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THE
FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
TO WHICH IS ADDED
A RENT IN A CLOUD.
BY
CHARLES LEVEE.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY E. J. WHEELER
AND W. CUBITT COOKE
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
^L^FOR^i^
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1904.
Copyright, 1894,
By Little, Bkown, and Company.
Sanibersttg Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
PREFACE.
I AM unwilling to suffer this tale to leave my hands
without a word of explanation to my reader. If I have
never disguised from myself the grounds of any humble
success I have attained to as a writer of fiction; if I
have always had before me the fact that to movement
and action, the stir of incident, and a certain light-
heartedness and gayety of temperament, more easy to
impart to others than to repress in one's self, I have
owed much, if not all, of whatever popularity I have
enjoyed, — I have yet felt, or fancied that I felt, that it
would be in the delineation of very different scenes,
and the portraiture of very different emotions, that I
should reap what I would reckon as a real success.
This conviction, or impression if you will, has become
stronger 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 in 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 an3rthing more
contribute 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 forever, I have written the present story of
" Glencore."
193061
IV PREFACE.
I make but little pretension to the claim of interest-
ing; as little do I aspire to the higher credit of in-
structing. 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 fort-
une which has prevented me from " cutting in," I have
consoled myself by the thought of all the anxieties de-
feat might have cost me, all the chagrin I had suffered
were I to have risen a loser. Besides this, I have
learned to know and estimate what are the qualities
which win success in life, and 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 varieties of nature are often very strongly
developed, shadowed and screened though they be by
the polished conventionalities 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 " Fortunes 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 the whole book drawn entirely from life.
PREFACE. V
This is Billy Traynor. Not only have I had a sitter for
this picture, but he is alive and hearty at the hour I am
writing. For the others, thev are purely, entirely ficti-
tious. Certain details, certain characteristics, I have of
course borrowed, — as he who would mould a human
face must needs have copied an eye, a nose, or a chin
from some existent model ; but beyond this I have not
gone, nor, indeed, have I found, in all my experience of
life, that fiction ever suggests what has not been im-
planted unconsciously by memory; originality in the
delineation of character being little beyond a new com-
bination 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 in-
dulgence which, " old offender " that I am, has never
forsaken me, and subscribe myself.
Your devoted friend and servant,
C. L.
CONTENTS.
Chapteb Pagb
I. A Lonely Landscape 1
n. Glencore Castle 12
IIL Billy Traynor — Poet, Pedlar, and Physician 18
rV. A Visitor 25
V. Colonel Harcourt*8 Letter 34
VL Queer Companionship 39
VII. A Great Diplomatist 47
VIII. The Great Man's Arrival 62
IX. A Medical Visit 61
X. A Disclosure 69
^ XI. Some Lights and Shadows of Diplomatic Life 79
'■ XII. A Night at Sea 94
XIII. A "Vow" Accomplished 104
XTV. Billy Traynor and the Colonel 112
XV. A Sick Bed 117
XVI. The "Project" 121
XVII. A Tete-X-Tete 130
XVIII. Billy Traynor as Orator 135
XIX. The Cascine at Florence 142
XX. The Villa Fossombroni 151
XXI. Some Traits op Life 159
XXII. An Uptonian Despatch 165
XXIIL The Tutor and his Pupil 170
XXIV. How A "Reception" comes to its Close . . 177
XXV. A Duke and his Minister 187
XXVI. Italian Troubles 197
XXVII. Carrara .' 203
VI 11 CONTENTS.
Chapter Paqx
XXVIII. A Night Scene 209
XXIX. A Council of State 217
XXX. The Life they led at Mass a 223
XXXI. At Massa 229
XXXII. The Pavilion in the Garden 236
XXXIII. Night Thoughts 242
XXXIV. A Minister's Letter . 249
XXXV. Harcourt's Lodgings 254
XXXVL A Fevered Mind 266
XXXVIL The Villa at Sorrento 274
XXXVIII. A Diplomatist's Dinner 284
XXXIX. A VERY Broken Narrative 295
XL. Uptonism 306
XLI. An Evening in Florence 313
XLII. Madame de Sabloukoff in the Morning . 325
XLin. Doings in Downing Street 335
XLIV. The Subtleties of Statecraft .... 343
XLV. Some Sad Reveries 355
XLVI. The Flood in the Magra 364
XLVII. A Fragment of a Letter 374
XL VIII. How A Sovereign treats with his Minister 380
XLIX. Social Diplomacies 387
L. Ante-dinner Reflections 396
LI. Conflicting Thoughts 401
LTI. Major Scaresby's Visit 411
LIII. A Mask in Carnival Time 419
LIV. The End 434
A RENT IN A CLOUD.
I. The White Horse at Coblentz .... 441
11. The Passengers on the Steamboat . . . 448
III. Fellow-Travellers' Life 456
IV. The "Lago d' Orta" 461
V. Old Memories 467
VI. Sophy's Letter 473
CONTENTS. IX
Chapteb Pagk
VII. Dissension 479
VIII. Growing Darker 493
IX. On the Road 505
X. A Daybreak beside the Rhine 517
XI. The Life at the Villa 523
XII. Darker and Darker 544
XIII. Again to Milan 553
XIV. The Last Walk in the Garden 558
XV. Sisters' Confidences 570
XVI. A Lovers* Quarrel 575
XVII. Parting Sorrows 586
XVIII. Tidings from Bengal 593
XIX. A Shock 599
XX. Again at Orta 602
XXL The Return 610
XXII. A Letter of Confessions 616
XXIIL a Storm 621
XXIV. The Last and the Shortest 632
ILLUSTRATIONS.
ORIGINAL DESIGNS BY E. J. WHEELER.
Photo-enoraved by Walter L. Cotts.
Page
« She turned suddenly and fixed her eyes on the
stranger" Frontispiece
** * He 's alive ; he 's well ; it 's only fatigue ' " . . . 103
" The youth stood regardless of their comments " . 215
** He sprang at the other with the bound of a
tiger" 370
A RENT IN A CLOUD.
Under a Large Drooping Ash 441
THE
FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
^ CHAPTER I.
A LONELY LANDSCAPE.
Where 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
might 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 land-
scape. 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 coun-
try around is poor, and its soil offers little to repay the task
of the husbandman. Fishing is then the chief, if not 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 frag-
ments of masonry, displayed specimens of various eras of
architecture, from the rudest tower of the twelfth century to
the more ornate style of a later period ; while artificial em-
bankments and sloped sides of grass showed the remains of
1
2 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
what once had been terrace and '' parterre,'
it might be presumed, of fosse and parapet. 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 th« old residence
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 em-
bellishment, 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 neighborhood
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 encourage-
ment given to their efforts at improvement ; a kind of cold
neglect was the only feature discernible, and 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
A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 3
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 Glencore was
not better known in that secluded spot, since even in Eng-
land his name was scarcely heard of. His fortune was very
limited, and he had no political influence whatever, not pos-
sessing 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 suc-
cessor of him who fought at Agincourt or at Cressy. If
ever this religion shall be impaired, the fault be with those
who have derogated from their great prerogative, and for-
gotten to make illustrious by example what they have in-
herited illustrious by descent.
When the news first reached the neighborhood 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 aflfluence would be
directed. The ancient traditions of the place spoke of a
time of boundless profusion, when troops of mounted fol-
4 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
lowers 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 laborers being daily employed on the grounds
and gardens of the Castle ; and the most fabulous stories
were told of fortunes accumulated by those who were lucky
enough to have saved the rich earnings of that golden
period.
Colored 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-look-
ing man arrive in a simple postchaise, accompanied by his
son, a child of six or seven years of age, and a single ser-
vant, — 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 expecting ; nor, indeed, could
any evidence less strong than Mrs. Mulcahy's, of the Post-
office, completely satisfy them on the subject. The address
of certain letters and newspapers to the Lord Viscount Glen-
core was, however, a testimony beyond dispute; so that
nothing remained but to revenge themselves on the uncon-
scious 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 laborers in the spring and autumn, none ever in-
vaded 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 condition of per-
petual imprisonment ; others, that his wife had deserted him,
A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 5
and that in his forlorn condition he had sought out a spot to
live and die in, unnoticed and unknown ; a few ascribed his
solitude to debt; while others were divided in opinion be-
tween charges of misanthropy and avarice, — to either of
which accusations his lonely and simple life fully exposed
him.
In time, however, peox)le 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 un-
spoken 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 uncommon,
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 harbor; " 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 '11 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 '11 have to go by Gortnamuck."
" Well, and if he has, can't he take the cut? "
"He can't."
6 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
*' Why not? Did n't I go that way last week ? "
" Well, and if you did, did n't you lame your baste? "
" 'T was n't the cut did it."
'' It was — sure I know better — Billy Moore tould me."
"Billy's a liar!"
Such and such-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 it," said another ; " where 's the horse? "
"Is there none to be found in the village?" asked
Craggs, eagerly.
" Divil 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 goto Clifden; I must be there to-night,"
said Craggs.
"It's on foot, then, you'll have to do it," said the
Rabbitskin.
"Lord Glencore's dangerously ill, and needs a doctor,"
said the Corporal, bursting out with a piece of most uncom-
mon 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 con-
dolence, while in a lower tone were added such expressions
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 beg-
ging the loan of a baste!"
A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 7
Something like a malediction arose to the Corporal's lips ;
but restraining it, and with a voice thick from passion, he
said, —
''I'm ready to pay you — 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 the 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
honor's glory has in the corner of your pocket, that you '11
never miss, and that '11 sweeten ould Molly's tay to-night ?
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.
AlreadjT 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 sneer-
ing tone, said, —
"And with such riches on every side, why do you go
barefoot — why are you in rags, my old fellow?"
8 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE.
*' Is n'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 is n't of copper and iron and
cobalt? Come over with me after I lave the bags at the
oflSce, and I'll show you bits of every one I speak of."
'' I 'd rather you'd show me a doctor, my worthy fellow,"
said Craggs, sighing.
'*I'm the nearest thing to that same going," replied
Billy. "I can breathe a vein against anyj man in the
barony. I can't say, that for any articular congestion of
the aortic valves, or for a sero-pulmonic diathesis — d'ye
mind ? — that there is n'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, touch-
ing 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 Skibbereen Celt ' — and supported myself very
well till it broke. But here we are at the office, so I '11 step
in, and get my fiddle, too, if you 've no objection."
A LONELY LANDSCAPE. 9
The Corporal's meditations scarcely were of a kind to re-
assure 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 Clif den on foot would be
the labor of many hours, and in the interval his master
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, con-
soled himself by humming over, for his own amusement, 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 spray ey showers.
10 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"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."
" Slack off there! " cried Craggs, as a squall struck the
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 Mister
Sheares, in Oughterard."
" What became of him?" asked Craggs.
"He made a fortune and died, and his son mamed 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 favorable opinion of the little hunchback.
" Now we 're in the smooth water. Corporal," cried Bill}^ ;
"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.
A LONELY LANDSCAPE. H
u
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 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.
o
CHAPTER n.
GLENCORE CASTLE.
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 narrow 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,
Craggs 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 uncarpeted, 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 gray, and his
forehead showed no touch of age. His dark eyes were wide
GLENCORE CASTLE. 13
open, and his lips slightly parted, his whole features exhibit-
ing an expression of energetic action, 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 proceeded to count the pulse.
''A hundred and thirty-eight," muttered he, as he fin-
ished ; 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, fehrilis
generalise*
The accentuation of these words, marked as it was by
the strongest provincialism of the peasant, attracted 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 is n'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 gradum 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? "
14 THE FOKTUNES OE GLENCORE.
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
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, peevishly
— ' ' 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 '11 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 circulatioi;i 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 '11 have that
hair off of him if he is n'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 en-
force its benefits, he moved stealthily towards the door and
passed out.
"What do you think of him?" asked the Corporal,
eagerly.
" He '11 do — he '11 do," said Billy. " He 's a sanguineous
GLENCOKE CASTLE. 15
temperament, and he '11 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.
"Did he, faix?" cried Billy, half indignantly. "He
might have perceived that I did n't come in a coach ; that
I had n'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 was n't a doctor ! 'T is the same with physic and
poetry — you take to it, or you 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 has n't an eye for a hectic, or an ear for a cough
— non contigit cuique adire Corintheum. ' T is n'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, ap-
proached them.
"Have you seen my father? What do you think of
him? " asked he, eagerly.
"'Tis a critical state he's in, your honor," said Billy,
bowing ; " but I think he '11 come round — deplation^ depla-
tion, deplation — actio^ actio, actio ; relieve the gorged ves-
sels, 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 honor," 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
16 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
a little, just round the coast, as it might be ; once ye 're
beyond 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 anything? "
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
give him 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 is n'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, for, 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 coming, 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
GLENCORE CASTLE. 17
with a sigh on the table ; '' many happy years of it to ye —
I could n'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 would n't change with the King of Sugar ' Candy.' "
" I was there," said Craggs, " it 's a fine island."
" 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.
CHAPTER III.
BILLY TRAYNOR — POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN.
** Did n'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 congestive symptoms is allayed, and when the
artarial excitement subsides, he '11 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 we
could n'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 would n't like to cross
the lough. in it," said one.
" Then that's just what I'm thinking of this minit," said
Billy. " I '11 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
i-unnin' 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 is Billy Traynor."
" 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,
BILLY TEA YNOR — POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN. 19
*'is to carry the King's mail; and if anything was to
obstruckt, or impade, or delay the correspondience, it 's on
me the blame would lie."
*' The letters wouldn't go the faster because you were
drowned," broke in the Corporal.
"No, sir," said Billy, rather staggered by the grin of
approval that met this remark — "no, sir, what you ob-
sarve is true ; but nobody reflects on the sintry that dies
at his post."
" If you must and will go, I'll give you the yawl," said
Craggs ; " and I '11 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 Tyriusve 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, coaxingly.
" 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 his
expense.
'* Well, but Where's the song?" exclaimed another.
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 '11 draw you a gallon of ale, boys, and we '11 drink to the
master's speedy recovery."
It was a rare occasion when the Corporal suffered himself
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 performers 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, how-
ever, 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 I^hine and the Rhone
I 'm ready to cry out^am satis ;
Just give us something of our own
In praise of our Land of Potatoes.
Tol lol de lol, etc.
" * 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 '11 give you all Florence and Rome,
The' they have a blue sky in December.
Tollol de lol, etc
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
CF
BILLY TRAYNOR — POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN. 21
" ' With a pretty face close to your own,
I 'in 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, etc/ "
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 irritahile
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 sud-
denly 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 kingdoms.
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 un-
guarded familiarity condescended to discuss his own miracu-
lous gifts.
22 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"And," resumed Billy, "it isn't only what ye are to
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 pen-
knives and scissors, pencil-cases, bodkins, and the like —
and 1 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 Ireland — 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 promontories
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 beginnin' to change their colors,
and there was shades of deep gold, and dark olive, and
russet brown, all mingling together with the green, and
glowing in the lake below under the setting sun, and all was
quiet and still as midnight; 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 tran-
quillity in the world it was just there ! Well, I put down my
pack in the leaves, for I did n'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 remem-
ber the elegant fancies that came through my head, and the
beautiful things that I thought I saw that night out on the
lake fornint me ! Ye see I was fresh and f astin' ; 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 min-
ute or two I believed I was dreaming, the words came so softly
BILLY TRAYNOR — POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN. 23
to my ear, for they were spoken in a low, gentle voice, and
blended in with the slight splash of oars that moved through
the water carefully, as though not to lose a word of him that
was speakin'.
"It's clean beyond me to tell you what he said; and,
maybe, if I could, ye would n'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 was n'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 unnumbered 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 flood 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 could n'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 liall 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?'
24 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
" 'It is/ says I; 'and, what's more, there isn't a poet
from Horace downwards that I won't show bulls in ; 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 Sheflfield 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 was n't a ' screed '
of my pack that they did n't buy, penknives, and whistles,
and nut-crackers, and all, just, as they said, for keepsakes.
Good 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 complaisance
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 Craggs, starting up by the instinct
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, re-
signed himself to sleep with the practised air of one who
needed but very little preparation to secure slumber.
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,
with 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 bygone warrior
or dame, who little dreamed how much the color 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 com-
fort with ugliness which chintz and soft cushions accomplish.
Two great screens, thickly covered with prints and draw-
ings, most of them political caricatures 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 expres-
sion of the sick man's face was that of deep melancholy —
not the mere gloom of recent suffering, but the deep-cut
traces of a long-carried aflfliction, a sorrow which had eaten
into his very heart, and made its home there.
26 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
At the second fireplace sat his son, and, though a mere
boy, the lineaments of his father marked the youth's face
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 revery by the whispered voice of an old
serving-man, asking for something with that submissive
manner assumed by those who are continually 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 contemptuously on the ground, with a
muttered malediction on his tormentor.
''What's that?" cried out the sick man, startled at the
sound.
" 'T is 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 Glencore.
" 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 did n't like to disturb him."
''Tired! weary! — with what? Where has he been;
what has he been doing?" cried he, hastily. "Charles,
Charles, I say ! "
And slowly rising from his seat, and with an air of languid
indifference, the boy 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
A VISITOR. 27
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
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 handsome, but somewhat
stern, and his voice had that tone which implies the long
habit 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 line-
ament. And how is your father ? "
" Better; he has had a severe illness."
" So his letter told me. I was up the Rhine when I re-
ceived 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 for, 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,
Charley. 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 '11 find my father there," said the boy, as he stopped
28 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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, extend-
ing his hand only in welcome.
' ' 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 gray
I am! I saw myself in the glass to-day for the first time,
and I really could n'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 neighborhood, the wild growth of
the mountain," said Glencore, with a sickly smile; "but I
must n'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 remem-
ber 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 en-
gage him on some other theme.
"He'll be fifteen, I think, his next birthday; he seems
older, does n't he ? "
"Yes, the boy is well grown and athletic. What has he
been- doing — have you had him at a school?"
A VISITOR. _ 29
"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 give him a
task; but his faculties are good, his apprehension 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 everyr
thing."
"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. Har-
court had a traveller's appetite, and enjoyed himself thor-
oughly, while Glencore never touched a morsel, and the boy
ate sparingly, watching the stranger with that intense curi-
osity 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!"
30 THE EORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
When the boy came back he was followed by the old
butler, carefully carrying in a small wicker contrivance,
Hihernic^ called a cooper, three cobwebbed and well-crusted
bottles.
'' Now, Charley," said Harcourt, gayly, " if you want to
see a man thoroughly happy, just step up to my room and
fetch me a small leather sack you '11 find there of tobacco,
and on the dressing-table you '11 see my meerschaum pipe ;
be cautious 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 color was per-
fect. 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 '11 call them habits — that consort
so well with every condition and every circumstance 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
^est. — The Colonel has passed two years in the Rocky
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,"
A VISITOR. 31
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 wind-
ings of his own fancies.
''Have you shooting here, Grlencore?" asked he at
length.
" There might be, if I were to preserve the game."
'' 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 formulas, wonder-
fully 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 fel-
low 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 rel-
ished 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 '11 have a merciful critic, Charley," said the Colonel,
laughing, "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 ! "
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 '11
say good-night."
32 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 '11
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
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 from the world have n'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 '11 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 knowl-
edge 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 I 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
A VISITOR. 33
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 phi-
losophy, 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 him-
self, he slowly mounted the stairs to his chamber.
CHAPTER V.
COLONEL HARCOURT's LETTER.
As we desire throughout this tale to make the actors them-
selves, wherever it be possible, the narrators, using their
words in preference to our own, we shall now place before
the reader a letter written by Colonel Harcourt about a week
after his arrival at Glencore, which will at least serve to
rescue him and ourselves from the task of repetition.
It 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 particularly 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 re-
served ; where one believed, the other doubted ; where one
was hopeful, the other had nothing but misgivings. Har-
court 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 '11 have to wait for the elucidation till my arrival. I found
Glencore terribly altered ; I 'd not have known him. He used to
be muscular and rather full in habit ; he is now a mere skeleton.
His hair and mustache were coal black ; they are a motley grajo
COLONEL HARCOURT'S LETTER. 35
/'
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 whis-
per. You remember what a passion he had for dress, and how
heartily we ^11 deplored the chance of his being colonel, well know-
ing what precious caprices of costly costume would be the conse-
quence ; well, a discharged corporal in a cast-oft' mufti is stylish
compared 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 curiosity of in-
dustrious patchwork; and his trousers are a pair of our old
overalls, the same pattern we wore at Hoimslow 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 munifi-
cence is now an absolute miser, descending to the most pitiful
economy and moaning over every trifling outlay. He is irritable,
too, to a degree. Far 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 con-
fidential, and he does n't know how to go about it. I suppose he
looks on me as rather a rough father to confess to ; he is n't quite
sure what kind of sympathy, if any, he '11 meet with from me, and
he more than half dreads a 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 cer-
tain it is, that nothing like confidential conversation 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
susceptibilities that / only shock. I said as much t' other day, in
a half -careless way, and he immediately caught it up, and said.
36 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
" 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 I " 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 need n't tell you that my stay here is the reverse of a pleasure.
I *m never what fine people call bored anywhere ; 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 '11 back his chambertin against your Excel-
lency's, and T have discovered a bin of red hermitage 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 con-
tinued restraint I 'm reduced to. Glencore evidently sent for me
to make some revelations, 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 have n't the worse place, and I
don't detect any striking falling off in ray appreciation of good
fare and good fellows.
I spoke of the boy ; he is a fine lad, — somewhat haughty, per-
haps ; 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 M^ay of educating him himself, Glen-
core 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 implicitness of this honest faith ; but I take
good care not to smile; on the contrary, I give every possible
encouragement to the belief. I conclude the disenchantment will
arrive only too early at last. V ^
You '11 not know what to make of such a lengthy epistle S(om
me, and you '11 doubtless torture that fine diplomatic intelligertrjei
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
COLONEL HARCOURT'S LETTER. 87
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 1 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 con-
tribute 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 depart-
ure, till I can sound my way as to how he '11 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 but your abilities,
and the capacity by which you could win your way to honors and
distinction. I need n't say how, in such a valuation, you came off
best. Indeed, he professes the highest esteem for your talents, and
says, " You '11 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 anything border-
ing on a suggestion to a great and wily diplomatist like yourself ;
but if an illustrious framer of treaties and protocols would conde-
scend 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 you 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.
38 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
I open this to say that he sent for me to ask your address, —
whether through the Foreign Office, or direct to Stuttgard. You '11
probably not hear for some days, for he writes with extreme diffi-
culty, 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 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. Could n't you send him over a despatch ? I think such a
document from Stuttgard ought to be an unfailing soporific.
CHAPTER VI.
QUEER COMPANIONSHIP.
When 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, smil-
ing 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, breath-
ing 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?" he broke 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?"
40 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
** 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
me. But it is not of myself I wish to speak, — it is of
my boy."
Harcourt 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 boy
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 uneventful
existence is what he likes best of all the world."
" You really think so? " cried Glencore, with an eagerness
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 consequences
than he might suspect.
" So that you deem him capable of passing a life of a
quiet, unambitious tenor, — neither seeking for distinctions
nor fretting after honors ? "
"How should he know of their existence, Glencore?
QUEER COMPANIONSHIP. 41
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 Glencore,
fiercely.
''If he doesn't know them now, he's sure to be taught
them hereafter. 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-hunting,
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, igno-
miny, 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
42 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
burst from him, till the room was filled by the servants, in
the midst of whom appeared Billy, who had only that same
day 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,' ^* 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.
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
oflflciated 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 Har-
court, 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 in-
flammation, which is as different as fireworks is from a
bombardment."
''Not a bad 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 Tray nor, too, was flattered by the invitation, and
seated himself at the fire with an air at once proud and
submissive.
" You've a diflScult 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? "
QUEER COMPANIONSHIP. 43
'* 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 approval ;
" a man is a ma-chine, and all the parts ought to be bal-
anced, and, as the ancients say, in equilihrio. If pre-pon-
derance here or there, whether it be brain or spinal marrow,
cardiac functions or digestive ones, you disthroy him, and
make that dangerous kind of constitution 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 ; stimu-
late him, and he goes ragin' mad. ' T is their, physical con-
formation 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 re-
markable 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 regu-
lar 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 '11 never make a precious stone
of it!"
44 FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"You've not taken the right way to convince me, by
using such an illustration, Billy."
" I '11 try another, then," said Billy. '' We are like Willy-
the-Whisps, showing plenty of light where there 's no road
to travel, but of no manner of use on the highway, or in the
dark streets of a village where one has business."
" Your own services here are the refutation to your argu-
ment, Billy," said Harcourt, filling his glass.
" ' Tis your kindness to say so, sir," said Billy, with grat-
ified pride ; " but the sacrat was, he thrusted me, — that was
the whole of it. All the miracles of physic is confidence,
just as all the magic of eloquence is conviction."
"You have reflected profoundly, I see," said Harcourt.
" I made a great many observations at one time of my life,
— the opportunity was favorable."
" 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 naturce that you get at the raal nature of mere ani-
mal 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, ven-
geance, 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 apprehend me ? "
"Perfectly; fill your pipe." And he pushed the tobacco
towards him.
' ' I will ; and I '11 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 ! where? "
"Down at Greyhall. You Englishmen, savin' your pres-
QUEER COMPANIONSHIP. 45
ence, 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
sayson came on at home."
" I 'm sorry to see, Billy, that, with all your enlightenment,
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 popular, common to
many ; and what 's the best test of truth in anything but
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 is n't vulgar ! Show me
an object a painter copies, or a poet describes, that is n't
so! ' Ay eh," 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 nowadays use
no disparaging epithets to men poorer or less happily cir-
cumstanced than themselves."
" Faix," said Billy, "it isn't sitting here at the same
table with yourself that I ought to gainsay that remark."
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 libation
all the ceremony of a solemn vow.
" D' ye hear that? — them 's oars ; there 's a boat coming
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
46 FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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-night."
The words were scarcely spoken when Craggs entered
with a letter in his hand.
"This is for you, Colonel," said he; " if was marked
* immediate,' and the post-mistress despatched it by an
express."
The letter was a very brief one; but, in honor to the
writer, we shall give it a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER Vn.
A GREAT DIPLOMATIST.
My dear Harcourt, — I arrived here yesterday, and by good
fortune caught your letter at F. O., 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 meas-
ure 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 his lawyer seems much disposed to push on to a diffi-
culty, if not to worse. To prevent this, if possible, — at all events
to see whether a visit from me might 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 here again early
in the following week. On Thursday I go down to Windsor.
There is wonderfully little stirring here, 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
shell-fish, if easily procurable, for my one dinner.
Yours, ever and faithfully,
H. U.
We have already told our reader that the note was a brief
one, an4 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
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
48 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 be-
neath 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 tendenc}^ to over-
reach, — which marred their repose and injured their uni-
formity. Not that his manner ever betrayed this weakness ;
far from it, — his was a most polished courtesy. It was
impossible to conceive an address more bland or more con-
ciliating. 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 honor.
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 honor 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 favorite ; 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
for the gratification of others than for the pleasure it af-
forded himself.
He had mixed largely in society, not only of his own, but
of every country of Europe. He knew every chord of that
A GREAT DIPLOMATIST. 49
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 impres-
sion 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 dii-est of all the injuries he had received. And true it
was, a most brilliant career had met with neither honors 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 suppo-
sition 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 neces-
sity 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 power and perseverance
that very few men could equal, none surpass. Indeed it
4
50 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 interfere 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 V "
' ' He writes me from Long's to say that he '11 be with us
by Friday, or, if not, by Saturday."
' ' What * 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 '11 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.
Invite 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 '11 wager my life you '11 not see a
ruflfle 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. And
A GREAT DIPLOMATIST. 51
what with turbot, oysters, grouse-pie, and mountain mutton,
I '11 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 — " Glencore 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 '11 vouch for it
that he leaves us well satisfied with his welcome."
*' It was not of that I was thinking," said he, impatiently ;
'' 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 Glencore, 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 engage-
ments while he is in England."
" Well, be it so," said Glencore, sighing, with the air of
a man resigning himself to an inevitable necessity.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GREAT MAN'S ARRIVAL.
** Not come, Craggs ! " said Harcourt, as late on the Satur-
day 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.
Glencore had scarcely ever been a very cheery residence,
but latterly it had become far gloomier than before. Since
the night of Lord Glencore'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 pain-
fully 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 unwill-
ing guest of an unwilling host.
" Come or not come," muttered he to himself, " I '11 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 labor, but who, once that they have
come to a decision, feel as if they had acquitted a debt, and
THE GREAT MAN'S ARRIVAL. 53
need give themselves no further trouble in the matter. In
the enjoyment of this newly purchased immunity he entered
the room where Glencore sat impatiently awaiting him.
" Another disappointment ! " said the Viscount, anxiously.
'' 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 appoint-
ment 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 '11 order up the soup, for
if we wait any longer we '11 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 tell 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
improving on the practice."
" Well, if I don't mistake me much, he'll soon appear to
54 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
plead his own cause. I hear oars coming speedily in this
direction."
And so saying, Harcourt hurried away to resolve his
doubts 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, Har-
court ; what a blessing it is to be such a strong fellow ! "
''So it is, by Jove! lam 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 abo^it the fish ? "
*' Ay, and I '11 give you such a treat."
'' No, no, my dear Harcourt ; a fried mackerel, or a whit-
ing 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 Harcourt.
" 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 news-
papers tolerably regularly ? "
" Yes, every day."
"That's all right. If there be a luxury left to any man
THE GREAT MAN'S ARRIVAL. 65
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."
"Come, don't grow faint-hearted. 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 11 have time enough to admire all this ; and we are
keeping poor Glencore waiting," said Harcourt, impatiently.
" Very true ; so we arg."
" 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 him-
self 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 confectionery style
with false ornament, and inappropriate decoration, that bears
about the same relation to the original that a suit of Drury
Lane tinfoil does to a coat of Milanese mail armor. 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 be-
fore him. Upton, with all his self-command, could scarcely
repress an exclamation at the sight 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 carpen-
ter. You and I are of another build."
66 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"And you — how are you?" asked Glencore, relieved to
turn attention away from himself, while he drew his arm
within the other's.
" The same poor ailing mortal you always knew me," said
Upton, languidly; "doomed to a life of uncongenial labor,
condemned to climates totally unsuited to me, I drag along
existence, only astonished at the trouble I take to live, know-
ing pretty well as I do what life is worth."
' ' ' Jolly companions every one ! ' By Jove ! " said Har-
court, " 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 digestion !
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 agreeable,
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, adorning 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 Glen-
core 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
%
THE GREAT MAN'S ARRIVAL. 57
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 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 doing ! Is n'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
sorrow ? "
''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 Flor-
ence — what am I saying ? of all Italy — when Glencore met
her, about eighteen years ago. The Palazzo della Torre
was the best house in Florence. The old Prince, her grand-
father, — her father was killed in the Russian campaign, —
was spending the last remnant of an immense fortune in
every species of extravagance. Entertainments that siu*-
passed those of the Pitti Palace in splendor, fetes that cost
fabulous sums, banquets voluptuous as those of ancient
Rome, were things of weekly occurrence. Of course every
foreigner, with any pretension 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 eighteen or twenty years back, before we
I.. ^^ THE
UNIVERSITY
CF
58 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
sent out that swarm of domestic economists who, under the
somewhat erroneous notion of foreign cheapness, by a sys-
tem 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 synonym for all that is
mean, shabby, and contemptible. The English of that day
were of another 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 favored 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 favor, 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
unequalled. She was incomparably 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 assumption 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
THE GREAT MAN'S ARRIVAL. 59
their place ! Believe me, most gallant Colonel, there is
a wide difference between the empty pretension of mere
vanity and the daring assumption of conscious power. This
girl saw the influence she wielded. As she moved amongst
us she beheld the homage, not always willing, that awaited
her. She felt that she had but to distinguish any one man
there, and he became for the time as illustrious as though
touched by the sword or ennobled by tfie 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 prom-
inently ; whereas in the other case, the chivalrous devotion is
not alloyed by this meaner servitude, and riien 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 ? "
60 THE EOKTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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
that requires 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 '11 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 Kighi. 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 odor 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.
CHAPTER IX.
A MEDICAL VISIT.
Mr. Schofer moved through the dimly lighted chamber with
all the cat-like stealthiness of an accomplished valet, arran-
ging the various articles of his master's wardrobe, and giv-
ing, 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 Harcourt's occupa-
tion. 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 ostentation 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 color, were
ranged, the contents being curious essences and delicate
odors, 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 ex-
tracts, whose subtle qualities he was well skilled in, and but
for whose timely assistance he would not have believed him-
self capable of surviving throughout the day. Beside these
was a bulky file of prescriptions, the learned documents of
doctors of every country of Europe, all of whom had en-
joyed their little sunshine of favor, and all of whom had
ended by " mistaking his case." These had now been placed
in readiness for the approaching consultation with "Glen-
62 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
core's doctor ; " and Mr. Schof er still glided noiselessly from
place to place, preparing for that event.
"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 com-
plaining 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? "
"Yes, Excellenz," was the brief reply.
" You have seen the doctor, — what is he like, Fritz? "
A strange grimace and a shi'ug of the shoulders were Mr.
Schofer'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?"
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 becomingly, 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 presented
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 Glencore'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 diplomatist; and Billy
Traynor, for the first time in his life, found himself in the
presence of one whose claims to distinction stood upon the
lofty basis of personal superiority. Now, though bashful-
ness was not the chief characteristic of his nature, he really
A MEDICAL VISIT. 63
felt abashed and timid as he drew near the bed, and shrank
under the quick but searching glance of the sick man's cold
gray eyes.
"Place a chair, and leave us, Fritz," said Sir Horace;
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 profes-
sional 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 question.
" Indeed, then, I did not, sir," said Billy, with a heavy
sigh; "all I know of the ars medicdtrix 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 improve 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 ! 'T is 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."
"You 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.
64 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"Blackmoor was an ass; but maybe he was as great a
bosthoon in physic as in poetry," rejoined Billy, promptly.
" Well, Doctor," said Sir Horace, with one of those plain-
tive 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 reproach of medicine. That file of prescriptions beside
you will show that I have consulted almost every celebrity
in Europe ; and that I have done so unsuccessfully, it is only
necessary that you should look on these worn looks — these
wasted fingers — this sickly, 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 incidental
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, he 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 consult-
ing the regular middle-class practitioner, who invariably
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. 'T is the oceans of tinctures, the
A MEDICAL VISIT. 66
sieves full of pills, the quarter-casks of bitters you 're takin',
has played the divil with you. The human machine is like
a clock, and it depends on the proportion the parts bear to
each other, whether it keeps time. You may 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 circulation and no vigor. 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. 'T is
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 interest 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 expres-
sion of the sick man's face, *' a little mixture of hyoscya-
mus I '11 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."
'' You really give me great confidence, for I perceive you
understand the tone of my temperament. Let us try this
same embrocation at once ; I '11 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 biddiu'. It is
5
66 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
the principle of harmony between the moral and physical
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 simul-
taneous action ; and the cerebellum, the great flywheel of
the whole, must be made to keep orderly time. D 'ye
mind?"
*'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 say. Well,
if you did n't feel that same trust in me, you 'd be right 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, let-
ting 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 Tuesday after ; More-
hampton for the Derby day. These easily disposed of.
Prince Boratinsky, about that Warsaw affair, must be at-
tended to; a letter, yes, a letter, will keep that question
open. Lady Grencliffe is a difficulty; if I plead illness,
she '11 say I 'm not strong enough to go to Russia. I '11 think
A MEDICAL VISIT. 67
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 be the means of conferring 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, minis-
terial 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 rumored 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 laborin'
under a slight indigestion ? Not that it would sarve a man
68 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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-colchicum and sorrel,
to make a diaphoretic infusion; and I've to give Master
Charles his Greek lesson ; and blister the colt, — he 's thrown
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 'olock, when ' the lord ' sends for me. But
the rest of the day, and the night too, I'm your honor's
obaydient."
And with a low bow, repeated in a more reverential man-
ner at the door, BiUy took his leave and retired.
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 honor a
favorite 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 break-
fasted 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 humor 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 want 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 available
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.
70 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
' ' 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 made a most
useful vehicle ; while, for longer excursions, he has sug-
gested a ' conveniency ' of wheels and axles to the punt,
rendering it equally eligible on land or water. Then he has
been designing great improvements in horticulture, and giv-
ing orders about a rake, a spade, and a hoe for himself.
I 'm quite serious," said Harcourt, as Glencore smiled with a
kind of droll incredulity. "It is perfectly true; and as he
hears that the messenger occasionally 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 intelligence. In fact, all my changes here will
be as for nothing to his reforms, and between us you '11 not
know your own house again, if you even be able to live
in it."
" You have already done much to make it more habitable,
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 I 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 vigor to contend. To
speak to me, then, of plans to carry out, schemes to accom-
plish, 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 suc-
cessfully 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
A DISCLOSURE. 71
world, — 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, loss
of influence, loss of station, loss of health even, dearer
than them all, can be borne. There is but one intolerable
ill, one that no time alleviates, no casuistry diminishes, —
loss of honor ! 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 honor,
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 howl 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 agitated.
Pray defer this interview."
"No, Harcourt; these are my moments of strength.
The little energy now left to me is the fruit of strong excite-
ment. Heaven knows how I shall be to-morrow."
Harcourt made no further 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 dress-
ing-gown, profusely braided with 'gold, loose trousers as
richly brocaded, and a pair of real Turkish slippers, resplen-
dent 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 consummate master. From the
gold girdle at his waist depended a watch, a bunch of keys,
a Turkish purse, an embroidered tobacco-bag, a gorgeously
72 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 without its aid. The greeting was cordial
and affectionate on both sides ; and when Sir Horace, after
a variety of preparations 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 Harcourt 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 vigor I have
experienced since I came here. Your cook is first-rate ; your
fare is exquisite ; the quiet is a positive blessing ; and that
queer creature, your doctor, is a very remarkable genius."
" So he is," said Glencore, gravely.
" One of those men of original mould who leave cultiva-
tion 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 conversation 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 stimulus of
necessity engenders the greatest of all efforts, calling to the
operations of the mind the continued strain for contrivance ;
A DISCLOSURE. 73
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,
rugged, and difficult, turned out better men than the present-
day habit of everything-made-easy and everybody-made- any-
thing. 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? "
" I scarcely know, — I make plans only to abandon them,"
said Glencore, gloomily.
"I'm greatly struck with him. He is one of those fel-
lows, 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, gis 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 dis-
posed 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 deter-
mination. 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 myself 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
74 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
heart is linked to it ; it forms the one sole tie that attaches
me to life. Without it, the apathy that I feel stealing over
me would be complete, and my existence become a mourn-
ful dream. In a word, Upton, all is passionless within
me, save one sentiment; and I drag on life merely for a
' Veyidetta.'"
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, Jie 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 I suffer ! Would all
the agony of Ids 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 dishonored, 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
A DISCLOSURE. 75
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
Glencore, savagely. "You have it all in that resolution.
Of no avail is it that I 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 countr}^, — 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 honor, 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 fright-
ened 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 ! "
76 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
'' Why, what would you do?" 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
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 I
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?
Is it not a thousand times better that he enter life ignoble
and unknown, — to start in the world's race with what he
may of strength and power, — than drag on an unhonored
existence, shunned by his equals, and only welcome where
it is disgrace to find companionship ? "
''But you surely have never contemplated all the conse-
quences of this rash resolve. It is the extinction of an
ancient title, the alienation of a great estate, when once you
have declared your boy illegitimate."
"He is a beggar: I know it; the penalty he must pay
is a heavy one. But think of Aer, Upton, — think of the
haughty Viscountess, revelling in splendor, and, even in
all her shame, the flattered, 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
A DISCLOSURE. 77
she is, suddenly struck down by the brand of this disgrace,
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 honor 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 hope-
less infamy of a mistress. They tell me she laughed on the
day I fainted at seeing her entering the San Carlos at Naples,
— laughed as they carried me down the steps into the fresh
air I Will she laugh now, think you ? Shall I be called ' Le
Pauvre Sire ' when she hears this ? Was there ever a ven-
geance 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 rank and fortune than I or any one else. It
cannot be alienated nor extinguished ; by his birth he be-
came 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 ? "
" And do you expect me to become a party to this crime? "
asked Upton, gravely.
"You balked 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 honor and good faith ;
but I say to you, in all sincerity, that not alone do I refuse
you all concurrence in the act you meditate, but I hold my-
self open to denounce and frustrate it."
78 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"You do!" cried Glencore, wildly, while with a bound
he sat up in his bed, grasping the curtain convulsively for
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."
"You owe me four thousand five hundred pounds. Sir
Horace Upton," said jGlencore, 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 diffi-
culty. Your generosity went farther, for you took, what
nobody else would, my personal security."
Glencore made no reply, but, throwing back the bed-
clothes, slowly and painfully arose, and with tottering and
uncertain steps approached a table. With a trembling
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, caver-
nous voice, as he threw it into the fire, and crushed it down
into the flames with a poker. ^'' There is now nothing be-
tween 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 upon the floor.
CHAPTER XI.
SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OP 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 attachment — we can find
no better word for it — to some woman of superior under-
standing who has united within herself great 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 ques-
tions, 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 crea-
tion." Whatever be the part they take in these contests,
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 harbor bill or a road cession ;
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
80 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
seem, the stupendous incidents which mould human desti-
nies are more under the influence of passion and intrigue
than the commonest events of e very-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 abstruse
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 Sablou-
kofif, 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 Horace first met her, he was the junior mem-
ber of our Embassy at Naples, and she the distinguished
leader of fashion in that city. We are not about to busy
ourselves with the various narratives which professed to
explain her influence at Court, or the secret means to which
she owed her ascendency over royal highnesses, 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 acquaintance
some ten years later as a Secretary, when she vouchsafed
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, —
SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 81
" My dear Horace, how charming to see an old friend, if
you will be good enough to let me call you so."
And he was so ; he accepted the friendship as frankly 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 favorites. Sir Horace
knew all this ; but he also knew that, she being ^ 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 all 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 hack-
neyed, 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
pursuit 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 everj^ 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-magnificence, not the
less becoming to one whose whole air and bearing assumed
something of queenly dignity.
82 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 species of
respectful homage, which the wider world without-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 pre-
rogative 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, still, with faculties like hers, there was j^et 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 knowledge
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 insignificant 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 ! " Now, the illus-
tration is a very ignoble one, but it conveys no very inexact
idea of the bond which united these two distinguished
individuals.
SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 83
Sir Horace was one of those fine, acute intelligences
which may be gapped and blunted if applied to rough work,
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 to vast powers
of employing it with profit. No more was wanting to estab-
lish a friendship between them. Dispositions must be, to a
certain degree, different between those who are to live to-
gether as friends, but tastes must be alike. Theirs were so.
They had 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 man}?-
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 fascinations 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 comprehend the vast
stores of his knowledge, and the wide measure of his capa-
city 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 con-
ference 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 ques-
tions often asked in that dreary old drawing-room of Down-
ing Street, where men's destinies are shaped, and the fate of
millions decided, from four o'clock to six of an afternoon.
84 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 Parlia-
ment based upon information received from him. It has
even happened that the news from his hand has caused the
telegraph of the Admiralty to signalize the "Thunderer" to
put to sea with all haste. In a word, he was the trusted
agent of our Government, whether ruled by a Whig or a
Tory, and his despatches were ever regarded as a sure
warranty for action.
The English Minister at a Foreign Court labors 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 temporiz-
ing ; counselling patience and submission, 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
favor 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 Chartist 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 succor Poles or awaken dormant
nationalities.
Upton's proposal was rejected. He was even visited with
one of those disagreeable acknowledgments by which the
SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 85
Foreign Office reminds a speculative minister that he is going
ultra crepidam. 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 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, proposing
that he should visit Glencore, the project came most oppor-
tunely ; 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-engage-
ments, 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 conclu-
sion that, in Glencore's present condition, opposition might
prejudice his chance of recovery, but never avail to turn him
from his project. He also set himself to study the boy's
character, 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,
86 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 before him, — all gave him
the same feeling of pride.
" There's a deal of good in that lad," said Harcourt to
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 diplomat, smiling amiably.
''And why shouldn't it last?" asked the other,
impatiently.
"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; but 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 ? "
SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 87
" Why not? or, at least, why should n'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 of
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
Glencore just take courage to send him to Harrow or
Rugby, and my life on it, but he '11 be the manliest fellow in
the school."
" I '11 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, Harcourt," 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 iio compliment that he actually reddened and looked
away. At last he took courage to renew the conversation,
and said, —
" And what would you advise for the boy, then? "
88 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
*' I 'd scarcely lay down a system ; but I '11 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 '11 get some clew 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 7im, perhaps."
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 him, 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 cour-
teous acquiescence in the opinion, — a politeness that made
poor Harcourt perfectly ashamed of his own rudeness, and
he continued hurriedly, —
"He'll have abundance of money. The life Glencore
leads here will be like a long minority to hiiiji. 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
SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 89
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 gray 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
he the slightest intention of a personal application in his
words. Of this fact Upton appeared soon to be convinced,
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 Upton,
blandly; "but I must decline the challenge, for I have a
letter to write, and our post here starts at daybreak."
" 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 dear 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, impass-
able 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, I believe I am better ; the doctor,
a strange, unsophisticated creature, a cross between Galen and
90 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 func-
tions, but actually performing 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 another depart-
ment, with abundance of occupation of its own, I cannot make out.
But to turn to something 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. O. are aware is not the case. I
have already told you that my suggestion has been negatived in the
Cabinet : it was ill-timed, Allington says ; but I ventured to remind
his Lordship that a policy requiring years to develop, and more
years still to push to a profitable conclusion, is not to be reduced
to the category of mere a propos 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 T/hey 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 acknowledgment of all. But even at this, Allington
takes no alarm. The malady of the Treasury benches is deafness,
with a touch of blindness. What a cumbrous piece of bungling
machinery is this boasted " representative government " of ours I
No promptitude, no secrecy ! Everything debated, and discussed,
and discouraged, before begun ; every blot-hit for an antagonist to
profit by ! Even the characters of our public men exposed, and
their weaknesses 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 '11 spoil all. I always thought Josephine would fail in Eng-
land. 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 resolution. One
SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 91
thing is clear, — they do not, or they wiU not, see the danger I have
pointed out to them. AU the home policy of our country is drift-
ing, day by day, towards a democracy : how, in the name of com-
mon 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 mdignation, 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 resignation would not embarrass them, — it would
irritate and annoy, but not disconcert. Brekenoff will surely go
home on leave. You 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 AUington. This feel-
ing, and his love for white truffles, are, I believe, the only clews to
the man. Be sure, however, that the truffles are Piedmontese:
they have a slight flavor of garlic, rather agreeable than otherwise.
Like Josephine's lisp, it is a defect that serves for a distinction.
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 apergu, 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 Statesman 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, whom you tell
me you remember ; but, how to say it ? He is broken-hearted —
literally broken-hearted — by her desertion of him. It was one of
those ill-assorted leagues which cannot hold together. Why they
did not see this, and make the best of it, — sensibly, dispassion-
ately, 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 offence !
He ponders over this calamity just as if it were the crushing
stroke by which a man's whole career was to be finished forever.
92 THE FOETimES OF GLENCORE.
The stupidity of all stupidities is in these cases to fly from the
world and avoid society. By doing this a man rears a barrier he
never can repass ; he proclaims aloud his sentiment of the injury,
quite forgetting 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 revo-
lutionary governments, smash dynasties, transgress laws, but they
cannot oppose convenances!
I need scarcely say that there is nothing to be gained by reason-
ing with him. He has worked himself up to a chronic fury, and
talks of vengeance all day 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 Glencore'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. Youx 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 chez
nous when we meet. But when is that to be ? Who can tell ? My
medico insists upon five full weeks for my cure. AUington is very
likely, in his present 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 fore-
bodings. I could leave this — that is, if any urgency required it —
at once ; but, if possible, it is better I should remain at least a
little longer. My last meeting with Glencore was unpleasant.
Poor fellow ! his temper is not what it used to be, and he is forget-
ful of what is due to one whose nerves are in the sad state of
mine. You shall hear all my complainings when we meet, dear
Princess ; and with this I kiss your hand, begging you to accept all
" mes hommaqes " et man 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 / 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
SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE. 93
an air of satisfaction. He had said nothing that he wished
unsaid, and he had mentioned a little about everything he
desired to touch upon. He then took his ''drops" from a
queer-looking little phial he carried about with him, and hav-
ing looked at his face in a pocket-glass, he half closed his
eyes in revery.
Strange, confused visions were they that flitted through
his brain. Thoughts of ambition the most daring, fancies
about health, speculations in politics, finance, religion, liter-
ature, 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 companion-
ship supplies. He could — to steal a figure from our steam
language — he could "bank his fires," and await any emer-
gency, and, while scarcely consuming any fuel, prepare for
the most trying demand upon his powers. A hasty move-
ment 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 this
evening about something, and they say that with the passion
he opened the bandage on his head, and set the vein a-bleed-
ing again. Billy Traynor is there now trying to stop it."
" I'll go upstairs," said Sir Horace, rising, and beginning
to fortify himself with caps, and capes, and comforters, —
precautions that he never omitted when moving from one
room to the other.
CHAPTER XII.
A NIGHT 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 attendants
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 labored
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 Mm; " 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, j9er saltimf if
I took away my finger."
A NIGHT AT SEA. 95
''You must be patient, Glencore," said Upton, gently;
"you know I'm always ready when you want me."
''And you'll not leave this, — you'll not desert me?"
cried the other, eagerly.
" Certainly not; I have no thought of going away."
"There, now, hould your prate, both of ye, or, by my
conscience, I '11 not take the responsibility upon me, — I will
not!" said Billy, angrily. " 'T is 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 without
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 breakwater, 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 ser-
vants, who were still moving about the room in imaginary
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 '11 see what philosophy there is in ascribin' to the heart
the source of all our emotions. He lies there azy and com-
fortable 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 is n't dishonored ! "
96 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
'' What was it brought on this attack? " asked Upton, in
a whisper.
''A shindy he had with the boy. I was n't here; theje
was nobody by. But when I met Master Charles on the
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' terribly!
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 '11 just step down and see," said Sir Horace, 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 clew as to
whither he had gone. Sir Horace at once hastened to
Harcourt's room, and, after some vigorous shakes, succeeded
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, springing
from his bed, and dressing with all haste. ''He 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 fearfully.
"Do you remain here, Upton. I'll go in search of the
boy. Take care Glencore 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 incessantly,
its clamor increased by the loud beating of the waves as
they broke upon the rocks. Upton had repeated to Harcourt
that Billy saw the boy going towards the sea-shore, and in
this direction he now followed. His frequent excursions had
familiarized him with the place, so that even at night
Harcourt found no difficulty in detecting the path and keep-
ing it. About half an hour's brisk walking brought him to
the side of the lough, and the narrow flight of steps cut in
A NIGHT AT SEA. 97
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 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 the 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 '11
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 '^iiis 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 '11 keep the say is another
matter."
" Then he '11 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 '11
never see him again. ' T is out to say, into the wild ocean,
he '11 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 '11 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!-"
7
98 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"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,
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 honor 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 halyard," said the boat-
man ; " and when the mainsail is set, you '11 see how she '11
dance over the top of the waves, and never wet us."
" She 's too light in the water, if anything," said Harcourt,
as the boat bounded buoyantly under the increased press
of canvas.
"Your honor'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 '11 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 more we '11 have say room enough."
The heavier roll of the waves, and the increased force
of the wind, soon showed that they had gained the open
A NIGHT AT SEA. 99
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 ? "
''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
them.
" 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 could n't rise to the say, she '11 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."
100 THE FOKTUNES OF GLENCOKE.
" I agree with you," said Harcourt, secretly stealing his
feet back again into his shoes, which he had just kicked off.
"It's fresh'ning it is every minute," said the man;
''and I'm not sui-e that we could make the islands if it
lasts."
i'Well, — what then?"
"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 labors !
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 gesture,
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 could n't have this, if there
was n'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,
labored heavily, sinking her prow in the sea at every bound.
Her course, 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."
A NIGHT AT SEA. 101
" 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 ail over by this time," muttered Harcourt,
sorrowfully.
" Pace to him now! " said the sailor, as he crossed him-
self, and went over a prayer.
The wind now raged fearfully ; claps, like the report of
cannon, struck the frail boat at intervals, and laid her nearly
keel uppermost ; while the mast bent like a whip, and every
rope creaked and strained to its last endurance. The deaf-
ening noise close at hand told where the waves were beating
on the rock-bound coast, or surging with 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 unwilling 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 grayish blue light to
the westward, the wind slightly abated, blowing more stead-
ily, 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 '11 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, sk; 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 could n't have been blown out to
sea?"
"How could he, sir? There's only one way the wind
could dhrive him. If he is n't in the Clough Bay, he 's in
glory."
All the anxiety of that dreary night was nothing to what
102 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 impatience and
even anger.
"Don't curse the boat, yer honor," 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 forever?" asked the
other, angrily.
" She 's doin' well, and we ought to be thankful," said the
man ; and his tone, even more than his words, served to re-
prove the other's impatience. "I'll try and set the main-
sail on her with the remains of the sprit."
Harcourt watched him, as he labored away to repair the
damaged rigging ; but though 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 drifting
out to say."
" 1 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?"
<yi£^ '<t aA/i/u-& .' Ji£- V M/-eylo / -iyij o-nJ/u iu/i^au^y.
CHAPTER XIII.
A "vow" ACCOMPLISHED.
Just as Upton had seated himself at that frugal meal of
weak tea and dry toast he called his breakfast, Harcourt sud-
denly entered the room, splashed and road-stained from head
to foot, and in his whole demeanor 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 conva-
lescent 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 questions starving."
" And he made a nice mess of the world in consequence,"
blustered out Harcourt. "A fellow with an honest appe-
tite 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 sha' n't forget in a hurry."
"You have hit it perfectly, Harcourt; suumcuique; 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 which
he ordered up something to eat, it was plain to see that he
A "VOW" ACCOMPLISHED. 105
scarcely relished the moral Upton had applied to his speech.
With the appearance of the good cheer, however, 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 counte-
nance. 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, "I 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 fancied that he had at
last touched the weak point of his adversary.
'• ' No, my dear Harcourt, the crassce natures have rathei
the best of it, since no small share of this world's collisions
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 favor, 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.
"You came off best this time, Harcourt," said he, good-
humoredly; 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 night on
the sea."
" The story is not a very long one," replied he ; and at once
gave a full recital of the events, which our reader has already
had before him in our last chapter, adding, in conclusion,
106 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
*'I have left the boy in a cabin at Belmullet ; he is in a high
fever, and raving so loud that you could hear him a hun-
dred 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 overcome
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 '11 soon be all right again ; I have
sent a fellow to look after a pony for you, and you '11 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 '11 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 rapid-
ity of utterance there was no following. Of course in such
cases the delusions suggest no clew 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 tranquil. Tell him, then, that I an\
going — going away forever, and he'll hear of me no
more. ' " As Harcourt repeated the words, his own voice
faltered, and two heavy drops slowly coursed down his
bronzed cheeks. " You see," added he, as if to excuse the
A "VOW" ACCOMPLISHED. 107
emotion, '* that was n'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 feeling.
" 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 consider-
able delicacy ; for until Glencore alludes to what has passed,
ive^ 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 told Tray nor 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 you consult the doctor on that head ; meanwhile, I '11
pay a visit to Glencore. 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 feel-
ing of hatred, jealousy, or revenge, seemed to him utterly
contemptible. It was not, indeed, the morality of such a
course that he called in question, although he would not have
contested that point. It was its meanness, its folly, its
insufficiency. His experience of great affairs had imbued
him with all the importance that was due to temper and mod-
eration. He scarcely remembered an instant where a false
move had damaged a negotiation that it could not be traced
to some passing trait of impatience, 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,
than talent or capacity, and his opinion of men was chiefly
founded on this quality of their nature. It was, then, with
108 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 trem-
bled 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 judg-
ment 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 Glencore,
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 you,
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.
IJe 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?
No, but better than man ever bore such crushing tidings.
A "VOW" ACCOMPLISHED. 109
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 I 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 Aer, and my resolution 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 cer-
tainly 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 forever?
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 inheritance
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 Glen-
core ; " 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 train
him up to become my accuser in a court of justice. But
my cause is a strong one, it cannot be shaken ; and where
you hope to brand me with tyranny, you will but visit bas-
110 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
tardy upon him. 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. It 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 al-
ready his flushed cheek and flashing eyes betrayed 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 obstinately
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 you
not interrupted me. I want you to be guardian to the boy.
I want you to replace me in all that regards authority 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 friendship."
"There is but one objection I could possibly have, and
yet that seems to be insurmountable.'*
" And what may it be? " cried Glencore.
" Simply, that in acceding to your request, I make myself
A "VOW" ACCOMPLISHED. Ill
an accomplice in your plan, and thus aid and abet the very
scheme I am repudiating/*
" What avails youi- repudiation if it will not turn me from
my resolve ? That it will not, I '11 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 oppor-
tunity of reflection to Glencore than to give himself more
space for deliberation. ^ He had found, by the experience 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 the cir-
culation by attending to tidal influences, and made the moon
herself enter into the materia medica. 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 exaggerated pictures, a relief and a relaxation
which more correct views of life had failed to impart.
Hard-headed men require strange indulgences.
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 along the cliffs 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,
BILLY TRAYNOR AND THE COLONEL. 113
truth in all the stmggles of our poor weak natures, —
why would n't a great janius like Homer, or Shakspeare, or
Milton, be better able to show us this in some picture drawn
by themselves, than you or I 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; but 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 ! "
"AH 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 characters
that have ever adorned a story."
' ' 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."
"1 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 Traynor; "he lives
by birds, — hunting them say gulls and cormorants through
the crevices of the rocks, and stealing the eggs. There
114 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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."
" 'T is 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 prepar-
ing for a discourse, — " because there 's no man capable of
going into the whole subject; for it's not merely an eco-
nomical question or a social one, but it is metaphysical, and
religious, and political, and ethnological, and historical, —
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 Harcourt. "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 miserable
dispute about labor and wages. O Manchester, Manches-
ter ! how ye 're in the heart of every Englishman, rich or
poor, gentle or simple ! You say you never heard of any
confession of inferiority. Of course you did n'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
BILLY TRAYNOR AND THE COLONEL. 115
you, yourself, after a discusshion with me, when you find
yourself dead bate, and not a word to reply, you '11 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 /*m in rags, in a dirty cabin,
with potatoes to ate and water to drink, and you '11 say, at
adl events, ' I 'm better off than he is ; ' and there 's your
superiority, neither more or less, — there it is ! And all the
while, I 'in 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 aU 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^feimect to see
the day that a ragged poor blackguard like me would dare to
say as much to one like you f 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 were n'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."
*' 'T is a whole volume I could write on the same subject,"
said Billy; "for there's so many causes in operation, com-
binin', 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' something else that he
had nothin' to say to ; and so, ye see, the priest does be
116 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 neighbors, for though I have a
larned profession to live by, 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 Harcourt,
" 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 clews 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 discoorsin'."
'' 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 heri'ings, 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 con-
vanience any one can require ; and a poorer set of devils
than ye '11 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.
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 danger-
ous 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 encumbrances, there was
space around the fire for a goodly company 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 honors of their humble
home; and Harcourt at once forgot the poverty-struck as-
pect of the scene in the general courtesy of the welcome.
118 THE FOKTUNES OF GLENCOKE,
'' He 's no better, your honor, — no better at all," said 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 Glencore ! ' 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.
"You 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 you."
"Yes," said he again.
"Poor fellow!" sighed Harcourt, "he does 7iot 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 Har-
court; "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 sup-
plied by fever, it was all that they could do to subdue him
and replace him in the bed ; violent convulsions followed this
severe access, and it was not till after hours of intense suffer-
ing 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."
A SICK BED. 119
*' There may be, but I know nothing of them," said Har-
court ; 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 is n't enough, we must go deeper; we want a
clew 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 ardor is mod-
erated, till at last, wearied and worn out, the heart seems
to ask for rest ; and then ye '11 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 the raal physical one, what wonder-
ful poets we 'd be ! "
' ' What hopes have you ? " whispered Harcourt.
' ' The best, the very best. There 's youth and a fine con-
stitution to work upon ; and what more does a doctor want?
As ould Marsden said, ' You can't destroy these in a fort-
night, so the patient must live.' But you must help me,
Colonel, and you can help me."
" Command me in any way. Doctor."
"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 days ; but when he comes to the convalescent stage,
it's then we'll need to knt>w how to manage him, and what
120 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
subjects to keep him away from. 'T is the same with the
brain as with a sprained ankle ; you may exercise if you
don't twist it ; but just come down once on the wrong spot,
and maybe ye won't yell out ! "
*' Yqu '11 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 treacher-
ous 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 mem-
branes, and then it 's regular hide-and-go-seek all over the
body. Trackin' a bear is child's play to it." And so say-
ing, 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.
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 gayety 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 admirable
Burgundy. My life on 't, but that is the liquor to set a man
on his legs again."
" I did n'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 ques-
tion of taste, but invariably right in every mattey of honor-
able 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.
122 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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
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 banquets of life ; and what pleas-
ant 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 friendship, ram-
bling away from theme to theme, contrasting our experiences,
balancing our views in life, and mingling through our con-
verse the racy freshness of a boy's enjoyment 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 ques-
tions of the day ; and Harcourt, with many a blunt inter-
ruption, 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 seeming 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 before
him, could have restrained Harcourt from alluding to the
boy. He bethought him, however, that any indiscretion 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
THE "PROJECT." 123
there is much delicacy in a negotiation, I generally make a
mess of it." The more genially, therefore, did Glencore
lend himself to the pleasure of the conversation, 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
with 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 must n'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-humored laugh he left the room.
Glencore's eyes followed him as he retired ; and then, as
they closed, an expression as of long-repressed suffering
settled down on his features so marked that Upton hastily
asked, —
" Are you ill, are you in pain, Glencore?"
124 THE FOKTUNES OF 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 ? "
" I must. This letter from the Foreign Office requires my
immediate presence in London, with a very great likelihood
of being obliged to start at once for the Continent."
'' 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 rest-
ing 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 emergency, 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 feas-
ible, 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 very 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 mar-
riage, they suggested that I should try some means of over-
coming 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 need n't tell you that the tone in which such
things are talked of as often partakes of levity as serious-
ness. 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
THE "PROJECT." 125
remember that original who had the famous schooner-yacht
' The Breeze,' — well, he 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 forever; 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 friend-
ship 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 ' go/od 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 '11 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
126 THE FORTUNES OE GLENCORE.
day on a shooting excursion into Calabria, and when I got
back it was not of meeting Clifford I was thinking. I has-
tened to meet the Delia Torres, and then came our elopement.
You know the rest. We went to the East, passed the winter
in Upper Egypt, and 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 indorse 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 thek 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 occa-
sion, 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, etc., 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 everything that
THE "PROJECT." 127
bore the traces of my own hand. I tell you again she is in
my power, and never was power less disposed to mercy."
'' Once more, my dear friend," said Upton, " I am driven
to tell you that I cannot be a profitable counsellor in a
matter to every detail of which I object. Consider calmly
for one moment what you are doing. See how, in your
desire to be avenged upon /ier, you throw the heaviest share
of the penalty on your own poor boy. I am not her advo-
cate 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 discretionary power
left you."
''I'll do it," said Glencore, 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 — I 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 suggesting emer-
gencies, 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 cunning, to outwit me."
There was that in the tone in which he uttered these
words, and the exaggerated energy of his manner, that con-
vinced Upton, Glencore's reason was not intact. It was not
128 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
what could amount to aberration in the ordinary sense, but
sufficient evidence was there to show that judgment had be-
come 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 sincere, attached friend that I now dispute
with you, inch by inch, a dangerous position, with a judg-
ment under no influence from passion, viewing this question
by the coldest of all tests, — mere expediency — '
'' There it is," broke in Glencore ; '' you claim an advan-
tage 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 con-
tent to go down dishonored to my grave, but also to be the
last of my name and station? Is it nothing that a whole
line of honorable ancestry is extinguished at once? Is it
nothing that I surrender him who formed my sole solace
and companionship in life? You talk of your calm, un-
biassed 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 his
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 ! "
THE "PROJECT." 129
"How far is Harcourt to be informed in this matter;
have you spoken to him already?"
" No ; nor mean to do so. I should have from him noth-
ing but reproaches for having betrayed the boy into false
hopes of a station he was never to fill. You must tell Har-
court. I leave it to yourself to find 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 your 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, Glencore," 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."
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 remark-
able faculties," he was not by any means certain 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 marriage ? "
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 his title, and
your brains, to have such a sin on my conscience ! "
" 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 re-
probate whatever he detects dishonorable or disgraceful ? I
do judge him, and sentence him too, and I say, moreover,
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 TfiTE-A-TfiTE. 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 consideration, 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 a&
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 possibly as
likely to produce an effect ; nor is it in the least necessary to
dwell upon that. What Glencore has done, and what I have
said about it, both belong to the past. They are over, —
they are irrevocable. It is to what concerns 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 atten-
tion 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 pictured
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
ojher that I have come to confer with you now," replied
Upton. "Glencore has made a liberal provision for the
132 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
boy, and asked me to become his guardian. I have no
fancy for the trust, but I did n't see how I could decline 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 suggesting 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 education,
or what chance of prospects ? I 'd send him to sea, and if
he was n'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 illegitimate
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, perhaps, 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-
macy," said Harcourt.
" Perhaps," said the other, with a bland inclination of the
head.
" And what can an old dragoon like myself 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 '11 look after him, and as soon as his removal becomes
A T£TE-A-TfiTE. 133
safe you '11 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
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 day 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 an 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 danger-
ously 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 neces-
sary 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."
134 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
*' 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 — "
" Come, come, Harcourt, it's the fault of all soft-hearted
fellows, like yourself, that their kindhness degenerates into
selfishness, and they have such a regard for their own feel-
ings 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 characters."
"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 Constanti-
nople the better."
" Sha' n't they want you at Paris? " asked Harcourt, 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.
CHAPTER XVin.
BILLY TRAYNOR 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 obsei*vers
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
arranging the trunks and portmanteaus, and Lord Glencore
sat moodily on a bank, listlessly regarding what went for-
ward. 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 "his 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 word 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 car-
riage. 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 speculations
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 within
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 Iqst 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 autumn evening, 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 TRAYNOK AS ORATOR. 137
whatever their rank in life, are always what Coleridge would
have called '' noticeable men." He was soon, 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 " beyant at the Castle."
"It's a mighty quiet studious kind of life," said Billy,
"but agrees with me wonderfully; fori may say that until
now I never was able to give my ' janius ' fair play. Pro-
fessional life is the ruin of the student ; and being always
obleeged to be thinkin' 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 perceave? "
" Yes ! " said the sacristan, on whom every eye was now
bent, to see if he was able to follow subtleties that had out-
witted the rest.
"And whin I say ohfuscate^^' resumed Billy, ''I open a
question of disputed etymology, bekase tho' Lucretius thinks
the word obfuscator original, -there's many supposes it comes
from ob and fticus, the dye the ancients used in their wool,
as we find in Horace, lanafuco medicata; while Cicero em-
ploys 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 controversy.
Come in here to Mrs. Moore's, Billy, and take a glass
((
138 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
with us," said Terry; "it isn't often we see you in these
parts."
' ' If the honorable 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 parlor of
"The Griddle," with a company of some fifteen or sixteen
very convivially disposed friends around him.
" If I was Caesar, or Lucretius, or Nebuchadnezzar, I
could n'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 enjoyment
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 nec-
tar, 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 diem jucundam decipere."
The unknown tongue had now restored to Billy all the
reverence and respect of his auditory, and he continued to
expatiate vefy 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."
"For, after all," said he, "'tis our own wakenesses is
BILLY TRAYNOR AS ORATOR. 139
often the source of our most refined enjoyments. No, Mrs.
Cassidy, ye needn't be blushin'. I'm considerin' my sub-
ject in a high ethnological and metaphysical sinse." Mrs.
Cassidy's confusion, and the mirth it excited, here inter-
rupted 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 digitis
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 con-
siderations, 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 '11 never arrive
at anything great or tri-imi-phant till you wane yourself
away from the likes of them vanities. Look at the hay then
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 represints it ; and as to Paintin', on my
conscience, they have n'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 OE GLENCORE.
*' No, no, no," loudly responded the meeting.
" Maybe I 'm Imposin' too much 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 meeting,
and he resumed : —
" Ay, ladies and gintlemin, Billy Traynor is takin' his
' farewell benefit ; ' he's not humbuggin'. I 'm not 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 '11 tell ye," said he, — '' at least so far as I can tell ; be-
cause it would n'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
ti'avel. 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, con-
chology, 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 '11 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 num.-
mis ac vestimentis, —
" * I have n't sixpence in my pack,
I have n't small clothes to my hack,*
carryin' the bag many a weary mile, through sleet and snow,
for six pounds tin per annum, and no pinsion for wounds or
BILLY TRAYNOR AS ORATOR. 141
superannuation ; and now I 'm to be — it is n't easy to say
what — to the young lord a spacies of humble companion,
— 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.
There, now, if I discoorsed for a month, I could n't tell you
more about myself and my future prospects. I own to you
that I 'm proud of my good luck, and I would n't exchange
it to be Emperor of Jamaica, or King of the Bahamia
Islands."
If we have been prolix in our oflSce of reporter to Billy
Traynor, our excuse is that his discourse will have contrib-
uted 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.
CHAPTER XrX.
THE CASCINE 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
odors seem to temper, as it were, the exciting atmosphere.
An occasional cloud, fleecy and jagged, sails lazily aloft,
marking its shadow on the mountain 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 representatives 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 favorite overtures of the
day, the noise and tumult of conversation almost drowned
their notes. Now, the Cascine is to the world of society
THE CASCINE AT FLORENCE. 143
what the Bourse is to the world of ^ trade. It is the great
centre of all news and intelligence, where markets and bar-
gains 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 Ber-
lin, — who has fled from his creditors in England, — who has
run away from her husband at Naples, — all are 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 repro-
bation of the bad, and a due estimate of the opposite, if it
ever occurred at all; but as surely would they be disap-
pointed. Never were censors more lenient, — never were
critics so charitable. The transgressions against good-
breeding — the "gaucheries" of manner, the solecisms in
dress, language, or demeanor — do indeed 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 cir-
cumstances ; " for the petty larcenies of fashion they have
nothing but whipcord.
Amidst the various knots where such discussions were
carried on, one was eminentl}^ 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 pro-
nounced the acme of elegance. Whatever might have been
the differences of national opinion on this point, there could
144 THE FORTUNES OE GLENCORE.
assuredly have been none as to the beauty of those who
occupied ' it.
Though a considerable interval of years divided them,
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 gray
eyes. They had a peculiar tint of skin, deeper and mel-
lower 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 simi-
larity 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 distinctions.
The same public opinion that enthrones the sculptor 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 ver^^ 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 familiarity 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 inti-
macy, 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 — separated 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,
THE CASCINE AT FLORENCE. 145
from five-and- twenty to five-and- thirty, who had not been
obliged to leave hers from acts of cruelty or acts of brutal-
ity, etc., that only husbands are capable of, or of which
their ^poor wives are ever the victims. ^
If the moral geography of Europe be ever written, the
region south of the Alps will certainly be colored with that
tint, whatever it be, that describes the blessedness of a
divorced existence. In other lands, especially in our own,
the separated individual labors 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 actually pays homage to
their infirmity, and makes of their itoartyrdom 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 Arno. Vast as are the material re-
sources 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 bankruptcy 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 con-
tained 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
10
146 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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
his arm in a sling, had just recited the incident of his late
duel; a Neapolitan Minister had delivered a rose-colored
epistle from a Royal Highness of his own couii;. A Span-
ish 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 gen-
tleman, — a man who could reflect nothing but honor 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 favor that many an envious heart coveted,
she extended her hand to him as he came forward, which he
kissed with all the lowly deference he would have shown to
that of his prince.
'''•Man cJier 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
THE CASCINE AT FLORENCE. 147
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 I' Emir 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 — "
*' To be sure not. I told the Archduchess it was. I wore
it in my Turkish dress on Wednesday, and you, false man,
would n'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 unde-
served 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 joui-nal? "
"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 hear-
ing him read out your name in a paragraph here, I carried
off his paper to have it translated for me. You read Eng-
lish, 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 humor.
" It is here somewhere. Farbleu, 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.
148 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
((
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 para-
graph, and crushing the newspaper in his hand, hurried
away from the spot. The Duke as quickly followed, and
soon overtook him."
''Who gave you this paper, Duke?" cried the Russian,
angrily.
' ' It was Lord Selby. He was reading it aloud to a
friend."
" Then he is an infame! and I '11 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 carriages, and thrust-
ing 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 Brignolles that you have just given him this
newspaper, that he might obtain the translation of a passage
in it which concerns Lady Glencore, and have the explana-
tion 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 poUsson / "
" 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."
THE CASCINE AT FLORENCE. 149
*' 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 did n'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 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,
quietly.
'' 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. He 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 '11 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."
150 THE FOETUNES OF GLENCORE.
"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 honor 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.
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 illustrious family
whose name it bore, had fallen into the hands of an old Pied-
montese noble, ruined by a long life of excess and dissi-
pation. 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 alterca-
tions, 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 Fos-
sombroni, in a discussion, was the watchword for a duel.
It was of a splendid spring morning that the two English-
men 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 struc-
tures which the country about Florence abounds in. Gloomy,
stern, and jail-like without, while within, splendid apart-
ments opened into each other in what seems an endless suc-
cession. Frescoed walls and gorgeously ornamented ceilings,
gilded mouldings and rich tracery, were on every side;
152 THE EORTUNES OF GLENCOKE.
and these, too, in chambers where the immense proportions
and the vast space recalled the idea 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 decorations, which were most irreverently re-
placed 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 endeavoring 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 Ricordi, 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.
THE VILLA FOSSOMBRONL 153
He removed his skull-cap as he approached, and said, '' The
Count Tasseroni, at your orders."
" We have come here by appointment," said Baynton.
" 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
to 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."
" Pe?' 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 w^ounded?" said Selby.
"Don't you know that these Russians use the left hand
indifferently with the right, in all exercises? It may be
awkward tor 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, then, a momentary word of ill-temper, occasioned
by what I wrongfully believed to be a great injury?"
"Of course, I knew it was a ll a mistake on your part.
*^ OF THE
UNIVERSITY
CF
154 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE,
I told Colonel Baynton, here, you '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 your
forgiveness more precious to me. And now, as another
favor, 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 th^, 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 invi-
tation of the Prince to breakfast, and they all adjourned to
a small but splendidly decorated room, where everything 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.
THE VILLA FOSSOMBRONI. 155
By degrees the Russian led the conversation to the ques-
tion 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.
" 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 honor of his wife, — to degrade her to the rank of a
mistress, — and, at the same time, to bastardize 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
did n't pay much attention, exactly, to what he says. Glen-
core'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 demeanor.
" 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.
156 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
'' 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?"
" 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.
"I should think so, if he has no wife living," said Selby ;
" but I trust, for my sake, he '11 not."
" And what if he should, and should be discovered the
wedded husband of another?"
*'That would be bigamy," said Selby. "Would they
hang him, Baynton?"
" 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 mem-
ory 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
THE VILLA FOSSOMBRONL 157
much confusion as if subjected to a searching examination
in science.
"Well, I should n'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 '11 be in time for the Holy Week and all the cere-
monies," said the Prince.
"Mind that, Baynton," said his Lordship, who wasn't
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 keep-
ing 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 won-
der, strange sights and new, may present themselves, but
they are not to be startled out of national dignity by so
ignoble a sentiment as surprise. 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 in-
dividuals, — they are a class ; and, strange enough too, a
class which almost invariably pertains to a high and distin-
guished rank in society. It would be presumptuous to
ascribe such demeanor 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
158 FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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.
CHAPTER XXI.
SOME TRAITS OF LIFE.
It was the night Lady Glencore received ; and, as usual,
the street was crowded with equipages, which somehow
seemed to have got into inextricable confusion, ^ some en-
deavoring 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 receive.'*
" Can no one explain this mystery?" cried the old Prin-
cess Borinsky, as, heavy with fat and diamonds, she hung
out of her carriage window. " Oh, there 's Major Scaresby ;
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 momentary
scandal, to the side of her carriage.
160 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"Here I am, all impatience. What is it, Scaresby?
Tell me quickly," cried she.
''A smash, my dear Princess, — nothing more or less,"
said he, 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 charm-
ing Countess, you remember, ran away with a countryman
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 together ; but
they forgot to get married, Princess. Ha — ha — ha I"
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 need n't believe it. Why, how
do we go anywhere, nowadays, except by ' not believing *
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 '11 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?" 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
growing too scarce to make one credulous of the ills that
can be said of their owners."
SOME TRAITS OF LIFE. 161
"I wish I knew what course to take," muttered the
Princess.
"I'll tell you, then. Get half a dozen of your own set
together to-morrow morning, vote the whole story an atro-
cious 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 estab-
lished 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
formed 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,
sincerely professed that he disbelieved 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 friend-
ship 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 hea-
viest 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
11
162 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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, sLnd
yet there were cases — this, one of them — which trans-
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 been merciful,
but they were overborne by numbers. Lady Glencore's
beauty and her vast fortune were now counts in the indict-
ment 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 competition 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 travel-
ling-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 — guests 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 cour-
tesies of society no pledges of friendship are required, no
real gratitude incurred. Be it so. Still, the revulsion,
SOME TRAITS OF LIFE. 163
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.
The fair Countess had 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
sovereign. Her salons had the double eminence of brilliancy
in rank and brilliancy in wit ; her entertainments were cited
as models of elegance and refinement; and now she was
gone! The extreme of regret that followed 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 useful-
ness and good ; and, doubtless, these same loungers contri-
bute 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 themselves into our meat
and drink, and rendering life miserable. Is there not some-
thing very similar performed by the respectable class I
allude to? Are they not invariably devouring and destroy-
ing 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 "Vagabonds' 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 would n't con-
164 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
descend 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, — / understand
them, — / am aware that 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 lucubrations.
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.
-A^y? 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 for-
getting. It forgets not only all it owes to others, — grati-
tude, honor, 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 Arretini, Via del Sole."
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 Foreign Office for transmission. Should it ever
reach you, you will perceive 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 g, rare incident in my life
to have forgotten nothing required of me ! 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. / ought
to have gone to Vienna, — and so they know at home ; but it 's
the old game played over 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 turn a deaf
ear to.
It is very kind of you to think of my h^ealth. I am still a suf-
ferer ; 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 Marsalla
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 Kin^ has most kindly placed a
little villa at Ischia at my disposal ; but I do not mean to avail
166 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
myself of the politeness. 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 scabbards. 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, .1 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 ;
weU-bred people, like Gold, are current everywhere. 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 Diplomatist, like the
ancient Augur, must not suffer himself to be vulgarized by con-
tact. 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 employees, 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 unbounded affec-
tion for them. So much 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 remem-
ber 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 lan-
guage, — always a difficulty, if not abstracted from other and more
AN UPTONIAN DESPATCH. 16T
dulcet sounds. I never meant to have him domesticated with
some rusty Hochgelehrter, eating sauer-kraut 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
wonderfully 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, mirac-
ulous. I am certain, Harcourt, you never felt half the pleasure on
arriving at a region well stocked with game, that he did on find-
ing 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 and ex-
penditure ; 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
appointment ; 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. Be-
sides this, it was never Glenpore's wish, but the very opposite to it,
that he should be brought prominently forward in life. He even
suggested one of the Colonies as the means of withdrawing him at
once, and forever, from public gaze.
You 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
168 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 communication he had re-
ceived from his lawyer with regard to some property in tail, M^hich,
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 whatever. 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 hear, actually houseless since
her departure. 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 insupportable
nuisance of flat stories and stale gossip ; one of those fellows who
cannot make even malevolence amusing, and who speak ill of their
neighbors without a single spark of wit. He has left three cards
upon me, each duly returned ; but I am resolved that our inter-
change 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 completed
a longer despatch to you than I intend to address to the Noble
Secretary at F. O., and am yours, very faithfully,
Horace Upton.
AN UPTONIAN DESPATCH. 169
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 stimulating 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.
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 hung 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, overshadowed 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 fea-
tures contribute^ their share.
It is, indeed, a strange physiognomy, to which Celt and
Calmuc seem equally to contribute. The low, overhanging
forehead, the intensely keen eye, sparkling with an almost
imp-like drollery, are contrasted by a firmly compressed mouth
and a far-projecting under-jaw that imply sternness even to
THE TUTOR AND HIS PUPIL. 171
cruelty ; a mass of waving black haii*, that covers neck and
shoulders, adds a species of savagery 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 oc-
cupied, 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 utrumque pa-
ratus." 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, /cannot; I have a fretful, impatient feel-
ing over me that perhaps will go off with exercise. I'll
set out, then, for a walk, and come back here towards even-
ing, then go and dine at the Rocca, and afterwards what-
ever 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 workshop, rather
than by implicitly accepting results just as any old woman
accepts a superstition?"
172 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"There is something ignoble in mechanism," said the
boy, angrily.
*' Don't say that, while j^our heart is beatin' and your
arteries is contractin' ; never say it as long as your lungs
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. 'T is 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 acknowledge 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 circumstances,"
said the boy. " I have n't told you what happened me in
the studio last night. I went in without a candle, and, try-
ing to grope my way to the table, I overturned the large
olive jar, full of clay, against my Niobe, and smashed her
to atoms."
" Smashed Niobe ! " 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."
THE TUTOR AND HIS PUPn.. 173
"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
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," said
he, smiling ; ' ' neither you nor your pupil have been near me
for ten days or more."
"'Tis 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 nowadays,
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
oflSce," said Sir Horace. " One has only to see how lament-
ably 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 '11 have fifty
metaphysicians anywhere before you '11 hit on one Moliere.
Will you kindly open that umbrella for me ? This autumnal
sun, they say, gives sunstroke. And now what do you
think of this boy? He'll not make a diplomatist, that's
clear."
" He '11 not make anything, — just for one simple reason,
because he could be whatever he pleased."
174 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
*' 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
or twine or turn them at all, but just see whether he won't,
out of his uncurbed nature, do better than all our discipline
could effect. There '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 departure," 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 happiness 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 '11 be sure to fancy he 'd be better at something
else. See, now, — it isn 't a bull I 'm sayin', but I '11 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. For, after all,
a variety of capacity implies discursiveness, and discursive-
ness ig the mother of failure."
" You speak like an oracle, Doctor."
THE TUTOR AND HIS PUPIL. 175
'^ 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 '11 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,
and greater, and better than he'll ever reach; and then,
when 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 '11 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 servant
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
176 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
air of fashionable languor seemed to heighten the absurdity
of the contrast. Nay, he actually seemed to bestow an al-
most 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 obsequiously ; grace-
ful salutations met him as he went ; while a hundred con-
jectures ran as to who and what might be his companion.
He was a Mesmeric Professor, a Writer in Cipher, a
Rabbi, an Egyptian Explorer, an Alchemist, an African
Traveller, and, at last. Monsieur Thiers ! — and so the fine
world of Naples discussed the humble individual whom
you and I, dear reader, are acquainted with as Billy
Traynor.
CHAPTER XXIV.
COMES TO ITS CLOSE.
On the evening of that day the handsome saloons of the
great Hotel " Universo " were filled with a brilliant assem-
blage to compliment the Princess Sabloukoff on her arri-
val. We have already introduced this lady to the reader,
and have no need to explain the homage and attention
of which she was the object. There is nothing which so
perfectly illustrates the maxim of ignotum pro magnifico
as the career of politics; certain individuals obtaining, as
they do, a pre-eminence and authority from a species of
mysterious prestige about them, and a reputation of having
access at any moment to the highest personage 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 uttered his celebrated sar-
casm on the governing capacities of Europe, the political
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. Des-
potic 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
12
178 THE FORTUNES OE GLENCORE.
treat a popular movement with disdain would tremble at
the epigram launched by some '' elegant" of society. The
theory is, " that the masses act^ but never think; the higher
ranks thinks 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 engaged with its own
vicissitudes, troubles itself little with those of the state, — let
it be remembered that the governments which employ these
agencies are in a position to judge of the value of what they
receive ; and as they persevere in maintaining them, they are,
doubtless, in some degree, remunerated.
To hold this high detective employ, a variety of conditions
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 appre-
ciated. 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 communi-
cate, 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 with-
out 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.
HOW A "RECEPTION" COMES TO ITS CLOSE. 179
Amongst the proficients in the great science we speak 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 cele-
brated 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 trade.
To the minister of police she brought accurate descriptions
of suspected characters, — the signalements of Carbonari
that were threatening half the thrones of Europe. To the
foreign secretary she brought tidings of the favor in which
a great Emperor held him, and a shadowy 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 suit-
able 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 careless 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 submls-
180 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
sive deference of a courtier. The most lynx-eyed observer
could not have detected either in his manner or in hers that
any intimacy existed between them, much less friendship;
least of all, anything still closer. His bearing was a most
studied and respectful homage, — hers a haughty, but con-
descending, 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 yielding 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 her intimacy.
She covered over what might have seemed this disparage-
ment 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 attributes 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 whenever they condescended to
more trifling themes, they treated them with a degree of
candor and in a spirit that allowed men to speak as unre-
servedly 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 widely felt
than many are disposed to believe.
As the evening wore on, the guests bartered 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 expla-
nations 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
HOW A "RECEPTION" COMES TO ITS CLOSE. 181
treatment of great questions, one striking feature pre-emi-
nently displayed itself, — a keen appreciation of how 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 Kesselrode," — showing that private personal
feelings were swaying the minds of those whose contempla-
tion 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 great 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
destinies 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 mar-
riage, not a Coburg alliance to patch up a family compact,
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 with-
out 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.
" I thought they 'd never go," said she, with a sigh ; " but
I know why they remained, — they all thought the Prince of
182 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
Istria was coming. They saw his carriage stop here this
evening, and heard he had sent up to know if I 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 clew 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 fortimes."
^''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,
HOW A "RECEPTION" COMES TO ITS CLOSE. 183
from Corsica ; they landed at Spezzia, with an English pass-
port, 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 people
well-off as to means. They, however, neither received 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 incognito
is sometimes, like a feigned despatch in diplomacy, a means
of awakening curiosity."
" Oes ruses ne se font plus, Princess, — they were the
fashion in Talleyrand's time ; now we are satisfied to mys-
tify 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 con-
tracting 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,
184 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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, for I promised the Cardinal Caraffa to be in Rome
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 sum-
mon 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 mOre, 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 after
nightfall. He confessed all his sins to me, and, like every
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 inten^als, 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 honor 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
HOW A "RECEPTION" COMES TO ITS CLOSE. 185
dames, in fact, but unquestionably bom to tiie class they
represent. They never dropped a hint of whence they had
come, or any cucumstance of their past lives, but seemed
entirely engrossed by the present, which they spent princi-
pally in cultivating the arts ; they both drew admirably, and
the young lady had become a most skilful modellist in clay,
her whole day 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, Wahns-
dorf was equally taken with the romance of this 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 every-
thing, 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
unsuccessful."
186 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
'' 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? "
" Actually three 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
courtesied and withdrew before he had time to take his hat
and retire.
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
savor 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 has 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
forever. 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
odors from orange-groves, with plashing fountains glitter-
ing in the sun, and foaming streams gushing from the sides
of marble mountains, — there stands Massa, ruined, de-
cayed, 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 over
which, hundreds of feet above you, the ancient fortress
188 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
frowns, and enter the silent streets, you would find it some-
what 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 equi-
pages traversed these weed-grown squares, and highborn
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 trel-
lised 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 disposi-
tion of instability and fickleness that renders every acquire-
ment valueless. He could have been anything, — orator,
poet, artist, soldier, statesman ; and yet, in the very diver-
sity of his abilities there was that want of fixity of purpose
that left him ever short of success, till he himself, wearied
by repeated failures, 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 abandoned in turn. He had
attracted to his little capital all that Europe could boast of
artistic excellence, and as suddenly he had thrown himself
into the most intolerant zeal of Papal persecution, — de-
nouncing every species of pleasure, 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
A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER. 189
and democratic licentiousness in politics, just as he vacil-
lated between the darkest bigotry of his church and open
infidelity.
At the 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 asceticism and severity. He
had closed theatres, and suppressed all public rejoicings ;
and for an entire winter he had sentenced his faithful sub-
jects to the unbroken sway of the Priest and the Friar, — a
species of rule which had banished all strangers 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 induced, 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 as-
suredly was, — a consummately clever fellow, who could
apply all his native Yorkshke 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 honor,
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 asking 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 York-
shire jockey, and not from the decorated and gilded throng
who filled the antechambers.
190 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 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 house-
hold and all who belonged to it. He was one of those men
of action who speedily distinguish themselves wherever the
game of life is being played. Smart to discern the character
of those around him, prompt to avail himself of their knowl-
edge, little hampered by the scruples which conventionali-
ties 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, unflinch-
ing 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, however,
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 early autumn, as the Prince,
accompanied by Stubber alone, and unattended by even a
groom, rode along one of the alleys of the olive wood which
skirts the sea-shore beneath Massa. His Highness was
umisually moody and thoughtful, and as he sauntered care-
lessly 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 Europe, 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 con-
A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER. 191
currence ; but the Prince was obliged to reiterate his state-
ment, 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 pur-
suits 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, perhaps, without society, amuse-
ment, 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 exti'icated himself 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 is n't everything done as it ought, Stubber,
eh?"
" Why is n'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 necessa-
ries of your station."
" Pe/ Bacco! Billy, you are right; you must look into
these accounts yourself. They always confuse me."
192 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
li
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."
"Well done, Billy! you are the only fellow who can un-
mask 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 ques-
tion 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 com-
pleted? 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 townspeople. 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 '11
not ; I have other thoughts in my head. Why should not
this be the centre of ai-t 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 ter-
raced in a succession of gardens down to the very margin
of the sea. Plants and shrubs of other climates were min-
gled with those familiar to Italy, making up a picture of
singular beauty, by diversity of color 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 sign 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.
A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER. 193
'' British occupation, perhaps you mean ; well, you may be
right. At all events, I did not take Landelli's advice, for I
gave the permission, and I have never heard more of her.
She must be rich, I take it. See what 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 fol-
lowed 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 invit-
ingly 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 intei-vals the most beautiful views of the surround-
ing scenery. Although much of what he beheld around him
was the work of many years, there were abundant traces of
innovation and improvement. 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 enshrouded in the wetted drapery with which artists
clothe their unfinished labors. 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
13
194 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
expressed." So saying, he sat down before the model, and
taking up one of the tools at his side, began to correct some
of the errors 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 was admir-
ably fitted to correct' the faults of another, and so he worked
away vigorously, — totally forgetting where he was, how he
had come there, 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 thing of
it — there 's life in it now ! "
''So indeed is there," cried a gentle voice behind him;
ahd, 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 courtesied before him. ''I have had no teaching, and
never till this 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 labor
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 diffi-
cult 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 I 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."
A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER. 195
"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.
"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,,
gayly. " "Why, with a talent like yours, have you not given
yourself to regular study ? You live in a land where instruc-
tion should not be difficult to obtain. Carrara is one va^t
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 likeness
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.
196 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
" 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 courtesied 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
he 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-ross 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 say-
ing, his Highness rode away, thinking pleasantly over his
adventure, and fancying a hundred ways in which it might
be amusingly carried out. The life of princes is rarely
fertile in surprises ; perhaps, therefore, the uncommon and
unusual are the pleasantest of all their sensations.
CHAPTER XXVI.
ITALIAN TROUBLES.
Stubber 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 rumored 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 alarming tidings to Massa carried with him many of the
inflammatory documents, as well as several knives and
poniards, discovered by the activity of the police in a ruined
building 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 pre-
pared to act at a moment's notice.
It was an 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 intelligence 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.
198 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 dis-
missed 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
present at the Council, had all been related to him. It was
not the first time he had heard of that formidable con-
spiracy, which, under the title of the Carbonari, had estab-
lished 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 savored of treachery to
the cause amongst them. This cause was necessarily re-
cruited from those whose lives rejected all honest and patient
labor. 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 accom-
plished; they cared little for the real grievances they as-
sumed to redress : their work was demolition. It was to
the hour of pillage alone they looked for the recompense of
their hardihood. 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 comformable to the benefit of the
community, and the will of all be typified in the conduct oi
each. There was, however, another class, and to these
Stubber had given deep attention. It was a party whose
ITALIAN TROUBLES. 199
singular activity and energy were always in the ascendant, —
ever suggesting bold measures whose results could scarcely
be more than menaces, and advocating actions whose great-
est effect could not rise above acts of terror and dismay.
And thus while the leaders plotted great political convul-
sions, and the masses dreamed of sack and pillage, these
latter dealt in acts of assassination, — 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 their own excited imaginations, nor
the reckless followers 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 them-
selves suddenly, carrying away to foreign shores consider-
able 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 mem-
orable 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 rumi-
nating 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 ol them, printed
on the very paper supplied to the Government offices.
There 's the water-mark, with the crown and your own
cipher on it."
200 THE FORTUNES OF 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 Schonbrunn. 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 yo^l will be suffered to give an example
to the Peninsula of a good administration ? "
"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 because some tradi-
tions as honest men yet survive amongst them; that the
ITALIAN TROUBLES. 201
laws only exist as an agent of tyranny, arrest and imprison-
ment 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
jails 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 we, Stubber! " said the
Prince, his face 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
\ am be to your service, if I were not to tell you what you '11
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 '11 have them for the asking. They 'd
come at a word, and try your people at the drum-head, and
202 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
flog and shoot them with as little disturbance to you as need
be. You may pension off 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, pros-
per with martial law, nor is a state of siege thought favor-
able to commerce. No matter. You '11 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 up, 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 Em-
pire. At all events, give me time to investigate 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 '11 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, dismissed
his adviser.
CHAPTER XXVIL
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, escarped 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.
Far 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 gath-
ered 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 pro-
portions, and not devoid of a certain architectural preten-
sion, — 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
204 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
and saints are of frequent occurrence ; and the majority of
the artists display their faith by an image of the saint whose
patronage they claim. Others exhibit some ideal concep-
tion ; and a few denote their nationality by the bust 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 dis-
tinguished by the chaste and simple elegance 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 friendless and unknown,
but whose abilities had soon obtained for him consideration
and employment. At first, the tasks intrusted 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 crea-
tions 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 greet-
ing ; 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 con-
trary, 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 morning
in the antechamber of the Podesta's court, awaiting his turn
to bei^ called and interrogated. The heat of a crowded
chamber, the wearisome delay, — perhaps, too, some vexa-
tion at the frequency of these irritating calls, — had par-
tially 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. 205
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 laborer ; 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 serv^ant, it would seem, 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 he has been here some
months without any demand for one."
' ' Does he assist you in your work ? "
"He does, sk, by advice and counsel; but he is not a
sculptor. Poor fellow ! he never dreamed that his presence
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 con-
fined 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 take
206 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 dis-
pleasure to the authorities, I will, however sorry, take my
departure, though I cannot say whither to." The last words
were uttered falteringly, and in a kind of soliloquy, 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 sub-
sistence, 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 '11 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," cried
CARRARA. 207
the boy, passionately, as he moved towards the door ; but no
impediment was offered to his departure. On the contrary,
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, crossing
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 fit was a long
one. This morning it began at eight o'clock ; but I 'm throw-
ing it off now, and I '11 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 succor
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 ;
208 THE FORTUNES OE GLENCORE.
it is the compact that says, Bear this, that that may happen ;
and so I '11 none of it."
" Tell me how you fared with the Prefect," asked Billy.
"You shall hear, and judge for yourself," said the other;
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,
afeectionately ; "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."
' ' I 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 postmark, must
have been despatched many weeks since."
Billy Traynor took up the letter, whose seal was yet un-
broken, and having examined it carefully, returned it to him,
saying, " You did n'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
fervor of prayer.
CHAPTER XXVm.
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 tell-
ing 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 would n'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,
14
210 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
where, in a species of summer-house, they were seated at
theu" 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 m}^ 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 whereto can you go? "
"I scarcely know as yet, since the police are in com-
munication throughout the whole Peninsula, and they trans-
mit 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, I 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 NIGHT SCENE. 211
"A few minutes' walk; but not worth even that, when
the place is full of things really worth seeing. There's
Danneker's 'Bathing Nymph,' and Canova's ' Dead Cupid,'
and Rauch's 'Antigone,' 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 labor very little
and idle a great deal, that is saying enough, perhaps."
"I'm not sure the police are not right about him, after
all, Baynton," said his Lordship ; "he does n'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 Neapoli-
tan? 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 passport? "
" 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.
212 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"Have you heard from Sir Horace lately?" asked Lord
Selby.
"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 suspicions
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 as-
suredly 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 respectfully
to each.
" Wait a moment ; pray don't go, — sit down again, — I
never meant, — of course I could n'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 deske to serve
you."
" Just so, — a sincere desire to serve 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 sore-
ness 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
A NIGHT. SCENE. 213
difficulty gracefully. He tried, indeed, to seem at ease, he
endeavored even to be cheerful; but the efforts were all
unsuccessful. My lord was no very acute observer at any
time ; he was, besides, so constitutionally 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 with'
out a certain irritation at the indifference of his questioner.
"Scarcely light enough to look at it to-night, — eh,
Baynton?"
" Scarcely ! " was the dry answer.
" We can go in the morning though, 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 undertaking,
— 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 Baynton.
"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.
214 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
''Well, that may be very trae; I never thought about
that, — eh, Baynton ? "
*' Why should you? " was the short response.
" 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 ! Would n'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 wild-
est passions of the Carbonari, — one of those savage exhor-
tations to bloodshedding 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.
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A NIGHT SCENE. 215
"And this is your statue?" said Baynton, as, opening
a large shutter, he suffered a flood of moonlight to fall on
the figure.
" Fine ! — a work of great merit, Baynton," broke in his
Lordship, whose apathy was at last overcome by admira-
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 then:
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 contended 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 gor-
geous 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, embel-
lishing life with every charm, and daring death in every
shape, — beautiful as Apollo, graceful as the bounding
Mercury, bold as Achilles, the lion's whelp, as ^schylus
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.
216 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
" 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,
and holding up 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 Englishman,
and that if he comes to harm they '11 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 aftei-wards. Come along to the inn; we'll see
about it in the morning."
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 opening
upon a vast garden. There was something in the dim half-
light, the heavily perfumed air, rich with the odor 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 them-
selves 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
unlike that of the other: the Saxon, blunt, imperious, and
decided ; the Celt, subtle, quick-sighted, and suspicious, dis-
trustful 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 frank-
218 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
ness would serve you greatly, you prefer to preserve a mys-
tery that I could easily penetrate if I cared for it, to speak-
ing openly and freely, as a man miglit 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 remem-
ber where 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 mod-
ellin', with good studies around us; and, more than all, a
quiet, secluded little spot, with nothing to distract our at-
tention, or take us out of a mind for daily labor. 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 could n'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'? "
A COUNCIL OF STATE. 219
" This letter was found in the possession of the young
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 gendarme,
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, colored drawings, —
some representing views of Swiss scenery, others being por-
traits of opera celebrities, — were mingled with illuminated
missals and richly-embossed rosaries ; while police reports,
petitions, rose-colored billets and bon-bons, made up a mass
of confusion wonderfully typical of the illustrious individual
himself.
Stubber had scarcely crossed the threshold of the room
when he appeared to appreciate the exact frame of his mas-
ter'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 nature, 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
220 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
surtout, your Highness ; and so adroitly given, besides, that
it does not correspond with the incision in his waistcoat."
"You distrust everyone 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 weeks 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 arrested, 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 influence
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 Wahnsdorf was a secret agent in
the scheme, eh, Stubber?"
Stubber started with well-affected astonishment, and ap-
peared 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 ; but
A COUNCIL OF STATE. 221
she speaks of a young sculptor at Carrara, a certain — Let
me find his name. Ah! here it is, Sebastian Greppi, a
young artist of promise, for whom she bespeaks our pro-
tection. Can you make him out, and let us see him?"
Stubber bowed in silence.
"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 reminded me
of Camilla Monti. He shall design 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 colored 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 accurately 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 suflSce 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 indicated
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
222 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
command of the gendarmerie there. Tell the canonico
Baldetti that we look to him 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 clew 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.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE LIFE THEY LED AT MASSA.
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 I 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
224 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 was n't so, cowld-hearted and 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 myself
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 labor, 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 'a
just as many better than you toilin' away unseen and unno-
ticed, wearin' out genius in a garret, and carryin' 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 noth-
ing? 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
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
THE LIFE THEY LED AT MASSA. 225
course is on the mountain wave, over the bottomless ocean.'
It 's little they think if he 's ever to get back again. 'T is
their boast and their pride that they said, ' Go on ; * and
when his cold corpse comes washed to shore, all they have
is a word of derision and scorn for one who ventured beyond
his powers."
"How you cool down one's ardor; 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 — are 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 can-
not amend a temper that any but yourself had grown weary
of correcting. I '11 work — I '11 labor — I '11 submit — I '11
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
JEschylus, 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 uncer-
tainly, — 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
15
226 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
between the life my earliest hopes had pictured, and that
which I am destined to, never leaves me. All your teach-
ings — 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 childhood. Often and
often have you warmed my blood by thoughts of a triumph
to be achieved by me hereafter, — how men should recognize
me as a genius, and elevate me to honors and rewards ; and
yet would I barter such success, 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 actors 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-
victiorivcame home to him of all his counsels being fruit-
less, all his teachings in vain ; and as the boy sat wrapped
in a wild, dreamy revery of ancestral greatness, the humble
peasant brooded darkly over the troubles such a tempera-
ment 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 mar-
ble fountains, and statues, and temples, and grottos in it;
and it 's as big as a prairie, and as wild as a wilderness.
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 any-
thing wantin',' says he, ' just order it on a slip of paper and
send it to me, and you '11 have it at once.' When I asked
if I ought to spake to the librarian himself, he only laughed.
THE LIFE THEY LED AT MASSA. 227
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 himself.
There, the gray 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 seats, 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 comparison with that intense craving that
seized upon him. Historians, critics, satirists, poets, dra-
matists, metaphysicians, never came amiss to a mind bent
on acquiring. The life he led was like the realization of a
glorious dream, — the calm repose, the perfect stillness of
the spot, the boundless stores that lay about him ; the grow-
ing sense of power, as day 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 labors 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, "Aristophanes'
digest Plato."
And what of young Massy all this while? His life was
a dream, too, but of another and very different kind. Vi-
sions 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 departure 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 labor, he found that his im-
agination grew sluggish, and his mind uncreative. The
sense of servitude oppressed him ; and though he essayed to
228 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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, 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 curiously, at the poor fellow, and then steal noiselessly
away, pondering on the blessings of that poor peasant's
nature, and wondering what in his own organization had
denied him the calm happiness of this humble man's life.
CHAPTER XXXL
AT MASSA.
Billy Traynor 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 Traynor, 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 ardor.
"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 labor,
— hard, unflinching labor; that easy successes were poor
triumphs, and bore no results."
230 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"There, — there, I'll hear that sermon no more. I'd
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. Cultivation 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 savannas 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 everything; 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 crayture 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 whep a child, and
AT MASSA. 231
gloried in as a man; and, better than that, there's the green
meadows and the leafy valleys where kind-hearted men and
women live and labor, 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 me 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 inspire
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 '11 go wherever you like ; I '11 be whatever you want
me," said Billy, affectionately.
'' Let us lose no time, then. I would not that my present
ardor should cool ere we have begun our plan. What day
is this? The seventh. Well, on the eighteenth there is a
ship sails from Genoa for Porto Rico. It was the announce-
ment set my heart a-thinkin^ 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 Porto Rico 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 all 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,
232 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
destroyed papers and letters, laid aside all the articles which
he judged suitable for preservation, and then hastened off
to the studio to arrange for the disposal of the few ' ' stud-
ies," for they were scarcely more, which remained of
Massy 's labors.
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 shattered fig-
ures, 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 fromTasso,
inscribed beneath ; proud resolves to a life of labor figured
beside stanzas in praise of indolence and dreamy abandon-
ment. 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 depicted ; 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 dash-
ing with a sense of shame every successful step towards
fame and honor.
" 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 re-
mark, he proceeded with his task. While he was thus occu-
pied. 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? "
AT MASSA. 233
" I expected you to say so," said the other, bitterly.
" I knew that I should meet with this mockery of my resolu-
tion, but it is uncalled for. It is not I that have changed ! "
" What is it, then, has happened, — do they refuse your
passport ? "
' ' Not that either ; I 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 recalled to mind
how one night, as I lay awake, the thought occurred to me
that it was base and dishonorable 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 disappointment 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?"
234 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
((
The Minister is not here now," said Billy, half speaking
to himself, "he is travelling with the Duke; but when he
comes back — "
"When he comes back!" burst in Massy, impatiently;
"with what calm philosophy you look forward to a remote
future. I tell you that this scheme is now a part 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 Traynor 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 removing,
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 labor? Nay," cried he, suddenly changing the tone in
which he spoke, " knowing my wilful nature, how could you
answer for what I might or might not do ? "
" I knew," said Billy, slowly, "that you had a great pro-
AT MASSA. 235
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 labor," said the youth,
reddening with shame.
" 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 '11 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 '11 find the garden gate open, and by taking the path
through the olive wood you '11 be there in a few minutes ;
for I must 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 ris-
ing 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.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE PAVILION IN THE GARDEN.
Charles Massy, dressed in the blouse of his daily labor,
and with the tools of his craft in his 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 exer-
cise 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 ordeal 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 odors, 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 tur-
quoise, 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 odors 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
color, 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. 237
*' Were I a rich man," said he, ''I would buy this para-
dise. What in all the splendor of man's invention can
compare 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 imagina-
tion 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 sei-ved as a studio, on entering which, he found his
own statue enshrined in the place of honor. 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, detect-
ing, 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 opera-
tion, the faculties address themselves readily to the tasfe,
and labor 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 suggestion of its own. Efforts that
before had seemed above him he now essayed boldly ; diffi-
culties that once had appeared insurmountable he now en-
countered 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
238 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
monastery was ringing the hour of evening prayer, the
solemn chime of the " Venti quattro," as he leaned on his
arm and gazed in astonishment around him. The whole
seemed like a dream. On every pide 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 remembered at
once where he was. The languor of excessive fatigue, how-
ever, 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
colored 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 figure has the light elasticity 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 palpably
alluding to herself, and she tried to repeat her 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, srciiling 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. 239
"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 honor."
" 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 steadfastly
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 en-
couragingly 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 labor 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 yester-
day I had resolved to abandon this career forever. I was
240 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
bent on a new life, in a new world beyond the seas. These
few things that a faithful companion of mine had charged
himself Lo 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 1 am faint. I know and feel," said he, proudly,
" that I am not devoid of what accomplishes 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 cruelest 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."
THE PAVILION IN THE GARDEN. 241
'' And you are a sculptor? "
''The artist of the Faun, dearest aunt," broke in the
girl, who watched with intense anxiety the changing expres-
sions of the youth's features.
" Your voice even more than your features brings 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 labor," said she, eagerly.
An impatient gesture, 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 sor-
row more vividly than any words could. Your voice, too,
strengthens the illusion. It may be a mere passing impres-
sion; 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.
16
CHAPTER XXXin.
NIGHT THOUGHTS.
It was with a proud consciousness of having well fulfilled
his mission that Billy Traynor 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 acqui-
sitions ; 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 ; " 't is like ten years 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 existence ? "
" 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 yourself
I do be growing every day I live. At first I could n't bear
the thought of going away to live in exile, in a wilderness,
NIGHT THOUGHTS. 243
as one may say ; but now that I see your heart set upon it,
and that your vigor 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 soli-
tary 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 savannas,
with a drove of rushing buffaloes 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 '11
not be afeard to meet an army of dragoons themselves.
Them pistols once belonged to Cariatoke, 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? 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?"
244 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"Dreaming, I believe," said tlie 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 labor might yet win upwards ; and that, if so, this
mere life of action would but bring 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 labor 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 encourage-
ment 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
fervor 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
NIGHT THOUGHTS. 245
walking the room. " Upon this career my whole heart and
soul are henceforth to be concentrated ; my fame, my happi-
ness are to be those of the artist. From this day and this hour
let every thought of what — not what I once was, but what
I had hoped t© be, be banished from my heart. I am Sebas-
tian 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
feature^ 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 labor, but of the simplest ; not a luxury, not an
indulgence ; our daily meals the humblest, our dress the
commonest, nothing that to provide shall demand a mo-
ment'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."
"You'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
246 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
from the door, — there, to the left of the olive wood, lower
down than the old ruin. We '11 live there, Billy, and we '11
make of that mean spot a hallowed one, where young en-
thusiasts 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 derision of the boast
than a species of hysterical ecstasy at the vision he had
conjured up.
" And why would n't it be so? " exclaimed Billy, ardently,
— " why would n'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, falter-
ingly ; " they leave the sky blacker than they found it ! But
come along, let us to work, and we '11 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 humors of the other, and thus little
of actual conversation took place between them, though
their minds journeyed along together. To eke out sub-
sistence, 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 excur-
sions to these cities as need required.
The toil of the day over, they wandered out towards
the seashore, taking the path which led through the olive
road by the garden of the villa. At times the youth 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
NIGHT THOUGHTS. 247
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. 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 walk-
ing the garden around the villa, lingering 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 entrancing,
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, of intellect, of
248 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
noble endurance ; the trials of temptation met and con-
quered ; the glorious victory over self-interest, — are all
great and ennobling sensations ; but what are they all com-
pared with the first consciousness of being loved, 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 well of pure thoughts that can
calm down the most fevered hour of life's anxieties. So the
youth felt, and, feeling so, was happy.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
A minister's letter.
British Legation, Naples,
Nov , 18-.
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 conceive. 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 my own indolent habits, the recipient of
the trashy superfluities one commits to paper and calls despatches.
Latterly, in my increasing laziness, I have used him for more
intimate correspondence ; and, as Doctor AUitore 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 narrative. As it ever did and ever will 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 inspecting
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
250 THE rORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 stoppages, and the trumpeter in a quinsy. 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 favor, or tamely submitting to
royal impertinences ; not like the noble lord at this place, or
the more subservient viscount at that, but, in plain words, an
admirable public servant, whose reward, whatever courts and
cabinets may do, will always bef willingly accorded by a grateful
nation.
I am afraid this sketch of a special envoy's career will scarcely
tempt you to exchange for a mission abroad 1 And you are quite
right, my dear friend. It is a very unrewarding 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 opportunity to look after my health, — of which, by the
way, I have but an indiiferent account to render you. These
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 Bagnferes, 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. Treysenac's
theory is position. By a number of ingeniously contrived posi-
tions he accomplishes an artificial congestion of any part he
pleases ; and in his establishment at Bagnferes 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 mid-
dle, like the sheep in the decoration of the Golden Fleece, and
A MINISTER'S LETTER. 251
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 favor. 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 any-
thing 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 neighborhood, and let me hear the result.
And so you are surprised, you say, how little influence English
representations exercise over the determinations of foreign cabi-
nets. I go farther, and confess no astonishment at all at the no-
influence ! My dear dragoon, have you not, some hundred and
fifty times in this life, endured a small martyrdom in seeing a
very indifferent rider torment almost to madness the animal he
bestrode, just by sheer ignorance and awkwardness, — now worry-
ing 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 yourself in the saddle, felt
the ntter 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, trusting that after a time they
might establish a sort of compromise, 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 coun-
sels. It were doubtless much better if they ruled well ; but let us
see if the road to this knotty consummation 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 exagger-
ate. Constitutional governments, like underdone roast beef, suit
our natures and our latitude ; but they would seem lamentable
252 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
experiments when tried south of the Alps. Liberty with us means
the right to break heads at a county election, and to print im-
pertinences in newspapers. With the Spaniard or the Italian
it would be to carry 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 minis-
ters as travellers change the direction of their journey, to discon-
cert 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 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 impulse. I tried to make
him care 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 endeavored
to interest him by literary society and savans, but unsuccessfully.
For art indeed he showed *ome disposition, and modelled prettily ;
but it never rose above " amateurship." I^ow, 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 everything 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
A MINISTER'S LETTER. 253
knowledge of his history, had not a letter, of which I send you an
extract, resumed the narrative. The writer is the Princess Sab-
loukoff, 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 rumor 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 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-officio luxuries ; besides that in India there is
a splendid and enlarged selfishness in the mode of life very dif-
ferent 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 George Harcourt who played Tony
Lumpkin so execrably at Montreal. I have told him it is prob-
able, and am yours ever,
H. U.
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 increased by the
following heading, in large letters, in the top of a page:
'' Sulphur Question," and beginning, " My Lord, by a refer-
ence to my despatch. No. 478, you will perceive that the
difficulties which the Neapolitan Government — " Harcourt
turned over the page. It was all in the same strain. Tar-
iffs, 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 tp
India.
HARCOURT'S LODGINGS. 255
"I asked nothing," said he, "that could be difficult to
reply to. It was plain enough, too, that I only wanted such
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 excel-
lence, that he was honorable 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 confi-
dence 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 moment 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,
" 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 dis-
posal." 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 attke.
256 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
It was about five o'clock of a dreary November afternoon
that a hackney-coach drew up at Harcourt's lodgings in
Dover Street, and a tall and very sickly looking man, carry-
ing 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 colored 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 reddened 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.
HARCOURT'S LODGINGS. 257
" So I hear, sir. He had a stroke of some kind, or fit of
one sort or another, brought on by fretting. They took
away his title, I'm told. They made out that he had no
right to it, that he was n'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 favorite dish of yours long
ago, and you shall taste such mutton as your Welsh moun-
tains can't equal. I got the haunch from the Ardennes 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 could n't stand up against the
united effects of low diet and low spirits. To act generously
and think generously, you must live generously, 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
17
258 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
chairs towards the fire, and sat with that now banished, but
ever to be regretted, little spider-table, that once emblema-
tized after-dinner blessedness, between them. " This re-
minds 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 '11 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 remember
always that there 's this advantage in the intercourse : you
can afford to hear and bear things from a man of my 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
HARCOURT'S LODGINGS. 259
pharmacopoeia, — somewhat hard to take, but very whole-
some when you're once swallowed.'"
" You are the best of the triad, and no great praise that,
either," muttered Glencore to himself. After a pause, he
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 prompting 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 bur-
dened 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 dishonored. 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, sir," said Glencore,
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
humor, " they are going to send me out to India again. I
have had eighteen years of it already ; but I have no Parlia-
mentary 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 ?
260 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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
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 curious hints about
Spanish flies and the flesh-brush."
Glencore flung down the papers in indignation, and walked
up and down the room without speaking.
*'I'd wager a trifle," cried Harcoui-t, "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?"
^'Yery 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 important
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."
HARCOURT'S LODGINGS 261
** Scaresby — Scaresby — I know the name," muttered
Glencore. *'To be sm-e ! There was a fellow that hung
about Florence and Rome long ago, and called himself
Scaresby ; an ill-tongued old scandal-monger people encour-
aged in a land where newspapers are not permitted."
*' He affects to have something very pressing to communi-
cate. Perhaps it were better to have him up."
''Don't make me known to him, then, or let me have
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 chau*; "but the fact
was, that having an invalid friend with me, quite incapable
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 get-
ting 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 cervical vertebrae, of
262 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
invaluable activity, which you may take a copy of, but strictly, on
honor, 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. O., as they never read anything not alluded to in the private
correspondence.
This blunder has done me a deal of harm. My nerves 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-humoredly at this, and
continued :] If you care for it, old S. will give you all the last gossip
from these parts, and be the channel of yours to me. But don't
dine him ; he 's not worth a dinner. He 'U 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 ingredient in which is the oil of the
star-fish. It will probably produce nausea, vertigo, and even faint-
ing for a week or two, but these symptoms decline at last, and,
except violent hiccup, no other inconvenience remains. Try it,
at aU 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 towards the dark corner
of the room, where Glencore lay, apparently asleep.
''I hope Upton's letter justifies my insistence. 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 Glen-
core 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 what-
ever ; indeed, it would suit my book to perfection just now,*
HARCOURT'S LODGINGS. 263
'Well, then,' said he, 'get your traps together, and be here
within an hour. I '11 have all in 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 '11 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 practice, I did n't
want the reference, but could give you date, and name, and
place for every incident that has scandalized 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 per-
mitted themselves the liberty to do these things ; but, hang
it, sir ! now you have your middle-class folk as profligate as
their betters. Jones, or Smith, or Thompson runs away
with his neighbor'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 shortcomings of these
people ? "
264 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"But I'd really not trouble my head with such ignoble
delinquents," said Harcourt.
' ' Nor do I, sir, save when, as will sometimes happen,
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 see,"
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
go where there is carrion ! " cried Glencore, 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 my-
self 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 at 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. Pro-
fuse, 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
HARCOURT'S LODGINGS. 265
amongst his own set, while he is regarded as a wit by
those who mistake malevolence for humor. I ask no
other test of a society than that such a man is fendured
in it."
*'I sometimes suspect," said Harcourt, "that the world
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 con-
sented 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
mankmd. 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.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
A FEVERED MIND.
Harcourt 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, su*, 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 retire-
ment, and I am anxious for a personal interview."
" I cannot insure you that," said Harcourt. " He does
live, as you have heard, entirely estranged from all society.
But if you write to him — "
" Ah ! there 's the difficulty. A letter and its reply takes
some days."
" And is the matter, then, so very imminent?"
A FEVERED MIND. 267
" It is so ; at least it is thought to be so by an authority
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 likelihood 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, I have not the slightest
knowledge. Adderley 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 in-
structions to find him out, and send him down to Brighton."
"I am afraid, were you to see Glencore, your mission
would prove a failure. He has given up the world altogether,
and even a royal command would scarcely withdraw 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."
Harcourt was silent, and stood for some seconds in deep
thought ; which the other, mistaking for a sign of unwilling-
ness to comply with his request, quickly added, " If my
demand occasion you any inconvenience, or if there be the
slightest difliculty — "
"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
268 THE FOKTUNES OF GLENCORE.
left the room. The next minute he was in Glencore's 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 commands. 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 favorite with his Majesty long ago. He
will say nothing to hurt me needlessly ; nor is it in his nature
to do so. Tell Bruce that you will arrange everything, and
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 '11 be there ; you
may answer for me."
From the moment that Glencore had come to this resolve,
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 blandishments of
friendship, all the soft influences of kindness, could never
accomplish, was 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 gratification 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-drd'ssed gentleman in
Europe, these matters assumed a greater importance in his
eyes.
''I must try to recover somewhat of my former self,"
said he. " There was a time when I came and went freely
A FEVERED MIND. 269
to Carlton House, when I was somewhat more than a mere
frequenter of the Prince's society. They tell me that of late
he is glad to see any of those who partook of 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 rest 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 sportive-
ness ^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 Van-
sittart, was a fortune at Court; and there grew up thus
around the Prince a class who cultivated ridicule so assidu-
ously 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 of 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 illustrious.
" I feel in such spii'its to-day, George," cried Glencore at
length, " that I vote we go and pass the day at Richmond.
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
humor, 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.
270 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
'' If one could only go over it all again, George," said
Glencore, as they sat after dinner, "up to three-and-twenty,
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
millionnaire. 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 Glencore
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 petty incident, a discussion of the veriest trifle
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 undervalues."
"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 ? "
A FEVERED MIND. 271
"My dear Glencore, the luckiest fellow that ever lived,
were he only to cast a look back on opportunities neglected,
and conjunctures unprofited by, would be sure to be miser-
able. I am far from saying that some have not more than
their share 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 incon-
venience to om'selves 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 really
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 '11 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 Glencore,
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 '11 do it to-morrow. In the presence of
royalty you '11 comport yourself with dignity and reserve,
and you '11 come out from 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-
272 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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;
* ' 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 long since done with courts and those who frequent
them. What can royalty do for me ? Upton and yourself
may play the courtier, and fawn at levees ; you have your
petitions to present, your favors 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."
" It may be that he has some good counsel to offer."
" Counsel to offer me ! " burst in Glencore, with increased
warmth. ' ' I would no more permit any man to give me
advice unasked than I would suffer him to go to my trades-
people and pay my debts for me. A man's private sorrows
are his debts, — obligations between himself 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 color 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, scofRngly. "No, sir. If I
must listen to you, let me have at least the aid of the decan-
ter. 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-humor edly.
" Say, rather, you troubled your head little whether they
were or not," replied Glencore, whose voice was now thick
^
A FEVERED MIND. 273
from passion and drink together. "You and Upton, and
two or three others, presume to lecture me — who, because
gifted, if you call it gifted — I'd say cursed — ay, sir,
cursed with coarser natures — temperaments where higher
sentiments have no place — fellows that can make what they
feel subordinate to what they want — you appreciate tliat^ I
hope — thai stings you, does it? Well, sir, you'll find me
as ready to act as to speak. There 's not a word I utter
here I mean to reti-act to-morrow."
'* My dear Glencore, we have both taken too much
wine."
f "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 suspected
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.
18
CHAPTER XXXVn.
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 Prin-
cess Sabloukoff. The blue sea washed the white marble
terrace before the windows, and the arbutus, whose odor
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 thek 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 repre-
sented 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, rock and foliage, the scented air, the
silence, only broken by the tuneful birds, the rich profusion
of color 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;
THE VILLA AT SORRENTO. 275
but the sky was cloudless, the sea a perfect mirror, and the
light air that stkred the leaves soft and balmy as the breath
of May. Her dress was in keeping with the splendor
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 color 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 almanac 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 day 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 diplomatic 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 compo-
sition. There was not in his air any of the concentration, or
even seriousness, of a man engaged in an important labor ;
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
interview, — and thus, while others were interchanging the
customary platitudes of every-day courtesy, he was gleaning
276 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
and recording within himself the traits and characteristics of
all around him.
"A clever fellow, very clever fellow, Cineselli," said
he, as he continued to write. "His proposition is — cer-
tain 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 be rabble ;
but grubs grow into butterflies, and very vulgar populace
have now and then emerged into what are called liberal
politicians."
" Only where 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 Baltic 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.' "
THE VILLA AT SORRENTO. 277
*' I 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."
' ' Spies ! If you mean by an odious word to inculpate the
honor 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 mis-
ery of a man who had nothing else to offer. I wanted to
imply that pure but small stream which conveys intelli-
gence from a fountain to a river it was not meant to feed.
Was n'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 smart-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 went 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 lie.
" A desert," was the answer.
278 ' THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
a
' ' 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? "
"He's off for Vienna, and a short trip to Hungary. I
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 favor 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 incongruous parcels.
" Report of factory commissioners," 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 for-
eign 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.
THE VILLA AT SORRENTO. 279
" Not to-day, your Excellency. I dine with Grammont '
at eight."
'' Then I '11 not detain you. Come back here to-morrow
about eleven . or a little later. Come to breakfast if you
like."
''At what hour?"
"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 general. 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? JSTot
Labinsky, I'll be sworn. The K insists it was Roseville,
and I hope you may be able to assure me that he is mistaken.
He is worse tempered than ever. That Glencore business has ex-
asperated him greatly. Could n'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 :] could n't your Princess find out
something of real consequence to us about the Q "
280 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
" 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.
^' Pardon ! this is interesting," said she, and went on :
" We shall want it soon ; that is, if the manufacturing districts
will not kindly afford iis a diversion by some open-air demonstra-
tions 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 ungarrisoned. They are such poltroons that the
chances are they 'U not bite I You were 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 !
" Holecrof t 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,'
etc. He can scarcely vote against us after such an evidence of our
good-will. 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 least, any Government there. We must deal with them as
with a public meeting, which may reverse to-morrow the resolu-
tions they have adopted to-day. The French will never be for-
midable till they are unanimous. They '11 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
want 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 news-
papers better, or at least more briefly, narrated, with all that
death and marriage intelligence which you English are so
THE VILLA AT SORRENTO. 281
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
Right Honorable Sir Horace Upton, Plenipotentiary, Nego-
tiator, and Extraordinary Diplomatist, living at Naples.' "
" What can it mean? " said he, languidly.
''You shall hear," said she, breaking the massive seal of
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
unsymmetrically-designed, and not more ingeniously-con-
ceived syllables — * Let us see his name," said she, stop-
ping suddenly, and tui'ning to the last page, read, " ' W. T.,
vulgo, Billy Traynor, — a name cognate to your Worshipful
Eminence in times past.' "
" To be sui-e, I remember him perfectly, — a strange crea-
ture 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 murderous a deed as ever a miscreant imagination sug-
gested 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 oi' 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 m armorial pursuits, and far progressed in sculptorial
excellence, with a genius that Phidias, if he did not envy,
would esteem — '
" Really I cannot go on with these interminable parenthe-
ses," said she ; " you must decipher them yourself."
282 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 in 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 favor a young Austrian of high
rank at the same time pretended."
" Wahnsdorf, I'm certain," broke in the Princess ; " and
the giii — that Mademoiselle — "
"Harley," interposed Sir Horace.
"Just so, — Harley. Pray go on," said she, eagerly.
"Avery serious altercation and a duel were the conse-
quences of this rivalry, and Wahnsdorf has been dangerously
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 neighborhood 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, admii-ably 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 honor," said he, eagerly; "none, at
least, of the kind you infer. His is a very sad story, which
I '11 tell you about at another time. For the present, I may
say that he is English, and as such must be protected by
the English authorities. The Government of Massa have
THE VILLA AT SORRENTO. 283
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 then* 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 boy's of-
fence, whatever it was, occurred outside the frontier, as I
apprehend."
"How delighted you English are when you can convert
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 ^ very diminutive penknife.
CHAPTER XXXVin.
A DIPLOMAIIST 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 departure ;
a little, just as vaguely conveyed, 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 sur-
passed. Sir Horace backed from the "presence," 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 quicknesses
of reproof and readiness at rejoinder, that here were two
people only waiting for a reasonable and decent pretext 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.
A DIPLOMATIST'S DINNER. 285
What would the Princess's dinners have been without the
polished ease of him who felt himself half the host ? 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 believed, of
calm judgment and much reflection upon life. As little did
he accept it willingly ; he even labored against the convic-
tion : 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 where inferior
minds had never recognized a difficulty ! How much in-
genuity did he expend to detect what had no existence !
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
286 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
England was very 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
every hour more democratic. To maintain our old relations
with them, therefore, on the old footing, would be only to
involve ourselves in continual diflSculty, with a certainty of
final failure ; and the only policy that remained was to en-
courage 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 cer-
tain benevolent prince, whose resoui'ces 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 you have new
shirts." Such were pretty much the position and policy of
England. Out of our crop of Constitutionalism we specu-
lated 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 car-
riage, 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 interruptions
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 indications 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 ascribed
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 busi-
ness upon himself in his own way. Young Massy 's case
opened to his eyes a great question, viz., what was the posi-
A DIPLOMATIST'S DINNER. 287
tion 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, 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 his 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 desii-ed to halt to take up
his letters and make a few preparations before his departure.
His Maestro di Casa, Signor Franchetti, was in waiting for
his arrival, and respectfully assured him "that all was in
readiness, and that his Excellency would be perfectly satis-
fied. 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 Maximilian
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, "You have let me forget all about the
dinner to-day, Brockett ! "
"I thought you knew it; you took gi'eat trouble about
the persons to be asked, and you canvassed whether the Due
de 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."
288 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
''Then the party can be eighteen, Brockett; you must
tell them that 1 am ill, — too ill to come to dinner. I know
the Prince Max very well, — he '11 not take it badly ; and as
to Cineselli, we shall see what humor he is in! "
' ' But they '11 know that you arrived here this afternoon ;
they '11 naturally suppose — "
' ' They '11 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 '11 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 '11 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 '11 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 High-
ness 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 lucubra-
tions ; and Sir Horace ate and sipped his Carlsbad with as
A DIPLOMATIST'S DINNER. 289
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.
'' 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 appeared 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 retii-e, 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 pastil 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 very moment, were assembled the great representa-
tives of almost every important state of Europe, to whom
he had not deigned to accord the honor 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
19
290 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
or evil — of the incident. "And then," said he, aloud,
*' how will Printing House Square treat us? What a fulmi-
nating leader shall we not have, denouncing either our inso-
lence or our incompetence, ending with the words : ' If,
then. Sir Horace Upton be not incapacitated from illness
for the discharge of his high 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 corrobo-
rations, — the tourist tribe who heard of us at Berlin, or
called upon as 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 di-
plomacy ! 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 mathe-
matical 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 life of Arcadian simplicity, of rippling streams
and soft-eyed shepherdesses, he was destined to be some-
what suddenly, if not rudely, aroused, as Franchetti intro-
duced a stranger who would accept no denial.
"Your 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 was n'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, lan-
guidly, — "a cutlet, a fowl; anything that can be had at
once."
"Nothing of the kind, Signor Franchetti," interposed
A DIPLOMATIST'S DINNER. 291
Harcourt; "if I have a wolfs 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 ? "
'' They tell me so, and mine has a good reputation."
" Then claret be it, and no other wine. Don't I make my-
self at home, old fellow, eh?" said he, clapping Upton on
the shoulder. ''Have I not taken his Majesty's Embassy
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 events. 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 com-
mand 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,' " mut-
tered 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.
292 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"Why, the rumor goes that you are to have the Foreign
Office ; Adderley, they say, goes out, and Conway and
yourself are the favorites, 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."
" Possibly ; but perhaps my news is later. What I allude
to is said to have occurred the day I started."
" Ah, 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 Har-
court, 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
Provencal. Ah, what a glass of Bordeaux ! To your good
health, Upton, and to the day that you may be able to enjoy
this as I do," said he, as he tossed off a bumper.
" It does me good even to witness the pleasure it yields,"
said Upton, blandly.
A DIPLOMATIST'S DINNER. 293
*'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 Harcourt ;
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.
"Princes, generals, envoys, and heads of departments."
'' Good heavens ! legions of honor 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 Harcoui-t, 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 Hai-court. " 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 manner
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 '11 ask for some brandy and water."
This was addressed to Franchetti, who speedily reappeared
with a liqueur stand and an ebony cigar-case.
" Try these, George ; they 're better than your own," said
Upton, dryly.
"That I will," cried Harcourt, laughing; "I'm deter-
mined to draw all my resources from the country in occupa-
tion, especially as they are superior to what I can obtain
294 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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.
*' 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 the
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 ought n*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."
CHAPTER 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 ob-
scurity 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 Harcourt was given
to wronging his neighbor, he in this instance was palpably
unjust ; Upton's manner being nothing more than the im-
press 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 slyness, half to arouse himself to any conflict before
him, he said, in a tone of determination, " It is only fair to
tell you that you are yourself to blame for anything that
may have befallen poor Glencore."
296 THE FORTUNES OF 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
happened."
*' I remember that it was a most disagreeable mistake.
I have paid heavily for it, too. That lotion for the cervi-
cal vertebrae 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 consequence
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 pretext 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. Nothing 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 constantly he was a guest at
his table ; what a brilliant society it was ; how full of wit
and the rest of it; till, by Jove, what between drinking
more wine than he was accustomed to take, and the excite-
ment of his own talking, he became quite wild and unman-
ageable. 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 paroxysms of violent passion, inveighing
against every one, and declaring that he never had pos-
sessed one true-hearted, honest friend in his life.
''It was not without great difficulty that I got him back
A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 297
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 so suspectful 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
downstau-s, ' 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 sum-
mons, and I was forced to ring again, when the door was
opened by my servant, who stood pale and trembling be-
fore me. 'He's gone, sir, — he's gone,' cried he, almost
sobbing.
' ' ' Good Heaven ! ' cried I. ' Dead ? *
298 ' . THE FORTUNES OE GLENCORE.
'' ' No, sir, gone away, — driven off, no one 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 could n'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 reasonable was
he in all he said, and such an ak 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, pur-
sued 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 tiie 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 became the presence he
was in — now reckless of all the world and everything.
What could have happened to detain 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 admit-
tance. 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 the pier. I followed, deter-
A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 299
mined to make inquiry, no matter of whom. He walked so
rapidly, however, that I was forced to run to overtake him.
This attracted his notice; he turned hastily, and by the
straggling moonlight 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, perhaps, change the whole
current of his thoughts, and thus destroy my only chance of
any clew 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 yoic' ' 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 for-
eign 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-cropped 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 for Knighton, and made him feel my pulse. "You'll
300 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 ? None other present, — all to
ourselves, — talking as you and I might talk of what inter-
ested us most of all the world; and he 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 t5, 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 wit-
ness, perhaps, in some infamous cause. How shall I, a
peer of the realm, endure to see my name thus degraded?
Is it Court favor can recompense me for lost or tarnished
honor?" "But it will be her own vindication," 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 spurned 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 dishonor; " 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
A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 301
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. Knigh-
ton 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 h^ 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 endeavors 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 assur-
ance of a home somewhere, 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 melancholy had gained entire possession of him,
and he passed whole days without a word. I saw that he
often labored to recall 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 knowl-
edge 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
— thi'ough his Italian connection — every allegation it con-
tained, — 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, with-
out 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
302 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
when the poor fellow's brain was wandering, and when he
spoke under the guidance of right reason. You, of course,
have the clew to it all."
'' I ! How so? " cried Upton.
*' You 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 catechise her yourself."
"Oh! sheis then — "
" She is the Princess Sabloukofif, my dear George, and a
very charming person, as you will be the first to acknowl-
edge. 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 im-
portant 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 inestimable value it
would prove, to possess one single gentleman, 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
A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 303
on all who injure yourself, but always be lenient to the
faults that only damage your friends. You have no 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 jail; 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, or nearly every-
body, 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 diflSculty, takes counsel from his
passions, is exactly Jike 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 guid-
304 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
ance, since he either did something excessively brilliant, or
made such a blunder as recalled him to subjection again.
Let us treat our friend in this fashion, and wait. Oh, my
worthy Colonel, if you but knew what a 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 '11
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 '11 do
the next best thing, I '11 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 with — "
*' There's the rock you always split on: you are ever-
lastingly in search of a character. Be satisfied when you
have eaten a hearty breakfast, and don't ask for a bill of
health. Researches are always dangerous. My great grand-
father, 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 ques-
tions, — 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 carrying out your ideas."
" Just for the pleasure of showing me that I did n'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
A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE. 305
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 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 abetter 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 bedtime.
And Harcourt was right.
20
CHAPTER XL.
UPTONISM.
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 Prin-
cess 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 honors 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 luxm*y which
abounded there.
"And that, I conclude, is a portrait of the Princess,"
said Harcourt, as he stood before what had been a flattering
likeness twenty years back.
''Yes, and a wonderful resemblance," said Upton, eying
it through his glass. '* Fatter and fuller now, perhaps ; but
it was done after an illness."
" By Jove ! " muttered Harcourt, " she must be beautiful ;
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?"
" jE's/>W^''enough for a dozen reviewers and fifty fashion-
able 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."
UPTONISM. 307
" I suppose her history is a very interesting one."
"Her history, my worthy Harcourt! She has a dozen
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 refine-
ment 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
308 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 day ? " said Hareourt,
as he 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 Hareourt,
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 cus-
tom-house troubles, the police insults. The Secretary calls
at the offices of the Government, carries messages and the
answers ; and /, when I have health for it, make my com-
pliments to the King in a cocked hat on his birthday, and
have twelve grease-pots illuminated over my door to honor
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
Hareourt.
' ' No doubt of it ; we have two or three 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 vener-
UPTONISM. 309
able 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 to the es-
senced IVIinister in his bureau, into one intellectual con-
glomerate, 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 favors 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 fortunes
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 favor ; how certain, too, if he incur
an awkwardness, to find that his distresses are exposed.
The servants' hall is the Office, my dear Harcourt, and its
persecutions are equally polished."
' ' Are you a favorite there yourself ? " asked the other,
slyly.
"A prime favorite; they all like me/" said he, throw-
ing himself back in his chair, with an air of easy self-satis-
faction ; 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 com-
plex for your elucidation ; in its intricate web no one
thread holds the clew, but all is complicated, crossed, and
entangled,
"Here comes a cabinet messenger again," said Upton,
as a courier's caleche drove up, and a well-dressed and
well-looking fellow leaped out.
"Ah, Stanhope, how are you?" said Sir Horace, shak-
310 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
ing his hand with what from him was warmth. '' Do you
know Colonel Harcourt? Well, Frank, what news do you
bring me ? "
"Thebest of news."
'' From F. O., I suppose," said Upton, sighing.
"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 whatever
fell to your lot to do, we have the same hope still," said
Stanhope.
"So say I too," cried 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 forward
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 evi-
dently 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 splendor
of Windsor?"
" By Jove ! I suspect you are right, after all," said Har-
court, with an honest energy of voice.
UPTONISM. 311
" 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."
"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 repression.
I 'd have provided for the hour when England must either
break with her own people or her allies ; and I 'd have inau-
gurated a new policy, based upon the enlarged 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." i
312 ' THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
*' 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."
*' 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 Viscount 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 ges-
ture 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 Har-
court; "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.
CHAPTER XLI.
AN EVENING IN FLORENCE.
That happy valley of the Val d'Arno, in which fair Florence
stands, possesses, amidst all its virtues, none more conspicu-
ous 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; and 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 splendor, 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 rumor 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 trades-
people 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 fash-
ionable 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
314 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
caught the passing sounds, he would have heard that one
name uttered in every group he encountered. 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.
Many 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 demeanor, and the bril-
liancy 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 hundred
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-go t-
up individuals, who daily arise without 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 conversational
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 abor-
tive attempts of nature to fashion something profitable and
good? Who knows?
AN EVENING IN FLOKENCE. 315
Amidst this class the Nina's arrival was announced as
the happiest of all tidings ; and speculation immediately set
to work to imagine who would be the favorites 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 conspicuous
position ? Nor was this the mere talk of the cafes and the
Cascine. The salons were eagerly discussing the very same
theme.
In certain social conditions a degree of astuteness is ac-
quired as to who may and who may not be visited, that, in
its tortuous intricacy of reasons, would puzzle the craftiest
head that ever wagged in Equity. Not that the code is a
severe one ; it is exactly in its lenity lies its difficulty, — so
much may be done, but so little may be fatal ! The Count-
ess in the present case enjoyed what in England is reckoned
a great privilege, — she was tried by her peers — or " some-
thing 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 neighbors. 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 favor, 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 honor
of their acquaintance.
" 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 Grlencore 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
Hi. ^'^ THE
CF
Ca,
316 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
one of them (it was Lady Glencore) , as she held a screen
before her face, displayed a pumber of valuable rings on
her fingers, and a massive bracelet of enamel with a lar^e
emerald pendant. The other, not less magnificently attirei,
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 command in the tone with
which she addressed her companion. It was our acquaint-
ance the Princess Sabloukoff, just escaped from 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."
" Cara mia" said the other, carelessly, " I know every-
thing already. There is nothing you have done, nothing
that has happened to you, that I am not aware of. I might
go further, and say that I have looked with secret pleasure
at the course of events which to your short-sightedness
seemed disastrous."
" 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 eman-
cipate you from the tiresome requirements of the world.
You got rid of Mm^ 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 forever, 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
AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 31T
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 were
better looking, yourself ; better dressed ; your saloyis better
lighted ; your dinners more choice, — there was the end of it.
Your company was their company, — your associates were
theirs. The homage you received to-day had been yesterday
the incense of another. There was not a bouquet nor a flat-
tery offered to you that had not its facsimile ., 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
fear, half in hope.
'' How will it be now? I '11 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 sug-
gest a thousand things in the freedom of unauthorized inter-
course. 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 defemme,* 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 shock-
ing 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
318 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 ? 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 under-
stand ; 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
aj 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 grati-
tude 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
AN EVEI<toG IN FLORENCE. 319
sang, and laughed, and played ecarte, 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 each
carried away his plate, and bivouacked with others of his
friends, here and there, through the 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 the most rigid unbbnd, and relaxed
the gravity of many who seldom laughed.
As in certain chemical compounds a mere drop of some
one powerful ingredient will change the whole property of
the mass, eliciting new elements, correcting this, develop-
ing that, and, even to the eye, announcing by altered color
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 triumphs of operatic music; at
others, warbling over those " canzonettes " 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 departed.
"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-feeling
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
320 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
the Countess. ''He fell in love, and his passion encoun-
tered 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."
'' And Ida, does she care for him? "
" I 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 inti-
mate 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 fact,
everything he produced in his art only showed what his
mind was full of, — her image was everywhere. This
aroused Wahnsdorfs jealousy, and he urged me strongly to
dismiss Greppi, and shut my doors to him. At first I con-
sented, 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 ardor, 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 Wahns-
dorf uttered about men of unknown or ignoble origin ; and
then He — he himself seemed to stand before me as I have
AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 321
SO often seen him, in his terrible outbursts of rage. The
sight brought back to me the dreadful recollection 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
every hour of his existence ; how, in all the harmless free-
dom of our Italian life, he saw causes of suspicion and
distrust ; how, by his rudeness to this one, his coldness 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 honor 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 stooping
to cultivate alliances, that humble game of conciliation —
that must ensue.
21
322 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
*'Iwent 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 coming
back here boldly, and confronting the world proudly."
''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 : Disregard, 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 honor 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
Press 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 misunderstood
me, Nina ! " said the Princess, sorrowfully.
"Not so," cried she, eagerly. "You only saw one ad-
vantage in the plan you counselled. / 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
AN EVENING IN FLORENCE. 323
thougkts as yours ; there were many points alike in our for-
tunes : 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
you to sympathize with it. Your talents enabled you to
shape out a high and ambitious 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."
" My dearest Nina, with all your self -stimulation you
cannot make yourself the vindictive creature you would
appear," said the Princess, 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 Glencore. 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 dearly. I consented at last to Wahnsdorf's con-
tinual 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, I should
never have permitted it. However, 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.
"How could there be? This Greppi never went to the
rendezvous. He quitted Massa during the night, and has
324 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
never since been heard of. In this, I own to you, he was
not like /w'm." And, as she said the words, the tears swam
in her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks.
" May I 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."
' ' 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 ; Wahnsdorf '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.
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 honor 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 num-
ber of the elect-in-purple, was yet, in her way, what poli-
ticians calls 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 impres-
sion of being admitted to an audience of confidence and
326 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
trust. The mute-like servant who waited in the corridor
without, and who drew back a massive curtain on your
entrance, also aided the delusion, imparting to the inter-
view a character of mysterious solemnity.
Through that solemn portal there had passed, in and out,
during the morning, various dignitaries of the land, minis-
ters and envoys, and grand *' charges" of the Court. The
embroidered key of the Chamberlain and the purple stock-
ings 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 court-
yard 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 dis-
pleasure. She was not accustomed to have her appoint-
ments lightly treated, and he for whom she had fixed an
hour was now thkty 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 pretensions. 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.
MADAME DE SABLOUKOFE IN THE MORNING. 327
She rang the bell violently, and as the servant entered she
said, but in a voice of perfect unconcern, —
" 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 Hunga-
rian 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 Prin-
cess," said he, adjusting the embroidered pelisse he wore
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 par-
dons ! " cried he, suddenly, as the deep color 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 misalliance and
the rest of it, I '11 hear it patiently ; though I tell you before-
hand that I should like to learn that a connection with an
imperial house had some advantage besides that of a con-
tinual barrier to one's wishes."
328 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"I understand," said she, quietly, " that you named the
terms on which you would abandon this project, — is it
not so?"
''Who told you that?" cried he, angrily. "Is this
another specimen of the delicacy with which ministers treat
a person of my station ? "
" 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 favorable 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 reply; "nor could it redound to the advan-
tage of those who ask my advice to afford me incorrect
information."
" Then I 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 ? "
MADAME DE SABLOUKOFF IN THE MORNING. 329
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.
"You must not wonder if I be angry," continued he, in
an accent that betokened shame 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 you.
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 ardent, passionate love which recog-
nizes no obstacle nor acknowledges any barrier to its wishes,
— I could regard the question as one of those everyday
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 — "
330 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"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 by
the price you have laid on the object the value at which you
estimate it. As for the latter part of your question — " 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 gayety of a heart
at ease ; or, if at moments a shade of sadness crossed her
features, it was so brief that only one observing her closely
as myself could mark it."
" And how did that subtle intelligence of yours interpret
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 smiled 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 candor 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."
MADAME DE SABLOUKOFF IN THE MORNING. 331
*' 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 confusion of
his manner was far more apparent.
''Your secret. Count," she repeated slowly, "which has
been just as safe in my keeping as if it had been confided to
me on honor."
"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, sk,"
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 antago-
nist in a duel to be tracked, arrested, and imprisoned 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 committal
to a dungeon."
" And, of course, you have related your interesting narra-
tive 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 honor
that this affair should never be bruited abroad; to insist
upon your lending every aid to obtain this young man's
332 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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
trouble for the sake of some nameless bastard, while in doing
so I compromise myself and my own honor ? "
" 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 under-
stand it as such."
"And, ^of course, the next condition will be for me to
resign my pretensions to Ida in his favor," said he, with a
savage irony.
" I stipulate for nothing of the sort; Count Wahnsdorf 's
pretensions will be to-morrow just where they are to-day."
"You hold them cheaply, madam. I am indeed unfortu-
nate 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-posses-
sion that bespoke a sense of his own worth and importance ;
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."
MADAME DE SABLOUKOFF IN THE MORNING. 333
*' 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 expression
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. There then arose a question of giving him up to
us ; but my master declined the honor, — he would have no
trouble, he said, with England or Englishmen; and some
say that the youth claims an English nationality. The cabi-
net of Vienna are, 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
shako.
"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 intrust 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 conversed
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.
334 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
((
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 promotion — "
"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
honor," said the Princess, enthusiastically. ''And now for
J 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 sufficiently
behind the scenes to have many things to communicate ; and
here we must leave them while we hasten on to other scenes
and other actors.
CHAPTER XLin.
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 messengers with splashed
caliches arrived in hot haste from Dover. Frequent, too,
were the messages from the House ; a leading Oppositionist
was then thundering away against the Government, inveigh-
ing 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 entanglements,
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 orator 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 us unhappily no clew 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
converted into a serious 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
336 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
these be the right explanation, each minister could only say
to his colleague, "It never came before me; Upton knows
all about it."
' ' And where is Upton ? — why does he 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 signi-
ficant words, thus : " Come, or go ; " and given to a trusty
whip, the Hon. Gerald Neville, to deliver.
Armed with this not very conciliatory document, the well-
practised tactician drew up to the door of the Foreign
Office, 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.
" Su* 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 apart-
ment, but so thoroughly impregnated with a thick and
offensive vapor 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; —
DOINGS IN DOWNING STREET. 337
"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 was that in the manner of the sick man
that inspired hope, or something in the aspect of the doctor
that suggested distrust, or a mixture of the two together,
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. You have never been wanting
either to your friends or yourself when the hour of emer-
gency called. We are in a moment of such difficulty now,
and you alone can rescue us."
"How 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 terms he employed," said the
other.
This was the very admission that Upton sought to obtain,
and in a far more cheery voice he said, —
" If I was capable of the effort, — if Doctor Geiimirstad
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 must be done to meet them, and
that quickly."
"Well, I suppose I must go," sighed Upton; and as he
held out his wrist to have his pulse felt, he addressed a few
words to the doctor.
338 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
''He calls it 'a life period,* Neville. He says that he
won'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-
givings about 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 astrakhan,
Giuseppe, and that vest of cramoisie velvet ; and if you will
just glance at the newspaper, Neville, in the next room, I '11
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 enthusiastic
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 debility 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 re-
spect for the actual feeling of the House. The necessity for this
act of deference, added to the consciousness that he was in pres-
ence 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 war-
ranted 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 burden of what he said, —
a request that the House would accord him all the indulgence
which his state of debility and suffering called for. K 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 indulgence. In a voice that gained strength and
fulness as he proceeded, he entered upon what might be called a
DOINGS IN DOWNING STRI;ET. 339
narrative of the foreign policy of the administration, clearly show-
ing that their course was guided by certain great principles which
dictated a line of action firm and undeviating ; that the measures
of the Government, however 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 occu-
pied every region of the globe, neither confusion nor inconsis-
tency 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 con-
vert 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 tempera-
ment, 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 Parliament 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 breath-
less attention to a narrative which in no parliamentary experience
has been surpassed for the lucid clearness of its details, , the
unbroken flow 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 in-
structed 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 Oppo-
sition, he proceeded to exhibit the insufficiency of views always
based upon false information.
340 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
a i
We have been taunted,' said he, * with the charge of foment-
ing discords in foreign lands ; we have been arraigned as disturb-
ers of the world's peace, and called the firebrands of Europe ; we
are exhibited as parading the Continent with a more than Quix-
otic ardor, since we seek less the redress of wrong than the
opportunity to display our own powers of interference, — that qual-
ity 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 indiscrimin-
ate ardor, his this unjudging rashness, his this meddling imperti-
nence (I am but quoting, not inventing, a phrase), by which, with-
out accurate, without, 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 distinguish
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 de-
vices and insinuations 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 cour-
teous 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 conspicuously 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 oif ence was not a crime 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 sympa-
thy with such men, as, in the genius of a great artist, he is elevated
DOINGS IN DOWNING STREET. 341
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 arose, Sir Hor-
ace 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 irreparable 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 enthu-
siasm which this brilliant success produced among the min-
isterialists, there was a kind of dread lest the overtaxed
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 ' ' conceit " crossed
his mind.
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 triumphantly
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
342 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 ofBce,
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?
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 seriously ill; and from an
early hour the tide of inquirers, in carriages 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 something very flattering in
the thought of a great intelligence being damaged and
endangered in our service ! With all its melancholy in-
fluences, there is a feeling of importance suggested by the
idea that for us and our interests a man of commanding
powers should have jeoparded 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 consolatory reflection to the tax-paying
classes that the great functionaries of state are not indolent
recipients of princely incomes, but hard-worked men of oflSce,
up late and early at their duties, — prematurely old, and
344 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
worn out before their time ! Something of this same feeling
inspires much of the sympathy displayed for a sick states-
man, — a sentiment not altogether void of a certain misgiving
that we have probably over-taxed the energies employed in
our behalf.
Scarcely one in a hundred of those who nDw called and
" left then- names " had ever seen Sir Horace Upton in their
lives. Few are more removed from public knowledge than
ihe 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 flavor for public taste ; a vague, indis-
tinct impression — it did not even amount to rumor — 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 need-
lessly 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 seces-
sion, 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 Upton was very ill, it also surmised
THE SUBTLETIES OF STATECRAFT. 345
— why and wherefore it knows best — that the same Sir
Horace was an ill-used man. Now, of all the objects of
public sympathy and interest, next after a foreign emperor
on a visit at Buckingham Palace, or a newly arrived hippo-
potamus 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 be 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 embodiment 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 indictment 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 rumors did it
give, when the evening papers announced in the most strik-
ing 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 paragraphs
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
346 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 they would never be
answered, they seemed to overwhelm their adversaries with
shame and discomfiture. The great fact, however, was in-
disputable, — Upton had resigned.
To the many who looked up at the shuttered windows
of his sad-looking 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 Hor-
ace 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 minia-
ture 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 vator. It is essentially
vainglorious.
More than once has he paused to read over the sentence
he has written, 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 existence."
(" 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 precipitancy; I feel how
your judgment, unerring as it ever is, will condemn what
THE SUBTLETIES OF STATECRAFT. 347
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 of all the world have the clew
to a heart whose affections are 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 conception 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 day 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 admkable, 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 inno-
cence, but what danger might accrue to others from infrac-
tions that invite publicity. The cabinet were discussing
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 confisca-
tions were frequent, became at last endless labor. Don't
you think that some such measure might be beneficially
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 interpose 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
348 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 morals, and ask, is it safe or
prudent in us to investigate too deeply ? are we wise in dis-
secting 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 untra veiled 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 up-
set, 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 narrations, where truth is marred by passion,
and all just inferences confused and confounded with vague
and absurd suspicions.
" Glencore's conduct throughout was little short of in-
sanity ; like a man who, hearing liis banker is insecure, takes
refuge in insolvency, he ruins himself to escape embarrass-
ment. 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
THE SUBTLETIES OF STATECRAFT. 349
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
humor. Now, if one is very rich, this is practical enough ;
but the mass must be content to encounter disparity of
mood and difference of taste at every step. There is, there-
fore, some tact required in conforming to these ' irregulari-
ties,' and unhappily everybody has not got tact.
" You, 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 mora-
lists might wish, yet that they made up a society very plea-
sant 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 crav-
ing after perfectibility, — 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 sought 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 praticable ! 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 ? "
350 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
Just as Upton had written 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
sure you'd see him."
" Of course ; show him up at once. Wait a moment ; give
me that cane, place those cushions for my feet, draw the cur-
tain, 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 labored respiration of a man breathing
heavily ; and then Lord G-lencore entered, his form worn and
emaciated, and his face pale and colorless. With a feeble,
uncertain voice, he said, —
" I knew you 'd see me, Upton, and I would n't go away ! '*
And 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 St. 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.
THE SUBTLETIES OF STATECRAFT. 351
" I am so, if it were of any consequence, — I mean, if my
life could interest or benefit any one. My head, however,
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
Brussefs, 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?" said
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 my 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 distressing
thoughts." He spoke these words not only with strong
feeling, but even imparted to them a tone of entreaty, 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 when grand combinations
rewarded one's labor 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 Constitution, grown every day
more and more democratic, rules by the House of Commons.
Questions whose treatment demands all the skill of a states-
352 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
man and all the address of a man of the world come to be
discussed in open Parliament ; 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 whole game is revealed to the world in the shape of a
blue-book.
' ' Nor is this all : the debaters on these nice and intricate
questions, involving the most far-reaching speculation of
statesmanship, are men of trade and enterprise, who view
every international difficulty only in its relation to their
peculiar interests. National greatness, honor, and 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 Glencore.
''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 desired 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 sug-
THE SUBTLETIES OF STATECRAFT. 353
gested 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 with-
out his approval and concurrence, 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 suggested my own resignation as a
sacrifice to the difficulty and to the wounded feelings of the
Duke. Thus did I achieve what I sought for. I imposed a
heavy obligation 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.
23
354 THE FORTUNES OF 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-congratulation 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 com-
pletely mystified the hearer, and he sat gazing with wonder-
ment at the man before him.
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 sepa-
rated 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 en-
joyed have been in periods 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
ring 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
356 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
strong man's estimate of the weak man's sufferings? Be-
lieve 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.
'' 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 discussion so
painful ; and thus, for the remainder of the way, little was
interchanged between them. They crossed the strait by
night, and as Upton stole upon deck after 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 re-
jects 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 preju-
dice 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
SOME SAD KEVERIES. 357
dishonored 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
this 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 believe
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, dis-
honored? 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 could 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 proud day that published me a calumniator of all
that I 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 myself
of the indication without first declaring my own unworthi-
ness 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 endeavored to deter
you by an appeal that interested even your selfishness."
"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 ! "
358 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"One thing is perfectly clear," said Upton, boldly, 'Hhe
man who shi-inks 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 honor than its real and sustaining power."
"And will you tell me, Upton, that the world's estimate
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 ? "
"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 humor ; 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. No emergency would
warrant his taking what belonged to another, — no critical
moment would drive him to the instinct of self-preservation.
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."
SOME SAD REVERIES. 359
"Pray 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."
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 fatal.
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 con-
sciousness has already whispered that nothing can be of use ;
but we like to do as our neighbors, 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 hours. 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 speaking ;
at last he said, —
" I feel as though continual change of place and scene
would be a relief to me. Let us rendezvous, therefore,
360 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
somewhere for the autumn, and meanwhile I '11 wander about
alone."
'' What direction do you purpose to take? "
' ' The Schwarzwald and the Hohlenthal, 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 and
read Uhland for a summer long. I wonder if I could resume
the same life. I knew the whole village, — the blacksmith,
the schoolmaster, the Dorfrichter, — all of them. Good,
kind souls they were : how they wept when we parted !
Nothing consoled them but my having purchased 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 reveal
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 color, so will, occasionally,
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 feature 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 color to his life, and the wild conceptions 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
SOME SAD REVERIES. 361
them together and confound them, making of the incon-
gruous 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 struggle with themselves, a
perpetual contest between high hope and base enjoyment.
A few keep them apart, retaining, through their worldliness,
some hallowed spot in the heart, where ignoble desires and
mean aspii-ations have never dared to come. A fewer still
have made the active work of life subordinate to the guiding-
spirit of purity, 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 om- child-
hood, 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 his 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 on traits of mind and character, nor
362 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 capacity ; he would even specu-
late 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, approaching
the actual story of his life, or seeming to attach any interest
to his destiny.
Upton's shrewd intelligence quickly told him that this
reserve was not accidental ; and he deliberated within him-
self 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 Kufif stein, and they recall the horrible
tales of the Inquisition ; the terrible contrivances to extort
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 Glen-
core spoke, but it was in a voice scarcely above a whisper,
and every accent of which trembled with emotion. "You
remember one sad and memorable night, 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
SOME SAD REVERIES. 363
felt he had a right to do. How he left that room, — cowed,
abashed, and degraded, — I have yet before me. Om* meet-
ing did not exceed many minutes in duration; neither of
us could have endured it longer. Brief as it was, we rati-
fied 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 attempts at excuse, the haughty
distance with which he 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.
"We 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.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE FLOOD IN THE MAGRA.
When it rains in Italy it does so with a passionate ardor
that bespeaks an unusual pleasure. It is no '' soft dissolving
in tears," but a perfect outburst of woe, — wailing in accents
the very wildest, and deluging the land in torrents. Moun-
tain streams that were rivulets in the morning, before noon
arrives are great rivers, swollen and turbid, carrying away
massive rocks from their foundations, 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 con-
tinually 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 carried
away to the ocean.
Where the great post-road from Genoa to the South
passes, a miserable shealing stands, half hidden in tall
osiers, and surrounded with a sedgy, swampy soil the foot
THE FLOOD IN THE MAGRA. 365
sinks in at every step. This is the shelter of the boatmen
who navigate the raft, and who, in relays by day and night,
are in waiting for the service of travellers. In the dreary
days of winter, or in the drearier nights, it is scarcely pos-
sible 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 is indeed all that one can picture
of desolation and wretchedness. 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 endeavoring to
dry their dripping clothes at the blaze, and conversing in a
low tone together. If the elder, dressed in a russet-colored
blouse and a broad-leafed hat, his face almost hid in beard
and moustaches, seemed by his short and almost grotesque
figure a travelling 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
366 THE FORTUNES OE GLENCORE.
richer and better off than ourselves comes, we '11 have to pay
seven francs for passin' in such a night as this."
*' It is a downright robbery to ask so much," cried the
other, angrily. " What so great danger is there, or what
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."
'*The 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 vine-
gar, 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-boregan 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 shin in' 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'
stories, sometimes fairy tales, sometimes makin' rhymes to
myself, but always happy and contented. There wasn't
a bit of the way I had n'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 trying 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 grievin' over something. Was n't that mighty
curious ? "
THE FLOOD IN THE MAGRA. 367
"Perhaps, like ourselves, Billy, he wasn't quite sure of
his passport," said the other, dryly.
"Faix, may be so," replied he, with perfect seriousness.
''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 appearance
and behavior was n'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 ven-
ture 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 vexa-
tions 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 circumventin' 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."
368 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"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.
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 mowld 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 sycophants 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. 'T is because
they won't labor — because they won't work — that they
are driven to acts of sycophancy and meanness. The spkit
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
grandem- ! "
"And you will again, plaze God! if /live, and you pre-
sarve your hearin'. What would I be if I was rich, but an
ould — an ould voluptuary ? " said Billy, with great empha-
sis on a word he had some trouble in discovering. " Atin'
myself sick with delicacies, and drinkin' cordials all day
long. 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, hobbled and 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 the
youth.
THE FLOOD IN THE MAGRA. 369
"It's only the river ; it's risin' every minute."
*'No, that was a shout. I heard it distinctly. Ay, the
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 ! "
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 trav-
ellers' impatience had now reached its highest point ; but to
this a slight lull succeeded, probably occasioned by the par-
ley with the boatman.
" They '11 give us five Napoleons for the job," said Beppo,
entering, and addressing his chief.
" Fer Dlo, that won't support our families if we leave
them fatherless," muttered the other. " Who and what are
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-
24
370 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
posed the chief, who saw that an angry scene was brewing.
"He's only waiting to cross the river," muttered he in a
whisper, " when some one comes rich enough to hire the raft."
''^ Sacre bleu! 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
if you land us safely at the other side; and never were
you so well paid in your lives for an hour's labor."
The sight of the gold, as it glistened temptingly in his
outstretched hand, appealed to then* hearts far more elo-
quently 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 youth, " 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."
" Sacristil" exclaimed the courier, in a tone of insolent
mockery, " I have travelled the road long enough to learn
that one does not need an introduction before addressing a
vagabond."
"Vagabond! " cried the j^outh, 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 then* might, the combatants struggled,
each endeavoring to push the other towards the stream.
Billy, too, restrained by force, could not come to the rescue,
and could only by words, screamed out in all the wildness
of his agony, encourage his companion. " 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,
WalterL:dU.Pk.Sc.
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THE FLOOD IN THE MAGRA. 371
rolled, clasped in each other's fierce etabrace, 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, seizing
lanterns and torches, hurried along the bank of the torrent
to try and rescue the combatants. A sudden 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 succor. Assisted by
the servants of the ti-aveller, who speedily were apprised of
the disaster, the search was continued for hours, and morn-
ing at length began to break over the dreary scene, without
one ray of hope. By the gray cold dawn, the yellow flood
could be seen for a considerable 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 Spezia, 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
Spezia, 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 investigating 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
372 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 offi-
cials 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.
"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 committed — "
"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 interrogatories I
could not answer, and excite me to take interest, 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 indifference.
" Certainly, the companion of the man who is missing,
and of whom no clew 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 Glen- '
core. 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 wanderings."
THE ELOOD IN THE MAGRA. 373
"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
removed ; but if you will visit him there, I will accompany
you."
It was only when a call was made upon Lord Glen core
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 endeavored 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 compas-
sion, 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 ; " 't is because sorrow and sickness has changed
me, then."
"Who are you? Tell me your name?" said Glencore,
eagerly.
"I'm Billy Traynor, my Lord, the one 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.
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 Tray nor had perfectly recovered, and 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 protection
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 dan-
gers, 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 single
soul to say, " Courage ! " There is something splendidly exciting
in the notion of having felt thoughts that others have never felt, —
of having set footsteps in that untracked sand where no traveller
has ever ventured. This impression never left me as I buffeted
A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER. 375
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 charg-
ing an enemy's battery at speed. I was wildly mad with impa-
tience 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 depression that
follows past danger — that made me feel low and miserable after-
wards ? 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 1 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 indiiferent 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 become, when
it needs a hurricane of passion to stir it ! Here I am, living,
breathing, walking, and sleeping, but without one sentiment that
attaches me to existence ; and yet do I feel as though whatever
endangered life, or jeoparded 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 endeavors 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
376 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 independence 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 myseK. 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 brotherhood with them ? I trow
not, Billy. They would hand us over to the police !
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 "con-
sideration." 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 affec-
tion my heart may cherish, no honorable 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
A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER. 377
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 degi'adation I am blameless 1
I have just been told that a certain Princess de Sabloukoff is
to arrive here this evening, and that I am to wait upon her im-
mediately. Good Heavens ! can she be — ? The thought has
just struck me, and my head is already wandering at the bare
notion of it I 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 or 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 after 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 i\iQ 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 imperial 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 me ?
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
378 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
together. As this web of intrigue — for so I cannot but feel it
— draws more closely around me, I grow more and more im-
patient 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
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 hurriedly en-
deavored to conceal the oft-perused epistle. " Nay," cried
he, suddenly correcting himself, "you need not tell me; I
asked without forethought." He paused a few seconds, and
then went on: "I 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. What-
ever 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 men-
tion 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 whis-
pered the danger 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
A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER. 379
had spoken. " It is less for my sake than that of another."
Billy took the hand Glencore tendered towards him respect-
fully 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 he
could not utter a word.
" 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 himself
as he stole away, "what is it that keeps them apart and
won't let them love one another ? Sure it was n'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 might n't forget and forgive by this time ? And then
if it was n'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 we 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 oust,
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
^schylus. 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 he
began to prepare for his journey.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
HOW A SOVEREIGN TREATS WITH HIS MINISTER.
"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, 7 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 embar-
rassments she so deeply deplores. Eh, Stubber, that 's the
phrase : ' While we deeply deplore the condition of the king-
dom,' — that's always the exordium to sending out a fleet or
an impertinent despatch. But I '11 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 pos-
sibly take no heed of my protest."
" And you '11 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,
HOW A SOVEREIGN TREATS WITH HIS MINISTER. 381
demolish the monasteries, and send for an English frigate
down to the Marina, where there 's not water to float a
fishing-boat. But no, sk, I '11 have no such alliances ; I '11
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 '11 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 then- own
aristocracy by hunting down all that is noble in every state
of Europe. There, sir, he hit the mark in the very centre.
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
nai;ion, ancient or modern. I was in London in '15, and I
remember, at a race-course, — 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 welcom-
ing my future minister. Eh, Stubber, only fancy what a
change ! "
Stubber only shrugged his shoulders, as though the altera-
tion 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
382 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
Prince laughed so at dinner about it, and said it was pure
patriotism not to suffer exportation of bullion. A great
people the English, that I must say ! The display of wealth
was the grandest spectacle I ever beheld ; and such beauty
too ! By the way, Stubber, our ballet here is detestable.
Where did they gather together that gang of horrors ? "
'' What signifies it, sir, if the Austrian Jagers are bivou-
acked in the theatre ? "
''Very true, by Jove!" said the Duke, pondering.
" Can't we hit upon something, — have you no happy sug-
gestion ? I have it, Stubber, — an admirable thought. We '11
have Upton to dinner. We '11 make it appear that he has
come here specially to treat with us. There is a great cold-
ness just now between St. James's and Vienna. Upton will
be charmed with the thought of an intrigue; so will be
La Sabloukoff . We '11 not invite the Field-Marshal Rosen-
krantz : that will itself offend Austria. Eh, Stubber, is n'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 rubbing
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 compensation and an
ample apology."
"Apology, of course, Stubber, — humiliation to any ex-
tent. I 'It send the Minister Landelli into exile, — to the
galleys, if they insist ; but I '11 not pay a scudo, — my royal
word on it ! But who says that such is the reason of his
presence 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."
HOW A SOVEREIGN TREATS WITH HIS MINISTER. 383
'* Go to him, Stubber, with our invitation. Ask him if
he likes shooting. Say I am going to Serravezza on Satur-
day; sound him if he desires to have the Red Cross of
Massa ; hint that I am an ardent admu-er 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, sii-? " 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 complications
and more troubles would be the sole results of this brilliant
tactique.
" If I were well served and faithfully obeyed, there is not
a sovereign in Europe who would boast a more independent
position, — protected by my bold people, envu-oned 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 collecting the imposts a year
in advance ! "
" I hope that this country is more equitably administered,''
said Stubber.
" So do I, sir. Were I not impressed with the full con-
viction 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 must n'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 had n'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 ! "
384 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE-
''If the people had sufficient occupation, they 'd not play
' Trottolo,' " said Stubber, sternly.
' ' And whose the fault if they have not, su- ? How many
months have I been entreating to have those terraced gar-
dens finished towards the sea? I want that olive wood, too,
all stubbed up, and the ground laid out in handsome par-
terres. How repeatedly have I asked for a bridge over that
ornamental lake ; and as to the island, there 's not a mag-
nolia planted in it yet. Public works, indeed ; find me the
money, Stubber, and I '11 suggest 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 travel-
ling 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 Act which admits foreigners to possess
property in the state was passed in the life of your High-
ness's father."
" I repeal it, then! It saps the nationality of a people;
it is a blow aimed at the very heart of independent sover-
eignty. 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 more 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
HOW A SOVEREIGN TREATS WITH HIS MINISTER. 385
must feel precisely like your dogged and hard-headed coun-
trymen, and that what are deemed 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 enjoyment 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 dangerous fellow, — a very dangerous
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, perhaps ;
it is all completed, and only waits your Highness to sign the
deed."
" What sum does it give us, Stubber, eh? "
''About one hundred and eighty thousand scudi, 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 grounds, sir. It was
not fair and just that a set of lazy friars should be leading
25
386 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
lives of indolence and abundance in the midst of a hard-
worked and ill-fed peasantry."
" Quite true ; and 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.
CHAPTER XLIX.
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 seriously indisposed," said Madame de
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 door, 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 ami-
cable weakness in his nature, — "I rather like 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 unwilling
assent.
388 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
''I know he's not of your world, dear Princess, but he
belongs to that Anglo-Saxon stock we are so prone to
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 nobility, only serve to throw
ridicule upon themselves and the order that they counter-
feit. 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? He is a Minister of the Household, with
an ample salary ; a Master of the Horse ; an inspector of
Woods and Forests ; a something over Church lands ; and
a Red Cross of Massa besides. I 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, after 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 gratitude ! It is like saying to the world, ' See what the
munificence of my master has made me ! ' "
SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES. 389
''What a delicate compliment, too, to his nobles, which
proclaims that for a station of trust and probity the Prince
must recruit from the kitchen and the stables. To my
thinking, there is no such impertinent delusion as that
popular one which asserts that we must seek for everything
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 longer."
The Princess arose, and walked the room in evident dis-
pleasure. 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 pres-
ence 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 interna-
tional one, and you will see the popular will declaring wars,
cementing alliances, and signing peaces in a fashion to
make statecraft tremble ! "
390 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"And you approve of this change, and welcome it?"
asked she, derisively.
" I have never said so, madame. I foresee the hurricane,
that 's all. Men like Stubber are to be seen almost every-
where 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 fourteen quarterings nor
names coeval with the Roman Empire."
" You have given me but another reason to detest him,"
said the Princess, angrily. " I don't think I shall receive
him to-day."
' ' But 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 wife's honor 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 sup-
pose the word will do — to mean more than levities; he
construed indiscretions into grave faults, and faults into
crimes. But that he did all this without sufficient reason, or
thstt he now has abundant evidence that he was mistaken, I
am unable to say, nor is it with broken faculties and a wan-
SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES. 391
dering intellect that he can be expected to review the past
and deliver judgment on it."
" The whole moral of which is: what a luckless 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 submitted
to the standard of a nation whose moral subtleties she could
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
spkits 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 gayeties of the world about her are snares and pit-
falls, is to make existence little better than a penal servitude,
— this is lesson the second. While, to complete her educa-
tion, she is instructed how to assume a censorial rigidity of
manner that would shame a duenna, and a condemnatory
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 companion by this train-
ing, you^ sir, and your countrymen are best able to
pronounce."
"You rather exaggerate our demerits, my dear Princess,"
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 falls to the lot of the least
fortunate of her own country. I conclude you have some
influence over him?"
"As much, perhaps, as any one; but even that says
little."
" Can you not use it, therefore, to make him repair a
great wrong?"
" You had some plan, I think?" said he, hesitatingly.
892 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
'' Yes ; I have written to her to come down here. I have
pretended that her presence is necessary to certain formali-
ties about the 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 I 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 make 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
SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES. 393
divulged to him by his own father, that he had never heard
who his mother was, nor what rank in life she occupied.
When I said that she was one in high station, that she was
alive and well, and one of my own dearest 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 endeavored to excite in him some desire
to learn more of her, if not to see her, but in vain. The
hard lesson he had taught himself 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 '11 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 dishonor, 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
honor, his hardest task will be reconciliation with this
boy."
'' 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."
394 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCOEE.
" 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 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, discon-
cert 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 but one passion, one impulse in life,
is rarely a difficult study," was the measured reply. " Lord
Grlencore'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, but 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 recrimi-
nation; 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 hereafter,"
said Upton, smiling.
SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES. 395
'* I really never carried my speculations so far," replied
she. " It is in actual life, as in that of the stage, quite suffi-
cient to accompany the actors to the fall of the curtain."
'' The Chevalier Stubber, madame," said a servant, enter-
ing, '' 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.
CHAPTER L.
ANTE-DINNER REFLECTIONS.
Notwithstanding the strongly expressed sentiments of the
Princess with regard to the Chevalier Stubber, she received
him with marked faVor, and gave him her hand 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 shoulder, and smiled
benignly on him, you would have said it was the affectionate
meeting with a long-absent brother. But there was some-
thing besides this : there was the expansive confidence
accorded to a trusty colleague ; and as he asked him about
the Duchy, its taxation, its debt, its alliances and diffi-
culties, you might mark in the attention he bestowed all the
signs of one receiving very valuable information.
'' 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 wanting
to wound Austria, only pinches Baden ; and Austria, desi-
rous of insulting Saxony, ' takes it out' on Sigmaringen."
"It's a pleasant destiny you assign them," said she,
laughing.
'' Stubber will tell you I'm not far wrong in my appre-
ciation."
ANTE-DINNER REFLECTIONS. 897
'* I 'm not for what they call ' mediatizing' them neither,
my Lady," said Stubber, who generally used the designation
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 thek courts, and throw
their little capitals into the position of provincial towns and
even villages ? "
'' They will eke out a livelihood somehow, my dear Stubber.
Be assured that they '11 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 question
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
398 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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."
'' 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, mod-
estly, " 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 unobjection-
able 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 I 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?"
''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 I 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 very jolly fellow,
gave me under his handwriting a voucher that I had been a
witness of the marriage, and all the festivities afterwards,
just to show my master how everything happened. But
the Prince never asked me for any explanations, and only
said he ' hoped I had amused myself well ; ' and so I
kept my voucher to myself, and I have it at this very
hour."
" Will you let me see it, Stubber?"
ANTE-DINNER REFLECTIONS. 399
*' 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. Go, my
dear Stubber, and look it up."
" I '11 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 off to prosecute his search.
*' Here, then, are all my plans altered at once," exclaimed
she, as the door closed after him. "If this paper mean
only as much as he asserts, it will be ample proof of mar-
riage, 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. " Glencore is now evidently balancing what course
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 be 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 be-
coming dormant. No, I know Glencore well, and will deal
with him more patiently."
" From 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 shabby 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
400 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
morning of the 18th August, at the marriage of the Most
Noble Signor 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, and the event which ensued. It bore the name of
the writer 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 un-
do 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 starting up in un-
thought-of places, as though to show how vain was mere
subtlety in conflict with the inevitable law ot^ Fate."
" This Basilio Nardoni is an acquaintance of mine," said
the Princess, bent on pursuing 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 inten-
ded, 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."
CHAPTER LI.
CONFLICTING THOUGHTS.
The Princess Sabloukofif found — not by any means an
unfrequent experience in life — that the dinner, whose dul-
ness she had dreaded, turned out a very pleasant affair.
The Prince was unusually gracious. He was in good spir-
its, and put forth powers of agreeability which had been
successful in one of less distinction than himself. He pos-
sessed 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 be-
fore him. Great people have few more enviable privileges
than that they choose their own topics for conversation.
Nothing disagreeable, nothing wearisome, nothing inoppor-
tune, 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 ques-
tions of 'state as he might have talked with a Metternich ; 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 the condition of England, and
deplored, as all Continental rulers do, the impending down-
fall 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
26
402 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
signs of confidence, and a most marked tone of cordiality,
purposely 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 en-
chanted with his agreeability. Strong in their self-esteem,
they could not be brought to suspect that any artifice could
be practised on tliem^ or that the mere 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 remarkable man, and one who received
far less than the estimation due to him. His flightiness
became versatility ; his eccentricity was all originalty ; 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! I was obliged to decline the Sed 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 hypoc-
risies ; 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 Upton, — I can bear this suspense no longer ; to remain
here canvassing with myself all the doubts that beset me is a tor-
ture I cannot endure. I 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,
Glencore.
CONFLICTING THOUGHTS. 403
' '' 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, madame," 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 care-
lessly on the table. " He wants to forgive himself, and only
hesitates how to do so gracefully," said she, sneeringly.
"I think you are less than just to him," said Upton,
mildly; ''his is a noble nature, disfigured by one grand
defect."
" Your national character, like your language, is so full of
incongruities arid contradictions that I 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."
" The springs are running. Princess ; ' the earth,' as Mos-
chus says, ' is a mother that never ceases to nourish.' I do
suspect I need a little nursing."
The Princess understood him thoroughly. Bhe 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 advice and counsel, and
404 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
by no means concurred in Ms 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; *Hhey are highly dangerous if
taken without the greatest circumspection ; " and she gave a
catalogue of imaginary calamities which had befallen various
illustrious and gifted individuals, to which Upton listened
with profound attention.
" Very well," sighed he, as she finished, " it must 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 melancholy 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, attract-
ing our attention, engaging our sympathy, 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 vu'tue and all the
calendars of punished vice. The nature of a single man can
be far more instructive than the history of every accident
that befalls him.
CONFLICTING THOUGHTS. 405
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 Florence,
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 foreigners, 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
favor. "Can't we have this search made at once?"
"Whisht! whisht!" whispered his companion, in Eng-
lish; "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 nt) 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 response.
"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-
core sat up in his carriage, and leaned out to catch sight
of the speaker; but the shadow of the overhanging roof
406 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
concealed him from vie^. ''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, with-
out well understanding the words, drew nigh the window;
but the glass was already drawn up, the postilions 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 indifference, 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 increas-
ing animation. "You shall see what a different fellow I'll
be when I throw behind me forever 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, in 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. 407
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 vetturini,
and at the common table for this company tiiey now took
their places for supper. The Carnival was just drawing
to its close, and all the gayeties 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," cried 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 chatting
with duchesses, and exchanging smart sayings with coun-
tesses, 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 coward stab would be given in the shadow
408 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
of that immunity! For one who would use the privilege
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 favor of this secrecy. Many
may cover their faces to unmask their hearts; but, after
all, they continue to observe a habit which centuries back
then- 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 '11 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 disturbing
the calmness of his rest. Lord Glencore passed the night in
a state of feverish excitement, i-ed 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 undermined his reasoning powers; and
every attempt at calm judgment or reflection was sure to be'
attended with some violent paroxysm of irrepressible 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. Such was Glencore. To
CONFLICTING THOUGHTS. 409
discover that the terrible injury he had 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 honorable 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
ti'eatment 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 ? Has any one yet
got at the truth? Was the father the cruel tyrant, or the
mother the worthless 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 posi-
tion 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
410 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
Glencore. His claim may lie dormant, the proofs 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 mys-
teries of the world, he should succeed to prove his claim, —
what a memory will he cherish of me I Will not every sor-
row of his youth, every indignity of his manhood, be asso-
ciated with my name? Will he or can he ever forgive him
who defamed the mother and despoiled the son?
In the terrible conflict of such thoughts as these he passed
the night ; intervals of violent grief or passion alone break-
ing 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.
CHAPTER LH.
f
MAJOR SCARESBY's VISIT.
Down the crowded thoroughfare of the Borgo d* Ognisanti
the tide of Carnival mummers poured unceasingly. Hide-
ous masks and gay dominos, ludicrous impersonations and
absurd satires on costume, abounded, and the entu*e popula-
tion 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 per-
mitted 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 assumed equality with their richer neigh-
bors ; 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-humor. Dukes and princes,
white from head to foot with the snowy shower, went laugh-
ingly 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 pur-
412 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
suit : nun^s embraced, devils environed him, angels perched
on his shoulders, mock wild boars 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 atten-
tion, nor was the amusement diminished by the discovery
that he was a foreigner and an Englishman. Impertinent
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 harbor of refuge. "What the devil
fun can they discover in making each other dirtier than their
daily habits bespeak them? I say," cried he, addressing a
waiter, " is Sir Horace Upton staying 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, return-
ing 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 think-
ing to myself that I could n'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 corre-
sponded with the words.
" Yes, Scaresby, everything in this good city is in a man-
ner 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!
MAJOR SCARESBY'S VISIT. 413
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 we then have had of a society
fuller even than the present of moral delinquencies." There
was a degree of pomposity in the manner he uttered this that
served to conceal in a great measure its sarcasm.
''I am much flattered to learn that I have ever en-
lightened your Excellency on any subject," said the Maipr,
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 Mab worth."
"Sir Paul Mab worth?"
' ' Ay, the same old bore ag 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, Scaresby; 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 perfect 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."
414 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
*' 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 pass-
ing a few years in Siberia; 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 '11 give up his bar-
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-^ur tongue off than
suffered it to fashion them!
"Brignolles danced with her at that celebrated /e/e 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 XVIII. ; he
swaggers a little more as he gets more feeble about the legs,
and he shows his teeth when he laughs, more decidedly since
his last journey to Paris. Devilish clever fellows these
modern dentists are ! He wants to marry ; I 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 many, 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 happened
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."
MAJOR SCARESBY'S VISIT. 415
" I have it from Lowther, who used to take him home at
night ; he said Glencore never went to bed sober ! At all
jevenfe7 sbe hated him, and detested his miserly habits."
" Another mistake, my dear Major. Glencore was never
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 did n '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 cal-
umny, and the Duke of Brignolles no more circulated such
a story than I did. He is a man of honor, 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 measure of charity accompanies your
zeal for truth in this amiable society, Scaresby, but I can
repeat my assertion that this must be a falsehood."
"You will find it very hard, nevertheless, to bring any
one over to your opinion," retorted the unappeasable Major.
" He was a fellow everybody hated ; proud and superci-
lious 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 from 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 bloodless lips
slightly parted.
It was almost an hour ere his consciousness returned;
but when it did, and he saw Upton alone at his bedside,
416 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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 I saw
no more. He is gone, — is he not ? " cried he, in a faint
whisper.
^' Yes, yes, — 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 Upton 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 for-
tune makes him my 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 degradation? "
exclaimed Glencore, passionately. ' ' I have never sub-
scribed to this dictation. There is little, indeed, of life left
to me, but there is enough, perhaps, to vindicate myself
against men of this stamp. You shall take him a message
frpm me; you shall tell him by what accident I overheard
his discoveries."
" My dear Glencore, there are graver interests, far wor-
thier cares, than any this man's name can enter into, which
should now engage you."
* MAJOR SCARESBY'S VISIT. 417
*' 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
a distinct understanding that other and wiser thoughts than
those of vengeance were to occupy your attention. I never
scrupled to place it in your hands ; I never hesitated 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 honor."
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 coui-age to retrace his
steps ; but courage is not the quality you fail in, Glencore,
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 ! "
27
418 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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.
CHAPTER LIII.
A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME.
From the gorgeous halls of the Pltti 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 clamor to grow louder. It seemed
as though festivity and joy had overflowed from the houses,
filling the streets with merrj^-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 annihilate the distinctions of
class. The soiled and tattered nmmmer 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 between 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, however, 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.
420 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
Our^ business is with two travellers, who,' well weary of
being for hours a-foot, and partly sated with pleasure, sat
down to rest themselves on a bench beside the Arno.
'* 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 ! We
scarce can catch the accents of the droll allusions, we
cannot 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
day 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 have n't ; as Cicero tells us, 'In jucundis nullum ,
periculum.' But ye see we have no notion of any amuse-
ment without a dash of danger through it, if not even
cruelty ! "
"The French know how to reconcile the two natures;
they are brave, and light-hearted too."
"And the Irish, Mister Charles, — the Irish especially,"
said Billy, proudly; "for I was alludin' to the English
in what I said last. The ' versatile ingenium ' is all our
own.
He goes into a tent and he spends half a-crown,
Comes out, meets 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.
A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 421
'' How hard it must be," said Massy, "to go back to the"
workaday routine of life after one of these outbursts, — to
resume not alone the drudgery, but all the slavish obser-
vances that humble men yield to great ones ! "
" '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 mixin' old thoughts with new, —
puttin* 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 bright 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 you 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's
nature entirely — something that dwells outside of him —
sets 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 sugges-
tions day after day ; as he does this, he gets to have a taste
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 point-
ing 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
422 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
large orchestra arose. On a great terrace overhead numer-
ous 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
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 him-
self 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 repassed before him. He fancied that
in their gestures he could trace many meanings, and as the
bent-down heads approached, 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 grace-
ful figure passed into the place he spoke of. " She looks
like one among, but not of, them. How much of heart- weari-
ness 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 me of all the thou-
sands here she could reveal what is passing in that heart !
I know it, I feel it! She has a sorrow whose burden I
A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 423
might help to bear. There is cruelty, or treachery, or false-
hood arrayed against her ; and through all the splendor of
the scene — all the wild gayety 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
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 torrent. 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 build-
ing 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 forever, Sebastian," said she;
" you told me so on the last night at Massa."
" And so I meant when I said it," cried he ; " nor is our
meeting now of my planning. I came to Florence, it is
true, to see, but not to speak with you, ere I left Europe
forever. 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.
"I 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."
424 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
" 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 bear."
'' 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 tell 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.
" No, except it be the presumption of one in my condition
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, /
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 rumors 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 you 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 bla. \
is the best pride I possess.' She grew pale with passion as
A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 425
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 ques-
tion its harsh injustice. But tell me, I beseech you, that she
is one to whose station these prejudices are the fitting accom-
paniments, and let me feel that it is less myself as the indi-
vidual 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 afterwards. 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 misfortunes 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
land."
' ' But you told me that you had not made the pledge,"
said he, wildly.
"Nor 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.
426 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
" 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 splendors of
life, can have little complaint to make against the cruelty of
fortune ! "
'' How unlike yourself is all this ! " cried she. '' You 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 questions 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 fact, 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 endeavoring 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 hurried away at once, shocked at
even a momentary shadow on the sunny road of their exist-
ence ; 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 salons, 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.
A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 427
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 famil-
iar 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 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 accepting
has retu'ed 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 plalsaiiterie^ 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 indignant
about.'*
" Only so many of us as have characters for the 'latest
intelligence.' "
To this s^lly 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 ! "
428 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
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.
"It is precisely 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 Excel-
lency," 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."
"There 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
A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 429
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 stau's 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 himself! "
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 faces
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, — I 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 face 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 suspect ? "
430 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
"This is — look, BrignoUes," 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 his-
tory 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 neighbors for Glencore's sad fate, — Upton, — was
in reality deeply and sincerely affected. The traits which
make a consummate man of the world — one whose prero-
gative it is to appreciate 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 intellectual wealth.' Upton sorrowed over Glen-
core as for one whose noble nature had been poisoned by
an impetuous temper, and over whose best instincts an un-
governable self-esteem had ever held the mastery. They
had been friends almost from boyhood, and the very world-
liest of men can feel the bitterness of that isolation in
which the "turn of life" too frequently commences. Such
friendships are never made in later life. We lend our affec-
tions when young on very small security, and though it is
A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 431
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 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 by which we measure the distance we have trav-
elled 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 perceived 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 set before his ambition.
But let us return to himself as, alone and sorrow-struck,
he sat in his room of the Hotel dTtalie. Various cares and
duties consequent on Glencore's death had devolved entirely
upon him. Young Massy had suddenly disappeared 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 between affliction and worldliness —
the tear of the mourner — the heart-broken sigh drowned in
the sharp knock of the coffin-maker. He had gone through
it all, and sat moodily pondering over the future, when
Madame de Sabloukoff entered.
432 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
" She 's much better this morning, and I think we can go
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.
" I perceive you have not opened your -letters this morn-
ing," said she, turning towards the table, littered 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 color showed surprise, and a
little displeasure, perhaps, mingled in her emotions.
"I have not the very remotest conception," said Upton,
calmly. " Let us see what that large despatch contains ; it
comes 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
Governor-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.
A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME. 43^
" 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.
28
CHAPTER LIV.
THE END.
Years have gone over, and once more — it is for the last
time — we come back to the old castle in the West, beside
the estuary of the Killeries. Neglect and ruin have made
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, half-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 damp, discolored walls and ceilings, large 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 furniture,
some kitchen utensils and a little bookshelf, 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 desola-
tion can be deeper or gloomier ! The sea-sent mists wrap
the mountains and even the lough itself in their vapory
THE END. 435
shroud. The cold thin rain falls unceasingly ; a cheerless,
•damp, and heavy atmosphere dwells even within doors ; and
the gray 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 old
man, with a large square volume upon his knee. Dwarfed
by nature and shrunk by years, there is something 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 sur-
vived the wear and tear of time, and, old as he is, there is
about him a dash of vigor that seems to defy age. Poor
Billy Traynor is now upwards of eighty ; but his faculties
are clear, his memory unclouded, and, like Moses, his eye
not dimmed. ''The Three Chronicles of Loughdooner," in
which he is reading, is the history of the Glencores, and
contains, amongst its family records, many curious pre-
dictions and prophecies. The heirs of that ancient house
were, from time immemorial, the sport of fortune, enduring
vicissitudes without end. No reverses seemed ever too
heavy to rally from; no depth of evil fate too deep for
them to extricate themselves. Involved in difficulties in-
numerable, engaged in plots, conspiracies, luckless under-
takings, 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 soli-
tary life. His lord, as he 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
^he only tidings that assured Billy he was yet living ; yet
were they enough to convince him, coupled with the hered-
itary 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
436 THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
the fate of the Glencores to see " the hearth cold, and the
Toof-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 1
And where the haughty dames who swept
Thy terraces in pride?
Where is the wild and joyous mirth
That drown'd th' Atlantic's roar,
Making the rafters ring again
With welcome to Gleucore ?
" And where 's the step of belted knight.
That strode the massive floor 1
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 '11 never see Glencore !
" And he came back, after all, — Lord Hugo, — and wa8
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. After 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 revery, 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 manfully 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 harbor 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
THE END. 437
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
Glencore."
THE END.
A RENT IN A CLOUD.
^' or THE ^
DIVERSITY
OF
AUfQS
A RENT IN A CLOUD,
CHAPTER I.
THE WHITE HORSE AT COBLENTZ.
Out of a window of the Weissen Ross, at Coblentz, looking
upon the rapid Rhine, over whose circling eddies a rich sun-
set shed a golden tint, two young Englishmen lounged and
smoked their cigars; rarely speaking, and, to all seeming,
wearing that air of boredom which, strangely enough, would
appear peculiar to a very enjoyable time of life. They were
acquaintances of only a few days. They had met on an
Antwerp steamer — rejoined each other in a picture-gallery
— chanced to be side by side at a table d'hdte at Brussels,
and, at last, drifted into one of those intimacies which, to
very young men, represents friendship. They agreed they
would travel together, all the more readily that neither cared
very much in what direction. *' As for me," said Calvert,
''it doesn't much signify where I pass the interval; but
in October I must return to India and join my regiment."
" And I," said Loyd, " about the same time must be in
England. I have just been called to the Bar."
'' Slow work that must be, I take it."
*' Do you like soldiering?" asked Loyd, in a low, quiet
voice.
''Hate it! abhor it! It's all very well when you join
first. You are so glad to be free of Woolwich or Sand-
hurst, or wherever it is. You are eager to be treated like
a man, and so full of Cox and Greenwood, and the army
tailor, and your camp furniture ; and then comes the depot
442 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
and mess. One's first three months at mess seemed to be
the cream of existence."
'* Is it realty so jolly? Are the fellows good talkers?"
*' About the worst in the universe ; but to a young hand,
they are enchantment. All their discourse is of something
to be enjoyed. It is that foot-race, that game of billiards,
that match at cricket, that stunning fine girl to ride out with,
those excellent cigars Watkins is sending us ; and so on.
All is action, and very pleasant action too. Then duty, —
though it 's the habit to revile and curse it, — duty is asso-
ciated with a sense of manhood ; a sort of goose-step chiv-
alry, to be sure, but still chivalry. One likes to see the
sergeant with his orderly book, and to read, ' Ensign Cal-
vert for the main guard.' "
"And how long does all this last?"
' ' I gave it three months ; some have been able to prolong
it to six. Much depends upon where the depot is, and
what sort of corps you're in."
*' Now for the reaction! Tell me of that."
" I cannot ; it 's too dreadful. It 's a general detestation
of all things military, from the Horse Guards to the mess
waiter. You hate drill — parade — inspection — the adjutant
— the wine committee — the paymaster — the field-officer
of the day — and the major's wife. You are chafed about
everything — you want leave, you want to exchange, you
want to be with the depot, you want to go to Corfu, and
you are sent to Canada. Your brother officers are the slow-
est fellows in the service ; you are quizzed about them at
the mess of the Nine Hundred and Ninth, — * Yours ' neither
give balls nor private theatricals. You wish you were in the
Cape Coast Fencibles, — in fact, you feel that destiny has
placed you in the exact position you are least fitted for."
" So far as I can see, however, all the faults are in
yourself."
*'Not altogether. If you have plenty of money, your
soldier life is simply a barrier to the enjoyment of it. You
are chained to one spot, to one set of associates, and to
one mode of existence. If you're poor, it's fifty times
worse, and all your time is spent in making five-and-six-
pence a day equal to a guinea."
THE WHITE HORSE AT COBLENTZ. 4-13
Loyd made no answer, but smoked on.
"I know," resumed the other, "that this is not what
many will tell you, or wliat, perhaps, would suggest itself
to your own mind from a chance intercourse with us. To
the civilian the mess is not without a certain attraction, and
there is, I own, something very taking in the aspect of that
little democracy where the fair-cheeked boy is on an equal-
ity with the old bronzed soldier, and the freshness of Rugby
or Eton is confronted with the stern experiences of the vet-
eran campaigner ; but this wears off very soon, and it is a
day to be marked with white chalk when one can escape his
mess dinner, with all its good cookery, good wine, and good
attendance, and eat a mutton-chop at the Green Man with
Simpkins, just because Simpkins wears a black coat, lives
down in the country, and never was in a Gazette in his
life. And now for your side of the medal, — what is it
like?"
" Nothing very gorgeous or brilliant, I assure you," said
Loyd, gently ; for he spoke with a low, quiet tone, and had
a student-like, submissive manner, in strong contrast to the
other's easy and assured air. ' ' With great abilities, great
industry, and great connection, the career is a splendid one,
and the rewards the highest. But between such golden
fortunes and mine there is a whole realm of space. How-
ever, with time and hard work, and ordinary luck, I don't
despair of securing a fair livelihood."
" After — say — thirty years, eh? "
*' Perhaps so."
*' By the time that I drop out of the army a retired lieu-
tenant-colonel, with three hundred a year, you '11 be in fair
practice at Westminster, with, let us take it, fifteen hundred,
or two thousand — perhaps five."
*' I shall be quite satisfied if I confirm the prediction in
the middle of it."
"Ah!" continued the soldier. "There's only one road
to success, — to marry a charming girl with money. Ashley
of ours, who has done the thing himself, says that you can
get money, — any man can, if he will ; that, in fact, if you
will only take a little trouble, you may have all the attrac-
tions you seek for in a wife, plus fortune."
444 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
'' Pleasant theory, but still not unlikely to involve a self-
deception, since, even without knowing it, a man may be far
more interested by the pecuniary circumstance.*'
" Don't begin with it ^ first fall in love, — I mean to your-
self, without betraying it, — and then look after the settle-
ment. If it be beneath your expectation, trip your anchor,
and get out of the reach of fire."
" And you may pass your best years in that unprofitable
fashion, not to say what you may find yourself become in
the mean while."
The soldier looked at the other askance, and there was
in his sidelong glance a sort of irony that seemed to say,
'' Oh ! you 're an enthusiast, are you? "
'' There you have me, Loyd," said he, hurriedly, — " that
is the weak point of my whole system ; but remember,
after all, do what one will, he can't be as fresh at five-and-
thirty as five-and-twenty, — he will have added ten years
of distrusts, doubts, and dodges to his nature, in spite of
himself."
" Jf they must come in spite of himself, there is no help
for it; but let him at least not deliberately lay a plan to
acquire them."
"One» thing is quite clear," said the other, boldly, " the
change will come, whether we like it or not, and the wisest
philosophy is to plan our lives so that we may conform to
the alterations time will make in us. I don't want to be
dissatisfied with my condition at five-and-forty, just for the
sake of some caprice that I indulged in at fi-s e-and-twenty,
and if I find a very charming creature with an angelic
temper, deep blue eyes, the prettiest foot in Christendom,
and a neat sum in Consols, I '11 promise you there will soon
be a step in the promotion of her Majesty's service, vice
Lieutenant Harry Calvert, sold out."
The reply of the other was lost in the hoarse noise of the
steam which now rushed from the escape-pipe of a vessel
that had just arrived beneath the window. She was bound
for Mayence, but stopped to permit some few passengers to
land at that place. The scene exhibited all that bustle and
confusion so perplexing to the actors, but so amusing to
those who are mere spectators ; for while some were eagerly
THE WHITE HORSE AT COBLENTZ. 445
pressing forward to gain the gangway with their luggage,
the massive machinery of the bridge of boats was already in
motion to open a space for the vessel to move up the stream.
The young Englishmen were both interested in watching a
very tall, thin old lady, whose efforts to gather together the
members of her party, her luggage, and her followers, seemed
to have overcome all the ordinary canons of politeness, for
she pushed here and drove there, totally regardless of the
inconvenience she was occasioning. She was followed by
two young ladies, from whose courteous gestures it could be
inferred how deeply their companion's insistence pained
them, and how ashamed they felt at their position.
'^ I am afraid she is English," said Loyd.
" Can there be a doubt of it? Where did you ever see
that reckless indifference to all others, that selfish disre-
gard of decency, save in a certain class of our people?
Look, she nearly pushed that fat man down the hatch-
way; and see, she will not show the steward her tickets,
and she will have her change. Poor girls ! what misery and
exposure all this is for you ! *'
" But the steamer is beginning to move on. They will
be carried off ! See, they are hauling ^ at the gangway
already."
" She 's on it; she does n't care; she's ovfer now. Well
done, old lady ! That back-hander was neatly given ; and
see, she has marshalled her forces cleverly: sent the light
division in front, and brings up the rear herself with the
luggage and the maids. Now, I call that as clever a landing
on an enemy's shore as ever was done."
" I must say I pity the girls, and they look as if they
felt all the rtiortification of their position. And yet,.they'll
come to the same sort of thing themselves one of these days,
as naturally as one of us will to wearing very easy boots and
loose-fitting waistcoats."
As he said this, the new arrivals had passed up from the
landing-place, and entered the hotel.
" Let us at least be merciful in our criticisms on foreigners,
while we exhibit to their eyes such national specimens as
these!" said Calvert. ''For my own part, I believe that
from no one source have we as a people derived so much
446 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
of sneer and shame, as from that which includes within it
what is called the unprotected female."
"What if we were to find out that they were Belgians,
or Dutch, or Americans? or, better still, what if they should
chance to be remarkably good sort of English? I conclude
we shall meet them at supper."
"Yes; and there goes the bell for that gathering, which
on the present occasion will be a thin one. They're all
gone off to that fair at Lahnech." And, so saying, Calvert
drew nigh a glass, and made one of those extempore
toilets which j/oung men with smart moustaches are accus-
tomed to perform before presenting themselves to strangers.
Loyd merely took his hat and walked to the door.
" There ! that ought to be enough, surely, for all reason-
able captivation ! " said he, laughingly.
" Perhaps you are right; besides, I suspect in the present
case it is a mere waste of ammunition ; " and, with a self-
approving smile, he nodded to his image in the glass, and
followed his friend.
One line at this place will serve to record that Calvert
was very good-looking ; blue-eyed, blond-whiskered, Saxon-
looking, withal ; erect carriage and stately air, which are
always taken as favorable types of our English blood. Per-
haps a certain over-consciousness of these personal advan-
tages, perhaps a certain conviction of the success that had
attended these gifts, gave him what, in slang phrase, is
called a "tigerish" air; but it was plain to see that he had
acquired his ease of manner in good company, and that
his pretei-sion was rather the stamp of a class than of an
individual.
Loyd was a pale, delicate-looking youth, with dark eyes
set in the deepest of orbits, that imparted sadness to
features in themselves sufficiently grave. He seemed what
he was, an overworked student, a man who had sacrificed
health to toil, and was only aware of the bad bargain
when he felt unequal to continue the contest. His doctors
had sent him abroad for rest, for that "distraction" which
as often sustains its English as its French acceptance, and is
only a source of worry and anxiety where rest and peace are
required. His means were of the smallest ; he was the only
THE WHITE HORSE AT COBLENTZ. 447
son of a country vicar, who was sorely pinched to afford
him a very narrow support, and who had to raise by a loan
the hundred pounds that were to give him this last chance of
regaining strength and vigor. If travel, therefore, had its
pleasures, it had also its pains for him. He felt, and very
bitterly, the heavy load that his present enjoyment was
laying upon those he loved best in the world, aud this it was
that, at his happiest moments, threw a gloom over an already
moody and depressed temperament.
The sad thought of those at home, whose privations were
the price of his pleasures, tracked him at every stepj and
pictures of that humble fireside where sat his father and
his mother, rose before him as he gazed at the noble
cathedral, or stood amazed before the greatest triumphs of
art. This sensitive feeling, preying upon one naturally
susceptible, certainly tended little to his recovery, and even
at times so overbore every other sentiment that he regretted
he had ever come abroad. Scarcely a day passed that he
did not hesitate whether he should not turn his steps home-
ward to England.
V
CHAPTER II.
THE PASSENGERS ON THE STEAMBOAT.
The table d^hote room was empty as the two Englishmen
entered it at supper-time, and they took their places,
moodily enough, at one end of a table laid for nigh thirty
guests. " All gone to Lahnech, Franz ? " asked Calvert of
the waiter.
"Yes, sir, but they '11 be sorry for it, for there 's thunder
in the air, and we are sure to have a deluge before night-
fall."
"And the new arrivals, are they gone too? ^'
" No, sir. They are upstairs. The old lady would seem
to have forgotten a box, or a desk, on board the steamer,
and she has been in such a state about it that she could n't
think of supping ; and the young ones appear to sympathize
in her anxieties; for they, too, said, 'Oh, we can't think
of eating just now.' "
*'But, of course, she need n't fuss herself. It will be
detained at Mayence, and given up to her when she
demands it."
A very expressive shrug of the shoulders was the only
answer Franz made, and Calvert added, "You don't quite
agree with me, perhaps?"
*'It is an almost daily event, the loss of luggage on those
Rhine steamers; so much so that one is tempted to believe
that stealing luggage is a regular livelihood here."
Just at this moment the Englishwoman in question
entered the room, and in French of a very home manu-
facture asked the waiter how she could manage, by means
of the telegraph, to reclaim her missing property.
A most involved and intricate game of cross purposes
ensued; for the waiter's knowledge of French was scarcely
more extensive, and embarrassed, besides, by some special-
THE PASSENGERS ON THE STEAMBOAT. 449
ties in accent, so that though she questioned and he replied,
the discussion gave little hope of an intelligible solution.
*'May I venture to offer my services, madam?" said
Calvert, rising and bowing politely. "If I can be of the
least use on this occasion — "
"None whatever, sir. I am perfectly competent to
express my own wishes, and have no need of an inter-
preter ; " and then, turning to the waiter, added : " Montres-
moi le telegraphy gargon.'*
The semi-tragic air in which she spoke, not to add the
strange accent of her very peculiar French, was almost too
much for Calvert's gravity, while Loyd, half pained by the
ridicule thus attached to a countrywoman, held down his
head and never uttered a word. Meanwhile, the old lady
had retired with a haughty toss of her towering bonnet,
followed by Franz.
"The old party is fierce," said Calvert, as he began his
supper, "and would not have me at any price."
"I suspect that this mistrust of each other is very com-
mon with us English; not so much from any doubt of our
integrity, as from a fear lest we should not be equal in
social rank."
"Well; but really, don't you think that our externals
might have satisfied that old lady she had nothing to
apprehend on that score ? "
"I can't say how she may have regarded that point," was
the cautious answer.
Calvert pushed his glass impatiently from him, and said,
petulantly, "The woman is evidently a governess, or a
companion, or a housekeeper. She writes her name in the
book Miss Grainger, and the others are called Walter.
Now, after all, a Miss Grainger might, without derogating
too far, condescend to know a Fusilier, eh? Oh, here she
comes again."
The lady thus criticised had now re-entered the room,
and was busily engaged in studying the announcement of
steamboat departures and arrivals, over the chimney.
"It is too absurd," said she, pettishly, in French, "to
close the telegraph-office at eight, that the clerks may go to
a ball."
29
y
450 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
"Not to a ball, madam, to the fair at Lahnech," inteiv
posed Franz.
"I don't care, sir, whether it be a dance or a junketing,
it is the same inconvenience to the public; and the land-
lord, and the secretary, as you call him, of this hotel, are
all gone, and nothing left here but you."
Whether it was the shameless effrontery of the contempt
she evinced in these words, or the lamentable look of abase-
ment of the waiter, that overcame Calvert, certain is it he
made no effort to restrain himself, but leaning back in his
chair, laughed heartily and openly.
"Well, sir," said she, turning fiercely on him, "you force
me to say that I never witnessed a more gross display of
ill-breeding and bad manners."
"Had you only added, madam, * after a very long expe-
rience of life,' the remark would have been perfect," said
he, still laughing.
" Oh, Calvert ! " broke in Loyd, in a tone of depreca-
tion ; but the old lady, white with passion, retired without
waiting for that apology which, certainly, there was little
prospect of her receiving.
"I am sorry you should have said that," said Loyd,
"for though she was scarcely measured in her remark, your
laughter was a gross provocation."
"How the cant of your profession sticks to you! " said
the other. "There was the lawyer in every word of that
speech. There was the 'case ' and the *set off.' "
Loyd could not help smiling, though scarcely pleased at
this rejoinder.
"Take my word for it," said Calvert, as he helped him-
self to the dish before him, "there is nothing in life so
aggressive as one of our elderly countrywomen when travel-
ling in an independent condition. The theory is attack, —
attack — attack ! They have a sort of vague impression
that the passive are always imposed on, and certainly they
rarely place themselves in that category. As I live, here
she comes once more."
The old lady had now entered the room with a slip of
paper in her hand, to which she called the waiter's atten-
tion, saying, " You will despatch this message to Mayence,
THE PASSENGERS ON THE STEAMBOAT. 451
when the office opens in the morning. See that there is no
mistake about it."
"It must be in German, madam," said Franz. "They'll
not take it in any foreign language."
"Tell her you'll translate it, Loyd. Go in, man, and
get your knock-down as I did," whispered Calvert.
Loyd blushed slightly; but, not heeding the sarcasm of
his companion, he arose, and, approaching the stranger,
said, "It will give me much pleasure to put your message
into German, madam, if it will at all convenience you."
It was not till after a very searching look into his face,
and an apparently satisfactory examination of his features,
that she replied, "Well, sir, I make no objection; there can
be no great secrecy in what passes through a telegraph-
office. You can do it, if yc^u please."
Now, though the speech was not a very gracious acknowl-
edgment of a proffered service, Loyd took the paper and
proceeded to read it. It was not without an effort, how-'
ever, that he could constrain himself so far as not to laugh
aloud at the contents, which began by an explanation that
the present inconvenience was entirely owing to the very
shameful arrangements made by the steam-packet company
for the landing of passengers at intermediate stations, and
through which the complainant, travelling with her nieces,
Millicent and Florence Walter, and her maids, Susannah
Tucker and Mary Briggs, and having for luggage the fol-
lowing articles —
"May I observe, madam," said Loyd, in a mild tone of
remonstrance, "that these explanations are too lengthy for
the telegraph, not to say very costly; and as your object is
simply to reclaim a missing article of your baggage — "
"I trust, sir, that having fully satisfied your curiosity as
to who we are, and of what grievance we complain, that
you will spare me your comments as to the mode in which
we prefer our demand for redress; but I ought to have
known better, and I deserve it! " and, snatching the paper
rudely from his hand, she dashed out of the room in
passion.
"By Jove! you fared worse than myself," said Calvert,
as he laughed loud and long. "You got a heavier casti-
452 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
gation for your polite interference than I did for my
imjDertinence."
"It is a lesson, at all events," said Loyd, still blushing
for his late defeat. "I wonder is she all right up here,"
and he touched his forehead significantly.
"Of course she is. Nay, more, I '11 wager a Nap that in
her own set, amidst the peculiar horrors who form her daily
intimates, she is a strong-minded, sensible woman, 'that
won't stand humbug,' and on on. These are specialities;
they wear thick shoes, woollen petticoats, and brown veils,
quarrel with cabmen, and live at Clapham." i
" But why do they come abroad ? " I
"Ah! that is the question that would puzzle nineteen (xW;
of every twenty of us. With a panorama in Leicester-
square, and a guide-book in a chimney corner, we should
know more of the Tyrol than we '11 ever acquire junketing
along in a hired coach, and only eager not to pay too much
for one's Kalbshraten or SchweAnJieisch, and yet here we
come in shoals, to grumble and complain of all our self-
imposed miseries, and incessantly lament the comforts of
the land that we won't live in."
"Some of us come for health," said Loyd, sorrowfully.
"And was there ever such a blunder? Why, the very
vicissitudes of a Continental climate are more trying than
any severity in our own. Imagine the room we are now
sitting in, of a winter's evening, with a stove heated to
ninety-five, and the door opening every five minutes to a
draught of air eleven degrees below zero ! You pass out of
this furnace to your bedroom, by a stair and corridor like
the Arctic regions, to gain an uncarpeted room, with some-
thing like a knife-tray for a bed, and a poultice of feathers
for a coverlet! "
"And for all that we like it, we long for it; save, pinch,
screw, and sacrifice Heaven knows what of home enjoyment
just for six weeks or two months of it."
"Shall I tell you why? Just because Simkins has done
it. Simkins has been up the Rhine and dined at the
Cursaal ,at Ems, and made his little debut at roulette at
Wiesbaden, and spoken his atrocious French at Frankfort,
and we won't consent to be less men of the world than
• THE PASSENGERS ON THE STEAMBOAT. 453
Simkins; and though Simkins knows that it does n't 'pay,*
and /know that it does n't pay, we won't 'peach,' either of
us, just for the pleasure of seeing you, and a score like you,
fall into the same blunder, experience the same disasters,
and incur the same disappointments as ourselves."
''No. I don't agree with you; or, rather, I won't agree
with you. I am determined to enjoy this holiday of mine
to the utmost my health will let me, and you shall not
poison the pleasure by that false philosophy which, affect-
ing to be deep, is only depreciatory."
" 'And the honorable gentleman resumed his seat,' as the
newspapers say, 'amidst loud and vociferous cheers, which
lasted for several minutes. ' " This Calvert said, as he
drummed a noisy applause upon the table, and made Loyd's
face glow with a blush of deep shame and confusion.
"I told you the second day we travelled together, and I
tell you again now, Calvert," said he, falteringly, "that we
are nowise suited to each other, and never could make good
travelling companions. You know far more of life than I
either do or wish to know. You see things with an acute
and piercing clearness which I cannot attain to. You have
no mind for the sort of humble things which give pleasure
to a man simple as myself; and, lastly, — I don't like to say
it, but I must, — your means are so much more ample than
mine, that to associate with you, I must live in a style
totally above my pretensions. All these are confessions
more or less painful to make, but now that I have made
them, let me have the result, and say good-bye, — good-
bye."
There was an emotion in the last words that more than
compensated for what preceded them. It was the genuine
sorrow that loneliness ever impresses on certain natures;
but Calvert read the sentiment as a tribute to himself, and
hastily said, "No, no, you are all wrong. The very dis-
parities you complain of are the bonds between us. The
differences in our temperament are the resources by which
the sphere of our observation will be widened : my scepti-
cism will be the corrector of your hopefulness ; and, as to
means, take my word for it, nobody can be harder up than
I am, and if you '11 only keep the bag, and limit the out-
454 A RENT IN A CLOUD. •
goings, I '11 submit to any shortcomings when you tell nfie
they are savings."
''Are you serious, — downright in earnest in all this?"
asked Loyd.
''So serious that I propose our bargain should begin from
this hour. We shall each of us place ten Napoleons in that
bag of yours. You shall administer all outlay, and I bind
myself to follow implicitly all your behests, as chough I
were a ward and you my guardian." V
"I 'm not very confident about the success of the scheme.
I see many difficulties already, and there may be others
that I cannot foresee; still, I am willing to give it a trial."
"At last I realize one of my fondest anticipations, which
was to travel without the daily recurring miseries of money-
.reckoning."
"Don't take fhose cigars, they are supplied by the waiter,
and cost two groschen each, and they sell for three groschen
a dozen in the Platz ; " and, so saying, Loyd removed the
plate from before him in a quiet, business-like way that
promised well for the spirit in which his trust would be
exercised.
Calvert laughed as he laid down the cigar, but his
obedience ratified the pact between them.
"When do we go from this?" asked he, in a quiet and
half-submissive tone.
"Oh, come, this is too much!" said Loyd. "I under-
took to be purser, but not pilot."
"Well, but I insist upon your assuming all the cares of
legislation. It is not alone that I want not to think of the
cash, but I want to have no anxieties about the road we
go, where we halt, and when we move on. I want, for once
in my life, to indulge the glorious enjoyment of perfect
indolence, — such another chance will scarcely offer itself."
"Be it so. Whenever you like to rebel, I shall be just
as ready to abdicate. I '11 go to my room now and study
the map, and by the time you have finished your evening's
stroll on the bridge, I shall have made the plan of our
future wanderings."
"Agreed!" said Calvert. "I'm off to search for some
of those cheap cigars you spoke of."
THE PASSENGERS ON THE STEAMBOAT. 455
"Stay; you forget that you have not got any money.
Here are six silver groschen ; take two dozen, and see that
they don't give you any of those vile Swiss ones in the
number."
He took the coin with becoming gravity, and set out on
his errand.
CHAPTER ni.
FELLOW-TRAVELLERS LIFE.
Partly to suit Calvert's passion for fishing, partly to meet
his own love of a quiet, unbroken, easy existence, Loyd
decided for a ramble through the lakes of Northern Italy ;
and, in about ten days after the compact had been sealed,
they found themselves at the little inn of the Trota, on the
Lago d' Orta. The inn, which is little more than a cot-
tage, is beautifully situated on a slender promontory that
runs into the lake, and is itself almost hidden by the foliage
of orange and oleander trees that cover it. It was very
hard to believe it to be an inn, with its trellised vinewalk,
its little arched boat-house, and a small shrine beside the
lake, where on certain saints' days, a priest said a Mass,
and blessed the fish and those that caught them. It was
still harder, too, to credit the fact when one discovered his
daily expenses to be all comprised within the limits of a
few francs, and this with the services of the host, Signor
Onofrio, for boatman.
To Loyd it was a perfect paradise. The glorious moun-
tain range, all rugged and snow-capped, the deep-bosomed
chestnut-woods, the mirror-like lake, the soft and balmy
air, rich in orange odors, the earth teeming with violets,
— all united to gratify the senses, and wrap the mind in a
dreamy ecstasy and enjoyment. It was equally a spot to
relax in or to work, and although now more disposed for
the former, he planned in himself to come back here, at
some future day, and labor with all the zest that a strong
resolve to succeed inspires.
What law would he not read! What mass of learned
lore would he not store up! What strange and curious
FELLOW-TRAVELLERS' LIFE. 457
knowledge would he not acquire in this calm seclusion!
He parcelled out his day in imagination; and, by rising
early, and by habits of uninterrupted study, he contem-
plated that in one long vacation here he would have amassed
an amount of information that no discursive labor could
ever attain. And then, to distract him from weightier
cares, he would write those light and sketchy things, some
of which had already found favor with editors. He had
already attained some small literary successes, and was,
like a very young man, delighted with the sort of recogni-
tion they had procured him; and, last of all, there was
something of romance in this life of mysterious seclusion.
He was the hero of a little story to himself, and this
thought diffused itself over every spot and every occupa-
tion, as is only known to those who like to make poems of
their lives, and be to their own hearts their own epic.
Calvert, too, liked the place; but scarcely with the same
enthusiasm. The fishing was excellent. He had taken a
"four pounder," and heard of some double the size. The
cookery of the little inn was astonishingly good. Onofrio
had once been a courier, and picked up some knowledge of
the social chemistry on his travels. Beccafichi abounded,
and the small wine of the Podere had a false smack of
Rhenish, and then with cream, and fresh eggs, and fresh
butter, and delicious figs in profusion, there were, as he
phrased it, " far worse places in the hill country ! "
Besides being the proprietor of the inn, Onofrio owned a
little villa, a small cottage-like thing on the opposite shore
of the lake, to which he made visits once or twice a week,
with a trout, or a capon, or a basket of artichokes, or some
fine peaches, — luxuries which apparently always found
ready purchasers amongst his tenants. He called them
English, but his young guests, with true British phlegm,
asked him no questions about them, and he rarely, if ever,
alluded to them. Indeed, his experience of English people
had enabled him to see that they ever maintained a dignified
reserve towards each other, even when offering to foreigners
all the freedom of an old intimacy; and then he had an
Italian's tact not to touch on a dangerous theme, and thus
he contented himself with the despatch of his occasional
458 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
hamper without attracting more attention to the matter than
the laborious process of inscribing the words '^ Illustrissima
Sign^ Grangiari," on the top.
It was about a month after they had taken up their abode
at the Trota that Onofrio was seized with one of those
fevers of the country which, though rarely dangerous to life,
are still so painful and oppressive as to require some days
of confinement and care. In this interval, Calvert was
deprived of his chief companion, for mine host was an
enthusiastic fisherman, and an unequalled guide to all parts
of the lake. The young soldier, chafed and fretted out of
all measure at this interruption to his sport, tried to read;
tried to employ himself in the garden ; endeavored to write
a long-promised letter home ; and at last, in utter failure,
and in complete discontent with himself and everything, he
walked moodily about, discussing within himself whether
he would not frankly declare to Loyd that the whole thing
bored him, and that he wanted to be free.
"This sort of thing suits Loyd well enough," would he
say. ''It is the life of Brazenose or Christchurch in a purer
air and finer scenery. He can read five or six hours at a
stretch, and then plunge in the lake for a swim, or pull an
oar for half an hour, by way of refreshment. He is as
much a man of reflection and thought as I am of action and
energy. Yet, it is your slow, solemn fellow," he would
say, ''who is bored to death when thrown upon himself;"
and now he had, in a measure, to recant this declaration,
and own that the solitude was too much for him.
While he was yet discussing with himself how to approach
the subject, the hostess came to tell him that Onofrio' s ill-
ness would prevent him acting as his boatman, and begged
the boat might be spared him on that day, to send over
some fruit and fresh flowers he had promised to the family
at St. Rosalia; "that is," added she, "if I*m lucky enough
to find a boatman to take them, for at this season all are
in full work in the fields."
"What would you say. Donna Marietta, if I were to take
charge of the basket myself, and be your messenger to the
villa?"
The hostess was far less astonished at his offer than he
FELLOW-TRAVELLERS' LIFE. 459
had imagined she would be. With her native ideas on
these subjects, she only accepted the proposal as an act of
civility, and not as a surprising piece of condescension,
and simply said, ''Onofrio shall thank you heartily for it
when he is up and about again."
If this was not the exact sort of recognition he looked
for, Calvert at all events saw that he was pledged to fulfil
his offer ; and so he stood by while she measured out peas,
and counted over artichokes, and tied up bundles of mint
and thyme, and stored up a pannier full of ruddy apples,
surmounting all with a gorgeous bouquet of richly perfumed
flowers, culled in all the careless profusion of that land of
plenty. Nor was this all. She impressed upon him how
he was to extol the excellence of this, and the beauty of that,
to explain that the violets were true Parmesans, and the
dates such as only Onofrio knew how to produce.
Loyd laughed his own little quiet laugh when he heard of
his friend's mission, and his amusement was not lessened
at seeing the half-awkward and more than half-unwilling
preparations Calvert made to fulfil it.
''Confound the woman! " said he, losing all patience;
*'she wanted to charge me with all the bills and reckonings
for the last three weeks, on the pretext that her husband is
but ill-skilled in figures, and that it was a rare chance to
find one like myself to undertake the office. I have half a
mind to throw the whole cargo overboard when I reach the
middle of the lake. I suppose a Nap would clear all the
cost."
"Oh, I '11 not hear of such extravagance," said Loyd,
demurely.
"I conclude I have a right to an act of personal folly,
eh?" asked Calvert, pettishly.
"Nothing of the kind. I drew up our contract with great
care, and especially on this very head, otherwise it would
have been too offensive a bargain for him who should have
observed all the rigid injunctions of its economy."
"It was a stupid arrangement from the first," said Cal-
vert, warmly. "Two men yet never lived, who could say
that each could bound his wants by those of another. Not
to say that an individual is not himself the same each day
460 A KENT IN A CLOUD.
of the week. I require this on Tuesday, which I did n't
want on Monday, and so on."
*'You are talking of caprice as though it were necessity,
Calvert."
"I don't want to discuss the matter like a special pleader,
and outside the margin of our conjoint expenses I mean to
be as wasteful as I please."
"As the contract is only during pleasure, it can never be
diflScult to observe it."
"Yes, very true. You have arrived at my meaning by
another road. When was it we last replenished the bag ? "
"A little more than a week ago."
"80 that there is about a fortnight yet to run? "
"About that."
Calvert stood in thought for a few seconds, and then, as
if having changed the purpose he was meditating, turned
suddenly away and hastened down to the boat quay.
Like many bashful and diflSdent men, Loyd had a false
air of coldness and resolution, which impressed others
greatly, but reacted grievously on his own heart in moments
of afterthought; and now, no sooner had his companion
gone, than he felt what a mockery it was for him to have
assumed a rigid respect for a mere boyish agreement,
which lost all its value the moment either felt it burden-
some, "/was not of an age to play Mentor to him. It
could never become me to assume the part of a guardian.
I ought to have said the bargain ceases the instant you
repudiate it. A forced companionship is mere slavery.
Let us part the good friends we met; and so on." At last
he determined to sit down and write a short note to Calvert,
releasing him from his thraldom, and giving him his full
and entire liberty.
"As for myself, I will remain here so long as I stay
abroad, and if I come to the Continent again, I will make
for this spot as for a home; and now for the letter."
CHAPTER IV.
THE *'lAGO d' ORTA."
Leaving Loyd to compose his letter, we will follow Calvert,
as, with vigorous stroke, he rushed his light boat through
the calm water, leaving a long bright line of bubbles in his
wake. Dressed in his blue flannel shirt and white trousers,
a gay bunch of roses stuck jauntily in the side of his straw
hat, there was an air of health, vigor, and dash about him,
to which his full bright eye and upturned moustache well
contributed. And, as from time to time he would rest on
his oars, while his thin skiff cleaved her way alone, his
bronzed and manly face and carelessly waving hair made
up a picture of what we are proud to think is eminently
British in its character. That is to say, there was about
him much of what indicated abundance of courage, no small
proportion of personal strength, and a certain sort of reck-
lessness, which in a variety of situations in life is equivalent
to power.
To any eye that watched him, as with scarce an effort he
sent his boat forward, while the lazy curl of smoke that
rose from his short pipe indicated ease, there would have
seemed one who was indulging in the very fullest enjoy-
ment of a scene second to none in Europe. You had but to
look along the lake itself to see the most gorgeous picture
of wooded islands and headlands glowing in every tint of
color from the pure white of the oleander to the deep scarlet
of the San Giuseppe, with, in the distance, the snow-
capped Alps of the St. Bernard, while around and close to
the very water's edge peeped forth little villas, half smoth-
ered in orange-blossoms. Far over the lake came their
floating perfumes, as though to lend enchantment to each
sense, and steep the very soul in a delicious luxury.
462 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
Now, as Calvert felt the refreshing breath of the gentle
air that stirred the water, he was conscious of a glorious
morning, and of something generally grand in the scene
about him; but that was all. He had little romance — less
of the picturesque — in his nature. If his eyes fell on the
lake, it was to fancy the enjoyment of cleaving through it
as a swimmer; if he turned towards the Alps, it was to
imagine how toilsome would prove the ascent; how deeply
lay the snow on the wheels of the diligence ; how many feet
below the surface were buried the poles that once marked
out the road. But even these were but fleeting fancies.
His thoughts were seriously turned upon his own future,
which opened no bright or brilliant prospect before him.
To go back again to India, to return to the old regimental
drudgery, or the still more wearisome existence of life in a
remote detachment; to waste what he felt the best years of
life in inglorious indolence, waiting for that routine pro-
motion that comes associated with the sense of growing old ;
and to trace at last the dim vista of a return to England,
when of an age that all places and people and things have
grown to be matters of indifference. These were sad reflec-
tions. So sad, that not even the bright scene around him
could dispel. And then there were others, which needed no
speculation to suggest, and which came with the full force
of documents to sustain them. He was heavily in debt.
He owed money to the army agent, to the paymaster, to the
Agra Bank, to the regimental tailor, to the outfitter, — to
every one, in short, who would suffer him to be a debtor.
Bonds, and I O's, and promissory notes, renewed till they
had nigh doubled, pressed on his memory, and confused his
powers of calculation.
An old uncle, a brother of his mother's, who was his
guardian, would once on a time have stood by him, but he
had forfeited his good esteem by an act of deception with
regard to money, which the old man could not forgive.
*'Be it so," said he; ''I deemed my friendship for you
worth more than three hundred pounds. You, it would
seem, are differently minded; keep the money, and let us
part." And they did part, not to meet again. Calvert's
affairs were managed by the regimental agent, and he
THE "LAGO D'ORTA." 463
thought little more of an old relative, who ceased to hold
a place in his memory when unassociated with crisp enclos-
ures ''payable at sight."
"I wonder what would come of it if I were to write to
him; if I were to put it to his humanity to rescue me from
a climate where, after all, I might die,. — scores of fellows
die out there. At all events, I detest it. I could say, 'My
leave expires in October; if you would like to see me once
more before I quit England forever, for I am going to a
pestilential spot, — the home of the ague and jungle fever,
and Heaven knows what else; your sister's son, — poor
Sophy's child — * That ought to touch him." And then he
went on to think of all the tender and moving things he
could write, and to picture to himself the agitation of him
who read them; and, thus speculating, and thus plotting,
he swept his light boat along till she came close in to shore,
and he saw the little villa peeping through the spray-like
branches of a weeping-ash that stood beside it. "Higher
up," cried a voice, directing him. "Don't you know the
landing-place yet? " _ And, startled by a voice not altogether
strange to him, he looked round and saw the old lady of
the Rhine steamer, the same who had snubbed him at
Coblentz, the terrible Miss Grainger of the lost writing-
case. It was some minutes before he remembered that he
was performing the part of boatman, and not appearing in
his own character. Resolved to take all the benefit of his
incognito, he lifted his hat in what he fancied to be the
true Italian style, and, taking a basket in each hand, fol-
lowed the old lady to the house.
"It is three days that we have been expecting you," said
she, tartly, as she walked briskly on, turning at times to
point a sarcasm with a fierce look. "You ,were punctual
enough on Tuesday last, when you came for your rent.
You were to the very minute then, because it suited your-
self. But you are like all your countrymen, — mean, sel-
fish, and greedy. As to those pears you brought last, I
have struck them off the account. You may bring others
if you please, but I '11 not pay for rotten fruit any more
than I will for three journeys to Como for nothing, — do
you hear me, sir? — three journeys to look after my writing-
desk, which I lost on the Rhine, but which I know was for-
464 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
warded here, though I can't get it. Is it worth your while
to answer ? Oh, of course, your old excuse, — /ou are
forgetting your English; it is so long since you were a
courier. You knew quite enough, .when I came here, to
make me pay more than double the proper rent for this
miserable place, without a carpet, or — " Just as she
reached thus far, she was joined by one of the young girls,
whose looks had vastly changed for the better, and was
now a strikingly fine and handsome girl.
"Milly," said the old lady, ''take this man round by the
kitchen garden, and get some one to take the fruit from
him, and be sure you count the melons." -^
Not sorry for the change of companionship, Calvert fol-
lowed Milly, who, not condescending to bestow a look on
him, moved haughtily on in front.
"Leave your baskets yonder, my good man," said she,
pointing to a bench under a spreading fig-tree ; and Calvert,
depositing his burden, drew himself up and removed his hat.
"My aunt will pay you," said she, turning to go away.
"I 'd far rather it had been the niece," said he, in
English.
"What do you mean? Who are you? "
"A stranger, who, rather than suffer you to incur the
privation of a breakfast without fruit, rowed across the
lake this morning to bring it."
"Won't he go, Milly, ? What is he bargaining about? "
cried Miss Grainger, coming up.
But the young girl ran hastily towards her, and for some
minutes they spoke in a low tone together.
"I think it an impertinence, — yes, an impertinence,
Milly, — and I mean to tell him so!" said the old lady,
fuming with passion. "Such things are not done in the
world. They are unpardonable liberties. What is your
name, sir?"
"Calvert, madam." .
"Calvert? Calvert! Not Calvert of Rocksley?" said
she, with a sneer.
"No, ma'am, only his nephew."
" Are you his nephew, really his nephew ? " said she,
with a half incredulity.
THE "LAGO D'ORTA." 465
"Yes, madam, I have that very unprofitable honor. If
you are acquainted with the family, you will recognize their
crest; " and he detached a seal from his watch-chain and
handed it to her.
"Quite true, the portcullis and the old motto, — *Ferme
en Tombant.' I know, or rather I knew, your relatives
once, Mr. Calvert." This was said with a total change of
manner, and a sort of simpering politeness that sat very ill
upon her.
Quick enough to mark this change of manner and profit
by it, he said, somewhat coldly, " Have I heard your name,
madam? Will you permit me to know it? "
"Miss Grainger, sir. Miss Adelaide Grainger," — red-
dening as she spoke.
" Never heard that name before. Will you present me to
this young lady?" And thus, with an air of pretension
whose impertinence was partly covered by an appearance
of complete unconsciousness, he bowed and smiled, and
chatted away till the servant announced breakfast.
To the invitation to join them, he vouchsafed the gentlest
bend of the head, and a half smile of acceptance, which the
young lady resented by a stare that might have made a less
accomplished master of impertinence blush to the very fore-
head. Calvert was, however, a proficient in his art.
As they entered the breakfast-room. Miss Grainger pre-
sented him to a young and very delicate-looking girl who
lay on a sofa propped up by cushions, and shrouded with
shawls, though the season was summer.
"Florence — Mr. Calvert. Miss Florence Walter. An
invalid come to benefit by the mild air of Italy, sir, but
who feels even these breezes too severe and too bracing for
her."
"Egypt is your place," said Calvert; "one of those nice
villas on the sea slope of Alexandretta, with the palm-trees
and the cedars to keep off the sun ; " and, seating himself
by her side in an easy familiar way, devoid of all excess
of freedom, talked to her about health and sickness in a
fashion that is very pleasant to the ears of suffering. And
he really talked pleasantly on the theme. It was one of
which he had already some experience. The young wife of
30
466 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
a brother officer of his own had gained, in such a sojourn
as he pictured, health enough to go on to India, and was
then alive and well, up in the hill country above Simlah.
"Only fancy, aunt, what Mr. Calvert is promising me, —
to be rosy-cheeked," said the poor sick girl, whose pale face
caught a slight pinkish tint as she spoke.
*'I am not romancing in the least," said Calvert, taking
his place next Milly at the. table. ''The dryness of the
air, and the equable temperature, work, positively, mira-
cles ; " and he went on telling of cures and recoveries.
When at last he arose to take leave, it was amidst a shower
of invitations to come back, and pledges on his part to
bring with him some sketches of the scenery of Lower
Egypt, and some notes he had made of his wanderings
there.
''By the way," said he, as he gained the door, "have I
your permission to present a friend who lives with me, —
a strange, bashful, shy creature, very good in his way,
though that way is n't exactly my way, but really clever
and well read, I believe? May I bring him? Of course
I hope to be duly accredited to you myself, through my
uncle."
"You need not, Mr. Calvert. I recognize you for one
of the family in many ways," said Miss Grainger; "and
when your friend accompanies you, he will be most
Welcome."
So, truly cordially they parted.
CHAPTER V.
OLD MEMORIES.
"When Calvert rejoined his friend he was full of the adven-
ture of the morning, — such a glorious discovery as he had
made. What a wonderful old woman, and what charming
girls! Milly, however, he owned, rather inclined to the
contemptuous. *'She was what you Cockneys call *sarcy,'
Loyd; but the sick girl was positively enchanting, — so
pretty, so gentle, and so confiding withal. By the way,
you must make me three or four sketches of Nile scenery,
— a dull flat, with a palm-tree, group of camels in the fore,
and a pyramid in the background; and I'll get up the
journal part while you are doing the illustrations. I know
nothing of Egypt beyond the overland route, though I have
persuaded them I kept a house in Cairo, and advised them
by all means to take Florence there for the winter."
"But how could you practise such a deception in such a
case, Calvert?" said Loyd, reproachfully.
"Just as naturally as you have *got up* that grand tone
of moral remonstrance. What an arrant humbug you are,
Loyd. Why not keep all this fine indignation for West-
minster, where it will pay ? "
"Quiz away, if you like; but you will not prevent me
saying that the case of a poor sick girl is not one for a
foolish jest, or a — "
He stopped and grew very red, but the other con-
tinued : —
"Out with it, man. You were going to say, a falsehood.
I 'm not going to be vexed with you because you happen to
have a rather crape-colored temperament, and like turning
things round till you find the dark side of them." He
4G8 A KENT IN A CLOUD.
paused for a few seconds, and then went on: "If you had
been in my place this morning, I know well enough what
you 'd have done. You 'd have rung the changes over the
uncertainty of life, and all its miseries and disappoint-
ments. You 'd have frightened that poor delicate creature
out of her wits, and driven her sister half distracted, to
satisfy what you imagine to be your conscience, but which,
I know far better, is nothing but a morbid love of excite-
ment, — an unhealthy passion for witnessing pain. Now,
I left her actually looking better for my visit; she was
cheered and gay, and asked when I 'd come again, in a
voice that betrayed a wish for my return."
Loyd never liked being drawn into a discussion with his
friend, seeing how profitless such encounters are in general,
and how likely to embitter intercourse; so he merely took
his hat and moved towards the door.
"Where are you going? Not to that odious task of
photography, I hope?" cried Calvert.
"Yes," said the other, smiling; "I am making a com-
plete series of views of the lake, and some fine day or other
1*11 make water-color drawings from them."
"How I hate all these fine intentions that only point to
more work. Tell me of a plan for a holiday, some grand
scheme for idleness, and I am with you; but to sit quietly
down and say, 'I '11 roll that stone up a hill next summer,
or next autumn,' that drives me mad."
"Well, I '11 not drive you mad. I '11 say nothing about
it," said Loyd, with a good-natured smile.
"But won't you make me these drawings, these jottings
of my tour amongst the Pyramids ? "
''Not for such an object as you want them to serve."
"I suppose, when you come to practise at the bar, you '11
only defend innocence and protect virtue, eh? You'll, of
course, never take the brief of a knave, or try to get a
villain off. With your principles, to do so would be the
basest of all crimes." '
"I hope I'll never do that deliberately which my con-
science tells me I ought not to do."
"All right. Conscience is always in one's own keeping,
— a guest in the house, who is far too well bred to be dis-
OLD MEMORIES. 469
agreeable to the family. Oh, you arch hypocrite! how
much worse you are than a reprobate like myself."
"I'll not dispute that."
" More hypocrisy ! "
"I mean that, without conceding the point, it 's a thesis
I'll not argue."
"You ought to have been a Jesuit, Loyd. You 'd have
been a grand fellow in a long black soutane, with little
buttons down to the feet, and a skull-cap on your head. I
think I see some poor devil coming to you about a cas de
conscience^ and going away sorely puzzled with your reply
to him."
"Don't come to me with one of yours, Calvert, that's
all," said Loyd, laughing, as he hurried off.
Like many men who have a strong spirit of banter in
them, Calvert was vexed and morticed when his sarcasm
did not wound. " If the stag will not run, there can be no
pursuit," and so was it that he now felt angry with Loyd,
angry with himself. " I suppose these are the sort of fel-
lows who get on in life. The world likes their quiet sub-
serviency and their sleek submissiveness. As for me, and
the like of me, we are 'not placed.' Now for a line to my
Cousin Soph}^, to know who is the 'Gratnger ' who says she
is so well acquainted with us all. Poor Sophy, it was a
love affair once between us, and then it came to a quarrel,
and out of that we fell into the deeper bitterness of what is
called 'a friendship.' We never really hated each other till
we came to that ! "
"Dearest, best of friends," he began, "in my broken health,
fortunes, and spirits, I came to this place a few weeks ago, and
made, by chance, the acquaintance of an atrocious old woman called
Grainger, — Miss or Mrs., I forget which. Who is she, and why
does she know us, and call us the ' dear Calverts,' and your house
* sweet old Rocksley ' ? I fancy she must be a begging-letter im-
poster, and has a design — it will be a very abortive one — upon my
spare five-pound notes. Tell me all you know of her, and if you
can add a word about her nieces twain, — one pretty, the other
prettier, — do so.
" Any use in approaching my uncle with a statement of my
distresses, — mind, body, and estate ? I owe him so much gratitude
470 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
that, if lie does n't want me to be insolvent, he must help me a little
further. .
" Is it true you are going to be married ? The thought of it
sends a pang through me of such anguish as I dare not speak of.
Oh dear I oh dear I what a flood of bygones are rushing upon me,
after all my pledges, all my promises ! One of these girls reminded
me of your smile : how like, but how different, Sophy. Do you say
there 's no truth in the story of the marriage, and believe me — what
your heart will tell you I have never ceased to be — your devoted
" Harry Calvert."
"I think that ought to do," said he, as he read over the
letter; "and there's no peril in it, since her marriage is
fixed for the end of the month. It is, after all, a cheap
luxury to bid for the lot that will certainly be knocked
down to another. She 's a nice girl, too, is Sophy, but,
like all of us, with a temper of her own. I 'd like to see
her married to Loyd, — they 'd make each other perfectly
miserable.'*
With this charitable reflection to turn over in various
ways, tracing all the consequences he could imagine might
spring from it, he sauntered out for a walk beside the lake.
"This box has just come by the mail from Chiasso," said
his host, pointing to a small parcel corded and sealed.
"It is the box the signora yonder has been searching for
these three weeks ; it was broken when the diligence upset,
and they tied it together as well as they could."
The writing-desk was indeed that which Miss Grainger
had lost on her Rhine journey, and was now about to reach
her in a lamentable condition, — one hinge torn off, the lock
strained, and the bottom split from one end to the other.
"I '11 take charge of it. I shall go over to see her in a
day or two, perhaps to-morrow; " and with this Calvert
carried away the box to his own room.
As he was laying the desk on his table, the bottom gave
way, and the contents fell about the room. They were a
mass of papers and letters, and some parchments; and he
proceeded to gather them up as best he might, cursing the
misadventure, and very angry with himself for being in-
volved in it. The letters were in little bundles, neatly tied,
and docketed with the writers' names. These he replaced
OLD MEMORIES. 471
in the box, having inverted it, and placing all, as nearly as
he could, in due order, till he came to a thick papered
document tied with red tape at the corner, and entitled,
''Draft of Jacob Walter's Will, with Remarks of Counsel."
"This' we must look at," said Calvert. "What one can see
at Doctors' Commons for a shilling is no breach of confi-
dence, even if seen for nothing ; " and with this he opened
the paper.
It was very brief, and set forth how the testator had
never made, nor would make, any other will ; that he was
sound of mind, and hoped to die so. As to his fortune,
it was something under thirty thousand pounds in Bank
Stock, and he desired it should be divided equally between
his daughters, the survivor of them to have the whole, or,
in the event of each life lapsing before marriage, that the
money should be divided amongst a number of charities
that he specified.
"I particularly desire and beg," wrote he, "that my girls
be brought up by Adelaide Grainger, my late wife's half-
sister, who long has known the hardships of poverty, and
the cares of a narrow subsistence, that they may learn in
early life the necessity of thrift, and not habituate them-
selves to luxuries which a reverse of fortune might take
away from them. I wish, besides, that it should be gener-
ally believed their fortune was one thousand pounds each,
so that they should not become a prey to fortune-hunters,
nor the victims of adventurers, insomuch that my last
request to each of my dear girls would be not to marry the
man who would make inquiry into the amount of their
means till twelve calendar months after such inquiry, that
time being full short enough to study the character of one
thus palpably worldly-minded and selfish."
A few cautions as to the snares and pitfalls of the world
followed, and the document finished with the testator's
name, and that of three witnesses in pencil, the words "if
they consent," being added in ink, after them.
"Twice fifteen make thirty, — thirty thousandvpounds ; ^
very neat sum for a great many things, and yielding, even
in its dormant state, about fifteen hundred a year. What
can one do for that ? Live, certainly, — live pleasantly.
472 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
jovially, if a man were a bachelor. At Paris, for instance,
with one's pleasant little entresol in the Rue Neuve, or the
Rue Faubourg St. Honore, and his club, and his saddle-
horses, with even ordinary luck at billiards, he could make
the two ends meet very satisfactorily. Then, Baden always
pays its way, and the sea-side places also do, for the world
is an excellent world to the fellow who travels with his
courier, and only begs to be plucked a little by the fingers
that wear large diamonds.
"But all these enchantments vanish when it becomes a
question of a wife. A wife means regular habits and
respectability, — the two most costly things I know of.
Your scampish single-handed valet, who is out all day on
his own affairs, and only turns up at all at some noted time
in your habits, is not one-tenth as dear as that old creature
with the powdered head and the poultice of cravat round
his neck, who only bows when the dinner is served, and
grows apoplectic if he draws a cork.
"It's the same in everything! Your house must be
taken, not because it is convenient or that you like it, but
because your wife can put a pretentious address on her
card. It must be something to which you can tag Berkeley
Square or Belgravia. In a word, a wife is a mistake, and,
what is worse, a mistake out of which there is no issue."
Thus reasoning and reflecting, — now speculating on
what he should feel, now imagining what "the world"
would say, — he again sat down, and once more read over
Mr. Walter's last will and testament.
CHAPTER VI.
Sophy's letter.
In something over a week the post brought two letters for
the fellow-travellers. Loyd's was from his mother, — a
very homely affair, full of affection and love, and over-
flowing with those little details of domestic matters so
dear to those who live in the small world of home and its
attachments.
Calvert's was from his cousin Sophy, much briefer, and
very different in style. It ran thus : —
"Dear Henry — "
"I used to be Harry," muttered he.
"Dear Henry, — It was not without surprise I saw your
handwriting again. A letter from you is indeed an event
at Rocksley.
"The Miss Grainger, if her name be Adelaide (for there
were two sisters), was our nursery governess long ago. Cary
liked, I hated her. She left us to tak*e charge of some
one's children, — relatives of her own, I suspect; and
though she made some move about coming to see us, and
presenting 'her charge,' as she called it, there was no
response to the suggestion, and it dropped. I never heard
more of her.
♦'As to any hopes of assistance from papa, I can scarcely
speak encouragingly. Indeed, he made no inquiry as to
the contents of your letter, and only remarked afterwards
to Cary that he trusted the correspondence was not to
continue.
*' Lastly, as to myself, I really am at a loss to see how
my marriage can be a subject of joy or grief, of pleasure or
pain, to you. We are as much separated from each other in
474 • A RENT IN A CLOUD.
all the relations of life as we shall soon be by long miles of
distance. Mr. Wentworth Graham is fully aware of the
relations which once subsisted between us, — he has even
read your letters, — and it is at his instance I request that
the tone of our former intimacy shall cease from this day,
and that there may not again be any reference to the past
between us. I am sure in this I am merely anticipating
what your own sense of honorable propriety would dictate,
and that I only express a sentiment your own judgment has
already ratified.
" Believe me to be, very sincerely yours,
" Sophia Calvert."
*' Oh dear! When we were Sophy and Harry, the world
went very differently from now, when it has come to Henry
and Sophia. Not but she is right, — right in everything but
one. She ought not to have shown the letters. There was
no need of it, and it was unfair ! There is a roguery in it
too, which, if I were Mr. Wentworth Graham, I 'd not like.
It is only your most accomplished sharper that ever plays
cartes sur table. I 'd sorely suspect the woman who would
conciliate the new love by a treachery to the old one. How-
ever, happily, this is his affair, not mine. Though I could
make it mine, too, if I were so disposed, by simply reminding
her that Mr. W. G. has only seen one-half, and, by long
odds, the least inferesting half, of our correspondence, and
that for the other he must address himself to me. Husbands
have occasionally to learn that a small sealed packet of old
letters would be a more acceptable present to the bride on
her wedding morning than the prettiest trinket from the Rue
de la Paix. ' Should like to throw this shell into the midst of
the orange-flowers and the wedding favors, and I 'd do it too,
only that I could never accurately hear of the tumult and
dismay it caused. I should be left to mere imagination for
the mischief, and imagination no longer satisfies me."
While he thus mused, he saw Loyd preparing for one of
his daily excursions with the photographic apparatus, and
could not help a contemptuous pity'^r a fellow so easily
amused and interested, and so easily diverted from the great
SOPHY'S LETTER. 475
business of life, — which he deemed "getting on," — to a
pastime which cost labor and returned no profit.
"Come and see 'I Grangeri,'" the name by which the
Italians designated the English family at the villa, — "it's
far better fun than hunting out rocky bits, or ruined frag-
ments of masonry. Come, and I '11 promise you something
prettier to look at than all your feathery ferns or drooping
foxgloves."
Loyd tried to excuse himself. He was always shy and
timid with strangers. His bashfulness repelled intimacy,
and so he frankly owned that he would only be a bar to his
friend's happiness, and throw a cloud over this pleasant
intercourse.
"How do you know but I'd like that?" said Calvert,
with a mocking laugh. " How do you know but I want the
very force of a contrast to bring my own merits more con-
spicuously forward ? "
" And make them declare when we went away that it is
inconceivable why Mr. Calvert should have made a com-
panion of that tiresome Mr. Loyd, — so low-spirited and so
dreary, and so uninteresting in every way?"
" Just so! And that the whole thing has but one expla-
nation, — in Calvert's kindness and generosity ; who, seeing
the helplessness of this poor depressed creature, has actually
sacrificed himself to vivify and cheer him, — as we hear of
the healthy people suffering themselves to be bled that they
might impart their vigorous heart's blood to a poor wretch in
the cholera."
"But I'm not blue yet," said Loyd, laughing. "I
almost think I could get on with my own resources."
" Of course you might, in the fashion you do at present;
but that is not life, — or at least it is only the life of a vege-
table. Mere existence and growth are not enough for a man
who has hopes to fulfil, and passions to exercise, and desires
to expand into accomplishments, not to speak of the influence
that every one likes to wield over his fellows. But, come
along, jump into the boat, and see these girls ! I want you ;
for there is one of them I scarcely understand as yet, and as
I am always taken up with her sick sister, I 've had no time
to learn more about her."
476 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
" Well," said Loyd, " not to offer opposition to the notion
of the tie that binds us, I consent." And, sending back to
the cottage all the details of his pursuit, he accompanied
Calvert to the lake.
" The invalid girl I shall leave to your attention, Loyd,"
said the other, as he pulled across the water. *' I like her
the best ; but I am in no fear of rivalry in that quarter, and
I want to see what sort^ of stuff the other is made of. So,
you understand, you are to devote yourself especially to
Florence, taking care, when opportunity serves, to say all
imaginable fine things about me, — my talents, my energy,
my good spirits, and so forth. I 'm serious, old fellow, for
I will own to you I mean to marry one of them, though which
I have not yet decided on."
Loyd laughed heartily, — far more heartily than in his
quiet habit was his wont, — and said, " Since when has this
bright idea occurred to you ? "
*'I'll tell you," said the other, gravely. "I have for
years had a sort of hankering kind of half attachment to a
cousin of mine. We used to quarrel, and make up, and
quarrel again; but, somehow, just as careless spendthrifts
forget to destroy the old bill when f they give a renewal, and
at last find a swingeing sum hanging over them they had
never dreamed of, Sophy and I never entirely cancelled our
old scores, but kept them back to be demanded at some
future time. And the end has been a regular rupture be-
tween us, and she is going to be married at the end of this
month, and, not to be outdone on the score of indifference,
I should like to announce my own happiness, since that's
the word for it, first."
** But have you means to marry?"
"Not a shilling."
"Nor prospects?"
" None."
" Then I don't understand — "
" Of course you don't understand. Nor could I make you
understand how fellows like myself play the game of life.
But let me try by an illustration to enlighten you. When
there 's no wind on a boat, and her sails flap lazily against
the mast, she can have no guidance, for there is no steerage
SOPHY'S LETTER. 477
way on her. She may drift with a current, or rot in a calm,
or wait to be crushed by some heavier craft surging against
her. Any wind — a squall, a hurricane — would be better
than that. Such is piy case. Marriage without means is a
hurricane ; but I 'd rather face a hurricane than be water-
logged between two winds."
' ' But the girl you marry — "
'* The girl I marry — or rather the girl who marries me —
will soon learn that she 's on board a privateer, and that on
the wide ocean called life there 's plenty of booty to be had
for a little dash and a little danger to grasp it."
'' And is it to a condition like this you'd bring the girl
you love, Calvert?"
'^ Not if I had five thousand a year. If I owned that, or
even four, I 'd be as decorous as yourself ; and I 'd send my
sons to Rugby, and act as poor-law guardian, and give my
twenty pounds to the county hospital, and be a model Eng-
lishman, to your heart's content. But I have n*t five thou-
sand a year, no, nor five hundred a year; and as for the
poor-house and the hospital, I 'm far more likely to claim the
benefit than aid the funds. Don't you see, my wise-headed
friend, that the whole is a question of money? Morality is
just now one of the very dearest things going, and even the
rich cannot always afford it. As for me, a poor sub in an
Indian regiment, I no more affect it than I presume to keep
a yacht, or stand for a county." \
''But what right have you to reduce another to such
straits as these? Why bring a young girl into such a
conflict?"
''If ever you read Louis Blanc, my good fellow, you'd
have seen that the right of all rights is that of ' associated
labor.' But come, let us not grow too deep in the theme, or
we shall have very serious faces to meet our friends with,
and yonder, where you see the dropping ash-trees, is the
villa. Brush yourself up, therefore, for the coming inter-
view ; think of your bits of Shelley and Tennyson, and who
knows but you'll acquit yourself with honor to your
introducer.'*
"Let my introducer not be too confident," said Loyd,
smiling; "but here comes the ladies."
478 A KENT IN A CLOUD.
As he spoke, two girls drew nigh the landing-place, one
leaning on the arm of the other, and in her attitude show-
ing how dependent she was for support.
''My bashful friend, ladies!" said Calvert, presenting
Loyd. And with this they landed.
CHAPTER VII.
DISSENSION.
The knowledge Calvert now possessed of the humble rela-
tions which had subsisted between Miss Grainger and his
uncle's family, had rendered him more confident in his man-
ner, and given him even a sort of air of protection towards
them. Certain it is, each day made him less and less a
favorite at the villa, while Loyd, on the other hand, grew in
esteem and liking with every one of them, — a preference
which, with whatever tact shrouded, showed itself in various
shapes.
*'I perceive," said Calvert one morning, as they sat at
breakfast together, ''my application for an extension of
leave is rejected. I am ordered to hold myself in readiness
to sail with drafts for some regiments in Upper India ! " He
paused for a few seconds, and then continued, "I'd like
any one to tell me what great difference there is in real
condition between an Indian oflScer and a transported felon.
In point of daily drudgery there is little, and, as for climate,
the felon has the best of it."
"I think you take too dreary a view of your fortune.
It is not the sort of career I would choose, nor would it
suit me ; but if my lot had fallen that way, I suspect I 'd
not have found it so unendurable."
"No. It would not suit you. There's no scope in a
soldier's life for those little sly practices, those small arti-
fices of tact and ingenuity, by which subtlety does its work
in this world. In such a career, all this adroitness would
be clean thrown away."
" I hope," said Loyd, with a faint smile, " that you do
not imagine that these are the gifts to achieve success in
any calling."
480 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
u
I don't know, — I am not sure, — but I rather suspect
they find their place at the Bar."
"Take my word for it, then, you are totally mistaken.
It is an error just as unworthy of your good sense as it is
of your good feeling ! " And he spoke with warmth and
energy.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Calvert. " For three months
I have been exploring to find one spot in your whole nature
that would respond fiercely to attack, and at last I have it."
' ' You put the matter somewhat offensively to me, or I 'd
not have replied in this fashion ; but let us change the
topic, it is an unpleasant one."
" I don't think so. When a man nurtures what his friend
believes to be a delusion, and a dangerous delusion, what
better theme can there be than its discussion?"
" I '11 not discuss it," said Loyd, with determination.
" You '11 not discuss it? "
"No!"
"What if I force you? What if I place the question on
grounds so direct and so personal that you can't help it?"
" I don't understand you."
"You shall presently. For some time back I have beer
thinking of asking an explanation from you, — an explana-
tion of your conduct at the villa. Before you had estab-
lished an intimacy there, I stood well with every one. The
old woman, with all her respect for my family and con-
nections, was profuse in her attentions. Of the girls, as
I somewhat rashly confided to you, I had only to make my
choice. I presented you to them, never anticipating that I
was doing anything very dangerous to them or to myself,
but I find I was wrong. I don't want to descend to de-
tails, nor inquire how and by what arts you gained your
influence ; my case is simply with the fact that, since you
have been in favor, / have been out of it. My whole posi-
tion with them is changed. I can only suggest now what
I used to order, and I have the pleasure, besides, of seeing
that even my suggestion must be submitted to you and
await your approval."
" Have you finished? " said Loyd, calmly.
" No, far from it ! I could make my charge extend over
DISSENSION. 481
hours long. Iii fact, I have only to review our lives here
for the last six or seven weeks, to establish all I have been
saying, and show you that you owe me an explanation, and
something more than an explanation."
*' Have you done now? "
*' If you mean, have I said all that I could say on this
subject, no — far from it. You have not heard a fiftieth
part of what I might say about it."
''Well, I have heard quite enough. My answer is this;
you are totally mistaken ; I never, directly or indirectly,
prejudiced 3^our position. I seldom spoke of you, never
slightingly. I have thought, it is true, that you assumed
towards these ladies a tone of superiority which could not
fail to be felt by them, and that the habit grew on you to
an extent you perhaps were not aware of; as, however,
they neither complained of, nor resented it, and as, besides,
you were far more a man of the world than myself, and con-
sequently knew better what the usages of society permitted,
I refrained from any remark, nor, but for your present
charge, would I say one word now on the subject."
" So, then, you have been suffering in secret all this time
over my domineering and insolent temper, pitying the dam-
sels in distress, but not able to get up enough of Quixotism
to avenge them ? "
"Do you want to quarrel with me, Calvert?" said the
other, calmly.
" If I knew what issue it would take, perhaps I could
answer you."
"I'll tell you, then, at least so far as I am concerned, I
have never injured, never wronged you. I have therefore
nothing to recalj, nothing to redress, upon any part of my
conduct. In what you conceive you are personally interested,
I am ready to give a full explanation ; and this done, all is
done between us."
" I thought so, I suspected as much," said Calvert, con-
temptuously. " I w^as a fool to suppose you'd have taken
the matter differently ; and now nothing remains for me but
to treat my aunt's nursery governess with greater deference,
and be more respectful in the presence — the august presence
— of a lawyer's clerk."
31
482 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
" Good-bye, sir," said Loyd, as he left the room.
Calvert sat down and took up a book; but though he
read three full pages, he knew nothing of what they con-
tained. He opened his desk, and began a letter to Loyd —
a farewell letter — a justification of himself, but done more
temperately than he had spoken ; but he tore it up, and so
with a second and a third. As his passion mounted, he
bethought him of his cousin and her approaching marriage.
"I can spoil some fun there," cried he, and wrote as
follows : —
Lago d' Orta, August 12.
Dear Sir, — In the prospect of the nearer relations which a
few days more will estabUsh between us, I venture to address you
thus familiarly. My cousin, Miss Sophia Calvert, has informed me
by a letter I have just received that she deemed it her duty to place
before you a number of letters written by me to her at a time when
there subsisted between us a very close attachment. With my
knowledge of my cousin's frankness, her candor, and her courage —
for it would also require some courage — I am fully persuaded that
she has informed you thoroughly on all that has passed. We were
both very young, very thoughtless, and, worse than either, left
totally to our own guidance, none to watch, none to look after us.
There is no indiscretion in my saying that we were both very much
in love, and with that sort of confidence in each other that renders
distrust a crime to one's own conscience. Although, therefore, she
may have told you much, hei* womanly dignity would not let her
dwell on these circumstances, explanatory of much, and palliative
of all that passed between us. To you, a man of the world, I owe
this part declaration, less, however, for your sake or for mine, than
for her, for whom either of us ought to make any sacrifice in our
power.
The letters she wrote me are still in my possession. I own they
are very dear to me ; they are all that remain of a past to which
nothing in ray future life can recall the equal. I feel, however, that
your right to them is greater than my own, but T do not know how
to part with them. I pray you advise me in this. Say how you
would act in a like circumstance, knowing all that has occurred, and
be assured that your voice will be a command to your very devoted
servant,
H. C.
p. S. — When I began this letter, I was minded to say my
cousin should see it ; on second thoughts, I incline to say not —
decidedly not.
DISSENSION. 483
When this base writer had finished writing he flung down
the pen, and said to himself, half aloud, "I'd give some-
thing to see him read this ! "
With a restless impatience to do something, anything,
he left the house, walking with hurried steps to the little
jetty where the boats lay. '* Where 's my boat, Onofrio? "
said he, asking for the skiff he generally selected.
" The other signor has taken her across the lake."
'' This is too much," muttered he. ''The fellow fancies
that because he skulks a satisfaction he is free to practise
an impertinence. He knew I preferred this boat, and there-
fore he took her." y
" Jump in, and row me across to La Rocca," said he to
the boatman. As they skimmed across the lake, his mind
dwelt only on vengeance, and fifty different ways of exact-
ing it passed and repassed before him, — all, however, con-
centrating on the one idea: that to pass some insult upon
Loyd in presence of the ladies would be the most fatal injury
he could inflict ; but how to do this without a compromise of
himself was the difficulty.
" Though no woman will ever forgive a coward," thought
he, "I must take care that the provocation I offer be such as
will not exclude myself from sympathy." And, with all his
craft and all his cunning, he could not hit upon a way to
this. He fancied, too, that Loyd had gone over to prejudice
the ladies against him by his own version of what had
occurred in the morning. He knew well how, of late, he
himself had not occupied the highest place in their esteem,
— it was not alone the insolent and overbearing tone he
assumed, but a levity in talking of things which others
treated with deference, alike offensive to morals and manners,
— these had greatly lowered him in their esteem, especially
of the girls; for old Miss Grainger, with a traditional
respect for his name and family, held to him far more than
the others.
" What a fool I was ever to have brought the fellow here !
What downright folly it was in me to have let them ever
know him ! Is it too late, however, to remedy this ? Can I
not yet undo some of this mischief?" This was a new
thought, and it filled his mind till he landed. As he drew
484 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
quite close to the shore he saw that the little awning-covered
boat, in which the ladies occasionally made excursions on
the lake, was now anchored under a large drooping ash, and
that Loyd and the girls were on board of her. Loj^d was
reading to them, — at least so the continuous and equable tone
of his voice indicated, as it rose in the thin and silent air.
Miss Grainger was not there, — and this was a fortunate
thing ; for now he should have his opportunity to talk with
her alone, and probably ascertain to what extent Loyd's
representations had damaged him.
He walked up to the villa, and entered the drawing-room,
as he was wont, by one of the windows that opened on the
greensward without. There was no one in the room ; but a
half-written letter, on which the ink was still fresh, showed
that the writer had only left it at the instant. His eye
caught the words, " Dear and Reverend Sir," and in the line
beneath the name " Loyd." The temptation was too strong,
and he read on: — J
/ ■
" Dear and Reverend Sir, — I hasten to express my entire
satisfaction with the contents of your letter. Your son, Mr. Loyd,
has most faithfully represented his position and his prospects, and,
although my niece might possibly have placed her chances of hap-
piness in the hands of a wealthier suitor, I am fully assured she
never coiitd have met with one whose tastes, pursuits, and general
disposition — "
A sound of coming feet startled him, and he had but time
to throw himself on a sofa, when Miss Grainger entered.
Her manner was cordial, fully as cordial as usual — per-
haps a little more so, since, in the absence of her nieces,
she was free to express the instinctive regard she felt
towards all that bore his name.
' ' How was it that you did not come with Loyd ? " asked
she.
'' I was busy, writing letters, I believe, — congratulations
on Sophy's approaching marriage ; but what did Loyd say,
Was that the reason he gave ? "
'' He gave none. He said he took a whim into his head
to row himself across the lake ; and indeed I half suspect
DISSENSION. 485
the exertion was too much for him. He has been coughing
again, and the pain in his side has returned."
" He 's a wretched creature, — I mean as regards health
and strength. Of course he always must have been so;
but the lives these fellows lead in London would breach the
constitution of a really strong man."
*' Not Loyd, however; he never kept late hours, nor had
habits of dissipation."
'' I don't suppose he ever told you that he had," said he,
laughing. "I conclude that he has never shown you his
diary of town life."
" But do you tell me, seriously, that he is a man of
dissipated habits ? "
*' Not more so than eight out of every ten, perhaps, in
his class of life. The student is everywhere more given to
the excitements of vice than the sportsman. It is the com-
pensation for the wearisome monotony of brain labor, and
they give themselves up to excesses from which the healthier
nature of a man with country tastes would revolt at once.
But what have I to do with his habits? I am not his
guardian nor his confessor."
*' But they have a very serious interest for me,"
*' Then you must look for another counsellor. I am not
so immaculate that I can arraign others ; and, if I were, I
fancy I might find some pleasanter occupation."
'' But if I tell you a secret, a great secret — "
*' I 'd not listen to a secret. I detest secrets, just as I 'd
hate to have the charge of another man's money. So, I
warn you, tell me nothing that you don't want to hear talked
of at dinner, and before the servants."
"Yes; but this is a case in which I really need your
advice."
" You can't have it at the price you propose. Not to
add, that I have a stronger sentiment to sway me in this
case, which you will understand at once, when I tell you
that he is a man of whom I would like to speak with great
reserve, for the simple reason that I don't like him."
'' Don't like him ! You don't like him ! "
'* It does seem very incredible to you ; but I must repeat
it, I don't like him."
486 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
''But will you tell me why? What are the grounds of
your dislike? "
''Is it not this very moment I have explained to you that
my personal feeling towards him inspires a degree of defer-
ence which forbids me to discuss his character? He may
be the best fellow in Europe, the bravest, the boldest, the
frankest, the fairest. All I have to say is, that if I had
a sister, and he proposed to marry her, I *d rather see her
a corpse than his wife ; and now you have led me into a
confession that I told you I'd not enter upon. Say another
word about it, and I '11 go and ask Loyd to come up here
and listen to the discussion, for I detest secrets and secrecy,
and I '11 have nothing to say to either."
" You 'd not do anything so rash and inconsiderate."
"Don't provoke me, that 's all. Yiou are always telling
me you know the Calverts, their hoVheadedness, their pas- '
sionate warmth, and so on. I lea>;^ it to yourself, is it wise
to push me further ? "
"May I show you a letter I received yesterday morning,
in reply to one of mine ? "
" Not if it refers to Loyd."
" It does refer to him."
" Then I '11 not read it. I tell you for the last time, I'll
not be cheated into this discussion. I don't desire to have
it said of me some fine morning, ' You talked of the man
that you lived with on terms of intimacy. You chummed
with him, and yet you told stories of him.' "
" If you but knew the difficulty of the position in which
you have placed me — "
"I know at least the difficulty in which you have placed
me, and I am resolved not to incur it. Have I given to you
Sophy's letter to read? " said he, with a changed voice. " I
must fetch it out to you and let you see all that she says of
her future happiness." And thus, by a sudden turn, he art-
fully engaged her in recollections of Rocksley, and all the
persons and incidents of a remote long ago!
When Loyd returned with the girls to the house, Calvert
soon saw that he had not spoken to them on the altercation
of the morning, — a reserve which he ungenerously attributed
to the part Loyd himself filled in the controversy. The two
DISSENSION. 487
met with a certain reserve; but which, however, felt and
understood by each, was not easily marked by a spectator.
Florence, however, saw it, with the traditional clearness of
an invalid. She read what healthier eyes never detect. She
saw that the men had either quarrelled, or were on the brink
of a quarrel, and she watched them closely and narrowly.
This was the easier for her, as at meal times she never came
to table, but lay on the sofa, and joined in the conversation
at intervals.
Oppressed by the consciousness of what had occurred in
the morning, and far less able to conceal his emotions or
master them than his companion, Loyd was disconcerted and
ill at ease : now answering at cross purposes, now totally
absorbed in his own reflections. As Calvert saw this, it
encouraged him to greater efforts to be agreeable. He
could, when he pleased, be a most pleasing guest. He had
that sort of knowledge of people and life which seasons talk
so well, and suits so many listeners. He was curious to find
out to which of the sisters Loyd was engaged, but all his
shrewdness could not fix the point decisively. He talked on
incessantly, referring, occasionally, to Loyd to confirm what
he knew well the other's experience could never have
embraced, and asking frankly, as it were, for his opinion on
people he was fully aware the other had never met with.
Millicent (or Milly, as she was familiarly called) Walter
showed impatience more than once at these sallies, which
always made Loyd confused and uncomfortable, so that
Calvert leaned to the impression that it was she herself was
the chosen one. As for Florence, she rather enjoyed, he
thought, the awkward figure Loyd presented, and she even
laughed outright at his bashful embarrassment.
"Yes," said Calvert to himself, *' Florence is with me.
She is my ally. I 'm sure of her."
'' What spirits he has," said Miss Grainger, as she
brought the sick girl her coffee. " I never saw him in a
gayer mood. He's bent on tormenting Loyd, though, for
he has just proposed a row on the lake, and that he should
take one boat and Loyd the other, and have a race. He
well knows who'll win."
" That would be delightful, aunt. Let us have it by all
488 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
means. Mr. Calvert, I engage you. You are to take me,
Milly will go with Mr. Loyd."
"And I'll stand at the point and be the judge," said
Miss Grainger.
Calvert never waited for more, but, springing up, hastened
down to the shore to prepare the boat. He was soon fol-
lowed by Miss Grainger, with Florence leaning on her arm,
and looking brighter and fairer than he thought he had ever
seen her.
" Let us be off at once," whispered Calvert, " for I 'd like
a few hundred yards' practice — a sort of trial gallop —
before I begin ; " and, placing the sick girl tenderly in the
stern, he pulled vigorously out into the lake. "What a
glorious evening!" said he. "Is there anything in the
world can equal one of these sunsets on an Italian lake, with
all the tints of the high Alps blenuing softly on the calm
water? "
She made no answer; and he went on enthusiastically
about the scene, the hour, the stillness, and the noble
sublimity of the gigantic mountains which arose around
them.
Scarcely, however, had Calvert placed her in the boat, and
pulled out vigorously^rom the shore, than he saw a marked
change some over the giiTs face. All the laughing gayety
of a moment back was gone, and an expression of anxiety
had taken its place.
"You are not ill?" asked he, eagerly.
" No. Why do you ask me? "
"I was afraid — 1 fancied you looked paler. You seem
changed."
"So I am," said she, seriously. "Answer me what I
shall ask, but tell me frankly."
"That I will; what is it?"
" You and Loyd have quarrelled, — what was it about? "
" What a notion ! Do you imagine that the silly quizzing
that passes between young men implies a quarrel ? "
"No matter what I fancy; tell me as candidly as you
said you would. What was the subject of your disagree-
ment?"
" How peremptory you are," said he, laughing. " Are you
DISSENSION. 489
aware that to give your orders in this fashion implies one of
two things, — a strong interest in me, or in my adversary? "
'' Well, I accept the charge ; now for the confession."
"Am I right, then, dearest Florence?" said he, ceasing
to row, and leaning down to look the nearer at her. " Am
I right, then, that your claim to this knowledge is the best
and most indisputable ? "
''Tell me what it is! " said she, and her pale face sud-
denly glowed with a deep flush.
" You guessed aright, Florence ; we did quarrel, — that is,
we exchanged very angry words, though it is not very easy
to say how the difference began, or how far it went. I was
dissatisfied with him. I attributed to his influence, in some
shape or other, that I stood less well here — in your esteem,
I mean — than formerly ; and he somewhat cavalierly told
me if there were a change I owed it to myself, that I took
airs upon me, that I was haughty, presuming, and fifty other
things of the same sort ; and so, with an interchange of such
courtesies, we grew at last to feel very warm, and finally
reached that point where men — of the world, at least —
understand discussion ceases, and something else succeeds."
" Well, go on," cried she, eagerly.
" All is told; there is no more to say. The lawyer did
not see the thing, perhaps, in the same vulgar light that I
did : he took his hat, and came over here. I followed him,
and there's the whole of it."
" I think he was wrong to comment upon your manner,
if not done from a sense of friendship, and led on to it by
some admission on your part."
"Of course he was; and I am charmed to hear you say
so."
She was silent for some time, leaning her head on her
hand, and appearing deep in thought.
" Now that I have made my confession, will you let me
have one of yours?" said he, in a low, soft voice.
"I'm not sure; what's it to be about?"
"It's about myself I want to question you."
" Abjut yourself! Surely you could not have hit upon a
sorrier adviser or a less experienced counsellor than I am."
"I don't want advice, Florence, I only want a fact; and
490 A RENT m A CLOUD.
from all I have seen of you, I believe you will deal fairly
with me."
She nodded assent, and he went on ; —
'* In a few weeks more I shall be obliged to return to
India, — to a land I dislike, and a service I detest ; to live
amongst companions distasteful to me, and amidst habits
and associations that, however endurable when I knew no
better, are now become positively odious in my eyes.
This is my road to rank, station, and honor. There is,
however, another path ; and, if I relinquish this career, and
give up all thought of ambition, I might remain in Europe
— here, perhaps, on this very lake side — and lead a life
of humble but unbroken happiness, — one of those peaceful
existences which poets dream of but never realize, because
it is no use in disparaging the cup of life till one has tasted
and known its bitterness ; and these men have not reached
such experience — / have."
He waited for her to speak — he looked eagerly at her
for a word — but she was silent.
"The confession I want from you, Florence, is this:
could you agree to share this life with me?"
She shook her head and muttered, but what he could not
catch.
''It would be too dreary, too sad-colored, you think?"
"No," said she, "not that."
" You fear, perhaps, that these schemes of isolation have
never succeeded ; that weariness will come when there are
no longer new objects to suggest interest or employment?"
" Not that," said she, more faintly.
"Then the objection must be myself. Florence, is it that
you would not, that you could not, trust me with your
happiness?"
" You ask for frankness, and you shall have it. I
cannot accept your offer. My heart is no longer mine to
give."
"And this — this engagement, has been for some time
back?" asked he, almost sternly.
"Yes, for some time," said she, faintly.
"Am I acquainted with the object of it? Perhaps 1
have no right to ask this. But there is a question I have a
DISSENSION. 491
full and perfect right to ask. How, consistently with such
an engagement, have you encouraged the attentions I have
paid you ? "
" Attentions ! and to me ! Why, your attentions have
been directed rather to my sister, — at least, she always
thought so, — and even these we deemed the mere passing
flirtations of one who made no secret of saying that he
regarded marriage as an intolerable slavery, or rather the
heavy price that one paid for the pleasure of courtship."
"Are the mere levities with which I amused an hour to
be recorded against me as principles?"
" Only when such levities fitted into each other so accu-
rately as to show plan and contrivance."
" It was Loyd said tnat. That speech was his. I 'd lay
my life on it."
" I think not. At least, if the thought' were his, he'd
have expressed it far better."
"You admire him, then?" asked he, peering closely
at her.
" I wonder why they are not here," said she, turning
her head away. " This same race ought to come off by
this time."
' ' Why don't you answer my question ? "
"There he goes! Rowing away all alone, too, and my
aunt is waving her handkerchief in farewell. See how fast
he sends the boat through the water! I wonder why he
gave up the race? "
" Shall I tell you? He dislikes whateyer he is challenged
to do. He is one of those fellows who will never dare to
measure himself against another."
" My aunt is beckoning to us to come back, Mr.
Calvert."
"And my taste is for going forward," muttered he, while
at the same time he sent the boat's head suddenly round,
and pulled vigorously towards the shore.
" May I trust that what has passed between us is a secret,
and not to be divulged to another, — not even to your
sister?"
" If you desire — if you exact."
" I do, most decidedly. It is shame enough to be re-
492 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
jected. I don't see why my disgrace is to be paraded either
for pity or ridicule."
''Oh, Mr. Calvert — "
'' Or triumphed over," said he, sternly, as he sent the
boat up to the side of the little jetty, where Miss Grainger
and her niece awaited them.
" Poor Loyd has just got bad news from home," said
Miss Grainger, " and he has hastened back to ask, by
telegraph, if they wish him to return."
'' Any one ill, or dying? " asked Calvert, carelessly.
" No, it's some question of law about his father's vicar-
age. There would seem to be a doubt as to his presenta-
tion, — whether the appointment lay with the patron or the
bishop."
Calvert turned to mark how the girls received these
tidings, but they had walked on, and, with heads bent down,
and close together, were in deep conversation.
" I thought it was only in my profession," said Calvert,
sneeringly, " where corrupt patronage was practised. It
is almost a comfort to think how much the good people
resemble the wicked ones."
Miss Grainger, who usually smiled at his levities, looked
grave at this one, and no more was said, as they moved on
towards the cottage.
CHAPTER VIII.
GROWING DARKER.
It was late at night when Calvert left the villa ; but, instead
of rowing directly back to the little inn, he left his boat to
drift slowly in the scarce perceptible current of the lake, and
wrapping himself in his cloak, lay down to muse or to
sleep.
It was just as day broke that he awoke, and saw that he
had drifted within a few yards of his quarters, and, in a
moment after, he was on shore.
As he gained his room, he found a letter for him in Loyd*s
hand. It ran thus : —
T waited up all night to see you before T started, for I have been
suddenly summoned home by family circumstances. I was loth to
part in an angry spirit, or even in coldness, with one in whose com-
panionship I have passed so many happy hours, and for whom I feel,
notwithstanding what has passed between us, a sincere interest.
I wanted to speak to you of much which I cannot write ; that is
to say, I would have endeavored to gain a liearing for what I dare
not venture to set down in the deliberate calm of a letter. When I
own that it was of yourself, your temper, your habits, your nature, in
short, that I wished to have spoken, you will, perhaps, say that it
was as well time was not given me for such temerity. But bear in
mind, Calvert, that though I am free to admit all your superiority
over myself, and never would presume to compare my faculties or
my abilities with yours, — though I know well there is not a single
gift or grace in which you are not my master, there is one point in
which I have an advantage over you, — I had a mother I You, you
have often cold me, never remember to have seen yours. To that
mother's trainings I owe anything of good, however humble it be,
in my nature, and, though the soil in which the seed has fallen be
poor and barren, so much of fruit has it borne that I at least
respect the good which I do not practise, and I reverence that
virtue to which 1 am a rebel. The lesson, above all others, that
494 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
she instilled into me, was to avoid the tone of a scoffer, to rescue
myself from the- cheap distinction which is open to every one who
sets himself to see only ridicule in what others respect, and to mock
the themes that others regard with reverence. I stop, for I am
afraid to weary you, — T dread that, in your impatience, you will
throw this down and read no more : I will only say, and I say it in
all the sincerity of truth, that if you would endeavor to be morally as
great as what your faculties can make you intellectually, there is no
eminence you might not attain, nor any you would not adorn.
If our intimacy had not cooled down of late, from what causes
I am unable to tell, to a point in which the first disagreement must
be a breach between us, I would have told you that I had formed an
attachment to Florence Walter, and obtained her aunt's consent to
our marriage, — I mean, of course, at some future which I cannot
define, for I have my way to make in the world, and, up to the
present, have only been a burden on others. We are engaged,
however, and we live on hope. Perhaps I presume too far on any
interest you could feel for me when I make you this communication
It may be that you will say, " What is all this to me ? " At all
events, I have told you what, .had I kept back, would have seemed to
myself an uncandid reservation. Deal with it how you may.
There is, however, another reason why I should tell you this.
If you were unaware of the relations which exist between our friends
and myself, you might unconsciously speak of me in terms which
this knowledge would, perhaps, modify, — at least, you would speak
without the consciousness that you were addressing unwilling hearers.
You now know the ties that bind us, and your words will have that
significance which you intend they should bear.
Remember, and remember distinctly, I disclaim all pretension,
as I do all wish, to conciliate your favor as regards this matter :
first, because I believe I do not need it; and secondly, that if T
asked for it, I should be unworthy of it. I scarcely know how, after
our last meeting, I stand in your estimation, but I am ready to own
that if you would only suffer yourself to be half as good as your
nature had intended you and your faculties might make you, you
would be conferring a great honor on being the friend of yours
truly,
Joseph Loyd.
"What a cant these fellows acquire! " said Calvert as he
read the letter and threw it from him. "What mock
humanity! what downright and palpable pretension to
superiority through every line of it! The sum of it all
being, I can't deny that you are cleverer, stronger, more
GROWING DARKER. 495
active, and more manly than me; "but, somehow, I don't
exactly see why or how, but I 'm your better! Well, I '11
write an answer to this one of these days, and such an
answer as I flatter myself he '11 not read aloud to the com-
pany who sit round the fire at the vicarage. And so,
Mademoiselle Florence, this was your anxiety, and this the
reason for all that interest about our quarrel which I was
silly enough to ascribe to a feeling for myself. How in-
variably it is so! How certain it is that a woman, the
weakest, the least experienced, the most commonplace, is
more than a match in astuteness for a man, in a question
where her affections are concerned. The feminine nature
has strange contradictions. They can summon the courage
of a tigress to defend their young, and the spirit of a
Machiavelli to protect a lover. She must have had some
misgiving, however, that to prefer a fellow like this to me
would be felt by me as an outrage. And then the cunning
stroke of implying that her sister was not indisposed to
listen to me. The perfidy of that!"
Several days after Loyd's departure, Calvert was loung-
ing near the lake, when he jumped up, exclaiming, "Here
comes the postman! I see he makes a sign to me. What
can this be about? Surely, my attached friend has not
written to me again. No, this is a hand that I do not
recognize. Let us see what it contains." He opened and
read as follows : —
Sir, — I have received your letter. None but a scoundrel could
have written it ! As all prospect of connection with your family
is now over, you cannot have a pretext for not affording me such a
satisfaction as, had you been a gentleman in feeling as you are in
station, it would never have been necessary for me to demand from
you. I leave this, to-morrow, for the Continent, and will be at Basle
by Monday next. I will remain there for a week at your orders,
and hope that there may be no difficulty to their speedy fulfilment.
I am, your obedient and faithful servant,
Wentworth Gordon Graham.
"The style is better than yours. Master Loyd, just
because it means something. The man is in an honest
passion and wants a fight. The other fellow was angry,
496 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
and begged me not to notice it. And so, Sophy, I have
spoiled the wedding favors, and scattered the bridesmaids!
What a heavy lesson for an impertinent note! Poor thing!
why did she trust herself with a pen? Why did she not
know that the most fatal of all bottles is the ink-bottle?
Precious rage old Uncle Geoffrey must be in. I 'd like to
have one peep at the general discomfiture, the' deserted
dinner-table, and the empty drawing-ro^. They deserve
it all; they banished me, and much good have they got of
it. Well, Mr. Wentworth Gordon Graham must have his
wicked way.- The only difficulty will be to find what is so
absurdly misnamed as a friend. I must have a friend; I '11
run up to Milan and search the hotels. 1 '11 surely find
some one who will like the cheap heroism of seeing another
man shot at. This is the season when all the fellows who
have no money for Baden come across the Alps. I 'm cer-
tain to chance upon one to suit me."
Having despatched a short note, very politely worded, to
Mr. Graham, to the post-office, Basle, he ordered a car-
riage, and set out for Milan.
The city was in full festivity when he arrived, overjoyed
at its new-born independence, and proud of the presence
of its king. The streets were crowded with a holiday
population, and from all the balconies and windows .hung
costly tapestries or gay-colored carpets. Military music
resounded on all sides, and so dense was the throng of
people and carriages that Calvert could only proceed at a
walking pace, none feeling any especial care to make way
for a dusty traveller, seated in one of the commonest of
country conveyances.
As he moved slowly and with difficulty forwards, he sud-
denly heard his name called ; he looked up, and saw a well-
known face, that of a brother officer who had left India on
a sick leave along with himself.
"I say, old fellow! " cried Barnard, "this is your ground;
draw into that large gate to your right, and come up here."
In a few seconds, Calvert, escorted by a waiter, was
shown to his friend's apartment.
"I never dreamed of meeting you here, Calvert."
"Nor I of finding you lodged so sumptuously," said
GROWING DARKER. 497
Calvert, as his eyes ranged over the splendid room, whose
massive hangings of silk, and richly gilt ceiling, gave that
air of a palace one so often sees in Italian hotels.
"Luck, sir, luck. I 'm married, and got a pot of money
with my wife." He dropped his voice to a whisper, while,
with a gesture of his thumb towards an adjoining room, he
motioned his friend to be cautious.
"Who was she?"
"Nobody; that is, not any one you ever heard of.
Stockport people, called Reppingham. The father, a great
railway contractor, vulgar old dog, began as, a navvy, with
one daughter, who is to inherit, they say, a quarter of a
million; but, up to this, we've only an allowance, — two
thousand a year. The old fellow, however, lives with us,
— a horrible nuisance." This speech, given in short, abrupt
whispers, was uttered with many signs to indicate that the
respected father-in-law was in the vicinity. "Now, of your-
self, what 's your news? What have you done last, eh? "
" Nothing very remarkable. I have been vegetating on
a lake in the north of Italy, trying to live for five shillings
a day, and spending three more in brandy, to give me
courage to do it."
"But your leave is up; or perhaps you have got a
renewal."
"No; my leave goes to the fifteenth of October."
"Not a bit of it; we got our leave on the same day,
passed the Board on the same day, and for exactly the same
time. My leave expired on the tenth of August. I *11
show you the paper; I have it here."
"Do so. Let me see it."
Barnard opened his desk, and quickly found the paper he
sought for. It was precisely as Barnard said. The Board
of Calcutta had confirmed the regimental recommendation,
and granted a two-years' leave, which ended on the tenth
of August.
"Never mind, man," said Barnard; "get back to London
as hard as you can, furbish up some sick certificate to say
that you were unable to quit your bed — "
"That is not so easy as you imagine; I have a little
affair in hand which may end in more publicity than I have
32
498 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
any fancy for." And he told him of his approaching meet-
ing with Graham, and asked him to be his friend.
"What was the quarrel about? " asked Barnard.
"A jealousy; he was going to marry a little cousin 1
used to flirt with, and we got to words about it. In fact,
it is what Sir Lucius would call a very pretty quarrel, and
there 's nothing to be done but finish it. You '11 stand by
me, won't you? "
"I don't see how I can. Old Rep, our governor, never
leaves me. I 'm obliged to report myself about four times
a day."
"But you know that can never go on. You need n't be
told by me that no, man can continue such a system of
slavery, nor is there anything could recompense it. You '11
have to teach her better one of these days: begin at once.
My being here gives you a pretext to begin. Start at
once, — to-day. Just say, 'I'll have to show Calvert the
lions; he '11 want to hunt up galleries,' and such like."
''Hush! here comes my wife. — Fanny, let me present to
you one of my oldest friends, Calvert. It 's a name you
have often heard from me."
The young lady — she was not more than twenty — was
pleasing-looking and well-mannered. Indeed, Calvert was
amazed to see her so unlike what he expected: she was
neither pretentious nor shy; and had his friend not gone
into the question of pedigree, was there anything to mark
a class in life other than his own. While they talked
together they were joined by her father, who, however,
more than realized the sketch drawn by Barnard.
He was a morose, down-looking old fellow, with a furtive
expression, and a manner of distrust about him that showed
itself in various ways. From the first, though Calvert set
vigorously to work to win his favor, he looked with a sort
of misgiving at him. He spoke very little, but in that
little there were no courtesies wasted; and when Barnard
whispered, "You had better ask him to dine with us, the
invitation will come better from you!" the reply was, "I
won't; do you hear that? I won't."
"But he 's an old brother-oflScer of mine, sir; we served
several years together."
GROWING DARKER. 499
"The worse company yours, then."
*'I say, Calvert," cried Barnard, aloud, "I must give you
a peep at our gay doings here. I '11 take you a drive round
the town, and out of the Porta Orientale, and if we should
not be back at dinner-time, Fanny — "
"We'll dine without you, that's all!" said the old man;
while, taking his daughter's hand, he led her out of the
room.
"I say. Bob, I 'd not change with you, even for the dif
ference," said Calvert.
"I never saw him so bad before," said the other,
sheepishly.
"Because you never tried him! Hitherto you have been
a spaniel, getting kicked and cuffed, and rather liking it;
but now that the sight of an old friend has rallied you to a
faint semblance of your former self, you are shocked and
horrified. You made a bad start. Bob ; that was the mis-
take. You ought to have begun by making him feel the
immeasurable distance there lay between him and a gentle-
man, — not only in dress, language, and behavior, but in
every sentiment and feeling. Having done this, he would
have tacitly submitted to ways that were not his own, by
conceding that they might be those of a class he had never
belonged to. You might, in short, have ruled him quietly
and constitutionally. Now you have nothing for it but one
thing."
"Which is — "
"A revolution! Yes, you must overthrow the whole gov-
ernment, and build up another out of the smash. Begin
to-day. We '11 dine together wherever you like. We '11 go
to the Scala if it 's open. We '11 sup — "
"But Fanny?"
"She '11 stand by her husband, — though, probably, she '11
have you *up' for a little private discipline afterwards.
Come, don't lose time. I want to do my cathedral, and my
gallery, and my other curiosities in one day, for I have
some matters to settle at Orto before I start for Basle..
Have they a club, a casino, or anything of the sort here,
where they play?"
"There is a place they call the Gettone, but I 've never
been there but once.'*
500 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
" Well, we '11 finish there this evening ; for I want to win
a little money, to pay my journey."
"If I can help you — "
"No, no. Not to be thought of. I've got some fifty
Naps by me — tame elephants — that are sure to entrap
others. You must come with me to Basle, Bob. You can't
desert me in such a crisis," said Calvert, as they left the
inn together. .
"We'll see. I'll think over it. The difficulty will
be — "
"The impossibility is worse than a difficulty; and that is
what I shall have to face if you abandon me. Why, only
think of it for a moment. Here I am, jilted, out of the
army, — for I know I shall lose my commission, — without a
guinea; you 'd not surely wish me to say, without a friend!
If it were not that it would be so selfish, I 'd say the step
will be the making of you. You '11 have that old bear so
civilized on your return you '11 not know him."
"Do you really think so?"
"I know it. He '11 see at once that you '11 not stand this
sort of bullying; that if you did, your friends would not
stand it. We sha'n't be away above four days, and those
four days will give him a fright he '11 never forget."
"I '11 think over it."
"No. You'll do it, — that's better; and I'll promise
you — if Mr. Graham does not enter a fatal objection — to
come back with you and stand to you through your
troubles."
Calvert had that about him in his strong will, his resolu-
tion, and his readiness at reply, which exercised no mean
despotism over the fellows of his own age. And it was
only they who disliked and avoided him who ever resisted
him. Barnard was an easy victim, and before the day
drew to its close he had got to believe that it was by a
rare stroke of fortune Calvert had come to Milan, — come
to rescue him from the "most degrading sort of bondage a
good fellow could possibly fall into."
They dined splendidly, and sent to engage a box at the
Opera; but the hours passed so pleasantly over their dinner
that they forgot all about it, and only reached the theatre
a few minutes before it closed.
GROWING DARKER. 601
" Now for the — what do you call the place ? " cried
Calvert.
"TheGettone."
"That 's it. I 'm eager to measure my luck against these
Milanais. They say, besides, no fellow has such a vein as
when his life is threatened ; and I remember myself, when
I had the yellow fever at Galle, I passed twenty-one times
at ecarte, all because I was given over!'*
*'What a fellow you are, Calvert! " said the other, with a
weak man's admiration for whatever was great, even in
infamy.
"You '11 see how I '11 clear them out. But what have I
done with my purse? Left it on my dressing-table. I
suppose they are honest in the hotel ? '*
"Of course they are. It's all safe; and I've more
money about me than you want. Old Rep handed me three
thousand francs this morning to pay the bill, and when I
saw you, I forgot all about it."
"Another element of luck,'* cried Calvert, joyously.
**The money that does not belong to a man always wins.
Why, there 's five thousand francs here," said Calvert, as
he counted over the notes.
"Two of them are Fanny's. She got her quarter's
allowance yesterday. Stingy, isn't it? Only three hun-
dred a year."
"It's downright disgraceful. She ought to have eight
at the very least; but wait till we come back from Basle.
You '11 not believe what a change I '11 work in that old
fellow, when I take him in hand."
By this time they had reached the Gettone, and, after a
brief colloquy, were suffered to pass upstairs and enter the
rooms.
"Oh, it's faro they play, — my own game," whispered
Calvert. "I was afraid the fellows might have indulged in
some of their own confounded things, which no foreigner
can compete in. At faro I fear none."
While Barnard joined a group of persons round a roulette-
table, where fashionably dressed women adventured their
franc-pieces along with men clad in the most humble mode,
Calvert took his place among the faro players. The bold-
602 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
ness of his play, and the reckless way he adventured his
money, could not conceal from their practised acuteness
that he was master of the game, and they watched him
attentively.
"I think I have nearly cleaned them out, Bob," cried he
to his friend, as he pointed to a heap of gold and silver
which lay promiscuously piled up before him.
"I suppose you must give them their revenge?" whis-
pered the other, "if they wish for it."
"Nothing of the kind. At a public table, a winner rises
when he pleases. If I continue to sit here now, it is
because that old fellow yonder has got a rouleau in his
pocket which he cannot persuade himself to break. See,
he has taken it out, — for the fourth time, this is. I
wonder can he screw up his courage to risk it. Yes! he
has! There go ten pieces on the queen. Go back to your
flirtation with the blond ringlets, and don't disturb my
game. I must have that fellow's rouleau before i leave.
Go back, and I '11 not tell your wife."
It was in something less than an hour after this that
Barnard felt a hand laid on his shoulder, and, looking up,
saw Calvert standing over him. "Well, it took you some
time to finish that old fellow, Calvert!"
"He finished me^ which was worse. Have you got a
cigar? "
"Do you mean that you lost all your winnings? "
"Yes, and your five thousand francs besides, not to
speak of a borrowed thousand from some one I have given
my card to. A bore, is n't it? "
"It 's more than a bore, — it 's a bad business. I don't
know how I '11 settle it with the landlord."
"Give him a bill, he'll never be troublesome; and, as to
your wife's money, tell her frankly you lost it at play. —
Isn't that the best way, madame?" said he, addressing
a young and pretty woman at his side. "I am advising
my friend to be honest with his wife, and confess that he
spent his money in very pleasant company. — Come along
out of this stuffy place. Let us have a walk in the fresh
cool air, and a cigar if you have one. I often wonder,"
said he, as they gained the street, "how the fellows who
GROWING DARKER. 503
write books and want to get up sensation scenes, don't
come and do something of this sort. There 's a marvellous
degree of stimulant in being cleaned out, not only of one's
own cash, but of one's credit; and by credit I mean it in
the French sense, which says, 'Le credit est 1' argent des
autres.' "
**I wish you had not lost that money,** muttered the
other.
"So do I. I have combativeness very strong, and I hate
being beaten by any one in anything."
" 1 'm thinking of the money ! " said the other, doggedly.
"Naturally, for it was yours. "T was mine, 'tis his,*
as Hamlet has it. Great fellow, Hamlet! I don't suppose
that any one ever drew a character wherein Gentleman was
so distinctly painted as Hamlet. He combined all the
grandest ideas of his class with a certain 'disinvoltura ' —
a sort of high-bred levity — that relieved his sternness,
and made him much better company than such fellows as
Laertes and Horatio."
"When you saw luck turning, why didn't you leave
off?"
"Why not ask why the luck turned before I left off?
That would be the really philosophic inquiry. Is n't it
chilly?"
"I 'm not cold, but I 'm greatly provoked.**
*'So am I, for you; for I have n't got enough to repay
you. But trust me to arrange the matter in the morning.
The landlord will see the thing with the eyes of his calling.
He '11 soon perceive that the son-in-law of a man who
travels with two carriages, and can't speak one word of
French, is one to be trusted. I mean him to cash a bill for
us before I leave. Old Rep's white hat and brown spencer
are guarantees for fifty thousand francs in any city of
Europe. There 's a solvent vulgarity in the very creak of
his shoes."
"Oh, he 's not a very distinguished -looking person, cer-
tainly," said Barnard, who now resented the liberty he had
himself led the way to.
"There I differ with you; / call him eminently distin-
guished, and I 'd rather be able to 'come ' that cravat tie,
504 A KENT IN A CLOUD.
and have the pattern of the dark-green waistcoat with the
red spots, than I 'd have — what shall I say? — all the crisp
bank paper I lost a while ago. You are not going in,
surely ? " cried he, as the other rang violently at the hotel.
"Yes; I am very tired of this footing. I wish you
hadn't lost that money."
"Do you remember how it goes, Bob?
" * His weary song,
The whole day long,
Was still I'argent, I'argent, I'argent ! *
She is complaining that though the linnet is singing in the
trees, and the trout leaping in the river, her tiresome hus-
band could only liken them to the clink of the gold as it
fell on the counter? Why, man, you '11 wake the dead if
you ring ih that fashion ! "
"I want to get in."
''Here comes the fellow at last; how disgusted he *11 be
to find there's not a five- franc piece between us!"
Scarcely was the door opened than Barnard passed in,
and left him, without even a good- night.
•CHAPTER IX.
ON THE ROAD.
Calvert's first care as he entered his room was to ascertain
if his purse was there. It was all safe and untouched.
He next lit a cigar, and, opening his window, leaned out to
smoke. It was a glorious autumn night, — still, starry, and
cloudless. Had any one from the street beneath seen him
there, he might have said, "There is some wearied man of
brain-labor, taking his hour of tranquil thought l3efore he
betakes himself to rest; or he is one of those contemplative
natures who loves to be free to commune with his own
heart in the silence of a calm night." He looked like this,
and perhaps — who knows if he were not nearer it than we
wot of?
It was nigh daybreak before he lay down to sleep. Nor
had he been fully an hour in slumber when he was awoke,
and found Barnard, dressed in a morning gown and slip-
pers, standing beside his bed.
"I say, Calvert, rub your eyes and listen to me. Are
you awake?"
" Not very perfectly ; but quite enough for anything you
can have to say. What is it? "
''I am so fretted about that money."
*'Why, you told me that last night," said Calvert, address-
ing himself, as it were, again to sleep.
"Oh, it 's all very fine and very philosophic to be indif-
ferent about another man's ' tin' ; but I tell you I don't
know what to do, what to say about it. I 'm not six weeks
married, and it 's rather early to come to rows and alter-
cations with a father-in-law."
" Address him to me. Say, * Go to Calvert, — he '11 talk to
you.' Do that like a good fellow, and go to bed. Good-
night."
606 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
"I'll not stand this sort of thing, Calvert. I'm not
going to lose my money and be laughed at too! "
"You'll not stand what?" cried Calvert, sitting up in
bed, and looking now thoroughly awake.
"I mean," said the other, doggedly, "you have got me
into a confounded scrape, and you are bound to get me out
of it."
"That is speaking like a man of sense. It is what I
intend to do; but can't we sleep over it first? I want what
the old ladies call my 'natural rest.'"
"There 's no time for that. The old governor is always
pottering about by six o'clock, and it 's just as likely, as
the landlord talks English, he '11 be down by way of gossip-
ing with him, and ask if the bill is settled."
"What an old beast he must be! I wonder you could
have married into such a vulgar set."
" If you have nothing to say but abuse of my connections,
I am not going to waste any more time here."
"There, that 's a dear fellow; go to bed now, and call me
somewhere towards four in the afternoon.'*
"This is rather more than a joke."
"To be sure it is, man; it is dead sleepiness. Good-
night."
"I see you have found your purse, — how much had you
in it?"
"Count it, if you 're curious," said Calvert, drowsily.
"Fifty-four Napoleons and a half," said the other,
slowly. "Look ye, Calvert, I 'm going to impound this.
It 's a sorry instalment, but, as far as it goes — "
"Take it, old fellow, and leave me quiet."
"One word more, Calvert," said Barnard, seriously. "I
cannot muster courage to meet old Rep this morning, and
if you like to start at once and settle this affair you
have in Switzerland, I'm ready; but it must be done
instanter."
"All right; I shall be ready within an hour. Tell the
porter to send my bath up at once, and order coffee by the
time you '11 be dressed."
There was very little trace of sleep about Calvert's face
now, as, springing from his bed, he prepared for the road.
ON THE ROAD. 607
With such despatch, indeed, did he proceed that he was
already in the coffee-room before his friend had descended.
" Shall we say anything to the landlord before we start,
Calvert?" whispered he.
"Of course; send Signor Angelo, or Antonio, or what-
ever his name, here. The padrone, I mean," said he to the
waiter.
"He is called Luigi Filippo, sir," said the man,
indignantly.
"A capital name for a rogue. Let us have him here."
A very burly, consequential sort of man, marvellously got
up as to beard, moustaches, and watch-chain, entered and
bowed.
"Signor Luigi Filippo," said Calvert, "my friend here
— the son of that immensely wealthy mi Lordo upstairs —
is in a bit of scrape; he had an altercation last night with
a fellow we take to be an Austrian spy."
The host spat out, and frowned ferociously.
"Just so; a dog of a Croat, I suspect," went on Calvert.
" At all events, he must put a bullet in him, and to do so,
must get over the frontier beyond Como; we want, there-
fore, a little money from you, and your secrecy, till this
blows over."
The host bowed, and pursed up his lips like one who
would like a little time for reflection, and at last said,
"How much money, Signor?"
"What do you say. Bob? will a hundred Naps do, or
eighty?"
"Fifty; fifty are quite enough," cried Barnard.
"On a circular note, of course, Signor?" asked the host.
"No, a draft at six days on my friend's father; mi Lordo
means to pass a month here."
"I don't think I '11 do that, Calvert," whispered Barnard;
but the other stopped him at once with "Be quiet; leave
this to me."
"Though payable at sight, Signor Luigi, we shall ask
you to hold it over for five or six days, because we hope
possibly to be back here before Saturday, and if so, we '11
settle this ourselves."
"It shall be done, gentlemen," said the host. "I'll go
608 A KENT IN A CLOUD.
and draw out the bills, and you shall have the money
immediately."
"How I touched the fellow's patriotism, Bob. It was
the Austrian dodge stood us in stead, there. I know that I
have jeopardized your esteem for me by the loss of that
money last night ; but do confess that this was a clever hit
of mine."
"It's a bad business from beginning to endl" was, how-
ever, all that he could obtain from Barnard.
"Narrow-minded dog! he won't see any genius in a man
that owes him five shillings."
"I wish it was only five shillings."
"What an ignoble confession! It means this, that your
friendship depends on the rate of exchanges, and that when
gold rises — But here comes Luigi Filippo. Now, no
squeamishness, but write your name firmly. *Cut boldly,'
said the auger, 'and he cut it through.' Don't you remem-
ber that classic anecdote in your Roman history?"
It is a strange fact that the spirit of raillery, which to a
dull man is, at first, but a source of irritation and fi^etful-
ness, will, when persevered in, become at last one of the
most complete despotisms. He dreads it as a weapon
which he cannot defend himself against; and he comes to
regard it as an evidence of superiority and power. Barnard
saw the dominion that the other exercised over him, but
could not resist it.
" Where to now ? " asked he, as they whirled rapidly
along the road towards Monza.
"First of all, to Orta. There is an English family I
want to see. Two prettier girls you can't imagine, — not
that the news has any interest for you, poor caged mouse
that you are ; but I am in love with one of them. I forget
which, but I believe it 's the one that won't have me."
"She 's right," said Barnard, with a half smile.
"Well, I half suspect she is. I could be a charming
lover, but I fear I 'd make only a sorry husband. My
qualities are too brilliant for every-day use. It is your
dreary fellows, with a tiresome monotony of nature, do best
in that melancholy mill they call marriage. You, for
instance, ought to be a model *mari.'"
ON THE ROAD. 609
"You are not disposed to give me the chance, I think,"
said Barnard, peevishly.
"On the contrary, I am preparing you most carefully for
your career. Conjugal life is a reformatory. You must
come to it as a penitent. Now, I '11 teach you the first part
of your lesson; your wife shall supply the second."
"I 'd relish this much better if — "
" I had not lost that money, you were going to say. Out
with it, man. When a fellow chances upon a witty thing,
he has a right to repeat it; besides, you have reason on
your side. A loser is always wrong. But after all. Bob,
whether the game be war, or marriage, or a horse-race,
one's skill has very little to say to it. Make the wisest
combinations that ever were fashioned, and you '11 lose
sometimes. Draw your card at hazard, and you '11 win.
If you only saw the fellow that beat me t' other day in a
girl's affections, — as dreary a dog as ever you met in your
life, without manliness, without 'go' in him; and yet he
wasn't a curate. I know you suspect he was a curate."
" If you come through this affair all right, what do you
intend to turn to, Calvert? " said the other, who really felt
a sort of interest in his fortunes.
" I have thought of several things, — the Church, the
Colonies, Patent Fuel, Marriage, Turkish Baths, and a
Sympathy Society for Suffering Nationalities, with a limited
liability to all who subscribe fifty pounds and upwards."
" But, seriously, have you any plans ? "
" Ten thousand plans ! I have plans enough to ruin all
Threadneedle Street; but what use are plans? What's the
good of an architect in a land where there are no bricks, no
mortar, and no timber? When I 've shot Graham, I 've a
plan how to make my escape out of Switzerland ; but, be-
yond that, nothing, — not one step, I promise you. See,
yonder is Monte Rosa ; how grand he looks in the still calm
air of the morning. What a gentleman a mountain is ! how
independent of the changful fortunes of the plains, where
grass succeeds tillage, and what is barley to-day may be a
brick-field to-morrow; but the mountain is ever the same,
— proud and cold if you will, but standing above all the
accidents of condition, and asserting itself by qualities
610 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
which are not money-getting. I *d like to live in a land of
mountains, if it were not for the snobs that come to climb
them."
"But why should they be snobs? "
"I don't know; perhaps the mountains like it. There,
look yonder, — our road leads along that ledge till we reach
Chiasso, about twelve miles off ; do you think you can last
that long without breakfast? There, there, don't make that
pitiful face ; you shall have your beefsteak, and your choco-
late, and your eggs, and all the other claims of your Anglo-
Saxon nature, whose birthright it is to growl for every
twenty-four hours, and 'grub ' every two."
They gained the little inn at Orta by the evening, and
learned, as Calvert expected, that nothing had changed in
his absence, — indeed, what was there to change, so long
as the family at the villa remained in the cottage? All
was to Calvert as he left it.
Apologizing to his friend for a brief absence, he took
boat and crossed the lake. It was just as they had sat
down to tea that he entered the drawing-room. If there
was some constraint in the reception of him, there was that
amount of surprise at his appearance that half masked
it. "You have been away, Mr. Calvert?" asked Miss
Grainger.
"Yes," said he, carelessly, "I got a rambling fit on me;
and finding that Loyd had started for England, I grew
fidgety at being alone, so I went up to Milan, saw churches
and galleries, and the last act of a ballet; but, like a coun-
try mouse, got home-sick for the hard peas and the hollow
tree, and hurried back again."
After some careless talk of commonplaces he managed at
last to secure the chair beside Florence's sofa, and affected
to take an interest in some work she was engaged at. " I
have been anxious to see you and to speak to you, Florry,"
said he, in a low tone not audible by the others. "I had
a letter from Loyd, written just before he left. He has told
me everything."
She only bent down her head more deeply over her work,
but did not speak.
"Yes; he was more candid than you," continued he.
ON THE ROAD. 611
••He said you were engaged, — that is, that you had owned
to him that you liked him, and that when the consent he
hoped for would be obtained, you would be married."
*' How came he to write this to you?" said she, with a
slight tremor in her voice.
''In this wise," said he, calmly. "He felt that he owed
me an apology for something that had occurred between us
on that morning ; and, when making his excuses, he deemed
he could give no better proof of frankness than by this
avowal. It was, besides, an act of fairness towards one
who, trusting to his own false light, might have been lured
to delusive hopes."
^'Perhaps so," said she, coldly.
"It was very right of him, very proper."
She nodded.
'*It was more, — it was generous.'*
"He U generous," said she, warmly.
"He had need be."
" How do you mean, that he had need be ? " asked she,
eagerly.
" I mean this, — that he will require every gift he has,
and every grace, to outbalance the affection which I bear
you,* which I shall never cease to bear you. You prefer
him. Now, you may regard me how you will; I will not
consent to believe myself beaten. Yes, Florence, I know
not only that I love you more than he does, but I love you
with a love he is incapable of feeling. I do not wish to
say one word In his dispraise, lea^t of all to you, in whose
favor I want to stand well; but I wish you — and it is no
unfair request — to prove the affection of the two men who
solicit your love."
"I am satisfied with his."
"You may be satisfied with the version your own imagi-
nation renders of it. You may be satisfied with the picture
you have colored for yourself; but I want you to be just to
yourself, and just to me. Now, if I can show you in his
own handwriting, — the ink only dried on the paper a day
ago, — a letter from him to me, in which he asks my pardon
in terms so abject as never were wrung from any man,
except under the pressure of a personal fear?"
512 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
"You say this to outrage me. — Aunt Grainger," cried
she, in a voice almost a scream, " listen to what this gentle-
man has had the temerity to tell me. — Repeat it now, sir,
if you dare.*''
"What is this, Mr. Calvert? You have not surely
presumed — "
" I have simply presumed, madam, to place my pretensions
in rivalry with Mr. Loyd's. I have been offering to your
niece the half of a very humble fortune, with a name not
altogether ignoble."
"Oh dear, Mr. Calvert," cried the old lady, "I never
suspected this. I 'm sure my niece is aware of the great
honor we all feel, — at least, I do most sensibly, — that, if
she was not already engaged — Are you ill, dearest ? Oh,
she has fainted. Leave us, Mr. Calvert. Send Maria here.
Milly, some water immediately."
For more than an hour Calvert walked the little grass-
plot before the door, and no tidings came to him from those
within. To a momentary bustle and confusion, a calm suc-
ceeded; lights flitted here and there through the cottage.
He fancied he heard something like sobbing, and then all
was still and silent.
"Are you there, Mr. Calvert?" cried Milly, at last, as
she moved out into the dark night air. "She is better
now, — much better. She seems inclined to sleep, and we
have left her."
"You know how it came on?" asked he, in a whisper.
"You know what brought it about?"
"No; nothing of it."
"It was a letter that I showed her, — a letter of Loyd's
to myself, — conceived in such terms as no man of, I will
not say of spirit, but a common pretension to the sense of
gentleman, could write. Wait a moment; don't be angry
with me till you hear me out. We had quarrelled in the
morning. It was a serious quarrel, on a very serious
question. I thought, of course, that all young men, at
least, regard these things in the same way. Well, he did
not. I have no need to say more ; he did not, and conse-
quently nothing could come of it. At all events, I deemed
that the man who could not face an adversary had no right
THE ROAD. 613
to brave a rival, and so I intimated to him. For the second
time he differed with me, and dared in my own presence to
prosecute attentions which I had ordered him to abandon.
This was bad enough, but there was worse to come, for, on
my return home from this, I found a letter from him in the
most abject terms; asking my pardon — for what? — for
my having insulted him, and begging me, in words of
shameful humility, to let him follow up his courtship, and,
if he could, secure the hand of your sister. Now she
might, or might not, accept my offer. I am not coxcomb
enough to suppose I must succeed simply because I wish
success ; but putting myself completely out of the question,
could I suffer a girl I deemed worthy of my love, and whom
I desired to make my wife, to fall to the lot of one so
base as this? I ask you, was there any other course open
to me than to show her the letter ? Perhaps it was rash ;
perhaps I ought to have shown it first of all to Miss
Grainger. I can't decide this point. It is too subtle for
me. I only know that what I did I should do again, no
matter what the consequences might be."
" And this letter, has she got it still ? " asked Milly.
"No, neither she nor any other will ever read it now. I
have torn it to atoms. The wind has carried the last frag-
ment at this moment over the lake."
"Oh dear! what misery all this is," cried the girl in an
accent of deep affliction. "If you knew how she is
attached — " Then, suddenly checking the harsh indiscre-
tion of her words, she added, "I am sure you did all for
the best, Mr. Calvert. I must go back now. You '11 come
and see us, or perhaps you '11 let me write to you, to-
morrow."
"I have to say good-bye, now," said he, sadly. "I may
see you all again within a week. It may be this is a good-
bye forever."
He kissed her hand as he spoke, and turned to the lake,
where his boat was lying.
" How amazed she '11 be to hear that she saw a letter —
read it — held it in her hands," muttered he; "but I '11
stake my life she '11 never doubt the fact when it is told to
her by those who believe it."
33
514 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
"You seem to be in rare spirits," said Barnard, when
Calvert returned to the inn. "Have you proposed and been
accepted ? "
"Not exactly," said the other, smiling, "but I have had
a charming evening, — one of those fleeting moments of that
'vie de famille ' Balzac tells us are worth all our wild and
youthful excesses."
"Yes!" replied Barnard, scoflSngly; "domesticity would
seem to be your forte. Heaven help your wife, say I, if
you ever have one ! "
" You don't seem to be aware how you disparage conjugal
life, my good friend, when you speak of it as a thing in
which men of your stamp are the ornaments. It would be
a sorry institution if its best requirements were a dreary
temperament and a disposition that mistakes moodiness for
morality."
"Good-night; I have had enough," said the other, and
left the room.
"What a pity to leave such a glorious spot on such a
morning," said Calvert, as he stood waiting while the post-
horses were being harnessed. "If we had but been good
boys, as we might have been, — that is, if you had not
fallen into matrimony, and 1 into a quarrel, — we should
have such a daj^'s fishing here! Yonder, where you see the
lemon-trees hanging over the rock, in the pool underneath
there are some twelve and fourteen 'pounders,' as strong as
a good-size pike; and then we'd have grilled them under
the chestnut-trees, and talked away, as we 've done scores
of times, of the great figure we were to make — I don't
know when or how, but some time, and in some wise — in
the world; astonishing all our relations, and putting to
utter shame and confusion that private tutor at Dorking
who would persist in auguring the very worst of us."
"Is that the bill that you are tearing up? Let me see it.
"What does he charge for that Grignolino wine and those
bad cigars?" broke in Barnard.
"What do I know or care? " said Calvert, with a saucy
laugh. "If you possessed a schoolboy's money-box with
a slit in it to hold your savings, there would be some sense
ON THE ROAD. 515
in looking after the five-franc pieces you could rescue from
a cheating landlord, and add to your store; but when you
know in your heart that you are never the richer nor the
better of the small economies that are only realized at the
risk of an apoplexy and some very profane expressions, my
notion is, never mind them, — never fret about them."
"You talk like a millionnaire," said the other, con-
temptuously.
"It is all the resemblance that exists between us, Bob;
not, however, that I believe Baron Rothschild himself could
moralize over the insufficiency of wealth to happiness as I
could. Here comes our team, and I must say a sorrier set
of screws never tugged in a rope harness. Get in first. I
like to show all respect to the man who pays. — I say, my
good fellow," cried he to the postilion, "drive your very
best, for mi Lordo here is immensely rich, and would just
as soon give you five gold Marengos as five francs."
"What was it you said to him? " asked Barnard, as they
started at a gallop.
"I said he must not spare his cattle, for we were running
away from our creditors."
"How could you — "
"How could I? What nonsense, man! besides, I wanted
the fellow to take an interest in us, and, you see, so he has.
Old Johnson was right: there are few pleasures more
exhilarating than being whirled along a good road at the
top speed of post-horses."
"I suppose you saw that girl you are in love with?" said
Barnard, after a pause.
"Yes; two of them. Each of the sirens has got a lien
upon my heart, and I really can't say which of them holds
*the preference shares.' "
"Is there money? "
"Not what a great Croesus like yourself would call
money, but still enough for a grand 'operation * at Hom-
burg, or a sheep-farming exploit in Queensland."
"You 're more 'up ' to the first than the last."
"All wrong! Games of chance are to fellows like you,
who must accept Fortune as they find her. Men of my
stamp mould destiny."
516 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
"Well, I don't know. So long as I have known you,
you 've never been out of one scrape without being half
way into another."
" And yet there are fellows who pay dearer for their suc-
cesses than ever I have done for my failures."
" How so ? What do they do ? "
"They marry! Ay, Bob, they marry rich wives, but
without any power to touch the money, just as a child gets
a sovereign at Christmas under the condition he is never to
change it."
"I must say you are a pleasant fellow to travel with."
"So I am generally reputed, and you 're a lucky dog to
catch me 'in the vein,' for I don't know when I was in better
spirits than this morning."
CHAPTER X.
A DAYBREAK BESIDE THE RHIXB.
The day was just breaking over that wide flat beside the
Rhine at Basle, as two men, descending from a carriage on
the high road, took one of the narrow paths which lead
through the fields, walking slowly, and talking to each other
in the careless tone of easy converse*
" We are early, Barnard, I should say, — fully half an
hour before our time," said Calvert, as he walked on first,
for the path did not admit of two abreast. "What grand
things these great plains are, traversed by a fine river, and
spreading away to a far distant horizon. What a sense of
freedom they inspire; how suggestive they are of liberty!
Don't you feel that?"
''I think I see them coming," said the other. "I saw a
carriage descend the hill yonder. Is there nothing else you
have to say — nothing that you think of, Harry? "
"Nothing. If it should be a question of a funeral. Bob,
my funds will show how economically it must be done ; but
even if I had been richer, it is not an occasion I should
like to make costly."
"It was not of that I was thinking. It was of friends
or relations."
"My dear fellow, I have few relatives and no friends.
No man's executorship will ever entail less trouble than
mine. I have nothing to leave, nor any to leave it to."
" But these letters — the cause of the present meeting —
don't you intend that in case of — in the event of — '*
"My being killed. Go on."
" That they should be given up to your cousin ? "
"Nothing of the kind ever occurred to me. In the first
place, I don't mean to be shot; and in the second, I have
518 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
not the very remotest intention of releasing the dear Sophy
from those regrets and sorrows which she ought to feel for
my death. Nay, I mean her to mourn me with a degree of
affliction to which anxiety will add the poignancy."
*'This is not generous, Calvert."
"I 'm sure it 's not. Why, my dear friend, were I to
detect any such weakness in my character, I *d begin to
fancy I might end by becoming a poltroon."
''Is that your man, — he in the cloak, — or the tall one
behind him? " said Barnard, as he pointed to a group who
came slowly along through a vineyard.
"I cannot say. I never saw Mr. Graham, to my knowl-
edge. Don't let them be long about the preliminaries,
Bob ; the morning is fresh, and the ground here somewhat
damp. Agree to all they ask, — distance and everything ;
only secure that the word be given by you. Remember
that, in the way I've told you."
As Calvert strolled listlessly along towards the river,
Barnard advanced to meet the others, who, to the number
of five, came now forward. Colonel Rochefort, Mr. Gra-
ham's friend, and Barnard were slightly acquainted, and
turned aside to talk to each other in confidence.
"It is scarcely the moment to hope for it, Mr. Barnard,"
said the other, "but I cannot go on without asking, at
least, if there is any peaceful settlement possible? "
"I fear not. You told me last night that all retraction by
your friend of his offensive letter was impossible."
"Utterly so."
"What, then, would you suggest? "
" Could not Mr. Calvert be brought to see that it was he
who gave the first offence? That, in writing, as he did, to
a man in my friend's position — "
"Mere waste of time, colonel, to discuss this; besides,
I think we have each of us already said all that we could on
this question, and Calvert is very far from being satisfied
with me for having allowed myself to entertain it. There
is really nothing for it but a shot."
"Yes, sir; but you seem to forget, if we proceed to this
arbitrament, it is not a mere exchange of fire will satisfy
my friend."
A DAYBREAK BESIDE THE RHINE. 619
"We are, as regards that, completely at his service;
and if your supply of ammunition be only in proportion to
the number of your followers, you can scarcely be disap*
pointed."
The colonel reddened deeply, and in a certain irritation
replied, ''One of these gentlemen is a travelling companion
of my friend, whose health is too delicate to permit him to
act for him ; the other is a French officer of rank, who dined
with us yesterday; the third is a surgeon."
" To us it is a matter of perfect indifference if you come
accompanied by fifty, or five hundred; but let us lose no
more time. I see how I am trying my friend's patience
already. Ten paces, short paces, too," began Barnard as
he took his friend's arm.
''And the word?"
"I am to give it."
"All right; and you remember how? "
" Yes ! the word is. One — two ; at the second you are to
fire."
"Let me hear you say them."
"One— two."
"No, no; that's not it. One-two — sharp; don't dwell
on the interval; make them like syllables of one word."
"One- two."
"Yes, that's it; and remember that you cough once
before you begin. There, don't let them see us talking
together. Give me a shake hands, and leave me."
"That man is nervous^ or I am much mistaken," said
Graham's invalid friend to the colonel; and they both
looked towards Calvert, who, with his hat drawn down over
his brows, walked lazily to his ground.
"It is not the reputation he has," whispered the colonel.
"Be calm, Graham; be as cool as the other fellow."
The principals were now placed, and the others fell back
on either side, and almost instantaneously, — so instanta-
neously, indeed, that Colonel Rochefort had not yet ceased
to walk, two shpts rung out, one distinctly before the other,
and Graham fell.
All ran towards him but Calvert, who, throwing his pistol
at his feet, stood calm and erect. For a few seconds they
620 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
bent down over the wounded man, and then Barnard, has-
tening back to his friend, whispered, *' Through the chest;
it is all over."
''Dead?" said the other.
He nodded, and, taking his arm, said, *' Don't lose a
moment; the Frenchman says you have not an instant to
spare."
For a moment Calvert moved as if going towards the
others ; then, as if with a changed purpose, he turned sharply
round and walked towards the high road.
As Calvert was just about to gain the road, Barnard ran
after him, and cried out, '* Stop, Calvert, hear what these
men say; they are crying out unfair against us. They
declare — "
'' Are you an ass. Bob? " said the other, angrily. " Who
minds the stupid speech of fellows whose friend is knocked
over ? "
*' Yes, but I'll hear this out," cried Barnard.
''You'll do so without we, then, and a cursed fool you
are for your pains. Drive across to the Bavarian frontier,
my man," said he, giving the postilion a Napoleon, " and
you shall have a couple more if you get there within two
hours."
With all the speed that whip and spur could summon,
the beasts sped along the level road, and Calvert, though
occasionally looking through the small pane in the back of
the carriage to assure himself he was not pursued, smoked
on unceasingly. He might have been a shade graver than
his wont, and preoccupied, too; for he took no notice of
the objects on the road, nor replied to the speeches of the
postilion, who, in his self-praise, seemed to call for some
expression of approval.
"You are a precious fool. Master Barnard, and you
have paid for your folly, or you had been here before
this."
Such were his uttered -thoughts, but it cost him little
regret as he spoke them.
The steamboat that left Constance for Lindau was just
getting under weigh as he reached the lake, and he imme-
diately embarked in her, and, on the same evening, gained
A DAYBREAK BESIDE THE RHINE. 521
Austrian territory at Bregenz, to pass the night. For a
day or two, the quietness of this lone and little-visited spot
suited him, and it was near enough to the Swiss frontier,
at the Rhine, to get news from Switzerland. On the third
day, a paragraph in the "Basle Zeitung " told him every-
thing. It was, as such things usually are, totally misrepre-
sented, but there was enough revealed for him to guess
what had occurred. It was headed '' Terrible Event," and
ran thus : —
"At a meeting which took place with pistols, this morning, be-
tween two English lords at the White Meadows, one fell so fatally
wounded that his death ensued in a few minutes. An instantaneous
cry of foul play amongst his friends led to a fierce and angry alter-
cation, which ended in a second encounter between the first princi-
pal and the second of the deceased. In this the former was shot
through the throat, the bullet injuring several large vessels, and
lodging, it is supposed, in the spine. He has been conveyed to the
Hotel Royal, but no hopes of his recovery are entertained."
*' I suspected what would come of your discussion. Bob.
Had you only been minded to slip away with me, you 'd
have been in the enjoyment of a whole skin by this time.
I wonder which of them shot him. I 'd take the odds it
was the Frenchman ; he handled the pistols like a fellow
-who envied us our pleasant chances. I suppose I ought to
write to Barnard, or to his people ; but it 's not an agreeable
task, and I '11 think over it."
He thought over it, and wrote as follows :
Dear Bob, — I suspect, from a very confused paragraph in a
stupid newspaper, that you have fought somebody and got wounded.
Write and say if this be so, what it was all about, who did it, and
what more can be done for you,
By yours truly,
H. C.
Address, Como.
To this he received no answer when he called at the post-
office, and turned his steps next to Orta. He did not really
know why, but it was, perhaps, with some of that strange
622 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
instinct that makes the criminal haunt the homes of those
he has once injured, and means to injure more. There was,
however, one motive which he recognized himself : he wished
to know something of those at the villa ; when they had
heard from Loyd, and what ; whether, too, they had heard
of his own doings, and in what way ? A fatal duel, followed
by another that was like to prove fatal, was an event sure
to provoke newspaper notice. The names could not escape
publicity, and he was eager to see in what terms they men-
tioned his own. He trusted much to the difficulty of getting
at any true version of the affair, and he doubted greatly if
any one but Graham and himself could have told why they
were to meet at all. Graham's second, Rochefort, evidently
knew very little of the affair. At all events, Graham was
no longer there to give his version, while for the incidents
of the duel, who was to speak? All, save Barnard^ who
was dying, if not dead, must have taken flight. The Swiss
authorities would soon have arrested them if withm reach.
He might therefore reassure himself that no statement that
he could not at least impugn could get currency just yet.
" I will row over to the old Grainger," — so he called her, —
" and see what she has heard of it all."
It was nightfall as he reached the shore, and walked
slowly and anxiously to the house. He had learned at Orta
that they were to leave that part of the world in another
fortnight, but whither for none knew. As he drew nigh,
he determined to have a peep at the interior before he pre-
sented himself. He accordingly opened the little wicket
noiselessly, and passed round through the flower-garden till
he reached the windows of the drawing-room.
CHAPTER XT.
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA.
The curtains were undrawn, and the candles were lighted.
All within looked just as he had so often seen it. The sick
girl lay on her sofa, with her small spaniel at her feet.
Miss Grainger was working at a table, and Milly sat near
her sister, bending over the end of the sofa, and talking
to her. '' Let me see that letter again, Florr^'," she said,
taking a letter from the passive fingers of the sick girl.
" Yes, he is sure it must have been Calvert. He says
that though the Swiss papers give the name Colnart, he is
sure it was Calvert ; and you remember his last words here
as he went away that evening?"
'' Poor fellow! " said Florence. '' I am sure I have no
right to bear him good will, but I am sorry for him, — really
sorry. I suppose, by this time, it is all over? "
" The wound was through the throat, it is said," said
Miss Grainger. " But how confused the whole story is.
Who is Barnard, and why did Calvert fight to save Bar-
nard's honor ? "
" No, aunt. It was to rescue Mr. Graham's, the man
who was about to marry Sophia Calvert."
"Not at all, Milly. It was Graham who shot Barnard;
and then poor Calvert, horrified at his friend's fate — ^ "
Calvert never waited for more. He saw that there was
that amount of mistake and misunderstanding which re-
quired no aid on his part, and now nothing remained but
to present himself suddenly before them as a fugitive from
justice seeking shelter and protection. The rest he was
content to leave to hazard.
A sharp ring at the door-bell was scarcely answered by
524 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
the sen^ant, when the man came to the drawing-room door,
and made a sign to Miss Grainger.
"What is it, Giacomo? What do you mean?" she
cried.
"Just one moment, Signora; half a minute here," he
said.
Well accustomed to the tone of secrecy assumed by
Italians on occasions the least important. Miss Grainger
followed him outside, and there, under the glare of the
hall-lamp, stood Calvert, pale, his hair disshevelled, his
cravat loosened, and his coat-sleeve torn. " Save me! hide
me!" said he, in a low whisper. "Can you — will you
save me? "
She was one not unfitted to meet a sudden change ; and,
although secretly shocked, she rallied quickly, and led him
into a room beside the hall. "I know all," said she. " We
all knew it was your name."
"Can you conceal me here for a day, — two days at
furthest?"
" A week, if you need it."
"And the servant, — can he be trusted?"
" To the death. I '11 answer for him."
' ' How can you keep the secret from the girls ? "
" I need not; they must know everything."
" But Florence ; can she — has she forgiven me? "
" Yes, thoroughly. She scarcely knows about what she
quarrelled with you. She sometimes fears that she wronged
you; and Milly defends you always."
"You have heard — you know what has happened to
me?"
" In a fashion, — that is, we only know there has been a
duel. We feared you had been wounded ; and, indeed, we
heard severely wounded."
"The story is too long to tell you now; enough, if I say
it was all about Sophy. You remember Sophy, and a fellow
who was to have married her, and who jilted her, and not
only this, but boasted of the injury he had done her, and the
insult he had thrown on us. A friend of mine, Barnard, a
brother officer, heard him — But why go on with this detail ?
There was a quarrel and a challenge, and it was by merest
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 525
accident I heard of it, and reached Basle in time. Of course,
I was not going to leave to Barnard what of right belonged
to me. There were, as you can imagine, innumerable com-
plications in the matter. Rochefort, the other man's friend,
and a French fellow, insisted on having a finger in the pie.
The end of it was, I shot Graham, and somebody else — I
believe Rochefort — put a bullet into Barnard. The Swiss
laws in some cantons are severe, and we only learned too
late that we had fought in the very worst of them ; so I ran,
I don't know how, or in what direction. I lost my head for
a while, and wandered about the Vorarlberg and the Splugen
for a week or two. How I find myself now here is quite a
mystery to me."
There was a haggard wildness in his look that fully
accorded with all he said, and the old lady felt the most
honest pity for his sufferings.
" I don't know if I 'm perfectly safe here," said he, look-
ing fearfully around him. '' Are you sure you can conceal
me, if need be ? "
'' Quite sure ; have no fear about that. I '11 tell the girls
that your safety requires the greatest caution and secrecy,
and you '11 see how careful they will be."
" Girls will talk, though," said he, doubtingly.
" There is the double security here, — they have no one to
talk to," she said, with a faint smile.
''Very true. I was forgetting how retired your life was
here. Now for the next point. What are you to tell them,
— I mean, how much are they to know?'
The old lady looked puzzled ; she felt she might easily
have replied, "If they only know no more than I can tell
them, your secret will certainly be safe ; " but, as she looked
at his haggard cheek and feverish eye, she shrunk from
renewing a theme full of distress and suffering. " Leave it
to me to say something, — anything which shall show them
that you are in a serious trouble, and require all their secrecy
and sympathy."
*' Yes, that may do, — at least for the present. It will do
at least with Milly, who bears me no ill-will."
'' You wrong Florence if you imagine that she does. It
was only the other day, when, in a letter from Loyd, she
526 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
read that you had left the army, she said how sorry she was
you had quitted the career so suited to your abilities."
" Indeed ! I scarce hoped for so much of interest in me."
" Oh, she talks continually about you; and always as of
one who only needs the guidance of some true friend to be a
man of mark and distinction yet."
" It is very good, very kind of her," he said ; and, for an
instant, seemed lost in thought.
''I'll go back now," said Miss Grainger, "and prepare
them for your coming. They '11 wonder what has detained
me all this while. Wait one moment for me here."
Calvert, apparently, was too much engaged with his own
thoughts to hear her, and suffered her to go without a word.
She was quickly back again, and, beckoning him to follow
her, led the way to the drawing-room.
Scarcely had Calvert passed the doorway, when the two
girls met him, and, each taking a hand, conducted him with-
out a word to a sofa. Indeed, his sickly look, and the air of
downright misery in his countenance, called for all their
sympathy and kindness.
"I have scarcely strength to thank you!" he said to
them, in a faint voice. Though the words were addressed
to both, the glance he gave towards Florence sent the blood
to her pale cheeks, and made her turn away in some
confusion.
" You'll have some tea and rest yourself, and when you
feel once quiet and undisturbed here, you '11 soon regain
your strength," said Milly, as she turned towards the tea-
table, while Florence, after a few moments' hesitation, seated
herself on the sofa beside him.
' ' Has she told you what has befallen me ? " whispered he
to her.
"In part, — that is, something of it; as much as she
could in a word or two. But do not speak of it now."
" If I do not now, Florence, I can never have the courage
again."
" Then be it so," she said eagerly. " I am more anxious
to see you strong and well again than to hear how you
became wretched and unhappy."
*' But if you do not hear the story from myself, Florence,
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 627
and if you should hear the tale that others may tell of me —
if you never know how 1 have been tried and tempted — "
" There, there, — don't agitate yourself, or I must leave
you; and, see, Milly is remarking our whispering together."
*' Does she grudge me this much of your kindness? "
*'No; but — there — here she comes with your tea."
She drew a little table in front of him, and tried to per-
suade him to eat.
" Your sister has just made me a very generous promise,
Milly," said he. '' She has pledged herself — even without
hearing my exculpation — to believe me innocent; and al-
though I have told her that the charges that others will make
against me may need some refutation on my part, she says
she '11 not listen to them. Is not that very noble, — is it not
truly generous? "
*' It is what I should expect from Florence."
''And what of Florence's sister?" said he, with a half
furtive glance towards her.
" I hope, nothing less generous."
" Then I am content," said he, with a faint sigh.
"When a man is as thoroughly ruined as I am, it might
be thought he would be indifferent to opinion in every
shape, — and so I am beyond the four walls of this room.
But here," and he looked at each in turn, " are the arbiters
of my fate ; if you will but be to me dear sisters, — kind,
compassionate, forgiving sisters, — you will do more for this
crushed and wounded heart than all the sympathy of the
whole world beside."
" We only ask to be such to you," cried Florence,
eagerly; "and we feel how proud we could be of such a
brother. But, above all, do not distress yourself now by a
theme so painful to touch on. Let the unhappy events of
the last few weeks lie, if not forgotten, at least unmentioned
till you are calm and quiet enough to talk of them as old
memories."
"Yes; but how can I bear the thought of what others
may say of me — meanwhile?"
" Who are these others? We see no one, we go into no
society."
" Have you not scores of dear friends, writing by every
628 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
post to ask if this atrocious duellist be ' your ' Mr. Calvert,
and giving such a narrative, besides, of his doings that a
galley-slave would shrink from contact with such a man?
Do 1 not know well how tenderly people deal with the vices
that are not their own? How severe the miser can be on
the spendthrift, and how mercilessly the coward condemns
the hot blood that resents an injury, and how gladly they
would involve in shame the character that would not brook
dishonor?"
"Believe me, we have very few 'dear friends' at all,"
said Florence, smiling, "and not one, no, not a single one
of the stamp you speak of."
" If you were only to read our humdrum letters," chimed
in Milly, " you'd see how they never treat of anything but
little domestic details of people who live as obscurely as
ourselves. How Uncle Tom's boy has got into the Charter-
house ; or Mary's baby taken the chicken-pox."
" But Loyd writes to you, — and not in this strain? "
' ' I suspect Joseph cares little to fill his pages with what
is called news," said Milly, with a laughing glance at her
sister, who had turned away her head in some confusion.
" Nor would he be one likely to judge you harshly," said
Florence, recovering herself. " I believe you have few
friends who rate you more highly than he does."
"It is very generous of him!" said Calvert, haughtily;
and then, catching in the proud glance of Florry's eyes a
daring challenge of his words, he added, in a quieter tone,
" I mean, it is generous of him to overlook how unjust I
have been to him. It is not easy for men so different
to measure each other, and I certainly formed an unfair
estimate of him."
" Oh ! may I tell him that you said so ! " cried she, taking
his hand with warmth.
" I mean to do it for myself, dearest sister. It is a debt
I cannot permit another to acquit for me."
" Don't you think you are forgetting our guest's late
fatigues, and what need he has of rest and quietness,
girls ? " said Miss Grainger, coming over to where they
sat.
"I was forgetting everything in my joy, aunt," cried
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 629
Florence. "He is going to write to Joseph like a dear,
dear brother as he is, and we shall all be so happy, and
so united."
"A brother? Mr. Calvert a brother?" said the old
lady, in consternation at such a liberty with one of that
mighty house, in which she had once lived as an humble
dependant.
"Yes," cried he. "It is a favor I have begged, and
they have not denied me."
The old lady's face flushed, and pride and shame glowed
together on her cheeks.
"So we must say good-night," said Calvert, rising;
" but we shall have a long day's talk together, to-morrow.
Who is it that defines an aunt as a creature that always
sends one to bed?" whispered he to Florence.
"What made you laugh, dear?" said her sister, after
Calvert had left the room.
" I forget — I didn't know I laughed — he is a strange,
incomprehensible fellow. Sometimes I like him greatly,
and sometimes I feel a sort of dread of him that amounts
to terror."
" If I were Joseph, I should not be quite unconcerned
about that jumbled estimation."
" He has no need to be. They are unlike in every way,"
said she, gravely ; and then, taking up her book, went on,
or affected to go on, reading.
" I wish Aunt Grainger would not make so much of him.
It is a sort of adulation that makes our position regarding
him perfectly false," said Milly. " Don't you think so,
dear? "
Florence, however, made no reply, and no more passed
that evening between them.
Few of us have not had occasion to remark the wondrous
change produced in some quiet household, where the work
of domesticity goes on in routine fashion, by the presence
of an agreeable and accomplished guest. It is not alone
that he contributes by qualities of his own to the common
stock of amusement, but that he excites those around him
to efforts which develop resources they had not, perhaps,
felt conscious of possessing. The necessity, too, of wearing
34
530 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
one's company face, which the presence of a stranger exacts,
has more advantages than many wot of. The small details
whose discussion forms the staple of daily talk — the little
household cares and worries — have to be shelved. One
can scarcely entertain their friends with stories of the cook's
impertinence, or the coachman's neglect, and one has to see,
as they do see, that the restraint of a guest does not in
reality affect the discipline of a household, though it suppress
the debates and arrest the discussion.
It has been often remarked that the custom of appearing
in Parliament — as it was once observed — in court-dress,
imposed a degree of courtesy and deference in debate, of
which men in wide-awake hats and paletots are not always
observant; and, unquestionably, in the little ceremonial
observances imposed by the stranger's presence, may be
seen the social benefits of a good-breeding not marred by
over-familiarity. It was thus Calvert made his presence
felt at the villa. It was true he had many companionable
qualities, and he had, or at least affected to have, very wide
sympathies. He was ever ready to read aloud, to row, to
walk, to work in the flower-garden, to sketch, or to copy
music, as though each was an especial pleasure to him. If
he was not as high spirited and light hearted as they once
had seen him, it did not detract from, but rather added to
the interest he excited. He was in misfortune, — a calamity
not the less to be compassionated that none could accurately
define it ; some dreadful event had occurred, some terrible
consequence impended, and each felt the necessity of light-
ening the load of his sorrow, and helping him to bear his
aflfliction. They were so glad when they could cheer him
up, and so happy when they saw him take even a passing
pleasure in the pursuits their own days were spent in.
They had now been long enough in Italy not to feel de-
pressed by its dreamy and monotonous quietude, but to feel
the inexpressible charm of that soft existence, begotten of
air, and climate, and scenery. They had arrived at that
stage — and it is a stage — in which the olive is not dusky,
nor the mountain arid : when the dry course of the torrent
suggests no wish for water. Life — mere life — has a sense
of luxury about it, unfelt in Northern lands. With an eager
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 631
joy, therefore, did they perceive that Calvert seemed to have
arrived at the same sentiment, and the same appreciation as
themselves. He seemed to ask for nothing better than to
stroll through orange-groves, or lie under some spreading
fig-tree, drowsily soothed by the song of the vine-dresser,
or the unwearied chirp of the cicala. How much of good
there must be surely in a nature pleased with such tranquil
simple pleasures ! thought they. See how he likes to watch
the children at their play, and with what courtesy he talked
to that old priest. It is clear, dissipation may have damaged
but has not destroyed that fine temperament ; his heart has
not lost its power to feel. It was thus that each thought of
him, though there was less of confidence between the sisters
than heretofore.
A very few words will suflSce to explain this : When
Florence recovered from the shock Calvert had occasioned
her on the memorable night of his visit, she had nothing
but the very vaguest recollection of what had occurred.
That some terrible tidings had been told her, some disas-
trous news in which Loyd ' and Calvert were mixed up ;
that she had blamed Calvert for rashness or indiscretion;
that he had either shown a letter he ought never to have
shown, or not produced one which might have averted a
misfortune ; and, last of all, that she herself had done or
said something which a calmer judgment could not justify,
— all these were in some vague and shadowy shape before
her, and all rendered her anxious and uneasy. On the other
hand, Milly, seeing with some satisfaction that her sister
never recurred to the events of that unhappy night, gladly
availed herself of this silence to let them sleep undisturbed.
She was greatly shocked, it is true, by the picture Calvert's
representation presented of Loyd. He had never bee^ a
great favorite of her own ; she recognized many good and
amiable traits in his nature, but she deemed him gloomy,
depressed, and a dreamer, — and a dreamer, above all, she
regarded as unfit to be the husband of Florence, whose ill
health had only tended to exaggerate a painful and imagina-
tive disposition. She saw, or fancied she saw, that Loyd's
temperament, calm and gentle though it was, seemed to
depress her sister. His views of life were very sombre, and
532 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
no effort ever enabled him to look forward in a sanguine or
hopeful spirit. If, however, to these feelings an absolute
fault of character were to be added, — the want of personal
courage, — her feelings for him could no longer be even the
qualified esteem she had hitherto experienced. She also
knew that nothing could be such a shock to Florence as to
believe that the man she loved was a coward ; nor could any
station, or charm, or ability, however great, compensate for
such a defect. As a matter, therefore, for grave after
thought, but not thoroughly ''proven," she retained this
charge in her mind, nor did she by any accident drop a hint
or a word that could revive the memory of that evening.
As for Miss Grainger, only too happy to see that Florence
seemed to retain no trace of that distressing scene, she
never went back to it, and thus every event of the night was
consigned to silence, if not oblivion. Still, there grew out
of that reserve a degree of estrangement between the sisters,
which each, unconscious of in herself, could detect in the
other. " I think Milly has grown colder to me of late,
aunt. She is not less kind or attentive, but there is a some-
thing of constraint about her I cannot fathom," would
Florence say to her aunt. While the other whispered, "I
wonder why Florry is so silent when we are alone together?
She that used to tell me all her thoughts, and speak for
hours of what she hoped and wished, now only alludes to
some commonplace topic, — the book she has just read,
or the walk we took yesterday."
The distance between them was not the less wide that each
had secretly confided to Calvert her misgivings about the
other. Indeed, it would have been, for girls so young and
inexperienced in life, strange not to have accorded him their
confidence. He possessed a large share of that quality
which very young people regard as sagacity. I am not sure
that the gift has got a special name, but we have all of us
heard of some one " with such a good head," " so safe an
adviser," " such a rare counsellor in a difficulty," " knowing
life and mankind so well," and " such an aptitude to take
the right road in a moment of embarrassment." The phoenix
is not usually a man of bright or showy qualities ; he is, on
the contrary, one that the world at large has failed to recog-
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 533
nize. If, however, by any chance he should prove to be
smart, ready-witted, and a successful talker, his sway is a
perfect despotism. Such was Calvert ; at least such was he
to the eyes of these sisters. Now Milly had confided to
him that she thought Loyd totally unworthy of Florence.
His good qualities were undeniable, but he had few attrac-
tive or graceful ones ; and then there was a despondent,
depressed tone about him that must prove deeply injurious
to one whose nature required bright and cheery companion-
ship. Calvert agreed with every word of this.
Florence, on her side, was meanwhile, imparting to him
that Loyd was not fairly appreciated by her aunt or her
sister. They deemed him very honorable, very truthful, and
very moral, but they did not think highly of his abilities,
nor reckon much on his success in life. In fact, though the
words themselves were spared her, they told her in a hundred
modes that " she was throwing herself away ; " and, strange
as it may read, she liked to be told so, and heard with a sort
of triumphant pride that she was going to make a sacrifice of
herself and all her prospects, — all for " poor Joseph." To
become the auditor of this reckoning required more adroit-
ness than the other case ; but Calvert was equal to it. He
saw where to differ, where to agree with her. It was a con-
tingency which admitted of a very dexterous flattery, rather
insinuated, however, than openly declared ; and it was thus
lie conveyed to her that he took the same^ view as the others.
He knew Loyd was an excellent fellow, far too good and too
moral for a mere scamp like himself to estimate. He was
certain he would turn out respectable, esteemed, and all that.
He would be sure to be a churchwarden, and might be a
poor-law guardian ; and his wife would be certain to shine in
the same brightness attained by him. Then stopping, he
would heave a low faint sigh, and turn the conversation to
something about her own attractions or graceful gifts: how
enthusiastically the world of " society" would one day wel-
come them, and what a "success" awaited her whenever
she was well enough to endure its fatigue. Now, though all
these were only as so many fagots to the pile of her martyr-
dom, she delighted to listen to them, and never wearied of
hearing Calvert exalt all the greatness of the sacrifice she
534 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
was about to make; and how immeasurably she was above
the lot to which she was going to consign herself.
It is the drip, drip, that eats away the rock, and itera-
tion, ever so faint, will cleave its way at last; so Florry,
without in the slightest degree disparaging Loyd, grew at
length to believe, as Calvert assured her, that " Master
Joseph " was the luckiest dog that ever lived, and had
carried off a prize immeasurably above his pretensions.
Miss Grainger, too, found a confessor in their guest ; but
it will spare the reader some time if I place before him a
letter which Calvert wrote to one of his most intimate friends
a short time after he had taken up his abode at the villa.
The letter will also serve to connect some past events with
the present now before us.
The epistle was addressed, Algernon Drayton, Esq., Army
and Navy Club, London, and ran thus : —
My dear Algy, — You are the prince of "our own correspon-
dents," and I thank you, " imo corde,'^ if that be Latin for it, for all
you have done for me. I defy the whole Bar to make out, from
your narrative, who killed who, in that affair at Basle. I know,
after the third reading of it, I fancied that I had been shot through
the heart, and then took post-horses for Zurich. It was and is a
masterpiece of the bewildering imbroglio style. Cultivate your
great gifts, then, my friend. You will be a treasure to the court
of Cresswell, and the most injured of men or the basest of seducers
will not be able at the end of a suit to say which must kneel down
and ask pardon of the other. I suppose I ought to say I 'm sorry
for Barnard, but I can't. No, Algy, I cannot. He was an arrant
snob, and, if he had lived, he 'd have gone about telling the most
absurd stories and getting people to believe them, just on the faith
of his stupidity. If there is a ridiculous charge in the world, it is
that of " firing before one's time," which, to make the most of it,
must be a matter of seconds, and involves, besides, a question as to
the higher inflammability of one's powder. I don't care who made
ir.ine, but I know it did its work well. I'm glad, however, that
yo'i did not dei^n to notice that contemptible allegation, and merely
limited yourself to what resulted. Your initials and the stars
showered over the paragraph are in the highest walk of legerdemain,
and I can no more trace relatives to antecedents than I can tell
what has become of the egg I saw Houdin smash in my hat.
I know, however, I must n't come back just yet. There is that
shake of- the-headiness abroad that makes one uncomfortable. Fortu-
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 635
nately, this is no sacrifice to me. My debts keep me out of London,
just as effectually as my morals. Besides this, my dear Algy, I 'm
living in the very deepest of clover, domesticated with a maiden aunt
and two lovely nieces, in a villa on an Italian lake, my life and
comforts being the especial care of the triad. Imagine an infant-
school occupied in the care of a young tiger of the spotted species,
and you may, as the Yankees say, realize the situation. But they
seem to enjoy the peril of what they are doing, or they don't see it,
I can't tell which.
" Gazetted out," you say ; " Meno male,'" as they say here. I might
have been promoted, and so tempted to go back to that land of
bores, bearers, and bungalows, and I am grateful to the stumble that
saves me from a fall. But you ask what do I mean to do ? and I
own I do not see my way to anything. Time was when gentleman-
riding, coach-driving, or billiards, were on a par with the learned
professions ; but, my dear Drayton, we have fallen upon a painfully
enlightened age, and every fellow can do a little of everything.
You talk of my friends ? You might as well talk of my three-
per-cents. If I had friends, it would be natural enough they should
help me to emigrate, as a means of seeing the last of me ; but I
rather suspect that my relatives, who by a figure of speech represent
the friends aforesaid, have a lively faith that some day or other the
government will be at the expense of my passage, — that it would
be quite superfluous in them to provide for it.
You hint that I might marry, meaning thereby marry with
money ; and to be sure, there 's Barnard's widow with plenty of tin,
and exactly in that stage of affliction that solicits consolation ; for
when the heart is open to sorrow, love occasionally steps in before
the door closes. Then, a more practical case. One of these girls
here, — the fortune is only fifteen thousand. I think over the mat-
ter day and night, and I verily believe I see it in the Hght of what-
ever may be the weather at the time : very darkly on the rainy
days ; not so gloomy when the sky is blue and the air balmy.
Do you remember that fellow that I stayed behind for at the
Cape, and thereby lost my passage, just to quarrel with, — Heads-
worth ? Well, a feeling of the same sort is tempting me sorely at
this time. There is one of these girls, a poor delicate thing, very
pretty and coquettish in her way, has taken it into her wise head to
prefer a stupid loutish sort of young sucking barrister to me, and
treats me with an ingenious blending of small compassion and soft
pity to console my defeat. If you could insure my being an afflic-
ted widower within a year, I 'd marry her, just to show her the sort
of edged tool she has been playing with. I 'm often half driven
to distraction by her impertinent commiseration. I tried to get
into a row with the man, but he would not have it. Don't you hate
536 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
the fellow that won't quarrel with you, worse even than the odious
wretch who won't give you credit ?
I might marry the sister, I suppose, to-morrow ; but that alone
is a reason against it. Besides, she is terribly healthy ; and though
I have lost much faith in consumption, from cases I have watched
in my own family, bad air and bad treatment will occasionally aid its
march. Could you, from such meagre data as these, help me with
a word of advice ? For I do like the advice of an unscrupulous dog
like yourself, — so sure to be practical. Then there is no cant
between men like us ; we play " cartes sur table."
The old maid who represents the head of this house has been
confidentially sounding me as to an eligible investment for some
thousands which have fallen in from a redeemed mortgage. I
could have said, " Send them to me, and you shall name the interest
yourself ; '' but I was modest, and did not. I bethought me, however,
of a good friend, one Algy Drayton, a man of large landed property,
but who always wants money for drainage. Eh, Algy ! Are your
lips watering at the prospect ? If so, let your ingenuity say what
is to be the security.
Before I forget it, ask Pearson if he has any more of that
light Amontillado. It is the only thing ever sets me right, and
I have been poorly of late. I know I must be out of sorts, because
all day yesterday I was wretched and miserable at my misspent
life and squandered abilities. Now, in my healthier moments such
thoughts never cross me. I 'd have been honest if Nature had dealt
fairly with me ; but the younger son of a younger brother starts too
heavily weighted to win by anything but a " foul." You understand
this well, for we are in the same book. We each of us pawned our
morality very early in life, and never were rich enough to redeem it.
A propos of pledges, is your wife alive ? I lost a bet about it some
time ago, but I forget on which side. I backed my opinion.
Now, to sum up. Let me hear from you about all I have been
asking ; and, though I don't opine it lies very much in your way,
send me any tidings you can pick up — to his disadvantage, of
course — of Joseph Loyd, Middle Temple. You know scores of
attorneys who could trace him. Your hint about letter-writing for
the papers is not a bad one. I suppose I could learn the trick, and
do it at least as well as some of the fellows whose lucubrations I
read. A political surmise, a spicy bit of scandal, a sensation trial,
wound up with a few moral reflections upon how much better we
do the same sort of things at home. Is n't that the bone of it ?
Send me — don't forget it — send we some news of Rocksley. I
want to hear how they take all that I have been doing of late for
their happiness. I have half of a letter written to Soph, — a sort
of mild condolence, blended with what the serious people call
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 537
profitable reflections, and suggestive hints that her old affection will
find its way back to me one of these days, and that when the
event occurs, her best course will be to declare it. I have reminded
her, too, that I laid up a little love in her heart when we parted, just
as shrewd people leave a small balance at their bankers' as a title to
reopen their account at a future day.
" Give Guy's people a hint that it 's only wasting postage-stamps
to torment me with bills. I never break the envelope of a dun's
letter, and I know them as instinctively as a detective does a swell-
mobsman. What an imaginative race these duns must be ! 1 know
of no fellow, for the high flights of fancy, to ecjual one's tailor or
bootmaker. As to the search for the elixir vitae, it 's a dull realism
after the attempts I have witnessed for years to get money out of
myself.
But I must close this; here is Milly, whose taper fingers have
been making cigarettes for me all the morning, come to propose a
sail on the lake ! — fact Algy ! — and the wolf is going out with the
lambs, just as prettily and as decorously as though his mother had
been a ewe and cast " sheep's eyes " at his father. Address me,
Orta, simply, for I don't wish it to be thought here that my stay
is more than a day-by-day matter. I have all my letters directed
to the post-office.
Yours, very cordially.
Harry Calvert.
The pleasant project thus passingly alluded to was not
destined to fulfilment; for as Calvert with the two sisters
were on their way to the lake, they were overtaken by
Miss Grainger, who insisted on carrying away Calvert, to
give her his advice upon a letter she had just received.
Obeying with the best grace he could, and which really
did not err on the score of extravagance, he accompanied
the old lady back to the house, somewhat relieved, indeed,
in mind, to learn that the letter she was about to show him
in no way related to him nor his affairs.
"I have my scruples, Mr. Calvert, about asking your
opinion in a case where I well know your sympathies are
not in unison with our own ; but your wise judgment and
great knowledge of life are advantages I oannot bring my-
self to relinquish. I am well aware that whatever your
feelings or your prejudices, they will not interfere with
that good judgment."
638 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
''Madam, you do me honor, but I hope no more than
justice."
' ' You know of Florry's engagement to Mr. Loyd ? " she
asked, abruptly, as though eager to begin her recital; and
he bowed. ''Well, he left this so hurriedly about his
father's affairs that he had no time to settle anything, or,
indeed, explain anything. We knew nothing of his pros-
pects or his means, and he just as little about my niece's
fortune. He had written, it is true, to his father, and got
a most kind and affectionate answer, sanctioning the match,
and expressing fervent wishes for his happiness — Why
do you smile, Mr. Calvert?"
" I was only thinking of the beauty o^ that benevolence
that costs nothing; few things are more graceful than a
benediction, — nothing so cheap."
"That may be so. I have nothing to say to it," she
rejoined, in some irritation. " But old Mr. Loyd's letter
was very beautiful, and very touching. He reminded
Joseph that he himself had married on the very scantiest
of means, and that though his life had never been above
the condition of a very poor vicar, the narrowness of his
fortune had not barred his happiness. I 'd like to read you
a passage — "
" Pray do not. You have given me the key-note, and I
feel as if I could score down the whole symphony."
"You don't believe him thenP'j
" Heaven f orf end ! All I woula say, is, that between a
man of his temperament and one of mine, discussion is
impossible ; and if this be the letter on which you want
my opinion, I frankly tell you I have none to give."
" No, no! this is not the letter; here is the letter I wish
you to read. It has only come by this morning's post, and
I want to have your judgment on it before I speak of it
to the girls."
Calvert drew the letter slowly from its envelope, and with
a sort of languid resignation proceeded to read it. As he
reached the end of the first page, he said, " Why, it would
need a lawyer of the Ecclesiastical Court to understand this.
What's all this entangled story about irregular induction,
and the last incumbent, and the lay impropriator ? "
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 639
"Oh, you needn't have read that! It's the poor old
gentleman's account of his calamity, — how he has lost hia
vicarage, and is going down to a curacy in Cornwall.
Here," said she, pointing to another page, "here is where
you are to begin : ' I might have borne — ' "
"Ah, yes!" said he, reading aloud: "'I might have
borne up better under this misfortune if it had not occurred
at such a critical moment of my poor boy's fate, for I am
still uncertain what effect these tidings will have produced
on you. I shall no longer have a home to offer the young
people, when, from reasons of health, or economy, or relaxa-
tion, they would like to have left the town and come down
to rusticate with r us. ^ Neither will it be in my power to
contribute — even in the humble shape I had once hoped —
to their means of living. I am, in short, reduced to the
very narrowest fortune, nor have I the most distant pros-
pect of any better. So much for myself. As for Joseph,
he has been offered, through the friendly intervention of
an old college companion, an appointment at the Calcutta
Bar. It is not a lucrative nor an important post, but one
which they say will certainly lead to advancement and future
fortune. Had it not been for his hopes, — hopes which had
latterly constituted the very spring of his existence, — such
an opening as this would have been welcomed with all his
heart ; but now the offer comes clouded with all the doubts
as to how you may be disposed to regard it. Will you
consent to separate from the dear girl you have watched
over with such loving solicitude for years? Will she her-
self consent to expatriation and the parting from her sister
and yourself? These are the questions which torture his
mind, and leave him no rest day or night ! The poor fellow
has tried to plead his cause in a letter, he has essayed a
dozen times; but all in vain. " My own selfishness shocks
me," he says, " when I read over what I have written, and
see how completely I have forgotten everything but my own
interests." If he remain at home, by industry and atten-
tion he may hope, in some six or seven years, to be in a
position to marry ; but six or seven years are a long period
of life, and sure to have their share of vicissitudes and cas-
ualties. Whereas, by accepting this appointment, which
will be nearly seven hundred a year, he could afford at once
640 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
to support a wife, of course supposing her to submit will-
ingly to the privations and wants of such straitened for-
tunes. I have offered to tell his story for him, — that story
he has no strength to tell himself, — but I have not pledged
to be his advocate ; for, while I would lay down my life to
secure his happiness, I cannot bring myself to urge, for
his sake, what might be unfair or ungenerous to exact from
another.
" ' Though my son's account of your niece leaves us
nothing more to ask or wish for in a daughter, I am writ-
ing in ignorance of many things I would like to know.
Has she, for instance, the energy of character that would
face a new life in a new and far-away land? Has she cour-
age — has she health for it? My wife is not pleased at my
stating all these reasons for doubt; but I am determined
you shall know the worst of our case from ourselves, and
discover no blot we have not prepared you for.' " Calvert
muttered something here, but too inaudibly to be heard,
and went on reading: "'When I think that poor Joe's
whole happiness will depend on what decision your next
letter will bring, I 'have only to pray that it may be such as
will conduce to the welfare of those we both love so dearly.
I cannot ask you to make what are called "sacrifices " for
us; but I entreat you let the consideration of affection
weigh with you, not less than that of worldly interests, and
also to believe that when one has to take a decision which
is to influence a lifetime, it is as safe to take counsel from
the heart as from the head, — from the nature that is to
feel, as from the intellect that is to plan.'
"I think I have read enough of this," said Calvert,
impatiently. "I know the old gent's brief perfectly. It 's
the old story: first gain a girl's affections, and let her
friends squabble, if they dare, about the settlements. He 's
an artful old boy, that vicar! but I like him, on the whole,
better than his son; for though he does plead in forma
pauperis^ he has the fairness to say so."
"You are very severe, Mr. Calvert. I hope you are too
severe," said the old lady, in some agitation.
"And what answer, are you going to give him?" asked
he, curtly.
"That is exactly the point on which I want your advice;
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 541
for though I know well you are no friend to young Loyd, I
believe you to be our sincere well-wisher, and that your
judgment will be guided by the honest feelings of regard
for us."
Without deigning to notice this speech, he arose and
walked up and down the room, apparently deep in thought.
He stopped at last, and said abruptly, ''I don't presume to
dictate to you in this business; but if I were the young
lady's guardian, and got such a letter as this, my reply
would be a very brief one."
''You 'd refuse your consent? "
" Of course I would ! Must your niece turn adventuress,
and go off to Heaven knows where, with God knows whom?
Must she link her fortunes to a man who confessedly can-
not face the world at home, but must go to the end of the
earth for a bare subsistence? What is there in this* man
himself, in his character, station, abilities, and promise,
that are to recompense such devotion as this? And what
will your own conscience say to the first letter from India,
full of depression and sorrow, regrets shadowed forth, if
not avowed openly, for the happy days when you were all
together, and contrasts of that time, with the dreary dul-
ness of an uncheered existence? / know something of
India, and I can tell you it is a country where life is only
endurable by splendor. Poverty in such a land is not
merely privation, it is to live in derision and contempt.
Every one knows how many rupees you have per month, and
you are measured by your means in everything. That
seven hundred a year, which sounds plausibly enough, is
something like two hundred at home, if so much. Of
course you can override all these considerations, and, as
the vicar says, 'Let the heart take precedence of the head.'
My cold and worldly counsels will not stand comparison
with his fine and generous sentiments, no more than I could
make as good a figure in the pulpit as he could. But, per-
haps, as a mere man of the world, I am his equal ; though
there are little significant hints in that very letter that show
the old parson is very wide awake."
"I never detected them," said she, curtly.
"Perhaps not; but rely upon one thing. It was not such
642 A EENT IN A CLOUD.
a letter as he would have addressed to a man. If /, for
instance, had been the guardian instead of you, the whole
tone of the epistle would have been very different."
"Do you think so?"
"Think so! I know it. I had not read ten lines till I
said to myself, 'This was meant for very different eyes
from mine.' "
"If I thought that — "
"Go on," said he; "finish, and let me hear what you
would say or do, when arrived at the conclusion I have
come to."
So far, however, from having come to any decision, she
really did not see in the remotest distance anything to guide
her to one.
"What would you advise me to do, Mr. Calvert? " said
she, at last, and after a pause of some time.
"Refer him to me; say the point is too difficult for you;
that while your feelings for your niece might overbear all
other considerations, those very feelings might be the
sources of error to you. You might, for instance, concede
too much to the claim of affection; or, on the other hand,
be too regardful of the mere worldly consideration. Not
that, on second thoughts, I 'd enter upon this to him. I 'd
simply say a friend in whom I repose the fullest confidence
has consented to represent me in this difficult matter. Not
swayed as I am by the claims of affection, he will be able
to give a calmer and more dispassionate judgment than I
could. Write to Mr. Calvert, therefore, who is now here,
and say what the mere business aspect of the matter sug-
gests to you to urge. Write to him frankly, as to one who
already is known to your son, and has lived on terms of in-
timacy with him. His reply will be mine."
"Is not that a very cold and repelling answer to the good
vicar's letter? "
"I think not, and I suspect it will have one good effect.
The parson's style will become natural at once, and you '11
see what a very different fashion he '11 write when the letter
is addressed to me."
"What will Florence say? "
"Nothing, if she knows nothing. And, of course, if you
THE LIFE AT THE VILLA. 643
intend to take her into your counsels, you must please to
omit me, I 'm not going to legislate for a young lady's
future with herself to vote in the division!"
"But what's to become of me if you go away in the
middle of the negotiation, and leave me to finish it?"
"I '11 not do so. I '11 pledge my word to see you through
it. It will be far shorter than you suspect. The vicar will
not play out his hand when he sees his adversary. You
have nothing to do but write as I have told you ; leave the
rest to me."
"Florence is sure to ask me what the vicar has written;
she knows that I have had his letter."
"Tell her it is a purely business letter; that, his son
having been offered a colonial appointment, he wishes to
ascertain what your fortune is, and how circumstanced,
before pledging himself further. Shock her a little about
their worldliness, and leave the remainder to time."
"But Joseph will write to her in the mean while, and
disabuse her of this."
"Not completely. She '11 be annoyed that the news of
the colonial place did not come first from himself; she '11 be
piqued into something not very far from distrust. She '11
show some vexation when she writes; but don't play the
game before the cards are dealt. Wait, as I say, — wait
and see. Meanwhile, give me the vicar's note; for I dread
your showing it to Florry, and if she asks for it, say you
sent it to Henderson — is n't that your lawyer's name? — in
London, and told him to supply you with the means of
replying to it."
Like a fly in a cobweb. Miss Grainger saw herself entan-
gled wherever she turned; and though perhaps in her
secret heart she regretted having ever called Calvert to her
counsels, the thing was now done, and could not be
undone.
CHAPTER XIL
DARKER AND DARKER.
There was an unusual depression at the villa ; each had his
or her own load of anxiety, and each felt that an atmos-
phere of gloom was thickening around, and, without being
able to say why or wherefore, that dark days were coming.
''Among your letters this morning was there none from
the vicar, Mr. Calvert?" asked Miss Grainger, as he sat
smoking his morning cigar under the porch of the cottage.
''No," said he, carelessly. "The post brought me noth-
ing of any interest. A few reproaches from my friends
about not writing, and relieving their anxieties about this
unhappy business. They had it that I was killed. Beyond
that, nothing."
"But we ought to have heard from old Mr. Loyd before
this. Strange, too, Joseph has not written."
" Stranger if he had ! The very mention of my name as
a referee in his affairs will make him very cautious with
his pen."
" She is so fretted," sighed the old lady.
"I see she is, and I see she suspects, also, that you have
taken me in your counsels. We are not as good friends
as we were some time back."
"She really likes you, though, — I assure you she does,
Mr. Calvert. It was but t'other day she said, 'What would
have become of us all this time back if Mad Harry, — you
know your nickname, — if Mad Harry had not been here ? "
"That 's not liking! Xhat is merely the expression of a
weak gratitude towards the person who helps to tide over a
dreary interval. You might feel it for the old priest who
played piquet with you, or the Spitz terrier that accom-
panied you in your walks."
DARKER AND DARKER. 645
"Oh, it 's far more than that. She is constantly talking
of your great abilities, — how you might be this, that, and
t'other. That, with scarcely an effort, you can master any
subject, and without any effort at all always make yourself
more agreeable than any one else."
"Joseph excepted? "
"No, she did n't even except him; on the contrary, she
said, 'It was unfortunate for him to be exposed to such
a dazzling rivalry; that your animal spirits alone would
always beat him out of the field. ' "
"Stuff and nonsense! If I was n't as much his superior
in talent as in temperament, I 'd fling myself over that rock
yonder, and make an end of it! " After a few seconds'
pause he went on: "She may think what she likes of me,
but one thing is plain enough, — she does not love him. It
is the sort of compassionating, commiserating estimate
imaginative girls occasonally get up for dreary, depressed
fellows, constituting themselves discoverers of intellect
that no one ever suspected, — revealers of wealth that none
had ever dreamed of. Don't I know scores of such who
have poetized the most commonplace of men into heroes,
and never found out their mistake till they married them ! "
"You always terrify me when you take to predicting,
Mr. Calvert."
"Heaven knows, it 's not my ordinary mood. One who
looks so little into the future for himself has few tempta-
tions to do so for his friends."
"Why do you feel so depressed? "
"I'm not sure that I do feel depressed. I'm irritable,
out of sorts, annoyed, if you will, but not low or melan-
choly. Is it not enough to make one angry to see such a
girl as Florry bestow her affections on that — Well, I 'II
not abuse him, but you know he is a 'cad,* — that's exactly
the word that fits him."
"It was no choice of mine," she sighed.
"That may be; but you ought to have been more than
passive in the matter. Your fears would have prevented
you letting your niece stop for a night in an unhealthy
locality. You 'd not have suffered her to halt in the Pon-
tine Marshes; but you can see no danger in linking her
35
546 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
whole future life to Influences five thousand times more
depressing. I tell you, and I tell you deliberately, that
she 'd have a far better chance of happiness with a scamp
like myself."
"Ah, I need not tell you my own sentiments on that
point," said she, with a deep sigh.
Calvert apparently set little store by such sympathy, for
he rose, and, throwing away the end of his cigar, stood
looking out over the lake. "Here comes Onofrio, flourish-
ing some letters in his hand. The idiot fancies the post
never brings any but pleasant tidings."
"Let us go down and meet him," said Miss Grainger;
and he walked along at her side in silence.
"Three for the Signor Capitano," said the boatman, "and
one for the signorina," handing the letters as he landed.
"Drayton," muttered Calvert; "the others are strange to
me."
"This is from Joseph. How glad poor Florry will be to
get it."
"Don't defer her happiness, then," said he, half sternly;
"I '11 sit down on the rocks here and con over my less
pleasant correspondence." One was from his lawj^er, to
state that outlawry could no longer be resisted, and that if
his friends would not come forward at once with some sat-
isfactory promise of arrangement, the law must take its
course. "My friends," said he, with a bitter laugh,
"which be they? " The next he opened was from the army
agents, dryly setting forth that as he had left the service
it was necessary he should take some immediate steps to
liquidate some regimental claims against him, of which
they begged to enclose the particulars. He laughed bit-
terly and scornfully as he tore the letter to fragments and
threw the pieces into the water. " How well they know the
man they threaten!" cried he, defiantly. "I'd like to
know how much a drowning man cares for his duns? " He
laughed again. "Now for Drayton. I hope this will be
pleasanter than its predecessors." It was not very long,
and it was as follows: —
The Rag, Tuesday.
Dear Harry, — Your grateful compliments on the dexterity of my
correspondence in the "Meteor" arrived at an unlucky moment, for
DARKER AND DARKER. 547
some fellow had just written to the editor a real statement of the
whole affair, and the next day came a protest, part French, part
English, signed by Edward Rochefort, Lieutenant-Colonel ; Gustavus
Brooke, D.L.; George Law, M.D. ; Alberic de Raymond, Vicomte,
and Jules de Lassagnac. They sent for me to the office to see the
document, and I threw all imaginable discredit on its authenticity, but
without success. The upshot is, 1 have lost my place as " own cor-
respondent," and you are in a very bad way. The whole will appear
in print to-morrow, and be read from Hudson's Bay to the Himalaya.
I have done my best to get the other papers to disparage the
statement, and have written all the usual bosh about condemning a
man in his absence, and entreating the public to withhold its judg-
ment, etc. etc.; but they all seem to feel that the tide of popular
sentiment is too strong to resist, and you must be pilloried : prepare
yourself, then, for a pitiless pelting, which, as Parliament is not
sitting, will probably have a run of three or four weeks.
In any other sort of scrape, the fellows at the club here would
have stood by you ; but they shrink from the danger of this business,
which I now see was worse than you told me. Many, too, are
more angry with you for deserting B. than for shooting the other
fellow ; and though B. was an arrant snob, now that he is no more
you would n't believe what shoals of good qualities they have dis-
covered he possessed, and he is " poor Bob " in the mouth of twenty
fellows who would not have been seen in his company a month
ago. There is, however, worse than all this ; a certain Reppingham,
or Reppengham, the father of B.'s wife, has either already instituted
or is about to institute, proceedings against you criminally. He uses
ugly words, calls it a murder, and has demanded a warrant for
your extradition and arrest at once. There is a story of some
note you are said to have written to B., but which arrived when he
was insensible, and was read by the people about him, who were
shocked by its heartless levity. What is the truth as to this?
At all events. Rep has got a vendetta fit on him, and raves like a
(Jorsican for vengeance. Your present place of concealment, safe
enough for duns, will offer no security against detectives. The
bland blackguards with black whiskers know the geography of
Europe as well as they know the blind alleys about Houndsditch.
You must decamp, therefore; get across the Adriatic into Dalmatia,
or into Greece. Don't delay, whatever you do, for I see plainly
that in the present state of public opinion, the fellow who captures
you will come back here with a fame like that of Gerard the lion-
killer. Be sure of one thing, if you were just as clean-handed in
this business as I know you are not, there is no time now for a
vindication. You must get out of the way, and wait. The clubs,
the press, the swells at the Horse Guards, and the snobs at the
548 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
War-Office, are all against you, and there 's no squaring your book
against such long odds. I am well aware that no one gets either
into or out of a scrape more easily than yourself; but don't treat
this as a light one ; don't fancy, above all, that I am giving you
the darkest side of it, for, with all our frankness and free speech
too-ether, I could n't tell you the language people hold here about it.
There 's not a man you ever bullied at mess, or beat at billiards, ^
that is not paying off his scores to you now ! And though you may
take all this easily, don't undervalue its importance.
1 have n't got — and I don't suppose you care much now to
get — any information about Loyd, beyond his being appointed
something, Attorney-General's " devil," I believe, at Calcutta. I 'd
not have heard even so much, but he was trying to get a loan, to
make out his outfit, from Joel, and old Isaac told me who he was,
and what he wanted. Joel thinks, from the state of the fellow's
health, that no one will like to advance the cash, and if so, he '11 be
obliged to relinquish the place. You have not told me whether you
wish this, or the opposite.
I wish I could book up to you at such a moment as this, but I
have n't got it. I send you all that I can scrape together, — seventy
odd ; it is a post-bill, and easily cashed anywhere. In case I hear
of anything that may be imminently needed for your guidance,
1 '11 telegraph to you the morrow after your receipt of this, address-
ing the message to the name Grainger, to prevent accidents. You
must try and keep your friends from seeing the London papers so
long as you stay with them. I suppose, when you leave, you '11
not fret about the reputation that follows you. For the last time,
let me warn you to get away to some place of safety, for if they can
push matters to an arrest, things may take an ugly turn.
They are getting really frightened here about India at last.
Harris has brought some awful news home with him, and they 'd
give their right hands to have those regiments they sent off
to China to despatch now to Calcutta. I know this will be all
"• nuts " to you, and it is the only bit of pleasant tidings I have for
you. Your old prediction about England being a third-rate power,
like Holland, may not be so far from fulfilment as I used to think it.
I wonder shall we ever have a fire-side gossip over all these things
again? At present, all looks too dark to get a peep into the future.
Write to me at once, say what you mean to do, and believe me as
ever, yours,
A. Drayton.
I have just heard that the lawyers are in doubt as to the
legality of extradition, and Braddon declares dead against it. In
the case they relied on, the man had come to England after being
DARKER AND DARKER. 549
tried in France, thinking himself safe, as " autrefois acquit ; " but
they found him guilty at the Old Bailey, and him. There 's
delicacy for you, after your own heart.
Calvert smiled grimly at his friend's pleasantry. "Here
.is enough trouble for any man to deal with. Duns, out-
lawry, and a criminal prosecution ! " said he, as he replaced
his letter in its envelope, and lighted his cigar. He had
not been many minutes in the enjoyment of his weed, when
he saw Miss Grainger coming hastily towards him. ''I
wish that old woman would let me alone, just now ! " mut-
tered he. ''I have need of all my brains for my own
misfortunes."
"It has turned out just as I predicted, Mr. Calvert," said
she, pettishly. " Young Loyd is furious at having his pre-
tensions referred to you, and will not hear of it. His letter
to Florence is all but reproachful, and she has gone home
with her eyes full of tears. This note for you came as an
enclosure."
Calvert took the note from her hands, and, laying it beside
him on the rock, smoked on without speaking.
" I knew everything that would happen ! " said Miss
Grainger. ^'The old man gave the letter you wrote to his
son, who immediately sat down and wrote to Florry. I
have not seen the letter myself, but Milly declares that it
goes so far as to say that if Florry admits of any advice or
interference on your part, it is tantamount to a desire to
break off the engagement. He declares, however, that he
neither can nor will believe such a thing to be possible.
That he knows she is ignorant of the whole intrigue.
Milly assures me that was the word, — intrigue ; and she
read it twice over, to be certain. He also says something,
which I do not quite understand, about my being led beyond
the bounds of judgment by what he calls a traditional
reverence for the name you bear; but one thing is plain
enough, he utterly rejects the reference to you, or, indeed,
to any one now but Florence herself, and says, 'This is
certainly a case for your own decision, and I will accept
of none other than yours.'"
"Is there anything more about me than you have said? "
asked Calvert, calmly.
550 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
" No, I believe not. He begs, in the postscript, that the
enclosed note may be given to you, that 's all."
Calvert took a long breath; he felt as if a weight had
been removed from his heart, and he smoked on in silence.
"Won't you read it?" cried she, eagerly. "lam burn-
ing to hear what he says."
"I can tell you just as well without breaking the seal,"
said he, with a half scornful smile. " I know the very tone
and style of it, and I recognize the pluck with which such a
man, when a thousand miles off, dares to address one like
myself."
"Read it, though; let me hear his own words!" cried
she.
"I 'm not impatient for it," said he; "I have had a suffi-
cient dose of bitters this morning, and I .'d just as soon
spare myself the acrid petulance of this poor creature."
"You are very provoking, I must say," said she, angrily,
and turned away towards the house. Calvert watched her
till she disappeared behind a copse, and then hastily broke
open the letter.
Middle Temple, Saturday.
Sir, — My father has forwarded to me a letter which, with
very questionable good taste, you addressed to him. The very
relations which subsisted between us when we parted might have
suggested a more dehcate course on your part. Whatever objec-
tions I might then, however, have made to your interference in matters
personal to myself, have now become something more than mere
objections, and I flatly declare that I will not listen to one word
from a man whose name is now a shame and a disgrace throughout
Europe. That you may quit the roof which has sheltered you hitherto
without the misery of exposure, I have forborne in my letter to
narrate the story which is on every tongue here ; but, as the price of
this forbearance, I desire and I exact that you leave the villa on
the day you receive this, and cease from that day forth to hold
any intercourse with the family who reside in it. If I do not,
therefore, receive a despatch by telegraph, informing me that you
accede to these conditions, I will forward by the next post the full
details which the press of England is now giving of your imfamous
conduct and of the legal steps which are to be instituted against
you
Remember distinctly, sir, that I am only in this pledging myself
for that short interval of time which will suffer you to leave the
DARKER AND DARKER. 651
house of those who offered you a refuge against calamity, — not
crime, — and whose shame would be overwhelming if they but
knew the character of him they sheltered. You are to leave before
nightfall of the day this reaches, and never to return. You are
to abstain from all correspondence. I make no conditions as to
future acquaintanceship, because 1 know that were 1 even so minded,
no efforts of mine could save you from that notoriety which a few
days more will attach to you, never to leave you.
I am, your obedient servant,
Joseph Loyd.
Calvert tried to laugh as he finished the reading of this
note; but the attempt was a failure, and a sickly pallor
spread over his face, and his lips trembled. "Let me only-
meet you, I don't care in vrhat presence or in what place,"
muttered he, " and you shall pay dearly for this. But now
to think of myself. This is just the sort of fellow to put
his threat into execution, — the more since he will naturally
be anxious to get me away from this. What is to be done?
With one week more I could almost answer for my success.
Ay, Mademoiselle Florry, you were deeper in the toils than
you suspected. The dread of me that once inspired a pain-
ful feeling had grown into a sort of self-pride that elevated
her in her own esteem. She was so proud of her familiarity
with a wild animal, and so vain of her influence over him!
So pleasant to say, 'See, savage as he is, he '11 not turn
upon me ! * And now to rise from the table, when the game
is all but won ! Confound the fellow, how he has wrecked
my fortunes! As if I had not enough, too, on my hands
without this ! " And he walked impatiently to and fro, like
a caged animal in fretfulness. "I wanted to think over
Drayton's letter calmly and deliberately, and here comes
this order, this command, to be up and away, — away from
the only spot in which I can say I enjoyed an hour's peace
for years and years, and from the two or three left to me,
of all the world, who think it no shame to bestow on me a
word or a look of kindness. The fellow is peremptory; he
declares I must leave to-day." For some time he continued
to walk, muttering to himself or moodily silent. At last
he cried out, "Yes; I have it! I'll go up to Milan, and
cash this bill of Drayton's. When there I '11 telegraph to
652 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
Loyd, which will show I have left the villa. That done,
I '11 return here, if it be but for a day ; and who knows
what a day will bring forth?
"Who has commands for Milan?" said he, gayly enter-
ing the drawing-room, where Miss Grainger sat, holding a
half-whispering conversation with Milly.
"Milan! are you going to Milan? "
"Yes; only for a day. A friend has charged me with
a commission that does not admit of delay, and I mean
to run up this afternoon and be down by dinner-time
to-morrow."
"I '11 go and see if Florry wants anything from the city,"
said Miss Grainger, as she arose and left the room.
"Poor Florry! she is so distressed by that letter she
received this morning. Joseph has taken it in such ill part
that you should have been consulted by Aunt Grainger, and
reproaches her for having permitted what she really never
heard of. Not that, as she herself says, she admits of any
right on his part to limit her source of advice. She
thinks that it is somewhat despotic in him to say, 'You
shall not take counsel except with leave from me.' She
knows that this is the old vicar's doing, and that Joseph
never would have assumed that tone without being put up
to it."
"That is clear enough; but I am surprised that your
sister saw it."
"Oh, she is not so deplorably in love as to be blinded."
CHAPTER XIII.
AGAIN TO MILAN.
"Poor Bob! You were standing on that balcony with a
very jaunty air, smoking your cuba the last time I passed
here," said Calvert, as he looked up at the windows of the
Hotel Royal at Milan, while he drove on to another and
less distinguished hotel. He would have liked greatly to
put up at the Royal, and had a chat with its gorgeous
landlord over the Reppinghams, how long they stayed and
whither they went, and how the young widow bore up under
the blow, and what shape old Rep's grief assumed.
No squeamishness as to the terms that might have been
used towards himself would have prevented his gratifying
this wish. The obstacle was purely financial. He had told
the host, on leaving, to pay a thousand francs for him that
he had lost at play, and it was by no means convenient now
to reimburse him. The bank had just closed as he arrived,
so there was nothing for it but to await its opening the next
morning. His steps were then turned to the telegraph-
office. The message to Loyd was in these words: "Your
letter received. I am here, and leave to-morrow."
"Of course the fellow will understand that I have obeyed
his high behest, and I shall be back at Orta in time to catch
the post on its arrival, and see whether he has kept faith
with me or not. If there be no newspapers there for the
villa, I may conclude it is all right." This brief matter of
business over, he felt like one who had no further occasion
for care. When he laid down his burden he could straighten
his back ; no sense of the late pressure remaining to remind
him of the load that had pressed so heavily. He knew this
quality in himself, and prized it highly. It formed part
of what he used boastfully to call his "philosophy," and he
554 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
contrasted it proudly with the condition of those fellows
who, instead of rebounding under pressure, collapsed, and
sunk never to rise more. The vanity with which he regarded
himself supplied him with a vindictive dislike to the world,
who could suffer a fellow endowed and gifted as he was to
be always in straits and difficulties. He mistook — a very
common mistake, by the way — a capacity to enjoy, for a
nature deservant of enjoyment, and he thought it the great-
est injustice to see scores of well-off people who possessed
neither his own good constitution nor his capacity to endure
dissipation uninjured. "Wretches not fit to live," as he
said, and assuredly most unfit to live the life which he
alone prized or cared for. He dined somewhat sumptuously
at one of the great restaurants. "He owed it to himself,'*
he said, after all that dreary cookery of the villa, to refresh
his memory of the pleasures of the table, and he ordered a
flask of Marcobrunner that cost a Napoleon.
He was the caressed of the waiters, and escorted to the
door by the host. There is no supremacy so soon recog-
nized as that of wealth, and Calvert for a few hours gave
himself up to the illusion that he was rich. As the opera
was closed, he went to one of the smaller theatres, and sat
out for a while one of those dreariest of all dreary things,
a comedy by the "immortal Goldoni! " Immortal, indeed,
so long as sleep remains an endowment of humanity! He
tried to interest himself in a plot wherein the indecency was
only veiled by the dulness, and where the language of the
drawing-room never rose above the tone of the servants'
hall, and left the place in disgust, to seek anywhere, or
anyhow, something more amusing than this.
Without well knowing how, he found himself at the door
of the Gettone, the hell he had visited when he was last at
Milan.
"They shall sup me, at all events," said he, as he
deposited his hat and cane in the ante-chamber. The
rooms were crowded, and it was some time before Calvert
could approach the play-table, and gain a view of the com-
pany. He recognized many of the former visitors. There
sat the pretty woman with the blond ringlets, her diamond-
studded fingers carelessly playing with the gold pieces
AGAIN TO MILAN. 655
before her; there was the pale student-like boy — he seemed
a mere boy — with his dress-cravat disordered, and his hair
dishevelled, just as he had seen him last; and there was the
old man whose rouleau had cost Calvert all his winnings.
He looked fatigued and exhausted, and seemed as if drop-
ping asleep over his game, and yet the noise was deafening,
— the clamor of the players, the cries of the croupier, the
clink of glasses, and the clink of gold!
''Now to test the adage that says when a man is pelted
by all other ill luck, that he '11 win at play," said Calvert, as
he threw, without counting them, several Napoleons on the
table. His venture was successful, and so was another and
another after it.
"This is yours, sir," said she of the blond .ringlets,
handing him a hundred- franc piece that had rolled amongst
her own.
" Was it not to suggest a partnership that it went there? "
said he, smiling courteously.
"Who knows? " said she, half carelessly, half invitingly.
" Let us see what our united fortunes will do. This old
man is dozing, and does not care for the game. Would
you favor me with your place, sir, and take your rest with
so much more comfort on one of those luxurious sofas
yonder ? "
" No ! " said the old man, sternly. " I have as much right
to be here as you."
" The legal right I am not going to dispute. It is simply
a matter of expediency."
"Do you mean to stake all that gold, sir?" interrupted
the croupier, addressing Calvert, who during this brief
discussion had suffered his money to remain till it had been .
doilbled twice over.
"Ay, let it stay there," said he, carelessly.
" What have you done that makes you so lucky ? " whis-
pered the blond ringlets. "See, you have broken the/
bank!"
*' What have I done, do you mean in the way of wicked-
ness ? " said he, laughing, as the croupiers gathered in a
knot to count over the sum to be paid to him. "Nearly
everything. I give you leave to question me, — so far as
656 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
your knowledge of the Decalogue goes, — what have I not
done ? " And so they sauntered down the room side by
side and sat down on a sofa, chatting and laughing pleas-
antly together, till the croupier came loaded with gold and
notes to pay all Calvert's winnings.
" What was it the old fellow muttered as he passed ? "
said Calvert; "he spoke in German, and I didn't under-
stand him."
''It was something about a line in your forehead that
will bring you bad luck yet."
"I have heard that before," cried he, springing hastily
up. " I wish I could get him to tell me more ; " and he
hastened down the stairs after the old man; but when he
gained the street he missed him. He hurried in vain on
this side and that; no trace of him remained. "If I were
given to the credulous, I 'd say that was the fiend in per-
son," muttered Calvert, as he slowly turned towards his
inn.
He tried in many ways to forget the speech that troubled
him. He counted over his winnings; they were nigh four-
teen thousand francs. He speculated on all he might do
with them ; he plotted and planned a dozen roads to take.
But do what he might, the old man's sinister look and dark
words were before him, and he could only lie awake think-
ing over them till day broke.
Determined to return to Orta in time to meet the post, he
drove to the bank, just as it was open for business, and
presented his bill for payment.
"You have to sign your name here," said a voice he
thought he remembered, and, looking up, saw the old man
of the play-table.
"Did we not meet last night?" whispered Calvert, in a
low voice.
The other shook his head in dissent.
" Yes, I cannot be mistaken ; you muttered a prediction
in German as you passed me, and I know what it meant."
Another shake of the head was all his reply.
''Come, come, be frank with me; your secret, if it be
one, to visit that place is safe with me. What leads you
to believe I am destined to evil fortune?"
AGAIN TO MILAN. 65T
"I know nothing of you! I want to know nothing," said
the old man, rudely, and turned to his books.
"Well, if your skill in prophecy be not greater than in
politeness, I need not fret about you," said Calvert, laugh-
ing; and he went his way.
With that superstitious terror that tyrannizes over the
minds of incredulous men weighing heavily on his heart, he
drove back to Orta.
All his winnings of the night before could not erase from
his memory the dark words of the old man's prediction.
He tried to forget, and then he tried to ridicule it. " So
easy," thought he, *'for that old withered mummy to cast
a shadow on the path of a fellow full of life, vigor, and
energy, like myself. He has but to stand one second in
my sunshine! It is, besides, the compensation that age
and decrepitude exact for being no longer available for the
triumphs and pleasures of life. Such were the sort of rea-
sonings by which he sought to console himself, and then he
set to plan out a future, — all the things that he could, or
might, or could not do.
Just as he drove into Orta the post arrived at the office,
and he got out and entered, as was his wont, to obtain his
letters before the public distribution had commenced.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN.
The only letter Calvert found at the post-office for the
villa was one in the vicar's hand, addressed to Miss
Grainger. Nothing from Loyd himself, nor any news-
paper. So far, then, Loyd had kept his pledge. He
awaited to see if Calvert would obey his injunctions before
he proceeded to unmask him to his friends.
Calvert did not regard this reserve as anything generous ;
he set it down simply to fear. He said to himself, " The
fellow dreads me; he knows that it is never safe to push
men of my stamp to the wall; and he is wise enough to
apply the old adage, about leaving a bridge to the retreat-
ing enemy. I shall have more difficulty in silencing the
women, however. It will be a hard task to muzzle their
curiosity; but I must try some plan to effect it. Is that
telegram for me?" cried he, as a messenger hastened hither
and thither in search for some one.
"II Signor Grainger?"
"Yes, all right," said he, taking it. It was in these few
words : —
They find it can be done, — make tracks.
Drayton.
"They find it can be done," muttered he. "Which
means it is legal to apprehend me. Well, I supposed as
much. I never reckoned on immunity; and as to getting
away, I 'm readier for it, and better provided too, than you
think for, Master Algernon. Indeed, I can't well say what
infatuation binds me to this spot, apart from the peril that
THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 659
attends it. I don't know that I am very much what is
called in love with Florence, though I 'd certainly marry
her if she 'd have me ; but for that there are what the lady
novelists call 'mixed motives,' and I rather suspect it is
not with any special or exclusive regard for her happiness
that I 'd enter into the holy bonds. I should like to con-
sult some competent authority on the physiology of hatred,
— why it is that, though scores of fellows have injured me
deeply in life, I never bore any, no, nor the whole of them
collectively, the ill-will that I feel for that man. He has
taken towards me a tone that none have ever dared to take.
He menaces me ! Fifty have wronged, none have ever threat-
ened me. He who threatens, assumes to be your master,
to dictate the terms of his forbearance, and to declare under
what conditions he will spare you. Now, Master Loyd,
I can't say if this be a part to suit your powers, but I
know well, the other is one which in no way is adapted to
mine. Nature has endowed me with a variety of excellent
qualities; but, somehow, in the hurry of her benevolence,
she forgot patience! I suppose one can't have every-
thing!"
While he thus mused and speculated, the boat swept
smoothly over the lake, and Onofrio, not remarking the
little attention Calvert vouchsafed to him, went on talking
of " I Grangeri " as the most interesting subject he could
think of. At last Calvert's notice was drawn to his words
by hearing how the old lady had agreed to take the villa for
a year, with the power of continuing to reside there longer
if she were so minded.
The compact had been made only the day before, after
Calvert had started for Milan, evidently — to his thinking
— showing that it had been done with reference to some-
thing in Loyd's last letter. "Strange that she did not con-
sult me upon it," thought he; ''I who have been her chief
counsellor on everything. Perhaps the lease of my confi-
dence has expired. But how does it matter? A few hours
more, and all these people shall be no more to me than the
lazy cloud that is hanging about the mountain-top. They
may live or die, or marry or mourn, and all be as nothing
to me, — as if I had never met them. And what shall / be
560 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
to them^ I wonder? "cried he, with a bitter laugh, — *'a very
dreadful dream, I suppose ; something like the memory of
a shipwreck, or a fire from which they escaped without any
consciousness of the means that rescued them! A horrid
nightmare whose terrors always come back in days of
depression and illness. At all events, I shall not be 'poor
Calvert,' 'that much-to-be-pitied creature, who really had
some good in him.' No, I shall certainly be spared all
commiseration of that kind, and they '11 no more recur
willingly to my memory than they '11 celebrate the anniver-
sary of some day that brought them shame and misfortune.
"Now, then, for my positively last appearance in my
present line of character! And yonder I see the old dame
on the look-out for me; she certainly has some object in
meeting me before her nieces shall know it. — Land me in
that nook there, Onofrio, and wait for me."
"I have been very impatient for your coming," said she,
as he stepped on shore; "1 have so much to say to you.
But first of all read this, — it is from the vicar."
The letter was not more than a few lines, and to this
purport: he was about to quit the home he had lived in
for more than thirty years, and was so overwhelmed with
sorrow and distress that he really could not address his
thoughts to any case but the sad one before him. " 'All
these calamities have fallen upon us together; for although,*
he wrote, 'Joe's departure is the first step on the road to
future fortune, it is still separation, and at our age who is
to say if we shall ever see him again ? ' "
" Skip the pathetic bit, and come to this. What have we
here about the P. and O. steamers? " cried Calvert.
*' 'Through the great kindness of the Secretary of State,
.Joe has obtained a free passage out, — a favor as I hear
very rarely granted, — and he means to pay you a flying
visit; leaving this on Tuesday, to be with you on Saturday,
and, by repairing to Leghorn on the following Wednesday,
to catch the packet at Malta. This will give him three
entire days with you, which, though they be stolen from us,
neither his mother nor myself have the heart to refuse him.
Poor fellow, he tries to believe — perhaps he does believe —
that we are all to meet again in happiness and comfort, and
THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 561
I do my best not to discourage him ; but I am now verging
on seventy — ' "
"How tiresome he is about his old age; is there any
more about his son ? " asked Calvert, impatiently.
"Yes, he says here: *Joe is, as you may imagine, full of
business; and what between his interviews with official
people, and his personal cares for his long journey, has not
a moment to spare. He will, however, write to-morrow,
detailing all that he has done and means to do. Of that
late suggestion that came from you about referring us to a
third party, neither Joseph nor myself desire to go back;
indeed, it is not at a moment like the present we would
open a question that could imperil the affections that unite
us. It is enough to know that we trust each other, and
need neither guarantees nor guidance.'"
" The old knave ! " cried Calvert. " A priest is always a
Jesuit, no matter what church he belongs to."
"Oh, Mr. Calvert."
"But he 's quite right, after all. I am far too worldly
minded in my notions to negotiate with men of such exalted
ideas as he and his son possess. Besides, I am suddenly
called away. I shall have to leave this immediately. They
are making a fuss about that unfortunate affair at Basle,
and want to catch me as a witness; and as my evidence
would damage a fellow I really pity, though I condemn, I
must keep out of the way."
"Well, you are certain to find us here whenever you feel
disposed to have your own room again. I have taken the
villa for another year."
Not paying the slightest attention to this speech, he went
on : " There is one point on which I shall be absolute. No
one speaks of me when I leave this. Not alone that you
abstain yourself from any allusion to my having been here,
and what you know of me, but that you will not suffer any
other to make me his topic. It is enough to say that a
question of my life is involved in this request. Barnard's
fate has involved me in a web of calumny and libel which
I am resolved to bear too, to cover the poor fellow's memory.
If, however, by any indiscretion of my friends — and
remember, it can only be of my friends under this roof — I
36
662 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
am driven to defend myself, there is no saying how much
more blood will have to flow in this quarrel. Do you
understand me?"
"Partly," said she, trembling all over.
"This much you cannot mistake," said he, sternly, "that
my name is not to be uttered, nor written ; mind that. If,
in his short visit, Loyd should speak of me, stop him at
once. Say, *Mr. Loyd, there are reasons why I will not
discuss that person ; and I desire that my wish be under-
stood as a command.' You will impress your nieces with
the same reserve. I suppose, if they hear that it is a matter
which involves the life of more than one, that they will not
need to be twice cautioned. Bear in mind this is no caprice
of mine; it is no caprice of that Calvert eccentricity, to
which, fairly enough sometimes, you ascribe many of my
actions. I am in a position of no common peril; I have
incurred it to save the fair fame of a fellow I have known
and liked for years. I mean, too, to go through with it;
that is, I mean up to a certain point to sacrifice myself.
Up to a certain point, I say, for if I am pushed beyond
that, then I shall declare to the world : Upon you and your
slanderous tongues be the blame, not mine the fault for
what is to happen now.'*^
He uttered these words with a rapidity and vehemence
that made her tremble from head to foot. This was not,
besides, the first time she had witnessed one of those pas-
sionate outbursts for which his race was celebrated, and it
needed no oath to confirm the menace his speech shadowed
forth.
"This is a pledge, then," said he, grasping her hand.
"And now to talk of something pleasanter. That old uncle
of mine has behaved very handsomely; has sent me some
kind messages, and, what is as much to the purpose, some
money ; " and, as he spoke, he carelessly drew from his
pocket a roll of the bank-notes he had so lately won at
play. " 'Before making any attempt to re-enter the ser-
vice,' he says, *you must keep out of the way for a while.'
And he is right there; the advice is excellent, and I mean
to follow it. In his postscript he adds: 'Thank Grainger '
— he means Miss Grainger; but you know how blunderingly
THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 663
he writes — 'for all her kindness to you, and say how glad
we should all be to see her at Rocksley whenever she comes
next to England. ' "
The old lady's face grew crimson; shame at first, and
pride afterwards, overwhelming her. To be called Grainger
was to bring her back at once to the old days of servitude
— that dreary life of nursery governess — which had left its
dark shadow on all her later years ; while to be the guest
at Rocksley was a triumph she had never imagined in her
vainest moments.
*'0h, will you tell him how proud I am of his kind
remembrance of me, and what an honor I should feel it to
pay my respects to him ? "
"They '11 make much of you, I promise you," said Cal-
vert, " when they catch you at Rocksley, and you '11 not get
away in a hurry. Now let us go our separate ways, lest
the girls suspect we have been plotting. I '11 take the boat
and row down to the steps. Don't forget all I have been
saying," were his last words as the boat moved away.
"I hope I have bound that old fool in heavy recogniz-
ances to keep her tongue quiet; and now for the more diffi-
cult task of the young ones," said he, as he stretched
himself full length in the boat, like one wearied by some
effort that taxed his strength. "I begin to believe it will
be a relief to me to get away from this place," he muttered
to himself; "though I'd give my right hand to pass the
next week here, and spoil the happiness of those fond
lovers. Could I not do it? " Here was a problem that
occupied him till he reached the landing at the villa ; but
as he stepped on shore, he cried, "No, this must be the last
time I shall ever mount these steps ! "
Calvert passed the day in his room ; he had much to think
over, and several letters to write. Though the next step he
was to take in life in all probability involved his whole
future career, his mind was diverted from it by the thought
that this was to be his last night at the villa ; the last time
he should ever see Florence. "Ay," thought he, "Loyd
will be the occupant of this room in a day or two more. I
can fancy the playful tap at this door, as Milly goes down
to breakfast ; I can picture the lazy fool leaning out of that
564 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
window, gazing at those small snow-peaks, while Florence
is waiting for him in the garden. I know well all the little
graceful attentions that will be prepared for him, vulgar
dog as he is, who will not even recognize the special cour-
tesies that have been designed for him; well, if I be not
sorely mistaken, I have dropped some poison in his cup.
I have taught Florence to feel that courage is the first of
manly attributes, and, what is more to the purpose, to have
a sort of half dread that it is not amongst her lover's gifts.
I have left her as my last legacy that rankling doubt, and I
defy her to tear it out of her heart! What a sovereign
antidote to all romance it is, to have the conviction, or, if
not the conviction, the impression, the mere suspicion, that
he who spouts the fine sentiments of the poet with such
hearfelt ardor, is a poltroon, ready to run from danger, and
hide himself at the approach of peril. I have made Milly
believe this, — she has no doubt of it; so that if sisterly
confidences broach the theme, Florence will find all her
worst fears confirmed. The thoughts of this fellow as my
rival maddens me ! " cried he, as he started up and paced
the room impatiently. "Is not that Florence I see in the
garden? Alone, too! What a chance!" In a moment he
hastened noiselessly down the stairs, opened the drawing-
room window, and was beside her.
"I hope the bad news they tell me is not true," she said,
as they walked along side by side.
"What is the bad news? "
"That you are going to leave us."
"And are you such a hypocrite, Florry, as to call this
bad news, when you and I both know how little I shall be
needed here in a day or two? We are not to have many
more moments together; these are probably the very last of
them : let us be frank and honest. I 'm not surely asking
too much in that! For many a day you have sealed up my
lips by the threat of not speaking to me on the morrow.
Your menace has been, if you repeat this language, I will
not walk with you again. Now, Florry, this threat has
lost its terror, for to-morrow I shall be gone, — gone for-
ever, and so to-day, here now, I say once more, I love you!
How useless to tell me that it is all in vain ; that you do
THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 565
not, cannot return my affection. I tell you that I can no
more despair than I can cease to love you ! In the force of
that love I bear you is my confidence. I have the same
trust in it that I would have in my courage."
"If you but knew the pain you gave me by such words
as these — "
"If you knew the pain they cost me to utter them!"
cried he. "It is bringing a proud heart very low to sue as
humbly as I do. And for what? Simply for time, — only
time. All I ask is, do not utterly reject one who only
needs your love to be worthy of it. When I think of what
I was when I met you first — you ! — and feel the change
you have wrought in my whole nature; how you have
planted truthfulness where there was once but doubt, how
you have made hope succeed a dark and listless indiffer-
ence; when I know and feel that in my struggle to be
better it is you, and you alone, are the prize before me,
and that if that be withdrawn, life has no longer a bribe to
my ambition, — when I think of these, Florry, can you
wonder if I want to carry away with me some small spark
that may keep the embers alive in my heart?"
"It is not generous to urge me thus," said she, in a faint
voice.
"The grasp of the drowning man has little time for
generosity. You may not care to rescue me, but you may
have pity for my fate."
"Oh, if you but knew how sorry I am — "
"Go on, dearest. Sorry for what?"
"I don't know what I was going to say; you have
agitated and confused me so, that I feel bewildered. I
shrink from saying what would pain you, and yet I want to
be honest and straightforward."
"If you mean that to be like the warning of the surgeon,
— I must cut deep to cure you, — I can't say I have courage
for it."
For some minutes they walked on side by side without a
word. At length he said, in a grave and serious tone, "I
have asked your aunt, and she has promised me that,
except strictly amongst yourselves, my name is not to be
mentioned when I leave this. She will, if you care for them,
566 V A RENT IN A CLOUD.
give you my reason ; and I only advert to it now amongst
other last requests. This is a promise, is it not ? "
She pressed his hand and nodded.
*'Will you now grant me one favor? Wear this ring for
my sake, — a token of mere memory, no more ! Nay, I
mean to ask Milly to wear another. Don't refuse me."
He drew her hand towards him as he spoke, and slipped a
rich turquoise ring upon her finger. Although her hand
trembled, and she averted her head, she had no courage to
say him no.
"You have not told us where you are going to, nor when
we are to hear from you! " said she, after a moment.
"I don't think I know, either! " said he, in his usual reck-
less way. "I have half a mind to join Schamyl, — I know
him, — or take turn with the Arabs against the French. I
suppose," added he, with a bitter smile, "it is my fate
always to be on the beaten side, and I 'd not know how to
comport myself as a winner."
"There 's Milly making a signal to us. Is it dinner-time
already?" said she.
"Ay, my last dinner here! " he muttered. She turned
her head away, and did not speak.
On that last evening at the villa nothing very eventful
occurred. All that need be recorded will be found in the
following letter, which Calvert wrote to his friend Drayton,
after he had wished his hosts a good-night, and gained his
room, retiring, as he did, early, to be up betimes in the
morning and catch the first train for Milan.
Dear Drayton, — I got your telegram, and though T suspect
you are astray in your " law," and don't believe these fellows can
touch me, I don't intend to open the question, or reserve the point
for the twelve judges, but mean to evacute Flanders at once ; indeed,
my chief difficulty was to decide which way to turn, for having the
whole world before me where to choose, left me in that indecision
which the poet pronounces national when he says, —
" I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
Musing in mj mind what raiment I shall wear ! "
Chance, however, has done for me what my judgment could not.
THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 567
I have been up to Milan and had a look through the newspapers,
and I see what I have often predicted has happened. The Rajahs
of Bengal have got sick of their benefactors, and are bent on
getting rid of what we love to call the blessings of the English
rule in India. Next to a society for the suppression of creditors,
I know of no movement which could more thoroughly secure my
sympathy. The brown skin is right. What has he to do with
those covenanted and uncovenanted Scotchmen who want to enrich
themselves by bullying him ? What need has he of governors-
general, political residents, collectors, and commanders-in-chief?
Could he not raise his indigo, water his rice-fields, and burn his
widow, without any help of ours ? — particularly as our help takes
the shape of taxation and vexatious interference.
1 suppose all these are very unpatriotic sentiments; but in the
same proportion that Britons never will be slaves, they certainly
have no objection to make others such, and I shudder in the very
marrow of my morality to think that but for the accident of an
accident I might at this very moment have been employed to assist
in repressing the noble aspirations of niggerhood, and helping to
stifle the cry of freedom that now resounds from the Sutlej to the
Ganges. Is not that a twang from your own lyre, Master D. ?
Could Our Own Correspondent have come it stronger?
Happily, her Majesty has no further occasion for my services,
and I can take a brief on the other side. Expect to hear, there-
fore, in some mysterious paragraph, " That the mode in which the
cavalry were led, or the guns pointed, plainly indicated that a
European soldier held command on this occasion ; and, indeed, some
assert that an English officer was seen directing the movements on
our flank." To which let me add the hope that the Fusiliers
may be there to see ; and if I do not give the major a lesson in
battalion drill, call me a Dutchman ! There is every reason why the
revolt should succeed. I put aside all the bosh about an enslaved
race and a just cause, and come to the fact of the numerical odds
opposed ; the climate, intolerable to one, and easily borne by the
other ; the distance from which reinforcements must come ; and,
last of all, the certainty that if the struggle only last long enough
to figure in two budgets, John Bull will vote it a bore, and refuse
to pay for it. But here am I getting political when I only meant
to be personal; and now to come back, I own that my resolve to
go out to India has been aided by hearing that Lord, of whom I
spoke in my last, is to leave by the next mail and will take passage
on board the P. and O. steamer " Leander," due at Malta on the
22d. My intention is to be his fellow-traveller, and with this
resolve T shall take the Austrian steamer to Corfu, and come up with
my friend at Alexandria. You will perhaps be puzzled to know
568 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
•why the claims of friendship are so strong upon me at such a
moment, and I satisfy your most natural curiosity by stating that
this is a mission of torture. I travel with this man to insult and to
outrage him ; to expose him in public places, and to confront him
at all times. I mean that this overland journey should be to him
for his life long the reminiscence of a pilgrimage of such martyrdom
as few have passed through ; and I have the vanity to believe
that not many men have higher or more varied gifts for such a
mission than myself. My first task on reaching Calcutta shall be to
report progress to you.
I don't mind exposing a weakness to an old friend, and so I
own to you I fell in love here. The girl had the obduracy and
wrong-headedness not to yield to my suit, and so I had no choice left
to me but to persist in it. I know, however, that if I could only re-
main here a fortnight longer I should secure the inestimable triumph
of rendering both of us miserable for life ! Yes, Drayton, that pale
girl and her paltry fifteen thousand pounds might have spoiled
one of the grandest careers that ever adorned history ! and lost the
world the marvellous origin, rise, progress, and completion of the
dynasty of the great English Begum Calvert in Bengal. Count
upon me for high office whenever penny-a-lining fails you, and, if
my realm be taxable, you shall be my Chancellor of the Exchequer I
You are right about that business at Basle ; to keep up a
controversy would be to invest it with more interest for public
gossip. Drop it, therefore, and the world will drop it ; and take
my word for it, I '11 give them something more to say of me, one of
these days, than that my hair trigger was too sensitive 1 I 'm writing
this in the most romantic of spots. The moonlight is sleeping —
is n't that the conventional ? — over the olive plain, and the small
silvery leaves are glittering in its pale light. Up the great Alps,
amongst the deep crevasses, a fitful flashing of lightning promises
heat for the morrow; a nightingale sings close to my window;
and through the muslin curtain of another casement I can see a
figure pass and repass, and even distinguish that her long hair
has fallen down, and floats loosely over neck and shoulders. How
pleasantly I might linger on here, ''My duns forgetting, by my
duns forgot." How smoothly I might float down the stream of life,
without even having to pull an oar ! How delightfully domestic
and innocent and inglorious the whole thing ! Is n't it tempting,
vou dog? Does it not touch even pour temperament through its
thick hide of worldliness? And I believe in my heart it is all
feasible, all to be done.
I have just tossed up for it. Head for India, and head it is !
So that Loyd is booked for a pleasant journey, and I start to-
morrow to insure him all the happiness in my power to confer.
THE LAST WALK IN THE GARDEN. 669
For the present, it would be as well to tell all anxious and inquiring
friends, into which category come tailors, bootmakers, jewellers, etc.,
that it will be a postal economy not to address Mr. Harry Calvert
in any European capital, and to let the " bills lie on the table," and
be read this day six years ; but add that if properly treated by
fortune, I mean to acquit my debts to them one of these days.
That I " wish they may get it " is, therefore, no scornful or
derisive hope of your friend,
H. Calvert.
If — not a likely matter — anything occurs worth mention, you
shall have a line from me from Venice.
When he had concluded his letter, he extinguished his
candles, and sat down at the open window. The moon had
gone down, and, though starlit, the night was dark. The
window in the other wing of the villa, at which he had seen
the figure through the curtain, was now thrown open, and he
could see that Florence, with a shawl wrapped round her,
was leaning out, and talking to some one in the garden
underneath.
"It is the first time," said a voice he knew to be Milly's,
"that I ever made a bouquet in the dark."
"Come up, Milly dearest; the dew is falling heavily.
I feel it even here."
"I '11 just fasten this rose I have here in his hat; he saw
it in my hair to-night, and he Tl remember it."
She left the garden ; the window was closed. The light
was put out, and all was silent.
CHAPTER XV.
sisters' confidences.
The day of Calvert's departure was a very sad one at the
villa ; so was the next and the next ! It is impossible to
repeat the routine of a quiet life when we have lost one
whose pleasant companionship imparted to the hours a
something of his own identity, without feeling the dreary
blank his absence leaves, and, together with this, comes
the not very flattering conviction of how little of our
enjoyment we owed to our own efforts, and how much
to his.
" I never thought we should have missed him so much,"
said Milly, as she sat with her sister beside the lake, where
the oars lay along the boat unused, and the fishing-net hung
to dry from the branches of the mulberry-tree.
"Of course we miss him," said Florence, peevishly.
" You don't live in daily, hourly intercourse with a person
without feeling his absence ; but I almost think it is a
relief," said she, slightly flushing.
" A relief, Florry ! And in what way? "
" I don't know, — that is, I'm not disposed to go into a
nice analysis of Mr. Calvert's mind, and the effect produced
upon my own, by the mere iteration of things I never agreed
with. Besides, I don't want in the least to limit your regrets
for him. He was one of your favorites."
' ' I always thought him more a favorite of yours than
mine, Florry."
" Then I suspect you made a great mistake; but, really,
I think we might talk of something else. What about
those hyacinths, — did n't you tell me they ought to be
moved?"
SISTERS' CONFIDENCES. 571
*' Yes, Harry said they had too much sun there, and were
losing color in consequence."
" I can't imagine him a great authority in gardening."
'' Well, but he really knew a great deal about it, and had
an exquisite taste in the landscape part of it, — witness that
little plant under your window."
"The fuchsias are pretty," said she, with a saucy air.
** Is n't the post late to-day? "
'' It came two hours ago. Don't you remember my saying
there were no letters, except two for Harry? "
" And where are you to forward them to him? Has he
been confidentidl enough to tell you ? "
'' No ; he said, ' If anything comes for me, keep it till you
bear of me.' "
'' He affected mystery. I think he imagined it gave
something of romance to him, though a more prosaic,
worldly character never existed."
* ' I don't agree with you, Florry. I think it was the
worldlin^ss was the affectation. . -
Florence colored deeply, but made no reply.
'' And I '11 tell you why I am convinced of it. In the
mention of anything heroic or daring, or in allusion to any
trait of deep devotion or pathetic tenderness, his lip would
tremble and his voice falter, and then, catching himself,
and evidently ashamed of his weakness, he would Come
out with some silly, or even heartless remark, as though
to mask his confusion and give him time to recover
himself."
"I never noticed this," said Florence, coldly. "Indeed,
I must confess to a much less critical study of his character
than you have bestowed on him."
" You are unjust to yourself. It was you first pointed
out this trait in him to me."
" I forget it, then, that 's all," said she, captiously.
" Oh, I knew he was ashamed of being thought romantic."
" I thought I had asked you to talk of something or
somebody else, Milly. Let us, at least, select a topic
we can think and speak on with some approach to
agreement."
Accustomed to bear with Florence's impatience and her
572 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
capricious humors as those of an invalid, Milly made
no answer, but drew out her work from a basket and
prepared to begin.
''You needn't hope to make much progress with your
embroidery, Milly. You '11 have no one to read out the
'Faust' or the 'Winter Night's Tale' to-day."
"Ah, that's true, and Joseph won't be here till Satur-
day," said she, sighing; "not to say that I don't suspect
he'll have much time to bestow on reading aloud."
"I thought you were going to say that he reads badly,"
said Florry, with a forced laugh.
" Oh, no, Florry, I like his reading very much indeed, —
particularly of Tennyson and Browning."
" It is not so melodramatic as your friend Mr. Calvert's;
but, in my poor estimation, it is in much truer taste."
" What a strange girl you are ! Do you forget the evening
you said, ' I '11 not let Joseph read aloud any more ; I detest
to see him in any rivalry of which he has the worst ' ? "
" I must have said it in mockery, then, Milly, for I know
of nothing in which Mr. Calvert could claim superiority over
him. I am aware this is not your opinion, Milly ; indeed,
poor Joseph has not many allies in this house, for even
Aunt Grainger was one of the fascinated by our captivating
guest."
" Well, but you know, dearest Florry, what a magic there
is in the name Calvert to my aunt."
"Yes, I know and deplore it. I believe, too, from
chance expressions she has let drop, that her relations with
those very people suggest anything rather than proud or
pleasant memories : but she is determined to think of them
as friends, and is quite vain at having the permission to
do so."
"Even Harry used to smile at her reverence for 'dear
old Rocksley.' "
" The worse taste in him," said Florence, haughtily.
" How bitter you are to the poor fellow," said the other,
plaintively.
" I am not bitter to him. I think him a very accom-
plished, clever, amusing person, good-looking, manly, and
so forth ; and probably, if he had n't persecuted me with
SISTERS* CONFIDENCES. 673
attentions that I did not like or encourage, I might have felt
very cordially towards him."
" Could he help being in love with you, Florry? "
''In love!" repeated she, in a voice of mockery and
scorn.
''Ay, Florry, I never saw a man more thoroughly, devo-
tedly in love. I could tell, as I entered the breakfast-room,
whether you had spoken to him in coldness or the reverse.
His voice, as he read aloud, would betray whether you were
listening with pleasure or indifference. You had not a mood
of gay or grave that was not reflected in his face ; and one
day I remember, when I remarked on the capricious changes
of his spirits, he said, ' Don't blame me ; I am what she
makes me : the happiest or the most miserable fellow breath-
ing.' ' Well,' replied I, ' I fancied from your good spirits it
was some pleasant tidings the post had brought you.' ' No,'
said he, ' it was this ; ' and he drew a violet from his pocket,
and showed it to me. I suppose you had given it to him."
" I dropped it, and he would n't give it back. I remember
the day." And, as she spoke, she turned her head aside,
but her sister saw that her cheek was crimson. Then sud-
denly she said, " How was it that you had such confidences
together ? I'm sure that, knowing my engagement, you
must have seen how improper it was to listen to such
nonsense on his part."
" I couldn't help it, Florry; the poor fellow would come
to me with his heart almost breaking. I declare, there were
times when his despair actually terrified me ; and having
heard from Aunt Grainger what dreadful passions these
Calverts give way to, — how reckless of consequences, — "
" There, there, dear, spare me that physiology of the race
of Calverts, of which I have gone through, I hope, every
imaginable feature. To poor Aunt Grainger's eyes the
dragon of the Drachenfels is a mild domestic creature in
comparison with one of them." There was a jarring vibra-
tion in her sister's tone that told it were safer not to pro-
long the discussion, and little more was said as they walked
towards the house. At last Florence stopped short, and,
pointing to the window of the room lately occupied by Cal-
vert, said, "Joseph will dislike all those climbing creepers
574 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
there, Milly ; he hates that sort of thing. Let them be cut
away."
'* If you wish it, dearest; but is it not a pity? Only
think of all the time and pains it cost to train that
jessamine — "
'' Oh, if they have such tender memories for you, let them
remain by all means ; but I think it will be quite as well not
to tell Joseph the reasons for which they were spared."
Though the speech was uttered in irritation, Milly affected
to hear it without emotion, and said, " It was Harry's own
desire that we should not speak of him to Joseph, and I
mean to obey it."
CHAPTER XVI. .
A lovers' quarrel.
In course of time, Loyd arrived at the villa. He" came
tired and worn out by a fatiguing journey. There had
been floods, broken bridges, and bad roads in Savoy, and
the St. Gothard was almost impassable from a heavy snow-
storm. The difficulties of the road had lost him a day, one
of the very few he was to have with them, and he came,
wearied and somewhat irritated, to his journey's end.
Lovers ought, perhaps, to be more thoughtful about
"effect "than they are in real life. They might take a
lesson in this respect with good profit from the drama,
where they enter with all the aids that situation and costume
can give them. At all events, Calvert would scarcely have
presented himself in the jaded and disordered condition in
which Loyd now appeared.
*' How ill he looks, poor fellow," said Milly, as the two
sisters left him to dress for dinner.
''I should think he may look ill. Fancy his travelling
on, night and day, through rain and sleet and snow, and
always feeling that his few hours here were to be shortened
by all these disasters. And, besides all this, he is sorry
now for the step he has taken; he begins to suspect he
ought not to have left England ; that this separation — it
must be for at least two years — bodes ill to us ; that it
need not have been longer had he stayed at the home bar,
and had, besides, the opportunity of coming out to see us
in Vacation ; that it was his friends who over-persuaded
him ; and now that he has had a little time for calm reflec-
tion, away from them, he really sees no obstacles to his
success at Westminster that he will not have to encounter
at Calcutta."
"And will he persist, in face of this conviction?"
676 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
"Of course he will! He cannot exhibit himself to the
world as a creature who does not know his own mind for
two days together."
"Is that of more consequence than what would really
serve his interests, Florry ? "
" I am no casuist, Milly, but I think that the impression
a man makes by his character for resolution is always of
consequence."
Milly very soon saw that her sister spoke with an unusual
degree of irritation. The arrival of her lover had not over-
joyed her ; it had scarcely cheered her. He came, too, not
full of high hopes and animated by the prospect of a bright
future, speculating on the happy days that were before
them, and even fixing the time they were to meet again, but
depressed and dispirited, darkl}^ hinting at all the dangers
of absence, and gloomily telling over the long miles of ocean
that were so soon to roll between them.
Now, Florence was scarcely prepared for all this. She
bad expected to be comforted, and supported, and encour-
aged ; and yet from herself, now, all the encouragement
and all the support was to be derived ! She was to infuse
hope, to supply courage, and inspire determination. He
was only there to be sustained and supported. It is true
she knew nothing of the trials and difficulties which were
before him, and she could neither discuss nor lighten them;
but she could talk of India as a mere neighboring country,
the " overland " a rather pleasant tour, and two years —
what signified two years, when it was to be their first and
last separation? For, if he could not obtain the leave he
was all but promised, it was arranged that she should go
out to Calcutta, and their marriage take place there.
He rallied at last under all these cheering suggestions,
and gradually dropped into that talk so fascinating to Pro-
messi Sposi, in which affection and worldliness are blended
together, and where the feelings of the heart and the fur-
niture of the drawing-room divide the interest between them.
There was a dash of romance, too, in the notion of life in
the Far East, — some far-away home in the Neilgherries,
some lone bungalow on the Sutlej, — that helped them to
paint their distant landscape with more effect, and they sat,
A LOVERS' QUARREL. 577
in imagination, under a spreading plantain on the Hima-
laya, and watched the blood-red sunsets over the plains of
Hindostan.
Time passed very rapidly in this fashion. Love is the
very sublime of egotism, and people never weary of them-
selves. The last evening — sad things these last evenings
— came, and they strolled out to take a last look on the
lake and the snow-white Alps beyond it. The painful feel-
ing of having so short a time to say so much was over
each of them, and made them more silent than usual. As
they thus loitered along, they reached a spot where a large
evergreen oak stood alone, spreading its gigantic arms over
the water, and from which the view of the lake extended
for miles in each direction.
''This is the spot to have a summer-house, Florry," said
Loyd; "and when I come back I'll build one here."
"You see there is a rustic bench here already. Harry
made it."
Scarcely were the words uttered than she felt her cheek
burning, and the tingling rush of her blood to her temples.
' ' Harry means Mr. Calvert, I conclude ? " said he,
coldly.
"Yes," said she, faintly.
" It was a name I have never uttered since I passed this
threshold, Florry, and I vowed to myself that I would not
be the first to allude to it. My pledge, however, went no
further, and I am now released from its obligation. Let
us talk of him freely."
" No, Joseph, I had rather not. When he was leaving
this, it was his last wish that his name was not to be
uttered here. We gave him our solemn promise, and I feel
sure you will not ask me to forget it."
" I have no means of knowing by what right he could
pretend to exact such a promise, which, to say the least,
is a very unusual one."
"There was no question of a right in the matter. Mr.
Calvert was here as our friend, associating with us in close
intimacy, enjoying our friendship and our confidence, and
if he had reasons of his own for the request, they were
enough for us."
8?
578 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
" That does not satisfy me, Florence," said he, gravely.
" I am sorry for it. I have no other explanation to give
you."
' ' Well ; I mean to be more explicit. Has he told you
of a correspondence that passed between us ? "
" Once for all, Joseph, I will not be drawn into this dis-
cussion. Rightfully, or the reverse, I have given my word,
and I will keep it."
*'Do you mean to say that to any mention of this man's
name, or to any incident in which it will occur, you will
turn a deaf ear, and not reply?"
*'I will not speak of him."
" Be it so. But you will listen to me when / speak of
him, and you will give my words the same credence you
accord to them on other things. This is surely not asking
too much?"
" It is more, however, than I am willing to grant."
'' This becomes serious, Florence, and cannot be dis-
missed lightly. Our relations towards each other are all
but the closest that can bind two destinies. They are such
as reject all secrecy, — all mystery, at all events. Now, if
Mr. Calvert's request were the merest caprice, the veriest
•whim, it matters not. The moment it becomes a matter of
peace of mind to me it is no longer a trifle."
*'You are making a very serious matter of very little,"
said she, partly offended.
*' The unlimited confidence T have placed, and desire still
to place, in you, is not a little matter. I insist upon having
a full explanation."
*' You insist?"
*' Yes, I insist. Remember, Florence, that what I claim
is not more my due, for my sake than for your own. No
name in the world should stand between yours and mine,
least of all that of one whom neither of us can look on
with respect or esteem."
*' If this be the remains of some old jealousy — "
" Jealousy ! Jealousy ! Why, what do you mean ? "
" Simply that there was a time when he thought you his
rival, and it was just possible you might have reciprocated
the sentiment."
A LOVERS' QUARREL. 579
"This is intolerable," cried he. Then, hastily checking
his angry outburst, he added: "Why should we grow
warm, Florence, dearest, over a matter which can have but
one aspect for us both? It is of you, not of myself, I have
been thinking all this time. I simply begged you to let me
know what sort of relations existed between you and Mr.
Calvert that should prevent you speaking of him to me."
" You said something about insisting. Now, ' insisting ' is
an ugly word. There is an air of menace about it."
" I am not disposed to recall it," said he, sternly.
' ' So much the better ; at least it will save us a world of
very unpleasant recrimination, for I refuse to comply."
"You refuse! Now, let me understand you, for this is
too vital a point for me, at least, to make any mistake about :
what is it that you refuse ? "
" Don't you think the tone of our present discussion is
the best possible reason for not prolonging it?"
"No! If we have each of us lost temper, I think the
wisest course would be to recover ourselves, and see if we
cannot talk the matter over in a better spirit."
" Begin then by unsaying that odious word."
"What is the word?"
" ' Insist ! ' You must not insist upon anything."
" I '11 take back the word if you so earnestly desire it,
Florence," said he, gravely; " but I hope ' request' will be
read in its place."
" Now, then, what is it you request? for I frankly declare
that all this time I don't rightly understand what you ask of
me."
" This is worse than I suspected," said he, angrily ; " for
now I see that it is in the mere spirit of defiance that you
rejected my demand."
" Upon my word, sir, I believe it will turn out that neither
of us knew very much of the other."
"You think so?"
"Yes; don't you?"
He grew very pale, and made no answer, though he twice
seemed as if about to speak.
" I declare," cried she, and her heightened color and
flashing eye showed the temper that stirred her, — "I declare
580 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
I think we shall have employed all our lately displayed can-
dor to very little advantage if it does not carry us a little
further."
" I scarcely catch your meaning," said he, in a low voice.
'' What I meant was, that by a little further effort of our
frankness we might come to convey to each other that scenes
like these are not pleasant, nor need they ever occur again."
" I believe at last I apprehend you," said he, in a broken
accent. ' ' You desire that our engagement should be
broken off."
She made no answer, but averted her head.
" I will do my best to be calm, Florence," continued he,
*' and I will ask as much of you. Let neither of us sacrifice
the prospect of a whole life's happiness for the sake of a
petty victory in a very petty dispute. If, however, you are
of opinion — " He stopped ; he was about to say more than
he had intended, more than he. knew how to say, and he
stopped, confused and embarrassed.
" Why don't you continue? " said she, with a cold smile.
" Because I don't know what I was about to say."
*' Then shall I say it for you? "
"Yes, do so."
" It was this, then, or at least to this purport: If you.
Miss Florence Walter, are of opinion that two people who
have not succeeded in inspiring each other with that degree
of confidence that rejects all distrust are scarcely wise in
entering into a contract of which truthfulness is the very
soul and essence, and that, though not very gallant on my
part, as the man, to suggest it, yet in all candor, which here
must take the place of courtesy, the sooner the persons so
placed escape from such a false position the better."
" And part? " said he, in a hollow, feeble voice.
She shrugged her shoulders slightly, as though to say,
*' That, or any similar word, will convey my meaning."
"Oh, Florence, is it come to this? Is this to be a last
evening in its saddest, bitterest sense ? "
"When gentlemen declare that they 'insist,' I take it
they mean to have their way," said she, with a careless toss
of her head.
"Good Heavens!" cried he, in a passion, "have you
A LOVERS' QUARREL. 681
never cared for me at all? or Is your love so little rooted
that you can tear it from your heart without a pang ? "
" AH this going back on the past is very unprofitable,"
said she, coldly.
He was stung by the contemptuous tone even more than
by the words she used. It seemed as though she held his
love so lightly she would not condescend to the slightest
trouble to retain it, and this too at a moment of parting.
" Florence ! " said he, in a tone of deep melancholy, — " if
I am to call you by that name for the last time, — tell me
frankly, is this a sudden caprice of yours, or has it lain
rankling in your mind, as a thing you would conquer if you
could, or submit to if you must? "
" I suspect it is neither one nor the other," said she, with
a levity that almost seemed gayety. '• I don't think I am
capricious, and I know I never harbor a long-standing
grievance. I really believe that it is to your own heart you
must look for the reasons of what has occurred between us.
I have often heard that men are so ashamed of being jealous
that they '11 never forgive any one who sees them in the fit."
" Enough, more than enough," said he, trembling from
head to foot. " Let us part."
*' Remember, the proposal comes from you."
'^ Yes, yes, it comes from me. It matters little whence
it comes."
" Oh, I beg your pardon, it matters a great deal, at least
to me. I am not to bear the reproaches of my aunt and my
sister for a supposed cruelty towards a man who has himself
repudiated our engagement. It would be rather hard that
I was to be deserted and condemned too."
''Deserted, Florry ! " cried he, as the tears stood in his
eyes.
" Well, I don't mean deserted. There is no desertion on
either side. It is a perfectly amicable arrangement of two
people who are not disposed to travel the same road. I
don't want to imply that any more blame attaches to you
than to me."
" How can any attach to me at all? " cried he.
" Oh, then, if you wish it, I take the whole of it."
" Shall i speak to your aunt. Miss Walter, or will you? "
582 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
"It does not signify much which of us is the first to
acquaint her. Perhaps, however, it would come with more
propriety from you. I think I see her yonder near the
cypress-trees, and I 'm sure you '11 be glad to have it over.
Wait one moment, this ring — " As she endeavored to
draw a small ruby ring from her finger, Loyd saw the
turquoise which she wore on the other hand, — '* this ring,"
said she, in some confusion, " is yours."
"Not this one," said he, sternly, as he pointed to the
other.
"No, the ruby," said she, with an easy smile. "It was
getting to hurt my finger."
" I hope you may wear the other more easily," said he,
with a bitter laugh.
" Thank you," said she, with a courtesy, and then turned
away, and walked towards the house.
After Loyd had proceeded a few steps to overtake Miss
Grainger, he stopped and hastened back to the villa. Such
an explanation as he must make could, he felt, be only
done by a letter. He could not, besides, face the question-
ing and cross-questioning the old lady would submit him
to, nor endure the misery of recalling, at her bidding, each
stage of their sad quarrel. A letter, therefore, he would
write, and then leave the villa forever, and without a fare-
well to any. He knew this was not a gracious way to treat
those who had been uniformly affectionate and kind, who
had been to him like dear sisters ; but he dreaded a possible
meeting. He could not answer for himself, either, as to what
charges he might be led to make against Florence, or what
weakness of character he might exhibit in the midst of his
aflfliction. " I will simply narrate so much as will show that
we have agreed to separate, and are never to meet more,"
muttered he. " Florence may tell as much more as she likes,
and give what version of me she pleases. It matters little
now how or what they think of one whose heart is already
in the grave." And thus saying, he gained his room, and,
locking the door, began to write. Deeply occupied in his
task, which he found so diflScult that several half-scrawled
sheets already littered the table before him, he never felt
the time as it passed. It was already midnight before he
A LOVERS' QUARREL. 583
was aware of it; and still his letter was not finished. It
was so hard to say enough, and not too much ; so hard to
justify himself in any degree, and yet spare Aer, against
whom he would not use one word of reproach ; so hard to
confess the misery that he felt, and yet not seem abject in
the very avowal.
Not one of his attempts had satisfied him. Some were
two lengthy, some too curt and brief, some read cold, stern,
and forbidding ; others seemed like half entreaties for a
more merciful judgment, — in fact, he was but writing down
each passing emotion of his mind, and recording the varying
passions that swayed him.
As he sat thus, puzzled and embarrassed, he sprung up
from his chair with terror at a cry that seemed to fill the
room, and make the very air vibrate around him. It was
a shriek as of one in the maddest agony, and lasted for
some seconds. He thought it came from the lake, and he
flung open his window and listened ; but all was calm and
still, the very faintest night air was astir, and not even the
leaves moved. He then opened his door, and crept stealth-
ily out upon the corridor ; but all was quiet within the
house. Noiselessly he walked to the head of the stairs,
and listened ; but not a sound nor a stir was to be heard.
He went back to his room, agitated and excited. He had read
of those conditions of cerebral excitement when the nerves
of sense present impressions which have no existence in
fact, and the sufferers fancy that they have seen sights,
or heard sounds, which have no reality.
He thought he could measure the agitation that distressed
him by this disturbance of the brain, and he bathed his tem-
ples with cold water, and sat down at the open window to
try to regain calm and self-possession. For a while the
speculation on this strange problem occupied him, and he
wandered on in thought to ask himself which of the events
of life should be assumed as real, and which mere self-
delusions. " If, for instance," thought he, "I could believe
that this dreadful scene with Florence never occurred, that it
was a mere vision conjured up by my own gloomy forebod-
ings, and my sorrow at our approaching separation, — what
ecstasy would be mine ! What is there," asked he of himself,
584 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
aloud, " to show or prove that we have parted? What evi-
dence have I of one word that may or may not have passed
between us that would not apply to that wild scream that
so lately chilled my very blood, and which I now know was
a mere trick of imagination ? " As he spoke, he turned to
the table, and there lay the proof that he challenged before
him. There, beside his half -written letter, stood the ring
he had given her and which she had just given back to him.
The revulsion was very painful, and the tears, which had
not come before, now rolled heavily down his cheeks. He
took up the ring and raised it to his lips, but laid it down
without kissing it. These sent-back gifts are very sad
things ; they do not bury the memory of the loved one who
wore them. Like the flower that fell from her hair, they
bear other memories. They tell of blighted hopes, of
broken vows, of a whole life's plan torn, scattered, and
given to the winds. Their odor is not of love ; they smell
of the rank grave, whither our hearts are hastening. He
sat gazing moodily at this ring, — it was the story of his
life. He remembered the hour and the place he gave it to
her ; the words he spoke, her blush, her trembling hand as
he drew it on her finger, the pledge he uttered, and which
he made her repeat to him again. He started. What was
that noise? Was that his name he heard uttered? Yes,
some one was calling him. He hastened to the door, and
opened it, and there stood Milly. She was leaning against
the architrave, like one unable for further effort; her face
bloodless, and her hair in disorder. She staggered forward,
and fell upon his shoulder. '' What is it, Milly, my own
dear sister?" cried he; "what is the matter?"
"Oh, Joseph," cried she, in a voice of anguish, "what
have you done ? I could never have believed this of you ! "
" What do you mean, — what is it you charge me with ? "
" You^ who knew how she loved you, — how her whole
heart was your own ! "
" But what do you impute to me, Milly dearest? "
" How cruel ! How cruel ! " cried she, wringing her hands.
" I swear to j^ou I do not know of what you accuse me."
" You have broken her heart," cried she, vehemently.
^' She will not survive this cruel desertion."
A LOVERS' QUARREL. 585
'' But who accuses me of this? " asked he, indignantly.
" She, herself, does, — she did, at least, so long as reason
remained to her ; but now, poor darling, her mind is wan-
dering, and she is not conscious of what she says, and yet
her cry is, ' Oh, Joseph, do not leave me. Go to him,
Milly ; on your knees beseech him not to desert me. That
I am in fault I know, but I will never again offend him.'
I cannot, I will not, tell you all the dreadful — all the
humiliating things she says; but through all we can read
the terrible trials she must have sustained at your hands,
and how^ severely you have used her. Come to her, at
least," cried she, taking his arm. " I do not ask or want
to know what has led to this sad scene between you ; but
come to her before it be too late."
''Let me first of all tell you, Milly — " He stopped.
He meant to have revealed the truth ; but it seemed so
ungenerous to be the accuser that he stopped, and was
silent.
"I don't care to hear anything. You may be as blame-
less as you like. What I want is to save her. Come at
once."
Without a word, he followed her down the stairs, and
across the hall, and up another small stair. " Wait a
moment," said she, opening the door, and then as quickly
she turned and beckoned him to enter.
Still dressed, but with her hair falling loose about her,
and her dress disordered, Florence lay on her bed as in a
trance, — so light her breathing you could see no motion
of the chest. Her eyes were partly opened, and lips
parted ; but even these gave to her face a greater look of
death.
" She is sleeping at last," whispered Miss Grainger.
" She has not spoken since you were here."
Loyd knelt down beside the bed, and pressed his cheek
against her cold hand; and the day dawn, as it streamed
in between the shutters, saw him still there.
CHAPTER XVII.
PARTING SORROWS.
Hour after hour Loyd knelt beside the bed where Florence
lay, motionless and unconscious. Her aunt and sister glided
noiselessly about, passed in and out of the room, rarely
speaking, and then but in a whisper. At last a servant
whispered in Loyd's ear a message. He started and said,
" Yes, let him wait; " and then, in a moment after, added,
''No, say no. I'll not want the boat; the luggage may
be taken back to my room."
It was a few minutes after this that Milly came behind
him, and, bending down so as to speak in his ear, said,
"How I thank you, my dear brother, for this! I know
the price of your devotion, — none of us will ever forget
it."
He made no answer, but pressed the cold damp hand he
held to his lips.
'' Does he know that it is nigh seven o'clock, Milly, and
that he must be at Como a quarter before eight, or he '11
lose the train ? " said Miss Grainger to her niece. '
" He knows it all, aunt; he has sent away the boat; he
will not desert us."
"Remember, child, what it is he is sacrificing. It may
chance to be his whole future fortune."
"He '11 stay, let it cost what it may," said Milly.
"I declare I think I will speak to him. It is my duty to
speak to him," said the old lady, in her own fussy, officious
tone. "I will not expose myself to the reproaches of his
family, — very just reproaches, too, if they imagined we
had detained him. He will lose, not only his passage out to
India, but, not impossibly, his appointment too. Joseph,
Joseph, I have a word to say to you."
PARTING SORROWS. 58T
*' Dearest aunt, I implore you not to say it," cried Milly.
"Nonsense, child. Is it for a mere tiff and a fit of
hysterics a man is to lose his livelihood? Joseph Loyd,
come into the next room for a moment."
"I cannot leave this," said he, in a low, faint voice.
*'Say what you have to say to me here."
''It is on the stroke of seven."
He nodded.
"The train leaves a quarter before eight, and if you don't
start by this one you can't reach Leghorn by Tuesday."
"I know it; I 'm not going."
"Do you mean to give up your appointment?" asked
she, in a voice of almost scornful reproach.
"I mean, that I '11 not go."
"What will your friends say to this?" said she, angrily.
"I have not thought, nor can I think, of that now. My
place is here."
"Then I must protest; and I beg you to remember that
I have protested against this resolve on your part. Your
family are not to say, hereafter, that it was through any
interference or influence of ours that you took this unhappy
determination. I '11 write, this very day, to your father,
and say so. There, it is striking seven now! "
He made no reply; indeed, it seemed as if he had not
heard her.
"You might still be in time, if you were to exert your-
self," whispered she, with more earnestness.
"I tell you again," said he, raising his voice to a louder
pitch, "that my place is here, and I will not leave her."
A low, faint sigh was breathed by the sick girl, and,
gently moving her hand, she laid it on his head.
"You know me then, dearest? " whispered he. "You
know who it is kneels beside you?"
She made no answer, but her feeble fingers tried to play
with his hair, and strayed, unguided, over his head.
What shape of reproach, remonstrance, or protest Miss
Grainger's mutterings took, is not recorded; but she bustled
out of the room, evidently displeased with all in it.
"She knows you, Joseph. She is trying to thank you,"
said Milly.
588 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
"Her lips are moving. Can you hear what she says,
Milly?"
The girl bent over the bed till her ear almost touched her
sister's mouth. ''Yes, darling, from his heart he does.
He never loved you with such devotion as now. She asks
if you can forgive her, Joseph. She remembers every-
thing."
"And not leave me," sighed Florence, in a voice barely
audible.
"No, my own dearest, I will not leave you," was all that
he could utter in the conflict of joy and sorrow he felt. A
weak attempt to thank him she made by an effort to press
his hand, but it sent a thrill of delight through his heart,
more than a recompense for all he had suffered.
If Milly, with a generous delicacy, retired towards the
window and took up her work, not very profitably perhaps,
seeing how little light came through the nearly closed shut-
ters, let us not show ourselves less discreet, and leave the
lovers to themselves. Be assured, dear reader, that in our
reserve on this point we are not less mindful of your benefit
than of theirs. The charming things, so delightful to say
and so ecstatic to hear, are wonderfully tame to tell. Per-
haps their very charm is in the fact that their spell was only
powerful to those who uttered them. At all events, we are
determined on discretion, and shall only own that, though
Aunt Grainger made periodical visits to the sick-room,
with frequent references to the hour of the day and the
departures and arrival of various rail-trains, they never
heard her, or, indeed, knew that she was present.
And though she was mistress of those "asides" and that
grand innuendo style which is so deadly round a corner,
they never paid the slightest heed to her fire. All the
adroit references to the weather, and the "glorious day for
travelling," went for naught. As well as the more subtle
compliments she made Florence on the appetite she dis-
played for her chocolate, and which were intended to con-
vey that a young lady who enjoyed her breakfast so heartily
need never have lost a man a passage to Calcutta for the
pleasure of seeing her eat it. Truth was, Aunt Grainger
was not in love, and, consequently, no more fit to legislate
PARTING SORROWS. 689
for those who were than a peasant in rude health is to
sympathize with the nervous irritability of a fine lady.
Neither was Milly in love, you will perhaps say, and she
felt for them. True, but Milly might be, — Milly was con-
stitutionally exposed to the malady, and the very vicinity
of the disease was what the faculty call a predisposing
cause. It made her very happy to see Joseph so fond, and
Florence so contented.
Far too happy to think of the price he paid for his happi-
ness, Loyd passed the day beside her. Never before was
he so much in love ! Indeed, it was not till the thought of
losing her forever presented itself, that he knew or felt
what a blank life would hereafter become to him. Some
quaint German writer has it that these little quarrels which
lovers occasionally get up as a sort of trial of their own
powers of independence, are like the attempts people make
to remain a long time under water, and which only end in
a profound conviction that their organization was unequal
to the test. But there is another form these passing differ-
ences occasionally take. Each of the erring parties is sure
to nourish in his or her heart the feeling of being most
intensely beloved by the other! It is a strange form for
selfishness to take; but selfishness is the most Protsean of
all failings, and there never was seen the mask it could
not fit to its face.
''And so you imagined you could cast me off, Florence! "
"And you. Master Joseph, had the presumption to think
you could leave me," formed the sum and substance of that
long day's whispering. My dear, kind reader, do not
despise the sermon from the seeming simplicity of the text.
There is a deal to be said on it, and very pleasantly said,
too. It is, besides, a sort of litigation in which charge
and cross charge recur incessantly, and, as in all amicable
suits, each party pays his own costs.
It was fortunate, most fortunate, that their reconciliation
took this form. It enabled each to do that which was most
imminent to be done, — to ignore Calvert altogether, and
never recur to any mention of his name. Loyd saw that
the turquoise ring was no longer worn by her, and she,
with a woman's quickness, noted his observation of the
590 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
fact. I am not sure that in her eyes a recognition of his
joy did not glisten; but she certainly never uttered a word
that could bring up his name.
*'So I am your guest, madam, for ten days more! " said
Loyd to Miss Grainger, as they sat at tea that night.
"Oh, we are only too happy. It is a very great pleasure
to us, if — if we could feel that your delay may not prove
injurious to you."
"It will be very enjoyable, at all events," said he, with
an easy smile, and as though to evade the discussion of the
other "count."
"I was thinking of what your friends would say about it."
"It is a very limited public, I assure you," said he,
laughing, "and one which so implicitly trusts me that I
have only to say I have done what I believed to be right to
be confirmed in their good esteem."
The old lady was not to be put off by generalities, and
she questioned him closely as to whether an overland pas-
sage did not cost a hundred pounds and upwards, and all
but asked whether it was quite convenient to him to dis-
burse that amount. She hinted something about an adage
of people who "paid for their whistle," but suggested some
grave doubts if they ever felt themselves recompensed in
after time by recollecting the music that had cost so dearly ;
in a word, she made herself supremely disagreeable while
he drank his tea, and only too glad to make his escape to
go and sit beside Florry, and talk over again all they had
said in the morning.
"Only think, Milly," said she, poutingly, as her sister
entered, "how Aunt Grainger is worrying poor Joseph, and
won't let him enjoy in peace the few daj^s we are to have
together."
But he did enjoy them, and to the utmost. Florence
very soon threw off all trace of her late indisposition, and
sought, in many ways, to make her lover forget all the pain
she had cost him. The first week was one of almost un-
alloyed happiness ; the second opened with the thought that
the days were numbered. After Monday came Tuesday,
then Wednesday, which preceded Thursday, when he was
to leave.
PARTING SORROWS. 691
How was it, they asked themselves, that a whole week
had gone over? It was surely impossible! Impossible
it must be, for now they remembered the mass of things
they had to talk over together, not one of which had been
touched on.
"Why, Joseph dearest, you have told me nothing about
yourself. Whether you are to be in Calcutta, or up the
country ? Where, and how I am to write ? When I am to
hear from you ? What of papa, — I was going to say our
papa, — would he like to hear from me, and may I write to
him? Dare I speak to him as a daughter? Will he think
me forward or indelicate for it? May I tell him of all our
plans? Surely you ought to have told me some of these
things ! What could we have been saying to each other all
this while? "
Joseph looked at her, and she turned away her head pet-
tishly, and murmured something about his being too absurd.
Perhaps he was ; I certainly hold no brief to defend him in
the case: convict or acquit him, dear reader, as you please.
And yet, not withstanding this appeal, the next three
days passed over just as forgetfully as their predecessors,
and then came the sad Wednesday evening, and the sadder
Thursday morning, when, wearied out and exhausted, for
they had sat up all night — his last night — to say good-
bye.
"I declare he will be late again; this is the third time he
has come back from the boat," exclaimed Miss Grainger, as
Florence sank, half fainting, into Milly's arms.
"Yes, yes, dear Joseph," muttered Milly; "go now, go
at once, before she recovers again."
" If I do not, I never can, " cried he, as the tears coursed
down his face, while he hurried away.
The monotonous beat of the oars suddenly startled the
half-conscious girl ; she looked up, and lifted her hand to
wave an adieu, and then sank back into her sister's arms,
and fainted.
Three days after, a few hurried lines from Loyd told
Florence that he had sailed for Malta, — this time irrevocably
off. They were as sad lines to read as to have written.
He had begun by an attempt at jocularity: a sketch of his
592 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
fellow-travellers coming on board; their national traits,
and the strange babble of tongues about them : but, as the
bell rang, he dropped this, and scrawled out, as best he
could, his last and blotted good-byes. They were shaky,
ill-written words, and might, who knows ? have been blurred
with a tear or two. One thing is certain, she who read
shed many over them, and kissed them, with her last waking
breath, as she fell asleep.
About the same day that this letter reached Florence,
came another, and very different epistle, to the hands of
Algernon Drayton, from his friend Calvert. It was not
above a dozen lines, and dated from Alexandria : —
The "Leander" has just steamed in, crowded with snobs, civil
and military, but no Loyd. The fellow must have given up his
appointment or gone " long sea." In any case, he has escaped me.
I am frantic. A whole month's plottings of vengeance scattered to
the winds and lost I I 'd return to England, if I were only certain
to meet with him ; but a Faquir, whom I have just consulted, says,
" Go east, and the worst will come of it ! " and so I start in
two hours for Suez. There are two here who know me, but I mean
to caution them how they show it : they are old enough to take a
hint.
Yours, H. C.
I hear my old regiment has mutinied, and sabred eight of the
officers. I wish they 'd have waited a little longer, and neither S.
nor W. would have got off so easily. From all I can learn, and
from the infernal fright the fellows who are going back exhibit, I
suspect that the work goes bravely on.
CHAPTER XVin.
TIDINGS FROM BENGAL.
I AM not about to chronicle how time now rolled over the
characters of our story. As for the life of those at the
villa, nothing could be less eventful. All existences that
have any claim to be called happy are of this type, and if
there be nothing brilliant or triumphant in their joys,
neither is there much poignancy in their sorrows.
Loyd wrote almost by every mail, and with a tameness
that shadowed forth the uniform tenor of his own life. It
was pretty nigh the same story, garnished by the same
reflections. He had been named a district judge "up coun-
try," and passed his days deciding the disputed claims
of indigo planters against the ryots, and the ryots against
the planters. Craft, subtlety, and a dash of perjury, ran
through all these suits, and rendered them rather puzzles
for a quick intelligence to resolve, than questions of right
or legality. He told, too, how dreary and uncompanionable
his life was; how unsolaced by friendship, or even com-
panionship; that the climate was enervating, the scenery
monotonous, and the thermometer at a hundred and twenty
or a hundred and thirty degrees.
Yet Loyd could speak with some encouragement about
his prospects. He was receiving eight hundred rupees a
month, and hoped to be promoted to some place, ending in
Ghar or Bad, with an advance of two hundred more. He
darkly hinted that the mutinous spirit of certain regiments
was said to be extending, but he wrote this with all the
reserve of an official, and the fear that Aunt Grainger
might misquote him. Of course there were other features
in these letters, — those hopes and fears, and prayers and
wishes, which lovers like to write, almost as well as read,
poetizing,- to themselves their own existence, and throwing
38
694 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
a rose-tint of romance over lives as lead-colored as may be.
Of these I am not going to say anything. It is a theme
both too delicate and too dull to touch on. I respect and I
dread it.
I have less reserve with the correspondence of another
character of our tale, though certainly, when written, it
was not meant for publicity. The letter of which I am
about to make an extract — and it can be but an extract —
was written about ten months after the departure of Calvert
for India, and, like his former ones, addressed to his friend
Drayton : —
" At the hazard of repeating myself if by chance my former
letters have reached you, 1 state that 1 am in the service of the
Meer Morad, of Ghurtpore, of whose doings the ' Times ' correspon-
dent will have told you something. I have eight squadrons of
cavalry and a half battery of field-pieces — brass ten-pounders —
with an English crown on their breech We are well armed,
admirably mounted, and perfect devils to fight. You saw what we
did with the detachment of the — th, and their sick convoy, coming
out of AUehbad. The only fellow that escaped was the doctor, and
I saved his life to attach him to my own staff. He is an Irish
fellow named Tobin, and comes from Tralee, — if there be such
a place, — and begs his friends there not to say masses for him,
for he is alive, and drunk every evening. Do this, if not a bore.
" By good luck the Meer, my chief, quarrelled with the king's
party in Delhi, and we came away in time to save being caught
by Wilson, who would have recognized me at once. By the way,
Baxter, of the 30th, was stupid enough to say, * Eh, Calvert, what the
devil are you doing amongst these niggers ? ' He was a prisoner at
the time, and of course I had to order him to be shot for his
imprudence. How he knew me I cannot guess ; my beard is down
to my breast, and I am turbaned and shawled in the most approved
fashion. We are now simply marauding, cutting off supplies,
falling on weak detachments, and doing a small retail business in
murder wherever we chance upon a station of civil servants. T
narrowly escaped being caught by a troop of the 9th Lancers,
every man of whom knows me. T went over, with six trusty
fellows, to Astraghan, where T learned that a certain Loyd was
stationed as Government receiver. We got there by night, burned
his bungalow, shot him, and then discovered he was not our man,
but another Loyd. Bradshaw came up with his troop. He gave
us an eight-mile chase across country, and, knowing how the Ninth
ride, I took them over some sharp nullahs, and the croppers they got
TIDINGS FROM BENGAL. 595
you '11 scarcely see mentioned in the Government despatches. I
fired three barrels of my Yankee six-shooter at Brad, and I heard
the old beggar offer a thousand rupees for my head. When he
found he could not overtake us, and sounded a halt, I screamed out,
' Threes about, Bradshaw.' 1 'd give fifty pounds to hear him tell the
story at mess ; ' Yes, sir, begad, sir, in as good EngUsh, sir, as yours
or mine, sir: a fellow who had served the Queen, I '11 swear.'
"For the moment, it is a mere mutiny, but it will soon be a
rebellion ; and I don't conceal from myself the danger of what I am
doing, as you, in all likelihood, will suspect. Not dangers from the
Queen's fellows, — for they shall never take me alive, — but the
dangers I run from my present associates, and who, of course, only
half trust me. . . . Do you remember old Commissary-General
Yates, — J. C. V. R. Y'ates, the old ass use to write himself? Well,
amongst the other events of the time, was the sack and ' loot '
of his house at Cawnpore, and the capture of his pretty wife, whom
they brought in here a prisoner. I expected to find the poor young
creature terrified almost out of her reason. Not a bit of it ! She
was very angry with the fellows who robbed her, and rated them
roundly in choice Hindostanee, telling one of the chiefs that his
grandfather was a scorched pig. Like a woman, and a clever
woman too, though she recognized me, — I can almost swear that
she did, — she never showed it, and we talked away all the evening,
and smoked our hookahs together in Oriental guise. I gave her a
pass next morning to Calcutta, and saw her safe to the great trunk
road, giving her bearers as far as Behdarah. She expressed herself
as very grateful for my attentions, and hoped at some future time —
this with a malicious twinkle of her gray eyes — to show the
* Bahadoor ' that she had not forgotten them. So you see there are
lights as well as shadows in the life of a rebel."
I omit a portion here, and come to the conclusion, which
was evidently added in haste.
" ' Up and away 1 * is the order. We are off to Bithoor. The
Nana there — a stanch friend, as it was thought, of British rule —
has declared for independence; and as there is plenty of go in him,
look out for something sensational. Y'ou would n't believe how, amidst
all these stirring scenes, 1 long for news — from what people call
home — of Rocksley and Uncle G., and the dear Soph ; but more
from that villa beside the Italian lake. I 'd give a canvas bag that
I carry at my girdle, with a goodly stock of pearls, sapphires, and
rubies, for one evening's diary of that cottage I
" If all go on as well and prosperously as I hope for, I have
not the least objection, but rather a wish that you would tell the
world where I am, and what I am doing. Linked with failure,
596 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
I 'd rather keep dark ; but as a sharer in a great success, I burn
to make it known through the length and breadth of the land that
I am alive and well, and ready to acquit a number of personal
obligations, if not to the very fellows who injured me, to their
friends, relatives, and cousins to the third generation. Tell them,
Algy, ' A chiel 's amang ye, cutting throats,' and add, if you like,
that he writes himself your attached friend,
" Harry Calvert."
This letter, delivered in some mysterious manner to the
bankers at Calcutta, was duly forwarded, and in time
reached the hands of Alfred Drayton, who confided its
contents to a few "friends'* of Calvert's, — men who felt
neither astonished nor shocked at the intelligence; shifty
fellows, with costly tastes, who would live on society some-
how, reputably if they could, dishonorably if they must;
and who all agreed that "Old Calvert," as they called him,
— he was younger than most of them, — had struck out a
very clever line, and a far more remunerative one than
"rooking young Griffins at billiards," — such being, in their
estimation, the one other alternative which fate had to offer
him. This was all the publicity, however, Drayton gave
to his friend's achievements. Somehow or other, para-
graphs did appear, not naming Calvert, but intimating that
an officer, who had formerly served her Majesty, had been
seen in the ranks of the insurgents of Upper Bengal. Yet
Calvert was not suspected, and he dropped out of people's
minds as thoroughly as if he had dropped out of life.
To this oblivion, for a while, we must leave him; for
even if we had in our hands, which we have not, any records
of his campaigning life, we might scruple to occupy our
readers with details which have no direct bearing upon our
story. That Loyd never heard of him is clear enough.
The name of Calvert never occurred in any letter from his
hand. It was one no more to be spoken of by Florence or
himself. One letter from him, however, mentioned an inci-
dent which, to a suspicious mind, might have opened a
strange vein of speculation, though it is right to add that
neither the writer nor the reader ever hit upon a clew to
the mystery indicated. It was during his second yeai of
TIDINGS FROM BENGAL. 597
absence that he was sent to Mulnath, from which he
writes : —
" The mutiny has not touched this spot ; but we hear every day
the low rumbling of the distant storm, and we are told that our ser-
vants, and the native battalion that are our garrison, are only wait-
ino- for the signal to rise. I doubt this greatly. I have nothing to
excite my distrust of the people, but much to recommend them to my
favor. It is only two days back that I received secret intelligence
of an intended attack upon my bungalow by a party of Bithoor cav-
alry, whose doings have struck terror far and near. Two companies
of the — th, that I sent for, arrived this morning, and I now feel very
easy about the reception the enemy will meet. The strangest part
of all is, however, to come. Captain Kolt, who commands the detach-
ment, said in a laughing, jocular way, 'I declare, judge, if I were you
I would change my name, at least till this row was over.' I asked
him ' Why ? ' in some surprise ; and he replied, ' There 's rather a
run against judges of your name lately. They shot one at Astra-
ghan last November. Six weeks back, they came down near Agra,
where Craven Loyd had just arrived, district judge and assessor;
thev burnt his bungalow, and massacred himself and his household ;
and now, it seems, they are after you. I take it that some one of
your name has been rather sharp on these fellows, and that this is
the pursuit of a long-meditated vengeance. At all events, I 'd call
myself Smith or Brown till this prejudice blows over.* "
The letter soon turned to a pleasanter theme: his appli-
cation for a leave had been favorably entertained. By
October — it was then July — he might hope to take his
passage for England. Not that he was, he said, at all sick
of India. He had now adapted himself to its ways and
habits, his health was good, and the solitude — the one sole
cause of complaint — he trusted would ere long give way
to the happiest and most blissful of all companionship.
*' Indeed, I must try to make you all emigrate with me.
Aunt Grainger can have her flowers and her vegetables here
in all seasons, — one of my retainers is an excellent gar-
dener, — and Milly's passion for riding can be indulged
upon the prettiest Arab horses I ever saw."
Though the dangers which this letter spoke of as impend-
ing were enough to make Florence anxious and eager for
the next mail from India, his letter never again alluded to
them. He wrote full of the delight of having got his leave,
598 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
and overjoyed at all the happiness that he pictured as
before him.
So in the same strain and spirit was the next, and then
came September, and he wrote: "This day Inonth, dearest,
— this day month I am to sail. Already when these lines
are before you, the interval, which to me now seems an
age, will have gone over, and you can think of me as has-
tening towards you."
"Oh, aunt, dearest, listen to this. Is not this happy
news ? " cried Florence, as she pressed the loved letter to
her lips. "Joseph says that on the 18th — to-day is —
what day is to-day? But you are not minding me, aunt.
What can there be in that letter of yours so interesting as
this?"
This remonstrance was not very unreasonable, seeing that
Miss Grainger was standing with her eyes fixed steadfastly
at a letter, whose few lines could not have taken a moment
to read, and which must have had some other claim thus to
arrest her attention.
*'This is wonderful! " cried she, at last.
"What is wonderful, aunt? Do pray gratify our
curiosity! "
But the old lady hurried away without a word, and the
door of her room, as it sharply banged, showed that she
desired to be alone.
CHAPTER XIX.
A SHOCK.
No sooner did Miss Grainger find herself safely locked in
her room, than she re-opened the letter the post had just
brought her. It was exceedingly brief, and seemed hastily
written : —
Strictly and imperatively private.
Trieste, Tuesday morning.
My Dear Miss Grainger, — I have just arrived here from
India, with important despatches for the Government. The fatigues
of a long journey have re-opened an old wound, and laid me up for a
day ; but as my papers are of such a nature as will require my
presence to explain, there is no use in my forwarding them by
another ; I wait, therefore, and write this hurried note, to say
that I will make you a flying visit on Saturday next. I say yoUj
because I wish to see yourself and alone. Manage this in the
best way you can. I hope to arrive by the morning train, and
be at the villa by eleven or twelve at latest. Whether you receive
me or not, say nothing of this note to your nieces ; but I trust and
pray you will not refuse half an hour to your attached and faithful
friend,
Harry Calvert.
It was a name to bring up many memories, and Miss
Grainger sat gazing at the lines before her in a state of
wonderment blended with terror. Once only had she read
of him since his departure; it was when, agitated and dis-
tressed to know what had become of him, she ventured on
a step of, for her, daring boldness, and to whose temerity
she would not make her nieces the witnesses. She wrote a
letter to Miss Sophia Calvert, begging to have some tidings
of her cousin, and some clew to his whereabouts. The
answer came by return of post; it ran thus: —
600 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
" Miss Calvert has to acknowledge the receipt of Miss Grainger's
note of the 8th inst.
"Miss Calvert is not aware of any claim Miss Grainger can
prefer to address her by letter, still less of any right to bring
under her notice the name of the person she has dared to inquire
after. Any further correspondence from Miss Grainger will be
sent back unopened."
The reading of this epistle made: the old lady keep her
bed for three days; her sufferings being all the more
aggravated, since they imposed secrecy. From that day
forth she had never heard Calvert's name; and though for
hours long she would think and ponder over him, the men-
tion of him was so strictly Interdicted that the very faintest
allusion to him was even avoided.
And now, like one risen from the grave, he was come
back again ! Come back to renew, Heaven could tell what
sorrows of the past, and refresh the memory of days that
had always been dashed with troubles.
It was already Friday. Where and how could a message
reach him? She dreaded him, it is true; but why she
dreaded him she knew not. It was a sort of vague terror,
such as some persons feel at the sound of the sea, or the
deep-voiced moaning of the wind through trees. It con-
veyed a sense of peril through a sense of sadness, — no
more. She had grown to dislike him from the impertinent
rebuke Miss Calvert bad administered to her on his account.
The mention of Calvert was coupled with a darkened room,
leeches, and ice on the head, and, worse than all, a torturing
dread that her mind might wander, and the whole secret
history of the correspondence leak out in her ramblings.
Were not these reasons enough to make her tremble at
the return of the man who had occasioned so much misery?
Yet, if she could even find a pretext, could she be sure that
she could summon courage to say, "I'll not see you?"
There are men to whom a cruelly cold reply is a repulse;
but Calvert was not one of these, and this she knew well.
Besides, were she to decline to receive him, might it not
drive him to come and ask to see the girls, who now, by
acceding to his request, need never hear or know of his
visit?
After long and mature deliberation, she determined on
A SHOCK. 601
her line of action. She would pretend to the girls that her
letter was from her lawyer, who, accidentally finding him-
self in her neighborhood, begged an interview as he passed
through Orta on his way to Milan, and for this purpose she
could go over in the boat alone, and meet Calvert on his
arrival. In this way she could see him without the risk of
her nieces' knowledge, and avoid the unpleasantness of
not asking him to remain when he had once passed her
threshold.
"I can at least show him," she thought, "that our old
relations are not to be revived, though I do not altogether
break off all acquaintanceship. No man has a finer sense
of tact, and he will understand the distinction I intend, and
respect it." She also bethought her it smacked somewhat
of a vengeance, — though she knew not precisely how or
why, — that she 'd take Sophia Calvert's note along with
her, and show him how her inquiry for him was treated by
his family. She had a copy of her own, a most polite and
respectful epistle it was, and in no way calculated to evoke
the rebuke it met with. "He '11 be perhaps able to explain
the mystery," thought she, "and whatever Miss Calvert's
misconception, he can eradicate it when he sees her."
"How fussy and important aunt is this morning! " said
Florence as the old lady stepped into the boat. *'If the
interview were to be with the Lord Chancellor instead of
a London solicitor, she could not look more profoundly
impressed with its solemnity."
"She'll be dreadful when she comes back," said Milly,
laughing; "so full of all the law jargon that she could n't
understand, but will feel a right to repeat, because she has
paid for it."
It was thus they criticised her, — just as many aunts and
uncles, and some papas and mammas, too, are occasionally
criticised by those younger members of the family who are
prone to be very caustic as to the mode certain burdens are
borne, the weight of which has never distressed their own
shoulders. And this not from any deficiency of affection,
but simply through a habit which, in the levity of our daj^,
has become popular, and taught us to think little of the ties
of parentage, and call a father a Governor.
CHAPTER XX.
AGAIN AT ORTA.
" There is a stranger arrived, Signora, who has been ask-
ing for you," said the landlord of the little inn at Orta, as
Miss Grainger reached the door. ''He has ordered a boat,
but feeling poorly, has lain down on a bed till it is ready.
This is his servant," and he pointed, as he spoke, to a
dark-visaged and very handsome man, who wore a turban
of white and gold, and who made a deep gesture of obei-
sance as she turned towards him. Ere she had time to
question him as to his knowledge of English, a bell rung
sharply, and the man hurried away, to return very speedily,
and, at the same instant, a door opened, and Calvert came
towards her, and, with an air of deep emotion, took her
hand and pressed it to his lips.
"This is too kind, — far too kind and considerate of
you," said he, as he led her forward to a room.
"When I got your note," she began, in a voice a good
deal shaken, for there was much in the aspect of the man
before her to move her, " I really did not know what to do.
If you desired to see me alone, it would be impossible to
do this at the villa, and so I bethought me that the best
way was to come over here at once."
" Do you find me much changed ? " he asked, in a low,
sad voice.
"Yes, I think you are a good deal changed. You are
browner, and you look larger, even taller, than you did,
and perhaps the beard makes you seem older."
This was all true, but not the whole truth, which, had
she spoken it, would have said that he was far handsomer
than before. The features had gained an expression of
dignity and elevation from habits of command, and there
AGAIN AT ORTA. 603
was a lofty pride in his look which became him well, the
more as it was now tempered with a gentle courtesy of
manner which showed itself in every word and every gesture
towards her. A slight, scarcely perceptible baldness, at
the very top of the forehead, served to give height to his
head, and add to the thoughtful character of his look. His
dress, too, was peculiar, and probably set off to advantage
his striking features and handsome figure. He wore a
richly embroidered pelisse, fastened by a shawl at the waist,
and on his head, rather jauntily set, a scarlet fez, stitched
in gold, and ornamented with a star of diamonds and
emeralds.
"You are right," said he, with a winning but very melan-
choly smile. "These last two years have aged me greatly;
I have gone through a great deal in them. Come," —
added he, as he seated himself at her side and took her
hand in his, — "come, tell me what have you heard of me?
Be frank, tell me everything."
"Nothing, — absolutely nothing," said she.
"Do you mean that no one mentioned me? "
"We saw no one. Our life has been one of complete,
unbroken solitude."
" Well, but your letters ; people surely wrote about me ? "
"No," said she, in some awkwardness; for she felt as
though there was something offensive in this oblivion, and
was eager to lay it to the charge of their isolation.
"Remember what I have told you about our mode of life."
"You read the newspapers, though! You might have
come upon my name in them!"
"We read none. We ceased to take them. We gave
ourselves up to the little cares and occupations of our
home, and we really grew to forget that there was a world
outside us."
Had she been a shrewd reader of expression, she could
not fail to have noticed the intense relief her words gave
him. He looked like one who hears the blessed words, " Not
Guilty! " after hours of dread anxiety for his fate. "And
am I to believe," asked he, in a voice tremulous with joy,
" that from the hour I said farewell, to this day, that I have
been to you as one dead and buried and forgotten ? "
604 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
"I don't think we forgot you; but we rigidly observed
our pledge to you, and never spoke of you."
•'What is there on earth so precious as the trustfulness
of true friendship?" burst he in, with a marked enthu-
siasm. "I have had what the world calls great successes,
and I swear to you I 'd give them all, and all their re-
wards twice told, for this proof of affection. And the dear
girls, and Florence, — how is she?"
"Far better than when you saw her. Indeed, I should
say perfectly restored to health. She walks long walks,
and takes rides on a mountain pony, and looks like one
who had never known illness."
"Not married yet? " said he, with a faint smile.
"No; he is coming back next month, and they will prob-
ably be married before Christmas."
"And as much in love as ever, — he, I mean?"
"Fully; and she too."
"Pshaw! She never cared for him; she never could care
for him. She tried it, — did her very utmost. I saw the
struggle, and I saw its failure, and I told her so! "
"You told her so!"
'* Why not? It was well for the poor girl that one human
being in all the world should understand and feel for her.
And she is determined to marry him? "
"Yes; he is coming back solely with that object."
"How was it that none of his letters spoke of me? Are
you quite sure they did not? "
" I am perfectly sure, for she always gave them to me to
read. "
" Well ! " cried he, boldly, as he stood up, and threw his
head haughtily back, " the fellow who led Calvert's Horse,
— that was the name my irregulars were known by, — might
have won distinction enough to be quoted by a petty Bengal
civil servant. The Queen will possibly make amends for
this gentleman's forgetfulness."
"You were in all this dreadful campaign, then?" asked
she, eagerly.
"Through the whole of it. Held an independent com-
mand; got four times wounded: this was the last." And
he laid bare a fearful cicatrice that almost surrounded his
right arm above the wrist. "Refused the Bath."
AGAIN AT ORTA. 605
"Refused it?"
"Why not? What object is it to me to be Sir Harry?
Besides, a man who holds opinions such as mine, should
accept no court favors. Colonel Calvert is a sufficient
title."
"And you are a colonel already?"
" I was a major-general a month ago, — local rank, of
course. But why am I led to talk of these things ? May I
see the girls? Will they like to see me?"
"For that I can answer. But are your minutes not
counted? These despatches?"
"I have thought of all that. This sword-cut has left a
terrible 'tic ' behind it, and travelling disposes to it, so that
I have telegraphed for leave to send my despatches forward
by Hassan, my Persian fellow, and rest myself here for a
day or two. I know you '11 not let me die unwatched, un-
cared for. I have not forgotten all the tender care you
once bestowed upon me."
She knew not what to reply. Was she to tell him that
the old green chamber, with its little stair into the garden,
was still at his service? Was she to say, "Your old wel-
come awaits you there," or did she dread his presence
amongst them, and even fear what reception the girls would
extend to him?
"Not," added he, hastily, "that I am to inflict you with
a sick man's company again. I only beg for leave to come
out of a morning when I feel well enough. This inn here
is very comfortable, and though I am glad to see Onofrio
does not recognize me, he will soon learn my ways enough
to suit me. Meanwhile, may I go back with you, or do
you think you ought to prepare them for the visit of so
formidable a personage?"
"Oh, I think you may come at once," said she, laugh-
ingly, but very far from feeling assured at the same time.
" All the better. I have some bawbles here that I want
to deposit in more suitable hands than mine. You know
that we irregulars had more looting than our comrades, and
I believe that I was more fortunate in this way than many
others." As he spoke, he hastily opened and shut again
several jewel cases, but giving her time to glance — no
606 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
more than glance — at the glittering objects they con-
tained. "By the way," said he, taking from one of them a
costly brooch of pearls, "this is the sort of thing they fasten
a shawl with," and he gallantly placed it in her shawl as he
spoke.
"Oh, my dear Colonel Calvert! "
"Pray do not call me colonel. I am Harry Calvert for
you just as I used to be. Besides, I wish for nothing that
may remind me of my late life and all its terrible excite-
ments. I am a soldier tired, very tired, of war's alarms,
and very eager for peace in its best of all significations.
Shall we go?"
"By all means. I was only thinking that you must
reconcile yourself not to return to-night, and rough it how
best you can at the villa."
" Let me once see my portmanteau in the corner of my
old green room, and my pipe where it used to hang beside
my watch over the chimney, and I '11 not believe that I have
passed the last two terrible years but in a dream. You
could not fancy how I attach myself to that spot, but I '11
give you a proof. I have given orders to my agent to buy
the villa. Yes; you'll wake some fine morning and find
me to be your landlord."
It was thus they talked away, rambling from one theme
to the other, till they had gone a considerable way across
the lake, when once more Calvert recurred to the strange
circumstance that his name should never have come before
them in any shape since his departure.
"I ought to tell you," said she, in some confusion, "that
I once did make an effort to obtain tidings of you. I wrote
to your cousin, Miss Sophia."
"You wrote to her!" burst he in, sternly; "and what
answer did you get?"
"There it is," said she, drawing forth the letter, and
giving it to him.
"'No claim! no right! ' " murmured he, as he re-read the
lines; " 'the name of the person she had dared to inquire
after.' And you never suspected the secret of all this
indignant anger? "
"How could I? What was it? "
AGAIN AT ORTA. 607
" One of the oldest and vulgarest of all passions, —
jealousy! Sophy had heard that I was attached to your
niece. Some good-natured gossip went so far as to say we
were privately married. My old uncle, who only about
once in a quarter of a century cares what his family are
doing, wrote me a very insulting letter, reminding me of
the year-long benefits he had bestowed upon me, and, at
the close, categorically demanded, *Are you married to
her? ' I wrote back four words, 'I wish I was,* and there
ended all our intercourse. Since I have won certain dis-
tinctions, however, I have heard that he wants to make
submission, and has even hinted to my lawyer a hope that
the name of Calvert is not to be severed from the old estate
of Rocksley Manor. But there will be time enough to tell
you about all these things. What did your nieces say to
that note of Sophy's?'*
"Nothing. They never saw it; never knew I wrote to
her."
" Most discreetly done on your part. I cannot say how
much I value the judgment you exercised on this occasion."
The old lady set much store by such praise, and grew
rather prolix about all the considerations which led her to
adopt the wise course she had taken.
He was glad to have launched her upon a sea where she
could beat, and tack, and wear at will, and leave him to go
back to his own thoughts.
"And so," said he, at last, "they are to be married before
Christmas?"
"Yes; that is the plan."
"And then she will return with him to India, I take it."
She nodded.
" Poor girl ! And has she not one friend in all the world
to tell her what a life is before her as the wife of a third —
no, but tenth — rate official in that dreary land of splendor
and misery, where nothing but immense wealth can serve
to gloss over the dull uniformity of existence, and where
the income of a year is often devoted to dispel the ennui
of a single day? India, with poverty, is the direst of all
penal settlements. In the bush, in the wilds of New
Zealand, in the far-away islands of the Pacific, you have
608 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
the free air and healthful breezes of heaven. You can bathe
without having an alligator for your companion, and lie
down on the grass without a cobra on your carotid; but, in
India, life stands always face to face with death, and death
in some hideous form."
" How you terrify me ! " cried she, in a voice of intense
emotion.
" 1 don't want to terrify, I want to warn. If it were ever
my fate to have a marriageable daughter, and some petty
magistrate — some small district judge of Bengal — asked
her for a wife, I 'd say to my girl, 'Go and be a farm ser-
vant in New Caledonia. Milk cows, rear lambs, wash,
scrub, toil for your daily bread in some land where poverty
is not deemed the "plague;" but don't encounter life in
a society where to be poor is to be despicable, — where
narrow means are a stigma of disgrace.'"
"Joseph says nothing of all this. He writes like one
well contented with his lot, and very hopeful for the
future."
"Has n't your niece some ten or twelve thousand
pounds?"
"Fifteen."
"Well, he presses the investment, on which he asks a
loan, just as any other roguish speculator would, that 's
all."
"Oh, don't say that, Mr. Calvert. Joseph is not a
rogue."
"Men are rogues according to their capacity. The clever
fellows do not need roguery, and achieve success just
because they are stronger and better than their neighbors;
but I don't want to talk of Loyd, — every consideration of
the present case can be entertained without him."
"How can that be, if he is to be her husband? "
"Ah! If — if. My dear old friend, when an if comes
into any question, the wisest way is not to debate it, for
the simple reason that applying our logic to what is merely
imaginary is very like putting a superstructure of masonry
over a house of cards. Besides, if we must talk with a
hypothesis, I '11 put mine, ' Must she of necessity marry
this man, if he insists on it?'"
AGAIN AT ORTA. 609
"Of course; and the more, that she loves him?"
" Loves him ! Have 1 not told you that you are mistaken
there? He entrapped her at first into a half admissiop of
caring for him, and, partly from a sense of honor, and
partly from obstinacy, she adheres to it. But she does so
just the way people cling to a religion, because nobody has
ever taken the trouble to convert them to another faith."
"I wish you would not say these things to me," cried she,
with much emotion. "You have a way of throwing doubts
upon everything and everybody, that always makes me
miserable, and I ask myself afterwards, *Is there nothing
to be believed? Is no one to be trusted?'"
"Not a great many, I am sorry to say," sighed he.
"It's no bright testimony to the goodness of the world
that the longer a man lives the worse he thinks of it. I
surely saw the flutter of white muslin through the trees
yonder. Oh, dear, how much softer my heart is than I knew
of! I feel a sort of choking in the throat as I draw near
this dear old place. Yes, there she is, — Florence herself.
I remember her way of waving a handkerchief. I '11 answer
it as I used to do." And he stood up in the boat and waved
his handkerchief over his head with a wide and circling
motion. "Look! She sees it, and she 's away to the house
at speed. How she runs! She could not have mustered
such speed as that when I last saw her."
*'She has gone to tell Milly, I 'm certain."
He made no reply, but covered his face with his hands,
and sat silent and motionless. Meanwhile the boat glided
up to the landing-place, and they disembarked.
"I thought the girls would have been here to meet us,"
said Miss Grainger, with a pique she could not repress;
but Calvert walked along at her side, and made no answer.
"I think you know your way here," said she, with a smile,
as she motioned him towards the drawing-room.
39
CHAPTER XXL
THE RETURN.
When Calvert found himself alone in the drawing-room he
felt as if he had never been away. Everything was so
exactly as he left it. There was the sofa drawn close to
the window of the flower-garden where Florence used to
recline; there the little work-table, with the tall glass that
held her hyacinths, the flowers she was so fond of; there
the rug for her terrier to lie on. Yonder, under the fig-
tree, hung the cage with her favorite canary; and here were
the very books she used to read long ago, — Petrarch and
Tennyson and Uhland. There was a flower to mark a place
in the volume of Uhland, and it was at a little poem they
had once read together. How full of memories are these
old rooms, where we have dreamed away some weeks of
life, if not in love, in something akin to it, and thus more
alive to the influences of externals than if further gone in
the passion! There was not a spot, not a chair, nor a
window-seat that did not remind Calvert of some incident
of the past. He missed his favorite song, "A place in thy
memory, dearest," from the piano, and he sought for it and
put it back where it used to be , and he then went over to
her table to arrange the books as they were wont to be long
ago, and came suddenly upon a small morocco case. He
opened it. It was a miniature of Loyd, the man he hated
the most on earth. It was an ill-done portrait, and gave
an affected thoughtf ulness and elevation to his calm features
which imparted insufferable pretension to them. Calvert
held out the picture at arm's length, and laughed scornfully
as he looked at it. He had but time to lay it down on the
table when Milly entered the room. She approached him
hurriedly, and with an agitated manner. "Oh, Colonel
Calvert — " she began.
THE RETURN. 611
"Why not Harry, brother Harry, as I used to be, Milly
dearest," said he, as he caught her hand in both his own.
"What has happened to forfeit for me my old place in your
esteem? "
"Nothing, — nothing, but all is so changed; you have
grown to be such a great man, and we have become lost to
all that goes on in the world."
"And where is your sister? Will she not come to see
me?"
"You startled her; you gave her such a shock, when you
stood up in the boat and returned her salute, that she was
quite overcome, and has gone to her room. Aunt Grainger
is with her, and told me to say, — that is, she hoped, if you
would not take it ill,, or deem it unkind — "
"Go on, dearest; nothing that comes from your lips can
possibly seem unkind; go on."
"But I cannot go on," she cried, and burst into tears and
covered her face with her hands.
"I never thought — so little forethought has selfishness —
that I was to bring sorrow and trouble under this roof. Go
back, and tell your aunt that I hope she will favor me with
five minutes of her company; that I see what I greatly
blame myself for not seeing before, how full of sad memo-
ries my presence here must prove. Go, darling, say this,
and bid me good-bye before you go."
" Oh, Harry, do not say this. I see you are angry with
us. I see you think us all unkind; but it was the sudden-
ness of your coming ; and Florence has grown so nervous
of late, so disposed to give way to all manner of fancies."
"She imagines, in fact," said he, haughtily, "that I have
come back to persecute her with attentions which she has
already rejected. Isn't that so?"
" No. I don't think — I mean Florence could never
think that when you knew of her engagement — knew that
within a few months at furthest — "
"Pardon me, if I stop you. Tell your sister from me
that she has nothing to apprehend from any pretensions of
mine. I can see that you think me changed, Milly; grown
very old and very worn. Well, go back, and tell her that
the inward change is far greater than the outward one.
612 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
Mad Harry has become as tame and quiet and common-
place as that gentleman in the morocco case yonder; and
if she will condescend to see me, she may satisfy herself
that neither of us in future need be deemed dangerous to
the other."
There was an insolent pride in the manner of his delivery
of these words that made Milly's cheek burn as she listened,
and all that her aunt had often told her of " Calvert inso-
lence" now came fully to her mind.
"I will go and speak to my aunt," she said at last.
"Do so," said he, carelessly, as he threw himself into a
chair, and took up the book that lay nearest to him. He
had not turned over many pages — he had read none — when
Miss Grainger entered. She was flushed and flurried in
manner, but tried to conceal it.
"We are giving you a very strange welcome, Colonel —
Mr. Calvert; but you know us all of old, and you know
that dear Florry is so easily agitated and overcome. She
is better now, and if you will come upstairs to the little
drawing-room, she'll see you."
"I am all gratitude," said he, with a low bow; "but I
think it is perhaps better not to inconvenience her. A
visit of constraint would be, to me at least, very painful.
I 'd rather leave the old memories of my happiness here
undashed by such a shadow. Go back, therefore, and say
that I think I understand the reason of her reserve; that I
am sincerely grateful for the thoughtful kindness she has
been minded to observe towards me. You need not add,"
said he with a faint smile, "that the consideration in the
present case was unnecessary. I am not so impressionable
as I used to be; but assure her that I am very sorry for it,
and that Colonel Calvert, with all his successes, is not half
so happy a fellow as Mad Harry used to be without a
guinea."
" But you '11 not leave us? You '11 stay here to-night? "
"Pray excuse me. One of my objects — my chief one —
in coming over here, was to ask your nieces' acceptance of
some trinkets I had brought for them. Perhaps this would
not be a happy moment to ask a favor at their hands, so
pray keep them over and make birthday presents of them in
THE RETURN. 613
my name. This is for Florence, — this, I hope Milly will
not refuse."
''But do not go. I entreat you not to go. I feel so cer-
tain that if you stay we shall all be so happy together.
There is so much, besides, to talk over; and as to those
beautiful things, for I know they must be beautiful — "
"They are curious in their way," said he, carelessly
opening the clasp of one of the cases, and displaying before
her amazed eyes a necklace of pearls and brilliants that a
queen might wear.
"Oh, Colonel Calvert, it would be impossible for my
niece to accept such a costly gift as this. I never beheld
anything so splendid in my life."
"These ear-drops," he continued, "are considered fine.
They were said to belong to one of the wives of the King
of Delhi, and were reputed the largest pearls in India."
" The girls must see them ; though I protest and declare
beforehand, nothing on earth should induce us to accept
them."
"Let them look well at them, then," said he, "for when
you place them in my hands again, none shall ever behold
them after."
"What do you mean? ''
"I mean that I '11 throw them into the lake yonder. A
rejected gift is too odious a memory to be clogged with."
"You could n't be guilty of such rash folly? "
"Don't you know well that I could? Is it to-day or yes-
terday that the Calvert nature is known to you? If you
wish me to swear it, I will do so; and, what is more, I will
make you stand by and see the water close over them."
"Oh, you are not changed, — not in the least changed,"
she cried, in a voice of real emotion.
"Only in some things, perhaps," said he, carelessly.
"By the way, this is a miniature of me, — was taken in
India. It is a locket on this side. Ask Milly to wear it
occasionally for my sake."
"How like! and what a splendid costume! "
"That was my dress in full state; but I prefer my service
uniform, and think it became me better."
"Nothing could become you better than this," said she,
614 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
admiringly; and truly there was good warrant for the
admiration; "but even this is covered with diamonds! "
"Only a circlet and my initials. It is of small value.
These are the bawbles. Do what you will with them; and
now good-bye. Tanti saluti, as we used to say long ago
to the ladies, — Tanti salutt de la parte mia. Tell Milly
she is very naughty not to have given me her hand to kiss
before we parted ; but if she will condescend to wear this
locket now and then, 1 '11 forgive her. Good-bye."
And before Miss Grainger could reply, he had opened the
window and was gone.
When Calvert reached the jetty the boatman was not
there; but the boat, with her oars, lay close to the steps;
the chain that attached her to an iron ring was, however,
padlocked, and Calvert turned impatiently back to seek the
man. After he had gone, however, a few paces, he seemed
to change his mind, and turned once more towards the lake.
Taking up a heavy stone, he proceeded to smash the lock
on the chain. It was stronger than he looked for, and
occupied some minutes; but he succeeded at last. Just as
he threw into the boat the loose end of the broken chain,
he heard steps behind him; he turned: it was Milly, run-
ning towards him at full speed. "Oh, Harry, dear Harry! "
she cried, "don't go; don't leave us; Florence is quite well
again, and as far as strength will let her, trying to come
and meet you. See, yonder she is, leaning on aunt's arm."
True enough, at some hundred yards off, the young girl was
seen slowly dragging her limbs forward in the direction
where they stood.
"I have come some thousand leagues to see her" said
he, sternly, "through greater fatigues, and, perhaps, as
many perils as she is encountering."
"Go to her; go towards her," cried Milly, reproachfully.
"Not one step; not the breadth of a hair, Milly," said
he. "There is a limit to the indignity a woman may put
upon a man, and your sister has passed it. If she likes to
come and say farewell to me here, be it so ; if not, I must
go without it."
"Then I can tell you one thing, Colonel Calvert, if my
s^ister Florence only knew of the words you have just
THE RETURN. 615
spoken, she 'd not move one other step towards you if,
if — "
*'If it were to save my life, you would say. That is not
so unreasonable," said he, with a saucy laugh.
*'Here is Florence come, weak and tottering as she is, to
ask you to stay with us. You '11 not have the heart to say
'No' to her," said Miss Grainger.
" I don't think we — any of us — know much about Mr.
Calvert's heart, or what it would prompt him to do," said
Milly, half indignantly, as she turned away. And fortunate
it was she did turn away, since, had she met the fierce look
of Calvert's eyes at the moment, it would have chilled her
very blood with fear.
"But you'll not refuse me," said Florence, laying her
hand on his arm. "You know well how seldom I ask
favors, and how unused I am to be denied when I do
ask."
" I was always your slave, — I ask nothing better than to
be so still," he whispered in her ear.
" And you will stay ? "
"Yes, till you bid me go," he whispered again. "But
remember, too, that when I ask a favor I can just as little
brook refusal."
"We'll talk of that another time. Give me your arm
now, and help me back to the house, for I feel very weak
and faint. Is Milly angry with you?" she asked, as they
walked along, side by side.
" I don't know ; perhaps so," said he, carelessly.
" You used to be such good friends. I hope you have
not fallen out?"
" I hope not," said he, in his former easy tone ; "or that
if we have, we may make it up again. Bear in mind, Flor-
ence," added he, with more gravity of manner, " that I am a
good deal changed from what you knew me. I have less
pride, cherish fewer resentments, scarcely any hopes, and
no affections, — I mean, strong affections. The heart you
refused is now cold ; the only sentiment left me, is a sense
of gratitude. I can be very grateful; I am already so."
She made no answer to this speech, and they re-entered
the house in silence.
CHAPTER XXII.
A LETTER OF CONFESSIONS.
The following letter from Calvert to Drayton was written
about three weeks after the event of our last chapter : —
The Villa.
My dear Algernon, — I knew my black fellow would run you
to earth, though he had not a word of English in his vocabulary, nor
any clew to you except your name and a map of England. It must
have, however, been his near kinsman — the other " black gentle-
man" — suggested Scarborough to him; and, to this hour, I cannot
conceive how he found you. I am overjoyed to hear that you could
muster enough Hindostanee to talk with him, and hear some of those
adventures which my natural modesty might have scrupled to tell
you. It would seem from your note that he has been candor itself,
and confessed much that a man of a paler and thinner skin might
prefer to have shrouded or evaded. All true, D. ; we have done our
brigandage on a grand scale, and divided our prize-money without the
aid of a prize-court. Keep those trinkets with an easy conscience, and
if they leave your own hands for any less worthy still, remember the
adage, " III got, ill gone," and be comforted. I suppose you are right
— you are generally right on a question of worldly craft and pru-
dence — it is better not to attempt the sale of the larger gems in
England. St. Petersburg and Vienna are as good markets, and
safer.
El. J. has already told you of our escape into Cashmere : make
him narrate the capture of Mansergh, and how he found the Keyser-
bagh necklace under his saddle. A Queen's officer looting ! Only
think of the enormity ! Did it not justify those proceedings in which
instinct anticipated the finding of a court-martial ? The East, and
its adventures — a very bulky roll, I assure you — must wait till we
meet; and in my next I shall say where, and how, and when : for
there is much that I shall tell that I could not write even to you,
Algernon. Respect my delicacy, and be patient.
I know you are impatient to hear why I am not nearer England,
A LETTER OF CONFESSIONS. 617
even at Paris, — and I am just as impatient to tell you. The
address of this will show you where I am. All the writing in the
world could not tell you why. No, Drayton ; I lie awake at night,
questioning, questioning, and in vain. I have gone to the nicest
anatomy of my motives, dissecting fibre by fibre, and may I be — a
Queen's officer — if I can hit upon an explanation of the mystery.
The nearest I can come is, that 1 feel the place dangerous to me, and,
therefore, I cling to it. I know well the feeling that would draw a
man back to the spot where he had committed a great crime. Blood
is a very glutinous fluid, and has most cohesive properties ; but here,
in this place, I have done no enormities, and why 1 hug this coast,
except that it be a lee-shore, where shipwreck is very possible, I
really cannot make out. Not a bit in love? No, Algy. It is not
easy for a man like me to fall m love. Love demands a variety of
qualities, which have long left me, if I ever had them. I have little
trustfulness, no credulity; 1 very seldom look back, never look for-
ward ; 1 neither believe in another, nor ask belief in myself. I have
seen too much of life to be a dreamer, — reality with me denies all
place to mere romance. Last of all, I cannot argue from the exist-
ence of certain qualities in a woman to the certainty of her possess-
ing fifty others that I wish her to have. I only believe what I see,
and my moral eyes are affected with cataract ; and yet, with all this,
there 's a girl here — the same, ay, the same, I told you of long ago
— that I 'd rather marry than I 'd be King of Agra, with a British
governor-general for my water-carrier ! The most maddening of all
jealousy is for a woman that one is not in love with ! I am not mad,
most noble Drayton, though I am occasionally as near it as is safe
for the surrounders. With the same determination that this girl
says she '11 not have me, have I sworn to myself she shall be mine.
It is a fair open game, and I leave you, who love a wager, to name
the winner. I have seen many prettier women, — scores of cleverer
ones. I am not quite sure that in the matter of those social captiva-
tions into which manner enters, she has any especial gifts. She is
not a horsewoman, in the real sense of the word, which, once on a
time, was a sine qud non of mine ; nor, in fact, has she a peculiar
excellence in anything ; and yet she gives you the impression of being
able to be anything she likes. She has great quickness and great
adaptiveness, but she possesses one trait of attraction above all : she
utterly rejects me, and sets all my arts at defiance. I saw, very soon
after I came back here, that she was prepared for a regular siege,
and expected a fierce love-suit on my part. I accordingly spiked my
heavy artillery, and assumed an attitude of peace-like indolence. I
lounged about, chiefly alone , neither avoided nor sought her, and, if
I did nothing more, I sorely puzzled her as to what I could mean by
my conduct. This was so far a success that it excited her interest,
618 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
and I saw that she watched and was studying me. She even made
faint attempts at little confidences : " Saw I was unhappy, — had
something on my mind;" and, for the matter of that, I had plenty,
— plenty on my conscience, too, if nature had been cruel enough to
have inflicted me with one. I, of course, said " No " to all these
insinuations. 1 was not happy nor unhappy. If I sat at the table
of life, and did not eat, it was because I had no great appetite. '
The entertainment did not amuse me much, but I had nowhere par-
ticularly to go to. She went one day so far as to hint whether I was
not crossed in love? But I assured her not, and I saw her grow very
pale as I said it. I even suggested that, though one might have two
attacks of the malady, like the measles, the second one was always
mild, and never hurt the constitution. Having thus piqued her a
little about myself, I gradually unsettled her opinion on other things,
frightened her by how the geologists contradict Genesis, and gave
her to choose between Monsieur Cuvier and Moses. As for India, I
made her believe that we were all heartily ashamed of what we were
doing there, spoke of the Hindoo as the model native, and said that
if the story of our atrocities were written, Europe would rise up and
exterminate us. Hence 1 had not taken the C.B., nor the V.C., nor
any other alphabetical glories. In a word, Drayton, I got her into
that frame of restlessness and fever in which all belief smacks of
foolish credulity, and the commonest exercise of trust seems like the
indulgence of a superstition.
All this time no mention of Loyd, not a hint of his existence.
Yesterday, however, came a fellow here, a certain Mr. Stockwell,
with a note of introduction from Loyd, calling him, " my intimate
friend S., whom you have doubtless heard of as a most successful
photographer. He is going to India with a commission from the
Queen," etc. We had him to dinner, and made him talk, as all such
fellows are ready to talk, about themselves and the fine people who
employ them. In the evening we had his portfolio and the peerage,
and so delighted was the vulgar dog to have got into the land of
coronets and strawberry-leaves that he would have ignored Loyd if
I had not artfully brought him to his recollection ; but he came to the
memory of " poor Joe," as he called him, with such a compassionating
pity that I actually grew to like him. He had been at the vicarage,
too, and saw its little homely ways and small economies ; and I
laughed so heartily at his stupid descriptions and vapid jokes that I
made the ass think he was witty, and actually repeat them. All this
time imagine Florry, pale as a corpse, or scarlet, either half fainting
or in a fever, dying to burst in with an angry indignation, and yet
restrained by maiden bashfulness. She could bear no more by
eleven o'clock, and went off to bed under pretence of a racking
headache.
A LETTER OF CONFESSIONS. 619
It is a great blow at any man's favor in a woman's esteem, when
you show up his particular friend, his near intimate ; and, certes, I
did not spare Stockwell. You have seen me in this part, and you
can give me credit for some powers in playing it.
" Could that creature ever have been the dear friend of Joseph ? "
said Milly, as he said good-night.
"Why not V" I asked. " They seem made for each other.'*
Florry was to have come out for a sail this morning with me, but
she is not well, — I suspect sulky, — and has not appeared. I there-
fore give you the morning that I meant for her. Her excuses have
amazed me, because, after my last night's success, and the sorry
figure I had succeeded in presenting L. to her, I half hoped my own
chances might be looking up. In fact, though I have been playing a
waiting game so patiently to all appearance, I am driven half mad
by self-restraint. Come what may, 1 must end this, — besides, to-day
is the fourth : on the tenth the steamer from Alexandria will touch at
Malta ; L. will therefore be at Leghorn by the fourteenth, and here
two days after, — that .is to say, in twelve days more my siege must
be raised. If I were heavily ironed in a felon's cell, with the day of
my execution fixed, I could not look to the time with one -half the
heart-sinking I now feel.
I 'd give — what would I not give ? — to have you near me,
though in my soul I know all that you 'd say, — how you 'd preach
never minding, letting be, and the rest of it, just as if I could cut out
some other work for myself to-morrow, and think no more of her.
But I cannot. No, Drayton, I cannot. Is it not too hard for the
fellow who cut his way through Lahore with sixteen followers, and
made a lane through her Majesty's light cavalry, to be worsted, de-
feated, and disgraced by a young girl who has neither rank, riches,
nor any remarkable beauty to her share, but is simply sustained by
the resolve that she '11 not have me? Mind, D., I have given her no
opportunity of saying this since I came last here ; on the contrary,
she would, if questioned, be ready — I 'd swear to it she would — to
say, " Calvert paid me no attentions, nor made any court to me."
She is very truthful in everything ; but who is to say that her woman's
instinct may not have revealed to her of my love ? Has not the
woman a man loves always a private key to his heart, and doesn't
she go and tumble its contents about, just out of curiosity, ten times
a d ,y ? Xot that she 'd ever find a great deal either in or on mine.
Neither the indictments for murder or manslaughter, nor that other
heavier charge for H. T., have left their traces within my pericar-
dium, and I could stand to back myself not to rave in a compromising
fashion, if I had a fever to-morrow. But how hollow all this boast-
ing, when that girl within the closed window-shutter yonder defies
r^e, — ay, defies me ! Is she to go off to her wedding with the inner
620 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
consciousness of this victory ? There 's the thought that is driving
me mad, and will, I am certain, end by producing some dire mischief
— what the doctors call a lesion — in this unhappy brain of mine.
And now, as I sit here in listless idleness, that other fellow is hasten-
ing across Egypt, or ploughing his way through the Red Sea, to
come and marry her! I ask you, D., what amount of philosophy is
required to bear up under this ?
I conclude I shall leave this some time next week, — not to come
near England, though, — for I foresee that it will soon be out, where,
how, and with whom I have been spending my holidays. Fifty
fellows must suspect, and some half-dozen must know all about it.
America, I take it, must be my ground, — as well there as anywhere
else; but I can't endure a plan, so enough of this. Don't write to
me till you hear again, for I shall leave this certainly, though where
for, not so certain.
What a deal of trouble and uncertainty that girl might spare me
if she 'd only consent to say " Yes." If I see her alone this evening,
I half think I shall ask her.
Farewell for a while, and believe me,
Yours ever,
Harry C.
P. S. — Nine o'clock, evening. Came down to dinner looking
exceedingly pretty, and dressed to perfection. All spite and malice,
I 'm certain. Asked me to take her out to sail to-morrow. We are
to go off on an exploring expedition to an island, — que sais-je f
The old Grainger looks on me with aunt-like eyes. She has
seen a bracelet of carbuncles in dull gold, the like of which Loyd
could not give her were he to sell justice for twenty years to come. I
have hinted that I mean them for my mother-in-law whenever I
marry, and she understands that the parentage admits of a represen-
tative. All this is very ignoble on my part ; but if I knew of any-
thing meaner that would insure me success, I 'd do it also.
What a stunning vendetta on this girl, if she were at last to con-
sent, to find out whom she had married, and what I Think of the
winter nights' tales, of the charges that hang over me, and their
penalties I Imagine the Hue and Cry as light reading for the
honeymoon 1
He added one line on the envelope, to say he would write
again on the morrow ; but his promise he did not keep.
CHAPTER XXIII.
A STORM.
The boat excursion mentioned in Calverf s letter was not the
only pleasure project of that day. It was settled that Mr.
Stockwell should come out and give Milly a lesson in photo-
graphy, in which, under Loyd's former guidance, she had
already made some progress. He was also to give Miss
Grainger some flower-seeds of a very rare kind, of which he
was carrying a store to the Pasha of Egypt, and which re-
quired some peculiar skill in the sowing. They were to dine,
too, at a little rustic house beside the lake ; and, in fact, the
day was to be one of festivity and enjoyment.
The morning broke splendidly ; and though a few clouds
lingered about the Alpine valleys, the sky over the lake was
cloudless, and the water was streaked and marbled with those
parti-colored lines which Italian lakes wear in the hot days
of midsummer. It was one of those autumnal mornings in
which the mellow coloring of the mature season blends with
the soft air and gentle breath of spring, and all the features
of landscape are displayed in their fullest beauty. Calvert
and Florence were to visit the Isola de San Giulio, and bring
back great clusters of the flowers of the " San Giuseppe'*
trees, to deck the dinner-table. They were also to go on as
far as Pella for ice or snow to cool their wine, the voyage
being, as Calvert said, a blending of the picturesque with
the profitable.
Before breakfast was over the sky grew slightly overcast,
and a large mass of dark cloud stood motionless over the
summit of Monterone.
"'What will the weather do. Carlo?" asked Calvert of
the old boatman of the villa, as he came to say that all was
in readiness.
622 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
''Who knows, 'cellenza?" said he, with a native shrug
of the shoulders. " Monterone is a big traitor of a moun-
tain, and there 's no believing him. If that cloud scatters,
the day will be fine ; if the wind brings down fresh clouds
from the Alps it will come on a ' burrasca.' "
'' Always a burrasca; how I am sick of your burrasca/*
said he, contemptuously. "If you were only once in your
life to see a real storm, how you 'd despise those petty
jobbles, in which rain and sleet play the loudest part."
''What does he say of the weather?" asked Florence,
who saw that Calvert had walked on to a little point with
the old man, to take a freer view of the lake.
" He says that if it neither blows hard nor rains, it will
probably be fine. Just what he has told us every day since
I came here."
" What about this fine trout that you spoke of. Carlo? "
"It is at Gozzano, 'cellenza ; we can take it as we go by."
" But we are going exactly in the opposite direction, my
worthy friend ; we are going to the island and to Pella."
"That is different," said the old man, with another shrug
of the shoulders.
" Did n't you hear thunder? I 'm sure I did," cried Miss
Grainger.
" Up yonder it 's always growling," said Calvert, pointing
towards the Simplon. "It is the first welcome travellers
get when they pass the summit."
"Have you spoken to him, Milly, about Mr. Stockwell?
Will he take him up at Orta, and land him here ? " asked
Miss Grainger, in a whisper.
"No, aunt; he hates Stockwell, he says. Carlo can take
the blue boat and fetch him. They don't want Carlo, it
seems."
" And are you going without a boatman, Florry?" asked
her aunt.
" Of course we are. Two are quite cargo enough in that
small skiff, and I trust I am as skilful a pilot as any
Ortese fisherman," broke in Calvert.
"Oh, I never disputed your skill, Mr. Calvert."
" What, then, do you scruple to confide your niece to
me?" said he, with a low whisper, in v/hich the tone was
A STORM. 623
more menace than mere inquiry. " Is this the first time
we have ever gone out in a boat together ? "
She muttered some assurance of her trustfulness, but so
confusedly and with such embarrassment as to be scarcely
intelligible. *' There! that was certainly thunder!" she
cried.
" There are not three days in three months in this place
without thunder. It is the Italian privilege, I take it, to
make always more noise than mischief."
''But will you go if it threatens so much?" said Miss
Grainger.
" Ask Florry. For my part, I think the day will be a
glorious one."
" I 'm certain it will," said Florence, gayly ; '^ and I quite
agree with what Harry said last night. Disputing about
the weather has the same effect as firing great guns, — it
always brings down the rain."
Calvert smiled graciously at hearing himself quoted. It
was the one sort of flattery he liked the best, and it rallied
him out of his dark humor. " Are you ready? " — he had
almost added " dearest," and only caught himself in time, —
perhaps, indeed, not completely in time, — for she blushed,
as she said, " Eccomi."
The sisters affectionately embraced each other. Milly
even ran after Florence to kiss her once again, after part-
ing, and then Florry took Calvert's arm, and hastened away
to the jetty. " I declare," said she, as she stepped into
the boat, " this leave-taking habit, when one is going out
to ride, or to row, or to walk for an hour, is about the
stupidest thing I know of."
"I always said so. It's like making one's will every
day before going down to dinner. It is quite true you may
chance to die before the dessert, but the mere possibility
should not interfere with your asking for soup. No, no,
Florry, you are to steer ; the tiller is yours for to-day : my
post is here ; " and he stretched himself at the bottom of
the boat, and took out his cigar. The light breeze was just
enough to move the little lateen sail, and gradually it filled
out, and the skiff stole quietly away from shore, without
even a ripple on the water.
624 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
" What's the line, Florry? ' Hope at the helm, pleasure
at the prow,* or is it love at the helm? "
"A bad steersman, 1 should say; far too capricious,"
cried she, laughing.
" I don't know. I think he has one wonderful attribute :
he has got wings to fly away with whenever the boat is in
danger, and I believe it is pretty much what love does
always."
"Can't say," said she, carelessly. "Isn't that a net
yonder? Oughtn't we to steer clear of it?"
"Yes. Let her fall off — so; that's enough. What a
nice light hand you have."
" On a horse they tell me my hand is very light."
" How I 'd like to see you on my Arab * Said.* Such a
creature ! so large-eyed, and with such a full nostril, the
face so concave in front, the true Arab type, and the jaw a
complete semicircle. How proud he 'd look under you, with
that haughty snort he gives, as he bends his knee. He was
the present of a great Rajah to me, — one of those native
fellows we are graciously pleased to call rebels, because
they don't fancy to be slaves. Two years ago he owned a
territory about the size of half Spain, and he is now some-
thing like a brigand chief, with a few hundred followers."
"Dear Harry, do not talk of India, — at least, not of
the mutiny."
"Mutiny! Why call it mutiny, Florry? Well, love, I
have done," he muttered, for the word escaped him, and he
feared how she might resent it.
" Come back to my tightness of hand."
" Or of heart, for I sorely suspect, Florence, the quality
is not merely a manual one."
" Am I steering well? "
" Perfectly. Would that I could sail on and on forever
thus, —
" * Over an ocean just like this,
A life of such untroubled bliss.' "
Calvert threw in a sentimental glance with this quotation.
"In other words, an existence of nothing to do,'* said
she, laughing, " with an excellent cigar to beguile it.**
A STORM. .625
" Well, but * ladye faire/ remember that I have earned
some repose. I have not been altogether a carpet knight.
I have had my share of lance and spear, and amongst fel-
lows who handle their weapons neatly."
" You are dying to get back to Ghoorkas and Sikhs ; but
I won't have it. I'd rather hear Metastasio or Petrarch,
just now."
*' What if I were to quote something apposite, though it
were only prose, — something out of the ' Promessi Sposi * ? "
She made no answer, and turned away her head.
** Put up your helm a little; let the sails draw freely.
This is very enjoyable ; it is a right royal luxury. I 'm not
sure Antony ever had his galley steered by Cleopatra, —
had he?"
** I don't know; but I do know that I am not Cleopatra,
nor you Antony."
*' How readily you take one up for a foolish speech! as
if these rambling indiscretions were not the soul of such
converse as ours. They are like the squalls, that only
serve to increase our speed and never risk our safety ; and,
somehow, I feel to-day as if my temper was all of that fitful
and capricious kind. I suppose it is the over-happiness.
Are you happy, Florry?" asked he, after a pause.
" If you mean, do I enjoy this glorious day and our sail,
— yes, intensely. Now, what am I to do? The sail is flap-
ping in spite of me."
"Because the wind has chopped round, and is coming
from the eastward. Down your helm, and let her find her
own way. We have the noble privilege of not caring
whither. How she spins through it now ! "
"It is immensely exciting," said she, and her color
heightened as she spoke.
"Have you superstitions about dates?" he asked, after
another pause.
" No ; I don't think so. My life has been so uneventful.
Few days record anything memorable. But why did you
ask?"
"I am — I am a devout believer in lucky and unlucky
days ; and had I only bethought me this was a Friday, I 'd
have put off our sail till to-morrow."
40
626 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
*'It is strange to see a man like you attach importance
to these things."
*' And yet it is exactly men like me who do so. Super-
stitions belong to hardy, stern, rugged races, like the North-
men, even more than the natives of southern climes. Too
haughty and too self-dependent to ask counsel from others
like themselves, they seek advice in the occult signs and
faint whispers of the natural world. Would you believe it,
that I cast a horoscope last night to know if I should succeed
in the next project I undertook ? "
"And what was the answer?"
" An enigma to this purpose : that if what I undertook
corresponded with the entrance of Orion into the seventh
house — Why are you laughing? "
"Is it not too absurd to hear such nonsense from you? "
"Was it not the grotesque homage of the witch made
Macbeth a murderer ? What are you doing, child ? Luff —
luff up ; the wind is freshening."
" I begin to think there should be a more skilful hand on
the tiller. It blows freshly now."
"In three days more, Florence," said he, gravely, " it
will be exactly two years since we sailed here all alone.
Those two years have been to me like a long, long life, so
much of danger and trouble and suffering have been com-
passed in them. Were I to tell you all, you 'd own that
few men could have borne my burden without being crushed
by it. It was not death in any common shape that I con-
fronted. But I must not speak of this. What I would say
is, that through all the perils 1 passed, one image floated
before me, — one voice was in my ear. It was yours."
" Dear Harry, let me implore you not to go back to these
things."
"I must, Florence, — I must," said he, still more sadly.
" If I pain you, it is only your fair share of suffering."
" My fair share ! And why? "
"For this reason. When I knew you first, I was a
worn-out, weary, heart-sick man of the world. Young as
I was, I was weary of it all; I thought I had tasted of
whatever it had of sweet or bitter. I had no wish to renew
my experiences. I felt there was a road to go, and I began
A STORM. 627
my life-journey without iuterest, or anxiety, or hope. You
taught me otherwise, Florence ; you revived the heart that
was all but cold, and brought it back to life and energy;
you inspired me with high ambitions and noble desires ; you
gave confidence where there had been distrust, and hope
where there had been indifference."
"There, there!" cried she, eagerly; *' there comes
another squall. You must take the helm; I am getting
frightened."
" You are calmer than I am, Florence dearest. Hear
me out. Why, I ask you — why call me back to an exis-
tence which you intended to make valueless to me? Why
ask me to go a road where you refuse to journey ? "
** Do come here! I know not what I am doing. And
see, it grows darker and darker over yonder ! "
" You steered me into stormier waters, and had few
compunctions for it. Hear me out, Florence. For you I
came back to a life that I ceased to care for; for you I
took on me cares, and dangers, and crosses, and conquered
them all ; for you I won honors, high rewards, and riches,
and now I come to lay them at your feet, and say, ' Weigh
all these against the proofs of that other man's affection.
Put into one scale these successes, — won alone for you, —
these trials, these wounds, — and into the other some
humdrum letters of that good-enough creature, who is no
more worthy of you than he has the courage to declare it.' "
As he spoke, a clap of thunder, sharp as a cannon-shot,
broke above their heads, and a squall struck the boat aloft,
bending her over till she half filled with water, throwing at
the same time the young girl from her place to the lee-side
of the boat.
Lifting her up, Calvert placed her on the seat, while
he supported her with one arm, and with the other hand
grasped the tiller.
*' Is there danger?" whispered she, faintly.
*'No, dearest, none. I'll bale out the water when the
wind lulls a little. Sit close up here, and all will be well."
The boat, however, deeply laden, no longer rose over
the waves, but dipped her bow, and took in more water
at every plunge.
628 A RENT IN A CLOUD.
** Tell me this hand is mine, my own dearest Florence, —
mine forever, and see how it will nerve my arm. I am
powerless if I am hopeless. Tell me that I have something
to live for, and I live."
'' Oh, Harry, is it when my heart is dying with fear that
you ask me this? Is it generous, — is it fair? There! the
sail IS gone ! the ropes are torn across."
"It is only the jib, darling, and we shall be better with-
out it. Speak, Florence ! say it is my own wife I am sav-
ing, — not the bride of that man, who, if he were here,
would be at your feet in craven terror this instant."
' ' There goes the mast ! "
At the word the spar snapped close to the thwart and fell
over the side, carrying the sail with it. The boat now lay
with one gunwale completely under water, helpless and
water-logged. A wild shriek burst from the girl, who
thought all was lost.
''Courage, dearest, — courage! she'll float still. Hold
close to me and fear nothing. It is not Loyd's arm that
you have to trust to, but that of one who never knew
terror ! "
The waves surged up now with every heaving of the
boat, so as to reach their breasts, and, sometimes striking
on the weather-side, broke in great sheets of water over
them.
" Oh, can you save us, Harry, — can you save us? " cried
she.
"Yes, if there's aught worth saving," said he, sternly.
"It is not safety that I am thinking of, it is what is to
come after. Have I your promise? Are you mine?"
" Oh ! do not ask me this ; have pity on me."
" Where is your pity for me? Be quick, or it will be too
late. Answer me, — mine, or his? "
"His to the last! "cried she, with a wild shriek; and,
clasping both her hands above her head, she would have
fallen, had he not held her.
" One chance more. Refuse me, and I leave you to your
fate ! " cried he, sternly.
She could not speak, but in the agony of her terror she
threw her arms around and clasped him wildly. The dark,
A STORM. 629
dense cloud that rested on the lake was rent asunder by a
flash of lightning at the instant, and a sound like a thousand
great guns shook the air. The wind, skimming the sea,
carried sheets of water along, and almost submerged the
boat as they passed.
'' Yes, or no ! " shouted Calvert, madly, as he struggled to
disengage himself from her grasp.
'' No ! " she cried, with a wild yell that rung above all the
din of the storm ; and as she said it he threw her arms wide
and flung her from him. Then, tearing off his coat, plunged
into the lake.
The thick clouds, as they rolled down from the Alps to
meet the wind, settled over the lake, making a blackness
almost like night, and only broken by the white flashes of
the lightning. The thunder rolled out as it alone does in
these mountain regions, where the echoes keep on repeating
till they fill the very air with their deafening clamor. Scarcely
was Calvert a few yards from the boat than he turned to
swim back to her, but already was she hid from his view.
The waves ran high, and the drift foam blinded him at
every instant. He shouted out at the top of his voice ; he
screamed "Florence ! Florence ! " but the din around drowned
his weak efforts, and he could not even hear his own words.
With his brain mad by excitement, he fancied every in-
stant that he heard his name called, and turned, now hither,
now thither, in wild confusion. Meanwhile, the storm deep-
ened, and the wind smote the sea with frequent claps, sharp
and sudden as the rush of steam from some great steam-
pipe. Whether his head reeled with the terrible uproar
around, or that his mind gave way between agony and
doubt, who can tell ? He swam madly on and on, breasting
the waves with his strong chest, and lost to almost all con-
sciousness, save of the muscular effort he was making :
none saw him more !
The evening was approaching, the storm had subsided,
and the tall Alps shone out in all the varied colors of rock,
or herbage, or snow-peak; and the blue lake at the foot,
in its waveless surface, repeated all their grand outlines and
all their glorious tints. The water was covered with row-
630 A RENT IN A CLOUD
boats in every direction, sent out to seek for Florence and
her companion. They were soon perceived to cluster round
one spot, where a dismasted boat lay half-filled with water,
and a figure, as of a girl sleeping, lay in the stern, her head
resting on the gunwale. It was Florence, still breathing,
still living, but terror-stricken, lost to all consciousness, her
limbs stiffened with cold. She was lifted into a boat and
carried on shore.
Happier for her the long death-like sleep — that lasted for
days — than the first vague dawn of consciousness, when
her senses, returning, brought up the terrible memory of
the storm, and the last scene with Calvert. With a heart-
rending cry for mercy she would start up in bed, and,
before her cry had well subsided, would come the con-
sciousness that the peril was past ; and then, with a mourn-
ful sigh, would she sink back again to try and regain
suflScient self-control to betray nothing — not even of him
who had deserted her.
Week after week rolled by, and she made but slow pro-
gress towards recovery. There was not, it is true, what
the doctors could pronounce to be malady, — her height-
ened pulse alone was feverish, — but a great shock had
shaken her, and its effects remained in an utter apathy and
indifference to everything around her.
She wished to be alone, — to be left in complete solitude,
and the room darkened. The merest stir or movement in
the house jarred on her nerves and irritated her, and with
this came back paroxysms of excitement that recalled the
storm and the wreck. Sad, therefore, and sorrowful to
see as were the long hours of her dreary apathy, they were
less painful than these intervals of acute sensibility ; and
between the two her mind vibrated.
One evening, about a month after the wreck, Milly came
down to her aunt's room to say that she had bean speaking
about Joseph to Florry. '* I was telling her how he was
-detained at Calcutta, and could not be here before the sec-
ond mail from India ; and her reply was, ' It is quite as
well. He will be less shocked when he sees me.' '*
" Has she never asked about Calvert? " asked the old lady.
''Never. Not once. I half suspect, however, that she
overheard us that evening when we were talking of him, and
A STORM. 631
wondering that he had never been seen again. For she
said afterwards, ' Do not say before me what you desire
me not to hear, for I hear frequently when I am unable
to speak, or even make a sign in reply.*"
" But it is strange that nothing should ever be known of
him,"
'' No, aunt. Carlo says several have been drowned in
this lake whose bodies have never been found. He has some
sort of explanation, about deep currents that set in amongst
the rocks at the bottom, which I could not understand."
The days dragged on as before. Miss Grainger, after
some struggles about how to accomplish the task, took cour-
age, and wrote to Miss Sophia Calvert to inform her of the
disastrous event which had occurred, and the loss of her
cousin. The letter was, however, left without any acknowl-
edgment whatever, and save in some chance whisperings
between Milly and her aunt, the name of Calvert was never
spoken of again.
Only a few days before Christmas a telegram told them
that Loyd had reached Trieste, and would be with them in
a few days. By this time Florence had recovered much of
her strength and some of her looks. She was glad, very
glad to hear that Joseph was coming ; but her joy was not
excessive. Her whole nature seemed to have been toned
down by that terrible incident to a state of calm resigna-
tion to accept whatever came, with little of joy or sorrow ;
to submit to, rather than partake of, the changeful fortunes
of life. It was thus Lloyd found her when he came, and,
to his thinking, she was more charming, more lovable than
ever. The sudden caprices, which so often had worried
him, were gone, and in their place there was a gentle tran-
quillity of character which suited every trait of his own
nature, and rendered her more than ever companionable to
him. Warned by her ^unt and sister to avoid the topic
of the storm, he never alluded to it in any shape to Flor-
ence ; but one evening, as, after a long walk together, sher
lay down to rest before tea-time, he took Milly's arm and
led her into the garden.
" She has told me all, Milly," said he, with some emo-
tion, — ''at least, all that she can remember of that terrible
day."
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE LAST AND THE SHORTEST.
LoYD was married to Florence ; and they went to India, and
in due time — even earlier than due time — he was promoted
from rank to rank till he reached the dignity of chief judge of
a district, — a position which he filled with dignity and credit.
Few were more prosperous in all the relations of their
lives. They were fortunate in almost everything, even to
their residence near Simlah, on the slope of the Himalaya;
they seemed to have all the goods of fortune at their feet.
In India, where hospitality is less a virtue than a custom,
Loyd's house was much frequented ; his own agreeable man-
ners and the charming qualities of his wife had given them
a widespread notoriety, and few journeyed through their
district without seeking their acquaintance.
"You don't know who is coming here to dinner, to-day,
Florry," said Loyd, one morning at breakfast; "some one
you will be glad to see, even for a memory of Europe, —
Stockwell."
" Stockwell? I don't remember Stockwell.'*
"Not remember him? And he so full of the charming
reception you gave him at Orta, where he photographed the
villa, and you and Milly in the porch, and Aunt Grainger
washing her poodle in the flower-garden ? "
" Oh, to be sure I do; but he would never let us have a
copy of it, he was so afraid Aunt Grainger would take it
ill; and then he went away very suddenly, — if I mistake
not, he was called off by telegram on the very day he was
to dine with us."
" Perhaps he '11 have less compunctions now that your
aunt is so unlikely to see herself so immortalized. I 'm to
go over to Behasana to fetch him, and I '11 ask if he has a
copy."
THE LAST AND THE SHORTEST. 683
His day's duties over, Loyd went across to the camp
where his friend Stockwell was staying. He brought him
back, and the photographs were soon produced.
"My wife," said Loyd, "wishes to see some of her old
Italian scenes. Have you any of those you took in Italy ? "
"Yes, I have some half-dozen yonder. There they are,
with their names on the back of them. This was the little
inn you recommended me to stop at, with the vine terrace
at the back of it. Here, you see the clump of cypress-
trees next the boat-house."
"Ay, but she wants a little domestic scene at the villa,
with her aunt making the morning toilet of her poodle.
Have you got that?"
"To be sure I have; and — not exactly as a pendant to
it, for it is terrific rather than droll — I have got a storm-
scene that I took the morning I came away. The horses
were just being harnessed, for I received a telegram inform-
ing me I must be at Ancona two days earlier than I looked
for to catch the Indian mail, and I was taking the last view
before I started. I was in a tremendous hurry, and the
whole thing is smudged and scarce distinguishable. It was
the grandest storm I ever witnessed. The whole sky grew
black, and seemed to descend to meet the lake, as it was
lashed to fury by the wind. I had to get a peasant to hold
the instrument for me as I caught one effect, — merely one.
The moment was happy : it was just when a great glare of
lightning burst through the black mass of cloud, and lit up
the centre of the lake, at the very moment that a dismasted
boat was being drifted along to, I suppose, certain destruc-
tion. Here it is, and here are, as well as I can make out,
two figures. They are certainly figures, biurred as they are,
and that is clearly a woman clinging to a man who is throw-
ing her off : the action is plainly that. I have called it ' A
Rent in a Cloud.'"
"Don't bring this to-day, Stockwell," said Loyd, as the
cold sweat burst over his face and forehead; "and when
you talk of Orta to my wife, say nothing of the * Rent in a
Cloud.' "
THE END.
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