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DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " VANITY FAIR," " THE ADVENTURES OF 
 PHILIP," ETC. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 
 1867. 
 
[ The right of Translation is reserved.'} 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The Family Tree 1 
 
 II. The House of Saverne 14 
 
 III. The Travellers 61 
 
 IV. Out of the Depths 94 
 
 V. I Hear the Sound of Bow Bells 125 
 
 VI. I Escape from a great Danger 158 
 
 VII. The last of my School-days 188 
 
 VIII. I Enter His Majesty's Navy 218 
 
 Notes on Denis Duval 255 
 
DENIS DUVAL 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FAMILY TREE. 
 
 To plague my wife, who does not understand 
 pleasantries in the matter of pedigree, I once 
 drew a fine family tree of my ancestors, with 
 Claude Duval, captain and highwayman, sus. per 
 coll. in the reign of Charles II., dangling from 
 a top branch. But this is only my joke with 
 her High Mightiness my wife, and his Serene 
 Highness my son. None of us'Duvals have been 
 suspercollated to my knowledge. As a boy, I 
 have tasted a rope's-end often enough, but not 
 round my neck; and the persecutions endured 
 by my ancestors in France for our Protestant 
 
 1 
 
2 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 religion, which we early received and steadily 
 maintained, did not bring death upon us, as 
 upon many of our faith, but only fines and 
 poverty, and exile from our native country. The 
 world knows how the bigotry of Lewis XIV. 
 drove many families out of France into England, 
 who have become trusty and loyal subjects of the 
 British crown. Among the thousand fugitives 
 were my grandfather and his wife. They settled 
 at Winchelsea, in Sussex, where there has been 
 a French church ever since Queen Bess's time, 
 and the dreadful day of Saint Bartholomew. 
 Three miles off, at Eye, is another colony and 
 church of our people : another fester Burg, where, 
 under Britannia's sheltering buckler, we have 
 been free to exercise our fathers' worship, and 
 sing the songs of our Zion. 
 
 My grandfather was elder and precentor of 
 the church of Winchelsea, the pastor being Mon- 
 sieur Denis, father of Kear-Admiral Sir Peter 
 Denis, Baronet, my kind and best patron. He 
 sailed with Anson in the famous Centurion, and 
 obtained his first promotion through that great 
 seaman : and of course you will all remember 
 that it was Captain Denis who brought our good 
 
THE FAMILY TREE. 3 
 
 Queen Charlotte to England (7th September, 
 1761), after a stormy passage of nine days, from 
 Stade. As a child I was taken to his house in 
 Great Ormond Street, Queen Square, London, 
 and also to the Admiral's country seat, Valence, 
 near Westerham, in Kent, where Colonel Wolfe 
 lived, father of the famous General James Wolfe, 
 the glorious conqueror of Quebec* 
 
 My father, who was of a wandering disposition, 
 happened to be at Dover in the year 1761, when 
 the Commissioners passed through, who were on 
 their way to sign the Treaty of Peace, known as 
 the Peace of Paris. He had parted, after some 
 hot words, I believe, from his mother, who was, 
 like himself, of a quick temper, and he was on 
 the look-out for employment when Fate threw 
 these gentlemen in his way. Mr. Duval spoke 
 English, French, and German, his parents being 
 of Alsace, and Mr. having need of a con- 
 fidential person to attend him, who was master 
 
 * I remember a saying of G Aug — st— s S— -lw— n, Esq., 
 
 regarding the General, -which has not been told, as far as I know, 
 in the anecdotes. A Macaroni guardsman, speaking of Mr. Wolfe, 
 asked, " Was he a Jew ? Wolfe was a Jewish name." " Cer- 
 tainly," says Mr. S— lw — n, "Mr. Wolfe was the Height of 
 Abraham." 
 
 1—2 
 
4 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 of the languages, my father offered himself, and 
 was accepted mainly through the good offices of 
 Captain Denis, our patron, whose ship was then 
 in the Downs. Being at Paris, father must needs 
 visit Alsace, our native country, and having scarce 
 one guinea to rub against another, of course chose 
 to fall in love with my mother and marry her out 
 of hand. Mons. mon pere, I fear, was but a 
 prodigal; but he was his parents' only living 
 child, -and when he came home to Winchelsea, 
 hungry and penniless, with a wife on his hand, 
 they killed their fattest calf, and took both wan- 
 derers in. A short while after her marriage, my 
 mother inherited some property from her parents 
 in France, and most tenderly nursed my grand- 
 mother through a long illness, in which the good 
 lady died. Of these matters I knew nothing 
 personally, being at the time a child two or three 
 years old; crying and sleeping, drinking and 
 eating, growing, and having my infantile ail- 
 ments, like other little darlings. 
 
 A violent woman was my mother, jealous, hot, 
 and domineering, but generous and knowing how 
 to forgive. I fancy my papa gave her too many 
 opportunities of exercising this virtue, for, during 
 
THE FAMILY TREE. 5 
 
 his brief life, he was ever in scrapes and trouble. 
 He met with an accident when fishing off the 
 French coast, and was brought home and died, 
 and was buried at Winchelsea ; but the cause of 
 his death I never knew until my good friend 
 Sir Peter Denis told me in later years, when I 
 had come to have troubles of my own. 
 
 I was born on the same day with his Royal 
 Highness the Duke of York, viz., the 13th of 
 August, 1763, and used to be called the Bishop 
 of Osnaburg by the boys in Winchelsea, where 
 between us French boys and the English boys 
 I promise you there was many a good battle. 
 Besides being ancien and precentor of the French 
 church at Winchelsea, grandfather was a per- 
 ruquier and barber by trade, and, if you must 
 know it, I have curled and powdered a gentle- 
 man's head before this, and taken him by the 
 nose and shaved him. I do not brag of having 
 used lather and brush : but what is the use of 
 disguising anything? Tout se sgait, as the 
 French have it, and a great deal more too. There 
 is Sir Humphrey Howard, who served with me 
 second-lieutenant in the Meleager — he says he 
 comes from the N — f— Ik Howards; but his 
 
6 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 father was a shoemaker, and we always called 
 him Humphrey Snob in the gunroom. 
 
 In France very few wealthy ladies are accus- 
 tomed to nurse their children, and the little ones 
 are put out to farmers' wives and healthy nurses, 
 and perhaps better cared for than by their own 
 meagre mothers. My mother's mother, an 
 honest farmer's wife in Lorraine (for I am the 
 first gentleman of my family, and chose my 
 motto * of fecimus ijpsi not with pride, but with 
 humble thanks for my good fortune), had brought 
 up Mademoiselle Clarisse de Viomesnil, a Lor- 
 raine lady, between whom and her foster- 
 sister there continued a tender friendship long 
 after the marriage of both. Mother came to 
 England, the wife of Monsieur mon papa ; and 
 Mademoiselle de Viomesnil married in her own 
 country. She was of the Protestant branch of 
 the Viomesnil, and all the poorer in consequence 
 of her parents' fidelity to their religion. Other 
 members of the family were of the Catholic re- 
 ligion, and held in high esteem at Versailles. 
 
 * The Admiral insisted on taking or on a bend sable, three 
 razors displayed proper, with the above motto. The family have 
 adopted the mother's coat of arms. 
 
THE FAMILY TREE. 7 
 
 Some short time after my mother's arrival in 
 England, she heard that her dear foster-sister 
 Clarisse was going to marry a Protestant gentle- 
 man of Lorraine, Vicomte de Barr, only son of 
 M. le Comte de Saverne, a chamherlain to his 
 Polish Majesty King Stanislas, father of the 
 French Queen. M. de Saverne, on his son's 
 marriage, gave up to the Vicomte de Barr his 
 house at Saverne, and here for a while the newly 
 married couple lived. I do not say the young 
 couple, for the Vicomte de Barr was five-and- 
 twenty years older than his wife, who was but 
 eighteen when her parents married her. As my 
 mother's eyes were very weak, or, to say truth, 
 she was not very skilful in reading, it used to he 
 my lot as a boy to spell out my lady Viscountess's 
 letters to her soeur de lait, her good Ursule : and 
 many a smart rap with the rolling-pin have I had 
 over my noddle from mother as I did my best to 
 read. It was a word and a blow with mother. 
 She did not spare the rod and spoil the child, 
 and that I suppose is the reason why I am so 
 well grown — six feet two in my stockings, and fifteen 
 stone four last Tuesday, when I was weighed 
 along with our pig. Mem. — My neighbour's 
 
8 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 hams at Rose Cottage are the hest in all Hamp- 
 shire. 
 
 I was so young that I could not understand 
 all I read. But I rememher mother used to 
 growl in her rough way (she had a grenadier 
 height and voice, and a pretty smart pair of black 
 whiskers too) — my mother used to cry out, " She 
 suffers — my Biche is unhappy — she has got a 
 bad husband. He is a brute. All, men are 
 brutes." And with this she would glare at grand- 
 papa, who was a very humble little man, and 
 trembled before his bru, and obeyed her most 
 obsequiously. Then mother would vow she would 
 go home, she would go and succour her Biche ; 
 but who would take care of these two imbeciles ? 
 meaning me and my grandpapa. Besides, 
 Madame Duval was wanted at home. She dressed 
 many ladies' heads, with very great taste, in the 
 French way, and could shave, frizz, cut hair, 
 and tie a queue along with the best barber 
 in the county. Grandfather and the appren- 
 tice wove the wigs; when I was at home, I 
 was too young for that work, and was taken 
 off from it, and sent to a famous good 
 school, Pocock's grammar-school at Rye, where 
 
THE FAMILY TREE. 9 
 
 I learned to speak English like a Briton — born 
 as I am — and not as we did at home, where we 
 used a queer Alsatian jargon of French and Ger- 
 man. At Pocock's I got a little smattering of 
 Latin, too, and plenty of fighting for the first 
 month or two. I remember my patron coming 
 to see me in uniform, blue and white laced with 
 gold, silk stockings and white breeches, and two 
 of his officers along with him. " Where is Denis 
 Duval?" says he, peeping into our school-room, 
 and all the boys looking round with wonder at 
 the great gentleman. Master Denis Duval was 
 standing on a bench at that very moment for 
 punishment, for fighting I suppose, with a 
 black eye as big as an omelette. "Denis 
 would do very well if he would keep his fist off 
 other boys' noses," says the master, and the 
 captain gave me a seven-shilling piece, and I 
 spent it all but twopence before the night was 
 over, I remember. Whilst I was at Pocock's, 
 I boarded with Mr. Rudge, a tradesman, who, 
 besides being a grocer at Rye, was in the seafaring 
 way, and part owner of a fishing-boat ; and he 
 took some very queer fish in his nets, as you shall 
 hear soon. He was a chief man among the 
 
10 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 Wesleyans, and I attended his church with him, 
 not paying much attention to those most serious 
 and sacred things in my early years, when I was 
 a thoughtless boy, caring for nothing but lollipops, 
 hoops, and marbles. 
 
 Captain Denis was a very pleasant, lively gentle- 
 man, and on this day he asked the master, Mr. 
 Coates, what was the Latin for a holiday, and 
 hoped Mr. C. would give one to his boys. Of 
 course we sixty boys shouted yes to that pro- 
 posal ; and as for me, Captain Denis cried out, 
 "Mr. Coates, I press this fellow with the black 
 eye here, and intend to take him to dine with 
 me at the Star." You may be sure I skipped 
 off my bench, and followed my patron. He and 
 his two officers went to the Star, and after dinner 
 called for a crown bowl of punch, and though I 
 would drink none of it, never having been able 
 to bear the taste of rum or brandy, I was glad 
 to come out and sit with the gentlemen, who 
 seemed to be amused with my childish prattle. 
 Captain Denis asked me what I learned, and I 
 daresay I bragged of my little learning : in fact 
 I remember talking in a pompous way about 
 Corderius and Cornelius Nepos, and I have no 
 
THE FAMILY TREE. 11 
 
 doubt gave myself very gjand airs. He asked 
 whether I liked Mr. Budge, the grocer with whom 
 I boarded. I did not like him much, I said, but 
 I hated Miss Rudge and, Bevil the apprentice 
 most because they were always . . . here I 
 stopped. " But there is no use in telling tales 
 out of school," says I. " We don't do that at 
 Pocock's, we don't." 
 
 And what was my grandmother going to make 
 of me ? I said I should like to be a sailor, but 
 a gentleman sailor, and fight for King George. 
 And if I did I would bring all my prize-money 
 home to Agnes, that is, almost all of it — only 
 keep a little of it for myself. 
 
 " And so you like the sea, and go out some- 
 times ? " asks Mr. Denis. 
 
 Oh, yes, I went out fishing. Mr. Rudge had 
 a half share of a boat along with grandfather, 
 and I used to help to clean her, and was taught 
 to steer her, with many a precious slap on the 
 head if I got her in the wind ; and they said I 
 was a very good look-out. I could see well, and 
 remember bluffs and headlands and so forth ; and 
 I mentioned several places, points of our coasts, 
 ay, and the French coast too. 
 
12 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " And what do you fish for ? " asks the captain. 
 
 " Oh, sir, I'm not to say anything about that, 
 Mr. Eudge says ! " on which the gentlemen roared 
 with laughter. They knew Master Eudge' s game, 
 though I in my innocence did not understand it. 
 
 " And so you won't have a drop of punch ? " 
 asks Captain Denis. 
 
 "No, sir, I made a vow I would not, when I 
 saw Miss Eudge so queer." 
 
 " Miss Eudge is often queer, is she ? " 
 
 " Yes, the nasty pig ! And she calls names, 
 and slips downstairs, and knocks the cups and 
 saucers about, and fights the apprentice, and — 
 but I mustn't say anything more. I never tell 
 tales, I don't ! " 
 
 In this way I went on prattling with my patron 
 and his friends, and they made me sing them a 
 song in French, and a song in German, and they 
 laughed and seemed amused at my antics and 
 capers. Captain Denis walked home with me to 
 our lodgings, and I told him how I liked Sunday 
 the best day of the week — that is, every other 
 Sunday — because I went away quite early, and 
 walked three miles to mother and grandfather at 
 Winchelsea, and saw Agnes. 
 
THE FAMILY TREE. 13 
 
 And who, pray, was Agnes ? To-day her name 
 is Agnes Duval, and she sits at her work-table 
 hard-by. The lot of my life has been changed 
 by knowing her. To win such a prize in life's 
 lottery is given but to very very few. What I 
 have done (of any worth) has been done in try- 
 ing to deserve her. I might have remained, but 
 for her, in my humble native lot, to be neither 
 honest nor happy, but that my good angel yonder 
 succoured me. All I have I owe to her : but I 
 pay with all I have, and what creature can do 
 more ? 
 
14 DENIS DUVAL 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF SAVE11NE. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Saverne came from Alsace, 
 where her family occupied a much higher rank 
 than that held by the worthy Protestant elder 
 from whom her humble servant is descended. Her 
 mother was a Viomesnil, her father was of a 
 noble Alsatian family, Counts of Ban* and Saverne. 
 The old Count de Saverne was alive, and a cham- 
 berlain in the court of his Polish Majesty good 
 King Stanislas at Nanci, when his son the 
 Vicomte de Barr, a man already advanced in 
 years, brought home his blooming young bride 
 to that pretty little capital. 
 
 The Count de Saverne was a brisk and cheery 
 old gentleman, as his son was gloomy and severe. 
 The count's hotel at Nanci was one of the gayest 
 of the little court. His Protestantism was by no 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 15 
 
 means austere. He was even known to regret 
 that there were no French convents for noble 
 damsels of the Protestant confession, as there 
 were across the Bhine, where his own two 
 daughters might be bestowed out of the way. 
 Mesdemoiselles de Saverne were ungainly in ap- 
 pearance, fierce and sour in temper, resembling, 
 in these particulars, their brother Mons. le Baron 
 de Barr. 
 
 In his youth, Monsieur de Barr had served 
 not without distinction, being engaged against 
 Messieurs the English at Hastenbeck and Lau- 
 feldt, where he had shown both courage and 
 capacity. His Protestantism prevented his pro- 
 motion in the army. He left it, steadfast in his 
 faith, but soured in his temper. He did not 
 care for whist or music, like his easy old father. 
 His appearance at the count's little suppers was 
 as cheerful as a death's-head at a feast. M. de 
 Barr only frequented these entertainments to give 
 pleasure to his young wife, who pined and was 
 wretched in the solitary family mansion of Saverne, 
 where the Vicomte took up his residence when 
 first married. 
 
 He was of an awful temper, and subject to 
 
16 BENIS DUVAL. 
 
 storms of passion. Being a very conscientious 
 man, he suffered extremely after one of these 
 ebullitions of rage. Between his alternations of 
 anger and remorse, his life was a sad one ; his 
 household trembled before him, and especially 
 the poor little wife whom he had brought out of 
 her quiet country village to be the victim of his 
 rage and repentances. More than once she fled 
 to the old Count of Saverne at Nanci, and the 
 kindly selfish old gentleman used his feeble 
 endeavours to protect his poor little' daughter-in- 
 law. Quickly after these quarrels letters would 
 arrive, containing vows of the most abject repent- 
 ance on the baron's part. These matrimonial 
 campaigns followed a regular course. First rose 
 the outbreak of temper; then the lady's flight 
 ensued to papa-in-law at Nanci ; then came letters 
 expressive of grief; then the repentant criminal 
 himself arrived, whose anguish and cries of mea 
 culpa were more insupportable than his outbreaks 
 of rage. After a few years, Madame de Barr 
 lived almost entirely with her father-in-law at 
 Nanci, and was scarcely seen in her husband's 
 gloomy mansion of Saverne. 
 
 For some years no child was born of this most 
 
THE HOUSE OF SATERNE. 17 
 
 unhappy union. Just when poor King Stanislas 
 came by his lamentable death (being burned at 
 his own fire), the old Count de Saverne died, 
 and his son found that he inherited little more 
 than his father's name and title of Saverne, the 
 family estate being greatly impoverished by the 
 late count's extravagant and indolent habits, and 
 much weighed down by the portions awarded to 
 the Demoiselles de Saverne, the elderly sisters 
 of the present elderly lord. 
 
 The town house at Nanci was shut up for a 
 while; and the new lord of Saverne retired to 
 his castle with his sisters and his wife. With 
 his Catholic neighbours the stern Protestant gen- 
 tleman had little communion; and the society 
 which frequented his dull house chiefly consisted 
 of Protestant clergymen who came from the other 
 side of the Ehine. Along its left bank, which 
 had only become French territory of late years, 
 the French and German languages were spoken 
 indifferently ; in the latter language M. de Saverne 
 was called the Herr von Zabern. After his father's 
 death, Herr von Zabern may have melted a little, 
 but he soon became as moody, violent, and ill- 
 conditioned as ever the Herr von Barr had been. 
 
 2 
 
18 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 Saverne was a little country town, with the 
 crumbling old Hotel de Saverne in the centre of 
 the place, and a straggling street stretching on 
 either side. Behind the house were melancholy 
 gardens, squared and clipped after the ancient 
 French fashion, and, beyond the garden wall, 
 some fields and woods, part of the estate of the 
 Saverne family. These fields and woods were 
 fringed by another great forest, which had once 
 been the property of the house of Saverne, but 
 had been purchased from the late easy proprietor 
 by Messeigneurs de Kohan, Princes of Empire, 
 of France, and the Church, Cardinals, and 
 Archbishops of Strasbourg, between whom and 
 their gloomy Protestant neighbour there was no 
 good-will. Not only questions of faith separated 
 them, but questions of chasse. The Count de 
 Saverne, who loved shooting, and beat his meagre 
 woods for game with a couple of lean dogs, and 
 a fowling-piece over his shoulder, sometimes came 
 in sight of the grand hunting-parties of Mon- 
 seigneur the Cardinal, who went to the chase 
 like a prince as he was, with piqueurs and horn- 
 blowers, whole packs of dogs, and a troop of 
 gentlemen in his uniform. Not seldom his 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 19 
 
 Eminence's keepers and M. de Saverne's solitary 
 garde-chasse had quarrels. " Tell your master 
 that I will shoot any red-legs which come upon 
 my land," M. de Saverne said in one of these 
 controversies as he held up a partridge which he 
 had just brought down; and the keeper knew 
 the moody nobleman would be true to his word. 
 
 Two neighbours so ill-disposed towards one 
 another were speedily at law ; and in the courts 
 at Strasbourg a poor provincial gentleman was 
 likely to meet with scanty justice when opposed 
 to such a powerful enemy as the Prince Arch- 
 bishop of the province, one of the greatest noble- 
 men of the kingdom. Boundary questions, in a 
 land where there are no hedges, game, forest, 
 and fishery questions — how can I tell, who am no 
 lawyer, what set the gentlemen at loggerheads ? 
 In later days I met one M. Georgel, an Abbe, 
 who had been a secretary of the Prince Cardinal, 
 and he told me that M. de Saverne was a head- 
 long, violent, ill-conditioned little mauvais coucheur, 
 as they say in France, and ready to quarrel with 
 or without a reason. 
 
 These quarrels naturally took the Count de 
 Saverne to his advocates and lawyers at Stras- 
 
 2—2 
 
20 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 bourg, and he would absent himself for days from 
 home, where his poor wife was perhaps not sorry 
 to be rid of him. It chanced, on one of these 
 expeditions to the chief town of his province, 
 
 that he fell in with a former comrade in his 
 
 I 
 
 campaigns of Hastenbeck and Laufeldt, an officer 
 of Soubise's regiment, the Baron de la Motte.* 
 Lamotte had been destined to the Church, like 
 many cadets of good family, but, his elder brother 
 dying, he was released from the tonsure and the 
 seminary, and entered the army under good pro- 
 tection. Mesdemoiselles de Saverne remembered 
 this M. de la Motte at Nanci in old days. He 
 bore the worst of characters ; he was gambler, 
 intriguer, duellist, profligate. I suspect that 
 most gentlemen's reputations came off ill under 
 the tongues of these old ladies, and have heard 
 of other countries where mesdemoiselles are equally 
 hard to please. " Well, have we not all our 
 faults?" I imagine M. de Saverne saying, in a 
 rage. " Is there no such thing as calumny ? Are 
 
 * That unlucky Prince de Rohan was to suffer by another 
 Delamotte, who, with his " Valois " of a wife, played such a 
 notorious part in the famous " diamond necklace " business, but 
 the two worthies were not, I believe, related. — D. D. 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 21 
 
 we never to repent, if we have been wrong ? I 
 know he has led a wild youth. Others may 
 have done as much. But prodigals have been 
 reclaimed ere now, and I for my part will not 
 turn my back on this one." " Ah, I wish he 
 had ! " De la Motte said to me myself in later 
 days, " but it was his fate, his fate ! " 
 
 One day, then, the Count de Saverne returns 
 home from Strasbourg with his new friend ; pre- 
 sents the Baron de la Motte to the ladies of his 
 house, makes the gloomy place as cheerful as he 
 can for his guest, brings forth the best wine from 
 his cave, and beats his best covers for game. I 
 myself knew the baron some years later ; — a 
 handsome, tall, sallow-faced man, with a shifty 
 eye, a soft voice, and a grand manner. Monsieur 
 de Saverne for his part was short, black, and ill- 
 favoured, as I have heard my mother say. But 
 Mrs. Duval did not love him, fancying that he 
 ill-treated her Biche. Where she disliked people, 
 my worthy parent would never allow them a single 
 good quality; but she always averred that Mon- 
 sieur de la Motte was a perfect fine gentleman. 
 
 The intimacy between these two gentlemen 
 increased apace. M. de la Motte was ever 
 
22 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 welcome at Saverne : a room in the house was 
 called his room : their visitor was an acquaint- 
 ance of their enemy the Cardinal also, and would 
 often come from the one chateau to the other. 
 Laughingly he would tell how angry Monseigneur 
 was with his neighbour. He wished he could 
 make peace between the two houses. He gave 
 quite good advice to Monsieur de Saverne, and 
 pointed out the danger he ran in provoking so 
 powerful an adversary. Men had been impri- 
 soned for life for less reason. The Cardinal 
 might get a lettre de cachet against his obstinate 
 opponent. He could, besides, ruin Saverne with 
 fines and law-costs. The contest between the 
 two was quite unequal, and the weaker party 
 must inevitably be crushed, unless these un- 
 happy disputes should cease. As far as the 
 ladies of the house dared speak, they coincided 
 in the opinion of M. de la Motte, and were for 
 submission and reconciliation with their neigh- 
 bours. Madame de Saverne' s own relations 
 heard of the feud, and implored the count to 
 bring it to an end. It was one of these, the 
 Baron de Viomesnil, going to command in 
 Corsica, who entreated M. de Saverne to accom- 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 23 
 
 pany him on the campaign. Anywhere the count 
 was safer than in his own house with an implacable 
 and irresistible enemy at his gate. M. de Saverne 
 yielded to his kinsman's importunities. He took 
 down his sword and pistols of Laufeldt from the 
 wall, where they had hung for twenty years. He 
 set the affairs of his house in order, and after 
 solemnly assembling his family, and on his knees 
 confiding it to the gracious protection of Heaven, he 
 left home to join the suite of the French General. 
 A few weeks after he left home — several years 
 after his marriage — his wife wrote to inform him 
 that she was likely to be a mother. The 
 stern man, who had been very unhappy pre- 
 viously, and chose to think that his wife's 
 barrenness was a punishment of Heaven for some 
 crime of his or hers, was very much moved by 
 this announcement. I have still at home a 
 German Bible which he used, and in which is 
 written in the German a very affecting prayer 
 composed by him, imploring the Divine blessing 
 upon the child about to be born, and hoping 
 that this infant might grow in grace, and bring 
 peace and love and unity into the household. It 
 would appear that he made no doubt he should 
 
24 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 have a son. His hope and aim were to save in 
 every possible way for this child. I have read 
 many letters of his which he sent from Corsica 
 to his wife, and which she kept. They were full 
 of strange minute orders, as to the rearing and 
 education of this son that was to be born. He 
 enjoined saving amounting to niggardliness in 
 his household, and calculated how much might be 
 put away in ten, in twenty years, so that the 
 coming heir might have a property worthy of his 
 ancient name. In case he should fall in action, 
 he laid commands upon his wife to pursue a 
 system of the most rigid economy, so that the 
 child at coming of age might be able to appear 
 creditably in the world. In these letters, I 
 remember, the events of the campaign were 
 dismissed in a very few words : the main part of 
 the letters consisted of prayers, speculations, and 
 prophecies regarding the child, and sermons 
 couched in the language of the writer's stern 
 creed. When the child was born, and a girl 
 appeared in place of the boy, upon whom the 
 poor father had set his heart, I hear the family 
 were so dismayed, that they hardly dared to break 
 the news to the chief of the house. 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 25 
 
 Who told me? The same man who said he 
 wished he had never seen M. de Saverne : the 
 man for whom the unhappy gentleman had con- 
 ceived a warm friendship ; — the man who was to 
 bring a mysterious calamity upon those whom, 
 as I do think, and in his selfish way, he loved 
 sincerely, and he spoke at a time when he could 
 have little desire to deceive me. 
 
 The lord of the castle is gone on the campaign. 
 The chatelaine is left alone in her melancholy 
 tower with her two dismal duennas. My good 
 mother, speaking in later days about these matters, 
 took up the part of her Biche against the Ladies 
 of Barr and their brother, and always asserted 
 that the tyranny of the duennas, and the meddling, 
 and the verbosity, and the ill-temper of M. de 
 Saverne himself, brought about the melancholy 
 events which now presently ensued. The Count 
 de Saverne was a little man (my mother said) who 
 loved to hear himself talk, and who held forth 
 from morning till night. His life was a fuss. 
 He would weigh the coffee, and count the lumps of 
 sugar, and have a finger in every pie in his frugal 
 house. Night and morning he preached sermons 
 to his family, and he continued to preach when 
 
26 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 not en chaire, laying down the law upon all 
 subjects, untiringly voluble. Cheerfulness in the 
 company of such a man was hypocrisy. Mesdames 
 de Barr had to disguise weariness, to assume an air 
 of contentment, and to appear to be interested when 
 the count preached. As for the count's sisters, 
 they were accustomed to listen to their brother 
 and lord with respectful submission. They had a 
 hundred domestic occupations : they had baking 
 and boiling, and pickling, and washing, and 
 endless embroidery : the life of the little chateau 
 was quite supportable to them. They knew no 
 better. Even in their father's days at Nanci, the 
 ungainly women kept pretty much aloof from the 
 world, and were little better than domestic servants 
 in waiting on Monseigneur. 
 
 And Madame de Saverne, on her first entrance 
 into the family, accepted the subordinate position 
 meekly enough. She spun and she bleached, 
 and she worked great embroideries, and busied 
 herself about her house, and listened demurely 
 whilst Monsieur le Comte was preaching. But 
 then there came a time when her duties interested 
 her no more, when his sermons became especially 
 wearisome, when sharp words passed between her 
 
THE HOUSE OF SA VERNE. 27 
 
 and her lord, and the poor thing exhibited 
 symptoms of impatience and revolt. And with 
 the revolt arose awful storms and domestic 
 battles ; and after battles, submission, recon- 
 ciliation, forgiveness, hypocrisy. 
 
 It has been said that Monsieur de Saverne 
 loved the sound of his own croaking voice, and to 
 hold forth to his home congregation. Night after 
 night he and his friend M. de la Motte would 
 have religious disputes together, in which the 
 Huguenot gentleman flattered himself that he 
 constantly had the better of the ex-pupil of the 
 seminary. I was not present naturally, not 
 setting my foot on French ground until five-and- 
 twenty years after, but I can fancy Madame the 
 Countess sitting at her tambour frame, and the 
 old duenna ladies at their cards, and the combat 
 of the churches going on between these two 
 champions in the little old saloon of the Hotel de 
 Saverne. " As I hope for pardon," M. de la 
 Motte said to me at a supreme moment of his 
 life, " and to meet those whom on earth I loved 
 and made unhappy, no wrong passed between 
 Clarisse and me, save that wrong which consisted 
 in disguising from her husband the regard we had 
 
28 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 for one another. Once, twice, thrice, I went away 
 from their house, hut that unhappy Saverne 
 would bring me back, and I was only too glad to 
 return. I would let him talk for hours — I own 
 it — so that I might he near Clarisse. I had to 
 answer from time to time, and rubbed up my old 
 seminary learning to reply to his sermons. I 
 must often have spoken at random, for my 
 thoughts were far away from the poor man's 
 radotages, and he could no more change my con- 
 victions than he could change the colour of my 
 skin. Hours and hours thus passed away. They 
 would have been intolerably tedious to others : 
 they were not so to me. I preferred that gloomy 
 little chateau to the finest place in Europe. To 
 see Clarisse, was all I asked. Denis ! There is 
 a power irresistible impelling all of us. From the 
 moment I first set eyes on her, I knew she was my 
 fate. I shot an English grenadier at Hastenbeck, 
 who would have bayoneted poor Saverne but for 
 me. As I lifted him up from the ground, I 
 thought, ' I shall have to repent of ever having 
 seen that man.' I felt the same thing, Duval, 
 when I saw you." And as the unhappy gentle- 
 man spoke, I remembered how I for my part felt 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 29 
 
 a singular and unpleasant sensation as of terror 
 and approaching evil when first I looked at that 
 handsome, ill-omened face. 
 
 I thankfully believe the words which M. de 
 la Motte spoke to me at a time when he could 
 have no cause to disguise the truth ; and am 
 assured of the innocence of the Countess de 
 Saverne. Poor lady ! if she erred in thought, 
 she had to pay so awful a penalty for her crime, 
 that we humbly hope it has been forgiven her. 
 She was not true to her husband, though she 
 did him no wrong. If, while trembling before 
 him, she yet had dissimulation enough to smile 
 and be merry, I suppose no preacher or husband 
 would be very angry with her for that hypocrisy. 
 I have seen a slave in the West Indies soundly 
 cuffed for looking sulky ; we expect our negroes? 
 to be obedient and to be happy too. 
 
 Now when M. de Saverne went away to Corsica, 
 I suspect he was strongly advised to take that 
 step by his friend M. de la Motte. When ho 
 was gone, M. de la Motte did not present himself 
 at the Hotel de Saverne, where an old school- 
 fellow of his, a pastor and preacher from Kehl, 
 on the German Khine bank, was installed in 
 
30 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 command of the little garrison, from which its 
 natural captain had heen obliged to withdraw; 
 but there is no doubt that poor Claris se deceived 
 this gentleman and her two sisters-in-law, and 
 acted towards them with a very culpable hypocrisy. 
 Although there was a deadly feud between the 
 two chateaux of Saverne — namely, the Cardinal's 
 new-built castle in the Park, and the count's 
 hotel in the little town — yet each house knew 
 more or less of the other's doings. When the 
 Prince Cardinal and his court were at Saverne, 
 Mesdemoiselles de Barr were kept perfectly well 
 informed of all the festivities which they did not 
 share. In our little Fareport here, do not the 
 Miss Prys, my neighbours, know what I have for 
 dinner, the amount of my income, the price of 
 my wife's last gown, and the items of my son's, 
 Captain Scapegrace's, tailor's bill ? No doubt the 
 Ladies of Barr were equally well informed of the 
 doings of the Prince Coadjutor and his court. 
 Such gambling, such splendour, such painted 
 hussies from Strasbourg, such plays, masquerades, 
 and orgies as took place in that castle ! Mes- 
 demoiselles had the very latest particulars of all 
 these horrors, and the Cardinal's castle was to 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 31 
 
 them as the castle of a wicked ogre. From her 
 little dingy tower at night Madame de Saverne 
 could look out, and see the Cardinal's sixty 
 palace windows all aflame. Of summer nights 
 gusts of unhallowed music would be heard from 
 the great house, where dancing festivals, theatrical 
 pieces even, were performed. Though Madame 
 de Saverne was forbidden by her husband 
 to frequent those assemblies, the townspeople 
 were up to the palace from time to time, and 
 Madame could not help hearing of the doings 
 there. In spite of the count's prohibition, 
 his gardener poached in the Cardinal's woods ; 
 one or two of the servants were smuggled 
 in to see a fete or a ball; then Madame's own 
 woman went ; then Madame herself began to 
 have a wicked longing to go, as Madame's first 
 ancestress had for the fruit of the forbidden tree. 
 Is not the apple always ripe on that tree, and 
 does not the tempter for ever invite you to pluck 
 and eat ? Madame de Saverne had a lively little 
 waiting-maid, whose bright eyes loved to look 
 into neighbours' parks and gardens, and who had 
 found favour with one of the domestics of the 
 Prince Archbishop. This woman brought news 
 
32 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 to her mistress of the feasts, balls, banquets, 
 nay, comedies, which were performed at the 
 Prince Cardinal's. The Prince's gentlemen went 
 hunting in his uniform. He was served on plate, 
 and a lacquey in his livery stood behind each 
 guest. He had the French comedians over 
 from Strasbourg. Oh, that M. de Moliere was 
 a droll gentleman, and how grand the " Cid " 
 was ! 
 
 Now, to see these plays and balls, Martha, the 
 maid, must have had intelligence in and out of 
 both the houses of Saverne. She must have 
 deceived those old dragons, Mesdemoiselles. She 
 must have had means of creeping out at the gate, 
 and silently creeping back again. She told her 
 mistress everything she saw, acted the plays for 
 her, and described the dresses of the ladies and 
 gentlemen. Madame de Saverne was never tired 
 of hearing her maid's stories. When Martha 
 was going to a fete, Madame lent her some little 
 ornament to wear, and yet when Pasteur Schnorr 
 and Mesdemoiselles talked of the proceedings at 
 Great Saverne, and as if the fires of Gomorrah 
 were ready to swallow up that palace, and all 
 within it, the Lady of Saverne sate demurely in 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 33 
 
 silence, and listened to their croaking and ser- 
 mons. Listened ? The pastor exhorted the 
 household, the old ladies talked night after night, 
 and poor Madame de Saverne never heeded. Her 
 thoughts were away in Great Saverne ; her spirit 
 was for ever hankering about those woods. Letters 
 came now and again from M. de Saverne, with 
 the army. They had been engaged with the 
 enemy. Very good. He was unhurt. Heaven 
 be praised. And then the grim husband read his 
 poor little wife a grim sermon ; and the grim 
 sisters and the chaplain commented on it. Once, 
 after an action at Calvi, Monsieur de Saverne, 
 who was always specially lively in moments of 
 danger, described how narrowly he had escaped 
 with his life, and the chaplain took advantage of 
 the circumstance, and delivered to the household 
 a prodigious discourse on death, on danger, on 
 preservation here and hereafter, and alas, and alas, 
 poor Madame de Saverne found that she had not 
 listened to a word of the homily. Her thoughts 
 were not with the preacher, nor with the captain 
 of Viomesnil's regiment before Calvi; they were 
 in the palace at Great Saverne, with the balls, 
 and the comedies, and^ the music, and the fine 
 
 3 
 
34 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 gentlemen from Paris and Strasbourg, and out 
 of Empire beyond the Rhine, who frequented the 
 Prince's entertainments. 
 
 What happened where the wicked spirit was 
 whispering, " Eat," and the tempting apple 
 hung within reach ? One night when the house- 
 hold was at rest, Madame de Saverne, muffled 
 in cloak and calash, with a female companion 
 similarly disguised, tripped silently out of the 
 back gate of the Hotel de Saverne, found a car- 
 riole in waiting, with a driver who apparently 
 knew the road and the passengers he was to 
 carry, and after half an hour's drive through the 
 straight avenues of the park of Great Saverne, 
 alighted at the gates of the chateau, where the 
 driver gave up the reins of the carriole to a 
 domestic in waiting, and, by doors and passages 
 which seemed perfectly well known to him, the 
 coachman and the two women entered the castle 
 together and found their way to a gallery in a 
 great hall, in which many lords and ladies were 
 seated, and at the end of which was a stage, with 
 a curtain before it. Men and women came back- 
 wards and forwards on this stage, and recited 
 dialogue in verses. mercy ! it was a comedy 
 
THE HOUSE OP SAVERNE. 35 
 
 they were acting, one of those wicked delightful 
 plays which she was forbidden to see, and which 
 she was longing to behold ! After the comedy 
 was to be a ball, in which the actors would dance 
 in their stage habits. Some of the people were 
 in masks already, and in that box near to the 
 stage, surrounded by a little crowd of dominoes, 
 sate Monseigneur the Prince Cardinal himself. 
 Madame de Saverne had seen him and his caval- 
 cade sometimes returning from hunting. She 
 would have been as much puzzled to say what 
 the play was about as to give an account of 
 Pasteur Schnorr's sermon a few hours before. 
 But Frontin made jokes with his master Damis ; 
 and Geronte locked up the doors of his house, 
 and went to bed grumbling ; and it grew quite 
 dark, and Mathurine flung a rope-ladder out of 
 window, and she and her mistress Elmire came 
 down the ladder; and Frontin held it, and Elmire, 
 with a little cry, fell into the arms of Mons. 
 Damis; and master and man, and maid and 
 mistress, sang a merry chorus together, in which 
 human frailty was very cheerfully depicted; and 
 when they had done, away they went to the 
 gondola which was in waiting at the canal stairs, 
 
 3—2 
 
36 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 and so good night. And when old Geronte, 
 wakened up by the disturbance, at last came 
 forth in his night-cap, and saw the boat paddling 
 away out of reach, you may be sure that the 
 audience laughed at the poor impotent raging 
 old wretch. It was a very merry play indeed, 
 and is still popular and performed in France 
 and elsewhere. 
 
 After the play came a ball. Would Madame 
 dance ? Would the noble Countess of Saverne 
 dance with a coachman? There were others 
 below on the dancing-floor dressed in mask and 
 domino as she was. Who ever said she had a 
 mask and domino ? You see it has been stated 
 that she was muffled in cloak and calash. Well, 
 is not a domino a cloak ? and has it not a hood 
 or calash appended to it ? and, pray, do not 
 women wear masks at home as well as at the 
 Ridotto ? 
 
 Another question arises here. A high-born 
 lady entrusts herself to a charioteer, who drives 
 her to the castle of a prince her husband's enemy. 
 Who was her companion? Of course he could 
 be no other than that luckless Monsieur de la 
 Motte. He had never been very far away from 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 37 
 
 Madame de Saverne since her husband's de- 
 parture. In spite of chaplains, and duennas, 
 and guards, and locks and keys, he had found 
 means of communicating with her. How? By 
 what lies and stratagems? By what arts and 
 bribery ? These poor people are both gone to 
 their account. Both suffered a fearful punish- 
 ment. I will not describe their follies, and don't 
 care to be Mons. Figaro, and hold the ladder 
 and lantern, while the count scales Bosina's 
 window. Poor, frightened erring soul! She 
 suffered an awful penalty for what, no doubt, was 
 a great wrong. 
 
 A child almost, she was married to M. de 
 Saverne, without knowing him, without liking 
 him, because her parents ordered her, and be- 
 cause she was bound to comply with their will. 
 She was sold, and went to her slavery. She lived 
 at first obediently enough. If she shed tears, 
 they were dried ; if she quarrelled with her hus- 
 band, the two were presently reconciled. She 
 bore no especial malice, and was as gentle, sub- 
 ordinate a slave as ever you shall see in Jamaica 
 or Barbadoes. Nobody's tears were sooner dried, 
 as I should judge : none would be more ready to 
 
38 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 kiss the hand of the overseer who drove her. But 
 you don't expect sincerity and subservience too. 
 I know, for my part, a lady who only obeys when 
 she likes : and faith ! it may be it is I who am 
 the hypocrite, and have to tremble, and smile, 
 and swindle before her. 
 
 When Madame de Saverne's time was nearly 
 come, it was ordered that she should go to Stras- 
 bourg, where the best medical assistance is to 
 be had : and here, six months after her hus- 
 band's departure for Corsica, their child, Agnes 
 de Saverne, was born. 
 
 Did secret terror and mental disquietude and 
 remorse now fall on the unhappy lady? She 
 wrote to my mother, at this time her only con- 
 fidante (and yet not a confidante of all!) — "0 
 Ursule ! I dread this event. Perhaps I shall 
 die. I think I hope I shall. In these long days, 
 since he has been away, I have got so to dread 
 his return, that I believe I shall go mad when 
 I see him. Do you know, after the battle before 
 Calvi, when I read that many officers had been 
 killed, I thought, is M. de Saverne killed ? And 
 I read the list down, and his name was not 
 there : and, my sister, my sister, I was not glad ! 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 39 
 
 Have I come to be such a monster as to wish 
 my own husband . . . No. I wish I was. 
 I can't speak to M. Schnorr about this. He is 
 so stupid. He doesn't understand me. He is 
 like my husband ; for ever preaching me his 
 sermons. 
 
 " Listen, Ursule ! Speak it to nobody ! I have 
 been to hear a sermon. Oh, it was indeed divine ! 
 It was not from one of our pastors. Oh, how they 
 weary me ! It was from a good bishop of the 
 French Church — not our German Church — the 
 Bishop of Amiens — who happens to be here on a 
 visit to the Cardinal Prince. The bishop's name 
 is M. de la Motte. He is a relative of a gentle- 
 man of whom we have seen a great deal lately — 
 of a great friend of M. de Saverne, who saved my 
 husband's life in the battle M. de S. is always 
 talking about. 
 
 " How beautiful the cathedral is ! It was night 
 when I went. The church was lighted like the 
 stars, and the music was like Heaven. Ah, how 
 different from M. Schnorr at home, from — from 
 somebody else at my new home who is always 
 preaching — that is, when he is at home ! Poor 
 man ! I wonder whether he preaches to them in 
 
40 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 Corsica ! I pity them if he does. Don't mention 
 the cathedral if you write to me. The dragons 
 don't know anything about it. How they would 
 scold if they did ! Oh, how they ennuyent me, 
 the dragons ! Behold them ! They think I am 
 writing to my husband. Ah, Ursule ! When I 
 write to him, I sit for hours before the paper. 
 I say nothing ; and what I say seems to be lies. 
 Whereas when I write to you, my pen runs — runs ! 
 The paper is covered before I think I have begun. 
 So it is when I write to .... I do believe 
 that vilain dragon is peering at my note with her 
 spectacles ! Yes, my good sister, I am writing to 
 M. le Comte ! " 
 
 To this letter a postscript is added, as by the 
 countess's command, in the German language, in 
 which Madame de Saverne's medical attendant 
 announces the birth of a daughter, and that the 
 child and mother are doing well. 
 
 That daughter is sitting before me now — with 
 spectacles on nose too — very placidly spelling the 
 Portsmouth paper, where I hope she will soon 
 read the promotion of Monsieur Scapegrace, her 
 son. She has exchanged her noble name for 
 mine, which is only humble and honest. My 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 41 
 
 dear ! your eyes are not so bright as once I re- 
 member them, and the raven locks are streaked 
 with silver. To shield thy head from dangers has 
 been the blessed chance and duty of my life. 
 When I turn towards her, and see her moored 
 in our harbour of rest, after our life's chequered 
 voyage, calm and happy, a sense of immense 
 gratitude fills my being, and my heart says a 
 hymn of praise. 
 
 The first days of the life of Agnes de Saverne 
 were marked by incidents which were strangely 
 to influence her career. Around her little cradle 
 a double, a triple tragedy was about to be enacted. 
 Strange that death, crime, revenge, remorse, 
 mystery, should attend round the cradle of one 
 so innocent and pure — as pure and innocent, I 
 pray Heaven now, as upon that day when, at 
 scarce a month old, the adventures of her life 
 began. 
 
 That letter to my mother, written by Madame 
 de Saverne on the eve of her child's birth, and 
 finished by her attendant, bears date November 25, 
 1768. A month later Martha Seebach, her at- 
 tendant, wrote (in German) that her mistress had 
 suffered frightfully from fever; so much so that 
 
42 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 her reason left her for some time, and her life 
 was despaired of. Mesdemoiselles de Barr were 
 for bringing up the child by hand ; but not being 
 versed in nursery practices, the infant had ailed 
 sadly until restored to its mother. Madame de 
 Saverne was now tranquil. Madame was greatly 
 better. She had suffered most fearfully. In her 
 illness she was constantly calling for her foster- 
 sister to protect her from some danger, which, 
 as she appeared to fancy, menaced Madame. 
 
 Child as I was at the time when these letters 
 were passing, I remember the arrival of the next. 
 It lies in yonder drawer, and was written by a 
 poor fevered hand which is now cold, in ink 
 which is faded after fifty years.* I remember 
 my mother screaming out in German, which she 
 always spoke when strongly moved, " Dear 
 Heaven, my child is mad — is mad ! " And 
 indeed that poor faded letter contains a strange 
 rhapsody. 
 
 " Ursule ! " she wrote (I do not care to give 
 at length the words of the poor wandering crea- 
 
 * The memoirs appear to have been written in the years '20, 
 '21. Mr. Duval was gazetted Rear-Admiral and K.C.B. in the 
 promotions on the accession of King George IV. 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVEKNE. 43 
 
 ture), " after my child was born the demons 
 wanted to take her from me. But I struggled 
 and kept her quite close, and now they can no 
 longer hurt her. I took her to church. Martha 
 went with me, and He was there — he always is 
 — to defend me from the demons, and I had 
 her christened Agnes, and I was christened Agnes 
 too. Think of my being christened at twenty- 
 two ! Agnes the First, and Agnes the Second. 
 But though my name is changed, I am always 
 the same to my Ursule, and my name now is, 
 Agnes Clarisse de Saverne, born de Viomesnil." 
 
 She had actually, when not quite mistress of 
 her own reason, been baptized into the Eoman 
 Catholic Church with her child. Was she sane 
 when she so acted ? Had she thought of the 
 step before taking it ? Had she known Catholic 
 clergymen at Saverne, or had she other reasons 
 for her conversion than those which were fur- 
 nished in the conversations which took place 
 between her husband and M. de la Motte? In 
 this letter the poor lady says, "Yesterday two 
 persons came to my bed with gold crowns round 
 their heads. One was dressed like a priest ; one 
 was beautiful and covered with arrows, and they 
 
44 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 said, ' We are Saint Fabian and Saint Sebastian ; 
 and to-morrow is the day of St. Agnes : and she 
 will be at church to receive you there." 
 
 What the real case was I never knew. The 
 Protestant clergyman whom I saw in after days 
 could only bring his book to show that he had 
 christened the infant, not Agnes, but Augustine. 
 Martha Seebach is dead. La Motte, when I con- 
 versed with him, did not touch upon this part of 
 the poor lady's history. I conjecture that the 
 images and pictures which she had seen in the 
 churches operated upon her fevered brain; that, 
 having procured a Eoman Calendar and Missal, 
 she knew saints' days and feasts ; and, not yet 
 recovered from her delirium or quite responsible 
 for the actions which she performed, she took her 
 child to the cathedral, and was baptized there. 
 
 And now, no doubt, the poor lady had to 
 practise more deceit and concealment. The 
 " demons " were the old maiden sisters left to 
 watch over her. She had to hoodwink these. Had 
 she not done so before — when she went to the 
 Cardinal's palace at Saverne ? Wherever the poor 
 thing moved I fancy those ill-omened eyes of 
 La Motte glimmering upon her out of the dark- 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 45 
 
 ness. Poor Eve — not lost quite, I pray and think, 
 — but that serpent was ever trailing after her, and 
 she was to die poisoned in its coil. "Who shall 
 understand the awful ways of Fate ? A year after 
 that period regarding which I write, a lovely 
 Imperial Princess rode through the Strasbourg 
 streets radiant and blushing, amidst pealing bells, 
 roaring cannon, garlands and banners, and shout- 
 ing multitudes. Did any one ever think that the 
 last stage of that life's journey was to be taken in 
 a hideous tumbrel, and to terminate on a scaffold ? 
 The life of Madame de Saverne was to last but 
 a year more, and her end to be scarcely less 
 tragical. 
 
 Many physicians have told me how often after 
 the birth of a child the brain of the mother will 
 be affected. Madame de Saverne remained for 
 some time in this febrile condition, if not uncon- 
 scious of her actions, at least not accountable for 
 all of them. At the end of three months she 
 woke up as out of a dream, having a dreadful 
 recollection of the circumstances which had 
 passed. Under what hallucinations we never 
 shall know, or yielding to what persuasions, the 
 wife of a stern Protestant nobleman had been 
 
46 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 to a Eoman Catholic church, and had been 
 christened there with her child. She never could 
 recall that step. A great terror came over her as 
 she thought of it — a great terror and a hatred of 
 her husband, the cause of all her grief and her 
 fear. She began to look out lest he should 
 return ; she clutched her child to her breast, and 
 barred and bolted all doors for fear people should 
 rob her of the infant. The Protestant chaplain, 
 the Protestant sisters-in-law, looked on with 
 dismay and anxiety; they thought justly that 
 Madame de Saverne was not yet quite restored 
 to her reason ; they consulted the physicians, 
 who agreed with them ; who arrived, who pre- 
 scribed; who were treated by the patient with 
 scorn, laughter, insult sometimes ; sometimes 
 with tears and terror, according to her wayward 
 mood. Her condition was most puzzling. The 
 sisters wrote from time to time guarded reports 
 respecting her to her husband in Corsica. He, 
 for his part, replied instantly with volumes of his 
 wonted verbose commonplace. He acquiesced in 
 the decrees of Fate, when informed that a 
 daughter was born to him ; and presently wrote 
 whole reams of instructions regarding her 
 
 H 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 47 
 
 nurture, dress, and physical and religious train- 
 ing. The child was called Agnes? He would 
 have preferred Barbara, as being his mother's 
 name. I remember in some of the poor gentle- 
 man's letters there were orders about the child's 
 pap, and instructions as to the nurse's diet. He 
 was coming home soon. The Corsicans had been 
 defeated in every action. Had he been a Catholic 
 he would have been a knight of the King's orders 
 long ere this. M. de Yiomesnil hoped still to get 
 for him the order of Military Merit (the Protestant 
 order which his Majesty had founded ten years 
 previously). These letters (which were subse- 
 quently lost by an accident at sea*) spoke 
 modestly enough of the count's personal adven- 
 tures. I hold him to have been a very brave man, 
 and only not tedious and prolix when he spoke of 
 his own merits and services. 
 
 The count's letters succeeded each other post 
 after post. The end of the war was approaching, 
 and with it his return was assured. He exulted 
 in the thought of seeing his child, and leading 
 
 * The letters from Madame de Saverne to my mother at 
 Winchelsea were not subject to this mishap, but were always 
 kept by Madame Duval in her own escritoire. 
 
48 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 lier in the way she should go — the right way, the 
 true way. As the mother's brain cleared, her 
 terror grew greater — her terror and loathing of 
 her hushand. She could not hear the thought of 
 his return, or to face him with the confession 
 which she knew she must make. His wife turn 
 Catholic and baptize his child? She felt he 
 would kill her, did he know what had happened. 
 She went to the priest who had baptized her. 
 M. Georgel (his Eminence's secretary) knew her 
 husband. The Prince Cardinal was so great and 
 powerful a prelate, Georgel said, that he would pro- 
 tect her against all the wrath of all the Protest- 
 ants in France. I think she must have had inter- 
 views with the Prince Cardinal, though there is no 
 account of them in any letter to my mother. 
 
 The campaign was at an end. M. de Vaux, 
 M. de Viomesnil, both wrote in highly eulogistic 
 terms of the conduct of the Count de Saverne. 
 Their good wishes would attend him home; 
 Protestant as he was, their best interest should 
 be exerted in his behalf. 
 
 The day of the count's return approached. The 
 day arrived : I can fancy the brave gentleman with 
 beating heart ascending the steps of the homely 
 
THE HOUSE OF SA VERNE. 49 
 
 lodging where his family have been living at 
 Strasbourg ever since the infant's birth. How 
 he has dreamt about that child : prayed for her 
 and his wife at night-watch and bivouac — prayed 
 for them as he stood, calm and devout, in the 
 midst of battle 
 
 When he enters the room, he sees only two 
 frightened domestics and the two ghastly faces of 
 his scared old sisters. 
 
 " Where are Clarisse and the child ? " he asks. 
 
 The child and the mother were gone. The 
 aunts knew not where. 
 
 A stroke of palsy could scarcely have smitten 
 the unhappy gentleman more severely than did the 
 news which his trembling family was obliged to 
 give him. In later days I saw M. Schnorr, the 
 German pastor from Kehl, who has been mentioned 
 already, and who was installed in the count's house 
 as tutor and chaplain during the absence of the 
 master. "Whan Madame de Saverne went to 
 make her coucher at Strasbourg " (M. Schnorr said 
 to me), " I retired to my duties at Kehl, glad enough 
 to return to the quiet of my home, for the noble 
 lady's reception of me was anything but gracious ; 
 and I had to endure much female sarcasm and 
 
 4 
 
50 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 many unkind words from Madame la Comtesse, 
 whenever, as in duty bound, I presented myself at 
 her table. Sir, that most unhappy lady used to 
 make sport of me before her domestics. She used 
 to call me her gaoler. She used to mimic my ways 
 of eating and drinking. She would yawn in the 
 midst of my exhortations, and cry out, * que c'est 
 bete ! ' and when I gave out a Psalm, would utter 
 little cries, and say, * Pardon me, M. Schnorr, but 
 you sing so out of tune you make my head ache ; ' 
 so that I could scarcely continue that portion of the 
 service, the very domestics laughing at me when I 
 began to sing. My life was a martyrdom, but I 
 bore my tortures meekly, out of a sense of duty and 
 my love for M. le Comte. When her ladyship 
 kept her chamber I used to wait almost daily upon 
 Mesdemoiselles the count's sisters, to ask news of 
 her and her child. I christened the infant ; but 
 her mother was too ill to be present, and sent me 
 out word by Mademoiselle Marthe that she should 
 call the child Agnes, though I might name it what 
 I please. This was on the 21st January, and I 
 remember v being struck, because in the Eoman 
 Calendar the feast of St. Agnes is celebrated on 
 that day. 
 
 

 THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 51 
 
 " Haggard and actually grown grey, from a black 
 man which he was, my poor lord came to me with 
 wildness and agony of grief in all his features and 
 actions, to announce to me that Madame the 
 Countess had fled, taking her infant with her. 
 And he had a scrap of paper with him, over which 
 he wept and raged as one demented ; now pouring 
 out fiercer imprecations, now bursting into passionate 
 tears and cries, calling upon his wife, his darling, 
 his prodigal, to come back, to bring him his child, 
 when all should be forgiven. As he thus spoke 
 his screams and groans were so piteous, that I 
 myself was quite unmanned, and my mother, who 
 keeps house for me (and who happened to be lis- 
 tening at the door), was likewise greatly alarmed 
 by my poor lord's passion of grief. And when I 
 read on that paper that my lady countess had left 
 the faith to which our fathers gloriously testified 
 in the midst of trouble, slaughter, persecution, and 
 bondage, I was scarcely less shocked than my good 
 lord himself. 
 
 " We crossed the bridge to Strasbourg back 
 again and went to the Cathedral Church, and 
 entering there, we saw the Abbe Georgel coming 
 out of a chapel where he had been to perform his 
 
 4—2 
 
52 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 devotions. The Abbe, who knew me, gave a ghastly 
 smile as he recognized me, and for a pale man, his 
 cheek blushed up a little when I said, ' This is 
 Monsieur the Comte de Saverne.' 
 
 " ' Where is she ? ' asked my poor lord, clutching 
 the Abbe's arm. 
 
 " 'Who ? ' asked the Abbe, stepping back a little. 
 
 " ' Where is my child ? where is my wife ? ' cries 
 the count. 
 
 " ' Silence, Monsieur ! ' says the Abbe. ' Do 
 you know in whose house you are ? ' and the chant 
 from the altar, where the service was being per- 
 formed, came upon us, and smote my poor lord as 
 though a shot had struck him. We were standing, 
 he tottering against a pillar in the nave, close by 
 the christening font, and over my lord's head was 
 a picture of Saint Agnes. 
 
 " The agony of the poor gentleman could not 
 but touch any one who witnessed it. ' M. le Comte/ 
 says the Abbe, ' I feel for you. This great surprise 
 has come upon you unprepared — I — I pray that it 
 may be for your good.' 
 
 " ' You know, then, what has happened ? ' asked 
 M. de Saverne; and the Abbe was obliged to 
 stammer a confession that he did know what had 
 
THE HOUSE OF SA VERNE. 53 
 
 occurred. He was, in fact, the very man who had 
 performed the rite which separated my unhappy 
 lady from the church of her fathers. 
 
 " ' Sir,' he said, with some spirit, ' this was a 
 service which no clergyman could refuse. I would 
 to heaven, Monsieur, that you, too, might he brought 
 to ask it from me.' 
 
 " The poor count, with despair in his face, asked 
 to see the register which confirmed the news, and 
 there we saw that on the 21st January, 1769, being 
 the Feast of St. Agnes, the noble lady, Clarisse, 
 Countess of Saverne, born de Viomesnil, aged 
 twenty-two years, and Agnes, only daughter of the 
 same Count of Saverne and Clarisse his wife, 
 were baptized and received into the Church in the 
 presence of two witnesses (clerics) whose names 
 were signed. 
 
 " The poor count knelt over the registry book 
 with an awful grief in his face, and in a mood which 
 I heartily pitied. He bent down, uttering what 
 seemed an imprecation rather than a prayer, and at 
 this moment it chanced the service at the chief 
 altar was concluded, and Monseigneur and his suite 
 of clergy came into the sacristy. Sir, the Count 
 de Saverne, starting up, clutching his sword in his 
 
54 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 hand, and shaking his fist at the Cardinal, uttered 
 a wild speech calling down imprecations upon the 
 church of which the prince was a chief : ' Where 
 is my lamb that you have taken from me ? ' he said, 
 using the language of the Prophet towards the King 
 who had despoiled him. 
 
 " The Cardinal haughtily said the conversion of 
 Madame de Saverne was of Heaven, and no act of 
 his, and, adding, ' Bad neighbour as you have been 
 to me, sir, I wish you so well that I hope you may 
 follow her.' 
 
 " At this the count, losing all patience, made a 
 violent attack upon the Church of Eome, denounced 
 the Cardinal, and called down maledictions upon 
 his head ; said that a day should come when his 
 abominable pride should meet with a punishment 
 and fall ; and spoke, as, in fact, the poor gentle- 
 man was able to do only too readily and volubly, 
 against Home and all its errors. 
 
 " The Prince Louis de Kohan replied with no 
 little dignity, as I own. He said that such words 
 in such a place were offensive and out of all reason : 
 that it only depended on him to have M. de Saverne 
 arrested, and punished for blasphemy and insult to 
 the Church : but that, pitying the count's unhappy 
 
THE HOUSE OF SA VERNE. 55 
 
 condition, the Cardinal would forget the hasty and 
 insolent words he had uttered — as he would know 
 how to defend Madame de Saverne and her child 
 after the righteous step which she had taken. And 
 he swept out of the sacristy with his suite, and 
 passed through the door which leads into his 
 palace, leaving my poor count still in his despair 
 and fury. 
 
 "As he spoke with those Scripture phrases 
 which M. de Saverne ever had at command, I 
 remember how the Prince Cardinal tossed up his 
 head and smiled. I wonder whether he thought of 
 the words when his own day of disgrace came, and 
 the fatal affair of the diamond necklace which 
 brought him to ruin." * 
 
 " Not without difficulty" (M. Schnorr resumed) 
 "I induced the poor count to quit the church 
 where his wife's apostasy had been performed. 
 The outer gates and walls are decorated with 
 numberless sculptures of saints of the Koman 
 Calendar : and for a minute or two the poor man 
 
 * My informant, Protestant though he was, did not, as I 
 remember, speak with very much asperity against the Prince 
 Cardinal. He said that the prince lived an edifying life after 
 his fall, succouring the poor, and doing everything in his power 
 to defend the cause of royalty. — D. D. 
 
56 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 stood on the threshold shouting imprecations in 
 the sunshine, and calling down woe upon France 
 and Rome. I hurried him away. Such language 
 was dangerous, and could bring no good to either 
 of us. He was almost a madman when I con- 
 ducted him back to his home, where the ladies his 
 sisters, scared with his wild looks, besought me 
 not to leave him. 
 
 " Again he went into the room which his wife 
 and child had inhabited, and, as he looked at the 
 relics of both which still were left there, gave way 
 to bursts of grief which were pitiable indeed to 
 witness. I speak of what happened near forty 
 years ago, and remember the scene as though 
 yesterday : the passionate agony of the poor gentle- 
 man, the sobs and prayers. On a chest of drawers 
 there was a little cap belonging to the infant. He 
 seized it : kissed it : wept over it : calling upon 
 the mother to bring the child back and he would 
 forgive all. He thrust the little cap into his 
 breast : opened every drawer, book, and closet, 
 seeking for some indications of the fugitives. My 
 opinion was, and that even of the ladies, sisters of 
 M. le Comte, that Madame had taken refuge in a 
 convent with the child, that the Cardinal knew 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 57 
 
 where she was, poor and friendless, and that the 
 Protestant gentleman would in vain seek for her. 
 Perhaps when tired of that place — I for my part 
 thought Madame la Comtesse a light-minded, 
 wilful person, who certainly had no vocation, as 
 the Catholics call it, for a religious life — thought 
 she might come out after a while, and gave my 
 patron such consolation as I could devise, upon 
 this faint hope. He who was all forgiveness at one 
 minute, was all wrath at the next. He would 
 rather see his child dead than receive her as a 
 Catholic. He would go to the King, surrounded 
 by harlots as he was, and ask for justice. There 
 were still Protestant gentlemen left in France, 
 whose spirit was not altogether trodden down, and 
 they would hack him in demanding reparation for 
 this outrage. 
 
 " I had some vague suspicion, which, however, I 
 dismissed from my mind as unworthy, that there 
 might he a third party cognizant of Madame's 
 flight ; and this was a gentleman, once a great 
 favourite of M. le Comte, and in whom I myself 
 was not a little interested. Three or four days 
 after the Comte de Saverne went away to the war, 
 as I was meditating on a sermon which I proposed 
 
58 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 to deliver, walking at the back of my lord's house 
 of Saverne, in the fields which skirt the wood 
 where the Prince Cardinal's great Schloss stands, 
 I saw this gentleman with a gun over his shoulder, 
 and recognized him — the Chevalier de la Motte, 
 the very person who had saved the life of M. de 
 Saverne in the campaign against the English. 
 
 " M. de la Motte said he was staying with the 
 Cardinal, and trusted that the ladies of Saverne 
 were well. He sent his respectful compliments to 
 them : in a laughing way said he had been denied 
 the door when he came to a visit, which he thought 
 was an unkind act towards an old comrade ; and 
 at the same time expressed his sorrow at the 
 count's departure — ' for, Herr Pfarrer,' said he, 
 ' you know I am a good Catholic, and in many 
 most important conversations which I had with the 
 Comte de Saverne, the differences between our two 
 churches was the subject of our talk, and I do 
 think I should have converted him to ours.' I, 
 humble village pastor as I am, was not afraid to 
 speak in such a cause, and we straightway had 
 a most interesting conversation together, in which, 
 as the gentleman showed, I had not the worst of 
 the argument. It appeared he had been educated 
 
THE HOUSE OF SAVERNE. 59 
 
 for the Eoman Church, but afterwards entered the 
 army. He was a most interesting man, and his 
 name was le Chevalier de la Motte. You look as 
 if you had known him, M. le Capitaine — will it 
 please you to replenish your pipe, and take another 
 glass of my beer? " 
 
 I said I had effectivement known M. de la Motte ; 
 and the good old clergyman (with many compli- 
 ments to me for speaking French and German so 
 glibly) proceeded with his artless narrative. " I 
 was ever a poor horseman : and when I came to be 
 chaplain and major-domo at the Hotel de Saverne, 
 in the count's absence, Madame more than once 
 rode entirely away from me, saying that she could 
 not afford to go at my clerical jog-trot. And being 
 in a scarlet amazon, and a conspicuous object, you 
 see, I thought I saw her at a distance talking to a 
 gentleman on a schimmel horse, in a grass-green 
 coat. When I asked her to whom she spoke, she 
 said, ' M. le Pasteur, you radotez with your grey 
 horse and your green coat ! If you are set to be 
 a spy over me, ride faster, or bring out the old 
 ladies to bark at your side.' The fact is, the 
 countess was for ever quarrelling with those old 
 ladies, and they were a yelping ill-natured pair. 
 They treated me, a pastor of the Keformed Church 
 
60 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 of the Augsburg Confession, as no better than 
 a lacquey, sir, and made me eat the bread of 
 humiliation ; whereas Madame la Comtesse, though 
 often haughty, flighty, and passionate, could also 
 be so winning and gentle, that no one could resist 
 her. Ah, sir ! " said the pastor, "that woman had 
 a coaxing way with her when she chose, and when 
 her flight came I was in such a way that the 
 jealous old sister-in-laws said I was in love with her 
 myself. Pfui ! For a month before my lord's arrival 
 I had been knocking at all doors to see if I could 
 find my poor wandering lady behind them. She, 
 her child, and Martha her maid, were gone, and 
 we knew not whither. 
 
 " On that very first day of his unhappy arrival, 
 M. le Comte discovered what his sisters, jealous 
 and curious as they were, what I, a man of no in- 
 considerable acumen, had failed to note. Amongst 
 torn papers and chiffons, in her ladyship's bureau, 
 there was a scrap with one line in her handwriting. 
 ' Ursule, Ursule, le tyran rev, . . .' and no more. 
 
 " ■ Ah ! ' M. le Comte said, ' she is gone to her 
 foster-sister in England ! Quick, quick, horses ! ' 
 And before two hours were passed he was on 
 horseback, making the first stage of that long 
 journey." 
 
( 61 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE TRAVELLERS. 
 
 The poor gentleman was in such haste that the 
 old proverb was realized in his case, and his 
 journey was anything hut speedy. At Nanci he 
 fell ill of a fever, which had nearly carried him off, 
 and in which he unceasingly raved about his child, 
 and called upon his faithless wife to return her. 
 Almost before he was convalescent, he was on 
 his way again, to Boulogne, where he saw that 
 English coast on which he rightly conjectured his 
 fugitive wife was sheltered. 
 
 And here, from my boyish remembrance, which, 
 respecting these early days, remains extraordinarily 
 clear, I can take up the story, in which I was 
 myself a very young actor, playing in the strange, 
 fantastic, often terrible, drama which ensued a not 
 insignificant part. As I survey it now, the curtain 
 
b2 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 is down, and the play long over ; as I think of its 
 surprises, disguises, mysteries, escapes, and dangers, 
 I am amazed myself, and sometimes inclined to 
 be almost as great a fatalist as M. de la Motte, 
 who vowed that a superior Power ruled our actions 
 for us, and declared that he could no more prevent 
 his destiny from accomplishing itself, than he 
 could prevent his hair from growing. What a 
 destiny it was ! What a fatal tragedy was now 
 about to begin ! 
 
 One evening in our Midsummer holidays, in the 
 year 1769, I remember being seated in my little 
 chair at home, with a tempest of rain beating 
 down the street. We had customers on most 
 evenings, but there happened to be none on this 
 night ; and I remember I was puzzling over a bit 
 of Latin grammar, to which mother used to keep 
 me stoutly when I came home from school. 
 
 It is fifty years since.* I have forgotten who 
 knows how many events of my life, which are not 
 much worth the remembering ; but I have as 
 clearly before my eyes now a little scene which 
 occurred on this momentous night, as though it 
 
 * The narrative seems to have been written about the year 
 1820. 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 63 
 
 had been acted within this hour. As we are 
 sitting at our various employments, we hear steps 
 coming up the street, which was empty, and 
 silent but for the noise of the wind and rain. We 
 hear steps — several steps — along the pavement, 
 and they stop at our door. 
 
 " Madame Duval. It is Gregson ! " cries a 
 voice from without. 
 
 " Ah, bon Dieu ! " says mother, starting up and 
 turning quite white. And then I heard the cry 
 of an infant. Dear heart ! How well I remember 
 that little cry ! 
 
 As the door opens, a great gust of wind sets our 
 two candles nickering, and I see enter. . . . 
 
 A gentleman giving his arm to a lady who is 
 veiled in cloaks and wraps, an attendant carrying 
 a crying child, and Gregson the boatman after 
 them. 
 
 My mother gives a great hoarse shriek, and 
 crying out, " Clarisse ! Clarisse ! " rushes up to 
 the lady, and hugs and embraces her passionately. 
 The child cries and wails. The nurse strives to 
 soothe the infant. The gentleman takes off his 
 hat and wrings the wet from it, and looks at me. 
 It was then I felt a strange shock and terror. . I 
 
64 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 have felt the same shock once or twice in my life : 
 and once, notably, the person so affecting me has 
 been my enemy, and has come to a dismal end. 
 
 " We have had a very rough voyage," says the 
 gentleman (in French) to my grandfather. " We 
 have been fourteen hours at sea. Madame has 
 suffered greatly, and is much exhausted." 
 
 " Thy rooms are ready," says mother, fondly. 
 " My poor Biche, thou shalt sleep in comfort to- 
 night, and need fear nothing, nothing ! " 
 
 A few days before I had seen mother and her 
 servant mightily busy in preparing the rooms on 
 the first floor, and decorating them. When I 
 asked whom she was expecting, she boxed my ears, 
 and bade me be quiet; but these were evidently 
 the expected visitors; and, of course, from the 
 names which mother used, I knew that the lady 
 was the Countess of Saverne. 
 
 " And this is thy son, Ursule ? " says the lady. 
 "He is a great boy ! My little wretch is always 
 crying." 
 
 " Oh, the little darling," says mother, seizing 
 the child, which fell to crying louder than ever, 
 " scared by the nodding plume and bristling 
 crest" of Madame Duval, who wore a great cap 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 65 
 
 in those days, and indeed looked as fierce as any 
 Hector. 
 
 When the pale lady spoke so harshly about the 
 child, I remember myself feeling a sort of surprise 
 and displeasure. Indeed, I have loved children 
 all my life, and am a fool about them (as witness 
 my treatment of my own rascal), and no one can 
 say that I was ever a tyrant at school, or ever 
 fought there except to hold my own. 
 
 My mother produced what food was in the 
 house, and welcomed her guests to her humble 
 table. What trivial things remain impressed on 
 the memory ! I remember laughing in my boyish 
 way because the lady said, "Ah! c'est ga du the? 
 je n'en ai jamais goute. Mais c'est tres mauvais, 
 riest ce pas, M. le Chevalier ? " I suppose they 
 had not learned to drink tea in Alsace yet. Mother 
 stopped my laughing with her usual appeal to my 
 ears. I was daily receiving that sort of correction 
 from the good soul. Grandfather said, if Madame 
 the Countess would like a little tass of real Nantes 
 brandy after her voyage, he could supply her ; but 
 she would have none of that either, and retired 
 soon to her chamber, which had been prepared for 
 her with my mother's best sheets and diapers, and 
 
 5 
 
66 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 in which was a bed for her maid Martha, who had 
 retired to it with the little crying child. For 
 M. le Chevalier de la Motte an apartment was 
 taken at Mr. Billis's the baker's, down the street : 
 — a friend who gave me many a plum-cake in my 
 childhood, and whose wigs grandfather dressed, if 
 you must know the truth. 
 
 At morning and evening we used to have 
 prayers, which grandfather spoke with much 
 eloquence ; but on this night, as he took out his 
 great Bible, and was for having me read a chapter, 
 my mother said, "No. This poor Clarisse is 
 fatigued, and will go to bed." And to bed accord- 
 ingly the stranger went. And as I read my little 
 chapter, I remember how tears fell down mother's 
 cheeks, and how she cried, " Ah, mon Dieu, mon 
 Dieu ! ayez pitie d'elle," and when I was going to 
 sing our evening hymn, " Nun ruhen alle Walder," 
 she told me to hush. Madame upstairs was tired, 
 and wanted to sleep. And she went upstairs to 
 look after Madame, and bade me be a little guide 
 to the strange gentleman, and show him the way 
 to Billis's house. Off I went, prattling by his 
 side ; I daresay I soon forgot the terror which I felt 
 when I first saw him. You may be sure all Win- 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 67 
 
 chelsea knew that a French lady, and her child, and 
 her maid, were come to stay with Madame Duval, 
 and a French gentleman to lodge over the baker's. 
 
 I never shall forget my terror and astonishment 
 when mother told me that this lady who came to 
 us was a Papist. There were two gentlemen of 
 that religion living in our town, at a handsome 
 house called the Priory ; but they had little to do 
 with persons in my parents' humble walk of life, 
 though of course my mother would dress Mrs. 
 Weston's head as well as any other lady's. I 
 forgot also to say that Mrs. Duval went out some- 
 times as ladies' nurse, and in that capacity had 
 attended Mrs. Weston, who, however, lost her 
 child. The Westons had a chapel in their house, 
 in the old grounds of the Priory, and clergymen 
 of their persuasion used to come over from my 
 Lord Newburgh's of Slindon, or from Arundel, 
 where there is another great Papist house; and 
 one or two Koman Catholics — there were very few 
 of them in our town — were buried in a part of the 
 old gardens of the Priory, where a monks' burying- 
 place had been before Harry VIII.'s time. 
 
 The new gentleman was the first Papist to 
 whom I had ever spoken ; and as I trotted about 
 
 5—2 
 
68 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 the town with him, showing him the old gates, 
 the church, and so forth, I remember saying to 
 him, " And have you burned any Protestants ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " says he, giving a horrible grin, " I 
 have roasted several, and eaten them afterwards." 
 And I shrank back from him, and his pale grin- 
 ning face; feeling once more that terror which 
 had come over me when I first beheld him. He 
 was a queer gentleman; he was amused by my 
 simplicity and odd sayings. He was never tired 
 of having me with him. He said I should be his 
 little English master ; and indeed he learned the 
 language surprisingly quick, whereas poor Madame 
 de Saverne never understood a word of it. 
 
 She was very ill — pale, with a red spot on 
 either cheek, sitting for whole hours in silence, 
 and looking round frightened, as if a prey to some 
 terror. I have seen my mother watching her, and 
 looking almost as scared as the countess herself. 
 At times, Madame could not bear the crying of 
 the child, and would order it away from her. At 
 other times, she would clutch it, cover it with 
 cloaks, and lock her door, and herself into the 
 chamber with her infant. She used to walk about 
 the house of a night. I had a little room near 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 69 
 
 mother's, which I occupied during the holidays, 
 and on Saturdays and Sundays, when I came over 
 from Rye. I remember quite well waking up one 
 night, and hearing Madame's voice at mother's 
 door, crying out, " Ursula, Ursula ! quick ! horses ! 
 I must go away. He is coming ; I know he is 
 coming ! " And then there were remonstrances 
 on mother's part, and Madame's maid came out of 
 her room, with entreaties to her mistress to return. 
 At the cry of the child, the poor mother would 
 rush away from whatever place she was in, and 
 hurry to the infant. Not that she loved it. At 
 the next moment she would cast the child down 
 on the bed, and go to the window again, and look to 
 the sea. For hours she sate at that window, with a 
 curtain twisted round her, as if hiding from some 
 one. Ah ! how have I looked up at that window 
 since, and the light twinkling there ! I wonder 
 does the house remain yet ? I don't like now to 
 think of the passionate grief I have passed through, 
 as I looked up to yon glimmering lattice. 
 
 It was evident our poor visitor was in a 
 deplorable condition. The apothecary used to 
 come and shake his head, and order medicine. 
 The medicine did little good. The sleeplessness 
 
70 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 continued. She was a prey to constant fever. She 
 would make incoherent answers to questions put 
 to her, laugh and weep at odd times and places ; 
 push her meals away from her, though they were 
 the hest my poor mother could supply ; order my 
 grandfather to go and sit in the kitchen, and not 
 have the impudence to sit down before her ; coax 
 and scold my mother by turns, and take her up 
 very sharply when she rebuked me. Poor Madame 
 Duval was scared by her foster-sister. She, who 
 ruled everybody, became humble before the poor 
 crazy lady. I can see them both now, the lady in 
 white, listless and silent as she would sit for hours 
 taking notice of no one, and mother watching her 
 with terrified dark eyes. 
 
 The Chevalier de la Motte had his lodgings, and 
 came and went between his house and ours. I 
 thought he was the lady's cousin. He used to 
 call himself her cousin ; I did not know what our 
 pastor M. Borel meant when he came to mother 
 one day, and said, " Fi, done, what a pretty 
 business thou hast commenced, Madame Denis — 
 thou an elder's daughter of our Church ! " 
 
 " What business ? " says mother. 
 
 " That of harbouring crime and sheltering ini- 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 71 
 
 quity," says he, naming the crime, viz. No. vii. of 
 the Decalogue. 
 
 Being a child, I did not then understand the 
 word he used. But as soon as he had spoken, 
 mother, taking up a saucepan of soup, cries out, 
 " Get out of there, Monsieur, all pastor as you 
 are, or I will send this soup at thy ugly head, and 
 the saucepan afterwards." And she looked so 
 fierce, that I am not surprised the little man 
 trotted off. 
 
 Shortly afterwards grandfather comes home, 
 looking almost as frightened as his commanding 
 officer, M. Borel. Grandfather expostulated with 
 his daughter-in-law. He was in a great agitation. 
 He wondered how she could speak so to the pastor 
 of the Church. " All the town," says he, " is 
 talking about you and this unhappy lady." 
 
 " All the town is an old woman," replies 
 Madame Duval, stamping her foot and twisting 
 her moustache, I might say, almost. " What ? 
 These white-beaks of French cry out because I 
 receive my foster-sister ? What ? It is wrong 
 to shelter a poor foolish dying woman ? Oh, the 
 cowards, the cowards ! Listen, petit-papa ; if you 
 hear a word said at the club against your bru, and 
 
72 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 do not knock the man down, I will." And,- faith, 
 I think grandfather's bru would have kept her word. 
 
 I fear my own unlucky simplicity Drought part 
 of the opprobrium down upon my poor mother, 
 which she had now to suffer in our French colony ; 
 for one day a neighbour, Madame Crochu by name, 
 stepping in and asking, "How is your boarder, 
 and how is her cousin the count ? " 
 
 " Madame Clarisse is no better than before," 
 said I (shaking my head wisely), " and the gentle- 
 man is not a count, and he is not her cousin, 
 Madame Crochu ! " 
 
 "Oh, he is no relation?" says the mantua- 
 •maker. And that story was quickly told over the 
 little town, and when we went to church next 
 Sunday, M. Borel preached a sermon which made 
 all the congregation look to us, and poor mother 
 sate boiling red like a lobster fresh out of the pot. 
 I did not quite know what I had done : I know 
 what mother was giving me for my pains, when 
 our poor patient, entering the room, hearing, I 
 suppose, the hissing of the stick (and never word 
 from me, I used to bite a bullet, and hold my 
 tongue), rushed into the room, whisked the cane 
 out of mother's hand, flung her to the other end 
 
THE TKAVELLERS. 73 
 
 of the room with a strength quite surprising, and 
 clasped me up in her arms and began pacing up and 
 down the room, and glaring at mother. " Strike 
 your own child, monster, monster ! " says the poor 
 lady. " Kneel down and ask pardon : or, as sure 
 as I am the queen, I will order your head off ! " 
 
 At dinner, she ordered me to come and sit by 
 her. " Bishop ! " she said to grandfather, " my 
 lady of honour has been naughty. She whipt the 
 little prince with a scorpion. I took it from her 
 hand. Duke ! if she does it again : there is a 
 sword, I desire you to cut the countess's head off ! " 
 And then she took a carving knife and waved it, 
 and gave one of her laughs, which always set poor 
 mother a-crying. She used to call us dukes and 
 princes — I don't know what — poor soul. It was 
 the Chevalier de la Motte, whom she generally 
 styled duke, holding out her hand, and saying, 
 " Kneel, sir, kneel, and kiss our royal hand." 
 And M. de la Motte would kneel with a sad sad 
 face, and go through this hapless ceremony. As 
 for grandfather, who was very bald, and without 
 his wig, being one evening below her window 
 culling a salad in his garden, she beckoned him 
 to her smiling, and when the poor old man came, 
 
74 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 she upset a dish of tea over his bald pate, and 
 said, "I appoint you and anoint you Bishop of 
 St. Denis ! " 
 
 The woman Martha, who had been the com- 
 panion of the Countess de Saverne in her unfor- 
 tunate flight from home — I believe that since the 
 birth of her child the poor lady had never been 
 in her right senses at all — broke down under the 
 ceaseless watching and care her mistress's con- 
 dition necessitated, and I have no doubt found 
 her duties yet more painful and difficult when a 
 second mistress, and a very harsh, imperious, and 
 jealous one, was set over her in the person of 
 worthy Madame Duval. My mother was for order- 
 ing everybody who would submit to her orders, 
 and entirely managing the affairs of all those 
 whom she loved. She put the mother to bed, 
 and the baby in her cradle ; she prepared food for 
 both of them, dressed one and the other with an 
 equal affection, and loved that unconscious mother 
 and child with a passionate devotion. But she 
 loved her own way, was jealous of all who came 
 between her and the objects of her love, and no 
 doubt led her subordinates an uncomfortable life. 
 
 Three months of Madame Duval tired out the 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 75 
 
 countess's Alsatian maid, Martha. She revolted 
 and said she would go home. Mother said she 
 was an ungrateful wretch, but was delighted to get 
 rid of her. She always averred the woman stole 
 articles of dress, and trinkets, and laces, belonging 
 to her mistress, before she left us : and in an evil 
 hour this wretched Marthe went away. I believed 
 she really loved her mistress, and would have loved 
 the child, had my mother's rigid arms not pushed 
 her from its cot. Poor little innocent, in what 
 tragic gloom did thy life begin ! But an unseen 
 Power was guarding that helpless innocence : and 
 sure a good angel watched it in its hour of danger ! 
 So Madame Duval turned Martha out of her tent 
 as Sarah thrust out Hagar. Are women pleased 
 after doing these pretty tricks ? Your ladyships 
 know best. Madame D. not only thrust out 
 Martha, but flung stones after Martha all her 
 life. She went away, not blameless perhaps, but 
 wounded to the quick with ingratitude which had 
 been shown to her, and a link in that mysterious 
 chain of destiny which was binding all these people 
 — me the boy of seven years old ; yonder little 
 speechless infant of as many months ; that poor 
 wandering lady bereft of reason ; that dark inscru- 
 
76 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 table companion of hers who brought evil with him 
 wherever he came. 
 
 From Dungeness to Boulogne is but six-and- 
 thirty miles, and our boats, when war was over, 
 were constantly making journeys there. Even in 
 war-time the little harmless craft left each other 
 alone, and, I suspect, carried on a great deal of 
 peaceable and fraudulent trade together. Grand- 
 father had share of a " fishing " boat with one 
 Thomas Gregson of Lydd. When Marthe was 
 determined to go, one of our boats was ready to 
 take her to the place from whence she came, or 
 transfer her to a French boat, which would return 
 into its own harbour.* She was carried back to 
 Boulogne and landed. I know the day full well 
 from a document now before me, of which the 
 dismal writing and signing were occasioned by 
 that, very landing. 
 
 As she stepped out from the pier (a crowd of 
 people, no doubt, tearing the poor wretch's slender 
 luggage from her to carry it to the Customs) 
 almost the first person on whom the woman's 
 
 * There were points for which our boats used to make, and 
 meet the French boats when not disturbed, and do a great deal 
 more business than I could then understand. — D. D. 
 
THE TEAVELLERS. 77 
 
 eyes fell was her master the Count de Saverne. 
 He had actually only reached the place on that 
 very day, and walked the pier, looking towards 
 England, as many a man has done from the same 
 spot, when he saw the servant of his own wife 
 come up the side of the pier. 
 
 He rushed to her, as she started back screaming 
 and almost fainting, but the crowd of beggars 
 behind her prevented her retreat. " The child, 
 does the child live ? " asked the poor count, in 
 the German tongue which both spoke. 
 
 The child was well. Thank God, thank God ! 
 The poor father's heart was freed from that terror, 
 then! I can fancy the gentleman saying, "Your 
 mistress is at Winchelsea, with her foster-sister ?" 
 
 " Yes, M. le Comte." 
 
 1 The Chevalier de la Motte is always at "Win- 
 chelsea ? " 
 
 " Ye — oh, no, no, M. le Comte ! " 
 
 " Silence, liar ! He made the journey with 
 her. They stopt at the same inns. M. le Brun, 
 merchant, aged 34; his sister, Madame Dubois, 
 aged 24, with a female infant in her arms, and 
 a maid, left this port, on 20th April, in the 
 English fishing-boat Mary, of Eye. Before em- 
 
78 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 barking they slept at the Ecu de France. I knew 
 I should find them." 
 
 " By all that is sacred, I never left Madame 
 once during the voyage ! " 
 
 "Never till to-day? Enough. How was the 
 fishing-boat called which brought you to Bou- 
 logne ? " 
 
 One of the boat's crew was actually walking 
 behind the unhappy gentleman at the time, with 
 some packet which Ursule had left in it.* It 
 seemed as if fate was determined upon suddenly 
 and swiftly bringing the criminal to justice, and 
 under the avenging sword of the friend he had be- 
 trayed. He bade the man follow him to the hotel. 
 There should be a good drink-money for him. 
 
 " Does he treat her well ? " asked the poor 
 gentleman, as he and the maid walked on. 
 
 " Dame ! No mother can be more gentle than 
 he is with her ! " Where Marthe erred was in 
 not saying that her mistress was utterly deprived 
 of reason, and had been so almost since the child's 
 birth. She owned that she had attended her lady 
 to the cathedral when the countess and the infant 
 
 * I had this from the woman herself, whom we saw when we 
 paid our visit to Lorraine and Alsace in 1814. 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 79 
 
 were christened, and that M. de la Motte was also 
 present. " He has taken body and soul too," no 
 doubt the miserable gentleman thought. 
 
 He happened to alight at the very hotel where 
 the fugitives of whom he was in search had had 
 their quarters four months before (so that for two 
 months at least poor M. de Saverne must have 
 lain ill at Nanci at the commencement of his 
 journey). The boatman, the luggage people, and 
 Marthe the servant followed the count to this 
 hotel ; and the femme de chambre remembered 
 how Madame Dubois and her brother had been 
 at the hotel — a poor sick lady, who sat up talking 
 the whole night. Her brother slept in the right 
 wing across the court. Monsieur has the lady's 
 room. How that child did cry ! See, the windows 
 look on the port. " Yes, this was the lady's room." 
 
 " And the child lay on which side ? " 
 
 " On that side." 
 
 M. de Saverne looked at the place which the 
 woman pointed out, stooped his head towards the 
 pillow, and cried as if his heart would break. The 
 fisherman's tears rolled down too over his brown 
 face and hands. Le pauvre homme, le pauvre 
 homme ! 
 
80 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " Come into my sitting-room with me," he said 
 to the fisherman. The man followed him, and 
 shut the door. 
 
 His burst of feeling was now over. He became 
 entirely calm. 
 
 " You know the house from which this woman 
 came, at Winchelsea, in England ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You took a gentleman and a lady thither ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You remember the man ? " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " For thirty louis will you go to sea to-night, 
 take a passenger, and deliver a letter to M. la 
 Motte ? " 
 
 The man agreed : and I take out from my 
 secretary that letter, in its tawny ink of fifty 
 years' date, and read it with a strange interest 
 always. 
 
 " To the Chevalier Franqois Joseph de la Motte, 
 at Winchelsea, in England. 
 
 " I knew I should find you. I never doubted 
 where you were. But for a sharp illness which I 
 made at Nanci, I should have been with you two 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 81 
 
 months earlier. After what has occurred between 
 us, I know this invitation will be to you as a com- 
 mand, and that you will hasten as you did to my 
 rescue from the English bayonets at Hastenbeck. 
 Between us, M. le Chevalier, it is to life or death. 
 I depend upon you to communicate this to no one, 
 and to follow the messenger, who will bring you 
 to me. 
 
 * " Count de Saverne." 
 
 This letter was brought to our house one even- 
 ing as we sat in the front shop. I had the child 
 on my knee, which would have no other playfellow 
 but me. The countess was pretty quiet that 
 evening — the night calm, and the windows open. 
 Grandfather was reading his book. The countess 
 and M. de la Motte were at cards, though, poor 
 thing, she could scarce play for ten minutes at a 
 time; and there comes a knock, at which grand- 
 father puts down his book.* 
 
 "All's well," says he. "Entrez. Comment, 
 c'est vous, Bidois?" 
 
 * There waa a particular knock, as I learned later, in use among 
 grandpapa's private friends, and Mons. Bidois no doubt had this 
 signal. 
 
 6 
 
82 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 "Oui, c'est bien moi, patron!" says Moris. 
 Bidois, a great fellow in boots and petticoat, with 
 an eelskin queue hanging down to his heels. 
 " C'est la le petit du pauv' Jean Louis ? Est i 
 genti le pti patron ! " 
 
 And as he looks at me, he rubs a hand across his 
 nose. 
 
 At this moment Madame la Comtesse gave one, 
 two, three screams, a laugh, and cries — " Ah, C'est 
 mon mari qui revient de la guerre. II est la ; a la 
 croisee. Bon jour, M. le Comte ! Bon jour. 
 Yous avez une petite fille bien laide, bien laide, 
 que je n'aime pas du tout, pas du tout, pas du 
 tout ! He is there ! I saw him at the window. 
 There, there ! Hide me from him. He will kill 
 me, he will kill me!" she cried. 
 
 " Calmez-vous, Clarisse," says the chevalier, 
 who was weary, no doubt, of the poor lady's endless 
 outcries and follies. 
 
 " Calmez-vous, ma fille ! " sings out mother, 
 from the inner room, where she was washing. 
 
 " Ah, Monsieur is the Chevalier de la Motte ? " 
 says Bidois. 
 
 " Apres Monsieur," says the chevalier, looking 
 haughtily up from the cards. 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 83 
 
 " In that case, I have a letter for M. le Cheva- 
 lier; " and the sailor handed to the Chevalier de la 
 Motte that letter which I have translated, the ink 
 of which was black and wet then, though now it is 
 sere and faded. 
 
 This chevalier had faced death and danger in a 
 score of daredevil expeditions. At the game of 
 steel and lead there was no cooler performer. 
 He put the letter which he had received quietly 
 into his pocket, finished his game with the 
 countess, and telling Bidois to follow him to his 
 lodgings, took leave of the company. I daresay 
 the poor countess built up a house with the cards, 
 and took little more notice. Mother, going to 
 close the shutters, said, " It was droll, that little 
 man, the friend to Bidois, was still standing in 
 the street." You see we had all sorts of droll 
 friends. Seafaring men, speaking a jargon of 
 English, French, Dutch, were constantly dropping 
 in upon us. Dear Heaven ! when I think in what 
 a company I have lived, and what a galere I rowed 
 in, is it not a wonder that I did not finish where 
 some of my friends did ? 
 
 I made a drole de metier at this time. I was 
 set by grandfather to learn his business. Our 
 
 6—2 
 
84 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 apprentice taught me the commencement of the 
 noble art of wig-weaving. As soon as I was tall 
 enough to stand to a gentleman's nose I was pro- 
 mised to be promoted to be a shaver. I trotted on 
 mother's errands with her bandboxes, and what 
 not ; and I was made dry-nurse to poor Madame's 
 baby, who, as I said, loved me most of all in the 
 house ; and who would put her little dimpled 
 hands out and crow with delight to see me. The 
 first day I went out with this little baby in a little 
 wheel chair mother got for her the town boys made 
 rare fun of me : and I had to fight one, as poor 
 little Agnes sate sucking her little thumb in her 
 chair, I suppose ; and whilst the battle was going 
 on, who should come up but Doctor Barnard, the 
 English rector of Saint Philip's, who lent us 
 French Protestants the nave of his church for 
 our service, whilst our tumble-down old church 
 was being mended. Doctor Barnard (for a reason 
 which I did not know at that time, but which I 
 am compelled to own now was a good one) did not 
 like grandfather, nor mother, nor our family. You 
 may be sure our people abused him in return. He 
 was called a haughty priest — a vilain beeg-veeg, 
 mother used to say, in her French-English. And 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 85 
 
 perhaps one of the causes of her dislike to him 
 was, that his big vig — a fine cauliflower it was — 
 was powdered at another barber's. Well, whilst 
 the battle royal was going on between me and 
 Tom Camn (dear heart ! how well I remember the 
 fellow, though — let me see — it is fifty-four years 
 since we punched each other's little noses), Doctor 
 Barnard walks up to us boys and stops the fighting. 
 " You little rogues ! I'll have you all put in the 
 stocks and whipped by my beadle," says the doctor, 
 who was a magistrate too : "as for this little 
 French barber, he is always in mischief." 
 
 " They laughed at me and called me Dry-nurse, 
 and wanted to upset the little cart, sir, and I 
 wouldn't bear it. And it's my duty to protect a 
 poor child that can't help itself," said I, very 
 stoutly. " Her mother is ill. Her nurse has run 
 away, and she has nobody — nobody to protect her 
 but me — and ' Notre Pere qui est aux cieux ; ' " 
 and I held up my little hand as grandfather used 
 to do; "and if those boys hurt the child I will 
 fight for her." 
 
 The doctor rubbed his hand across his eyes ; and 
 felt in his pocket and gave me a dollar. 
 
 " And come to see us all at the Rectory, child," 
 
86 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 Mrs. Barnard says, who was with the doctor ; and 
 she looked at the little baby that was in its cot, 
 and said, " Poor thing, poor thing ! " 
 
 And the doctor, turning round to the English 
 boys, still holding me by the hand, said, " Mind, 
 all you boys ! If I hear of you being such cowards 
 again as to strike this little lad for doing his duty, 
 I will have you whipped by my beadle, as sure as 
 my name is Thomas Barnard. Shake hands, you 
 Thomas Caffin, with the French boy;" and I said, 
 " I would shake hands or fight it out whenever 
 Tom Caffin liked; " and so took my place as pony 
 again, and pulled my little cart down Sandgate. 
 
 These stories got about amongst the townspeople, 
 and fishermen, and seafaring folk, I suppose, and 
 the people of our little circle ; and they were the 
 means, God help me, of bringing me in those very 
 early days a legacy which I have still. You see, 
 the day after Bidois, the French fisherman, paid 
 us a visit, as I was pulling my little cart up the 
 hill to a little farmer's house where grandfather 
 and a partner of his had some pigeons, of which I 
 was very fond as a boy, I met a little dark man 
 whose face I cannot at all recall to my mind, but 
 who spoke French and German to me like grand- 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 
 
 87 
 
 father and mother. V Th&t is the child of Madame 
 von Zabern ? " says he, trembling very much. 
 
 " Ja, Herr ! " says the little boy 
 
 Agnes, Agnes ! How the years roll away ! 
 What strange events have befallen us : what pas- 
 sionate griefs have we had to suffer : what a 
 merciful Heaven has protected us, since that day 
 when your father knelt over the little car, in which 
 his child lay sleeping ! I have the picture in my 
 mind now. I see a winding road leading down to 
 one of the gates of our town ; the blue marsh-land, 
 and yonder, across the marsh, Rye towers and gables; 
 a great silver sea stretching beyond ; and that dark 
 man's figure stooping and looking at the child 
 asleep. He never kissed the infant or touched her. 
 I remember it woke smiling, and held out its little 
 arms, and he turned away with a sort of groan. 
 
 Bidois, the French fisherman I spoke of as having 
 been to see us on the night before, came up here 
 with another companion, an Englishman I think. 
 
 " Ah ! we seek for you everywhere, Monsieur le 
 Comte," says he. " The tide serves and it is full 
 time." 
 
 " Monsieur le Chevalier is on board ? " says the 
 Count de'Saverne. 
 
88 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " II est bien la," says the fisherman. And they 
 went down the hill through the gate, without 
 turning to look back. 
 
 Mother was quite quiet and gentle all that day. 
 It seemed as if something scared her. The poor 
 countess prattled and laughed, or cried in her un- 
 conscious way. But grandfather at evening prayer 
 that night making the exposition rather long, 
 mother stamped her foot, and said, " Assez bavarde 
 comme ga, mon pere," and sank back in her chair 
 with her apron over her face. 
 
 She remained all next day very silent, crying 
 often, and reading in our great German Bible. 
 She was kind to me that day. I remember her 
 saying, in her deep voice, " Thou art a brave boy, 
 Denikin." It was seldom she patted my head so 
 softly. That night our patient was very wild; 
 and laughing a great deal, and singing so that the 
 people would stop in the streets to listen. 
 
 Doctor Barnard again met me that day, dragging 
 my little carriage, and he fetched me into the Kec- 
 tory for the first time, and gave me cake and wine, 
 and the book of the Arabian Nights, and the ladies 
 admired the little baby, and said it was a pity it 
 was a little Papist, and the doctor hoped I was not 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 89 
 
 going to turn Papist, and I said, " Oh, never." 
 Neither mother nor I liked that darkling Eoman 
 Catholic clergyman who was fetched over from our 
 neighbours at the Priory by M. de la Motte. The 
 chevalier was very firm himself in that religion. I 
 little thought then that I was to see him on a day 
 when his courage and his faith were both to have 
 an awful trial. 
 
 ... I was reading then in this fine book of 
 Monsieur Galland which the doctor had given me. 
 I had no orders to go to bed, strange to say, and I 
 daresay was peeping into the cave of the Forty 
 Thieves along with Master Ali Baba, when I 
 heard the clock whirring previously to striking 
 twelve, and steps coming rapidly up our empty 
 street. 
 
 Mother started up looking quite haggard, and 
 undid the bolt of the door. " C'est lui ! " says she, 
 with her eyes starting, and the Chevalier de la 
 Motte came in, looking as white as a corpse. 
 
 Poor Madame de Saverne upstairs, awakened 
 by the striking clock perhaps, began to sing over- 
 head, and the chevalier gave a great start, looking 
 more ghastly than before, as my mother with an 
 awful face looked at him. 
 
90 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " II Fa voulu," says M. de la Motte, hanging 
 down his head; and again poor Madame's crazy 
 voice began to sing. 
 
 KEPORT. 
 
 " On the 27th June of this year, 1769, the Comte 
 de Saverne arrived at Boulogne-sur-Mer, and lodged 
 at the Ecu de France, where also was staying M. 
 le Marquis du Quesne Menneville, Chef d'Escadre 
 of the Naval Armies of his Majesty. The Comte 
 de Saverne was previously unknown to the Marquis 
 du Quesne, hut recalling to M. du Quesne's re- 
 membrance the fact that his illustrious ancestor 
 the Admiral Duquesne professed the Keformed 
 religion, as did M. de Saverne himself, M. de 
 Saverne entreated the Marquis du Quesne to be 
 his friend in a rencontre which deplorable circum- 
 stances rendered unavoidable. 
 
 "At the same time, M. de Saverne stated to 
 M. le Marquis du Quesne the causes of his quarrel 
 with the Chevalier Francis Joseph de la Motte, late 
 officer of the regiment of Soubise, at present residing 
 in England in the town of Winchelsea, in the county 
 of Sussex. The statement made by the Comte de 
 Saverne was such as to convince M. du Quesne cf 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 91 
 
 the count's right to exact a reparation from the 
 Chevalier de la Motte. 
 
 "A boat was despatched on the night of the 
 29th June, with a messenger bearing the note of 
 M. le Comte de Saverne. And in this boat M. de 
 la Motte returned from England. 
 
 " The undersigned Count de Berigny, in garri- 
 son at Boulogne, and an acquaintance of M. de la 
 Motte, consented to serve as his witness in the 
 meeting with M. de Saverne. 
 
 " The meeting took place at seven o'clock in the 
 morning, on the sands at half a league from the 
 port of Boulogne : and the weapons chosen were 
 pistols. Both gentlemen were perfectly calm and 
 collected, as one might expect from officers dis- 
 tinguished in the King's service, who had faced 
 the enemies of France as comrades together. 
 
 "Before firing, M. le Chevalier de la Motte 
 advanced four steps, and holding his pistol down, 
 and laying his hand on his heart, he said, — ' I 
 swear, on the faith of a Christian, and the honour 
 of a gentleman, that I am innocent of the charge 
 laid against me by Monsieur de Saverne.' 
 
 " The Count de Saverne said, — ' M. le Chevalier 
 de la Motte, I have made no charge ; and if I had, 
 a lie costs vou nothing.' 
 
92 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " M. de la Motte, saluting the witnesses courte- 
 ously, and with grief rather than anger visible 
 upon his countenance, returned to his line on the 
 sand which was marked out as the place where he 
 was to stand, at a distance of ten paces from his 
 adversary. 
 
 " At the signal being given both fired simul- 
 taneously. The ball of M. de Saverne grazed 
 M. de la Motte's side curl, while his ball struck 
 M. de Saverne in the right breast. M. de Saverne 
 stood a moment, and fell. 
 
 " The seconds, the surgeon, and M. de la 
 Motte advanced towards the fallen gentleman ; 
 and M. de la Motte, holding up his hand, again 
 said, — ' I take Heaven to witness the person is 
 innocent.' 
 
 " The Comte de Saverne seemed to be about to 
 speak. He lifted himself from the sand, support- 
 ing himself on one arm : but all he said was,- — ■ 
 
 * You, you ' and a great issue of blood rushed 
 
 from his throat, and he fell back, and, with a few 
 convulsions, died. 
 
 (Signed) " Marquis du Quesne Menneville, 
 " Chef d'Escadre aux Armies Navales du Roy. 
 
 " Comte de Beeigny, Brigadier de Cavalerxe" 
 
THE TRAVELLERS. 98 
 
 surgeon's REPORT. 
 
 "I, Jean Batiste Drouot, surgeon-major of the 
 Regiment Royal Cravate, in garrison at Boulogne- 
 sur-Mer, certify that I was present at the meeting 
 which ended so lamentably. The death of the 
 gentleman who succumbed was immediate; the 
 ball, passing to the right of the middle of the breast- 
 bone, penetrated the lung and the large artery 
 supplying it with blood, and caused death by 
 mmediate suffocation." 
 
94 DENIS DUVAI. 
 
 CHAPTEE IT. 
 
 OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 
 
 That last night which he was to pass upon 
 earth, M. de Saverne spent in a little tavern in 
 Winchelsea, frequented by fishing people, and 
 known to Bidois, who, even during the war, was 
 in the constant habit of coming to England upon 
 errands in which Mons. Grandpapa was very 
 much interested — precentor, elder, perruquier, as 
 he was. 
 
 The Count de Saverne had had some talk with 
 the fisherman during the voyage from Boulogne, 
 and more conversation took place on this last 
 night, when the count took Bidois partly into his 
 confidence : and, without mentioning the precise 
 cause of his quarrel with M. de la Motte, said that 
 it was inevitable ; that the man was a villain who 
 ought not to be allowed to pollute the earth ; and 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 95 
 
 that no criminal was ever more righteously executed 
 than this chevalier would be on the morrow, when 
 it was agreed that the two were to meet. 
 
 The meeting would have taken place on that 
 very night, but M. de la Motte demanded, as 
 indeed he had a right to do, some hours for the 
 settlement of his own affairs ; and preferred to 
 fight on French ground rather than English, as 
 the survivor of the quarrel would be likely to meet 
 with very rough treatment in this country. 
 
 La Motte betook himself then to arranging his 
 papers. As for the Count de Saverne, he said all 
 his dispositions were made. A dowry, — that 
 which his wife brought — would go to her child. 
 His own property was devised to his own relations, 
 and he could give the child nothing. He had 
 only a few pieces in his purse, and, " Tenez," says 
 he, "this watch. Should anything befal me, I 
 desire it may be given to the little boy who saved 
 my — that is, her child." And the voice of 
 M. le Comte broke as he said these words, and 
 the tears ran over his fingers. And the seaman 
 wept too, as he told the story to me years after, nor 
 were some of mine wanting, I think, for that poor 
 heart-broken, wretched man, writhing in helpless 
 
96 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 agony, as the hungry sand drank his blood. 
 Assuredly, the guilt of that blood was on thy head, 
 Francis de la Motte. 
 
 The watch is ticking on the table before me as 
 I write. It has been my companion of half a 
 century. I remember my childish delight when 
 Bidois brought it to me, and told my mother the 
 tale of the meeting of the two gentlemen. 
 
 " You see her condition," M. de la Motte said 
 to my mother at this time. " We are separated 
 for ever, as hopelessly as though one or other were 
 dead. My hand slew her husband. Perhaps my 
 fault destroyed her reason. I transmit misfortunes 
 to those I love and would serve. Shall I marry 
 her ? I will if you think I can serve her. As 
 long as a guinea remains to me, I will halve it 
 with her. I have but very few left now. My 
 fortune has crumbled under my hands, as have my 
 friendships, my once bright prospects, my ambitions. 
 I am a doomed man : somehow, I drag down those 
 who love me into my doom." 
 
 And so indeed there was a Cain mark, as it 
 were, on this unhappy man. He did bring wreck 
 and ruin on those who loved him. He was as a 
 lost soul, I somehow think, whose tortures had 
 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 97 
 
 begun already. Predestined to evil, to crime, to 
 gloom ; but now and again some one took pity 
 upon this poor wretch, and amongst those who 
 pitied him was my stern mother. 
 
 And here I may relate how it happened that I 
 " saved" the child, for which act poor M. de Saverne 
 rewarded me. Bidois no doubt told that story to 
 M. le Comte in the course of their gloomy voyage. 
 Mrs. Marthe, the countess's attendant, had received 
 or taken leave of absence one night, after putting 
 the child and the poor lady, who was no better 
 than a child, to bed. I went to my bed, and to 
 sleep as boys sleep ; and I forget what business 
 called away my mother likewise, but when she 
 came back to look for her poor Biche and the 
 infant in its cradle — both were gone. 
 
 I have seen the incomparable Siddons, in the 
 play, as, white and terrified, she passed through 
 the darkened hall after King Duncan's murder. 
 My mother's face wore a look of terror to the full 
 as tragical, when, starting up from my boyish 
 sleep, I sate up in my bed and saw her. She 
 was almost beside herself with terror. The poor 
 insane lady and her child were gone — who could 
 say where ? Into the marshes — into the sea —into 
 
 7 
 
98 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 the darkness — it was impossible to say whither 
 the countess had fled. 
 
 " We must get up, my boy, and find them," 
 says mother, in a hoarse voice ; and I was sent 
 over to Mr. Bliss's the grocer's in East Street 
 where the chevalier lived, and where I found him 
 sitting (with two priests, by the way, guests, no 
 doubt, of Mr. Weston, at the Priory), and all these, 
 and mother, on her side, with me following her, 
 went out to look for the fugitives. 
 
 We went by pairs, taking different roads. Mother's 
 was the right one as it appeared, for we had not 
 walked many minutes, when we saw a white figure 
 coming towards us, glimmering out of the dark, 
 and heard a voice singing. 
 
 " Ah, mon Dieu ! " says mother, and " Gott sey 
 dank," and I know not what exclamations of grati- 
 tude and relief. It was the voice of the countess. 
 
 As we came up, she knew us with our light, and 
 began to imitate, in her crazy way, the cry of the 
 watchman, whom the poor sleepless soul had often 
 heard under her windows. " Past twelve o'clock, 
 a starlight night ! " she sang, and gave one of her 
 sad laughs. 
 
 When we came up to her, we found her in a 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 99 
 
 white wrapper, her hair flowing down her back and 
 over her poor pale face, and again she sang, " Past 
 twelve o'clock." 
 
 The child was not with her. Mother trembled 
 in every limb. The lantern shook so in her hand 
 I thought she would drop it. 
 
 She put it down on the ground. She took her 
 shawl off her back, and covered the poor lady with 
 it, who smiled in her childish way, and said, " C'est 
 bon ; c'est chaud ga ; ah ! que c'est bien ! " 
 
 As I chanced to look down at the lady's feet, I 
 saw one of them was naked. Mother, herself in a 
 dreadful agitation, embraced and soothed Madame 
 de Saverne. " Tell me, my angel, tell me, my 
 love, where is the child ? " says mother, almost 
 fainting. 
 
 " The child, what child ? That little brat who 
 always cries ? I know nothing about children," 
 says the poor thing. " Take me to my bed this 
 moment, madam ! How dare you bring me into 
 the streets with naked feet ! " 
 
 " Where have you been walking, my dear ? " 
 says poor mother, trying to soothe her. 
 
 " I have been to Great Saverne. I wore a domino. 
 I knew the coachman quite well, though he w T as 
 
 7—2 
 
100 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 muffled up all but his nose. I was presented to 
 Monseigneur the Cardinal. I made him such a 
 curtsey — like this. Oh, my foot hurts me ! " 
 
 She often rambled, about this ball and play, and 
 hummed snatches of tunes and little phrases of 
 dialogue, which she may have heard there. Indeed, 
 I believe it was the only play and ball the poor 
 thing ever saw in her life ; her brief life, her 
 wretched life. 'Tis pitiful to think how unhappy 
 it was. When I recall it, it tears my heart-strings 
 somehow, as it doth to see a child in pain. 
 
 As she held up the poor bleeding foot, I saw 
 that the edge of her dress was all wet, and covered 
 with sand. 
 
 "Mother, mother ! " said I, " she has been to 
 the sea ! " 
 
 "Have you been to the sea, Clarisse?" asks 
 mother. 
 
 " J'ai ete au bal : j'ai danse ; j'ai chante. J' 
 bien reconnu mon cocher. J'ai etc" au bal chez h 
 Cardinal. But you must not tell M. de Saverne. 
 Oh, no, you mustn't tell him ! " 
 
 A sudden thought came to me. And, whenever 
 I remember it, my heart is full of thankfulness to 
 the gracious Giver of all good thoughts. Madame, 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 101 
 
 of whom I was not afraid, and who sometimes was 
 amused by my prattle, would now and then take a 
 walk accompanied with Martha her maid, who held 
 the infant, and myself who liked to draw it in its 
 little carriage. We used to walk down to the 
 shore, and there was a rock there, on which the 
 poor lady would sit for hours. 
 
 " You take her home, mother," says I, all in a 
 tremble. " You give me the lantern, and I'll go — 
 I'll go " — I was off before I said where. Down I 
 went, through Westgate ; down I ran along the 
 road towards the place I guessed at. When I had 
 gone a few hundred yards, I saw in the road some- 
 thing white. It was the countess's slipper, that 
 she had left there. I knew she had gone that way. 
 
 I got down to the shore, running, running with 
 all my little might. The moon had risen by this 
 time, shining gloriously over a great silver sea. A 
 tide of silver was pouring in over the sand. Yonder 
 was that rock where we often had sate. The infant 
 was sleeping on it under the stars unconscious. 
 He, Who loves little children, had watched over 
 it ... I scarce can see the words as I write them 
 down. My little baby was waking. She had known 
 nothing of the awful sea coming nearer with each 
 
102 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 wave ; but she knew me as I came, and smiled, 
 and warbled a little infant welcome. I took her 
 up in my arms, and trotted home with my pretty 
 burden. As I paced up the hill, M. de la Motte 
 and one of the French clergymen met me. By 
 ones and twos, the other searchers after my little 
 wanderer came home from their quest. She was 
 laid in her little crib, and never knew, until years 
 later, the danger from which she had been rescued. 
 My adventures became known in our town, and 
 I made some acquaintances who were very kind to 
 me, and were the means of advancing me in after- 
 life. I was too young to understand much what 
 was happening round about me ; but now, if the 
 truth must be told, I must confess that old grand- 
 father, besides his business of perruquier, which 
 you will say is no very magnificent trade, followed 
 others which were far less reputable. What do 
 you say, for instance, of a church elder, who lends 
 money a la 'petite semaine, and at great interest ? 
 The fisherman, the market-people, nay, one or two 
 farmers and gentlemen round about, were beholden 
 to grandfather for supplies, and they came to him, 
 to be shaved in more ways than one. No good 
 came out of his gains, as I shall presently tell : 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 103 
 
 but meanwhile his hands were for ever stretched 
 out to claw other folks' money towards himself; 
 and it must be owned that madame sa bru loved 
 a purse too, and was by no means scrupulous as to 
 the way of filling it. Monsieur le Chevalier de la 
 Motte was free-handed and grand in his manner. 
 He paid a pension, I know not how much, for the 
 maintenance of poor Madame de Saverne. He had 
 brought her to the strait in which she was, poor 
 thing. Had he not worked on her, she never 
 would have left her religion : she never would have 
 fled from her husband : that fatal duel would never 
 have occurred : right or wrong, he was the cause of 
 her calamity, and he would make it as light as it 
 might be. I know how, for years, extravagant and 
 embarrassed as he was, he yet supplied means for 
 handsomely maintaining the little Agnes when she 
 was presently left an orphan in the world, when 
 mother and father both were dead, and her relatives 
 at home disowned her. 
 
 The ladies of Barr, Agnes's aunts, totally denied 
 that the infant was their brother's child, and re- 
 fused any contribution towards her maintenance. 
 Her mother's family equally disavowed her. They 
 had been taught the same story, and I suppose we 
 
104 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 believe willingly enough what we wish to believe. 
 The poor lady was guilty. Her child had been 
 born in her husband's absence. When his return 
 was announced, she fled from her home, not 
 daring to face him ; and the unhappy Count de 
 Saverne died by the pistol of the man who had 
 already robbed him of his honour. La Motte had 
 to bear this obloquy, or only protest against it by 
 letters from England. He could not go over to 
 Lorraine, where he was plunged in debt. "At 
 least, Duval," said he to me, when I shook hands 
 with him, and with all my heart forgave him, 
 " mad, and reckless as I have been, and fatal to 
 all whom I loved ; I have never allowed the 
 child to want, and have supported her in comfort, 
 when I was myself almost without a meal." A 
 bad man no doubt this was ; and yet not utterly 
 wicked : a great criminal who paid an awful 
 penalty. Let us be humble, who have erred too ; 
 and thankful, if we have a hope that we have 
 found mercy. 
 
 I believe it was some braggart letter, which 
 La Motte wrote to a comrade in M. de Vaux's 
 camp, and in which he boasted of making the 
 conversion of a petite Protestante at Strasbourg, 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 105 
 
 which came to the knowledge of poor M. de 
 Saverne, hastened his return home, and brought 
 about this dreadful end. La Motte owned as 
 much, indeed, in the last interview I ever had 
 with him. 
 
 Who told Madame de Saverne of her husband's 
 death ? It was not for years after that I myself 
 (unlucky chatterbox, whose tongue was always 
 blabbing) knew what had happened. My mother 
 thought that she must have overheard Bidois, the 
 boatman, who told the whole story over his glass 
 of Geneva in our parlour. The countess's chamber 
 was overhead, and the door left open. The poor 
 thing used to be very angry at the notion of a 
 locked door, and since that awful escapade to the 
 sea -shore, my mother slept in her room, or a 
 servant whom she liked pretty well supplied 
 mother's place. 
 
 In her condition the dreadful event affected her 
 but little ; and we never knew that she was aware 
 of it until one evening when it happened that a 
 neighbour, one of us French people of Eye, was talk- 
 ing over the tea-table, and telling us of a dreadful 
 thing he had seen on Penenden Heath as he was 
 coming home. He there saw a woman burned at 
 
106 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 the stake for the murder of her husband. The 
 story is in the Gentleman's Magazine for the year 
 1769, and that will settle pretty well the date 
 of the evening when our neighbour related the 
 horrible tale to us. 
 
 Poor Madame de Saverne (who had a very grand 
 air, and was perfectly like a lady) said quite sim- 
 ply, " In this case, my good Ursule, I shall be 
 burned too. For you know I was the cause of 
 my husband being killed. M. le Chevalier went 
 and killed him in Corsica." And she looked 
 round with a little smile, and nodded; and 
 arranged her white dress with her slim hot hands. 
 
 When the poor thing spoke, the chevalier sank 
 back as if he had been shot himself. 
 
 " Good-night, neighbour Marion," groans mo- 
 ther ; " she is very bad to-night. Come to bed, 
 my dear, come to bed." And the poor thing 
 followed mother, curtseying very finely to the 
 company, and saying, quite softly, " Oui, oui, oui, 
 they will burn me ; they will burn me." 
 
 This idea seized upon her mind, and never left 
 it. Madame la Comtesse passed a night of great 
 agitation ; talking incessantly. Mother and her 
 maid were up with her all night. All night long 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 107 
 
 we could hear her songs, her screams, her terrible 
 laughter. . . . Oh, pitiful was thy lot in this 
 world, poor guiltless, harmless lady. In thy brief 
 years, how little happiness ! For thy marriage 
 portion only gloom, and terror, and submission, 
 and captivity. The awful Will above us ruled it 
 so. Poor frightened spirit ! it has woke under 
 serener skies now, and passed out of reach of our 
 terrors, and temptations, and troubles. 
 
 At my early age I could only be expected to 
 obey my elders and parents, and to consider all 
 things were right which were done round about 
 me. Mother's cuffs on the head I received with- 
 out malice, and if the truth must be owned, had 
 not seldom to submit to the major operation which 
 my grandfather used to perform with a certain rod 
 which he kept in a locked cupboard, and accom- 
 pany with long wearisome sermons between each 
 cut or two of his favourite instrument. These 
 good people, as I gradually began to learn, bore 
 but an indifferent reputation in the town which 
 they inhabited, and were neither liked by the 
 French of their own colony, nor by the English 
 among whom we dwelt. Of course, being a 
 
108 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 simple little fellow, I honoured my father and 
 mother as became me — my grandfather and mother, 
 that is — father being dead some years. 
 
 Grandfather, I knew, had a share in a fishing- 
 boat, as numbers of people had, both at Eye and 
 Winchelsea. Stokes, our fisherman, took me out 
 once or twice, and I liked the sport very much : but 
 it appeared that I ought to have said nothing about 
 the boat and the fishing — for one night when we 
 pulled out only a short way beyond a rock which 
 we used to call the Bull Kock, from a pair of horns 
 which stuck out of the water, and there we were 
 hailed by my old friend Bidois, who had come 
 from Boulogne in his lugger — and then . . . well 
 then, I was going to explain the whole matter art- 
 lessly to one of our neighbours who happened to 
 step in to supper, when grandpapa (who had made 
 a grace of five minutes long before taking the dish- 
 cover off) fetched me a slap across the face which 
 sent me reeling off my perch. And the chevalier 
 who was supping with us only laughed at my 
 misfortune. 
 
 This being laughed at somehow affected me . 
 more than the blows. I was used to those, from 
 grandfather and mother too; but when people 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 109 
 
 once had been kind to me I could not bear a 
 different behaviour from. them. And this gentle- 
 man certainly was. He improved my French very 
 much, and used to laugh at my blunders and bad 
 pronunciation. He took a good deal of pains with 
 me when I was at home, and made me speak 
 French like a little gentleman. 
 
 In a very brief time he learned English himself, 
 with a droll accent, to be sure, but so as to express 
 himself quite intelligibly. His head-quarters were 
 at Winchelsea, though he would frequently be away 
 at Deal, Dover, Canterbury, even London. He 
 paid mother a pension for little Agnes, who grew 
 apace, and was the most winning child I ever set 
 eyes on. I remember, as well as yesterday, the 
 black dress which was made for her after her poor 
 mother's death, her pale cheeks, and the great 
 solemn eyes gazing out from under the black curl- 
 ing ringlets which fell over her forehead and face. 
 
 Why do I make zigzag journeys? 'Tis the 
 privilege of old age to be garrulous, and its hap- 
 piness to remember early days. As I sink back in 
 my arm-chair, safe and sheltered post tot discrimina, 
 and happier than it has been the lot of most fellow- 
 sinners to be, the past comes back to me — the 
 
110 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 stormy past, the strange unhappy yet happy past — 
 and I look at it scared and astonished sometimes ; 
 as huntsmen look at the gaps and ditches over 
 which they have leapt, and wonder how they are 
 alive. 
 
 My good fortune in rescuing that little darling 
 child caused the chevalier to be very kind to me ; 
 and when he was with us, I used to hang on to the 
 skirts of his coat, and prattle for hours together, 
 quite losing all fear of him. Except my kind name- 
 sake, the captain and admiral, this was the first 
 gentleman I ever met in intimacy — a gentleman 
 with many a stain, nay crime, to reproach him ; 
 but not all lost, I hope and pray. I own to having 
 a kindly feeling towards that fatal man. I see 
 myself a child prattling at his coat- skirts, and 
 trotting along our roads and marshes with him. 
 I see him with his sad pale face, and a kind of 
 blighting look he had, looking at that unconscious 
 lady, at that little baby. My friends the Nea- 
 politans would have called his an evil eye, and 
 exorcised it accordingly. A favourite walk we had 
 was to a house about a mile out of Winchelsea, 
 where a grazing farmer lived. My delight then 
 was to see, not his cattle, but his pigeons, of 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. Ill 
 
 which he had a good stock, of croppers, pouters, 
 runts, and turbits ; and amongst these, I was told 
 there were a sort of pigeons called carriers, which 
 would fly for prodigious distances, returning from 
 the place to which they were taken, though it were 
 ever so distant, to that where they lived and were 
 bred. 
 
 Whilst I was at Mr. Perreau's, one of these 
 pigeons actually came in flying from the sea, as it 
 appeared to me : and Perreau looked at it, and 
 fondled it, and said to the chevalier, " There is 
 nothing. It is to be at the old place." On which 
 M. le Chevalier only said, " C'est bien," and as 
 we walked away told me all he knew about pigeons, 
 which, I daresay, was no great knowledge. 
 
 Why did he say there was nothing ? I asked in 
 the innocence of my prattle. The chevalier told 
 me that these birds sometimes brought messages, 
 written on a little paper, and tied under their 
 wings, and that Perreau said there was nothing 
 because there was nothing. 
 
 Oh, then ! he sometimes does have messages 
 with his birds ? The chevalier shrugged his 
 shoulder, and took a great pinch out of his fine 
 snuff-box. " What did papa Duval do to you the 
 
112 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 other day when you began to talk too fast?" says 
 he. "Learn to hold thy little tongue, Denis, mon 
 garcon ! If thou livest a little longer, and tellest 
 all thou seest, the Lord help thee ! " And I 
 suppose our conversation ended here, and he strode 
 home, and I trotted after him. 
 
 I narrate these things occurring in childhood by 
 the help of one or two marks which have been left 
 behind — as ingenious Tommy Thumb found his 
 way home by the pebbles which he dropped along 
 his line of march. Thus I happen to know the 
 year when poor Madame de Saverne must have 
 been ill, by referring to the date of the execution of 
 the woman whom our neighbour saw burned on 
 Penenden Heath. Was it days, was it weeks after 
 this that Madame de Saverne' s illness ended as all 
 our illnesses will end one day ? 
 
 During the whole course of her illness, what- 
 ever its length may have been, those priests from 
 Slindon (or from Mr. Weston's the Popish gentle- 
 man's at the Priory) were constantly in our house, 
 and I suppose created a great scandal among the 
 Protestants of the town. M. de la Motte showed 
 an extraordinary zeal in this business ; and, sinner 
 as he was, certainly was a most devout sinner, 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 113 
 
 according to his persuasion. I do not remember, 
 or was not cognizant, when the end came ; but I 
 remember my astonishment, as, passing by her 
 open chamber door, I saw candles lighted before 
 her bed, and some of those clergy watching there, 
 and the Chevalier de la Motte kneeling in the 
 passage in an attitude of deep contrition and 
 grief. 
 
 On that last day there was, as it appeared, a 
 great noise and disturbance round our house. The 
 people took offence at the perpetual coming in and 
 out of the priest, and on the very night when the 
 coffin was to be taken from our house and the 
 clergymen were performing the last services there, 
 the windows of the room, where the poor lady lay, 
 were broken in by a great volley of stones, and a 
 roaring mob shouting, " No Popery, down with 
 priests ! " 
 
 Grandfather lost all courage at these threatening 
 demonstrations, and screamed out at his bru for 
 bringing all this persecution and danger upon him. 
 " Silence, miserable ! " says she. " Go sit in the 
 back kitchen, and count your money-bags ! " She 
 at least did not lose her courage. 
 
 M. de la Motte, though not frightened, was 
 
 8 
 
114 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 much disturbed. The matter might be very 
 serious. I did not know at the time how furiously- 
 angry our townspeople were with my parents for 
 harbouring a Papist. Had they known that the 
 lady was a converted Protestant, they would, 
 doubtless, have been more violent still. 
 
 We were in a manner besieged in our house ; 
 the garrison being — the two priests in much 
 terror ; my grandfather, under the bed for what 
 I know, or somewhere where he would be equally 
 serviceable ; my mother and the chevalier, with 
 their wits about them ; and little Denis Duval, no 
 doubt very much in the way. When the poor 
 lady died it was thought advisable to send her 
 little girl out of the way; and Mrs. Weston at 
 the Priory took her in, who belonged, as has 
 before been said, to the ancient faith. 
 
 We looked out with no little alarm for the time 
 when the hearse should come to take the poor 
 lady's body away ; for the people would not leave 
 the street, and barricaded either end of it, having 
 perpetrated no actual violence beyond the smash- 
 ing of the windows as yet, but ready no doubt for 
 more mischief. 
 
 Calling me to him, M. de la Motte said, 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 115 
 
 " Denis, thou rememberest about the carrier 
 pigeon the other day with nothing under his 
 wing?" I remembered, of course. 
 
 " Thou shalt be my carrier pigeon. Thou shalt 
 carry no letter, but a message. I can trust thee 
 now with a secret." And I kept it, and will tell it 
 now that the people are quite out of danger from 
 that piece of intelligence, as I can promise you. 
 
 " You know Mr. Weston's house ? " Know the 
 house where Agnes was — the best house in the 
 town ? Of course I did. He named eight or ten 
 houses besides Weston's at which I was to go and 
 say, " The mackerel are coming in. Come as 
 many of you as can." And I went to the houses, 
 and said the words ; and when the people said, 
 f Where ? " I said, " Opposite our house," and so 
 went on. 
 
 The last and handsomest house (I had never 
 been in it before) was Mr. Weston's, at the Priory : 
 and there I went and called to see him. And I 
 remember Mrs. Weston was walking up and down 
 a gallery over the hall with a little crying child 
 who would not go to sleep. 
 
 " Agnes, Agnes ! " says I, and that baby was 
 quiet in a minute, smiling, and crowing and fling- 
 
 8—2 
 
116 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 ing out her arms. Indeed, mine was the first 
 name she could speak. 
 
 The gentlemen came out of their parlour, where 
 they were over their pipes, and asked me, surly 
 enough, " What I wanted ? " I said, " The 
 mackerel were out, and the crews were wanted 
 before Peter Duval's the barber's." And one of 
 them, with a scowl on his face, and an oath, 
 said they would be there, and shut the door in 
 my face. 
 
 As I went away from the Priory, and crossed 
 the churchyard by the Eectory gate, who should 
 come up but Doctor Barnard in his gig, with 
 lamps lighted ; and I always saluted him after he 
 had been so kind to me, and had given me the 
 books and the cake. " What," says he, " my 
 little shrimper ! Have you fetched any fish off 
 the rocks to-night?" 
 
 " Oh, no, sir," says I. "I have been taking 
 messages all round." 
 
 " And what message, my boy ? " 
 
 I told him the message about the mackerel, &c. ; 
 but added, that I must not tell the names, for the 
 chevalier had desired me not to mention them. 
 And then I went on to tell how there was a great 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 117 
 
 crowd in the street, and they were breaking win- 
 dows at our house. 
 
 "Breaking windows? What for?" I told 
 him what had happened. "Take Dolly to the 
 stables. Don't say anything to your mistress, 
 Samuel, and come along with me, my little 
 shrimper," says the doctor. He was a very tall 
 man in a great white wig. I see him now skip- 
 ping over the tombstones, by the great ivy tower 
 of the church, and so through the churchyard gate 
 towards our house. 
 
 The hearse had arrived by this time. The 
 crowd had increased, and there was much dis- 
 turbance and agitation. As soon as the hearse 
 came, a yell rose up from the people. " Silence. 
 Shame ! Hold your tongue ! Let the poor woman 
 go in quiet," a few people said. These were the 
 men of the mackerel fishery ; whom the Weston 
 gentlemen presently joined. But the fishermen 
 were a small crowd ; the townspeople were many 
 and very angry. As we passed by the end of Port 
 Street (where our house was) we could see the 
 people crowding at either end of the street, and in 
 the midst the great hearse with its black plumes 
 before our door. 
 
118 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 It was impossible that the hearse could pass 
 through the crowd at either end of the street, if 
 the people were determined to bar the way. I 
 went in, as I had come, by the back gate of the 
 garden, where the lane was still quite solitary, 
 Dr. Barnard following me. We were awfully 
 scared as we passed through the back kitchen 
 (where the oven and boiler is) by the sight of an 
 individual who suddenly leapt out of the copper, 
 and who cried out, " mercy, mercy, save me 
 from the wicked men ! " This was my grandpapa, 
 and, with all respect for grandpapas (being of their 
 age and standing myself now), I cannot but own that 
 mine on this occasion cut rather a pitiful figure. 
 
 " Save my house ! Save my property ! " shouts 
 my ancestor, and the doctor turns away from him 
 scornfully, and passes on. 
 
 In the passage out of this back kitchen we met 
 Monsieur de la Motte, who says, " Ah, c'est toi, 
 mon garcon. Thou hast been on thy errands. 
 Our people are well there ! " and he makes a bow 
 to the doctor, who came in with me, and who 
 replied by a salutation equally stiff. M. de la Motte, 
 reconnoitring from the upper room, had no doubt 
 seen his people arrive. As I looked towards him 
 

 OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 119 
 
 I remarked that lie was armed. He had a belt 
 with pistols in it, and a sword by his side. 
 
 In the back room were the two Eoman Catholic 
 clergymen, and four men who had come with the 
 hearse. They had been fiercely assailed as they 
 entered the house with curses, shouts, hustling, 
 and I believe even sticks and stones. My mother 
 was serving them with brandy when we came in. 
 She was astonished when she saw the rector make 
 his appearance in our house. There was no love 
 between his reverence and our family. 
 
 He made a very grand obeisance to the Koman 
 Catholic clergymen. "Gentlemen," said he, "as 
 rector of this parish, and magistrate of the county, 
 I have come to keep the peace : and if there is 
 any danger, to share it with you. The lady will 
 be buried in the old churchyard, I hear. Mr. 
 Trestles, are you ready to move ? " 
 
 The men said they would be prepared imme- 
 diately, and went to bring down their melancholy 
 burden. " Open the door, you ! " says the doctor. 
 The people within shrank back. " I will do it." 
 says mother. 
 
 "Et moi, parbleu ! " says the chevalier, advanc- 
 ing, his hand on his hilt. 
 
120 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " I think, sir, I shall he more serviceable than 
 you," says the doctor, very coldly. "If these 
 gentlemen my confreres are ready, we will go out ; 
 I will go first, as rector of this parish." And 
 mother drew the bolts, and he walked out and took 
 off his hat. 
 
 A Babel roar of yells, shouts, curses, came 
 pouring into the hall as the door opened, and the 
 doctor remained on the steps, bareheaded and 
 undaunted. 
 
 " How many of my parishioners are here ? 
 Stand aside all who come to my church ! " he 
 called out very bold. 
 
 At this arose immense roars of "No Popery! 
 down with the priests ! down with them ! drown 
 them ! " and I know not what more words of 
 hatred and menace. 
 
 "You men of the French church," shouted out 
 the doctor, " are you here ? " 
 
 " We are here ; down with Popery," roar the 
 Frenchmen. 
 
 " Because you were persecuted a hundred years 
 ago, you want to persecute in your turn. Is that 
 what your Bible teaches you ? Mine doesn't. 
 When your church wanted repair, I gave you 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 121 
 
 my nave, where you had your service, and were 
 welcome. Is this the way you repay kindness 
 which has been shown to you, you who ought to 
 know better ? For shame on you ! I say, for 
 shame ! Don't try and frighten me. Roger 
 Hooker, I know you, you poaching vagabond ; 
 who kept your wife and children when you were 
 at Lewes Gaol? How dare you be persecuting 
 anybody, Thomas Flint ? As sure as my name is 
 Barnard, if you stop this procession, I will commit 
 you to-morrow." 
 
 Here was a cry of " Huzzay for the doctor ! 
 huzzay for the rector ! " which I am afraid came 
 from the mackerels, who were assembled by this 
 time, and were not mum, as fish generally are. 
 
 "Now, gentlemen, advance, if you please!" 
 This he said to the two foreign clergymen, who 
 came forward courageously enough, the Chevalier 
 de la Motte walking behind them. " Listen, you 
 friends and parishioners, Churchmen and Dis- 
 senters ! These two foreign dissenting clergymen 
 are going to bury, in a neighbouring churchyard, 
 a departed sister, as you foreign dissenters have 
 buried your own dead without harm or hindrance ; 
 and I will accompany these gentlemen to the 
 
122 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 grave prepared for the deceased lady, and I will 
 see her laid in peace there, as surely as I hope 
 myself to lie in peace." 
 
 Here the people shouted; but it was with 
 admiration for the rector. There was no outcry 
 any more. The little procession fell into an 
 orderly rank, passed through the streets, and 
 round the Protestant church to the old burying- 
 ground behind the house of the Priory. The 
 rector walked between the two Koman Catholic 
 clergymen. I imagine the scene before me now — 
 the tramp of the people, the flicker of a torch or 
 two ; and then we go in at the gate of the Priory 
 ground into the old graveyard of the monastery, 
 where a grave had been dug, on which the stone 
 still tells that Clarissa, born de Viomesnil, and 
 widow of Francis Stanislas Count of Saverne and 
 Barr in Lorraine, lies buried beneath. 
 
 When the service was ended, the Chevalier 
 de la Motte (by whose side I stood, holding by 
 his cloak) came up to the doctor. " Monsieur le 
 Docteur," says he, "you have acted like a gallant 
 man ; you have prevented bloodshed " 
 
 "lam fortunate, sir," says the doctor. 
 
 " You have saved the lives of these two worthy 
 
OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 
 
 123 
 
 ecclesiastics, and rescued from insult the remains 
 of one " 
 
 " Of whom I know the sad history," says the 
 doctor, very gravely. 
 
 " I am not rich, but will you permit me to give 
 this purse for your poor ! " 
 
 " Sir, it is my duty to accept it," replied the 
 doctor. The purse contained a hundred louis, as 
 he afterwards told me. 
 
 " And may I ask to take your hand, sir ? " cries 
 the poor chevalier, clasping his own together. 
 
 " No, sir ! " said the doctor, putting his own 
 hands behind his back. " Your hands have that 
 on them which the gift of a few guineas cannot 
 wash away." The doctor spoke a very good French. 
 f* My child, good-night ; and the best thing I can 
 wish thee is to wish thee out of the hands of that 
 man." 
 
 " Monsieur ! " says the chevalier, laying his hand 
 on his sword mechanically. 
 
 " I think, sir, the last time it was with the 
 pistol you showed your skill ! " says Doctor 
 Barnard, and went in at his own wicket as he 
 spoke, leaving poor La Motte like a man who has 
 just been struck with a blow ; and then he fell to 
 
124 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 weeping and crying that the curse — the curse of 
 Cain was upon him. 
 
 " My good boy," the old rector said to me in 
 after days, while talking over these adventures, 
 "thy friend the chevalier was the most infernal 
 scoundrel I ever set eyes on, and I never looked 
 at his foot without expecting to see it was cloven." 
 
 " And could he tell me anything about the poor 
 countess ? " I asked. He knew nothing. He 
 saw her but once, he thought. " And faith," says 
 he, with an arch look, "it so happened that I was 
 not too intimate with your own worthy family." 
 
( 125 ) 
 
 CHAPTEK Y. 
 
 I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 
 
 Whatever may have been the rector's dislike to 
 my parents, in respect of us juniors and my dear 
 little Agnes de Saverne he had no such prejudices, 
 and both of us were great favourites with him. 
 He considered himself to be a man entirely without 
 prejudices ; and towards Koman Catholics he cer- 
 tainly was most liberal. He sent his wife to see 
 Mrs. Weston, and an acquaintance was made 
 between the families, who had scarcely known 
 each other before. Little Agnes was constantly 
 with these Westons, with whom the Chevalier de 
 la Motte also became intimate. Indeed, we have 
 seen that he must have known them already, when 
 he sent me on the famous " mackerel " message 
 which brought together a score at least of towns- 
 people. I remember Mrs. Weston as a frightened- 
 
126 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 looking woman, who seemed as if she had a ghost 
 constantly before her. Frightened, however, or 
 not, she was always kind to my little Agnes. 
 
 The younger of the Weston brothers (he who 
 swore at me the night of the burial) was a red- 
 eyed, pimple - faced, cock-fighting gentleman for 
 ever on the trot, and known, I daresay not very 
 favourably, all the country round. They were said 
 to be gentlemen of good private means. They lived 
 in a pretty genteel way, with a post-chaise for the 
 lady, and excellent nags to ride. They saw very 
 little company ; but this may have been because 
 they were Roman Catholics, of whom there were 
 not many in the county, except at Arundel and 
 Slindon, where the lords and ladies were of too 
 great quality to associate with a pair of mere fox- 
 hunting, horse-dealing squires. M. de la Motte, 
 who was quite the fine gentleman, as I have said, 
 associated with these people freely enough : but 
 then he had interests in common with them, which 
 I began to understand when I was some ten or a 
 dozen years old, and used to go to see my little 
 Agnes at the Priory. She was growing apace to 
 be a fine lady. She had dancing-masters, music- 
 masters, language-masters (those foreign tonsurM 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 127 
 
 gentry who were always about the Priory), and was 
 so tall that mother talked of putting powder in her 
 hair. Ah, belle dame ! another hand hath since 
 whitened it, though I love it ebony or silver ! 
 
 I continued at Eye School, boarding with Mr. 
 Eudge and his dram-drinking daughter, and got 
 a pretty fair smattering of such learning as was to 
 be had at the school. I had a fancy to go to sea, 
 but Doctor Barnard was strong against that wish 
 of mine : unless indeed I should go out of Eye and 
 Winchelsea altogether — get into a King's ship, 
 and perhaps on the quarter-deck, under the patro- 
 nage of my friend Sir Peter Denis, who ever con- 
 tinued to be kind to me. 
 
 Every Saturday night I trudged home from Eye, 
 as gay as schoolboy could be. After Madame de 
 Saverne's death the Chevalier de la Motte took our 
 lodgings on the first floor. He was of an active 
 disposition, and found business in plenty to occupy 
 him. He would be absent from his lodgings for 
 weeks and months. He made journeys on horse- 
 back into the interior of the country; went to 
 London often ; and sometimes abroad with our 
 fishermen's boats. As I have said, he learned 
 
128 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 our language well, and taught me his. Mother's 
 German was better than her French, and my book 
 for reading the German was Doctor Luther's Bible ; 
 indeed, that very volume in which poor M. de 
 Saverne wrote down his prayer for the child whom 
 he was to see only twice in this world. 
 
 Though Agnes's little chamber was always ready 
 at our house, where she was treated like a little 
 lady, having a servant specially attached to her, 
 and all the world to spoil her, she passed a great 
 deal of time with Mrs. Weston, of the Priory, who 
 took a great affection for the child even before she 
 lost her own daughter. I have said that good 
 masters were here found for her. She learned to 
 speak English as a native, of course, and French 
 and music from the fathers who always were about 
 the house. Whatever the child's expenses or wants 
 were, M. de la Motte generously defrayed them. 
 After his journeys he would bring her back toys, 
 sweetmeats, knick-knacks fit for a little duchess. 
 She lorded it over great and small in the Priory, 
 in the Perruquery, as we may call my mother's 
 house, ay, and in the Kectory too, where Dr. and 
 Mrs. Barnard were her very humble servants, like 
 all the rest of us. 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 129 
 
 And here I may as well tell you that I was made 
 to become a member of the Church of England, 
 because mother took huff at our French Protestants, 
 who would continue persecuting her for harbouring 
 the Papists, and insisted that between the late poor 
 countess and the chevalier there had been an un- 
 lawful intimacy. M. Borel, our pastor, preached 
 at poor mother several times, she said. I did not 
 understand his innuendos, being a simple child, I 
 fear not caring much for sermons in those days. 
 For grandpapa's I know I did not ; he used to give 
 us half an hour at morning, and half an hour at 
 evening. I could not help thinking of grandfather 
 skipping out of the copper, and calling on us to 
 spare his life on that day of the funeral ; and his 
 preaching went in at one ear and out at t'other. 
 One day — apropos of some pomatum which a cus- 
 tomer wanted to buy, and which I know mother 
 made with lard and bergamot herself — I heard him 
 tell such a fib to a customer, that somehow I never 
 could respect the old man afterwards. He actually 
 said the pomatum had just come to him from 
 France direct — from the Dauphin's own hair- 
 dresser : and our neighbour, I daresay, would 
 have bought it, but I said, " Oh, grandpapa, you 
 
 9 
 
130 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 must mean some other pomatum ! I saw mother 
 make this with her own hands." Grandfather 
 actually began to cry when I said this. He said 
 I was being his death. He asked that somebody 
 should fetch him out and hang him that moment. 
 Why is there no bear, says he, to eat that little 
 monster's head off and destroy that prodigy of 
 crime ? Nay, I used to think I ivas a monster 
 sometimes : he would go on so fiercely about my 
 wickedness and perverseness. 
 
 Doctor Barnard was passing by our pole one day, 
 and our open door, when grandfather was preaching 
 upon this sin of mine, with a strap in one hand, 
 laying over my shoulders in the intervals of the 
 discourse. Down goes the strap in a minute, as 
 the doctor's lean figure makes its appearance at the 
 door ; and grandfather begins to smirk and bow, 
 and hope his reverence was well. My heart was 
 full. I had had sermon in the morning, and 
 sermon at night, and strapping every day that 
 week ; and heaven help me, I loathed that old 
 man, and loathe him still. 
 
 " How can I, sir," says I, bursting out into a 
 passion of tears ; " how can I honour my grand- 
 father and mother if grandfather tells such d 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 131 
 
 lies as he does ? " And I stamped with my feet, 
 trembling with wrath and indignation at the dis- 
 grace put upon me. I then burst out with my 
 story, which there was no controverting ; and I 
 will say grandfather looked at me as if he would 
 kill me; and I ended my tale sobbing at the 
 doctor's knees. 
 
 " Listen, Mr. Duval," says Dr. Barnard, very 
 sternly ; "I know a great deal more than you 
 think about you and your doings. My advice to 
 you is to treat this child well, and to leave off some 
 practices which will get you into trouble, as sure 
 as your name is what it is. I know where your 
 pigeons go to, and where they come from. And 
 some day, when I have you in my justice-room, 
 we shall see whether I will show you any more 
 mercy than you have shown to this child. I know 
 you to be . . . ." and the doctor whispered some- 
 thing into grandfather's ear, and stalked away. 
 
 Can you guess by what name the doctor called 
 my grandfather ? If he called him hypocrite, ma 
 foi, he was not far wrong. But the truth is, he 
 called him smuggler, and that was a name which 
 fitted hundreds of people along our coast, I promise 
 you. At Hythe, at Folkestone, at Dover, Deal, 
 
 9—2 
 
132 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 Sandwich, there were scores and scores of these 
 gentry. All the way to London they had depots, 
 friends, and correspondents. Inland and along 
 the Thames there were battles endless between 
 them and the revenue people. Our friends " the 
 mackerel," who came out at Monsieur de la Motte's 
 summons, of course were of this calling. One day 
 when he came home from one of his expeditions, 
 I remember jumping forward to welcome him, for 
 he was at one time very kind to me, and as I ran 
 into his arms he started back, and shrieked out an 
 oath and a sacred-blue or two. He was wounded 
 in the arm. There had been a regular battle at 
 Deal between the dragoons and revenue officers on 
 the one side, and the smugglers and their friends. 
 Cavalry had charged cavalry, and Monsieur de la 
 Motte (his smuggling name, he told me afterwards, 
 was Mr. Paul, or Pole) had fought on the mackerel 
 side. 
 
 So were my gentlemen at the Priory of the 
 Mackerel party. Why, I could name you great 
 names of merchants and bankers at Canterbury, 
 Dover, Rochester, who were engaged in this traffic. 
 My grandfather, you see, howled with the wolves ; 
 but then he used to wear a snug lamUs-skin over 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 133 
 
 his wolf's hide. Ah, shall I thank Heaven like 
 the Pharisee, that I am not as those men are ? I 
 hope there is no harm in being thankful that I 
 have been brought out of temptation ; that I was 
 not made a rogue at a child's age ; and that I did 
 not come to the gallows as a man. Such a fate 
 has befallen more than one of the precious friends 
 of my youth, as I shall have to relate in due 
 season. 
 
 That habit I had of speaking out everything 
 that was on my mind brought me, as a child, into 
 innumerable scrapes, but I do thankfully believe 
 has preserved me from still greater. What could 
 you do with a little chatterbox* who, when his 
 grandfather offered to sell a pot of pomatum as 
 your true Pommade de Cythere, must cry out, 
 "No, grandpapa, mother made it with marrow 
 and bergamot ? " If anything happened, which I 
 was not to mention, I was sure to blunder out 
 some account of it. Good Doctor Barnard, and 
 my patron Captain Denis (who was a great friend 
 of our rector), I suppose, used to joke about this 
 propensity of mine, and would laugh for ten 
 minutes together, as I told my stories; and I 
 think the doctor had a serious conversation with 
 
134 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 my mother on the matter ; for she said, " He has 
 reason. The boy shall not go any more. We 
 will try and have one honest man in the family." 
 
 Go any more where ? Now I will tell you (and 
 I am much more ashamed of this than of the 
 barber's pole, Monsieur mon fils, that I can promise 
 you). When I was boarding at the grocer's at 
 Eye, I and other boys were constantly down at the 
 water, and we learned to manage a boat pretty 
 early. Eudge did not go out himself, being rheu- 
 matic and lazy, but his apprentice would be absent 
 frequently all night ; and on more than one occa- 
 sion I went out as odd boy in the boat to put my 
 hand to anything. 
 
 Those pigeons I spoke of anon came from Bou- 
 logne. When one arrived he brought a signal 
 that our Boulogne correspondent was on his way, 
 and we might be on the look-out. The French 
 boat would make for a point agreed upon, and we 
 lie off until she came. We took cargo from her 
 barrels without number, I remember. Once we 
 saw her chased away by a revenue cutter. Once 
 the same ship fired at us. I did not know what 
 the balls were, which splashed close alongside of 
 us ; but I remember the apprentice of Eudge's (he 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 135 
 
 used to make love to Miss B., and married her 
 afterwards,) singing out, " Lord, have mercy," in 
 an awful consternation, and the chevalier crying 
 out, " Hold your tongue, miserable ! You were 
 never born to be drowned or shot." He had some 
 hesitation about taking me out on this expedition. 
 He was engaged in running smuggled goods, 
 that is the fact; and "smuggler" was the word 
 which Doctor Barnard whispered in my grand- 
 father's ear. If we were hard pressed at certain 
 points which we knew, and could ascertain by 
 cross-bearings which we took, we would sink our 
 kegs till a more convenient time, and then return 
 and drag for them, and bring them up with line 
 and grapnel. 
 
 I certainly behaved much better when we were 
 fired at, than that oaf of a Bevil, who lay howling 
 his " Lord, have mercy upon us," at the bottom of 
 the boat ; but somehow the chevalier discouraged 
 my juvenile efforts in the smuggling line, from his 
 fear of that unlucky tongue of mine, which would 
 blab everything I knew. I may have been out 
 a-fishing half-a-dozen times in all ; but especially 
 after we had been fired at, La Motte was for 
 leaving me at home. My mother was averse, too, 
 
136 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 to my becoming a seaman (a smuggler) by profes- 
 sion. Her aim was to make a gentleman of me, 
 she said, and I am most unfeignedly thankful to 
 her for keeping me out of mischief's way. Had I 
 been permitted to herd along with the black sheep, 
 Doctor Barnard would never have been so kind to 
 me as he was ; and indeed that good man showed 
 me the greatest favour. When I came home from 
 school he would often have me to the Kectory, and 
 hear me my lessons, and he was pleased to say I 
 was a lively boy of good parts. 
 
 The doctor received rents for his college at 
 Oxford, which has considerable property in these 
 parts, and twice a year would go to London and 
 pay the moneys over. In my boyish times these 
 journeys to London were by no means without 
 danger ; and if you will take a Gentleman's Maga- 
 zine from the shelf you will find a highway-robbery 
 or two in every month's chronicle. We boys at 
 school were never tired of talking of highwaymen 
 and their feats. As I often had to walk over to 
 Rye from home of a night (so as to be in time for 
 early morning school), I must needs buy a little 
 brass-barrelled pistol, with which I practised in 
 secret, and which I had to hide, lest mother or 
 
I HExVR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 137 
 
 Kudge, or the schoolmaster, should take it away 
 from me. Once as I was talking with a school- 
 fellow, and vapouring about what we would do, 
 were we attacked, I fired my pistol and shot away 
 a piece of his coat. I might have hit his stomach, 
 not his coat — Heaven be good to us ! — and this 
 accident made me more careful in the use of my 
 artillery. And now I used to practise with small 
 shot instead of bullets, and pop at sparrows when- 
 ever I could get a chance. 
 
 At Michaelmas, in the year 1776 (I promise you 
 I remember the year), my dear and kind friend, 
 Doctor Barnard, having to go to London with his 
 rents, proposed to take me to London to see my 
 other patron, Sir Peter Denis, between whom and 
 the doctor there was a great friendship ; and it is 
 to those dear friends that I owe the great good 
 fortune which has befallen me in life. Indeed 
 when I think of what I might have been, and of 
 what I have escaped, my heart is full of thankful- 
 ness for the great mercies which have fallen to 
 my share. Well, at this happy and eventful 
 Michaelmas of 1776, Doctor Barnard says to me, 
 " Denis, my child, if thy mother will grant leave, 
 I have a mind to take thee to see thy godfather, 
 
138 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 Sir Peter Denis, in London. I am going up with 
 my rents, my neighbour Weston will share the 
 horses with me, and thou shalt see the Tower and 
 Mrs. Salmons' wax-work before thou art a week 
 older." 
 
 You may suppose that this proposition made 
 Master Denis Duval jump for joy. Of course I 
 had heard of London all my life, and talked with 
 people who had been there, but that I should go 
 myself to Admiral Sir Peter Denis's house, and 
 see the play, St. Paul's, and Mrs. Salmons, here 
 was a height of bliss I never had hoped to attain. 
 I could not sleep for thinking of my pleasure ; I 
 had some money, and I promised to buy as many 
 toys for Agnes as the chevalier used to bring her. 
 My mother said I should go like a gentleman, and 
 turned me out in a red waistcoat with plate buttons, 
 a cock to my hat, and ruffles to my shirts. How 
 I counted the hours of the night before our depar- 
 ture ! I was up before the dawn, packing my little 
 valise. I got my little brass-barrelled pocket- 
 pistol, and I loaded it with shot. I put it away into 
 my breast-pocket ; and if we met with a highway- 
 man I promised myself he should have my charge 
 of lead in his face. The doctor's postchaise was 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 139 
 
 at his stables not very far from us. The stable 
 lanterns were alight, and Brown, the doctor's 
 man, cleaning the carriage, when Mr. Denis Duval 
 comes up to the stable door, lugging his portman- 
 teau after him through the twilight. Was ever 
 daylight so long a- coming ? Ah ! There come 
 the horses at last; the horses from the King's 
 Head, and old Pascoe, the one-eyed postilion. 
 How well I remember the sound of their hoofs in 
 that silent street ! I can tell everything that hap- 
 pened on that day ; what we had for dinner — viz., 
 veal cutlets and French beans, at Maidstone ; 
 where we changed horses, and the colour of the 
 horses. "Here, Brown! Here's my portmanteau! 
 I say, where shall I stow it ? " My portmanteau 
 was about as large as a good-sized apple-pie. I 
 jump into the carriage and we drive up to the 
 Rectory : and I think the doctor will never come 
 out. There he is at last : with his mouth full of 
 buttered toast, and I bob my head to him a hun- 
 dred times out of the chaise window. Then I 
 must jump out, forsooth. " Brown, shall I give 
 you a hand with the luggage ? " says I, and I 
 daresay they all laugh. Well, I am so happy that 
 anybody may laugh who likes. The doctor comes 
 
140 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 out, his precious box under his arm. I see dear 
 Mrs. Barnard's great cap nodding at us out of the 
 parlour window as we drive away from the Rectory 
 door to stop a hundred yards farther on at the 
 Priory. 
 
 There at the parlour window stands my dear 
 little Agnes, in a white frock, in a great cap with 
 a blue riband and bow, and curls clustering over 
 her face. I wish Sir Joshua Reynolds had painted 
 thee in those days, my dear: but thou wert the 
 very image of one of his little ladies, that one who 
 became Duchess of Buccleugh afterwards. There 
 is my Agnes, and now presently comes out Mr. 
 Weston's man and luggage, and it is fixed on the 
 roof. Him, his master, Mr. James Weston, follows. 
 This was the most good-natured of the two, and I 
 shall never forget my sensation of delight, when I 
 saw him bring out two holster pistols, which he 
 placed each in a pocket of the chaise. Is Tommy 
 Chapman, the apothecary's son of Westgate, alive 
 yet, and does he remember my wagging my head 
 to him as our chaise whirled by ? He was shaking 
 a mat at the door of his father's shop as my 
 lordship accompanied with my noble frienc 
 passed by. 
 
HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 141 
 
 First stage, Ham Street. The Bear. A grey 
 horse and a hay to change, I remember them. 
 Second stage, Ashford. Third stage .... I 
 think I am asleep about the third stage : and no 
 wonder, a poor little wretch who had been awake 
 half the night before, and no doubt many nights 
 previous, thinking of this wonderful journey. 
 Fourth stage, Maidstone, the Bell. "And here 
 we will stop to dinner, Master Shrimpcatcher," 
 says the doctor, and I jump down out of the 
 carriage nothing loth. The doctor followed with 
 his box, of which he never lost sight. 
 
 The doctor liked his ease in his inn, and took 
 his sip of punch so comfortably, that I, for my 
 part, thought he never would be gone. I was out 
 in the stables and looking at the horses, and 
 talking to the ostler who was rubbing his nags 
 down. I daresay I had a peep into the kitchen, 
 and at the pigeons in the inn yard, and at all 
 things which were to be seen at the Bell, while my 
 two companions were still at their interminable 
 punch. It was an old-fashioned inn, with a 
 gallery round the court-yard. Heaven bless us ! 
 Falstaff and Bardolph may have stopped there on 
 the road to Gadshill. I was in the stable looking 
 
142 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 at the nags, when Mr. Weston comes out of the inn, 
 looks round the court, opens the door of the post- 
 chaise, takes out his pistols, looks at the priming, 
 and puts them back again. Then we are off again, 
 and time enough too. It seemed to me many 
 hours since we had arrived at that creaking old 
 Bell. And away we go through Addington, Eynes- 
 ford, by miles and miles of hop-gardens. I dare- 
 say I did not look at the prospect much, beautiful 
 though it might be, my young eyes being for ever 
 on the look-out for Saint Paul's and London. 
 
 For a great part of the way Doctor Barnard and 
 his companion had a fine controversy about their 
 respective religions, for which each was alike 
 zealous. Nay : it may be the rector invited 
 Mr. Weston to take a place in his postchaise in 
 order to have this battle, for he never tired of 
 arguing the question between the two churches. 
 Towards the close of the day Master Denis Duvf 
 fell asleep on Dr. Barnard's shoulder, and the 
 good-natured clergyman did not disturb him. 
 
 I woke up with the sudden stoppage of the 
 carriage. The evening was falling. We were 
 upon a lonely common, and a man on horseback 
 was at the window of the postchaise. 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 143 
 
 " Give us out that there box ! and your money! " 
 I heard him say in a very gruff voice. heavens ! 
 we were actually stopped by a highwayman ! It 
 was delightful. 
 
 Mr. Weston jumped at his pistols very quick. 
 
 Here's our money, you scoundrel ! " . says he, 
 
 and he fired point-blank at the rogue's head. 
 
 Confusion ! The pistol missed fire. He aimed 
 
 the second, and again no report followed ! 
 
 " Some scoundrel has been tampering with 
 these," says Mr. Weston, aghast. 
 
 " Come," says Captain Macheath, " come, 
 your " 
 
 But the next word the fellow spoke was a fright- 
 ful oath ; for I took out my little pistol, which was 
 full of shot, and fired it into his face. The man 
 reeled, and I thought would have fallen out of his 
 saddle. The postilion, frightened no doubt, clapped 
 spurs to his horse, and began to gallop. " Shan't 
 we stop and take that rascal, sir ? " said I to the 
 doctor. On which Mr. Weston gave a peevish 
 kind of push at me, and said, " No, no. It is get- 
 ting quite dark. Let us push on." And, indeed, 
 the highwayman's horse had taken fright, and we 
 could see him gallopping away across the common. 
 
144 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 I was so elated to think that I, a little boy, had 
 shot a live highwayman, that I daresay I bragged 
 outrageously of my action. We set down Mr. 
 Weston at his inn in the Borough, and crossed 
 London Bridge, and there I was in London at last. 
 Yes, and that was the Monument, and then we 
 came to the Exchange, and yonder, yonder was 
 St. Paul's. We went up Holborn, and so to 
 Ormond Street, where my patron lived in a nobh 
 mansion ; and where his wife, my Lady Denis, 
 received me with a great deal of kindness. Yoi 
 may be sure the battle with the highwayman was 
 fought over again, and I got due credit from myself 
 and others for my gallantry. 
 
 Sir Peter and his lady introduced me to 
 number of their acquaintances as the little boy wh( 
 shot the highwayman. They received a great des 
 of company, and I was frequently had in to then 
 dessert. I suppose I must own that my home ws 
 below in the housekeeper's room with Mrs. Jellicoe 
 but my lady took such a fancy to me that she con- 
 tinually had me upstairs, took me out driving ii 
 her chariot, or ordered one of the footmen to takt 
 me to the sights of the town, and sent me in hii 
 charge to the play. It was the last year Garrick 
 
1 HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 145 
 
 performed ; and I saw him in the play of Macbeth, 
 in a gold-laced blue coat, with scarlet plush waist- 
 coat and breeches. Ormond Street, Bloomsbury, 
 was on the outskirts of the town then, with open 
 country behind, stretching as far as Hampstead. 
 Bedford House, north of Bloomsbury Square, with 
 splendid gardens, was close by, and Montague 
 House, where I saw stuffed camel-leopards, and 
 all sorts of queer things from foreign countries. 
 Then there were the Tower, and the Wax-work, 
 and Westminster Abbey, and Vauxhall. What a 
 glorious week of pleasure it was ! At the week's 
 end the kind doctor went home again, and all those 
 dear kind people gave me presents, and cakes, and 
 money, and spoilt the little boy who shot the high- 
 wayman. 
 
 The affair was actually put into the newspapers, 
 and who should come to hear of it but my gracious 
 sovereign himself. One day, Sir Peter Denis took 
 me to see Kew Gardens and the new Chinese 
 pagoda her Majesty had put up. Whilst walking 
 here, and surveying this pretty place, I had the 
 good fortune to see his M-j-sty, walking with our 
 most gracious Qu — n, the Pr-nce of W — s, the 
 Bishop of Osnaburg, my namesake, and, I think, 
 
 10 
 
146 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 two, or it may be three, of the Princesses. Her 
 M-j-sty knew Sir Peter from haying sailed with 
 him, saluted him very graciously, and engaged him 
 in conversation. And the Best of Monarchs, look- 
 ing towards his humblest subject and servant, said, 
 " What, what ? Little boy shot the highwayman. 
 Shot him in the face. Shot him in the face ! " 
 On which the youthful Pr-nces graciously looked 
 towards me, and the King asking Sir Peter what 
 my profession was to be, the admiral said I hoped 
 to be a sailor and serve his Majesty. 
 
 I promise you I was a mighty grand personage 
 when I went home ; and both at Eye and Win- 
 chelsea scores of people asked me what the King 
 said. On our return, we heard of an accident which 
 had happened to Mr. Joseph Weston, which ended 
 most unhappily for that gentleman. On the very 
 day when we set out for London he went out shoot- 
 ing — a sport of which he was very fond ; but 
 climbing a hedge, and dragging his gun incau- 
 tiously after him, the lock caught in a twig, anc 
 the piece discharged itself into the poor gentle- 
 man's face, lodging a number of shot into his left 
 cheek, and into his eye, of which he lost the sight, 
 after suffering much pain and torture. 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 147 
 
 " Bless my soul ! A charge of small shot in 
 his face ! What an extraordinary thing ! " cries 
 Dr. Barnard, who came down to see mother and 
 grandfather the day after our return home. Mrs. 
 Barnard had told him of the accident at supper on 
 the night previous. Had he been shot or shot 
 some one himself, the doctor could scarce have 
 looked more scared. He put me in mind of Mr. 
 Garrick, whom I had just seen at the playhouse, 
 London, when he comes out after murdering the 
 king. 
 
 " You look, docteur, as if you done it yourself," 
 says M. de la Motte, laughing, and in his English 
 jargon. " Two time, three time, I say, Weston, 
 you shoot youself, you carry you gun that way, and 
 he say he not born to be shot, and he swear ! " 
 
 " But my good chevalier, Doctor Blades picked 
 some bits of crape out of his eye, and thirteen or 
 fourteen shot. What is the size of your shot, 
 Denny, with which you fired at the highwayman ?" 
 
 " Quid autem vides festucam in oculofratris tui, 
 doctor ?" says the chevalier ; " that is good doctrine 
 — Protestant or Popish, eh ?" On which the doctor 
 held down his head, and said, " Chevalier, I am 
 corrected ; I was wrong — very wrong." 
 
 10—2 
 
148 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " And as for crape," La Motte resumed, 
 "Weston is in mourning. He go to funeral at 
 Canterbury four days ago. Yes, lie tell me so. 
 He and my friend Lutterloh go." This Mr. 
 Lutterloh was a German living near Canterbury, 
 with whom M. de la Motte had dealings. He 
 had dealings with all sorts of peQple ; and very 
 queer dealings, too, as I began to understand now 
 that I was a stout boy approaching fourteen years 
 of age, and standing pretty tall in my shoes. 
 
 De la Motte laughed then at the doctor's suspi- 
 cions. " Parsons and women all the same, save 
 your respect, ma bonne Madame Duval, all tell 
 tales ; all believe evil of their neighbours. I tell 
 you I see Weston shoot twenty, thirty time. 
 Always drag his gun through hedge." 
 
 " But the crape ? " 
 
 " Bah ! Always in mourning, Weston is ! For 
 shame of your cancans, little Denis ! Never think 
 such thing again. Don't make Weston your enemy. 
 If a man say that of me, I would shoot him myself, 
 parbleu ! " 
 
 "But if he has done it?" 
 
 " Parbleu ! I would shoot him so much ze 
 mor ! " says the chevalier, with a stamp of his 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 149 
 
 foot. And the first time he saw me alone he 
 reverted to the subject. "Listen, Denisol !" says 
 he ; " thou becomest a great boy. Take my counsel, 
 and hold thy tongue. This suspicion against Mr. 
 Joseph is a monstrous crime, as well as a folly. 
 A man say that of me — right or wrong — I burn 
 him the brain. Once I come home, and you run 
 against me, and I cry out, and swear and pest. I 
 was wounded myself, I deny it not." 
 
 " And I said nothing, sir," I interposed. 
 
 " No, I do thee justice : thou didst say nothing. 
 You know the metier we make sometimes ? That 
 night in the boat " (" zat night in ze boat," he 
 used to say), " when the revenue cutter fire, and 
 your poor grandpapa howl — ah, how he howl. You 
 don't suppose we were there to look for lobstare- 
 pot, eh ? Tu n'as pas bronche, toi. You did not 
 crane ; you show yourself a man of heart. And 
 now, petit, apprends a te taire ! " And he gave me 
 a shake of the hand, and a couple of guineas in it 
 too, and went off to his stables on his business. 
 He had two or three horses now, and was always 
 on the trot ; he was very liberal with his money, 
 and used to have handsome entertainments in his 
 upstairs room, and never quarrelled about the 
 
150 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 bills which mother sent in. " Hold thy tongue, 
 Denisol," said he. " Never tell who comes in or 
 who goes out. And mind thee, child, if thy tongue 
 wags, little birds come whisper me, and say, ' He 
 tell.' " 
 
 I tried to obey his advice, and to rein in that 
 truant tongue of mine. When Dr. and Mrs. 
 Barnard themselves asked me questions I was 
 mum, and perhaps rather disappointed the good 
 lady and the rector too by my reticence. For in- 
 stance, Mrs. Barnard would say, " That was a nice 
 goose I saw going from market to your house, 
 Denny." 
 
 " Goose is very nice, ma'am," says I. 
 
 " The chevalier often has dinners ? " 
 
 " Dines every day, regular, ma'am." 
 
 "Sees the Westons a great deal ? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," I say, with an indescribable 
 heart-pang. And the cause of that pang I may 
 as well tell. You see, though I was only thirteen 
 years old, and Agnes but eight, I loved that little 
 maid with all my soul and strength. Boy or man 
 I never loved any other woman. I write these very 
 words by my study fire in Fareport with madam 
 opposite dozing over her novel till the neighbours 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 151 
 
 shall come in to tea and their rubber. When my 
 ink is run out, and my little tale is written, and 
 yonder church that is ringing to seven o'clock 
 prayer shall toll for a certain D. D., you will 
 please, good neighbours, to remember that I never 
 loved any but yonder lady, and keep a place by 
 Darby for Joan, when her turn shall arrive. 
 
 Now in the last year or two, since she had been 
 adopted at the Priory, Agnes came less and less 
 often to see us. She did not go to church with 
 us, being a Catholic. She learned from the good 
 fathers her tutors. She learned music and French 
 and dancing to perfection. All the county could 
 not show a finer little lady. When she came to 
 our shop, it was indeed a little countess honouring 
 us with a visit. Mother was gentle before her — 
 grandfather obsequious — I, of course, her most 
 humble little servant. Wednesday (a half-holiday), 
 and half Saturday, and all Sunday I might come 
 home from school, and how I used to trudge, and 
 how I longed to see that little maiden, any gentle- 
 man may imagine who has lost his heart to an 
 Agnes of his own. 
 
 The first day of my arrival at home, after the 
 memorable London journey, I presented myself at 
 
152 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 the Priory, with my pocket full of presents for 
 Agnes. The footman let me into the hall civilly 
 enough : but the young lady was out with Mrs. 
 Weston in the postchaise. I might leave my 
 message. 
 
 I wanted to give my message. Somehow, in 
 that fortnight's absence from home, I had so got 
 to long after Agnes that I never had my little 
 sweetheart quite out of my mind. It may have 
 been a silly thing, but I got a little pocket-book, 
 and wrote in French a journal of all I saw in 
 London. I daresay there were some pretty faults 
 in grammar. I remember a fine paragraph about 
 my meeting the royal personages at Kew, and all 
 their names written down in order ; and this little 
 pocket-book I must needs send to Mademoiselle 
 de Saverne. 
 
 The next day I called again. Still Mademoiselle 
 de Saverne was not to be seen : but in the evening 
 a servant brought a little note from her, in which 
 she thanked her dear brother for his beautiful 
 book. That was some consolation. She liked 
 the pocket-book, anyhow. I wonder, can you 
 young people guess what I did to it before I sent 
 it away ? Yes, I did. " One, tree, feefty time,' 
 
I HEAE THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 153 
 
 as the chevalier would say. The next morning, 
 quite early, I had to go hack to school, having 
 promised the doctor to work hard after my holiday; 
 and work I did with a will, at my French and my 
 English, and my Navigation. I thought Saturday 
 would never come : hut it did at last, and I trotted 
 as quick as legs would carry me from school to 
 Winchelsea. My legs were growing apace now ; 
 and especially as they took me homewards, few 
 could outrun them. 
 
 All good women are match-makers at heart. 
 My dear Mrs. Barnard saw quite soon what my 
 condition of mind was, and was touched hy my 
 boyish fervour. I called once, twice, thrice, at the 
 Priory, and never could get a sight of Miss Agnes. 
 The servant used to shrug his shoulder and laugh 
 at me in an insolent way, and the last time — 
 " You need not call any more. We don't want 
 our hair cut here, nor no pomatum, nor no soap, 
 do you understand that ? " and he slammed the 
 door in my face. I was stunned by this insolence, 
 and beside myself with rage and mortification. I 
 went to Mrs. Barnard, and told her what had hap- 
 pened to me. I burst into tears of passion and 
 grief as I flung myself on a sofa by the good 
 
154 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 ladies. I told her how I had rescued little Agnes, 
 how I loved the little thing better than all the 
 world. I spoke my heart out, and eased it some- 
 what, for the good lady wiped her eyes more than 
 once, and finished by giving me a kiss. She did 
 more ; she invited me to tea with her on the next 
 Wednesday when I came home from school, and 
 who should be there but little Agnes. She blushed 
 very much. Then she came towards me. Then 
 she held up her little cheek to be kissed, and then 
 she cried — oh, how she did cry! There were 
 three people whimpering in that room. (How 
 well I recollect it opening into the garden, and 
 the little old blue dragon teacups and silver pot !) 
 There were three persons, I say, crying : a lady of 
 fifty, a boy of thirteen, and a little girl of seven 
 years of age. Can you guess what happened 
 next? Of course the lady of fifty remembered 
 that she had forgotten her spectacles, and went 
 upstairs to fetch them ; and then the little maiden 
 began to open her heart to me, and told her dear 
 Denny how she had been longing to see him, and 
 how they were very angry with him at the Priory ; 
 so angry that his name was never to be spoken. 
 " The chevalier said that, and so did the gentle- 
 
I HEAK THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 155 
 
 men — especially Mr. Joseph, who had been dreadful 
 since his accident, and one day (says my dear) 
 when you called, he was behind the door with a 
 great horse-whip, and said he would let you in, and 
 flog your soul out of your body, only Mrs. Weston 
 cried, and Mr. James said, ' Don't be a fool, Joe.' 
 But something you have done to Mr. Joseph, dear 
 Denny, and when your name is mentioned, he 
 rages and swears so that it is dreadful to hear 
 him. What can make the gentlemen so angry 
 with you?" 
 
 " So he actually was waiting with a horse-whip, 
 was he ? In that case I know what I would do. 
 I would never go about without my pistol. I have 
 hit one fellow," said I, "and if any other man 
 threatens me I will defend myself." 
 
 My dear Agnes said that they were very kind 
 to her at the Priory, although she could not bear 
 Mr. Joseph — that they gave her good masters, that 
 she was to go to a good school kept by a Catholic 
 lady at Arundel. And oh, how she wished her 
 Denny would turn Catholic, and she prayed for 
 him always, always ! And for that matter I know 
 some one who never night or morning on his knees 
 has forgotten that little maiden. The father used 
 
156 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 to come and give her lessons three or four times 
 in the week, and she used to learn her lessons by 
 heart, walking up and down in the great green 
 walk in the kitchen-garden every morning at eleven 
 o'clock. I knew the kitchen-garden ! the wall was 
 in North Lane, one of the old walls of the convent : 
 at the end of the green walk there was a pear-tree. 
 And that was where she always went to learn her 
 lessons. 
 
 And here, I suppose, Mrs. Barnard returned to 
 the room, having found her spectacles. And as I 
 take mine off my nose and shut my eyes, that well- 
 remembered scene of boyhood passes before them — 
 that garden basking in the autumn evening — that 
 little maiden with peachy cheeks, and glistening 
 curls, that dear and kind old lady, who says, " 'Tie 
 time now, children, you should go home." 
 
 I had to go to school that night; but before 
 I went I ran up North Lane and saw the old wall 
 and the pear-tree behind it. And do you know 
 thought I would try and get up the wall, and easj 
 enough it was to find a footing between those 
 crumbling old stones ; and when on the top I could 
 look down from the branches of the tree into the 
 garden below, and see the house at the farther end. 
 
I HEAR THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS. 157 
 
 So that was the broad walk where Agnes learned 
 her lessons ? Master Denis Duval pretty soon had 
 that lesson by heart. 
 
 Yes : but one day in the Christmas holidays, 
 when there was a bitter frost, and the stones and 
 the wall were so slippery that Mr. D. D. tore his 
 fingers and his small-clothes in climbing to his 
 point of observation, it happened that little Agnes 
 was not sitting under the tree learning her lessons, 
 and none but an idiot would have supposed that 
 she would have come out on such a day. 
 
 But who should be in the garden, pacing up and 
 down the walk all white with hoar-frost, but Joseph 
 Weston with his patch over his eye. Unluckily 
 he had one eye left with which he saw me ; and 
 the next moment I heard the report of a tremen- 
 dous oath, and then a brickbat came whizzing at 
 my head, so close that, had it struck me, it would 
 have knocked out my eye and my brains too. 
 
 I was down the wall in a moment : it was slip- 
 pery enough : and two or three more brickbats 
 came a mon adresse, but luckily failed to hit their 
 mark. 
 
158 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 
 
 I spoke of the affair of the brickbats, at home, to 
 Monsieur de la Motte only, not caring to tell 
 mother, lest she should be inclined to resume her 
 box-on-the-ear practice, for which I thought I was 
 growing too old. Indeed, I had become a great 
 boy. There were not half-a-dozen out of the sixty 
 at Pocock's who could beat me when I was thirteen 
 years old, and from these champions, were they 
 ever so big, I never would submit to a thrashing, 
 without a fight on my part, in which, though I 
 might get the worst, I was pretty sure to leave 
 some ugly marks on my adversary's nose and eyes. 
 I remember one lad especially, Tom Parrot by 
 name, who was three years older than myself, and 
 whom I could no more beat than a frigate can beat 
 a seventy-four ; but we engaged nevertheless, and, 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 159 
 
 after we had had some rounds together, Tom put 
 one hand in his pocket, and, with a queer face and 
 a great black eye I had given him, says — "Well, 
 Denny, I could do it — you know I could : but I'm 
 so lazy, I don't care about going on." And one of 
 the bottle-holders beginning to jeer, Tom fetches 
 him such a rap on the ear, that I promise you 
 he showed no inclination for laughing afterwards. 
 By the way, that knowledge of the noble art of fisti- 
 cuffs which I learned at school, I had to practise 
 at sea presently, in the cockpit of more than one 
 of his Majesty's ships of war. 
 
 In respect of the slapping and caning at home, I 
 think M. de la Motte remonstrated with my mother, 
 and represented to her that I was now too old for 
 that kind of treatment. Indeed, when I was 
 fourteen, I was as tall as grandfather, and in a 
 tussle I am sure I could have tripped his old heels 
 up easily enough, and got the better of him in 
 five minutes. Do I speak of him with undue 
 familiarity ? I pretend no love for him ; I never 
 could have any respect. Some of his practices 
 which I knew of made me turn from him, and 
 his loud professions only increased my distrust. 
 Monsieur monfils, if ever you marry, and have a 
 
160 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 son, I hope the little chap will have an honest 
 man for a grandfather, and that you will he able to 
 say, " I loved him," when the daisies cover me. 
 
 LaMotte, then, caused "the abolition of torture " 
 in our house, and I was grateful to him. I had 
 the queerest feelings towards that man. He was a 
 perfect fine gentleman when he so wished : of his 
 money most liberal, witty (in a dry, cruel sort of 
 way) — most tenderly attached to Agnes. Eh bien ! 
 As I looked at his yellow, handsome face, cold 
 shudders would come over me, though at this time 
 I did not know that Agnes's father had fallen by 
 his fatal hand. 
 
 When I informed him of Mr. Joe Weston's 
 salute of brickbats, he looked very grave. And I 
 told him then, too, a thing which had struck me 
 most forcibly — viz. that the shout which Weston 
 gave, and the oath which he uttered when he saw 
 me on the wall, were precisely like the oath and 
 execration uttered by the man with the craped face, 
 at whom I fired from the postchaise. 
 
 " Bah, betise /" says La Motte. " What didst 
 thou on the wall ? One does not steal pears at 
 thy age." 
 
 I daresay I turned red. " I heard somebody's 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 161 
 
 voice," I said. " In fact, I heard Agnes singing 
 in the garden, and — and I got on the wall to see 
 her." 
 
 " What, you — yon, a little barber's boy, climb a 
 wall to speak to Mademoiselle Agnes de Saverne, 
 of one of the most noble houses of Lorraine ?" La 
 Motte yelled, with a savage laugh. "Parbleu! 
 Monsieur Weston has well done ! " 
 
 " Sir!" said I, in a towering rage. "Barber 
 as I am, my fathers were honourable Protestant 
 clergymen in Alsace, and we are as good as high- 
 waymen, at any rate! Barber, indeed!" I say 
 again. " And now I am ready to swear that the 
 man who swore at me, and the man I shot on the 
 road, are one and the same; and I'll go to Dr. 
 Barnard's, and swear it before him ! " 
 
 The chevalier looked aghast, and threatening for 
 awhile. " Tu me menaces, je crois, petit manant ! " 
 says he, grinding his teeth. " This is too strong. 
 Listen, Denis Duval ! Hold thy tongue, or evil will 
 come to thee. Thou wilt make for thyself enemies 
 the most unscrupulous, and the most terrible — do 
 you hear ? I have placed Mademoiselle Agnes de 
 Saverne with that admirable woman, Mistriss 
 Weston, because she can meet at the Priory with 
 
 11 
 
162 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 society more fitting her noble birth than that which 
 she will find under your grandfather's pole — 
 parhleu. Ah, you dare mount on wall to look 
 for Mademoiselle de Saverne ? Gare aux mans- 
 traps, mon gargon I Vive Dieu if I see thee 
 on that wall, I will fire on thee, moi le premier ! 
 You pretend to Mademoiselle Agnes. Ha ! ha ! 
 ha ! " And he grinned and looked like that 
 cloven- footed, gentleman of whom Dr. Barnard 
 talked. 
 
 I felt that henceforward there was war between 
 La Motte and me. At this time I had suddenly 
 shot up to be a young man, and was not the 
 obedient, prattling child of last year. I told 
 grandfather that I would bear no more punish- 
 ment, such as the old man had been accustomed 
 to bestow upon me; and once when my mother 
 lifted her hand, I struck it up, and griped it 
 so tight that I frightened her. From that very 
 day she never raised a hand to me. Nay, I think 
 she was not ill pleased, and soon actually began to 
 spoil me. Nothing was too good for me. I know 
 where the silk came from which made my fine new 
 waistcoat, and the cambric for my ruffled shirts, 
 but very much doubt whether they ever paid any 
 
I ESCAPE FKOM A GREAT DANGER. 163 
 
 duty. As I walked to church, I daresay I cocked 
 my hat, and strutted very consequentially. When 
 Tom Billis, the haker's boy, jeered at my fine 
 clothes, " Tom," says I, " I will take my coat 
 and waistcoat off for half an hour on Monday, and 
 give thee a beating if thou hast a mind ; but 
 to-day let us be at peace, and go to church." 
 
 On the matter of church I am not going to 
 make any boast. That awful subject lies between 
 a man and his conscience. I have known men of 
 lax faith pure and just in their lives, as I have 
 met very loud-professing Christians loose in their 
 morality, and hard and unjust in their dealings. 
 There was a little old man at home — Heaven help 
 him ! — who was of this sort, and who, when I 
 came to know his life, would put me into such 
 a rage of revolt whilst preaching his daily and 
 nightly sermons, that it is a wonder I was not 
 enlisted among the scoffers and evil-doers alto- 
 gether. I have known many a young man fall 
 away, and become utterly reprobate, because the 
 bond of discipline was tied too tightly upon him, 
 and because he has found the preacher who was per- 
 petually prating over him lax in his own conduct. 
 I am thankful, then, that I had a better instructor 
 
 11—2 
 
164 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 than my old grandfather with his strap and his 
 cane ; and was brought (I hope and trust) to a 
 right state of thinking by a man whose brain was 
 wise, as his life was excellently benevolent and 
 pure. This was my good friend Dr. Barnard, and 
 to this day I remember the conversations I had 
 with him, and am quite sure they influenced my 
 future life. Had I been altogether reckless and as 
 lawless as many people of our acquaintance and 
 neighbourhood, he would have ceased to feel any 
 interest in me ; and instead of wearing his 
 Majesty's epaulets (which I trust I have not dis- 
 graced), I might have been swabbing a smuggler's 
 boat, or riding in a night caravan, with kegs 
 beside me and pistols and cutlasses to defend 
 me, as that unlucky La Motte owned for his 
 part that he had done. My good mother, though 
 she gave up the practice of smuggling, never could 
 see the harm in it ; but looked on it as a game 
 where ydu played your stake, and lost or won it. 
 She ceased to play, not because it was wrong, but 
 it was expedient no more ; and Mr. Denis, her 
 son, was the cause of her giving up this old 
 trade. 
 
 For me, I thankfully own that I was taught to 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 165 
 
 see the matter in a graver light, not only by our 
 
 doctor's sermons (two or three of which, on the 
 
 text of " Bender unto Caesar," he preached to the 
 
 tge of a great number of his congregation), but 
 
 >y many talks which he had with me ; when he 
 
 showed me that I was in the wrong to break the 
 
 laws of my country to which I owed obedience, as 
 
 did every good citizen. He knew (though he never 
 
 told me, and his reticence in this matter was surely 
 
 rery kind) that my poor father had died of wounds 
 
 jeived in a smuggling encounter ; but he showed 
 
 Le how such a life must be loose, lawless, secret, 
 
 id wicked ; must bring a man amongst desperate 
 
 >mpanions, and compel him to resist Caesar's 
 
 twful authority by rebellion, and possibly murder. 
 
 ; 'To thy mother I have used other arguments, 
 
 >enny, my boy," he said, very kindly. " I and 
 
 the Admiral want to make a gentleman of thee. 
 
 ?hy old grandfather is rich enough to help us if 
 
 he chooses. I won't stop to inquire too strictly 
 
 rhere all his money came from ; * but 'tis clear 
 
 re cannot make a gentleman of a smuggler's boy, 
 
 rho may be transported any day, or, in case of 
 
 * Eheu ! where a part of it went to, I shall have to say 
 presently. — D. D 
 
166 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 armed resistance, may be " And here my 
 
 good doctor puts his hand to his ear, and indi- 
 cates the punishment for piracy which was very 
 common in my young time. " My Denny does 
 not want to ride with a crape over his face, and 
 fire pistols at revenue officers ! No ! I pray you 
 will ever show an honest countenance to the world. 
 You will render unto Caesar the things which are 
 Caesar's, and — the rest, my child, you know." 
 
 Now, I remarked about this man, that when he 
 approached a certain subject, an involuntary awe 
 came over him, and he hushed as it were at the 
 very idea of that sacred theme. It was very 
 different with poor grandfather prating his sermons 
 (and with some other pastors I have heard), who 
 used this Name as familiarly as any other, anc 
 . . . . but who am I to judge ? and, my po( 
 old grandfather, is there any need at this distan( 
 of time that I should be picking out the trabem if 
 oculo tuo ? . . . . Howbeit, on that nighl 
 as I was walking home after drinking tea wit 
 my dear doctor, I made a vow that I would strri 
 henceforth to lead an honest life ; that my tongu< 
 should speak the truth, and my hand should 
 sullied by no secret crime. And as I spoke Tsai 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 167 
 
 my dearest little maiden's light glimmering in her 
 chamber, and the stars shining overhead, and felt 
 — who could feel more hold and happy than I ? 
 
 That walk schoolwards by West Street certainly 
 was a detour. I might have gone a straighter 
 road, but then I should not have seen a certain 
 window : a little twinkling window in a gable of 
 the Priory House, where the light used to be 
 popped out at nine o'clock. T'other day, when 
 we took over the Bang of France to Calais (his 
 Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence being in 
 command), I must needs hire a postchaise from 
 Dover, to look at that old window in the Priory 
 House at Winchelsea. I went through the old 
 tears, despairs, tragedies. I sighed as sentiment- 
 ally, after forty years, as though the infandi 
 dolores were fresh upon me, as though I were the 
 schoolboy trudging back to his task, and taking a 
 last look at his dearest joy. I used as a boy to 
 try and pass that window at nine, and I know a 
 prayer was said for the inhabitant of yonder 
 chamber. She knew my holidays, and my hours 
 of going to school and returning thence. If my 
 little maid hung certain signals in that window 
 (such as a flower, for example, to indicate all was 
 
168 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 well, a cross-curtain, and so forth), I hope she 
 practised no very unjustifiable stratagems. We 
 agreed to consider that she was a prisoner in the 
 hands of the enemy; and we had few means of 
 communication save these simple artifices, which 
 are allowed to he fair in love and war. Monsieur 
 de la Motte continued to live at our house, when 
 his frequent affairs did not call him away thence ; 
 but, as I said, few words passed between us after 
 that angry altercation already described, and he 
 and I were never friends again. 
 
 He warned me that I had another enemy, an( 
 facts strangely confirmed the chevalier's warning 
 One Sunday night, as I was going to school, 
 repetition of the brickbat assault was made upon 
 me, and this time the smart cocked hat whicl 
 mother had given me came in for such a battering 
 as effectually spoiled its modish shape. I tolc 
 Dr. Barnard of this second attempt, and the goc 
 doctor was not a little puzzled. He began to thinl 
 that he was not so very wrong in espying a beai 
 in Joseph Weston's eye. We agreed to keep th( 
 matter quiet, however, and a fortnight after, oi 
 another Sunday evening, as I was going on mj 
 accustomed route to school, whom should I meet 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 169 
 
 but the doctor and Mr. Weston walking together ! 
 A little way beyond the town gate there is a low 
 wall round a field ; and Br. Barnard, going by this 
 field a quarter of an hour before my usual time for 
 passing, found Mr. Joseph Weston walking there 
 behind the stone enclosure ! 
 
 " Good-night, Denny," says the doctor, when he 
 and his companion met me ; but surly Mr. Weston 
 said nothing. " Have you had any more brickbats 
 at your head, my boy ? " the rector continued. 
 
 I said I was not afraid. I had got a good pistol, 
 and a bullet in it this time. 
 
 " He shot that scoundrel on the same day you 
 were shot, Mr. Weston," says the doctor. 
 
 " Did he ? " growls the other. 
 
 " And your gun was loaded with the same- 
 sized shot which Denis used to pepper his rascal," 
 continues the doctor. " I wonder if any of the 
 crape went into the rascal's wound ? " 
 
 " Sir," said Mr. Weston, with an oath, " what 
 do you mean for to hint ? " 
 
 " The very oath the fellow used whom Denny 
 hit when your brother and I travelled together. I 
 am sorry to hear you use the language of such 
 scoundrels, Mr. Weston." 
 
170 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " If you dare to suspect me of anything unbe- 
 coming a gentleman, I'll have the law of you, 
 Mr. Parson, that I will ! " roars the other. 
 
 11 Denis, mon gargon, tire ton pistolet de suite, 
 et vise moi bien cet homme la," says the doctor ; 
 and griping hold of Weston's arm, what does 
 Dr. Barnard do but plunge his hand into Weston's 
 pocket, and draw thence another pistol ! He said 
 afterwards he saw the brass butt sticking out of 
 Weston's coat, as the two were walking together. 
 
 " What ! " shrieks Mr. Weston ; " is that young 
 miscreant to go about armed, and tell everybody 
 he will murder me ; and ain't I for to defend 
 myself? I walk in fear of my life for him ! " 
 
 " You seem to me to be in the habit of travelling 
 with pistols, Mr. Weston, and you know when 
 people pass sometimes with money in their post- 
 chaises." 
 
 "You scoundrel, you — you boy! I call you to 
 witness the words this man have spoken. He 
 have insulted me, and libelled me, and I'll have 
 the lor on him as sure as I am born ! " shouts the 
 angry man. 
 
 " Very good, Mr. Joseph Weston," replied the 
 other fiercely. "And I will ask Mr. Blades, the 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 171 
 
 surgeon, to bring the shot which he took from 
 your eye, and the scraps of crape adhering to your 
 face, and we will go to lor as soon as you like ! " 
 
 Again I thought with a dreadful pang how 
 Agnes was staying in that man's house, and how 
 this quarrel would more than ever divide her from 
 me ; for now she would not he allowed to visit the 
 rectory — the dear neutral ground where I some- 
 times hoped to see her. 
 
 Weston never went to law with the doctor, as he 
 threatened. Some awkward questions would have 
 been raised, which he would have found a difficulty 
 in answering : and though he averred that his 
 accident took place on the day before our encounter 
 with the beau masque on Dartford Common, a 
 little witness on our side was ready to aver that 
 Mr. Joe Weston left his house at the Priory before 
 sunrise on the day when we took our journey to 
 London, and that he returned the next morning 
 with his eye bound up, when he sent for Mr. Blades, 
 the surgeon of our town. Being awake, and looking 
 from her window, my witness saw Weston mount 
 his horse by the stable-lantern below, and heard 
 him swear at the groom as he rode out at the gate. 
 Curses used to drop naturally out of this nice 
 
172 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 gentleman's lips ; and it is certain in his case that 
 bad words and bad actions went together. 
 
 The Westons were frequently absent from 
 home, as was the chevalier our lodger. My 
 dear little Agnes was allowed to come and see 
 us at these times ; or slipped out by the garden- 
 door, and ran to see her nurse Duval, as she 
 always called my mother. I did not understand 
 for a while that there was any prohibition on the 
 Westons' part to Agnes' visiting us, or know that 
 there was such mighty wrath harboured against 
 me in that house. 
 
 I was glad, for the sake of a peaceable life at 
 home, as for honesty's sake too, that my mother 
 did not oppose my determination to take no share 
 in that smuggling business in which our house 
 still engaged. Any one who opposed mother in 
 her own house had, I promise you, no easy time : 
 but she saw that if she wished to make a gentle- 
 man of her boy, he must be no smuggler's appren- 
 tice ; and when M. le Chevalier, being appealed 
 to, shrugged his shoulders and said he washed his 
 hands of me — "Eh Men, M. de la Motte! " says 
 she, " we shall see if we can't pass ourselves of 
 you and your patronage. I imagine that people 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 173 
 
 are not always the better for it." " No," replied 
 he, with a groan, and one of his gloomy looks, 
 " my friendship may do people harm, but my 
 enmity is worse — entendez-vous ? " " Bah, bah ! " 
 says the stout old lady. "Denisol has a good 
 courage of his own. What do you say to me 
 about enmity to a harmless boy, M. le Chevalier ? " 
 I have told how, on the night of the funeral of 
 Madame de Saverne, Monsieur de la Motte sent 
 me out to assemble his Mackerel men. Among 
 these was the father of one of my town play- 
 fellows, by name Hookham, a seafaring man, who 
 had met with an accident at his business — strained 
 his back — and was incapable of work for a time. 
 Hookham was an improvident man : the rent got 
 into arrears. My grandfather was his landlord, 
 and I fear me, not the most humane creditor in 
 the world. Now, when I returned home after my 
 famous visit to London, my patron, Sir Peter 
 Denis, gave me two guineas, and my lady made 
 me a present of another. No doubt I should have 
 spent this money had I received it sooner in 
 London; but in our little town of "Winchelsea 
 there was nothing to tempt me in the shops, 
 except a fowling-piece at the pawnbroker's, for 
 
174 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 which I had a great longing. But Mr. Triboulet 
 wanted four guineas for the gun, and I had but 
 three, and would not go into debt. He would 
 have given me the piece on credit, and frequently 
 tempted me with it, but I resisted manfully, 
 though I could not help hankering about the 
 shop, and going again and again to look at the 
 beautiful gun. The stock fitted my shoulder to 
 a nicety. It was of the most beautiful workman- 
 ship. " Why not take it now, Master Duval ? " 
 Monsieur Triboulet said to me; " and pay me the 
 remaining guinea when you please. Ever so many 
 gentlemen have been to look at it ; and I should 
 be sorry now, indeed I should, to see such a 
 beauty go out of the town." As I was talking to 
 Triboulet (it may have been for the tenth time), 
 some one came in with a telescope to pawn, and 
 went away with fifteen shillings. "Don't yoi 
 know who that is?" says Triboulet (who was 
 chatter-box of a man). " That is John Hook- 
 ham's wife. It is but hard times with them since 
 John's accident. I have more of their goods here, 
 and, entre nous, John has a hard landlord, and 
 quarter-day is just at hand." I knew well enough 
 that John's landlord was hard, as he was my own 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 175 
 
 grandfather. " If I take my three pieces to Hook- 
 ham," thought I, "he may find the rest of the 
 rent ; " and so he did ; and my three guineas 
 went into my grandfather's pocket out of mine ; 
 and I suppose some one else bought the fowling- 
 piece for which I had so longed. 
 
 "What, it is you who have given me this 
 money, Master Denis ? " says poor Hookham, who 
 was sitting in his chair, groaning and haggard 
 with his illness. " I can't take it — I ought not 
 to take it." 
 
 " Nay," said I ; "I should only have bought a 
 toy with it, and if it comes to help you in distress, 
 I can do without my plaything." 
 
 There was quite a chorus of benedictions from 
 the poor family in consequence of this act of good 
 nature ; and I daresay I went away from Hook- 
 ham's mightily pleased with myself and my own 
 virtue. 
 
 It appears I had not been gone long when Mr. 
 Joe Weston came in to see the man, and when 
 he heard that I had relieved him, broke out into 
 a flood of abuse against me, cursed me for a 
 scoundrel and impertinent jackanapes, who was 
 always giving myself the airs of a gentleman, and 
 
176 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 flew out of the house in a passion. Mother heard 
 of the transaction, too, and pinched my ear with 
 a grim satisfaction. Grandfather said nothing, 
 but pocketed my three guineas when Mrs. Hook- 
 ham brought them ; and, though I did not brag 
 about the matter much, everything is known in a 
 small town, and I got a great deal of credit for 
 a very ordinary good action. 
 
 And now, strangely enough, Hookham's boy 
 confirmed to me what the Slindon priests had 
 hinted to good Dr. Barnard. " Swear," says 
 Tom (with that wonderful energy we used to have 
 as boys) — " swear, Denis, ' So help you, strike 
 you down dead ! ' you never will tell ! " 
 
 " So help me, strike me down dead ! " said I. 
 
 " Well, then, those — you know who — the gen- 
 tlemen — want to do you some mischief." 
 
 "What mischief can they do to an honest 
 boy ? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, you don't know what they are," says 
 Tom. " If they mean a man harm, harm will 
 happen to him. Father says no man ever comes 
 to good who stands in Mr. Joe's way. Where' 
 John Wheeler, of Rye, who had a quarrel wit 
 Mr. Joe ? He's in gaol. Mr. Barnes, of Playden, 
 
1 ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 177 
 
 had words with him at Hastings market : and 
 Barnes' ricks were burnt down before six months 
 were over. How was Thomas Berry taken, after 
 deserting from the man-of-war ? He is an awful 
 man, Mr. Joe Weston is. Don't get into his 
 way. Father says so. But you are not to tell — 
 no, never, that he spoke about it. Don't go alone 
 to Bye of nights, father says. Don't go on any — 
 and you know what not — any fishing business, 
 except with those you know." And so Tom 
 leaves me with a finger to his lip and terror in 
 his face. 
 
 As for the fishing, though I loved a sail dearly, 
 my mind was made up by good Dr. Barnard's 
 advice to me. I would have no more night- 
 fishing such as I had seen sometimes as a boy; 
 and when Budge's apprentice one night invited 
 me, and called me a coward for refusing to go, 
 I showed him I was no coward as far as fisticuffs 
 went, and stood out a battle with him, in which 
 I do believe I should have proved conqueror, 
 though the fellow was four years my senior, had 
 not his ally, Miss Sukey Budge, joined him in 
 the midst of our fight, and knocked me down 
 with the kitchen bellows, when they both be- 
 
 12 
 
178 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 laboured me, as I lay kicking on the ground. 
 Mr. Elder Rudge came in at the close of this 
 dreadful combat, and his abandoned hussy of a 
 daughter had the impudence to declare that the 
 quarrel arose because I was rude to her — I, an 
 innocent boy, who would as soon have made love 
 to a negress, as to that hideous, pock-marked, 
 squinting, crooked, tipsy Sukey Eudge. I fall 
 in love with Miss Squintum, indeed ! I knew 
 a pair of eyes at home so bright, innocent, and 
 pure, that I should have been ashamed to look 
 in them had I been guilty of such a rascally 
 treason. My little maid of Winchelsea heard of 
 this battle, as she was daily hearing slanders 
 against me from those worthy Mr. Westons ; 
 but she broke into a rage at the accusation, and 
 said to the assembled gentlemen (as she told my 
 good mother in after days), " Denis Duval is not 
 wicked. He is brave and he is good. And it 
 is not true, the story you tell against him. It 
 is a lie ! " 
 
 And now, once more it happened that my little 
 pistol helped to confound my enemies, and was 
 to me, indeed, a gute Wehr und Waffen. I 
 was for ever popping at marks with this little 
 
I ESCAPE EROM A GREAT DANGER. 179 
 
 piece of artillery. I polished, oiled, and covered 
 it with the utmost care, and kept it in my little 
 room in a box of which I had the key. One 
 day, by a most fortunate chance, I took my 
 schoolfellow, Tom Parrot, who became a great- 
 crony of mine, into the room. We went upstairs, 
 by the private door of Budge's house, and not 
 through the shop, where Mademoiselle Figs and 
 Monsieur the apprentice were serving their cus- 
 tomers ; and arrived in my room, we boys opened 
 my box, examined the precious pistol, screw, 
 barrel, flints, powder-horn, &c, locked the box, 
 and went away to school, promising ourselves 
 a good afternoon's sport on- that half-holiday. 
 Lessons over, I returned home to dinner, to find 
 black looks from all the inmates of the house 
 where I lived, from the grocer, his daughter, his 
 apprentice, and even the little errand-boy who 
 blacked the boots and swept the shop stared at 
 me impertinently, and said, " Oh, Denis, ain't 
 you going to catch it ! " 
 
 ""What is the matter?" I asked, very 
 
 Iaughtily. 
 " Oh, my lord ! We'll soon show your lord- 
 bip what is the matter." (This was a silly 
 
180 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 nickname I had in the town and at school, where, 
 I helieve, I gave myself not a few airs since I 
 had worn my fine new clothes, and paid my 
 visit to London.) " This accounts for his laced 
 •waistcoat, and his guineas which he flings about. 
 Does your lordship know these here shillings, 
 and this half-crown? Look at them, Mr. Beales! 
 See the marks on them which I scratched with 
 my own hand before I put them into the till from 
 which my lord took 'em." 
 
 Shillings— till ? What did they mean ? "How 
 dare you ask, you little hypocrite ! " screams out 
 Miss Eudge. "I marked them shillings and 
 that half-crown with my own needle, I did ; and 
 of that I can take my Bible oath." 
 
 " Well, and what then ? " I asked, remember- 
 ing how this young woman had not scrupled to 
 bear false witness in another charge against me. 
 
 "What then? They were in the till this 
 morning, young fellow ; and you know well enough 
 where they were found afterwards," says Mr. 
 Beales. " Come, come. This is a bad job. This 
 is a sessions job, my lad." 
 
 " But where were they found ? " again I 
 asked. 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 181 
 
 "We'll tell you that before Squire Boroughs 
 and the magistrates, you young vagabond ! " 
 
 " You little viper, that have turned and stung 
 me!" 
 
 " You precious young scoundrel ! " 
 
 " You wicked little story-telling, good-for- 
 nothing little thief ! " cry Eudge, the apprentice, 
 and Miss Kudge in a breath. And I stood be- 
 wildered by their outcry, and, indeed, not quite 
 comprehending the charge which they made 
 against me. 
 
 " The magistrates are sitting at Town Hall 
 now. We will take the little villain there at 
 once," says the grocer. "You bring the box 
 along with you, constable. Lord ! Lord ! what 
 will his poor grandfather say?" And, wonder- 
 ing still at the charge made against me, I was 
 made to walk through the streets to the Town 
 Hall, passing on the way by at least a score of 
 our boys, who were enjoying their half-holiday. 
 It was market-day, too, and the town full. It 
 is forty years ago, but I dream about that dreadful 
 day still; and, an old gentleman of sixty, fancy 
 myself walking through Eye market, with Mr. 
 Beales' fist clutching my collar ! 
 
182 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 A number of our boys joined this dismal pro- 
 cession, and accompanied me into the magistrates' 
 room. " Denis Duval up for stealing money ! " 
 cries one. " This accounts for his fine clothes," 
 sneers another. "He'll be hung," says a third. 
 The market people stare, and crowd round, and 
 jeer. I feel as if in a horrible nightmare. We pass 
 under the pillars of the Market House, up the 
 steps to the Town Hall, where the magistrates 
 were, who chose market-day for their sittings. 
 
 How my heart throbbed, as I saw my dear Dr. 
 Barnard seated among them. 
 
 " Oh, doctor," cries poor Denis, clasping his 
 hands, " you don't believe me guilty ? " 
 
 " Guilty of what?" cries the doctor, from the 
 raised table round which the gentlemen sate. 
 
 " Guilty of stealing." 
 
 " Guilty of robbing my till." 
 
 " Guilty of taking two half-crowns, three shil- 
 lings and twopence in copper, all marked," shriel 
 out Rudge, the apprentice, and Miss Rudge in a 
 breath. 
 
 "Denny Duval steal sixpences!" cries the 
 doctor ; "I would as soon believe he stole the 
 dragon off the church- steeple !" 
 
 1 
 
I ESCAPE FROM A GREAT DANGER. 183 
 
 " Silence, you boys ! Silence in the court, 
 there; or flog 'em and turn 'em all out," says 
 the magistrates' clerk. Some of our boys — friends 
 of mine — who had crowded into the place, were 
 hurraying at my kind Doctor Barnard's speech. 
 
 * ' It is a most serious charge," says the clerk. 
 
 " But what is the charge, my good Mr. Hick- 
 son ? You might as well put me into the dock 
 as that " 
 
 " Pray, sir, will you allow the business of the 
 court to go on ?" asks the clerk, testily. " Make 
 your statement, Mr. Budge, and don't be afraid of 
 anybody. You are under the protection of the 
 court, sir." 
 
 And now for the first time I heard the particu- 
 lars of the charge made against me. Budge, and 
 his daughter after him, stated (on oath, I am 
 shocked to say) that for some time past they had 
 missed money from the till ; small sums of money, 
 in shillings and half-crowns, they could not say 
 how much. It might be two pounds, three 
 pounds, in all; but the money was constantly 
 going. At last, Miss Budge said, she was deter- 
 mined to mark some money, and did so ; and that 
 money was found in that box which belonged to 
 
184 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 Denis Duval, and which the constable brought into 
 court. 
 
 " Oh, gentlemen ! " I cried out in agony, " it's 
 a wicked, wicked lie, and it's not the first she has 
 told about me. A week ago she said I wanted to 
 kiss her, and she and Bevil both set on me ; and I 
 never wanted to kiss the nasty thing, so help 
 me " 
 
 " You did, you lying wicked boy ! " cries Miss 
 Sukey. " And Edward Bevil came to my rescue ; 
 and you struck me, like a low mean coward ; and 
 we beat him well, and served him right, the little 
 abandoned boy." 
 
 " And he kicked one of my teeth out — you did, 
 you little villain ! " roars Bevil, whose jaws had 
 indeed suffered in that scuffle in the kitchen, when 
 his precious sweetheart came to his aid with the 
 bellows. 
 
 " He called me a coward, and I fought him fair, 
 though he is ever so much older than me," 
 whimpers out the prisoner. "And Sukey Kudge 
 set upon me, and beat me too ; and if I kicked 
 him, he kicked me." 
 
 " And since this kicking match they have found 
 out that you stole their money, have they ? " says 
 
I ESCAPE EROM A GREAT DANGER. 185 
 
 the doctor, and turns round, appealing to his 
 brother magistrates. 
 
 "Miss Kudge, please to tell the rest of your 
 story," calls out the justices' clerk. 
 
 The rest of the Eudges' story was, that having 
 their suspicions roused against me, they deter- 
 mined to examine my cupboards and boxes in my 
 absence, to see whether the stolen objects were to 
 be found, and in my box they discovered the two 
 marked half-crowns, the three marked shillings, 
 a brass-barrelled pistol, which were now in court. 
 " Me and Mr. Bevil, the apprentice, found the 
 money in the box ; and we called my papa from 
 the shop, and we fetched Mr. Beales, the constable, 
 who lives over the way ; and when the little monster 
 came back from school, we seized upon him, and 
 brought him before your worships, and hanging is 
 what I said he would always come to," shrieks my 
 enemy Miss Kudge. 
 
 " Why, I have the key of that box in my 
 pocket now ! " I cried out. 
 
 "We had means of opening it," says Miss 
 Rudge, looking very red. 
 
 " Oh, if you have another key — ," interposes 
 the doctor. 
 
186 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " We broke it open with the tongs and poker," 
 says Miss Kudge, " me and Edward did — I mean 
 Mr. Bevil, the apprentice." 
 
 " When ?" said I, in a great tremor. 
 
 " When ? When you was at school, you little 
 miscreant ! Half an hour before you came back 
 to dinner." 
 
 "Tom Parrot, Tom Parrot!" I cried. "Call 
 Tom Parrot, gentlemen. For goodness' sake call 
 Tom ! " I said, my heart beating so that I could 
 hardly speak. 
 
 " Here I am, Denny ! " pipes Tom in the crowd ; 
 and presently he comes up to their honours on the 
 bench. 
 
 " Speak to Tom, Doctor, dear Doctor Barnard ! " 
 I continued. " Tom, when did I show you my 
 pistol ?" 
 
 " Just before ten o'clock school." 
 
 "What did I do?" 
 
 " You unlocked your box, took the pistol out 
 of a handkerchief, showed it to me, and two flints, 
 a powder-horn, a bullet-mould and some bullets, 
 and put them back again, and locked the box." 
 
 " Was there any money in the box ?" 
 
 " There was nothing in the box but the pistol, 
 
I ESCAPE EROM A GREAT DANGER. 187 
 
 and the bullets and things. I looked into it. It 
 was as empty as my hand." 
 
 " And Denis Duval has been sitting by you in 
 school ever since ?" 
 
 " Ever since — except when I was called up and 
 caned for my Corderius," says Tom, with a roguish 
 look ; and there was a great laughter and shout of 
 applause from our boys of Pocock's when this 
 testimony was given in their schoolfellow's favour. 
 
 My kind doctor held his hand over the railing 
 to me, and when I took it, my heart was so full 
 that my eyes overflowed. I thought of little 
 Agnes. What would she have felt if her Denis 
 had been committed as a thief? I had such a 
 rapture of thanks and gratitude that I think the 
 pleasure of the acquittal was more than equivalent 
 to the anguish of the accusation. What a shout 
 all Pocock's boys set up, as I went out of the 
 justice-room ! We trooped joyfully down the 
 stairs, and there were fresh shouts and huzzays as 
 we got down to the market. I saw Mr. Joe Weston 
 buying corn at a stall. He only looked at me 
 once. His grinding teeth and his clenched riding- 
 whip did not frighten me in the least now." 
 
188 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 
 
 As our joyful procession of boys passed by Part- 
 lett's the pastrycook's, one of the boys — Samuel 
 Arbin — I remember the fellow well — a greedy boy, 
 with a large beard and whiskers, though only 
 fifteen years old — insisted that I ought to stand 
 treat in consequence of my victory over my enemies. 
 As far as a groat went, I said I was ready : for that 
 was all the money I had. 
 
 " Oh, you storyteller ! " cries the other. " Wh* 
 have you done with your three guineas which you 
 were bragging about and showing to the boys at 
 school ? I suppose they were in the box when ii 
 was broken open." This Samuel Arbin was one of 
 the boys who had jeered when I was taken in 
 charge by the constable, and would have liked me 
 to be guilty, I almost think. I am afraid I had 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 189 
 
 bragged about my money when I possessed it, and 
 may have shown my shining gold pieces to some 
 of the boys in school. 
 
 " I know what he has done with his money !" 
 broke in my steadfast crony Tom Parrot. " He 
 has given away every shilling of it to a poor family 
 who wanted it, and nobody ever knew you give 
 away a shilling, Samuel Arbin," he says. 
 
 " Unless he could get eighteenpence by it ! " 
 sang out another little voice. 
 
 M Tom Parrot, 111 break every bone in your 
 body, as sure as my name is Arbin ! " cried the 
 other, in a fury. 
 
 " Sam Arbin," said I, "after you have finished 
 Tom, you must try me ; or we'll do it now, if you 
 like." To say the truth, I had long had an incli- 
 nation to try my hand against Arbin. He was an 
 ill friend to me, and amongst the younger boys a 
 bully and a usurer to boot. The rest called out, 
 " A ring ! a ring ! Let us go on the green and 
 have it out ! " being in their innocent years always 
 ready for a fight. 
 
 But this one was never to come off : and (except 
 in later days, when I went to revisit the old place, 
 and ask for a half-holiday for my young successors 
 
190 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 at Pocock's), I was never again to see the ancient 
 schoolroom. While we boys were brawling in the 
 market-place before the pastrycook's door, Dr. 
 Barnard came up, and our quarrel was hushed in 
 a moment. 
 
 "What! fighting and quarrelling already?" 
 says the doctor, sternly. 
 
 " It wasn't Denny's fault, sir ! " cried out several 
 of the boys. "It was Arbin began." And, in- 
 deed, I can say for myself that in all the quarrels 
 I have had in life, and they have not been few, 
 I consider I always have been in the right. 
 
 " Come along with me, Denny," says the doctor, 
 taking me by the shoulder : and he led me away 
 and we took a walk in the town together : and as 
 we passed old Ypres Tower, which was built by 
 King Stephen, they say, and was a fort in old 
 days, but is used as the town prison now, " Suppose 
 you had been looking from behind those bars now, 
 Denny, and awaiting your trial at assizes ? Yours 
 would not have been a pleasant plight," Dr. 
 Barnard said. 
 
 " But I was innocent, sir ! You know I was ! " 
 
 " Yes. Praise be where praise is due. But if 
 you had not providentially been able to prove your 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 191 
 
 innocence — if you and your friend Parrot had not 
 happened to inspect your box, you would have 
 been in yonder place. Ha! there is the bell 
 ringing for afternoon service, which my good friend 
 Dr. Wing keeps up. What say you ? Shall we 
 go and — and — offer up our thanks, Denny — for the 
 — the immense peril from which — you have been — 
 delivered?" 
 
 I remember how my dear friend's voice trembled 
 as he spoke, and two or three drops fell from his 
 kind eyes on my hand, which he held. I followed 
 him into the church. Indeed and indeed I was 
 thankful for my deliverance from a great danger, 
 and even more thankful to have the regard of the 
 true gentleman, the wise and tender friend, who 
 was there to guide, and cheer, and help me. 
 
 As we read the last psalm appointed for that 
 evening service, I remember how the good man, 
 bowing his own head, put his hand upon mine ; 
 and we recited together the psalm of thanks to the 
 Highest who had had respect unto the lowly, and who 
 had stretched forth His hand upon the furiousness 
 of my enemies, and whose right hand had saved me. 
 
 Dr. Wing recognized and greeted his comrade 
 when service was over : and the one doctor pre- 
 
192 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 sented me to the other, who had been one of the 
 magistrates on the bench at the time of my trial. 
 Dr. Wing asked us into his house, where dinner 
 was served at four o'clock, and of course the trans- 
 actions of the morning were again discussed. 
 What could be the reason of the persecution 
 against me ? Who instigated it ? There were 
 matters connected with this story regarding which 
 I could not speak. Should I do so, I must betray 
 secrets which were not mine, and which implicated 
 I knew not whom, and regarding which I must 
 hold my peace. Now, they are secrets no more. 
 That old society of smugglers is dissolved long 
 ago : nay, I shall have to tell presently how I 
 helped myself to break it up. Grandfather, 
 Kudge, the chevalier, the gentlemen of the Priory, 
 were all connected in that great smuggling society 
 of which I have spoken ; which had its depots all 
 along the coast and inland, and its correspondents 
 from Dunkirk to Havre de Grace. I have said as 
 a boy how I had been on some of these " fishing " 
 expeditions ; and how, mainly by the effect of my 
 dear doctor's advice, I had withdrawn from all par- 
 ticipation in this lawless and wicked life. When 
 Bevil called me coward for refusing to take a share 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 193 
 
 in a night-cruise, a quarrel ensued between us, 
 ending in that battle royal which left us all 
 sprawling, and cuffing and kicking each other on 
 the kitchen floor. Was it rage at the injury to her 
 sweetheart's teeth, or hatred against myself, which 
 induced my sweet Miss Sukey to propagate 
 calumnies against me? The provocation I had 
 given certainly did not seem to warrant such a 
 deadly enmity as a prosecution and a perjury 
 showed must exist. Howbeit, there was a reason 
 for the anger of the grocer's daughter and appren- 
 tice. They would injure me in any way they 
 could ; and (as in the before-mentioned case of 
 the bellows) take the first weapon at hand to over- 
 throw me. 
 
 As magistrates of the county, and knowing a 
 great deal of what was happening round about 
 them, and the character of their parishioners and 
 neighbours, the two gentlemen could not, then, 
 press me too closely. Smuggled silk and lace, 
 rum and brandy ? Who had not these in his 
 possession along the Sussex and Kent coast ? 
 "And, Wing, will you promise me there are no 
 ribbons in jouy house but such as have paid 
 duty ? " asks one doctor of the other. 
 
 13 
 

 194 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " My good friend, it is lucky my wife has gone 
 to her tea-tahle," replies Dr. Wing, " or I would 
 not answer for the peace being kept." 
 
 "My dear Wing," continues Dr. Barnard, "this 
 brandy punch is excellent, and is worthy of being 
 smuggled. To run an anker of brandy seems no 
 monstrous crime ; but when men engage in these 
 lawless ventures at all, who knows how far the 
 evil will go ? I buy ten kegs of brandy from a 
 French fishing-boat, I land it under a lie on the 
 coast, I send it inland ever so far, be it from 
 here to York, and all my consignees lie and 
 swindle. I land it, and lie to the revenue officer. 
 Under a lie (that is, a mutual secrecy,) I sell it 
 to the landlord of the ' Bell ' at Maidstone, say 
 — where a good friend of ours, Denny, looked 
 at his pistols. You remember the day when 
 his brother received the charge of shot in his 
 face? My landlord sells it to a customer under 
 a lie. We are all engaged in crime, conspiracy, 
 and falsehood ; nay, if the revenue looks too 
 closely after us, we out with our pistols, and to 
 crime and conspiracy add murder. Do you sup- 
 pose men engaged in lying every day will scruple 
 about a false oath in a witness-box ? Crime 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 195 
 
 engenders crime, sir. Kound about us, Wing, 
 I know there exists a vast confederacy of fraud, 
 greed, and rebellion. I name no names, sir. I fear 
 men bigh placed in tbe world's esteem, and largely 
 endowed with its riches too, are concerned in the 
 pursuit of this godless traffic of smuggling, and 
 to what does it not lead them? To falsehood, 
 to wickedness, to murder, to " 
 
 " Tea, sir, if you please, sir," says John, 
 entering. " My mistress and the young ladies 
 are waiting." 
 
 The ladies had previously heard the story of 
 poor Denis Duval's persecution and innocence, 
 and had shown him great kindness. By the 
 time when we joined them after dinner, they had 
 had time to perform a new toilette, being engaged 
 to cards with some neighbours. I knew Mrs. 
 Wing was a customer to my mother for some 
 of her French goods, and she would scarcely, 
 on an ordinary occasion, have admitted such a 
 lowly guest to her table as the humble dress- 
 maker's boy; but she and the ladies were very 
 kind, and my persecution and proved innocence 
 
 Kd interested them in my favour. 
 " You have had a long sitting, gentlemen," 
 18- 
 
196 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 says Mrs. Wing : "I suppose you have been 
 deep in politics, and the quarrel with France." 
 
 " "We have been speaking of France and French 
 goods, my dear," said Dr. Wing, dryly. 
 
 " And of the awful crime of smuggling and en- 
 couraging smuggling, my dear Mrs. Wing ! " cries 
 my doctor. 
 
 "Indeed, Dr. Barnard!" Now, Mrs. Wing 
 and the young ladies were dressed in smart new 
 caps, and ribbons, which my poor mother sup- 
 plied ; and they turned red, and I turned as red 
 as the cap-ribbons, as I thought how my good 
 ladies had been provided. No wonder Mrs. Wing 
 was desirous to change the subject of conversation. 
 
 " What is this young man to do after his per- 
 secution ? " she asked. " He can't go back to 
 Mr. Kudge — that horrid Wesleyan who has accused 
 him of stealing." 
 
 No, indeed, I could not go back. We had not 
 thought about the matter until then. There 
 had been a hundred things to agitate and interest 
 me in the half-dozen hours since my apprehension 
 and dismissal. 
 
 The doctor would take me to Winchelsea in 
 his chaise. I could not go back to my perse- 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 197 
 
 cutors, that was clear, except to reclaim my little 
 property and my poor little boxes, which they 
 had found means to open. Mrs. Wing gave me 
 a hand, the young ladies a stately curtsey; and 
 my good Dr. Barnard putting a hand under the 
 arm of the barber's grandson, we quitted these 
 kind people. I was not on the quarter-deck as 
 yet, you see. I was but a humble lad belonging 
 to ordinary tradesmen. 
 
 By the way, I had forgotten to say that the 
 two clergymen, during their after-dinner talk, 
 had employed a part of it in examining me as to 
 my little store of learning at school, and my 
 future prospects. Of Latin I had a smattering; 
 French, owing to my birth, and mainly to M. 
 de la Motte's instruction and conversation, I could 
 speak better than either of my two examiners, and 
 with quite the good manner and conversation. I was 
 well advanced, too, in arithmetic and geometry ; and 
 Dampier's Voyages were as much my delight as 
 those of Sinbad or my friends Kobinson Crusoe 
 and Man Friday. I could pass a good examina- 
 tion in navigation and seamanship, and could 
 give an account of the different sailings, working- 
 tides, double altitudes, and so forth. 
 
198 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " And you can manage a boat at sea, too ?" says 
 Dr. Barnard, dryly. I blushed, I suppose. I 
 could do that, and could steer, reef, and pull an 
 oar. At least I could do so two years ago. 
 
 " Denny, my boy," says my good doctor, " I 
 think 'tis time for thee to leave this school at any 
 rate, and that our friend Sir Peter must provide 
 for thee." 
 
 However he may desire to improve in learning, 
 no boy, I fancy, is very sorry when a proposal is 
 made to him to leave school. I said that I should 
 be too glad if Sir Peter, my patron, would provide 
 for me. With the education I had, I ought to get 
 On, the doctor said, and my grandfather he was 
 sure would find the means for allowing me to 
 appear like a gentleman. 
 
 To fit a boy for appearance on the quarter-deck, 
 and to enable him to rank with others, I had heard 
 would cost thirty or forty pounds a year at least. 
 I asked, did Dr. Barnard think my grandfather 
 could afford such a sum ? 
 
 " I know not your grandfather's means," Dr. 
 Barnard answered, smiling. " He keeps his own 
 counsel. But I am very much mistaken, Denny, 
 if he cannot afford to make you a better allowance 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 199 
 
 than many a fine gentleman can give his son. I 
 believe him to be rich. Mind, I have no precise 
 reason for my belief; but I fancy, Master Denis, 
 your good grandpapa's fishing has been very profit- 
 able to him." 
 
 How rich was he? I began to think of the 
 treasures in my favourite Arabian Nights, Did 
 Dr. Barnard think grandfather was very rich? 
 "Well — the doctor could not tell. The notion in 
 Winchelsea was that old Mr. Denis was very well 
 to do. At any rate I must go back to him. It 
 was impossible that I should stay with the Rudge 
 family after the insulting treatment I had had 
 from them. The doctor said he would take me 
 home with him in his chaise, if I would pack my 
 little trunks ; and with this talk we reached Rudge's 
 shop, which I entered not without a beating heart. 
 There was Rudge glaring at me from behind his 
 desk, where he was posting his books. The ap- 
 prentice looked daggers at me as he came up 
 through a trap-door from the cellar with a string 
 of dip-candles ; and my charming Miss Susan was 
 behind the counter tossing up her ugly head. 
 
 " Ho ! he's come back, have he ? " says Miss 
 Rudge. " As all the cupboards is locked in the 
 
200 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 parlour, you can go in, and get your tea there, 
 young man." 
 
 "I am going to take Denis home, Mr. Budge," 
 said my kind doctor. "He cannot remain with 
 you, after the charge which you made against him 
 this morning." 
 
 " Of having our marked money in his box ? Do 
 you go for to dare for to say we put it there?" 
 cries miss, glaring now at me, now at Doctor 
 Barnard. "Go to say that. Please to say that 
 once, Dr. Barnard, before Mrs. Barker and Mrs. 
 Scales" (these were two women who happened to 
 be in the shop purchasing goods). "Just be so 
 good for to say before these ladies, that we have 
 put the money in that boy's box, and we'll see 
 whether there is not justice in Hengland for a poor 
 girl whom you insult, because you are a doctor 
 and a magistrate indeed ! Eh, if I was a man, 
 wouldn't let some people's gowns, and cassocks, 
 and bands, remain long on their backs — that I 
 wouldn't. And some people wouldn't see a woman 
 insulted if they wasn't cowards ! " As she said 
 this, Miss Sukey looked at the cellar-trap, above 
 which the apprentice's head had appeared, but the 
 doctor turned also towards it with a glance s< 
 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 201 
 
 threatening, that Bevil let the trap fall suddenly 
 down, not a little to my doctor's amusement. 
 
 " Go and pack thy trunk, Denny. I will come 
 back for thee in half an hour. Mr. Eudge must 
 see that after being so insulted as you have been, 
 you never as a gentleman can stay in this house." 
 
 " A pretty gentleman, indeed ! " ejaculates Miss 
 Eudge. " Pray, how long since was barbers gentle- 
 men, I should like to know ? Mrs. Scales mum, 
 Mrs. Barker mum, — did you ever have your hair 
 dressed by a gentleman ? If you want for to have 
 it, you must go to Mounseer Duval, at Winchelsea, 
 which one of the name was hung, Mrs. Barker 
 mum, for a thief and a robber, and he won't be the 
 last neither ! " 
 
 There was no use in bandying abuse with this 
 woman. "I will go and get my trunk, and be 
 ready, sir," I said to the doctor; but his back was 
 no sooner turned than the raging virago opposite 
 me burst out with a fury of words, that I certainly, 
 can't remember after five-and-forty years. I fancy 
 I see now the little green eyes gleaming hatred at 
 me, the lean arms a-kimbo, the feet stamping as 
 she hisses out every imaginable imprecation at my 
 poor head. 
 
202 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " Will no man help me, and stand by and see 
 that barber's boy insult me?" she cried. " Bevil, 
 I say— Bevil! 'Elp me ! " 
 
 I ran upstairs to my little room, and was not 
 twenty minutes in making up my packages. I 
 had passed years in that little room, and somehow 
 grieved to leave it. The odious people had injured 
 me, and yet I would have liked to part friends with 
 them. I had passed delightful nights there in the 
 company of Robinson Crusoe, mariner, and Mon- 
 sieur Galland and his Contes Arabes, and Hector 
 of Troy, whose adventures and lamentable death 
 (out of Mr. Pope) I could recite by heart ; and I 
 had had weary nights, too, with my school-books, 
 cramming that crabbed Latin grammar into my 
 puzzled brain. "With arithmetic, logarithms, and 
 mathematics I have said I was more familiar. I 
 took a pretty good place in our school with them, 
 and ranked before many boys of greater age. 
 
 And now my boxes being packed (my little 
 library being stowed away in that which contained 
 my famous pistol), I brought them downstairs, 
 with nobody to help me, and had them in the 
 passage ready against Dr. Barnard's arrival. The 
 passage is behind the back shop at Rudge's — (dear 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 203 
 
 me ! how well I remember it !) — and a door thence 
 leads into a side-street. On the other side of this 
 passage is the kitchen, where had been the fight 
 which has been described already, and where we 
 commonly took our meals. 
 
 I declare I went into that kitchen disposed to 
 part friends with all these people — to forgive Miss 
 Sukey her lies, and Bevil his cuffs, and all the past 
 quarrels between us. Old Budge was by the fire, 
 having his supper ; Miss Sukey opposite to him. 
 Bevil, as yet, was minding the shop. 
 
 "I have come to shake hands before going 
 away," I said. 
 
 " You're a-going, are you ? And pray, sir, 
 wherehever are you a-going of?" says Miss Sukey, 
 over her tea. 
 
 "lam going home with Dr. Barnard. I can't 
 stop in this house after you have accused me of 
 stealing your money." 
 
 " Stealing ? Wasn't the money in your box, 
 you little beastly thief? " 
 
 " Oh, you young reprobate, I am surprised the 
 bears don't come in and eat you," groans old 
 Rudge. " You have shortened my life with your 
 wickedness, that you have ; and if you don't bring 
 
204 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 your good grandfather's grey hairs with sorrow to 
 the grave, I shall he surprised, that I shall. You, 
 who come of a pious family — I tremble when I 
 think of you, Denis Duval ! " 
 
 " Tremble ! Faugh ! the wicked little beast ! 
 he makes me sick, he do ! " cries Miss Sukey, 
 with looks of genuine loathing. 
 
 "Let him depart from among us!" cries 
 Kudge. 
 
 " Never do I wish to see his ugly face again ! " 
 exclaims the gentle Susan. 
 
 " I am going as soon as Dr. Barnard's chaise 
 comes," I said. " My boxes are in the passage 
 now, ready packed." 
 
 "Beady packed, are they? Is there any more 
 of our money in them, you little miscreant ? Pa, 
 is your silver tankard in the cupboard, and is the 
 spoons safe ? " 
 
 I think poor Sukey had been drinking to drive 
 away the mortifications of the morning in the 
 court-house. She became more excited and 
 violent with every word she spoke, and shrieked 
 and clenched her fists at me like a mad woman. 
 
 " Susanna, you have had false witness bore 
 against you, my child ; and you are not the first 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 205 
 
 of your name. But be calm, be calm; it's our 
 duty to be calm ! " 1 
 
 "Eh ! " (here she gives a grunt.) " Calm with 
 that sneak — that pig — that liar — that beast! 
 Where's Edward Bevil ? Why don't he come 
 forward like a man, and flog the young scoundrel's 
 life out ? " shrieks Susanna. " Oh, with this 
 here horsewhip, how I would like to give it 
 you ! " (She clutched her father's whip from the 
 dresser, where it commonly hung on two hooks.) 
 " Oh, you — you villain ! you have got your 
 pistol, have you ? Shoot me, you little coward, 
 I ain't afraid of you ! You have your pistol in 
 your box, have you ! " (I uselessly said as much 
 in reply to this taunt.) " Stop ! I say, Pa ! — that 
 young thief isn't going away with them boxes, 
 and robbing the whole house as he may. Open 
 the boxes this instant ! We'll see he's stole 
 nothing ! Open them, I say ! " 
 
 I said I would do nothing of the kind. My blood 
 was boiling up at this brutal behaviour ; and as 
 she dashed out of the room to seize one of my 
 boxes, I put myself before her, and sat down on it. 
 
 This was assuredly a bad position to take, for 
 the furious vixen began to strike me and lash at 
 
206 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 my face with the riding-whip, and it was more 
 than I could do to wrench it from her. 
 
 Of course, at this act of defence on my part, 
 Miss Sukey yelled for help, and called out, 
 " Edward ! Ned Bevil ! The coward is a-striking 
 me ! Help, Ned! " At this, the shop door flies 
 open, and Sukey's champion is about to rush on 
 me, but he breaks down over my other box with 
 a crash of his shins, and frightful execrations. 
 His nose is prone on the pavement ; Miss Sukey 
 is wildly laying about her with her horsewhip (and 
 I think Bevil's jacket came in for most of th 
 blows) ; we are all higgledy-piggledy, plunging 
 and scuffling in the dark — when a carriage drives 
 up, which I had not heard in the noise of action, 
 and, as the hall door opened, I was pleased to 
 think that Dr. Barnard had arrived, according to 
 his promise. 
 
 It was not the doctor. The new comer wore 
 a gown, but not a cassock. Soon after my trial 
 before the magistrates was over, our neighbour, 
 John Jephson, of Winchelsea, mounted his cart 
 and rode home from Eye market. He straight- 
 way went to our house, and told my mother of 
 the strange scene which had ust occurred, and of 
 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL -DAYS. 207 
 
 my accusation before the magistrates and acquittal. 
 She begged, she ordered Jephson to lend her his 
 cart. She seized whip and reins ; she drove over 
 to Eye ; and I don't envy Jephson's old grey mare 
 that journey with such a charioteer behind her. 
 The door, opening from the street, flung light 
 into the passage ; and behold, we three warriors 
 were sprawling on the floor in the higgledy- 
 piggledy stage of the battle as my mother 
 entered ! 
 
 What a scene for a mother with a strong arm, 
 a warm heart, and a high temper ! Madame 
 Duval rushed instantly at Miss Susan, and tore 
 her shrieking from my body, which fair Susan was 
 pummelling with the whip. A part of Susan's 
 cap and tufts of her red hair were torn off by this 
 maternal Amazon, and Susan was hurled through 
 the open door into the kitchen, where she fell 
 before her frightened father. I don't know how 
 
 tany blows my parent inflicted upon this creature, 
 [other might have slain her, but that the chaste 
 
 >usanna, screaming shrilly, rolled under the deal 
 kitchen table. 
 
 Madame Duval had wrenched away from this 
 
 roung person the horsewhip with which Susan 
 
208 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 had been operating upon the shoulders of her 
 only son, and snatched the weapon as her fallen 
 foe dropped. And now my mamma, seeing old 
 Mr. Eudge sitting in a ghastly state of terror in 
 the corner, rushed at the grocer, and in one 
 minute, with butt and thong, inflicted a score of 
 lashes over his face, nose, and eyes, for which 
 anybody who chooses may pity him. "Ah, you 
 will call my boy a thief, will you ? Ah, you will 
 take my Denny before the justices, will you? 
 Prends moi 9a, gredin ! Attrape, lache ! Nimmt 
 noch ein paar Schlage, Spitzbube ! " cries out 
 mother, in that polyglot language of English, 
 French, High-Dutch, which she always used when 
 excited. My good mother could shave and dress 
 gentlemen's heads as well as any man ; and faith 
 I am certain than no man in all Europe got a 
 better dressing than Mr. Kudge on that evening. 
 
 Bless me ! I have written near a page to describe 
 a battle which could not have lasted five minutes. 
 Mother's cart was drawn up at the side-street 
 whilst she was victoriously engaged within. Mean- 
 while, Dr. Barnard's chaise had come to the front 
 door of the shop, and he strode through it, and 
 found us conquerors in possession of both fields. 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 209 
 
 Since my last battle with Bevil, we both knew that 
 I was more than a match for him. " In the king's 
 name, I charge you drop your daggers," as the man 
 says in the play. Our wars were over on the 
 appearance of the man of peace. Mother left oft* 
 plying the horsewhip over Eudge ; Miss Sukey 
 came out from under the table ; Mr. Bevil rose, 
 and slunk off to wash his bleeding face ; and when 
 the wretched Budge whimpered out that he would 
 have the law for this assault, the doctor sternly 
 said, " You were three to one during part of the 
 battle, three to two afterwards, and after your 
 testimony to-day, you perjured old miscreant, do 
 you suppose any magistrate will believe you ? " 
 
 No. Nobody did believe them. A punishment 
 fell on these bad people. I don't know who gave 
 the name, but Budge and his daughter were called 
 Ananias and Sapphira in Bye ; and from that day 
 the old man's affairs seemed to turn to the bad. 
 
 r hen our boys of Pocock's met the grocer, his 
 
 laughter, or his apprentice, the little miscreants 
 
 rould cry out, " Who put the money in Denny's 
 
 box?" " Who bore false witness against his 
 
 neighbour ? " " Kiss the book, Sukey my dear, 
 
 id tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
 
 14 
 
210 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 but the truth, do you hear?" They had a dread- 
 ful life, that poor grocer's family. As for that 
 rogue Tom Parrot, he comes into the shop one 
 market-day when the place was full, and asks for 
 a penn'orth of sugar-candy, in payment for which 
 he offers a penny to old Eudge sitting at his books 
 behind his high desk. " It's a good bit of money," 
 says Tom (as bold as the brass which he was 
 tendering). "It ain't marked, Mr. Eudge, like 
 Denny Duval's money ! " And, no doubt, at a 
 signal from the young reprobate, a chorus of boys 
 posted outside began to sing, " Ananias, Ananias ! 
 He pretends to be so pious ! Ananias and Saphia 
 
 " Well, well, the Saphia of these young 
 
 wags was made to rhyme incorrectly with a word 
 beginning with L. Nor was this the only punish- 
 ment which befell the unhappy Eudge : Mrs. Wing 
 and several of his chief patrons took away their 
 custom from him and dealt henceforth with the 
 opposition grocer. Not long after my affair, Miss 
 Sukey married the toothless apprentice, who got 
 a bad bargain with her, sweetheart or wife. I 
 shall have to tell presently what a penalty they 
 (and some others) had to pay for their wickedness ; 
 and of an act of contrition on poor Miss Sukey's 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 211 
 
 part, whom, I am sure, I heartily forgive. Then 
 was cleared up that mystery (which I could not 
 understand, and Dr. Barnard could not, or would 
 not) of the persecutions directed against a humble 
 lad, who never, except in self-defence, did harm to 
 any mortal. 
 
 I shouldered the trunks, causes of the late 
 lamentable war, and put them into mother's cart, 
 into which I was about to mount, but the shrewd 
 old lady would not let me take a place beside her. 
 " I can drive well enough. Go thou in the chaise 
 with the doctor. He can talk to thee better, my 
 son, than an ignorant woman like me. Neighbour 
 Jephson told me how the good gentleman stood by 
 thee in the justice-court. If ever I or mine can 
 do anything to repay him, he may command me. 
 Houp, Schimmel ! Fort ! Shalt soon be to 
 house!" And with this she was off with* my 
 bag and baggage, as the night was beginning to 
 fall. 
 
 I went out of the Eudges' house, into which I 
 have never since set foot. I took my place in the 
 
 I chaise by my kind Dr. Barnard. We passed 
 through Winchelsea gate, and dipped down into 
 the marshy plain bevond with bright glimpses of 
 
212 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 the Channel shining beside us, and the stars 
 glittering overhead. We talked of the affair of 
 the day, of course — the affair most interesting, 
 that is, to me, who could think of nothing but 
 magistrates, and committals, and acquittals. The 
 doctor repeated his firm conviction that there was 
 a great smuggling conspiracy all along the coast 
 and neighbourhood. Master Rudge was a member 
 of the fraternity (which, indeed, I knew, having 
 been out with his people once or twice, as I have 
 told, to my shame). " Perhaps there were other 
 people of my acquaintance who belonged to the 
 same society ? " the doctor said, dryly. " Gee up, 
 Daisy ! There were other people of my acquaint- 
 ance, who were to be found at Winchelsea as well 
 as at Rye. Your precious one-eyed enemy is in 
 it ; so, I have no doubt, is Monsieur le Chevalier 
 de «la Motte ; so is — can you guess the name of any 
 one besides, Denny ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said, sadly ; I knew my own 
 grandfather was engaged in that traffic. " But 
 if — if others are, I promise you, on my honour, I 
 never will embark in it," I added. 
 
 " 'Twill be more dangerous now than it has 
 been. There will be obstacles to crossing the 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 213 
 
 Channel which the contraband gentlemen have 
 not known for some time past. Have you not 
 heard the news ? " 
 
 " What news ? " Indeed I had thought of none 
 but my own affairs. A post had come in that very 
 evening from London, bringing intelligence of no 
 little importance even to poor me, as it turned out. 
 And the news was that his Majesty the King, 
 having been informed that a treaty of amity and 
 commerce had been signed between the Court of 
 France and certain persons employed by his 
 Majesty's revolted subjects in North America, 
 "has judged it necessary to send orders to his 
 ambassador to withdraw from the French Court, 
 . . . . and relying with the firmest con- 
 fidence upon the zealous and affectionate support 
 of his faithful people, he is determined to prepare 
 to exert, if it should be necessary, all the forces 
 and resources of his kingdoms, which he trusts will 
 be adequate to repel every insult and attack, and 
 to maintain and uphold the power and reputation 
 of this country." 
 
 So as I was coming out of Eye court-house,think- 
 ing of nothing but my enemies, and my trials, and 
 my triumphs, post-boys were gallopping all ovor the 
 
214 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 land to announce that we were at war with France. 
 One of them, as we made our way home, clattered 
 past us with his twanging horn, crying his news 
 of war with France. As we wound along the 
 plain, we could see the French lights across the 
 Channel. My life has lasted for fifty years since 
 then, and scarcely ever since, hut for very very 
 brief intervals, has that baleful war-light ceased 
 to burn. 
 
 The messenger who bore this important news 
 arrived after we left Eye, but, riding at a much 
 quicker pace than that which our doctor's nag 
 practised, overtook us ere Ave had reached our 
 own town of Winchelsea. All our town was 
 alive with the news in half an hour ; and in the 
 market-place, the public-houses, and from house 
 to house, people assembled and talked. So we 
 were at war again with our neighbours across the 
 Channel, as well as with our rebellious children 
 in America; and the rebellious children were 
 having the better of the parent at this time. We 
 boys at Pocock's had fought the war stoutly and 
 with great elation at first. Over our maps we 
 had pursued the rebels, and beaten them in re- 
 peated encounters. We routed them on Long 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 215 
 
 Island. We conquered them at Brandy wine. We 
 vanquished them gloriously at Bunker's Hill. We 
 marched triumphantly into Philadelphia with 
 Howe. We were quite bewildered when we had 
 to surrender with General Burgoyne at Saratoga; 
 being, somehow, not accustomed to hear of British 
 armies surrendering, and British valour being 
 beat. " We had a half-holiday for Long Island," 
 says Tom Parrot, sitting next to me in school. 
 "I suppose we shall be flogged all round for 
 Saratoga." As for those Frenchmen, we knew 
 of their treason for a long time past, and were 
 gathering up wrath against them. Protestant 
 Frenchmen, it was agreed, were of a different 
 sort ; and I think the banished Huguenots of 
 France have not been unworthy subjects of our 
 new sovereign. 
 
 There was one dear little Frenchwoman in 
 Winchelsea who I own was a sad rebel. When 
 Mrs. Barnard, talking about the war, turned 
 round to Agnes, and said, " Agnes, my child, on 
 what side are you ? " Mademoiselle de Ban- 
 blushed very red, and said, " I am a French girl, 
 and I am of the side of my country. Vive la 
 France ! vive le Roi ! " 
 
216 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 " Oh, Agnes ! oh, you perverted, ungrateful 
 little, little monster ! " cries Mrs. Barnard, be- 
 ginning to weep. 
 
 But the doctor, far from being angry, smiled 
 and looked pleased; and making Agnes a mock 
 reverence, he said, " Mademoiselle de Saverne, I 
 think a little Frenchwoman should be for France ; 
 and here is the tray, and we won't fight until 
 after supper." And as he spoke that night the 
 prayer appointed by his Church for the time 
 of war — prayed that we might be armed with 
 His defence who is the only giver of all victory — 
 I thought I never heard the good man's voice 
 more touching and solemn. 
 
 When this daily and nightly ceremony was 
 performed at the Rectory, a certain little person 
 who belonged to the Roman Catholic faith used 
 to sit aloof, her spiritual instructors forbidding 
 her to take part in our English worship. When 
 it was over, and the doctor's household had with- 
 drawn, Miss Agnes had a flushed, almost angry 
 face. 
 
 "But what am I to do, aunt Barnard?" said 
 the little rebel. "If I pray for you, I pray 
 that my country may be conquered, and that 
 
THE LAST OF MY SCHOOL-DAYS. 217 
 
 you may be saved and delivered out of our 
 hands." 
 
 "No, faith, my child, I think we will not 
 call upon thee for Amen," says the doctor, patting 
 her cheek. 
 
 " I don't know why you should wish to pre- 
 vail over my country," whimpers the little maid. 
 " I am sure I won't pray that any harm may 
 happen to you, and aunt Barnard, and Denny — 
 never, never ! " And in a passion of tears she 
 buried her head against the breast of the good 
 man, and we were all not a little moved. 
 
 Hand in hand we two young ones walked from 
 the Rectory to the Priory House, which was only 
 too near. I paused ere I rang at the bell, still 
 holding her wistful little hand in mine. 
 
 " You will never be my enemy, Denny, will 
 you ? " she said, looking up. 
 
 " My dear," I faltered out, " I will love you 
 for ever and ever ! " I thought of the infant 
 whom I brought home in my arms from the 
 sea-shore, and once more my dearest maiden was 
 held in them, and my heart throbbed with an 
 exquisite bliss. 
 
218 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 
 
 I promise you there was no doubt or hesitation 
 next Sunday regarding our good rector's opinions. 
 Ever .since the war with America began, he hud, 
 to the best of his power, exhorted his people to 
 be loyal, and testified to the authority of Cresar. 
 " War," he taught, " is not altogether an evil 
 and ordained of Heaven, as our illnesses an< 
 fevers doubtless are, for our good. It teaches 
 obedience and contentment under privations ; it for- 
 tifies courage ; it tests loyalty ; it gives occasion for 
 showing mercifulness of heart ; moderation in vic- 
 tory ; endurance and cheerfulness under defeat. The 
 brave who do battle victoriously in their country's 
 cause leave a legacy of honour to their children. 
 We English of the present day are the better for 
 Crecy, and Agincourt, and Blenheim. I do not 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. I 219 
 
 grudge the Scots their day of Bannockburn, nor 
 the French their Fontenoy. Such valour proves 
 the manhood of nations. When we have con- 
 quered the American rebellion, as I have no doubt 
 we shall do, I trust it will be found that these 
 rebellious children of ours have comported them- 
 selves in a manner becoming our English race, 
 that they have been hardy and resolute, merciful 
 and moderate. In that Declaration of War against 
 France, which has just reached us, and which 
 interests all England, and the men of this coast 
 especially, I have no more doubt in my mind that 
 the right is on our side, than I have that Queen 
 Elizabeth had a right to resist the Spanish 
 Armada. In an hour of almost equal peril, I 
 pray we may show the same watchfulness, con- 
 stancy, and valour; bracing ourselves to do the 
 duty before us, and leaving the issue to the Giver 
 of all Victory." 
 
 Ere he left the pulpit, our good rector an- 
 nounced that he would call a meeting for next 
 market-day in our town-hall — a meeting of gentry, 
 farmers, and seafaring men, to devise means for 
 the defence of our coast and harbours. The 
 French might be upon us any day; and all our 
 
220 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 people were in a buzz of excitement, Volunteers 
 and Fencibles patrolling our shores, and fisher- 
 men's glasses for ever on the look-out towards the 
 opposite coast. 
 
 We had a great meeting in the town-hall, and 
 of the speakers it was who should be most loyal to 
 king and country. Subscriptions for a Defence 
 Fund were straightway set afoot. It was deter- 
 mined the Cinque Port towns should raise a 
 regiment of Fencibles. In Winchelsea alone the 
 gentry and chief tradesmen agreed to raise a troop 
 of volunteer horse to patrol along the shore and 
 communicate with depots of the regular military 
 formed at Dover, Hastings, and Deal. The fisher- 
 men were enrolled to serve as coast and look-out 
 men. From Margate to Folkestone the coast 
 was watched and patrolled : and privateers were 
 equipped and sent to sea from many of the ports 
 along our line. On the French shore we heard of 
 similar warlike preparations. The fishermen on 
 either coast did not harm each other as yet, though 
 presently they too fell to blows : and I have sad 
 reason to know that a certain ancestor of mine 
 did not altogether leave off his relations with his 
 French friends. 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 221 
 
 However, at the meeting in the town-hall, grand- 
 father came forward with a subscription and a long 
 speech. He said that he and his co-religionists 
 and countrymen of France had now for near a 
 century experienced British hospitality and free- 
 dom ; that when driven from home by Papist 
 persecution, they had found protection here, and 
 that now was the time for French Protestants to 
 show that they were grateful and faithful subjects 
 of King George. Grandfather's speech was very 
 warmly received ; that old man had lungs, and a 
 knack of speaking, which never failed him. He 
 could spin out sentences by the yard, as I knew, 
 who had heard him expound for half hours together 
 with that droning voice which had long ceased 
 (Heaven help me !) to carry conviction to the heart 
 of grandfather's graceless grandson. 
 
 When he had done, Mr. James Weston, of the 
 Priory, spoke, and with a good spirit too. (He 
 and my dear friend, Mr. Joe, were both present, 
 and seated with the gentlefolks and magistrates at 
 the raised end of the hall.) Mr. James said that 
 as Mr. Duval had spoken for the French Pro- 
 testants, he, for his part, could vouch for the 
 loyalty of another body of men, the Roman Ca- 
 
222 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 tholics of England. In the hour of danger he 
 trusted that he and his brethren were as good 
 subjects as any Protestants in the realm. And as 
 a trifling test of his loyalty — though he believed 
 his neighbour Duval was a richer man than him- 
 self (grandfather shrieked a " No, no ! " and there 
 was a roar of laughter in the hall) — he offered as 
 a contribution to a defence fund to lay down two 
 guineas for Mr. Duval's one ! 
 
 " I will give my guinea, I am sure," says grand- 
 father, very meekly, " and may that poor man's 
 mite be accepted and useful ! " 
 
 " One guinea ! " roars "Weston ; " I will give a 
 hundred guineas !" 
 
 " And I another hundred," says his brother. 
 " We will show as Roman Catholic gentry of 
 England, that we are not inferior in loyalty to 
 our Protestant brethren." 
 
 " Put my fazer-in-law Peter Duval down for one 
 'ondred guinea ! " calls out my mother, in her 
 deep voice. " Put me down for twenty-fife guinea, 
 and my son Denis for twenty-fife guinea ! We 
 have eaten of English bread and we are grateful, 
 and we sing with all our hearts, God save King 
 George ! " 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 
 
 223 
 
 Mother's speech was received with great ap- 
 )lause. Farmers, gentry, shopkeepers, rich and 
 >or, crowded forward to offer their subscription, 
 lefore the meeting broke up, a very handsome 
 sum was promised for the arming and equipment 
 of the Winchelsea Fencibles ; and old Colonel 
 Evans, who had been present at Minden and 
 Fontenoy, and young Mr. Barlow, who had lost a 
 leg at Brandy wine, said that they would superin- 
 tend the drilling of the Winchelsea Fencibles, 
 until such time as his Majesty should send officers 
 of his own to command the corps. It was agreed 
 that everj'body spoke and acted with public spirit. 
 "Let the French land!" was our cry. "The 
 men of Bye, the men of Winchelsea, the men of 
 Hastings, wall have a guard of honour to receive 
 them on the shore ! " 
 
 That the French intended to try and land was 
 an opinion pretty general amongst us, especially 
 when his Majesty's proclamation came, announcing 
 the great naval and military armaments which the 
 enemy was preparing. We had certain communi- 
 cations with Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk still, 
 and our fishing boats sometimes went as far as 
 Ostend. Our informants brought us full news of 
 
224 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 all that was going on in those ports ; of the troops 
 assembled there, and royal French ships and 
 privateers fitted out. I was not much surprised 
 one night to find our old Boulogne ally Bidois 
 smoking his pipe with grandfather in the kitchen, 
 and regaling himself with a glass of his own 
 brandy, which I know had not paid unto Caesar 
 Csesar's due. The pigeons on the hill were 
 making their journeys still. Once, when I went 
 up to visit Farmer Perreau, I found M. de la 
 Motte and a companion of his sending off one of 
 these birds, and La Motte's friend said sulkily, in 
 German, " What does the little Sjntzbube do 
 here ? " " Versteht vielleicht Dcutsch," mur- 
 mured La Motte, hurriedly, and turned round 
 to me with a grin of welcome, and asked news 
 of grandfather and my mother. 
 
 This ally of the chevalier's was a lieutenant 
 Lutterloh, who had served in America in one of 
 the Hessian regiments on our side, and who was 
 now pretty often in Winchelsea, where he talked 
 magnificently about war and his own achieve- 
 ments, both on the Continent and in our 
 American provinces. He lived near Canterbury 
 as I heard. I guessed, of course, that he ayus 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 225 
 
 ie of the " Mackerel " party, and engaged in 
 smuggling, like La Motte, the Westerns, and my 
 graceless old grandfather and his ally, Mr. Rudge, 
 of Eye. I shall have presently to tell how bitterly 
 Monsieur de la Motte had afterwards to rue his 
 acquaintance with this German. 
 
 Knowing the chevalier's intimacy with the 
 gentlemen connected with the Mackerel fishery, 
 I had little cause to be surprised at seeing him 
 and the German captain together ; though a cir- 
 cumstance now arose, which might have induced 
 me to suppose him engaged in practices yet more 
 lawless and dangerous than smuggling. I was 
 walking up to the hill — must I let slip the whole 
 truth, madame, in my memoirs ? Well, it never 
 did or will hurt anybody; and, as it only con- 
 cerns you and me, may be told without fear. I 
 frequently, I say, walked up the hill to look at 
 these pigeons, for a certain young person was a 
 great lover of pigeons too, and occasionally would 
 come to see Farmer Perreau's columbarium. Did 
 I love the sight of this dear white dove more than 
 any other ? Did it come sometimes fluttering to my 
 heart ? Ah ! the old blood throbs there with the 
 mere recollection. I feel — shall we say how many 
 
 15 
 
228 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 jeavs younger, my dear? In fine, those little 
 walks to the pigeon-house are among the sweetest 
 of all our stores of memories. 
 
 I was coming away, then, once from this house 
 of billing and cooing, when I chanced to espy an 
 old schoolmate, Thomas Measom by name, who 
 was exceedingly proud of his new uniform as a 
 private of our regiment of Winchelsea Fencibles, 
 was never tired of wearing it, and always walked 
 out with his firelock over his shoulder. As I came 
 up to Tom, he had just discharged his piece, and 
 hit his bird too. One of Farmer Perreau's pigeons 
 lay dead at Tom's feet — one of the carrier pigeons, 
 and the young fellow was rather scared at what he 
 had done, especially when he saw a little piece of 
 paper tied under the wing of the slain bird. 
 
 He could not read the message, which was 
 written in our German handwriting, and was only 
 in three lines, which I was better able to decipher 
 than Tom. I supposed at first that the message had 
 to do with the smuggling business, in which so many 
 of our friends were engaged, and Measom walked 
 off rather hurriedly, being by no means anxious to 
 fall into the farmer's hands, who would be but 
 ill-pleased at having one of his birds killed. 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 227 
 
 I put the paper in my pocket, not telling Tom 
 what I thought about the matter : but I did have 
 a thought, and determined to commence with my 
 dear Doctor Barnard regarding it. I asked to see 
 him at the Rectory, and there read to him the con- 
 tents of the paper which the poor messenger was 
 bearing when Tom's ball brought him down. 
 
 My good doctor was not a little excited and 
 pleased when I interpreted the pigeon's message 
 to him, and especially praised me for my reticence 
 with Tom upon the subject. " It may be a rnara's 
 nest we have discovered, Denny, my boy," says the 
 doctor ; "it may be a matter of importance. I 
 will see Colonel Evans on this subject to-night." 
 We went off to Mr. Evans's lodgings : he was the 
 old officer w r ho had fought under the Duke of 
 Cumberland, and was, like the doctor, a justice of 
 peace for our county. I translated for the colonel 
 the paper, which was to the following effect : — 
 [Left blank by Mr. Thackeray.] 
 
 Mr. Evans looked at a paper before him, con- 
 taining an authorized list of the troops at the 
 various Cinque Port stations, and found the poor 
 pigeon's information quite correct. Was this the 
 chevalier's writing ? the gentleman asked. No, I 
 
 15—2 
 
228 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 did not think it was M. de la Motte's handwriting. 
 Then I mentioned the other German in whose 
 company I had seen M. de la Motte : the Monsieur 
 Liitterloh whom Mr. Evans said he knew quite 
 well. " If Liitterloh is engaged in the business, " 
 said Mr. Evans, " we shall know more about it;" 
 and he whispered something to Dr. Barnard. 
 Meanwhile he praised me exceedingly for my 
 caution, enjoined me to say nothing regarding the 
 matter, and to tell my comrade to hold his tongue. 
 .As for Tom Measom, he was less cautious. 
 Tom talked about his adventure to one or two 
 cronies ; and to his parents, who were tradesmen 
 like my own. They occupied a snug house in 
 Winchelsea, with a garden and a good paddock. 
 One clay their horse was found dead in the stable. 
 Another day their cow burst and died. There 
 used to be strange acts of revenge perpetrated in 
 those days; and farmers, tradesmen, or gentry, 
 who rendered themselves obnoxious to certain 
 parties, had often to rue the enmity which they 
 provoked. That my unhappy old grandfather was, 
 and remained in the smugglers' league, I fear is 
 a fact which I can't deny or palliate. He paid a 
 heavy penalty to be sure, but my narrative is not 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 229 
 
 advanced far enough to allow of my telling how 
 the old man was visited for his sins. 
 
 There came to visit our Winchelsea magistrates 
 Captain Pearson, of the Serapis frigate, then in the 
 Downs; and I remembered this gentleman, having 
 seen him at the house of my kind patron, Sir 
 Peter Denis, in London. Mr. Pearson also recol- 
 lected me as the little boy who had shot the high- 
 wayman ; and was much interested when he heard 
 of the carrier pigeon, and the news which he bore. 
 It appeared that he, as well as Colonel Evans, were 
 acquainted with Mr. Lutterloh. " You are a good 
 lad," the captain said ; " but we know," said the 
 captain, " all the news those birds carry." 
 
 At this time our whole coast was alarmed, and 
 hourly expectant of a French invasion. The French 
 fleet was said to outnumber ours in the Channel : 
 the French army, we knew, was enormously 
 superior to our own. I can remember the terror 
 and the excitement; the panic of some, the 
 braggart behaviour of others ; and specially I 
 recall the way in which our church was cleared one 
 Sunday, by a rumour which ran through the pews, 
 that the French were actually landed. How the 
 people rushed away from the building, and some 
 
230 DENTS DUVAL. 
 
 of them whom I remember the loudest amongst 
 the braggarts, and singing their " Come if you 
 dare ! " Mother and I in our pew, and Captain 
 Pearson in the rector's, were the only people who 
 sate out the sermon, of which Doctor Barnard 
 would not abridge a line, and which, I own, I 
 thought was extremely tantalizing and provoking 
 He gave the blessing with more than ordinary 
 slowness and solemnity ; and had to open his o 
 pulpit-door and stalk down the steps withou 
 the accompaniment of his usual escort, the clerk, 
 who had skipped out of his desk, and run away 
 like the rest of the congregation. Doctor Barnard 
 had me home to dinner at the Kectory ; my good 
 mother being much too shrewd to be jealous of 
 this kindness shown to me and not to her. When 
 she waited upon Mrs. Barnard with her basket of 
 laces and perfumeries, mother stood as became her 
 station as a tradeswoman. " For thee, my son, 
 'tis different," she said. " I will have thee be a 
 gentleman." And faith, I hope I have done the 
 best of my humble endeavour to fulfil the good 
 lady's wish. 
 
 The war, the probable descent of the French 
 and the means of resisting the invasion, of course 
 
 , I 
 
 n g- 
 ary 
 
 wn 
 
 out 
 
I EXTEK HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 231 
 
 formed the subject of the gentlemen's conversation; 
 and though I did not understand all that passed, I 
 was made to comprehend subsequently, and may as 
 well mention facts here which only came to be 
 explained to me later. The pigeons took over 
 certain information to France, in return for that 
 which they brought. By these and other mes- 
 sengers our Government was kept quite well 
 instructed as to the designs and preparations of 
 the enemy, and I remember how it was stated that 
 his Majesty had occult correspondents of his own 
 in France, whose information was of surprising 
 accuracy. Master Ltitterloh dabbled in the infor- 
 mation line. He had been a soldier in America, a 
 recruiting crimp here, and I know not what besides ; 
 but the information he gave was given under the 
 authority of his employers, to whom in return he 
 communicated the information he received from 
 France. The worthy gentleman was, in fact, a 
 spy by trade ; and though he was not born to be 
 hanged, came by an awful payment for his treachery, 
 as I shall have to tell in due time. As for M. de 
 la Motte, the gentlemen were inclined to think 
 that his occupation was smuggling, not treason, 
 and in that business the chevalier was allied with 
 
232 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 scores, nay hundreds, of people round about him. 
 One I knew, my pious grandpapa : other two lived 
 at the Priory, and I could count many more even 
 in our small town, namely, all the Mackerel men 
 to whom I had been sent on the night of poor 
 Madame de Saverne's funeral. 
 
 Captain Pearson shook me by the hand very 
 warmly when I rose to go home, and I saw, by the 
 way in which the good doctor regarded me, that 
 he was meditating some special kindness in my 
 behalf. It came very soon, and at a moment when 
 I was plunged in the very dismalest depths of 
 despair. My dear little Agnes, though a boarder 
 at the house of those odious Westons, had leave 
 given to her to visit Mrs. Barnard ; and that kind 
 lady never failed to give me some signal by which 
 I knew that my little sweetheart was at the Eectory. 
 One day the message would be, " The rector wants 
 back his volume of the Arabian Nights, and Denis 
 had better bring it." Another time, my dearest 
 Mrs. Barnard would write on a card, "You may 
 come to tea, if you have done your mathematics 
 well," or, " You may have a French lesson," and 
 so forth — and there, sure enough, would be my 
 sweet little tutoress. How old, my dear, was 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 233 
 
 Juliet when she and young Capulet began their 
 loves ? My sweetheart had not done playing with 
 dolls when our little passion began to bud : and 
 the sweet talisman of innocence I wore in my 
 heart hath never left me through life, and shielded 
 me from many a temptation. 
 
 Shall I make a clean breast of it ? We young 
 hypocrites used to write each other little notes, 
 and pop them in certain cunning corners known 
 to us two. Juliet used to write in a great round 
 hand in French ; Komeo replied, I daresay, with 
 doubtful spelling. 
 
 We had devised sundry queer receptacles where 
 our letters lay poste restante. There was the 
 China pot-pourri jar on the Japan cabinet in the 
 drawing-room. There, into the midst of the roses 
 and spices, two cunning young people used to 
 thrust their hands, and stir about spice and rose- 
 leaves, until they lighted upon a little bit of folded 
 paper more fragrant and precious than all your 
 flowers and cloves. Then in the hall we had a 
 famous post-office, namely, the barrel of the great 
 blunderbuss over the mantelpiece, from which hung 
 a ticket on which " loaded " was written, only I 
 knew better, having helped Martin, the doctor's 
 
234 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 man, to clean the gun. Then in the churchyard 
 under the wing of the left cherub on Sir Jasper 
 Billing's tomb, there was a certain hole in which 
 we put little scraps of paper written in a cipher 
 devised by ourselves, and on these scraps of 
 paper we wrote : — well, can you guess what ? 
 We wrote the old song which young people 
 have sung ever since singing began. We wrote 
 "Amo, amas," &c, in our childish handwriting. 
 Ah ! thanks be to heaven, though the hands 
 tremble a little now, they write the words still ! 
 My dear, the last time I was in Winchelsea, 
 I went and looked at Sir Jasper's tomb, and at 
 the hole under the cherub's wing; there was 
 only a little mould and moss there. Mrs. Bar- 
 nard found and read one or more of these letters, 
 as the dear lady told me afterwards, but 
 there was no harm in them ; and when the 
 doctor put on his grand serieux (as to be sure 
 he had a right to do), and was for giving the 
 culprits a scolding, his wife reminded him of a 
 time when he was captain of Harrow School, 
 and found time to write other exercises than 
 Greek and Latin to a young lady who lived in 
 the village. Of these matters, I say, she told 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 235 
 
 me in later days : in all days, after our acquaint- 
 ance began, she was my truest friend and pro- 
 tectress. 
 
 But this dearest and happiest season of my life 
 (for so I think it, though I am at this moment 
 happy, most happy, and thankful) was to come 
 to an abrupt ending, and poor Humpty Dumpty 
 having climbed the wall of bliss, was to have a 
 great and sudden fall, which, for a while, per- 
 fectly crushed and bewildered him. I have said 
 what harm came to my companion Tom Measom, 
 for meddling in Monsieur Ltitterloh's affairs and 
 talking of them. Now, there were two who 
 knew Meinherr's secret, Tom Measom, namely, 
 and Denis Duval; and though Denis held his 
 tongue about the matter, except in conversing 
 with the rector and Captain Pearson, Liitterloh 
 came to know that I had read and explained 
 the pigeon-despatch of which Measom had shot 
 the bearer ; and, indeed, it was Captain Pearson 
 himself, with whom the German had sundry 
 private dealings, who was Lutterloh's informer. 
 Lutterloh's rage, and that of his accomplice, 
 against me, when they learned the unlucky part 
 I had had in the discovery, were still greater 
 
236 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 than their wrath against Measom. The Chevalier 
 de la Motte, who had once been neutral, and 
 even kind to me, was confirmed in a steady hatred 
 against me, and held me as an enemy whom he 
 was determined to get out of his way. And 
 hence came that catastrophe which precipitated 
 Humpty Dumpty Duval, Esq., off the wall from 
 which he was gazing at his beloved, as she dis- 
 ported in her garden below. 
 
 One evening — shall I ever forget that evening? 
 It was Friday, [Left blank by Mr. Thackeray] — 
 
 after my little maiden had been taking tea with 
 Mrs. Barnard, I had leave to escort her to her 
 home at Mr. Weston's at the Priory, which is 
 not a hundred yards from the Kectory door. All 
 the evening the company had been talking about 
 battle and danger, and invasion, and the war 
 news from France and America ; and my little 
 maiden sate silent, with her great eyes looking 
 at one speaker and another, and stitching at her 
 sampler. At length the clock tolled the hour 
 of nine, when Miss Agnes must return to her 
 guardian. I had the honour to serve as her 
 escort, and would have wished the journey to be 
 ten times as long as that brief one between the 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 237 
 
 two Louses. " Good night, Agnes ! " " Good 
 night, Denis ! On Sunday I shall see you ! " 
 We whisper one little minute under the stars ; the 
 little hand lingers in mine with a soft pressure ; 
 we hear the servants' footsteps over the marble 
 floor within, and I am gone. Somehow, at night 
 and at morning, at lessons and play, I was 
 always thinking about this little maid. 
 
 "I shall see you on Sunday," and this was 
 Friday ! Even that interval seemed long to me. 
 Little did either of us know what a long separa- 
 tion was before us, and what strange changes, 
 dangers, adventures, I was to undergo ere I again 
 should press that dearest hand. 
 
 The gate closed on her, and I walked away by 
 the church-wall, and towards my own home. I 
 was thinking of that happy, that unforgotten 
 night of my childhood, when I had been the 
 means of rescuing the dearest little maiden from 
 an awful death ; how, since then, I had cherished 
 her with my love of love; and what a blessing 
 she had been to my young life. For many years 
 she was its only cheerer and companion. At 
 home I had food and shelter, and, from mother 
 at least, kindness, but no society ; it was not until 
 
238 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 I became a familiar of the good doctor's roof 
 that I knew friendship and kind companionship. 
 What gratitude ought I not to feel for a boon 
 so precious as there was conferred on me ? Ah, 
 I vowed, I prayed, that I might make myself 
 worthy of such friends; and so was sauntering 
 homewards, lost in these happy thoughts, when — 
 when something occurred which at once decided 
 the whole course of my after-life. 
 
 This something was a blow with a bludgeon 
 across my ear and temple which sent me to the 
 ground utterly insensible. I remember half-a- 
 dozen men darkling in an alley by which I had to 
 pass, then a scuffle and an oath or two, and a 
 voice crying, " Give it him, curse him ! " and 
 then I was down on the pavement as flat and life- 
 less as the flags on which I lay. When I woke 
 up, I was almost blinded with blood ; I was in a 
 covered cart with a few more groaning wretches ; 
 and when I uttered a moan, a brutal voice growled 
 out with many oaths an instant order to be silent, 
 or my head should be broken again. I woke up in 
 a ghastly pain and perplexity, but presently fainted 
 once more. When I awoke again to a half-conscious- 
 ness I felt myself being lifted from the cart and 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 239 
 
 carried, and then flung into the hows of a hoat, 
 where I suppose I was joined by the rest of the 
 dismal cart's company. Then some one came 
 and washed my bleeding head with salt water 
 (which made it throb and ache very cruelly). 
 Then the man, whispering, " I'm a friend," 
 bound my forehead tight with a handkerchief, and 
 the boat pulled out to a brig that was lying as 
 near to land as she could come, and the same man 
 who had struck and sworn at me would have 
 stabbed me once more as I reeled up the side, but 
 that my friend interposed in my behalf. It was 
 Tom Hookham, to whose family I had given the 
 three guineas, and who assuredly saved my life on 
 that day, for the villain who attempted it after- 
 wards confessed that he intended to do me an 
 injury. I was thrust into the forepeak with three 
 or four more maimed and groaning wretches, and, 
 the wind serving, the lugger made for her destina- 
 tion, whatever that might be. What a horrid night 
 of fever and pain it was ! I remember I fancied 
 I was carrying Agnes out of the water ; I called 
 out her name repeatedly, as Tom Hookham in- 
 formed me, who came with a lantern and looked 
 at us poor wretches huddled in our shed. Tom 
 
240 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 brought me more water, and in pain and fever I 
 slept through a wretched night. 
 
 In the morning our tender came up with a 
 frigate that was lying off a town, and I was carried 
 up the ship's side on Hookham's arm. The 
 captain's boat happened to pull from shore at the 
 very same time, and the captain and his friends, 
 and our wretched party of pressed men with their 
 captors, thus stood face to face. My wonder and 
 delight were not a little aroused when I saw 
 the captain was no other than my dear rector's 
 friend, Captain Pearson. My face was bound up, 
 and so pale and bloody as to be scarcely recog- 
 nizable. " So, my man," he said, rather sternly, 
 "you have been for fighting, have you? This 
 comes of resisting men employed on his Majesty's 
 service." 
 
 " I never resisted," I said ; "I was struck from 
 behind, Captain Pearson." 
 
 The captain looked at me with a haughty, sur- 
 prised air. Indeed, a more disreputable-looking 
 lad he scarcely could see. After a moment he 
 said, "Why, bless my soul, is it you, my boy? 
 Is it young Duval ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," I said ; and whether from emotion, 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 241 
 
 or fever, or loss of blood and weakness, I felt my 
 brain going again, and once more fainted and fell. 
 When I came to myself, I found myself in a 
 berth in the Serapis, where there happened to be 
 but one other patient. I had had fever and 
 delirium for a day, during which it appears I was 
 constantly calling out, " Agnes, Agnes ! " and 
 offering to shoot highwaymen. A very kind 
 surgeon's mate had charge of me, and showed me 
 much more attention than a poor wounded lad 
 could have had a right to expect in my wretched 
 humiliating position. On the fifth day I was well 
 again, though still very weak and pale ; but not 
 too weak to be unable to go to the captain when 
 he sent for me to his cabin. My friend the 
 surgeon's mate showed me the way. 
 
 Captain Pearson was writing at his table, but 
 sent away his secretary, and when the latter was 
 gone shook hands with me very kindly, and talked 
 unreservedly about the strange accident which had 
 brought me on board his ship. His officer had 
 information, he said, "and I had information," 
 the captain went on to say, " that some very good 
 seamen of what we called the Mackerel party were 
 
 16 
 
242 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 to be taken at a public-house in Winchelsea," and 
 his officer netted a half-dozen of them there, 
 "who will be much better employed" (says 
 Captain Pearson) " in serving the King in one of 
 his Majesty's vessels, than in cheating him on 
 board their own. You were a stray fish that was 
 caught along with the rest. I know your story. 
 I have talked it over with our good friends at the 
 Rectory. For a young fellow, you have managed 
 to make yourself some queer enemies in your 
 native town ; and you are best out of it. On the 
 night when I first saw you, I promised our friends 
 to take you as a first-class volunteer. In due time 
 you will pass your examination, and be rated as a 
 midshipman. Stay — your mother is in Deal. 
 You can go ashore, and she will fit you out. Here 
 are letters for you. I wrote to Dr. Barnard as 
 soon as I found who you were." 
 
 With this, I took leave of my good patron and 
 captain, and ran off to read my two letters. One, 
 from Mrs. Barnard and the doctor conjointly, told 
 how alarmed they had been at my being lost, 
 until Captain Pearson wrote to say how I had been 
 found. The letter from my good mother informed 
 me, in her rough way, how she was waiting at the 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 243 
 
 Blue Anchor Inn in Deal, and would have come to 
 me ; but my new comrades would laugh at a rough 
 old woman coming off in a shore-boat to look after 
 her boy. It was better that I should go to her 
 at Deal, where I should be fitted out in a way 
 becoming an officer in his Majesty's service. To 
 Deal accordingly I went by the next boat; the 
 good-natured surgeon's mate, who had attended 
 me and taken a fancy to me, lending me a clean 
 shirt, and covering the wound on my head neatly, 
 so that it was scarcely seen under my black hair. 
 " Le pauvre cher enfant ! comme il est pale I " 
 How my mother's eyes kindled with kindness as 
 she saw me ! The good soul insisted on dressing 
 my hair with her own hands, and tied it in a smart 
 queue with a black ribbon. Then she took me off 
 to a tailor in the town, and provided me with an 
 outfit a lord's son might have brought on board ; 
 and when she saw me dressed in my midship- 
 man's uniform, she put such a great heavy purse 
 of guineas into my pocket, that I wondered at her 
 bounty. I suppose I cocked my hat and strutted 
 very consequentially by her side on the Mall. She 
 had two or three friends, tradesfolk like herself, 
 and partners no doubt in certain dubious maritime 
 
 16-2 
 
244 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 transactions at which I have hinted ; but these she 
 did not care to visit. " Remember, my son," said 
 she, " thou art a gentleman now. Tradespeople 
 are no company for thee. For me 'tis different. 
 I am but a poor hairdresser and shopkeeper." 
 And such of her acquaintance as she met she 
 saluted with great dignity, but never offered to 
 present me to one of them. We supped together 
 at the Anchor, and talked about home, that was 
 but two days off, and yet so distant. She never 
 once mentioned my little maiden to me, nor did I 
 somehow dare to allude to her. Mother had pre- 
 pared a nice bed-room for me at the inn, to which 
 she made me retire early, as I was still weak and 
 faint after my fever ; and when I was in my bed 
 she came and knelt down by it, and with tears 
 rolling down her furrowed face offered up a prayer 
 in her native German language, that He who had 
 been pleased to succour me from perils hitherto, 
 would guard me for the future, and watch over me 
 in the voyage of life which was now about to begin. 
 Now, as it is drawing to its close, I look back at it 
 with an immense awe and thankfulness, for the 
 strange dangers from which I have escaped, the 
 great blessings I have enjoyed. 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 245 
 
 I wrote a long letter to Mrs. Barnard, narrating 
 my adventures as cheerfully as I could, though, 
 truth to say, when I thought of home and a little 
 Someone there, a large tear or two blotted my 
 paper, hut I had reason to be grateful for the 
 kindness I had received, and was not a little elated 
 at being actually a gentleman, and in a fair way to 
 be an officer in his Majesty's navy. My uniforms 
 were ready in a very short time. Twenty-four 
 hours after they were ordered Mr. Levy brought 
 them to our inn, and I had the pleasure of putting 
 them on ; and walked on the Parade, with my hat 
 cocked, my hanger by my side, and mother on my 
 arm. Though I was perfectly well pleased with 
 myself, I think she was the prouder of the two. 
 To one or two tradesmen and their wives, whom 
 she knew, she gave a most dignified nod of recog- 
 nition this day ; but passed on without speaking, 
 as if she would have them understand that they 
 ought to keep their distance when she was in such 
 fine company. "Always respect yourself, my 
 son," she said. " When I am in the shop, I am 
 in the shop, and my customers' very humble 
 servant ; but when I am walking on Deal Parade 
 
246 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 with thee, I am walking with a young gentleman 
 in his Majesty's navy. And Heaven has blessed 
 us of late, my child, and thou shalt have the 
 means of making as good a figure as any young 
 officer in the service." 
 
 As I was strutting on the Mall, on the second day 
 of my visit to Deal, what should I see but my dear 
 Doctor Barnard's well-known postchaise nearing 
 us from the Dover Eoad ? The doctor and his 
 wife looked with a smiling surprise at my altered 
 appearance ; and as they stepped out of their chaise 
 at the inn, the good lady fairly put her arms 
 round me, and gave me a kiss. Mother, from her 
 room, saw the embrace, I suppose. " Thou hast 
 found good friends there, Denis, my son," she 
 said, with sadness in her deep voice. " 'Tis well. 
 They can befriend thee better than I can. Now 
 thou art well, I may depart in peace. When thou 
 art ill, the old mother will come to thee, and 
 will bless thee alwa}^, my son." She insisted upon 
 setting out on her return homewards that after- 
 noon. She had friends at Hythe, Folkestone, 
 and Dover (as I knew well), and would put up 
 with one or other of them. She had before packed 
 my new chest with wonderful neatness. What- 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 247 
 
 ever her feelings might be at our parting, she 
 showed no signs of tears or sorrow, but mounted 
 her little chaise in the inn-yard, and, without 
 looking back, drove away on her solitary journey. 
 The landlord of the Anchor and his wife bade her 
 farewell, very cordially and respectfully. They 
 asked me, would I not step into the bar and take a 
 glass of wine or spirits ? I have said that I never 
 drank either ; and suspect that my mother fur- 
 nished my host with some of these stores out of 
 those fishing-boats of which she was owner. "If 
 I had an only son, and such a good-looking one," 
 Mrs. Boniface was pleased to say (can I, after such 
 a fine compliment, be so ungrateful as to forget 
 her name ?) — " If I had an only son, and could 
 leave him as well off as Mrs. Duval can leave you, 
 i" wouldn't send him to sea in war-time, that I 
 wouldn't." "And though you don't drink any 
 wine, some of your friends on board may," my 
 landlord added, " and they are always welcome at 
 the Blue Anchor." This was not the first time I 
 had heard that my mother was rich. " If she 
 be so," I said to my host, " indeed it is more than 
 I know." On which he and his wife both com- 
 mended me for my caution ; adding with a know- 
 
248 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 ing smile, " We know more than we tell, Mr. 
 Duval. Have you ever heard of Mr. Weston? 
 Have you ever heard of Monsieur de la Motte ? 
 
 We know where Boulogne is, and Ost " 
 
 "Hush, wife," here breaks in my landlord. " If 
 the captain don't wish to talk, why should he ? 
 There is the bell ringing from the Benbow and 
 your dinner going up to the doctor, Mr. Duval." 
 It was indeed as he said, and I sate down in the 
 company of my good friends, bringing a fine 
 appetite to their table. 
 
 The doctor on his arrival had sent a messenger 
 to his friend, Captain Pearson, and whilst we were 
 at our meal, the captain arrived in his own boat 
 from the ship, and insisted that Dr. and Mrs. 
 Barnard should take their dessert in his cabin on 
 board. This procured Mr. Denis Duval the 
 honour of an invitation, and I and my new sea- 
 chest were accommodated in the boat and taken 
 to the frigate. My box was consigned to the 
 gunner's cabin, where my hammock was now 
 slung. After sitting a short time at Mr. Pearson's 
 table, a brother-midshipman gave me a hint to 
 withdraw, and I made the acquaintance of my com- 
 rades, of whom there were about a dozen on board 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 249 
 
 the Serapis. Though only a volunteer, I was taller 
 and older than many of the midshipmen. They 
 knew who I was, of course — the son of a shopkeeper 
 at Winchelsea. Then, and afterwards, I had my 
 share of rough jokes, you may be sure ; but I took 
 them with good humour ; and I had to fight my 
 way as I had learned to do at school before. There 
 is no need to put down here the number of black 
 eyes and bloody noses which I received and deli- 
 vered. I am sure I bore but little malice : and, 
 thank Heaven, never wronged a man so much as 
 to be obliged to hate him afterwards. Certain 
 men there were who hated me : but they are gone, 
 and I am here, with a pretty clean conscience, 
 Heaven be praised ; and little the worse for their 
 enmity. 
 
 The first-lieutenant of our ship, Mr. Page, was 
 related to Mrs. Barnard, and this kind lady gave 
 him such a character of her very grateful, humble 
 servant, and narrated my adventures to him so 
 pathetically, that Mr. Page took me into his special 
 favour, and interested some of my messmates in 
 my behalf. The story of the highwayman caused 
 endless talk and jokes against me which I took in 
 good part, and established my footing among my 
 
250 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 messmates by adopting the plan I had followed at 
 school, and taking an early opportunity to fight a 
 well-known bruiser amongst our company of mid- 
 shipmen. You must know they called me 
 "Soapsuds/' "Powderpuff," and like names, in 
 consequence of my grandfather's known trade of 
 hair-dresser ; and one of my comrades bantering 
 me one day, cried, " I say, Soapsuds, where was it 
 you hit the highwayman ?" " There," said I, and 
 gave him a clean left-handed blow on his nose, 
 which must have caused him to see a hundred 
 blue lights. I know about five minutes afterwards 
 he gave me just such another blow ; and we fought 
 it out and were good friends ever after. What is 
 this ? Did I not vow as I was writing the last 
 page yesterday that I would not say a word about 
 my prowess at fisticuffs ? You see we are ever 
 making promises to be good, and forgetting them. 
 I suppose other people can say as much. 
 
 Before leaving the ship my kind friends once 
 more desired to see me, and Mrs. Barnard, putting 
 a finger to her lip, took out from her pocket a little 
 packet, which she placed in my hand. I thought 
 she was giving me money, and felt somehow dis- 
 appointed at being so treated by her. But when 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 251 
 
 she was gone to shore I opened the parcel, and 
 found a locket there, and a little curl of glossy 
 black hair. Can you guess whose ? Along with 
 the locket was a letter in French, in a large girlish 
 hand, in which the writer said, that night and day 
 she prayed for her dear Denis. And where, think 
 you, the locket is now ? where it has been for 
 forty-two years, and where it will remain when a 
 faithful heart that beats under it hath ceased to 
 throb. 
 
 At gunfire our friends took leave of the frigate, 
 little knowiug the fate that was in store for many 
 on board her. In three weeks from that day what 
 a change ! The glorious misfortune which befel 
 us is written in the annals of our country. 
 
 On the very evening whilst Captain Pearson 
 was entertaining his friends from Winchelsea, he 
 received orders to sail for Hull, and place himself 
 under the command of the admiral there. From 
 the Humber we presently were despatched north- 
 ward to Scarborough. There had been not a little 
 excitement along the whole northern coast for 
 some time past, in consequence of the appearance 
 of some American privateers, who had ransacked a 
 Scottish nobleman's castle, and levied contributions 
 
252 DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 from a Cumberland seaport town. As we were 
 close in with Scarborough a boat came off with 
 letters from the magistrates of that place, announc- 
 ing that this squadron had actually been seen off 
 the coast. The commodore of this wandering pira- 
 tical expedition was known to be a rebel Scotch- 
 man : who fought with a rope round his neck to 
 be sure. No doubt many of us youngsters vapoured 
 about the courage with which we would engage him, 
 and made certain, if we could only meet with him, 
 of seeing him hang from his own yardarm. It was 
 Diis aliter visum, as we used to say at Pocock's ; 
 and it was we threw deuceace too. Traitor, if you 
 will, was Monsieur John Paul Jones, afterwards 
 knight of his Most Christian Majesty's Order of 
 Merit ; but a braver traitor never wore sword. 
 
 We had been sent for in order to protect a fleet 
 of merchantmen that were bound to the Baltic, and 
 were to sail under the convoy of our ship and the 
 Countess of Scarborough, commanded by Captain 
 Piercy. And thus it came about that after being 
 twenty-five days in his Majesty's service, I had the 
 fortune to be present at one of the most severe and 
 desperate combats that has been fought in our or 
 any time. 
 
 
I ENTER HIS MAJESTY'S NAVY. 253 
 
 I shall not attempt to tell that story of the battle 
 of the 23rd September, which ended in our glorious 
 captain striking his own colours to our superior 
 and irresistible enemy. Sir Eichard has told the 
 story of his disaster in words nobler than any I 
 could supply, who, though indeed engaged in that 
 fearful action in which our flag went down before 
 a renegade Briton and his motley crew, saw but a 
 very small portion of the battle which ended so 
 fatally for us. It did not commence till nightfall. 
 How well I remember the sound of the enemy's 
 gun of which the shot crashed into our side in 
 reply to the challenge of our captain who hailed 
 her ! Then came a broadside from us — the first I 
 had ever heard in battle. 
 
NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 The readers of the Cornhill Magazine have now read 
 the last line written by William Makepeace Thackeray. 
 The story breaks off as his life ended — full of vigour, 
 and blooming with new promise like the apple-trees in 
 this month of May : * the only difference between the 
 work and the life is this, that the last chapters of the 
 one have their little pathetical gaps and breaks of un- 
 finished effort, the last chapters of the other were fulfilled 
 and complete. But the life may be left alone ; while as 
 for the gaps and breaks in his last pages, nothing that 
 we can write is likely to add to their significance. 
 There they are ; and the reader's mind has already 
 fallen into them, with sensations not to be improved by 
 the ordinary commentator. If Mr. Thackeray himself 
 could do it, that would be another thing. Preacher he 
 called himself in some of the Roundabout discourses in 
 which his softer spirit is always to be heard, but he 
 never had a text after his own mind so much as these 
 last broken chapters would give him now. There is the 
 date of a certain Friday to be filled in, and Time is no 
 
 * The last number of " Denis Duval " appeared in the Corn- 
 hill Magazine of June, 1864. 
 
256 NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 more. Is it very presumptuous to imagine the Bound- 
 about that Mr. Thackeray would write upon this un- 
 finished work of his, if he could come back to do it ? We 
 do not think it is, or very difficult either. What Carlyle 
 calls the divine gift of speech was so largely his, espe- 
 cially in his maturer years, that he made clear in what 
 he did say pretty much what he would say about any- 
 thing that engaged his thought ; and we have only to 
 imagine a discourse " On the Two Women at the Mill," * 
 to read off upon our minds the sense of what Mr. 
 Thackeray alone could have found language for. 
 
 Vain are these speculations — or are they vain ? Not 
 if we try to think what he would think of his broken 
 labours, considering that one of these days our labours 
 must be broken too. Still, there is not much to be said 
 about it ; and we pass on to the real business in hand, 
 which is to show as well as we may what Denis Duval 
 would have been had its author lived to complete his 
 work. Fragmentary as it is, the story must always be 
 of considerable importance, because it will stand as a 
 warning to imperfect critics never to be in haste to cry 
 of any intellect, " His vein is worked out : there is 
 nothing left in him but the echoes of emptiness." The 
 decriers were never of any importance, yet there is more 
 than satisfaction, there is something like triumph in the 
 mind of every honest man of letters when he sees, and 
 knows everybody must see, how a genius which was 
 
 * " Two women shall be grinding at the mill, one shall be 
 taken and the other left." 
 
NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 257 
 
 sometimes said to have been guilty of passing behind a 
 cloud toward the evening of his day, came out to shine 
 with new splendour before the day was done. " Denis 
 Duval " is unfinished, but it ends that question. The 
 fiery genius that blazed over the city in Vanity Fair, and 
 passed on to a ripe afternoon in Esmond, is not a whit 
 less great, it is only broader, more soft, more mellow 
 and kindly, as it sinks too suddenly in " Denis Duval." 
 This is said to introduce the settlement of another 
 too-hasty notion which we believe to have been pretty 
 generally accepted : namely, that Mr. Thackeray took 
 little pains in the construction of his works. The truth 
 is, that he very industriously did take pains. We find 
 that out when we inquire, for the benefit of the readers 
 of his Magazine, whether there is anything to tell of his 
 designs for " Denis Duval." The answer comes in the 
 form of many most careful notes, and memoranda of 
 inquiry into minute matters of detail to make the story 
 true. How many young novelists are there who haven't 
 much genius to fall back upon, who yet, if they desired 
 to set their hero down in Winchelsea a hundred years 
 ago for instance, would take the trouble to learn how the 
 town was built, and what gate led to Rye (if the hero 
 happened to have any dealings with that place), and who 
 were its local magnates, and how it was governed ? And 
 yet this is what Mr. Thackeray did, though his investi- 
 gation added not twenty lines to the story and no 
 "interest" whatever: it was simply so much con- 
 scientious effort to keep as near truth in feigning as he 
 could. That Winchelsea had three gates, " Newgate on 
 
 17 
 
258 NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 S.W., Landgate on N.E., Strandgate {leading to Bye) on 
 S.E.;" that "the government was vested in a mayor 
 and twelve jurats, jointly;" that "it sends canopy 
 bearers on occasion of a coronation," &c. &c. &c, all is 
 duly entered in a note-book with reference to authorities. 
 And so about the refugees at Rye, and the French re- 
 formed church there ; nothing is written that history 
 cannot vouch for. The neat and orderly way in which 
 the notes are set down is also remarkable. Each has 
 its heading, as thus : 
 
 Refugees at Bye. — At Rye is a small settlement of French 
 refugees, who are for the most part fishermen, and have a 
 minister of their own. 
 
 French Reformed Church. — Wherever there is a sufficient 
 number of faithful there is a church. The pastor is admitted to 
 his office by the provincial synod, or the colloquy, provided it 
 be composed of seven pastors at least. Pastors are seconded in 
 their duties by laymen, who take the title of Ancients, Elders, 
 and Deacons-precentor. The union of Pastors, Deacons, and 
 Elders forms a consistory. 
 
 Of course there is no considerable merit in care like 
 this, but it is a merit which the author of Denis Duval 
 is not popularly credited with, and therefore it may as 
 well be set down to him. Besides, it may serve as 
 an example to fledgling geniuses of what he thought 
 necessary to the perfection of his work. 
 
 But the chief interest of these notes and memoranda 
 lies in the outlook they give us upon the conduct of the 
 story. It is not desirable to print them all ; indeed, to 
 do so would be to copy a long list of mere references to 
 books, magazines, and journals, where such byway bits 
 
NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 259 
 
 of illustration are to be found as lit Mr. Thackeray's 
 mind to so vivid an insight into manners and character. 
 Still, we are anxious to give the reader as complete an 
 idea of the story as we can. 
 
 First, here is a characteristic letter, in which Mr. 
 Thackeray sketches his plot for the information of his 
 publisher : — 
 
 My dear S., — 
 
 I was born in the year 1764, at Winchelsea, where my father 
 was a grocer and clerk of the church. Everybody in the place 
 was a good deal connected with smuggling. 
 
 There used to come to our house a very noble French gentle- 
 man, called the Count de la Motte, and with him a German, 
 the Bakon de Lutterloh. My father used to take packages 
 to Ostend and Calais for these two gentlemen, and perhaps I 
 went to Paris once and saw the French queen. 
 
 The squire of our town was Squire Weston of the Priory, 
 who, with his brother, kept one of the genteelest houses in the 
 country. He was churchwarden of our church, and much 
 respected. Yes, but if you read the Annual Register of 1781, 
 you will find, that on the 13th July, the sheriffs attended at the 
 Tower of London to receive custody of a De la Motte, a 
 prisoner charged with high treason. The fact is, this Alsatian 
 nobleman being in difficulties iu his own country (where he had 
 commanded the Regiment Soubise), came to London, and under 
 pretence of sending prints to France and Ostend, supplied the 
 French Ministers with accounts of the movements of the English 
 fleets and troops. His gobetween was Lutterloh, a Brunswicker, 
 who had been a crimping agent, then a servant, who was a spy 
 of France and Mr. Franklin, and who turned king's evidence on 
 La Motte, and hanged him. 
 
 This Lutterloh, who had been a crimping agent for German 
 troops during the American War, then a servant in London 
 during the Gordon riots, then an agent for a spy, then a spy over 
 a spy, I suspect to have been a consummate scoundrel, and doubly 
 odious from speaking English with a German accent. 
 
 17~2 
 
260 NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 What if he wanted to marry that charming girl, who lived 
 with Mr. Weston, at Winchelsea ? Ha ! I see a mystery here. 
 
 What if this scoundrel, going to receive his pay from the 
 English admiral, with whom he was in communication at Ports 
 mouth, happened to go on board the Royal George the day she- 
 went down ? 
 
 As for John and Joseph Weston, of the Priory, I am sorry to 
 say they were rascals too. They were tried for robbing the 
 Bristol mail in 1780 ; and being acquitted for want of evidence, 
 were tried immediately after on another indictment for forgery — 
 Joseph was acquitted, but George was capitally convicted. But 
 this did not help poor Joseph. Before their trials, they and 
 some others broke out of Newgate, and Joseph fired at, and 
 wounded a porter, who tried to stop him, on Snow Hill. For 
 this he was tried and found guilty on the Black Act, and hung 
 along with his brother. 
 
 Now, if I was an innocent participator in De la Motte's treasons, 
 and the Westons' forgeries and robberies, what pretty scrapes I 
 must have been in ? 
 
 I married the young woman, whom the brutal Lutterloh would 
 have had for himself, and lived happy ever after. 
 
 Here, it will be seen, the general idea is very roughly 
 sketched, and the sketch was not in all its parts carried 
 out. Another letter, never sent to its destination, gives 
 a somewhat later account of Denis, — 
 
 My grandfather's name was Duval : he was a barber and 
 perruquier by trade, and elder of the French Protestant Church 
 at Winchelsea. I was sent to board with his correspondent, a 
 Methodist grocer, at Rye. 
 
 These two kept a fishing-boat, but the fish they caught was 
 many and many a barrel of Nantz brandy, which we landed — 
 never mind where — at a place to us well known. In the inno- 
 cence of my heart, I — a child — got leave to go out fishing. We 
 used to go out at night and meet ships from the French coast. 
 I learned to scuttle a marlinspike, 
 reef a lee-scuppcr, 
 keelhaul a bowsprit 
 
 
NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 261 
 
 as well as the best of them. Hoav well I remember the jabbering 
 of the Frenchmen the first night as they handed the kegs 
 over to ns ! One night we were fired into by his Majesty's 
 revenue cutter Lynx. I asked what those balls were fizzing iu 
 the water, &c. 
 
 I wouldn't go on with the smuggling ; being converted by Mr. 
 Westley, who came to preach to us at Eye — but that is neither 
 here nor there .... 
 
 In these letters neither " my mother," nor the Count 
 de Saveme and his unhappy wife appear ; while Agnes 
 exists only as " that charming girl." Count de la 
 Motte, the Baron de Lutterloh, and the Westons, seem 
 to have figured foremost in the author's mind : they are 
 historical characters. In the first letter, we are referred 
 to the Annual Register for the story of De la Motte and 
 Lutterloh : and this is what we read there, — 
 
 January 5, 1781. — A gentleman was taken into custody for 
 treasonable practices, named Henry Francis de la Motte, which 
 he bore with the title of baron annexed to it. He has resided 
 in Bond Street, at a Mr. Otley's, a woollen draper, for some 
 time. 
 
 When he was going upstairs at the Secretary of State's office, 
 in Cleveland Row, he dropped several papers on the staircase, 
 which were immediately discovered by the messenger, and 
 earned in with him to Lord Hillsborough. After his examina- 
 tion, he was committed a close prisoner for high treason to the 
 Tower. The papers taken from him are reported to be of the 
 highest importance. Among them are particular lists of every 
 ship of force in any of our yards and docks, &c. &c. 
 
 In consequence of the above papers being found, Henry 
 Lutterloh, Esq., of Wickham, near Portsmouth, was afterwards 
 apprehended and brought to town. The messengers found Mr. 
 Lutterloh ready booted to go a hunting. When he understood 
 their business, he did not discover the least embarrassment, but 
 
282 NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 delivered his keys with the utmost readiness Mr. 
 
 Lutterloh is a German, and had lately taken a house at Wickham, 
 within a few miles of Portsmouth ; and as he kept a pack of 
 hounds, and was considered as a good companion, he was well 
 received by the gentlemen in the neighbourhood. 
 
 July 14, 1781. — Mr. Lutterloh's testimony- was of so serious 
 a nature, that the court seemed in a state of astonishment during 
 the whole of his long examination. He said that he embarked 
 in a plot with the prisoner in the year 1778, to furnish the 
 French court with secret intelligence of the Navy ; for which, 
 at first, he received only eight guineas a month ; the importance 
 of his information appeared, however, so clear to the prisoner, 
 that he shortly after allowed him fifty guineas a month, besides 
 many valuable gifts ; that, upon any emergency, he came post 
 to town to M. de la Motte, but common occurrences relative to 
 their treaty, he sent by the post. He identified the papers found 
 in his garden, and the seals, he said, were M. de la Motte's, and 
 well known in France. He had been to Paris by direction of 
 the prisoner, and was closeted with Monsieur Sartine, the French 
 Minister. He had formed a plan for capturing Governor 
 Johnstone's squadron, for which he demanded 8,000 guineas, 
 and a third share of the ships, to be divided amongst the 
 prisoner, himself, and his friend in a certain office, but the French 
 court would not agree to yielding more than an eighth share 
 of the squadron. After agreeing to enable the French to take 
 the commodore, he went to Sir Hugh Palliser, and offered a plan 
 to. take the French, and to defeat his original project with which 
 he had furnished the French court. 
 
 The trial lasted for thirteen hours, when the jury, after a 
 short deliberation, pronounced the prisoner guilty, when sentence 
 was immediately passed upon him ; the prisoner received the 
 awful doom (he was condemned to be hanged, drawn, and 
 quartered), with great composure, but inveighed against Mr. 
 
 Lutterloh in warm terms His behaviour throughout 
 
 the whole of this trying scene exhibited a combination of man- 
 liness, steadiness, and presence of mind. He appeared at the 
 sjtme time polite, condescending, and unaffected, and, we pre- 
 sume, could never have stood so firm and collected at so awful 
 
NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 263 
 
 a moment, if, when he felt himself fully convicted as a traitor 
 to the State which gave him protection, he had not, however 
 mistakingly, felt a conscious innocence within his own breast 
 that he had devoted his life to the service of his country. 
 ***** 
 M. de la Motte was about five feet ten inches in height, fifty 
 years of age, and of a comely countenance ; his deportment was 
 exceedingly genteel, and his eye was expressive of strong pene- 
 tration. He wore a white cloth coat, and a linen waistcoat 
 worked in tambour. — Annual Register, vol. xxiv., p. 184. 
 
 It is not improbable that from this narrative of a 
 trial for high treason in 1781 the whole story radiated. 
 These are the very men whom we have seen in Thacke- 
 ray's pages ; and it is a fine test of his insight and 
 power to compare them as they lie embalmed in the 
 Annual Register, and as they breathe again in " Denis 
 Duval." The part they were to have played in the 
 story is already intelligible, all but the way in which 
 they were to have confused the lives of Denis and his 
 love. "'At least, Duval,' De la Motte said to me 
 when I shook hands with him and with all my heart 
 forgave him, ' mad and reckless as I have been and 
 fatal to all whom I loved, I have never allowed the 
 child to want, and have supported her in comfort when 
 I myself was almost without a meal.' " What was the 
 injury which Denis forgave with all his heart ? Fatal 
 to all whom he loved, there are evidences that De la 
 Motte was to have urged Lutterloh's pretensions to 
 Agnes : whose story at this period we find inscribed in 
 the note-book in one word — " Henriette Iphigenia." 
 
261 NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 For Agnes was christened Henriette originally, and 
 Denis was called Blaise.* 
 
 As for M. Lutterloh, " that consummate scoundrel, 
 and doubly odious from speaking English with a German 
 accent " — having hanged De la Motte, while confessing 
 that he had made a solemn engagement with him never 
 to betray each other, and then immediately laying a 
 wager that De la Motte would be hanged, having broken 
 open a secretaire, and distinguished himself in various 
 other ways — he seems to have gone to Winchelsea, 
 where it was easy for him to threaten or cajole the 
 Westons into trying to force Agnes into his arms. 
 She was living with these people, and we know how 
 they discountenanced her faithful affection for Denis. 
 Overwrought by the Importunities of Lutterloh and the 
 Westons, she escaped to Dr. Barnard for protection ; 
 and soon unexpected help arrived. The De Viomesnils, 
 her mother's relations, became suddenly convinced of 
 the innocence of the countess. Perhaps (and when we 
 
 * Among the notes there is a little chronological table of 
 events as they occur — 
 
 Blaise, born, 1763. 
 
 Henriette de Barr was born in 1766-7. 
 
 Her father went to Corsica, '68. 
 
 Mother fled, '68. 
 
 Father killed at B., '69. 
 
 Mother died, '70. 
 
 Blaise turned out, '79. 
 
 Henriette Ityiy evict, '81. 
 
 La Motte's catastrophe, '82. 
 
 Koduey's action, '82. 
 
NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 265 
 
 say perhaps, we repeat such hints of his plans as 
 Mr. Thackeray uttered in conversation at his fireside) 
 they knew of certain heritages to which Agnes would 
 be entitled were her mother absolved: at any rate, 
 they had reasons of their own for claiming her at this 
 opportune moment — as they did. Agnes takes Dr. 
 Barnard's advice and goes off to these prosperous rela- 
 tions, who, having neglected her so long, desire her so 
 much. Perhaps Denis was thinking of the sad hour 
 when he came home, long years afterward, to find his 
 sweetheart gone, when he wrote : — " Agnes, Agnes ! 
 how the years roll away ! What strange events have 
 befallen us ; what passionate griefs have we had to 
 suffer : what a merciful heaven has protected us, since 
 that day when your father knelt over the little cot, in 
 which his child lay sleeping ! " 
 
 At the time she goes home to France, Denis is far 
 away fighting on board the Arethusa, under his old 
 captain, Sir Richard Pearson, who commanded the 
 Serapis in the action with Paul Jones. Denis was 
 wounded early in this fight, in which Pearson had to 
 strike his own colours, almost every man on board being 
 killed or hurt. Of Pearson's career, which Denis must 
 have followed in after days, there is more than one 
 memorandum in Mr. Thackeray's note-book. 
 
 Serapis, E. Pearson. Beatson's Memoirs. 
 
 Gentleman's Magazine, 49, pp. 484. Account of action with 
 
 Paul Jones, 1779. 
 Gentleman's Magazine, 502. pp. 84. Pearson knighted, 1780. 
 Commanded the Arethusa off Ushant, 1781, \ "Field of Mars," 
 
 in Kempenfeldt's action. J art. Ushant. 
 
266 NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 and then follows the question, — 
 
 Qy. How did Pearson get away from Paul Jones ? 
 But before that is answered we will quote the ' ' story 
 of the disaster" as Sir Richard tells it, " in words 
 nobler than any I could supply:" and, indeed, Mr. 
 Thackeray seems to have thought much of the letter 
 to the Admiralty- Office, and to have found Pearson's 
 character in it. 
 
 After some preliminary fighting — 
 
 We dropt alongside of each other, head and stern, when the 
 fluke of our spare anchor hooking his quarter, we became so 
 close, fore and aft, that the muzzles of our guns touched each 
 other's sides. In this position we engaged from half-past eight 
 till half-past ten ; during which time, from the great quantity 
 and variety of combustible matter which they threw in upon our 
 decks, chains, and, in short, every part of the ship, we were on 
 fire no less than ten or twelve times in different parts of the 
 ship, and it was with the greatest difficulty and exertion ima- 
 ginable at times, that we were able to get it extinguished. At 
 the same time the largest of the two frigates kept sailing round 
 us the whole action and raking us fore and aft, by which means 
 she killed or wounded almost every man on the quarter and 
 main decks. 
 
 About half-past nine, a cartridge of powder was set on fire, 
 which, running from cartridge to cartridge all the way aft, blew 
 up the whole of the people and officers that were quartered abaft 
 the mainmast. ... At ten o'clock they called for quarter from 
 the ship alongside; hearing this, I called for the boarders and 
 ordered them to board her, which they did; but the moment they 
 were on board her, they discovered a superior number laying 
 under cover with pikes in their hands ready to receive them ; our 
 people retreated instantly into our own ship, and returned to 
 their guns till past ten, when the frigate coining across our stern 
 and pouring her broadside into us again, without our being able 
 to bring a gun to bear on her, I found it in vain, and, in short, 
 
NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 2G7 
 
 impracticable, from the situation we were in, to stand out any 
 longer with the least prospect of success. I therefore struck. 
 Our mainmast at the same time went by the board. . . . 
 
 I am extremely sorry for the misfortune that has happened — 
 that of losing His Majesty's ship I had the honour to command; 
 but, at the same time, I flatter myself with the hopes that their 
 lordships will be convinced that she has not been given away, 
 but that on the contrary every exertion has been used to defend 
 her. 
 
 The Serajris and the Countess of Scarborough, after 
 drifting about in the North Sea, were brought into the 
 Textel by Paul Jones ; when Sir Joseph Yorke, our 
 ambassador at the Hague, memorialized their high 
 mightinesses the States -General of the Low Countries, 
 requesting that these prizes might be given up. Their 
 high mightinesses refused to interfere. 
 
 Of course the fate of the Serapis was Denis's fate ; 
 and the question also is, how did he get away from 
 Paul Jones ? A note written immediately after the 
 query suggests a hair-breadth escape for him after a 
 double imprisonment. 
 
 Some sailors are lately arrived from Amsterdam on board the 
 Lcelitia, Captain March. They were taken out of the hold of a 
 Dutch East Indiaman by the captain of the Kingston privateer, 
 who, having lost some of his people, gained some information of 
 their fate from a music-girl, and had spirit enough to board the 
 ship and search her. The poor wretches were all chained down 
 in the hold, and but for this would have been carried to perpetual 
 slavery. — Gentleman's Magazine, 50, pp. 101. 
 
 Do we see how truth and fiction were to have been 
 married here ? Suppose that Denis Duval, escaping 
 from one imprisonment in Holland, fell into the snares 
 
268 NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 of Dutch East Indiamen, or was kidnapped with the 
 men of the Kingston privateer ? Denis chained down 
 in the hold, thinking one moment of Agnes and the 
 garden wall, which alone was too much to separate 
 them, and at the next moment of how he was now to 
 be carried to perpetual slavery, beyond hope. And then 
 the music-girl ; and the cheer of the Kingston's men as 
 they burst into the hold and set the prisoners free. It 
 is easy to imagine what those chapters would have been 
 like. 
 
 At liberty, Denis was still kept at sea, where he did 
 not rise to the heroic in a day, but progressed through 
 all the commonplace duties. of a young seaman's life, 
 which we find noted down accordingly : — 
 
 He must serve two years on board before he can be rated mid- 
 shipman. Such volunteers are mostly put under the care of the 
 gunner, who caters for them ; and are permitted to walk the 
 quarter-deck and wear the uniform from the beginning. When 
 fifteen and rated midshipmen, they form a mess with the mates. 
 When examined for their commissions they are expected to know 
 everything relative to navigation and seamanship, are strictly ' 
 examined in the different sailings, working tides, days' works, 
 and double altitudes — and are expected to give some account of 
 the different methods of finding the longitudes by a time-keeper 
 and the lunar observations. In practical seamanship they must 
 show how to conduct a ship from one place to another under 
 every disadvantage of wind, tide, &c. After this, the candidate 
 obtains a certificate from the captain, and his commission when 
 he can get it. 
 
 Another note describes a personage whose acquaint- 
 ance we have missed : — • 
 
 A seaman of the old school, whose hand was more familiar 
 with the tar-brush than with Hadlcy's quadrant, who had peeped 
 
NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 269 
 
 into the mysteries of navigation as laid down by J. Hamilton 
 Moore, and who acquired an idea of the rattletraps and rigging 
 of a ship through the famous illustrations which adorn the pages 
 of Darcy Lever. 
 
 Denis was a seaman in stirring times. " The year of 
 which we treat," says the Annual Register for 1779, 
 " presented the most awful appearance of public affairs 
 which perhaps this country had beheld for many ages ; " 
 and Duval had part in more than one of the startling 
 events which succeeded each other so rapidly in the 
 wars with France and America and Spain. He was 
 destined to come into contact with Major Andre, whose 
 fate excited extraordinary sympathy at the time : Wash- 
 ington is said to have shed tears when he signed his 
 death-warrant. It was on the 2nd of October, 1780, 
 that this } r oung officer was executed. A year later, and 
 Denis was to witness the trial and execution of one 
 whom he knew better and was more deeply interested 
 in, De la Motte. The courage and nobleness with which 
 he met his fate moved the sympathy of Duval, whom he 
 had injured, as well as of most of those who saw him 
 die. Denis has written concerning him : — " Except my 
 kind namesake, the captain and admiral, this was the 
 first gentleman I ever met in intimacy, a gentleman with 
 many a stain, — nay, crime to reproach him, but not all 
 lost, I hope and pray. I own to having a kindly feeling 
 towards that fatal man." 
 
 Lutterloh's time had not yet come ; but besides that 
 we find him disposed of with the Royal George in the 
 first-quoted letter, an entry in the note-book unites 
 
270 NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 the fate of the bad man with that of the good 
 ship.* 
 
 Meanwhile, the memorandum " Rodney's action, 
 1782," indicates that Duval was to take part in our 
 victory over the French fleet commanded by the Count 
 de Grasse, who was himself captured with the Ville de 
 Paris and four other ships. " De Grasse with his 
 suite landed on Southsea Common, Portsmouth. They 
 were conducted in carriages to the George, where a most 
 sumptuous dinner had been procured for the count and 
 his suite, by Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Parkes, who enter- 
 tained him and his officers at his own expense." Here 
 also was something for Denis to see ; and in this same 
 autumn came on the trial of the two Westons, when 
 Denis was to be the means — unconsciously — of bringing 
 his old enemy, Joseph Weston, to punishment. There 
 are two notes to this effect. 
 
 1782-3. Jo. Weston, always savage against Blaise, fires on 
 him in Cheap side. 
 
 The Black Act is 9 George II., c. 22. The preamble says : — 
 Whereas several ill-designing and disorderly persons have asso- 
 ciated themselves under the name of Blacks, and entered into 
 confederacies to support and assist one another in stealing and 
 destroying deer, robbing warrens and fish-ponds .... It then 
 goes on to enact that if any person or persons shall wilfully or 
 maliciously shoot at any person in any dwelling-house or other 
 place, he shall suffer death as in cases of felony without benefit 
 of the clergy. 
 
 * Contemporary accounts of the foundering of the Royal George 
 represent her crowded with people from the shore. We have 
 seen how Lutterloh was among these, having come on board to 
 receive the price of his treason. 
 
NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 271 
 
 A Joseph Weston was actually found guilty under the 
 Black Act, of firing at and wounding a man on Snow 
 Hill, and was hanged with his brother. Mr. Thackeray's 
 note-book refers him to " The Westons in ' Session 
 Papers,' 1782, pp. 463, 470, 473," to the Gentleman's 
 Magazine, 1782, to " Genuine Memoirs of George and 
 Joseph Weston, 1782," and Xotes and Queries, Series I. 
 vol. X.* 
 
 The next notes (in order of time) concern a certain 
 very disinterested action of Duval's : — 
 
 Deal Riots, 1783. 
 Deal. — Here has been a great scene of confusion, by a party 
 of Colonel Douglas's Light Dragoons, sixty in number, who 
 entered the town in the dead of the night in aid to the excise 
 officers, in order to break open the stores and make seizures : but 
 the smugglers, who are never unprepared, having taken the 
 alarm, mustered together, and a most desperate battle ensued. 
 
 Now old Duval, the perruquier, as we know, belonged 
 to the great Mackerel party, or smuggling conspiracy, 
 which extended all along the coast ; and frequent allu- 
 sion has been made to his secret stores, and to the 
 profits of his so-called fishing expeditions. Eemember- 
 ing what has been written of this gentleman, we can 
 
 * These notes also appear in the same connection : — 
 " Horse- Stealers." One Saunders was committed to Oxford 
 gaol for horse-stealing, who appears to have belonged to a gang, 
 part of whom stole horses in the north counties, and the other 
 part in the south, and about the midland counties they used to 
 meet and exchange. — Gentleman's Magazine, 39, 165. 
 
 1783. Capital Convictions. — At the Spring Assizes, 1783, 119 
 prisoners received sentence of Death. 
 
272 NOTES ON DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 easily imagine the falsehoods, tears, lying asseverations 
 of poverty and innocence which old Duval must have 
 uttered on the terrible night when the excise officers 
 visited him. But his exclamations were to no purpose, 
 for it is a fact that when Denis saw what was going on, 
 he burst out with the truth, and though he knew it was 
 his own inheritance he was giving up, he led the officers 
 right away to the hoards they were seeking. 
 
 His conduct on this occasion Denis has already 
 referred to where he says : — " There were matters con- 
 nected with this story regarding which I could not 
 speak. . . . Now they are secrets no more. That 
 old society of smugglers is dissolved long ago : nay, I 
 shall have to tell presently how I helped myself to break 
 it up." And therewith all old Duval's earnings, all 
 Denis's fortune that was to be, vanished ; but of course 
 Denis prospered in his profession, and had no need of 
 unlawful gains. * 
 
 But very sad times intervened between Denis and 
 prosperity. He was to be taken prisoner by the French, 
 and to fret many long years away in one of their 
 arsenals. At last the Ke volution broke out, and he 
 may have been given up, or — thanks to his foreign 
 tongue and extraction — found means to escape. Perhaps 
 he went in search of Agnes, whom we know he never 
 forgot, and whose great relations were now in trouble ; 
 
 * Notices of Sussex smuggling (says the note-book) are to be 
 found in vol. x. of Sussex Archaeological Collections, 69, 94. 
 Reference is also made to the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. viii. 
 pp. 292, 172. 
 
NOTES TO DENIS DUVAL. 273 
 
 for the Revolution which freed him was terrible to 
 " aristocrats." 
 
 This is nearly all the record we have of this part of 
 Denis's life, and of the life which Agnes led while she 
 was away from him. But perhaps it was at this time 
 that Duval saw Marie Antoinette ; * perhaps he found 
 Agnes, and helped to get her away ; or had Agnes 
 already escaped to England, and was it in the old 
 familiar haunts — Farmer Perreau's Columbarium, where 
 the pigeons were that Agnes loved ; the rectory garden 
 basking in the autumn evening ; the old wall and the 
 pear-tree behind it ; the plain from whence they could 
 see the French lights across the Channel ; the little 
 twinkling window in a gable of the priory house, where 
 the light used to be popped out at nine o'clock — that 
 Denis and Agnes first met after their long separa- 
 tion ? 
 
 However that may have been, we come presently 
 upon a note of " a tailor contracts to supply three 
 
 * The following memoranda appear in the note-book : — 
 
 " Marie Antoinette was born on the 2nd November, 1755, and 
 her saint's day is the Fete des Morts. 
 
 ** In the Corsican expedition the Legion de Lorraine was 
 under the Baron de Viomesnil. He emigrated at the commence- 
 ment of the Revolution, took an active part in the army of 
 Conde, and in the emigration, returned with Louis XVIII., 
 followed him to Gand, and was made marshal and peer of France 
 after '15. 
 
 "Another Vi. went with Rochambeau to America in 1780." 
 
 18 
 
274 NOTES TO DENIS DUVAL. 
 
 superfine suits for HZ. lis. (Gazeteer and Daily Adver- 
 tiser) ; " and also of a villa at Beckenham, with " four 
 parlours, eight bed-rooms, stables, two acres of garden, 
 and fourteen acres of meadow, let for 70/. a-year," which 
 may have been the house # the young people first lived 
 in after they were married. Later, they moved to 
 Fareport, where, as we read, the admiral is weighed 
 along with his own pig. But he cannot have given up 
 the service for many years after his marriage, for he 
 writes : — " T'other day when we took over the King of 
 France to Calais (H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence being 
 in command), I must needs have a post-chaise from 
 Dover to look at that old window in the priory house at 
 Winchelsea. I went through the old wars, despairs, 
 tragedies. I sighed as vehemently after forty years as 
 though the infandi dolores were fresh upon me, as 
 though I were the schoolboy trudging back to his task, 
 and taking a last look at his dearest joy." 
 
 " And who, pray, was Agnes ? " he writes elsewhere. 
 " To-day her name is Agnes Duval, and she sits at her 
 work-table hard by. The lot of my life has been 
 changed by knowing her — to win such a prize in life's 
 lottery has been given but to very few. What I have 
 done — of any worth — has been done by trying to 
 deserve her." . . . '« Monsieur mon JiJs, — (this is 
 to his boy) — if ever you marry, and have a son, I hope 
 the little chap will have an honest man for a grand- 
 father, and that you will be able to say, ' I loved him,' 
 when the daisies cover me." Once more of Amies he 
 
NOTES TO DENIS DUVAL. 275 
 
 writes : — " When my ink is run out, and my little tale 
 is written, and yonder church that is ringing to seven 
 o'clock prayers shall toll for a certain D. D. ; you will 
 please, good neighbours, to remember that I never 
 loved any but yonder lady, and keep a place by Darby 
 for Joan when her turn shall arrive." 
 
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