulogy — convinced Sir 
 Horace that she alone, of all the world, was able to com- 
 prehend the vast stores of his knowledge, and the wide 
 measure of his capacity as a statesman. 
 
 In the great game of statecraft, diplomatists are not 
 above looking into each other's hands ; but this must 
 always be accomplished by means of a confederate. How 
 terribly alike are all human rogueries, whether the scene 
 be a conference at Vienna, or the tent of a thimblerig at 
 Ascot ! La Sabloukoff was unrivalled in the art. She 
 knew how to push raillery and persiflage to the very 
 frontiers of truth, and even peep over and see what lay 
 beyond. Sir Horace traded on the material with which 
 she supplied him, and acquired the reputation of being all 
 that was crafty and subtle in diplomacy. 
 
 How did Upton know this ? Whence came he by that ? 
 What mysterious source of information is he possessed 
 of ? Who could have revealed such a secret to him ? 
 were questions often asked in that dreary old drawing- 
 room of Downing Street, where men's destinies are 
 shaped, and the fate of millions decided, from four o'clock 
 to six of an afternoon. 
 
 Often and often were the measures of the cabinet 
 shaped by the tidings which arrived with all the speed 
 of a foreign courier — over and over again were the 
 speeches in Parliament based upon information received 
 from him. It has even happened that the news from his
 
 SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 83 
 
 hand has caused the telegraph of the Admiralty to sig- 
 nalize the Thunderer to put to sea with all haste. In 
 a word, he was the trusted agent of our Government, 
 whether ruled hy a Whig or a Tory, and his despatches 
 were ever regarded as a sure warranty for action. 
 
 The English Minister at a Foreign Court labours under 
 one great disadvantage, which is, that his policy, and all 
 the consequences that are to follow it, are rarely, if ever, 
 shaped with any reference to the state of matters then 
 existing in his own country. Absorbed as he is in great 
 European questions, how can he follow, with sufficient 
 attention, the course of events at home, or recognize, in 
 the signs and tokens of the division list, the changeful 
 fortunes of party ? He may be advising energy when the 
 cry is all for temporizing ; counselling patience and sub- 
 mission, when the nation is eager for a row ; recommend 
 religious concessions in the very week that Exeter Hall is 
 denouncing toleration ; or actually suggesting aid to a 
 Government that a popular orator has proclaimed to be 
 everything that is unjust and ignominious. 
 
 It was Sir Horace Upton's fortune to have fallen into 
 one of these embarrassments. He had advised the Home 
 Government to take some measures, or, at least, look with 
 favour on certain movements of the Poles in Russia, in 
 order the better to obtain some concessions then required 
 from the cabinet of the Czar. The Premier did not approve 
 of the suggestion, nor was it like to meet acceptance at 
 home. We were in a pro-Russian fever at the moment. 
 Some mob disturbances at Norwich, a Chai-tist meeting at 
 Stockport, and something else in Wales, had frightened 
 the nation into a hot stage of conservatism ; and never was 
 there such an ill-chosen moment to succour Poles, or 
 awaken dormant nationalities. 
 
 Upton's proposal was rejected. He was even visited 
 with one of those disagreeable acknowledgments by which 
 the Foreign Office reminds a speculative minister that he 
 is going ultra crepiclam. When an envoy is snubbed, he 
 always asks for leave of absence. If the castigation be 
 severe, he invariably, on his return to England, goes to 
 visit the Leader of the Opposition. This is the ritual. 
 Sir Horace, however, only observed it in half. He came 
 home; but after his first morning's attendance at the 
 
 G 2
 
 Si THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 Foreign Office, he disappeared ; none saw or heard of him. 
 He knew well all the value of mystery, and he accordingly 
 disappeared from public view altogether. 
 
 When, therefore, Harcourt's letter reached him, pro- 
 posing that he should visit Glencore, the project came 
 most opportunely ; and that he only accepted it for a day, 
 was in the spirit of his habitual diplomacy, since he then 
 gave himself all the power of an immediate departure, or 
 permitted the option of remaining gracefully, in defiance 
 of all pre-engagements, and all plans to be elsewhere. 
 We have been driven, for the sake of this small fact, to go 
 a great way round in our history ; but we promise our 
 readers that Sir Horace was one of those people whose 
 motives are never tracked without a considerable detour. 
 The reader knows now why he was at Glencore — he 
 already knew, how. 
 
 The terrible interview with Glencore brought back a 
 second relapse of greater violence than the first, and it 
 was nigh a fortnight ere he was pronounced out of danger. 
 It was a strange life that Harcourt and Upton led in that 
 dreary interval. Guests of one whose life was in utmost 
 peril, they met in that old gallery each day to talk, in half- 
 whispered sentences, over the sick man's case, and his 
 chances of recovery. 
 
 Harcourt frankly told Upton that the first relapse was 
 the consequence of a scene between Glencore and himself. 
 Upton made no similar confession. He reflected deeply, 
 however, over all that had passed, and came to the con- 
 clusion that, in Glencore's present condition, opposition 
 might prejudice his chance of recovery, but never avail to 
 tnrn him from his project. He also set himself to study 
 the boy's charactei', and found it, in all respects, the very 
 type of his father's. Great bashfulness, united to great 
 boldness, timidity, and distrust, were there side by side with 
 a rash, impetuous nature, that would hesitate at nothing 
 in pursuit of an object. Pride, however, was the great 
 principle of his being,— the good and evil motive of all 
 that was in him. He had pride on every subject. His 
 name, his rank, his station, a consciousness of natural 
 quickness, a sense of aptitude to learn whatever came 
 befoi'e him — all gave him the same feeling of pride. 
 
 " There's a deal of good in that lad," said Harcourt to
 
 SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 85 
 
 Upton, one evening, as the boy had left the room ; "I like 
 his strong affection for his father, and that unbounded 
 faith he seems to have in Glencore's being better than 
 every one else in the world." 
 
 " It is an excellent religion, my dear Harcourt, if it 
 could only last ! " said the diplomate, smiling amiably. 
 
 "And why shouldn't it last?" asked the other, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " Just because nothing lasts that has its origin in igno- 
 rance. The boy has seen nothing of life — has had no 
 opportunity for forming a judgment, or instituting a com- 
 parison between any two objects. The first shot that 
 breaches that same fortress of belief, down will come the 
 whole edifice! " 
 
 " You'd give a lad to the Jesuits, then, to be trained up 
 in every artifice and distrust ? " 
 
 " Far from it, Harcourt. I think their system a mistake 
 all through. The science of life must be self-learned, and 
 it is a slow acquisition. All that education can do is to 
 prepare the mind to receive it. Now, to employ the first 
 years of a boy's life by storing him with prejudices, is just 
 to encumber a vessel with a rotten cargo, that she must 
 throw overboard before she can load with a profitable 
 freight." 
 
 " And is it in that category you'd class his love for his 
 father?" asked the Colonel. 
 
 "Of course not; biit any unnatural or exaggerated 
 estimate of him is a great error, to lead to an equally 
 unfair depreciation when the time of deception is past. 
 To be plain, Harcourt, is that boy fitted to enter 
 one of our great public schools, stand the hard, rough 
 usage of his own equals, and buffet it as you or I have 
 done ? " 
 
 Why not ? or, at least, why shouldn't he become so after 
 a month or two ? " 
 
 " Just because in that same month or two he'd either 
 die broken-hearted, or plunge his knife into the heart or 
 some comrade who insulted him." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. You don't know him at all. Charley 
 is a fine give-and-take fellow ; a little proud, perhaps, 
 because he lives apart from all that are his equals. Let 
 Grleucore just take courage to pond him to Harrow or
 
 86 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 Rugby, and my life on it, but he'll be tbe manliest fellow 
 in the school." 
 
 " I'll undertake, without Harrow or Rugby, that the boy 
 should become something even greater than that," said 
 Upton, smiling. 
 
 " Oh, I know you sneer at my ideas of what a young 
 fellow ought to be," said Harcourt ; " but, somehow, you 
 did not neglect these same pursuits yourself. You can 
 shoot as well as most men, and you ride better than any I 
 know of." 
 
 " One likes to do a little of everything, Hai'court," said 
 Upton, not at all displeased at this flattery; " and some-, 
 how it never suits a fellow, who really feels that he has 
 fair abilities, to do anything badly ; so that it comes to 
 this : one does it well, or not at all. Now, you never 
 heard me touch the piano ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Just because I'm only an inferior performer, and so I 
 only play when perfectly alone." 
 
 " Egad, if I could only master a waltz, or one of the 
 melodies, I'd be at it whenever any one would listen to 
 me." 
 
 " You're a good soul, and full of amiability, Harcourt," 
 said Upton ; but the words sounded very much as though 
 he said, " You're a dear, good, sensible creature, without 
 an atom of self-respect or esteem." 
 
 Indeed, so conscious was Harcourt that the expression 
 meant no compliment, that he actually reddened and 
 looked away. At last he took courage to renew the con- 
 versation, and said, — 
 
 "And what would you advise for the boy then ?" 
 
 "I'd scarcely lay down a system ; but I'll tell you what 
 I would not do. I'd not bore him with mathematics ; I'd 
 not put his mind on the stretch in any direction ; I'd not 
 stifle the development of any taste that may be struggling 
 within him, but rather encourage and foster it, since it is 
 precisely by such an indication you'll get some clue to his 
 nature. Do you understand me ? " 
 
 " I'm not quite sure I do ; but I believe you'd leave him 
 to something like utter idleness." 
 
 " What to you, my dear Harcourt, would be utter idle- 
 ness, I've no doubt, but not to him, perhaps."
 
 SOME LIGIITS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 87 
 
 Again the Colonel looked mortified, but evidently knew 
 not how to resent this new sneer. 
 
 " Well," said he, after a pause, "the lad will not require 
 to be a genius." 
 
 " So much the better for hira, probably; at all events, 
 so much the better for his friends, and all who are to 
 associate with him." 
 
 Here he looked fixedly at Upton, who smiled a most 
 courteous acquiescence in the opinion — a politeness that 
 made poor Harcourt perfectly ashamed of his own rude- 
 ness, and he continued, hurriedly, — 
 
 " He'll have abundance of money. The life Grlencore 
 leads here, will be like a long minority to him. A fine 
 old name and title, and the deuce is in it if he can't rub 
 through life pleasantly enough with such odds." 
 
 " I believe you are right, after all, Harcourt," said 
 Upton, sighing, and now speaking in a far more natural 
 tone ; " it is ' rubbing through ' with the best of us, and 
 no more! " 
 
 " If you mean that the process is a very irksome one, I 
 enter my dissent at once," broke in Harcourt. " I'm not 
 ashamed to own that I like life prodigiously ; and, if I be 
 spared to say so, I'm sure I'll have the same story to tell 
 fifteen or twenty years hence, and yet I'm not a genius !" 
 
 " No," said Upton, smiling a bland assent. 
 
 " Nor a philosopher either," said Harcourt, irritated at 
 the acknowledgment. 
 
 " Certainly not," chimed in Upton, with another smile. 
 
 " Nor have I any wish to be one or the other," rejoined 
 Harcourt, now really provoked. " I know right well that 
 if I were in trouble or difficulty to-morrow — if I wanted 
 a friend to help me with a loan of some thousand pounds 
 — it is not to a genius or a philosopher I'd look for the 
 assistance." 
 
 It is ever a chance shot that explodes a magazine, and 
 so is it that a random speech is sure to hit the mark that 
 has escaped all the efforts of skilful direction. 
 
 Upton winced and grew pale at these last words, and he 
 fixed his penetrating grey eyes upon the speaker with a 
 keenness all his own. Harcourt, however, bore the look 
 without the slightest touch of uneasiness. The honest 
 Colonel had spoken without any hidden meaning, nor had
 
 88 THE FOETUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 he the slightest intention of a personal application in his 
 words. Of this fact Upton appeared soon to be con- 
 vinced, for his features gradually recovered their wonted 
 calmness. 
 
 "How perfectly right you are, my dear Harcourt," said 
 he, mildly. "The man who expects to be happier by the 
 possession of genius, is like one who would like to warm 
 himself through a burning-glass." 
 
 " Egad, that is a great consolation for us slow fellows," 
 said Harcourt, laughing ; " and now what say you to a 
 game at ecarte, for I believe it is just the one solitary 
 thing I am more than your match in ?" 
 
 " I accept inferiority in a great many others," said Up- 
 ton, blandly; "but I must decline the challenge, for I 
 have a letter to write, and our post here starts at day- 
 break." 
 
 " Well, I'd rather carry the whole bag than indite one 
 of its contents," said the Colonel, rising; and, with a 
 hearty shake of the hand, he left the room. 
 
 A letter was fortunately not so great an infliction to 
 Upton, who opened his desk at once, and with a rapid 
 hand traced the following lines : — 
 
 " My dkar Princess, — My last will have told you how 
 and when I came here ; I wish I but knew in what way 
 to explain why I still remain ! Imagine the dreariest 
 desolation of Calabria in a climate of fog and sea-drift — 
 sunless skies, leafless trees, impassable roads, the out-door 
 comforts ; the joys within depending on a gloomy old 
 house, with a few gloomier inmates, and a host on a sick 
 bed. Yet, with all this,. 1 believe I am better ; the doctor, 
 a strange, unsophisticated creature, a cross between Galen 
 and Caliban, seems to have hit off what the great dons of 
 science never could detect — the true seat of my malady. 
 He says — and he really reasons out his case ingeniously — 
 that the brain has been working for the inferior nerves, 
 not limiting itself to cerebral functions, but actually per- 
 forming the humbler office of muscular direction, and so 
 forth; in fact, a field-marshal doing duty for a common 
 soldier ! I almost fancy I can corroborate his view, from 
 internal sensations; I have a kind of secret instinct that 
 he is right. Poor brain, why it should do the work of
 
 SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 89 
 
 another department, with abundance of occupation of its 
 own, I cannot make out. But to turn to something 1 else. 
 This is not a bad refuge just now. They cannot make out 
 where I am, and all the inquiries at my club are answered 
 by a vague impression that I have gone back to Germany, 
 which the people at F. 0. are aware is not the case. I 
 have already told you that my suggestion has been nega- 
 tived in the Cabinet ; it was ill-timed, Allington says, 
 but I ventured to remind his lordship that a policy requir- 
 ing years to develop, and more years still to push to a 
 profitable conclusion, is not to be reduced to the category 
 of mere apropos measures. He was vexed, and replied 
 weakly and angrily — I rejoined and left him. Next day 
 he sent for me, but my reply was, ' I was leaving town ' — 
 and I left. I don't want the Bath, because it would be 
 'ill-timed;' so that they must give me Vienna, or be 
 satisfied to see me in the House and the Opposition ! 
 
 " Your tidings of Brekenoff came exactly in the nick. 
 Allington said pompously that they were sure of him ; so 
 I just said, 'Ask him if they would like our sending a 
 Consular Agent to Cracow ?' It seems that he was so 
 flurried by a fancied detection, that he made a full acknow- 
 ledgment of all. But even at this Allington takes no 
 alarm. The malady of the Treasui-y benches is deafness, 
 with a touch of blindness. What a cumbrous piece of 
 bungling machinery is this boasted 'representative gov- 
 ernment 'of ours! No promptitude — no secrecy ! Every- 
 thing debated, and discussed, and discouraged, before 
 begun ; every blot-hit for an antagonist to profit by ! Even 
 the chai'acters of our public men exposed, and their weak- 
 nesses displayed to view, so that every state of Europe 
 may see where to wound us, and through whom ! There 
 is no use in the Countess remaining here any longer ; the 
 King never noticed her at the last ball ; she is angry at it, 
 and if she shows her irritation she'll spoil all. I always 
 thought Josephine would fail in England. It is, indeed, 
 a widely different thing to succeed in the small Courts of 
 Germany and our great whirlpool of St James. You 
 could do it, my dear friend ; but where is the other dare 
 attempt it ? 
 
 " Until I hear from you again I can come to no resolu- 
 tion. One thing is clear, they do not, or they will not,
 
 90 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOBE. 
 
 see the danger I Lave pointed out to them. All tlie home 
 policy of our country is drifting, day by day, towards a 
 democracy — how, in the name of common sense, then, is 
 our foreign policy to be maintained at the standard of the 
 Holy Alliance ? What an absurd juxtaposition is there 
 between popular rights and an alliance with the Czar ! 
 This peril will overtake them one day or another, and 
 then, to escape from national indignation, the minister, 
 whoever he may be, will be driven to make war. But I 
 can't wait for this ; and yet, were I to resign, my resigna- 
 tion would not embarrass them — it would irritate and 
 annoy, but not disconcert. Brekenoff will surety go home 
 on leave. Tou ought to meet him ; he is certain to be at 
 Ems. It is the refuge of disgraced diplomacy. Try if 
 something cannot be done with him. He used to say 
 formerly yours were the only dinners now in Europe. He 
 hates Allington. This feeling, and his love for white 
 truffles, are, I helieve, the only clues to the man. Be sure, 
 however, that the truffles are Piedmontese ; they have a 
 slight flavour of garlic, rather agreeable than otherwise. 
 Like Josephine's lisp, it is a defect that serves for a dis- 
 tinction. The article in the Beau Monde was clever, 
 prettily written, and even well worked out ; but state 
 affairs are never really well treated save by those who 
 conduct them. One must have played the game himself 
 to understand all the nice subtleties of the contest. These, 
 your mere reviewer or newspaper scribe never attains to ; 
 and then he has no reserves — none of those mysterious 
 concealments, that are to negotiations like the eloquent 
 pauses of conversation — the moment when dialogue ceases 
 and the real interchange of ideas begins. 
 
 " The fine touch, the keen aperqu, belongs alone to 
 those who have had to exercise these same qualities in the 
 treatment of great questions ; and hence it is, that though 
 the Public be often much struck, and even enlightened, 
 by the powerful ' article' or the able ' leader,' the States- 
 man is rarely taught anything by the journalist, save the 
 force and direction of public opinion. 
 
 " I had a deal to say to you about poor Glencore, Avhom 
 you tell me you remember; but, how to say it? He is 
 broken-hearted — literally broken-hearted — by her deser- 
 tion of him. It was one of those ill-assorted leagues
 
 SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 91 
 
 which cannot hold together. Why they did not see this, 
 and make the best of it — sensibly, dispassionately, even 
 amicably — it is difficult to say. An Englishman, it would 
 seem, must always hate his wife if she cannot love him : 
 and, after all, how involuntary are all affections, and what 
 a severe penalty is this for an unwitting oifence. 
 
 "He ponders over this calamity, just as if it were the 
 crushing stroke by which a man's whole career was to be 
 finished for ever. The stupidity of all stupidities is in 
 these cases to fly from the woi'ld, and avoid society. By 
 doing this a man rears a barrier he never can repass ; he 
 proclaims aloud his sentiment of the injury, quite forget- 
 ting all the offence he is giving to the hundred and fifty 
 others, who, in the same predicament as himself, are by 
 no means disposed to turn hermits on account of it. Men 
 make revolutionary governments, smash dynasties, trans- 
 gress laws, but they cannot oppose convenances ! 
 
 " I need scarcely say that there is nothing to be gained 
 by reasoning with him. He has worked himself up to a 
 chronic fury, and talks of vengeance all clay long like a 
 Corsican. For company here I have an old brother officer 
 of my days of tinsel and pipe-clay — an excellent creature 
 whom I amuse myself by tormenting. There is also Glen- 
 core's boy — a strange, dreamy kind of haughty fellow, an 
 exaggeration of his father in disposition, but with good 
 abilities. These are not the elements of much social 
 agreeability, but you know, dear friend, how little I stand 
 in need of what is called company. Your last letter, 
 charming as it was, has afforded me all the companionship 
 I could desire. I have re-read it till I know it by heart. 
 I could almost chide you for that delightful little party in 
 my absence, but of course it was, as all you ever do is, 
 perfectly right ; and after all I am, perhaps, not sorry that 
 you had those people when I was away, so that we shall 
 be more cliez nous when we meet. But when is that to 
 be? Who can tell? My medico insists upon five full 
 weeks for my cure. Allington is very likely, in his pre- 
 sent temper, to order me back to my post. You seem to 
 think that you must be in Berlin when Seckendorf arrives, 
 
 so that But I will not darken the future by gloomy 
 
 forebodings. I could leave this — that is, if any urgency 
 required it — at once ; but, if possible, it is better I should
 
 92 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 remain, at least a little longer. My last meeting with 
 Glencore was unpleasant. Poor fellow ! bis temper is not 
 what it used to be, and be is forgetful of what is due to 
 one whose nerves are in the sad state of mine. You shall 
 bear all my complainings when we meet, dear Princess, 
 and with this I kiss your hand, begging you to accept all 
 ' vies hommages ' et mon estime. 
 
 "H. U. 
 
 " Your letter must be addressed ' Leenane, Ireland.' 
 Your last had only ' Glencore' on it, and not very legible 
 either, so that it made what I wished I could do, ' the tour 
 of Scotland,' before reaching me." 
 
 Sir Horace read over his letter carefully, as though it 
 had been a despatch, and, when he had done, folded it up 
 with an air of satisfaction. He had said nothing that he 
 wished unsaid ; and he had mentioned a little about every- 
 thing he desired to touch upon. He then took his " drops " 
 from a queer-looking little phial he carried about with him, 
 and having looked at his face in a pocket-glass, he half 
 closed his eyes in reverie. 
 
 Strange, confused visions were they that flitted through 
 his brain. Thoughts of ambition the most daring, fancies 
 about health, speculations in politics, finance, religion, 
 literature, the arts, society — all came and went. Plans 
 and projects jostled each other at every instant. Now his 
 brow would darken, and his thin lips close tightly, as some 
 painful impression crossed him ; now again a smile, a 
 slight laugh even, betrayed the passing of some amusing 
 conception. It was easy to see how such a nature could 
 suffice to itself, and how little he needed of that give-and- 
 take which companionship supplies. He could— to steal 
 a figure from our steam language — he could " bank his 
 fires," and await any emergency, and, while scarcely con- 
 suming any fuel, prepare for the most trying demand upon 
 his powers. A hasty movement of feet overhead, and the 
 sound of voices talking loudly, aroused him from his 
 reflections, while a servant entered abruptly to say that 
 Lord Glencore wished to see him immediately. 
 
 " Is his lordship worse?" asked Upton. 
 
 <( No, sir; but he was very angry with the young lord
 
 SOME LICxHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 93 
 
 this evening about something ; and they say that with the 
 passion he opened the bandage on his head, and set the 
 vein a-bleeding again. Billy Traynor is there now trying 
 to stop it." 
 
 "I'll go upstairs," said Sir Horace, rising, and begin- 
 ning to fortify himself with caps, and capes, and com- 
 forters — precautions that he never omitted when moving 
 from one room to the other.
 
 94 THE FORTtJNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A SIGHT AT SEA. 
 
 Glencore's chamber presented a scene of confusion and 
 dismay as Upton entered. The sick man had torn off the 
 bandage from his temples, and so roughly as to reopen 
 the half-closed artery, and renew the bleeding. Not alone 
 the bedclothes and the curtains, but the faces of the attend- 
 ants around him, were stained with blood, which seemed 
 the more ghastly from contrast with their pallid cheeks. 
 They moved hurriedly to and fro, scarcely remembering 
 what they were in search of, and evidently deeming his 
 state of the greatest peril. Traynor, the only one whose 
 faculties were unshaken by the shock, sat quietly beside 
 the bed, his fingers firmly compressed upon the orifice of 
 the vessel, while, with the other hand, he motioned to 
 them to keep silence. 
 
 Glencore lay with closed eyes, breathing long and 
 laboured inspirations, and at times convulsed by a slight 
 shivering. His face, and even his lips, were bloodless, 
 and his eyelids of a pale, livid hue. So terribly like the 
 approach of death was his whole appearance, that Upton 
 whispered in the doctor's ear, — 
 
 "Is it over? Is he dying?" 
 
 " No, Upton," said Glencore, for, with the acute hearing 
 of intense nervousness, he had caught the words. " It is 
 not so easy to die." 
 
 " There, now — no more talkin' — no discoorsin' — azy 
 and quiet is now the word." 
 
 " Bind it up and leave me — leave me with him; " and 
 Glencore pointed to Upton. 
 
 " I dar'n't move out of this spot," said Billy, addressing 
 Upton. " You'd have the blood coming out, per saltim, if 
 I took away my finger." 
 
 "You must be patient, Glencore," said Upton, gently; 
 " you know I'm always ready when you want me."
 
 A NIGHT AT SEA. 95 
 
 "And you'll not leave this — you'll not desert me?" 
 cried the other, eae;erlv. 
 
 " Certainly not ; I have no thought of going away." 
 
 " There, now, hould your prate, both of ye, or, by my 
 conscience, I'll not take the responsibility upon me — I 
 will not! " said Billy, angrily. " 'Tis just a disgrace and 
 a shame that ye haven't more discretion." 
 
 Glencore's lips moved with a feeble attempt at a smile, 
 and, in his faint voice, he said, — 
 
 "We must obey the doctor, Upton; but don't leave 
 me." 
 
 Upton moved a chair to the bedside, and sat down with- 
 out a word. 
 
 " Ye think an artery is like a canal, with a lock-gate to 
 it, I believe," said Billy, in a low grumbling voice, to 
 Upton, " and you forget all its vermicular motion, as 
 ould Fabricius called it, and that it is only by a coagalum, 
 a kind of barrier, like a mud break-water, that it can be 
 plugged. Be off out of that, ye spalpeens ! be off, every 
 one of yez, and leave us tranquil and paceable! " 
 
 This summary command was directed to the various 
 servants, who were still moving about the room in imag- 
 inary occupation. The room was at last cleared of all 
 save Upton and Billy, who sat by the bedside, his hand 
 still resting on the sick man's forehead. Soothed by the 
 stillness, and reduced by the loss of blood, Glencore sank 
 into a quiet sleep, breathing softly and gently as a child. 
 
 " Look at him now," whispered Billy to Upton, " and 
 you'll see what philosophy there is in ascribin' to the heart 
 the source of all our emotions. He lies there azy and 
 comfortable just because the great bellows is working 
 smoothly and quietly. They talk about the brain, and the 
 spinal nerves, and the soliar plexus, but give a man a 
 wake, washy circulation, and what is he ? He's just like 
 a chap with the finest intentions in the world, but not a 
 sixpence in his pocket to carry them out ! A fine well- 
 regulated, steady- batin' heart is like a credit on the bank 
 — you draw on it, and your draft isn't dishonoured !" 
 
 " What was it brought on this attack? " asked Upton, 
 in a whisper. 
 
 "A shindy he had with the boy. I wasn't here. There 
 was nobody by : but when I met Master Charles on the
 
 96 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 stairs, he flew past me like lightning, and I just saw by a 
 glimpse that something was wrong. He rushed out with 
 his head bare, and his coat all open, and it sleetin' terri- 
 bly ! Down he went towards the lough, at full speed, and 
 never minded all my callin' after him." 
 
 " Has he returned ?" asked Upton. 
 
 " Not as I know, sir. We were too much taken up with 
 the lord to ask for him." 
 
 " I'll just step down and see," said Sir Hoi'ace, who 
 arose, and left the room on tiptoe. 
 
 To Upton's inquiry all made the same answer. None 
 had seen the young lord — none could give any clue as to 
 whither he had gone. Sir Horace at once hastened to 
 Harcourt's room, and after some vigorous shakes, suc- 
 ceeded in awakening the Colonel, and by dint of various 
 repetitions at last put him in possession of all that had 
 occurred. 
 
 " We must look after the lad," cried Harcourt, spring- 
 ing from his bed and dressing with all haste. " Pie is a 
 rash, hot-headed fellow ; but even if it were nothing else, 
 he might get his death in such a night as this." 
 
 The wind dashed wildly against the window-panes as 
 he spoke, and the old timbers of the frame rattled fear- 
 fully. 
 
 " Do you remain here, Upton. I'll go in search of the 
 boy. Take care Gleneore hears nothing of his absence." 
 
 And with a promptitude that bespoke the man of action, 
 Harcourt descended the stairs and set out. 
 
 The night was pitch dark ; sweeping gusts of wind bore 
 the rain along in torrents, and the thunder rolled inces- 
 santly, its clamour increased by the loud beating of the 
 waves as they broke upon the rocks. Upton had repeated to 
 Harcourt that Billy saw the boy goingjtowards the sea-shore, 
 and in this direction he now followed. His frequent excur- 
 sions had familiarized him with the place, so that even at 
 night Harcourt found no difficulty in detecting the path 
 and keeping it. About half an hour's brisk walking 
 brought him to the side of the lough, and the narrow 
 flight of steps cut in the rock, which descended to the 
 little boat-quay. Here he halted, and called out the boy's 
 name several times. The sea, however, was running 
 mountains high, and an immense drift, sweeping over
 
 A NIGHT AT SEA. 97 
 
 the rocks, fell in sheets of scattered foam beyond them ; 
 so that Harcourt's voice was drowned by the uproar. A 
 small shealing under the shelter of the rock formed tlie 
 home of a boatman ; and at the crazy door of this humble 
 cot Harcourt now knocked violently. 
 
 The man answered the summons at once, assuring him 
 that he had not heard or seen any one since the night 
 closed in ; adding, at the same time, that in such a tempest 
 a boat's crew might have landed without his knowing- it. 
 
 " To be sure," continued he, after a pause, "I heard a 
 chain rattlin' on the rock soon after I went to bed, and 
 I'll just step down and see if the yawl is all right." 
 
 Scarcely had he left the spot, when his voice was heard 
 calling out from below,— 
 
 " She's gone ! — the yawl is gone ! the lock is broke with 
 a stone, and she's away ! " 
 
 " How could this be ? no boat could live in such a sea," 
 cried Harcourt, eagerly. 
 
 " She could go out fast enough, sir. The wind is north- 
 east, due ; but how long she'll keep the say is anothei 
 matter." 
 
 " Then hell be lost! " cried Harcourt, wildly. 
 
 " Who, sir — who is it? " asked the man. 
 
 " Your master's son ! " cried he, wringing his hands in 
 anguish. 
 
 "Oh, murther! murther!" screamed the boatman, 
 " we'll never see him again. 'Tis out to say — into the 
 wild ocean he'll be blown ! " 
 
 " Is there no shelter — no spot he could make for ? " 
 
 " Barrin' the islands, there's not a spot between this 
 and America." 
 
 " But he could make the islands — you are sure of 
 that?" 
 
 " If the boat was able to live through the say. But 
 sure I know him well ; he'll never take in a reef or sail ; 
 but sit there, with the helm hard up, just never carin' 
 what came of him ! Oh, musha ! musha ! what druv him 
 out such a night as this ! " 
 
 " Come, it's no time for lamenting, my man ; get the 
 launch ready, and let us follow him. Are you afraid ? " 
 
 "Afraid!" replied the man, with a touch of scorn in 
 his voice ; " faix, it's little fear troubles me ; but, may be, 
 
 H
 
 98 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 you won't like to be in her yourself when she's once out. 
 I've none belongin' to me — father, mother, chick or child; 
 but you may have many a one that's near to you." 
 
 " My ties are, perhaps, as light as your own," said 
 Harcourt. " Come, now, be alive. I'll put ten gold 
 guineas in your hand if you can overtake him." 
 
 " I'd rather see his face than have two hundred," said 
 the man, as, springing into the boat, he began to haul out 
 the tackle from under the low half-deck, and prepare 
 for sea. 
 
 " Is your honour used to a boat, or ought I to get 
 another man with me ? " asked the sailor. 
 
 " Trust me, my good fellow ; I have had more sailing 
 than yourself, and in more treacherous seas, too," said 
 Harcourt, who, throwing off his cloak, proceeded to help 
 the other, with an address that bespoke a practised hand. 
 
 The wind blew strongly off the shore, so that scarcely 
 was the foresail spread, than the boat began to move 
 rapidly through the water, dashing the sea over her bows, 
 and plunging wildly through the waves. 
 
 " Give me a hand now with the hal'yard," said the 
 boatman; "and when the mainsail is set, you'll see how 
 she'll dance over the top of the waves, and never wet us." 
 
 " She's too light in the water, if anything," said Har- 
 court, as the boat bounded buoyantly under the increased 
 press of canvas. 
 
 " Tour honour's right ; she'd do better with half a ton 
 of iron in her. Stand by, sir, always, with the peak hal'- 
 yards ; get the sail aloft in, when I give you the word." 
 
 " Leave the tiller to me, my man," said Harcourt, taking 
 it as he spoke. " You'll soon see that I'm no new hand 
 at the work." 
 
 " She's doing it well," said the man. " Keep her up ! 
 keep her up ! there's a spit of land runs out here ; in a 
 few minutes moi'e we'll have say room enough." 
 
 The heavier roll of the waves, and the increased force 
 of the wind, soon showed that the} r had gained the open 
 sea ; while the atmosphere, relieved of the dark shadows 
 of the mountain, seemed lighter and thinner than in- 
 shore. 
 
 " We 're to make for the islands, you say, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes. What distance are they off? "
 
 A NIGHT AT SEA. 99 
 
 ''"About eighteen miles. Two hours, if the wind lasts, 
 and we can bear it." 
 
 " And could the yawl stand this? " said Harcourt, as a 
 heavy sea struck the bow, and came in a cataract over 
 tli em. 
 
 "Better than ourselves, if she was manned. Luff! 
 luff! — that's it!" And as the boat turned up to wind, 
 sheets of spray and foam flew over her. "Master Charles 
 hasn't his equal for steerin', if he wasn't alone. Keep her 
 there ! — now ! steady, sir ! " 
 
 " Here's a squall coming," cried Harcourt; " I hear it 
 hissing." 
 
 Down went the peak, but scarcely in time, for the wind, 
 catching the sail, laid the boat gunwale under. After a 
 struggle, she righted, but with nearly one-third of her 
 filled with water. 
 
 " I'd take in a reef, or two reefs," said the man ; " but 
 if she couldn't rise to the say, she'll fill and go down. 
 We must carry on, at all events." 
 
 So say I. It's no time to shorten sail, with such a 
 
 sea running- 
 
 The boat now flew through the water, the sea itself 
 impelling her, as with every sudden gust the waves struck 
 the stern. 
 
 " She's a brave craft," said Harcourt, as she rose lightly 
 over the great waves, and plunged down again into the 
 trough of the sea ; " but if we ever get to land again, I'll 
 have combings round her to keep her dryer." 
 
 " Here it comes ! — here it comes, sir ! " 
 
 Nor were the words well out, when, like a thunder-clap, 
 the wind struck the sail, and bent the mast over like a 
 whip. For an instant it seemed as if she were going 
 down by the prow ; but she righted again, and, shivering 
 in every plank, held on her way. • 
 
 " That's as much as she could do," said the sailor ; 
 " and I would not like to ax her to do more." 
 
 " I agree with you," said Harcourt, secretly stealing his 
 feet back again into his shoes, which he had just kicked off. 
 
 "It's freshening it is every minute," said the man; 
 " and I'm not sure that we could make the islands if it 
 lasts." 
 
 "Well— what then?" 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCORE. 
 
 " There's nothing for it but to be blown out to say," 
 said he, calmly, as, having filled his tobacco-pipe, he struck 
 a light, and began to smoke. 
 
 " The very thing I was wishing for," said Harcourt, 
 touching his cigar to the bright ashes. " How she labours 
 — do you think she can stand this ? " 
 " She can, if it's no worse, sir." 
 " But it looks heavier weather outside." 
 " As well as I can see, it's only beginnin'." 
 Harcourt listened with a species of admiration to the 
 calm and measured sentiment of the sailor, who, fully 
 conscious of all the danger, yet never, by a word or ges- 
 ture, showed that he was flurried or excited. 
 
 " You have been out on nights as bad as this, I sup- 
 pose ? " said Harcourt. 
 
 "Maybe not quite, sir, for it's a great say is runnin' ; 
 and, with the wind off shore, we couldn't have this, if 
 there wasn't a storm blowing farther out." 
 " From the westward, you mean ? " 
 "Yes, sir— a wind coming over the whole ocean, that 
 will soon meet the land wind." 
 " And does that often happen ? " 
 
 The words were but out, when, with a loud report like a 
 cannon-shot, the wind reversed the sail, snapping the 
 strong sprit in two, and bringing down the whole canvas 
 clattering into the boat. With the aid of a hatchet, the 
 sailor struck off the broken portion of the spar, and soon 
 cleared the wreck, while the boat, now reduced to a mere 
 foresail, laboured heavily, sinking her prow in the sea at 
 every bound. Her com-se, too, was now altered, and she 
 flew along parallel to the shore, the great cliffs looming 
 through the darkness, and seeming as if close to them. 
 
 "The boy! — the boy!" cried Harcourt; "what has 
 become of him ? He never could have lived through that 
 squall." 
 
 " If the spar stood, there was an end of us, too," said 
 the sailor; " she'd have gone down by the stern, as sure 
 as my name is Peter." 
 
 " It is all over by this time," muttered Harcourt, 
 sorrowfully. 
 
 " Pace to him now ! " said the sailor, as he crossed him- 
 self, and went over a prayer.
 
 A NIGHT AT SEA. 101 
 
 The wind now raged fearfully ; claps, like the report of 
 cannon, struck the frail boat at intervals, and laid her 
 nearly keel uppermost; while thp ma^t .bent like;&'whip, 
 and every rope creaked and stra'ined to "i'ts last "endurance. 
 The deafening noise close- at hand told, yheve. the* waves 
 were beating on the rock-bouncl"pg>as$,*?5r 's,tfi%y^^|£"-the 
 deep growl of thunder through many a cavern. They 
 rarely spoke, save when some emergency called for a word. 
 Each sat wrapped up in his own dark reveries, and unwill- 
 ing to break them. Hours passed thus — long, dreary 
 hours of darkness, that seemed like years of suffering, so 
 often in this interval did life hang in the balance. 
 
 As morning began to break with a greyish blue light to 
 the westward, the wind slightly abated, blowing more 
 steadily, too, and less in sudden gusts ; while the sea 
 rolled in large round waves, unbroken above, and showing 
 no crest of foam. 
 
 " Do you know where we are ? " asked Harcourt. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; we're off the Rooks' Point, and if we hold 
 on well, we'll soon be in slacker water." 
 
 " Could the boy have reached this, think you? " 
 
 The man shook his head mournfully, without speaking. 
 
 " How far are we from Grlencore? " 
 
 " About eighteen miles, sir; but more by land." 
 
 " You can put me ashore, then, somewhere hereabouts." 
 
 " Yes, sir, in the next bay ; there's a creek we can easily 
 run into." 
 
 " You are quite sure he couldn't have been blown out 
 to sear"' 
 
 " How could he, sir ? There's only one way the wind 
 could dhrive him. If he isn't in the Clough Bay, he s in 
 glory." 
 
 All the anxiety of that dreary night was nothing to 
 what Harcourt now suffered, in his eagerness to round the 
 Rooks' Point, and look in the bay beyond it. Controlling 
 it as he would, still would it break out in words of impa- 
 tience, and even anger. 
 
 " Don't curse the boat, yer honour," said Peter, respect- 
 fully, but calmly ; " she's behaved well to us this night, or 
 we'd not be here now " 
 
 "But are we to beat about here for ever?" asked the 
 other, angrily.
 
 102 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " She's doin' well, aud we ought to be thankful," said 
 the man; and his tone, even more than his words, served 
 to reprove the other's, iytfpatignce. " I'll try and set the 
 mainsail on her with" the remains of the sprit." 
 
 Harco;art watched hiroC, ,as he laboured away to repair 
 the 1 d'amaged -rigging ;< -but tliGugh he looked at him, his 
 thoughts were far away with poor Glencore upon his sick 
 bed, in sorrow and in suffering, and perhaps soon to hear 
 that he was childless. From these he went on to other 
 thoughts. What could have occurred to have driven the 
 boy to such an act of desperation ? Harcourt invented a 
 hundred imaginary causes, to reject them as rapidly again. 
 The affection the boy bore to his father seemed the 
 strongest principle of his nature. There appeared to be 
 no event possible in which that feeling would not sway 
 and control him. As he thus ruminated, he was aroused 
 by the sudden cry of the boatman. 
 
 " There's a boat, sir, dismasted, ahead of us, and drift- 
 ing out to say." 
 
 " I see her ! — I see her ! " cried Harcourt ; " out with 
 the oars, and let's pull for her." 
 
 Heavily as the sea was rolling, they now began to pull 
 through the immense waves, Harcourt turning his head at 
 every instant to watch the boat, which now was scarcely 
 half a mile ahead of them. 
 
 " She's empty ! — -there's no one in her ! " said Peter, 
 mournfully, as, steadying himself by the mast, he cast a 
 look seaward. 
 
 " Row on — let us get beside her," said Harcourt. 
 
 " She's the yawl ! — I know her now," cried the 
 man. 
 
 " And empty ?" 
 
 " Washed out of her with a say, belike," said Peter, 
 resuming his oar, and tugging with all his strength. 
 
 A quarter of an hour's hard rowing brought them close 
 to the dismasted boat, which, drifting broadside on the 
 sea, seemed at every instant ready to capsize. 
 
 " There's something in the bottom — in the stern- 
 sheets ! " screamed Peter. " It's himself!— blessed Vir- 
 gin, it's himself ! " And, with a bound, he sprang from 
 his own boat into the other. 
 
 The next instant he had lifted the helpless body of the
 
 "He's alive!— he's well!— it's only fatigue !
 
 A NIGHT AT SEA. 103 
 
 boy from the bottom of the boat, and, with a shout of joy, 
 
 screamed out, — 
 
 " He's alive ! — he's well ! — it's only fatigue ! " 
 Harcourt pressed his hands to his face, and sank upon 
 
 his knees in prayer.
 
 104 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ACCOMPLISHED. 
 
 Just as Upton had seated himself at that frugal meal of 
 weak tea and dry toast be called his breakfast, Harcourt 
 suddenly entered the room, splashed and road-stained 
 from head to foot, and in his whole demeanour indicating 
 the work of a fatiguing journey. 
 
 " Why, I thought to have had my breakfast with you," 
 cried he, impatiently, " and this is like the diet of a con- 
 valescent from fever. Where is the salmon — where the 
 grouse pie — where are the cutlets — and the chocolate — 
 and the poached eggs — and the hot rolls, and the cherry 
 bounce ?" 
 
 " Say, rather, where are the disordered livers, worn- 
 out stomachs, fevered brains, and impatient tempers, my 
 worthy Colonel?" said Upton, blandly. "Talleyrand 
 himself once told me that he always treated great ques- 
 tions starving." 
 
 " And he made a nice mess of the world in conse- 
 quence," blustered out Harcourt. " A fellow with an 
 honest appetite, and a sound digestion, would never have 
 played false to so many masters." 
 
 " It is quite right that men like you should read history 
 in this wise," said Upton, smiling, as he dipped a crust in 
 his tea, and ate it. 
 
 "Men like me are very inferior creatures, no doubt," 
 broke in Harcourt, angrily; "but I very much doubt if 
 men like you had come eighteen miles on foot over a 
 mountain this morning, after a night passed in an open 
 boat at sea — ay, in a gale, by Jove, such as I shan't 
 forget in a hurry." 
 
 "You have hit it perfectly, Harcourt, simm cuique ; and 
 if only we could get the world to see that each of us has 
 his speciality, we should all of us do much better." 
 
 By the vigorous tug he gave the bell, and the tone in
 
 A "VOW" ACCOMPLISHED. 105 
 
 which lie ordered np something to eat, it was plain to see 
 that he scarcely relished the moral Upton had applied to 
 his speech. With the appearance of the good cheer, how- 
 ever, he speedily threw off his momentary displeasure, 
 and, as he ate, and drank, his honest, manly face lost 
 every trace of annoyance. Once only did a passing shade 
 of anger cross his countenance. It was when, suddenly 
 looking up, he saw Upton's eyes settled on him, and his 
 whole features expressing a most palpable sensation of 
 wonderment and compassion. 
 
 "Ay," cried he, " 1 know well what's passing in your 
 mind this minute. You are lost in your pitying estimate 
 of such a mere animal as I am ; but, hang it all, old 
 fellow, why not be satisfied with the flattering thought 
 that you are of another stamp — a creature of a different 
 order?" 
 
 " It does not make one a whit happier," sighed Upton, 
 who never shrunk from accepting the sentiment as his 
 own. 
 
 " I should have thought otherwise," said Harcourt, with 
 a malicious twinkle of the eye, for he iancied that he had 
 at last touched the weak point of his adversary. 
 
 " No, my dear Harcourt, the erassce natures have rather 
 the best of it, since no small share of this world's colli- 
 sions are actually physical shocks; and that great, strong 
 pipkin that encloses your brains, will stand much that 
 would smash the poor egg-shell that shrouds mine." 
 
 " Whenever you draw a comparison in my favour, I 
 always find at the end I come off worst," said Harcourt, 
 bluntly ; and Upton laughed one of his rich musical 
 laughs, in which there was indeed nothing mirthful, but 
 something that seemed to say that his nature experienced 
 a sense of enjoyment higher, perhaps, than anything 
 merely comic could suggest. 
 
 " Tou came off best this time, Harcourt," said he good- 
 humouredly ; and such a thorough air of frankness accom- 
 panied the words, that Harcourt was disarmed of all 
 distrust at once, and joined in the laugh heartily. 
 
 "But you have not yet told me, Harcourt," said the 
 other, " where you have been, and why you spent your 
 ui^ht on the sea." 
 
 " The story is not a very long one," replied he, and at
 
 106 TIIE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 once gave a full recital of the events, which our reader 
 has already had before him in our last chapter, adding, in 
 conclusion, " I have left the hoy in a cabin at Belniullet; 
 he is in a high fever, and raving so loud that you could 
 hear him a hundred yards away. I told them to keep 
 cold water on his head, and give him plenty of it to drink 
 — nothing more — till I could fetch our doctor over, for it 
 will be impossible to move the boy from where he is for 
 the present." 
 
 " Glencore has been asking for him already this morning. 
 He did not desire to see him, but he begged of me to go 
 to him and speak with him." 
 
 " And have you told him that he was from home — that 
 he passed the night away from this ? " 
 
 " No ; I merely intimated that I should look after him, 
 waiting for your return to guide myself afterwards." 
 
 " I don't suspect that when we took him from the boat 
 the malady had set in ; he appeared rather like one over- 
 come by cold and exhaustion. It was about two hours 
 after — he had taken some food and seemed stronger — 
 when I said to him, ' Come, Charley, you'll soon be all 
 right again ; I have sent a fellow to look after a pony for 
 you, and you'll be able to ride back, won't you? ' " 
 " ' Ride where ? ' cried he, eagerly. 
 "' Home, of course,' said I, ' to Glencore.' 
 " ' Home ! I have no home,' cried he ; and the wild 
 scream he uttered the words with, I'll never forget. It 
 was just as if that one thought was the boundary between 
 sense and reason, and the instant he had passed it, all was 
 chaos and confusion, for now his raving began — the most 
 frantic imaginations — always images of sorrow, and with 
 a rapidity of utterance there was no following. Of course 
 in such cases the delusions suggest no clue to the cause, 
 but all his fancies were about being driven out of doors an 
 outcast and a beggar, and of his father rising from his 
 sick bed to curse him. Poor boy ! Even in this his 
 better nature gleamed forth as he cried, ' Tell him ' — and 
 he said the words in a low whisper — ' tell him not to 
 anger himself; he is ill, very ill, and should be kept tran- 
 quil. Tell him, then, that I am going — going away for 
 ever, and he'll hear of me no more.' " As Harcourt 
 repeated the words, his own voice faltered, and two heavy
 
 A' " VOW " ACCOMPLISHED. 107 
 
 drops slowly coursed down his bronzed cheeks. " You 
 see," added he, as if to excuse the emotion, "that wasn't 
 like raving, for he spoke this just as he might have done 
 if his very heart was breaking." 
 
 "Poor fellow!" said Upton; and the words were 
 uttered with real feeliug. 
 
 " Some terrible scene must have occurred between 
 them," resumed Harcourt; " of that I feel quite certain." 
 
 " I suspect you are right," said Upton, bending over his 
 teacup ; " and our part, in consequence, is one of con- 
 siderable delicacy ; for, until Glencore alludes to what has 
 passed, tve, of course, can take no notice of it. The boy is 
 ill ; he is in a fever ; we know nothing more." 
 
 " I'll leave you to deal with the father ; the son shall be 
 my care. I have toPd Traynor to be ready to start with 
 me after breakfast, and have ordered two stout ponies for 
 the journey. I conclude there will be no objection in 
 detaining the doctor for the night : what think you, 
 Upton ? " 
 
 " Do ynu consult the doctor on that head ; meanwhile, 
 I'll pay a visit to Grlencore. I'll meet you in the library." 
 And so saying, Upton rose, and gracefully draping the 
 folds of his dressing-gown, and arranging the waving lock 
 of hair which had escaped beneath his cap, he slowly set 
 out towards the sick man's chamber. 
 
 Of all the springs of human action, there was not one 
 in which Sir Horace Upton sympathized so little as 
 passion. That any man could adopt a line of conduct 
 from which no other profit could result than what might 
 minister to a feeling of hatred, jealousy, or revenge, seemed 
 to him utterly contemptible. It was not, indeed, the mo- 
 rality of such a course that he called in question, although 
 he would not have contested that point. It was its mean- 
 ness, its folly, its insufficiency. His experience of great 
 affairs had imbued him with all the importance that was 
 due to temper and moderation. He scarcely remembered 
 an instant where a false move had damaged a negotiation, 
 that it could not be traced to some passing trait of im- 
 patience, or some lurking spirit of animosity biding the 
 hour of its gratification. 
 
 He had long learned to perceive how much more tem- 
 perament has to do, in the management of great events,
 
 108 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 than talent or capacity, and his opinion of men was chiefly 
 founded on this quality of their nature. It was, then, with 
 an almost pitying estimate of Glencore, that he now 
 entered the room where the sick man lay. 
 
 Anxious to be alone with him, Glencore had dismissed 
 all the attendants from his room, and sat, propped up by 
 pillows, eagerly awaiting his approach. 
 
 Upton moved through the dimly-lighted room like one 
 familiar to the atmosphere of illness, and took his seat 
 beside the bed with that noiseless quiet which in him was 
 a kind of instinct. 
 
 It was several minutes before Glencore spoke, and then, 
 in a low, faint voice, he said, " Are we alone, Upton ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the other, gently pressing the wasted fingers 
 which lay on the counterpane before him. 
 
 " You forgive me, Upton," said he — and the words 
 trembled as he uttered them — "You forgive me, Upton, 
 though I cannot forgive myself." 
 
 " My dear friend, a passing moment of impatience is 
 not to breach the friendship of a lifetime. Your calmer 
 judgment would, I know, not be unjust to me." 
 
 " But how am I to repair the wrong I have done 
 
 you?" 
 
 " By never alluding to it — never thinking of it again, 
 Glencore." 
 
 " It is so unworthy — so ignoble in me ! " cried Glen- 
 core, bitterly ; and a tear fell over his eyelid and rested on 
 his wan and worn cheek. 
 
 " Let us never think of it, my dear Glencore. Life has 
 real troubles enough for either of us, not to dwell on those 
 which we may fashion out of our emotions. I promise 
 yon, I have forgotten the whole incident." 
 
 Glencore sighed heavily, but did not speak; at last he 
 said, " Be it so, Upton," and, covering his face with his 
 hand, lay still and silent. " Well," said he, after a long 
 pause, " the die is cast, Upton — I have told him ! " 
 
 " Told the boy ? " said Upton. 
 
 He nodded an assent. " It is too late to oppose me now, 
 Upton — the thing is done. I didn't think I had strength 
 for it, but revenge is a strong stimulant, and I felt as 
 though once more restored to health, as I proceeded. 
 Poor fellow ! he bore it like a man. Like a man, do I say ?
 
 A " VOW " ACCOMPLISHED. 109 
 
 No, but better than man ever bore suck crashing tidings. 
 He asked me to stop once, while his head reeled, and said, 
 ' In a minute I shall be myself again.' And so he was, 
 too ; you should have seen him, Upton, as he rose to 
 leave me. So much of dignity was there in his look, that 
 my heart misgave me ; and 1 told him that still, as my son, 
 he should never want a friend and a protector. He grew 
 deadly pale, and caught at the bed for support. Another 
 moment and I'd not have answered for myself. I was 
 already relenting — but I thought of her, and my resolu- 
 tion came back in all its force. Still I dared not look on 
 him. The sight of that wan cheek, those quivering lips 
 and glassy eyes, would certainly have unmanned me. I 
 turned away. When I looked round he was gone ! " As 
 he ceased to speak, a clammy perspiration burst forth over 
 his face and forehead, and he made a sign to Upton to wet 
 his lips. 
 
 " It is the last pang she is to cost me, Upton, but it is a 
 sore one ! " said he, in a low, hoarse whisper. 
 
 " My dear Glencore, this is all little short of madness ; 
 even as revenge it is a failure, since the heaviest share of 
 the penalty recoils upon yourself." 
 
 " How so ? " cried he, impetuously. 
 
 " Is it thus that an ancient name is to go out for ever ? 
 Is it in this wise that a house noble for centuries is to 
 crumble into ruin? I will not again urge upon you 
 the cruel wrong you are doing ? Over that boy's in- 
 heritance you have no more right than over mine — you 
 cannot rob him of the protection of the law. No power 
 could ever give you the disposal of his destiny in this 
 wise." 
 
 " I have done it, and I will maintain it, sir," cried 
 Glencore ; " and if the question is, as you vaguely hint, to 
 be one of law " 
 
 " No, no, Glencore ; do not mistake me." 
 
 " Hear me out, sir," said he, passionately. " If it is to 
 be one of law, let Sir Horace Upton give his testimony — 
 tell all that he knows — and let us see what it will avail him. 
 You may — it is quite open to you — place us front to front 
 as enemies. You may teach the boy to regard me as one 
 who has robbed him of his birthright, and trained him n p 
 to become my accuser in a court of justice. But my cause
 
 110 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 is a strong one, it cannot be shaken, and where you hope 
 to brand me with tyranny you will but visit bastardy upon 
 Mm. Think twice, then, before you declare this combat. 
 It is one where all your craft will not sustain you." 
 
 " My dear Glencore, it is not in this spirit that we can 
 speak profitably to each other. If you will not hear my 
 reasons calmly and dispassionately, to what end am I here ? 
 You have long known me as one who lays claim to no more 
 rigid morality than consists with the theory of a worldly 
 man's experiences. I affect no high-flown sentiments. I 
 am as plain and practical as may be ; and when I tell you 
 that you are wrong in this affair, I mean to say, that what 
 you are about to do is not only bad, but impolitic. In 
 your pursuit of a victim, you are immolating yourself." 
 
 " Be it so ; I go not alone to the stake ; there is 
 another to partake of the torture," cried Glencore, wildly; 
 and already his flushed cheek and flashing eyes beti'ayed 
 the approach of a feverish access. 
 
 " If I am not to have any influence with you, then," 
 resumed Upton, " I am here to no purpose. If, to all 
 that I say — to arguments you cannot answer — you obsti- 
 nately persist in opposing an insane thirst for revenge, I 
 see not why you should desire my presence. You have 
 resolved to do this great wrong ? " 
 
 " It is already done, sir," broke in Glencore. 
 
 "Wherein, then, can I be of any service to you ? " 
 
 " I am coming to that. I had come to it before, had j r ou 
 not interrupted me. I want you to be guardian to the 
 boy. I want you to replace me in all that regards autho- 
 rity over him. You know life well, Upton. You know it 
 not alone in its paths of pleasure and success, but you 
 understand thoroughly the rugged footway over which 
 humble men toil wearily to fortune. None can better 
 estimate a man's chances of success, nor more surely point 
 the road by which he is to attain it. The provision which 
 I destine for him will be an humble one, and he will need 
 to rely upon his own efforts. You will not refuse me this 
 service, Upton. I ask it in the name of our old friend- 
 ship." 
 
 " There is but one objection I could possibly have, and 
 yet that seems to be insurmountable." 
 
 "And what may it be ? " cried Glencore.
 
 A "VOW" ACCOMPLISHED. Ill 
 
 " Simply, that; in acceding to your request, I make 
 myself an accomplice in your plan, and thus aid and abet 
 the very scheme I am repudiating.'' 
 
 " What avails your repudiation if it will not turn mo 
 from my resolve ? That it will not, I'll swear to you as 
 solemnly as ever an oath was taken. I tell you again, the 
 thing is done. For the consequences which are to follow 
 on it you have no responsibility — these are my concern." 
 
 " I should like a little time to think over it," said Upton, 
 with the air of one struggling with irresolution. "Let 
 me have this evening to make up my mind ; to-morrow 
 you shall have my answer." 
 
 " Be it so, then," said Glencore ; and turning his face 
 away, waved a cold farewell with his hand. 
 
 We do not purpose to follow Sir Horace as he retired, 
 nor does our task require that we should pry into the 
 secret recesses of his wily nature ; enough if we say that 
 in asking for time, his purpose was rather to afford another 
 opportunity of reflection to Glencore than to give himself 
 more space for deliberation. He had found, by the experi- 
 ence of his calling, that the delay we often crave for, to 
 resolve a doubt, has sufficed to change the mind of him 
 who originated the difficulty. 
 
 " I'll give him some hours, at least," thought he, "to 
 ponder over what I have said. Who knows but the argu- 
 ment may seem better in memory than in action? Such 
 things have happened before now." And having finished 
 this reflection, he turned to peruse the pamphlet of a quack 
 doctor who pledged himself to cure all disorders of tho 
 circulation by attending to tidal influences, and made the 
 moon herself enter into the materia meclica. What Sir 
 Horace believed, or did not believe, in the wild rhapsodies 
 of the charlatan, is known only to himself. Whether his 
 credulity was fed by the hope of obtaining relief, or 
 whether his fancy only was aroused by the speculative 
 images thus suggested, it is impossible to say. It is not 
 altogether improbable that he perused these things as 
 Charles Fox used to read all the trashiest novels of the 
 Minerva Press, and find, in the very distorted and exag- 
 gerated pictures, a relief and a relaxation which more 
 correct views of life had failed to impart. Hard-headed 
 men require strange indulgences.
 
 112 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BILLY TRAYNOR. AND THE COLONEL. 
 
 It was a fine breezy morning as the Colonel set out with 
 Billy Traynor for Belmullet. The bridle-path by which 
 they travelled led through a wild and thinly-inhabited 
 tract — now dipping down between grassy hills, now tracing 
 its course alon^ the cliff's over the sea. Tall ferns covered 
 the slopes, protected from the west winds, and here and 
 there little copses of stunted oak showed the traces of 
 what once had been forest. It was, on the whole, a silent 
 and dreary region, so that the travellers felt it even relief 
 as they drew nigh the bright blue sea, and heard the 
 sonorous booming of the waves as they broke along the 
 shore. 
 
 " It cheers one to come up out of those dreary dells, and 
 hear the pleasant plash of the sea," said Harcourt ; and 
 his bright face showed that he felt the enjoyment. 
 
 " So it does, sir," said Billy. "And yet Homer makes 
 his hero go heavy-hearted as he hears the ever-sounding 
 sea." 
 
 "What does that signify, Doctor?" said Harcourt, 
 impatiently. " Telling me what a character in a fiction 
 feels affects me no more than telling me what he does. 
 Why, man, the one is as unreal as the other. The fellow 
 that created him fashioned his thoughts as well as his 
 actions." 
 
 " To be sure he did ! but when the fellow is a janius, 
 what he makes is as much a crayture as either you or 
 myself." 
 
 " Come, come, Doctor, no mystification." 
 
 "I don't mean any," broke in Billy. "What I want to 
 say is this, that as we read every character to elicit truth 
 — truth in the working of human motives — truth in passion 
 — truth in all the struggles of our poor weak natures — 
 why wouldn't a great janius like Homer, or Shakspcare,
 
 BILLY TRATNOB AND THE COLONEL. 113 
 
 or Milton, be better able to show us this in some picture 
 drawn by themselves, than you or 1 be able to find it out 
 for ourselves ? " 
 
 Harcourt shook his head doubtfully. 
 
 " Well, now," said Billy, returning to the charge, " did 
 you ever see a waxwork model of anatomy ? Every nerve 
 and siny of a nerve was there — not a vein nor an artery 
 wanting. The artist that made it all just wanted to show 
 you where everything was ; bat he never wanted you to 
 believe it was alive, or ever had been, But with janius 
 it's different. He just gives you some traits of a character 
 — he points him out to you passing— just as I would to a 
 man going along the street — and there he is alive for ever 
 and ever ; not like you and me, that will be dead and 
 buried to-morrow or next day, and the most known of us 
 three lines in a parish registhry, but he goes down to 
 posterity an example, an illustration- — or a warning, maybe 
 — to thousands and thousands of living men. Don't talk 
 to me about fiction ! What he thought and felt is truer 
 than all that you and I, and a score like us, ever did or 
 ever will do. The creations of janius are the landmarks 
 of humanity — and well for us is it that we have such to 
 guide us ! " 
 
 " All this may be very fine," said Harcourt, contemptu- 
 ously, " but give me the sentiments of a living man, or one 
 that has lived, in preference to all the imaginary charac- 
 ters that have ever adorned a stoiy." 
 
 " Just as I suppose that you'd say that a soldier in 
 the Blues, or some big, hulking corporal in the Guards, 
 is a finer model of the human form than ever Praxiteles 
 chiselled." 
 
 " I know which I'd rather have alongside of me in a 
 charge, doctor," said Harcourt, laughing ; and, then to 
 change the topic, he pointed to a lone cabin on the sea- 
 shore, miles away, as it seemed, from all other habitations. 
 
 " That's Michel Cady's, sir," said Tray nor; "he lives 
 by birds ; hunting them saygulls and cormorants through 
 the crevices of the rocks, and stealing the eggs. There 
 isn't a precipice that he won't climb — not a cliff that he 
 won't face." 
 
 " Well, if that be his home, the pursuit does not seem a 
 profitable one."
 
 114 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " 'Tis as good as breaking stones on the road for four- 
 pence a day, or carrying sea-weed five miles on your back 
 to manure the potatoes," said Billy, mournfully. 
 
 "That's exactly the very thing that puzzles me," said 
 Harcourt, " why, in a country so remarkable for fertility, 
 every one should be so miserably poor ! " 
 
 " And you never heard any explanation of it ?" 
 
 "Never ; at least, never one that satisfied me." 
 
 " Nor ever will you," said Billy, sententiously. 
 
 "And why so?" 
 
 " Because," said he, drawing a long breath, as if pre- 
 paring for a discourse — " because there's no man capable 
 of going into the whole subject ; for it's not merely an 
 economical question or a social one, but it is metaphysical, 
 and religious, and political, and ethnological, and histor- 
 ical — ay, and geographical, too ! You have to consider, 
 first, who and what are the aborigines ? A conquered 
 people that never gave in they were conquered. Who are 
 the rulers ? A Saxon race that always felt that they were 
 infarior to them they ruled over !" 
 
 "By Jove, doctor, I must stop you there; I never 
 heard any acknowledgment of this inferiority you speak 
 of." 
 
 "I'd like to get a goold medal for arguin' it out with 
 you," said Billy. 
 
 " And, after all, I don't see how it would resolve the 
 original doubt," said Hai-court. " I want to know why 
 the people are so poor, and I don't want to hear of the 
 battle of Clontarf or the Danes at Dundalk." 
 
 " There it is, you'd like to narrow down a great question 
 of race, language, traditions, and laws, to a little miser- 
 able dispute about labour and wages. Oh, Manchester, 
 Manchester ! how ye're in the heart of every Englishman, 
 rich or poor, gentle or simple ! You say you never heai'd 
 of any confession of inferiority. Of course you didn't ; 
 but quite the reverse — a very confident sense of being far 
 better than the poor Irish — and I'll tell you how, and why, 
 just as you, yourself, after a discusshion with me, when 
 you find yourself dead bate, and not a word to reply, you'll 
 go home to a good dinner and a bottle of wine, dry clothes 
 and a bright fire ; and no matter how hard my argument 
 pushed you, you'll remember that I'm in ra^s, in a dirty
 
 BILLY TRAYXOR AXD THE COLOXEL. 115 
 
 cabin, with, potatoes to ate and water to drink, and yon'll 
 say, at all events, ' I'm better off than he is ;' and there's 
 your superiority, neither more or less — there it is ! And 
 all the while, Tm saying the same thing to myself- — 
 ' Sorrow matter for his fine broadcloth, and his white 
 linen, and his very best roast beef that he's atin' — I'm 
 his master ! In all that dignifies the spacies in them, 
 grand qualities that makes us poets, rhetoricians, and the 
 like, in those elegant attributes that, as the poet says, — 
 
 "In all our pursuits 
 Lifts us high above brutes," 
 
 in these, I say again, I'm his master ! ' " 
 
 As Billy finished his glowing panegyric upon his country 
 and himself, he burst out in a joyous laugh, and cried, 
 " Did ye ever hear conceit like that ? Did ye ever expect 
 to see the day that a ragged poor blackguard like me 
 would dare to say as much to one like you ; and, after all, 
 it's the greatest compliment I could pay you." 
 
 "How so, Billy ? — I don't exactly see that." 
 
 " Why, that if you weren't a gentleman— a raal gentle- 
 man, born and bred — I could never have ventured to tell 
 you what I said now. It is because, in your own refined 
 feelings, you can pardon all the coarseness of mine, that I 
 have my safety." 
 
 " You're as great a courtier as you are a scholar, Billy," 
 said Harcourt, laughing ; " meanwhile, I'm not likely to 
 be enlightened as to the cause of Irish poverty." 
 
 " 'Tis a whole volume I could write on. the same sub- 
 ject," said Billy; "for there's so many causes in opera- 
 tion, combinin', and assistin', and aggravatin' each other. 
 But if you want the head and front of the mischief in one 
 word, it is this, that no Irishman ever gave his heart and 
 sowl to his own business, but always was mindin' some- 
 thing else that he had nothin' to say to ; and so, ye see, 
 the priest does be thinkin' of politics, the parson's thinkin' 
 of the priest, the people are always on the watch for a 
 crack at the agent or the tithe-proctor, and the landlord, 
 instead of looking after his property, is up in Dublin dinin' 
 with the Lord-Leftinint and abusin' his tenants. I don't 
 want to screen myself, nor say I'm better than my neigh- 
 bours, for though I have a larned profession to live by, 
 
 i 2
 
 116 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE, 
 
 I'd rather be writin' a ballad, and singin' it too, down 
 Thomas Street, than I'd be lecturin' at the Surgeons' 
 Hall." 
 
 " You are certainly a very strange people," said Har- 
 
 court. 
 
 " And yet there's another thing stranger still, which is, 
 that your countrymen never took any advantage of our 
 eccentricities, to rule us by ; and if they had any wit in 
 their heads, they'd have seen, easy enough, that all these 
 traits are exactly the clues to a nation's heart. That's 
 what Pitt meant when he said, ' Let me make the songs of 
 a people, and I don't care who makes the laws' Look 
 down now in that glen before you, as far as you can see. 
 There's Belmullet, and ain't you glad to be so near your 
 journey's end ? for you're mighty tired of all this dis- 
 coorsin'." 
 
 " On the contrary, Billy, even when I disagree with 
 what you say, I'm pleased to hear your reasons; at the 
 same time, I'm glad we are drawing nigh to this poor boy, 
 and I only trust we may not be too late." 
 
 Billy muttered a pious concurrence in the wish, and 
 they rode along for some time in silence. " There's the 
 Bay of Belmullet now under your feet," cried Billy, as he 
 pulled up short, and pointed with his whip seaward. 
 " There's five fathoms, and fine anchoring ground on 
 every inch ye see there. There's elegant shelter from 
 tempestuous winds. There's a coast rich in herrings, 
 oysters, lobsters, and crabs ; farther out there's cod, and 
 haddock, and mackerel in the sayson. There's sea wrack 
 for kelp, and every other convanience any one can require, 
 and a poorer set of devils than ye'll see when we get 
 down there, there's nowhere to be found. Well ! well ! 
 ' if idleness is bliss, it's folly to work hard.' " And with 
 this paraphrase, Billy made way for the Colonel, as the 
 path had now become too narrow for two abreast, and in 
 this way they descended to the shore.
 
 117 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A SICK BED. 
 
 Although the cabin in which the sick boy lay was one of 
 the best in the village, its interior presented a picture of 
 great poverty. It consisted of a single room, in the 
 middle of which a mud wall of a few feet in height 
 formed a sort of partition, abutting against which was 
 the bed — the one bed of the entire family — now devoted 
 to the guest. Two or three coarsely-fashioned stools, a 
 rickety table, and a still more rickety dresser, comprised 
 all the furniture. The floor was uneven and fissured, and 
 the solitary window was mended with an old hat, thus 
 diminishing the faint light which struggled through the 
 narrow aperture. 
 
 A large net, attached to the rafters, hung down in 
 heavy festoons overhead, the corks and sinks dangling 
 in dangerous proximity to the heads underneath. Several 
 spars and oars littered one corner, and a newly-painted 
 buoy filled another ; but, in spite of all these encum- 
 brances, there was space around the fire for a goodly com- 
 pany of some eight or nine of all ages, who were pleasantly 
 eating their supper from a large pot of potatoes that 
 smoked and steamed in front of them. 
 
 "God save all here!" cried Billy, as he preceded the 
 Colonel into the cabin. 
 
 " Save ye kindly," was the courteous answer, in a 
 chorus of voices ; at the same time, seeing a gentleman 
 at the door, the whole party arose at once to receive him. 
 Nothing could have surpassed the perfect good-breeding 
 with which the fisherman and his wife did the honours of 
 their humble home ; and Harcourt at once forgot the 
 poverty-struck aspect of the scene in the general courtesy 
 of the welcome. 
 
 " He's no better, your honour — no better at all," said
 
 118 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 the man, as Harcourt drew nigh the sick bed. " He does 
 be always ravin' — ravin' on — beggin' and implorin' that 
 we won't take him back to the Castle ; and if he falls 
 asleep, the first thing he says when he wakes up is, 
 ' Where am I ? — tell me I'm not at Grlencore ! ' and he 
 keeps on screechin', ' Tell me, tell me so !' " 
 
 Harcourt bent down over the bed and gazed at him. 
 Slowly and languidly the sick boy raised his heavy lids, 
 and returned the stare. 
 
 " Tou know me, Charley, boy, don't you?" said he, 
 softly. 
 
 " Yes," muttered he, in a weak tone. 
 
 "Who am I, Charley? — tell me who is speaking to 
 
 yon." 
 
 " Yes," said he again. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " sighed Harcourt, " he does not know 
 me ! 
 
 " Where's the pain ? " asked Billy, suddenly. 
 
 The boy placed his hand on his forehead, and then on 
 his temples. 
 
 " Look up ! look at me ! " said Billy. " Ay, there it is ! 
 the pupil does not contract — there's mischief in the brain. 
 He wants to say something to you, sir," said he to 
 Harcourt ; " he's makin' signs to you to stoop down." 
 
 Harcourt put his ear close to the sick boy's lips, and 
 listened. 
 
 " No, my dear child, of course not," said he, after a 
 pause. " You shall remain here, and I will stay with you 
 too. In a few days your father will come " 
 
 A wild yell, a shriek that made the cabin ring, now 
 broke from the boy, followed by another, and then a third ; 
 and then with a spring he arose from the bed, and tried to 
 escape. Weak and exhausted as he was, such was the 
 strength supplied by fever, it was all that they could do to 
 subdue him and replace him in the bed ; violent convul- 
 sions followed this severe access, and it was not till after 
 hours of intense suffering that he calmed down again and 
 seemed to slumber. 
 
 " There's more than we know of here, Colonel," said 
 Billy, as he drew him to one side. " There's moral causes 
 as well as malady at work." 
 
 " There may be, but I know nothing of them,'' said
 
 A SICK BED. 119 
 
 Havcourt ; and in the frank air of the speaker the other 
 did not hesitate to repose his trust. 
 
 " If we hope to save him, we ought to find out where 
 the mischief lies," said Billy, "for, if ye remark, his 
 ravin' is always upon one subject ; he never wanders from 
 that." 
 
 " He has a dread of home. Some altercation with his 
 father has, doubtless, impressed him with this notion." 
 
 "Ah, that isn't enough, we must go deeper ; we want a 
 clue to the part of the brain engaged ; meanwhile, here's 
 at him, with the antiphlogistic touch ; " and he opened his 
 lancet-case, and tucked up his cuffs. " Houlde the basin, 
 Biddy." 
 
 "There, Harvey himself couldn't do it nater than that. 
 It's an elegant study to be feelin' a pulse while the blood 
 is flowin'. It comes at first like a dammed-up cataract, a 
 regular out-pouring, just as a young girl would tell her 
 love, all wild and tumultuous ; then, after a time, she gets 
 more temperate, the feelings are relieved, and the ardour 
 is moderated, till at last, wearied and worn out, the heart 
 seems to ask for rest; and then, ye'll remark a settled 
 faint smile coming over the lips, and a clammy coldness in 
 the face." 
 
 " He's fainting, sir," broke in Biddy. 
 
 " He is, ma'am, and it's myself done it," said Billy. 
 " Oh dear, oh dear! If we could only do with the moral 
 heart what we can with tiie raal physical one, what won- 
 derful poets we'd be! " 
 
 " What hopes have you ? " whispered Harcourt. 
 
 "The best, the very best. There's youth and a fine 
 constitution to work upon, and what more does a doctor 
 want. As ould Marsden said, 'You can't destroy these in 
 a fortnight, so the patient must live.' But you must help 
 me, Colonel, and you can help me." 
 
 " Command me in any way, doctoi\" 
 
 " Here's the modus, then. You must go back to the 
 Castle and find out, if you can, what happened between 
 his father and him. It does not signify now, nor will it 
 for some clays ; but when he comes to the convalescent 
 stage, it's then we'll need to know how to manage him, 
 and what subjects to keep him away from. 'Tis the same 
 with the brain as with a sprained ankle ; you may exercise
 
 120 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 if you don't twist it ; but just come down once on the 
 wrong spot, and maybe ye won't yell out ! " 
 
 "You'll not quit him, then." 
 
 " I'm a senthry on his post, waiting to get a shot at the 
 enemy if he shows the top of his head. Ah, sir, if ye 
 only knew physic, ye'd acknowledge there's nothing as 
 treacherous as dizaze. Ye hunt him out of the brain, and 
 then he is in the lungs. Ye chase him out of that, and he 
 skulks in the liver. At him there, and he takes to the 
 fibrous membranes, and then it's i^egular hide and go seek 
 all over the bocty. Trackin' a bear is child's play to it." 
 And so saying, Billy held the Colonel's stirrup for him to 
 mount, and giving his most courteous salutation, and his 
 best wishes for a good journey, he turned and re-entered 
 the cabin.
 
 121 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE "PROJECT. 
 
 It was not without surprise that Harcourt saw Glencore 
 enter the drawing-room a few minutes before dinner. 
 Very pale and very feeble, he slowly traversed the room, 
 giving a hand to each of his guests, and answering the 
 inquiries for his health by a sickly smile, while he said, 
 " As you see me." 
 
 " I am going to dine with you to-day, Harcourt," said 
 he, with an attempt at gaiety of manner. "Upton tells me 
 that a little exertion of this kind will do me good." 
 
 "Upton's right," cried the Colonel, "especially if he 
 added that you should take a glass or two of that admir- 
 able Burgundy. My life on't, but that is the liquor to set 
 a man on his legs again." 
 
 " I didn't remark that this was exactly the effect it pro- 
 duced upon you t'other night," said Upton, with one of his 
 own sly laughs. 
 
 "That comes of drinking it in bad company," retorted 
 Harcourt ; " a man is driven to take two glasses for 
 
 one." 
 
 As the dinner proceeded, Glencore rallied considerably, 
 taking his part in the conversation, and evidently enjoying 
 the curiously-contrasted temperaments at either side of 
 him. The one, all subtlety, refinement, and finesse ; the 
 other, out-spoken, rude, and true-hearted ; rarely correct 
 in a question of taste, but invariably right in every mat- 
 ter of honourable dealing. Though it was clear enough 
 that Upton relished the eccentricities whose sallies he 
 provoked, it was no less easy to see how thoroughly he 
 appreciated the frank and manly nature of the old soldier ; 
 nor could all the crafty habits of his acute mind overcome 
 the hearty admiration with which he regarded him. 
 
 It is in the unrestricted ease of these " little dinners," 
 where two or three old friends are met, that social inter- 
 course assumes its most charming form. The usages of
 
 122 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 the great world, which exact a species of uniformity of 
 breeding and manners, are here laid aside, and men talk 
 with all the bias and prejudices of their true nature, 
 dashing the topics discussed with traits of personality, 
 and even whims, that are most amusing. How little do 
 we carry away of tact or wisdom from the grand ban- 
 quets of life ; and what pleasant stores of thought, what 
 charming memories remain to us, after those small 
 gatherings ! 
 
 How, as I write this, one little room rises to my recol- 
 lection, with its quaint old sideboard of carved oak ; its 
 dark brown cabinets, curiously sculptured ; its heavy old 
 brocade curtains, and all its queer devices of knick- 
 knackery, where such meetings once were held, and where, 
 throwing off the cares of life — shut out from them, as it 
 were, by the massive folds of the heavy drapery across the 
 door — we talked in all the fearless freedom of old friend- 
 ship, rambling away from theme to theme, contrasting our 
 experiences, balancing our views in life, and mingling 
 through our converse the racy freshness of a boy's enjoy- 
 ment with the sager counsels of a man's reflectiveness. 
 Alas ! how very early is it sometimes in life that we tread 
 "the banquet-hall deserted." But to our story: the 
 evening wore pleasantly on ; Upton talked, as few but 
 himself could do, upon the public questions of the day ; 
 and Harcourt, with many a blunt interruption, made the 
 discourse but more easy and amusing. The soldier was, 
 indeed, less at his ease than the others. It was not alone 
 that many of the topics were not such as he was most 
 familiar with, but he felt angry and indignant at Glencore's 
 seemingr indifference as to the fate of his son. Not a 
 single reference to him even occurred ; his name was never 
 even passingly mentioned. Nothing but the careworn, 
 sickly face, the wasted form and dejected expression be- 
 fore him, could have restrained Harcourt from alluding to 
 the boy. He bethought him, however, that any indiscre- 
 tion on his part might have the gravest consequences. 
 Upton, too, might have said something to quiet Glencore's 
 mind. " At all events, I'll wait," said he to himself; "for 
 wherever there is much delicacy in a negotiation, I gener- 
 ally make a mess of it." The more genially, therefore, did 
 Glencore lend himself to the pleasure of the conversation,
 
 THE " PROJECT." 123 
 
 the more provoked did Harcourt feel at his heartlessness, 
 and the more did the struggle cost him to control his own 
 sentiments. 
 
 Upton, who detected the secret working of men's minds 
 witli a marvellous exactness, saw how the poor Colonel was 
 suffering, and that, in all probability, some unhappy ex- 
 plosion would at last ensue, and took an opportunity of 
 remarking that though all this chit-chat was delightful for 
 them, Glencore was still a sick man. 
 
 " We mustn't forget, Harcourt," said he, " that a 
 chicken-broth diet includes very digestible small-talk ; 
 and here we are leading our poor friend through politics, 
 war, diplomacy, and the rest of it, just as if he had the 
 stomach of an old campaigner, and " 
 
 "And the brain of a great diplomatist! Say it out, 
 man, and avow honestly the share of excellence you 
 accord to each of us," broke in Harcourt, laughing. 
 
 " I would to Heaven we could exchange," sighed Upton, 
 languidly. 
 
 "The saints forbid!" exclaimed the other; "and it 
 would do us little good if we were able." 
 
 " Why so ? " 
 
 " I'd never know what to do with that fine intellect if I 
 had it ; and as for you, what with your confounded pills 
 and mixtures, your infernal lotions and embrocations, you'd 
 make my sound system as bad as your own in three 
 months' time." 
 
 " You are quite wrong, my dear Harcourt ; I should 
 treat the stomach as you would do the brain — give it 
 next to nothing to do, in the hopes it might last the 
 longer." 
 
 " There now, good night," said Harcourt ; "he's always 
 the better for bitters, whether he gives or takes them." 
 And with a good-humoured laugh he left the room. 
 
 Glencore 's eyes followed him as he retired ; and then, 
 as they closed, an expression as of long-repressed suffer- 
 ing settled down on his features, so marked, that Upton 
 hastily asked, — 
 
 " Are you ill — are you in pain, Glencore ? " 
 
 "In pain? Yes," said he, "these two hours back I 
 have been suffering intensely ; but there's no help for 
 it ! Must you really leave this to-morrow, Upton? "
 
 124 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " I must. This letter from tlie Foreign Office requires 
 my immediate presence in London, "with a very great 
 likelihood of being obliged to start at once for the Con- 
 tinent," 
 
 " And I had so much to say — so many things to consult 
 you on," sighed the other. 
 
 " Are you equal to it now ? " asked Upton. 
 
 " I must try, at all events. You shall learn my plan." 
 He was silent for some minutes, and sat with his head 
 resting on his hand, in deep reflection. At last he said, 
 " Has it ever occurred to you, Upton, that some incident of 
 the past, some circumstance in itself insignificant, should 
 rise up, as it were, in after life to suit an actual emer- 
 gency, just as though fate had fashioned it for such a 
 contingency ? " 
 
 " I cannot say that I have experienced what you 
 describe, if, indeed, I fully understand it." 
 
 " I'll explain better by an instance. You know now " 
 ■ — here his voice became slow, and the words fell with a 
 marked distinctness — " you know now what I intend by 
 this woman. Well, just as if to make my plan more 
 feasible, a circumstance intended for a very different 
 object offers itself to my aid. When my uncle, Sir 
 Miles Herrick, heard that I was about to marry a 
 foreigner, he declared that he would never leave me 
 a shilling of his fortune. I am not A^ery sure that I 
 cared much for the threat when it was uttered. My 
 friends, however, thought differently; and though they 
 did not attempt to dissuade me from my marriage, they 
 suggested that I should try some means of overcoming 
 this prejudice ; at all events, that I should not hurry on 
 the match without an effort to obtain his consent. I 
 agreed — not very willingly, indeed — and so the matter 
 remained. The circumstance was well known amongst 
 my two or three most intimate friends, and constantly 
 discussed by them. I needn't tell you that the tone in 
 which such things are talked of as often partakes of 
 levity as seriousness. They gave me all manner of 
 absurd counsels, one more outrageously ridiculous than 
 the other. At last, one day — we were picnicking at 
 Baia— Old Clifford — you remember that original who 
 had the famous schooner-yacht The Breeze — well, he
 
 THE " PROJECT." 125 
 
 took me aside after dinner, and said, ' Glencore, I have 
 it — I have just hit upon the expedient. Your uncle and 
 I -were old chums at Christ Church fifty years ago. 
 What if we were to tell him that you were going to 
 marry a daughter of mine ? I don't think he'd object. 
 I'm half certain he'd not. I have been abroad these five- 
 and-thirty years. Nobody in England knows much about 
 me now. Old Herrick can't live for ever ; he is my senior 
 by a good ten or twelve years ; and if the delusion only 
 lasts his time ' 
 
 " ' But perhaps you have a daughter? ' broke I in. 
 
 " ' I have, and she is married already, so there is no 
 risk on that score.' I needn't repeat all that he said for, 
 nor that I urged against, the project; for though it was 
 after dinner, and we all had drunk very freely, the 
 deception was one I firmly rejected. When a man shows 
 a great desire to serve you on a question of no common 
 difficulty, it is very hard to be severe upon his counsels, 
 however unscrupulous they may be. In fact, you accept 
 them as proofs of friendship only the stronger, seeing 
 how much they must have cost him to offer." 
 
 Upton smiled dubiously, and Glencore, blushing slightly, 
 said, "You don't concur in this, I perceive." 
 
 " Not exactly," said Upton, in his silkiest of tones ; " I 
 rather regard these occasions as I should do the generosity 
 of a man who, filling my hand with base money, should 
 say, ' Pass it if you can ! '" 
 
 " In this case, however," resumed Glencore, " he took 
 his share of the fraud, or at least was willing to do so, for 
 I distinctly said ' No ' to the whole scheme. He grew 
 very warm about it ; at one moment appealing to my 
 ' good sense, not to kick seven thousand a year out of the 
 window ; ' at the next, in half-quarrelsome mood, asking 
 'if it were any objection I had to be connected with his 
 family.' To get rid of a very troublesome subject, and to 
 end a controversy that threatened to disturb a party, I 
 said at last, ' We'll talk it over to-morrow, Clifford, and if 
 your arguments be as good as your heart, then perhaps 
 they may yet convince me.' This ended the theme, and 
 we parted. I started the next clay on a shooting excur- 
 sion into Calabria, and when I got back it was not of 
 meeting Clifford I was thinking. I hastened to meet the
 
 126 THE FOETUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 Delia Torres, and then came our elopement. You know 
 the rest. We went to the East, passed the winter in 
 Upper Egypt, aud came to Cairo in spring, where Charley 
 was born. I got back to Naples after a year or two, and 
 then found that my uncle had just died, and in consequence 
 of my marrying the daughter of his old and attached 
 friend, Sir Guy Clifford, had reversed the intention of his 
 will, and by a codicil left me his sole heir. It was thus 
 that my marriage, and even my boy's birth, became inserted 
 in the Peerage ; my solicitor, in his vast eagerness for my 
 interests, having taken care to endorse the story with his 
 own name. The disinherited nephews and nieces, the 
 half-cousins and others, soon got wind of the real facts, 
 and contested the will, on the ground of its being executed 
 under a delusion. I, of course, would not resist their claim, 
 and satisfied myself by denying the statement as to my 
 marriage ; and so, after affording the current subject of 
 gossip for a season, I was completely forgotten, the more 
 as we went to live abroad, and never mixed with English. 
 And now, Upton, it is this same incident I would utilize 
 for the present occasion, though, as I said before, when it 
 originally occurred it had a very different signification." 
 
 " I don't exactly see how," said Upton. 
 
 " In this wise. My real marriage was never inserted in 
 the Peerage. I'll now manage that it shall so appear, to 
 give me the opportunity of formally contradicting it, and 
 alluding to the strange persistence with which, having 
 married me some fifteen years ago to a lady who never 
 existed, they now are pleased to unite me to one whose 
 character might have secured me against the calumny. 
 I'll threaten an action for libel, &c, obtain a most full, 
 explicit, and abject apology, and then, when this has gone 
 the round of all the journals of Europe, her doom is 
 sealed ! " 
 
 " But she has surely letters, writings, proofs of some 
 sort." 
 
 " No, Upton, I have not left a scrap in her possession ; 
 she has not a line, not a letter to vindicate her. On the 
 night I broke open her writing-desk, I took away every- 
 thing that bore the traces of my own hand. I tell you 
 again she is in my power, and never was power less dis- 
 posed to mercy."
 
 THE "PROJECT." 127 
 
 " Once more, my dear friend," said Upton, " I am 
 driven to tell yon that I cannot be a profitable counsellor 
 in a matter to every detail of which I object. Consider 
 calmly for one moment what yon are doing. See how, in 
 your desire to be avenged upon her, you throw the heaviest 
 share of the penalty on your own poor bo}^. I am not her 
 advocate now. I will not say one word to mitigate the 
 course of your anger towards her, but remember that you 
 are actually defrauding him of his birthright. This is 
 not a question where you have a choice. There is no dis- 
 cretionary power left you." 
 
 " I'll do it," said .Gleucoi'e, with a savage energy. 
 " In other words, to wreak a vengeance upon one, you 
 are prepared to immolate another, not only guiltless, but 
 who possesses every claim to your love and affection." 
 
 " And do you think that if I sacrifice the last tie that 
 attaches me to life, Upton, that I retire from this contest 
 heart-whole? No, far from it; I go forth from the 
 struggle broken, blasted, friendless!" 
 
 " And do you mean that this vengeance should outlive 
 you ? Suppose, for instance, that she should survive you." 
 " It shall be to live on in shame, then," cried he, 
 savagely. 
 
 "And were she to die first ? " 
 
 " In that case — 1 have not thought well enough about 
 that. It is possible — it is just possible ; but these are 
 subtleties, Upton, to detach me from my purpose, or 
 weaken my resolution to carry it through. You would 
 apply the craft of your calling to the case, and, by sug- 
 gesting emergencies, open a road to evasions. Enough 
 for me the present. I neither care to prejudge the future, 
 nor control it. I know," cried he, suddenly, and with 
 eyes flashing angrily as he spoke — " I know that if you 
 desire to use the confidence I have reposed in you against 
 me, you can give me trouble and even difficulty, but I 
 defy Sir Horace Upton, with all his skill and all his 
 canning, to outwit me." 
 
 There was that in the tone in which he uttered these 
 words, and the exaggerated energy of his manner, that 
 convinced Upton Glencore's reason was not intact. It 
 was not what could amount to aberration in the ordinary 
 sense, but sufficient evidence was there to show that judg-
 
 128 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 merit Lad become so obscured by passion, that the mental 
 power was weakened by the moral. 
 
 " Tell me, therefore, Upton," cried he, "before "we part, 
 do you leave this house my friend or my enemy ?" 
 
 " It is as your sincei'e, attached friend that I now dis- 
 pute with you, inch by inch, a dangerous position, with a 
 judgment under no influence from passion, viewing this 
 question by the coldest of all tests — mere expedi- 
 ency " 
 
 " There it is," broke in Glencore ; " you claim an ad- 
 vantage over me, because you are devoid of feeling ; but 
 this is a case, sir, where the sense of injury gives the 
 instinct of reparation. Is it nothing to me, think you, 
 that I am content to go down dishonoured to my grave, 
 but also to be the last of my name and station ? Is it 
 nothing, that a whole line of honourable ancestry is extin- 
 guished at once ? Is it nothing, that I surrender him 
 who formed my sole solace and companionship in life ? 
 You talk of your calm, unbiassed mind; but I tell you, 
 till your brain be on fire like mine, and your heart swollen 
 to very bursting, that you have no right to dictate to me ! 
 Besides, it is done ! The blow has fallen," added he, with 
 a deeper solemnity of voice. " The gulf that separates 
 us is already created. She and I can meet no more. But 
 why continue this contest ? It was to aid me in directing 
 that boy's fortunes I first sought your advice, not to 
 attempt to dissuade me from what I will not be turned 
 from." 
 
 " In what way can I serve you ?" said Upton, calmly. 
 
 " Will you consent to be his guardian ? " 
 
 " I will." 
 
 Glencore seized the other's hand, and pressed it to hia 
 heart, and for some seconds he could not speak. 
 
 " This is all that I ask, Upton," said he. "It is the 
 greatest boon friendship could accord me. I need no 
 more. Could you have remained here a day or two more, 
 we could have settled upon some plan together as to his 
 future life ; as it is, we can arrange it by letter." 
 
 " He must leave this," said Upton, thoughtfully. 
 
 "Of course — at once ! " 
 
 " How far is Harcourt to be informed in this matter — - 
 have you spoken to him already ? "
 
 The " project.'* 129 
 
 "Ho; nor mean to do so. I should have from him 
 nothing but reproaches for having betrayed the boy into 
 false hopes of a station he was never to fill. You must 
 tell Harcourt. I leave it to yourself to fiud the suitable 
 moment." 
 
 "We shall need his assistance," said Upton, whose 
 quick faculties were already busily travelling many a mile 
 of the future. " I'll see him to-night, and try what can 
 be done. In a few days you will have turned over in youi 
 mind what you yourself destine for him— the fortune you 
 mean to give " 
 
 " It is already done," said Glencore, laying a sealed 
 letter on the table. " All that I purpose in his behalf you 
 will find there." 
 
 " All this detail is too much for you, Glencoi'e," said 
 the other, seeing that a weary, depressed expression had 
 come over him, while his voice grew weaker with every 
 word. " I shall not leave this till late to-morrow, so that 
 we can meet again. And now, good night."
 
 130 THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCOEE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A TETE-A-TETE. 
 
 When Harcourt was aroused from his sound sleep by 
 Upton, and requested in the very blandest tones of that 
 eminent diplomatist to lend him every attention of his 
 " very remarkable faculties," he was not by any means cer- 
 tain that he was not engaged in a strange dream ; nor was 
 the suspicion at all dispelled by the revelations addressed 
 to him. 
 
 " Just dip the end of that towel in the water, Upton, 
 and give it to me," cried he at last ; and then, wiping his 
 face and forehead, said, " Have I heard you aright — there 
 was no marriasre ? " 
 
 Upton nodded assent. 
 
 "What a shameful way he has treated this poor boy, 
 then !" cried the other. " I never heard of anything equal 
 to it in cruelty, and I conclude it was breaking this news 
 to the lad that drove him out to sea on that night, and 
 brought on this brain fever. By Jove, I'd not take Ms 
 title, and your brains, to have such a sin on my con- 
 science ! " 
 
 " We are happily not called on to judge the act," said 
 Upton, cautiously. 
 
 " And why not ? Is it not every honest man's duty to 
 reprobate whatever he detects dishonourble or disgraceful? 
 I do judge him, and sentence him too, and I say, more- 
 over, that a more cold-blooded piece of cruelty I never 
 heard of. He trains up this poor boy from childhood to 
 fancy himself the heir to his station and fortune — he 
 nurses in him all the pride that only a high rank can 
 cover, and then, when the lad's years have brought him to 
 the period when these things assume all their value, he 
 sends for him to tell him he is a bastard." 
 
 " It is not impossible that I think worse of Glencore's 
 conduct than you do yourself," said Upton, gravely.
 
 A TETE-A-TETE. 131 
 
 " But you never told him so, I'll be sworn — you never 
 said to him it was a rascally action. I'll lay a hundred 
 pounds on it, you only expostulated on the inexpediency, 
 or the inconvenience, or some such trumpery considera- 
 tion, and did not tell him, in round numbers, that what he 
 had done was an infamy." 
 
 <; Then I fancy you'd lose your money, pretty much as 
 you are losing your temper — that is, without getting any- 
 thing in requital." 
 
 " What did you say to him, then ? " said Harcourt, 
 slightly abashed. 
 
 " A great deal in the same strain as you have just 
 spoken in, doubtless not as warm in vituperation, but pos- 
 sibly as likely to produce an effect ; nor is it in the least 
 necessary to dwell upon that. What GHencore has done, 
 and what I have said about it, both belong to the past. 
 They are over — they are irrevocable. It is to what con- 
 cerns the present and the future I wish now to address 
 myself, and to interest you." 
 
 " Why,, the boy's name was in the Peerage — I read it 
 there myself." 
 
 " My dear Harcourt, you must have paid very little 
 attention to me a while ago, or you would have understood 
 how that occurred." 
 
 "And here were all the people, the tenantry on the 
 estate, calling him the young lord, and the poor fellow 
 growing up with the proud consciousness that the title 
 was his due." 
 
 " There is not a hardship of the case I have not pic- 
 tured to my own mind as forcibly as you can describe it," 
 said Upton ; " but I really do not perceive that any 
 reprobation of the past has in the slightest assisted me 
 in providing for the future." 
 
 "And then," murmured Harcourt — for all the while he 
 was pursuing his own train of thought, quite irrespective 
 of all Upton was saying — " and then he turns him adrift 
 on the world without friend or fortune." 
 
 " It is precisely that he may have both the one and the 
 other that I have come to confer with you now," replied 
 Upton. " Grlencore has made a liberal provision for the 
 boy, and asked me to become his guardian. I have no 
 fancy for the trust, but I didn't see how I could declina 
 
 k 2
 
 132 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 it. In this letter he assigns to him an income, which shall 
 be legally secured to him. He commits to me the task 
 of directing his education, and susfg'esting' some future 
 career, and for both these objects I want your counsel." 
 
 " Education — prospects — why, what are you talking 
 about ? A poor fellow who has not a name, nor a home, 
 nor one to acknowledge him ; what need has he of educa- 
 tion, or what chance of prospects ? I'd send him to sea, 
 and if he wasn't drowned before he came to manhood, I'd 
 give him his fortune, whatever it was, and say, ' Go settle 
 in some of the colonies.' You have no right to train him 
 up to meet fresh mortifications and insults in life — to be 
 flouted by every fellow that has a father, and outraged by 
 every cur whose mother was married." 
 
 " And are the colonies especially inhabited by illegiti- 
 mate offspring? " said Upton, dryly. 
 
 " At least he'd not be met with a rebuff at every step 
 he made. The rude life of toil would be better than the 
 polish of a civilization that could only reflect upon 
 him." 
 
 " Not badly said, Harcourt," said Upton, smiling ; " but 
 as to the boy, I have other prospects. He has, if I mistake 
 not, very good faculties. You estimate them even higher. 
 I don't see why they should be neglected. If he merely 
 possess the mediocrity of gifts which make men tolerable 
 lawyers and safe doctors, why, peimaps, he may turn them 
 into some channel. If he really can lay claim to higher 
 qualities, they must not be thrown away." 
 
 " Which means, that he ought to be bred up to diplo- 
 macv," said Harcourt. 
 
 "Perhaps," said the other, with a bland inclination of 
 the head. 
 
 " And what can an old dragoon like mvself contribute 
 to such an object? " asked Harcourt. 
 
 " You can be of infinite service in many ways," said 
 Upton, " and for the present I wish to leave the boy in 
 your care, till I can learn something about my own destiny. 
 This, of course, I shall know in a few days. Meanwhile 
 you'll look after him, and, as soon as his removal becomes 
 safe, you'll take him away from this — it does not much 
 matter whither ; probably some healthy, secluded spot in 
 Wales, for a week or two, would be advisable. Glencore
 
 A TETE-A-TETE. 133 
 
 and he must not meet again ; if ever they are to do so, it 
 must be after a considerable lapse of time." 
 
 " Have you thought of a name for him, or is his to be 
 still Massy ? " asked Harcourt, bluntly. 
 
 " He may take the maternal name of Glencore's family, 
 and be called Doyle, and the settlements could be drawn 
 up in that name." 
 
 " I'll be shot if I like to have any share in the whole 
 transaction! Some clay or other it will all come out, and who 
 knows how much blame may be imputed to us, perhaps 
 for actually advising the entire scheme," said Harcourt. 
 
 " You must see, my dear Harcourt, that you are only 
 refusing aid to alleviate au evil, and not to devise one. If 
 this boy " 
 
 " Well — well — I give in. I'd rather comply at once 
 than be preached into acquiescence. Even when you do 
 not convince me, I feel ashamed to oppose myself to so 
 much cleverness ; so, I repeat, I'm at your orders." 
 
 "Admirably spoken," said Upton, with a smile. 
 
 "My greatest difficulty of all," said Harcourt, "will be 
 to meet Glencore again after this. I know — I feel — I 
 never can forgive him." 
 
 " Perhaps he will not ask forgiveness, Harcourt," said 
 the other, with one of his slyest of looks. " Glencore is 
 a strange self-opinionated fellow, and has amongst other 
 odd notions that of going the road he likes best himself. 
 Besides, there is another consideration here, and with no 
 man will it weigh more than with yourself. Glencore has 
 been dangerously ill — at this moment we can scarcely say 
 that he has recovered — his state is yet one of anxiety and 
 doubt. You are the last who would forget such infirmity ; 
 nor is it necessary to secure your pity, that I should say 
 how seriously the poor fellow is now suffering." 
 
 " I trust he'll not speak to me about this business," said 
 Harcourt after a pause. 
 
 " Very probably he will not. He will know that I have 
 already told you everything, so that there will be no need 
 of any communication from him." 
 
 " I wish from my heart and soul I had never come here. 
 I would to Heaven I had gone away at once, as I first in- 
 tended. I like that boy, I feel he has fine stuff in him, 
 and now — — "
 
 134 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " Come, come, Harcourt, it's the fault of all soft-hearted 
 fellows, like yourself— that their kindliness degenerates 
 into selfishness, and they have such a regard for their own 
 feelings, that they never agree to anything that wounds 
 them. Just remember that you and I have very small 
 parts in this drama, and the best way we can do is to fill 
 them without giving ourselves the airs of chief cha- 
 racters." 
 
 " You're at your old game, Upton : you are always 
 ready to wet yourself, provided you give another fellow a 
 ducking." 
 
 " Only if he get a worse one, or take longer to dry after 
 it," remarked Upton, laughing. 
 
 "Quite true, by Jove!" chimed in the other; "you 
 take special care to come off best. And now you're going," 
 added he, as Upton rose to withdraw, " and I'm certain 
 that I have not half comprehended what you want 
 from me." 
 
 " You shall have it in writing, Harcourt ; I'll send you 
 a clear despatch the first spare moment I can command 
 after I reach town. The boy will not be fit to move for 
 some time to come, and so good-bye." 
 
 " You don't know where they are going to send you ? " 
 
 " I cannot frame even a conjecture," sighed Upton, lan- 
 guidly. " I ought to be in the Brazils for a week or so 
 about that slave question ; and then the sooner I reach 
 Constantinople the better." 
 
 " Shan't they want you at Paris ? " asked Hai'court, who 
 felt a kind of quiet vengeance in developing what he 
 deemed the weak vanity of the other. 
 
 " Yes," sighed he again, " but I can't be everywhere." 
 And so saying, he lounged away, while it would have 
 taken a far more subtle listener than Harcourt to say 
 whether he was mystifying the other, or the dupe of his 
 own self-esteem.
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 BILLY T R A Y N R AS ORATOR. 
 
 Three weeks rolled over : an interval not without its share 
 of interest for the inhabitants of the little village of 
 Leenane, since on one morning Mr. Craggs had made his 
 appearance on his way to Clifden, and after an absence of 
 two days returned to the Castle. The subject for popular 
 discussion and surmise had not yet declined, when a boat 
 was seen to leave Glencore, heavily laden with trunks and 
 travelling gear, and, as she neared the land, the " lord " 
 was detected amongst the passengers ; looking very ill — 
 almost dying ; he passed up the little street of the village, 
 scarcely noticing the uncovered heads which saluted him, 
 respectfully. Indeed, he scarcely lifted up his eyes, and, 
 as the acute observers remarked, never once turned a 
 glance towards the opposite shore where the Castle 
 stood. 
 
 He had not reached the end of the village, when a chaise 
 with four horses arrived at the spot. No time was lost in 
 ai'ranging the trunks and portmanteaus, and Lord Glencore 
 sat moodily on a bank, listlessly regarding what went 
 forward. At length Craggs came up, and touching his cap 
 in military fashion, announced all was ready. 
 
 Lord Glencore arose slowly, and looked languidly around 
 him ; his features wore a mingled expression of weariness 
 and anxiety, like one not fully awakened from an oppres- 
 sive dream. He turned bis eyes on the people, who at a 
 respectful distance stood around, and in a voice of peculiar 
 melancholy said, " Good-bye.' 
 
 " A good journey to you, my lord, and safe back again 
 to us," cried a number together. 
 
 " Eh — what — what was that? " cried he, suddenly, and 
 the tones were shrill and discordant in which he spoke. 
 
 A warning gesture from Craggs imposed silence on the 
 crowd, and not a woi'd was uttered.
 
 136 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " I thought they said something about coming back 
 again," muttered Glencore, gloomily. 
 
 " They were wishing you a good journey, my lord," 
 replied Craggs. 
 
 " Oh, that was it, was it ? " And so saying, with bent- 
 down head he walked feebly forward and entered the 
 carriage. Craggs was speedily on the box, and the next 
 moment they were away. 
 
 It is no part of our task to dwell on the sage specula- 
 tions and wise surmises of the village on this event. They 
 had not, it is true, much "evidence" before them, but 
 they were hardy guessers, and there was very little with- 
 in the limits of possibility which they did not summon to 
 the aid of their imaginations. All, however, were tolerably 
 agreed upon one point — that to leave the place, while the 
 young lord was still unable to quit his bed, and too weak 
 to sit up, was unnatural and unfeeling; traits which, 
 " after all," they thought " not very surprising, since the 
 likes of them lords never cared for anybody." 
 
 Colonel Harcourt still remained at Glencore, and under 
 his rigid sway the strictest blockade of the coast was 
 maintained, nor was any intercourse whatever permitted 
 with the village. A boat from the Castle, meeting 
 another from Leenane, half way in the lough, received 
 the letters and whatever other resources the village 
 supplied. All was done with the rigid exactness of a 
 quarantine regulation, and if the mainland had been 
 scourged with plague, stricter measures of exclusion 
 could scarcely have been enforced. 
 
 In comparison with the present occupant of the Castle, 
 the late one was a model of amiability ; and the village, 
 as is the wont in the case, now discovered a vast number 
 of good qualities in the " lord," when they had lost him. 
 After a while, however, the guesses, the speculations, 
 and the comparisons all died away, and the Castle of 
 Glencore was as much dreamland to their imaginations 
 as, seen across the lough in the dim twilight of an 
 evening autumn, its towers might have appeared to their 
 eyes. 
 
 It was about a month after Lord Glencore's departure, 
 of a fine, soft evening in summer, Billy Traynor suddenly 
 appeared in the village, Billy was one of a class who,
 
 BILLY TRAYNOE, AS ORATOR. 137 
 
 whatever tlieir rank in life, are always what Coleridge 
 would have called "noticeable men." He was soou, 
 therefore, surrounded with a knot of eager and inquiring 
 friends, all solicitous to know something of the life he 
 was leading ; what they were doing " bevant at the 
 Castle." 
 
 " Jt's a mighty quiet studious kind of life," said Billy, 
 " but agrees with me wonderfully ; for I may say that 
 until now I never was able to give my 'janius ' fair play. 
 Professional life is the ruin of the student ; and being 
 always obleeged to be thiukin' of the bags destroyed my 
 taste for letters." A grin of self-approval at his own 
 witticism closed this speech. 
 
 ' ; But is it true, Billy, the lord is going to break up 
 house entirely, and not come back here?" asked Peter 
 Slevin, the sacristan, whose rank and station warranted 
 his assuming the task of cross-questioner. 
 
 " There's various ways of breakin' up a house," said 
 Billy ; " ye may do so in a moral sinse, or in a physical 
 sinse ; you may obliterate, or extinguish, or, without 
 going so far, you may simply obfuscate — do you per- 
 ceave r 
 
 '' Yes ! " said the sacristan, on whom every eye was now 
 bent, to see if he was able to follow subtleties that had 
 outwitted the rest. 
 
 " And whin I say obfuscate," resumed Billy, " I open a 
 question of disputed etymology, bekase tho' Lucretius 
 thinks the word obfuscator original, there's many sup- 
 poses it comes from ob, andfucris, the dye the ancients used 
 in their wool, as we find in Horace, lanafuco medicata ; 
 while Cicero employs it in another sense, and says, 
 facere fucum, which is as much as to say, humbuggin' 
 somebody— do ye mind ? " 
 
 " Begorra, he might guess that anyhow ! " muttered a 
 shrewd little tailor, with a significance that provoked 
 hearty laughter. 
 
 " And now," continued Billy, with an air of triumph 
 "we'll proceed to the next point." 
 
 " Ye needn't trouble yerself then," said Terry Lynch, 
 "for Peter has gone home." 
 
 And so, to the amusement of the meeting, it turned out. 
 to be the case ; the sacristan had retired from the contrg*
 
 188 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE, 
 
 versy. " Come in here to Mrs. Moore's, Billy, and take a 
 glass with us," said Terry ; " it isn't often we see you in 
 these parts." 
 
 " If the honourable company will graciously vouchsafe 
 and condescind to let me trate them to a half-gallon," said 
 Billy, " it will be the proudest event of my terrestrial 
 existence." 
 
 The proposition was received with a cordial enthusiasm, 
 flattering to all concerned ; and in a few minutes after, 
 Billy Traynor sat at the head of a long table in the neat 
 parlour of " The Griddle," with a company of some fifteen 
 or sixteen very convivially-disposed friends around him. 
 
 " If I was Cassar, or Lucretius, or Nebuchadnezzar, I 
 couldn't be prouder," said Billy, as he looked down the 
 board. " And let moralists talk as they will, there's a 
 beautiful expansion of sentiment — there's a fine genial 
 overflowin' of the heart in gatherin's like this, where we 
 mingle our feelin's and our philosophy ; and our love and 
 our learning walk hand in hand like brothers — pass the 
 sperits, Mr. Shea. If we look to the ancient writers, 
 what do we see ? Lemons ! bring in some lemons, Mickey. 
 What do we see, I say, but that the very highest enjoy- 
 ment of the haythen gods was — hot wather ! why won't 
 they send in more hot wather ? " 
 
 " Begorra, if I was a haythen god, I'd like a little 
 whisky in it," muttered Terry, dryly. 
 
 "Where was I? " asked Billy, a little disconcerted by 
 this sally, and the laugh it excited. " I was expatiatin' 
 upon celestial convivialities. The nodes coenceque deum — 
 them elegant hospitalities, where wisdom was moistened 
 with nectar, and wit washed down with ambrosia. It is 
 not, by coorse, to be expected," continued he, modestly, 
 " that we mere mortials can compete with them elegant 
 refections. But, as Ovid says, we can at least diemjucun- 
 dam deciper 'e." 
 
 The unknown tongue had now restored to Billy all the 
 reverence and respect of his auditory, and he continued to 
 expatiate very eloquently on the wholesome advantages to 
 be derived from convivial intercourse, both amongst gods 
 and men ; rather slyly intimating that either on the score 
 of the fluids, or the conversation, his own leanings lay 
 towards "the humanities,"
 
 BILLY TRAYNOR, AS ORATOR. 139 
 
 " For, after all," said be, "'tis our own wakenesses is 
 often the source of our most refined enjoyments. No, 
 Mrs. Cassidy, ye needn't be blusbin'. I'm considerin' my 
 subject in a bigb ethnological and metaphysical sinse." 
 Mrs. Cassidy's confusion, and the mirth it excited, here 
 interrupted the orator. 
 
 " The meeting is never tired of hearin' you, Billy," said 
 Terry Lynch ; " but if it was plazin' to ye to give us a 
 song, we'd enjoy it greatly." 
 
 "Ah!" said Billy, with a sigh, "I have taken my 
 partin' kiss with the Muses — non mild licet increpare dlgitis 
 lyram ; — 
 
 " ' No more to feel poetic fire, 
 
 No more to touch the soundin' lyre; 
 But wiser coorses to begin, 
 I now forsake my violin.' " 
 
 An honest outburst of regret and sorrow broke from the 
 assembly, who eagerly pressed for an explanation of this 
 calamitous change. 
 
 " The thing is this," said Billy, " if a man is a creature 
 of mere leisure and amusement, the fine arts — and by the 
 fine arts I mean music, paintin', and the ladies — is an 
 elegant and very refined subject of cultivation; but when 
 you raise your cerebrial faculties to grander and loftier 
 considerations, to explore the difficult ragions of polemic 
 or political truth, to investigate the subtleties of the 
 schools, and penetrate the mysteries of science, then, take 
 my word for it, the fine arts is just snares — devil a more 
 than snares ! And whether it is soft sounds seduces 
 you, or elegant tints, or the union of both — women I mane 
 — you'll never arrive at anything great or tri-um-phant till 
 you wane yourself away from the likes of them vanities. 
 Look at the haythen mythology ; consider for a moment 
 who is the chap that represents Music — a lame blackguard, 
 with an ugly face, they call Pan. Ay, indeed, Pan ! If 
 you wanted to see what respect they had for the 
 art, it's easy enough to guess, when this crayture repre- 
 sints it; and as to Paintin', on my conscience, they 
 haven't a god at all that ever took to the brush. Pass up 
 the sperits, Mickey," said he, somewhat blown and out of 
 breath by this effort ; "maybe," said he, "I'm wearin' you."
 
 140 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 '* No, no, no," loudly responded the meeting. 
 
 " Maybe I'm imposin' too mucli of personal details on 
 the house," added he, pompously. 
 
 " Not at all ; never a bit," cried the company. 
 
 " Because," resumed he, slowly, " if I did so, I'd have 
 at least the excuse of sayin', like the great Pitt, ' These 
 may be my last words from this place.' " 
 
 An unfeigned murmur of sorrow ran through the meet- 
 ing, and he resumed : — 
 
 " Ay, ladies and gintlemin, Billy Traynor is takin' his 
 ' farewell benefit ; ' he's not humbuggin' ; I'm nut like 
 them chaps that's always positively goin', but stays on at 
 the unanimous request of the whole world. No ; I'm 
 really goin' to leave you." 
 
 " What for ? Where to, Billy ? " broke from a number 
 of voices together. 
 
 " I'll tell ye," said he ; " at least so far as I can tell ; 
 because it wouldn't be right nor decent to ' print the whole 
 of the papers for the house,' as they say in parliamint. 
 I'm going abroad with the young lord ; we are going to 
 improve our minds, and cultivate our janiuses, by study 
 and foreign travel. We are first to settle in Germany, 
 where we're to enter a University, and commince a coorse 
 of modern tongues, French, Sweadish, and Spanish ; 
 imbibin' at the same time a smatterin' of science, such as 
 chemistry, conchology, and the use of the globes." 
 
 " Oh dear ! oh dear ! " murmured the meeting in wonder 
 and admiration. 
 
 " I'm not goin' to say that we'll neglect mechanics, meta- 
 physics, and astrology ; for we mane to be cosmonopolists 
 in knowledge. As for myself, ladies and gintlemin, it's a 
 proud day that sees me standin' here to say these words. 
 I, that was ragged, without a shoe to my foot — without 
 breeches — never mind, I was, as the poet says, nudus 
 minimis ac vestimentis— 
 
 (i < 
 
 I haven't sixpence iu iny pack, 
 
 I haven't small clothes to my back,' 
 
 carryin' the bag many aweary mile, through sleet and snow, 
 for six pounds tin per annum, and no pinsion for wounds 
 or superannuation ; and now I'm to be — it isn't easy tq
 
 BILLY TRAYNOR, AS ORATOR. 141 
 
 Say what — to the young lord, a spacies of humble com- 
 panion, not manial, do you mind, nothing manial. What 
 the Latins called a famulus, which was quite a different 
 thing from a servus. The former bein' a kind of domestic 
 adviser, a deputy-assistant, monitor-general, as a body 
 might say. Thei^e now, if I discoorsed for a month, I 
 couldn't tell you more about myself and my future pros- 
 pects. I own to you that I'm proud of my good luck ; and 
 I wouldn't exchange it to be Emperor of Jamaica, or 
 King of the Bahamia Islands." 
 
 If we have been prolix in our office of reporter to Billy 
 Traynor, our excuse is, that his discourse will have con- 
 tributed so far to the reader's enlightenment as to save us 
 the task of recapitulation. At the same time, it is but 
 justice to the accomplished orator that we should say, we 
 have given but the most meagre outline of an address, 
 which, to use the newspaper phrase, " occupied three 
 hours in the delivery." The truth was, Billy was in vein ; 
 the listeners were patient, the punch strong ; nor is it every 
 speaker who has had the good fortune of such happy 
 accessories.
 
 142 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE OASOINE AT FLORENCE. 
 
 It was spring, and in Italy ! one of those half-dozen days, 
 at very most, when, the feeling of winter departed, a 
 gentle freshness breathes through the air ; trees stir softly, 
 and as if by magic ; the earth becomes carpeted with 
 flowers, whose odours seem to temper, as it were, the 
 exciting atmosphere. An occasional cloud, fleecy and 
 jagged, sails lazily aloft, marking its shadow on the moun- 
 tain side. In a few days — a few hours, perhaps — the blue 
 sky will be unbroken, the air hushed, a hot breath will 
 move among the leaves, or pant over the trickling 
 fountains. 
 
 In this fast-flitting period — we dare not call it season — ■ 
 the Cascine of Florence is singularly beautiful ; on one side, 
 the gentle river stealing past beneath the shadowing 
 foliage ; on the other, the picturesque mountain towards 
 Fiesole, dotted with its palaces and terraced gardens. 
 The ancient city itself is partly seen, and the massive 
 Duomo and the Palazzo Vecchio tower proudly above 
 the trees ! What other people of Europe have such a 
 haunt? — what other people would know so thoroughly 
 how to enjoy it ? The day was drawing to a close, and the 
 Piazzone was now filled with equipages. There were the re- 
 presentatives of every European people, and of nations far 
 away over the seas — splendid Russians, brilliant French, 
 splenetic, supercilious. English, and ponderous Germans, 
 mingled with the less marked nationalities of Belgium and 
 Holland, and even America. Everything that called itself 
 Fashion was there to swell the tide ; and, although a 
 choice military band was performing with exquisite skill 
 the favourite ovei'tures of the day, the noise and tumult 
 of conversation almost drowned their notes. Now, the 
 Cascine is to the world of society what the Bourse is to 
 the world of trade. It is the great centre of all news and
 
 THE CASCINE AT FLORENCE. 143 
 
 intelligence, where markets and bargains of intercourse 
 are transacted, and where the scene of past pleasure is 
 revived, and the plans of future enjoyment are canvassed. 
 The great and the wealthy are there, to see and to meet with 
 each other. The proud equipages lie side by side, like 
 great liners ; while phaetons, like fast frigates, shoot swiftly 
 by, and solitary dandies flit past in varieties of conveyance 
 to which sea-craft can offer no analogies. All are busy, 
 eager, and occupied. Scandal holds here its festival, and 
 the misdeeds of every capital of Europe are now being 
 discussed. The higher themes of politics occupy but few ; 
 the interests of literature attract still less. It is essentially 
 of the world they talk, and it must be owned they do it 
 like adepts. The last witticism of Paris — the last duel at 
 Berlin — who has fled from his creditors in England — who 
 has run away from her husband at Naples — are all retailed 
 with a serious circumstantiality that would lead one to 
 believe that gossip maintained its ' own correspondent ' in 
 every city of the Continent, Moralists might fancy, 
 perhaps, that in the tone these subjects are treated, there 
 would mingle a reprobation of the bad, and a due estimate 
 of the opposite, if it ever occurred at all ; but as surely 
 would they be disappointed. Never were censors more 
 lenient — never were critics so charitable. The transgres- 
 sions against good breeding — the " gaucheries " of manner 
 ■ — the solecisms in dress, language, or demeanour, do in- 
 deed meet with sharp reproof and cutting sarcasm ; but, 
 in recompense for such severity, how gently do they deal 
 with graver offences. For the felonies they can always 
 discover " the attenuating circumstances ; " for the petty 
 larcenies of fashion they have nothing but whipcord. 
 
 Amidst the various knots where such discussions were 
 carried on, one was eminently conspicuous. It was around 
 a handsome, open carriage, whose horses, harnessing, and 
 liveries were all in the most perfect taste. The equipage 
 might possibly have been deemed showy in Hyde Park ; 
 but in the Bois de Boulogne, or the Cascine, it must be 
 pronounced the acme of elegance. Whatever might have 
 been the differences of national opinion on this point, there 
 could assuredly have been none as to the beauty of those 
 who occupied it. 
 
 Though a considerable interval of yeai'S divided them,
 
 144 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 the aunt and her niece had a wonderful resemblance to 
 each other. They were both — the rarest of all forms of 
 beauty — blond Italians ; that is, with light hair, and soft, 
 grey eyes. They had a peculiar tint of skin, deeper and 
 mellower than we see in northern lands, and an expression 
 of mingled seriousness and softness that only pertains to 
 the south of Europe. There was a certain coquetry in 
 the similarity of their dress, which in many parts was 
 precisely alike ; and although the niece was but fifteen, 
 and the aunt above thirty, it needed not the aid of flattery 
 to make many mistake one for the other. 
 
 Beauty, like all other " Beaux Arts," has its distinc- 
 tions. The same public opinion that enthrones the sculp- 
 tor or the musician, confers its crown on female loveliness ; 
 and by this acclaim were they declared Queens of Beauty. 
 To any one visiting Italy for the first time, there would 
 have seemed something very strange in the sort of homage 
 rendered them: a reverence and respect only accorded 
 elsewhere to royalties — a deference that verged on actual 
 humiliation — and yet all this blended with a subtle fami- 
 liarity that none but an Italian can ever attain to. The 
 uncovered head, the attitude of respectful attention, the 
 patient expectancy of notice, the glad air of him under 
 recognition, were all there ; and yet, through these, there 
 was dashed a strange tone of intimacy, as though the 
 observances were but a thin crust over deeper feelings. 
 " La Contessa " — for she was especially " the Countess," 
 as one illustrious man of our own country was "the 
 Duke " — possessed every gift which claims pre-eminence 
 in this fair city. She was eminently beautiful, young, 
 charming in her manners, with ample fortune ; and, lastly 
 — ah ! good reader, you would surely be puzzled to supply 
 that lastly, the more as we say that in it lies an excellence 
 without which all the rest are of little worth, and yet 
 with it are objects of worship, almost of adoration — she 
 was — sepai'ated from her husband ! There must have been 
 an epidemic, a kind of rot, among husbands at one period ; 
 for we scarcely remember a very pretty woman, from five- 
 and-twenty to five-and-thirty, who had not been obliged 
 to leave hers from acts of cruelty, or acts of brutality, 
 &c, that only husbands are capable of, or of which their 
 poor wives are ever the victims.
 
 THE CASCINE AT FLORENCE. 145 
 
 If the moral geography of Europe be ever written, the 
 region south of the Alps will certainly be coloured with 
 that tint, whatever it be, that describes the blessedness of 
 a divorced existence. In other lands, especially in our 
 own, the separated individual labours under no common 
 difficulty in his advances to society. The story — there 
 must be a story — of his separation is told in various ways, 
 all of course to his disparagement. Tyrant or victim, it 
 is hard to say under which title he comes out best — so 
 much for the man ; but for the woman there is no plea ; 
 judgment is pronounced at once without the merits. 
 Fugitive, or fled from — who inquires ? she is one that 
 few men dare to recognize. The very fact that to mention 
 her name exacts an explanation, is condemnatory. What 
 a boon to all such must it be that there is a climate mild 
 enough for their malady, and a country that will suit their 
 constitution ; and not only that, but a region which ac- 
 tually pays homage to their infirmity, and makes of their 
 martyrdom a triumph ! As you go to Norway for salmon- 
 fishing — to Bengal to hunt tigers — to St. Petersburg to eat 
 caviare, so when divorced, if you really know the blessing 
 of your state, go take a house on the Aimo. Vast as are 
 the material resources of our globe, the moral ones are 
 infinitely greater ; nor need we despair, some day or other, 
 of finding an island where a certificate of fraudulent bank- 
 ruptcy will be deemed a letter of credit, and an evidence 
 of insolvency be accepted as qualification to open a bank. 
 
 La Contessa inhabited a splendid palace, furnished with 
 magnificence ; her gardens were one of the sights of the 
 capital, not only for their floral display, but that they 
 contained a celebrated group by Canova, of which no copy 
 existed. Her gallery was, if not extensive, enriched with 
 some priceless treasures of art ; and with all these she 
 possessed high rank, for her card bore the name of La 
 Comtesse de Glencore, nee Comtesse della Torre. 
 
 The reader thus knows at once, if not actually as much 
 as we do ourselves, all that we mean to impart to him : 
 and now let us come back to that equipage around which 
 swarmed the fashion of Florence, eagerly pressing forward 
 to catch a word, a smile, or even a look ; and actually 
 perched on every spot from which they could obtain a 
 glimpse of those within. A young Russian Prince, with 
 
 L
 
 146 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 his arm in a sling, had just recited the incident of his late 
 duel ; a Neapolitan Minister had delivered a rose-coloured 
 epistle from a Koyal Highness of his own court. A 
 Spanish Grandee had deposited his offering of camellias, 
 which actually covered the front cushions of the carriage ; 
 and now a little lane was formed for the approach of the 
 old Duke de Brignolles, who made his advance with a 
 mingled courtesy and haughtiness that told of Versailles 
 and long ago. 
 
 A very creditable specimen of the old noblesse of France 
 was the Duke, and well worthy to be the grandson of one 
 who was Grand Marechal to Louis XIV. Tall, thin, and 
 slightly stooped from age, his dark eye seemed to glisten 
 the brighter beneath his shaggy white eyebrows. He had 
 served with distinction as a soldier, and been an ambas- 
 sador at the court of the Czar Paul ; in every station he 
 had filled sustaining the character of a true and loyal 
 gentleman — a man who could reflect nothing but honour 
 upon the great country he belonged to. It was" amongst 
 the scandal of Florence that he was the most devoted of 
 La Contessa's admirers ; but we are quite willing to believe 
 that his admiration had nothing in it of love. At all 
 events, she distinguished him by her most marked notice. 
 He was the frequent guest of her choicest dinners, and 
 the constant visitor at her evenings at home. It was, 
 then, with a degree of favour that many an envious heart 
 coveted, she extended her hand to him as he came for- 
 ward, which he kissed with all the lowly deference he 
 would have shown to that of his prince. 
 
 " Mon cher Due," said she, smiling, " I have such a 
 store of grievances to lay at your door. The essence of 
 violets is not violets but verbena." 
 
 " Charming Comtesse, I had it direct from Pierrot's." 
 
 " Pierrot is a traitor, then, that's all : and where's Ida's 
 Arab ? is he to be here to-day, or to-morrow? When are 
 we to see him? " 
 
 " Why, I only wrote to the Emir on Tuesday last." 
 
 " Mais a quoi bon TEmir if he can't do impossibilities ? 
 Surely the very thought of him brings up the Arabian 
 Nights, and the Calif Haroun. By the way, thank you 
 for the poignard. It is true Damascus, is it not ? " 
 
 " Of course. I'd not have dared "
 
 THE CASCINE AT FLOREX-CE. 147 
 
 " To be sure not. I told the Archducliess it was. I 
 wore it in my Turkish dress on Wednesday, and you, false 
 man, wouldn't come to admire me!" 
 
 " You know what a sad day was that for me, madam," 
 said he, solemnly. "It was the anniversary of her fate 
 who was your only rival in beauty, as she had no rival in 
 undeserved misfortunes." 
 
 "Pauvre Reine!" sighed the Countess, and held her 
 bouquet to her face. 
 
 " What great mass of papers is that you have there, 
 Duke ? " resumed she. " Can it be a journal ? " 
 
 " It is an English newspaper, my dear Countess. As I 
 know you do not receive any of his countrymen, I have 
 not asked your permission to present the Lord Selby ; but 
 hearing him read out your name in a paragraph here, I 
 carried off his paper to have it translated for me. You 
 read English, don't you ? " 
 
 " Very imperfectly ; and I detest it," said she, impa- 
 tiently ; " but Prince Volkoffsky can, I am sure, oblige 
 you." And she turned away her head in ill-humour. 
 
 " It is here somewhere. Parbleu, I thought I marked 
 the place," muttered the Duke, as he handed the paper to 
 the Russian. " Isn't that it ? " 
 
 " This is all about theatres, Madame Pasta, and the 
 Haymarket." 
 
 " Ah ! well, it is lower down : here, perhaps." 
 
 " Court news. The Grand Duke of Saxe- Weimar" — 
 
 "No, no; not that." 
 
 " Oh, here it is. ' Great Scandal in High Life. — A 
 very singular correspondence has just passed, and will 
 soon, we believe, be made public, between the Heralds' 
 College and Lord Glencore.' " Here the reader stopped, 
 and lowered his voice at the next word. 
 
 " Read on, Prince. C'est mon mari," said she, coldly, 
 while a very slight movement of her upper lip betrayed 
 what might mean scorn or sorrow, or even both. 
 
 The Prince, however, had now run his eyes over the 
 paragraph, and crushing the newspaper in his hand, 
 hurried away from the spot. The Duke as quickly fol- 
 lowed, and soon overtook him." 
 
 " Who gave you this paper, Duke? " cried the Russian, 
 angrily. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 " It was Lord Selby. He was reading it aloud to a 
 friend." 
 
 "Then he is an infame ! and I'll tell him so," cried 
 the other, passionately. " Which is he? the one with the 
 light moustache, or the shorter one ? " And, without 
 waiting for reply, the Russian dashed between the car- 
 riages, and thrusting his way through the prancing crowd 
 of moving horses, arrived at a spot where two young men, 
 evidently strangers to the scene, were standing calmly 
 surveying the bright panorama before them. 
 
 " The Lord Selby," said the Russian, taking off his hat 
 and saluting one of them. 
 
 " That's his lordship," replied the one he addressed, 
 pointing to his friend. 
 
 " I am the Prince Volkoffsky, Aide-de-Camp to the 
 Emperor," said the Russian ; " and hearing from my friend, 
 the Duke de Bi'ignolles, that you have just given him this 
 newspaper, that he might obtain the translation of a pas- 
 sage in it which concerns Lady Glencore, and have the 
 explanation read out at her own carriage, publicly, before 
 all the world, I desire to tell you that your lordship is 
 unworthy of your rank — that you are an infame ! and if 
 you do not resent this — a polisson ! " 
 
 "This man is mad, Selby," said the short man, with 
 the coolest air imaginable. 
 
 " Quite sane enough to give your friend a lesson in good 
 manners ; and you too, sir, if you have any fancy for it," 
 said the Russian. 
 
 "I'd give him in charge to the police, by Jove! if there 
 were police here," said the same one who spoke before : 
 " he can't be a gentleman." 
 
 " There's my card, sir," said the Russian ; " and for you 
 too, sir," said he, presenting another to him who spoke. 
 
 " Where are you to be heard of? " said the short man. 
 
 "At the Russian legation," said the Prince, haughtily, 
 and turned away. 
 
 " You're wrong, Baynton, he is a gentleman," said Lord 
 Selby, as he pocketed the card, " though certainly he is 
 not a very mild-tempered specimen of his order." 
 
 " You didn't give the newspaper as he said " 
 
 " Nothing of the kind. I was reading it aloud to you 
 when the royal carriages came suddenly past ; and, in
 
 THE CASCINE AT FLORENCE. 149 
 
 taking off my hat to salute, I never noticed that the old 
 Duke had carried off the paper. I know he can't read 
 English, and the chances are, he has asked this Scythian 
 gentleman to interpret for him." 
 
 " So, then, the affair is easily settled," said the other, 
 quietty. 
 
 "Of course it is," was the answer; and they both 
 lounged about among the carriages, which already were 
 thinning, and, after a while, set out towards the city. 
 
 They had but just reached the hotel, when a stranger 
 presented himself to them as the Count de Marny. Ho 
 had come as the friend of Prince Volkoffsky, who had 
 fully explained to him the event of that afternoon. 
 
 " Well," said Baynton, "we are of opinion your friend 
 has conducted himself exceedingly ill, and we are here to 
 receive his excuses." 
 
 " I am afraid, messieurs," said the Frenchman, bowing, 
 " that it will exhaust your patience if you continue to wait 
 for them. Might it not be better to come and accept what 
 he is quite prepared to offer you — satisfaction ? " 
 
 "Be it so," said Lord Selby : "he'll see his mistake 
 some time or other, and perhaps regret it. Where shall 
 it be ? — and when ? " 
 
 " At the Fossombroni Villa, about two miles from this. 
 To-morrow morning, at eight, if that suit you." 
 
 " Quite well. I have no other appointment. Pistols, 
 of course? " 
 
 " You have the choice, otherwise my friend would have 
 preferred the sword." 
 
 " Take him at his word, Selby," whispered Baynton ; 
 "you are equal to any of them with the rapier." 
 
 " If your friend desire the sword, I have no objection — 
 I mean the rapier." 
 
 "The rapier be it," said the Frenchman; and with a 
 polite assurance of the infinite honour he felt in forming 
 their acquaintance, and the gratifying certainty that they 
 were sure to possess of his highest consideration, he bowed, 
 backed, and withdrew. 
 
 " Well-mannered fellow, the Frenchman," said Baynton, 
 as the door closed ; and the other nodded assent, and rang 
 the bell for dinner.
 
 150 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE VILLA FOSSOMBRONI. 
 
 The grounds of the Villa Fossombroni were, at the time 
 we speak of, the Chalk Farm, or the Fifteen Acres of 
 Tuscany. The villa itself, long since deserted by the illus- 
 trious family whose name it bore, had fallen into the hands 
 of an old Piedmontese noble, ruined by a long life of 
 excess and dissipation. He had served with gallantry in 
 the imperial army of France, but was dismissed the service 
 for a play transaction, in which his conduct was deeply 
 disgraceful ; and the Colonel Count Tasseroni, of the 8th 
 Hussars of the Guards, was declared unworthy to wear 
 the uniform of a Frenchman. 
 
 For a number of years he had lived so estranged from 
 the world, that many believed he had died ; but at last it 
 was known that he had gone to reside in a half-ruined 
 villa near Florence, which soon became the resort of a 
 certain class of gamblers, whose habits would have speedily 
 attracted notice if practised within the city. The quarrels 
 and altercations, so inseparable from high play, were 
 usually settled on the spot in which they occurred, until 
 at last the villa became famous for these meetings, and 
 the name of Fossombroni, in a discussion, was the watch- 
 word for a duel. 
 
 It was of a splendid spring morning that the two 
 Englishmen arrived at this spot — which, even on the 
 unpleasant errand that- they had come, struck them with 
 surprise and admiration. The villa itself was one of those 
 vast structures which the country about Florence abounds 
 in. Gloomy, stern, and gaol-like without ; while within, 
 splendid apartments opened into each other, in what seem3 
 an endless succession. Frescoed walls, and gorgeously- 
 oiTiamented ceilings, gilded mouldings, and rich tracery 
 were on every side ; and these, too, in chambers where the 
 immense proportions and the vast space recalled the idea
 
 THE VILLA FOSSOMBEONI. 151 
 
 of a royal residence. Passing in by a dilapidated " grille " 
 ■which once had been richly gilded, they entered by a flight 
 of steps a great hall which ran the entire length of the 
 building. Though lighted by a double range of windows, 
 neglect and dirt had so dimmed the panes, that the place 
 was almost in deep shadow. Still they could perceive 
 that the vaulted roof was a mass of stuccoed tracery, and 
 that the colossal divisions of the wall were of brilliant 
 Sienna marble. At one end of this great gallery was a 
 small chapel, now partly despoiled of its religious decora- 
 tions, which were most irreverently replaced by a variety 
 of swords and sabres of every possible size and shape, and 
 several pairs of pistols, arranged with an evident eye to 
 picturesque grouping. 
 
 "What are all these inscriptions here on the walls, 
 Baynton?" cried Selby, as he stood endeavouring to 
 decipher the lines on a little marble slab, a number of 
 which were dotted over the chapel. 
 
 " Strange enough this, by Jove ! " muttered the other, 
 reading to himself, half aloud — ■' Francesco Eicordi, ucciso 
 da Gieronimo Gazzi, 29 Settembre, 1818.' " 
 
 " What does that mean ? " asked Selby. 
 
 " It is to commemorate some fellow who was killed here 
 in '18." 
 
 " Are they all in the same vein ? " asked the other. 
 
 " It would seem so. Here's one : ' Gravamente ferito,' 
 badly wounded, with a postscript that he died the same 
 night." 
 
 " What's this large one here, in black marble ? " inquired 
 
 Selby. 
 
 " To the memory of Carlo Luigi Guiccidrini, ' detto il 
 Carnefice,' called the slaughterer : cut down to the fore- 
 head by Pietro Baldasseroni, on the night of July 8th, 
 1819." 
 
 " I confess any other kind of literature would amuse me 
 as well," said Selby, turning back again into the large 
 hall. Baynton had scarcely joined him when they saw 
 advancing towards them through the gloom a short, 
 thickset man, dressed in a much- worn dressing-gown and 
 slippers. He removed his skull-cap as he approached, and 
 said, " The Count Tasseroni, at your orders." 
 
 " We have come here by appointment," said Baynton.
 
 152 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " Yes, yes. I know it all. Volkoffsky sent me word. 
 He was here on Saturday. He gave that French colonel 
 a sharp lesson. Ran the sword clean through the chest. 
 To be sure he was wounded, too, but only through the 
 arm ; but ' La Marque' has got his passport." 
 
 " You'll have him up there soon, then," said Baynton, 
 pointing towards the chapel. 
 
 " I think not. We have not done it latterly," said the 
 Count, musingly. " The authorities don't seem to like it ; 
 and, of course, we respect the authorities ! " 
 
 "That's quite evident," said Baynton, who turned 
 translate the observation to his friend. 
 
 Selby whispered a word in his ear. 
 
 "What does the signore say ? " inquired the Count 
 
 " My friend thinks that they are behind the time." 
 
 " Per Baccho ! Let him be easy as to that. I have 
 known some to think that the Russian came too soon. I 
 never heard of one who wished him earlier ! There they 
 are now : they always come by the garden." And so 
 saying, he hastened off to receive them. 
 
 " How is this fellow to handle a sword, if his right arm 
 be wounded ? " said Selby. 
 
 " Don't you know that these Russians use the left hand 
 indifferently with the right, in all exercises ? It may be 
 awkward for you ; but, depend upon it, he'll not be incon- 
 venienced in the least." 
 
 As he spoke, the others entered the other end of the 
 hall. The Prince no sooner saw the Englishmen, than he 
 advanced towards them with his hat off. " My lord," said 
 he, rapidly, " I have come to make you an apology, and 
 one which I trust you will accept in all the frankness that 
 I offer it. I have learned from your friend, the Due de 
 Brignolles, how the incident of yesterday occurred. I 
 see that the only fault committed was my own. Will 
 you pardon, theu, a momentary word of ill-temper, oc- 
 casioned by what I wrongfully believed to be a great 
 injury ? 
 
 " Of course, I knew it was all a mistake on your part 
 I told Colonel Baynton here, yon'd see so yourself — when 
 it is too late, perhaps." 
 
 " I thank you, sincerely," said the Russian, bowing; 
 " your readiness to accord me this satisfaction makes
 
 f iHE VILLA FOSSOMBROKI. 153 
 
 your forgiveness more precious to me ; and now, as another 
 favour, will you permit me to ask you one question? " 
 
 "Yes, certainly." 
 
 " Why, when you could have so easily explained this 
 misconception on my part, did you not take the trouble of 
 doing so ? " 
 
 Selby looked confused, blushed, looked awkwardly from 
 side to side, and then, with a glance towards his friend, 
 seemed to say, " Will you try and answer him ? " 
 
 " I think you have hit it yourself, Prince," said Baynton. 
 " It was the trouble— the bore of an explanation, deterred 
 him. He hates writing, and he thought there would be a 
 shower of notes to be replied to, meetings, discussions, 
 and what not ; and so he said, ' Let him have his shot, and 
 have done with it.' " 
 
 The Russian looked from one to the other, as he listened, 
 and seemed really as if not quite sure whether this speech 
 was uttered in seriousness or sarcasm. The calm, phleg- 
 matic faces of the Englishmen — the almost apathetic 
 expression they wore — soon convinced him that the words 
 were truthfully spoken ; and he stood actually confounded 
 with amazement before them. 
 
 Lord Selby and his friend freely accepted the polite 
 invitation of the Prince to breakfast, and they all adjourned 
 to a small but splendidly decorated room, where every- 
 thing was already awaiting them. There are few incidents 
 in life which so much predispose to rapid intimacy as the 
 case of an averted duel. The revulsion from animosity is 
 almost certain to lead to, if not actual friendship, what 
 may easily become so. In the present instance, the very 
 diversities of national character gave a zest and enjoyment 
 to the meeting ; and while the Englishmen were charmed 
 by the fascination of manners and conversational readiness 
 of their hosts, the Russians were equally struck with a 
 cool imperturbability and impassiveness, of which they 
 had never seen the equal. 
 
 By degrees the Russian led the conversation to the 
 question by which their misunderstanding originated. 
 " You know my Lord Glencore, perhaps ? " said he. 
 
 "Never saw— scarcely ever heard of him," said Selby, 
 in his dry, laconic tone. 
 
 " Is he mad or a fool ? " asked the Prince, half angrily.
 
 154 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " I served in a regiment once where he commanded a 
 troop," said Baynton; "and they always said he was a 
 good sort of fellow." 
 
 " You read that paragraph this morning, I conclude ? " 
 said the Russian. " You saw how he dares to stigmatize 
 the honour of his wife — to degrade her to the rank of a 
 mistress— and, at the same time, to hastarclize the son 
 who ought to inherit his rank and title? " 
 
 "I read it," said Selby, dryly; "and I had a letter 
 from my lawyer about it this morning." 
 
 " Indeed ! " exclaimed he, anxious to hear more, and yet 
 too delicate to venture on a question. 
 
 " Yes ; he writes to me for some title-deeds or other. 
 I didn't pay much attention, exactly, to what he says. 
 Glencore's man of business had addressed a letter to 
 him." 
 
 The Russian bowed, and waited for him to resume ; but, 
 apparently, he had rather fatigued himself by such unusual 
 loquacity, and so he lay back in his chair, and puffed his 
 cigar in indolent enjoyment. 
 
 "A goodish sort of thing for you it ought to be," said 
 Baynton, between the puffs of his tobacco smoke, and 
 with a look towards Selby. 
 
 " I suspect it may," said the other, without the slightest 
 change of tone or demeanour. 
 
 " Where is it — somewhere in the south ? " 
 
 "Mostly, Devon. There's something in "Wales, too, if 
 I remember aright." 
 
 " Nothing Irish ? " 
 
 " No, thank Heaven, — nothing Irish " — and his grim 
 lordship made the nearest advance to a smile of which his 
 unplastic features seemed capable. 
 
 " Do I understand you aright, my lord," said the Prince ; 
 " that you receive an accession of fortune by this event ? " 
 
 " I shall ; if I survive Glencore," was the brief reply. 
 
 " You are related, then ? " 
 
 " Some cousinship — I forget how it is. Do you remem- 
 ber, Baynton? " 
 
 " I'm not quite certain. I think it was a Coventry 
 married one of Jack Conway's sisters, and she afterwards 
 became the wife of Sir something Massy. Isn't that 
 it?"
 
 THE VILLA FOSSOMBROXI. 155 
 
 "Yes, that's it," muttered the other, in the tone of a 
 man who was tired of a knotty problem. 
 
 " And, according to your laws, this Lord Glencore may 
 marry again ? " cried the Russian. 
 
 " 1 should think so, if he has no wife living," said 
 Selby ; " but I trust, for my sake, he'll not." 
 
 " And what if he should, and should be discovered the 
 wedded husband of another?" 
 
 "That would be bigamy," said Selby. " Would they 
 Vang him, Baynton?" 
 
 s ' I think not — scarcely," rejoined the Colonel. 
 
 The Prince tried in various ways to obtain some insight 
 into Lord Glencore's habits, his tastes, and mode of life, 
 but all in vain. They knew, indeed, very little, but even 
 that little they were too indolent to repeat. Lord Selby's 
 memory was often at fault, too, and Baynton's had ill- 
 supplied the deficiency. Again and again did the Russian 
 mutter curses to himself, over the apathy of these stony 
 islanders. At moments he fancied that they suspected his 
 eagerness, and had assumed their most guarded caution 
 against him ; but he soon perceived that this manner was 
 natural to them, not prompted in the slightest degree by 
 any distrust whatever. 
 
 " After all," thought the Russian, " how can I hope to 
 stimulate a man who is not excited by his own increase of 
 fortune ? Talk of Turkish fatalism — these fellows would 
 shame the Moslem." 
 
 " Do you mean to prolong your stay at Florence, my 
 lord ? " asked the Prince, as they arose from the table. 
 
 " I scarcely know. What do you say, Baynton?" 
 
 " A week or so, I fancy," muttered the other. 
 
 "And then on to Rome, perhaps ?" 
 
 The two Englishmen looked at each other with an air of 
 as much confusion as if subjected to a searching examina- 
 tion in science. 
 
 "Well, I shouldn't wonder," said Selby, at last, with a 
 sigh. 
 
 " Yes, it may come to that," said Baynton, like a man 
 who had just overcome a difficulty. 
 
 " You'll be in time for the Holy Week and all the cere- 
 monies," said the Prince. 
 
 " Mind that, Baynton," said his lordship, who wasn't
 
 156 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 going to carry what he felt to be another man's load ; and 
 Baynton nodded acquiescence. 
 
 " And after that comes the season for Naples — you have 
 a month or six weeks, perhaps, of such weather as nothing 
 in all Europe can vie with." 
 
 "You hear, Baynton?" said Selby. 
 
 " I've booked it," muttered the other ; and so they took 
 leave of their entertainer, and set out towards Florence. ■ 
 Neither you nor I, dear reader, will gain anything by 
 keeping them company, for they say scarcely a word by 
 the way. They stop at intervals, and cast their eyes over 
 the glorious landscape at their feet. Their glances are 
 thrown over the fairest scene of the fairest of all lands ; 
 and whether they turn towards the snow-capt Apennines, 
 by Vall'ombrosa, or trace the sunny vineyards along the 
 Val' d'Arno, they behold a picture such as no canvas ever 
 imitated ; still they are mute and uncommunicative. 
 Whatever of pleasure their thoughts suggest, each keeps 
 for himself. Objects of wonder, strange sights and new, 
 may present themselves, but they are not to be startled 
 out of national dignity by so ignoble a sentiment as sur- 
 prise. And so they jog onward — doubtless richer in 
 reflection than eloquent in communion — and so we leave 
 them. 
 
 Let us not be deemed unjust or ungenerous, if we assert 
 that we have met many such as these. They are not 
 individuals — they are a class — and, strange enough too, a 
 class which almost invariably pertains to a high and dis- 
 tinguished rank in society. It would be presumptuous to 
 ascribe such demeanour to insensibility. There is enough 
 in their general conduct to disprove the assumption. As 
 little is it affectation ; it is simply an acquired habit of 
 stoical indifference, supposed to be — why, Heaven knows ! 
 — the essential ingredient of the best breeding. If the 
 practice extinguish all emotion and obliterate all trace of 
 feeling from the heart, we deplore the system. If it only 
 gloss over the working of human sympathy, we pity the 
 men. At all events, they are very uninteresting company, 
 with whom longer dalliance would only be wearisome.
 
 157 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SOME TRAITS OF LIFE. 
 
 It was the niglifc Lady Glencore received ; and, as usual, 
 the street was crowded with equipages, which somehow 
 seemed to have got into inextricable confusion — some en- 
 deavouring to turn back, while others pressed forward — the 
 court of the palace being closely packed with carriages 
 which the thronged street held in fast blockade. As the 
 apartments which faced the street were not ever used for 
 these receptions, the dark unlighted windows suggested no 
 remark ; but they who had entered the courtyard were 
 struck by the gloomy aspect of the vast building : not 
 only that the entrance and the stairs were in darkness, 
 but the whole suite of rooms, usually brilliant as the 
 day, were now in deep gloom. From every carriage- 
 window heads were protruded, wondering at this strange 
 spectacle ; and eager inquiries passed on every side for an 
 explanation. The explanation of " sudden illness " was 
 rapidly disseminated, but as rapidly contradicted, and the 
 reply given by the porter to all demands quickly repeated 
 from mouth to mouth, " Her ladyship will not l'eceive." 
 
 " Can no one explain this mystery ?" cried the old Prin- 
 cess Boinnsky, as, heavy with fat and diamonds, she hung 
 out of her carriage-window. " Oh, there's Major Scares- 
 by ; he is certain to know, if it be anything malicious." 
 
 Scaresby was, however, too busy in recounting his news 
 to others to perceive the signals the old Princess held out; 
 and it was only as her chasseur, six feet three of green 
 and gold, bent down to give her Highness's message, that 
 the Major hurried off, in all the importance of a momen- 
 tary scandal, to the side of her carriage. 
 
 " Here I am, all impatience. What is it, Scaresby ? — 
 tell me quickly," cried she. 
 
 "A smash, my dear Princess— nothing more or less,"
 
 158 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 said lie, in a voice which nature seemed to have invented 
 to utter impertinences — so harsh and grating, and yet so 
 painfully distinct in all its accents — " as complete a smash 
 as ever I heard of." 
 
 " You can't mean that her fortune is in peril ?" 
 
 " I suppose that must suffer also. It is her character 
 — her station as one of us — that's shipwrecked here." 
 
 "Go on, go on," cried she, impatiently — "I wish to 
 hear it all." 
 
 "All is very briefly related, then," said he. "The 
 charming Countess, you remember, ran away with a coun- 
 tryman of mine, young Glencore, of the 8th Hussars; I 
 used to know his father intimately." 
 
 "Never mind his father." 
 
 " That's exactly what Glencore did. He came over 
 here and fell in love with the girl, and they ran off to- 
 gether, but they forgot to get married, Princess. Ha — ha 
 — ha!" And he laughed with a cackle a demon could 
 not have rivalled. 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it — I'll never believe it," 
 cried the Princess. 
 
 " That's exactly what I was recommending to the Mar- 
 quesa Guesteni. I said, you needn't believe it. Why, 
 how do we go anywhere, now-a-days, except by 'not be- 
 lieving ' the evil stories that are told of our entertainers." 
 
 "Yes, yes, but I repeat that this is an infamous 
 calumny. She, a Countess, of a family second to none in 
 all Italy ; her father a Grand d'Espagne. I'll go to her 
 this moment." 
 
 " She'll not see you. She has just refused to see La 
 Genori," said the Major, tartly. " Though, if a cracked 
 reputation might have afforded any sympathy, she might 
 have admitted her.'" 
 
 " What is to be done f" exclaimed the Princess, sorrow- 
 fully. 
 
 " Just what you suggested a few moments ago — don't 
 believe it. Hang me, but good houses and good cooks are 
 "■rowino- too scarce to make one credulous of the ills that 
 can be said of their owners." 
 
 " I wish I knew what course to take," muttered the 
 Princess. 
 
 " I'll tell you, then. Get half a dozen of your own set
 
 SOME TRAITS OF LIFE. 159 
 
 together to-morrow morning, vote the whole story an 
 atrocious falsehood, and go in a body and tell the Countess 
 your mind. You know as well as I, Princess, that social 
 credit is as great a bubble as commercial ; we should all 
 of us be bankrupts if our books were seen. Ay, by Jove ! 
 and the similitude goes farther too — for when one old 
 established house breaks, there is generally a crash in the 
 whole community around it." 
 
 While they thus talked, a knot had gathered around the 
 carriage, all eager to hear what opinion the Princess had 
 fox*med on the catastrophe. 
 
 Various were the sentiments expressed by the different 
 speakers — some sorrowfully deploring the disaster ; 
 others, more eagerly inveighing against the infamy of the 
 man who had proclaimed it. Many declared that they 
 had come to the determination to discredit the story. 
 Not one, however, sincei'ely professed that he disbe- 
 lieved it. 
 
 Can it be, as the French moralist asserts, that we have 
 a latent sense of satisfaction in the misfortunes of even 
 our best friends ; or is it, as we rather suspect, that true 
 friendship is a rarer thing than is commonly believed, and 
 has little to do with those conventional intimacies which 
 so often bear its name ? 
 
 Assuredly, of all this well-bred, well-dressed, and well- 
 born company, now thronging the courtyard of the palace 
 and the street in front of it, the tone was as much sarcasm 
 as sorrow, and many a witty epigram and smart speech 
 were launched over a disaster which might have been 
 spared such levity. At length the space slowly began to 
 thin. Slowly carriage after carriage drove off — the heavi- 
 est grief of their occupants often being over a lost soiree 
 — an unprofited occasion to display toilette and jewels — 
 while a few, more reflective, discussed what course was to 
 be followed in future, and what recognition extended to 
 the victim. 
 
 The next day Florence sat in committee over the lost 
 Countess. Witnesses were heard and evidence taken as to 
 her case. They all agreed it was a great hardship — a 
 terrible calamity — but still, if true, what could be done ? 
 
 Never was there a society less ungenerously prudish, 
 and yet there were cases — this, one of them — which trans-
 
 160 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 gressed all conventional rule. Like a crime which no 
 statute had ever contemplated, it stood out self-accused 
 and self-condemned. A few might, perhaps, have heen 
 merciful, but they were overborne by numbers. Lady 
 Glencore's beauty and her vast fortune were now counts 
 in the indictment against her, and many a jealous rival 
 was not sorry at this hour of humiliation. The despotism 
 of beauty is not a very mild sway, after all ; and, perhaps, 
 the Countess had exercised her rule right royally. At all 
 events, it was the young and the good-looking who voted 
 her exclusion, and only those who could not enter into com- 
 petition with her charms who took the charitable side. 
 They discussed and debated the question all day ; but 
 while they hesitated over the reprieve, the prisoner was 
 beyond the law. The gate of the palace, locked and 
 barred all day, refused entrance to every one ; at night, 
 it opened to admit the exit of a travelling-carriage. 
 The next morning large bills of sale, posted over the walls, 
 declared that all the furniture and decorations were to be 
 sold. 
 
 The Countess had left Florence — none knew whither. 
 
 " I must really have those large Sevres jars," said one ; 
 " And I, the small park phaeton," cried another. 
 
 " I hope she has not taken Horace with her; he was 
 the best cook in Italy. Splendid hock she had, — I wonder 
 is there much of it left?" 
 
 " I wish we were certain of another bad reputation to 
 replace her," grunted out Scaresby ; "they are the only 
 kind of people who give good dinners, and never ask for 
 returns." 
 
 And thus these dear friends — sruosts of a hundred 
 brilliant fetes — discussed the fall of her they once had 
 worshipped. 
 
 It may seem small-minded and narrow to stigmatize 
 such conduct as this. Some may say that for the ordinary 
 courtesies of society no pledges of friendship are required, 
 no real gratitude incurred. Be it so. Still the revulsion — 
 from habits of deference and respect to disparagement, and 
 even sarcasm, is a sorry evidence of human kindness ; and 
 the threshold, over which for years we had only passed as 
 guests, might well suggest sadder thoughts, as we tread it 
 to behold desolation.
 
 SOME TRAITS OF LIFE. 1G1 
 
 The fair Countess bad been the celebrity of that city for 
 many a day. The stranger of distinction sought her, as 
 much as a matter of course as he sought presentation to 
 the j sovereign. Her salons had the double eminence of 
 brilliancy in rank and brilliancy in wit ; her entertain- 
 ments were cited as models of elegance and refinement, 
 and now she was gone ! The extreme of regret that fol- 
 lowed her was the sorrow of those who were to dine there 
 no more ; the grief of him who thought he should never 
 have a house like it. 
 
 The respectable vagabonds of society are a large family, 
 much larger than is usually supposed. They are often 
 well-born, almost always well-mannered, invariably well- 
 dressed. They do not, at first blush, appear to discharge 
 any very great or necessary function in life, but we must 
 by no means, from that, infer their inutility. Naturalists 
 tell us that several varieties of insect existence we rashly 
 set down as mere annoyances, have their peculiar spheres 
 of usefulness and good ; and, doubtless, these same loun- 
 gers contribute in some mysterious manner to the welfare 
 of that state which they only seem to burden. We are 
 told that but for flies, for instance, we should be infested 
 with myriads of winged tormentors, insinuating them- 
 selves into our meat and drink, and rendering life miser- 
 able. Is there not something very similar performed by 
 the respectable class I allude to ? Are they not invariably 
 devouring and destroying some vermin a little smaller 
 than themselves, and making thus a healthier atmosphere 
 for their betters ? If good society only knew the debt it 
 owes to these defenders of its privileges, a " Vagabond's 
 Home and Aged Asylum" would speedily figure amongst 
 our national charities. 
 
 We have been led to these thoughts by observing how 
 distinctly different was Major Scaresby's tone in talking 
 of the Countess when he addressed his betters or spoke 
 in his own class. To the former he gave vent to all his 
 sarcasm and bitterness ; they liked it just because they 
 wouldn't condescend to it themselves. To his own he 
 put on the bullying air of one who said, " How should 
 you possibly know what vices such great people have, any 
 more than you know what they have for dinner ? I live 
 amongst them— I understand them — I am aware that 
 
 M
 
 162 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 what -would be very shocking in you is quite permissible to 
 them. They know how to be wicked ; you only know how 
 to be gross." And thus Scaresby talked, and sneered, 
 and scoffed, making such a hash of good and evil, such a 
 Maelstrom of right and wrong, that it were a subtle 
 moralist who could have extracted one solitary scrap 
 of uncontaminated meaning from all his muddy lucu- 
 brations. 
 
 He, however, effected this much : he kept the memory 
 of her who had gone, alive by daily calumnies. He 
 embalmed her in poisons, each morning appearing with 
 some new trait of her extravagance, till the world, grown 
 sick of himself and his theme, vowed they would hear 
 no more of either, and so she was forgotten. 
 
 Ay, good reader, utterly forgotten ! The gay world, 
 for so it likes to be called, has no greater element of 
 enjoyment amongst all its high gifts than its precious 
 power of forgetting. It forgets not only all it owes to 
 others — gratitude, honour, and esteem — but even the 
 closer obligations it has contracted with itself. The 
 Palazzo della Torre was for a fortnight the resort of the 
 curious and the idle. At the sale crowds appeared to 
 secure some object of especial value to each ; and then 
 the gates were locked, the shutters closed, and a large, 
 ill-written notice on the door announced that any letters 
 for the proprietor were to be addressed to " Pietro Arre- 
 ting Via del Sole."
 
 1G3 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 AN UPTONIAN DESPATCH. 
 
 "British Legation, Naples. 
 
 " My dear Harcourt, — It would seem that a letter of 
 mine to you must have miscarried, a not unfrequent 
 occurrence when entrusted to our Foi-eign Office for 
 transmission. Should it ever reach you, you will per- 
 ceive how unjustly you have charged me with neglecting 
 your wishes. I have ordered the Sicilian wine for your 
 friend ; I have obtained the Royal leave for you to shoot 
 in Calabria; and I assure you it is rather a rare incident 
 in my life to have forgotten nothing required of me J 
 Perhaps you, who know me well, will do me this justice, 
 and be the more grateful for my present promptitude. 
 
 " It was quite a mistake sending me here ; for anything 
 there is to be done, Spencer or Lonsdale would perfectly 
 suffice. I ought to have gone to Vienna ; and so they 
 know at home — but it's the old game played ovre again. 
 Important questions ! why, my dear friend, there is not a 
 matter between this country and our own that rises above 
 the capacity of a Colonel of Dragoons. Meanwhile really 
 great events are preparing in the East of Europe — not 
 that I am going to inflict them upon you, nor ask you to 
 listen to speculations which even those in authority tun 
 a deaf ear to. 
 
 " It is very kind of you to think of my health. I am, 
 still a suiferer ; the old pains rather aggravated than 
 relieved by this climate. You are aware that, though 
 warm, the weather here has some exciting property, 
 some excess or other of a peculiar gas in the atmosphere, 
 prejudicial to certain temperaments. I feel it greatly, 
 and though the season is midsummer, I am obliged to 
 dress entirely in a light costume of buckskin, and take
 
 164 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 Mai'salla baths, which refresh me, at least, for the while. I 
 have also taken to smoke the leaves of the nux vomica, 
 steeped in arrack, and think it agrees with me. The 
 King has most kindly placed a little villa at Ischia at my 
 disposal ; but I do not mean to avail myself of the polite- 
 ness. The Duke of San Giustino has also offered me his 
 palace at Baia, but I don't fancy leaving this just now, 
 where there is a doctor, a certain Luigi Buffeloni, who 
 really seems to have hit off my case. He calls it arterial 
 arthriticis, a kind of inflammatory action of one coat of 
 the arterial system ; his notion is highly ingenious, and 
 wonderfully borne out by the symptoms. I wish you 
 would ask Brodie, or any of our best men, whether they 
 have met with this affection ? what class it affects, and 
 what course it usually takes ? My Italian doctor implies, 
 that it is the passing malady of men highly excitable, 
 and largely endowed with mental gifts. He may, or may 
 not, be correct in this. It is only nature makes the 
 blunder of giving the sharpest swords the weakest scab- 
 bards—what a pity the weapon cannot be worn naked ! 
 
 " You ask me if I like this place. I do, perhaps, as 
 well as I should like anywhere. There is a wonderful 
 sameness over the world just now, preluding, I have very 
 little doubt, some great outburst of nationality from all 
 the countries of Europe. Just as periods of Puritanism 
 succeed intervals of gross licentiousness. 
 
 " Society here is, therefore, what you see it in London 
 or Paris ; well-bred people, like Gold, are current every- 
 where. There is really little peculiar to observe. I don't 
 perceive that there is more levity than elsewhere. The 
 difference is, perhaps, that there is less shame about it, 
 since it is under the protection of the Church. 
 
 " I go out very little : my notion is, that the Diplo- 
 matist, like the ancient Augur, must not suffer himself to 
 be vulgarized by contact. He can only lose, not gain, by 
 that mixed intercourse with the world. I have a few who 
 come when I want them, and go in like manner. They 
 tell me ' what is going on,' far better and more truthfully 
 than paid employes, and they cannot trace my intentions 
 through my inquiries, and hasten off to retail them at the 
 Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Of my colleagues I see as 
 little as possible, though, when we do meet, I feel an
 
 AN UPTOXfAN DESPATCH. 1G5 
 
 Unbounded affection for them. So ranch for my life, dear 
 Harcourt ; on the whole, a very tolerable kind of existence, 
 which if few would envy, still fewer would care to part 
 with. 
 
 " I now come to the chief portion of your letter. — This 
 boy of Glencore's, I rather like the account you give 
 of him, better than you do yourself. Imaginative and 
 dreamy he may be, but remember what he was, and where 
 we have placed him. A moonstruck, romantic youth at a 
 German University. Is it not painting the lily ? 
 
 " I merely intended he should go to Gottingen to learn 
 the language, always a difficulty, if not abstracted from 
 other and more dulcet sounds. I never meant to have 
 him domesticated with some rusty Hochgelehrter, eating 
 sauerkraut in company with a green-eyed Fraulein, and 
 imbibing love and metaphysics together. Let him ' moon 
 away,' as you call it, my dear Harcourt. It is wonder- 
 fully little consequence what any one does with his intellect 
 till he be three or four-and-twenty. Indeed, I half suspect 
 that the soil might be left quietly to rear weeds till that 
 time ; and as to dreaminess, it signifies nothing if there be 
 a strong 'physique.' With a weak frame, imagination 
 will play the tyrant, and never cease till it dominates 
 over all the other faculties ; but where there is strength 
 and activity, there is no fear of this. 
 
 " You amuse me with your account of the doctor ; and 
 so the Germans have actually taken him for a savant, and 
 given him a degree 'honoris causa.' May they never 
 make a worse blunder. The man is eminently remarkable, 
 — with his opportunities, miraculous. I am certain, Har- 
 court, you never felt half the pleasure on arriving at a 
 region well stocked with game, that he did on finding 
 himself in a land of Libraries, Museums, and Collections. 
 Fancy the poor fellow's ecstasy at being allowed to range 
 at will through all ancient literature, of which hitherto 
 a stray volume alone had reached him. Imagine his 
 delight as each day opened new stores of knowledge to 
 him, surrounded as he was by all that could encourage 
 zeal and reward research. The boy's treatment of him 
 pleases me much, it smacks of the gentle blood in his 
 veins. Poor lad, there is something very sad in his case. 
 
 "You need not have taken such trouble about accounts
 
 166 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCOftE. 
 
 and expenditure : of course, whatever you have done I 
 perfectly approve of. You say that the boy has no idea of 
 money or its value. There is both good and evil in this ; 
 and now as to his future. I should have no objection 
 whatever to having him attached to my Legation here, 
 and, perhaps, no great difficulty in effecting his appoint- 
 ment ; but there is a serious obstacle in his position. The 
 young men who figure at embassies and missions are all 
 ' cognate numbers.' They each of them know who and 
 what the other is, whence he came, and so on. Now 
 our poor boy could not stand this ordeal, nor would it be 
 fair he should be exposed to it. Besides this, it was never 
 Grlencore's wish, but the very opposite to it, that he should 
 be brought prominently forward in life. He even sug- 
 gested one of the Colonies as the means of withdrawing 
 him at once, and for ever, from public gaze. 
 
 " Tou have interested me much by what you say of the 
 boy's progress. His tastes, I infer, lie in the direction 
 which, in a worldly sense, are least profitable ; but, after 
 all, Harcourt, every one has brains enough, and to spare, 
 for any career. Let us only decide upon that one most 
 fitted for him, and, depend upon it, his faculties will day 
 by day conform to his duties, and his tastes be merely 
 dissipations, just as play or wine is to coarser natures. 
 
 " If you really press the question of his coming to me, 
 I will not refuse, seeing that I can take my own time to 
 consider what steps subsequently should be adopted. How 
 is it that you know nothing of Glencore — can he not be 
 traced ? 
 
 " Lord Selby, whom you may remember in the Blues 
 formerly, dined here yesterday, and mentioned a commu- 
 nication he had received from his lawyer with regard to 
 some property in tail ; which, if Glencore should leave 
 no heir male, devolved upon him. I tried to find out the 
 whereabouts and the amount of this heritage ; but, with 
 the admirable indifference that characterizes him, he did 
 not know or care. 
 
 "As to my Lady, I can give you no information what- 
 ever ; her house at Florence is uninhabited ; the furniture 
 is sold off ; but no one seems even to guess whither she 
 has betaken herself. The fast and loose of that pleasant 
 city are, as I heai', actually houseless since her departure.
 
 AN UPTONIAN DESPATCH. 1C7 
 
 No asylum opens there with, fire and cigars. A number 
 of the destitute have come down here in half despair, 
 amongst the rest, Scaresby — Major Scaresby, an insup- 
 portable nuisance of flat stories and stale gossip ; one of 
 those fellows who cannot make even malevolence amusing, 
 and who speak ill of their neighbours without a single 
 spark of wit. He has left three cards upon me, each duly 
 returned ; but I am resolved that our interchange of 
 courtesies shall proceed no farther. 
 
 " I trust I have omitted nothing in reply to your last 
 despatch, except it be to say that I look for you here 
 about September, or earlier, if as convenient to you ; you 
 will, of course, write to me, however, meanwhile. 
 
 " Do not mention having heard from me at the clubs or 
 in society. I am, as I have the right to be, on the sick 
 list, and it is as well my rest should remain undisturbed. 
 
 "I wish you had any means of making it known that 
 the article in the Quarterly, on our Foreign relations, is 
 not mine. The newspapers have coolly assumed me to 
 be the author, and of course I am not going to give them 
 the eclat of a personal denial. The fellow who wrote it 
 must be an ass ; since had he known what he pretends, 
 he had never revealed it. He who wants to bag his bird, 
 Colonel, never bangs away at nothing. I have now com- 
 pleted a longer despatch to you than I intend to address 
 to the Noble Secretary at F. 0., and am yours, very 
 faithfully, 
 
 " Horace Upton. 
 
 " Whose Magnesia is it that contains essence of Bark ? 
 Tripley's or Chipley's, I think. Find it out for me, and 
 send me a packet through the office ; put up Fauchard's 
 pamphlet with it, on Spain, and a small box of those new 
 blisters, Mouches they are called : they are to be had at 
 Atkinson's. I have got so accustomed to their stimu- 
 lating power that I never write without one or two on 
 my forehead. They tell me the cautery, if dexterously 
 applied, is better ; but I have not tried it."
 
 1G8 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 The tutor and his pupil. 
 
 We are not about to follow up the correspondence of Sir 
 Horace by detailing the reply which Harcourt sent, and 
 all that thereupon ensued between them. 
 
 We pass over, then, some months of time, and arrive at 
 the late autumn. 
 
 It is a calm, still morning ; the sea, streaked with tinted 
 shadows, is without a ripple ; the ships of many nations 
 that float on it are motionless, their white sails hunw out 
 to bleach, their ensigns drooping beside the masts. Over 
 the summit of Vesuvius, for we are at Naples, a light 
 blue cloud hangs, the solitary one in all the sky. A mild, 
 plaintive song, the chant of some fishermen on the rocks, 
 is the only sound, save the continuous hum of that vast 
 city, which swells and falls at intervals. 
 
 Close beside the sea, seated on a rock, are two figures. 
 One is that of a youth of some eighteen or nineteen years ; 
 his features, eminently handsome, wear an expression of 
 gloomy pride, as in deep preoccupation he gazes out 
 over the bay ; to all seeming, indifferent to the fair scene 
 before him, and wrapped in his own sad thoughts. The 
 other is a short, square-built, almost uncouth figure, over- 
 shadowed by a wide straw hat, which seems even to 
 diminish his stature ; a suit of black, wide and ample 
 enough for one twice -his size, gives his appearance a 
 grotesqueness to which his features contribute their share. 
 
 It is, indeed, a strange physiognomy, to which Celt and 
 Caimuc seem equally to contribute. The low, overhang- 
 ing forehead ; the intensely keen eye, sparkling with an 
 almost imp-like drollery, are contrasted by a firmly com- 
 pressed mouth, and a far projecting under jaw, that imply 
 sternness even to cruelty ; a mass of waving black hair, 
 that covers neck and shoulders, adds a species of savagery
 
 THE TUTOil AND HiS PUPIL. 1G9 
 
 to a head, which assuredly has no need of such aid. Bent 
 down over a large quarto volume, he never lifts his eyes ; 
 but, intently occupied, his lips are rapidly repeating the 
 words as he reads them. 
 
 " Do you mean to pass the morning here? " asks the 
 youth, at length, " or where shall I find you later on ? " 
 
 " I'll do whatever you like best," said the other, in a 
 rich brogue; "I'm agreeable to go or stay, ad utrumqwe 
 paratus." And Billy Traynor, for it was he, shut up his 
 venerable volume. 
 
 " I don't wish to disturb you," said the boy, mildly, 
 "you can read. I cannot; I have a fretful, impatient 
 feeling over me, that, perhaps, will go off with exercise. 
 I'll set out, then, for a walk, and come back here towards 
 evening, then go and dine at the Rocca, and afterwards 
 whatever you please." 
 
 "If you say that, then," said Billy, in a voice of evident 
 delight, " we'll finish the day at the Professor Tadeucci's, 
 and get him to go over that analysis again." 
 
 " I have no taste for chemistry. It always seems to 
 me to end where it began," said the boy, impatiently. 
 " Where do all researches tend to ? how are you elevated 
 in intellect? how are your thoughts higher, wider, nobler, 
 by all these mixings and manipulations ? " 
 
 " Is it nothing to know how thunder and lightning is 
 made ? to understand electricity, to dive into the secrets 
 of that old crater there, and see the ingredients in the 
 crucible that was bilin' three thousand years ago ? " 
 
 " These things appeal more grandly to my imagination 
 when the mystery of their forces is unrevealed. I like to 
 think of them as dread manifestations of a mighty will, 
 rather than gaseous combinations or metallic affinities." 
 
 " And what prevents you ? " said Billy, eagerly ; " is the 
 grandeur of the phenomenon impaired, because it is in 
 part intelligible ? Ain't you elevated as a reasoning being 
 when you get what I may call a peep into God's work- 
 shop, rather than by implicitly accepting results just as 
 any old woman accepts a superstition ? ' 
 
 " There is something ignoble in mechanism," said the 
 boy, angrily. 
 
 " Don't say that, while your heart is beatin' and your 
 arteries is contractin' — never say it as long as your lungs
 
 170 THE FOKTUNES OF GLENCOBE. 
 
 dilate or collapse. It's mechanism makes water burst out 
 of the ground, and, swelling into streams, flow as mighty 
 rivers through the earth. It's mechanism raises the sap 
 to the topmost bough of the cedar-tree that waves over 
 Lebanon. Tis the same power moves planets above, just 
 to show us that as there is nothing without a cause, there 
 is one great and final ' Cause ' behind all." 
 
 " And will you tell me," said the boy, sneeringly, " that 
 a sunbeam pours more gladness into your heart because a 
 prism has explained to you the composition of light? ' 
 
 " God's blessings never seemed the less to me because he 
 taught me the beautiful laws that guide them," said Billy, 
 reverently ; " every little step that I take out of darkness 
 is on the road, at least, to Him." 
 
 In part abashed by the words, in part admonished by 
 the tone of the speaker, the boy was silent for some 
 minutes. " You know, Billy," said he, at length, " that 
 I spoke in no irreverence ; that I would no more insult 
 your convictions than I would outrage my own. It is 
 simply that it suits my dreamy indolence to like the 
 wonderful better than the intelligible ; and you must ac- 
 knowledge that there never was so palatable a theory for 
 ignorance." 
 
 "Ay, but I don't want you to be ignorant," said Billy, 
 earnestly ; " and there's no greater mistake than supposing 
 that knowledge is an impediment to the play of fancy. 
 Take my word for it, Master Charles, imagination, no more 
 than any one else, does not work best in the dark." 
 
 " I certainly am no adept under such cii-cumstances," 
 said the boy. " I haven't told you what happened me in 
 the studio last night. I went in without a candle, and, 
 trying to grope my way to the table, I overturned the 
 lar^e olive jar, full of clay, against my Niobe, and smashed 
 her to atoms." 
 
 " Smashed ISTiobe ! " cried Billy, in horror. 
 
 "In pieces. I stood over her sadder than ever she felt 
 herself, and I have not had the courage to enter the studio 
 since." 
 
 " Come, come, let us see if she couldn't be restored," 
 said Billy, rising. " Let us go down there together." 
 
 " You may, if you have any fancy — there's the key," 
 said the boy. " I'll return there no more till the rubbish
 
 THE TUTOR AND HIS PUPIL. 171 
 
 be cleared away." And so saying, he moved off, and was 
 soon out of sight. 
 
 Deeply grieving over this disaster, Billy Traynor 
 hastened from the spot, but he had only reached the 
 garden of the Chiaja when he heard a faint, weak voice 
 calling him by his name ; he turned, and saw Sir Horace 
 Upton, who, seated in a sort of portable arm-chair, was 
 enjoying the fresh air from the sea. 
 
 " Quite a piece of good fortune to meet you, doctor," 
 paid he, smiling; " neither you nor your pupil have been 
 near me for ten days or more." 
 
 " "Pis our own loss then, your Excellency," said Billy, 
 bowing ; " even a chance few minutes in your company is 
 like whetting the intellectual razor — I feel myself sharper 
 for the whole day after." 
 
 " Then why not come oftener, man ? — are you afraid of 
 wearing the steel all away ? " 
 
 " 'Tis more afraid I am of gapping the fine edge of 
 your Excellency by contact with my own ruggedness," 
 said Billy, obsequiously. 
 
 "You were intended for a courtier, doctor," said Sir 
 Horace, smiling. 
 
 " If there was such a thing as a court fool now-a-days, 
 I'd look for the place." 
 
 " The age is too dull for such a functionary. They'll 
 not find ten men in any country of Europe equal to the 
 office," said Sir Horace. " One has only to see how 
 lamentably dull are the journals dedicated to wit and 
 drollery, to admit this fact ; though written by many 
 hands, how rare it is to chance upon what provokes a 
 laugh. You'll have fifty metaphysicians anywhere before 
 you'll hit on one Moliere. Will you kindly open that 
 umbrella for me. This autumnal sun, they say, gives sun- 
 stroke. And now what do you think of this boy ? he'll 
 not make a diplomatist, that's clear." 
 
 " He'll not make anything — just for one simple reason, 
 because he could be whatever he pleased." 
 
 " An intellectual spendthrift," sighed Sir Horace. 
 " What a hopeless bankruptcy it leads to ! " 
 
 " My notion is 'twould be spoiling him entirely to teach 
 him a trade or a profession. Let his great faculties shoot 
 up without being trimmed or trained — don't want to twist
 
 172 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 or twine or turn them at all, but just see whether he won't, 
 out of his uncurbed nature, do better than all our dis- 
 cipline could effect. Thei'e's no better colt than the one 
 that was never backed till he was a five-year-old." 
 
 " He ought to have a career," said Sir Horace, thought- 
 fully. " Every man ought to have a calling, if only that 
 he may be able to abandon it." 
 
 "Just as a sailor has a point of depai'ture," said Billy. 
 
 " Precisely," said Sir Horace, pleased at being so well 
 appreciated. 
 
 "' You are aware, doctor," resumed he, after a pause, 
 " that the lad will have little or no private fortune. There 
 are family circumstances that I cannot enter into, nor 
 would your own delicacy require it, that will leave him 
 almost dependent on his own efforts. Now, as time is 
 rolling over, we should bethink us what direction it were 
 wisest to give his talents — for he has talents." 
 
 "He has genius and talents both," said Billy ; "he has 
 the raw material and the workshop to manufacture it." 
 
 "I am rejoiced to hear such an account from one 
 so well able to pronounce," said Sir Horace, blandly ; 
 and Billy bowed, and blushed with a sense of happi- 
 ness that none but humble men, so praised, could ever 
 feel. 
 
 " I should like much to hear what you would advise for 
 him," said Upton. 
 
 " He's so full of promise," said Billy, "that whatever 
 he takes to he'll be sure to fancy he'd be better at some- 
 thing else. See, now — it isn't a bull I'm sayin', but I'll 
 make a blunder of it if I try to explain." 
 
 " Go on, I think I apprehend you." 
 
 " By coorse you do. Well, it's that same feelin' makes 
 me cautious of sayin' what he ought to do. Foi", after all, 
 a variety of capacity implies discursiveness, and discur- 
 siveness is the mother of failure." 
 
 " You speak like an oracle, doctor." 
 
 " If I do, it's because the priest is beside me," said Billy, 
 bowing. " My notion is this: I'd let him cultivate his 
 fine gifts for a year or two, in any way he liked — in work 
 or idleness — for they'll grow in the fallow as well as in the 
 tilled land. I'd let him be whatever he liked — striving 
 always, as he's sure to be striving, after something higher,
 
 THE TUT011 AND HIS PUPIL. 173 
 
 and greater, and better than he'll ever reach ; and then, 
 Avhen he has felt both his strength and his weakness, I'd 
 try and attach him to some great man in public life ; set a 
 grand ambition before him, and say, ' Go on.' " 
 
 " He's scarcely the stuff for public life," muttered Sir 
 Horace. 
 
 " He is," said Billy, boldly. 
 
 " He'd be easily abashed — easily deterred by failure." 
 
 " Sorra bit. Success might cloy, but failure would never 
 damp him." 
 
 "I can't fancy him a speaker." 
 
 " Rouse him by a strong theme and a flat contradiction, 
 and you'll see what he can do." 
 
 "And then his lounging, idle habits ■" 
 
 " He'll do more in two hours than any one else in two 
 days." 
 
 " You are a warm admirer, my dear doctor," said Sir 
 Horace, smiling blandly. " I should almost rather have 
 such a friend than the qualities that win the friendship. 
 Have you a message for me, Antoine? " said he to a ser- 
 vant who stood at a little distance, waiting the order to 
 approach. The man came forward, and whispered a few 
 words. Sir Horace's cheek gave a faint, the very faintest 
 possible, sign of flush as he listened, and uttering a brief 
 " Very well," dismissed the messenger. 
 
 " Will you give me your arm, doctor ? " said he, lan- 
 guidly ; and the elegant Sir Horace Upton passed down 
 the crowded promenade leaning on his uncouth companion, 
 without the slightest consciousness of the surprise and 
 sarcasm around him. No man more thoroughly could 
 appreciate conventionalities ; he would weigh the effect of 
 appearances to the veriest nicety ; but in practice he seemed 
 either to forget his knowledge or despise it. So that, as 
 leaning on the little dwarf's arm he moved along, his very 
 air of fashionable languor seemed to heighten the absurdity 
 of the contrast. Nay, he actually seemed to bestow an 
 almost deferential attention to what the other said — bowing 
 blandly his acquiescence, and smiling with an urbanity all 
 his own. 
 
 Of the crowd that passed, nearly all knew the 
 English Minister. Uncovered heads were bent obse- 
 quiously ; graceful salutations met him as he went ; while
 
 174 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE, 
 
 a hundred conjectures ran as to who and what might be 
 his companion. 
 
 He was a Mesmeric Professor, a Writer in Cypher, a 
 Rabbi, an Egyptian Explorer, an Alchymist, an African 
 Traveller, and at last, Mons. Thiers ! — and so the fine 
 woi-ld of Naples discussed the humble individual whom 
 you and I, dear reader, are acquainted with as Billy 
 Traynor.
 
 175 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 HOW A " BECEPTION " COMES TO ITS CLOSE. 
 
 On the evening of that day, the handsome saloons of the 
 great Hotel : ' Universo " were filled with a brilliant as- 
 semblage, to compliment the Princess Sabloukoff on her 
 arrival. We have already introduced this lady to the 
 reader, and have no need to explain the homage and atten- 
 tion of which she was the object. There is nothing which 
 so perfectly illustrates the maxim of " ignotum pro rnag- 
 nifico " as the career of politics ; certain individuals ob- 
 taining, as they do, a pre-eminence and authority from a 
 species of mysterious prestige about them, and a reputa- 
 tion of having access at any moment to the highest per- 
 sonage in the world of state affairs. Doubtless great 
 ministers are occasionally not sorry to see the public full 
 cry on a false scent, and encourage to a certain extent this 
 mystification ; but still it would be an error to deny to such 
 persons as we speak of a knowledge, if not actually an 
 influence, in great affairs. 
 
 When the Swedish Chancellor nttered his celebrated 
 sarcasm on the governing capacities of Europe, the politi- 
 cal Salon, as a state engine, was not yet in existence. 
 What additional energy might it have given to his remark, 
 had he known that the tea-table was the chapel of ease to 
 the council-room, and gossip a new power in the state. 
 Despotic governments are always curious about public 
 opinion : they dread while affecting to despise it. , They, 
 however, make a far greater mistake than this, for they 
 imagine its true exponent to be the society of the highest 
 in rank and station. 
 
 It is not necessary to insist upon an error so palpable, 
 and yet it is one of which nearly every capital of Europe 
 affords example ; and the same council-chamber that would 
 treat a popular movement with disdain, would tremble at
 
 176 THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCORE. 
 
 the epigram launched by some "elegant " of society. The 
 theory is, "that the masses act, but never think: the 
 higher ranks think, and set the rest in motion." Whether 
 well or ill-founded, one consequence of the system is to 
 inundate the world with a number of persons, who, no 
 matter what their station or pretensions, are no other than 
 Spies. If it be observed that, generally speaking, there 
 is nothing worth recording — that society, too much en- 
 gaged with its own vicissitudes, troubles itself little with 
 those of the state ; let it be remembered that the govern- 
 ments which employ these agencies are in a position to 
 judge of the value of what they receive; and as they per- 
 severe in maintaining them, they are, doubtless, in some 
 degree, remunerated. 
 
 To hold this high detective employ, a variety of condi- 
 tions are essential. The individual must have birth and 
 breeding to gain access to the highest circles ; conciliating 
 manners and ample means. If a lady, she is usually 
 young, and a beauty, or has the fame of having once been 
 such. The strangest part of all is, that her position is 
 thoroughly appreciated. She is recognized everywhere for 
 what she is ; and yet her presence never seems to impose 
 a restraint or suggest a caution. She becomes, in reality, 
 less a discoverer than a depositary of secrets. Many have 
 something to communicate, and are only at a loss as to the 
 channel. They have found out a political puzzle, hit a 
 state blot, or unravelled a cabinet mystery. Others are in 
 possession of some personal knowledge of royalty. They 
 have marked the displeasure of the Queen Dowager, or 
 seen the anger of the Crown Prince. Profitable as such 
 facts are, they are nothing without a market. Thus it is 
 that these characters exercise a wider sphere of influence 
 than might be naturally ascribed to them, and possess 
 besides a terrorizing power over society, the chief members 
 of which are at their mercy. 
 
 It is, doubtless, not a little humiliating that such should 
 be the instruments of a government, and that royalty 
 should avail itself of such agencies ; but the fact is so, and 
 perhaps an inquiry into the secret working of democratic 
 institutions might not make one a whit more proud of 
 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 Amongst the proficients in the great science we speak
 
 SOW A "RECEPTION" COMES TO ITS CLOSE. 177 
 
 of, the Princess held the first place. Mysterious stories 
 ran of her acquaintance with affairs the most momentous: 
 there were narratives of her complicity in even darker 
 events. Her name was quoted by Savary in his secret 
 report of the Emperor Paul's death — an allusion to her 
 was made by one of the assassins of Murat — and a gloomy 
 record of a celebrated incident in Louis Philippe's life 
 ascribed to her a share in a terrible tragedy. Whether 
 believed or not, they added to the prestige that attended 
 her, and she was virtually a " puissance " in European 
 politics. 
 
 To all the intriguists in state affairs her arrival was 
 actually a boon. She could and would give them, out of 
 her vast capital, enough to establish them successfully in 
 ti'ade. To the minister of police she brought accurate 
 descriptions of suspected characters — the sif/nalements 
 of Carbonari that were threatening half the thrones of 
 Europe. To the foreign secretary she brought tidings of 
 the favour in which a great Emperor held him, and a 
 shadow}'' vision of the grand cross he was one day to have. 
 She had forbidden books for the cardinal confessor, and a 
 case of smuggled cigars for the minister of finance. The 
 picturesque language of a Journal de Modes could alone 
 convey the rare and curious details of dress which she 
 imported for the benefit of the court ladies. In a word, 
 she had something to secure her a welcome in every 
 quarter — and all done with a tact and a delicacy that the 
 most susceptible could not have resisted. 
 
 If the tone and manner of good society present little 
 suitable to description, they are yet subjects of great 
 interest to him who would study men in their moods of 
 highest subtlety and astuteness. To mere passing care- 
 less observation, the reception of the Princess was a 
 crowded gathering of a number of well-dressed people, in 
 which the men were in far larger proportion than the 
 other sex. There was abundance of courtesy ; not a little 
 of that half-flattering compliment which is the small 
 change of intercourse : some — not much — scandal, and a 
 fair share of small-talk. It was late when Sir Horace 
 Upton entered, and, advancing to where the Princess 
 stood, kissed her gloved hand with all the submissive 
 deference of a courtier. The most lynx-eyed observer 
 
 N
 
 178 THE FORTimES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 could not have detected either in his manner or in hers 
 that any intimacy existed between them, much less friend- 
 ship ; least of all, anything still closer. His bearing was 
 a most studied and respectful homage — hers a haughty, 
 but condescending acceptance of it ; and yet, with all 
 this, there was that in those around that seemed to say, 
 " This man is more master here than any of us." He did 
 not speak long with the Princess, but respectfully yield- 
 ing his place to a later arrival, fell back into the crowd, 
 and soon after took a seat beside one of the very few 
 ladies who graced the reception. In all they were very 
 few, we are bound to acknowledge ; for although La 
 Sabloukoff was received at court and all the embassies, 
 they who felt, or affected to feel, any strictness on the 
 score of morals, avoided rather than sought ber intimacy. 
 
 She covered over what might have seemed this dis- 
 paragement of her conduct, by always seeking the society 
 of men, as though their hardy and vigorous intellects 
 were more in unison with her own than the graceful attri- 
 butes of the softer sex ; and in this tone did the few lady- 
 friends she possessed appear also to concur. It was their 
 pride to discuss matters of state and politics ; and when- 
 ever they condescended to more trifling themes, they 
 treated them with a degree of candour, and in a spirit 
 that allowed men to speak as unreservedly as though no 
 ladies were present. 
 
 Let us be forgiven for prolixity, since we are speaking 
 less of individuals than of a school — a school, too, on the 
 increase, and one whose results will be more widelv felt 
 than many are disposed to believe. 
 
 As the evening wore on, the guests bartei'ed the news 
 and bons mots — scraps of letters from royal hands were 
 read — epigrams from illustrious characters repeated — racy 
 bits of courtly scandal were related, and shrewd explana- 
 tions hazarded as to how this was to turn out, and that 
 was to end. It was a very strange language they talked 
 ■ — so much seemed left for inference — so much seemed left 
 to surmise. There was a shadowy indistinctness, as it 
 were, over all, and yet their manner showed a perfect and 
 thorough appreciation of whatever went forward. Through 
 all this treatment of great questions, one striking feature 
 pre-eminently displayed itself — a keen appreciation of how
 
 SOW A " RECEPTION" COMES TO ITS CLOSE. 179 
 
 much the individual characters, the passions, the prejudices, 
 the very caprices of men in power modified the acts of 
 their governments ; and thus you constantly heard such 
 remarks as, "If the Duke of Wellington disliked the 
 Emperor less — or, so long as Metternich has such an 
 attachment to the Queen Dowager — when we get over 
 Carini's dread of the Archduchess — or if we could only 
 reconcile the Prince to a visit from Nesselrode" — showing 
 that private personal feelings were swaying the minds of 
 those whose contemplation might have seemed raised to a 
 far loftier level. And then what a mass of very small 
 gossip abounded — incidents so slight and insignificant 
 that they only were lifted into importance by the actors 
 in them being Kings and Kaisers ! By what accidents 
 grpat events were determined — on what mere trifles vast 
 interests depended, it were, doubtless, no novelty to 
 record : still it would startle many to be told that a casual 
 pique, a passing word launched at hazard, some petty 
 observance omitted or forgotten, have changed the des- 
 tinies of whole nations. 
 
 It is in such circles as these that incidents of this kind 
 are recounted. Each has some anecdote, trivial and unim- 
 portant it may be, but still illustrating the life of those who 
 live under the shadow of Royalty. The Princess herself 
 was inexhaustible in these stores of secret biography ; 
 there was not a dynastic ambition to be consolidated by a 
 marriage — not a Coburg alliance to patch up a family com- 
 pact, that she was not well versed in. She detected in the 
 vaguest movements plans and intentions, and could read 
 the signs of a policy in indications that others would have 
 passed without remark. 
 
 One by one the company retired, and at length Sir 
 Horace found himself the last guest of the evening. 
 Scarcely had the door closed on the last departure, when, 
 drawing his arm-chair to the side of the fire opposite to 
 that where the Princess sat, he took out his cigar-case, 
 and selecting a cheroot, deliberately lighted and commenced 
 to smoke it 
 
 "1 thought they'd never go," said she, with a sigh ; 
 "but I know why they remained— they all thought the 
 Prince of Istria was coming. They saw his carriage stop 
 here this evening, and heard he had sent up to know if I 
 
 N 2
 
 180 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 received. I wrote on a card, ' To-morrow at dinner, at 
 eight; ' so be sure you are here to meet him." 
 
 Sir Horace bowed and smiled his acceptance. 
 
 "And your journey, dear Princess," said he, between 
 the puffs of his smoke, "was it pleasant? ' 
 
 " It might have been well enough, but I was obliged 
 to make a great detour. The Duchess detained me at 
 Parma for some letters, and then sent me across the 
 mountains of Pontremoli — a frightful road — on a secret 
 mission to Massa." 
 
 " To Massa ! of all earthly places." 
 
 " Even so. They had sent down there, some eight or 
 nine months ago, the young Count Wahnsdorf, the Arch- 
 duchess Sophia's son, who, having got into all manner of 
 dissipation at Vienna, and lost largely at play, it was 
 judged expedient to exile him for a season ; and as the 
 Duke of Modena offered his aid to their plans, he was 
 named to a troop in a dragoon regiment, and appointed 
 aide-de-camp to his Royal Highness. Are you attending ? 
 or has your Excellency lost the clue of my story ?" 
 
 " I am all ears ; only waiting anxiously to hear — who 
 is she?" 
 
 " Oh, then, you suspect a woman in the case ? " 
 
 " I am sure of it, dear Princess. The very accents of 
 your voice prepared me for a bit of romance." 
 
 " Yes, you are right ; he has fallen in love — so desper- 
 ately in love, that he is incessant in his appeals to the 
 Duchess to intercede with his family and grant him leave 
 to marry." 
 
 " To marry whom ?" asked Sir Horace. 
 
 " That's the very question which he cannot answer him- 
 self; and when pressed for information, can only reply that 
 ' she is an angel.' Now angels are not always of good 
 family ; they have sometimes very humble parents and 
 very small fortunes." 
 
 " Helas /" sighed the diplomatist, pitifully. 
 
 " This angel, it would seem, is untraceable ; she arrived 
 with her mother, or what is supposed to be her mother, 
 from Corsica ; they landed at Spezzia, with an English 
 passport, calling them Madame and Mademoiselle Harley. 
 On arriving at Massa, they took a villa close to the town, 
 and established themselves with all the circumstance of
 
 HOW A " RECEPTION " COMES TO ITS CLOSE. 181 
 
 people well off as to means. They, however, neither re- 
 ceived visits nor made acquaintance with any one. They 
 even so far withdrew themselves from public view, that 
 they rarely left their own grounds, and usually took their 
 carriage-airing at night. You are not attending, I see." 
 
 " On the contrary, I am an eager listener; only it is a 
 story one has heard so often. I never heard of any one 
 preserving the incognito except where disclosure would 
 have revealed a shame." 
 
 ''Your Excellency mistakes," replied she ; " the incog- 
 nito is sometimes like a feigned despatch in diplomacy, a 
 means of awakening curiosity." 
 
 " Ces ruses ne se font plus, Princess, they were the 
 fashion in Talleyrand's time ; now we are satisfied to 
 mystify by no meaning." 
 
 " If the weapons of the old school are not employed, 
 there is another reason, perhaps," said she, with a dubious 
 smile. 
 
 " That modern arms are too feeble to wield them, you 
 mean," said he, bowing courteously. "Ah ! it is but too 
 true, Princess," and he sighed what might mean regret 
 over the fact, or devotion to herself — perhaps both. At 
 all events his submission served as a treaty of peace, and 
 she resumed. 
 
 " And now, ' revenons a nos moutons,' " said she, " or at 
 least to our lambs. This Wahnsdorf is quite capable of 
 contracting a marriage without any permission, if they 
 appear inclined to thwart him ; and the question is, what 
 can be done ? The Duke would send these people away 
 out of his territory, only that, if they be English, as their 
 passports imply, he knows that there will be no end of 
 trouble with your amiable Government, which is never 
 paternal till some one corrects one of her children. If 
 Wahnsdorf be sent away, where are they to send him ? 
 Besides, in all these cases, the creature carries his malady 
 with him, and is sure to marry the first who sympathizes 
 with him. In a word, there were difficulties on all sides, 
 and the Duchess sent me over, in observation, as they 
 say, rather than with any direct plan of extrication." 
 
 " And you went ? " 
 
 "Yes; I passed twenty- four hours. I couldn't stay 
 longer, foj- 1 promised the Cardinal Caraffa to be in Rome
 
 182 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 on the 18th, about those Polish nunneries. As to Massa, I 
 gathered little more than I had heard beforehand. I saw 
 their villa ; I even penetrated as far as the orangery in 
 my capacity of traveller — the whole a perfect Paradise. 
 I'm not sure I did not get a peep at Eve herself; at a 
 distance, however. I made great efforts to obtain an 
 interview, but all unsuccessfully. The police authorities 
 managed to summon two of the servants to the Podesta, 
 on pretence of some irregularity in their papers, but we 
 obtained nothing out of them ; and, what is moi'e, I saw 
 clearly that nothing could be effected by a coup de main. 
 The place requires a long siege, and I had not time for 
 that." 
 
 " Did you see Wahnsdorf ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I had him to dinner with me alone at the hotel 
 for, to avoid all observation, I only went to the Palace aftei 
 nightfall. He confessed all his sins to me, and, like everv 
 other scapegrace, thought marriage was a grand absolution 
 for past wickedness. He told me, too, how he made the 
 acquaintance of these strangers. They were crossing the 
 Magra with their carriage on a raft, when the cable 
 snapped and they were all carried down the torrent. He 
 happened to be a passenger at the time, and did something 
 very heroic, I've no doubt, but I cannot exactly remember 
 what ; but it amounted to either being, or being supposed 
 to be, their deliverer. He thus obtained leave to pay his 
 respects at the villa ; but even this gratitude was very 
 measured ; they only admitted him at rare intervals, and 
 for a very brief visit. In fact, it was plain he had to deal 
 with consummate tacticians, who turned the mystery of 
 their seclusion and the honour vouchsafed him to an ample 
 profit." 
 
 " He told them his name and his rank ? " 
 
 "Yes ; and he owned that they did not seem at all im- 
 pressed by the revelation. He describes them as very 
 haughty, very condescending in manner, ' tres grandes 
 dames,' in fact, but unquestionably born to the class they 
 represent. They never dropped a hint of whence they 
 had come, or any circumstance of their past lives ; but 
 seemed entirely engrossed by the present, which they 
 spent principally in cultivating the arts ; they both drew 
 admirably, and the young lady had become a most skilful
 
 HOW A "RECEPTION COMES TO ITS CLOSE. 183 
 
 modellist in clay, her whole clay being passed in a studio 
 which they had just built. I urged him strongly to try 
 and obtain permission for me to see it, but he assured me 
 it was hopeless — the request might even endanger his own 
 position with them. 
 
 " I could perceive that, though very much in love, 
 Wahnsdorf was equally taken with the romance of tin's 
 adventure. He had never been a hero to himself before, 
 and he was perfectly enchanted by the novelty of the 
 sensation. He never affected to say that he had made the 
 least impression on the young lady's heart ; but he gave 
 me to understand that the nephew of an Emperor need 
 not trouble his head much on that score. He is a very 
 good-looking, well-mannered, weak boy, who, if he only 
 reach the age of thirty without some great blunder, will 
 pass for a very dignified Prince for the rest of his life." 
 
 " Did you give him any hopes ? " 
 
 " Of course, if he only promised to follow my counsels ; 
 and as these same counsels are yet in the oven, he must 
 needs wait for them. In a word, he is to write to me 
 everything, and I to him ; and so we parted." 
 
 " I should like to see these people," said Upton, lan- 
 guidly. 
 
 " I'm sure of it," rejoined she ; "but it is perhaps un- 
 necessary; " and there was that in the tone which made 
 the words very significant. 
 
 " Chelmsford — he's now Secretary at Turin — might 
 perhaps trace them," said he ; " he always knows every- 
 thing of those people who are secrets to the rest of the 
 world." 
 
 "For the present, I am disposed to think it were better 
 not to direct attention towards them," replied she. " What 
 we do here must be done adroitly, and in such a way as 
 that it can be disavowed if necessary, or abandoned if un- 
 successful." 
 
 " Said with all your own tact, Princess," said Sir Horace, 
 smiling. " I can perceive, however, that you have a plan 
 in your head already. Is it not so ? " 
 
 " No," said she, with a faint sigh ; " I took wonderfully 
 little interest in the affair. It was one of those games 
 where the combinations are so few you don't condescend 
 to learn it. Are you aware of the hour ? "
 
 184 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " Actually tliree o'clock," said he, standing up. " Really, 
 Princess, I am quite shocked." 
 
 " And so am I," said she, smiling; " ' on se compromet 
 si facilement dans ce has monde.' Good night." And 
 she curtseyed and withdrew before he had time to take 
 his hat and retire.
 
 185 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER. 
 
 In this age of the world, when everybody has been every- 
 where, seen everything, and talked with everybody, it may 
 savour of an impertinence if we ask of our reader if he 
 has ever been at Massa. It may so chance that he has 
 not, and, if so, as assuredly lias he yet an untasted pleasure 
 before him. 
 
 Now, to be sure, Massa is not as it once was. The little 
 Duchy, whose capital it formed, has been united to a larger 
 state. The distinctive features of a metropolis, and the 
 residence of a sovereign prince, are gone. The life, and 
 stir, and animation which surround a court have subsided ; 
 grass-grown streets and deserted squares replace the busy 
 movement of former days ; a dreamy weariness seems to 
 have fallen over every one, as though life offered no more 
 prizes for exertion, and that the day of ambition was set 
 lor ever. Yet are there features about the spot which all 
 the chances and changes of political fortune cannot touch. 
 Dynasties may fall, and thrones crumble, but the eternal 
 Apennines will still rear their snow-clad summits towards 
 the sky. Along the vast plain of ancient olives the per- 
 fumed wind will still steal at evening, and the blue waters 
 of the Mediterranean plash lazily among the rocks, over 
 which the myrtle and the arbutus are hanging. There, 
 amidst them all, half hid in clustering vines, bathed in 
 soft odours from orange groves, with plashing fountains 
 glittering in the sun, and foaming streams gushing from 
 the sides of marble mountains, there stands Massa — ruined, 
 decayed, and deserted ; but beautiful in all its desolation, 
 and fairer to gaze on than many a scene where the tide of 
 human fortune is at the flood. 
 
 As you wander there now, passing the deep arch ovei* 
 which, hundreds of feet above you, the ancient fortress 
 frowns, and enter the silent streets, you would find it
 
 186 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 somewhat difficult to believe how, a very few years back, 
 this was the brilliant residence of a court — the gay resort 
 of strangers from every land of Europe — that showy 
 equipages traversed these weed-grown squares, and high- 
 born dames swept proudly beneath these leafy alleys. 
 Hard, indeed, to fancy the glittering throng of courtiers, 
 the merry laughter of light-hearted beauty, beneath these 
 trelliscd shades, where, moodily and slow, some solitary 
 figure now steals along, " pondering sad thoughts over the 
 bygone ! " 
 
 But a few, a very few years ago, and Massa was in the 
 plenitude of its prosperity. The revenues of the state 
 were large — more than sufficient to have maintained all 
 that such a city could require, and nearly enough to gratify 
 every caprice of a prince whose costly tastes ranged over 
 every theme, and found in each a pretext for reckless ex- 
 penditure. He was one of those men whom Nature having 
 gifted largely, "takes out" the compensation by a dis- 
 . position of instability and fickleness that renders every 
 acquirement valueless. He could have been anything — 
 orator, poet, artist, soldier, statesman ; and yet, in the 
 very diversity of his abilities, there was that want of 
 fixity of purpose, that left him ever short of success, till 
 he himself, wearied by repeated failings, distrusted his own 
 powers, and ceased to exert them. 
 
 Such a man, under the hard pressure of a necessity, 
 might have done great things ; as it was, born to a 
 princely station, and with a vast fortune, he became a 
 reckless spendthrift — a dreamy visionary at one time, an 
 enthusiastic dilettante at another. There was not'a scheme 
 of government he had not eagerly embraced and aban- 
 doned in turn. He had attracted to his little capital all 
 that Europe could boast of artistic excellence, and as sud- 
 denly he had thrown himself into the most intolerant zeal 
 of Papal persecution — denouncing every species of plea- 
 sure, and ordaining a more than monastic self-denial and 
 strictness. There was only one mode of calculating what 
 he might be, which was, by imagining the very opposite 
 to what he then was. Extremes were his delight, and he 
 undulated between Austrian tyranny and democratic 
 licentiousness in politics, just as he vacillated between 
 the darkest bigotry of his church and open infidelity.
 
 A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER. 187 
 
 At tlie time when we desire to present him to our 
 readers (the exact year is not material), he was fast 
 beginning to weary of an interregnum of ascetism and 
 severity.. He had closed theatres, and suppressed all public 
 rejoicings ; and for an entire winter he had sentenced his 
 faithful subjects to the unbroken sway of the Priest and 
 the Friar ; a species of rule which had banished all stran- 
 gers from the Duchy, and threatened, by the injury to 
 trade, the direst consequences to his capital. To have 
 brought the question formally before him in all its details 
 would have ensured the downfall of any minister rash 
 enough for such daring. There was, indeed, but one man 
 about the court who had courage for the enterprise ; and 
 to him we would devote a few lines as we pass. He was 
 an Englishman, named Stubber. He had originally come 
 out to Italy with horses for his Highness, and been in- 
 duced, by good offers of employment, to remain. He was 
 not exactly stable-groom, nor trainer, nor was he of the 
 dignity of master of the stables ; but he was something 
 whose attributes included a little of all, and something 
 more. One thing he assuredly was — a consummately 
 clever fellow, who could apply all his native Yorkshire 
 shrewdness to a new sphere, and make of his homespun 
 faculties the keen intelligence by which he could guide 
 himself in novel and difficult circumstances. 
 
 A certain freedom of speech, with a bold hardihood of 
 character, based it is true, upon a conscious sense of 
 honour, had brought him more than once under the 
 notice of the Prince. His Highness felt such pleasure in 
 the outspoken frankness of the man, that he frequently 
 took opportunities of conversing with him, and even ask- 
 ing his advice. Never deterred by the subject, whatever 
 it was, Stubber spoke out his mind, and by the very force 
 of strong native sense, and an unswerving power of 
 determination, soon impressed his master that his best 
 counsels were to be had from the Yorkshire jockey, and 
 not from the decorated and gilded throng who filled the 
 antechambers. 
 
 To elevate the groom to the rank of personal attendant ; 
 to create him a Chevalier and then a Count, were all easy 
 steps to such a Prince. At the time we speak of, Stubber 
 was chief of the Cabinet— the trusted adviser of his
 
 188 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 master in knottiest questions of foreign politics, the 
 arbiter of the most difficult points with other states, the 
 highest authority in home affairs, and the absolute ruler 
 over the Duke's household and all who belonged to it. 
 He was one of those men of action who speedily distin- 
 guish themselves wherever the game of life is being 
 played : smart to discern the character of those around 
 him, prompt to avail himself of their knowledge, little 
 hampered by the scruples which conventionalities impose 
 on men bred in a higher station, he generally attained his 
 object before others had arranged their plans to oppose 
 him. To these qualities he added a rugged, unflinching 
 honesty, and a loyal attachment to the person of his 
 Prince. Strong in his own conscious rectitude, and in 
 the confiding regard of his sovereign, Stubber stood alone 
 against all the wiles and machinations of his formidable 
 rivals. 
 
 Were we giving a history of this curious court and its 
 intrigues, we could relate some strange stories of the 
 mechanism by which states are ruled. We have, how- 
 ever, no other business with the subject than as it 
 enters into the domain of our own story, and to this we 
 return. 
 
 It was a calm evening of the eai-ly autumn, as the 
 Prince, accompanied by Stubber alone, and unattended 
 by even a groom, rode along one of the alleys of the olive 
 Avood which skirts the sea-shore beneath Massa. His 
 Highness was unusually moody and thoughtful, and as 
 he sauntered carelessly along, seemed scarcely to notice 
 the objects about him. 
 
 "What month are we in, Stubber?" asked he, at 
 length. 
 
 " September, Altezza," was the short reply. 
 
 " Per Bacco ! so it is ; and in this very month we were 
 to have been in Bohemia with the Archduke Stephen — 
 the best shooting in all Em'ope, and the largest stock of 
 pheasants in the whole world, perhaps ; and I, that love 
 field-sports as no man ever loved them ! Eh, Stubber ? " 
 and he turned abruptly round to seek a confirmation of 
 what he asserted. Either Stubber did not fully agree 
 in the judgment, or did not deem it necessary to record 
 his concurrence ; but the Prince was obliged to reiterate
 
 A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER. 189 
 
 his statement, adding, " I might say, indeed, it is the one 
 solitary dissipation I have ever permitted myself." 
 
 Now this was a stereotyped phrase of his Highness, and 
 employed by him respecting music, literature, field-sports, 
 picture-buying, equipage, play, and a number of other 
 pursuits not quite so pardonable, in each of which, for the 
 time, his zeal would seem to be exclusive. 
 
 A scarcely audible ejaculation — a something like a grunt 
 — from Stubber, was the only assent to this proposition. 
 
 " And here I am," added the Prince, testily, "the only 
 man of my rank in Europe, pei'haps, without society, 
 amusement, or pleasure, condemned to the wearisome 
 details of a petty administration, and actually a slave — yes, 
 
 sir, I say, a slave What the deuce is this ? My horse 
 
 is sinking above his pasterns. Where are we, Stubber ? " 
 and with a vigorous dash of the spurs he extricated him- 
 self from the deep ground. 
 
 " I often told your Highness that these lands were 
 ruined for want of drainage. You may remark how poor 
 the trees are along here ; the fruit, too, is all deteriorated 
 — all for want of a little skill and industry. And, if your 
 Highness remarked the appearance of the people in that 
 village, every second man has the ague on him. 
 
 " They did look very wretched. And why is it not 
 drained ? Why isn't everything done as it ought, 
 Stubber, eh ? " 
 
 " Why isn't your Highness in Bohemia ? " 
 
 " Want of means, my good Stubber ; no money. My 
 man, Landelli, tells me the coffer is empty ; and until this 
 new tax on the Colza comes in, we shall have to live on 
 our credit, or our wits — I forget which, but I conclude 
 they are about equally productive." 
 
 " Landelli is a ladro," said Stubber. " He has money 
 enough to build a new wing to his chateau in Serravezza, 
 and to give fifty thousand scudi of fortune to his 
 daughter, though he can't afford your Highness the 
 common necessaries of your station." 
 
 " Per Bacco ! Billy, you are right ; you must look into 
 these accounts yourself. They always confuse me." 
 
 " I have looked into them, and your Highness shall 
 have two hundred thousand francs to-morrow on your 
 dressing-table, and as much more within the week."
 
 190 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORg. 
 
 " Well clone, Billy ! you are the only fellow who can 
 unmask these rogueries. If I had only had you with me 
 long ago ! Well ! well ! well ! it is too late to think of it. 
 What shall we do with this money ? Bohemia is out of 
 the question now. Shall we rebuild the San Felice ? It is 
 really too small ; the stage is crowded with twenty people 
 on it. There's that gate towards Carrara — when is it to 
 be completed ? — there's a figure wanted for the centre 
 pedestal. As for the fountain, it must be done by the 
 municipality. It is essentially the interest of the towns- 
 people. You'd advise me to spend the money in draining 
 these low lands, or in a grant to that new company for a 
 pier at Marina ; but I'll not ; I have other thoughts in 
 my head. Why should not this be the centre of art to 
 the whole Peninsula ? Carrara is a city of sculptors. 
 Why not concentrate their efforts here — by a gallery ? 
 I have myself some glorious things — the best group 
 Canova ever modelled — the original Ariadne, too — far 
 finer than the thing people go to see at Frankfort. Then 
 there's Tanderini's Shepherd with the Goats. Who lives 
 yonder, Stubber ? What a beautiful garden it is ! " And 
 he drew up short in front of a villa, whose grounds were 
 terraced in a succession of gardens, down to the very 
 margin of the sea. Plants and shrubs of other climates 
 were mingled with those familiar to Italy, making up 
 a picture of singular beauty, by diversity of colour and 
 foliage. " Isn't this the ' Ombretta,' Stubber ? " 
 
 " Yes, Altezza ; but the Morelli have left it. It is let 
 now to a stranger — a French lady. Some call her English, 
 I believe." 
 
 " To be sure ; I remember. There was a demand about 
 a formal permission to reside here. Landelli advised me 
 not to sig-ii it — that she might turn out English, or have 
 some claim upon England, which was quite equivalent to 
 placing the Duchy, and all within it, under that blessed 
 thing they call British protection." 
 
 " There are worse things than even that," muttered 
 Stubber. 
 
 " British occupation perhaps you mean ; well, you may 
 be right. At all events, I did not take Landelli's advice, 
 for 1 gave the permission, and I have never heard 
 more of her. She must be rich, I take it. See what
 
 A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER. 191 
 
 order this place is kept in ; that conservatory is very 
 large indeed, and the orange- trees are finer than ours." 
 
 " They seem very fine, indeed," said Stubber. 
 
 " I say, sir, that we have none such at the Palace. I'll 
 wager a zecchino they have come from Naples. And look 
 at that magnolia : I tell you, Stubber, this garden is very 
 far superior to ours." 
 
 "Your Highness has not been in the Palace gardens 
 lately, perhaps. I was there this morning, and they are 
 really in admirable order." 
 
 " I'll have a peep inside of these grounds, Stubber," 
 said the Duke, who, no longer attentive to the other, 
 only followed out his own train of thought. At the same 
 instant he dismounted, and, without giving himself any 
 trouble about his horse, made straight for a small wicket 
 which lay invitingly open in front of him. The narrow 
 skirting of copse /passed, the Duke at once found himself 
 in the midst of a lovely garden, laid out with consummate 
 skill and taste, and offering at intervals the most beautiful 
 views of the surrounding scenery. Although much of 
 what he beheld around him was the work of many years, 
 there were abundant traces of innovation and improve- 
 ment. Some of the statues were recently placed, and a 
 small temple of Grecian architecture seemed to have been 
 just restored. A heavy curtain hung across the doorway; 
 drawing back which, the Duke entered what he at once 
 perceived to be a sculptor's studio. Casts and models lay 
 carelessly about, and a newly begun group stood en- 
 shrouded in the wetted drapery with which artists clothe 
 their unfinished labours. No mean artist himself, the 
 Duke examined critically the figures before him ; nor was 
 he long in perceiving that the artist had committed more 
 than one fault in drawing and proportion. " This is 
 amateur work," said he to himself; " and yet not without 
 cleverness and a touch of genius too. Your dilettante 
 scorns anatomy, and will not submit to drudgery ; hence, 
 here are muscles incorrectly developed, and their action 
 ill expressed." So saying, he sat down befoi'e the model, 
 and taking up one of the tools at his side, began to correct 
 some of the ei'rors in the work. It was exactly the kind 
 of task for which his skill adapted him. Too impatient 
 and too discursive to accomplish anything of his own, he
 
 192 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 was admirably fitted to correct the faults of another, and 
 so he worked away vigorously — totally forgetting where 
 he was, how he had come tbere, and as utterly oblivious 
 of Stubber, whom he had left without. Growing more 
 and more interested as he proceeded, he arose at length 
 to take a better view of what he had done, and, standing 
 some distance off, exclaimed aloud, " Per Bacco ! I have 
 made a good tbing of it — there's life in it now ! " 
 
 " So indeed is tbere," cried a gentle voice behind him ; 
 and turning he beheld a young and very beautiful girl, 
 whose dress was covered by the loose blouse of a sculptor. 
 "How I thank you for this! " said she, blushing deeply, 
 as she curtseyed before him. " I have had no teaching ; 
 and never till tbis moment knew how much I needed it." 
 
 " And this is your work, then ? " said the Duke, who 
 turned again towards the model. " Well, there is promise 
 in it. There is even more. Still you have hard labour 
 before you, if you would be really an artist. There is a 
 grammar in these things, and he who would speak the 
 tongue must get over the declensions. I know but little 
 myself " 
 
 " Oh, do not say so ! " cried she, eagerly ; " I feel that 
 I am in a master's presence." 
 
 The Duke started, partly struck by the energy of her 
 manner, in part by the words themselves. It is often 
 difficult for men in his station to believe that they are not 
 known and recognized, and so he stood wondering at her, 
 and thinking who she could be that did not know him to 
 be the Prince. " You mistake me," said he, gently, and 
 with that dignity which is the birthright of those born to 
 command. " I am but a very indifferent artist. I have 
 studied a little, it is true ; but other pursuits and idleness 
 have swept away the small knowledge 1 once possessed, 
 and left me, as to art, pretty much as I am in morals — • 
 that is, I know what is right, but very often I can't 
 accomplish it." 
 
 "You are from Carrara, I conclude?" said the young 
 girl, timidly, still curious to hear more about him. 
 
 " Pardon me ! " said he, smiling ; " I am a native of 
 Massa, and live here." 
 
 " And are you not a sculptor by profession ? " asked 
 she, still more eagerly.
 
 A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER. 193 
 
 " No," said he, laughing pleasantly ; " I follow a more 
 precarious trade, nor can I mould the clay I work in so 
 deftly." 
 
 " At least you love art," said she, with an enthusiasm 
 heightened by the changes he had effected in her group. 
 
 " Now it is my turn to question, Signorina," said he, 
 gaily. " Why, with a talent like yours, have you not 
 given yourself to regular study ? You live in a land 
 where instruction should not be difficult to obtain. Car- 
 rara is one vast studio ; there must be many there who 
 would not alone be willing but even proud to have such a 
 pupil. Have you never thought of this ? " 
 
 " I have thought of it," said she, pensively, " but my 
 aunt, with whom I live, desires to see no one, to know no 
 one ; — even now," added she, blushing deeply, " I find 
 
 myself conversing with an utter stranger, in a way •" 
 
 She stopped, overwhelmed with confusion, and he finished 
 her sentence for her. 
 
 " In a way which shows how naturally a love of art 
 establishes a confidence between those who profess it." 
 As he spoke, the curtain was drawn back, and a lady 
 entered, who, though several years older, bore such a like- 
 ness to the young girl that she might readily have been 
 taken for her sister. 
 
 " It is at length time I should make my excuses for this 
 intrusion, madame," said he, turning towards her; and 
 then in a few words explained how the accidental passing 
 by the spot, and the temptation of the open wicket, had 
 led him to a trespass, " which " added he, smiling, " I can 
 only say I shall be charmed if you will condescend to 
 retaliate. I, too, have some objects of art, and gardens 
 which are thought worthy of a visit." 
 
 " We live here, sir, apart from the world. It is for that 
 reason we have selected this residence," replied she, 
 coldly. 
 
 " I shall respect your seclusion, madame," answered he, 
 with a deep bow, " and only beg once more to tender my 
 sincere apologies for the past." He moved towards the 
 door as he spoke, the ladies curtseyed deeply, and, with a 
 still lowlier reverence, he passed out. 
 
 The Duke lingered in the garden, as though unwilling 
 to leave the spot. For a while some doubt as to whether 
 
 o
 
 194 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 lie had been recognized passed through his mind, but he 
 soon satisfied himself that such was not the case, and the 
 singularity of the situation amused him. 
 
 " I am culling a souvenir, madame," said he, plucking a 
 moss-rose as the lady passed. 
 
 " I will give you a better one, sir," said she, detaching 
 one from her bouquet, and handing it to him. And so 
 they parted. 
 
 " Per Bacco ! Stubber, I have seen two very charming 
 women. They are evidently persons of condition ; find 
 out all about them, and let me hear it to-morrow." And 
 so saying, his Highness rode away, thinking pleasantly 
 over his adventure, and fancying a hundred ways in which 
 it might be amusiugly carried out. The life of princes is 
 rarely fertile in surprises ; perhaps, therefore, the un- 
 common and unusual are the pleasantest of all their 
 sensations.
 
 195 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ITALIAN TROUBLES. 
 
 Stubbeb knew his master well. There was no need for 
 any " perquisitions " on his part; the ladies, the studio, 
 and the garden were totally forgotten ere nightfall. Some 
 rather alarming intelligence had arrived from Carrara, 
 which had quite obliterated every memory of his late 
 adventure. That little town of artists had long been the 
 resort of an excited class of politicians, and it was more 
 than rumoured that the " Carbonari " had established 
 there a lodge of their order. Inflammatory placards had 
 been posted through the town — violent denunciations of 
 the Government — vengeance, even on the head of the 
 sovereign, openly proclaimed, and a speedy day promised 
 when the wrongs of an enslaved people should be avenged 
 in blood. The messenger who brought the alarmiug 
 tidings to Massa carried with him many of the inflam- 
 matory documents, as well as several knives and poniards, 
 discovered by the activity of the police in a ruined build- 
 ing at the sea-shore. No arrests had as yet been made, 
 but the authorities were in possession of information with 
 regard to various suspicious characters, and the police 
 prepared to act at a moment's notice. 
 
 It was <in hour after midnight when the Council met, 
 and the Duke sat, pale, agitated, and terrified, at the 
 table, with Landelli, the Prime Minister, Caprini, the 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and General Ferrucio, the 
 War Minister, a venerable ecclesiastic, Monsignore Abbati, 
 occupying the lowest place in virtue of his humble station 
 as confessor of his Highness. He who of all others 
 enjoyed his master's confidence, and whose ready intelli- 
 gence was most needed in the emergency, was not present ; 
 his title of Minister of the Household not qualifying him 
 for a place at the Council. 
 
 o2
 
 196 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 Whatever the result, the deliberation was a long one. 
 Even while it continued, there was time to despatch a 
 courier to Carrara, and receive the answer he brought 
 back ; and when the Duke returned to his room, it was 
 already far advanced in the morning. Fatigued and 
 harassed, he dismissed his valet at once, and desired that 
 Stubber might attend him. When he arrived, however, 
 his Highness had fallen off asleep, and lay, dressed as he 
 was, on his bed. 
 
 Stubber sat noiselessly beside his master, his mind 
 deeply pondering over the events which, although he had 
 not been pi'esent at the Council, had all been related to 
 him. It was not the first time he had heard of that for- 
 midable conspiracy, which, under the title of the Carbo- 
 nari, had established themselves in every corner of 
 Europe. 
 
 In the days of his humbler fortune he had known 
 several of them intimately ; he had been often solicited to 
 join their band ; but while steadily refusing this, he had 
 detected much which to his keen intelligence savoured of 
 treachery to the cause amongst them. This cause was 
 necessarily recruited from those whose lives rejected all 
 honest and patient labour. They were the disappointed 
 men of every station, from the highest to the lowest. The 
 ruined gentleman— the beggared noble — the bankrupt 
 trader — the houseless artisan — the homeless vagabond, 
 were all there ; bold, daring, and energetic, fearless as to 
 the present, reckless as to the future. They sought for 
 any change, no matter what, seeing that in the convulsion 
 their own condition must be bettered. Few troubled their 
 heads how these changes were to be accomplished ; they 
 cared little for the real grievances they assumed to redress 
 — their work was demolition. It was to the hour of pil- 
 lage alone they looked for the recompense of their hardi- 
 hood. Some, unquestionably, took a different view of the 
 agencies and the objects ; dreamy, speculative men, with 
 high aspirations, hoped that the cruel wrongs which 
 tyranny inflicted on many a European state might be 
 effectually curbed by a glorious freedom — when each 
 man's actions should be made conformable to the benefit 
 of the community, and the will of all be typified in the 
 conduct of each. There was, I i wever, another class, and
 
 ITALIAN TROUBLES. 197 
 
 to these Stubber had given deep attention. It was a 
 party whose singular activity and energy were always in 
 the ascendant — ever suggesting bold measures whose 
 results could scarcely be more than menaces, and advo- 
 cating actions whose greatest effect could not rise above 
 acts of terror and dismay. And thus while the leaders 
 plotted great political convulsions, and the masses dreamed 
 of sack and pillage, these latter dealt in acts of assassina- 
 tion — the vengeance of the poniard and the poison-cup. 
 These were the men Stubber had studied with no common 
 attention. He fancied he saw in them neither the dupes 
 of thoir own excited imaginations, nor the reckless fol- 
 lowers of rapine, but an order of men equal to the former 
 by intelligence, but far transcending the last in crime and 
 infamy. In his own early experiences he had perceived 
 that more than one of these had expatriated themselves 
 suddenly, carrying away to foreign shores considerable 
 wealth, and that, too, under circumstances where the 
 acquisition of property seemed scarcely possible. Others 
 he had seen as suddenly throwing off their political asso- 
 ciates, rise into stations of rank and power ; and one 
 memorable case he knew, where the individual had become 
 the chief adviser of the very state whose destruction he 
 had sworn to accomplish. Such a one he now fancied he 
 had detected among the advisers of his Prince, and deeply 
 ruminating* on this theme he sat at the bedside. 
 
 "Is it a dream, Stubber, or have we really heard bad 
 news from Carrara ? Has Fraschetti been stabbed or not ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Highness, he has been stabbed, exactly two 
 inches below where he was wounded in September last — 
 then, it was his pocket-book saved him ; now, it was your 
 Highness's picture, which, like a faithful follower, he 
 always carried about him." 
 
 " Which means, that you disbelieve the whole story." 
 
 " Every word of it." 
 
 " And the poniards found at the Bocca di Magra ? " 
 
 " Found by those who placed them there." 
 
 " And the proclamations ? " 
 
 " Blundering devices. See, here is one of them, 
 printed on the very paper supplied to the Government 
 offices. There's the water mark, with the crown and 
 your own cypher on it."
 
 198 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 "Per Bacco! so it is. Let me show this to Landelli." 
 
 " Wait awhile, your Highness ; let us trace this a little 
 farther. No arrests have been made ? " 
 
 " None." 
 
 " Nor will any. The object in view is already gained ; 
 they have terrified you, and secured the next move." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Simply, that they have persuaded you that this state 
 is the hotbed of revolutionists ; that your own means of 
 security and repression are unequal to the emergency ; 
 that disaffection exists in the army; and that, whether 
 for the maintenance of the Government or your safety, 
 you have only one course remaining." 
 
 " Which is " 
 
 " To call in the Austrians." 
 
 " Per Bacco ! it is exactly what they have advised. 
 How did you come to know it ? Who is the traitor at 
 the Council-board ?" 
 
 " I wish I could tell you the name of one who was not 
 such. Why, your Highness, these fellows are not your 
 Ministers, except in so far as they are paid by you. They 
 are Metternich's people ; they receive their appointments 
 from Vienna, and are only accountable to the cabinet 
 held at Schoenbrunn. If wise and moderate counsels 
 prevailed here — if our financial measures prospered — if 
 the people were happy and contented — how long, think 
 you, would Lombardy submit to be ruled by the rod and 
 the bayonet ? Do you imagine that you will be suffered 
 to give an example to the Peninsula of a good adminis- 
 tration ? " 
 
 " But so it is," broke in the Prince; " I defy any man 
 to assert the opposite. The country is prosperous, the 
 people are contented, the laws justly administered, and, 
 I hesitate not to say, myself as popular as any sovereign 
 of Europe." 
 
 " And I tell your Highness, just as distinctly, that 
 the country is ground down with taxation, even to export 
 duties on the few things we have to export — that the 
 people are poor to the very verge of starvation — that if 
 they do not take to the highways as brigands, it is be- 
 cause some traditions as honest men yet survive amongst 
 them — that the laws only exist as an agent of tyranny,
 
 ITALIAN TKOUBLES. 199 
 
 arrest and imprisonment being at the mere caprice of the 
 authorities. Nor is there a means by which an innocent 
 man can demand his trial, and insist on being confronted 
 with his accuser. Your gaols are full, crowded to a state 
 of pestilence with supposed political offenders, men that, 
 in a free country, would be at large, toiling industriously 
 for their families, and whose opinions could never be 
 dangerous, if not festering in the foul air of a dungeon. 
 And as to your own popularity, all I say is, don't walk 
 in the Piazza at Carrara after dusk. No, nor even at 
 noonday." 
 
 "And you dare to speak thus to me, Stubber ! " said 
 the Prince, his lace covered with a deadly pallor as he 
 spoke, and his white lips trembling, but less in passion 
 than in fear. 
 
 " And why not, sir? Of what value could such a man 
 as I am be to your service, if I were not to tell you what 
 you'll never hear from others — the plain, simple truth ? 
 Is it not clear enough that if I only thought of my own 
 benefit, I'd say whatever you'd like best to hear ? — I'd 
 tell you, like Landelli, that the taxes were well paid, or 
 say, as Cerreccio did, t'other day, that your army would 
 do credit to any state in Europe, when he well knew at 
 the time that the artillery was in mutiny from arrears of 
 pay, and the cavalry horses dying from short rations ! " 
 
 "I am well weary of all this," said the Duke, with a 
 sigh. " If the half of what I hear of my kingdom every 
 day be but true, my lot in life is worse than a galley- 
 slave's. One assures me that I am bankrupt ; another 
 calls me a vassal of Austria; a third makes me out a 
 Papal spy ; and you aver that if I venture into the streets 
 of my own town, in the midst of my own people, I am 
 almost sure to be assassinated ! " 
 
 " Take no man's word, sir, for what, while you can 
 see for yourself, it is your own duty to ascertain," said 
 Stubber, resolutely. " If you really only desire a life of 
 ease and indolence, forgetting what you owe to yourself 
 and those you rule over, send for the Austrians. Ask 
 for a brigade and a general. You'll have them for the 
 asking. They'd come at a word, and try your people at 
 the drum-head, and flog and shoot them with as little 
 disturbance to you as need be. You may pension off
 
 200 THE FORTUNES OF CLEKCORE. 
 
 the judges ; for a court-martial is a far speedier tribunal, 
 and a corporal's guard is quite an economy in criminal 
 justice. Trade will not, perhaps, prosper with martial 
 law, nor is a state of siege thought favourable to com- 
 merce. No matter. You'll sleep safe so long as you 
 keep within doors, and the band under your window will 
 rouse the spirit of nationality in your heart, as it plays, 
 ' God preserve the Emperor ! ' " 
 
 " You forget yourself, sir, and you forget me! " said the 
 Duke, sternly, as he drew himself np, and threw a look of 
 insolent pride at the speaker. 
 
 " Mayhap I do, your Highness," was the ready answer, 
 " and out of that very forgetfulness let your Highness 
 take a warning. I say, once more, I distrust the people 
 about you ; and as to this conspiracy at Carrara, I'll 
 wager a round sum on it, that it was hatched on t'other 
 side of the Alps, and paid for in good florins of the Holy 
 Roman Empire. At all events, give me time to inves- 
 tigate the matter. Let me have till the end of the week 
 to examine into it, and, if I find nothing to confirm my 
 views, I'll say not one word against all the measures of 
 precaution that your Council are bent on importing from 
 Austria." 
 
 " Take your own way ; I promise nothing," said the 
 Duke, haughtily ; and, with a motion of his hand, dis- 
 missed his adviser.
 
 201 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 CARRARA. 
 
 To all the luxuriant vegetation and cultivated beauty of 
 Massa, glowing in the "golden glories" of its orange 
 groves — steeped in the perfume of its thousand gardens 
 — Carrara offers the very strongest contrast. Built in a 
 little cleft of the Apennines, it is begirt with great moun- 
 tains — wild, barren, and desolate, — some, dark and pre- 
 cipitous, have no traces in their sides but those of the 
 torrents which are formed by the melting snows ; others 
 show the white caves, as they are called, of that pure 
 marble which has made the name of the spot famous 
 throughout Europe. High in the mountain sides, es- 
 carped amidst rocks, and zig-zagging over many a 
 dangerous gorge and deep abyss, are the rough roads 
 trodden by the weary oxen — trailing along their massive 
 loads, and straining their stout chests to drag the great 
 white blocks of glittering stone. Ear down below, 
 crossed and recrossed by splashing torrents, sprinkled 
 with the spray of a hundred cataracts, stands Carrara 
 itself, — a little marble city of art, — every house a 
 studio, every citizen a sculptor. Hither are sent all the 
 marvellous conceptions of genius — the models which 
 mighty imaginations have begotten, to be converted into 
 imperishable stone. Here are the grand conceptions 
 gathered for every land and clime, treasures destined 
 to adorn the great galleries of nations, or the splendid 
 palaces of kings. 
 
 Some of these studios are of imposing size and vast 
 proportions, and not devoid of a certain architectural 
 pretension — a group, a figure, or a bas-relief usually 
 adorning the space over the door ; and by its subject 
 giving some indication of the tastes of the proprietor. 
 Thus Madonnas and saints are of frequent occurrence ;
 
 202 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 and the majority of the artists display their faith by an 
 image of the saint whose patronage they claim. Others 
 exhibit some ideal conception ; and a few denote their 
 nationality by the bnst of their sovereign, or some prince 
 of his house. 
 
 One of these buildings, a short distance from the town, 
 and so small as to be little more than a mere crypt, was 
 distinguished by the chaste and simple elegnnce of its 
 design, and the tasteful ornament with which its owner 
 had decorated the most minute details of the building. 
 He was a young artist, who had arrived in Carrara friend- 
 less and unknown, but whose abilities had soon obtained 
 for him consideration and employment. At first, the 
 tasks entrusted to him were the humbler ones of friezes 
 and decorative art; but at length, his skill becoming 
 acknowledged, to his hands were confided the choicest 
 conceptions of Danneker — the most rare creations of 
 Canova. Little or nothing was known of him ; his habits 
 were of the strictest seclusion, — he went into no society, 
 he formed no friendships His solitary life, after a while, 
 ceased to attract any notice ; and men saw him pass, and 
 come and go, without question — almost without greeting ; 
 and, save when some completed work was about to be 
 packed off to its destination, the name of Sebastian Greppi 
 was rarely heard in Carrara. 
 
 His strict retirement had not, however, exempted him 
 from the jealous suspicions of the authorities ; on the 
 contrary, the seeming mystery of his life had sharpened 
 their curiosity and aroused their zeal ; and more than 
 once was he summoned to the Prefecture to answer some 
 frivolous questions about his passport or his means of 
 subsistence. 
 
 It was on one of these errands that he stood one morn- 
 ing in the antechamber of the Podesta's court, aw;iiting 
 his turn to be called "and interrogated. The heat of a 
 crowded chamber, the wearisome delay — perhaps, too, 
 some vexation at the frequency of these irritating calls — ■ 
 had partially excited him ; and when he was at length 
 introduced, his manner was confused, and his replies 
 vague and almost wandering. 
 
 Two strangers, whose formal permission to reside were 
 then being filled up by a clerk, were accommodated with
 
 CARRARA. 203 
 
 seats in the room, and listened with no slight interest to 
 a course of inquiry so strange and novel to their ears. 
 
 " Greppi ! " cried the harsh voice of the President, 
 "come forward;" and a youth stood up, dressed in the 
 blue blouse of a common workman, and wearing the 
 coarse shoes of the very humblest labourer ; but yet, in 
 the calm dignity of his mien and the mild character of his 
 sad but handsome features, already proclaiming that he 
 came of a class whose instincts denote good blood. 
 
 " Greppi, you have a servant, it would Beem, whose 
 name is not in your passport. How is this?" 
 
 " He is an humble friend who shares my fortunes, sir," 
 said the artist. " They asked no passport from him when 
 we crossed the Tuscan frontier ; and be has been here 
 some months without any demand for one." 
 
 " Does he assist you in your work ? " 
 
 " He does, sir, by advice and counsel ; but he is not a 
 sculptor. Poor fellow ! he never dreamed that his pre- 
 sence here could have attracted any remark." 
 
 "His tongue and accent betray a foreign origin, 
 Greppi ? " 
 
 " Be it so — so do mine, perhaps. Are we the less sub- 
 missive to the laws ? " 
 
 " The laws can make themselves respected," said the 
 Podesta, sternly. " Where is this man, — how is he 
 called?" 
 
 " He is known as Guglielmo, sir. At this moment he 
 is ill — he has caught the fever of the Campagna, and is 
 confined to bed." 
 
 " We shall send to ascertain the fact," was the reply. 
 
 "Then my word is doubted!" said the youth, 
 haughtily. 
 
 The Podesta started, but more in amazement than 
 anger. There was, indeed, enough to astonish him in the 
 haughty ejaculation of the poorly-clad boy. 
 
 " I am given to believe that you are not — as your pass- 
 port would imply — a native of Capri, nor a Neapolitan 
 born," said the Podesta. 
 
 " If my passport be regular and my conduct blameless, 
 what have you or any one to do with my birthplace ? 
 Is there any charge alleged against me ? " 
 
 " You are forgetting where you are, boy ; but I may
 
 204 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 take measures to remind you of it," said the Podesta, 
 whispering to a sergeant of the gendarmes at his side. 
 
 " I hope I have said nothing that could offend you," 
 said the boy, eagerly ; "I scarcely know what I have said. 
 My wish is to submit myself in all obedience to the laws ; 
 to live quietly and follow my trade. If my presence here 
 give displeasure to the authorities, I will, however sorry, 
 take my departure, though I cannot say whither to." The 
 last words were uttered lalteringly, and in a kind of solilo- 
 quy, and only overheard by the two strangers, who now, 
 having received their papers, arose to withdraw. 
 
 " Will you call at our inn and speak with us ? that's my 
 card," said one, as he passed out, and gave a visiting-card 
 into the youth's hand. 
 
 He took it without a word : indeed he was too deeply 
 engaged in his own thoughts to pay much attention to the 
 request. 
 
 " The sergeant will accompany you, my good youth, to 
 your lodgings, and verify what you have stated as to your 
 companion. To-morrow you will appear here again, to 
 answer certain questions we shall put to you as to your 
 subsistence, and the means by which you live." 
 
 " Is it a crime to have wherewithal to subsist upon ? " 
 asked the boy. 
 
 " He whose means of living are disproportionate to his 
 evident station may well be an object of suspicion," said 
 the other, with a sneer. 
 
 " And who is to say what is my station, or what becomes 
 it ? Will you take upon you to pronounce upon the ques- 
 tion ? " cried the boy, boldly. 
 
 " Mayhap it is what I shall do very soon ! " was the 
 calm answer. 
 
 " Then let me have done with this. I'll leave the place 
 as soon as my friend be able to bear removal." 
 
 " Even that I'll not promise for." 
 
 " Why, you'll not detain me here by force ? " exclaimed 
 the youth. 
 
 A cold, ambiguous smile was the only reply he received 
 to this speech. 
 
 " Well, let us see when this restraint is to begin," critd 
 the boy, passionately, as he moved toward the door ; but 
 no impediment was offered to his departure. On the con-
 
 CARRARA. 205 
 
 trary, the servant, at a signal from the Prefect, threw wide 
 the two sides of the folding-doors, and the youth passed 
 out, down the stairs, and into the street. 
 
 His mind obscured by passion, his heart bursting with 
 indignation, he threaded his way through many a narrow 
 lane and alley, till he reached a small rustic bridge, cross- 
 ing over which he ascended a narrow flight of steps cut in 
 the solid rock, and gained a little terrace, on which stood 
 a small cottage of the humblest kind. 
 
 As usual in Italy, during the summer-time, the glass 
 sashes of the windows had been removed, and the shutters 
 closed. Opening one of these gently with his hand, he 
 peeped in, and as suddenly a voice cried out, " Are you 
 come back ? Oh, how my heart was aching to see you 
 here again ! Come in quickly, and let me touch your 
 hand."' 
 
 The next moment the boy was seated by the bed, where 
 lay a man greatly emaciated by sickness, and bearing in 
 his worn features the traces of a severe tertian. 
 
 " It's going off now," said he, " but the lit was a long 
 one. This moraine: it bearan at eight o'clock ; but I'm 
 throwing it off now, and I'll soon be better." 
 
 " My poor fellow," said the boy, caressing the cold 
 fingers within his own hands, " it was in these midnight 
 rambles of mine you caught the terrible malady. As it 
 ever has been, your fidelity is fatal to you. I told you a 
 thousand times that I was born to hard luck, and carried 
 more than enough to swamp all who might try to succour 
 me." 
 
 " And don't I say, as the ould heathen philosopher did 
 of fortune, ' Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia ? ' Is 
 it necessary to say that the speaker was Billy Traynor, 
 and the boy his pupil ? 
 
 " Prudentia," said the youth, scoffingly, " may mean 
 anything from trickery to downright meanness ; since, by 
 such acts as these, men grow great in life. Prudentia is 
 thrift and self-denial ; but it is more, too — it is a com- 
 promise between a man's dignity and his worldly success 
 — it is the compact that says bear this, that that may 
 happen — and so I'll none of it." 
 
 " Tell me how you fared with the Prefect," asked Billy. 
 
 " You shall hear, and judge for yourself," said the other ;
 
 206 THE FOETUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 and related, as well as his memory would serve him, the 
 circumstances of his late interview. 
 
 "Well ! well ! " said Billy, "it might be worse." 
 
 " I knew you'd say so, poor fellow ! " said the youth, 
 affectionately ; " you accept the rubs of life as cheerfully 
 as I take them with impatience. But, after all, this is 
 matter of temperament too. You can forgive — I love 
 better to resist." 
 
 " Mine is the better philosophy though," said Billy, 
 " since it will last one's lifetime. Forgiveness must dig- 
 nify old age, when your virtue of resistance be no longer 
 possible. 
 
 " 1 never wish to reach the time when I may be too old 
 for it," said the boy, passionately. 
 
 : ' Hush! don't say that. It's not for you to determine how 
 long you are to live, nor in what frame of mind years are 
 to find you." He paused, and there was a long unbroken 
 silence between them. 
 
 " I have been at the post," said the youth, at last, " and 
 found that letter, which, by the Neapolitan post-mark, 
 must have been despatched many weeks since." 
 
 Billy Traynor took up the letter, whose seal was yet 
 unbroken, and having examined it carefully, returned it to 
 him, saying, " You didn't answer his last, I think ? " 
 
 "No; and I half hoped he might have felt offended, 
 and given up the correspondence. What have we to do 
 with ambassadors or great ministers, Billy ? Ours is not 
 the grand highway in life, but the humble path on the 
 mountain side." 
 
 "I'm content if it only lead upwards," said the sick 
 man ; and the words were uttered firmly, but with the 
 solemn fervour of prayer.
 
 207 
 
 CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
 
 A NIGHT SCENE. 
 
 As young Massy — for so we like best to call him — sat 
 with the letter in his hand, a card fell to the ground from 
 between his fingers, and taking it up he read the name, 
 Lord Selby. 
 
 " What does this mean, Billy? " asked he ; "whom can 
 it belong to ? Oh, I remember now. There were some 
 strangers at the Podesta's office this morning, when I was 
 there ; and one of them asked me to call at this inn, and 
 speak with them." 
 
 " He has seen ' the Alcibiades,' ' exclaimed Billy, 
 eagerly. " He has been at the studio ? " 
 
 " How should he ? ,; rejoined the youth. " I have not 
 been there myself for two days : here is the key ! " 
 
 "He has heard of it, then — of that I'm certain; since 
 he could not be in town here an hour without some one 
 telling him of it." 
 
 Massy smiled half sadly, and shook his head. 
 
 " Go and see him, at all events," said Billy ; " and be 
 sure to put on your coat and a hat, for one wouldn't know 
 what ye were at all, in that cap and dirty blouse." 
 
 " I'll go as I am, or not at all," said the other, rising. 
 " I am Sebastian Greppi, a young sculptor. At least," 
 added he, bitterly, " I have about the same right to that 
 name that I have to any other." He turned abruptly away 
 as he spoke, and gained the open air. There for a few 
 moments he stood seemingly irresolute, and then, wiping 
 away a heavy tear that had fallen on his cheek, he slowly 
 descended the steps towards the bridge. 
 
 When he reached the inn, the strangers had just dined, 
 but left word that when he called he should be introduced 
 at once, and Massy followed the waiter into a small 
 garden, where, in a species of summer-house, they were
 
 208 THE FORTUNES OF GLEKCOEE. 
 
 seated at their wine. One of them arose courteously as 
 the youth came forward, and placing a chair for him, and 
 filling out a glass of wine, invited him to join them. 
 
 " Give him one of your cigars, Baynton," said the other; 
 "they are better than mine." And Massy accepted, and 
 began smoking without a word. 
 
 " That fellow at the police-office gave you no further 
 trouble, I hope," said my lord, in a half-languid tone, 
 and with that amount of difficulty that showed he was 
 no master of Italian. 
 
 " No," replied Massy, " for the present, he has done 
 nothing more. I'm not so certain, however, that to- 
 morrow or next day I shall not be ordered away from 
 this." 
 
 " On what grounds ? " 
 
 " Suspicion — Heavens knows of what ! " 
 
 " That's infamous, I say. Eh, Baynton ? " 
 
 " Detestable," muttered the other. 
 
 "And where to can you go ? " 
 
 " I scarcely know as yet, sin3e the police are in com- 
 munication throughout the whole Peninsula, and they 
 transmit your character from state to state." 
 
 " They'd not credit this in England, Baynton !" 
 
 " No, not a word of it! " rejoined the other. 
 
 " You're a Neapolitan, I think I heard him say." 
 
 " So my passport states." 
 
 " Ah, he won't say that he is one, though," interposed 
 his lordship, in English. " Do you mind that, Baynton ?" 
 
 " Yes, 1 remarked it," was the reply. 
 
 "And how came you here originally?" asked Selby, 
 turning towards the youth. 
 
 " I came here to study and to work. There is always 
 enough to be had to do in this place, copying the works 
 of great masters ; and at one's spare moments there is 
 time to try something of- one's own." 
 
 " And have you done anything of that kind ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have begun. I have attempted two or three." 
 
 " We should like to see them, eh, Baynton ? " 
 
 " Of course, when we've finished our wine. It's not far 
 off, is it ? " 
 
 " A few minutes' walk ; but not worth even that, when 
 the place is full of things really worth seeing. There's
 
 A NIGHT SCENE!. 209 
 
 Danneker's ' Bathing Nymph,' and Canova's ' Dead Cupid,' 
 and Rauch's ' Antiogne,' all within reach." 
 
 " Mind that, Baynton, we must see all these to-morrow. 
 Could you come about with us, and show us what we 
 ought to see? " 
 
 " Who knows if I shall not be on the road to-morrow ?" 
 said the youth, smiling faintly. 
 
 " Oh, I think not — if there's really nothing against you 
 — if it's only mere suspicion." 
 
 "Just so! " said the other, and drank off his wine. 
 
 " And you are able to make a good thing of it here — by 
 copying, I mean? " asked his lordship, languidly. 
 
 " I can live," said the youth ; " and as I labour very 
 little and idle a great deal, that is saying enough, per- 
 haps." 
 
 " I'm not sure the police are not right about him, after 
 all, Baynton," said his lordship ; "he doesn't seem to care 
 much about his trade ; " and Massy was unable to repress 
 a smile at the remark. 
 
 " You don't understand English, do you ?" asked Selby, 
 with a degree of eagerness very unusual to him. 
 
 " Yes, I am English by birth," was the answer. 
 
 " English ! and how came you to call yourself a Nea- 
 politan ? what was the object of that?" 
 
 " I wished to excite less notice and less observation here, 
 and, if possible, to escape the jealousy with which English- 
 men are regarded by the authorities ; for this I obtained a 
 passport at Naples." 
 
 Baynton eyed him suspiciously as he spoke, and as he 
 sipped his wine continued to regard him with a keen glance. 
 
 " And how did you manage to get a Neapolitan pass- 
 port '? " 
 
 "Our minister, Sir Horace Upton, managed that for 
 me." 
 
 " Oh ! you are known to Sir Horace, then ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 A quick interchange of looks between my lord and his 
 friend showed that they were by no means satisfied that 
 the young sculptor was simply a worker in marble, and a 
 fashioner in modelling-clay. 
 
 " Have you heard from Sir Horace lately? " asked Lord 
 Selby.
 
 210 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 
 " I received this letter to-day, but I have not read it 
 and he showed the unopened letter as he spoke. 
 
 " The police may, then, have some reasonable sus- 
 picions about your residence here," said his lordship, 
 slowly. 
 
 " My lord," said Massy, rising, " I have had enough 
 of this kind of examination from the Podesta himself this 
 morning, not to care to pass my evening in a repetition 
 of it. Who I am, what I am, and with what object here, 
 are scarcely matters in which you have any interest, and 
 assuredly were not the subjects on which I expected you 
 should address me. I beg now to take my leave." He 
 moved towards the garden as he spoke, bowing respect- 
 fully to each. 
 
 " Wait a moment ; pray don't go — sit down again — I 
 never meant — of course I couldn't mean so — eh, Bayn- 
 ton ?" said his lordship, stammering in great confusion. 
 
 "Of course not," broke in Baynton ; "his lordship's 
 inquiries were really prompted by a sincere desire to serve 
 you." 
 
 " Just so, — a sincere desire to seiwe you." 
 
 " In fact, seeing you, as I may say, in the toils." 
 
 "Exactly so, — in the toils." 
 
 " He thought very naturally that his influence and his 
 position might — you understand — for these fellows know 
 perfectly well what an English peer is — they take a proper 
 estimate of the power of Great Britain." 
 
 His lordship nodded assentingly, as though any stronger 
 corroboration might not be exactly graceful on his part, 
 and Baynton went on : — 
 
 " Now you perfectly comprehend why — you see at once 
 the whole thing; and I'm sure, instead of feeling any 
 soreness or irritation at my lord's interference, that in 
 point of fact " 
 
 "Just so," broke in his lordship, pressing Massy into a 
 seat at his side — "just so, that's it ! "• 
 
 It requires no ordinary tact for any man to reseat 
 himself at a table from which he has risen in anger or 
 irritation, and Massy had far too little knowledge of life 
 to overcome this difficulty gracefully. He tried indeed to 
 seem at ease — he endeavoured even to be cheerful, but 
 the efforts were all unsuccessful. My lord was no very
 
 A NIGHT SCENE. 211 
 
 acute observer at any time ; he was, besides, so constitu- 
 tionally indolent, that the company which exacted least 
 was ever the most palatable to him. As for Baynton, he 
 was only too happy whenever least reference was made to 
 his opinion, and so they sat and sipped their wine with 
 wonderfully little converse between them. 
 
 " You have a statue, or a group, or something or other 
 — haven't you ?" said my lord, after a very long interval. 
 
 "I have a half-finished model," said the youth, not 
 without a certain irritation at the indifference of his ques- 
 tioner. 
 
 " Scarcely light enough to look at it to-night — eh, 
 Baynton ? " 
 
 " Scarcely ! " was the dry answer. 
 
 " We can go in the morning: thouerh — eh?' 
 
 The other nodded a cool assent. 
 
 My lord now filled his glass, drank it off, and refilled, 
 with the air of a man nerving himself for a great under- 
 taking — and such was indeed the case. He was about to 
 deliver himself of a sentiment, and the occasion was one 
 to which Baynton could not lend his assistance. 
 
 " I have been thinking," said he, "that if that same 
 estate we spoke of, Baynton — that Welsh property, you 
 know — and that thing in Ireland, should fall in — I'd buy 
 some statues and have a gallery !" 
 
 " Devilish costly work you'd find it," muttered Bayn- 
 ton. 
 
 " Well, I suppose it is — not more so than a racing stable 
 after all." 
 
 " Perhaps not." 
 
 " Besides, I look upon that property — if it does ever 
 come to me — as a kind of windfall ; it was one of those 
 pieces of fortune one couldn't have expected, you know." 
 Then turning towards the youth, as if to apologize for a 
 discussion in which he could take no part, he said, " We 
 were talking of a property which, by the eccentricity of 
 its owner, may one day become mine." 
 
 " And which doubtless some other had calculated on 
 inheriting," said the youth. 
 
 " Well, that may be very true — I never thought about 
 that— eh, Baynton ?" 
 
 " Why should you?" was the short response. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 "Gain and loss, loss and gain," muttered the youth, 
 moodily, " are the laws of life." 
 
 "I say, Baynton, what a jolly moonlight there is out 
 there in the garden ! Wouldn't it be a capital time this to 
 see your model, eh ? " 
 
 " If you are disposed to take the trouble," said the 
 youth, rising, and blushing modestly ; and the others stood 
 up at the same moment. 
 
 Nothing passed between them as they followed the 
 young sculptor through many an intricate by-way and 
 narrow lane ; and at last reached the little stream on 
 whose bank stood his studio. 
 
 " What have we here ! " exclaimed Baynton as he saw 
 it ; " is this a little temple ?" 
 
 " It is my workshop," said the boy, proudly, and pro- 
 duced the key to open the door. 
 
 Scarcely had he crossed the threshold, however, than 
 his foot struck a roll of papers, and stooping down he 
 caught up a large placard, headed, " Morte al Tiranno," in 
 large capitals. Holding the sheet up to the moonlight he 
 saw that it contained a violent and sanguinary appeal 
 to the wildest passions of the Carbonari — one of those 
 savage exhortations to blood-shedding, which were taken 
 from the terrible annals of the French Revolution. Some 
 of these bore the picture of the guillotine at top, others 
 were headed with cross poniards. 
 
 " What are all these about ? " asked Baynton, as he took 
 up three or four of them in his hand ; but the youth, over- 
 come with terror, could make no answer. 
 
 "These are all sans-culotte literature, I take it," said 
 his lordship ; but the youth was stupefied and silent. 
 
 " Has there been any treachery at work here? " asked 
 Baynton. " Is there a scheme to entrap you ? ' : 
 The youth nodded a melancholy and slow assent. 
 " But why should you be obnoxious to these people ? 
 Have you any enemies amongst them ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell," gloomily muttered the youth. 
 " And this is your statue ?" said Baynton, as opening 
 a large shutter he suffered a flood of moonlight to fall on 
 the iigure. 
 
 " Fine ! — a work of great merit, Baynton," broke in his 
 lordship, whose apathy was at last overcome by admira-
 
 A NIGHT SCENE. 213 
 
 tion. But the youth stood regardless of their comments, 
 his eyes bent upon the ground, nor did he heed them as 
 they moved from side to side, examining the statue in all 
 its details, and in words of high praise speaking their 
 approval. 
 
 " I'll buy this," muttered his lordship. " I'll give him 
 an order, too, for another work — leaving the subject to 
 himself." 
 
 " A clever fellow, certainly," replied the other. 
 
 " Whom does he mean the figure to represent ? " 
 
 " It is Alcibiades as he meets his death," broke in the 
 youth — " he is summoned to the door as though to 
 welcome a friend, and he falls pierced by a poisoned 
 arrow— there is but legend to warrant the fact. I cared 
 little for the incident — I was full of the man, as he con- 
 tended with seven chariots in the Olympic games, and 
 proudly rode the course with his glittering shield of ivory 
 and gold, and his waving locks all perfumed. I thought 
 of him in his gorgeous panoply, and his voluptuousness ; 
 lion-hearted, and danger-seeking, pampering the very 
 flesh he offered to the spears of the enemy. I pictured him 
 to my mind, embellishing life with every charm, and 
 daring death in every shape. Beautiful as Apollo — grace- 
 ful as the bounding Mercury — bold as Achilles, the lion's 
 whelp, as iEschylus calls him. This," added he, in a tone 
 of depression — "this is but a sorry version of what my 
 mind had conceived." 
 
 " I arrest you, Sebastiano Greppi," said a voice from 
 behind ; and suddenly three gendarmes surrounded the 
 youth, who stood still and speechless with terror, while a 
 mean-looking man in shabby black gathered up the printed 
 proclamations that lay about, and commenced a search for 
 others throughout the studio. 
 
 " Ask them will they take our bail for his appearance, 
 Baynton," said my lord, eagerly. 
 
 " No use — they'd only laugh at us," was the reply. 
 
 " Can we be of any service to you ? Is there anything 
 we can do ?" asked his lordship of the boy. 
 
 "You must not communicate with the prisoner, 
 signore," cried the brigadier, " if you don't wish to share 
 his arrest." 
 
 " And this, doubtless," said the man in black, standing,
 
 214 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE, 
 
 and holding tip the lantern to view the statue — " this is 
 the figure of Liberty we have heard of, pierced by the 
 deadly arrow of tyranny ? " 
 
 " You hear them ! " cried the boy, in wild indignation, 
 addressing the Englishmen ; " you hear how these wretches 
 draw their infamous allegations ; but this shall not serve 
 them as a witness." And with a spring he seized a large 
 wooden mallet from the floor and dashed the model in 
 pieces. 
 
 A cry of horror and rage burst from the bystanders, and 
 as the Englishmen stooped in sorrow over the broken 
 statue, the gendarmes secured the boy's wrists with a stout 
 cord, and led him away. 
 
 " Go after them, Baynton ; tell them he is an English- 
 man, and that if he comes to harm they'll hear of it ! " 
 cried my lord, eagerly, while he muttered in a lower tone, 
 " I think we might knock these fellows over and liberate 
 him at once — eh, Baynton? " 
 
 "No use if we did," replied the other; "they'd over- 
 power us afterwards. Come along to the inn ; we'll sec 
 about it in the morning."
 
 215 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 A COUNCIL OP STATE. 
 
 It was a fine mellow evening of the late autumn, as two 
 men sat in a large and handsomely-furnished chamber, open- 
 ing upon a vast garden. There was something in the dim 
 half-light, the heavily perfumed air, rich with the odour of 
 the orange and the lime, and the stillness, that imparted a 
 sense of solemnity to the scene, where, indeed, few words 
 were interchanged, and each seemed to ponder long after 
 every syllable of the other. 
 
 We have no mysteries with our reader, and we hasten 
 to say that one of these personages was the Chevalier 
 Stubber — confidential minister of the Duke of Massa ; the 
 other was our old acquaintance, Billy Traynor. If there 
 was some faint resemblance in the fortunes of these two 
 men, who, sprung from the humblest walks of life, had 
 elevated themselves by their talents to a more exalted 
 station, there all likeness between them ended. Each 
 represented, in some of the very strongest characteristics, 
 a nationality totally nnlike that of the other. The Saxon, 
 blunt, imperious, and decided ; the Celt, subtle, quick- 
 sighted, and suspicious, distrustful of all save his own 
 skill in a moment of difficulty. 
 
 " But you have not told me his real name yet," said the 
 Chevalier, as he slowly smoked his cigar, and spoke with 
 the half-listlessness of a careless inquirer. 
 
 " I know that, sir," said Billy, cautiously ; " I don't see 
 any need of it." 
 
 " Nor your own, either," remarked the other. 
 
 " Nor even that, sir," responded Billy, calmly. 
 
 " It comes to this, then, my good friend," rejoined 
 Stubber, " that having got yourself into trouble, and 
 having discovered, by the aid of a countryman, that a 
 little frankness would serve you greatly, you prefer to
 
 216 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 preserve a mystery that I could easily penetrate, if I cared 
 for it, to speaking openly and freely, as a man might with 
 one of his own." 
 
 " We have no mysteries, sir. We have family secrets, 
 that don't regard any one but ourselves. My young ward, 
 or pupil, whichever I ought to call him, has, maybe, his 
 own reasons for leading a life of unobtrusive obscurity, 
 and what one may term an umbrageous existence. It's 
 enough for me to know that, to respect it." 
 
 " Come, come, all this is very well if you were at liberty, 
 or if you stood on the soil of your own country ; but 
 remember whei'e you are now, and what accusations are 
 hanging over you. I have here beside me very grave 
 charges indeed — constant and familiar intercourse with 
 leaders of the Carbonari " 
 
 " We don't know one of them," broke in Billy. 
 
 " Correspondence with others beyond the frontier," con- 
 tinued the Chevalier. 
 
 " Nor that either," interrupted Billy. 
 
 " Treasonable placards found by the police in the very 
 hands of the accused — insolent conduct to the authorities 
 when arrested — attempted escape : all these duly certified 
 on oath." 
 
 " Devil may care for that — oaths are as plenty with 
 these blaguards as clasp-knives, and for the same purpose, 
 too. Here's what it is, now," said he, crossing his arms 
 on the table, and staring steadfastly at the other : " we 
 came here to study and work, to perfect ourselves in the 
 art of modellin' with good studies around us ; and, more 
 than all, a quiet, secluded little spot, with nothing to 
 distract our attention, or take us out of a mind for daily 
 labour. That we made a mistake, is clear enough. Like 
 everywhere else in this fine country, there's nothing but 
 tyrants on one side, and assassins on the other ; and meek 
 and humble as we lived, we couldn't escape the thievin' 
 blaguards of spies." 
 
 " Do you know the handwriting of this address ? " said 
 the Chevalier, showing a sealed letter, directed to Sebas- 
 tiano Greppi, Sculptore, Carrara. 
 
 " Maybe I do — maybe I don't," was the gruff reply. 
 " Won't you let me finish what I was sayin' ?" 
 
 " This letter was found in the possession of the young
 
 A COUNCIL OF STATE. 217 
 
 prisoner, and is of some consequence," continued the other 
 totally inattentive to the question. 
 
 " I suppose a letter is always of consequence to him it's 
 meant for," was the half-sulky reply. " Sure you're not 
 goin' to break the seal— sure you don't mean to read 
 it!" exclaimed he, almost springing from his seat as he 
 spoke. 
 
 " I don't think I'd ask your permission for anything I 
 think fit to do, my worthy fellow," said the other, sternly ; 
 and then, passing across the room, he summoned a gen- 
 darme, who waited at the door, to enter. 
 
 " Take this man back to the Fortezza," said he, calmly ; 
 and while Billy Traynor slowly followed the guard, the 
 other seated himself leisurely at the table, lighted his 
 candles, and perused the letter. Whether disappointed 
 by the contents, or puzzled by the meaning, he sat long 
 pondering with the document before him. 
 
 It was late in the night when a messenger came to say 
 that his Highness desired to see him ; and Stubber arose 
 at once, and hastened to the Duke's chamber. 
 
 In a room studiously plain and simple in all its furniture, 
 and on a low, uncurtained bed, lay the Prince, half-dressed, 
 a variety of books and papers littering the table, and even 
 the floor at his side. Maps, prints, coloured drawings — 
 some representing views of Swiss scenery, others being 
 portraits of opera celebrities — were mingled with illumin- 
 ated missals and richly-embossed rosaries ; while police 
 reports, petitions, rose-coloured billets and bon-bons, made 
 up a mass of confusion wonderfully typical of the illus- 
 trious individual himself. 
 
 Stubber had scarcely crossed the threshold of the room 
 when he appeared to appreciate the exact frame of his 
 master's mind. It was the very essence of his tact to 
 catch in a moment the ruling impulse which swayed for a 
 time that strange and vacillating natui'e, and he had but 
 to glance at him to divine what was passing within. 
 
 " So then," broke out the Prince, " here we are actually 
 in the very midst of revolution. Marocchi has been 
 stabbed in the Piazza of Carrara. Is it a thing to laugh 
 at, sir?" 
 
 " The wound has only been fatal to the breast of his 
 surtout, your Highness; and so adroitly given, besides,
 
 218 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 tli at it does not correspond with the incision in his waist- 
 coat." 
 
 "You distrust every one and everything, Stubber; and, 
 of course, you attribute all that is going forward to the 
 police." 
 
 " Of course I do, your Highness. They predict events 
 with too much accuracy not to have a hand in their fulfil- 
 ment. I knew three Aveeks ago when this outbreak was 
 to occur, who was to be assassinated — since that is the 
 phrase for Marocchi's mock wound — who was to be ar- 
 rested, and the exact nature of the demand the Council 
 would make of your Royal Highness to suppress the 
 troubles." 
 
 "And what was that?" asked the Duke, grasping a 
 paper in his hand as he spoke. 
 
 " An Austrian division, with a half-battery of field- 
 artillery, a judge-advocate to try the prisoners, and a 
 provost-marshal to shoot them." 
 
 "And you'd have me believe that all these disturbances 
 are deliberate plots of a party who desire Austrian influ- 
 ence in the Duchy ? " cried the Duke, eagerly. " There 
 may be really something in what you suspect. Here's a 
 letter I have just received from La Sabloukoff: she's 
 always keen-sighted ; and she thinks that the Court at 
 Vienna is playing out here the game that they have not 
 courage to attempt in Lombardy. What if this Wahns- 
 dorf was a secret agent in the scheme — eh, Stubber? " 
 
 Stubber started with well-affected astonishment, and 
 appeared as if astounded at the keen acuteness of the 
 Duke's suggestion. 
 
 " Eh ?" cried his Highness, in evident delight. " That 
 never occurred to you, Stubber ? I'd wager there's not a 
 man in the Duchy could have hit that plot but myself." 
 
 Stubber nodded sententiously, without a word. 
 
 " I never liked that fellow," resumed the Duke. " I 
 always had my suspicion about that half-reckless, wasteful 
 manner he had. I know that I was alone in this opinion 
 — eh, Stubber ? It never struck you ?" 
 
 "Never! your Highness, never!" replied Stubber, 
 frankly. 
 
 "I can't show you the Sabloukoff' s letter, Stubber; 
 there are certain private details for my own eye alone ;
 
 A COUNCIL OF STATE. 219 
 
 but she speaks of a young sculptor at Carrara, a cer- 
 tain let me find his name. Ah! here it is, Sebastian 
 
 Greppi, a young artist of promise, for whom she bespeaks 
 our protection. Can you make him out, and let us see 
 him?" 
 
 Stubber bowed in sileuce. 
 
 " I will give him an order for something. There's a 
 pedestal in the flower-garden where the Psyche stood. 
 You remember, I smashed the Psyche, because it re- 
 minded me of Camilla Monti. He shall desism a figure 
 for that place. I'd like a youthful Bacchus. I have a 
 clever sketch of one somewhere ; and it shall be tinted — 
 slightly tinted. The Greeks always coloured their statues. 
 Strange enough, too ; for, do you remark, Stubber, they 
 never represented the iris of the eye, which the Romans 
 invariably did ; and yet, if you observe closely, you'll see 
 that the eyelid implies the direction of the eye more ac- 
 curately than in the Roman heads ? I'm certain you never 
 detected what I'm speaking of — eh, Stubber ? " 
 
 Stubber candidly confessed that he had not ; and listened 
 patiently while his master descanted critically on the dif- 
 ferent styles of art, and his own especial tact and skill in 
 discriminating between them. 
 
 "You'll look after these police returns, then, Stubber," 
 said he, at last. " You'll let these people understand that 
 we can suffice for the administration of our own duchy. 
 We neither want advice from Metternich, nor battalions 
 from Radetzky. The laws here are open to every man ; 
 and if we have any claim to the gratitude of our people, 
 it rests on our character for justice." 
 
 While he spoke with a degree of earnestness that indi- 
 cated sincerity, there was something in the expression of 
 his eye — a half-malicious drollery in its twinkle — that 
 made it exceedingly difficult to say whether his words 
 were uttered in honesty of purpose, or in mere mockery 
 and derision. Whether Stubber rightly understood their 
 import is more than we are able to say ; but it is very 
 probable that he was, with all his shrewdness, mystified 
 by one whose nature was a puzzle to himself. 
 
 " Let Marocchi return to Carrara. Say we have taken 
 the matter into our own hands. Change the brigadier in 
 command of the gendarmerie there. Tell the canonico
 
 220 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 Baldcfcti that we look to Vim and his deacons for true re- 
 ports of any movement that is plotting in the town. I 
 take no steps with regard to Wahnsdorf for the present ; 
 but let him be closely watched. And then, Stubber, send 
 off an estafetta to Pietra Santa for the ortolans, for I 
 think we have earned our breakfast by all this attention 
 to state affairs." And then, with a laugh whose accents 
 gave not the very faintest clue to its meaning, he lay back 
 on his pillow again. 
 
 " And these two prisoners, your Highness ; what is to 
 be done with them ? " 
 
 " Whatever you please, Stubber. Give them the third- 
 class cross of Massa, or a month's imprisonment, at your 
 own good pleasure. Only no more business — no papers 
 to sign — no schemes to unravel; and so good night." 
 And the Chevalier retired at once from a presence which 
 he well knew resented no injury so unmercifully as any 
 invasion of his personal comfort.
 
 221 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE LIFE THEY LED AT MASS A. 
 
 It was with no small astonishment young Massy heard 
 that he and his faithful follower were not alone restored 
 to liberty, but that an order of his Highness had assigned 
 them a residence in a portion of the palace, and a promise 
 of future employment. 
 
 " This smacks of Turkish rather than of European rule," 
 said the youth. " In prison yesterday — in a palace to-day. 
 My own fortunes are wayward enough, Heaven knows, 
 not to require any additional ingredient of uncertainty. 
 What think you, Traynor ? " 
 
 "I'm thinkin'," said Billy, gravely, " that as the bastes 
 of the field are guided by their instincts to objects that 
 suit their natures, so man ought, by his reason, to be able 
 to pilot himself in difficulties — choosin' this, avoidin' that 
 — -seein' by the eye of prophecy where a road would lead 
 him, and makin' of what seem the accidents of life, 
 steppin'-stones to fortune." 
 
 " In what way does your theory apply here ? " cried 
 the other. " How am I to guess whither this current may 
 carry me? " 
 
 " At all events, there's no use wastin' your strength by 
 swimmin' against it," rejoined Billy. 
 
 " To be the slave of some despot's whim — the tool of a 
 caprice that may elevate me to-day, and to-morrow sentence 
 me to the gallows. The object 1 have set before myself in 
 life is to be independent. Is this, then, the road to it ? " 
 
 " You're tryin' to be what no man ever was, or will be, 
 to the world's end, then," said Billy. " Sure it's the very 
 nature and essence of our life here below, that we are 
 dependent one on the other for kindness, for affection, for 
 material help in time of difficulty, for counsel in time of 
 doubt. The rich man and the poor one have their mutual 
 dependencies ; and if it wasn't so, cowld-hearted and
 
 222 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 selfish as the world is, it would be five hundred times 
 worse." 
 
 "You mistake my meaning," said Massy, sternly, "as 
 you often do, to read me a lesson on a text of your own. 
 When I spoke of independence, I meant freedom from the 
 serfdom of another's charity. I would that my life here, 
 at least, should be of my own procuring." 
 
 "/get mine from you" said Traynor, calmly, "and 
 never felt myself a slave on that account." 
 
 " Forgive me, my dear, kind friend. I could hate my- 
 self if I gave you a moment's pain. This temper of mine 
 does not improve by time." 
 
 " There's one way to conquer it. Don't be broodin' on 
 what's within. Don't be magnifyin' your evil fortunes to 
 your own heart, till you come to think the world all little 
 and yourself all great. Go out to your daily labour, what- 
 ever it be, with a stout spirit to do your best, and a thank- 
 ful, grateful heart, that you are able to do it. Never let 
 it out of your mind, that if there's many a one your 
 inferior, winnin' his way up to fame and fortune before 
 you, there's just as many better than you toilin' away 
 unseen and unnoticed, wearin' out genius in a garret, and. 
 carry in' off a God-like intellect to an obscure grave ! " 
 
 " You talk to me as though my crying sin were an over- 
 weening vanity," said the youth, half angrily. 
 
 "Well, it's one of them," said Billy; and the blunt 
 frankness of the avowal threw the boy into a fit of 
 laughing. 
 
 " You certainly do not intend to spoil me, Billy," said 
 he, still laughing. 
 
 " Why would I do what so many is ready to do for 
 nothing ? What does the crowd that praise the work of 
 a young man of genius care where they're leading him to ? 
 It's like people callin' out to a strong swimmer, ' Go out 
 farther and farther — out to the open say, where the waves 
 is rollin' big, and the billows is roughest, that's worthy of 
 you, in your strong might and your stout limbs. Lave the 
 still water and the shallows to the weak and the puny. 
 Your course is on the mountain wave, over the bottomless 
 ocean.' It's little they think if he's ever to get back 
 again. 'Tis their boast and their pride that they said, 
 ' Go on ; ' and when his cold corpse comes washed to shore,
 
 THE LIFE THEY LED AT MASSA. 223 
 
 all tliey have is a word of derision and scorn for one wlio 
 ventured beyond his powers." 
 
 " How you cool down one's ardour — with what pleasure 
 you check every impulse that nerves one's heart for high 
 daring!" said the youth, bitterly. "These eternal warn- 
 ings — these never-ending forebodings of failure — arc sorry 
 stimulants to energy." 
 
 " Isn't it better for you to have all your reverses at the 
 hands of a crayture as humble as me?" said Billy, while 
 the tears glistened in his eyes. " What good am I, except 
 for this?" 
 
 In a moment the boy's arms were around him, while he 
 cried out, — 
 
 " There, forgive me once more, and let me try if I 
 cannot amend a temper that any but yourself had grown 
 weary of correcting. I'll work — I'll labour — I'll submit — 
 I'll accept the daily rubs of life, as others take them, and 
 you shall be satisfied with me. We shall go back to all 
 our old pursuits, my dear Billy. I'll join all your ecstasies 
 over ^Eschylus, and believe as much as I can of Herodotus, 
 to please you. You shall lead me to all the wonders of 
 the stars, and dazzle me with the brightness of visions 
 that my intellect is lost in ; and in revenge I only ask that 
 'you should sit with me in the studio, and read to me some 
 of those songs of Horace, that move the heart like old 
 wine. Shall I own to you what it is which sways me thus 
 uncertainly — jarring every chord of my existence, making 
 life a sea of stormy conflict ? Shall I tell you ? ' : 
 
 He grasped the other's hand with both his own as he 
 spoke, and, while his lips quivered in strong emotion, 
 went on : — 
 
 " It is this, then. I cannot forget, do all that I will, I 
 cannot root out of my heart what I once believed myself 
 to be. You know what I mean. Well, there it is still, 
 like the sense of a wrong or foul injustice, as though I had 
 been robbed and cheated of what never was mine ! This 
 contrast between the life my earliest hopes had pictured, 
 and that which I am destined to, never leaves me. All 
 your teachings — and I have seen how devotedly you have 
 addressed yourself to this lesson — have not eradicated 
 from my nature the proud instincts that guided my child- 
 hood. Often and often have you warmed my blood by
 
 224 THE FOKTUNES OP GLEKCORE. 
 
 thoughts of a triumph to be achieved by me hereafter — - 
 how men should recognize me as a genius, and elevate me 
 to honours and rewards ; and yet would I barter such suc- 
 cess, ten thousand times told, for an hour of that high 
 station that comes by birth alone, independent of all effort 
 — the heirloom of deeds chronicled centuries back, whose 
 actoi's have been dust for ages. That is real pride," cried 
 he, enthusiastically, " and has no alloy of the petty vanity 
 that mingles with the sense of a personal triumph." 
 
 Traynor hung his head heavily as the youth spoke, and 
 a gloomy melancholy settled on his features : the sad con- 
 viction came home to him of all his counsels being fruit- 
 less — all his teachings in vain ; and as the boy sat wrapt 
 in a wild, dreamy reverie of ancestral gi'eatness, the 
 humble peasant brooded darkly over the troubles such a 
 temperament might evoke. 
 
 " It is agreed, then," cried Massy, suddenly, "that we 
 are to accept of this great man's bounty, live under his 
 roof, and eat his bread. Well, I accede — as well his as 
 another's. Have you seen the home they destine for 
 us?" 
 
 "Yes ; it's a real paradise, and in a garden that would 
 beat Adam's now." exclaimed Traynor; "for there's 
 marble fountains, and statues, and temples, and grottos 
 in it ; and it's as big as a prairie, and as wild as a wilder- 
 ness. And, better than all, there's a little pathway leads 
 to a private stair that goes up into the library of the 
 palace — a spot nobody ever enters, and where you may 
 study the whole day long without hearin' a footstep. All 
 the books is there that ever was written, and manuscripts 
 without end besides ; and the minister says I'm to have 
 my own kay, and go in and out whenever I plaze ; ' And 
 if there's anything wantin',' says he, 'just order it on a 
 slip of paper and send it to me, and you'll have it at 
 once.' When I asked if I ought to spake to the librarian 
 himself, he only laughed, and said, ' That's me ; but I'm 
 never there. Take my word for it, doctor, you'll have 
 the place to yourself.' " 
 
 He spoke truly. Billy Traynor had it, indeed, to him- 
 self. There, the grey dawn of morning, and the last 
 shadows of evening, ever found him, seated in one of 
 those deep, cell-like recesses of the windows ; the table,
 
 THE LIFE THEY LED AT MAS8A. \Llo 
 
 the scats, the very floor littered with volumes which, 
 revelling in the luxury of wealth, he had accumulated 
 around him. His greedy avidity for knowledge knew no 
 bounds. The miser's thirst for gold was weak in com- 
 parison with that intense craving that seized upon him. 
 Historians, critics, satirists, poets, dramatists, meta- 
 physicians, never came amiss to a mind bent on acquir- 
 ing. The life he led was like the realization of a glorious 
 di-eam — the calm repose, the perfect stillness of the spot, 
 the boundless stores that lay about him ; the growing 
 sense of power, as clay by day his intellect expanded ; 
 new vistas opened themselves before him, and new and 
 unproved sources of pleasure sprang up in his nature. 
 The never-ending variety gave a zest, too, to his labours, 
 that averted all weariness ; and at last he divided his 
 time ingeniously, alternating grave and difficult subjects 
 with lighter topics — making, as he said himself, "Aristo- 
 phanes digest Plato." 
 
 And what of young Massy all this while ? His life 
 was a dream, too, but of another and very different kind. 
 Visions of a glorious future alternated with sad and 
 depressing thoughts ; high darings, and hopeless views 
 of what lay before him, came and went, and went and 
 came again. The Duke, who had just taken his depar- 
 ture for some watering-place in Germany, gave him an 
 order for certain statues, the models for which were to 
 be ready by his return — at least, in that sketchy state of 
 which clay is even more susceptible than canvas. The 
 young artist chafed and fretted under the restraint of an 
 assigned task. It was gall to his haughty nature to be 
 told that his genius should accept dictation, and his fancy 
 be fettered by the suggestions of another. If he tried to 
 combat this rebellious spirit, and addressed himself 
 steadily to labour, he found that his imagination grew 
 sluggish, and his mind uncreative. The sense of servi- 
 tude oppressed him ; and though he essayed to subdue 
 himself to the condition of an humble artist, the old 
 pride still rankled in his heart, and spirited him to a 
 haughty resistance. His days thus passed over in vain 
 attempts to work, or still more unprofitable lethargy. 
 He lounged through the deserted garden, or lay, half- 
 dreamily, in the long, deep grass, listening to the cicala, 
 
 Q
 
 226 . THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 or watching the emerald-backed lizards as they lay 
 basking in the sun. He drank in all the soft voluptuous 
 influences of a climate which steeps the .senses in a 
 luxurious stupor, making the commonest existence a 
 toil, but giving to mere indolence all the zest of a rich 
 enjoyment. Sometimes he wandered into the library, 
 and noiselessly drew nigh the spot where Billy sat deeply 
 busied in his books. He would gaze silently, half curi- 
 ously, at the poor fellow, and then steal noiselessly away, 
 pondering on the blessings of that poor peasant's nature, 
 and wondering wbat in his own organization had denied 
 him the calm happiness of this humble man's life.
 
 227 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 AT MASSA. 
 
 Billy Tratnor sat, deeply sunk in study, in the old recess 
 of the palace library. A passage in the "Antigone " had 
 puzzled him, and the table was littered with critics and 
 commentators, while manuscript notes, scrawled in the 
 most rude hand, lay on every side. He did not perceive, 
 in his intense preoccupation, that Massy had entered and 
 taken the place directly in front of him. There the youth 
 sat gazing steadfastly at the patient and studious features 
 before him. It was only when Tray nor, mastering the 
 difficulty that had so long opposed him, broke out into an 
 enthusiastic declamation of the text, that Massy, unable 
 to control the impulse, laughed aloud. 
 
 " How long are you there ? I never noticed you comin' 
 in," said Billy, half-shamed at his detected ardour. 
 
 " But a short time— I was wondering at — ay, Billy, 
 and was envying, too — the concentrated power in which 
 you address yourself to your task. It is the real secret of 
 all success, and somehow it is a frame of mind I cannot 
 achieve." 
 
 "How is the boy Bacchus goin' on?" asked Billy, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " I broke him up yesterday, and it is like a weight off 
 my heart that his curly bullet head and sensual lips are 
 not waiting for me as I enter the studio." 
 
 "And the Cleopatra?" asked Traynor, still more 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Smashed — destroyed. Shall I own to you, Billy, I 
 see at last myself what you have so often hinted to me — 
 I have no genius for the work ? " 
 
 "I never said — I never thought so," cried the other; 
 " I only insisted that nothing was to be done without 
 labour — hard, unflinching labour — that easy successes 
 were poor triumphs, and bore no results." 
 
 "There — there — I'll hear that sermon no more. I'd 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 not barter the freedom of my own unfettered thoughts, 
 as they come and go, in hours of listless idleness, for all 
 the success you ever promised me. There are men toil 
 elevates — me, it wearies to depression, and brings no 
 compensation in the shape of increased power. Mine 
 is an unrewarding clay — that's the whole of it. Cultiva- 
 tion only develops the rank weeds which are deep sown 
 in the soil. I'd like to travel — to visit some new land — 
 some scene where all association with the past shall be 
 broken ? What say you ? " 
 
 " I'm ready, and at your orders," said Traynor, closing 
 his book. 
 
 "East or west, then, which shall it be ? If sometimes 
 my heart yearns for the glorious scenes of Palestine, full 
 of memories that alone satisfy the soul's longings, there 
 are days when I pant for the solitude of the vast savan- 
 nahs of the new world. I feel as if to know one's self 
 thoroughly one's nature should be tested by the perils 
 and exigencies of a life hourly making some demand on 
 courage and ingenuity. The hunter's life does this. What 
 say you — shall we try it? " 
 
 "I'm ready," was the calm reply. 
 
 " We have means for such an enterprise — have we not? 
 You told me, some short time past, that nearly the whole 
 of our last year's allowance was untouched." 
 
 "Yes, it's all there to the good," said Billy; "a good 
 round sum too." 
 
 "Let us get rid of all needless equipment, then," cried 
 Massy, " and only retain what beseems a prairie life. Sell 
 everything, or give it away at once." 
 
 " Leave all that to me — I'll manage eveiwthing — only 
 say when you make up your mind." 
 
 "But it is made up. I have resolved on the step. 
 Few can decide so readily — for I leave neither home nor 
 country behind." 
 
 " Don't say that," burst in Billy ; " here's myself, the 
 poorest craj-ture that walks the earth, that never knew 
 where he was born or who nursed him, yet even to me 
 there's the tie of a native land — there's the soil that 
 reared warriors and poets and orators, that I heard of 
 when a child, and gloried in as a man ; and, better than 
 that, there's the green meadows and the leafy valleys
 
 AT MASSA. 229 
 
 where kind-hearted men and women live and labour, 
 spakin' our own tongue and feelin' our own feelin's, and 
 that, if we saw to-morrow, we'd know were our own — 
 heart and hand our own. The smell of the yellow furze, 
 under a griddle of oaten bread, would be sweeter to mo 
 than all the gales of Araby the Blest, for it would remind 
 me of the hearth I had my share of, and the roof that 
 covered me, when I was alone in the world." 
 
 The boy buried his face in his hands and made no 
 answer. At last, raising up his head, he said, — 
 
 " Let us try this life ; let us see if action be not better 
 than mere thought. The efforts of intellect seem to in- 
 spire a thirst there is no slaking. Sleep brings no rest 
 after them. I long for the sense of some strong peril 
 which, over, gives the proud feeling of a goal reached — a 
 feat accomplished." 
 
 " I'll go wherever you like — I'll be whatever you want 
 me," said Billy, affectionately. 
 
 " Let us lose no time, then. I would not that my 
 present ardour should cool ere we have begun our plan. 
 What day is this ? The seventh. Well, on the eigh- 
 teenth there is a ship sails from Genoa for Porta Rica. It 
 was the announcement set my heart a-thinking of the 
 project. I dreamed of it two entire nights. I fancied 
 myself walking the deck on a starlit night, and framing 
 all my projects for the future. The first thing I saw next 
 morning was the same placard, ' The Colombo will sail 
 for Porta Rica on Friday the eighteenth.' " 
 
 "An unlucky day," muttered Billy, interrupting. 
 
 " I have fallen upon few that were otherwise," said 
 Massy, gloomily ; "besides," he added, after a pause, "I 
 have no faith in omens, or any care for superstitions. 
 Come, let us set about our preparations. Do you bethink 
 you how to rid ourselves of all useless encumbrances here. 
 Be it my care to jot down the list of al we shall need 
 for the voyage and the life to follow it. Let us see which 
 displays most zeal for the new enterprise." 
 
 Billy Traynor addressed himself with a will to the duty 
 allotted him. He rummaged through drawers and desks, 
 destroyed papers and letters, laid aside all the articles 
 which he judged suitable for preservation, and then hast- 
 ened off to the studio to arrange for the disposal of the
 
 230 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 few " studies," for they were scarcely more, which re- 
 mained of Massy's labours. 
 
 A nearly finished Faun, the head of a Niobe, the arm 
 and hand of a Jove launching a thunderbolt, the torso of 
 a dead sailor after shipwreck, lay amid fragments of shat- 
 tered figures, grotesque images, some caricatures of his 
 own works, and crude models of anatomy. The walls 
 were scrawled with charcoal drawings of groups — one 
 day to be fashioned in sculpture — with verses from Dante, 
 or lines from Tasso, inscribed beneath ; proud resolves to 
 a life of labour figured beside stanzas in praise of indo- 
 lence and dreamy abandonment. There were passages of 
 Scripture, too, glorious bursts of the poetic rapture of the 
 Psalms, intermingled with quaint remarks on life from 
 Jean Paul or Herder. All that a discordant, incoherent 
 nature consisted of was there in some shape or other de- 
 picted; and as Billy ran his eye over this curious journal 
 —-for such it was — he grieved over the spirit which had 
 dictated it. 
 
 The whole object of all his teaching had been to give a 
 purpose to this uncertain and wavering nature, and yet 
 everything showed him now that he had failed. The 
 blight which had destroyed the boy's early fortunes still 
 worked its evil influences, poisoning every healthful effort, 
 and dashing, with a sense of shame, every successful step 
 towards fame and honour. 
 
 " Maybe he's right after all," muttered Billy to himself. 
 " The New World is the only place for those who have not 
 the roots of an ancient stock to hold them in the old. 
 Men can be there whatever is in them, and they can be 
 judged without the prejudices of a class." 
 
 Having summed up, as it were, his own doubts in this 
 remark, he proceeded with his task. While he was thus 
 occupied Massy entered and threw himself into a chair. 
 
 "There, you may give it up, Traynor. Fate is ever 
 against us, do and decide on what we will. Your con- 
 founded omen of a Friday was right this time." 
 
 " What do you mean ? Have you altered your mind ? " 
 
 "I expected you to say so," said the other, bitterly. 
 "I knew that I should meet with this mockery of my 
 resolution, but it is iincalled for. It is not I that have 
 changed I "
 
 AT MASS A. 231 
 
 " What is it, then, lias happened — do they refuse your 
 passport?" 
 
 " Not that either ; 1 never got so far as to ask for it. 
 The misfortune is in this wise: on going to the bank to 
 learn the sum that lay to my credit and draw for it, I was 
 met by the reply, that I had nothing there — not a shilling. 
 Before I could demand how this could be the case, the 
 whole truth suddenly flashed across my memory, and I re- 
 called to mind how one night, as I lay awake, the thought 
 occurred to me, that it was base and dishonourable in me, 
 now that I was come to manhood, to accept of the means of 
 life from one who felt shame in my "connection with him. 
 ' Why,' thought I, ' is there to be the bond of dependence 
 where there is no tie of affection, to soften its severity ?' 
 And so I arose from my bed, and wrote to Sir Horace, 
 saying, that by the same post I should remit to his banker 
 at Naples whatever remained of my last year's allowance, 
 and declined in future to accept of any further assistance. 
 This I did the same day, and never told you of it — partly, 
 lest you should try to oppose me in my resolve ; partly," 
 and here his voice faltered, " to spare myself the pain of 
 revealing my motives. And now that I have buoyed my 
 heart up with this project, I find myself without means 
 to attempt it. Not that I regret my act or would recall 
 it," cried he, proudly, " but that the sudden disappoint- 
 ment is hard to bear. I was feeding my hopes with such 
 projects for the future when this stunning news met me, 
 and the thought that I am now chained here by necessity 
 has become a torture." 
 
 " What answer did Sir Horace give to your letter ? " 
 asked Billy. 
 
 " I forget ; I believe he never replied to it, or if he did, 
 I have no memory of what he said. Stay — there was a 
 letter of his taken from me when I was arrested at Carrara. 
 The seal was unbroken at the time." 
 
 " I remember the letter was given to the Minister, who 
 has it still in his keeping." 
 
 " What care I," cried Massy, angrily, " in whose hands 
 it may be? " 
 
 "The Minister is not here now," said Billy, half 
 speaking to himself; " he is travelling with the Duke, 
 but when he conies back "
 
 232 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 a 
 
 " When lie comes back ! " burst in Massy, impatiently ; 
 
 with what calm philosophy you look forward to a re- 
 mote future. I tell you that this scheme is now a pai-t 
 and parcel of my very existence. I can turn to no 
 other project, or journey no other road in life, till at least 
 I shall have tried it! " 
 
 " Well, it is going to work in a more humble fashion," 
 said Billy, calmly. " Leave me to dispose of all these 
 odds and ends here- " 
 
 " This trash ! " cried the youth, fiercely. " Who would 
 accept it as a gift ? " 
 
 " Don't disparage it; there are signs of genius even in 
 these things ; but, above all, don't meddle with me, but 
 just leave me free to follow my own way. There now, go 
 back and employ yourself preparing for the road — trust the 
 rest to me." 
 
 Massy obeyed without speaking. It was not, indeed, 
 that he ventured to believe in Traynor's resources, but he 
 was indisposed to further discussion, and longed to be in 
 solitude once more. 
 
 It was late at night when they met again. Charles 
 Massy was seated at a window of his room, looking out 
 into the starry blue of a cloudless sky, when Tray nor sat 
 down beside him. " Well," said he, gently, " it's all done 
 and finished. I have sold off everything, and if you will 
 only repair the hand of the Faun, which I broke in re- 
 moving, there's nothing more wanting." 
 
 " That much can be done by any one," said Massy, 
 haughtily. " I hope never to set eyes on the trumpery 
 things again." 
 
 " But I have promised you would do it," said Traynor, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " And how — by what right could you pledge yourself 
 for my labour? Nay,"- cried he, suddenly changing the 
 tone in which he spoke, "knowing my wilful nature, 
 how could you answer for what I might or mio-ht 
 not do ? " 
 
 " I knew," said Billy, slowly, " that you had a great pro- 
 ject in your head, and that to enable you to attempt it, you 
 would scorn to throw all the toil upon another." 
 
 " I never said I was ashamed of labour," said the youth, 
 reddening with shame.
 
 AT MASS A. 233 
 
 " If you had, I would despair of you altogether," rejoined 
 the other. 
 
 "Well, what is it that I have to do ?" said Massy, 
 bluntly. 
 
 " It is to remodel the arm ; for I don't think you can 
 mend it ; but you'll see it yourself." 
 
 " Where is the figure — in the studio ? " 
 
 " No ; it is in a small pavilion of a villa just outside the 
 gates. It was while I was conveying it there it met this 
 misfortune. There's the name of the villa on that card. 
 You'll find the garden gate open, and by taking the path 
 through the olive wood you'll be there in a few minutes ; 
 for I luust go over to-morrow to Carrara with the Niobe ; 
 the Academy has bought it for a model." 
 
 A slight start of surprise and a faint flush bespoke the 
 proud astonishment with which he heard of this triumph ; 
 but he never spoke a word. 
 
 "If you had any pride in your works, you'd be de- 
 lighted to see where the Faun is to be placed. It is in a 
 garden, handsomer even than this here, with terraces 
 rising one over the other, and looking out on the blue sea, 
 from the golden strand of Via Reggio down to the head- 
 lands above Spezia. The great olive wood in the vast 
 plain lies at your feet, and the white cliffs of Serravezza 
 behind you." 
 
 " What care I for all this ? " said Massy, gloomily. 
 " Benvenuto could afford to be in love with his own works 
 — /cannot ! " 
 
 Traynor saw at once the mood of mind he was in, and 
 stole noiselessly away to his room.
 
 234 THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCOBE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE PAVILION IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 Charles Massy, dressed in the blouse of his daily labour, 
 and with the tools of his craft in bis hand, set out early 
 in search of the garden indicated by Billy Traynor. A 
 sense of hope that it was for the last time he was to 
 exercise his art, that a new and more stirring existence 
 was now about to open before him, made his step lighter 
 and his spirits higher as he went. " Once amid the deep 
 woods, and on the wide plains of the New World, I shall 
 dream no more of what judgment men may pass upon my 
 efforts. There, if I suffice to myself, I have no other or- 
 deal to meet. Perils may try me, but not the whims and 
 tastes of other men." 
 
 Thus, fancying an existence of unbounded freedom and 
 unfettered action, he speedily traversed the olive-wood, and 
 almost ere he knew it found himself within the garden. 
 The gorgeous profusion of beautiful flowers, the graceful 
 grouping of shrubs, the richly perfumed air, laden with 
 a thousand odours, first awoke him from his day-dream, 
 and he stood amazed in the midst of a scene surpassing 
 all that he had ever conceived of loveliness. From the 
 terrace, where under a vine trellis he was standing, he 
 could perceive others above him rising on the mountain 
 side, while some beneath descended towards the sea, which, 
 blue as a turquoise, lay basking and glittering below. A 
 stray white sail or so was to be seen, but there was barely 
 wind to shake the olive-leaves, and waft the odours of the 
 orange and the oleander. It was yet too early for the 
 hum of insect life, and the tricklings of the tiny fountains 
 that sprinkled the flower-beds were the only sounds in the 
 stillness. It was in colour, outline, effect, and shadow, a 
 scene such as only Italy can present, and Massy drank 
 in all its influences with an eager delight.
 
 THE PAVILION IN THE GARDEN. 235 
 
 " Were I a rich man, " said he, " I would buy this para- 
 dise. What in all the splendour of man's invention can 
 conrpare with the gorgeous glory of this flowery carpet ? 
 What frescoed ceiling could vie with these wide-leaved 
 palms, interlaced with these twining acacias, glimpses of 
 the blue sky breaking through ? And for a mirror, there 
 lies Nature's own — the great blue ocean ! What a life 
 were it, to linger days and hours here, amid such objects 
 of beauty, having one's thoughts ever upwards, and 
 making in imagination a world of which these should be 
 the types. The faintest fancies that could float across the 
 mind in such an existence would be pleasures more real, 
 more tangible, than ever were felt in the tamer life of the 
 actual world." 
 
 Loitering along, he at length came upon the little 
 temple which served as a studio, on entering which, he 
 found his own statue enshrined in the place of honour. 
 Whether it was the frame of mind in which he chanced to 
 be, or that place and light had some share in the result, 
 for the first time the figure struck him as good, and he 
 stood long gazing at his own work with the calm eye of a 
 critic. At length, detecting, as he deemed, some defects 
 in design, he drew nigh, and began to correct them. There 
 are moments in which the mind attains the highest and 
 clearest perception — seasons in which, whatever the nature 
 of the mental operation, the faculties address themselves 
 readily to the task, and labour becomes less a toil than an 
 actual pleasure. This was such. Massy worked on for 
 hours ; his conceptions grew rapidly under his hand into 
 bold realities, and he saw that he was succeeding. It was 
 not alone that he had imparted a more graceful and lighter 
 beauty to his statue, but he felt within himself the 
 promptings of a spirit that grew with each new sugges- 
 tion of its own. Efforts that before had seemed above 
 him he now essayed boldly; difficulties that once had 
 appeared insurmountable he now encountered with 
 courageous daring. Thus striving, he lost all sense of 
 fatigue. Hunger and exhaustion were alike unremembered, 
 and it was already late in the afternoon, as, overcome by 
 continued toil, he threw himself heavily down, and sank 
 off into a deep sleep. 
 
 It was nigh sunset as he awoke. The distant bell of a
 
 236 THE FOKTUNES OF GLENCOKE. 
 
 monastery was ringing the hour of evening prayer, the 
 solemn chime of the " Yenti quattro," as he leaned on his 
 arm and gazed in astonishment around him. The whole 
 seemed like a dream. On every side were objects new 
 and strange to his eyes. Casts and models he had never 
 seen before ; busts and statues and studies, all unknown to 
 him. At last his eyes rested on the Faun, and he remem- 
 bered at once where he was. The languor of excessive 
 fatigue, however, still oppressed him, and he was about to 
 lie back again in sleep, when, bending gently over him, a 
 young girl, with a low, soft accent, asked if he felt ill, or 
 only tired. 
 
 Massy gazed, without speaking, at features regular as 
 the most classic model, and whose paleness almost gave 
 them the calm beauty of the marble. His steady stare 
 slightly coloured her cheek, and made her voice falter a 
 little as she repeated her question. 
 
 " I scarcely know," said he, sighing heavily. " I feel 
 as though this were a dream, and I am afraid to awaken 
 from it." 
 
 "Let me give you some wine," said she, bending down 
 to hand him the glass : " you have over-fatigued yourself. 
 The Faun is by your hand — is it not ? " 
 
 He nodded a slow assent. 
 
 " Whence did you derive that knowledge of ancient 
 art?" said she, eagerly ; " your figui-e has the light elas- 
 ticity of the classic models, and yet nothing strained or 
 exaggerated in attitude. Have you studied at Rome ? " 
 
 " I could do better now," said the youth, as, rising on 
 his elbow, he strained his eyes to examine her. " I could 
 achieve a real success." 
 
 A deep flush covered her face at these words, so pal- 
 pably alluding to herself, .and she tried to repeat hei 
 question. 
 
 " No," said he, "I cannot say I have ever studied: all 
 that I have done is full of faults ; but I feel the spring of 
 better things within me. Tell me, is this your home ? " 
 
 " Yes," said she, smiling faintly. " I live in the villa 
 here with my aunt. She has purchased your statue and 
 wishes you to repair it, and then to engage in some other 
 work for her. Let me assist you to rise ; you seem very 
 weak."
 
 THE PAVILION IN THE GARDEN. 237 
 
 "I am weak, and weary too," said he, staggering to a 
 seat. " I have overworked myself, perhaps — I scarcely 
 know. Do not take away your hand." 
 
 "And you are, then, the Sebastian Greppi of whom 
 Carrara is so proud ?" 
 
 " They call me Sebastian Greppi ; but I never heard 
 that my name was spoken of with any honour." 
 
 " You are unjust to your own fame. We have often 
 heard of .you. See, here are two models taken from your 
 works. They have been my studies for many a day. I 
 have often wished to see you, and ask if my attempt were 
 rightly begun. Then here is a hand." 
 
 "Let me model yours," said the youth, gazing stead- 
 fastly at the beautifully shaped one which rested on the 
 chair beside him. 
 
 " Come with me to the villa, and I will present you to 
 my aunt; she will be pleased to know you. There, lean 
 on my arm, for I see you are very weak." 
 
 " Why are you so kind — so good to me ? " said he, 
 faintly, while a tear rose slowly to his eye. 
 
 He arose totteringly, and, taking her arm, walked 
 slowly along at her side. As they went, she spoke kindly 
 and encouragingly to him, praised what she had seen of 
 his works, and said how frequently she had wished to 
 know him, and enjoy the benefit of his counsels in art. 
 "For I, too," said she, laughing, "would be a sculptor." 
 
 The youth stopped to gaze at her with a rapture he 
 could not control. That one of such a station, surrounded 
 by all the appliances of a luxurious existence, could devote 
 herself to the toil and labour of art, implied an amount of 
 devotion and energy that at once elevated her in his esteem. 
 She blushed deeply at his continued stare, and turned at 
 last away. 
 
 " Oh, do not feel offended with me," cried he, passion- 
 ately. " If you but knew how your words have relighted 
 within me the dying-out embers of an almost exhausted 
 ambition — if you but knew how my heart has gained 
 courage and hope — how light and brightness have shone 
 in upon me after hours and days of gloom ! It was but 
 yesterday I had resolved to abandon this career for ever. 
 I was bent on a new life, in a new world beyond the seas. 
 These few things that a faithful companion of mine had
 
 238 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 charged himself to dispose of, were to supply the means 
 of the journey ; and now I think of it no more. I shall 
 remain here to work hard and study, and try to achieve 
 what may one day be called good. You will sometimes 
 deign to see what I am doing, to tell me if my efforts are 
 on the road to success, to give me hope when I am weak- 
 hearted, and courage when I am faint. I know and feel," 
 said he, proudly, " that I am not devoid of what accom- 
 plishes success, for I can toil and toil, and throw my whole 
 soul into my work ; but for this I need, at least, one who 
 shall watch me with an eye of interest, glorying when I 
 win, sorrowing when I am defeated. Where are we? 
 What palace is this ? " cried he, as they crossed a spacious 
 hall, paved with porphyry and Sienna marble. 
 
 "This is my home," said the girl, "and this is its 
 mistress." 
 
 Just as she spoke, she presented the youth to a lady, 
 who, reclining on a sofa beside a window, gazed out towards 
 the sea. She turned suddenly, and fixed her eyes on the 
 stranger. With a wild start, she sprang up, and staring 
 eagerly at him, cried, " Who is this ? Where does he 
 come from? " 
 
 The young girl told his name and what he was ; but 
 the words did not fall on listening ears, and the lady 
 sat like one spell-bound, with eyes riveted on the youth's 
 face. 
 
 " Am I like any one you have known, Signora ? " asked 
 he, as he read the effect his presence had produced on her. 
 " Do I recall some other features ? " 
 
 "You do," said she, reddening painfully. 
 
 "And the memory is not of pleasure?" added the 
 youth. 
 
 "Far, far from it— it is the saddest and cruellest of all 
 my life," muttered she, half to herself. " What part of 
 Italy are you from ? — your accent is southern." 
 
 " It is the accent of Naples, Signora," said he, evading 
 her question. 
 
 " And your mother — was she Neapolitan ? " 
 
 " I know little of my birth, Signora. It is a theme I 
 would not be questioned on." 
 
 "And you are a sculptor? " 
 
 " The artist of the Faun, dearest aunt," broke in the
 
 " Staring eagerly at him, she cried, 'Where does lie come from?'"
 
 THE PAVILION IN THE GARDEN. 239 
 
 girl, who watched with intense anxiety the changing ex- 
 pressions of the youth's features. 
 
 " Your voice even more than your features bi'ings up 
 the past," said the lady, as a deadly pallor spread over 
 her own face, and her lips trembled as she spoke. " Will 
 you not tell me something of your history?" 
 
 " When you have told me the reason for which you ask 
 it, perhaps I may," said the youth, half sternly. 
 
 "There — there! " cried she, wildly, "in every tone, in 
 every gesture, I trace this resemblance. Come nearer to 
 me — let me see your hands." 
 
 " They are seamed and hardened with toil, lady," said 
 the youth, as he showed them. 
 
 "And yet they look as if there was a time when they 
 did not know labour," said she, eagerly. 
 
 An impatient gestui'e, as if he would not endure a con- 
 tinuance of this questioning, stopped her, and she said in 
 a faint tone, — 
 
 " I ask your pardon for all this. My excuse and my 
 apology are, that your features have recalled a time of 
 sorrow more vividly than any words could. Your voice, 
 too, strengthens the illusion. It may be a mere passing 
 impression : I hope and pray it is. Come, Ida, come with 
 me. Do not leave this, sir, till we speak with you again." 
 So saying, she took her niece's arm and left the room.
 
 240 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOBE, 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS. 
 
 It was with a proud consciousness of having well fulfilled 
 his mission that Billy Tray nor once more bent his steps 
 towards Massa. Besides providing himself with books of 
 travel and maps of the regions they were about to visit, 
 he had ransacked Genoa for weapons, and accoutrements, 
 and horse-gear. Well knowing the youth's taste for the 
 costly and the splendid, he had suffered himself to be 
 seduced into the purchase of a gorgeously embroidered 
 saddle-mounting, and a rich bridle, in Mexican taste ; a 
 pair of splendidly mounted pistols, chased in gold and 
 studded with large turquoises, with a Damascus sabre, the 
 hilt of which was a miracle of fine workmanship, were 
 also amongst his acquisitions ; and poor Billy fed his 
 imagination with the thought of all the delight these 
 objects were certain to produce. In this way he never 
 wearied admiring them ; and a dozen times a day would 
 he unpack them, just to gratify his mind by picturing the 
 enjoyment they were to afford. 
 
 " How well you are lookin', my dear boy !" cried he, as 
 he burst into the youth's room, and threw his arms around 
 him ; " 'tis like ten j'ears off my life to see you so fresh 
 and so hearty. Is it the prospect of the glorious time 
 before us that has given this new spring to your exist- 
 
 ence ? " 
 
 " More likely it is the pleasure I feel in seeing you back 
 again," said Massy ; and his cheek grew crimson as he 
 spoke. 
 
 " 'Tis too good you are to me — too good," said Billy ; 
 and his eyes ran over in tears, while he turned away his 
 head to hide his emotion ; " but sure it is part of yom'self 
 I do be growing every day I live. At first I couldn't bear 
 the thought of going away to live in exile, in a wilderness, 
 as one may say ; but now that I see your heart set upon it,
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS. 241 
 
 and that your vigour and strength comes back just by the 
 mere anticipation of it, I'm downright delighted with the 
 plan." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the youth, dreamily. 
 
 " To be sure I am," resumed Billy ; " and I do be think- 
 ing there's a kind of poethry in carrying away into the 
 solitary pine forest minds stored with classic lore, to be 
 able to read one's Horace beside the gushing stream that 
 flows on nameless and unknown, and con over ould 
 Herodotus, amidst adventures stranger than ever he told 
 himself." 
 
 " It might be a happy life," said the other, slowly, almost 
 moodily. 
 
 " Ay, and it will be," said Billy, confidently. " Think 
 of yourself, mounted on that saddle on a wild prairie 
 horse, galloping free as the wind itself over the wide sa- 
 vaunahs, with a drove of rushing butfaloes in career before 
 you, and so eager in pursuit that you won't stop to bring 
 down the scarlet-winged bustard that swings on the branch 
 above you. There they go, plungin' and snortin', the mad 
 devils, with a force that would sweep a fortress before 
 them ; and here are we after them, makin' the dark woods 
 echo again with our wild yells. That's what will warm 
 up our blood, till we'll not be afeard to meet an army of 
 dragoons themselves. Them pistols once belonged to 
 Cai"iatoke, a chief from Scio; and (that blade — a real 
 Damascus — was worn by an Aga of the Janissaries. Isn't 
 it a picture ? " 
 
 The youth poised the sword in his hand, and laid it 
 down without a word ; while Billy continued to stare at 
 him with an expression of intensest amazement. 
 
 " Is it that you don't care for it all now, that your mind 
 is changed, and that you don't wish for the life we were 
 talkin' over these three weeks 'i Say so at once, my own 
 darlin', and here I am, ready and willin' never to think 
 more of it. Only tell me what's passin' in your heart — I 
 ask no more." 
 
 " I scarcely know it myself," said the youth. " I feel 
 as though in a dream, and know not what is real and what 
 fiction." 
 
 " How have you passed your time ? What were you 
 doin' while I was away?" 
 
 R
 
 242 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 " Dreaming 1 , I believe," said the other, with a sigh. 
 " Some embers of my old ambition warmed up into a 
 flame once more, and I fancied that there was that in me 
 that by toil and labour might yet win upwards ; and that, 
 if so, this mere life of action would but briug repining 
 and regret, and that I should feel as one who chose the 
 meaner casket of fate, when both were within my reach." 
 
 " So you were at work again in the studio ? " 
 
 " I have been finishing the arm of the Faun in that 
 pavilion outside the town." A flush of crimson covered 
 his face as he spoke, which Billy as quickly noticed, but 
 misinterpreted. 
 
 "Ay, and they praised you, I'll be bound. They said it 
 was the work of one whose genius would place him with 
 the great ones of art, and that he who could do this while 
 scarcely more than a boy, might, in riper years, be the 
 great name of his century. Did they not tell you so ? " 
 
 "No ; not that, not that," said the other, slowly. 
 
 " Then they bade you go on, and strive and labour hard 
 to develop into life the seeds of that glorious gift that was 
 in you ? " 
 
 "Nor that," sighed the youth, heavily, while a faint 
 spot of crimson burned on one cheek, and a feverish lustre 
 lit up his eye. 
 
 " They didn't dispraise what you done, did they ? " 
 broke in Billy. " They could not, if they wanted to do 
 it ; but sure there's nobody would have the cruel heart to 
 blight the ripenin' bud of genius — to throw gloom over a 
 spirit that has to struggle against its own misgivin's?" 
 * " You wrong them, my dear friend ; their words were 
 all kindness and affection. They gave me hope and 
 encouragement too. They fancy that I have in me what 
 will one day grow into fame itself; and even you, Billy, 
 in your most sanguine hopes, have never dreamed of 
 greater success for me than they have predicted in the 
 calm of a moonlit saunter." 
 
 " May the saints in heaven reward them for it ! " said 
 Billy, and in his clasped hands and uplifted eyes was all 
 the fervour of a prayer. " They have my best blessin' for 
 their goodness," muttered he to himself. 
 
 "And so I am again a sculptor!" said Massy, rising 
 and walking the room. "Upon this career my whole
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS. 243 
 
 heart and soul are henceforth to be concentrated ; my fame, 
 my happiness are to be those of the artist. From this 
 clay and this hour let every thought of what — not what I 
 once was, but what I had hoped to be, be banished from 
 my heart. I am Sebastian Greppi. Never let another 
 name escape your lips to me. I will not, even for a second, 
 turn from the path in which my own exertions are to 
 win the goal. Let the far-away land of my infancy, its 
 traditions, its associations, be but dreams for evermore. 
 Forwards ! forwards ! " cried he, passionately, " not a 
 glance, not a look, towards the past." 
 
 Billy stared with admiration at the youth, over whose 
 features a glow of enthusiasm was now diffused, and in 
 broken, unconnected words, spoke encouragement and 
 good cheer. 
 
 " I know well," said the youth, "how this same stubborn 
 pride must be rooted out — how these false, deceitful visions 
 of a stand and a station that I am never to attain must 
 give place to nobler and higher aspirations ; and you, my 
 dearest friend, must aid me in all this — unceasingly, 
 unwearyingly reminding me that to myself alone must I 
 look for anything ; and that if I would have a country, a 
 name, or a home, it is by the toil of this head and these 
 hands they are to be won. My plan is this," said he, 
 eagerly seizing the other's arm, and speaking with immense 
 rapidity : "A life not alone of labour, but of the simplest : 
 not a luxury, not an indulgence ; our daily meals the 
 humblest, our dress the commonest, nothing that to pro- 
 vide shall demand a moment's forethought or care ; no 
 wants that shall turn our thoughts from this great object, 
 no care for the requirements that others need. Thus 
 mastering small ambitions and petty desires, we shall 
 concentrate all our faculties on our art; and even the 
 humblest may thus outstrip those whose higher gifts 
 reject such discipline." 
 
 " Tou'll not live longer under the Duke's patronage, 
 then? " said Traynor. 
 
 "Not an hour. I return to that garden no more. 
 There's a cottage on the mountain road to Serravezza will 
 suit us well : it stands alone and on an eminence, with a 
 view over the plain and the sea beyond. You can see it 
 from the door. There, to the left of the olive wood, lower 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 down than the old ruin. We'll live there, Billy, and we'll 
 make of that mean spot a hallowed one, where young 
 enthusiasts in art will come, years hence, when we have 
 passed away, to see the humble home Sebastian lived in — 
 to sit upon the grassy seat where he once sat, when 
 dreaming of the mighty triumphs that have made him 
 glorious." A wild burst of mocking laughter rung from 
 the boy's lips as he said this ; but its accents were less in 
 dei'ision of the boast, than a species of hysterical ecstasy 
 at the vision he had conjured up. 
 
 " And why wouldn't it be so ? " exclaimed Billy, 
 ardently — " why wouldn't you be great and illustrious ? " 
 
 The moment of excitement was now over, and the youth 
 stood pale, silent, and almost sickly in appearance : great 
 drops of perspiration, too, stood on his forehead, and his 
 quivering lips were bloodless. 
 
 "These visions are like meteor streaks," said he, 
 falteringly ; " they leave the sky blacker than they found 
 it ! But come along, let us to work, and we'll soon forget 
 mere speculation." 
 
 Of the life they now led each day exactly resembled the 
 other. Rising early, the youth was in his studio at dawn ; 
 the faithful Billy, seated near, read for him while he 
 worked. Watching, with a tact that only affection ever 
 bestows, each changeful mood of the youth's mind, 
 Traynor varied the topics with the varying humours of 
 the other, and thus little of actual conversation took place 
 between them, though their minds journeyed along together. 
 To eke out subsistence, even humble as theirs, the young 
 sculptor was obliged to make small busts and figures for 
 sale, and Billy disposed of them at Lucca and Pisa, 
 making short excursions to these cities as need required. 
 
 The toil of the day over, they wandered out towards 
 the sea-shore, taking the path which led through the olive 
 road by the garden of the villa. At times the j'outh 
 would steal away a moment from his companion, and 
 enter the little park, with every avenue of which he was 
 familiar ; and although Billy noticed his absence, he strictly 
 abstained from the slightest allusion to it. As he delayed 
 longer and longer to return, Traynor maintained the same 
 reserve, and thus there grew up gradually a secret between 
 them — a mystery that neither ventured to approach.
 
 NIGHT THOUGHTS. 245 
 
 "With a delicacy that seemed an instinct in his humble 
 nature, Billy would now and then feign occupation or 
 fatigue to excuse himself from the evening stroll, and 
 thus leave the youth free to wander as he wished ; till at 
 length it became a settled habit between them to separate 
 at nightfall, to meet only on the morrow. These nights 
 were spent in walking the garden around the villa, linger- 
 ing stealthily amid the trees to watch the room where she 
 was sitting, to catch a momentary glimpse of her figure 
 as it passed the window, to hear perchance a few faint 
 accents of her voice. Hours long would he so watch in 
 the silent night, his whole soul steeped in a delicious 
 dream wherein her image moved, and came and went, 
 with every passing fancy. In the calm moonlight he 
 would try to trace her footsteps in the gravel walk that 
 led to the studio, and lingering near them, whisper to her 
 words of love. 
 
 One night, as he loitered thus, he thought he was per- 
 ceived, for as he suddenly emerged from a dark alley into 
 a broad space where the moonlight fell strongly, he saw a 
 figure on a terrace above him, but without being able to 
 recognize to whom it belonged. Timidly and fearfully he 
 retired within the shade, and crept noiselessly away, 
 shocked at the very thought of discovery. The next day 
 he found a small bouquet of fresh flowers on the rustic 
 seat beneath the window. At first he scarcely dared to 
 touch it ; but with a sudden flash of hope that it had 
 been destined for himself, he pressed the flowers to his 
 lips, and hid them in his bosom. Each night now the 
 same present attracted him to the same place, and thus at 
 once within his heart was lighted a flame of hope that 
 illuminated all his being, making his whole life a glorious 
 episode, and filling all the long hours of the day with 
 thoughts of her who thus could think of him. 
 
 Life has its triumphant moments, its dream of entranc- 
 ing, ecstatic delight, when success has crowned a hard- 
 fought struggle, or when the meed of other men's praise 
 comes showered on us. The triumphs of heroism, ot in- 
 tellect, of noble endurance — the trials of temptation met 
 and conquered — the glorious victory over self-interest — 
 are all great and ennobling sensations ; but what are they 
 all compared with the first consciousness of being loved,
 
 246 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 of being to another the ideal we have made of her ? To 
 this nothing the world can give is equal. From the 
 moment we have felt it, life changes around us. Its 
 crosses are but barriers opposed to our strong will, that 
 to assail and storm is a duty. Then comes a heroism in 
 meeting the every-day troubles of existence, as though we 
 were soldiers in a good and holy cause. No longer unseen 
 or unmarked in the great ocean of life, we feel that there 
 is an eye ever turned towards us, a heart ever throbbing 
 with our own — that our triumphs are its triumphs — our 
 sorrows its sorrows. Apart from all the intercourse with 
 the world, with its changeful good and evil, we feel that we 
 have a treasure that dangers cannot approach ; we know 
 that in our heart of hearts a blessed mystery is locked up 
 — a Avell of pure thoughts that can calm down the most 
 fevered hour of life's anxieties. So the youth felt, and, 
 feeling so, was happy.
 
 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 A MINISTER S LETTER. 
 
 "British Legation, Naples, 
 Nov. , IS—. 
 
 " My dear Harcourt, — Not mine the fault that your 
 letter has lain six weeks unanswered ; but having given 
 up penwork myself for the last eight months, and Crawley, 
 my private sec., being ill, the delay was unavoidable. The 
 present communication you owe to the fortunate arrival 
 here of Captain Mellish, who has kindly volunteered to 
 be my amanuensis. I am indeed sorely grieved at this 
 delay. I shall be desole if it occasion you anything 
 beyond inconvenience. How a private sec. should permit 
 himself the luxury of an attack of influenza I cannot con- 
 ceive. We shall hear of one's hairdresser having the 
 impertinence to catch cold, to-morrow or next day! 
 
 " If I don't mistake, it was you yourself recommended 
 Crawley to me, and I am only half grateful for the service. 
 He is a man of small prejudices ; fancies that he ought to 
 have a regular hour for dinner ; thinks that he should 
 have acquaintances ; and will persist in imagining himself 
 an existent something, appertaining to the Legation, — 
 while, in reality, he is only a shadowy excrescence of niy 
 own indolent habits, the recipient of the trashy super- 
 fluities one commits to paper, and calls despatches. 
 Latterly, in my increasing laziness, I have used him for 
 more intimate correspondence ; and, as Doctor Allitore 
 has now denied me all manual exertion whatever, I am 
 actually wholly dependent on such aid. I'm sure I long 
 for the discovery of some other mode of transmitting one's 
 brain-efforts than by the slow process of manuscript — 
 some photographic process, that by a series of bright 
 pictures might display en tableau what one is now reduced 
 to accomplish by nai-rative. As it ever did, and ever will
 
 248 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 happen too, they have deluged me with work when I crave 
 rest. Every session of Parliament must have its blue- 
 book ; and by the devil's luck they have decided that Italy 
 is to furnish the present one. 
 
 " You have always been a soldier, and whenever your in- 
 specting general came his round, your whole care has been 
 to make the troop horses look as fat, the men's whiskers 
 as trim, their overalls as clean, and their curb-chains as 
 bright, as possible. You never imagined or dreamed of a 
 contingency when it would be desirable that the animals 
 should be all sorebacked, the whole regiment under stop- 
 pages, and the trumpeter in a quinsey. Had you been a 
 diplomatist instead of a dragoon, this view of things 
 might, perhaps, have presented itself, and the chief object 
 of your desire have been to show that the system under 
 which you functionated worked as ill as need be ; that the 
 court to which you were accredited abhorred you ; its 
 Ministers snubbed, its small officials slighted you ; that all 
 your communications were ill received, your counsels ill 
 taken ; that what you reprobated was adopted, what you 
 advised rejected ; in fact, that the only result of your 
 presence was the maintenance of a perpetual ill-will and 
 bad feeling ; and that without the aid of a line-of-battle 
 ship, or at least a frigate, your position was no longer 
 
 tenable. From the moment, my dear H , that you 
 
 can establish this fact, you start into life as an able and 
 active Minister, imbued with thoroughly British principles 
 • — an active asserter of what is due to his country's rights 
 and dignity, not truckling to court favour, or tamely sub- 
 mitting to royal impertinences — not like the noble lord at 
 this place, or or tlie more subservient viscount at that — 
 but, in plain words, an admirable public servant, whose 
 reward, whatever courts and cabinets may do, will always 
 be willingly accorded by-a gi'ateful nation. 
 
 " I am afraid this sketch of a special envoy's career will 
 scarcely tempt you to exchange for a mission abroad ! And 
 you are quite right, my dear friend. It is a very unreward- 
 ing profession. I often wish myself that I had taken 
 something in the colonies, or gone into the Church, or 
 some other career which had given me time and oppor- 
 tunity to look after my health; of which, by the way, I 
 have but an indifferent account to render you. These
 
 a minister's letter. 249 
 
 people here can't hit it off at all, Harcourt ; they keep 
 muddling away about indigestion, deranged functions, and 
 the rest of it. The mischief is in the blood ; I mean, in 
 the undue distribution of the blood. So Treysenac, the 
 man of Bagneres, proved to me. There is a flux and 
 reflux in us, as in the tides, and when, from deficient 
 energy, or lax muscular power, that ceases, we are all 
 driven by artificial means to remedy the defect. Trey- 
 senac's theory is position. By a number of ingeniously 
 contrived positions he accomplishes an artificial congestion 
 of any part he pleases; and in his establishment at 
 Bagneres you may see some fifty people strung up by the 
 arms and legs, by the waists or the ankles, in the most 
 marvellous manner, and with truly fabulous success. I 
 myself passed three mornings suspended by the middle, 
 like the sheep in the decoration of the Golden Fleece, and 
 was amazed at the strange sensations I experienced before 
 I was cut down. 
 
 " You know the obstinacy with which the medical people 
 reject every discovery in the art, and only sanction its 
 employment when the world has decreed in its favour. 
 You will, therefore, not be surprised to hear that Larrey 
 and Cooper, to whom I wrote about Treysenac's theory, 
 sent me very unsatisfactory, indeed very unseemly, replies. 
 I have resolved, however, not to let the thing drop, and 
 am determined to originate a Suspensorium in England, 
 when I can chance upon a man of intelligence and scientific 
 knowledge to conduct it. Like mesmerism, the system 
 has its antipathies, and thus yesterday Crawley fainted 
 twice after a few minutes' suspension by the arms. But 
 he is a bigot about anything he hears for the first time, 
 and I was not sorry at his punishment. 
 
 "I wish you would talk over this matter with any clever 
 medical man in your neighbourhood, and let me hear the 
 result. 
 
 " And so you are surprised, you say, how little influence 
 English representations exercise over the determinations 
 of foreign cabinets. I go farther, and confess no astonish- 
 ment at all at the no-influence ! My dear dragoon, have 
 yon not, some hundred and fifty times in this life, endured 
 a small martyrdom in seeing a very indifferent rider tor- 
 ment almost to madness the animal he bestrode, just by
 
 250 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 sheer ignorance and awkwardness — now worrying the 
 flank with incautious heel, now irritating the soft side of 
 the mouth with incessant jerkings — always counteracting 
 the good impulses, ever prompting the bad ones of his 
 beast ? And have you not, while heartily wishing your- 
 self in the saddle, felt the utter inutility of administering 
 any counsels to the rider ? You saw, and rightly saw, 
 that even if he attempted to follow your suggestions, he 
 would do so awkwardly and inaptly, acting at wrong 
 moments and without that continuity of purpose which 
 must ever accompany an act of address ; and that for his 
 safety, and even for the welfare of the animal, it were as 
 well they should jog on together as they had done, trust- 
 ing that after a time they might establish a sort of com- 
 promise, endurable, if not beneficial to both. 
 
 " Such, my dear friend, in brief, is the state of many of 
 those foreign governments to whom we are so profuse of 
 our wise counsels. It were doubtless much better if they 
 ruled Avell ; but let us see if the road to this knotty con- 
 summation be by the adoption of methods totally new to 
 them, estranged from all their instincts and habits, and 
 full of perils, which their very fears will exaggerate. Con- 
 stitutional governments, like underdone roast beef, suit 
 our natures and our latitude ; but they would seem lamen- 
 table experiments when tried south of the Alps. Liberty 
 with us means the right to break heads at a county elec- 
 tion, and to print impertinences in newspapers. With 
 the Spaniard or the Italian it would be to cany a 
 poniard more openly, and use it more frequently than at 
 present. 
 
 " At all events, if it be any satisfaction to you, you may 
 be assured that the rulers in all these cases are not much 
 better off than those they rule over. They lead lives of 
 incessant terror, distrust", and anxiety. Their existence is 
 poisoned by ceaseless fears of treachery — they know not 
 where. They change ministers as travellers change the 
 direction of their journey, to disconcert the supposed 
 plans of their enemies ; and they vacillate between cruelty 
 and mercy, really not knowing in which lies their safety. 
 Don't fancy that they have any innate pleasure in harsh 
 measures. The likelihood is, they hate them as much as 
 you do yourself; but they know no other system; and to
 
 a minister's letter. 251 
 
 come back to my cavalry illustration, the only time they 
 tried a snaffle, they were run away with. 
 
 " I trust these prosings will be a warning to you how 
 you touch upon politics again in a letter to me ; but I 
 really did not wish to be a bore, and now here I am, ready 
 to answer, as far as in me lies, all your interrogatories ; 
 first premising that I am not at liberty to enter upon the 
 question of Glencore himself, and for the simple reason, 
 that he has made me his confidant. And now, as to the 
 boy, I could make nothing of him, Harcourt ; and for this 
 reason — he had not what sailors call ' steerage way ' on 
 him. He went wherever you bade, but without an im- 
 pulse. I tried to make him eai*e for his career, — for the 
 gay world — for the butterfly life of young diplomacy — 
 for certain dissipations — excellent things occasionally to 
 develop nascent faculties. I endeavoured to interest him 
 by literary society and savans, but unsuccessfully. For 
 art indeed he showed some disposition, and modelled 
 prettily ; but it never rose above ' amateurship.' Now 
 enthusiasm, although a very excellent ingredient, will no 
 more make an artist, than a brisk kitchen fire will provide 
 a dinner where all the materials are wanting. 
 
 " I began to despair of him, Harcourt, when I saw that 
 there were no features about him. He could do every- 
 thing reasonably well, because there was no hope of his 
 doing anything with real excellence. He wandered away 
 from me to Carrara, with his quaint companion the 
 doctor ; and after some months wrote me rather a sturdy 
 letter, rejecting all moneyed advances, past and future, 
 and saying something very haughty and of course very 
 stupid, about the ' glorious sense of independence.' I 
 replied, but he never answered me, and here might have 
 ended all my knowledge of his history, had not a letter, 
 of which I send you an extract, resumed the narrative. 
 The writer is the Princess Sabloukoff, a lady of whose 
 attractions and fascinations you have often heard me speak. 
 When you have read and thought over the enclosed, let 
 me have your opinion. I do not, I cannot believe in the 
 rumour you allude to. Glencore is not the man to marry 
 at his time of life, and in his circumstances. Send me, 
 however, all the particulars you are in possession of. I 
 hope they don't mean to send you to India, because you
 
 252 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 seem to dislike it. For my own part, I suspect I should 
 enjoy that country immensely. Heat is the first element 
 of daily comfort, and all the appliances to moderate it are 
 ex-ojjicio luxuries ; besides that in India there is a splendid 
 and enlarged sel6slmess in the mode of life, very different 
 from the petty egotisms of our rude Northland. 
 
 " If you do go, pray take Naples in the way. The route 
 by Alexandria and Suez, they all tell me, is the best and 
 most expeditious. 
 
 " Mellish desires me to add his remembrances, hoping 
 you have not forgotten him. He served in the ' Fifth ' 
 with you in Canada ; that is, if you be the same Georgo 
 Hai'court who played Tony Lumpkin so execrably at 
 Montreal. I have told him it is probable, and am yours 
 ever, 
 
 "H. U."
 
 253 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 HARCOURT S LODGINGS. 
 
 "When Harcourt had finished the reading of that letter we 
 have presented in our last chapter, he naturally turned 
 for information on the subject which principally interested 
 him to the enclosure. It was a somewhat bulky packet, 
 and, from its size, at once promised very full and ample 
 details. As he opened it, however, he discovered it was 
 in various handwritings ; but his surprise was further in- 
 creased by the following heading, in large letters, in the 
 top of a page : " Sulphur Question," and beginning, " My 
 lord, by a reference to my despatch, No. 478, you will 
 perceive that the difficulties which the Neapolitan Govern- 
 ment " Harcourt turned over the page. It was all 
 
 in the same strain. Tariffs, treaties, dues, and duties, 
 occurred in every line. Three other documents of like 
 nature accompanied this ; after which came a very ill- 
 written scrawl on coarse paper, entitled, " Hints as to diet 
 and daily exercise for his Excellency's use." 
 
 The honest Colonel, who was not the quickest of men, 
 was some time before he succeeded in unravelling to his 
 satisfaction the mystery before him, and recognizing that 
 the papers on his table had been destined for a different 
 address, while the letter of the Princess had, in all proba- 
 bility, been despatched to the Foreign Office, and was now 
 either confounding or amusing the authorities in Downing 
 Street. While Harcourt laughed over the blunder, he 
 derived no small gratification from thinking that nothing 
 but great geniuses ever fell into these mistakes, and was 
 about to write off in this very spirit to Upton, when he 
 suddenly bethought him that, before an answer could 
 arrive he himself would be far away on his journey to 
 India. 
 
 " I asked nothing," said he, " that could be difficult to 
 reply to. It was plain enough, too, that I only wanted
 
 254 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 sucli information as he could have given me off-hand. If 
 I could but assure Glencore that the boy was worthy of 
 him — that there was stuff to give good promise of future 
 excellence — that he was honourable and manly in all his 
 dealings — who knows what effect such assurance might 
 have had ? There are days when it strikes me Glencore 
 would give half his fortune to have the youth beside him, 
 and be able to call him his own. Why he cannot, does 
 not do it, is a mystery which I am unable to fathom. He 
 never gave me his confidence on this head; indeed, he 
 gave me something like a rebuff one evening, when he 
 erroneously fancied that I wanted to probe the mysterious 
 secret. It shows how much he knows of my nature," 
 added he, laughing. " Why, I'd rather carry a man's 
 trunk or his portmanteau on my back than his family 
 secrets in my heart. I could rest and lay down my 
 burden in the one case — in the other, there's never a mo- 
 ment of repose ! And now Glencore is to be here this 
 very day — the ninth — to learn my news. The poor fellow 
 comes up from Wales, just to talk over these matters, and 
 I have nothing to offer him but this blundering epistle. 
 Ay, here's the letter : — 
 
 " ' Dear Harcourt, — Let me have a mutton-chop with 
 you on the ninth, and give me, if you can, the evening 
 after it. — 
 
 "'Yours, 
 
 u i 
 
 Glencore.' 
 
 "A man must be ill off for counsel and advice when he 
 thinks of such aid as mine. Heaven knows I never was 
 such a brilliant manager of my own fortunes, that any one 
 should trust his destinies in my hands. Well, he shall 
 have the mutton-chop, and a good glass of old port after it ; 
 and the evening, or, if he likes it, the night, shall be at his 
 disposal." And with this resolve, Harcourt, having given 
 orders for dinner at six, issued forth to stroll down to his 
 club, and drop in at the Horse Guards, and learn as much 
 as he could of the passing events of the day, — meaning, 
 thereby, the details of whatever regarded the army-list, 
 and those who walk in scarlet attire.
 
 harcourt's lodgings. 255 
 
 It was about five o'clock of a dreary November after- 
 noon that a hackney-coach drew up at Harcourt's lodg- 
 ino-s in Dover Street, and a tall and very sickly-looking 
 man, carrying his carpet-bag in one hand and a dressing- 
 case in the other, descended and entered the house. 
 
 "Mr. Massy, sir?" said the Colonel's servant, as he 
 ushered him in ; for such was the name Glencore desired 
 to be known by. And the stranger nodded, and throwing 
 himself wearily down on a sofa, seemed overcome with 
 fatigue. 
 
 " Is your master out ?" asked he, at length. 
 
 " Yes, sir; but I expect him immediately. Dinner was 
 ordered for six, and he'll be back to dress half an hour 
 before that time." 
 
 "Dinner for two ? " half impatiently asked the other. 
 
 "Yes, sir, for two." 
 
 "And all visitors in the evening denied admittance? 
 Did your master say so ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir; out for every one." 
 
 Glencore now covered his face with his hands, and re- 
 lapsed into silence. At length he lifted his eyes till they 
 fell upon a coloured drawing over the chimney. It was 
 an officer in hussar uniform, mounted on a splendid charger, 
 and seated with all the graceful ease of a consummate 
 horseman. This much alone he could perceive from where 
 he lay, and indolently raising himself on one arm, he asked 
 if it were " a portrait of his master ? " 
 
 " ~No, sir — of my master's colonel, Lord Glencore, when 
 he commanded the Eighth, and was said to be the hand- 
 somest man in the service." 
 
 " Show it to me ! " cried he, eagerly, and almost 
 snatched the drawing from the other's hands. He gazed 
 at it intently and fixedly, and his sallow cheek once red- 
 dened slightly as he continued to look. 
 
 " That never was a likeness!" said he, bitterly. 
 
 "My master thinks it a wonderful resemblance, sir; 
 not of what he is now, of course ; but that was taken 
 fifteen years ago or more." 
 
 "And is he so changed since that?" asked the sick 
 man, plaintively. 
 
 " So I heai', sir. He had a stroke of some kind, or fit 
 of one sort or another, brought on by fretting. They took
 
 256 THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCORE. 
 
 away his title, I'm told. They made out that he had no 
 right to it, that he wasn't the real lord ; but here's the 
 Colonel, sir ;" and almost as he spoke Harcourt's step was 
 on the stair. The next moment his hand was cordially 
 clasped in that of his guest. 
 
 " I scarcely expected you before six ; and how have you 
 borne the journey?" cried he, taking a seat beside the 
 sofa. A gentle motion of the eyebrows gave the reply. 
 
 " Well, well, you'll be all right after the soup. Marcom, 
 serve the dinner at once. I'll not dress — and mind, no 
 admittance to any one." 
 
 "You have heard from Upton?" asked Glencore. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And satisfactorily ? " asked he, more anxiously. 
 
 " Quite so ; but you shall know all by-and-by. I have 
 got mackerel for you. It was a favourite dish of yours 
 long ago, and you shall taste such mutton as your Welsh 
 mountains can't equal. I got the haunch from the Ar- 
 dennes a week ago, and kept it for you." 
 
 " I wish I deserved such generous fare ; but I have only 
 an invalid's stomach," said Glencore, smiling faintly. 
 
 " You shall be reported well, and fit for duty to-day, or 
 my name is not George Harcourt. The strongest and 
 toughest fellow that ever lived couldn't stand up against 
 the united effects of low diet and low spirits. To act 
 generously and think generously, you must live gener- 
 ously, take plenty of exercise, breathe fresh air, and know 
 what it is to be downright weary when you go to bed ; 
 not bored, mark you, for that's another thing. Now, here 
 comes the soup, and you shall tell me whether turtle be not 
 the best restorative a man ever took after twelve hours of 
 the road." 
 
 Whether tempted by the fare, or anxious to gratify the 
 hospitable wishes of his host, Glencore ate heartily, and 
 drank what for his abstemious habit was freely, and, so far 
 as a more genial air and a more ready smile went, fully 
 justified Harcourt's anticipations. 
 
 " By Jove ! you're more like yourself than I have seen 
 you this many a day,'' said the Colonel, as they drew 
 their chairs towards the fire, and sat with that now ban- 
 ished, but ever to be regretted, little spider-table, that 
 once emblematized after-dinner blessedness, between them.
 
 harcourt's lodgings. 257 
 
 " This reminds one of long ago, Glencore, and I don't see 
 why we cannot bring to the hour some of the cheerfulness 
 that we once boasted." 
 
 A faint, very faint smile, with more of sorrow than joy 
 in it, was the other's only reply. 
 
 " Look at the thing this way, Glencore," said Harcourt, 
 eagerly. " So long as a man has, either by his fortune or 
 by his personal qualities, the means of benefiting others, 
 there is a downright selfishness in shutting himself up in 
 his sorrow, and saying to the world, ' my own griefs are 
 enough for me ; I'll take no care or share in yours.' Now, 
 there never was a fellow with less of this selfishness than 
 you 
 
 " Do not speak to me of what I was, my dear friend. 
 There's not a plank of the old craft remaining. The 
 name alone lingers, and even that will soon be extinct." 
 
 " So, then, you still hold to this stern resolution ? Shall 
 I tell you what I think of it ?" 
 
 " Perhaps you had better not do so," said Glencore, 
 sternly. 
 
 " By Jove ! then, I will, just for that menace," said 
 Harcourt. "I said, 'This is vengeance on Glencore's 
 part.' " 
 
 " To whom, sir, did you make this remark ?" 
 
 " To myself, of course. I never alluded to the matter 
 to any other. Never." 
 
 " So far, well," said Glencore, solemnly ; " for; had you 
 done so, we had never exchanged words again !" 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Harcourt, laying his hand affec- 
 tionately on the other's, " I can well imagine the price 
 a sensitive nature like yours must pay for the friendship 
 of one so little gifted with tact as I am. But, remem- 
 ber always that there's this advantage in the inter- 
 course: you can afford to hear and bear things from a 
 man ofwy stamp, that would be outrages from perhaps 
 the lips of a brother. As Upton, in one of his bland 
 moments, once said to me, ' Fellows like you, Harcourt, 
 are the bitters of the human pharmacopoeia, somewhat 
 hard to take, but very wholesome when you're once swal- 
 lowed ' " 
 
 " You are the best of the triad, and no great praise that, 
 either," muttered Glencore to himself. After a pause he 
 
 S
 
 258 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. ' 
 
 continued : " It has not been from any distrust in your 
 friendship, Harcourt, that I have not spoken to you before 
 on this gloomy subject. I know well that you bear me 
 more affection than any one of all those who call themselves 
 my friends ; but when a man is about to do that which 
 never can meet approval from those who love him, he 
 seeks no counsel, he invites no confidence. Like the 
 gambler, who risks all on a single throw, he makes his 
 venture from the impulse of a secret mysterious prompt- 
 ing within, that whispers, ' With this you are rescued or 
 ruined ! ' Advice, counsel ! " cried he, in bitter mockery, 
 " tell me, when have such ever alleviated the tortures of a 
 painful malady ? Have you ever heard that the writhings 
 of the sick man were calmed by the honeyed words of his 
 friends at the bedside? I" — here his voice became full 
 and loud — " I was burdened with a load too great for me 
 to bear. It had bowed me to the earth, and all but crushed 
 me ! The sense of an unaccomplished vengeance was 
 like a debt which, unrequited ere I died, sent me to my 
 grave dishonoured. Which of you all could tell me how 
 to endure this ? What shape could your philosophy 
 assume ? " 
 
 "Then I guessed aright," broke in Harcourt. "This 
 was done in vengeance." 
 
 " I have no reckoning to render you, sh'," said Glen- 
 core, haughtily ; " for any confidence of mine, you are 
 more indebted to my passion than to my inclination. I 
 came up here to speak and confer with you about this boy, 
 whose guardianship you are unable to continue longer. 
 Let us speak of that." 
 
 " Yes," said Harcourt, in his habitual tone of easy good 
 humour, " they are going to send me out to India again. 
 I have had eighteen years of it already ; but I have no 
 Parliamentary influence, nor could I trace a fortieth 
 cousinship with the House of Lords ; but, after all, it 
 might be worse. Now, as to this lad, what if I were to 
 take him out with me ? This artist life that he seems to 
 have adopted scarcely promises much." 
 
 " Let me see Upton's letter," said Glencore, gravely. 
 
 " There it is. But I must warn you that the really im- 
 portant part is wanting ; for, instead of sending us, as he 
 promised, the communication of his Russian Princess, he
 
 harcourt's lodgings. 259 
 
 has stuffed in a mass of papers intended for Downing 
 Street, and a lot of doctor's prescriptions, for whose loss 
 he is doubtless suffering martyrdom." 
 
 " Is this credible ? " cried Glencore. 
 
 " There they are, very eloquent about sulphur, and 
 certain refugees with long names, and with some carious 
 hints about Spanish flies and the flesh-brush." 
 
 Glencore flung down the papers in indignation, aud 
 walked up and down the room without speaking. 
 
 " I'd wager a trifle," cried Harcourt, "that Madame — 
 What's-her-name's letter has gone to the Foreign Office 
 in lieu of the despatches ; and, if so, they have certainly 
 gained most by the whole transaction." 
 
 " You have scarcely considered, perhaps, what publicity 
 may thus be given to my private affairs," said Glencore. 
 " Who knows what this woman may have said — what 
 allusions her letter may contain ? " 
 
 " Very true. I never did think of that," muttered 
 Harcourt. 
 
 " Who knows what circumstances of my private history 
 are now bandied about from desk to desk by flippant fools, 
 to be disseminated afterwards over Europe by every 
 courier? " cried he, with increasing passion. 
 
 Before Harcourt could reply, the servant entered, and 
 whispered a few words in his ear. " But you already 
 denied me," said Harcourt. " You told him that I was 
 from home ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; but he said that his business was so im- 
 portant that he'd wait for your return, if I could not say 
 where he might find you. This is his card." 
 
 Harcourt took it, and read, " Major Scaresby, from 
 Naples." " What think you, Glencore ? ought we to 
 admit this gentleman ? It may be that his visit relates 
 to what we have been speaking about ? " 
 
 " Scaresby — Scaresby — I know the name," muttered 
 Glencore. " To be sure ! There was a fellow that hung* 
 about Florence and Rome long ago, and called himself 
 Scaresby ; an ill-tdngued old scandal-monger, people en- 
 couraged in a land where newspapers are not permitted." 
 
 " He affects to have something very pressing to com- 
 municate. Perhaps it were better to have him up." 
 
 " Don't make me known to him, then, or let me have 
 
 s 2
 
 260 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 to talk to him," said Glencore, throwing himself down on 
 a sofa; " and let his visit be as brief as you can manage." 
 
 Harcourt made a significant sign to his servant, and the 
 moment after the Major was heard ascending the stairs. 
 
 "Very persistent of me, you'll say, Colonel Harcourt. 
 Devilish tenacious of my intentions, to force myself thus 
 upon you ! " said the Major, as he bustled into the room, 
 with a white leather bag in his hand; "but I promised 
 Upton I'd not lie down on a bed till I saw you." 
 
 "All the apologies should come from my side, Major," 
 said Harcourt, as he handed him to a chair ; " but the fact 
 was, that having an invalid friend with me, quite in- 
 capable of seeing company, and having matters of some 
 importance to discuss with him " 
 
 " Just so," broke in Scaresby ; " and if it were not that 
 I had given a very strong pledge to Upton, I'd have given 
 my message to your servant, and gone off to my hotel. 
 But he laid great stress on my seeing you, and obtaining 
 certain papers which, if I understand aright, have reached 
 you in mistake, being meant for the Minister at Downing 
 Street. Here's his own note, however, which will explain 
 all." 
 
 It ran thus : — 
 
 " Dear H , — So I find that some of the despatches 
 
 have got into your enclosure instead of that ' on his 
 Majesty's service.' I therefore send off the insupportable 
 old bore who will deliver this, to rescue them, and convey 
 them to their fitting destination. ' The extraordinaries ' 
 will be burdened to some fifty or sixty pounds for it ; but 
 they very rarely are expended so profitably as in getting 
 rid of an intolerable nuisance. Give him all the things, 
 therefore, and pack him off to Downing Street. I'm far 
 more uneasy, however, about some prescriptions which I 
 suspect are along with them. One, a lotion for the cer- 
 vical vertebra?, of invaluable activity, which you may take 
 a copy of, but strictly, on honour, for your own use only. 
 Scaresby will obtain the Princess's letter, and hand it to 
 you. It is certain not to have been opened at F. 0., as 
 they never read anything not alluded to in the private 
 correspondence. 
 
 " This blunder has done me a deal of harm. My nerves
 
 ha.rcouet's lodgings. 261 
 
 are not in a state to stand such shocks ; and though, in 
 fact, you are not the culpable party, I cannot entirely 
 acquit you for having in part occasioned it." Harcourt 
 laughed good-humouredly at this, and continued : " If you 
 care for it, old S. will give you all the last gossip from 
 these pai-ts, and be the channel of yours to me. But don't 
 dine him ; he's not worth a dinner. He'll only repay 
 sherry and soda-water, and one of those execrable cheroots 
 you used to be famed for. Amongst the recipes, let me 
 recommend you an admirable tonic, the principal ingre- 
 dient in which is the oil of the star-fish. It will probably 
 produce nausea, vertigo, and even fainting for a week or 
 two ; but these symptoms decline at last, and, except violent 
 hiccup, no other inconvenience remains. Try it, at all 
 events. 
 
 " Yours ever, 
 
 " H. U." 
 
 "While Harcourt perused this short epistle, Scaresby, on 
 the invitation of his host, had helped himself freely to the 
 Madeira, and a plate of devilled biscuits beside it, giving, 
 from time to time, oblique glances toward the dark corner 
 of the room, where Glencore lay apparently asleep. 
 
 " I hope Upton's letter justifies my insistance, Colonel. 
 He certainly gave me to understand that the case was 
 a pressing one," said Scaresby. 
 
 " Quite so, Major Scaresby ; and I have only to reiterate 
 my excuses for having denied myself to you. But you 
 are aware of the reason; " and he glanced towards where 
 Glencore was lying. 
 
 " Very excellent fellow, Upton," said the Major, sipping 
 his wine, "but very — what shall I call it? — eccentric — 
 very odd — not like any one else, you know, in the way he 
 does things. I happened to be one of his guests t'other 
 day. He had detained us above an hour waiting dinner, 
 when he came in all flurried and excited, and turning to 
 me, said, ' Scaresby, have you any objection to a trip to 
 England at his Majesty's expense ? ' and as I replied, 
 ' None whatever ; indeed, it would suit my book to per- 
 fection just now,' ' Well, then,' said he, ' get your traps 
 together, and be here within an hour. I'll have all in
 
 262 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 readiness for you.' I did not much fancy starting off in 
 this fashion, and without my dinner, too; but, egad! he's 
 one of those fellows that don't stand parleying, and so I 
 just took him at his word, and here I am. I take it the 
 matter must be a very emergent one — eh ? " 
 
 " It is clear Sir Horace Upton thought so," said 
 Harcourt, rather amused than offended by the other's 
 curiosity. 
 
 " There's a woman in it, somehow, I'll be bound — eh ?" 
 
 Harcourt laughed heartily at this sally, and pushed the 
 decanter towards his guest. 
 
 " Not that I'd give sixpence to know every syllable of 
 the whole transaction," said Scaresby. " A man that has 
 passed, as I have, the last twenty-five years of his life 
 between Rome, Florence, and Naples, has devilish little 
 to learn of what the world calls scandal." 
 
 " I suppose you must indeed possess a wide experience," 
 said Harcourt. 
 
 " Not a man in Europe, sir, could tell you as many dark 
 passages of good society ! I kept a kind of book once — 
 a record of fashionable delinquencies ; but I had to give it 
 up. It took me half my day to chronicle even the passing 
 events ; and then my memory grew so retentive by prac- 
 tice I didn't want the reference, but could give you date, 
 and name, and place for every incident that has scan- 
 dalized the world for the last quarter of the century." 
 
 " And do you still possess this wonderful gift, Major? " 
 
 " Pretty well ; not, perhaps, to the same extent I once 
 did. You see, Colonel Harcourt " — here his voice became 
 low and confidential — " some twenty, or indeed fifteen 
 years back, it was only persons of actual condition that 
 permitted themselves the liberty to do these things ; but, 
 hang it, sir, now you have your middle-class folk as pro- 
 fligate as their betters. Jones, or Smith, or Thompson 
 runs away with his neighbour's wife, cheats at cards, and 
 forges his friend's name, just as if he had the best blood 
 in his veins, and fourteen quarterings on his escutcheon. 
 What memory, then, I ask you, could retain all the short- 
 comings of these people ? " 
 
 " But I'd really not trouble my head with such ignoble 
 delinquents," said Harcourt. 
 
 " Nor do I, sir, save when, as will sometimes happen,
 
 harcourt's lodgings. 2G3 
 
 they have a footing, with one leg at least, in good society. 
 For, in the present state of the world, a woman with a 
 pretty face, and a man with a knowledge of horseflesh, 
 may move in any circle they please." 
 
 " You're a severe censor of the age we live in, I sec," 
 said Harcourt, smiling. " At the same time, the offences 
 could scarcely give you much uneasiness, or you'd not 
 take up your residence where they most abound." 
 
 " If you want to destroy tigers, you must frequent 
 the jungle," said Scaresby, with one of his heartiest 
 laughs. 
 
 " Say, rather, if you have the vulture's appetite, you 
 must g-o where there is carrion! " cried Grlencore, with a 
 voice to which passion lent a savage vehemence. 
 
 " Eh ? ha ! very good ! devilish smart of your sick 
 friend. Pray present me to him," said Scaresby, rising. 
 
 " No, no, never mind him," whispered Harcourt, 
 pressing him down into his seat. " At some other time, 
 perhaps. He is nervous and irritable. Conversation 
 fatigues him, too." 
 
 " Egad ! that was neatly said, though ; I hope I shall 
 not forget it. One envies these sick fellows, sometimes, 
 the venom they get from bad health. But I am forgetting 
 myself in the pleasure of your society," added he, rising 
 from the table, as he finished off the last glass in the 
 decanter. "I shall call ab Downing Street to-morrow 
 for that letter of Upton's, and with your permission will 
 deposit it in your hands afterwards." 
 
 Harcourt accompanied him to the door with thanks. 
 Profuse, indeed, was he in his recognitions, desiring to 
 get him clear off the ground before any further allusions 
 on his part, or rejoinders from Glencore, might involve 
 them all in new complications. 
 
 " I know that fellow well," cried Glencore, almost ere 
 the door closed on him. " He is just what I remember 
 him some twenty years ago. Dressed up in the cast-off 
 vices of his betters, he has passed for a man of fashion 
 amongst his own set, while he is regarded as a wit by 
 those who mistake malevolence for humour. I ask no 
 other test of a society than that such a man is endured 
 in it." 
 
 "I sometimes suspect," said Harcourt, " that the world
 
 2G4 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 never believes these fellows to be as ill-natured as their 
 tongues bespeak them." 
 
 " You are wrong, George; the world knows them well. 
 The estimation they are held in is, for the reflective 
 flattery by which each listener to their sarcasms soothes 
 his own conscience as he says, * I could be just as bitter, 
 if I consented to be as bad.' " 
 
 " I cannot at all account for Upton's endurance of such 
 a man," said Harcourt. 
 
 " As there are men who fancy that they strengthen 
 their animal system by braving every extreme of climate, 
 so Upton imagines that he invigorates his morale by 
 associating with all kinds and descriptions of people ; and 
 there is no doubt that in doing so he extends the sphere 
 of his knowledge of mankind. After all," muttered he, 
 with a sigh, " it's only learning the geography of a land 
 too unhealthy to live in." 
 
 Glencore arose as he said this, and with a nod of leave- 
 taking retired to his room.
 
 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 A FEVERED MIND. 
 
 Harcouut passed the morning of the following day in 
 watching the street for Scaresby's arrival. Glencore's 
 impatience had grown into absolute fever to obtain the 
 missing letter, and he kept asking every moment at what 
 hour he had promised to be there ; and wondering at his 
 delay. 
 
 Noon passed over — one o'clock — it was now nearly half- 
 past, as a carriage drove hastily to the door. 
 
 " At last," cried Glencore, with a deep sigh. 
 
 " Sir Gilbert Bruce, sir, requests to know if you can 
 receive him," said the servant to Harcourt. 
 
 " Another disappointment ! " muttered Glencore, as he 
 left the room, when Harcourt motioned to the servant to 
 introduce the visitor. 
 
 "My dear Colonel Harcourt," cried the other, entering, 
 " excuse a very abrupt call — but I have a most pressing 
 need of your assistance. I hear you can inform me of 
 Lord Glencore's address." 
 
 " He is residing in North Wales at present. I can give 
 you his post town." 
 
 " Yes, but can I be certain that he will admit me if I 
 should go down there ? He is living, I hear, in strict 
 retirement, and I am anxious for a personal interview." 
 
 " I cannot ensure yon that," said Harcourt. " He does 
 live, as you have heard, entirely estranged from all society. 
 But if you write to him " 
 
 li Ah ! there's the difficulty. A letter and its reply 
 takes some days." 
 
 " And is the matter, then, so very imminent ? " 
 
 " It is so ; at least it is thought to be so by an autho-
 
 266 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 rity that neither you nor I will be likely to dispute. You 
 know his lordship intimately, I fancy? " 
 
 " Perhaps I may call myself as much his friend as any 
 man living." 
 
 " Well, then, I may confide to you my business with 
 him. It happened that, a few days back, Lord Adderley 
 was on a visit with the King at Brighton, when a foreign 
 messenger arrived with despatches. They were of course 
 forwarded to him there ; and as the King has a passion 
 for that species of literature, he opened them all himself. 
 Now, I suspect that his Majesty cares more for the 
 amusing incidents which occasionally diversify the life 
 of foreign courts, than for the great events of politics. 
 At all events, he devours them with avidity, and seems 
 conversant with the characters and private affairs of some 
 hundreds of people he has never seen, nor in all likeli- 
 hood will ever see! In turning over the loose pages of 
 one of the despatches from Naples, I think, he came upon 
 what appeared to be a fragment of a letter. Of what it 
 was, or what it contained, 1 have not the slightest know- 
 ledge. Adder-ley himself has not seen it, nor any one but 
 the King. All I know is, that it concerns in some way 
 Lord Glencore ; for immediately on reading it he gave 
 me instructions to find him out, and send him down to 
 Brighton." 
 
 " 1 am afraid, were you to see Glencore, your mission 
 would prove a failure. He has given up the world alto- 
 gether, and even a royal command would scarcely with- 
 draw him from his retirement." 
 
 "At all events, I must make the trial. You can let 
 me have his address, and, perhaps, you would do more, 
 and give me some sort of introduction to him — something 
 that might smooth down the difficulty of a first visit." 
 
 Harcourtwas si lent, and stood for some seconds in deep 
 thought, which the other, mistaking for a sign of unwil- 
 lingness to comply with his request, quickly added, " If 
 my demand occasion you any inconvenience, or if there 
 be the slightest difficulty " 
 
 " Nay, nay, I was not thinking of that," said Harcourt. 
 " Pray excuse me for a moment. I will fetch you the 
 address you spoke of; " and, without waiting for more, 
 he left the room. The next minute he was in Grlencore's
 
 A FEVERED MIND. 267 
 
 room, hurriedly narrating to him all that had passed, and 
 asking him what course he should pursue. Glencore 
 heard the story with a greater calm than Harcourt dared 
 to hope for ; and seemed pleased at the reiterated 
 assurance that the King alone had seen the letter referred 
 to ; and when Harcourt abruptly asked what was to be 
 done, he slowly replied, " I must obey his Majesty's com- 
 mands. I must go to Brighton." 
 
 " But are you equal to all this ? Have you strength for 
 it?" 
 
 " I think so ; at all events, I am determined to make 
 the effort. I was a favourite with his Majesty long ago. 
 He will say nothing to hurt me needlessly ; nor is it in 
 his nature to do so. Tell Rruce that you will arrange 
 everything, an d that I shall present myself to-morrow at 
 the palace." 
 
 " Remember, Glencore, that if you say so " 
 
 " I must be sure and keep my word. Well, so I mean, 
 George. I was a courtier once upon a time, and have not 
 outlived my deference to a sovereign. I'll be there — you 
 may answer for me." 
 
 From the moment that Glencore had come to this re- 
 solve, a complete change seemed to pass over the nature of 
 the man. It was as though a new spring had been given 
 to his existence. The reformation that all the blandish- 
 ments of friendship, all the soft influences of kindness 
 could never accomplish, wns more than half effected by 
 the mere thought of an interview with a King, and the 
 possible chance of a little royal sympathy ! 
 
 If Harcourt was astonished, he was not the less pleased 
 at all this. He encouraged Glencore's sense of gratifica- 
 tion by every means in his power, and gladly lent himself 
 to all the petty anxieties about dress and appearance in 
 which he seemed now immersed. Nothing could exceed, 
 indeed, the care he bestowed on these small details ; ever 
 insisting as he did that his Majesty being the best-dressed 
 gentleman in Europe, these matters assumed a greater im 
 portance in his eyes. 
 
 " 1 must try to recover somewhat of my former self," 
 said he. " There was a time when I came and went freely 
 to Carlton House, when I was somewhat more than a 
 mere frequenter of the Px'ince's society. They tell me
 
 268 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 that of late he is glad to see any of those who partook o 
 his intimacy of those times ; who can remember the genial 
 spirits who made his table the most brilliant circle of the 
 world ; who can talk to him of Hanger, and Kelly, and 
 Sheridan, and the re3t of them. I spent my days and 
 nights with them." 
 
 Warming with the recollection of a period which, disso- 
 lute and dissipated as it was, yet redeemed by its brilliancy 
 many of its least valuable features, Glencore poured 
 forth story after story of a time when statesmen had the 
 sportiveness of schoolboys, and the greatest intellects 
 loved to indulge in the wildest excesses of folly. A good 
 jest upon Eldon, a smart epigram on Sidmouth, a quiz 
 against Vansittart, was a fortune at Court ; and there 
 grew up thus around the Prince a class who cultivated 
 ridicule so assiduously, that nothing was too high or too 
 venerable to escape their sarcasms. 
 
 Though Glencore was only emerging out of boyhood — 
 a young subaltern in the Prince's own regiment, when he 
 first entered this society, the impression it had made upon 
 his mind was not the less permanent. Independently ot 
 the charm of being thus admitted to the most choice 
 circle of the land, there was the fascination of intimacy 
 with names that even amongst contemporaries were illus- 
 trious. 
 
 "I feel in such spirits to day, George," cried Glencore 
 at length, " that I vote we go and pass the day at Rich- 
 mond. We shall escape the possibility of being bored by 
 your acquaintance. We shall have a glorious stroll through 
 the fields, and a pleasant dinner afterwards at the ' Star 
 and Garter.' " 
 
 Only too well pleased at this sudden change in his 
 friend's humour, Harcourt assented. 
 
 The day was a bright and clear one, with a sharp, frosty 
 air and that elasticity of atmosphere that invigorates and 
 stimulates. They both soon felt its influence, and as the 
 hours wore on, pleasant memories of the past were related, 
 and old friends remembered and talked over in a spirit 
 that brought back to each much of the youthful sentiments 
 they recorded. 
 
 "If one could only go over it all again, George," said 
 Glencore, as they sat after dinner, "up to three-and- twenty,
 
 A FEVERED MIND. 209 
 
 or even a year or two later, I'd not ask to change a 
 day — scarcely an hour. Whatever was deficient in fact, 
 was supplied by hope. It was a joyous, brilliant time, 
 when we all made partnership of our good spirits and 
 traded freely on the capital. Even Upton was frank 
 and free-hearted then. There were some six or eight of 
 us, with just fortune enough never to care about money, 
 and none of us so rich as to be immersed in dreams of 
 gold, as ever happens with your millionaire. Why could 
 we not have continued so to the end ? " 
 
 Harcourt adroitly turned him from the theme which he 
 saw impending — his departure for the Continent, his resi- 
 dence there, and his marriage — and once more occupied 
 him in stories of his youthful life in London, when Glen- 
 core suddenly came to a stop, and said, " I might have 
 married the greatest beauty of the time — of a family, too, 
 second to none in all England. You know to whom I 
 allude. Well, she would have accepted me ; her father 
 was not averse to the match ; a stupid altercation with 
 her brother, Lord Hervey, at Brookes's one night — an 
 absurd dispute about some etiquette of the play-table — 
 estranged me from their house. I was offended at what 
 I deemed their want of courtesy in not seeking me — for I 
 was in the right ; every one said so. I determined not to 
 call first. They gave a great entertainment, and omitted 
 me, and rather than stay in town to publish this affront 
 I started for the Continent, and out of that pretty incident, 
 a discussion of the veriest trifie imaginable, there came the 
 whole course of my destiny." 
 
 "To be sure," said Harcourt, with assumed calm, 
 " every man's fortune in life is at the sport of some 
 petty incident or other, which at the time he under- 
 values." 
 
 " And then we scoff at those men who scrutinize each 
 move, and hesitate over every step in life, as triflers and 
 little-minded ; while, if your remark be just, it is exactly 
 they who are the wise and prudent," cried Glencore, with 
 warmth. "Had I, for instance, seen this occurrence, 
 trivial as it was, in its true light, what and where might 
 I not have been to-day ? " 
 
 " My dear Glencore, the luckiest fellow that ever lived, 
 Were he only to cast a look back on opportunities neglected,
 
 270 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 and conjunctures unprofited by, would be sure to be 
 miserable. I am far from saying that some have not 
 more than their shai'e of the world's sorrows ; but, take 
 my word for it, every one has his load, be it greater or 
 less, and, what is worse, we all of us carry our burdens 
 with as much inconvenience to ourselves as we can." 
 
 " I know what you would say, Harcourt. It is the old 
 story about giving way to passion, and suffering temper 
 to get the better of one ; but let me tell you that there 
 are trials where passion is an instinct, and reason works 
 too slowly. I have experienced such as this." 
 
 " Give yourself but fair play, Glencore, and you will 
 surmount all your troubles. Come back into the world 
 again — I don't mean this world of balls and dinner- 
 parties, of morning calls and afternoons in the Park ; but 
 a reaby active, stirring life. Come with me to India, and 
 let us have a raid amongst the jaguars ; mix with the 
 pleasant, light-hearted fellows you'll meet at every mess, 
 who ask for nothing better than their own good spirits 
 and good health, to content them with the world ; just 
 look out upon life, and see what numbers are struggling 
 and swimming for existence, while you, at least, have 
 competence and wealth for all you wish ; and bear in 
 mind that round the table where wit is flashing, and the 
 merriest laughter rings, there is not a man — no, not one 
 ■ — who hasn't a something heavy in his heart, but yet 
 who'd feel himself a coward if his face confessed it." 
 
 " And why am I to put this mask upon me ? for what 
 and for whom have I to wear this disguise ? " cried Glen- 
 core, angrily. 
 
 " For yourself! It is in bearing up manfully before the 
 world you'll gain the courage to sustain your own heart. 
 Ay, Glencore, you'll do it to-morrow. In the presence of 
 royalty you'll comport yourself with dignity and reserve, 
 and you'll come out lrom the interview higher and stronger 
 in self-esteem." 
 
 " You talk as if I were some country squire who would 
 stand abashed and awe-struck before his King ; but re- 
 member, my worthy Colonel, I have lived a good deal 
 inside the tabernacle, and its mysteries are no secrets to 
 
 me. 
 
 <( .Reason the more for what I say ! " broke in Harcourt ;
 
 A FEVERED MIND, 271 
 
 " your deference will not obliterate your judgment ; your 
 just respect will not alloy your reason." 
 
 "I'll talk to the King, sir, as I talk to you," said 
 Glencore, passionately ; " nor is the visit of my seeking. 
 I have not long since done with courts and those who 
 frequent them. What can royalty do for one? Upton 
 and yourself may play the courtier, and fawn at levees ; 
 you have your petitions to present, your favours to beg 
 for; you want to get this, or be excused from that; but I 
 am no supplicant. I ask for no place — no ribbon. If 
 the King speak to me about my private affairs, he shall be 
 answered as I would answer any one who obtrudes his 
 rank into the place that should only be occupied by 
 friendship." 
 
 " 1 1 may be that he has some good counsel to offer." 
 
 " Counsel to offer me ! " burst in Glencore, with in- 
 creased warmth. " I would no more permit any man 
 to give me advice unasked, than I would sutler him to go 
 to my tradespeople and pay my debts for me. A man's 
 private sorrows are his debts — obligations between him- 
 self and his own heart. Don't tell me, sir, that even a 
 king's prerogative absolves him from the duties of a 
 gentleman." 
 
 While he uttered these words, he continued to fill and 
 empty his wine-glass several times, as if passion had 
 stimulated his thirst ; and now his flashing eyes and his 
 heightened colour betrayed the effect of wine. 
 
 "Let us stroll out into the cool air," said Harcourt. 
 " See what a gorgeous night of stars it is.'' 
 
 " That you may resume your discourse on patience and 
 resignation!" said Glencore, scoflingly. "No, sir. If I 
 must listen to you, let me have at least the aid of the 
 decanter. Your bitter maxims are a bad substitute for 
 olives, but I must have wine to swallow them." 
 
 " I never meant them to be so distasteful to you," said 
 Harcourt, good-humouredly. 
 
 " Say, rather, you troubled your head little whether 
 they were or not," replied Glencore, whose voice was now 
 thick from passion and drink together. " You and Upton, 
 and two or three others, presume to lecture one — who, 
 because git ted, if you call it giited — I'd say cursed — ay, 
 sir, cursed with coarser natures — temperaments where
 
 272 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 higher sentiments have no place — fellows that can make 
 what they feel subordinate to what they want — you 
 appreciate that, I hope — that stings you, does it? Welt, 
 sir, you'll find me as ready to act as to speak. There's 
 not a word I utter here I mean to retract to-morrow." 
 
 " My dear Glencore, we have both taken too much 
 wine." 
 
 " Speak for yourself, sir. If you desire to make the 
 claret the excuse for your language, I can only say it's 
 like everything else in your conduct — always a subterfuge 
 — always a scapegoat. Oh, George, George, I never sus- 
 pected this in you ; " and burying his head between his 
 hands, he burst into tears. 
 
 He never spoke a word as Harcourt assisted him to the 
 carriage, nor did he open his lips on the road homewards.
 
 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE VILLA AT SORRENTO. 
 
 In one of the most sequestered nooks of Sorrento, almost 
 escarped out of the rocky cliff, and half hid in the foliage 
 of orange and oleander trees, stood the little villa of the 
 Princess SabloukofF. The blue sea washed the white 
 marble terrace before the windows, and the arbutus, whose 
 odour scented the drawing-room, dipped its red berries in 
 the glassy water. The wildest and richest vegetation 
 abounded on every side. Plants and shrubs of tropical 
 climes mingled with the hardier races of northern lands ; 
 and the cedar and the plantain blended their leaves with 
 the sycamore and the ilex ; while, as if to complete the 
 admixture, birds and beasts of remote countries were 
 gathered together : and the bustard, the ape, and the 
 antelope mixed with the peacock, the chamois, and the 
 golden pheasant. The whole represented one of those 
 capricious exhibitions by which wealth so often associates 
 itself with the beautiful, and, despite all errors in taste, 
 succeeds in making a spot eminently lovely. So was it. 
 There was often light where a painter would have wished 
 shadow. There were gorgeous flowers where a poet would 
 have desired nothing beyond the blue heather-bell. There 
 were startling effects of view, managed where chance 
 glimpses through the trees had been infinitely more 
 picturesque. There was, in fact, the obtrusive sense 
 of riches in a thousand ways and places where mere 
 unadorned nature had been far preferable ; and yet, with 
 all these faults, sea and sky, ^ock and foliage, the scented 
 air, the silence, only broken by the tuneful birds, the rich 
 profusion of colour upon a sward strewn with flowers, 
 made of the spot a perfect paradise. 
 
 In a richly decorated room, whose three windows opened 
 on a marble terrace, sat the Princess. It was December ; 
 but the sky was cloudless, the sea a perfect mirror, and 
 the light air that stirred the leaves soft and balmy as the 
 
 T
 
 274 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 breath of Ma} 7 . Her dress was in keeping with the 
 splendour around her — a rich robe of yellow silk fastened 
 up the front with large carbuncle buttons ; sleeves of deep 
 Valenciennes lace fell far over her jewelled fingers ; and a 
 scarf of golden embroidery, negligently thrown over an 
 arm of her chair, gave what a painter would call the warm 
 colour to a very striking picture. Farther from the 
 window, and carefully protected from the air by a screen, 
 sat a gentleman whose fur-lined pelisse and velvet skull- 
 cap showed that he placed more faith in the almanack than 
 in the atmosphere. From his cork-soled boots to his 
 shawl muffled about the throat, all proclaimed that distrust 
 of the weather that characterizes the invalid. No treachery 
 of a hot sun — no seductions of that inveterate cheat, a 
 fine clay in winter — could inveigle Sir Horace Upton into 
 any forgetfulness of his precautions. He would have 
 regarded such as a palpable weakness on his part, — a 
 piece of folly perfectly unbecoming in a man of his diplo- 
 matic standing and ability. 
 
 He was writing, and smoking, and talking by turns, the 
 table before him being littered with papers, and even the 
 carpet at his feet strewn with the loose sheets of his 
 composition. There was not in his air any of the concen- 
 tration, or even seriousness, of a man engaged in an 
 important labour; and yet the work before him employed 
 all his faculties, and he gave to it the deepest attention of 
 abilities of which very few possessed the equal. To great 
 powers of reasoning and a very strong judgment he united 
 a most acute knowledge of men ; not exactly of mankind 
 in the mass, but of that especial order with whom he had 
 habitually to deal. Stolid, commonplace stupidity might 
 puzzle or embarrass him ; while, for any amount of craft, 
 for any degree of subtlety, he was an over-match. The 
 plain matter-of-fact ' intelligence occasionally gained a 
 slight advantage over him at first; the trained and 
 polished mind of the most astute negotiator was a book he 
 could read at sight. It was his especial tact to catch up 
 all this knowledge at once, — very often in a first inter- 
 view, — and thus, while others were interchanging the 
 customary platitudes of every-day courtesy, he was glean- 
 ing and recording within himself the traits and charac- 
 teristics of all around him.
 
 THE VILLA AT SORREXTO. 275 
 
 "A clever fellow — very clever fellow, Cineselli," said 
 he, as he continued to write. " His proposition is — 
 certain commercial advantages, and that we, on our side, 
 leave him alone to deal his own way with his own rabble. 
 I see nothing against it, so long as they continue to ba 
 rabble ; but grubs grow into butterflies, and very vulgar 
 populace have now and then emerged into what are called 
 liberal politicians." 
 
 "Only whei*e you have the blessing of a free press," 
 said the Princess, in a tone of insolent mockery. 
 
 " Quite true, Princess ; a free press is a tonic, that with 
 an increased dose becomes a stimulant, and occasionally 
 over-excites." 
 
 " It makes your people drunk now and then ! " said she, 
 angrily. 
 
 " They always sleep it off over-night," said he, softly. 
 " They very rarely pay even the penalty of the morning 
 headache for the excess, which is exactly why it will not 
 answer in warmer latitudes." 
 
 " Ours is a cold one, and I'm sure it would not suit 
 us." 
 
 " I'm not so certain of that," said he, languidly. " I 
 think it is eminently calculated for a people who don't 
 know how to read." 
 
 She would have smiled at the remark, if the sarcasm 
 had not offended her. 
 
 " Your lordship will therefore see," muttered he, reading 
 to himself as he wrote, " that in yielding this point we are, 
 while apparently making a concession, in reality obtaining 
 a very considerable advantage " 
 
 " Rather an English habit, I suspect," said she, smiling. 
 
 " Picked up in the course of our Baitic trade, Princess. 
 In sending us your skins, you smuggled in some of your 
 sentiments ; and Russian tallow has enlightened the nation 
 in more ways than one ! " 
 
 "You need it all, my dear chevalier," said she with a 
 saucy smile. " Harzewitch told me that your diplomatic 
 people were inferior to those of the third-rate German 
 States ; that in fact they never had any 'information.' " 
 
 " 1 know what he calls ' information,' Princess ; and his 
 remark is just. Our Government is shockingly mean, and 
 never would keep up a good system of spies." 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " Spies ; if you mean by an odious word to inculpate 
 the honour of a high calling " 
 
 " Pray forgive my interruption, but I am speaking in all 
 good faith. When I said spy, it was in the bankrupt, 
 misery of a man who had nothing else to offer. I wanted 
 to imply that pure but small stream which conveys intel- 
 ligence from a fountain to a river it was not meant to feed. 
 Wasn't that a carriage I heard in the 'cour? ' Oh, pray 
 don't open the window; there's an odious libeccio blowing 
 to-day, and there's nothing so injurious to the nervous 
 system." 
 
 " A cabinet messenger, your Excellency," said a servant, 
 entering. 
 
 " What a bore ! I hoped I was safe from a despatch 
 for at least a month to come. I really believe they have 
 no veneration for old institutions in England. They don't 
 even celebrate Christmas ! " 
 
 " I'm charmed at the prospect of a bag," cried the 
 Princess. 
 
 " May I have the messenger shown in here, Princess ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; by all means." 
 
 " Happy to see your Excellency ; hope your ladyship is 
 in good health," said a smai-t-looking young fellow, who 
 wore a much-frogged pelisse, and sported a very well- 
 trimmed moustache. 
 
 " Ah, Stevins, how d'ye do ? " said Upton. " You've had 
 a cold journey over the Cenis." 
 
 " Came by the Splugen, your Excellency. I wont 
 round by Vienna, and Maurice Esterhazy took me as far 
 as Milan." 
 
 The Princess stared with some astonishment. That the 
 messenger should thus familiarly style one of that great 
 family was indeed matter of wonderment to her ; nor was 
 it lessened as Upton whispered her, " Ask him to dine." 
 
 " And London, how is it ? Very empty, Stevins ? " con- 
 tinued he. 
 
 " A desert," was the answer. 
 
 " Where's Lord Adderley ? " 
 
 " At Brighton. The King can't do without him, greatly 
 to Adderley's disgust, for he is dying to have a week's 
 shooting in the Highlands." 
 
 " And Cantworth, where is he? "
 
 THE VILLA AT SORRENTO. 277 
 
 " He's off for Vienna, and a short trip to Hungary. T 
 met him at dinner at the mess while waiting for the Dover 
 packet. By the way, I saw a friend of your Excellency's 
 — Harcourt." 
 
 " Not gone to India ? " 
 
 " No. They've made him a governor or commander-in- 
 chief of something in the Mediterranean. I forget exactly 
 where or what." 
 
 "You have brought me a mighty bag, Stevins," said 
 Upton, sighing. " I had hoped for a little ease and rest 
 now that the House is up." 
 
 " They are all blue-books, I believe," replied Stevins. 
 " There's that blacking your Excellency wrote about, and 
 the cricket-bats ; the lathe must come out by the frigate, 
 and the down mattress at the same time." 
 
 " Just do me the favour to open the bag, my dear 
 Stevins. I am utterly without aid here," said Upton, 
 sighing drearily ; and the other proceeded to litter the 
 table and the floor with a variety of strange and incon- 
 gruous pai'cels. 
 
 "Report of factory commissionei's," cried he, throwing 
 down a weighty quarto. " Yarmouth bloaters — Atkinson's 
 cerulean paste for the eyebrows — Worcester sauce — trade 
 returns for Tahiti — a set of shoemaking tools — eight 
 bottles of Darby's pyloric corrector — buffalo flesh-brushes, 
 devilish hard they seem — Hume's speech on the reduction 
 of foreign legations — novels from Bull's — top-boots for a 
 tiger, and a mass of letters," said Stevins, throwing them 
 broadcast over the sofa. 
 
 " No despatches? " cried Upton, eagerly. 
 
 " Not one, by Jove ! " said Stevins. 
 
 " Open one of those Darby's. I'll take a teaspoonful at 
 once. Will you try it, Stevins? " 
 
 " Thanks, your Excellency, I never take physic." 
 
 " Well, you dine here, then," said he, with a sly look at 
 the Princess. 
 
 " Not to-day, your Excellency. I dine with Grammont 
 at eight." 
 
 " Then I'll not detain you. Come back here to-morrow 
 about eleven or a little later. Come to breakfast if you 
 like." 
 
 "At what hour?"
 
 278 THE FORTUNES OF GLEN'COEE. 
 
 a 
 
 I don't know — at any hour," sighed Upton, as he 
 opened one of his letters and began to read ; and Stevins 
 bowed and withdrew, totally unnoticed and unrecognized 
 as he slipped from the room. 
 
 One after another Upton threw down, after reading half 
 a dozen lines, muttering some indistinct syllables over the 
 dreary stupidity of letter- writers in genei'al. Occasionally 
 he came upon some pressing appeal for money — some 
 urgent request for even a small remittance by the next 
 post, and these he only smiled at, while he refolded them 
 with a studious care and neatness. " Why will you not 
 help me with this chaos, dear Princess ? " said he, at last. 
 
 "I am only waiting to be asked," said she; "but I 
 feared that there might be secrets " 
 
 " From you ? " said he, with a voice of deep tenderness, 
 while his eyes sparkled with an expression far more like 
 raillery than affection. The Princess, however, had either 
 not seen or not heeded it, for she was already deep in the 
 correspondence. 
 
 " This is strictly private. Am I to read it ? " said she. 
 
 " Of course," said he, bowing courteously. And she 
 read : 
 
 " Dear Upton, — Let us have a respite from tariffs and 
 trade-talk for a month or two, and tell me rather what the 
 world is doing around you. We have never got the right 
 end of that story about the Princess Celestine as yet. 
 
 Who was he ? Not Labinsky, I'll be sworn. The K 
 
 insists it was Roseville, and I hope you may be able to 
 assui'e me that he is mistaken. He is worse tempered 
 than ever. That Glencore business has exasperated him 
 greatly. Couldn't your Princess — the world calls her yours " 
 — [" how good of the world, and how delicate of your 
 friend!" said she, smiling superciliously. "Let us see 
 who the writer is. Oh ! a great man — the Lord Adderley," 
 and went on with her reading :] — " couldn't your Princess 
 find out something of real consequence to us about the 
 
 Q — " 
 
 "What Queen does he mean? " cried she, stopping. 
 
 " The Queen of Sheba, perhaps," said Upton, biting his 
 lips with anger, while he made an attempt to take the 
 letter from her.
 
 THE VILLA AT SORRENTO. 279 
 
 "Pardon, this is interesting," said she, and went on: 
 " We shall want it soon ; that is, if the manufacturing 
 districts will not kindly afford us a diversion by some 
 open-air demonstrations and a collision with the troops. 
 We have offered them a most taking bait, by announcing 
 wrongfully the departure of six regiments for India; thus 
 leaving the large towns in the north apparently ungar- 
 risoned. They are such poltroons that the chances are 
 they'll not bite ! You wei*e right about Emerson. We 
 have made his brother a Bishop, and he voted with us on 
 the Arms Bill. Cole is a sterling patriot and an old Whig. 
 He says nothing shall seduce him from his party, save a 
 Lordship of the Admiralty. Corruption everywhere, my 
 dear Upton, except on the Treasury benches ! 
 
 " Holecrolt insists on being sent to Petersburg, and 
 having ascertained that the Emperor will not accept him, 
 
 I have induced the K to nominate him to the post. 
 
 ' Non culpa nostra,' &c He can scarcely vote agaii st us 
 after such an evidence of our goodwill. Find out what 
 will give most umbrage to your Court, and I will tell you 
 why in my next. 
 
 " Don't bother yourself about the Greeks. The time is 
 not come yet, nor will it till it suit our policy to loosen 
 the ties with Russia. As to France, there is 'not, nor will 
 there be, in our time at lea^, any Government there. 
 We must deal with them as with a public meeting, which 
 may revei'se to-morrow the resolutions they have adopted 
 to-day. The French will never be formidable till they are 
 unanimous. They'll never be unanimous till we declare 
 war with them ! Remember, I don't want anything serious 
 with Cineselli. Irritate and worry as much as you can. 
 Send even for a ship or two from Malta, but go no farther. 
 I waut this for our radicals at home. Our own friends 
 are in the secret. Write me a short despatch about our 
 good relations with the Two Sicilies ; and send me some 
 news in a private letter. Let me have some ortolans in 
 the bag, and believe me yours, 
 
 " Adderley." 
 
 "There," said she, turning over a number of letters 
 with a mere glance at their contents, " these are all trash 
 — shooting and fox-hunting news, which one reads in the
 
 280 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 newspapers better, or at least more briefly narrated, with 
 all that death and marriage intelligence which you English 
 are so fond of parading before the world. But what is 
 this literary gem here ? Where did the paper come from ? 
 And that wonderful seal, and still more wonderful address ? 
 — ' To his Worshipful Excellency the Truly Worthy and 
 Eight Honourable Sir Horace Upton, Plenipotentiary, 
 Negotiator, and Extraordinary Diplomatist, living at 
 Naples.' " 
 
 " What can it mean ? " said he, languidly. 
 
 "You shall hear," said she, breaking the massive seal ot 
 green wax, which, to the size of a crown piece, ornamented 
 one side of the epistle. " It is dated Schwats, Tyrol, and 
 begins, ' Venerated and Reverend Excellency, when these 
 unsymmetrieally-designed, and not more ingeniously-con- 
 ceived syllables ' Let us see his name," said she, 
 
 stopping suddenly, and turning to the last page, read, 
 " ' W. T., vulgo, Billy Traynor, a name cognate to your 
 Worshipful Eminence in times past.' " 
 
 " To be sure, I remember him perfectly — a strange 
 creature, that came out here with that boy you heard me 
 speak of. Pray read on." 
 
 " I stopped at 'syllables.' Yes — when these curiously- 
 conceived syllables, then, ' come under the visionary aper- 
 tures of your acute understanding, they will disclose to 
 your much-reflecting and nice-discriminating mind as 
 cruel and mui'derous a deed as ever a miscreant imagina- 
 tion suggested to a diabolically-constructed and nefariously- 
 fashioned organization, showing that Nature, in her bland 
 adaptiveness, never imposes a mistaken fruit on a genuine 
 arborescence." 
 
 " Do you understand him ? " asked she. 
 
 " Partly, perhaps," continued he. " Let us have the 
 subject." 
 
 " ' Not to weary your exalted and never-enough-to-be- 
 esteemed intelligence, I will proceed without further am- 
 biguous or circumgyratory evolutions, to the main body of 
 my allegation. It happened in this way : Charley — your 
 venerated worship knows who I mean — Charley, ever deep 
 in marmorial pursuits, and far progressed in sculptorial 
 excellence, with a genius that Phidias, if he did not envy, 
 would esteem -'
 
 THE VILLA AT SORRENTO. 231 
 
 " Really I cannot go on with these interminable 
 pai'entheses," said she. " You must decipher them your- 
 self." 
 
 Upton took the letter, and read it, at first hastily, and 
 then recommencing, with more of care and attention, 
 occasionally stopping to reflect and consider the details. 
 " This is likely to be a troublesome business," said he. 
 " This boy has got himself into a serious scrape. Love 
 and a duel are bad enough; but an Austrian state-prison, 
 and a sentence of twenty years m irons, are even worse. 
 So far as I can make out from my not over lucid corre- 
 spondent, he had conceived a violent affection for a young 
 lady at Massa, to whose favour a young Austrian of high 
 rank at the same time pretended." 
 
 " Wahnsdorf, I'm certain," broke in the Princess ; " and 
 the girl — that Mademoiselle- — " 
 
 " Harley," interposed Sir Horace. 
 
 " Just so — Harley. Pray go on," said she, eagerly. 
 
 " A very serious altercation and a duel were the conse- 
 quences of this rivalry, and Wahnsdorf has been danger- 
 ously wounded ; his life is still in peril. The Harleys 
 have been sent out of the country, and my unlucky 
 protege, handed over to the Austrians, has been tried, 
 condemned, and sentenced to twenty years in Kuffstein, a 
 Tyrol fortress where great severity is practised ; from the 
 neighbourhood of which this letter is written, entreating 
 my speedy interference and protection." 
 
 " What can you do ? It is not even within your juris- 
 diction," said she, carelessly. 
 
 " True ; nor was the capture by the Austrians within 
 theirs, Princess. It is a case where assuredly everybody 
 was in the wrong, and, therefore, admirably adapted for 
 nice negotiation." 
 
 " Who and what is the youth ? " 
 
 " I have called him a protege." 
 
 " Has he no more tender claim to the affectionate solici- 
 tude of Sir Horace Upton ? " said she, with an easy air of 
 sarcasm. 
 
 " None, on my honour," said he, eagerly. " None at 
 least of the kind you infer. His is a very sad story, which 
 I'll tell you about at another time. For the present, I may 
 say that he is English, and as such must be protected by
 
 282 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 the English authorities. The Government of Massa have 
 clearly committed a great fault in handing him over to the 
 Austrians. Stubber must be 'brought to book' for this 
 in the first instance. By this we shall obtain a perfect 
 insight into the whole affair." 
 
 " The Imperial family will never forgive an insult 
 offered to one of their own blood," said the Princess, 
 haughtily. 
 
 " We shall not ask them to forgive anything, my dear 
 Princess. We shall only prevent their natural feelings 
 betraying them into an act of injustice. The boj^'s offence, 
 whatever it was, occurred outside the frontier, as I appre- 
 hend." 
 
 " How delighted you English are when you can convei't 
 an individual case into an international question ! You 
 would at any moment sacrifice an ancient alliance to the 
 trumpery claim of an aggrieved tourist," said she, rising 
 angrily, and swept out of the room ere Sir Horace could 
 arise to open the door for her. 
 
 Upton walked slowly to the chimney and rang the bell. 
 " I shall want the caleche and post-horses at eight o'clock, 
 Antoine. Put up some things for me, and get all my 
 furs ready." And with this he measured forty drops 
 from a small phial he carried in his waistcoat-pocket, and 
 sat down to pare his nails with a very diminutive pen- 
 knife.
 
 283 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 a diplomatist's dinner. 
 
 Were we writing a drama instead of a true history, we 
 might like to linger for a few moments on the leave-taking 
 between the Princess and Sir Horace Upton. They were 
 indeed both consummate "artists," and they played their 
 parts to perfection — not as we see high comedy performed 
 on the stage, by those who grotesque its refinements and 
 exaggerate its dignity ; " lashing to storm " the calm and 
 placid lake, all whose convulsive throes are many a fathom 
 deep, and whose wildest workings never bring a ripple to 
 the surface. No, theirs was the true version of well-bred 
 "performance." A little well-affected grief at separation, 
 brief as it was meant to be — a little half-expressed sur- 
 prise, on the lady's part, at the suddenness of the depar- 
 ture — a little, just as vaguely convened, complaint on the 
 other side, over the severe requirements of duty, and a 
 very little tenderness — for there was no one to witness it 
 • — at the thought of parting ; and with a kiss upon her 
 hand, whose respectful courtesy no knight-errant of old 
 could have surpassed, Sir Horace backed from the "pre- 
 sence," sighed, and slipped away. 
 
 Had our reader been a spectator instead of a peruser of 
 the events we have lately detailed, he might have fancied, 
 from certain small asperities of manner, certain quick- 
 nesses of reproof and readiness at rejoinder, that here were 
 two people only waiting for a reasonable and decent pre- 
 text to go on their separate roads in life. Yet nothing of 
 this kind was the case ; the bond between them was not 
 affection — it was simply convenience. Their partnership 
 gave them a strength and a social solvency which would 
 have been sorely damaged had either retired from " the 
 firm ; " and they knew it. 
 
 What would the Princess's dinners have been without 
 the polished ease of him who felt himself half the host ?
 
 284 THE FOETUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 What would all Sir Horace Upton's subtlety avail him, if 
 it were not that he had sources of information which 
 always laid open the game of his adversaries ? Singly, 
 each would have had a tough struggle with the world — 
 together they were more than a match for it. 
 
 The highest order of diplomatist, in the estimation of 
 Upton, was the man who, at once, knew what was possible 
 to be done. It was his own peculiar quality to possess 
 this gift ; but great as his natural acuteness was, it 
 would not have availed him, without those secret springs 
 of intelligence we have alluded to. There is no saying 
 to what limit he might not have carried this faculty, 
 had it not been that one deteriorating and detracting 
 feature marred and disfigured the fairest form of his 
 mind. 
 
 He could not, do all that he would, disabuse himself of 
 a very low estimate of men and their motives. He did 
 not slide into this philosophy, as certain indolent people 
 do, just to save them the trouble of discriminating — he did 
 not acquire it by the hard teachings of adversity. No ; it 
 came upon him slowly and gradually, the fruit, as he be- 
 lieved, of calm judgment and much reflection upon life. 
 As little did he accept it willingly ; he even laboured 
 against the conviction ; but, strive as he might, there it 
 was, and there it would remain. 
 
 His fixed impression was, that in every circumstance 
 and event in life, there was always a dessous des cartes — a 
 deeper game concealed beneath the surface — and that it 
 was a mere question of skill and address how much of 
 this penetrated through men's actions. If this theory 
 unravelled many a tangled web of knavery to him, it also 
 served to embarrass and confuse him in situations whei*e 
 inferior minds had never recognized a difficulty ! How 
 much ingenuity did he expend to detect what had no exist- 
 ence ! How wearily did he try for soundings where there 
 was no bottom ! 
 
 Through the means of the Princess he had learned — 
 what some very wise heads do not yet like to acknowledge 
 — that the feeling of the despotic governments towards 
 England was veiw different from what it had been at the 
 close of the great war with Napoleon. They had grown 
 more dominant and exacting, just as we were becoming
 
 A diplomatist's dinner. 285 
 
 every hour more democratic. To maintain our old rela- 
 tions with them, therefore, on the old footing, would be 
 only to involve ourselves in continual difficulty, with a 
 certainty of final failure; and the only policy that re- 
 mained was to encourage the growth of liberal opinions 
 on the Continent, out of which new alliances might be 
 formed, to recompense us for the loss of the old ones. 
 There is a story told of a certain benevolent pi'ince, whose 
 resources were, unhappily, not commensurate with his 
 good intentions, and whose ragged retinue wearied him 
 with entreaties for assistance. " Be of good cheer," said 
 he, one day, " I have ordered a field of flax to be sown, and 
 you shall all of j'ou have new shirts." Such were pi'etty 
 much the position and policy of England. Out of our 
 crop of Constitutionalism we speculated on a rich harvest, 
 to be afterwards manufactured for our use and benefit. 
 We leave it to deeper heads to say if the result has been 
 all that we calculated on, and, asking pardon for such 
 digression, we join Sir Horace once more. 
 
 When Sir Horace Upton ordered post-horses to his 
 carriage, he no more knew where he was going, nor where 
 he would halt, than he could have anticipated what course 
 any conversation might take when once started. He had, 
 to be sure, a certain ideal goal to be reached ; but he was 
 one of those men who liked to think that the casual inter- 
 ruptions one meets with in life are less obstruction than 
 opportunity ; so that, instead of deeming these subjects 
 for regret or impatience, he often accepted them as indica- 
 tions that there was some profit to be derived from them 
 — a kind of fatalism more common than is generally 
 believed. When he set out for Sorrento it was with the 
 intention of going direct to Massa ; not that this state lay 
 within the limits his functions asci'ibe to him — that being 
 probably the very fact which imparted a zest to the 
 journey. Any other man would have addressed himself 
 to his colleague in Tuscany, or wherever he might be ; 
 while he, being Sir Horace Upton, took the whole business 
 upon himself in his own way. Young M.assy's case 
 opened to his eyes a great question, viz., what was the 
 position the Austrians assumed to take in Italy? For 
 any care about the youth, or any sympathy with his 
 sufferings, he distressed himself little ; not that he was,
 
 286 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 in any respect, heartless or unfeeling, it was simply that 
 greater interests were before him. Here was one of 
 those " grand issues " that he felt worthy of Iris abilities 
 — it was a cause where he was proud to hold a brief. 
 
 Resolving all his plans of action methodically, yet 
 rapidly ; arranging every detail in his own mind, even to 
 the use of certain expressions he was to employ ; he 
 arrived at the palace of the Embassy, where he desired to 
 halt to take up his letters and make a few preparations 
 before his departure. His Maestro di Casa, Signor Fran- 
 chetti, was in waiting for his arrival, and respectfully 
 assured him " that all was in readiness, and that his 
 Excellency would be perfectly satisfied. We had, it is 
 true," continued he, " a difficulty about the fish, but I 
 sent off an express to Baia, and we have secured a 
 sturgeon." 
 
 "What are you raving about, Caro Pipo?" said the 
 Minister; "what is all this long story of Baia and the 
 fish ? " 
 
 " Has your Excellency forgotten that we have a grand 
 dinner to-day, at eight o'clock ; that the Prince Maxi- 
 milian of Bavaria and all the foreign ambassadors are 
 invited?" 
 
 " Is this Saturday, Pipo ? " said Sir Horace, blandly. 
 " Yes, your Excellency." 
 
 " Send Mr. Brockett to me," said Sir Horace, as he 
 slowly mounted the stairs to his own apartment. 
 
 Sir Horace was stretched on a sofa, in all the easy 
 luxury of magnificent dressing-gown and slippers when 
 Mr. Brockett entered; and without any preliminary of 
 greeting he said, with a quiet laugh, " Tou have let me 
 forget all about the dinner to-day, Brockett ! " 
 
 " I thought you knew it ; you took great trouble about 
 the persons to be asked, and you canvassed whether the 
 
 Due le Borodino, being only a Charge d' Affaires " 
 
 " There, there ; don't you see the — the inappropriateness 
 of what you are doing — even in England a man is not 
 asked to criminate himself. How many are coming ? " 
 
 " Nineteen ; the ' Nonce ' is ill, and has sent an 
 apology." 
 
 " Then the party can be eighteen, Brockett ; you must 
 tell them that I am ill — too ill to come to dinner. I know
 
 a diplomatist's dinner. 287 
 
 the Prince Max very well, he'll not take it badly; and as 
 to Cineselli, we shall see what humour he is in ! " 
 
 " But they'll know that you arrived here this afternoon ; 
 they'll naturally suppose " 
 
 " They'll naturally suppose — if people ever do anything 
 so intensely stupid as naturally to suppose anything — that 
 I am the best judge of my own health ; and so, Mr. 
 Brockett, you may as well con over the terms by which 
 you may best acquaint the company with the reasons for 
 my absence ; and if the Prince proposes a visit to me in 
 the evening, let him come ; he'll find me here in my own 
 room. Would you do me the kindness to let Antinori 
 fetch his cupping glasses, and tell Franchetti also that I'll 
 take my chicken grilled, not roasted. I'll look over the 
 treaty in the evening. One mushroom, only one, he may 
 give me, and the Carlsbad water, at 28 degrees. I'm 
 very troublesome, Brockett, but I'm sure you'll excuse it ; 
 thanks, thanks " — and he pressed the Secretary's hand, 
 and gave him a smile, whose blandishment had often done 
 good service, and would do so again ! 
 
 To almost any other man in the world this interruption 
 to his journey — this sudden tidings of a formally-arranged 
 dinner, which he could not or would not attend — would 
 have proved a source of chagrin and dissatisfaction. Not 
 so with Upton ; he liked a " contrariety." Whatever 
 stirred the still waters of life, even though it should be a 
 head wind, was far more grateful than a calm ! He 
 laughed to himself at the various comments his company 
 were sure to pass over his conduct ; he pictured to his 
 mind the anger of some and the astonishment of others, 
 and revelled in the thought of the courtier-like indignation 
 such treatment of a Royal Highness was certain to elicit. 
 " But who can answer for his health ? " said he, with 
 an easy laugh to himself. " Who can promise what he 
 may be ten days hence ? " The appearance of his dinner 
 — if one may dignify by such a name the half of a chicken, 
 flanked by a roasted apple and a biscuit — cut short his 
 lucubrations ; and Sir Horace ate and sipped his Carlsbad 
 with as much enjoyment as many another man has felt 
 over venison and Chambertin. 
 
 " Are they arrived, Pipo ? " said he, as his servant re- 
 moved the dessert of two figs and a lime.
 
 '288 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 " Yes, your Excellency, they are at table." 
 
 " How many are there ? " 
 
 " Seventeen, sir, and Mr. Brockett." 
 
 " Did the Prince seem to — to feel my absence, Pipo? " 
 
 " I thought he appealed very sorry for your Excellency, 
 when Mr. Brockett spoke to him, and he whispered some- 
 thing to the aide-de-camp beside him." 
 
 " And the others ; how did they take it ? " 
 
 " Count Tarrocco said he'd retire, sir ; that he could not 
 dine where the host was too ill to receive him ; but the 
 Due de Campo Stretto said it was impossible they could 
 leave the room while a ' Royal Highness ' continued to 
 remain in it ; and they all agreed with him." 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! " laughed Upton, in a low tone. " I hope 
 the dinner is a good one ? " 
 
 " It is exquisite, sir ; the Prince ate some of the caviare 
 soup, and was asking a second time for the ' pain des 
 ortolans ' when I left the room." 
 
 "And the wine, Pipo? have you given them that rare 
 « La Rose ? ' " 
 
 "Yes, your Excellency, and the ' Klausthaller cabinet ; ' 
 his Royal Highness asked for it." 
 
 " Go back, then, now. I want for nothing more ; only 
 drop in here by-and-by, and tell me how all goes on. Just 
 light that pastile before you go ; there — that will do." 
 
 And once more his Excellency was left to himself. In 
 that vast palace — the once home of a royal prince — no 
 sounds of the distant revelry could reach the remote 
 quarter where he sat, and all was silent and still around 
 him, and Upton was free to ruminate and reflect at ease. 
 There was a sense of haughty triumph in thinking that 
 beneath his roof, at that veiy moment, were assembled the 
 great representatives of almost every important state of 
 Europe, to whom he had not deigned to accord the honour 
 of his presence ; but though this thought did flit across 
 his mind, far more was he intent on reflecting what might 
 be the consequences — good or evil — of the incident. 
 "And then," said he, aloud, " how will Printing House 
 Square treat us? What a fulminating leader shall we not 
 have, denouncing either our insolence or our incompetence, 
 ending with the words : ' If, then, Sir Horace Upton be 
 not incapacitated from illness for the discharge of his high
 
 A diplomatist's dinner, 289 
 
 functions, it is full time for his Government to withdraw 
 him from a sphere where his caprice and impertinence 
 have rendered him something worse than useless ; ' and 
 then will come a flood of petty corroborations — the tourist 
 tribe who heard of us at Berlin, or called upon us at the 
 Hague, and whose unreturned cards and uninvited 
 wives are counts in the long indictment against us. 
 What a sure road to private friendships is diplomacy ! 
 How certain is one of conciliating the world's good 
 opinion by belonging to it ! I wish I had followed the 
 law, or medicine," muttered he ; "they are both abstruse, 
 both interesting ; or been a gardener, or a shipwright, or 
 
 a mathematical instrument maker, or " Whatever the 
 
 next choice might have been we know not, for he dropped 
 off asleep. 
 
 From that pleasant slumber, and a dream, of Heaven 
 knows what Jife of Arcadian simplicity, of rippling 
 streams, and soft-eyed shepherdesses, he was destined to 
 be somewhat suddenly, if not rudely aroused, as Fran- 
 chetti introduced a stranger who would accept no denial. 
 
 "Tour people were not for letting me up, Upton," cried 
 a rich, mellow voice, and Harcourt stood before him, 
 bronzed and weather-beaten, as he came off his journey. 
 
 " You, George ? Is it possible ! " exclaimed Sir Horace ; 
 " what best of all lucky winds has driven you here ; I'm 
 not sure I wasn't dreaming of you this very moment. I 
 know I have had a vision of angelic innocence and sim- 
 plicity, which you must have had your part in ; but do tell 
 me when did you arrive, and whence " 
 
 " Not till I have dined, by Jove ! I have tasted nothing 
 since daybreak, and then it was only a mere apology for a 
 breakfast." 
 
 " Franchetti, get something, will you ? " said Upton, 
 languidly; "a cutlet, a fowl, anything that can be had 
 at once." 
 
 " Nothing of the kind, Signor Franchetti," interposed 
 Harcourt ; " if I have a wolf's appetite, I have a man's 
 patience. Let me have a real dinner — soup, fish, an entree 
 — two if you like — roast beef, and I leave the wind-up 
 to your own discretion, only premising that I like game, 
 and have a weakness for woodcocks. By the way, does 
 this climate suit Bordeaux, Upton ? " 
 
 v
 
 290 THE FOKTUNES OF GLENCOKE. 
 
 " They tell me so, and mine has a good reputation." 
 
 " Then claret be it, and no other wine. Don't I make 
 myself at home, old fellow, eh ? " said he, clapping Upton 
 on the shoulder. " Have I not taken his Majesty's Em- 
 bassy by storm, eh ? " 
 
 " We surrender at discretion, only too glad to receive 
 our vanquisher. Well, and how do you find me looking ? 
 Be candid : how do I seem to your eyes ? " 
 
 " Pretty much as I have seen you these last fifteen 
 years — not an hour older, at all eveuts. That same 
 delicacy of constitution is a confounded deal better than 
 most men's strong health, for it never wears out; but I 
 have always said it, Upton will see us all down ! " 
 
 Sir Horace sighed as though this were too pleasant 
 to be true. 
 
 "Well," said he, at last, "but you have not told me 
 what good chance has brought you here. Is it the first 
 post-station on the way to India ? " 
 
 " No ; they've taken me off the saddle, and given me a 
 staff appointment at Corfu. I'm going out second in 
 command there, and whether it was to prevent my teasing 
 them for something else, or that there was really some 
 urgency in the matter, they ordered me off at once." 
 
 "Are they reinforcing the garrison there ? ' ' asked Upton. 
 
 "No ; not so far as I have heard." 
 
 " It were better policy to do so, than to send out a ' com- 
 mander-in-chief and a drummer of great experience,' " 
 muttered Upton to himself: but Harcourt could not catch 
 the remark. " Have you any news stirring in England ? 
 What do the clubs talk about ? " asked Sir Horace. 
 
 " Glencore's business occupied them for the last week 
 or so ; now, I think, it is yourself furnishes the chief 
 topic for speculation." 
 
 " What of me ? " asked Upton, eagerly. 
 
 " Why, the rumour goes that you are to have the 
 Foreign Office ; Adderley, they say, goes out, and Conway 
 and yourself are the favourites, the odds being slightly 
 on his side." 
 
 "This is all news to me, George," said Upton, with a 
 degree of animation that had nothing fictitious about it. 
 " I have had a note from Adderley in the last bag, and 
 there's not a word about these changes."
 
 a diplomatist's dinner. 291 
 
 " Possibly ; but perhaps my news is later. What I 
 allude to is said to have occurred the day I started." 
 
 " Ab, very true ; and now I remember that the 
 messenger came round by Vienna, sent there by Adderley, 
 doubtless," muttered he, " to consult Conway before 
 seeing me, and, I have little doubt, with a letter for me in 
 the event of Conway declining." 
 
 " Well, have you hit upon the solution of it ? " said 
 Harcourt, who had not followed him through his half- 
 uttered observation. 
 
 " Perhaps so," said Upton, slowly, while he leaned his 
 head upon his hand, and fell into a fit of meditation. 
 Meanwhile, Harcourt's dinner made its appearance, and 
 the Colonel seated himself at the table with a traveller's 
 appetite. 
 
 " Whenever any one has called you a selfish fellow, 
 Upton," said he, as he helped himself twice from the same 
 dish, " I have always denied it, and on this good ground, 
 that, had you been so, you had never kept the best cook 
 in Europe, while unable to enjoy his talents. What a rare 
 artist must this be — what's his name? " 
 
 " Pipo, how is he called? " said Upton, languidly. 
 
 "Monsieur Carmael, your Excellency." 
 
 " Ah, to be sure ; a person of excellent family. I've 
 been told he's from Provence," said Upton, in the same 
 weary voice. 
 
 " I could have sworn to his birthplace," cried Harcourt ; 
 " no man can manage cheese and olives in cookery but a 
 ProvenQal. Ah ! what a glass of Bordeaux ! To your 
 good health, Upton, and to the day that you maybe able 
 to enjoy this as I do," said he, as he tossed off a bumper. 
 
 t; It does me good even to witness the pleasure it yields," 
 said Upton, blandly. 
 
 " By Jove ! then, I'll be worth a whole course of tonics 
 to you, for I most thoroughly appreciate all the good 
 things you have given me. By the way, how are you off 
 for dinner company here — any pleasant people ? " 
 
 " I have no health for pleasant people, my dear Har- 
 court ; like horse exercise, they only agree with you when 
 you are strong enough not to require them." 
 
 " Then what have you got ? " asked the Colonel, some~ 
 what abashed. 
 
 U 2
 
 292 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOKE. 
 
 "Princes, generals, envoys, and heads of depart- 
 ments." 
 
 " Good heavens ! legions of honour and golden fleeces ! " 
 
 ''Just so," said Upton, smiling at the dismay in the 
 other's countenance ; " I have had such a party as you 
 describe to-day. Are they gone yet, Franchetti ? " 
 
 " They're at coffee, your Excellency, but the Prince has 
 ordered his carriage." 
 
 " And you did not go near them ? " asked Harcourt, in 
 amazement. 
 
 "No ; I was poorly, as you see me," said Upton, smiling. 
 " Pipo tells me, however, that the dinner was a good one, 
 and I am sure they pardon my absence." 
 
 " Foreign ease, I've no doubt ; though I can't say I like 
 it," muttered Harcourt. " At all events, it is not for me 
 to complain, since the accident has given me the pleasure 
 of your society." 
 
 " You are about the only man I could have admitted," 
 said Upton, with a certain graciousness of look and man- 
 ner that, perhaps, detracted a little from its sincerity. 
 
 Fortunately, not so to Harcourt's eyes, for he accepted 
 the speech in all honesty and good faith, as he said, 
 "Thank you heartily, my boy. The welcome is better 
 even than the dinner, and that is saying a good deal. 
 No more wine, thank you ; I'm going to have a cigar, 
 and with your leave I'll ask for some brandy-and- 
 water." 
 
 This was addressed to Franchetti, who speedily reap- 
 peared with a liqueur-stand and an ebony cigar-case. 
 
 "Try these, George; they're better than your own," 
 said Upton, drily. 
 
 "That I will," cried Harcourt, laughing; "I'm deter- 
 mined to draw all my resources from the country in 
 occupation, especially as they are superior to what I can 
 obtain from home. This same career of yours, Upton, 
 strikes me as rather a good thing. You have all these 
 things duty free." 
 
 "Yes, we have that privilege," said Upton, sighing. 
 
 " And the privilege of drawing some few thousand 
 pounds per annum, paid messengers to and from England, 
 secret service money, and the rest of it, eh ? " 
 
 Upton smiled, and sighed again.
 
 A DirLOMATIST's DINNER, 293 
 
 " And what do you do for all that — I mean what are 
 you expected to do ? " 
 
 " Keep your party in when they are in — disconcert tho 
 enemy when your friends are out." 
 
 "And is that always a safe game? " asked Harcourt, 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Not when played by unskilful players, my dear 
 George. They occasionally make sad work, and get 
 bowled out themselves for their pains ; but there's no 
 great harm in that neither." 
 
 "How do you mean there's no harm in it? " 
 
 " Simply, that if a man can't keep his saddle he oughtn't 
 to try to ride foremost ; but these speculations will only 
 puzzle you, my dear Harcourt. — What of Glencore ? You 
 said awhile ago that the town was talking of him — how 
 and wherefore was it ? " 
 
 " Haven't you heard the story, then ? " 
 
 "Not a word of it." 
 
 " Well, I'm a bad narrator ; besides, I don't know where 
 to begin ; and even if I did, I have nothing to tell but the 
 odds and ends of club gossip, for I conclude nobody 
 knows all the facts but the King himself." 
 
 " If I were given to impatience, George, you would be 
 a most consummate plague to me," said Upton ; " but I 
 am not. Go on, however, in your own blundering way, 
 and leave me to glean what I can in mine." 
 
 Cheered and encouraged by this flattering speech, Har- 
 court did begin ; but, more courteous to him than Sir 
 Horace, we mean to accord him a new chapter for his 
 revelations ; premising the while to our reader that the 
 Colonel, like the knife-grinder, had really " no story to 
 tell."
 
 294 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIX. 
 
 A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 
 
 "You want to hear all about Glencore ?" said Harcourt, 
 as, seated in the easiest of attitudes in an easy chair, he 
 puffed his cigar luxuriously; " and when I have told you 
 all I know, the chances are you'll be little the wiser." 
 Upton smiled a bland assent to this exordium, but in 
 such a way as to make Harcourt feel less at ease than 
 before. 
 
 " I mean," said the Colonel, " that I have little to offer 
 you beyond the guesses and surmises of club talk. It 
 will be for your own intelligence to penetrate through the 
 obscurity afterwards. You understand me ? " 
 
 " I believe I understand you," said Upton, slowly, and 
 with the same quiet smile. Now this cold, semi- sarcastic 
 manner of Upton was the one sole thing in the world 
 which the honest Colonel could not stand up against ; he 
 always felt as though it were the prelude to something 
 cutting or offensive — some sly impertinence that he could 
 not detect till too late to resent — some insinuation that 
 might give the point to a whole conversation, and yet be 
 undiscovered by him till the day following. Little as Har- 
 court was given to wronging his neighbour, he, in this 
 instance, was palpably unjust; Upton's manner being 
 nothing more than the- impress made upon a very subtle 
 man by qualities very unlike any of his own, and which 
 in their newness amused him. The very look of satire was 
 as often an expression of sorrow and regret, that he could 
 not be as susceptible — as easy of deception — as those 
 about him. Let us pardon our worthy Colonel if he did 
 not comprehend this; shrewder heads than his own had 
 made the same mistake. Half to resent this covert sly- 
 ness, half to arouse himself to any conflict before him, he 
 said, in a tone of determination, " It is only fair to tell you
 
 A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 295 
 
 that you are yourself to blame for anything that may have 
 befallen poor Glencore." 
 
 " I to blame ! Why, my dear Harcourt, you are surely 
 dreaming/ 
 
 " As wide awake as ever I was. If it had not been for 
 a blunder of yours — an unpardonable blunder, seeing what 
 has come of it — sending a pack of trash to me about salt 
 and sulphur, while you forwarded a private letter about 
 Glencore to the Foreign Office, all this might not have hap- 
 pened." 
 
 " I remember that it was a most disagreeable mistake. 
 I have paid heavily for it, too. That lotion for the cervi- 
 cal vertebra? has come back all torn, and we cannot make 
 out whether it be a phosphate or a prot'-oxide of bismuth. 
 You don't happen to remember?" 
 
 " I ? — of course I know nothing about it. I'd as soon 
 have taken a porcupine for a pillow as I'd have adventured 
 on the confounded mixture. But, as I was saying, that 
 blessed letter, written by some Princess or other, as I 
 understand, fell into the King's hands, and the conse- 
 quence was, that he sent off immediately to Glencore an 
 order to go down to him at Brighton. Naturally enough, 
 I thought he'd not go ; he had the good and sufficient pre- 
 text of his bad health to excuse him. Nobody had seen 
 him abroad in the world for years back, and it was easy 
 enough to say that he could not bear the journey. No- 
 thing of the kind ; he received the command as willingly 
 as he might have done an invitation to dinner fifteen years 
 ago, and talked of nothing else for the whole evening after 
 but of his old days and nights in Carlton House ; how 
 gracious the Prince used to be to him formerly ; how con- 
 stantly he was a guest at his table ; what a brilliant so- 
 ciety it was ; how full of wit and the rest of it ; till, by 
 Jove, what between drinking more wine than he was ac- 
 customed to take, and the excitement of his own talking, 
 he became quite wild and unmanageable ; he was not drunk, 
 nor anything like it, it was rather the state of a man 
 whose mind had got some sudden shock ; for, in the midst 
 of perfectly rational conversation, he would fall into par- 
 oxysms of violent passion, inveighing against every one, 
 and declaring that he never had possessed one true- 
 hearted honest friend in his life.
 
 296 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " It was not without great difficulty that I got him back 
 to my lodgings, for we had gone to dine at Richmond. 
 Then we put him to bed, and I sent for Hunter, who came 
 on the instant. Though by this time Glencore was much 
 more calm and composed, Hunter called the case brain 
 fever ; had his hair cut quite close, and ice applied to the 
 head. Without any knowledge of his history or even of his 
 name, Hunter pronounced him to be a man whose intellect 
 had received some terrible shock, and that the present was 
 simply an acute attack of a long- existent malady." 
 
 " Did he use any irritants ? " asked Upton, anxiously. 
 
 " No ; he advised nothing but the cold during the 
 night." 
 
 "Ah! what a mistake," sighed Upton, heavily. "It 
 was precisely the case for the cervical lotion I was speak- 
 ing of. Of course he was much worse next morning ? " 
 
 " That he was ; not as regarded his reason, however, 
 for he could talk collectedly enough, but he was irritable 
 and passionate to a degree scarcely credible ; would not 
 endure the slightest opposition, and sosuspectful of every- 
 thing and everybody, that if he overheard a whisper it 
 threw him into a convulsion of anger. Hunter's opinion 
 was evidently a gloomy one, and he said to me as we went 
 downstairs, ' He may come through it with life, but 
 scarcely with a sound intellect." This was a heavy blow 
 to me, for I could not entirely acquit myself of the fault 
 of having counselled this visit to Brighton, which I now 
 perceived had made such a deep impression upon him. I 
 roused myself, however, to meet the emergency, and 
 walked down to St. James's to obtain some means of 
 letting the King know that Glencore was too ill to keep 
 his appointment. Fortunately, I met Knighton, who was 
 just setting off to Brighton, and who promised to take 
 charge of the commission. I then strolled over to 
 Brookes's to see the morning papers, and lounged till 
 about four o'clock, when I turned homeward. 
 
 " Gloomy and sad I was, as I reached my door, and 
 rang the bell with a cautious hand. They did not hear 
 the summons, and I was forced to ring again, when the 
 door was opened by my servant, who stood pale and trem- 
 bling before me. ' He's gone, sir — he's gone,' cried he, 
 almost sobbing.
 
 A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 297 
 
 « * Good Heaven,' cried I. ' Dead ! ' 
 " ' No, sir, gone away— driven off, no knows where. I 
 had just gone out to the chemist's, and was obliged to call 
 round at Doctor Hunter's about a word in the prescription 
 they couldn't read, and when I came back he was away.' 
 
 " I then ascertained that the carriage which had been 
 ordered the day before at a particular hour, and which we 
 had forgotten to countermand, had arrived during my 
 servant's absence. Glencore, hearing it stop at the door, 
 inquired whose it was, and as suddenly springing out of 
 bed, proceeded to dress himself, which he did, in the suit 
 he had ordered to wait on the King. So apparently rea- 
 sonable was he in all he said, and such an air of purpose 
 did he assume, that the nurse-tender averred she could 
 not dare to interpose, believing that his attack might 
 possibly be some sort of passing access that he was 
 accustomed to, and knew best how to deal with. 
 
 " I did not lose a moment, but, ordering post-horses, 
 pursued him with all speed. On reaching Croydon, I 
 heard he had passed about two hours before ; but though 
 I did my best, it was in vain. I arrived at Brighton late 
 at night, only to learn that a gentleman had got out at 
 the Pavilion, and had not left it since. 
 
 " I do not believe that all I have ever suffered in my life 
 equalled what I went through in the two weary hours that 
 I passed walking up and down outside that low paling 
 that skirts the Palace garden. The poor fellow, in all his 
 misery, came before me in so many shapes ; sometimes 
 wandering in intellect — sometimes awake and conscious 
 of his sufferings — now, trying to comport himself as be- 
 came the presence he was in — now, reckless of all the 
 world and everything. What could have happened to de- 
 tain him so long ? — what had been the course of events 
 since he passed that threshold ? were questions that again 
 and again crossed me. 
 
 " I tried to make my way in — I know not exactly what 
 I meant to do afterwards — but the sentries refused me 
 admittance. I thought of scaling the enclosure, and 
 reaching the Palace through the garden, but the police 
 kept strict watch on every side. At last, it was nigh 
 twelve o'clock, that I heard a sentry challenge some one, 
 and shortly after a figure passed out and walked towards
 
 298 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 the pier. I followed, determined to make inquiry, no 
 matter of whom. He walked so rapidly, however, that I 
 was forced to rim to overtake him. This attracted his 
 notice ; he turned hastily, and by the straggling moon- 
 light I recognized Glencore. 
 
 " He stood for a moment still, and beckoning me 
 towards him, he took my arm in silence, and we walked 
 onward in the direction of the sea-shore. It was now a 
 wild and gusty night. The clouds drifted fast, shutting 
 out the moon at intervals, and the sea broke harshly along 
 the strand. 
 
 "I cannot tell you the rush of strange and painful 
 emotions which came upon me as I thus walked along, 
 while not a word passed between us. As for myself, I 
 felt that the slightest word from me might, pei'haps, 
 change the whole current of his thoughts, and thus 
 destroy my only chance of any clue to what was passing 
 within him. 'Are you cold?' said he, at length, feeling 
 possibly a slight tremor in my arm. ' Not~cold, exactly,' 
 said I, ' but the night is fresh, and I half suspect too fresh 
 for you' ' Feel that,' said he, placing his hand in mine, 
 and it was burning. ' The breeze that comes off the sea 
 is grateful to me, for I am like one on fire.' ' Then I am 
 certain, my dear Glencore,' said I, 'that this is a great 
 imprudence. Let us turn back, towards the inn.' 
 
 " He made no reply, but with a rough motion of his 
 arm moved forward as before. ' Three hours and more,' 
 said he, with a full and stern utterance, ' they kept me 
 waiting. There were Ministers with the King. There 
 was some foreign envoy, too, to be presented, and if I 
 had not gone in alone and unannounced, I might still be 
 in the ante-chamber. How he stared at me, Harcourt, 
 and my close-cropt hair. It was that seemed first to 
 strike him, as he said, " Have you had an illness lately ? " 
 He looked poorly, too, bloated and pale, and like one 
 who fretted, and I told him so. " We are both changed, 
 sir," said I — " sadly changed since we met last. We 
 might almost begin to hope that another change is not 
 far off— the last and the best one." I don't remember 
 what he answered. It was, I think, something about 
 who came along with me from town, and who was with me 
 at Brighton — I forget exactly, but I know that he sent
 
 A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 299 
 
 for Knighton, and made him feel my pulse. " You'll 
 find it rapid enough, I've no doubt, Sir William," said I. 
 " I rose from a sick bed to come here ; his Majesty had 
 deigned to wish to see me." Then the King stopped me, 
 and made a sign to Knighton to withdraw. 
 
 " ' Wasn't it a strange situation, Harcourt, to be seated 
 there beside the King, alone 'i None other present — all 
 to ourselves — talking as you and I might talk of what 
 interested us most of all the world — and lie showing me 
 that letter, the letter that ought to have come to me. 
 How he could do it I know not. Neither you nor I, 
 George, could have done so ; for, after all, she was, ay, 
 and she is, his wife. He could not avail himself of my 
 stratagem. I said so, too, and he answered, " Ay, but I 
 can divorce her if one half of that be true ; " and he 
 pointed to the letter. "The Lady Glencore," said he, 
 " must know everything, and be willing to tell it, too. 
 She has paid the heaviest penalty ever woman paid for 
 another. Read that," — and I read it — ay, I read it four 
 times, five times over — and then my brain began to burn, 
 and a thousand fancies flitted across me, and though he 
 talked on, I heard not a word. 
 
 " ' " But that lady is my wife, sir," broke I in ; " and 
 what a part do you assign her ! She is to be a spy, a 
 witness, perhaps, in some infamous cause. How shall I, 
 a peer of the realm, endure to see my name thus de- 
 graded ? Is it Court favour can recompense me for lost 
 or tarnished honour? " " But it will be her own vindica- 
 tion," said he. Her own vindication — these were the 
 words, George — she should be clear of all reproach. By 
 Heaven, he said so, that I might declare it before the 
 world — and then it should be proved ! — be proved ! How 
 base a man can be, even though he wear a crown ! Just 
 fancy his proposition ; but I spui'ned it, and said, " You 
 must seek for some one with a longer chance of life, sir, 
 to do this ; my days are too brief for such dishonour ; " and 
 he was angry with me, and said I had forgotten the presence 
 in which I stood. It was true, I had forgotten it. 
 
 " ' He called me a wretched fool, too, as I tore up that 
 letter. That was wrong in me, Harcourt, was it not ? I 
 did not see him go, but I found myself alone in the room, 
 and I was picking up the fragments of the letter as they
 
 800 THE FOETUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 entered. They were less than courteous to me, though I 
 told them who I was — an ancient barony better than half 
 the modern marquisates. I gave them date and place for 
 a creation that smacked of other services than theirs. 
 Knighton would come with me, but I shook him off. 
 Your Court physician can carry his complaisance even 
 to poison. By George ! it is their chief office, and I 
 know well what snares are now in store for me.' 
 
 " And thence he went on to say that he would hasten 
 back to his Irish solitude, where none could trace him 
 out. That there his life, at least, would be secure, and 
 no emissaries of the King dare follow him. It was in 
 vain I tried to induce him to return, even for one night, 
 to the hotel, and I saw that to persist in my endeavours 
 would be to hazard the little influence I still possessed 
 over him. I could not, however, leave the poor fellow to 
 his fate without at least the assurance of a home some- 
 where, and so I accompanied him to Ireland, and left him 
 in that strange old ruin where we once sojourned together. 
 His mind had gradually calmed down, but a deep melan- 
 choly had gained entire possession of him, and he passed 
 whole days without a word. I saw that he often laboured 
 to recal some of the events of the interview with the 
 King, but his memory had not retained them, and he 
 seemed like one eternally engaged in some problem which 
 his faculties could not solve. 
 
 " When I left him and arrived in town, I found the 
 clubs full of the incident, but evidently without any real 
 knowledge of what had occurred ; since the version was, 
 that Glencore had asked an audience of the King, and 
 gone down to the Pavilion to read to his Majesty a most 
 atrocious narrative of the Queen's life in Italy, offering to 
 substantiate — through his Italian connection — every allega- 
 tion it contained — a proposal that, of course, was only 
 received by the King in the light of an insult ; and that 
 this reception, so different from all his expectations, had 
 turned his head and driven him completely insane ! 
 
 " I believe now I have told you everything as I heard 
 it ; indeed, I have given you Glencore's own words, since, 
 without them, I could not convey to you what he intended 
 to say. The whole affair is a puzzle to me, for I am unable 
 to tell where the poor fellow's brain was wandering, and
 
 A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 301 
 
 \vhen lie spoke under the guidance of right reason. You, 
 of course, have the clue to it all." 
 
 " I ! How so ? " cried Upton. 
 
 " Tou have seen the letter which caused all the trouble ; 
 you know its contents, and what it treats of." 
 
 " Very true ; I must have read it ; but I have not the 
 slightest recollection of what it was about. There was 
 something, I know, about Glencore's boy — he was called 
 Greppi, though, and might not have been recognized ; and 
 there was some gossip about the Princess of Wales — the 
 Queen, as they call her now — and her ladies ; but I must 
 frankly confess it did not interest me, and I have forgotten 
 it all." 
 
 " Is the writer of the letter to be come at ? " 
 
 " Nothing easier. I'll take you over to breakfast with 
 her to-morrow morning ; you shall catechize her your- 
 self." 
 
 "Oh! she is then " 
 
 " She is the Princess Sabloukoff, my dear George, and 
 a very charming person, as you will be the first to acknow- 
 ledge. But as to this interview at Brighton, I fancy — 
 even from the disjointed narrative of Glencore — one can 
 make a guess of what it portended. The King saw that 
 my Lady Glencore — for so we must call her — knew some 
 very important facts about the Queen, and wished to obtain 
 them ; and saw, too, that certain scandals, as the phrase 
 goes, which attached to her ladyship, lay at another door. 
 He fancied, not unreasonably, perhaps, that Glencore 
 would be glad to hear this exculpation of his wife ; and 
 he calculated that by the boon of this intelligence, he 
 could gain over Glencore to assist him in his project for a 
 divorce. Don't you perceive, Harcourt, of what an in- 
 estimable value it would prove, to possess one single gen- 
 tleman, one man or one woman of station, amid all this 
 rabble that they are summoning throughout the world to 
 bring shame upon England ? " 
 
 " Then you incline to believe Lady Glencore blameless ? " 
 asked Harcourt, anxiously. 
 
 " I think well of every one, my charming Colonel. It 
 is the only true philosophy in life. Be as severe as you 
 please on all who injure yourself, but always be lenient to 
 the faults that only damage your friends. Tou have no
 
 302 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 idea how much practical wisdom the maxim contains, nor 
 what a fund of charity it provides." 
 
 " I'm ashamed to be so stupid ; but I must come back 
 to my old question. Is all this story against Glencore's 
 wife only a calumny ? " 
 
 "And I must fall back upon my old remark, that all the 
 rogues in the world are in gaol ; the people you see walk- 
 ing about and at large are unexceptionably honest — every 
 man of them. Ah, my dear deputy-assistant, adjutant, 
 or commissary, or whatever it be, can you not perceive 
 the more than folly of these perquisitions into character ? 
 You don't require that the ice should be strong enough 
 to sustain a twenty-four pounder before you venture to 
 put foot on it ; enough that it is quite equal to your own 
 ■weight; and so of the world at large — everybody, orneai'ly 
 everybody, has virtue enough for all we want with him. 
 This English habit — for it is essentially English — of 
 eternally investigating everything, is like the policy of a 
 man who would fire a round-shot every morning at his 
 house, to see if it were well and securely built." 
 
 " I don't, I can't agree with you," cried Harcourt. 
 
 " Be it so, my dear fellow ; only don't give me your 
 reasons, and at least I shall respect your motives." 
 
 " What would you do, then, in Glencore's place ? Let 
 me ask you that." 
 
 " You may as well inquire how I should behave if I 
 were a quadruped. Don't you perceive, that I never could, 
 by any possibility, place myself in such a false position. 
 The man who, in a case of difficulty, takes counsel from 
 his passions, is exactly like one who being thirsty, fills 
 himself out a bumper of aquafortis and drinks it off." 
 
 " I wish with all my heart you'd give up aphorisms, and 
 just tell me how we could serve this poor fellow ; for I 
 feel that there is a gleam of light breaking through his 
 dark fortunes." 
 
 " When a man is in the state Glencore is now in, the 
 best policy is to let him alone. They tell us that when 
 Murat's blood was up, the Emperor always left him to his 
 own guidance, since he either did something excessively 
 brilliant, or made such a blunder as recalled him to sub- 
 jection again. Let us treat our friend in this fashion, and 
 wait. Oh, my worthy Colonel, if you but knew what a
 
 A VERT BROKEN NARRATIVE. 303 
 
 secret there is in that same waiting policy. Many a game 
 is won by letting the adversary move out of his turn." 
 
 " If all this subtlety be needed to guide a man in the 
 plain road of life, what is to become of poor simple fellows 
 like myself? " 
 
 " Let them never go far from home, Harcourt, and 
 they'll always find their way back," said Upton ; and his 
 eyes twinkled with quiet drollery. " Come, now," said 
 he, with perfect good nature of look and voice, "If I 
 won't tell you what I should counsel Glencore in this 
 emergency, I'll do the next best thing — I'll tell you what 
 advice you'd give him." 
 
 "Let us hear it, then," said the other. 
 
 " You'd send him abroad to search out his wife ; ask 
 her forgiveness for all the wrong he has done her ; call 
 out any man that whispered the shadow of a reproach 
 against her ; and go back to such domesticity as it might 
 please Heaven to accord him." 
 
 " Certainly, if the woman has been unjustly dealt 
 yrith " 
 
 " There's the rock you always split on; you are ever- 
 lastingly in search of a character. Be satisfied when yon. 
 have eaten a hearty breakfast, and don't ask for a bill of 
 health. Researches are always dangerous. My great- 
 grandfather, who had a passion for genealogy, was cured 
 of it by discovering that the first of the family was a 
 staymaker ! Let the lesson not be lost on us." 
 
 " From all which I am to deduce that you'd ask no 
 questions — take her home again, and say nothing." 
 
 "You forget, Harcourt, we are now discussing the line 
 of action you would recommend ; I am only hinting at the 
 best mode of earring out your ideas." 
 
 " Just for the pleasure of showing me that I didn't 
 know how to walk in the road I made myself," said 
 Harcourt, laughing. 
 
 "What a happy laugh that was, Harcourt. How 
 plainly, too, it said, ' Thank Heaven, I'm not like that 
 fellow with all his craft ! ' And you are right too, my 
 dear friend ; if the devil were to walk the world now, he'd 
 be bored beyond endurance, seeing nothing but the old 
 vices played over again and again ; and so it is with all of 
 us who have a spice of his nature. We'd give anything
 
 804 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 to see one new trick on the cards. Good night, and 
 pleasant dreams to you." And with a sigh that had in 
 its cadence something almost painful, he gave his two 
 fingers to the honest grasp of the other, and withdrew. 
 
 "You're a better fellow than you think yourself, or 
 wish any one else to believe you," muttered Harcourt, as 
 he puffed his cigar ; and he ruminated over this reflection 
 till it was bed-time. 
 
 And Harcourt was right.
 
 305 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 V P T N I S M. 
 
 About noon on the following day, Sir Horace Upton and 
 the Colonel drove up to the gate of the villa at Sorrento, 
 and learned, to their no small astonishment, that the 
 Princess had taken her departure that morning for Como. 
 If Upton heard these tidings with a sense of pain, nothing 
 in his manner betrayed the sentiment ; on the contrary, 
 he proceeded to do the honours of the place like its owner. 
 He showed Harcourt the grounds and the gardens, pointed 
 out all the choice points of view, directed his attention to 
 rare plants and curious animals ; and then led him within 
 doors to admire the objects of art and luxury which 
 abounded there. 
 
 " And that, I conclude, is a portrait of the Princess," 
 said Harcourt, as he stood before what had been a flatter- 
 ing likeness twenty years back. 
 
 "Yes, aud a wonderful resemblance," said Upton, eye- 
 ing it through his glass. " Fatter and fuller now, perhaps ; 
 but it was done after an illness." 
 
 "By Jove!" muttered Harcourt, " she must be beau- 
 tiful ; I don't think I ever saw a handsomer woman ! " 
 
 " You are only repeating a European verdict. She is 
 the most perfectly beautiful woman of the Continent." 
 
 " So there is no flattery in that picture ? " 
 
 " Flattery ! Why, my dear fellow, these people, the very 
 cleverest of them, can't imagine anything as lovely as that. 
 They can imitate— they never invent real beauty." 
 
 " And clever, you say, too ? " 
 
 " Esprit enough for a dozen reviewers and fifty 
 fashionable novelists." And as he spoke he smiled and 
 coquetted with the portrait, as though to say, " Don't 
 mind my saying all this to your face." 
 
 " I suppose her history is a very interesting one." 
 
 " Her history, my worthy Harcourt ! She has a dozen 
 
 x
 
 306 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 histories. Such women have a life of politics, a life of 
 literature, a life of the salons, a life of the affections, not 
 to speak of the episodes of jealousy, ambition, triumph, 
 and sometimes defeat, that make up the brilliant web of 
 their existence. Some three or four such people give the 
 whole character and tone to the age they live in. 
 They mould its interests, sway its fashions, suggest its 
 tastes, and they finally rule those who fancy that they 
 rule mankind." 
 
 " Egad, then, it makes one very sorry for poor man- 
 kind," muttered Harcourt, with a most honest sincerity 
 of voice. 
 
 " Why should it do so, my good Harcourt? Is the 
 refinement of a woman's intellect a worse guide than the 
 coarser instincts of a man's nature ? Would you not 
 yourself rather trust your destinies to the fair creature 
 yonder, than be left to the legislative mercies of that old 
 gentleman there, Hardenberg ; or his fellow on the other 
 side, Metternich ? " 
 
 " Grim-looking fellow the Prussian — the other is much 
 better," said Harcourt, rather evading the question. 
 
 " I confess I prefer the Princess," said Upton, as he 
 bowed before the portrait in deepest courtesy. " But here 
 comes breakfast. I have ordered them to give it to us 
 here, that we may enjoy that glorious sea-view while we 
 eat." 
 
 " I thought your cook a man of genius, Upton, but this 
 fellow is his master," said Harcourt, as he tasted his soup. 
 
 " They are brothers — twins, too ; and they have their 
 separate gifts," said Upton, affectedly. " My fellow, they 
 tell me, has the finer intelligence, but he plays deeply, 
 speculates on the Bourse, and it spoils his nerve." 
 
 Harcourt watched the delivery of this speech to catch 
 if there were any signs of raillery in the speaker ; he felt 
 that there was a kind of mockery in the words, but there 
 was none in the manner, for there was not any in the mind 
 of him who uttered them. 
 
 " My chef," resumed Upton, "is a great essayist, who 
 must have time for his efforts. This fellow is a feuilleton 
 writer, who is required to be new and sparkling every day 
 of the year — always varied, never profound." 
 
 "And is this your life of every clay? " said Harcourt,
 
 UPTONISM. 307 
 
 as lie surveyed the splendid room, and carried his glance 
 towards the terraced gardens that flanked the sea. 
 
 "Pretty much this kind of thing,'' sighed Upton, 
 wearily. 
 
 " And no great hardship either, I should call it." 
 
 " No, certainly not," said the other, hesitatingly. " To 
 one like myself, for instance, who has no health for the 
 wear and tear of public life, and no heart for its ambitions, 
 there is a great deal to like in the quiet retirement of a 
 first-class mission." 
 
 " Is there really, then, nothing to do ? " asked Harcourt, 
 innocently. 
 
 " Nothing, if you don't make it for yourself. You can 
 have a harvest if you like to sow. Otherwise, you may 
 lie in fallow the year long. The subordinates take the 
 petty miseries of diplomacy for their share — the sorrows 
 of insulted Englishmen, the passport difficulties, the 
 custom-house troubles, the police insults. The Secretary 
 calls at the offices of the Government, carries messages, 
 and the answers ; and I, when I have health for it, make 
 my compliments to the King in a cocked-hat on his 
 birthday, and have twelve grease-pots illuminated over 
 my door to honour the same festival,," 
 
 " And is that all ? " 
 
 " Very nearly. In fact, when one does anything more, 
 they generally do wrong ; and by a steady persistence in 
 this kind of thing for thirty years, you are called ' a safe 
 man, who never compromised his Government,' and are 
 certain to be employed by any party in power." 
 
 " I begin to think I might be an envoy myself," said 
 Harcourt. 
 
 " No doubt of it; we have two or thi'ee of your calibre 
 in Germany this moment — men liked and respected ; and, 
 what is of more consequence, well looked upon at ' the 
 Office.' " 
 
 " I don't exactly follow you in that last remark." 
 
 " I scarcely expected you should ; and as little can I 
 make it clear to you. Know, however, that in that vene- 
 rable pile in Downing Street, called the Foreign Office, 
 there is a strange, mysterious sentiment — partly tradition, 
 partly prejudice, partly toadyism — which bands together 
 all within its walls, from the whiskered porter at the door 
 
 x 2
 
 308 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 to the essenced minister in his bureau, into one intellectual 
 conglomerate, that judges of every man in 'the Line ' — as 
 they call diplomacy — with one accord. By that curious 
 tribunal, which hears no evidence, nor ever utters a 
 sentence, each man's merits are weighed ; and to stand 
 well in the Office is better than all the favours of the 
 Court, or the force of great abilities." 
 
 " But I cannot comprehend how mere subordinates, the 
 underlings of official life, can possibly influence the for- 
 tunes of men so much above them." 
 
 " Picture to yourself the position of an humble guest at 
 a great man's table ; imagine one to whose pretensions the 
 sentiments of the servants' hall are hostile ; he is served 
 to all appearance like the rest of the company ; he gets his 
 soup and his fish like those about him, and his wine-glass 
 is duly replenished — yet what a series of petty mortifica- 
 tions is he the victim of; how constantly is he made to 
 feel that he is not in public favour ; how certain, too, if 
 he incur an awkwardness, to find that his distresses are 
 exposed. The servants' hall is the Office, my dear Har- 
 court, and its persecutions are equally polished." 
 
 "Are you a favourite there yourself?" asked the other, 
 
 slyly- 
 
 " A prime favourite ; they all like me ! " said he, throw- 
 ing himself back in his chair, with an air of easy self- 
 satisfaction ; and Harcourt stared at him, curious to know 
 whether so astute a man was the dupe of his own self- 
 esteem, or merely amusing himself with the simplicity of 
 another. Ah, my good Colonel, give up the problem, it is 
 an enigma far above your powers to solve. That nature 
 is too complex for your elucidation ; in its intricate web 
 no one thread holds the clue, but all is complicated, 
 crossed, and entangled. 
 
 "Here comes a Cabinet messenger again," said Upton, 
 as a courier's caliche drove up, and a well-dressed and 
 well-looking fellow leaped out. 
 
 "Ah, Stanhope, how are you ? " said Sir Horace, shak- 
 ing his hand with what from him was warmth. " Do you 
 know Colonel Harcourt ? Well, Frank, what news do you 
 bring me ? " 
 
 " The best of news." 
 
 " From F. 0., I suppose," said Upton, sighing.
 
 UPTONISM. 809 
 
 " Just so. Adderley has told the King you are the 
 only man capable to succeed him. The press says the 
 same, and the clubs are all with you." 
 
 " Not one of them all, I'd venture to say, has asked 
 whether I have the strength or health for it," said Sir 
 Horace, with a voice of pathetic intonation. 
 
 " Why, as we never knew you want energy for what- 
 ever fell to your lot to do, we have the same hope still," 
 said Stanhope. 
 
 " So say I, too," cined Harcourt. "Like many a good 
 hunter, he'll do his work best when he is properly 
 weighted." 
 
 " It is quite refreshing to listen to you both — creatures 
 with crocodile digestion — talk to a man who suffers night- 
 mare if he over-eat a dry biscuit at supper. I tell you 
 frankly, it would be the death of me to take the Foreign 
 Office. I'd not live through the season — the very dinners 
 would kill me, and then, the House, the heat, the turmoil, 
 the worry of opposition, and the jaunting back and for- 
 ward to Brighton or to Windsor ! " 
 
 While he muttered these complaints, he continued to 
 read with great rapidity the letters which Stanhope had 
 brought him, and which, despite all his practised coolness, 
 had evidently afforded him pleasure in the perusal. 
 
 "Adderley bore it," continued he, "just because he 
 was a mere machine, wound up to play off so many 
 despatches, like so many tunes ; and then, he permitted a 
 degree of interference on the King's part I never could 
 have suffered ; and he liked to be addressed by the King 
 of Prussia as ' Dear Adderley ; ' but what do I care for all 
 these vanities ? Have I not seen enough of the thing 
 they call the great world ? Is not this retreat better and 
 dearer to me than all the glare and crash of London, or 
 all the pomp and sjolendour of Windsor?" 
 
 " By Jove ! I suspect you are right, after all," said Har- 
 court, with an honest energy of voice. 
 
 " Were I younger, and stronger in health, perhaps," 
 said Upton, " this might have tempted me. Perhaps I 
 can picture to myself what I might have made of it ; for 
 you may perceive, George, these people have done nothing ; 
 they have been pouring hot water on the tea-leaves Pitt 
 left them — no more."
 
 310 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " And you'd have a brewing* of your own, I've no 
 doubt," responded the other. 
 
 " I'd at least have foreseen the time when this compact, 
 this holy alliance, should become impossible — when the 
 developed intelligence of Europe would seek something 
 else from their rulers than a well-concocted scheme of re- 
 pression. I'd have provided for the hour when England 
 must either break with her own people or her allies ; and 
 I'd have inaugurated anew policy, based upon theenlai'ged 
 views and extended intelligence of mankind." 
 
 " I'm not certain that I quite apprehend you," muttered 
 Harcourt. 
 
 " No matter ; but you can surely understand that if a 
 set of mere mediocrities have saved England, a batch of 
 clever men might have done something more. She came 
 out of the last war the acknowledged head of Europe ; 
 does she now hold that place, and what will she be at the 
 next great struggle ? " 
 
 " England is as great as ever she was," cried Harcourt, 
 boldly. 
 
 " Greater in nothing is she than in the implicit credulity 
 of her people ! " sighed Upton. " I only wish I could have 
 the same faith in my physicians that she has in hers ! By 
 the way, Stanhope, what of that new fellow they have got 
 at St. Leonard's? They tell me he builds you up in some 
 preparation of gypsum, so that you can't move or stir, and 
 that the perfect repose thus imparted to the system is the 
 highest order of restorative." 
 
 " They were just about to try him for manslaughter, 
 when I left England," said Stanhope, laughing. 
 
 " As often the fate of genius in these days as in more 
 barbarous times," said Upton. " I read his pamphlet 
 with much interest. If you were going back, Harcourt, 
 I'd have begged of you to try him." 
 
 "And I'm forced to say, I'd have refused you flatly." 
 
 "Yet it is precisely creatures of robust constitution, 
 like you, that should submit themselves to these trials for 
 the sake of humanity. Frail organizations, like mine, 
 cannot brave these ordeals. What are they talking of in 
 town ? Any gossip afloat ? " 
 
 " The change of ministry is the only topic. Glencore's 
 affair has worn itself out."
 
 UPTONISM. 811 
 
 " What was that about Glencore ? " asked Upton, half 
 indolently. 
 
 " A strange story ; one can scarcely believe it. They 
 say that Glencore, hearing of the King's great anxiety to 
 be rid of the Queen, asked an audience of his Majesty, and 
 actually suggested, as the best possible expedient, that his 
 Majesty should deny the marriage. They add that he 
 reasoned the case so cleverly, and with such consummate 
 craft and skill, it was with the greatest difficulty that the 
 King could be persuaded that he was deranged. Some 
 say his Majesty was outraged beyond endurance ; others, 
 that he was vastly amused, and laughed immoderately 
 over it." 
 
 " And the world, how do they pronounce upon it ? " 
 
 " There are two great parties — one for Glencore's sanity, 
 the other against ; but as I said before, the Cabinet 
 changes have absorbed all interest latterly, and the Vis- 
 count and his case are forgotten ; and when I started, the 
 great question was, who was to have the Foreign Office." 
 
 " I believe I could tell them one who will not," said 
 Upton, with a melancholy smile. " Dine with me both of 
 you to-day, at seven ; no company, you know. There is 
 an opera in the evening, and my box is at your service, if 
 you like to go ; and so, till then," and with a little gesture 
 of the hand he waved an adieu, and glided from the 
 room. 
 
 "I'm sorry he's not up to the work of office," said 
 Harcourt ; " there's plenty of ability in him." 
 
 " The best man we have," said Stanhope ; " so they say 
 at the Office." 
 
 "He's gone to lie down, I take it; he seemed much 
 exhausted. What say you to a walk back to town ?" 
 
 " I ask nothing better," said Stanhope; and they started 
 for Naples.
 
 312 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 
 
 That happy valley of the Val d'Arno, in which fair Flo- 
 rence stands, possesses, amidst all its virtues, none more 
 conspicuous than the blessed forgetfulness of the past, so 
 eminently the gift of those who dwell there. Faults and 
 follies of a few years back have so faded by time as to be 
 already historical : aud as, in certain climates, rocks and 
 stones become shrined by lichens and moss-covered in a 
 year or two, so here, in equally brief space, bygones are 
 shrouded and shadowed in a way that nothing short of 
 cruelty and violence could once more expose to view. 
 
 The palace where Lady Glencore once displayed all her 
 attractions of beauty and toilette, and dispensed a hos- 
 pitality of princely splendour, had remained for a course 
 of time close-barred and shut up. The massive gate was 
 locked, the windows shuttered, and curious tourists were 
 told that there were objects of interest within, but it was 
 impossible to obtain sight of them. The crowds who 
 once flocked there at nightfall, and whose equipages filled 
 the court, now drove on to other haunts, scarcely glancing 
 as they passed at the darkened casements of the grim old 
 edifice; when at length the rumour ran that " some one " 
 had arrived there. Lights were seen in the porter's lodge, 
 the iron grille was observed to open and shut, and 
 tradespeople came and went within the building ; and 
 finally the assurance gained ground that its former owner 
 had returned. 
 
 " Only think who has come back to us," said one of the 
 idlers of the Cascine, as he lounged on the steps of a 
 fashionable carriage — " La Nina ! " And at once the 
 story went far and near, repeated at every corner, and 
 discussed in every circle ; so that had a stranger to the 
 place but caught the passing sounds, he would have 
 heard that one name uttered in every group he encoun-
 
 AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 313 
 
 tered. La Nina ! and why not the Countess of Glencore, 
 or, at least, the Countess de la Torre ? As when exiled 
 royalists assume titles in accordance with fallen fortunes, 
 so in Italy, injured fame seeks sympathy in the familiarity 
 of the Christian name, and " Society " at once accepts the 
 designation as that of those who throw themselves upon 
 the affectionate kindness of the world, rather than insist 
 upon its reverence and respect. 
 
 Manv of her former friends were still there ; but there 
 was also a numerous class, principally foreigners, who only 
 knew of her by repute. The traditions of her beauty — 
 her gracefulness — the charms of her demeanour, and the 
 brilliancy of her diamonds, abounded. Her admirers were 
 of all ages, from those who worshipped her loveliness to 
 that not less enthusiastic section who swore by her cook ; 
 and it was indeed " great tidings " to hear that she had 
 returned. 
 
 Some statistician has asserted that no less than a hun- 
 dred thousand people awake every day in London, not 
 one of whom knows where he will pass the night. Now, 
 Florence is but a small city, and the lacquered-boot class 
 bear but a slight proportion to the shoeless herd of 
 humanity. Yet there is a very tolerable sprinkling of 
 well-dressed, well-got-up individuals, who daily arise with- 
 out the very vaguest conception of who is to house them, 
 fire them, light them, and cigar them for the evening. 
 They are an interesting class, and have this strong appeal 
 to human sympathy, that not one of them, by any possible 
 effort, could contribute to his own support. 
 
 They toil not — neither do they spin. They have the 
 very fewest of social qualities ; they possess no conversa- 
 tional gifts ; they are not even moderately good reporters 
 of the passing events of the day. And yet, strange to 
 say, the world they live in seems to have some need of 
 them. Are they the last relics of a once gifted class — 
 worn out, effete, and exhausted — degenerated like modern 
 Greeks from those who once shook the Parthenon? or are 
 they what anatomists call " rudimentary structures" — the 
 first abortive attempts of nature to fashion something 
 profitable and good ? Who knows. 
 
 Amidst this class the Nina's arrival was announced as 
 the happiest of all tidings ; and speculation immediately
 
 314 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 set to work to imagine who would be the favourites of the 
 house; what would be its habits and hours; would she 
 again enter the great world of society ; or would she, as 
 her quiet, unannounced arrival portended, seek a less con- 
 spicuous position ? Nor was this the mere talk of the 
 cafes and the Cascine. The salons were eagerly discuss- 
 ing the very same theme. 
 
 In certain social conditions a degree of astuteness is 
 acquired as to who may and who may not be visited, that, 
 in its tortuous iutricacy of reasons, would puzzle the 
 craftiest head that ever wagged in Equity. Not that the 
 code is a sevei'e one ; it is exactly in its lenity lies its 
 difficulty — so much may be done, but so little may be 
 fatal ! The Countess in the present case enjoyed what in 
 England is reckoned a great privilege— she was tried by 
 her peers — or " something more." They were, however, 
 all nice discriminators as to the class of case before them, 
 and they knew well what danger there was in admitting 
 to their " guild " any with a little more disgrace than their 
 neighbours. It was curious enough that she, in whose 
 behalf all this solicitude was excited, should have been 
 less than indifferent as to the result ; and when, on the 
 third day of the trial, a verdict was delivered in her 
 favour, and a shower of visiting-cards at the porter's lodge 
 declared that the act of her recognition had passed, her 
 orders were that the cards should be sent back to their 
 owners, as the Countess had not the honour of their ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 " Les grands coups se font respecter toujours," was the 
 maxim of a great tactician in war and politics ; and the 
 adage is no less true in questions of social life. We are 
 so apt to compute the strength of resources by the 
 amount of pretension, -that we often yield the victory to 
 the mere declaration of force. We are not, however, 
 about to dwell on this theme — our business being less 
 with those who discussed her, than with the Countess of 
 Glen core herself. 
 
 In a large salon, hung with costly tapestries, and fur- 
 nished in the most expensive style, sat two ladies at oppo- 
 site sides of the fire. They were both richly dressed, and 
 one of them (it was Lady Glencore), as she held a screen 
 before her face, displayed a number of valuable rings on
 
 AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 315 
 
 her fingers, and a massive bracelet of enamel with a large 
 emerald pendant. The other, not less magnificently at- 
 tired, wore an imperial portrait suspended by a chain 
 around her neck, and a small knot of white and green 
 ribbon on her shoulder, to denote her quality of a lady in 
 waiting at Court. There was something almost queenly 
 in the haughty dignity of her manner, and an air of com- 
 mand in the tone with which she addressed her companion. 
 It was our acquaintance the Princess Sabloukoff, just 
 escaped fi'om a dinner and reception at the Pitti Palace, 
 and carrying with her some of the proud traditions of the 
 society she had quitted. 
 
 " What hour did you tell them they might come, 
 Nina? " asked she. 
 
 " Not before midnight, my dear Princess ; I wanted to 
 have a talk with you first. It is long since we have met, 
 and I have so much to tell you." 
 
 " Caret mia" said the other, carelessly ; " I know every- 
 thing already. There is nothing you have done, nothing 
 that has happened to you, that 1 am not aware of. 1 might 
 go further and say, that I have looked with secret pleasure 
 at the course of events which to your short-sightedness 
 seemed diastrous." 
 
 " I can scarce conceive that possible," said the Countess, 
 sighing. 
 
 " Naturally enough, perhaps, because you never knew 
 the greatest of all blessings in this life, which is — liberty. 
 Separation from your husband, my dear Nina, did not 
 emancipate you from the tiresome requirements of the 
 world. You got rid of him, to be sure, but not of those 
 who regarded you as his wife. It required the act of 
 courage by which you cut with these people for ever, to 
 assert the freedom I speak of." 
 
 " I almost shudder at the contest I have provoked, and 
 had you not insisted on it " 
 
 " You had gone back again to the old slavery, to be 
 pitied and compassionated, and condoled with instead of 
 being feared and envied," said the other ; and as she spoke, 
 her flashing eyes and quivering brows gave an expression 
 almost tiger-like to her features. " What was there about 
 your house and its habits distinctive before ? What gave 
 you any pre-eminence above those that surround you ? You
 
 316 THE FOETUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 were better-looking, yourself; better dressed; your salons 
 better lighted ; your dinners more choice — there was the 
 end of it. Your company was their company — your asso- 
 ciates were theirs. The homage you received to-day had 
 been yesterday the incense of another. There was not a 
 bouquet nor a flattery offered to you that had not its fac- 
 simile doing service in some other quarter. You were 
 ' one of them,' Nina, obliged to follow their laws and 
 subscribe to their ideas ; and while they traded on the 
 wealth of your attractions, you derived nothing from the 
 partnership but the same share as those about you." 
 
 " And how will it be now ? " asked the Countess, half 
 in feai% half in hope. 
 
 " How will it be now ? I'll tell you. This house will 
 be the resort of every distinguished man, not of Italy, 
 but of the world at large. Here will come the highest of 
 every nation, as to a circle where they can say, and hear, 
 and suggest a thousand things in the freedom of un- 
 authorized intercourse. You will not drain Florence 
 alone, but all the great cities of Europe, of its best 
 talkers and deepest thinkers. The statesman and the 
 author, and the sculptor and the musician, will hasten to 
 a neutral territory, where for the time a kind of equality 
 will prevail. The weary minister, escaping from a Court 
 festival, will come here to unbend ; the witty converser 
 will store himself with his best resources for your salons. 
 There will be all the freedom of a club to these men, with 
 the added charm of that fascination your presence will 
 confer ; and thus, through all their intercourse, will be felt 
 that ' parfum cle femme,' as Balzac calls it, which both 
 elevates and entrances." 
 
 " But will not society revenge itself on all this ? " 
 
 " It will invent a hundred calumnious reports and 
 shocking stories, but these, like the criticisms on an immoral 
 play, will only serve to fill the house. Men — even the 
 quiet ones — will be eager to see what it is that constitutes 
 the charm of these gatherings ; and one charm there is 
 that never misses its success. Have you ever experienced, 
 in visiting some great gallery, or, still more, some choice 
 collection of works of art, a strange, mysterious sense of 
 awe for objects which you rather knew to be great by the 
 testimony of others, than felt able personally to appreciate ;
 
 AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 317 
 
 You were conscious that the picture was painted by 
 Raphael, or the cup carved by Cellini, and, independently 
 of all the pleasure it yielded you, arose a sense of homage 
 to its actual worth. The same is the case in society with 
 illustrious men. They may seem slower of apprehension, 
 less ready at reply, less apt to understand, but there they 
 are, Originals, not Copies of greatness. They represent 
 value." 
 
 Have we said enough to show our reader the kind of 
 persuasion by which Madame de SabloukofF led her friend 
 into this new path ? The flattery of the argument was, 
 after all, its success, and the Countess was fascinated by 
 fancying herself something more than the handsomest and 
 the best-dressed woman in Florence. They who constitute 
 a free port of their house will have certainly abundance 
 of trade, and also invite no small amount of enterprise. 
 
 A little after midnight the salons began to fill, and from 
 the Opera and the other theatres flocked in all that was 
 pleasant, fashionable, and idle of Florence. The old beau, 
 painted, padded, and essenced, came with the younger 
 and not less elaborately dressed "fashionable," great in 
 watch chains and splendid in waistcoat buttons ; long- 
 haired artists and moustached hussars mingled with close- 
 shaven actors and pale-faced authors : men of the world, 
 of politics, of finance, of letters, of the turf; all were 
 there. There was the gossip of the Bourse and the 
 cabinet — the green-room and the stable. The scandal of 
 society, the events of club life, the world's doings in dinners, 
 divorces, and duels were all revealed and discussed, amidst 
 the most profuse gratitude to the Countess for coming back 
 again to that society which scarcely survived her desertion. 
 
 They were not, it is but fair to say, all that the Princess 
 Sabloukoff had depicted them ; but there was still a very 
 fair sprinkling of witty, pleasant talkers. The ease of 
 admission permitted any former intimate to present his 
 friend, and thus at once, on the very first night of receiving, 
 the Countess saw her salons crowded. They smoked, and 
 sang, and laughed, and played ecarle, and told good stories. 
 They drew caricatures, imitated well-known actors, and 
 even preachers, talking away with a volubility that left 
 few listeners ; and then there was a supper laid out on a 
 table too small to accommodate even by standing, so that
 
 318 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 each carried away bis plate, and bivouacked with others 
 of his friends, here and there, through tbe rooms. 
 
 All was contrived to impart a sense of independence 
 and freedom — all, to convey an impression of " license " 
 special to the place, that made tbe most rigid unbend, and 
 relaxed the gravity of many who seldom laughed. 
 
 As in certain chemical compounds a mere drop of some 
 one powerful ingredient will cbange the whole property of 
 the mass, eliciting new elements, correcting this, develop- 
 ing that, and, even to the eye, announcing by altered 
 colour the wondrous change accomplished ; so here the 
 element of womanhood, infinitely small in proportion as it 
 was, imparted a tone and a refinement to this orgie, which, 
 without it, had degenerated into coarseness. The Countess's 
 beautiful niece, Ida Delia Torre, was also there, singing 
 at times with all an artist's excellence the ti'iumphs of 
 operatic music ; at others, warbling over those " canzon- 
 ettes," which, to Italian ears, embody all that they know 
 of love of country. How could such a reception be other 
 than successful ? or how could the guests, as they poured 
 forth into the silent street at daybreak, do aught but exult 
 that such a house was added to the haunts of Florence — 
 so lovely a group had returned to adorn their fair city ? 
 
 In a burst of this enthusiastic gratitude they sang a 
 serenade before they separated ; and then, as the closed 
 curtains showed them that the inmates had left the 
 windows, they uttered the last " felice Notte," and de- 
 parted. 
 
 " And so Wahnsdorf never made his appearance ? " said 
 the Princess, as she was once more alone with the Countess. 
 
 " I scarcely expected him. He knows the ill-ieeling 
 towards his countrymen amongst Italians, and he rarely 
 enters society where he may meet them." 
 
 " It is strange that he should marry one ! " said she, 
 half musingly. 
 
 " He fell in love — there's the whole secret of it," said 
 the Countess. " He fell in love, and his passion encoun- 
 tei'ed certain difficulties. His rank was one of them, Ida's 
 indifference another." 
 
 " And how have they been got over ? " 
 
 " Evaded rather than surmounted. He has only his own 
 consent after all."
 
 AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 319 
 
 " And Ida, does she care for him ? " 
 
 " 1 suspect not : but she will marry him. Pique will 
 often do what affection would fail in. The secret history 
 of the affair is this : There was a youth at Massa, who, 
 while he lived there, made our acquaintance and became 
 even intimate at the Villa : he was a sculptor of some 
 talent, and, as many thought, of considerable promise. I 
 engaged him to give Ida lessons in modelling, and, in this 
 way, they were constantly together. Whether Ida liked 
 him or not I cannot say, but it is beyond a doubt that he 
 loved her. In iact, everything he produced in his art 
 only showed what his mind was full of — her image was 
 everywhere. This aroused Wahnsdorf's jealousy, and he 
 urged me strongly to dismiss Greppi, and shut my doors 
 to him. At first I consented, for I had a strange sense, 
 not exactly of dislike, but misgiving, of the youth. I had 
 a feeling towards him that if I attempted to convey to 
 you, it would seem as though in all this affair I had 
 suffered myself to be blinded by passion, not guided by 
 reason. There were times that I felt a deep interest in 
 the youth — his genius, his ardour, his very poverty engaged 
 my sympathy ; and then, stronger than all these, was a 
 strange, mysterious sense of terror at sight of him, for he 
 was the very image of one who has worked all the evil of 
 my life." 
 
 " Was not this a mere fancy ? " said the Princess, com- 
 passionately, for she saw the shuddering emotion these 
 words had cost her. 
 
 "It was not alone his look," continued the Countess, 
 speaking now with impetuous eagerness ; " it was not merely 
 his features, but their every play and movement ; his 
 gestures when excited ; the very voice was his. I saw 
 him once excited to violent passion ; it was some taunt 
 that Wahnsdorf uttered about men of unknown or ignoble 
 origin ; and then He — he himself seemed to stand before 
 me as I have so often seen him, in his terrible outbursts of 
 rage. The sight brought back to me the dreadful recol- 
 lection of those scenes — scenes," said she, looking wildly 
 around her, " that if these old walls could speak might 
 freeze your heart where you are sitting. 
 
 " You have heard, but you cannot know, the miserable 
 life we led together; the frantic jealousy that maddened
 
 320 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 every hour of his existence; how, in all the harmless 
 freedom of our Italian life, he saw causes of suspicion 
 and distrust ; how, by his rudeness to this one, his cold- 
 ness to that, he estranged me from all who have been my 
 dearest intimates and friends, dictating to me the while 
 the custom of a land and a people I had never seen nor 
 wished to see ; till at last I was left a mockery to some, 
 an object of pity to others, amidst a society where once I 
 reigned supreme — and all for a man that I had ceased to 
 love ! It was from this same life of misery, unrewarded 
 by the affection by which jealousy sometimes compensates 
 for its tyranny, that I escaped, to attach myself to the 
 fortunes of that unhappy Princess whose lot bore some 
 resemblance to my own. 
 
 " I know well that he ascribed my desertion to another 
 cause, and — shall I own it to you ? — I had a savage plea- 
 sure in leaving him to the delusion. It was the only ven- 
 geance within my reach, and I grasped it with eagerness. 
 Nothing was easier for me than to disprove it — a mere 
 word would have shown the falsehood of the charge, but 
 I would not utter it. I knew his nature well, and that the 
 insult to his name and the stain to his honour would be 
 the heaviest of all injuries to him ; and they were so. He 
 drove me from my home — I banished him from the world. 
 It is true I never reckoned on the cruel blow he had yet in 
 store for me, and when it fell I was crushed and stunned. 
 There was now a declared war between us — each to do their 
 worst to the other. It was less succumbing before him, than 
 to meditate and determine on the future, that I fled from 
 Florence. It was not here and in such a society I should 
 have to blush for any imputation. But I had always held 
 my place proudly, perhaps too proudly, here, and I did not 
 care to enter upon that campaign of defence — that stoop- 
 ing to cultivate alliances — that humble game of concilia- 
 tion — that must ensue. 
 
 " I went away into banishment. I went to Corsica, and 
 thence to Massa. I was meditating a journey to the East. 
 I was even speculating on establishing myself there for the 
 rest of my life, when your letters changed my plans. You 
 once more kindled in my heart a love of life by instilling a 
 love of vengeance. You suggested to me the idea of coining 
 back here boldly, and confronting the world proudly."
 
 AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 821 
 
 "Do not mistake me, Nina," said the Princess, " the 
 ' Vendetta ' was the last thing in my thoughts. I was too 
 deeply concerned for you, to be turned away from my 
 object by any distracting influence. It was that you 
 should give a bold denial — the boldest — to your husband's 
 calumny, I counselled your return. My advice was — Dis- 
 regard , and, by disregarding, deny the foul slander he has 
 invented. Go back to the world in the rank that is yours 
 and that you never forfeited, and then challenge him to 
 oppose your claim to it." 
 
 " And do you think that for such a consideration as this 
 — the honour to bear the name of a man I loathe— that 
 I'd face that world I know so well? No, no ; believe me, I 
 had very different reasons. I was resolved that my future 
 life, my name, his name should gain a European notoriety. 
 I am well aware that when a woman is made a public 
 talk, when once her name comes sufficiently often before 
 the world, let it be for what you will, her beauty, her will, 
 her extravagance, her dress, from that hour her fame is 
 perilled, and the society she has overtopped take their 
 vengeance in slandering her character. To be before the 
 world as a woman is to be arraigned. If ever there was a 
 man who dreaded such a destiny for his wife, it was he. 
 The impertinences of the pi'ess had greater terrors for his 
 heart than aught else in life, and I resolved that he should 
 taste them." 
 
 " How have you mistaken — how have you misunder- 
 stood me, Nina ! " said the Princess, sorrowfully. 
 
 " Not so," ci-ied she, eagerly. " You only saw one ad- 
 vantage in the plan you counselled. I perceived that it 
 contained a double benefit.'' 
 
 " But remember, dearest Nina, revenge is the most 
 costly of all pleasures, if one pays for it with all that they 
 possess — their tranquillity. I myself might have indulged 
 such thoughts as yours ; there were many points alike in 
 our fortunes ; but to have followed such a course would 
 be like the wisdom of one who inoculates himself with a 
 deadly malady that he may impart the poison to another." 
 
 " Must I again tell you, that in all I have done I cared 
 less how it might serve me than how it might wound him ? 
 I know you cannot understand this sentiment ; I do not ask 
 of vou to sympathize with it. Your talents enabled you 
 
 Y
 
 322 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 to shape out a high and ambitions career for yourself. 
 You loved the great intrigues of state, and were well fitted 
 to conduct or control them. None such gifts were mine. 
 I was and I am still a mere creature of society. I never 
 soared, even in fancy, beyond the triumphs which the world 
 of fashion decrees. A cruel destiny excluded me from the 
 pleasures of a life that would have amply satisfied me, 
 and there is nothing left but to avenge myself on the cause." 
 
 '* Mv dearest Nina, with all your self-stimulation yon 
 cannot make yourself the vindictive creature you w I 
 
 ,..,,'• i be Prim ess, smiling. 
 
 " How little do you know my Italian blood ! " said the 
 other, passionately. " That boy — he was not much more 
 than boy — that Greppi was, as I told you, the very image 
 of Gleneore. The same dark skin, the same heavy brow, 
 the same cold, stern look, which even a smile did not 
 enliven ; even to the impassive air with which he listened 
 to a provocation — all were alike. Well, the resemblance 
 has cost him dearlv. I consented at last to Wahnsdorf's 
 continual entreaty to exclude him from the Villa, and 
 charged the Count with the commission. I am not sure 
 that he expended an excess of delicacy on the task — I 
 half fear me that he did the act more rudely than was 
 needed. At all events, a quarrel was the result, and a 
 challenge to a duel. I only knew of this when all was 
 over — believe me 1 should never have permitted it. How- 
 ever, the result was as safe in the hands of Fate. The 
 youth fled from Massa, and though Wahnsdorf followed 
 him, they never met." 
 
 " There was no duel, you say ? " cried the Princess, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " 14 ow could there be ? This Greppi never went to the 
 rendezvous. He quitted Massa during the night, and has 
 never since been heard of. In this, I own to yon, he was 
 not like him." And, as she said the words, the tears 
 swam in her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks. 
 
 " May 1 ask you how you learned all this ? " 
 
 " From Wahnsdorf; on his return, in a week or two, he 
 told me all. Ida, at first, would not believe it ; but how 
 could she discredit what was plain and palpable ? Greppi 
 was gone. All the inquiries of the police were in vain as 
 to his route — none could guess how he had escaped."
 
 AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 323 
 
 " And this account was given you — you, yourself — by 
 Wahnsdorf ? " repeated the Princess. 
 
 " Yes, to myself. Why should he have concealed it ? " 
 
 "And now he is to marry Ida? " said the Princess, half 
 musingly, to herself. 
 
 " We hope, with your aid, that it may be so. The 
 family difficulties are great ; Wahusdorf's rank is not 
 ours, but he persists in saying that to your management 
 nothing is impossible." 
 
 " His opinion is too flattering," said the Princess, with 
 a cold gravity of manner. 
 
 " But you surely will not refuse us your assistance ? " 
 
 " You may count upon me, even for more than you 
 ask," said the Princess, rising. " How late it is ! day 
 is breaking already ! " And so, with a tender embrace, 
 they parted. 
 
 7 2
 
 324 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 MADAME DE SABLOUKOFF IN THE MORNING. 
 
 Madame de Sabloukoff inhabited " the grand apartment" 
 of the Hotel d'ltalie, which is the handsomest quarter of 
 the great hotel of Florence. The same suite which had 
 once the distinguished honour of receiving a Czar and a 
 King of Prussia, and Heaven knows how many lesser 
 potentates ! was now devoted to one who, though not of 
 the small number of the elect-in-purple, was yet, in her 
 way, what politicians call a " puissance." 
 
 As in the drama a vast number of agencies are required 
 for the due performance of a piece, so, on the greater 
 stage of life, many of the chief motive powers rarely are 
 known to the public eye. The Princess was of this 
 number. She was behind the scenes, in more than one 
 sense, and had her share in the great events of her time. 
 
 While her beauty lasted, she had traded on the great 
 capital of attractions which were unsurpassed in Europe. 
 As the perishable flower faded, she, with prudential fore- 
 sight, laid up a treasure in secret knowledge of people 
 and their acts, which made her dreaded and feared where 
 she was once admired and flattered. Perhaps, it is by no 
 means improbable, she preferred this latter tribute to the 
 former. 
 
 Although the strong sunlight was tempered by the 
 closed jalousies and the drawn muslin curtains, she sat 
 with her back to the window, so that her features were 
 but dimly visible in the darkened atmosphere of the room. 
 There was something of coquetry in this ; but there was 
 more — there was a dash of semi- secrecy in the air of 
 gloom and stillness around, which gave to each visitor 
 who presented himself — and she received but one at a 
 time — an impression of being admitted to an audience of 
 confidence and trust. The mute-like servant who waited 
 in the corridor without, and who drew back a massive
 
 MADAME DE SABLOUKOFF IN THE MORNING. 325 
 
 curtain on your entrance, also aided the delusion, im- 
 parting to the interview a character of mysterious 
 solemnity. 
 
 Through tbat solemn portal there had passed, in and 
 out, during the morning, various dignitaries of the land, 
 ministers and envoys, and grand " chai'ges " of the Court. 
 The embroidered key of the Chamberlain, and the purple 
 stockings of a Nuncio had come and gone ; and now there 
 was a brief pause, for the groom in waiting had informed 
 the crowd in the antechamber that the Princess could 
 receive no more. Then there was a hurried scrawling of 
 great names in a large book, a shower of visiting-cards, 
 and all was over — the fine equipages of fine people dashed 
 off, and the courtyard of the hotel was empty. 
 
 The large clock on the mantelpiece struck three, and 
 Madame de SabloukofF compared the time with her watch, 
 and by a movement of impatience showed a feeling of 
 displeasure. She was not accustomed to have her ap- 
 pointments lightly treated, and he for whom she had fixed 
 an hour was now thirty minutes behind his time. She 
 had been known to resent such unpunctuality, and she 
 looked as though she might do so again. " I remember 
 the day when his grand-uncle descended from his carriage 
 to speak to me," muttered she ; " and that same grand- 
 uncle was an emperor." 
 
 Perhaps the chance reflection of her image in the large 
 glass before her somewhat embittered the recollection, for 
 her features flushed, and as suddenly grew pale again. 
 It may have been that her mind went rapidly back to a 
 period when her fascination was a despotism that even 
 the highest and the haughtiest obeyed. " Too true," said 
 she, speaking to herself, " time has dealt heavily with us 
 all. But they are no more what they once were than am 
 I. Their old compact of mutual assistance is crumbling 
 away under the pressure of new rivalries and new pre- 
 tensions. Kings and Kaisers will soon be like bygone 
 beauties. I wonder will they bear their altered fortune 
 as heroically ? " It is but just to say that her tremulous 
 accents and quivering lip bore little evidence of the 
 heroism she spoke of. 
 
 She rang the bell violently, and as the servant entered 
 she said, but in a voice of perfect unconcern, —
 
 326 THE FOETUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 " When the Count von Wahnsdorf calls, you will tell 
 him that I am engaged, but will receive him to- 
 
 morrow 
 
 And why not to-day, charming Princess ? " said a 
 young man, entering hastily, and whose graceful but 
 somewhat haughty air set off to every advantage his 
 splendid Hungarian costume. " Why not now ? " said he, 
 stooping to kiss her hand with respectful gallantry. She 
 motioned to the servant to withdraw, and they were alone. 
 
 " You are not over exact in keeping an appointment, 
 monsieur," said she, stiffly. "It is somewhat cruel to 
 remind me that my claims in this respect have grown 
 antiquated." 
 
 "I fancied myself the soul of punctuality, my dear 
 Princess," said he, adjusting the embroidered pelisse he 
 Avore over his shoulder. " You mentioned four as the 
 hour " 
 
 " I said three o'clock," replied she, coldly. 
 
 "Three, or four, or even five, what does it signify?" 
 said he, carelessly. " We have not either of us, I suspect, 
 much occupation to engage us ; and if I have interfered 
 with your other plans — if you have plans — a thousand 
 pardons ! " cried he, suddenly, as the deep colour of her 
 face and her flashing eye warned him that he had gone too 
 far ; " but the fact is, I was detained at the riding-school. 
 They have sent me some young horses from the Banat, 
 and I went over to look at them." 
 
 " The Count de Wahnsdorf knows that he need make 
 no apologies to Madame de Sabloukoff," said she, calmly; 
 " but it were just as graceful, perhaps, to affect them. 
 My dear Count," continued she, but in a tone perfectly 
 free from all touch of irritation, " I have asked to see 
 and speak with you on matters purely your own " 
 
 "You want to dissuade me from this marriage," said 
 he, interrupting ; " but I fancy that I have already listened 
 to everything that can be urged on that affair. If you 
 have any argument other than the old one about mis- 
 alliance, and the rest of it, I'll hear it patiently ; though 
 I tell you beforehand that I should like to learn that a 
 connection with an imperial house had some advantage 
 besides that of a continual barrier to one's wishes." 
 
 " I understand," said she, quietly, " that you named the
 
 MADAME DE SABLOUKOFF IN THE MOENING. 827 
 
 terms on which you would abandon this project — is it not 
 so?" 
 
 " Who told you that?" cried lie, angrily. "Is this 
 another specimen of the delicacy with which ministers 
 treat a person of my station ? " 
 
 ki To discuss that point, Count, would lead us wide of 
 our mark. Am I to conclude that my informant was 
 correct? " 
 
 " How can I tell what may have been reported to you ? " 
 said he, almost rudely. 
 
 " You shall hear and judge for yourself," was the calm 
 answer. " Count Kollorath informed me that you offered 
 to abandon this marriage, on condition that you were 
 appointed to the command of the Pahlen Hussars." 
 
 The young man's face became scarlet with shame, and 
 he tried twice to speak, but unavailingly. 
 
 With a merciless slowness of utterance, and a manner 
 of the most unmoved sternness, she went on : "I did not 
 deem the proposal at all exorbitant. It was a price that 
 they could well afford to pay." 
 
 " Well, they refused me," said he, bluntly. 
 
 "Not exactly refused you," said she, more gently. 
 " They reminded you of the necessity of conforming — of 
 at least appearing to conform — to the rules of the service ; 
 that you had only been a few months in command of a 
 squadron ; that your debts, which were considerable, had 
 been noised about the world, so that a little time should 
 elapse, and a favourable opportunity present itself, before 
 this promotion could be effected." 
 
 " How correctly they have instructed you in all the 
 details of this affair ! " said he, with a scornful smile. 
 
 " It is a rare event when I am misinformed, sir," was 
 her cold i*eply ; " nor could it redound to the advantage 
 of those who ask my advice to afford me incorrect informa- 
 tion." 
 
 " Then, 1 am quite unable to perceive what you want with 
 me" cried he. " It is plain enough you are in possession 
 of all that I could tell you. Or is all this only the prelude 
 to some menace or other ? " 
 
 She made no other answer to this rude question than 
 by a smile so dubious in its meaning, it might imply 
 scorn, or pity, or even sorrow.
 
 323 TIIE FORTUNES OF glencorE. 
 
 " You must not wonder if I be angry," continued he, 
 in an accent that betokened sliame at his own violence. 
 " They have treated me so long as a fool that they have 
 made me something worse than one." 
 
 " I am not offended by your warmth, Count," said she, 
 softly. "It is, at least, the guarantee of your sincerity. 
 I tell you, therefore, I have no threat to hold over yon. 
 It will be enough that I can show you the impolicy of this 
 marriage — I don't want to use a stronger word — what 
 estrangement it will lead to as regards your own family, 
 how inadequately it will respond to the sacrifices it must 
 cost." 
 
 " That consideration is for me to think of, madam," 
 said he, proudly. 
 
 "And for your friends also," interposed she, softly. 
 
 " If by my friends you mean those who have watched 
 every occasion of my life to oppose my plans and thwart 
 my wishes, I conclude that they will prove themselves as 
 vigilant now as heretofore ; but I am getting somewhat 
 weary of this friendship." 
 
 " My dear Count, give me a patient — if possible, an 
 indulgent — hearing for five minutes, or even half that time, 
 and I hope it will save us both a world of misconception. 
 If this marriage that you are so eager to contract were an 
 affair of love — of that i.rdent, passionate love which re- 
 cognizes no obstacle nor acknowledges any barrier to its 
 wishes — I could regard the question as one of those every- 
 day events in life whose uniformity is seldom broken by a 
 new incident ; for love stories have a terrible sameness in 
 them." She smiled as she said this, and in such a way as 
 to make him smile at first, and then laugh heartily. 
 
 " But if," resumed she, seriously — " if I only see in this 
 project a mere caprice, half — more than half — based upon 
 the pleasure of wounding family pride, or of coercing those 
 who have hitherto dictated to you ; if, besides this, I per- 
 ceive that there is no strong affection on either side — none 
 of that impetuous passion which the world accepts as 
 ' the attenuating circumstance' in rash marriages " 
 
 " And who has told you that I do not love Ida, or that 
 she is not devoted with her whole heart to me? " cried he, 
 interrupting her. 
 
 "You yourself have told the first. You have shown
 
 MADAME t)E SABLOUKOFF IK THE MORNING. 329 
 
 by the price you have laid on the object the value at which 
 you estimate it. As for the latter part of your ques- 
 tion " She paused and arranged the folds of her shawl, 
 
 purposely playing with his impatience, and enjoying it. 
 
 " Well," cried he, " as for the latter part ; go on." 
 
 " It scarcely requires an answer. I saw Ida Delia Torre 
 last night in a society of which her affianced husband was 
 not one ; and, I will be bold enough to say, hers was not 
 the bearing that bespoke engaged affections." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said he, but in a tone that indicated neither 
 displeasure nor surprise. 
 
 " It was as I have told you, Count. Surrounded by the 
 youth of Florence, such as you know them, she laughed, 
 and talked, and sang, in all the careless gaiety of a heart 
 at case ; or, if at moments a shade of sadness crossed her 
 features, it was so biaef that only one observing her 
 closely as myself could mark it." 
 
 " And how did that subtle intelligence of yours in- 
 terpret this show of sorrow ? " said he, in a voice of 
 mockery, but yet of deep anxiety. 
 
 " My subtle intelligence was not taxed to guess, for I 
 knew her secret," said the Princess, with all the strength 
 of conscious power. 
 
 "Her secret — her secret!" said he, eagerly. "What 
 do you mean by that ? " 
 
 The Princess smildly coldly, and said, " I have not yet 
 found my frankness so well repaid that I should continue 
 to extend it." 
 
 " What is the reward to be, madam ? Name it," said 
 he, boldly. 
 
 " The same candour on your part, Count ; I ask for no 
 more." 
 
 " But what have I to reveal — what mystery is there that 
 your omniscience has not penetrated ? " 
 
 " There may be some that your frankness has not 
 avowed, my dear Count." 
 
 " If you refer to what you have called Ida's secret " 
 
 " No," broke she in. " I was now alluding to what 
 might be called your secret." 
 
 "Mine! my secret!" exclaimed he. But though the 
 tone was meant to convey great astonishment, the con- 
 fusion of his manner was far more apparent.
 
 380 THE FORTUNES OP GLEKCORE. 
 
 "Your secret, Count," she repeated slowly, "which 
 has been just as safe in my keeping as if it Lad been con- 
 fided to me on honour." 
 
 " I was not aware how much I owed to your discretion, 
 madam," said he, scoffingly. 
 
 " I am but too happy when any services of mine can 
 rescue the fame of a great family from reproach, sir," 
 replied she, proudly ; for all the control she had hereto- 
 fore imposed upon her temper seemed at last to have 
 yielded to offended dignity. " Happily for that illustrious 
 house — happily for you, too— I am one of a very few who 
 know of Count Wahnsdorf's doings. To have suffered 
 your antagonist in a duel to be tracked, arrested, and im- 
 prisoned in an Austrian fortress, when a word from. you 
 had either warned him of his peril or averted the danger, 
 was bad enough ; but to have stigmatized his name with 
 cowardice, and to have defamed him because he was your 
 rival, was far worse." 
 
 Wahnsdorf struck the table with his clenched fist till it 
 shook beneath the blow, but never uttered a word, while, 
 with increased energy, she continued, — 
 
 " Every step of this bad history is known to me ; every 
 detail of it, from your gross and insulting provocation of 
 this poor friendless youth, to the last scene of his com- 
 mittal to a dungeon." 
 
 " And, of course, you have related your interesting 
 narrative to Ida? " cried he. 
 
 " No, sir, the respect which I have never lost for those 
 whose name you bear had been quite enough to restrain 
 me, had I not even other thoughts." 
 
 " And what may they be ? " asked he. 
 
 " To take the first opportunity of finding myself alone 
 with you, to represent how nearly it concerns your honour 
 that this affair should never be bruited abroad ; to insist 
 upon your lending every aid to obtain this young 
 man's liberation ; to show that the provocation came 
 from yourself; and, lastly, all-painful though it be, 
 to remove from him the stain you have inflicted, and 
 to reinstate him in the esteem that your calumny may 
 have robbed him of. These were the other thoughts I 
 alluded to." 
 
 " And you fancy that I am to engage in this sea of
 
 MADAME DE SABLOUKOFF IN THE MORNING. 331 
 
 trouble for the sake of some nameless bastard, while in 
 doing so I compromise myself and my own honour? ' : 
 
 " Do you prefer that it should be done by another, Count 
 Wahnsdorf? " asked she. 
 
 " This is a threat, madam." 
 
 " All the speedier will the matter be settled if you 
 understand it as such." 
 
 " And, of course, the next condition will be for me to 
 resign my pretensions to Ida in his favour," said he, with 
 a savage irony. 
 
 " I stipulate for nothing of the sort ; Count Wahns- 
 dorf^ pretensions will be to-morrow just where they are 
 to-day." 
 
 " You hold them cheaply, madam. I am indeed unfor- 
 tunate in all my pursuit of your esteem." 
 
 " You live in a sphere to command it, sir," was her 
 reply, given with a counterfeited humility ; and whether 
 it was the tone of mingled insolence and submission she 
 assumed, or simply the sense of his own unworthiness 
 in her sight, but Wahnsdorf cowered before her like a 
 frightened, child. At this moment the servant entered, 
 and presented a visiting card to the Princess. 
 
 " Ah, he comes in an opportune moment," cried she. 
 " This is the Minister of the Duke of Massa's household 
 — the Chevalier Stubber. Yes," continued she to the 
 servant, " I will receive him." 
 
 If there was not any conspicuous gracefulness in the 
 Chevalier's approach, there was an air of quiet self-pos- 
 session that bespoke a sense of his own worth and impor- 
 tance ; and while he turned to pay his respects to the 
 young Count, his unpolished manner was not devoid of a 
 certain dignity. 
 
 " It is a fortunate chance by which I find you here, 
 Count Wahnsdorf," said he, " for you will be glad to 
 learn that the young fellow you had that affair with at 
 Massa has just been liberated." 
 
 "When? and how? " cried the Princess, hastily. 
 
 " As to the time, it must be about four days ago, as my 
 letters inform me ; as to the how, I fancy the Count can 
 best inform you ; he has interested himself greatly in the 
 matter." The Count blushed deeply, and turned away 
 to hide his face, but not so quickly as to miss the expres-
 
 33"2 THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCORE. 
 
 sion of scornful meaning with which the Princess regarded 
 him. 
 
 "But I want to hear the details, Chevalier," said 
 she. 
 
 " And I can give you none, madam. My despatches 
 simply mention that the act of arrest was discovered in 
 some way to be informal. Sir Horace Upton proved so 
 much. Thei'e then arose a question of giving him up to 
 us, but my master declined the honour ; he would have 
 no trouble, he said, with England or Englishmen ; and 
 some say that the youth claims an English nationality. 
 The cabinet of Vienna ai"e, perhaps, like-minded in the 
 matter ; at all events, he is free, and will be here to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Then I shall invite him to dinner, and beg both of 
 you gentlemen to meet him," said she, with a voice 
 wherein a tone of malicious drollery mingled. 
 
 "I am your servant, madam," said Stubber. 
 
 " And I am engaged," said Wahnsdorf, taking up his 
 chako. 
 
 "You are off to Vienna to-night, Count Wahnsdorf," 
 whispered the Princess in his ear. 
 
 "What do you mean, madam?" said he, in a tone 
 equally low. 
 
 " Only that I have a letter written for the Archduchess 
 Sophia, which I desire to entrust to your hands. You 
 may as well read ere I seal it." 
 
 The Count took the letter from her hand, and retired 
 towards the window to read it. While she convei\sed 
 eagerly with Stubber, she did not fail from time to time 
 to glance towards the other, and mark the expression of 
 his features as he folded and replaced the letter in its 
 envelope, and slowly approaching her, said, — 
 
 " You are most discreet, madam." 
 
 " I hope I am just, sir," said she, modestly. 
 
 " This was something of a difficult undertaking, too," 
 said he, with an equivocal smile. 
 
 "It was certainly a pleasant and proud one, sir, as it 
 always must be, to write to a mother in commendation of 
 her son. By the way, Chevalier, you have forgotten to 
 make your compliments to the Count on his promo- 
 tion "
 
 MADAME DE SABLOUKOFF IN THE MOKNING. 333 
 
 " I have not heard of it,, madam ; what may it be ? " 
 asked Stubber. 
 
 " To the command of the Pahlen Hussars, sir ; one of 
 the proudest ' charges ' of the empire." 
 
 A rush of blood to "Wahnsdorf's face was as quickly 
 followed by a deadly pallor, and with a broken, faint utter- 
 ance, he said " Good-bye," and left the room. 
 
 " A fine young fellow — the very picture of a soldier," 
 exclaimed Stubber, looking after him. 
 
 " A chevalier of the olden time, sir — the very soul of 
 honour," said the Princess, enthusiastically. " And now 
 for a little gossip with yourself." 
 
 It is not " in our brief" to record what passed in that 
 chatty interview ; plenty of state secrets and state gossip 
 there was — abundance of that dangerous trifling which 
 mixes up the passions of society with the great game of 
 politics, and makes statecraft feel the impress of men's 
 whims and caprices. We were just beginning that era, 
 "the policy of resentments," which has since pervaded 
 Europe, and the Chevalier and the Princess were suffi- 
 ciently behind the scenes to have many things to com- 
 municate ; and here we must leave them while we hasten 
 on to other scenes and other actors.
 
 334 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 DOINGS IN DOWNING STREET. 
 
 The dull old precincts of Downing Street were more 
 than usually astir. Hackney-coaches and cabs at an early 
 hour, private chariots somewhat later, went to and fro 
 along the dreary pavement, and two cabinet messengei^a 
 with splashed caleches arrived in hot haste from Dover. 
 Frequent, too, were the messages from the House ; a lead- 
 ing Oppositionist was then thundering away against the 
 Government, inveighing against the treacherous character 
 of their foreign policy, and indignantly calling on them 
 for certain despatches to their late envoy at Naples. At 
 every cheer which greeted him from his party a fresh 
 missive would be despatched from the Treasury benches, 
 and the whisper, at first cautiously muttered, grew louder 
 and louder, " Why does not Upton come down ?" 
 
 So intricate has been the web of our petty entangle- 
 ments, so complex the threads of those small intrigues by 
 which we have earned our sobriquet of the " perfide 
 Albion," that it is difficult at this time of day to recall 
 the exact question whose solution, in the words of the 
 oi-ator of the debate, " placed us either at the head of 
 Europe, or consigned to us the fatal mediocrity of a third- 
 rate power." The prophecy, whichever way read, gives 
 ns unhappily no clue to the matter in hand, and we are 
 only left to conjecture that it was an intervention in Spain, 
 or "something about the Poles." As is usual in such 
 cases, the matter, insignificant enough in itself, was con- 
 verted into a sei'ious attack on the Government, and all 
 the strength of the Opposition was arrayed to give power 
 and consistency to the assault. As is equally usual, the 
 cabinet was totally unprepared for defence; either they 
 had altogether undervalued the subject, or they trusted to 
 the secrecy with which they had conducted it ; whichever 
 of these be the right explanation, each minister could 
 only say to his colleague, " It never came before me ; 
 Upton knows all about it."
 
 DOINGS IN DOWNING STREET. 835 
 
 " And where is Upton ? — why does lie not come down ? " 
 —were again and again reiterated ; while a shower of 
 messages and even mandates invoked his presence. 
 
 The last of these was a peremptory note from no less 
 a person than the Premier himself, written in three very 
 significant words, thus : " Come, or GO ;" and given to a 
 trusty whip, the Hon. Gerald Neville, to deliver. 
 
 Armed with this nob very conciliatory document, the 
 well-practised tact cian drew np to the door of the Foreign 
 OthYe and demanded to see the Secretary of State. 
 
 "Give him this card and this note, sir," said he to the 
 well-dressed and very placid young gentleman who acted 
 as his private secretary. 
 
 " Sir Horace is very poorly, sir : he is at this moment 
 in a mineral bath ; but as the matter you say is pressing, 
 he will see you. Will you pass this way ? " 
 
 Mr. Neville followed his guide through an infinity of 
 passages, and at length reached a large folding-door, open- 
 ing one side of which he was ushered into a spacious 
 apartment, but so thoroughly impregnated with a thick 
 and offensive vapour, that he could barely perceive, 
 through the mist, the bath in which Upton lay reclined, 
 and the figure of a man, whose look and attitude bespoke 
 the doctor, beside him. 
 
 "Ah, my dear fellow," sighed Upton, extending two 
 dripping fingers in salutation ; " you have come in at the 
 death. This is the last of it!" 
 
 " No, no ; don't say that," cried the other, encouragingly. 
 " Have you had any sudden seizure ? What is the nature 
 of it?" 
 
 "He," said he. looking round to the doctor, "calls it 
 ' arachnoidal trismus,' a thing, he says, that they have all 
 of them ignored for many a day, though Charlemagne 
 died of it." Ah, doctor" — and he addressed a question to 
 him in German. 
 
 A growled volley of gutturals ensued, and Upton went 
 
 on: — 
 
 " Yes, Charlemagne — Melancthon had it, but lingered 
 for years. It is the peculiar affection of great intellectual 
 natures over-taxed and over-worked." 
 
 Whether there waa that in the manner of the sick man 
 that inspired hope, or something in the aspect of the
 
 336 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 doctor that suggested distrust, or a mixture of the two 
 togethei', but certainly Neville rapidly rallied from the 
 fears which had beset him on entering, and in a voice of a 
 more cheery tone, said, — 
 
 " Come, come, Sir Horace, you'll throw off this as you 
 have done other such attacks. Tou have never been 
 wanting either to your friends or yourself when the hour 
 of emergency called. We are in a moment of such diffi- 
 culty now, and you alone can rescue us." 
 
 "Plow cruel of the Duke to write me that!" sighed 
 Upton, as he held up the piece of paper from which the 
 water had obliterated all trace of the words. " It was so 
 inconsiderate- — eh, Neville ?" 
 
 ' ; I'm not aware of the teimis he employed," said the 
 other. 
 
 This was the very admission that Upton sought to ob- 
 tain, and in a far more cheery voice he said, — 
 
 " If I was capable of the effort — if Doctor Geumirstad 
 thought it safe for me to venture — I could set all this to 
 right. These people are all talking 'without book,' Neville 
 — the ever-recurring blunder of an Opposition when they 
 address themselves to a foreign question : they go upon a 
 newspaper paragraph, or the equally incorrect ' private 
 communication from a friend.' Men in office alone can 
 attain to truth — exact truth — about questions of foreign 
 policy." 
 
 " The debate is taking a serious turn, however," inter- 
 posed Neville. " They reiterate very bold assertions, 
 which none of our people are in a position to contradict. 
 Their confidence is evidently increasing with the show of 
 confusion in our ranks. Something inust be done to meet 
 them, and that quickly." 
 
 " Well, I suppose I -must go," sighed Upton ; and as 
 lie held out his wrist to have his pulse felt, he addressed a 
 few words to the doctor. 
 
 "He calls it ' a life period,' Neville. He says that he 
 Avon't answer for the consequences." 
 
 The doctor muttered on. 
 
 " He adds, that the trismus may be thus converted into 
 ' Bi-trismus.' Just imagine Bi-trismus ! " 
 
 This was a stretch of fancy clear and away beyond 
 Neville's apprehension, and he began to feel certain mis-
 
 DOINGS IN DOWNING STREET. 337 
 
 givings abou pushing a request so full of danger; but 
 from this he was in a measure relieved by the tone in 
 ■which Upton now addressed his valet with directions as 
 to the dress he intended to wear. " The loose pelisse, 
 with the astracan, Giuseppe, and that vest of cramoisie 
 velvet; and if you will just glance at the newspapei', 
 Neville, in the next room, I'll come to you immediately." 
 
 The newspapers of the morning after this interview 
 afford us the speediest mode of completing the incidents ; 
 and the concluding sentences of a leading article will be 
 enough to place before our readers what ensued : — 
 
 "It was at this moment, and amidst the most enthusi- 
 astic cheers of the Treasury bench, that Sir Horace Upton 
 entered the House. Leaning on the arm of Mr. Neville, 
 he slowly passed up and took his accustomed place. The 
 traces of severe illness in his features, and the great debil- 
 ity which his gestures displayed, gave an unusual interest 
 to a scene already almost dramatic in its character. For 
 a moment the great chief of Opposition was obliged to 
 pause in his assault to let this flood-tide of sympathy pass 
 on, and when at length he did resume, it was plain to see 
 how much the tone of his invective had been tempered 
 by a respect for the actual feeling of the House. The 
 necessity for this act of deference, added to the conscious- 
 ness that he was in presence of the man whose acts he so 
 strenuously denounced, were too much for the nerves of 
 the orator, and he came to an abrupt conclusion, whose 
 confused and uncertain sentences scarcely warranted the 
 cheers with which his friends rallied him. 
 
 " Sir Horace rose at once to reply. His voice was at 
 first so inarticulate that we could but catch the hurden of 
 what he said — a request that the House would accord him. 
 all the indulgence which his state of debility and suffering 
 called for. If the first few sentences he uttered imparted 
 a painful significance to the entreaty, it very soon became 
 apparent that he had no occasion to bespeak such indul- 
 gence. In a voice that gained strength and fulness as he 
 proceeded, he entered upon what might be called a narra- 
 tive of the foreign policy of the administration, clearly 
 showing that their course was guided by certain great 
 principles which dictated a line of action firm and unde- 
 viating ; that the measures uf the Government, however
 
 838 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 modified by passing events in Europe, had been uniformly 
 consistent — based upon the faith of treaties — but ever 
 mindful of the growing requirements of the age. Through 
 a narrative of singular complexity he guided himself with 
 consummate skill, and though detailing events which 
 occupied every region of the globe, neither confusion nor 
 inconsistency ever marred the recital, and names, and 
 places, and dates were quoted by him without any artificial 
 aid to memory." 
 
 There was in the polished air, and calm, dispassionate 
 delivery of the speaker, something which seemed to charm 
 the ears of those who for four hours before had been so 
 mercilessly assailed by all the vituperation and insolence 
 of party animosity. It was, so to say, a period of relief 
 and repose, to which even antagonists were not insensible. 
 No man ever understood the advantage of his gifts in this 
 way better than Upton, nor ever was there one who could 
 convert the powers which fascinated society into the means 
 of controlling a popular assembly, with greater assurance 
 of success. He was a man of a strictly logical mind, a 
 close and acute thinker ; he was of a highly imaginative 
 temperament, rich in all the resources of a poetic fancy ; he 
 was thoroughly well read, and gifted with a ready memory ; 
 but, above all these — transcendently above them all — he 
 was a " man of the world ; " and no one, either in Parlia- 
 ment or out of it, knew so well when it was wrong to say 
 " the right thing." But let us resume our quotation :— 
 
 " For more than three hours did the House listen with 
 breathless attention to a narrative which in no parliamen- 
 tary experience has been surpassed for the lucid clearness 
 of its details, the unbroken fiow of its relation. The 
 orator up to this time had strictly devoted himself to 
 explanation ; he now proceeded to what might be called 
 reply. If the House was charmed and instructed before, 
 it was now positively astonished and electrified by the 
 overwhelming force of the speaker's raillery and invective. 
 Not satisfied with showing the evil consequences that must 
 ensue from any adoption of the measures recommended 
 by the Opposition, he proceeded to exhibit the insufficiency 
 of" views always based upon false information. 
 
 " ' We have been taunted,' said he, ' with the charge of 
 fomenting discords in foreign lands; we have been
 
 DOIXGS IN DOWNING STREET. 339 
 
 arraigned as disturbers of the world's peace, and called 
 the firebrands of Europe ; we are exhibited as parading 
 the Continent with a more than Quixotic ardour — since 
 we seek less the redress of wrong than the opportunity 
 to display our own powers of interference — that quality, 
 which the learned gentleman has significantly stigmatized 
 as a spirit of meddling impertinence, offensive to the whole 
 world of civilization. Let me tell him, sir, that the very 
 debate of this night has elicited, and from himself, too, 
 the very outrages he has had the temerity to ascribe to us. 
 His has been this indiscriminate ardour, his, this unjudging 
 rashness, his,this meddling impertinence (I am but quoting, 
 not inventing, a phrase) by which, without accurate, with- 
 out, indeed, any information, he has ventured to charge the 
 Government with what no administration would be guilty 
 of — a cool and deliberate violation of the national law of 
 Europe. 
 
 " ' He has told you, sir, that in our eagerness to dis- 
 tinguish ourselves as universal redressers of injury, we 
 have " ferreted out" — I take his own polished expression 
 ■ — the case of an obscure boy in an obscure corner of Italy, 
 converted a commonplace and very vulgar incident into a 
 tale of interest, and by a series of artful devices and in- 
 sinuations based upon this narrative a grave and insulting 
 charge upon one of the oldest of our allies. He has 
 alleged that throughout the whole of those proceedings 
 we had not the shadow of pretence for our interference ; 
 that the acts imputed occurred in a land over which we had 
 no control, and in the person of an individual in whom 
 we had no interest. That this Sebastiano Greppi— this 
 image boy — for so with a courteous pleasantry he has 
 called him — was a Neapolitan subject, the affiliated envoy 
 of I know not what number of secret societies ; that his 
 sculptural pretensions were but pretexts to conceal his real 
 avocations — the agency of a bloodthirsty faction ; that his 
 crime was no less than an act of high treason, and that 
 Austrian gentleness and mercy were never more con- 
 spicuously illustrated than in the commutation of a death 
 sentence to one of perpetual imprisonment. 
 
 " ' What a rude task is mine when I must say that for 
 even one of these assertions there is not the slightest 
 foundation in fact. Greppi's offence was not a crime 
 
 Z 2
 
 840 teE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 against the state ; as little was it committed within the 
 limits of the Austrian territory. He is not the envoy, or 
 even a member of any revolutionary club ; he never — I 
 am speaking with knowledge, sir — he never mingled in 
 the schemes of plotting politicians ; as far removed is he 
 from sympathy with such men, as, in the genius of a great 
 artist, he is elevated above the humble path to which the 
 learned gentleman's raillery would sentence him. For the 
 character of "an image vendor," the learned gentleman 
 must look nearer home; and lastly, this youth is an 
 Englishman, and born of a race and a blood that need feel 
 no shame in comparison with any I see around me ! ' 
 
 " To the loud cry of 'Name, name,' which now ai'ose, 
 Sir Horace replied : 'If I do not announce the name at 
 this moment, it is because there are circumstances in the 
 history of the youth to which publicity would give irre- 
 parable pain. These are details which I have no right to 
 bring under discussion, and which must inevitably thus 
 become matters of town-talk. To any gentleman of the 
 opposite side who may desire to verify the assertions I 
 have made to the House, I would, under pledge of secrecy, 
 reveal the name, i would do more; I would permit him 
 to confide it to a select number of friends equally pledged 
 with himself. This is surely enough ? ' " 
 
 We have no occasion to continue our quotation farther, 
 and we take up our history as Sir Horace, overwhelmed 
 by the warmest praises and congratulations, drove off 
 from the House to his home. Amid all the excitement 
 and enthusiasm which this brilliant success produced 
 among the ministerialists, there was a kind of dread lest 
 the over-taxed powers of the orator should pay the heavy 
 penalty of such an effort. They had all heard how he 
 came from a sick chamber; they had all seen him, 
 trembling, faint, and almost voiceless as he stole up to his 
 place, and they began to fear lest they had, in the hot zeal 
 of party, imperilled the ablest chief in their ranks. 
 
 What a relief to these agonies had it been, could they 
 have seen Upton as he once more gained the solitude of 
 his chamber, where, divested of all the restraints of an 
 audience, he walked leisurely up and down, smoking a 
 cigar, and occasionally smiling pleasantly as some "con- 
 ceit " crossed his mind.
 
 DOINGS IN DOWNING STREET. 341 
 
 Had there been any one to mark him there, it is more 
 than likely that he would have regarded him as a man 
 revelling in the after-thought of a great success — one who, 
 having come gloriously through the combat, was tri- 
 umphantly recalling to his memory every incident of the 
 fight. How little had they understood Sir Horace Upton 
 who would have read him in this wise! That daring and 
 soaring nature rarely dallied in the past ; even the present 
 was scarcely full enough for the craving of a spirit that 
 cried ever " Forward ! " 
 
 What might be made of that night's success — how best 
 it should be turned to account! — these were the thoughts 
 which beset him, and many were the devices which his 
 subtlety hit on to this end. There was not a goal his 
 ambition could point to, but which became associated with 
 some deteriorating ingredient. He was tired of the Con- 
 tinent, he hated England, he shuddered at the Colonies. 
 "India, perhaps," said he, hesitatingly — " India, perhaps, 
 might do." To continue as he was — to remain in office, 
 as having reached the topmost round of the ladder — would 
 have been insupportable indeed ; and yet how, without 
 longer service at his post, could any man claim a higher 
 reward ?
 
 842 TEE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 THE SUBTLETIES OF STATECRAFT. 
 
 It was not till Sir Horace had smoked his third cigar 
 that he seated himself at his writing-table. He then 
 wrote rapidly a brief note, of which he proceeded to- make 
 a careful copy. This he folded and placed in an envelope, 
 addressing it to his Grace the Duke of Cloudeslie. 
 
 A few minutes afterwards he began to prepare for bed. 
 The day was already breaking, and yet that sick man 
 was unwearied and unwasted — not a trace of fatigue on 
 features that, under the infliction of a tiresome dinner- 
 party, would have seemed bereft of hope. 
 
 The tied-up knocker — the straw-strewn street — the 
 closely drawn curtains announced to London the next 
 morning that the distinguished minister was sei'iously 
 ill ; and from an early hour the tide of inquirers, in car- 
 riages and on foot, passed silently along that dreary way. 
 High and mighty were the names inscribed in the porter's 
 book ; royal dukes had called in person, and never was 
 public solicitude more widely manifested. There is some- 
 thing very flattering in the thought of a great intelligence 
 being damaged and endangered in our service! With all 
 its melancholy influences, there is a feeling of importance 
 suggested by the idea, that for us and our interests a man 
 of commanding powers should have jeopardied his life. 
 There is a very general prejudice, not alone in obtaining 
 the best article for our money, but the most of it also ; 
 and this sentiment extends to the individuals employed 
 in the public service ; and it is, doubtless, a very consola- 
 tory reflection to the tax-paying classes, that the great 
 functionaries of state are not indolent recipients of 
 princely incomes, but hard-worked men of office — up late 
 and early at their duties — prematurely old, and worn out 
 before their time ! Something of this same feeling 
 inspires much of the sympathy displayed for a sick states-
 
 THE SUBTLETIES OF STATECRAFT. 343 
 
 man — a sentiment not altogether void of a certain mis- 
 giving that wo have probably over-taxed the energies 
 employed in our behalf. 
 
 Scarcely one in a hundred of those who now called and 
 "left their names," had ever seen Sir Horace Upton in 
 their lives. Few are more removed from public knowledge 
 than the men who fill even the highest places in our 
 diplomacy. He was, therefore, to the mass a mere name. 
 Since his accession to office little or nothing had been 
 heard of him, and of that little, the greater part was 
 made up of sneering allusions to his habits of indolence ; 
 impertinent hints about his caprices and his tastes. Yet 
 now, by a grand effort in the " House," and a well got- up 
 report of a dangerous illness the day after, was he the 
 most marked man in all the state — the theme of solicitude 
 throughout two millions of people ! 
 
 There was a dash of mystery, too, in the whole incident, 
 which heightened its flavour for public taste- — a vague, 
 indistinct impression — it did not even amount to rumour 
 — was abroad, that Sir Horace had not been " fairly 
 treated " by his colleagues ; either that they could, if they 
 wished it, have defended the cause themselves, or that 
 they had needlessly called him from a sick bed to come to 
 the rescue, or that some subtle trap had been laid to 
 ensnare him. These were vulgar beliefs, which, if they 
 obtained little credence in the higher region of club-life, 
 were extensively circulated, and not discredited, in less 
 distinguished circles. How they ever got abroad at all — ■ 
 how they found their ways into newspaper paragraphs, 
 terrifying timid supporters of the ministry, by the dread 
 prospect of a " smash "—exciting the hopes of Opposition 
 with the notion of a great secession — throwing broadcast 
 before the world of readers every species of speculation — 
 all kinds of combination — who knows how all this 
 happened ? Who, indeed, ever knew how things a 
 thousand times more secret ever got wind and became 
 club-talk ere the actors in the events had finished an 
 afternoon's canter in the Park? 
 
 If, then, the world of London learned on the morning 
 in question that Sir Horace Up! on was very ill, it also 
 surmised — why and wherefore it knows best — that the 
 same Sir Horace was an ill-used man. Now, of all the
 
 344 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 objects of public sympathy and interest, next after a 
 foreign emperor on a visit at Buckingham Palace, or a 
 newly arrived hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens, 
 there is nothing your British public is so fond of — as " an 
 ill-used man." It is essential, however, to his great 
 success, that he he ill-used in high places ; that his 
 enemies and calumniators should have been, if not princes, 
 at least dukes and marquises, and great dignitaries of the 
 state. Let him only be supposed to be martyred by these, 
 and there is no saying where his popularity may be carried. 
 A very general impression is current, that the mass of the 
 nation is more or less " ill-used " — denied its natural 
 claims and just rewards. To hit upon, therefore, a good 
 representation of this hard usage, to find a tangible em- 
 bodiment of this great injustice, is a discovery that is 
 never unappreciated. 
 
 To read his speech of the night before, and to peruse 
 the ill-scrawled bulletin of his health at the hall door in 
 the morning, made up the measure of his popularity, and 
 the world exclaimed, " Think of the man they have 
 treated in this fashion ! " Every one framed the indict- 
 ment to his own taste ; nor was the wrong the less 
 grievous, that none could give it a name. Even cautious 
 men fell into the trap, and were heard to say, " If all we 
 hear be true, Upton has not been fairly treated." 
 
 What an air of confirmation to all these rumours did it 
 give, when the evening papers announced in the most 
 striking type — Resignation of Sir Horace Upton. If 
 the terms in which he communicated that step to the 
 Premier were not before the world, the date, the very 
 night of the debate, showed that the resolution had been 
 come to suddenly. 
 
 Some of the journals affected to be in the whole secret 
 of the transaction, and only waiting the opportune moment 
 to announce it to the world. The dark, mysterious para- 
 graphs in which journalists show their no-meanings 
 abounded, and menacing hints were thrown out that the 
 country would no longer submit to — Heaven knows what. 
 There was, besides all this, a very considerable amount of 
 that catechetical inquiry, which, by suggesting a number 
 of improbabilities, hopes to arrive at the likely, and thus, 
 by asking questions where they had a perfect confidence
 
 THE SUBTLETIES OP STATECRAFT. 345 
 
 they would never be answered, they seemed to overwhelm 
 their adversaries with shame and cliscomfitui^e. The great 
 fact, however, was indisputable — Upton had resigned. 
 
 To the many who looked up at the shuttered windows 
 of his sad-lookimr London house, this reflection occurred 
 naturally enough — How little the poor sufferer, on his 
 sick bed, cared for the contest that raged around him ; 
 how far away were, in all probability, his thoughts from 
 that world of striving: and ambition whose waves came 
 to his door-sills. Let us, in that privilege which belongs 
 to us, take a peep within the curtained room, where a 
 bright fire is blazing, and where, seated behind a screen, 
 Sir Horace is now penning a note ; a bland half smile 
 rippling his features as some pleasant conceit has flashed 
 across his mind. "We have rarely seen him looking so well. 
 The stimulating events of the last few days have done for 
 him more than all the counsels of his doctors, and his eyes 
 are brighter and his cheeks fuller than usual. A small 
 miniature hangs suspended by a narrow ribbon round his 
 neck, and a massive gold bracelet adorns one wrist ; " two 
 souvenirs," which he stops to contemplate as he writes, 
 nor is there a touch of sorrowful meaning in the glance he 
 bestows upon them — the look rather seems the self-com- 
 placent regard that a successful general might bestow on 
 the decorations he had won by his valour. It is essentially 
 vainglorious. 
 
 More than once has he paused to read over the sentence 
 he has wi'itten, and one may see, by the motion of his lips 
 as he reads, how completely he has achieved the sentiment 
 he would express. " Yes, charming Princess," said he, 
 perusing the lines before him, "I've once more to throw 
 myself at your feet, and reiterate the assurances of a 
 devotion which has formed the happiness of my exist- 
 ence." — " That does not sound quite French after all," 
 muttered he — " better perhaps — has formed the religion 
 of my heart."—" I know you will reproach my precipi- 
 tancy ; I feel how your judgment, unerring as it ever is, 
 will condemn what may seem a sudden ebullition of 
 temper ; but, I ask, is this amongst the catalogue of my 
 weaknesses ? Am I of that clay which is always fissured 
 when heated ? No. You know me better — you alone ot 
 all the world have the clue to a heart whose affections are
 
 846 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCOHE. 
 
 all your own. The few explanations of all that has 
 happened must be reserved for our meeting. Of course, 
 neither the newspapers nor the reviews have any concep- 
 tion of the truth. Four words will set your heart at ease, 
 and these you must have : ' I have done wisely ; ' with that 
 assurance you have no more to fear. I mean to leave this 
 in all secrecy by the end of the week. I shall go over to 
 Brussels, where you can address me under the name of 
 Richard Bingham. I shall only remain there to watch 
 events for a clay or two, and thence on to Geneva. 
 
 " I am quite charmed with your account of poor Lady 
 G-- , though, as I read, I can detect how all the fascina- 
 tions you tell of were but reflected glories. Your view 
 of her situation is admirable, and by your skilful tactique, 
 it is she herself that ostracizes the society that would 
 only have accepted her on sufferance. How true is your 
 remark as to the great question at issue — not her guilt or 
 innocence, but what danger might accrue to others from 
 infractions that invite publicity. The cabinet were dis- 
 cussing t'other day a measure by which sales of estated 
 property could be legalized without those tiresome and 
 costly researches into title, which, in a country where con- 
 fiscations were frequent, became at last endless labour. 
 Don't you think that some such measure might be bene- 
 ficially adopted as regards female character ? Could 
 there not be invented a species of social guarantee, 
 which, rejecting all investigation into bygones after a 
 certain limit, would confer a valid title that none might 
 dispute ? 
 
 " Lawyers tell us that no man's property would stand 
 the test of a search for title. Are we quite certain how far 
 the other sex are our betters in this respect ; and might 
 it not be wise to intei'pose a limit beyond which research 
 need not proceed ? 
 
 " I concur in all you say about G ■ himself. He 
 
 was always looking for better security than he needed- — ■ 
 a great mistake, whether the investment consist of our 
 affections or our money. Physicians say that if any man 
 could only see the delicate anatomy on which his life 
 depends, and watch the play of those organs that sustain 
 him, he would not have courage to move a step, or utter 
 a loud word. Might we not carry the analogy into
 
 THE SUBTLETIES OP STATECRAFT, 317 
 
 morals, and ask, is it safe or prudent in us to investigate 
 too deeply ? are we wise in dissecting motives ? or would 
 it not be better to enjoy our moral as we do our material 
 health, without seeking to assure ourselves further ? 
 
 " Besides all this, the untravelled Englishman — and 
 such was Glencore when he married — never can be 
 brought to understand the harmless levities of foreign 
 life. Like a fresh-water sailor, he always fancies the 
 boat is going to upset, and he throws himself out at the 
 first ' jobble !' I own to you frankly, I never knew the 
 case in question ; ' how far she went,' is a secret to me. 
 I might have heard the whole story. It required some 
 address in me to escape it, but I do detest these narra- 
 tions where truth is marred by passion, and all just infer- 
 ences confused and confounded with vague and absurd 
 suspicions. 
 
 " Glencore's conduct throughout was little short of 
 insanity : like a man who, heaiang his banker is insecure, 
 takes refuge in insolvency, he ruins himself to escape 
 embarrassment. They tell me here that the shock has 
 completely deranged his intellect, and that he lives a life 
 of melancholy isolation in that old castle in Ireland. 
 
 " How few men in this world can count the cost of 
 their actions, and make up that simple calculation, ' How 
 much shall I have to pay for it ? " 
 
 " Take any view one pleases of the case, would it not 
 have been better for him to have remained in the world 
 and of it ? Would not its pleasures, even its cares, have 
 proved better ' distractions,' than his own brooding 
 thoughts ? If a man have a secret ailment, does he 
 parade it in public ? Why, then, this exposure of a pain 
 for which there is no sympathy ? 
 
 " Life, after all, is only a system of compensations. 
 Wish it to be whatever you please, but accept it as it 
 really is, and make the best of it ! For my own part, I 
 have ever felt like one who, having got a most disastrous 
 account of a road he was about to travel, is delightfully 
 surprised to find the way better and the inns more 
 comfortable than he looked for. In the main, men and 
 women are very good — our mistake is, expecting to find 
 people always in our own humoui\ Now, if one is very 
 rich, this is practical enough, but the mass must be
 
 S48 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 content to encounter disparity of mood and difference 
 of taste at every step. There is, therefore, .some tact 
 required in conforming to these ' irregularities,' and un- 
 happily everybody has not got tact. 
 
 " Ton, charming Princess, have tact ; but you have 
 beauty, wit, fascination, rank — all that can grace high 
 station, and all that high station can reflect upon great 
 natural gifts; that you should see the world through a 
 rose-tinted medium is a very condition of your identity ; 
 and there is truth, as well as good philosophy, in this 
 view ! You have often told me that if people were not 
 exactly all that strict moralists might wish, yet that they 
 made up a society very pleasant and livable withal, and 
 that there was also a floating capital of kindness and 
 good feeling quite sufficient to trade upon, and even grow 
 richer by negotiating ! 
 
 " People who live out of the world, or, what comes to 
 the same thing, in a little world of their own, are ever 
 craving after perfectability, just as, in time of peace, 
 nations only accept in their armies six-foot grenadiers, 
 and gigantic dragoons. Let the pressure of war or 
 emergency arise, however, or, in other words, let there 
 be the real business of life to be done, then the standard 
 is lowered at once, and the battle is fought and won by 
 very inferior agency. Now, show troops and show 
 qualities are very much alike ; they are a measure of 
 what would be very charming to arrive at, were it only 
 practicable ! Oh ! that poor Glencore had only learned 
 this lesson, instead of writing nonsense verses at Eton ! 
 
 " The murky domesticities of England have no correla- 
 tives in the sunny enjoyments of Italian life ; and John 
 Bull has got a fancy that virtue is only cultivated where 
 there are coal fires, stuff curtains, and a window tax. 
 Why, then, in the name of Doctors' Commons ! does he 
 marry a foreigner ? " 
 
 Just as Upton had wi'itten these words, his servant pre- 
 sented him with a visiting-card. 
 
 "Lord Glencore! " exclaimed he, aloud. "When was 
 he here?" 
 
 " His lordship is below stairs now, sir. He said he was 
 rare you'd see him." 
 
 " Of course ; show him up at once. Wait a moment ;
 
 THE SUBTLETIES OF STATECRAFT. 3-49 
 
 give me that cane, place those cushions for my feet, draw 
 the curtain, and leave the aconite and ether drops near 
 me — that will do, thank you." 
 
 Some minutes elapsed ere the door was opened ; the 
 slow footfall of one ascending the stairs, step by step, 
 was heard, accompanied by the laboured respiration of a 
 man breathing heavily, and then Lord Glencore entered, 
 his form worn and emaciated, and his face pale and colour- 
 less. With a feeble, uncertain voice, he said, — 
 
 " I knew you'd see me, Upton, and I wouldn't go away ! " 
 Anfl. with this he sank into a chair and sighed deeply. 
 
 " Of course, my dear Glencore, you knew it," said the 
 other, feelingly, for he was shocked by the wretched spec- 
 tacle before him ; " even were I more seriously indisposed 
 than " 
 
 " And were you really ill, Upton ?" asked Glencore, with 
 a weakly smile. 
 
 " Can you ask the question ? Have you not seen the 
 evening papers — read the announcement on my door — seen 
 the troops of inquirers in the streets ? " 
 
 "Yes," sighed he, wearily, " I have heard and seen all 
 you say, and yet I bethought me of a remark I once heard 
 from the Duke of Orleans : ' Monsieur Upton is a most 
 active minister when his health permits ; and when it does 
 not, he is the most mischievous intriguant in Europe.' " 
 
 " He was always straining at an antithesis ; he fancied 
 he could talk like Sfc. Simon, and it really spoiled a very 
 pleasant converser." 
 
 " And so you have been very ill ?" said Glencore, slowly, 
 and as though he had not heeded the last remark ; " so 
 have I also ! " 
 
 " You seem to me too feeble to be about, Glencore," 
 said Upton, kindly. 
 
 " I am so, if it were of any consequence — I mean if 
 my life could interest or benefit any one. My head, how- 
 ever, will bear solitude no longer ; I must have some one to 
 talk to ; I mean to travel ; I will leave this in a day or so." 
 
 " Come along with me, then ; my plan is to make for 
 Brussels, but it must not be spoken of, as I want to watch 
 events there before I remove farther from, England." 
 
 " So it is all true, then ; you have resigned r" said Glen- 
 core.
 
 350 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 " Perfectly true." 
 
 " What a strange step to take ! I remember, more than 
 twenty years ago, your telling me that you'd rather be 
 Foreign Secretary of England than the monarch of any 
 third-rate Continental kingdom." 
 
 " I thought so then, and, what is more singular, I think 
 so still." 
 
 " And you throw it up at the very moment people are 
 proclaiming your success!" 
 
 " You shall hear all ray reasons, Glencore, for this reso- 
 lution, and will, I feel assured, approve of them ; but 
 they'd only weary you now." 
 
 " Let me know them now, Upton ; it is such a relief to 
 me when, even by a momentary interest in anything, I am 
 able to withdraw this poor tired brain from its own dis- 
 tressing thoughts." He spoke these words not only with 
 strong feeling, but even imparted to them a tone of en- 
 treaty, so that Upton could not but comply. 
 
 " When I wished for the Secretaryship, my dear Glen- 
 core," said he, " I fancied the office as it used to be in 
 olden times, when one played the great game of diplomacy, 
 with kings and ministers for antagonists, and the world at 
 large for spectators ; when consummate skill and perfect 
 secrecy were objects of moment, and where grand combi- 
 nations rewarded one's labour with all the certainty of a 
 mathematical problem. Every move on the board could 
 be calculated beforehand, no disturbing influences could 
 derange plans that never were divulged till they were 
 accomplished. All that is past and gone ; our Constitu- 
 tion, grown every day more and more democratic, rules 
 by the House of Commons. Questions, whose treatment 
 demand all the skill of a statesman, and all the address 
 of a man of the world, come to be discussed in open Par- 
 liament ; correspondence- is called for, despatches and even 
 private notes are produced ; and, while the State you are 
 opposed to revels in the security of secrecy, your Avhole 
 game is revealed to the world in the shape of a blue-book. 
 
 " Nor is this all — the debaters on these nice and intri- 
 cate questions, involving the most fai--reachmg speculation 
 of statesmanship, are men of trade and enterprise, who 
 view every international difficulty only in its relation to 
 their peculiar interests. National greatness, honour, and
 
 THE SUBTLETIES OP STATECRAFT. 351 
 
 security are nothing — the maintenance of that equipoise 
 which preserves peace is nothing — the nice management 
 which, by the exhibition of courtesy here, or of force 
 there, is nothing compared to alliances that secure us 
 ample supplies of raw material, and abundant markets for 
 manufactures. Diplomacy has come to this ! " 
 
 " But you must have known all this before you accepted 
 office ; you had seen where the course of events led to, 
 and were aware that the House ruled the country." 
 
 " Perhaps I did not recognize the fact to its full extent. 
 Perhaps, I fancied I could succeed in modifying the 
 system," said Upton, cautiously. 
 
 " A hopeless undertaking ! " said Grlencore. 
 
 " I'm not quite so certain of that," said Upton, pausing 
 for a while as he seemed to reflect. When he resumed, it 
 was in a lighter and more flippant tone : " To make short 
 of it, I saw that I could not keep office on these conditions, 
 but I did not choose to go out as a beaten man. For my 
 pride's sake I desu-ed that my reasons should be reserved 
 for myself alone, — for my actual benefit it was necessary 
 that I should have a hold over my colleagues in office. 
 These two conditions were rather difficult to combine, but 
 I accomplished them. 
 
 " I had interested the King so much in my views as to 
 what the Foreign Office ought to be, that an interchange 
 of letters took place, and his Majesty imparted to me his 
 fullest confidence in disparagement of the present system. 
 This correspondence was a perfect secret to the whole 
 Cabinet, but when it had arrived at a most confidential 
 crisis, I suggested to the King that Cloudeslie should be 
 consulted. I knew well that this would set the match to 
 the train. No sooner did Cloudeslie learn that such a 
 correspondence had been carried on for months without 
 his knowledge, views stated, plans promulgated, and the 
 King's pleasure taken on questions not one of which 
 should have been broached without his approval and con- 
 currence, than he declared he would not hold the seals of 
 office another hour. The King, well knowing his temper, 
 and aware what a terrific exposure might come of it, sent 
 for me, and asked what was to be done. I immediately sug- 
 gested my own resignation as a sacrifice to the difficulty 
 and to the wounded feelings of the Duke. Thus did I
 
 852 THE FOBTUNES OF GLENCOBE. 
 
 achieve what I sought for. I imposed a heavy ohligatioii 
 on the King and the Premier, and I have secured secrecy 
 as to my motives, which none will ever betray. 
 
 " I only remained for the debate of the other night, for 
 I wanted a little public enthusiasm to mark the fall of the 
 curtain." 
 
 " So that you still hold them as your debtors?" asked 
 Glencore. 
 
 " Without doubt, I do ; my claim is a heavy one." 
 
 " And what would satisfy it? " 
 
 "If my health would stand England," said Upton, 
 leisurely, " I'd take a peerage ; but as this murky atmos- 
 phere would suffocate me, and as I don't care for the latter 
 without the political privileges, I have determined to have 
 the ' Garter." " 
 
 "The Garter! a blue ribbon ! " exclaimed Glencore, as 
 though the insufferable coolness with which the pretension 
 was announced might justify any show of astonishment. 
 
 "Yes ; I had some thoughts of India, but the journey 
 deters me ; in fact, as I have enough to live on, I'd rather 
 devote the remainder of my days to rest, and the care of 
 this shattered constitution." It is impossible to convey 
 to the reader the tender and affectionate compassion with 
 which Sir Horace seemed to address these last words to 
 himself. 
 
 " Do you ever look upon yourself as the luckiest fellow 
 in Europe, Upton ? " asked Glencore. 
 
 " No," sighed he ; "I occasionally fancy I have been 
 hardly dealt with by fortune. I have only to throw my 
 eyes around me, and see a score of men, richer and more 
 elevated than myself, not one of whom has capacity for 
 even a third-rate task, so that really the self-congratula- 
 tion you speak of has not occurred to me." 
 
 " But, after all, you have had a most successful 
 career " 
 
 " Look at the matter this way, Glencore ; there are 
 about six — say six men in all Europe — who have a little 
 more common sense than all the rest of the world — I 
 could tell you the names of five of them." If there was 
 a supreme boastfulness in the speech, the modest delivery 
 of it completely mystified the hearer, and he sat gazing 
 with wonderment at the man before him.
 
 353 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 SOME SAD REVERIES. 
 
 " Have you any plans, Glencore ? " asked Upton, as they 
 posted along towards Dover. 
 
 "None," was the brief reply. 
 
 " Nor any destination you desire to reach ? " 
 
 " Just as little." 
 
 "Such a state as yours, then, I take it, is about the 
 best thing going in life. Every move one makes is 
 attended with so many adverse considerations — every 
 goal so separated from us by unforeseen difficulties — that 
 an existence, even without what is called an object, has 
 certain great advantages." 
 
 " I am curious to hear them," said the other, half 
 cynically. 
 
 " For myself," said Upton, not accepting the challenge, 
 ''the brief intervals of comparative happiness I have 
 enjoyed have been in pei'iods when complete repose, almost 
 torpor, has surrounded me, and when the mere existence 
 of the day has engaged my thoughts." 
 
 " What became of memory all this while ? " 
 
 " Memory ! " said Upton, laughing, " I hold my memory 
 in proper subjection. It no more dares obtrude upon me 
 uncalled for, than would my valet come into my room till 
 I i-ing for him. Of the slavery men endure from their 
 own faculties I have no experience." 
 
 "And, of course, no sympathy for them." 
 
 " I will not say that I cannot compassionate sufferings 
 though I have not felt them." 
 
 " Are you quite sure of that ? " asked Glencore, almost 
 sternly ; " is not your very pity a kind of contemptuous 
 sentiment towards those who sorrow without reason — 
 the strong man's estimate of the weak man's sufferings r* 
 Believe me, there is no true condolence where there is not 
 the same experience of woe ! " 
 
 " I should be sorry to lay down so narrow a limit to 
 fellow-feeling," said Upton. 
 
 A A
 
 854 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCOKU. 
 
 "You told me a few moments back," said Glencore, 
 " that your memory was your slave. How, then, can you 
 feel for one like me, whose memory is his master ? How 
 understand a path that never wanders out of the shadow 
 of the past ? " 
 
 There was such an accent of sorrow impressed upon 
 these words, that Upton did not desire to prolong a dis- 
 cussion so painful ; and thus, for the remainder of the 
 wav, little was interchanged between them. They crossed 
 the strait by night, and as Upton stole upon deck alter 
 dusk, he found Glencore seated near the wheel, gazing 
 intently at the lights on shore from which they were fast 
 receding. 
 
 " I am taking my last look at England, Upton," said he, 
 affecting a tone of easy indifference. 
 
 " You surely mean to go back again one of these days ? " 
 said Upton. 
 
 " Never, never ! " said he, solemnly. " I have made all 
 my arrangements for the future — every disposition regard- 
 ing my property — I have neglected nothing, so far as I 
 know, of those claims which, in the shape of relationship, 
 the world has such reverence for ; and now I bethink me 
 of myself. I shall have to consult you, however, about 
 this boy," said he, faltering in the words. "The objection 
 I once entertained to his bearing my name exists no longer; 
 he may call himself Massy, if he will. The chances are," 
 added he, in a lower and more feeling voice, " that he 
 rejects a name that will only remind him of a wrong ! " 
 
 " My dear Glencore," said Upton, with real tenderness, 
 "do I apprehend you aright? Are you, at last, convinced 
 that you have been unjust? Has the moment come in 
 which your better judgment rises above the evil counsels 
 of prejudice and passion ? " 
 
 " Do you mean, am I assured of her innocence ? " broke 
 in Glencore, wildly. " Do you imagine, if I were so, that 
 I could withhold my hand from taking a life so infamous 
 and dishonoured as mine ! The world would have no 
 parallel for such a wretch ! Mark me, Upton ! " cried he, 
 fiercely, " there is no torture I have yet endured would 
 equal the bare possibility of what you hint at." 
 
 " Good Heavens ! Glencore, do not let me suppose that 
 selfishness has so marred and disfigured your nature that
 
 SOME SAD EEVEBIES, 855 
 
 tliia is true . Bethink you of what you say — would it not 
 be the crowning glory of your life to repair a dreadful 
 wrong, and acknowledge before the world that the fame 
 you had aspersed was without stain or spot ? " 
 
 "And with what grace should I ask the world to be- 
 lieve me ? Is it when expiating the shame of a falsehood, 
 that I should call upon men to accept me as truthful ? 
 Have I not proclaimed her, from one end of Europe to the 
 other, dishonoured ? If she be absolved, what becomes of 
 me?" 
 
 " This is unworthy of you, Glencore," said Upton, se- 
 verely ; " nor, if illness and long suffering had not impaired 
 your judgment, had you ever spoken such words. I say 
 once more, that if the day came that you c add declare to 
 the world that her fame had no other reproach than the 
 injustice of your own unfounded jealousy, that day would 
 be the best and the proudest of your life." 
 
 " The pixmd day that published me a calumniator of 
 all that 1 was most pledged to defend — the deliberate liar 
 against the obligation of the holiest of all contracts ! You 
 forget, Upton — but I do not forget — that it was by this 
 very argument you once tried to dissuade me from my act 
 of vengeance. You told me — ay, in words that still ring 
 in my ears — to remember that if by any accident or chance 
 her innocence might be proven, I could never avail my- 
 self of the indication without first declaring my own un- 
 worthiness to profit by it — that if the Wife stood forth in 
 all the pride of purity, the Husband would be a scoff and 
 a shame throughout the world! " 
 
 " When I said so," said Upton, " it was to turn you 
 from a path that could not but lead to ruin ; I endeavoured 
 to deter you by an appeal that interested even your selfish- 
 ness." 
 
 " Your subtlety has outwitted itself, Upton," said Glen- 
 core, with a bitter irony ; " it is not the first instance on 
 record where blank cartridge has proved fatal ! " 
 
 " One thing is perfectly clear," said Upton, boldly, " the 
 man who shrinks from the repair of a wrong he has done, 
 on the consideration of how it would affect himself and 
 his own interests, shows that he cares more for the outward 
 show of honour than its real and sustaining power." 
 
 " And will you tell me, Upton, that the world's estimate 
 
 A A 2
 
 356 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 of a man's fame is not essential to his self-esteem, or that 
 there yet lived one who would brave obloquy without, by 
 the force of something within him p" 
 
 "This I will tell you," replied Upton, "that he who 
 balances between the two is scarcely an honest man, and 
 that he who accepts the show for the substance is not a 
 wise one." 
 
 " These are marvellous sentiments to hear from one 
 whose craft has risen to a proverb, and whose address in 
 life is believed to be not his meanest gift." 
 
 " I accept the irony in all good humour ; I go farther, 
 Glencore, I stoop to explain. When any one in the great 
 and eventful journey of life seeks to guide himself safely, 
 he has to weigh all the considerations, and calculate all the 
 combinations adverse to him. The straight road is rarely, 
 or never, possible ; even if events were, which they are 
 not, easy to read, they must be taken in combination with 
 others, and with their consequences. The path of action 
 becomes necessarily devious and winding, and compromises 
 are called for at every step. It is not in the moment of 
 shipwreck that a man stops to inquire into petty details 
 of the articles he throws into a long-boat ; he is bent on 
 saving himself as best he can. He seizes what is next to 
 him, if it suit his purpose. Now, were he to act in this 
 manner in all the quiet security of his life on shore, his 
 conduct would be highly blamable. JSTo emergency would 
 warrant his taking what belonged to another — no critical 
 moment would drive him to the instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion. Just the same is the interval between action and 
 reflection. Give me time and forethought, and I will 
 employ something better and higher than craft. My 
 subtlety, as you like to call it, is not my best weapon ; I 
 only use it in emergency." 
 
 " I read the matter differently," said Glencore, sulkily ; 
 " I could, perhaps, offer another explanation of your 
 practice." 
 
 " Pra y> let me hear it ; we are all in confidence here, 
 and I promise you I will not take badly whatever you say 
 to me." 
 
 Glencore sat silent and motionless. 
 
 " Come, shall I say it for you, Glencore ? for I think I 
 know what is passing in your mind."
 
 SOME SAD REVERIES. 357 
 
 The other nodded, and he went on, — 
 
 " You would tell me, in plain words, that I keep my 
 craft for myself; my high principle for my friends." 
 
 Glencore only smiled, but Upton continued, — 
 
 "So, then, I have guessed aright; and the very worst 
 you can allege against this course is, that what I bestow 
 is better than what I retain ! " 
 
 " One of Solomon's proverbs may be better than a 
 shilling ; but which would a hungry man rather have ? I 
 want no word-fencing, Upton ; still less do I seek what 
 might sow distrust between us. This much, however, has 
 life taught me — the great trials of this world are like its 
 great maladies. Providence has meant them to be l'atal ; 
 we call in the doctor in the one case, or the counsellor in 
 the other, out of habit rather than out of hope. Our own 
 consciousness has already whispered that nothing can be 
 of use, but we like to do as our neighbours, and so, we 
 take remedies and follow injunctions to the last. The 
 wise man quickly detects by the character of the means 
 how emergent is the case believed to be, and rightly judges 
 that recourse to violent measures implies the presence of 
 great peril. If he be really wise, then he desists at once 
 from what can only torture his few remaining hoars. 
 They can be given to better things than the agonies of 
 such agency. To this exact point has my case come, and 
 by the counsels you have given me do I read my danger ! 
 Your only remedy is as bad as the malady it is meant to 
 cure ! I cannot take it ! " 
 
 " Accepting your own imagery, I would say," said 
 Upton, " that you are one who will not submit to an 
 operation of some pain that he might be cured." 
 
 Glencore sat moodily for some moments without speak- 
 ing ; at last he said, — 
 
 " I feel as though continual change of place and scene 
 would be a relief to me. Let us rendezvous, therefore, 
 somewhere for the autumn, and meanwhile I'll wander 
 about alone." 
 
 " What direction do you pui-pose to take?" 
 
 " The Schwartz Wald and the Ilohlenthal, first. I want 
 to revisit a place I knew in happier days. Memory must 
 surely have something besides sorrows to render us. I 
 owned a little cottage there once, near Steig. I fished
 
 358 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 and read Uhland for a summer long. I wonder if I could 
 resume tlie same life. I knew the whole village — the 
 blacksmith, the schoolmaster, the Dorf-richter — all of 
 them. Good, kind souls they were — how they wept when 
 we parted ! Nothing consoled them but my having pur- 
 chased the cottage, and promised to come back again !" 
 
 Upton was glad to accept even this much of interest in 
 the events of life, and drew Glencore on to talk of the 
 days he had passed in this solitary region. 
 
 As in the dreariest landscape a ray of sunlight will re- 
 veal some beautiful effects, making the eddies of the dark 
 pool to glitter, lighting up the russet moss, and giving to 
 the half-dried lichen a tinge of bright colour, so will, occa- 
 sionally, memory throw over a life of sorrow a gleam of 
 happier meaning. Faces and events, forms and accents, 
 that once found the way to our hearts, come back again, 
 faintly and imperfectly it may be, but with a touch that 
 revives in us what we once were. It is the one sole fea- 
 ture in which self-love becomes amiable, when, looking 
 back on our past, we cherish the thought of a time before 
 the world had made us sceptical and hard-hearted ! 
 
 Glencore warmed as he told of that tranquil period 
 when poetry gave a colour to his life, and the wild con- 
 ceptions of genius ran like a thread of gold through the 
 whole web of existence. He quoted passages that had 
 struck him for their beauty or their truthfulness ; he told 
 how he had tried to allure his own mind to the tone that 
 vibrated in " the magic music of verse," and how the very 
 attempt had inspired him with gentler thoughts, a softer 
 charity, and a more tender benevolence towards his fellows. 
 
 " Tieck is right, Upton, when he says there are two 
 natures in us, distinct and apart — one, the imaginative 
 and ideal ; the other, the actual and the sensual. Many 
 shake them together arid confound them, making of the 
 incongruous mixture that vile compound of inconsistency 
 where the beautiful and the true are ever warring with 
 the deformed and the false ; their lives a long strugglo 
 with themselves, a perpetual contest between high hope 
 and base enjoyment. A few keep them apart, retaining, 
 through their worldliuess, some hallowed spot in the 
 heart, where ignoble desires and mean aspirations have 
 never dared to come. A fewer still have made the active
 
 SOME SAD REVERIES. 359 
 
 work of life subordinate to the guiding spirit of purit} 7 , 
 adventuring on no road unsanctioned by high and holy 
 thoughts, caring for no ambitions but such as make us 
 nobler and better ! 
 
 " I once had a thought of such a life ; and even the 
 memory of it, like the prayers we have learned in our 
 childhood, has a hallowing influence over after years. If 
 that poor boy, Upton," and his lips trembled on the words 
 — "if that poor boy could have been brought up thus 
 humbly ! If he had been taught to know no more than 
 an existence of such simplicity called for, what a load of 
 care might it have spared Ms heart and mine!" 
 
 " You have read over those letters I gave you about 
 him?" asked Upton, who eagerly availed himself of the 
 opportunity to approach an almost forbidden theme. 
 
 " I have read them over and over," said Glencore, 
 sadly ; "in all the mention of him I read the faults of my 
 own nature — a stubborn spirit of pride, that hardens as 
 much as elevates ; a resentful temper, too prone to give 
 way to its own impulses ; an over-confidence in himself, 
 too, always ready to revenge its defeats on the world about 
 him. These are his defects, and they are mine. Poor 
 fellow, that he should inherit all that I have of bad, and 
 yet not be heir to the accidents of fortune which make 
 others so lenient to faults ! " 
 
 If Upton heard these words with much interest, no less 
 was he struck by the fact that Glencore made no inquiry 
 whatever as to the youth's fate. The last letter of the 
 packet revealed the story of an eventful duel and the 
 boy's escape from Massa by night, with his subsequent 
 arrest by the police ; and yet in the face of incidents like 
 these he continued to speculate ou traits of mind and 
 character, nor even adverted to the more closely-touching 
 events of his fate. By many an artful hint and ingenious 
 device did Sir Horace try to tempt him to some show of 
 curiosity, but all were fruitless. Glencore would talk 
 freely and willingly of the boy's disposition and his capa- 
 city ; he would even speculate on the successes and 
 failures such a temperament might meet with in life ; but 
 still he spoke as men might speak of a character in a 
 fiction, ingeniously weighing casualties and discussing 
 chances; never, even by accident, nppi'oaching the actual
 
 3C0 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 story of his life, or seeming to attach any interest to Lis 
 destiny. 
 
 Upton's shrewd intelligence quickly told him that this 
 reserve was not accidental, and he deliberated within 
 himself how far it was safe to invade it. 
 
 At length he resumed the attempt by adroitly alluding 
 to the spirited resistance the boy had made to his capture, 
 and the consequences one might naturally enough ascribe 
 to a proud and high-hearted youth thus tyrannically 
 punished. 
 
 '• I have heard something," said Upton, "of the sever- 
 ities practised at Kuffstein, and they recall the horrible 
 tales of the Inquisition — the terrible contrivances to ex- 
 tort confessions — expedients that often break down the 
 intellect whose secrets they would discover- — so that one 
 actually shudders at the name of a spot so associated with 
 evil." 
 
 Glencore placed his hands over his face, but did not 
 utter a word ; and again Upton went on urging, by every 
 device he could think of, some indication that might mean 
 interest, if not anxiety, when suddenly he felt Glencore's 
 hand grasp his arm with violence. 
 
 " No more of this, Upton," cried he, sternly ; " you do 
 not know the torture you are giving me." There was a 
 long and painful pause between them, at the end of which 
 Glencore spoke, but it was in a voice scarcely above a 
 whisper, and every accent of which trembled with emo- 
 tion. " You remember one sad and memorable niedit, 
 Upton, in that old castle in Ireland — the night when I 
 came to the resolution of this vengeance ! — I sent for the 
 boy to my room ; we were alone there together, face to 
 face. It was such a scene as could brook no witness, nor 
 dare I now recall its details as they occurred. He came 
 in frankly and boldly, as he felt he had a right to do. 
 How he left that room — cowed, abashed, and degraded — I 
 have yet before me. Our meeting did not exceed manv 
 minutes in duration — neither of us could have endured it 
 longer. Brief as it was, we ratified a compact between 
 us — it was this — neither was ever to question or inquire 
 after the other, as no tie should unite, no interest should 
 bind us. Had you seen him then, Upton," cried Glencore, 
 wildly, " the proud disdain with which he listened to my
 
 SOME SAD KEVURIES. 3G1 
 
 attempts at excuse, the haughty distance with which be 
 seemed to reject every thought of complaint, the stern 
 coldness with which he heard me plan out his future, you 
 would have said that some curse had fallen upon my heart, 
 or it could never have been dead to traits which proclaimed 
 him to be my own. In that moment it was my lot to be 
 like him who held out his own right hand to be first 
 burned, ere he gave his body to the flames. 
 
 " AVe parted without an embrace — not even a farewell 
 was spoken between us. While I gloried in his pride, had 
 he but yielded ever so little, had one syllable of weakness, 
 one tear escaped him, I had given up my project, reversed 
 all my planned vengeance, and taken him to my heart as 
 my own. But no ! He was resolved on proving by his 
 nature that he was of that stern race, from which, by a 
 falsehood, I was about to exclude him. It was as though 
 my own blood hurled a proud defiance to me. 
 
 " As he walked slowly to the door, his glove fell from 
 his hand. I stealthily caught it up. I wanted to keep 
 it as a memorial of that bitter hour ; but he turned hastily 
 around and plucked it from my hand. The action was 
 even a rude one ; and with a mocking smile, as though he 
 read my meaning and despised it, he departed. 
 
 " You now have heard the last secret of my heart in 
 this sad history. Let us speak of it no more." And 
 with this Glencore arose and left the deck.
 
 8G2 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLYI. 
 
 THE FLOOD IN T n E M A OR A. 
 
 When it rains in Italy it does so with a passionate ardour 
 that bespeaks an unusual pleasure. It is no " soft dis- 
 solving in tears," but a perfect outburst of woe — wailing 
 in accents the very wildest, and deluging the land m 
 torrents. Mountain streams that were rivulets in the 
 morning, before noon arrives, are great rivers, swollen and 
 turbid, carrying away massive rocks from their founda- 
 tions, and tearing up large trees by the roots. The dried- 
 up stony bed you have crossed a couple of hours back with 
 unwetted feet, is now the course of a stream that would 
 defy the boldest. 
 
 These sudden changes are remarkably frequent along 
 that beautiful tract between Nice and Massa, and which 
 is known as the " Riviera di Levante." The rivers, fed 
 from innumerable streams that pour down from the 
 Apennines, are almost instantaneously swollen; and as 
 their bed continually slopes towards the sea, the course 
 of the waters is one of headlong velocity. Of these the 
 most dangerous by far is the Magra. The river, which 
 even in dry seasons is a considerable stream, becomes, 
 when fed by its tributaries, a very formidable body of 
 water, stretching full a mile in width, and occasionally 
 spreading a vast sheet of foam close to the very outskirts 
 of Sarzana. The passage of the river is all the more 
 dangerous at these periods as it approaches the sea, and 
 more than one instance is recorded where the stout raft, 
 devoted to the use of travellers, has been cai'ried away to 
 the ocean. 
 
 Where the great post-road from Genoa to the south 
 passes, a miserable shealiug stands, half hidden in tall 
 osiers, and surrounded with a sedgy, swampy soil the foot 
 sinks in at every step. This is the shelter of the boat- 
 men who navigate the raft, and who, in relays by day and
 
 THK FLOOD IN THE MAGRA. 8G3 
 
 night, are in waiting for the service of travellers. In the 
 dreary days of winter, or in the drearier nights, it is 
 scarcely possible to imagine a more hopeless spot ; deep 
 in the midst of a low marshy tract, the especial home of 
 tertian fever, with the wild stream roaring at the very 
 door-sill, and the thunder of the angry ocean near, it ia 
 indeed all that one can picture of desolation and wretched- 
 ness. Nor do the living features of the scene relieve its 
 gloomy influence. Though strong men, and many of 
 them in the prime of life, premature age and decay seem 
 to have settled down upon them. Their lustreless eyes 
 and leaden lips tell of ague, and their sad, thoughtful 
 faces bespeak those who are often called upon to meet 
 peril, and who are destined to lives of emergency and 
 hazard. 
 
 It was in the low and miserable hut we speak of, just as 
 night set in of a raw November, that four of these rafts- 
 men sat at their smoky fire, in company with two travellers 
 on foot, whose humble means compelled them to await 
 the arrival of some one rich enough to hire the raft. 
 Meanly clad and wayworn were the strangers who now 
 sat endeavouring to dry their dripping clothes at the 
 blaze, and conversing in a low tone together. If the 
 elder, dressed in a russet-coloured blouse and a broad- 
 leafed hat, his face almost hid in beard and moustaches, 
 seemed by his short and almost grotesque figure a travel- 
 ling showman, the appearance of the younger, despite all 
 the poverty of his dress, implied a very different class. 
 
 He was tall and well knit, with a loose activity in all 
 his gestures, which almost invariably characterizes the 
 Englishman ; and though his dark hair and his bronzed 
 cheek gave him something of a foreign look, there was a 
 calm, cold self-possession in his air that denoted the Anglo- 
 Saxon. He sat smoking his cigar, his head resting on one 
 hand, and evidently listening with attention to the words 
 of his companion. The conversation that passed will save 
 us the trouble of introducing them to our reader, if he 
 have not already guessed them. 
 
 " If we don't wait," said the elder, " till somebody 
 richer and better off than ourselves comes, we'll have to 
 pay seven francs for passin' in such a night as this." 
 
 " It is a downright robbery to ask so much," cried the
 
 o 
 
 64 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 other, angrily. " What so great danger is there, or 
 v/hat so great hardship, after all ? " 
 
 ' There is both one and the other, I believe," replied 
 he, in a tone evidently meant to moderate his passion ; 
 " and just look at the poor craytures that has to do it. 
 They're as weak as a bit of wet paper; they haven't 
 strength to make themselves heard when they talk out 
 there beside the river." 
 
 " That fellow yonder," said the youth, " has got good 
 brawny arms and sinewy legs of his own." 
 
 "Ay, and he is starved after all. A cut of rye bread 
 and an onion won't keep the heart up, nor a jug of red 
 vinegar, though ye call it grape-juice. On my conscience, 
 I'm thinkin' that the only people that preserves their 
 strength upon nothin' is the Irish. I used to carry the 
 bags over Slieb-na-borcgan mountain and the Turk's 
 Causeway, on wet potatoes and buttermilk, and never a 
 day late for eleven years." 
 
 "What a life ! " cried the youth, in an accent of utter 
 pity. 
 
 " Faix, it was an elegant life — that is, when the 
 weather was anyways good. With a bright sun shinin' 
 and a fine fresh breeze blowin' the white clouds away 
 over the Atlantic, my road was a right cheery one, and I 
 went along inventin' stones, sometimes fairy tales, some- 
 times rnakin' rhymes to myself, but always happy and 
 contented. There wasn't a bit of the way I hadn't a 
 name for in my own mind, either some place I read 
 about, or some scene in a story of my own ; but, better 
 than all, there was a dog — a poor starved lurcher he was — 
 with a bit of the tail cut off; he used to meet me, as 
 regular as the clock, on the side of Currah-na-geelah, 
 and come beside me down to the ford every day in the 
 year. No temptation nor flattery would bring him a step 
 farther. I spent three-quarters of an hour once ti-ying it, 
 but to no good ; he took leave of me on the bank of the 
 river, and went away back with his head down; as if 
 he was giievin' over something. Wasn't that mighty 
 rmn'nns? " 
 
 " Perhaps, like ourselves, Billy, he wasn't quite sure of 
 his passport," said the other, dryly. 
 
 " Pais may be so," replied he, with perfect seriousness.
 
 THE FLOOD IN THE MAGEA. 865 
 
 " My notion was that he was a kind of an outlaw, a chap 
 that maybe bit a child of the family, or ate a lamb of a 
 flock given him to guard ; but indeed his general appear- 
 ance and behaviour wasn't like that ; he had good manners, 
 and, starved as he was, he never snapped the bread out 
 of my fingers, but took it gently, though his eyes was 
 dartin' out of his head with eagerness all the while." 
 
 "A great test of good breeding, truly," said the youth, 
 sadly. " It must be more than a mere varnish when it 
 stands the hard rubs of life in this wise." 
 
 " 'Tis the very notion occurred to myself. It was the 
 dhrop of good blood in him made him what he was." 
 
 Stealthy and fleeting as was the look that accompanied 
 these words, the youth saw it and blushed to the very top 
 of his forehead. " The night grows milder," said he, to 
 relieve the awkwardness of the moment by any remark. 
 
 " It's a mighty grand sight out there now," replied the 
 other; "there's three miles if there's an inch of white 
 foam dashing down to the sea, that breaks over the bar 
 with a crash like thunder ; big trees are sweepin' past, 
 and pieces of vine trellises, and a bit of a mill-wheel, all 
 carried off just like twigs on a stream." 
 
 " Would money tempt those fellows, I wonder, to 
 venture out on such a night as this ? " 
 
 " To be sure, and why not ? The daily fight poverty 
 maintains with existence dulls the sense of every danger 
 but what comes of want. Don't I know it myself ? The 
 poor man has no inimy but hunger ; for, ye see, the other 
 vexations and troubles of life, there's always a way of 
 gettin' round them. You can chate even grief, and you 
 can slip away from danger, but there's no circumventiu' 
 an empty stomach." 
 
 "What a tyrant is then your rich man!" sighed the 
 youth, heavily. 
 
 " That he is. ' Dives honoratus. Pulcher rex denique 
 regum.' You may do as you please if ye'r rich as a 
 Begum." 
 
 "A free translation rather, Billy," said the other, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Or ye might render it this way," said Billy, — 
 
 "If ye've money enough and to spare in the bank, 
 The world will give ye both beauty and rank.
 
 866 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 And I've nothing to say agin it," continued he. " The 
 raal stimulus to industhry in life, is to make wealth 
 powerful. Gettin' and heapin' up money for money's 
 sake is a debasin' kind of thing ; but makin' a fortune, 
 in order that you may extind your influence, and niowld 
 the distinies of others — that's grand." 
 
 " And see what comes of it! " cried the youth, bitterly. 
 " Mark the base and unworthy subserviency it leads to — ■ 
 see the race of s} T cophants it begets." 
 
 "I have you there, too," cried Billy, with all the exul- 
 tation of a ready debater. " Them dirty varmint ye 
 speak of is the very test of the truth I'm tellin' ye. 'Tis 
 because they won't labour — because they won't work — 
 that they are driven to acts of sycophancy and meanness. 
 The spirit of industhry saves a man even the excuse of 
 doin' anything low ! " 
 
 " And how often, from your own lips, have I listened 
 to praises at your poor humble condition ; rejoicings that 
 your lot in life secured you against the cares of wealth and 
 grandeur ! " 
 
 " And you will again, plaze God ! if I live, and you 
 pi'esarve your hearin'. What would I be if I was rich, 
 but an ould — an ould voluptuary ? " said Billy, with great 
 emphasis on a word he had some trouble in discovering. 
 " Atin' myself sick with delicacies and drinkin' cordials 
 all dav loner. How would I know the uses of wealth? 
 Like all other vulgar creatures, I'd be buyin' with my 
 money the respect that I ought to be buyin' with my 
 qualities. It's the very same thing you see in a fair or a, 
 market — the country girls goin' about, hobbledand crippled 
 with shoes on, that, if they had bare feet, could walk as 
 straight as a rush. Poverty is not ungraceful itself. It's 
 tryin' to be what isn't natural spoils people entirely." 
 
 " I think I hear voices without. Listen ! " cried tho 
 youth. 
 
 " It's only the river — it's risin' every minute." 
 
 " No, that was a shout. I heard it distinctly. Ay, tho 
 boatmen hear it now ! " 
 
 " It is a travelling- carriage. I see the lamps," cried one 
 of the men, as he stood at the door and looked landward. 
 " They may as well keep the road — there's no crossing 
 the Magra to-night ! "
 
 THE FLOOD IN THE MAGRA. 367 
 
 By this time the postilions' whips commenced that 
 chorus of cracking by which they are accustomed to 
 announce all arrivals of importance. 
 
 " Tell them to go back, Beppo," said the chief of the 
 raftsmen to one of his party. '' If we might try to cross 
 with the mail-bags in a boat, there's not one of us would 
 attempt the passage on the raft." 
 
 To judge from the increased noise and uproar, the 
 travellers' impatience had now reached its highest point ; 
 but to this a slight lull succeeded, probably occasioned by 
 the parley with the boatman. 
 
 " They'll give us five Napoleons for the job," said Beppo, 
 entering, and addressing his chief. 
 
 " Per Dio, that won't support our families if we leave 
 them fatherless," muttered the other. " Who and what 
 ai'e they that can't wait till morning ? " 
 
 " Who knows? " said Beppo, with a genuine shrug of 
 native indifference. " Princes, belike ! " 
 
 " Princes or beggars, we all have lives to save ! " mum- 
 bled out an old man, as he reseated himself by the fire. 
 Meanwhile the courier had entered the hut, and was in 
 earnest negotiation with the chief, who, however, showed 
 no disposition to run the hazard of the attempt. 
 
 " Are you all cowards alike ? " said the courier, in all 
 the insolence of his privileged order ; " or is it a young 
 fellow of your stamp that shrinks from the risk of a wet 
 jacket ? " 
 
 This speech was addressed to the youth, whom he had 
 mistaken for one of the raftsmen. 
 
 " Keep your coarse speeches for those who will bear 
 them, my good fellow," said the other, boldly, " or may- 
 hap the first wet jacket here will be one with gold lace 
 on the collar." 
 
 " He's not one of us ; he's a traveller," quickly inter- 
 posed the chief, who saw that an angry scene was brew- 
 ing. " He's only waiting to cross the river," muttered 
 he in a whisper, " when some one comes rich enough to 
 hire the raft." 
 
 " Sacrebleu! Then he shan't come with us! that I'll 
 promise him," said the courier, whose offended dignity 
 roused all his ire. " Now, once for all, my men, will you 
 earn a dozen Napoleons or not ? Here they are for you
 
 968 the Fortunes of gLEncore. 
 
 if you land us safely at the other side ; and never were 
 you so well paid in your lives for an hour's labour." 
 
 The sight of the gold, as it glistened temptingly in his 
 outstretched hand, appealed to their heai'ts far more 
 eloquently than all his words, and they gathered in a 
 group together to hold counsel. 
 
 " And you — are you also a distinguished stranger ? " 
 said the courier, addressing Billy, who sat warming his 
 hands by the embers of the fire. 
 
 " Look you, my man," cried the 3-outh, " all the gold 
 in your master's leathern bag there can give you no claim 
 to insult those who have offered you no offence. It is 
 enough that you know that we do not belong to the raft 
 to suffer us to escape your notice.'' 
 
 " Sacrisii ! ' " exclaimed the courier, in a tone of inso- 
 lent mockery, " I have travelled the road long enough to 
 learn that one does not need an introduction before ad- 
 dressing a vagabond." 
 
 " Vagabond ! " cried the youth, furiously ; and he sprang 
 at the other with the bound of a tiger. The courier 
 quickly parried the blow aimed at him, and, closely 
 grappled, they both now reeled out of the hut in terrible 
 conflict. With that terror of the knife that figures in all 
 Italian quarrels, the boatmen did not dare to interfere, 
 but looked on, as, wrestling with all their might, the com- 
 batants struggled, each endeavouring to push the other 
 towards the stream. Billy, too, resti-ained by force, could 
 not come to the rescue, and could only by words, screamed 
 out in all the wildness of his agony, encourage his com- 
 panion. " Drop on your knee — catch him by the legs — 
 throw him back — back into the stream. That's it — that's 
 it ! Good luck to ye ! " shouted he, madly, as he fought like 
 a lion with those about him. Slipping in the slimy soil, they 
 had both now come to their knees ; and after a struggle 
 of some minutes' duration, rolled, clasped in each other's 
 fierce embrace, down the slope, into the river. A plash, 
 and a cry half smothered, were heard, and all was over. 
 
 While some threw themselves on the frantic creature, 
 whose agony now overtopped his reason, and who fought 
 to get free with the furious rage of despair, others, seiz- 
 ing lanterns and torches, hurried along the bank of 
 the torrent to try and rescue the combatants. A sudden
 
 THE FLOOD IN THE MAGRA. 3G9 
 
 winding of the river at the place gave little hope to the 
 search, and it was all but certain that the current must 
 already have swept them down far beyond any chance of 
 succour. Assisted by the servants of the traveller, who 
 speedily were apprised of the disaster, the search was con- 
 tinued for hours, and morning at length began to break 
 over the dreary scene without one ray of hope. By the 
 grey cold dawn, the yellow flood could be seen for a con- 
 siderable distance, and the banks, too, over which a gauzy 
 mist was hanging ; but not a living thing was there ! The 
 wild torrent swept along his murky course with a deep 
 monotonous roar. Trunks of trees and leafy branches 
 rose and sank in the wavy flood, but nothing suggested 
 the vaguest hope that either had escaped. The traveller's 
 carriage returned to Spezzia, and Billy, now bereft of 
 reason, was conveyed to the same place, fast tied with 
 cords, to restrain him from a violence that threatened his 
 own life and that of any near him. 
 
 In the evening of that day a peasant's car arrived at 
 Spezzia, conveying the almost lifeless courier, who had 
 been found on the river's bank, near the mouth of the 
 Magra. How he had reached the spot, or what had 
 become of his antagonist, he knew not. Indeed, the fever 
 which soon set in placed him beyond the limit of all 
 questioning, and his incoherent cries and ravings only 
 betrayed the terrible agonies his mind must have passed 
 through. 
 
 If this tragic incident, heightened by the actual presence 
 of two of the actors — one all but dead, the other dying — 
 engaged the entire interest and sympathy of the little 
 town, the authorities were actively employed in investi- 
 gating the event, and ascertaining, so far as they could, to 
 which side the chief blame inclined. 
 
 The raftsmen had all been arrested, and were examined 
 carefully, one by one; and now it only remained to obtain 
 from the traveller himself whatever information he could 
 contribute to throw light on the affair. 
 
 His passport, showing that he was an English peer, 
 obtained for him all the deference and respect foreign 
 officials are accustomed to render to that title, and the 
 Prefect announced that if it suited his convenience, he would 
 wait on his lordship at his hotel to receive his deposition. 
 
 B B
 
 370 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " I have nothing to depose — no information to give," 
 was the dry and not over-courteous response ; but as the 
 visit, it was intimated, was indispensable, he named his 
 hour to admit him. 
 
 The bland and polite tone of the Prefect was met by a 
 manner of cold but well-bred ease, which seemed to imply 
 that the traveller only regarded the incident in the light 
 of an unpleasant interruption to his journey, but in which 
 he took no other interest. Even the hints thrown out 
 that he ought to consider himself aggrieved and his 
 dignity insulted, produced no effect upon him. 
 
 " It was my intention to have halted a few days at 
 Massa, and I could have obtained another courier in the 
 interval," was the cool commentary he bestowed on the 
 incident. 
 
 " But your lordship would surely desire investigation. 
 A man is missing ; a great crime may have been com- 
 mitted " 
 
 " Excuse my interrupting ; but as I am not, nor can be 
 supposed to be, the criminal — nor do I feel myself the 
 victim — while I have not a claim to the character of 
 witness, you would only harass me with interroga- 
 tories I could not answei', and excite me to take in- 
 terest, or at least bestow attention, on what cannot 
 concern me." 
 
 " Yet there are circumstances in this case which give it 
 the character of a preconcerted plan," said the Prefect, 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " Perhaps so," said the other, in a tone of utter indif- 
 ference. 
 
 " Certainly, the companion of the man who is missing, 
 and of whom no clue can be discovered, is reported to 
 have uttered your name repeatedly in his ravings." 
 
 " My name — how so ? " cried the stranger, hurriedly. 
 
 "Yes, my lord, the name of your passport — Lord 
 Glencore. Two of those I have placed to watch beside 
 his bed have repeated the same story, and told how he has 
 never ceased to mutter the name to himself in his wan- 
 derings." 
 
 " Is this a mere fancy ? " said the stranger, over whose 
 sickly features a flush now mantled. " Can I see him ? " 
 
 " Of course. He is in the hospital, and too ill to be
 
 THE FLOOD IN THE MAGRA. 571 
 
 removed ; but if you will visit him there I will accompany 
 
 you." 
 
 It was only when a call was made upon Lord Glencore 
 for some bodily exertion, that his extreme debility became 
 apparent. Seated at ease in a chair, his manner seemed 
 merely that of natural coolness and apathy ; he spoke as 
 one who would not suffer his nature to be ruffled by any 
 avoidable annoyance ; but now, as he arose from his seat, 
 and endeavoured to walk, one side betrayed unmistakable 
 signs of palsy, and his general frame exhibited the last 
 stage of weakness. 
 
 " You see, sir, that the exertion costs its price," said he, 
 with a sad, sickly smile. " I am the wreck of what once 
 was a man noted for his strength." 
 
 The other muttered some words of comfort and com- 
 passion, and they descended the stairs together. 
 
 " I do not know this man," said Lord Glencore, as he 
 gazed on the flushed and fevered face of the sick man, 
 whose ill-trimmed and shaggy beard gave additional wild- 
 ness to his look ; " I have never, to my knowledge, seen 
 him before." 
 
 The accents of the speaker appeared to have suddenly 
 struck some chord in the sufferer's intelligence, for he 
 struggled for an instant, and then raising himself on his 
 elbow, stared fixedly at him. " Not know me ? " cried he, 
 in English ; " 'tis because sorrow and sickness has changed 
 me then." 
 
 " Who are you ? Tell me your name ? " said Glencore, 
 eagerty. 
 
 " I'm Billy Traynor, my lord, the ono you remember, 
 the doctor " 
 
 " And my boy ! " screamed Glencore, wildly. 
 
 The sick man threw up both his arms in the air, and 
 fell backward with a cry of despair ; while Glencore, 
 tottering for an instant, sank with a low groan, and fell 
 senseless on the ground. 
 
 -=22=®^ 
 
 B B 2
 
 372 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER. 
 
 Long before Lord Glencore had begun to rally from an 
 attack which had revived all the symptoms of his former 
 illness, Billy TYaynor had perfectly recovered, aud was 
 assiduously occupied in attending him. Almost the first 
 tidings which Glencore could comprehend assured him 
 that the boy was safe, and living at Massa under the pro- 
 tection of the Chevalier Stubber, and waiting eagerly for 
 Billy to join him. A brief extract from one of the youth's 
 letters to his warm-hearted follower will suffice to show 
 how he himself regarded the incident which befell, and 
 the fortune that lay before him. 
 
 ****** 
 " It was a long swim, of a dark night, too, Master 
 Billy ; and whenever the arm of a tree would jostle me, 
 as it floated past, I felt as though that ' blessed ' courier 
 was again upon me, and turned to give fight at once. If 
 it were not that the river took a sudden bend as it nears 
 the sea, I must infallibly have been carried out ; but I 
 found myself quite suddenly in slack water, and very 
 soon after it shallowed so much that I could walk ashore. 
 The thought of what became of my adversary weighed 
 more heavily on me when I touched land ; indeed, while 
 my own chances of escape were few, I took his fate easily 
 enough. With all its dangers, it was a glorious time, as 
 hurrying downward in the torrent, through the dark night, 
 the thunder growling overhead, the breakers battering 
 away on the bar, I was the only living thing there to 
 confront that peril ! What an emblem of my own fate 
 in everything — a headlong course — an unknown ending — 
 darkness — utter and dayless darkness — around me, and 
 not one siugle soul to say, ' Courage ! ' There is some- 
 thing splendidly exciting in the notion of having felt 
 thoughts that others have never felt — of having set foot-
 
 A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER. D73 
 
 Steps in that untracked sand where no traveller lias ever 
 ventured. This impression never left me as I buffeted 
 the murky waves, and struck out boldly through the surfy 
 stream. Nay, more, it will never leave me while I live. 
 I have now proved myself to my own heart ! I have been, 
 and for a considerable time, too, face to face with death. 
 I have regarded my fate as certain, and yet have I not 
 quailed in spirit, or flinched in coolness. No, Billy ; I 
 reviewed every step of my strange and wayward life. I 
 bethought me of my childhood, with all its ambitious 
 longings, and my boyish days as sorrow first broke upon 
 me, and I felt that there was a fitness in this darksome 
 and mysterious ending to a life that touched on no other 
 existence. For am I not as much alone in the great world 
 as when I swam there in the yellow flood of the Magra ? 
 
 " As the booming breakers of the sea met my ear, and 
 I saw that I was nearing the wide ocean, I felt as might 
 a soldier when charging an enemy's battery at speed. I 
 was wildly mad with impatience to get forward, and 
 shouted till my voice rang out above the din around me. 
 How the mad cheer echoed in my own heart! It was the 
 trumpet-call of victory. 
 
 "Was it reaction from all this excitement — the depres- 
 sion that follows past danger — that made me feel low and 
 miserable afterwards ? I know I walked along towards 
 Lavenza in listlessness, and when a gendarme stopped to 
 question me, and asked for my passport, I had not even 
 energy to tell him how I came there. Even the intense 
 desire to see that spot once more — to walk that garden 
 and sit upon that terrace — all had left me: it was as 
 though the waves had drowned the spirit and left the 
 limbs to move unguided. He led me beside the walls 
 of the villa, by the little wicket itself, and still I felt no 
 touch of feeling, no memory came back on me ; I was 
 indifferent to all ! and yet you know how many a weary 
 mile I have come just to see them once more ; to revisit a 
 spot where the only day-dream of my life lingered, and 
 where I gave way to the promptings of a hope that have 
 not often warmed this sad heart. 
 
 " What a sluggish swamp has this nature of mine be- 
 come, when it needs a hurricane of passion to stir it ! Here 
 I am, living, breathing, walking, and sleeping; but without
 
 374 THE FORTUNES OE GLENCORS. 
 
 one sentiment that attaches me to existence ; and yet do 
 I feel as though whatever endangered life, orjeopardied 
 fame, would call me up to an effort and make me of some 
 value to myself. 
 
 " I went yesterday to see my old studio : sorry things 
 were those strivings of mine — false endeavours to realize 
 conceptions that must have some other interpreter than 
 marble. Forms are but weak appeals — words are coarse 
 ones ; music alone, my dear friend, is the true voice of the 
 heart's meanings. 
 
 " How a little melody that a peasant girl was singing 
 last night touched me. It was one that she used to warble, 
 humming as we walked, like some stray waif thrown up 
 by memory on the waste of life. 
 
 " So then, at last, I feel I am not a sculptor ; still as 
 little, with all your teaching, am I a scholar. The world 
 of active life offers to me none of its seductions ; I only 
 recognize what there is in it of vulgar contention and low 
 rivalry. I cannot be any of the hundred things by which 
 men eke out subsistence, and yet I long for the indepen- 
 dence of being the arbiter of my own daily life. What is 
 to become of me ? — say, dearest, best of friends — say but 
 the word, and let me try to obey you. What of our 
 old plans of ' savagery ' ? The fascinations of civilized 
 habits have made no stronger hold upon me since we 
 relinquished that grand idea ! Neither you nor I assuredly 
 have any places assigned us at the feast of this old-world 
 life — none have bidden us to it, nor have we even the 
 fitting garments to grace it ! 
 
 " There are moments, however — one of them is on me 
 while I write — wherein I should like to storm that strong 
 citadel of social exclusion, and test its strength. Who are 
 they who garrison it ? Are they better, and wiser, and 
 purer than their fellows ? Are they lifted by the accidents 
 of fortune above the casualties and infirmities of nature? 
 and are they more gentle-minded, more kindly-hearted, 
 and more forgiving than others ? This I should wish to 
 know and learn for myself. Would they admit us, for 
 the nonce, to see and judge them ? let the Bastard and 
 the Beggar sit down at their board, and make brother- 
 hood with them ? I trow not, Billy. They would hand 
 us over to the police !
 
 A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER. 375 
 
 "And my friend the courier was not so far astray when 
 he called us vagabonds ! 
 
 " If I were free, I should, of course, be with you ; but 
 I am under a kind of mild bondage here, of which I don't 
 clearly comprehend the meaning. The chief minister has 
 taken me, in some fashion, under his protection, and I am 
 given to understand that no ill is intended me, and, indeed, 
 so far as treatment and moderate liberty are concerned, I 
 have every reason to be satisfied. Still is there something 
 deeply wounding in all this mysterious ' consideration.' 
 It whispers to me of an interest in me on the part of those 
 who are ashamed to avow it — of kind feelings held in 
 check by self-esteem. Good Heavens ! what have / done, 
 that this humiliation should be my portion ? There is no 
 need of any subtlety to teach me what I am, and what the 
 world insists I must remain. There is no ambition I dare 
 to strive for, no affection my heart may cherish, no honour- 
 able contest I may engage in, but that the utterance of one 
 fatal word may not bar the gate against my entrance, and 
 send me back in shame and confusion. Had I of myself 
 incurred this penalty, there would be in me that stubborn 
 sense of resistance that occurs to every one who counts 
 the gain and loss of all his actions ; but I have not done 
 so ! In the work of my own degradation I am blameless ! 
 
 " I have just been told that a certain Princess de Sablou- 
 koff is to arrive here this evening, and that I am to wait 
 
 upon her immediately. Good Heavens ! can she be ? 
 
 The thought has just struck me, and my head is already 
 wandering at the bare notion of it ! How I pray that this 
 may not be so ; my own shame is enough and more than 
 
 I can bear; but to witness that of ! Can you tell 
 
 me nothing of this ? But even if you can, the tidings will 
 come too late — I shall have already seen her. 
 
 " I am unable to write more now ; my brain is burning, 
 and my hand trembles, so that I cannot trace the letters. 
 Adieu till this evening. 
 
 "Midnight. 
 
 " I was all in error, dear friend. I have seen her; for 
 the last two hours we have conversed together, and my 
 suspicion had no foundation. She evidently knows all 
 my history, and almost gives me to believe that one day
 
 376 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 oi' other I may stand free of this terrible shame that 
 oppresses me. If this were possible, what vengeance 
 would be enough to wreak on those who have thus 
 practised on me ? Can you imagine any Vendetta that 
 would pay off the heart-corroding misery that has made 
 my youth like a sorrowful old age, dried up hope within 
 me, made my ambition to be a snare, and my love a mere 
 mockery ? I could spend a life in the search alter this 
 revenge, and think it all too short to exhaust it! 
 
 " I have much to tell you of this Princess, but I doubt 
 if I can remember it. Her manner meant so much and 
 yet so little — there was such elegance of expression with 
 such perfect ease — so much of the finest knowledge of life 
 united to a kind of hopeful trust in mankind, that I kept 
 eternally balancing in my mind whether her intelligence 
 or her kindliness had the supremacy. She spoke to me 
 much of the Harleys. Ida was well, and at Florence. 
 She had refused Wahnsdorf's offer of marriage, and 
 though ardently solicited to let time test her decision, 
 persisted in her rejection. 
 
 " Whether she knew of my affection or not, I cannot 
 say; but I opine not, for she talked of Ida as one whose 
 haughty nature would decline alliance with even an im- 
 perial house if they deemed it a condescension ; so that 
 the refusal of Wahnsdorf may have been on this ground. 
 But how can it matter to one? 
 
 " I am to remain here a week, I think they said. Sir 
 Horace Upton is coming on his way south, and wishes to 
 see me; but you will be with me ere that time, and then 
 we can plan our future together. As this web of intrigue, 
 for so I cannot but feel it, draws more closely around me, 
 1 grow more and more impatient to break bounds and be 
 away ! It is evident enough that my destiny is to be 
 the sport of some accident, lucky or unlucky, in the fate 
 of others. Shall I await this? 
 
 "And they have given me money, and fine clothes, and 
 a servant to wait upon me, and treated me like one of 
 condition. Is this but another act of the drama, the first 
 scene of which was an old ruined castle in Ireland ? 
 They will fail signally if they think so ; a heart can be 
 broken only once ! They may even feel sorry for what 
 they have done, but I can never forgive them for what
 
 A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER. o77 
 
 they have made me! Come to me, dear, kind friend, as 
 soon as you can ; you little know how far your presence 
 reconciles me to the world and to yourself !— Ever yours, 
 
 "C. M." 
 
 This letter Billy Traynor read over and over as he sat 
 by Glencore's bedside. It was his companion in the long, 
 dreary hours of the night, and he pondered over it as he 
 sat in the darkened room at noonday. 
 
 "What is that you are crumpling up there ? From 
 whom is the letter ? " said Lord Glencore, as Billy hur- 
 riedly endeavoured to conceal the oft-perused epistle. 
 "Nay," cried he, suddenly correcting himself, "you need 
 not tell me ; 1 asked without forethought." He paused a 
 few seconds, and then went on : "1 am now as much 
 recovered as I ever hope to be, and you may leave me to- 
 morrow. I know that both your wish and your duty call 
 you elsewhere. Whatever future fortune may betide any 
 of us, you at least have been a true and faithful friend, 
 and shall never want ! As I count upon your honesty to 
 keep a pledge, I reckon on your delicacy not asking the 
 reasons for it. You will, therefore, not speak of having 
 been with me here. To mention me would be but to 
 bring up bitter memories." 
 
 In the pause which now ensued, Billy Traynor's feelings 
 underwent a sore trial ; for while he bethought him that 
 now or never had come the moment to reconcile the father 
 and the son, thus mysteriously separated, his fears also 
 whispered the clanger of any ill-advised step on his part, 
 and the injury he might by possibility inflict on one he 
 loved best on earth. 
 
 " You make me this pledge, therefore, before we part," 
 said Lord Glencore, who continued to ruminate on what 
 he had spoken. " It is less for my sake than that of 
 another." Billy took the hand Glencore tendered towards 
 him respectfully in his own, and kissed it twice. 
 
 " There are men who have no need of oaths to ratify 
 their faith and trustfulness. You are one of them, Tray- 
 nor," said Glencore, affectionately. 
 
 Billy tried to speak, but his heart was too full, and ho 
 could not utter a word.
 
 S78 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " A dying man's words have ever their solemn weight," 
 said Glencore, " and mine beseech you not to desert one 
 who has no prize in life equal to your friendship. Promise 
 me nothing, but do not forget my prayer to you." And 
 with this Lord Glencore turned away, and buried his face 
 between his hands. 
 
 " And in the name of Heaven," muttered Billy to him- 
 self, as he stole away, " what is it that keeps them apart, 
 and won't let them love one another ? Sure it wasn't in 
 nature that a boy of his years could ever do what would 
 separate them this way. What could he possibly say 
 or do that his father mightn't forget and forgive by 
 this time ? And then if it wasn't the child's fault at 
 all, where's the justice in makin' him pay for another's 
 crime ? Sure enough, great people must be unlike 
 poor craytures like me, in their hearts and feelin's as 
 well as in their grandeur ; and there must be things 
 that ice never mind nor think of, that are thought to be 
 mortial injuries by them. Ay, and that is raysonable too ! 
 We see the same in the matayrial world. There's fevers 
 that some never takes ; and there's climates some can live 
 in, and no others can bear ! 
 
 " I suppose, now," said he, with a wise shake of the 
 head, " pride — pride is at the root of it all, some way or 
 other ; and if it is, I may give up the investigation at 
 onst, for divil a one o' me knows what pride is ; barrin' 
 it's the delight one feels in consthruin' a hard bit in a 
 Greek chorus, or hittin' the manin' of a doubtful passage 
 in ould iEschylus. But what's the good o' me puzzlin' 
 myself? If I was to speculate for fifty years, I'd never 
 be able to think like a lord, after all ! " And with this 
 conclusion ho began to prepare for his journey.
 
 879 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 EOT? A SOVEREIGN Tl'.EiTS WITH HrS JIINISTEE. 
 
 " What can have brought them here, Stubber ? " said the 
 Duke of Massa, as he walked to and fro in his dressing- 
 room, with an air of considerable perturbation. " Be 
 assured of one thing, they have come for mischief! I 
 know that Sabloukoff well. She it was separated Prince 
 Max from my sister, and that Montenegro affair was all 
 her doing also." 
 
 " I don't suspect " 
 
 " Don't you ? Well, then, I do, sir ; and that's enough,'* 
 said he, interrupting ; " and as to Upton — he's well known 
 throughout Europe — a'mauvais coucheur,' Stubber: that's 
 what the Emperor Franz called him — a' mauvais coucheur,' 
 one of those fellows England employs to get up the em- 
 barrassments she so deeply deplores. Eh, Stubber, that's 
 the phrase ? ' while we deeply deplore the condition of the 
 kingdom'— that's always the exordium to sending out a 
 fleet or an impertinent despatch. But I'll not endure it 
 here. I have my sovereign rights, my independence, my 
 allies. By the way, haven't my allies taken possession of 
 the Opera House for a barrack ? " 
 
 " That they have, sir ; and they threaten an encampment 
 in the Court gardens." 
 
 " An open insult — an outrage ! And have you endured 
 and submitted to this ? " 
 
 " I have refused the permission ; but they may very 
 possibly take no heed of my protest." 
 
 " And you'll tell me that I am the ruler of this State ? " 
 
 " No, but I'll say you might, if you liked to be so." 
 
 " How so, Stubber ? Come, my worthy fellow, what's 
 your plan ? — you have a plan, I'm certain — but I guess 
 it: turn Protestant, hunt out the Jesuits, close the 
 churches, demolish the monasteries, and send for an 
 English frigate clown to the Marina, where there's not 
 
 -, o
 
 380 TIIE FORTUNES OF GLEXCOHE. 
 
 water to float, a fishing-boat. But no, sir, I'll have no 
 such alliances; I'll throw myself upon the loyalty and 
 attachment of my people, and — I'll raise the taxes. Eh, 
 Stubber ? We'll tax the ' colza ' and the quarries ! If they 
 demur, we'll abdicate; that's my last word— abdicate." 
 
 " I wonder who this sick man can be that accompanies 
 Upton," said -Stubber, who never suffered himself to be 
 moved by his master's violence. 
 
 "Another firebrand — another emissary of English dis- 
 turbance. Hardenberg was perfectly right when he said 
 the English nation pays off the meanest subserviency to 
 their own aristocracy, by hunting down all that is noble 
 in every state of Europe. There, sir, he hit the mark in 
 the very centime. Slaves at home, rebels abroad — that's 
 your code ! " 
 
 " We contrive to mix up a fair share of liberty with our 
 bondage, sir." 
 
 " In your talk — only in your talk ; and in the news- 
 papers, Stubber. I have studied you closely and atten- 
 tively. You submit to more social indignities than any 
 nation, ancient or modern. I was in London in '15, and 
 I remember, at a racecourse — Ascot, they called it — the 
 Prince had a certain horse called Rufus." 
 
 " I rode him," said Stubber, dryly. 
 
 " You, rode him?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. I was his jock for the King's Plate. There 
 was a matter of twenty-eight started — the largest field 
 ever known for the Cup — and Rufus reared, and, falling 
 back, killed his rider ; and the Duke of Dunrobin sent for 
 me, and told me to mount. That's the way I came to be 
 there." 
 
 " Per Bacco ! it was a splendid race, and I'm sure I 
 never suspected when I cheered you coming in, that I was 
 welcoming my future "minister. Eh, Stubber, only fancy 
 what a change ! " 
 
 Stubber only shrugged his shoulders, as though the 
 alteration in fortune was no such great prize after all. 
 
 " I won two thousand guineas on that day, Stubber. 
 Lord Heddleworth paid me in gold, I remember ; for they 
 picked my pocket of three rouleaux on the course. The 
 Prince laughed so at dinner about it, and said it was pure 
 patriotism not to suffer exportation of bullion. A great
 
 HOW A SOVEREIGN TREATS WJTII HIS MINISTER. 381 
 
 people the English, that I must say ! The display of 
 ■wealth was the grandest spectacle I ever heheld ; and such 
 beauty, too ! By the way, Stubber, our ballet here is de- 
 testable. Where did they gather together that gang of 
 horrors ? " 
 
 " What signifies it, sir, if the Austrian Jiigers are 
 bivouacked in the theatre ? " 
 
 " Very true, by Jove ! " said the Duke, pondering. 
 " Can't we hit upon something — have you no happy 
 suggestion ? I have it, Stubber — an admirable thought. 
 We'll have Upton to dinner. We'll make it appear that 
 he has come here specially to treat with us. There is a 
 great coldness just now between St. James's and Vienna. 
 Upton will be charmed with the thought of an intrigue ; 
 so will be La Sabloukoff. We'll not invite the Field- 
 Marshal Rosenkrantz : that will itself offend Austria. Eh, 
 Stubber, isn't it good? Say to-morrow at six, and go 
 yourself with the invitation." 
 
 And, overjoyed with the notion of his own subtlety, the 
 Prince walked up and down, laughing heartily, and rub- 
 bing his hands in glee. 
 
 Stubber, however, was too well versed in the change- 
 ability of his master's nature to exhibit any rash prompti- 
 tude in obeying him. 
 
 " You must manage to let the English papers speak of 
 this, Stubber. The Augsburg Gazette will be sure to copy 
 the paragraph, and what a sensation it will create at 
 Vienna ! " 
 
 " I am inclined to think Upton has come here about 
 that young fellow we gave up to the Austrians last 
 autumn, and for whom he desires to claim some compen- 
 sation and an ample apology." 
 
 " Apology, of course, Stubber — humiliation to any ex- 
 tent. I'll send the Minister Landelli into exile— to the 
 galleys if they insist, but I'll not pay a scudo— my royal 
 word on it ! But who says that such is the reason of his 
 pi'esence here ? " 
 
 " I had a hint of it last night, and I received a polite 
 note from Upton this morning, asking when he might 
 have a few moments' conversation with me." 
 
 " Go to him, Stubber, with our invitation. Ask him if 
 ho likes shooting. Say I am going to Serravezza on
 
 382 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 Saturday ; sound him if he desires to have the Red Cross 
 of Massa ; hint that I am an ardent admirer of his public 
 career ; and be sure to tell me something he has said or 
 done, if he come to dinner." 
 
 " There is to be a dinner, then, sir?" asked Stubber, 
 with the air of one partly struggling with a conviction. 
 
 "I have said so, Chevalier!" replied the Prince, 
 haughtily, and in the tone of a man whose decisions were 
 irrevocable. " I mean to dine in the state apartments, 
 and to have a reception in the evening, just to show 
 Rosenkrantz how cheaply we hold him. Eh, Stubber? 
 It will half kill him to come with the general company ! " 
 
 Stubber gave a faint sigh, as though fresh complica- 
 tions and more troubles would be the sole results of this 
 brilliant tacticque. 
 
 " If I were well served and faithfully obeyed, there is 
 not a sovereign in Europe who would boast a more inde- 
 pendent position — protected by my bold people, environed 
 by my native Apennines, and sustained by the proud 
 consciousness — the proud consciousness — that I cannot 
 injure a State which has not sixpence in the treasury ! 
 Eh, Stubber ? " cried he, with a burst of merry laughter. 
 " That's the grand feature of composure and dignity, to 
 know you can't be worse ! and this, we Italian princes 
 can all indulge in. Look at the Pope himself, he is col- 
 lecting the imposts a year in advance !" 
 
 " I hope that this country is more equitably adminis- 
 tered," said Stubber. 
 
 " So do I, sir. Were I not impressed with the full 
 conviction that the subjects of this realm were in the 
 very fullest enjoyment of every liberty consistent with 
 public tranquillity, protected in the maintenance of every 
 
 privilege By the way, talking of privileges, they 
 
 mustn't play ' Trottolo' on the high roads; they sent one 
 of those cursed wheels flying between the legs of my 
 horse yesterday, so that if I hadn't been an old cavalry 
 soldier, I must have been thrown ! I ordered the whole 
 village to be fined three hundred scudi, one half of which 
 to be sent to the shrine of our Lady of Loretta, who 
 really, I believe, kept me in my saddle ! " 
 
 " If the people had sufficient occupation they'd not 
 play ' Trottolo,' " said Stubber, sternly.
 
 HOW A SOVEREIGN TREATS WITH HIS MINISTER. 383 
 
 11 Arid whose the fault if they have not, sir? How 
 many months have I been entreating to have those ter- 
 raced gardens finished towards the sea ? I want that 
 olive wood, too, all stubbed up, and the ground laid out 
 in handsome parterres. How repeatedly have I asked 
 for a bridge over that ornamental lake ? and as to the 
 island, there's not a magnolia planted in it yet. Public 
 works, indeed ; find me the money, Stubber, and I'll sug- 
 gest the works ! Then, there's that villa, the residence 
 of those English people, have we not made a purchase 
 of it?" 
 
 " No, your Highness ; we could not agree about the 
 terms, and I have just heard that the stranger who is 
 travelling with Upton is going to buy it." 
 
 " Stepping in between me and an object I have in 
 view ! And in my own Duchy, too ! And you have the 
 hardihood to tell me that you knew of and permitted this 
 negotiation to go on? " 
 
 " There is nothing in the law to prevent it, sir ? " 
 
 " The law ! What impertinence to tell me of the law ! 
 Why, sir, it is I am the law — I am the head and fountain 
 of all law here — without my sanction, what can presume 
 to be legal ? " 
 
 " I opine that the net which admits foreigners to pos- 
 sess property in the State was passed in the life of your 
 Highness's father." 
 
 " I'll repeal it, then ! It saps the nationality of a 
 people ; it is a blow aimed at the very heart of indepen- 
 dent sovereignty. I may stand alone in all Europe on 
 this point, but I will maintain it. And as to this stranger, 
 let his passport be sent to him on the spot." 
 
 " He may possibly be an Englishman, your Highness ; 
 and remember that we have already a troublesome affair 
 on our hands with that other youth, who in some way 
 claims Upton's protection. Had we not better go moro 
 cautiously to work ? I can see and speak with him." 
 
 " What a tyranny is this English interference? There 
 is not a land, from Sweden to Sicily, where, on some 
 assumed ground of humanity, your Government have not- 
 dared to impose their opinions ! You presume to assert 
 that all men must feel precisely like your dogged and 
 hard-headed countrymen, and that what are deemed
 
 3S4 THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCOItE. 
 
 grievances in your land should be thought so elsewhere. 
 You write up a code for the whole world, built out of the 
 materials of all your national prejudices, your insular 
 conceit — ay, and out of the very exigencies of your bad 
 climate ; and then you say to us, blessed in the enjoy- 
 ment of light hearts and God's sunshine, that we must 
 think and feel as you do! I am not astonished that my 
 nobles are discontented with the share you possess of my 
 confidence ; they must long have seen how little suited 
 the maxims of your national policy are to the habits of a 
 happier population ! " 
 
 " The people are far better than their nobles — that I'm 
 sure of," said Stubber, stoutly. 
 
 " You want to preach socialism to me, and hope to con- 
 vert me to that splendid doctrine of communism we hear 
 so much of. You are a dangeixms fellow — a very danger- 
 ous fellow. It was precisely men of your stamp sapped 
 the monarchy in France, and with it all monarchy in 
 Europe." 
 
 " If your Highness intends Proserpine to run at 
 Bologna, she ought to be put in training at once," said 
 Stubber, gravely; " and we might send up some of the 
 weeds at the same time, and sell them off." 
 
 " Well thought of, Stubber ; and there was something 
 else in my head — what was it?" 
 
 " The suppression of the San Lorenzo convent, per- 
 haps ; it is all completed, and only waits your High- 
 ness to sign the deed." 
 
 " What sum does it give us, Stubber, eh?" 
 
 " About one hundred and eighty thousand scucli, sir, of 
 which some twenty thousand go to the National Mortgage 
 Fund." 
 
 " Not one crown of it — not a single bajocco, as I am a 
 Christian knight and a true gentleman. I need it all, if 
 it were twice as much. If we incur the anger of the 
 Pope, and the Sacred College — if we risk the thunders 
 of the Vatican — let us have the worldly consolation of a 
 full purse." 
 
 " I advised the measure on wiser grouuds, sir. It was 
 not fair and just that a set of lazy friars should be leading 
 lives of indolence and abundance in the midst of a hard- 
 worked and ill-fed peasantry."
 
 HOW A SOVEREIGN TREATS WITH HIS MINISTER. 385 
 
 " Quite true ; aud on these wise grounds, as you call 
 them, we have rooted them out. We only wish that the 
 game were more plenty, for the sport amuses us vastly." 
 And he clapped Stubber familiarly on the shoulder, and 
 laughed heartily at his jest. 
 
 It was in this happy frame of mind that Stubber always 
 liked to leave his master ; and so, promising to attend to 
 the different subjects discussed between them, he bowed 
 and withdrew. 
 
 C
 
 886 THE FOBTUNES OF GLENCOBE. 
 
 CHAPTER XL1X. 
 
 SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES. 
 
 " What an insufferable bore, dear Princess ! " sighed Sir 
 Horace, as he opened the square-shaped envelope that 
 contained his Royal Highness's invitation to dinner. 
 
 " I mean to be sei'iously indisposed," said Marlame do 
 Sabloukoff ; " one gets nothing but chagrin in intercourse 
 with petty Courts." 
 
 " Like provincial journals, they only reproduce what 
 has appeared in the metropolitan papers, and give you old 
 gossip for fresh intelligence." 
 
 " Or, worse again, ask you to take an interest in their 
 miserable 'localisms'- — the microscopic contentions of 
 insect life." 
 
 " They have given us a sentry at the dooi*, I perceive," 
 said Sir Horace, with assumed indifference. 
 
 "A very proper attention !" remarked the lady, in a 
 tone that more than half implied the compliment was one 
 intended for herself. 
 
 " Have you seen the Chevalier Stubber yet ? " asked 
 Upton. 
 
 " No ; he has been twice here, but I was dressing or 
 writing notes. And you ? " 
 
 " I told him to come about two o'clock," sighed Sir 
 Horace. " I rather like Stubber." 
 
 This was said in a tone of such condescension, that 
 it sounded as though the utterer was confessing to 
 an amicable weakness in his nature — " I rather liko 
 Stubber." 
 
 Though there was something meant to invite agreement 
 in the tone, the Princess only accepted the speech with a 
 slight motion of her eyebrows, and a look of half un- 
 willing assent. 
 
 "I know he's not of your world, dear Princess, but he 
 belongs to that Anglo-Saxon stock we are so prone to
 
 SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES. 887 
 
 associate with all the ideas of rugged, unadorned 
 virtue." 
 
 " Rugged and unadorned, indeed ! "echoed the lady. 
 
 "And yet never vulgar," rejoined Upton — "never 
 affecting to be other than he is ; and, stranger still, not 
 self-opinionated and conceited." 
 
 " I own to you," said she, haughtily, "that the whole 
 Court here puts me in mind of Hayti, with its Marquis of 
 Orgeat and its Count Marmalade. These people, elevated 
 from menial station to a mock nohility, only serve to 
 throw ridicule upon themselves, and the order that they 
 counterfeit. No socialist in Europe has done such 
 service to the cause of democracy as the Prince of 
 Massa!" 
 
 " Honesty is such a very rare quality in this world, that 
 I am not surprised at his Highness prizing it under any 
 garb. Now, Stubber is honest." 
 
 " He says so himself, I am told." 
 
 " Yes, he says so, and I believe him. He has been 
 employed in situations of considerable trust, and always 
 acquitted himself well. Such a man cannot have escaped 
 temptations, and yet even his enemies do not accuse him 
 of venality. 
 
 " Good Heavens ! what more would he have than his 
 legitimate spoils F He is a Minister of the Household, 
 with an ample salary — a Master of the Horse — an In- 
 spector of Woods and Forests — a something over Church 
 lands, and a Red Cross of Massa besides. 1 am quite 
 ' made up ' in his dignities, for they are all set forth on 
 his visiting-card, with what purports to be a coat of arms 
 at top." And, as she spoke, she held out the card in 
 derision. 
 
 " That's silly, I must say," said Upton, smiling ; " and 
 yet, I suppose, that here in Massa it was requisite he 
 should assert all his pretensions thus openly." 
 
 " Perhaps so," said she, dryly. 
 
 " And, alter all," said Upton, who seemed rather bent on 
 a system of mild tormenting — " after all, there is some- 
 thing amiable in the weakness of this display — it smacks 
 of gratitudo ! It is like saying to the world, ' See what 
 the munificence of my master has made me ! ' 
 
 " What a delicate compliment, too, to his nobles, which 
 
 c c 2
 
 388 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 proclaims that, for a station of trust and probity, the 
 Prince must recruit from the kitchen and the stables. To 
 iny thinking, there is no such impertinent delusion as that 
 popular one which asserts that we must seek for every- 
 thing in its least likely place— take ministers out of 
 counting-houses, and military commanders from shop- 
 boards. For the treatment of weighty questions in peace 
 or war, the gentleman element is the first essential." 
 
 " Just as long as the world thinks so, dear Princess, not 
 an hour lono-er." 
 
 O 
 
 The Princess arose, and walked the room in evident 
 displeasure. She half suspected that his objections were 
 only devices to irritate, and she determined not to prolong 
 the discussion. The temptation to reply proved, however, 
 too strong for her resolution, and she said, — 
 
 " The world has thought so for some centuries ; and 
 when a passing shade of doubt has shaken the conviction, 
 have not the people rushed from revolution into actual 
 bondage, as though any despotism were better than the 
 tyranny of their own passions ? " 
 
 " I opine," said Upton, calmly, "that the 'prestige' of 
 the gentleman consists in his belonging to an ' order.' 
 Now, that is a privilege that cannot be enjoyed by a mere 
 popular leader. It is like the contrast between a club and 
 a public meeting." 
 
 "It is something that you confess these people have 
 no ' prestige,'" said she, triumphantly. "Indeed, their 
 presence in the world of politics, to my thinking, is a 
 mere symbol of change — an evidence that we are in some 
 stage of transition." 
 
 "So we are, madame; there is nothing more true. 
 Every people of Europe have outgrown their governments, 
 like young heirs risen to manhood, ordering household 
 affairs to their will. The popular voice now swells above 
 the whisper of cabinets. So long as each country limits 
 itself to home questions, this spirit will attract but slight 
 notice. Let the issue, however, become a great inter- 
 national one, and you will see the popular will declaring 
 wars, cementing alliances, and signing peaces in a fashion 
 to make statecraft tremble ! " 
 
 "And you approve of this change, and welcome it?" 
 asked she, derisively.
 
 SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES. 3S9 
 
 " I have never said so, madame. I foresee the hurri- 
 cane, that's all. Men like Stubber are to be seen almost 
 everywhere throughout Europe. They are a kind of 
 declaration that, for the government and guidance of 
 mankind, the possession of a good head and an honest 
 heart is amply sufficient ; that rulers neither need four- 
 teen quarteiings nor names coeval with the iiomar. 
 empire. 
 
 " You have given me hut another reason to detest him," 
 said the Princess, angrily. " I don't think I shall receive 
 him to-day." 
 
 " Bat you want to speak with him about that villa ; there 
 is some formality to be gone through before a foreigner 
 can own property here. I think you promised Glencore 
 you would arrange the matter.'' 
 
 She made no reply, and he continued : " Poor fellow ! a 
 very short lease would suffice for his time ; he is sinking 
 rapidly. The conflict his mind wages between hope and 
 doubt has hastened all the symptoms of his malady." 
 
 " In such a struggle a woman has more courage than a 
 man." 
 
 " Say more boldness, Princess," said Upton, slyly. 
 
 " I repeat courage, sir. it is fear, and nothing but fear, 
 that agitates him. He is afraid of the world's sneer ; 
 afraid of what society will think, and say, and write about 
 him ; afraid of the petty gossip of the millions he will 
 never see or hear of. This cowardice it is that checks him 
 in every aspiration to vindicate his wile's honour and his 
 boy's birth." 
 
 "Si cela se pent,'''' said Upton, with a very equivocal 
 smile. 
 
 A look of haughty anger, with a flush of crimson on 
 her cheek, was the only answer she made him. 
 
 " I mean that he is really not in a position to prove or 
 disprove anything. He assumed certain 'levities' — I 
 suppose the word will do — to mean more than levities ; 
 he construed indiscretions into grave faults, and faults into 
 crimes. Put that he did all this without sufficient, reason, 
 or that he now has abundant evidence that he was mis- 
 taken, I am unable to say, nor is it with broken faculties 
 and a wandering intellect that he can be expected to review 
 the past and deliver judgment on it."
 
 890 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 " The whole moral of which is — what a luckles3 fate is 
 that of a foreign wife united to an English husband ! " 
 
 " There is much force in the remark," said Upton, 
 calmly. 
 
 " To have her thoughts, and words, and actions sub- 
 mitted to the standard of a nation whose moral subtleties 
 she cou'd never comprehend ; to be taught that a certain 
 amount of gloom must be mixed up with life, just as 
 bitters are taken for tonics; that ennui is the sure type of 
 virtue, and low spirits the healthiest condition of the mind 
 — these are her first lessons : no wonder if she find them 
 hard ones. 
 
 " To be told that all the harmless familiarities she has 
 seen from her childhood are dangerous freedoms, all the 
 innocent gaieties of the world about her are snares and 
 pitfalls, is to make existence little better than a penal 
 servitude — this is lesson the second. While, to complete 
 her education, she is instructed how to assume a censorial 
 rigidity of manner that would shame a duenna, and a con- 
 demnatory tone that assumes to arraign all the criminals 
 of society, and pass sentence on them. How amiable she 
 may become in disposition, and how suitable as a com- 
 panion by this training, you, sir, and your countrymen, are 
 best able to pronounce." 
 
 " You rather exaggerate our demerits, my dear Prin- 
 cess," said Upton, smiling. " We really do not like to be 
 so very odious as you would make us." 
 
 " You are excellent people, with whom no one can live, 
 that's the whole of it," said she, with a saucy laugh. " If 
 your friend, Lord Glencore, had been satisfied to stay at 
 home, and marry one of his own nation, he might have 
 escaped a deal of unhappiness, and saved a most amiable 
 creature much more sorrow than ialls to the lot of the 
 least fortunate of her own country. I conclude you have 
 some influence over him Y " 
 
 ' As much, perhaps, as any one; but even that says 
 little.'? 
 
 "Can you not use it, therefore, to make him repair a 
 great wrong Y " 
 
 " You had some plan, I think ? " said he, hesitatingly. 
 
 " Yes ; I have written to her to come down here. I 
 have pretended that her presence is necessary to certain
 
 BOCIAL DIPLOMACIES. 391 
 
 formalities about tlie sale of the villa. I mean that they 
 should meet without apprising either of them. I have 
 sent the boy out of the way to Pontremoli, to make me a 
 copy of some frescoes there ; till the success of my scheme 
 be decided, I did not wish to make him a party to it." 
 
 " You don't know Glencore, at least as 1 know him." 
 
 " There is no reason that I should," broke she in. 
 " What I would try is an experiment, every detail of which 
 I would leave to chance. Were this a case where all the 
 wrong were on one side, and all the forgiveness to come 
 from the other, friendly aid and interposition might well 
 be needed ; but here is a complication which neither you, 
 nor I, nor any one else can pretend to unravel. Let them 
 meet, therefore, and let Fate— if that be the name for it 
 ■ — decide what all the prevention and planning in the 
 world could never provide for." 
 
 "The very fact that their meeting has been plotted 
 beforehand will suggest distrust." 
 
 " Their manner in meeting will be the best answer to 
 that," said she, resolutely. " There will be no acting 
 between them, depend upon't." 
 
 " He told me that he had destroyed the registry of their 
 marriage, nor does he know where a single witness of the 
 ceremony could be found." 
 
 " I don't want to know how he could mnke the amende 
 till I know that he is ready to do it," said she, in the 
 same calm tone. 
 
 "To have arranged a meeting with the boy had, 
 perhaps, been better than this. Glencore has not avowed 
 it, but I think I can detect misgivings for his treatment 
 of the youth." 
 
 " This was my first thought, and I spoke to young 
 Massy the evening before Lord Glencore arrived. I led 
 him to tell me of his boyish days in Ireland and his home 
 there ; a stern resolution to master all emotion seemed to 
 pervade whatever he said ; and, though, perhaps, the 
 effort may have cost him much, his manner did not betray 
 it. He told me that he was illegitimate, that the secret 
 was divulged to him by his own father, that he had never 
 heard who his mother was, nor what rank in life she 
 occupied. When 1 said that she was one in high station, 
 that she was alive and well, and one of my own dearest
 
 892 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 friends, a sudden crimson covered his face, as quickly 
 followed by a sickly pallor ; and though he trembled in 
 every limb, he never spoke a word. I endeavoured to 
 excite in him some desire to learu more of her if not to 
 see her, but in vain. The hard lesson he had taught him- 
 self enabled him to repress every semblance of feeling. It 
 was only when at last driven to the very limits of my 
 patience, I abruptly asked him, ' Have you no wish to see 
 your mother ? ' that his coldness gave way, and, in a voice 
 tremulous and thick, he said, 'My shame is enough for 
 myself.' I was burning to say more, to put before him a 
 contingency, the mere shadow of a possibility that his 
 claim to birth and station might one day or other be 
 vindicated. I did not actually do so, but I must have let 
 drop some chance word that betrayed my meaning, for he 
 caught me up quickly, and said, ' It would come too late, 
 if it came even to-day. I am that which I am by many a 
 hard struggle — you'll never see me risk a disappointment 
 in life by any encouragement I may give to hope.' 
 
 "I then adverted to his father, but he checked me at 
 once, saying, ' When the ties that should be closest in life 
 are stained with shame and dishonour, they are bonds of 
 slavery, not of affection. My debt to Lord Glencore is the 
 degradation I live in — none other. His heritage to me is 
 the undying conflict in my heart between what I once 
 thought I was, and what I now know I am. If we met, 
 it would be to tell him so.' In a word, every feature of the 
 father's proud unforgivingness is reproduced in the boy, 
 and I dreaded the very possibility of their meeting. _ If ever 
 Lord Glencore avow his marriage and vindicate his wife's 
 honour, his hardest task will be reconciliation with this 
 
 "All, and more than all, the evils I anticipated have 
 followed this insane vengeance," said Upton. "I begin 
 to think that one ought to leave a golden bridge even to 
 our revenge, Princess." 
 
 " Assuredly, wherever a woman is the victim," said 
 she, smiling, " for you are so certain to have reasons for 
 distrusting yourself." 
 
 Upton sat meditating for some time on the plan of the 
 Princess; had it only originated with himself, it was 
 exactly the kind of project he would have liked. He knew
 
 SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES. 393 
 
 enough of life to be aware that one can do very little more 
 than launch events upon the great ocean of destiny ; that 
 the pretension to guide and direct them is oftener a snare 
 than anything else ; that the contingencies and accidents, 
 the complications too, which beset every move in life, 
 disconcert all one's pre-arrangements, so that it is rare 
 indeed when we are able to pursue the same path towards 
 any object by which we have set out. 
 
 As the scheme was, however, that of another, he now 
 scrutinized it, and weighed every objection to its accom- 
 plishment, constantly returning to the same difficulty, as 
 he said, — 
 
 " You do not know Glencore." 
 
 " The man who has hut one passion, one impulse in life, 
 is rarely a difficult study," was the measured reply. 
 " Lord Glencore's vengeance has worn itself out, exactly 
 as all similar outbreaks of temper do, for want of opposition. 
 There was nothing to feed, nothing to minister to it. He 
 sees — I have taken care that he should see — that his bolt 
 has not struck the mark ; that her position is not the pre- 
 carious thing he meant to make it, bat a station as much 
 protected and fenced round by its own conventionalities as 
 that of any, the proudest lady in society. For one that 
 dares to impugn her, there are full fifty ready to condemn 
 him ; and all this has been done without reprisal or recrim- 
 ination ; no partisanship to arraign his moroseness and 
 his cruelty — none of that 'coterie' defence which divides 
 society into two sections. This, of course, has wounded 
 his pride, but it has not stimulated his anger ; but, above 
 all, it has imparted to her the advantage of a dignity of 
 which his vengeance was intended to deprive her." 
 
 " You must be a sanguine and a hopeful spirit, Princess, 
 if you deem that such elements will unite happily here- 
 after," said Upton, smiling. 
 
 " I really never carried my speculations so far," replied 
 she. " It is in actual life as in that of the stage, quite 
 sufficient to accompany the actors to the fall of the 
 curtain." 
 
 "The Chevalier Stubber, madame," said a servant, 
 entering, " wishes to know if you will receive him ? " 
 
 " Yes — no — yes. Tell him to come in," said she rapidly, 
 as she resumed her seat beside the fire.
 
 o94 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 ANTE-DINNER REFLECTIONS. 
 
 Notwithstanding the strongly expressed sentiments of the 
 Princess with regard to the Chevalier Stubber, she received 
 him with marked favour, and gave him her band to kiss 
 with evident cordiality. As for Upton, it was the triumph 
 of his manner to deal with men separated widely from 
 himself in station and abilities. He could throw such an 
 air of good fellowship into the smallest attentions, impart 
 such a glow of kindliness to the veriest commonplaces, 
 that the very craftiest and shrewdest could never detect. 
 As he leaned his arm, therefore, on Stubber's shouldeT, 
 and smiled benignly on him, you would have said it was 
 the affectionate meeting with a long-absent brother. But 
 there was something besides this ; there was the expansive 
 confidence accorded to a trusty collefigue, and as he asked 
 him about the Duchy, its taxation, its debt, its alliances, 
 and difficulties, you might mark in the attention he be- 
 stowed all the signs of one receiving very valuable infor- 
 mation. 
 
 " You perceive, Princess," said he, at last, " Stubber 
 quite agrees with the Duke of Cloudeslie— these small 
 states enjoy no real independence." 
 
 " Then why are they not absorbed into the larger 
 nations about them ? " 
 
 " They have their uses ; they are like substances inter- 
 posed between conflicting bodies, which receive and dimin- 
 ish the shock of collisions. So that Prussia, when want- 
 ing to wound Austria, only pinches Baden ; and Austria, 
 desirous of insulting Saxony, 'takes it out' on Sigma- 
 ringen." 
 
 " Jt's a pleasant destiny you assign them," said she, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Stubber will tell you I'm not far wrong in my appre- 
 ciation." 
 
 " I'm not for what they call ' mediatizing ' them neither,
 
 ANTE-DINNER REFLECTIONS. 395 
 
 ray lady," said Stubber, who genei*ally used the designa- 
 tion to imply his highest degree of respect. " That may 
 all be very well for the interests of the great states and 
 the balance of power, and all that sort of thing ; but we 
 ought also to bestow a thought upon the people of these 
 small countries, especially on the inhabitants of their 
 cities. What's to become of them when you withdraw 
 their courts, and throw their little capitals into the posi- 
 tion of provincial towns and even villages? " 
 
 " They will eke out a livelihood somehow, my dear 
 Stubber. Be assured that they'll not starve. Masters of 
 the Horse may have to keep livery stables ; chamberlains 
 turn valets; ladies of the bedchamber descend to the arts 
 of millinery ; but, after all, the change will be but in 
 name, and there will not be a whit more slavery in the 
 new condition than in the old one." 
 
 " Well, I'm not so sure they'll take the same comfortable 
 view of it that you do, Sir Horace," said Stubber ; " nor 
 can I see who can possibly want livery stables, or smart 
 bonnets, or even a fine butler, when the resources of the 
 Court are withdrawn, and the city left to its own devices." 
 
 "Stubber suspects," said Upton, "that the policy which 
 prevails amongst our great landed proprietors against small 
 holdings is that which at present influences the larger 
 states of Europe against small kingdoms, and so far he is 
 right. It is unquestionably the notion of our day that the 
 influences of government require space for their exercise." 
 
 '•If the happiness of the people was to be thought of, 
 which of course it is not," said Stubber, " I'd say leave 
 them as they are." 
 
 " Ah, my dear Stubber, you are now drawing the ques- 
 tion into the realm of the imaginary. What do any of us 
 know about our happiness ?" 
 
 " Enough to eat and drink, a comfortable roof over you, 
 good clothes, nothing oppressive or unequal in the laws, 
 these go for a good way, in the kind of thing I mean ; 
 and let me observe, sir, it is a great privilege little states, 
 like little people, enjoy, that they need have no ambitions. 
 They don't want to conquer anybody ; they neither ask 
 for the mouth of a river here, or an island there, and if 
 only let alone they'll never disturb the peace of the world 
 at large."
 
 396 THE FORTUNES OF Gl ENCORE. 
 
 " My dear Stubber, you are quite a proficient at state- 
 craft," said Upton, with the very least superciliousness in 
 the accent. 
 
 " Well, I don't know, Sir Horace," said the other, 
 modestly, " but as my master's means are about the 
 double of what they were when I entered his service, and 
 as the people pay about one-sixth less in taxes than they 
 used to do, mayhap I might say that I have put the saddle 
 on the right part of the back." 
 
 " Your foreign policy does not seem quite as unobjec- 
 tionable as your home management. That was an ugly 
 business about that boy you gave up to the Austrians." 
 
 " Well, there were mistakes on all sides. You yourself, 
 Sir Horace, gave him a false passport ; his real name turns 
 out to be Massy ; it made an impression on me, from a 
 circumstance that happened when 1 was a young fellow, 
 living as pad-groom with Prince Tottskoy. I went over 
 on a lark one day to Capri, and was witness to a wedding 
 there of a young Englishman called Massy." 
 
 " Were you, then, present at the ceremony ? " 
 
 11 Yes, sir, and what's stranger still, I have a voucher 
 for it." 
 
 " A voucher for it. What do you mean ?" 
 
 " It was this way, sir. There was a great supper for 
 the country people and the servants, and 1 was there, and 
 I suppose I took too much of that Capri wine ; it was 
 new and hot at the time, and I got into a row of some 
 sort, and I beat the Deputato from some place or t'other, 
 and got locked up for three days, and the priest, a veiy 
 jolly fellow, gave me under his handwriting a voucher 
 that I had been a witness of the marriage, and all the fes- 
 tivities afterwards, just to show my master how everything 
 happened. But the Prince never asked me for any ex- 
 planations, and only said, he 'hoped I had amused myself 
 well ;' and so I kept my voucher to myself, and 1 have it 
 at this very hour." 
 
 " Will you let me see it, Stubber?" 
 
 "To be sure, sir, you shall have it, if I can lay my hand 
 on't in the course of the day." 
 
 " Let me beg you will go at once and search for it ; it 
 may be of more importance than you know of. Gro, my 
 dear Stubber, and look it up."
 
 ANTE-DINNER REFLECTIONS. 397 
 
 " I'll not lose a moment, since you wish to have it," said 
 Stubber ; "and I am sure your ladyship will excuse my 
 abrupt departure." 
 
 The Princess assured him that her own interest in the 
 document was not inferior to that of Sir Horace, and he 
 hastened olF to prosecute his search. 
 
 " Here, then, are all my plans altered at once," ex- 
 claimed she, as the door closed after him. " If this paper 
 mean only as much as he asserts, it will be ample proof 
 of marriage, and lead us to the knowledge of all those 
 who were present at it." 
 
 " Yet must we well reflect on the use we make of it," 
 said Upton. " Glencoi'e is now evidently balancing what 
 coui'se to take. As his chances of recovery grow less 
 each day, he seems to incline more and more to repair the 
 wrong he has done. Should we show on our side the 
 merest semblance of compulsion, I would not answer for 
 him." 
 
 " So that we have the power, as a last resource, I am 
 content to diplomatize," said the Princess ; " but you 
 must see him this evening, and press for a decision." 
 
 " He has already asked me to come to him after we 
 return from Court. It will be late, but it is the hour 
 at which he likes best to talk. If I see occasion for it, I 
 can allude to what Stubber has told us, but it will bo 
 only if driven by necessity to it." 
 
 " I would act more boldly and more promptly," said 
 she. 
 
 "And rouse an opposition, perhaps, that already is 
 becoming dormant. No, I know Glencoi'e well, and will 
 deal with him more patiently." 
 
 "Prom the Chevalier Stubber, your Excellency," said 
 a servant, presenting a sealed packet ; and Sir Horace 
 opened it at once. The envelope contained a small and 
 shnbby slip of paper, of which the writing appeared 
 faint and indistinct. It was dated 18 — , Church of St. 
 Lorenzo, Capri, and went to certify that Guglielmo 
 Stubber had been present, on the morning of the 18th 
 August, at the marriage of the Most Noble Siynor Massy 
 with the Princess de la Torre, having in quality as 
 witness signed the registry thereof; and then went on to 
 state the circumstance of his attendance at the supper,
 
 898 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 and the event which ensued. It bore the name of the 
 winter at foot, Basilio Nardoni, priest of the aforesaid 
 church and village. 
 
 " Little is Glencore aware that such an evidence as this 
 is in existence," said Upton. " The conviction that he 
 had his vengeance in his power led him into this insane 
 project. He fancied there was not a flaw in that terrible 
 indictment ; and see, here is enough to open the door to 
 truth, and undo every detail of all his plotting. How 
 strange is it, that the events of life should so often concur 
 to expose the dark schemes of men's hearts ; proofs start- 
 ing up in untkoueht-of places, as though to show how 
 vain was mere subtlety in conflict with the inevitable law 
 of Fate." 
 
 " This Basilio Navdoni is an acquaintance of mine," said 
 the Princess, bent on pui'suing another train of thought; 
 " he was chaplain to the Cardinal Caraffa, and frequently 
 brought me communications from his Eminence. He can 
 be found, if wanted." 
 
 " It is unlikely — most unlikely — that we shall require 
 him." 
 
 " If you mean that Lord Glencore will himself make 
 all the amends he can for a gross injury and a fraud, no 
 more is necessary," said she, folding the paper, and 
 placing it in her pocket-book ; " but if anything short 
 of this be intended, then there is no exposure too open, 
 no publicity too wide, to be given to the most cruel 
 wrong the world has ever heard of." 
 
 " Leave me to deal with Glencore. I think I am about 
 the only one who can treat with him." 
 
 "And now for this dinner at Court, for I have changed 
 my mind and mean to go," said the Princess. " It is full 
 time to dress, I believe." 
 
 " It is almost six o'clock," said Upton, starting up. 
 "We have quite forgotten ourselves."
 
 899 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 CONFLICTING THOUGHTS. 
 
 The Princess Sabloukoff found — not by any means an 
 unfrequent experience in life — that the dinner, whose 
 dulness she had dreaded, turned out a very pleasant 
 affair. The Prince was unusually gracious. He was in 
 good spirits, and put forth powers of agreeability which 
 had been successful in one of less distinction than him- 
 self. He possessed eminently, what a great orator once 
 panegyrized as a high conversational element, "great 
 variety," and could without abruptness pass from subject 
 to subject, with always what showed he had bestowed 
 thought upon the theme before him. Great people have 
 few more enviable privileges than that they choose their 
 own topics for conversation. Nothing disagreeable, 
 nothing wearisome, nothing inopportune, can be intruded 
 upon them. When they have no longer anything worth 
 saying, they can change the subject or the company. 
 
 His Highness talked with Madame de Sabloukoff on 
 questions of state as he might have talked with a Metter- 
 nich ; he even invited from her expressions of opinion 
 that were almost counsels, sentiments that might pass 
 for warnings. He ranged over the news of the day, 
 relating occasionally some little anecdote, every actor in 
 which was a celebrity ; or now and then communicating 
 some piece of valueless secrecy, told with all the mystery 
 of a " great fact ; " and then he discussed with Upton tho 
 condition of England, and deplored, as all Continental 
 rulers do, the impending downfall of that kingdom, from 
 the growing force of our restless and daring democracy. 
 He regretted much that Sir Horace was not still in office, 
 but consoled himself by reflecting that the pleasure he 
 enjoyed in his society had been in that case denied him. 
 In fact, what with insinuated flatteries, little signs of 
 confidence, and a most marked tone of cordiality, pur-
 
 400 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 posely meant to strike beholders, the Prince conducted 
 the conversation right royally, and played "Highness" 
 to perfection. 
 
 And these two crafty, keen-sighted people, did they not 
 smile at the performance, and did they not, as they drove 
 home at night, amuse themselves as they recounted the 
 little traits of the great man's dupery ? Not a bit of it. 
 They were charmed with his gracious manner, and 
 actually enchanted with his agreeability. Strong in 
 their self-esteem, they could not be brought to suspect that 
 any artifice could be practised on them, or that the mei*e 
 trickery and tinsel of high station could be imposed on 
 them as true value. Nay, they even went further, and 
 discovered that his Highness was really a very remark- 
 able man, and one who received far less than the estima- 
 tion due to him. His flightiness became versatility ; his 
 eccentricity was all originality ; and ere they reached the 
 hotel, they had endowed him with almost every moral and 
 mental quality that can dignify manhood. 
 
 " It is really a magnificent turquoise," said the Princess:, 
 gazing with admiration at a ring the Prince had taken 
 from his own finger to present to her. 
 
 " How absurd is that English jealousy about foreign 
 decorations! J was obliged to decline the Red Cross of 
 Massa which his Highness proposed to confer on me. 
 A monarchy that wants to emulate a republic is simply 
 ridiculous." 
 
 " You English are obliged to pay dear for your 
 hypocrisies ; and you ought, for you really love them." 
 And with this taunt the carriage stopped at the door 
 of the inn. 
 
 As Upton passed up the stairs, the waiter handed him 
 a note, which he hastily opened ; it was from Glencore, 
 and in these words : — 
 
 "Dear Uiton, — I can bear this suspense no longer; to 
 remain here canvassing with myself all the doubts that 
 beset me is a torture I cannot endure. J leave, therefore, 
 at once for Florence. Once there — where I mean to see 
 and hear for myself — I can decide what is to be the fate 
 of the few days or weeks that yet remain to — Yours, 
 
 11 Glencore,"
 
 CONFLICTING THOUGHTS. 401 
 
 "He is gone, then — his lordship has started? " 
 
 " Yes, your Excellency, he is by this time near Lucca, 
 for he gave orders to have horses ready at all the 
 stations." 
 
 " Read that, roadame," said Upton, as he once more 
 found himself alone with the Princess ; " you will see that 
 all your plans are disconcerted. He is off to Florence." 
 
 Madame de Sabloukoff read the note, and threw it 
 carelessly on the table. "He wants to forgive himself, 
 and only hesitates how to do so gracefully," said she, 
 sneerin gfy. 
 
 '•I think you are less than just to him," said Upton, 
 ruildlv ; " his is a noble nature, disfigured bv one grand 
 defect." J 
 
 " Your national character, like your language, is so full 
 of incongruities and contradictions, that 1 am not ashamed 
 to own myself unequal to master it ; but it strikes me 
 that both one and the other usurp freedoms that are not 
 permitted to others. At all events, I am rejoiced that he 
 has gone. It is the most wearisome thing in life to 
 negotiate with one too near you. Diplomacy of even the 
 humblest kind requires distance." 
 
 "You agree with the duellist, I perceive," said he, 
 laughing, " that twelve paces is a more fatal distance 
 than across a handkerchief — proximity begets tremor." 
 
 "You have guessed my meaning correctly," said she; 
 " meanwhile, I must write to her not to come here. Shall 
 I say that we will be in Florence in a day or two ? " 
 
 " I was just thinking of those Serravezza springs," said 
 Upton ; " they contain a bi-chloride of potash, which 
 Staub, in his treatise, says, ' is the element wanting in all 
 nervous organizations.' " 
 
 " But remember the season — we are in mid- winter —the 
 hotels are closed." 
 
 j " The springs are running, Princess ; ' the earth,' as 
 Moschus says, ' is a mother that never ceases to nourish.' 
 I do suspect I need a little nursing." 
 
 The Princess understood him thoroughly. She well 
 knew that whenever the affairs of Europe followed an 
 unbroken track, without anything eventful or interesting, 
 Sir Horace fell back upon his maladies for matter of 
 occupation. She had, however, now occasion for his 
 
 D D
 
 403 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 advice and counsel, and by no means concurred in his 
 plan of spending some days, if not weeks, in the dreary 
 mountain solitudes of Serravezza. "You must certainly 
 consult Zanetti before you venture on these waters," said 
 she; "they are highly dangerous if taken without the 
 greatest circumspection;" and she gave a catalogue of 
 imaoinary calamities which had befallen various illustri- 
 ous and gifted individuals, to which Upton listened with 
 profound attention. 
 
 "Very well," sighed he, as she fini bed. "It rrmst be 
 as you say. I'll see Zanetti, for I cannot afford to die 
 just yet. That ' Greek question ' will have no solution 
 without me — no one has the key of it but myself. That 
 Panslavic scheme, too, in the Principalities, attracts no 
 notice but mine; and as to Spain, the policy I have 
 devised for that country requires all the watchfulness I 
 can bestow on it. No, Princess" — here he gave a melan- 
 choly sigh — " we must not die at this moment. There 
 are just four men in Europe — I doubt if she could get on 
 with three." 
 
 " What proportion do you admit as to the other sex ? " 
 said she, laughing. 
 
 "I only know of one, madame ; " and he kissed her 
 hand with gallantry. "And now for Florence, if you 
 will." 
 
 It is by no means improbable that our readers have a 
 right to an apology at our hands for the habit we have 
 indulged of lingering along with the two individuals 
 whose sayings and doings are not directly essential to our 
 tale ; but is not the story of every-day life our guarantee 
 that incidents and people cross and re-cross the path we 
 are going, attracting our attention, engaging our sym- 
 pathy, enlisting our energies, even in our most anxious 
 periods ? Such is the world ; and we cannot venture out 
 of reality. Besides this, we are disposed to think that 
 the moral of a tale is often more effectively conveyed by 
 the characters than by the catastrophe of a story. The 
 strange discordant tones of the human heart, blending, 
 with melody the purest, sounds of passionate meaning, are 
 in themselves more powerful lessons than all the records 
 of rewarded virtue and all the calendars of punished 
 vice. The nature of a single man can be far more in-
 
 CONFLICTING THOUGHTS. 403 
 
 structive than the history of every accident that befalls 
 him. 
 
 It is, then, with regret that we leave the Princess and 
 Sir Horace to pursue their journey alone. We confess a 
 liking for their society, and would often as soon loiter in 
 the by-paths that they follow, as journey in the more recog- 
 nized high-road of our true story. Not having the con- 
 viction that our sympathy is shared by our readers, we 
 again return to the fortunes of Glencore. 
 
 When Lord Glencore's carriage underwent the usual 
 scrutiny exercised towards travellers at the gate of Flo- 
 rence, and prying officials poked their lanterns in every 
 quarter, in all the security of their " caste," two foot 
 travellers were rudely pushed aside to await the time till 
 the pretentious equipage passed on. They were foreign- 
 ers ; and their effects, which they carried in knapsacks, 
 required examination. 
 
 " We have come a long way on foot to-day," said the 
 younger, in a tone that indicated nothing of one asking a 
 favour. " Can't we have this search made at once ?" 
 
 " Whisht ! — whisht ! " whispered his companion, in 
 English ; " wait till the Prince moves on, and be polite 
 with them all." 
 
 " I am seeking for nothing in the shape of compliment," 
 said the other ; " there is no reason why, because I am on 
 foot, I must be detained for this man." 
 
 Again the other remonstrated, and suggested patience. 
 
 "What are you grumbling about, young fellow? " cried 
 one of the officers ; " do you fancy yourself of the same 
 consequence as Milordo ? And see, he must wait his time 
 here." 
 
 " We came a good way on foot to-day, sir," interposed 
 the elder, eagerly, taking the reply on himself, " and we're 
 tired and weary, and would be deeply obliged if you'd 
 examine us as soon as you could." 
 
 " Stand aside and wait your turn," was the stern re- 
 sponse. 
 
 " You almost deserve the fellow's insolence, Billy," said 
 the youth ; " a crown piece in his hand had been far more 
 intelligible than your appeal to his pity." And he threw 
 himself wearily down on a stone bench. 
 
 Aroused by the accent of his own language, Lord Glen* 
 
 D D 2
 
 404 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 core sat up in his carriage, and leaned out to catch sight 
 of the speaker, but the shadow of the overhanging roof 
 concealed bim from view. " Can't you suffer those two 
 poor fellows to move on ? " whispered his lordship, as he 
 placed a piece of money in the officer's hand ; " they look 
 tired and jaded." 
 
 " There, thank his Excellency for his kindness to you, 
 and go your way," muttered the officer to Billy, who, 
 without well understanding the words, drew nigh the 
 window ; but the glass was already drawn up, the pos- 
 tilions were once more in their saddles, and away dashed 
 the cumbrous carriage in all the noise and uproar that is 
 deemed the proper tribute to rank. 
 
 The youth heard that they were free to proceed with a 
 half-dogged indifierence, and throwing his knapsack on his 
 shoulders, moved away. 
 
 " I asked them if they knew one of her name in the 
 city, and they said 'No,' " said the elder. 
 
 "But they so easily mistake names — how did you call 
 her?" 
 
 "I said 'Harley— la Signora Harley,' " rejoined the 
 other ; " and they were positive she was not here. They 
 never heard of her." 
 
 " Well, we shall know soon," sighed the youth, heavily. 
 " Is not this an inn, Billy ? " 
 
 " Ay is it, but not one for our purpose — it's like a 
 palace. They told me of the ' Leone d'Oro ' as a quiet 
 place and cheap." 
 
 "I don't care where or what it be; one day and night 
 here will do all I want. And then for Genoa, Billy, and 
 the sea, and the world beyond the sea," said the youth, 
 with increasing animation. " Tou shall see what a 
 different fellow I'll be. when I throw behind me for ever 
 the traditions of this dreary life here." 
 
 " I know well the good stuff that's in ye," said the 
 other, affectionately. 
 
 " Ay, but you don't know that I have energy as well as 
 pride," said the other. 
 
 " There's nothing beyond your reach if you will only 
 strive to get it," said he again, iu the same voice. 
 
 "You're an arrant flatterer, old boy," cried the youth, 
 throwing his arm around him ; " but I would not have
 
 CONFLICTING THOUGHTS. 405 
 
 ■ 
 
 you otherwise for the world. There is a happiness even 
 in the self-deception of your praise that I could not deny 
 myself." 
 
 Thus chatting, they arrived at the humble door of the 
 "Leone d'Oro," where they installed themselves for the 
 night. It was a house frequented by couriers and vctturini, 
 and at the common table for this company they now took 
 their places for supper. The Carnival was just drawing 
 to its close, and all the gaieties of that merry season were 
 going forward. Nothing was talked of but the brilliant 
 festivities of the city, the splendid balls of the Court, 
 and the magnificent receptions in the houses of the 
 nobility. 
 
 " The Palazzo della Torre takes the lead of all," said 
 one. "There were upwards of three thousand masks 
 there this evening, I'm told, and the gardens were just as 
 full as the salons." 
 
 " She is rich enough to afford it well," ci"ied another. 
 " I counted twenty servants in white and gold liveries on 
 the stairs alone." 
 
 " Were you there, then ? " asked the youth, whom we 
 may at once call by his name of Massy. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; a mask and a domino, such as you see 
 yonder, are passports everywhere for the next twenty-four 
 hours ; and though I'm only a courier, I have been chat- 
 ting with duchesses, and exchanging smart sayings with 
 countesses in almost every great house in Florence this 
 evening. The Pergola Theatre, too, is open, and all the 
 boxes crowded with visitors." 
 
 "You are a stranger, as I detect by your accent," said 
 another, " and you ought to have a look at a scene such 
 as you'll never witness in your own land." 
 
 " What would come of such freedoms with us, Billy ? " 
 whispered Massy; " would our great lords tolerate, even 
 for a few hours, the association with honest fellows of this 
 stamp ? " 
 
 " There would be danger in the attempt, anyhow," said 
 Billy. 
 
 " What calumnies would be circulated — what slanderous 
 tales would be sent abroad under cover of this secrecy. 
 How many a eoward-stab would be given in the shadow 
 of that immunity. For one who would use the privilege
 
 406 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE s 
 
 for mere amusement, how many would turn it to account 
 for private vengeance." 
 
 " Are you quite certain such accidents do not occur 
 here?" 
 
 " That society tolerates the custom is the best answer 
 to this. There may be, for aught we know, many a cruel 
 vengeance executed under favour of this secrecy. Many 
 may cover their faces to unmask their hearts, but, after 
 all, they continue to observe a habit which centuries back 
 their forefathers followed; and the inference fairly is, that 
 it is not baneful. For my own part, I am glad to have 
 an opportunity of witnessing these Saturnalia, and to- 
 morrow I'll buy a mask and a domino, Billy, and so shall 
 you too. Why should we not have a day's fooling like the 
 rest ? " 
 
 Billy shook his head and laughed, and they soon after- 
 wards parted for the night. 
 
 While young Massy slept soundly, not a dream disturb- 
 ing the calmness of his rest, Lord Glencore passed the 
 night in a state of feverish excitement. Led on by some 
 strange, mysterious influence, which he could as little 
 account for as resist, he had come back to the city where 
 the fatal incident of his life had occurred. With what 
 purpose he could not tell. It was not, indeed, that he 
 had no object in view. It was rather that he had so many 
 and conflicting ones, that they marred and destroyed each 
 other. No longer under the guidance of calm reason, his 
 head wandered from the past to the present and the future, 
 disturbed by passion and excited by injured self-love. 
 At one moment, sentiments of sorrow and shame would 
 take the ascendant; and at the next, a vindictive desire 
 to follow out his vengeance and witness the ruin that he 
 had accomplished. The unbroken, unrelieved pressure of 
 one thought, for years and years of time, had at last un- 
 dermined his reasoning powei's, and every attempt at calm 
 judgment or reflection was sure to be attended with some 
 violent paroxysm of iri'epressible rage. 
 
 There are men in whom the combative element is so 
 strong that it usurps all their guidance, and when once 
 they are enlisted in a contest, they cannot desist till the 
 struggle be decided for or against them. Sucli was 
 Glencore. To discover that the terrible injury he had
 
 CONFLICTING THOUGHTS. 407 
 
 inflicted on his wife had not crushed her nor driven her 
 with shame from the world, aroused once more all the 
 vindictive passions of his nature. It was a defiance he 
 could not withstand. Guilty or innocent, it mattered not ; 
 she had braved him — at least so he was told — and as such 
 he had come to see her with his own eyes. If this was 
 the thought which predominated in his mind, others there 
 were that had their passing power over him — moments of 
 tenderness, moments in which the long past came back 
 again, full of softening memories ; and then he would 
 burst into tears and cry bitterly. 
 
 If he ventured to project any plan for reconciliation 
 with her he had so cruelly wronged, he as suddenly 
 bethought him that her spirit was not less high and 
 haughty than his own. She had, so far as he could learn, 
 never quailed before his vengeance ; how, then, might he 
 suppose would she act in the presence of his avowed 
 injustice? Was it not, besides, too late to repair the 
 wrong ? Even for his boy's sake, would it not be better 
 if he inherited sufficient means to support an honourable 
 life, unknown and unnoticed, than bequeath to him a 
 name so associated with shame and sorrow ? 
 
 "Who can tell," he would cry aloud, " what my harsh 
 treatment may not have made him ? what resentment 
 may have taken root in his young heart ? what distrust 
 may have eaten into his nature ? If I could but see him 
 and talk with him as a stranger, — if I could be able to 
 judge him apart from the influences that my own feelings 
 would create, — even then, what would it avail me ? I 
 have so sullied and tarnished a proud name, that he could 
 never bear it without reproach. ' Who is this Lord 
 Glencore ? ' people would say. ' What is the strange 
 story of his birth ? lias any one yet got at the truth ? 
 Was the father the cruel tyrant, or the mother the worth- 
 less creature we hear tell of? Is he even legitimate, and 
 if so, why does he walk apart from his equals, and live 
 without recognition by his order?' This is the noble 
 heritage I am to leave him — this the proud position to 
 which he is to succeed. And yet Upton says that the 
 boy's rights are inalienable ; that, think how I may, do 
 what I will, the day on which I die he is the rightful 
 Lord Glencore. His claim may lie dormant, the proofs
 
 408 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 may be buried, but that, in truth and fact, he will be, 
 -what all my subterfuge and all my falsehood cannot deny 
 him. And then, if the day should come that he asserts 
 his right — if, by some of those wonderful accidents that 
 reveal the mysteries of the world, he should succeed to 
 prove his claim, what a memory will he cherish of one I 
 Will not every sorrow of his youth, every indignity of his 
 manhood, be associated with my name P Will he or can 
 he ever forgive him who defamed the mother and de- 
 spoiled the son ? " 
 
 In the terrible conflict of such thoughts as these he 
 passed the night; intervals of violent grief or passion 
 alone breaking the sad connection of such reflections, till 
 at length the worn-out faculties, incapable of further 
 exercise, wandered away into incoherency, and he raved 
 in all the wildness of insanity. 
 
 It was thus that Upton found him on his arrival.
 
 409 
 
 CHAPTER LTI. 
 
 hajou scaresby's tisit. 
 
 Down -the crowded thoroughfare of the Bor^o d'Ognisanti 
 the tide of Carnival mummers poured unceasingly. 
 Hideous masks and gay dominoes, ludicrous impersona- 
 tions and absurd satires on costume abounded, and the 
 entire population seemed to have given themselves up to 
 merriment, and were fooling it to the top o' their bent. 
 Bands of music and chorus-singers from the theatre filled 
 the air with their loud strains, and carriages crowded with 
 fantastic figures moved past, pelting the bystanders with 
 mock sweetmeats, and covering them with showers of 
 flour. It was a season of universal license, and, short of 
 actual outrage, all was permitted for the time. Nor did 
 the enjoyment of the scene seem to be confined to the 
 poorer classes of the people, who thus for the nonce as- 
 sumed equality with their richer neighbours ; but all, even 
 to the very highest, mixed in the wild excitement of the 
 pageant, and took the rough treatment they met with in 
 perfect good-humour. Dukes and princes, white from 
 head to foot with the snowy shower, went laughingly 
 along, and grave dignitaries were fain to walk arm-in-arm 
 with the most ludicrous monstrosities, whose gestures 
 turned on them the laughter of all around. Occasionally 
 • — but, it must be owned, rarely — some philosopher of a 
 sterner school might be seen passing hurriedly along, his 
 severe features and contemptuous glances owning to little 
 sympathy with the mummery about him ; but even he had 
 to compromise his proud disdain, and escape, as best he 
 might, from the indiscriminate justice of the crowd. To 
 detect one of this stamp, to follow, and turn upon him the 
 full tide of popular fury, seemed to be the greatest triumph 
 of the scene. When such a victim presented himself, all 
 joined in the pursuit: nuns embraced, devils environed 
 him, angels perched on his shoulders, mock wild boars
 
 410 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 rushed between his legs ; his hat was decorated with 
 feathers, his clothes inundated with showers of meal or 
 flour; hackney-coachmen, dressed as ladies, fainted in his 
 arms, and semi-naked bacchanals pressed drink to his lips. 
 In a word, each contributed what he might of attention 
 to the luckless individual, whose resistance — if he were 
 so impolitic as to make any — only increased the zest of 
 the persecution. 
 
 An instance of this kind had now attracted general 
 attention, nor was the amusement diminished by the dis- 
 covery that he was a foreigner, and an Englishman. Im- 
 pertinent allusions to his nation, absurd attempts at his 
 language, ludicrous travesties of what were supposed to 
 be his native customs, were showered on him, in company 
 with a hailstorm of mock bonbons and lime-pellets ; till, 
 covered with powder, and outraged beyond all endurance, 
 he fought his way into the entrance of the Hotel d'ltalie, 
 followed by the cries and laughter of the populace. 
 
 "Cursed tomfoolery! Confounded asses!" cried he, 
 as he found himself in a harbour of refuge. " What the 
 devil fun can they discover in making each other dirtier 
 than their daily habits bespeak them r" I say," cried ho, 
 addressing a waiter, " is Sir Horace Upton staj'ing here ? 
 Well, will you say Major Scaresby — be correct in the name 
 — Major Scaresby requests to pay his respects." 
 
 " His Excellency will see you, sir," said the man, re- 
 turning quickly with the reply. 
 
 From the end of a room, so darkened by closed shutters 
 and curtains as to make all approach difficult, a weak 
 voice called out, "Ah, Scaresby, how d'ye do? I was 
 just thinking to myself that I couldn't be in Florence, 
 since I had not seen you ! " 
 
 " You are too good, too kind, Sir Horace, to say so," 
 said the other, with a voice whose tones by no means 
 corresponded with the words. 
 
 " Yes, Scaresby, everything in this good city is in a 
 manner associated with your name. Its intrigues, its 
 quarrels, its loves and jealousies, its mysteries, in fine, 
 have had no such interpreter as yourself within the 
 memory of man ! What a pity there were no Scaresbys 
 in the Cinque Cento! How sad there were none of your 
 family here in the Medician period ! what a picture might
 
 MAJOR SCARESBY's VISIT. 411 
 
 we then have had of a society fuller even than the present 
 of moral delinquencies." There was a degree of pom- 
 posity in the manner he uttered this that served to conceal 
 in a great measure its sai'casm. 
 
 "lam much flattered to learn that I have ever en- 
 lightened your Excellency on any subject," said the Major, 
 dryly. 
 
 " That you have, Scaresby. I was a mere dabbler in 
 moral toxicology when I heard your first lecture, and, I 
 assure you, I was struck by your knowledge. And how is 
 the dear city doing? " 
 
 " It is masquerading to-day," said Scaresby, "and, con- 
 sequently, far more natural than at any other period of 
 the whole year. Smeared faces and dirty finery — exactly 
 its suitable wear ! " 
 
 " Who are here, Major ? Any one that one knows ? " 
 
 " Old Millington is here." 
 
 " The Marquis ? " 
 
 " Yes, he's here, fresh painted and lacquered ; his eyes 
 twinkling with a mock lustre that makes him look like an 
 old po'-chaise with a pair of new lamps ! " 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha! " laughed Sir Horace, encouragingly. 
 
 " And then — there's Mabworth." 
 
 " Sir Paul Mabworth ? " 
 
 " Ay, the same old bore as ever ! He has got off one of 
 Burke's speeches on the India Bill by heart, and says that 
 he spoke it on the question of the grant for Maynooth. 
 Oh, if poor Burke could only look up ! " 
 
 " Look down ! you ought to say, Scai'esby ; depend 
 upon't he's not on the Opposition benches still ! " 
 
 " I hate the fellow," said Scaresby, whose ill-temper 
 was always augmented by any attempted smartness of 
 those he conversed with. " He has taken Walmsley's 
 cook away from him, and never gives any one a dinner." 
 
 " That is shameful — a pei'fect dog in the manger! " 
 
 " Worse ; he's a dog without any manger ! For he 
 keeps his house on board-wages, and there's literally 
 nothing to eat! That poor thing, Strejowsky." 
 
 'Oh, Olga Strejowsky, do you mean? What of 
 her?" 
 
 " Why — there's another husband just turned up. They 
 thought he was killed in the Caucasus, but he was only
 
 41"2 THE FORTUNES 01<' GLENCORE. 
 
 passing a few years in Sibeiua ; and so he has come back, 
 and claims all the emeralds. You remember, of course, 
 that famous necklace, and the great drops ! They belonged 
 once to the Empress Catherine, but Mabworth says that 
 he took the concern with all its dependencies ; he'll give 
 up his bai-gain, but make no compromise." 
 
 " She's growing old, I fancy." 
 
 " She's younger than the Sabloukoff by five good years, 
 and they tell me she plays Beauty to this hour." 
 
 Ah, Scaresby, had you known what words were these 
 you have just uttered, or had you only seen the face of 
 him who heard them, you had rather bitten your tongue 
 off than suffered it to fashion them ! 
 
 " Brignolles danced with her, at that celebrated fSte 
 given by the Prince of Orleans something like eight-and- 
 thirty years ago." 
 
 " And how is the dear Duke ? " asked Upton, sharply. 
 
 "Just as you saw him at the Court of Louis XVII I. ; 
 he swaggers a little more as he gets more feeble about the 
 legs, and he shows his teeth when he laughs, more de- 
 cidedly since his last journey to Paris. Devilish clever 
 fellows these modern dentists are ! He wants to marry ; 
 1 suppose you've heard it." 
 
 " Not a word of it. Who is the happy fair ? " 
 
 " The Nina, as they call her now. She was one of the 
 Delia Torres, who married, or didn't marry, Glencore. 
 Don't you remember him ? He was Colonel of the 
 Eleventh, and a devil of a martinet he was." 
 
 "I remember him," said Upton, dryly. 
 
 " Well, he ran off with one of those girls, and some say 
 they were married at Capri ; as if it signified what hap- 
 pened at Capri ! She was a deuced good-looking girl at 
 the time — a coquette, you know — and Glencore was one 
 of those stiff English fellows, that think every man is 
 making up to his wife ; he drank besides." 
 
 " No, pardon me, there you are mistaken. I knew him 
 intimately ; Glencore was as temperate as myself." 
 
 " I have it from Lowther, who used to take him home 
 at night ; he said Glencore never went to bed sober! At 
 all events, she hated him, and detested his miserly 
 habits." 
 
 •' Another mistake, my dear Major. Glencore was never
 
 MAJOR scaresby's VISIT. 413 
 
 what is called a rich man, but he was always a generous 
 one ! 
 
 " I suppose you'll not deny that he used to thrash, her ? 
 Ay, and with a horsewhip too ! " 
 
 " Come, come, Scaresby, this is really too coarse for 
 mere jesting." 
 
 " Jest ? By Jove ! it was very bitter earnest. She told 
 Brignolles all about it. I'm not sure she didn't show him 
 the marks." 
 
 " Take my word for it, Scaresby," said Upton, dropping 
 his voice to a low but measured tone, " this is a base 
 calumny, and the Duke of Brignolles no more circulated 
 such a story than I did. He is a man of honour, and 
 utterly incapable of it." 
 
 " I can only repeat that I believe it to be perfectly 
 true ! " said Scaresby, calmly. " Nobody here ever 
 doubted the story." 
 
 " I cannot say what measivre of charity accompanies 
 your zeal for truth in this amiable society, Scaresby, 
 but I can repeat my assertion that this must be a false- 
 hood." 
 
 " You will find it very hard, nevertheless, to bring any 
 one over to your opinion," retorted the unappeasable 
 JVlajor. " He was a fellow everybody hated ; proud and 
 supercilious to all, and treated his wife's relations — who 
 were of far better blood than himself — as though they 
 were canaille." 
 
 A loud crash, as if of something heavy having fallen, 
 here interrupted their colloquy, and Upton sprang irom 
 his seat and hastened into the adjoining room. Close 
 beside the door — so close that he almost fell over it in 
 entering — lay the figure of Lord Glencore. In his efforts 
 to reach the door he had fainted, and there he lay — a cold, 
 clammy sweat covering his livid features, and his blood- 
 less lips slightly parted. 
 
 It was almost an hour ere his consciousness returned ; 
 but when it did, and that he saw Upton alone at his bed- 
 side, he pressed his hand within his own, and said, " I 
 heard it all, Upton, every word ! I tried to reach the 
 room ; I got out of bed — and was already at the door — 
 when my brain reeled, and my heart grew faint. It may 
 have been malady, it might be passion — I know not — but
 
 414 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 I saw no more. He is gone — is lie not ? " cried he, in a, 
 faint whisper. 
 
 " Yes, }-es — an hour ago ; but you will think nothing 
 of what he said, when I tell you his name. It was 
 Scaresby — Major Scaresby ; one whose bad tongue is 
 the one solitary claim by which he subsists in a society of 
 slanderers ! " 
 
 " And he is gone!" repeated the other, in a tone of 
 deep despondency. 
 
 " Of course he is. I never saw him since; but be 
 assured of what I have just told you, that his libels carry 
 no reproach. He is a calumniator by temperament." 
 
 " I'd have shot him, if I could have opened the door," 
 muttered Glencore between his teeth ; but Uptou 
 heard the words distinctly. " What am I to this man," 
 cried he, aloud, " or he to me, that I am to be arraigned 
 by him on charges of any kind, true or false? What 
 accident of fortune makes him ray judge ? Tell me that, 
 sir. Who has appealed to him for protection? Who has 
 demanded to be righted at his hand? " 
 
 " Will you not hear me, Glencore, when I say that his 
 slanders have no sting ? In the circles wherein he mixes, 
 it is the mere scandal that amuses ; for its veracity, there 
 is not one that cares. You, or I, or some one else, supply 
 the name of an actor in a disreputable drama; the plot 
 of which alone interests, not the performer." 
 
 " And am I to sit tamely down under this degrada- 
 tion ? " exclaimed Glencore, passionately. " I have 
 never subscribed to this dictation. There is little, in- 
 deed, of life left to me, but there is enough, perhaps, to 
 vindicate myself against men of this stamp. You shall 
 take him a message from me ; you shall tell him by what 
 accident I overheard his discoveries." 
 
 " My dear Glencore, there are graver interests, far 
 worthier cares, than any this man's name can enter into, 
 which should now engage you." 
 
 " I say he shall have my provocation, and that within 
 an hour !" cried Glencore, wildly. 
 
 " You would give this man and his words a consequence 
 that neither have ever possessed," said Upton, in a mild 
 and subdued tone. " Remember, Glencore, when I left 
 with you this morning that paper of Stubber's, it was with
 
 major scaresby's VISIT. 415 
 
 u distinct understanding that other arid wiser thoughts than 
 those of vengeance were to occupy your attention. I 
 never scrupled to place it in your hands ; I never hesi- 
 tated about confiding to you what in a lawyer's phrase 
 would be a proof against you. When an act of justice 
 was to be done. I would not stain it by the faintest shadow 
 of coercion. I left you free, I leave you still free, from 
 everything but the dictates of your own honour." 
 
 Glencore made no reply, but the conflict of his thoughts 
 seemed to agitate him greatly. 
 
 " The man who has pursued a false path in life," said 
 Upton, calmly, " has need of much courage to retrace his 
 steps ; but courage is not the quality you fail in, Glen- 
 core, so that I appeal to you with confidence." 
 
 " I have need of courage," muttered Glencore; " you 
 say truly. What was it the doctor said this morning — 
 aneurism ? " 
 
 Upton moved his head with an inclination barely 
 perceptible. 
 
 " What a Nemesis there is in nature," said Glencore, 
 with a sickly attempt to smile, "that passion should beget 
 malady! I never knew, physically speaking, that I had 
 a heart — till it was broken. So that," resumed he, in a 
 more agreeable tone, " death may ensue at any moment — 
 on the least excitement?" 
 
 " He warned you gravely on that point," said Upton, 
 cautiously. 
 
 " How strange that I should have come through that 
 trial of an hour ago ! It was not that the struggle did 
 not move me. I could have torn that fellow limb from 
 limb, Upton, if I had but the strength! But see," cried 
 he, feebly, " what a poor wretch I am ; I cannot close 
 these fingers!" and he held out a worn and clammy hand 
 as he spoke. " Do with me as you will," said he, after a 
 pause ; " I ought to have followed your counsels long 
 ago ! " 
 
 Upton was too subtle an anatomist of human motives 
 to venture by even the slightest word to disturb a train of 
 thought which any interference could only damage. As 
 the other still continued to meditate, and by his manner 
 and look, in a calmer and more reflective spirit, the wily 
 diplomatist moved noiselessly away, and left him alone.
 
 416 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 
 
 From the gorgeous halls of the Pitti Palace down to the 
 humblest chamber in Camaldole, Florence was a scene of 
 rejoicing. As night closed in, the crowds seemed only to 
 increase, and the din and clamour to grow louder. It 
 seemed as though festivity and joy had overflowed from 
 the houses, filling the streets with merry-makers. In the 
 clear cold air groups feasted, and sang, and danced, all 
 mingling and intermixing with a freedom that showed 
 how thoroughly the spirit of pleasure-seeking can anni- 
 hilate the distinctions of class. The soiled and tattered 
 mummer leaned over the carriage-door and exchanged 
 compliments with the masked duchess within. The titled 
 noble of a dozen quarterings stopped to pledge a merry 
 company who pressed him to drain a glass of Monte 
 Pulciano with them. There was a perfect fellowship be- 
 tween those whom fortune had so widely separated, and 
 the polished accents of high society were heard to blend 
 with the quaint and racy expressions of the " people." 
 
 Theatres and palaces lay open, all lighted " a giorno." 
 The whole population of the city surged and swayed 
 to and fro like a mighty sea in motion, making the air 
 resound the while with a wild mixture of sounds, wherein 
 music and laughter were blended. Amid the orgie, how- 
 ever, not an act, not a word of rudeness disturbed the 
 general content. It was a season of universal joy, and 
 none dared to destroy the spell of pleasure that presided. 
 
 Our task is not to follow the princely equipages as they 
 rolled in unceasing tides within the marble courts, nor 
 yet to track the strong flood that poured through the 
 wide thoroughfares in all the wildest exuberance of their 
 joy. Our business is with two travellers, who, well weary 
 of being for hours a-foot, and partly sated with pleasure, 
 eat down to rest themselves on a bench beside the Arno.
 
 A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 417 
 
 " It is glorious fooling, that must be owned, Billy," said 
 Charles Massy, " and the spirit is most contagious. How- 
 little have you or I in common with these people. Wo 
 scarce can catch the accents of the droll allusions, we can- 
 not follow the strains of their rude songs, and yet we are 
 carried away like the rest to feel a wild enjoyment in all 
 this din, and glitter, and movement. How well they do 
 it, too ! " 
 
 " That's all by rayson of concentration," said Billy, 
 gravely. " They are highly charged with fun. The ould 
 adage says, ' Non semper sunt Saturnalia ' — It is not every 
 clay Morris kills a cow." 
 
 '■ Yet it is by this very habit of enjoyment that they 
 know how to be happy." 
 
 " To be sure it is," cried Billy ; " they have a ritual for 
 it which we haven't; as Cicero tells us, 'In jucundis 
 nullum periculum.' But ye see we have no notion of any 
 amusement without a dash of danger through it, if not 
 even cruelty ! " 
 
 " The French know how to reconcile the two natures ; 
 they are brave nnd light-hearted too." 
 
 "And the Irish, Mister Charles — the Irish especially," 
 said Billy, proudly ; " for I was alludin' to the English 
 in what 1 said last. The ' versatile ingenium ' is all our 
 own — 
 
 He goes into a tent and he spends half a-erown, 
 
 Comes out, meet» a friend, and for love knocks him down. 
 
 There's an elegant philosophy in that, now, that a Saxon 
 would never see ! For it is out of the very fulness of the 
 heart, ye may remark, that Pat does this, just as much as 
 to say, 'I don't care for the expense!' He smashes a 
 skull just as he would a whole dresser of crockery ware ! 
 There's something very grand in that recklessness." 
 
 The tone of the remark, and a certain wild energy of 
 his manner, showed that poor Billy's faculties were slightly 
 under the influences of the Tuscan grape, and the youth 
 smiled at sight of an excess so rare. 
 
 " How hard it must be," said Massy, " to go back to 
 the work-a-day routine of life after one of these outbursts 
 — to resume not alone the drudgery, but all the slavish 
 observances that humble men yield to great ones." 
 
 E E
 
 418 TIIE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE. 
 
 " 'Tis what Bacon says, 'There's nothing so hard as 
 unlearnin' anything,' and the proof is how few of us ever 
 do it ! We always go on niixin' old thoughts with new 
 
 puttiu' different kinds of wine into the same glass, and 
 
 then wonderin' we are not invigorated ! " 
 
 " You're in a mood for moralizing to-night, I see, Billy," 
 said the other, smiling. 
 
 " The levities of life always puts me on that thrack, 
 just as too briyhb a day reminds me to take out an umbrella 
 with me." 
 
 " Yet I do not see that all your observation of the world 
 has indisposed you to enjoy it, or that yon take harsher 
 views of life the closer you look at it." 
 
 " Quite the reverse ; the more I see of mankind, the 
 more I'm struck with the fact that the very wickedest and 
 worst can't get rid of remorse ! 'Tis something out of a 
 man'3 nature entirely — something that dwells outside of 
 hj m — g e ts him on to commit a crime ; and then he begins 
 to rayson and dispute with the temptation, just like one 
 keepin' bad company, and listenin' to impure notions and 
 evil suggestions day after day ; as he does this, he gets to 
 have a tast- for that kind of low society — I mane with his 
 own bad thoughts — till at last every other ceases to amuse 
 him. Look ! what's that there — where are they goin' with 
 all the torches there ? " cried he, suddenly, springing up 
 and pointing to a dense crowd that passed along the 
 street. It was a band of music dressed in a quaint 
 mediaeval costume, on its way to serenade some palace. 
 
 " Let us follow and listen to them, Billy," said the 
 youth. And they arose and joined the throng. 
 
 Following in the wake of the dense mass, they at last 
 reached the gates of a great palace, and after some waiting 
 gained access to the spacious courtyard. The grim old 
 statues and armorial bearings shone in the glare of a 
 hundred torches, and the deep echoes rang with the brazen 
 voices of the band, as pent up within the quadrangle the 
 din of a large orchestra arose. On a great terrace over- 
 head numeroas figures were grouped — indistinctly seen 
 from the light of the salons within — but whose mysterious 
 movements completed the charm of a very interesting 
 picture. 
 
 Some wrapped in shawls to shroud them from the night
 
 A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 419 
 
 air, some less cautiously emerging from the rooms within, 
 leaned over the marble balustrade and showed their 
 jewelled arms in the dim hazy light, while around and 
 about them gay uniforms and costumes abounded. As 
 Billy gave himself up to the excitement of the music, 
 young Massy, more interested by the aspect of the scene, 
 gazed unceasingly at the balcony. There was just that 
 shadowy indistinctness in the whole that invested it with 
 a kind of romantic interest, and he could weave stories 
 and incidents from those whose figures passed and l-epassed 
 before him. He fancied that in their gestures he could 
 trace many meanings, and as the bent-down heads ap- 
 proached and their hands touched, he fashioned many a 
 tale in his own mind of moving fortunes. 
 
 " And see, she comes again to that same dark angle of 
 the terrace," muttered he to himself, as, shrouded in a 
 large mantle and with a half mask on her features, a tall 
 and graceful figure passed iuto the place he spoke of. 
 " She looks like one among but not of them ; how much 
 of heart weariness is there in that attitude ; how full is it 
 of sad and tender melancholy — would that I could see 
 her face ! My life on't that it is beautiful ! There, she is 
 tearing up her bouquet ; leaf by leaf the rose-leaves are 
 falling, as though one by one hopes are decaying in her 
 heart" He pushed his way through the dense throng till 
 he gained a corner of the court where a few leaves and 
 flower-stems yet strewed the ground; carefully gathering 
 up these, he crushed them in his hand, and seemed to feel 
 as though a nearer tie bound him to the fair unknown. 
 How little ministers to the hope — how infinitely less again 
 will feed the imagination of a young heart! 
 
 Between them now there was, to his appreciation, some 
 mysterious link. " Yes," he said to himself, " true, I 
 stand unknown, unnoticed, yet it is to one of all the 
 thousands here she could reveal what is passing in that 
 heart! I know it, I feel it! She has a sorrow whose 
 burden I might help to bear. There is cruelty, or treachery, 
 or falsehood arrayed against her ; and through all the 
 splendour of the scene — all the wild gaiety of the orgie — 
 some spectral image never leaves her side ! I would stake 
 existence on it that I have read her aright! " 
 
 Of all the intoxications that can entrance the human 
 
 E E 2
 
 420 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 faculties, there is none so maddening as that produced by 
 giving full sway to an exuberant imagination. The be- 
 wilderment resists every effort of reason, and in its onward 
 course carries away its victims with all the force of a 
 mountain toi'rent. A winding stair, long unused and 
 partly dilapidated, led to the end of the terrace where she 
 stood, and Massy, yielding to some strange impulse, slowly 
 and noiselessly crept up this till he gained a spot only a 
 few yards removed from her. The dark shadow of the 
 building almost completely concealed his figure, and left 
 him free to contemplate her unnoticed. 
 
 Some event of interest within had withdrawn all from 
 the terrace save herself ; the whole balcony was suddenly 
 deserted, and she alone remained, to all seeming lost to 
 the scene around her. It was then that she removed her 
 mask, and suffering it to fall back on her neck, rested her 
 head pensively on her hand. Massy bent over eagerly to 
 try and catch sight of her face ; the effort he made startled 
 her, she looked round, and he cried out, " Ida — Ida ! My 
 heart could not deceive me! " In another instant he had 
 climbed the balcony and was beside her. 
 
 " I thought we had parted for ever, Sebastian," said 
 she ; " you told me so on the last night at Massa." 
 
 "And so I meant when 1 said it," cried he ; " nor is our 
 meeting now of my planning. 1 came to Florence, it is 
 true, to see, but not to speak with you, ere 1 left Europe 
 for ever. For three entire days I have searched the city 
 to discover where you lived, and chance — I have no better 
 name for it — chance has led me hither." 
 
 " It is an unkind fortune that has made us meet again," 
 said she, in a voice of deep melancholy. 
 
 " 1 have never known fortune in any other mood," said 
 he, fiercely. " When clouds show me the edge of their silver 
 linings, I only prepare myself for storm and hurricane." 
 
 " I know you have endured much," said she, in a voice 
 of deeper sadness. 
 
 " You know but little of what I have endured," rejoined 
 he, sternly. " You saw me taunted, indeed, with my 
 humble calling, insulted for my low birth, expelled igno- 
 miniously from a house where my presence had been 
 sought for, and yet all these, grievous enough, are little to 
 other evils I have had to beai\"
 
 A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 421 
 
 " By what unhappy accident, what mischance, have you 
 made- her your enemy, Sebastian ? She would not even 
 suffer me to speak to you. She went so far as to tfll me 
 that there was a reason for the dislike — one which, if she 
 could reveal, I would never question." 
 
 "How can I tell?" cried he, angrily. "I was born, 
 I suppose, under an evil star, for nothing prospers with 
 me." 
 
 "But can you even guess her reasons?" said she, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " JNo, except it be the presumption of one in my con- 
 dition daring to aspire to one in yours ; and that, as the 
 world goes, would be reason enough. It is probable, too, 
 that I did not state these pretensions of mine over- 
 delicately. I told her, with a frankness that was not 
 quite acceptable, I was one who could not speak of birth 
 or blood. She did not like the coarse word I applied to 
 myself, and I will not repeat it; and she ventured to 
 suggest that, had there not appeared some ambiguity in 
 her own position, I could never have so far forgotten mine 
 as to advance such pretensions " 
 
 " Well, and then ? " cried the girl, eagerly. 
 
 " Well, and then," said he, deliberately, " I told her I 
 had heard rumours of the kind she alluded to, but to me 
 they carried no significance; that it was for you I cared. 
 The accidents of life around j'ou had no influence on my 
 choice ; you might be all that the greatest wealth and 
 highest blood could make you, or as poor and ignoble as 
 myself, without any change in my affections. ' These/ 
 said she, ' are the insulting promptings of that English 
 breeding which you say has mixed with your blood, and if 
 for no other cause would make me distrust you.' 
 
 " ' Stained as it may be,' said I, ' that same English 
 blood is the best pride I possess.' She grew pale with 
 passion as I said this, but never spoke a word ; and there 
 we stood, staring haughtily at each other, till she pointed 
 to the door, and so I left her. And now, Ida, who is she 
 that treats me thus disdainfully ? I ask you not in anger, 
 for I know too well how the world regards such as me to 
 presume to question its harsh injustice. But tell me, I 
 beseech you, that she is one to whose station these pre- 
 judices are the fitting accompaniments, and let me feel
 
 422 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 that ifc is less myself as the individual that she wrongs, 
 than the class I belong to is that which she despises. I 
 can better bear this contumely when I know that it is 
 an instinct." 
 
 " If birth and blood can justify a prejudice, a Princess 
 of the house of Delia Torre might claim the privilege," 
 said the girl, haughtily. " No family of the North, at 
 least, will dispute with our own in lineage ; but there are 
 other causes which may warrant all that she feels towards 
 you even more strongly, Sebastian. This boast of your 
 English origin, this it is which has doubtless injured you 
 in her esteem. Too much reason has she had to cherish 
 the antipathy ! Betrayed into a secret marriage by an 
 Englishman, who represented himself as of a race noble as 
 her own, she was deserted and abandoned by him after- 
 wards. This is the terrible mystery which I never dared 
 to tell you, and which led us to a life of seclusion at Massa. 
 This is the source of that hatred towards all of a nation 
 which she must ever associate with the greatest mis- 
 fortunes of her life ! And from this unhappy event was 
 she led to make me take that solemn oath that I spoke of, 
 never to link my fortunes with one of that hated laud." 
 
 '• But you told me that you had not made the pledge," 
 said he, wildly. 
 
 "IS or had I then, Sebastian; but since we last met, 
 worked on by solicitation, I could not resist ; tortured by 
 a narrative of such sorrows as I never listened to before, 
 I yielded and gave my promise." 
 
 " It matters little to me / " said he, gloomily ; " a barrier 
 the more or the less can be of slight moment when there 
 rolls a wide sea between us ! Had you ever loved me, such 
 a pledge had been impossible/' 
 
 " It was you yourself, Sebastian, told me we were never 
 to meet again," rejoined she. 
 
 " Better that we had never done so ! " muttered he. 
 "Nay, perhaps I am wrong," added he, fiercely; "this 
 meeting may serve to mark how little there ever was 
 between us ! " 
 
 " Is this cruelty affected, Sebastian, or is it real ? " 
 
 " It cannot be cruel to echo your own words. Besides," 
 said he, with an air of mockery in the words, " she who 
 lives in this gorgeous palace, surrounded with all the
 
 A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 423 
 
 splendours of life, can have little complaint to make 
 against the cruelty of fortune ! " 
 
 " How unlike yourself is all this ! " cried she. "Ton, 
 of all I have ever seen or known, understood how to rise 
 above the accidents of fate, placing your happiness and 
 your ambitions in a sphere where mere questh ns of wealth 
 never entered. What can have so changed you ?" 
 
 Before he could reply, a sudden movement in the crowd 
 beneath attracted the attention of both, and a number of 
 persons who had filled the terrace now passed hurriedly 
 into the salons, where, to judge from the commotion, an 
 event of some importance had occurred. Ida lost not a 
 moment in entering, when she was met by the words — 
 "It is she, Nina herself, is ill ; some mask, a stranger, it 
 would seem, has said something, or threatened something." 
 In 'act, she had been carried to her room in strong- con- 
 vulsions, and while some were in search of medical aid for 
 her, others, not less eagerly, were endeavouring to detect 
 the delinquent. 
 
 From the gay and brilliant picture of festivity which 
 was presented but a few minutes back, what a change now 
 came over the scene ! Many hui-ried away at once, shocked 
 at even a momentary shadow on the sunny road of their 
 existence ; others as anxiously pressed on to recount the 
 incident elsewhere ; some, again, moved by curiosity or 
 some better prompting, exerted themselves to investigate 
 what amounted to a gross violation of the etiquette of a 
 carnival : and thus, in the satot/s. on the stairs, and in the 
 court itself, the greatest bustle and confusion prevailed. 
 .At length some suggested that the gate of the palace 
 should be closed, and none suffered to depart without 
 unmasking. The motion was at once adopted, and a 
 small knot of persons, the friends of the Countess, 
 assumed the task of the scrutiny. 
 
 Despite complaints and remonstrances as to the incon- 
 venience and delay thus occasioned, they examined every 
 carriage as it passed out. None, however, but faces 
 familiar to the Florentine world were to be met with ; the 
 well-known of every ball and fete were there, and if a 
 stranger presented himself, he was sure to be one for 
 whom some acquaintance could bear testimony. 
 
 At a fire in one of the smaller salons stood a small
 
 424 THE FORTUNES OF GLEXCORE. 
 
 group, of which the Due de Brignolles and Major Scaresby 
 formed a part. Sentiments of a very different order had 
 detained these two individuals, and while the former was 
 deeply moved by the insult offered to the Countess, the 
 latter felt an intense desire to probe the circumstance to 
 the bottom. 
 
 " Devilish odd it is ! " cried Scaresby ; " here we have 
 been this last hour and a half turning a whole house out 
 of the windows, and yet there's no one to tell us what 
 it's all for, what it's all about ! " 
 
 " Pardon, monsieur," said the Duke, severely. " We 
 know that a lady whose hospitality we have been accept- 
 ing has retired from her company insulted. It is very 
 clearly our duty that this should not pass unpunished." 
 
 " Oughtn't we to have some clearer insight into what 
 constituted the insult ? It may have been a practical joke 
 — a mauvaise plaisanterie, Duke." 
 
 " We have no claim to any confidence not extended to 
 us, sir," said the Frenchman. " To me it is quite sufficient 
 that the Countess feels aggrieved." 
 
 "Not but we shall cut an absurd figure to-morrow, 
 when we own that we don't know what we were so in- 
 dignant about." 
 
 " Only so many of lis as have characters for the ' latest 
 intelligence.' " 
 
 To this sally there succeeded a somewhat awkward 
 pause, Scaresby occupying himself with thoughts of some 
 perfectly safe vengeance. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if it was that Count Marsano — 
 that fellow who used to be about the Nina long: ago — 
 come back again. He was at Como this summer, and 
 made many inquiries after his old love ! " 
 
 A most insulting stare of defiance was the only reply 
 the old Duke could make to what he would have been 
 delighted to resent as a personal affront. 
 
 "Marsano is a mauvais drole" said a Russian; 
 "and if a woman slighted him, or he suspected that she 
 did, he's the very man to execute a vengeance of the 
 kind." 
 
 " I should apply a harsher epithet to a man capable of 
 such conduct," said the Duke. 
 
 " He'd not take it patiently, Duke," said the other.
 
 A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 425 
 
 " It is pi'ecisely in that hope, sir, that I should employ 
 it," said the Duke. 
 
 Again was the conversation assuming a critical turn, 
 and again an interval of ominous silence succeeded. 
 
 " There is but one carriage now in the court, your 
 Excellency," said the servant, addressing the Duke in a 
 low voice, " and the gentleman inside appears to be 
 seriously ill. It might be better, perhaps, not to detain 
 him." 
 
 " Of course not," said the Duke ; "but stay, I will go 
 down myself." 
 
 There were still a considerable number of persons on 
 foot in the court when the Duke descended, but only one 
 equipage remained — a hired carriage — at the open door 
 of which a servant was standing, holding a glass of water 
 for his master. 
 
 " Can I be of any use to your master? " said the Duke, 
 approaching. " Is he ill ? " 
 
 " I fear he has burst a blood-vessel, sir," said the man. 
 " He is too weak to answer me." 
 
 " Who is it — what's his name ? " 
 
 " I am not able to tell you, sir ; I only accompanied him 
 from the hotel." 
 
 " Let us have a doctor at once ; he appears to be dying," 
 said the Duke, as he placed his fingers on the sick man's 
 wrist. " Let some one go for a physician." 
 
 " Thei'e is one here," cried a voice. " I'm a doctor ; " 
 and Billy Traynor pushed his way to the spot. " Come, 
 Master Charles, get into the coach and help me to lift him 
 out," 
 
 Young Massy obeyed, and not without difficulty they 
 succeeded at last in disengaging the almost lifeless form 
 of a man whose dark domino was perfectly saturated with 
 fresh blood ; his half mask still covered his face, and, to 
 screen his features from the vulgar gaze of the crowd, 
 they suffered it to remain there. 
 
 Up the wide stairs and into a spacious salon they now 
 carried the figure, whose drooping head and hanging limbs 
 gave little signs of life. They placed him on a sofa, and 
 Traynor, with a ready hand, untied the mask and removed 
 it. " Merciful Heavens," cried he, " it's my lord him- 
 self!"
 
 426 THE FORTUNES OP GLENCORE. 
 
 The youth bent down, gazed for a few seconds at the 
 corpse-like face, and fell fainting to the floor. 
 
 "My Lord Glencore himself! " said the Duke, who was 
 himself an old and attached friend. 
 
 " Hush — not a word." whispered Traynor ; " he's rallyin' 
 — he's comin' to ; don't utter a syllable." 
 
 Slowly and languidly the dying man raised his eyelids, 
 and gazed at each of those around him. From their laces 
 he turned his gaze to the chamber, viewing the walls and 
 the ceiling, all in turn; and then, in an accent barely 
 audible, he said, " Where am I '( " 
 
 " Amongst friends, who love and will cherish you, dear 
 Glencore," said the Duke, affectionately. 
 
 " Ah, Brignolles— I remember you : and this — who is 
 this ? -'' 
 
 "Traynor, my lord— Billy Traynor, that will never 
 leave you while he can serve you ? " 
 
 "Whose tears are those upon my hand— T feel them hot 
 and burning," said the sick man ; and Billy stepped back, 
 that the light should fall upon the figure that knelt beside 
 him. 
 
 " Don't cry, poor fellow," said Glencore ; " it must be a 
 hard world, or you have many better and dearer friends 
 than I could have ever been to you. Who is this ? " 
 Billy tried, but could not answer. 
 
 "Tell him, if you know who it is: see how wild and 
 excited it has made him," cried the Duke ; for, stretching 
 out both hands, Glencore had caught the boy's lace on 
 either side, and continued to gaze on it, in wild eagerness. 
 "It is — it is ! " cried he, pressing it to his bosom, and 
 kissing the forehead over and over again. 
 
 " Whom does he fancy it ? Whom does he sus- 
 pect ? " 
 
 " This is — look, Brignolles," cried the dying man, in a 
 voice already thick with a death-rattle— " this is the 
 seventh Lord Viscount Glencore. I declare it. And 
 
 now " He fell back, and never spoke more. A 
 
 single shudder shook his feeble frame, and he was dead. 
 
 ****** 
 ****** 
 
 We have had occasion once before in this veracious
 
 This is the seventh Lord Viscount Gleiieore."'
 
 A MASK IN CABNIVAL TIME. 427 
 
 history to speak of the polite oblivion Florentine society 
 so well understands to throw over the course of events 
 which might cloud, even for a moment, the sunny surface 
 of its enjoyment. No people, so far as we know, have 
 greater gifts in this way — to shroud the disagreeables of 
 life in decent shadow — to ignore or forget them is their 
 grand prerogative. 
 
 Scarcely, therefore, had three weeks elapsed, than the 
 terrible catastrophe at the Palazzo della Torre was totally 
 consigned to the bygones ; it ceased to be thought or 
 spoken of, and was as much matter of remote history as 
 an incident in the times of one of the Medici. Too much 
 interested in the future to waste time on the past, they 
 launched into speculations as to whether the Countess 
 would be likely to marry again ; what change the late 
 event might effect in the amount of her fortune, and how 
 far her position in the world might be altered by the 
 incident. He who, in the ordinary esteem of society, 
 would have felt less acutely than his neighbours for Glen- 
 core's sad fate — Upton — was in reality deeply and sin- 
 cerely affected. The traits which make a consummate 
 man of the world — one whose prerogative it is to appre- 
 ciate others, and be able to guide and influence their 
 actions — are, in truth, very high and rare gifts, and imply 
 resources of fine sentiment, as fully as' stores of intel- 
 lectual wealth. Upton sorrowed over Glencore as for one 
 whose noble nature had been poisoned by an impetuous 
 temper, and over whose best instincts an ungovernable 
 self-esteem had ever held the mastery. They had been 
 friends almost from boyhood, and the very worldliest of 
 men can feel the bitterness of that isolation in which the 
 " turn of life " too frequently commences. Such friend- 
 ships are never made in later life. We lend our affections 
 when young on very small security, and though it is true 
 we are occasionally unfortunate, we do now and then 
 make a safe investment. No men are more prone to 
 attach an exaggerated value to early friendships than 
 those who, stirred by strong ambitions, and animated by 
 high resolves, have played for the great stakes in the 
 world's lottery. Too much immersed in the cares and 
 contests of life to find time to contract close personal 
 attachments, they fall back upon the memory of school or
 
 428 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 college days to supply the want of their hearts. There is 
 a sophistry, too, that seduces them to believe that then, at 
 least, they were loved for what they were, for qualities of 
 their nature, not for accidents of station, or the proud 
 rewards of success. There is also another and a very 
 strange element in the pleasure such memories afford. 
 Our early attachments serve as points of departure b} r 
 , which we measure the distance we have travelled in life. 
 " Ay," say we, " we were schoolfellows ; I remember how 
 he took the lead of me in this or that science, how far 
 behind he left me in such a thing, and yet look at us 
 now ! " Upton had very often to fall back upon similar 
 recollections ; neither his school nor his college life had 
 been remarkable for distinction, but it was always per- 
 ceived that every attainment he achieved was such as 
 would be available in after life. Nor did he ever burden 
 himself with the toils of scholarship, while there lay 
 within his reach stores of knowledge that might serve to 
 contest the higher and greater prizes that he had already 
 get before his ambition. 
 
 But let us return to himself, as alone and sorrow-struck 
 he sat in his room of the Hotel d' Italic Various cares 
 and duties consequent on Glencore's death had devolved 
 entirely upon him. Young Massy had suddenly disap- 
 peared from Florence on the morning after the funeral, 
 and was seen no more, and Upton was the only one who 
 could discharge any of the necessary duties of such a 
 moment. The very nature of the task thus imposed upon 
 him had its own depressing influence on his mind — the 
 gloomy pomp of death — the terrible companionship be- 
 tween affliction and worldliness — the tear of the mourner 
 — the heart-broken sigh drowned in the sharp kuock of 
 the coffin-maker. He had gone through it all, and sat 
 moodily pondering over the future, when Madame de 
 Sabloukoff entered. 
 
 " She's much better this morning, and I think we can 
 co over and dine with her to-day," said she, removing her 
 shawl and taking a seat. 
 
 He gave a little easy smile that seemed assent, but did 
 not speak. 
 
 "1 perceive you have not opened your letters this 
 morning," said she, turning towards the table, littered
 
 A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 429 
 
 over with letters and despatches of every size and shape. 
 " This seems to be from the King — is that his mode of 
 writing ' G. R.' in the corner? " 
 
 "So it is," said Upton, faintly. "Will you be kind 
 enough to read it for me ? " 
 
 " ' Pavilion, Brighton. 
 
 "'Dear Upton, — Let me be the first to congratulate 
 you on an appointment which it affords me the greatest 
 pleasure to confirm " 
 
 " What does he allude to ? " cried she, stopping sud- 
 denly, while a slight tinge of colour showed surprise, and 
 a little displeasure, perhaps, mingled in her emotions. 
 
 " 1 have not the very remotest conception," said Upton, 
 calmty. " Let us see what that large despatch contains ; 
 it conies from the Duke of Agecombe. Oh," said he, with 
 a great effort to appear as calm and unmoved as possible, 
 " I see what it is, they have given me India ! " 
 
 " India ! " exclaimed she, in amazement. 
 
 " I mean, my dear Princess, they have given me the 
 Governoi*- Generalship." 
 
 "Which, of course, you would not accept." 
 
 " Why not, pray ? " 
 
 "India! It is banishment, barbarism, isolation from 
 all that really interests or embellishes existence — a des- 
 potism that is wanting in the only element which gives a 
 despot dignity, that he founds or strengthens a dynasty." 
 
 " No, no, charming Princess," said he, smiling ; " it is 
 a very glorious sovereignty, with unlimited resources, 
 and — a very handsome stipend." 
 
 " Which, therefore, you do not decline," said she, with 
 a very peculiar smile. 
 
 " With your companionship I should call it a paradise," 
 said he. 
 
 " And without such ? " 
 
 " Such a sacrifice as one must never shrink from at the 
 call of duty," said he, bowing profoundly. 
 
 The Princess dined that day with the Countess of 
 Glencore, and Sir Horace Upton journeyed towards 
 England.
 
 430 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Years have gone over, and once more — it is for the hit 
 time — we come back to the old castle in the West, beside 
 the estuary of the Killeries. Neglect and ruin have mado 
 heavy inroads on it. The battlements of the great tower 
 have fallen. Of the windows, the stormy winds of the 
 Atlantic have left only the stone mullions. The terrace is 
 cumbered with loose stones and fallen masonry. Not a 
 trace of the garden remains, save in the chance presence 
 of some flowering plant or shrub, hall-choked by weeds, 
 and wearing out a sad existence in uncared-for solitude. 
 The entrance-gate is closely barred and fastened, but a low 
 portal, in a side wing, lies open, entering by which we 
 can view the dreary desolation within. The apartments 
 once inhabited by Lord Glencore are all dismantled and 
 empty. The wind and the rain sweep at will along the 
 vaulted corridors and through the deep-arched chambers. 
 Of the clamp, discoloured walls and ceilings, lar<je patches 
 litter the floors, with fragments of stucco and carved 
 architraves. 
 
 One small chamber, on the ground-floor, maintains a 
 habitable aspect. Here a bed and a few articles of furni- 
 ture, some kitchen utensils, and a little book-shelf, all 
 neatly and orderly arranged, show that some one calls 
 this a home ! Sad and lonely enough is it ! Not a sound 
 to break the weary stillness, save the deep roar of the 
 heavy sea — not a living voice, save the wild shrill cry of 
 the osprey, as he soars above the barren cliffs ! It is 
 winter, and what desolation can be deeper or gloomier ? 
 The sea-sent mists wrap the mountains and even the louyh 
 itself in their vapoury shroud. The cold thin rain falls 
 unceasingly; a cheerless, damp, and heavy atmosphere 
 dwells even within doors ; and the grey half light gives a 
 shadowy indistinctness even to objects at hand, disposing 
 the mind to sad and dreary imaginings. 
 
 In a deep straw chair, beside the turf fire, sits a very
 
 THE END. 431 
 
 old man, with a large square volume upon his knee. 
 Dwarfed by nature, and shrunk by years, there is some- 
 thing of almost goblin semblance in the bright lustre of 
 his dark eyes, and the rapid motion of his lips as he reads 
 to himself half aloud. The almost wild energy of his 
 features has survived the wear and tear of time, and, old 
 as he is, there is about him a dash of vigour that seems to 
 defy age. Poor Billy Trayuor is now upwards of eighty, 
 but his faculties are clear, his memory unclouded, and, 
 like Moses, his eye not dimmed. " The Three Chronicles 
 of Lnughdooner," in which he is reading, is the history of 
 the Glencores, and contains, amongst its family records, 
 many curious predictions and prophecies. The heirs of 
 that ancient house were, from time immemorial, the sport 
 of fortune, enduring vicissitudes without end. No re- 
 verses seemed ever too heavy to rally from — no depth of 
 evil fate too deep for them to extiucate themselves. In- 
 volved in difficulties innumerable, engaged in plots, 
 conspiracies, luckless undertakings, abortive enterprises, 
 still they contrived to survive all around them, and come 
 out with, indeed, ruined fortunes and beggared estate, but 
 still with life, and with what is the next to life itself, an 
 unconquerable energy of character. 
 
 It was in the encouragement of these gifts that Billy 
 now sought for what cheered the last declining days of 
 his solitary life. His lord, as be ever called him, had been 
 for years and years away in a distant colony, living under 
 another name. Dwelling amongst the rough settlers of a 
 wild remote tract, a few brief lines at long intervals were 
 the only tidings that assured Billy he was yet living; yet 
 were they enough to convince him, coupled with the 
 hereditary traits of his house, that some one day or other 
 he would come back again to resume his proud place and 
 the noble name of his ancestors. More than once had it 
 been the fate of the Glencores to see "the hearth cold, 
 and the roof-tree blackened;" and Billy now muttered 
 the lines of an old chronicle where such a destiny was 
 bewailed : — 
 
 Where are the voices, whispering low, 
 
 Of lovers side by side ? 
 And where the haughty dames who swept 
 
 Thy terraces in pride ?
 
 432 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE. 
 
 Where is the wild and joyous mirth 
 
 That drtfwn'd th' Atlantic's roar, 
 Making the rafters ring again 
 
 With welcome to Glencore ? 
 
 And where's the step of belted knight, 
 
 That strode the massive floor ? 
 And where's the laugh of lady bright, 
 
 We used to hear of yore ? 
 The hound that bayed, the prancing steed, 
 
 Impatient at the door, 
 May bide the time for many a year — 
 
 They'll never see Glencore 1 
 
 "And lie came back, after all— Lord Hugo— and was 
 taken prisoner at Ormond by Cromwell, and sentenced to 
 death!" said Billy — "sentenced to death! — but never 
 shot ! Nobody knew why, or ever will know. Alter 
 years and years of exile he came back, and was at the 
 Court of Charles, but never liked — they say dangerous ! 
 That's exactly the word — dangerous ! " 
 
 He started up from his reverie, and, taking his stick, 
 issued from the room. The mist was beginning to rise, 
 and he took his way towards the shore of the lough, 
 through the wet and tangled grass. It was a long and 
 toilsome walk for one so old as he was, but he went man- 
 fully onward, and at last reached the little jetty where the 
 boats from the mainland were wont to put in. All was 
 cheerless and leaden-hued over the wide waste of water ; 
 a surging swell swept heavily along, but not a sail was to 
 be seen. Far across the lough he could descry the harbour 
 of Leenane, where the boats were at anchor, and see the 
 lazy smoke as it slowly rose in the thick atmosphere. 
 Seated on a stone at the water's edge, Billy watched long 
 and patiently, his eyes turning at times towards the bleak 
 mountain-road, which for miles was visible. At last, with 
 a weary sigh, he arose, and muttering, " He won't come 
 to-day," turned back again to his lonely home. 
 
 To this hour he lives, and waits "the coming of Glen* 
 core." 
 
 Woodfall <t Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Strand, London, W.C. 
 
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