=o ST KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER VOL. I. NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES. BELL BARRY. By R. Ashe King. 2 vols. TINKLETOP'S CRIME. By G. R. Sims, i vol. THE WONDERFUL ADVENTURES OF PHRA THE PHOENICIAN. By Edwin Lester Arnold, i vol. THE GREAT TABOO. By Grant Allen, i vol. RUFFINO. By Ouida. i vol. AUNT ABIGAIL DYKES. By- Col. Randolph. 1 vol. A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS. By Bret IIarte. i vol. 'BAIL UP ! ' By Hume Nisiset. i vol. A WEIRD GIFT. By Georges Oiinet. 1 vol. THE LOST HEIRESS. By Ernest Glanville. i vol. HARRY FLUDYER AT CAMBRIDGE. 1 vol. AN AMERICAN GIRL IN LONDON. By Saka JliANNETTli DUNCAN. I vol. London : CIIATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly, W. She bore in her hands a bowl of st anting punch, 1 ST {CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER A NOVEL BY WALTER BESAXT AUTHOR OF 'ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS OF MEN' 'ARMOREL OF LYONE5SE' ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES GREEN 3f o » I) o n CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1891 PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREKT SQUARE LONDON 5/3 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME PAGE PROLOGUE .... ... 1 PART I. caii t :k I. THE BEGINNING OF IT . . . . . 14 II. THE HAPLESS LOVER ..... 38 III. THE GRAVE PHYSICIAN . . . . . 68 IV. THE WISE WOMAN . . . . .82 V. THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH . . . . 99 VI. IN THE PRECINCT ..... 130 VII. WAS SHE FAITHLESS ? . . . . 160 VIII. EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART . . .192 PART II. I. THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS . . 220 II. EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY . . . . 252 III. THE CHURCH SERVICE .... 286 1495800 ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOL. I. 'She bore in her hand a bowl of steam- ing punch ' Frmitisjtice 'She fell to the ground upon her face' To face p. 38 ' She would still be smoking this pipe all dat long' „ 92 * Sylvia sat down on one of the tombs and threw back her hood ' . . ,, 170 'af the door stood a man wrapped in a CLOAK' 106 ST.KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER PBOLOGUE Great and mighty events happened in the year 1793 — yea, and continued to happen for twenty years and more to follow. These events have already, though so recent, engaged the attention of the historian, the biographer, and of those humbler writers who collect the crumbs, so to speak — the anecdotes, stories, whispers, and scandals concerning all the great men engaged, so that the curious world shall learn to its complete satisfaction how the Corsican Usurper — to instance the greatest man concerned — behaved in respect to his eating, his drinking, his amours, and his dress. If we cannot understand statesmanship and high policy, we can at least understand these lesser things. VOL. I. B 2 ST. KATHERINES BY THE TOWER It lias been a privilege to be born into such a time and to have lived through these stupendous events. Certain I am that no event in ancient history, not the Battle of Marathon, not the Peloponnesian War, not the Fall of Rome itself can compare for present awfnlness and future consequences with the Great French Revolution and the upsetting of the French Monarchy. To me it appeared at the outset, what I have never since ceased to consider it, nothing short of the emancipation of the whole world from the bonds of king, priest, and noble. Its course was stained with blood and marred with cruelty : a thousand extravagances were committed : a thousand things were done the memory of which should make Frenchmen hang their heads in shame — witness the insults heaped upon the innocent and unfortunate Queen; her murder; the slow doing to death of the guiltless boy, her son ; and the massacres of those whose only fault was that they were nobles and royalists. Let us acknowledge these things. Yet let us also acknowledge that the Hand of the Lord has fallen upon the murderers. Those who PROLOGUE 3 ordered these things have perished by the same way. They have all died upon the scaffold, or miserably in other ways. These things, I know, have turned away many, who at first welcomed the Revolution, in disgust and horror, making them cling to the old things. As for me, I stand still by the first ardent zeal of my youth. The old system fell for ever ; the people of France regained their freedom : through France the Spirit of Free- dom lias everywhere been awakened, and now Hies from race to race, from nation to nation. The wheels of the Revolutionary car passed over me, and well-nigh crushed me to death beneath them. Yet still I rejoice : I give thanks : I can never cease to count myself fortunate : I praise, laud, and magnify the Lord who hath suffered me to live at this great Day, and to mark the advent of a new and better time. The French King is back again. That is most true. He is back with his priests and his nobles. But he has lost his ancient power. There is a spectral scaffold visible from his palace where lies the body of a beheaded King. The people see this as well jj 2 4 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER as the King. He has lost his power — and the priests and nobles have lost their wealth as well as their power. Let us wait. Great things have happened. Greater tilings shall come to pass. Let us who believe in the Majesty and Might and Glory of the People take courage, and look to the future as well as the past. This cannot be destroyed, nor shall that be delayed. Amid these great events happened many others — for the small events and accidents of human life are not stayed or stopped by the great. Louis the Sixteenth mounts the scaffold : on the same day Mr. Alderman Pepper goes bankrupt and is ruined. The Queen of France is foully murdered : on the same day Amyntas the shepherd swain de- clares his love to Chloe, fairest nymph of Stepney Green. Certain events, quorum pars magna fui, in which I took a part, happened at that time in a part of London little known by the fashionable world — I wonder how many people west of Temple Bar have ever visited the ancient Hospital of St. Katherine's by the Tower ? The chief cause or mainspring of PROLOGUE these events, whereby two respectable families were plunged for a time in the deepest anxiety, shame, and humiliation, is still wrapped in mystery. I propose to narrate them in order, beginning with the leading or capital event. I will show you, not the cause of it (which I cannot), but what was considered by this person or by that to have been its cause. You may then judge and decide for your- selves if you can. Or if, like me, you cannot form a conclusion satisfactory at once to your reason and to your religion, you will set it down as one of those things which have been allowed to happen in the inscrutable Wisdom that rules the Universe. I hope that this history may be found to afford instruction rather than amusement to those who read it. If, as is notoriously the case, fictitious adventures are able to arrest the attention and to divert the thoughts, how much more should those which are no inven- tion, but hard and even cruel reality! I say nothing about the lesson to be learned from every true history, because it is evident that whoever depicts scenes of truth must, oven 6 ST. {CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER unconsciously, inculcate lessons, point \o an unspoken moral, and make of the sufferings or joys of his characters warnings or encour- agement for his readers. This is true of all history, but the lessons become much more effective when the historian has to tell of pas- sions suffered to grow beyond control until they govern and sway the whole man, mind and body, so that lie no longer has any power over his own actions, or any thought of con- sequences, or any fear of the future. I was myself, I say, a witness of these events. I was from certain causes a sharer in the adventures which followed. I have been an actor in them. It is my part — my duty — to relate these events and these adventures with their origin and their consequences. I have de- ferred the accomplishment of this duly too long already. Let me lose no more time lest the thread of life be snapped before this plain duty has been performed. The strange and wonderful story which follows was, I always think, designed es- pecially, and with a larger purpose than belongs to most human lives. It must have PROLOGUE 7 been* intended as an example and a warning. Otherwise I should not take the trouble to write it down. It is altogether strange : it is strange as to the first fact — sudden, unex- pected, like a thunderbolt falling out of a cloudless sky : it is strange as to the causes or cause of that event : it is strange as to the consequences of that event : it is still more strange how Providence overruled everything for restoration and forgiveness. When I begin to write about these things, I am overawed with terror and with admiration. Another thing I must record. Whenever I recall these events, certain words come back to me. A certain evening returns — I see a certain group, and I hear those words again. They are words uttered in feeble and trembling accents — the words of an old woman — ' 'Tis man's madness, child. So men are made. Thee must lie have, and none other will content him. If thou still wilt say him nay, I doubt he will do some mischief either to himself or to thee, lie is mad, child. He is mad with love.' S ST. KATHERINE S BY THE TOWER Over and over again I hear these words. They echo in my brain as from wall to wall or from cliff to cliff. 'He is mad, child. He is mad with love.' Many there are who still believe that words heard by chance may be a kind of oracle. Plutarch adduces many instances in which great Captains were not ashamed to turn back when the march had actually been begun in consequence of hearing words of ill omen. Such superstitions are hard to kill : they linger in the minds of the people : nay, travellers have reported that the old beliefs in luck, fortune, the evil eye, words and sights of ill-omen yet remain in Italy as strong and as deeply-rooted in the minds of all alike — rich and poor, wise and simple — as when those great Captains lived, long before the Christian religion was established for the abolition of all such superstitions. ' He is mad with love.' These words may serve as a motto for this history. They announce, beforehand, what is to follow. It is of Love and Madness caused by Love that I have to write. Therefore, just PROLOGUE 9 as Addison in the Spectator would take a line from a Latin or Greek poet and prefix it to a paper, thereby indicating the nature of the paper and preparing the mind of the reader, so I may set down these words in order to show at the outset the reality, strength, and character of the passion which I have to illustrate. In the same way, at the Theatre, the music before the play indicates the kind of piece which is to follow, prepares the mind and leads the thoughts into the right direction. For a tragedy it is grave and stately, even stormy and terrifying : for a comedy it is light, gay, and sparkling. The time was evening and twilight. I was a boy of sixteen, an age when one is beginning to think as a man, but is as yet without know- ledge or experience. I was idly walking about St. Katherine's Square — it is really an area of irregular shape — which lies before the west end of the church, thinking of I know not what. Young men think of many things which come to nothing, just as a flower pro- duces thousands of seeds of which perhaps not one shall fall upon fertile ground and grow io ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER into a fair plant. Then I saw at the entrance of Dolphin Alley, where it opens out of the Square, two women and a man. One of the women was tall and erect — clearly, therefore, she was young; the other was bent and bowed — clearly she was old. It was too dark for me to see their faces. As for the man, he seemed to be a sailor, but he might have been a lumper or a lighterman, or anything. As I looked he threw up his arms as one carried away by wrath or by some other passion ; he broke into such cursing as these people use for all their troubles — sad it is to think how imperfect is (lie power of speech for these poor ignorant men — what he said cannot be set down ; everybody who has lived near poor folk, especially the poor who live by the river bank, can understand the things which he would say. 'Then, having in this rough way, and chiefly by his cursing, conveyed what he meant to women almost as rough as himself who would understand very well without words or grammatical order, he flung himself from them, and rolled, partly like a sailor, partly like one drunk with rum, partly like PROLOGUE ii one overcome with passion, down Dolphin Lane, and so out of sight. Then I heard the old woman say these words. I went home and pondered over them, as yet ignorant how Love can so seize upon a man that there shall be for him no woman but one in all the world, and if he cannot get that woman for himself, he will go mad. ' 'Tis man's madness, child. So some men are made. Thee must he have, and none other will content him. If thou still wilt say him nay, I doubt he will do some mischief either to himself or else to thee. He is mad, child. He is mad with love.' There are men so cold by nature that love itself can hardly quicken their pulses : there are women who attract so little that no man — not even the most fiery — could go mad after them. But there are men, by nature im- petuous, headlong, masterful, strong of brain as well of limb — men to whom a wish becomes a law, and an inclination becomes a rope that drags them on. These arc the men whom Love makes slaves, ruling them by means of their own masterful natures, subduing tliein 12 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER by allurements of conquest and possession. And there are women who drive such men mad, even though they are ignorant of their own charms and unconscious of their own powers : it is by a kind of instinct inspired by Queen Venus that they play off their arts and graces, luring a man on, making him (they think) a slave, until he suddenly springs up and becomes a Lord and Master : all this without meaning mischief, without knowing aught, or suspecting aught, of the vehemence — the overwhelming vehemence — of the pas- sion they have created and fed and fostered till it has become a great and mighty giant. How can they understand a passion which they cannot feel, save in a far different form, and for the most part in far feebler force? The love of the maiden is at first but a gentle affection — a stream flowing softly on, growing broader and deeper perhaps, but insensibly, warmed by the sun, beautified with flowery banks and hanging woods, its bright surface and clear waters strewn with water-lilies. It may in time become a great and mighty river, but it always lacks the foaming rush and PROLOGUE j 3 headlong tumultuous violence of the man's passion. If it be objected that it may be dangerous to place this history in the hands of the young, because all kinds of phrenz}* are infec- tious — witness the religious enthusiasm of the people called Methodists — I reply that this indeed may be the case and yet the book be in no way harmful, partly because it shows how love carried to an excess may work mis- chief incalculable, partly because there are few natures (happily) so constituted as to be able to feel so strong a passion, and partly because (also happily) a British maiden has generally a heart so tender that she will not suffer a young man to fall into despair, but rather, beholding his sufferings with eyes of compassion, and moved by sweet sympathy, will suffer love to awaken in her own breast, and so make him happy and herself as well. But as for this story, and as for the man of whom I write — as the old woman said — 'He is mad, child. He is mad with love.' 14 ST KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER PART I CHAPTER I THE BEGINNING OF IT ' I wonder in what latitudes George's ship sails this evening,' I said, for want of any- thing else to say. 'Oh! George — George ' Sylvia, who had been sitting in silence, started and shivered. 'George! Oh, what matters?' she asked impatiently. I had never before known her to show impatience when George's name was mentioned. 'He is on board his ship. The ship is at sea.' ' He must be homeward bound. lie may be even now off the Xore : his ship may be sailing up the river: he may be with us to- morrow. Think of that, Sylvia.' Sylvia caught her breath, and shivered as if cold or in pain. THE BEGINNING OF IT 15 'Are you cold, sister?' ' No — no. I am not cold. Never mind.' ' I say that we know not when the ship may come bach. Her owners expect her daily.' Again she caught her breath, and again a look of pain crossed her face. ' What is the matter, Sylvia? ' ' Nothing. Yesterday and to-day I have felt it. Oh, it is nothing. Go on. He will come home, perhaps, to-morrow. Yes — he will come home. Nevill, I cannot understand it.' ' What, Sylvia ? ' ' I feel so strange. It is as if — as if — oh! — as if — I did not want him to come home.' ' Oho ! That is your little joke, sister. Not want George to come home ! ' ' Megrims, Nevill,' she replied, with an attempt at gaiety. ' Oh ! it will pass. Go on talking of him. It is not natural for me to feel like this.' I thought nothing of her megrims, and went on talking. 'He is sailing over a smooth sea, with a 1 6 ST. KATHEklNES BY THE TOWER fair wind aft : all sails set — ringtails, studdin' sails, t'gallants, and sky-scrapers.' ' Brother, you are not a sailor. You need not pretend to know all the sails of a ship.' ' Oh ! I know their names. The ship is flying under a cloud of canvas and that is the only cloud visible. The dolphins play about the bows : the sailors dance the horn-pipe in the fo'ksle to the scraping of the fiddle, and the watch are yawning over the bulwarks. As for George — what is it, again, Sylvia? ' For again she made as if something pained her. ' It is — I don't know. I felt as if it was his name which seemed to pierce me like a knife. What is it?' 'Nay. It is nothing. What should it be? His face is homeward bound : the Precinct is his Lodestar : he is thinking — what does a sailor think about when he is homeward bound? He is thinking of his sweetheart.' Something ailed George's sweetheart thai evening, for she closed her eyes, turned pale, and clenched her hands just like one who is struggling against some internal pain. Again THE BEGINNING OF IT 17 I thought nothing of a passing pain. One often has a pain somewhere, which comes and goes again, one knows not why. ' The ship may fall in with the enemy. That is what I chiefly fear. A small privateer she could fight, and to a French man-o'-war she might show a clean pair of heels. 'Twoulcl be hard indeed, if the first news of the war should be followed by being clapped into a French prison. The war has begun, however, in earnest. There has been an action off Scilly between a British brig and a French privateer. Of course British valour won the day. But, Sylvia, it is an unnatural war.' ' Brother ! ' She held up her finger, and looked around. ' Be careful what you say.' ' An unnatural war. What ? One free nation fight another nation only because it has recovered its freedom? Why, we set them the example. They have copied us who went before. I cannot believe that it will last. We must make Peace : the Govern ment cannot know how strong are the Friends of Liberty in this country-^ — ' 'Brother! Hush! Talk to me ratln VOL. I. iS ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER of Oh ! ' Here she shuddered again. ' Why cannot I think of him this evening — why cannot I utter his name without a pang ? ' ' 'Tis toothache, may be. Well. The sooner he comes home the better. There will be a great surprise for him.' There was to be a surprise for him, in- deed. Yet not what we expected and meant. ' From being third mate in an East India- • man he will be a man of substance ; he may call himself a gentleman if he likes, I suppose. There are many City merchants with not half his income esteem themselves gentlemen, and even Esquires. Instead of the rolling deck he will stand on the terra firm a of his own Dock ; in place of the bo's'n's whistle he will have the bell that calls his men to work ; instead of the lapping and dashing of waters he will hear the tapping of the hammers. And instead of walking the quarter-deck he shall sit in his counting-house and reckon up his money.' ' Yes.' But on her face there was a look of pain. 'I hope,' she said, with an ellbrt, ' that he will not be changed as well.' THE BEGINNING OF IT 19 ' Changed ? Not he. George has always been good enough for us. He will be bigger and stronger, if possible. He will be more tender with those he loves. I am sure he will be more masterful with those he com- mands ; and more terrible with those he corrects. But George is one of those who can only change for the better.' The place where we were talking was the drawing-room of the Master's House in the Hospital of St. Katherine's by the Tower. It is a long low room, panelled with cedar, so old that it has become like a mirror for brightness when the light falls upon it ; it would be a dark room but for the coats of arms in red and blue and gold which are painted on the walls and over the fireplace, and for the portraits which hang round it. The shields and the portraits belong to former Masters, Brethren, Commissaries, and distin- guished men who have shed lustre upon this ancient and religious foundation. Here are the effigies of Sir Julius Caesar, made Master in the year 1500. He was the son of Caesar Adelmar, Physician to Queens Mary and 20 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER Elizabeth. Here are those of Sir Charles Ceesar his sod, whilom Commissary to the Hospital ; of Lord Bruncker ; of George and Henry Montague ; of George Berkeley ; all Masters — of the great antiquarian Dr. Ducarel, Commissary ; of the Earl of Dorset, sometime Steward ; and of the learned Verstegan, a native of the Precinct, who wrote the ' Eesti- tution of Decayed Intelligence.' Others there were, of lesser note. This room stretches across the whole north side of the quadrangle called the Brothers' Close. Its ceiling is painted, and divided into lozenges of wood inlaid, painted red and blue, by which the appearance of the room is greatly brightened. There are brass sconces on the wall, each for four candles, and if all were lit there woidd be forty or more to light up the room, but so many have I never seen. At most we gene- rally had but four, or for cards six, which made a strong light immediately around, and threw the rest at" the room into deeper dark-: ness, with mckerings of the light on the gold and colours of the coats of arms. This evening the card table was set out, THE BEGINNING OF IT 21 provided with two silver candlesticks and the snuffers in a silver tray. Two more candles stood on the table before the lire, and on the mantelshelf there were two more. The long; room was thus lit up in the middle, and the two ends were left in obscurity. But the flickering light of the fire fell upon the gilded coats of arms and the gold frames of the por- traits, and the candlelight caught first one face upon the wall and then another as one looked round the room. Beside the table sat my mother and Sister Katherine. They were talking of conserves, distilled waters, the brewing of beer, the making of wine, and such household topics. At the harpsichord sat my sister, Sylvia. She had been playing, but not from music, and now sat with her elbow on the closed lid of the keys, and her face towards the lire. I sat beside her, and we talked, as you have heard, whispering low. At the card- table sat the four players. One of them was dealing : all their faces indi- cated the rapture which carries whist-players so much out of themselves that I suppose, if 22 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER I Lad arisen and delivered an oration on the Eights of Man, even the Prebendary himself, to whom the Eights of Man were as odious as the doctrines of the Baptists, would not have heard or heeded what was said. The four players were — first, the Eev. Eobert Nevill Lorrymore, who among his many titles, preferments, and offices held that of Brother in St. Katherine's Hospital. Un- like some of the Brothers before him and after him, he not only took an occasional turn in the services of the Church but also came into residence every year for a month or' six weeks, choosing that time of the year when the Hospital is at its best with the spring of the year, and the blossoms on the trees in the orchard, the early gillyflowers, polyanthus, tulip, and lily in the garden. We have had many learned and illustrious Brothers of the Foundation, but none more learned than this divine, who indeed shed lustre upon the Hos- pital. His sermons composed and delivered for various occasions : his Dissertation on the Language called Aramaic : his Observations on the Druidical Religion: these things alone THE BEGINNING OF IT 23 (among many others) keep his memory green. He was, so to speak, the especial Patron of our family. He was godfather to my sister Sylvia, to whom he made many rich and valuable presents : and upon me he had recently bestowed a great mark of favour in purchasing for me (it cost him no less than 300/.) a post as clerk in the Admiralty Office. This preferment, as you will presently learn, I afterwards forfeited. Yet the obligation and the gratitude remain. He was a man who looked and spoke as one accustomed to authority, — a tall and corpulent man, with a large head and a great wig upon it, one who filled up a great space in whatever room he found himself. And a man with a full, rich voice, loud yet musical. The Lieutenant, his partner in the game, a tall, lean man of fifty-live — all four players were about that age — sat as upright in his chair as a pike. He had served many years in the gallant corps of Royal Marines, but, as he lacked family influence, he rose no higher than simple Lieutenant. He wore His Majesty's scarlet. He showed signs of hard service in 24 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER his face, which had a QTeat scar straight down his left cheek. This was received in the action between the American frigate Raleiqh and II. M.S. Druid. His right hand had also lost the two middle fingers — lost in a certain attack upon the coast of Rhode Island. Had he been backed by interest, the Lieutenant might have proved a great general. He pos- sessed at least undoubted courage, and he had what we are accustomed to consider the ex- ternal attributes of a general : an aquiline nose ; sharp and piercing e}^es ; a firm mouth, and a strong chin. He lived with his un- married sister, Katherine Bayssallance, of the Sisters' Close, and it was of her son George that we were talking. The third player was a Frenchman — the Marquis de Rosnay. He came over to Eng- land in the first batch of em igris : he was old ; lie was poor ; and he lived in St. Katherine's Square, where he had a lodging of a single room. At this time there were so many thousand imigris scattered all over England that they had ceased to attract attention or to excite suspicion. They lived among us, and THE BEGINNING OF IT 25 except among barbers, cooks, and valets, to whom the emigres of the baser sort were for- midable rivals, no one now minded them. The Marquis, though old, was a man of fine and courtly manners ; he spoke English well ; and he preserved, though with reserve, the philo- sophic habit of thought and freedom of speech which, according to some, assisted powerfully to bring- on the Bevolution. The fourth player was my father, Mr. Edward Comines, whom the people of the Precinct called Mr. Cummins. He was High Bailiff of the Hospital, and by virtue of this office, the Master having been for many generations non-resident, he occupied the Master's House. Every one, on observing him for the first time, would have remarked that he was one of those who magnify their office. This, however, is a praiseworthy dis- position, from an Archbishop to a barber, if only that it leads to the zealous discharge of duty. He was of dignified and lofty ap- pearance ; he wore his hair frizzed in front, and dressed in plaits at the side, tied with a broad black ribbon, and carefully powdered. 26 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER His cravat was of the finest white cambric, his coat of black silk, and his ruffles of old lace. His waistcoat and his stockings were of white silk. At the first aspect of him strangers were reminded of some person unknown. On second thoughts the likeness vanished ; on the third it reappeared, especially in taking a side view of his face. The person whom he resembled was none other than the unfortunate monarch, Louis the Sixteenth of France, whose murder, with that of his unhappy and virtuous consort, and the other brutal murders, so disgusted and terrified the world, and ruined the pre- viously fair prospects of the British friends of Freedom. He had the Bourbon face — I know not how — nor has either of his children in- herited that face from him. He resembled both Louis the Sixteenth and his predecessor, but the former especially in his high but receding forehead and the lofty arch of his nose. After the taking of Calais, Hammes, and Guines by the French in the reign of Queen Mary, it is well known that many of the inhabitants came away with the English and THE BEGINNING OF IT 27 settled in the vicinity of St. Katherine's, where they have lived ever since. Nay, one of the streets in the Precinct, formerly called after the town of Hammes or Guines, has now the two names run together, and is called Hans- man's Gains. Among those who were thus brought to England were two families named respectively De Comines and Bayssallance. My father, and consequently I myself, was descended from the former ; the Lieutenant, and therefore George, from the latter. It was also maintained by my father that the former family was noble and the latter was not. This distinction naturally pleased us to remember, and greatly displeased the Lieutenant to have it recalled. We who have the great privilege to be born of an ancient family do well to be proud of it; on the other hand, it is at all times becoming to ourselves and considerate towards the lowly born to disguise or to con- ceal this pride, and I confess that my father did not always observe this consideration. As for that other tradition, which my father nourished and carefully preserved, that our own ancestor, who came over with the English 28 ST KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER garrison, bore the title of the Vidame de Guisnes, while the ancestral Bayssallance arrived in the capacity of valet to that noble- man, I have always believed that it wanted confirmation, and I should now be willing to let it be forgotten. Nor, indeed, would I press my father's contention that while the De Comines (now Cummins) were always re- garded as belonging to the Gentry or Quality of the Precinct, and resided from father to son in St. Katharine's Square without any soiling of their lingers by trade, the Bayssallances on the other hand took up their quarters in the obscurity of Hangman's Gains, and by trade and even base mechanical handicrafts, gradually pushed themselves forward. It was to the latter family that George belonged, his father being the Lieutenant who now sat at cards with the Prebendary and the Marquis. The boy was, like ourselves, a native of the Precinct, and for some years knew no other part of the world. His father's sister, and therefore his own aunt, was Sister Katherine of the Foundation. He was born in the Precinct, brought up in the Precinct, THE BEGINNING OF IT 29 taught at the Hospital School; he played with us while we were all children together about the Cloisters and the Close, the gardens and the orchard, of the venerable place : he sat on Sunday in the ancient church sazino- upon the carved woodwork of the stall, the tracery of the great Catherine Wheel in the east, the old pulpit with its pictures carved on the six sides, and the ancient monuments in the chancel, while the preacher read the discourse, which was far too learned for children to comprehend, and far too closely reasoned for the rude people, who know no other argument than a command and no other reason than the stick. These children played about the ancient place, quiet and secluded amid houses and streets tilled with the baser- sort : about its cloisters the pigeons Hew and walked, tame and not afraid : in its burial ground cawed the rooks and built their nests • the sailors and watermen came never, not even on Sundays, within its sacred enclosure : the venerable church rose in the midst, worn and gnawed by the tooth of time, grey and bhrk; a church far too large and ample (bj 30 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER its little congregation : where daily prayers were read to a few schoolboys and Bedes- women — the efficiency of daily prayer must not be measured by the number of the wor- shippers. Within the Hospital dwelt dignity, peace, learning, piety, and good manners. Outside . . . Well : those who live and are brought up by the riverside East of the Tower have to become very early inured to the rude and rough manners, the profligacy, the horrid blasphemies, and the wretchedness of the people. Here Arcadia becomes Alsatia : it is a very sink of all iniquities. At first sight it would seem as if the long, narrow strip of land covered with houses which begins at the Irongate and ceases not until you reach Lime- house Dock, is filled with nothing but rogues and villains. This, indeed, is not quite the case. There are righteous men even among the Wappineers. There are honest trades- men and manufacturers, boat-builders, mast- makers, rope-makers, sail-makers ; there are here and there, as at Ratcliffe Cross and in the fields between Whitechapel and Wapping, substantial merchants' houses, with large THE BEGINNING OF IT 31 gardens, built in this quarter for the benefit of the air, which is keen and yet sweet, and free from the smoke of London. But there is also a vast multitude who live openly by plunder ; they make no secret that they are rogues, and the friends of rogues. Some steal, some carry, some receive, buy, and sell. You may here buy tea for three shillings a pound which you cannot get in the City for ten. You may drink Spanish wines and French brandy at a price lower than that for which it was sold at the vineyard. Why go on ? All are rogues ! The women match the men, and are rogues as well. The very boys glory in the title of mudlarks and light horsemen (that is, plunderers by night) ; the men take pride in being known as dexterous scuffle- hunters ; that is, labourers engaged in lading and unlading and in stealing all they can. They live by robbing the ships. Sometimes they call themselves rat-catchers, under cover of their business thieving all day long. Or they are day-plunderers, called heavy horsemen : the tradesmen are eopemen or receivers : the very officers, who should pro- 32 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TCWER 3 tect the property, join in the conspiracy, and are called game-men. The general quarry, I say, is the shipping. It lies in the river to be the prey of all these villains, who are all day and all night engaged in stealing. And such a quarry as no pirates or buccaneers ever dreamed of : a quarry lying ready to hand : no occasion to venture forth in a crazy bottom across an unknown ocean. TsTo, these happy robbers have but to put on a waistcoat filled with pockets and a big apron lined with pockets and to go on board as lumpers, dockers, coopers, holders, glut-officers, coal- heavers, lightermen, and journeymen, there to find their plunder ready to hand, while the watermen and mudlarks are under the ports waiting to receive it. And nobody is ever the richer by these robberies, because all is (hunk up at the mughouse or the tavern. Wherever ships lit 1 , there will such boys as George be found whenever they are not at school. They cannot keep away from the ships, even though to get among them they must needs encounter such gentry as these, T suppose there never was any danger (In: THE BEGINNING OF IT 33 the son of one who bore the King's commission could be led into the ways we witnessed daily. But for such a boy the way of safety lies through apprenticeship. George was appren- ticed at fourteen. By two-and-twenty he was already third mate on board an East India- man. He was now, having been away three years, engaged in what is called the Country Trade, homeward bound, his ship overdue. Three years is a long time with the young. Sylvia, who was sixteen and little more than a girl when George kissed her and said good- bye, was now nineteen, and a tall young woman. There was no doubt that when he should return he would with the greatest eagerness press forward his suit, and be married with what speed he might. There was an additional reason, apart from the natural impatience of a lover ; and this was, that on his return he would find himself the possessor of a noble dock — Oak Apple Dock — at Rotherhithe, a little down the river. He would be a solid and substantial merchant. He would, as I have said, exchange the rolling deck for his own snug counting-house. This VOL. I. D 34 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER inheritance had come to him during his ab- sence from his mother's brother, a great merchant, whose town house was in Cold Harbour Lane, over against All Hallows the Great. He left a great fortune in money and lands among his nephews and nieces, and to George he bequeathed the Dock. It seemed to us purblind mortals as if this good fortune would be the making of him. Alas ! it only- proved, but by ways that we could not expect, the undoing of him, as you shall learn. ' Can you one ? ' asked the Prebendary. ' I can,' replied the Lieutenant. 'Treble, single, and the rub,' said his Eev- erence, laying his hand upon the counters. ' Who,' asked the Marquis, taking up his snuff-box, ' can contend against the Church of England on the one side ' — here he bowed to the Prebendary — ' and the armies of King George on the other ? ' Here he bowed to the Lieutenant. Sylvia sprang to her feet and left the room. In five minutes she returned, before the THE BEGINNING OF IT 35 gentlemen who had now risen and were talk- ing over their game had walked from the card- table to the fireplace. She bore in her hands a bowl of steaming punch, the ladle lying in it ready for use. The bowl was of silver, and was that which tradition assigned to Sir Julius Cassar, formerly Master here. It was ac- quired and presented to the Hospital by the learned antiquarian, Dr. Ducarel, Commissary of the Hospital. Molly the maid came after, bearing a tray with glasses. My father began to ladle out the punch — Sylvia carried round the glasses to the com- pany. ' After labour,' he said, i refreshment. Prebendary, you have always held that milk punch, made with care and taken in modera- tion, is sovereign against many evils.' ' The creature called rum,' said his Rever- ence, ' hath the strength of an elephant — his madness too, unless he is curbed and made gentle by the addition of milk, water, spices, lemon, and sugar. Madame Comines, you have, I always maintain, a light and skilful hand; Nowhere, not even at Cambridge, do D 2 36 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER I taste better punch. Let us drink — madam, you will permit me ? — let us drink confusion to all revolutionists, enemies of the country, radicals, corresponding circles, and preachers of a fond and vain equalit} 7 .' All raised their glasses. As for me. I hesitated. Sylvia came to my aid. ' I must taste from your glass, brother,' she said, and so I escaped. If I drank the punch, I did not, as the others, drink it to the confusion of my friends. ' There is,' said the Divine, ' an equality among scholars, as of those pursuing a com- mon object : as among gentlemen, as all knowing and obeying the laws of politeness ; as among private soldiers, the rank and fde, mechanics and tradesmen, as being all ex- pected to fulfil certain duties and to obey authority. There is an equality among all men in respect that we have all one life, one sonl, and one salvation. There is an equality among those in high office, as in the Bench of Bishops all may be called equal. So the Cherubim are equal with each other, and the Seraphim each with each, and as servants of THE BEGINNING OF IT 37 the Throne all are equal, yet, as hath been fully demonstrated by Hooker, one of our English Fathers, there are degrees and ranks in High Heaven itself. Wherefore why not on this earth, which Ave should strive more and more to make the humble counterpart of Heaven ? ' What more he would have said I know not, because at this moment we heard a manly footstep on the stair, the door flew open, and before us stood none other than the sailor himself — George Bayssallance — home again. We all cried out. We should have rushed to welcome him. The words of welcome and of joy were on our lips, when . . . 'Twas the most surprising thing — the most unex- pected — it is still the most mysterious — Sylvia shrieked aloud, as in deadly alarm, put out her arms as if to ward oil' an evil spirit, and fell headlong on the floor. 38 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER CHAPTER II THE HAPLESS LOVER Tins is how George was received on his re- turn. It was at night — at ten o'clock — when he came. He returned unexpectedly ; we were talking and thinking of other things : suddenly he threw open the door and stood before us — and at the sight of him, Sylvia sprang to her feet with a terrified cry : the colour forsook her cheek — she fell to the ground upon her face. The poor lad got not so much as a grip of the hand, or a ' Welcome Home ! ' even from his father or Sister Katherine; we all crowded together round the girl in a swoon — one was for sending for a surgeon to bleed her ; one wanted to burn feathers at her nose; one wanted to lay her upon her back ; one called for brandy ; one for smelling-salts ; one would THE HAPLESS LOVER 39 bathe her forehead with cold water — and, as always happens when girls faint away, she presently came round without the exhibition of any remedy. But then another remarkable thing happened. George it was who sup- ported her head — no one had a better right. She opened her eyes and looked about with the bewildered eyes of one who slowly re- coyers from a swoon, and wonders what has happened. She saw us all standing around her ; then she lifted her eyes and saw George bending over her. Instantly she started to her feet with another cry, and once more she fell fainting at our feet. Again she recovered consciousness ; again she saw George standing over her ; again she screamed as if in fear, and pushed him from her violently with both her hands. Then she covered her face as if she could not bear so much as to look at him. At first we thought that excess of joy had produced this swoon ; the sudden and unex- pected appearance of her lover turned her head — but what did this second phenomenon betoken? We looked from one to the other 40 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER perplexed and dismayed. Why did she push George from her? "Why did she cover her face with her hands as if she could not bear the sight of him ? ' She is in some grievous pain,' said my mother. ' Let us take her quickly to her own room.' We partly carried, partly led, her to her own chamber, where we left her with her mother. But as we closed the door we heard her burst into crying and sobbing in a manner most pitiful to hear. All that night she lay awake, ceasing not for a moment to wail and to w T eep, wringing her hands, and at times crying out that she was lost and abandoned by God, and asking what she had done that this heavy punish- ment should fall upon her, and, when she was quieter, moaning and turning her head from side to side, so that my mother, who sat with her, and Sister Katherine, who would not go home, but sat also by the bedside, knew not what to do or to think, the thing being alto- gether beyond their experience. In the morning, when day broke, she THE HAPLESS LOVER 41 ceased to cry, being now clean exhausted, and able to do no more, not even able to feel her misery — so, they say, that the wretch who receives two hundred lashes feels nothing; after the first fifty. She fell asleep, there- fore, and into so deep a sleep that she did not awaken till midday. When she awoke at length, she seemed, at first, to be returned to her right mind. She lay peacefully, her eyes open, her breath- ing quiet and regular, to all appearance in health. ' My dear,' said her mother, ' you are awake at last ; 3^011 have had a long sleep ; you are feeling well, I hope ? You are in no more pain ? ' 'I am not ill,' she replied. 'Nothing is the matter with me. I have no pain. I wish I had. I wish,' she added, with strange vehemence, ' that I was torn with red-hot pincers rather than suffer what I have suffered. ' ' It is over now, my child. You have slept well ; you hardly moved in your sleep from four o'clock this morning till now — and 42 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER it is noon ; yon have had a long and refresh- ing sleep. Yon shall have some breakfast — a little hot milk and bread in it — or an ez THE WISE WOMAN 85 be known in the Precinct, where she took up her abode — a widow, yet not a widow. When anyone spoke of Margery Hab- bijam, he always related this story first, because anything strange or unusual seems to confer some kind of distinction upon a place. He then, with greater pride, told how she was reckoned the wisest woman to be found anywhere. Since there are in London and on its borders a great many wise women who live by the exercise of their wisdom, Dame Margery should be very wise indeed. To begin with, she cured all diseases, having herbs good against every one. She also sold children's cauls, charms against lead, steel, fire, and water, fortified with which the greatest coward might venture into the hot- test fight by sea or land. She also made and sold spells, love potions, philtres, and amulets, by means of which girls could bring the falsest of lovers back to their arms, and she knew secrets by which they could preserve their good looks, remove blemishes, and re- store — it was pretended — lost youth. Did the hair begin to turn grey, Dame Margery 86 ST. CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER restored it to its proper colour. Did the hair fall off, the Dame repaired the disaster. Now, as Moll and Bet of Shad well are every whit as anxious to preserve their good looks — and therefore their lovers — as any fine lady in Bond Street, Margery Habbijam was much sought after. She was, in short, full of know- ledge, especially the kind of knowledge most desired by her own sex. Besides her skill in herbs and in the making of charms, she knew how to foretell the future, whether by cards, or by coffee-grounds, or by spilling beer on the ground, or by the lines of the hand. It was not only Moll of Shad well, I promise you, that came after Margery Habbijam, but many a fine City madam, disguised as a country wench or a riverside wife. 'Prentices went to seek her advice ; sailors for the charms I have spoken of ; young men of all kinds for advice; in love matters. Why, if it were known and certain that the future could- be truly divined and foretold, or that limits otherwise unattainable could be at- tained by witchcraft, sorcery, and other means such as these, forbidden and contrary THE WISE WOMAN 87 to Divine Law, there would be a flocking of thousands to the wise woman, not to be de- terred by any threatening or promise of future consequences, to hear and learn for themselves. With one consent all the universe would sell their souls, or wilfully throw them away, could they thus secure wealth, ease, and immunity from labour for a lifetime. We suffer the witch to remain in our midst only because the better sort no longer believe in her power. She is not universally and openly consulted, even among the baser sort, because those who secretly believe openly laugh at her pretensions. Moreover, she no longer professes to be in communication with the Devil, and no longer pretends to be able to cause, as well as to cure, disease. She plays tricks with cards, she reads signs in the coffee-grounds, and finds the history of a life written in the palm of the hand. The Devil has nothing to do with these things. They are done by rule of thumb, and any one may learn how to do them. This is very true ; any one may learn rule 88 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER of thumb. But in these matters there is more than a mere rule of thumb. We might as well say that any one may learn how to write poetry. So he may — the rules of scan- sion and of rhyme. Or that any one may learn tricks of conjuring or sleight of hand. It is, however, very well known that, though any scholar may learn the structure of verse, it is given to few to become poets. Also, that though any one may learn how a trick is performed, few can ever achieve the swiftness of hand and eye, and the dexterity which must be acquired before the trick can be successfully performed. So in the trade or profession — I may not say the calling — of witch or fortune-teller there requires a certain rare quality of insight, so that the person who possesses it can observe from the face, voice, eyes, manner, and appearance of any one his character, disposition, and inclinations. These things once known, I say that it would be very easy to predict what will happen sup- posing that these inclinations are indulged and these dispositions encouraged. Nay, we may consider with what certainty the future THE WISE WOMAN 89 of a boy can be read by those who watch and observe him, and are not led by undue affec- tion to undervalue the dangers. I believe that the only witchcraft — as well as the only power of prophecy — lies in knowledge, and the mysteries of the wise woman are nothing more than the idle, rattling words with which the conjuror carries off his tricks. The wise woman was prosperous. Her clients were numerous and paid her well : she lived in a two-roomed house or cottage (one room below and one above) in Helmet Court, where only the better sort of tradesmen and mechanics live ; not the common lumpers and deckers, but the skilled men employed in mast making yards, boat building, rope making, and so forth, men who have a trade and get good wages. She was so well off that she could afford a coal fire all the year round, and sat at night with the light of a good solid tallow candle, while her neighbours sometimes had to go to bed because there was no fire, and not even a farthing rushlight. And everybody knew that she fared every day off the best : not even the gentry of the Hospital 90 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER fared better. She lived alone : no one ever got further than the first room. Yet it was whispered that voices had been heard there late at night. Xo doubt voices of dead people who came to talk with the witch. She was a little old woman, shrivelled up and shrunk within her own skin : her face was fresh-coloured still, of the kind which has often been compared to a withered apple in the winter: her white teeth showed behind her shrunken lips : her nose had the sharp- ness of age : her hair was white, and covered with a thrum cap : she always sat all day long in a great armchair between the table and the lire, with a wrapper over her shoulders. But she was not decrepit: on occasions she was active : and though so small and withered she was strong. As for her mind, that was known to be keen and vigorous by the brightness and eagerness of her eyes. She could neither read nor write, and I know not where she Learned her wisdom. She took tobacco, not in the polite form of snuff, but in that nauseous way practised by mechanics and the lower class, THE WISE WOMAN 91 namely, by means of a short clay pipe. She generally had this either lit, or ready to be lit, at her elbow, and when she was not divining or answering questions, she would still be smoking this pipe all day long, so that her room was always foul with the smell of the tobacco, which she affirmed to be the best preventive that exists against fever and sore throats. In a word, when one talked with her, one perceived that she was a woman of very uncommon parts and of quick under- standing. She used language of a style above the rudeness of the people to whom she be- longed : she spoke, though, as I have said, she could neither read nor write, like one who had read many books : she had arrived at the choice and knowledge of words by mother-wit and the necessity for finding language in which to describe and speak about the various diseases she cured, the remedies she ordered, and the fortunes she told. When one heard her talk and marked the brightness of her eyes, one perceived that she was indeed a very wise woman. If we got little help from the physician we 92 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER got less from the wise woman, as you shall see. I went to her house (or cottage) with orders from these two ladies, my mother and Sister Katherine, to bring her with me. It was in the morning, because at that time Dame Margery was most easy of access, and her coming and going were less liable to observation than in the evening. It was also a convenient time for her to come to the house when my father was engaged upon his business. I found her in her room, her pipe ready to her hand, practising some of her tricks with the pack of cards. There was no cere- mony of introduction necessary, because she knew me and I knew her, very well indeed ; when we were boys we often ventured a penny upon the hazard of the cards to learn our fortunes, which we speedily forgot again as fast as the old lady revealed them. As they changed, and were different every time we inquired of the oracle, that mattered little. She was sitting, then, at her table, her pipe between her lips, intent upon her greasy ' She would be smoking this pipe all ,< . THE WISE WOMAN 93 pack of cards, when I exposed to her the trouble we were in, and the nature of the service we required of her. When she had heard me out, which she did with a strange impatience, she dropped the pipe from her lips, so that it broke to pieces on the Hoor, and began to shiver and to shake, crying, ' Oh ! Lord ! If I had but known ! If I had but guessed ! I thought it was some common wench ! Does he dare ? Does he dare?' — gazing upon me all that time with searching eyes. ' Dame,' I said, ' it is of no use putting questions to me, because I know nothing.' 'I have heard talk of it,' she said. 'But I paid little heed, because the people must still be talking. Some say one thing, and some another. They say the young lady arose, and cursed her lover, praying that the vengeance of the Lord might fall upon him, as happened to Captain Easterbrook, of Deptford, thirty years ago.' ' Nonsense. What matter what silly folk say ? Cursed her lover ? Why should my sister curse her lover? She swooned away, 94 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER I say, at sight of him, and she has not yet recovered her right mind.' ' She swooned away ! Why should girls swoon at the sight of their lovers ? Young gentleman, I can do nothing in this case.' ' You must come with me, nevertheless.' ' How if I will not come ? ' ' Then, Dame, I shall carry you.' ' I will afflict your arms with weakness, so that you shall drop me : and your legs, so that you shall totter and fall : and your head, so that it shall reel, and you shall stagger ' ' Come, Dame,' I repeated, ' or I shall carry you.' ' What ! you are not afraid of me ? ' 'Not a bit. Will you come? or shall 1 carry you ? ' • Well, Nevijl Comines, you are a bold lad not to be afraid of the witch. I will go with you.' So she locked her door carefully, and we walked along together, she muttering to her- self on the way, as old women, wise as well as ignorant, often do. One must not, how- THE WISE WOMAN 95 ever, call an old woman a witch because she mumbles and mutters as she goes along. ' Now. Dame,' said my mother, sharply, 'you have often been called a wise woman. Here is my daughter. What is the matter with her ? ' The old woman took Sylvia's hand and looked into the palm; but that, I apprehend, was only part of her pretence. Then she lifted her head and looked upon her face : then she bade her lift her eyes and look into her own. All this I suppose to have been the mere outward tricks of her trade. ' She is bewitched,' said the wise woman, when all this pretence had been accom- plished. ' She was startled out of her five senses,' said my mother. ' No other witchcraft has been used upon my girl. That I dare swear.' ' She is bewitched, I say." the wise woman repeated. 'Then, in the name of the Lord,' said Sister Katherine, 'if she is bewitched, take off the spell.' 96 57! KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER ' Those who caused may cure. Those who gave may take away.' ' Nay, Dame,' Sister Katherine persisted, ' you are, everybody knows, a very wise woman indeed. People talk of your wonder- ful cures for miles round. There is old Nan, the bedeswoman — you cured her rheumatism last winter when she could hardly crawl ' ' Ay, ay. Many have I cured, and many more I hope to cure.' 'Why, then, we will cross your hand with a golden guinea, Dame. A guinea you shall have to begin with, and another when the child is well. Consider, 'tis a delicate child, and in sad case.' ' Ay, ay. Guineas are guineas; and yet, what can I do ? ' 'Why — you know spells and charms, as well as drugs. If it is witchcraft, drive it out,' • Witchcraft it is, and that sure enough.' ' Then drive it out. And all the world shall know what a wise woman you are.' 'It is done, then, by some one stronger tli.in me, What a wise woman can do I can THE WISE WOMAN 97 do. My mother was a wise woman and my grandmother, and her grandmother, who was burned for a witch. We have all been wise women, mother to daughter, I know not how long. But we cannot cure everything. When a man is going to die, he must die, spite of all. When one stronger is in the field what can we do ? No, no. In this case, those who caused may cure. I can do nothing.' 'Then,' said my mother, impatiently, 'why come here at all ? ' 'Because I was bidden. I was told that if I refused to come I should be carried. Yet I knew before I came what had happened. She is bewitched. But courage, pretty. Be not too much cast down. This witchcraft shall not destroy thee. It will presently pass clean away and be forgotten. Pray that it pass quickly before more mischief happens.' ' What witch is there who would overlook this innocent child ? ' asked Sister Katherine. ' Witch ! witchcraft ! ' cried my mother, angrily. 'What stuff is this for Christian folk to hear? We know, without any wise woman to tell us, that the Lord will cure VOL. I. }{ 98 ST. KATHERJNE'S BY THE TOWER what the Lord hath caused. Since you can- not help us more, you may as well go.' ' Stay a moment,' said Sister Katherine. 1 Do not anger her. See, Dame, the girl is weak. Can you give her nothing that may strengthen her body until it shall please the Lord to restore her mind ? ' ' One may be as wise as the Queen of Sheba,' said the old woman, ' and yet not be able to help in such a case. How long this disorder may last I know not ' Here Sylvia lifted her head and raised her eyes, as if in hope. ' Yes, pretty, cheer up, it will go away — whether in time or not, I cannot say. It will work itself out and vanish. If you must needs try herbs, throw away the borage' — thus will physicians still contradict each other — ' it is rank poison to her. Marigold is your only herb. Give her marigold and tea of hops. But as to her mind, what can we do ? Those who gave, may take away : those who caused may cure.' So she departed, and we were left as wise as before. 99 CHAPTEE V THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH Seeing, then, how little profit we took from the physician or from the wise woman, it was natural that we should proceed to lay the matter before the Church. And if we asked the counsel of the Church, to whom should we go, except to the Eeverend Prebendary Lorrymore, not only because lie was a most learned Divine, but also because he was a Brother of our Ancient and Eeligious Founda- tion, and godfather to Sylvia, and the private friend and well-wisher to us all ? Apart from these considerations we could go to no person of greater repute. No one, even on the Bench of Bishops, enjoyed a higher reputation for scholarship and divinity. This is proved by the many offices winch he held. I cannot enumerate them all. But I H 2 ioo ST. CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER remember that of honorary offices, such as are bestowed upon men as a mark of distinction, he was a Doctor of Divinity ; a Fellow of the Royal Society ; a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries ; Professor of Sacred History at the Royal Academy ; and one of the Chaplains in Ordinary to His Majesty the King. Of the more solid rewards open to Churchmen, he had also received many. For example, he was Prebendary of St. Paul's ; he was Rector of St. Ben'et, Walbrook, commonly called St. Ben'et Sherehog ; he was Vicar of the united parishes of Milton-cum-Wanborough, in Suf- folk ; he was Rector of the village of West Hayling, in Hampshire; and he held the living of Ashendene, in Nottinghamshire ; he had also a living presented to him by his College, but indeed I forget where this was. He was also Chaplain to the Worshipful Company of Tallow Chandlers; Professor of Rhetoric in ( iresham College ; and one of the Brothers of St. Katherine's by the Tower. Other appoint- ments he held, but these wen 1 the most im- portant. He had enriched the controversial literature of his time by many solid and THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH 101 weighty volumes, and by sermons delivered on various great occasions. It has been charged against him that he took everything greedily, and still held out his hands. That is not true. He accepted each gift as it de- volved upon him, not in the spirit of rapacity or greed sometimes charged upon pluralists, but as a proper tribute to his learning and his great deserts. Conscious worth approved each successive honour. When, indeed, a man of good birth and undoubted learning accepts the responsibilities of the cloth, the least that he can expect is that the prizes of the Church should fall to his share. Pre- bendary Lorrymore, therefore, took all that was offered him and waited for more. The crowning reward of the mitre never, however, came to him, though as each vacancy occur- red lie looked for the news of his approach- ing consecration. Men of obscure origin, and of learning certainly not greater than his own, were always preferred to him. He died before reaching his grand climacteric, while as yet this ambition, laudable and natural in so great a scholar and divine, had not been gratified. io2 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER He was never one of those fat and lazy shepherds who hand over their ilocks to the care of hirelings. Therefore he did not suffer the duties of his sacred office to be wholly discharged by the inferior order of clergy. Conscience ruled all his actions. He spent a week or two every year either at his benefice in Hampshire or at that of Suffolk or at that of Huntingdon, giving once in three years, at least, to the rustics of those villages the ad- vantage of his presence, with an excellent dis- course, such as might have been pronounced before the Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City of London. He was tender, also, towards his curates, apprenticed their boys in the City, and for their girls found places suit- able to their station and their abilities. He also set apart every year a certain sum to be apportioned among the sick and the aged of the poor in his various parishes. In the months of August and September, when the air of the City is close, and its heats are oppressive, he exchanged the narrow streets of Walbrook for the open courts and gardens of St. Katherine's. Here the air blown up THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH 103 the river from the German Ocean is fresh and wholesome : north, south, and east are broad spaces of garden ground or open fields, and although the lanes of the Precinct are narrow and its people for the most part rude, one living in the Hospital need not visit these narrow lanes or see their people ; while the fields beyond are open for those who desire to enjoy the country air and the gardens, in the Hospital are places for those who wish for moderate ex- ercise and meditation. At this time he was at a period of life when, even if the powers of the body begin to show some signs of fatigue, those of the mind are in their full vigour — happy is it for man that the strength of his mind doth not always correspond to the strength of his body, and the stores of learning and wisdom are still accumulating. That is to say, he was between fifty and sixty. Like most scholars who contract sedentary habits, he was a man of a full habit and corpulent ; he was of a good stature ; his person and his carriage were imposing ; his face was full, his 104 ST. A' A THE FINE'S BY THE TOWER cheeks red, his chin double ; he wore a full wig ; his voice was loud but musical, and he spoke with authority, as one who loves not discussion ; and, indeed, he was seldom angry, except when some person, ill-advised, ven- tured to dispute with him, or to contest his opinion. Since a scholar and a divine can nowhere be better consulted than in his own library, it was there that I repaired to confer with him and to ask his advice. His library was an upper room of his Rectory, looking out upon the court where stands the Church of St. Ben'et Sherehog, Walbrook. The streets outside may be noisy, but the court is quiet, and there are trees standing among the crowded graves in the churchyard, so that in spring and summer the sight of green leaves is grateful to the eye. The books covered the walls from top to bottom, having a space only for windows, for fireplace, and for door. All else was covered up and hidden by books. I suppose that they were books of learning, and were princi- pally concerned with Greeks and Romans and THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH 105 Hebrews, and all the things they did and wrote. Well, for my own part, I confess that the histories of these latter days seem to me as full of instruction as any told by the his- torians Livy and Thucy elides. What, for ex- ample, shows the danger of mob government more than the history of the French Revo- lution — its dreadful massacres, its horrid murders, and the vengeance which fell upon every one of its leaders ? Where is there any story more full of pity and indignation than the treatment by the French nation — call it rather the mob arrogating to itself the will of the nation — of that most unhappy lady Queen Marie Antoinette ? Where in ancient history is there a more dreadful wickedness to be found than in their treatment of that poor child, her son? Yet, again, where is there found, apart from the crimes of the leaders, a more noble uprising of a whole people ? But scholars think otherwise. According to their judgment, it is not in the events of this day and in the lives of the men around us tli at we are to look for lessons and warnings in the conduct of life, but in the history of 106 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER Athens or of Rome, and in the lives of those who belonged to those cities. Well, I laid the whole matter before this learned Divine ; the opinion of the physician ; the obstinacy of the disorder ; the unhappi- ness of the patient ; the despair of her lover ; and the sayings of the wise woman. As for the fact itself, the passion into which the poor child fell at the sight of her lover, that he had himself witnessed. ' Sir,' I said, ' it is the very life of my sister that is at stake. She wastes visibly. She is growing weaker in body, and still remains under the strange delusion of her brain.'' 1 The case is serious. Let us, therefore, talk it over seriously. It maj^ be that in con- sidering it from many points of view, we shall arrive at some clue by which we may explain it. For to understand the cause of a malady may suggest the remedy. ' You have laid the case,' he went on, 'before a physician. And apparently to no purpose. Yet a wise physician, Well, physi- cians are useful only when they can discover THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH 107 the nature of the disease. In disorders of the mind they have hitherto discovered nothing but the external signs and symptoms. It may be that as knowledge advances many things now hidden will be laid open, and many remedies now unknown will be dis- covered. In .this case, however, a physician can do nothing. You have also called in your wise woman, — your Margery Habbijam, of whom I have heard. "lis a superstitious custom, but one must not expect to uproot superstitions suddenly even from the minds of the better sort. She has also proved use- less. That was to be expected. As for her dictum, or opinion concerning witchcraft, we will consider it presently. What to do next ? ' ' Indeed, sir, we know not what next, and are at our wits' end. And still my unfortu- nate sister grows worse, instead of better.' ' I have been married three times,' said his Eeverence. ' Each of my wives was of a different complexion and disposition. One, born under Saturn, was dark of skin, prone to silence and solitude ; the second, born under io8 ST. CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER the influence of Mars, was quick of temper and of tongue, fond of company, and inclined to strive for the mastery — in which,' he added, ' I may affirm, without boastfulness, that she did never succeed. The third, born under Yenus, was affectionate, disposed to merriment, loved music, would willingly go to the play, and was of a lively, sweet, and pleasing temper, though sometimes lighter in her conversation than is becoming to the wife of such a man as myself, so placed, and of such a reputation. I have, therefore, enjoyed more than the usual chance of studying and observing the ways of women. More than this, I have read, I believe, all that has been written by the ancients on the subject, which has constantly engaged the attention of scholars from the time when men first treated of Love, and of its cause — namely, women. 'This premised for your satisfaction, let us proceed to the matter in hand. 'And, firstly, it is a case in which love has been violently, and against the will of the patient, disturbed or ejected. I say the first, THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH 109 because the girl's repugnance to the man is so manifest that it cannot be doubted. She now feels for the man she once loved a loath- ing so violent that she cannot endure even his presence. This may be a passing dis- order, or it may affect her for the rest of her life, which, in that case, will be but short. These repugnances and loathings are not un- common. As, for instance, there was formerly a woman — she is mentioned in Athemeus — who could not endure the sight or the smell of a flower. "Wherefore, her husband caused the ground about his house to be planted with turf, and so made a trim lawn, carefully kept free from daisies, buttercups, primroses, or violets, in which his wife might take the air without offence to her dainty nose. And with regard to food and drink, nothing is more common than for one person to feel sick at the verv smell of what to another is his dearest food. In this case, there is no doubt that love — even love of the most tender kind possible — that of a maiden for a young man whom she has known all her life, has been changed into loathing. no ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER Next, it is a case where this change has happened against the will, and greatly to the sorrow of the woman in question. This is abundantly clear by the tears and the distress which she shows, and by the melancholy which is now causing her to waste away. It remains, then, for us to consider some of the causes which may produce this change.' I waited while he reflected for a moment. ' A most potent cause of the translation of friendship into hatred is the passion of envy. " Wrath is cruel," says the wise man, " and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy ? " For example, Saul envied David and loathed him. Women, it is well known, in their endeavours to attract the ad- miration and the affection of men, do contin- ually envy each other — yea, and will stick at no evil word or wicked deed to spite another woman who may be accounted more beauti- ful. There was once an Athenian maid who was murdered by her rds v.ilhoiil a struggh — "I want to make him happy if I can, but I cannot." "Why not?" IN THE PRECINCT 147 I asked. " I cannot," she replied, " and yet I would." " Sylvia, my dear," I told her, " you are now talking, as they say, like an apothe- cary, whom no one can understand. You would and you would not — you can and you cannot. What sense or reason is here ? ' : She began to cry again. Lord knows, Nevill, I am sorry indeed for the girl, because I love her purely, and she is in such trouble. Yet was I angry because I can see no reason for the trouble. When you have known a girl all her life you may be angry with her and yet love her all the time, as mothers love their children though they whip them. If Sylvia was a child again, and could have a good whipping, 'twould doubtless do more than all the talking in the world. No more could I get out of her ; so I left her in the garden and I came away. Well, Nevill, what have you got to say to that ? ' I had nothing to say. ' Sylvia is not like one of those giddy girls who will have half a hundred beaux after them, and send them all away without a thought for any. Otherwise, one might think she was playing a game. Hut no. That won't L 2 148 ST. KATHERIKE'S BY THE TOWER do. And again, she isn't a girl who could take up with another man while her old lover was sailing over the sea. Not so.' ' Sylvia knows no other man,' I said. ' Of course she doesn't. Don't interrupt, boy. It's little, indeed, that I have to say, and I must collect my thoughts as I go along.' She paused for a few moments, thinking how to arrange what was in her mind. When I came to think of it, what she said Mas mighty like what his Eeverence said. ' If Sylvia,' she went on, * was one of a troop of romping girls — if she had many friends — we might know where to seek for the cause, because, Nevill, though you suspect it not, girls still follow each other. If one has a toothache all teeth must ache. I have heard that in convents if one of the nuns has fits, they all get fits, and if one has Visions, nothing will serve but all must have Visions. They run the same way — like Tan tony pigs. So that if one of her friends had got a bee in her bonnet we would find it out and look in Sylvia's bonnet for that and perhaps some er bee. But she has no friends at all. IN THE PRECINCT 149 There isn't a young woman in the whole Precinct she can consort with . Yet her head is filled with some whim or another, and for the life of me I can't find it out. If she won't tell, what use asking; her ? What matters talking;, says the exciseman, when you mean pudding and I mean pork ? She might do worse than tell me, though I am an old maid and never had a sweetheart. Why, I was young once, and had my own whimsies like the rest, ready for the discomfiture of any poor wretch who might come a courting. But no one came. Most young girls, before they know the world, must have a man made a purpose to suit their notions ; they would like to take the clay and make him with their own hands — a very proper young fellow he would be, the girl's man. He must be tall — they like him tall ; lie must have large eyes and a soft voice ; he must make love as gently as a cat on velvet ; he must not be rude or rough about it ; his discourse must be as gentle as his love-making ; he must not swear; he must not drink; he must not laugh with other young men ; nor must he 150 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER play their rough sports. He must not fight either. The young girl loves a soldier who is a hero, but not the man who will willingly oil' coat and fight a waterman, a sailor, or a carter in the street ; nor one who will sit in a Wapping tavern and sing a song and take his glass and his tobacco. Oh, no — he must wait at the tea-table. In his behaviour he must be as demure as a bride at church ; he must prefer the talk of the girls to that of the men ; and, above all, he must not be in a hurry to get married. In a word, Nevill, if the girls had the making of a man, they would make him exactly like themselves, only bigger. Oh ! — the sweet, big, pretty, strong, soft- cheeked, gentle, dainty Jemmy Jessamy of a man he would be ! Well,' she went on again, ' I don't know — she won't say. Very likely Sylvia, who is but a slip of a thing, almost a child yet, ignorant of the world, has found out that George isn't like a girl, and a good deal bigger than herself, and she is frightened. Give her time, therefore, and she may come round. 'Or she may have other fancies. Lord ! IN THE PRECINCT 151 — there's no end to the fancies that get into girls' heads. One girl ' — note, I say, how Sister Katherine followed in her own way, and of her own accord, almost the same lines as the Prebendary — ' one girl I knew, long ago, who would not marry her lover for a long while, making a great fuss and to-do because a married woman sometimes has children, and children always have souls, and unless they get election they perish everlastingly, poor things ! Nothing, not even the admoni- tions of the minister, could make this girl consent to be the mother of a soul that might be damned. She said she would not bring into the world any such poor miserable wretch, It was in vain that they pointed out to her that thus she might also keep some poor shivering soul out of the joys of Heaven. Well, she kept her lover off and on, until at last she consented, and became the mother of twelve, and now leaves the issue to the Lord. And another there was who would not for a long time consent because she could not truly promise to obey her husband. She knew her own masterful disposition and her lover's 152 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER meekness. Well, Nevill, a tender conscience ought to be respected, and in sncli a case the Bishop might grant a license, because as for a woman obeying her husband it is half of one and half of the other, and most wives both give and take. " I love you," says the girl, " and I will do all for you ; but you must do all for me." One hand washes face, two hands wash each other. Certain it is that if the woman had drawn up the Marriage Service, which did not come down from Heaven like the Ten Commandments — don't pretend it did — this promise would not have been required of them to the peril of their immortal souls. Well, this girl I speak of did at last consent, and gave the promise in a loud and dear voice, so that all who were in the church heard. But she kept it no further than the church dour, and now rules her 1 hi -band with strictness, and for the poor man's good. Well, Sylvia may be like these two girls. 'Another kind is she who does not under- stand the nature and the vehemence of love in j u an. They think it is a poor, weak sort of IN THE PRECINCT 3.) an inclination — as if one girl would serve them very nearly as well as another. So they take up with one man and then with another, and they will and they will not. And they en- courage a man till they have kindled in his heart a raging furnace hotter than Daniel's, and then they wonder — oh ! La ! — to see him storm, and rave, and fight the other men with savage blows and the ferocity of a lion. Sylvia is young. Perhaps she knows not, and can- not suspect, the strength of love. Alas ! poor George ! for the inward fire consumes him. ' Or, again, there are other girls, who, seeing some wives neglected and forsaken by their husbands, tremble for themselves, and, rather than fall into this misery, will never marry at all. This I have myself often con- sidered ; for to see your husband's love die away, and be followed by nothing but neglect or contempt, must be a terrible thing. Yet we should all hope that this misfortune may not fall upon us, but rather the long continu- ance of love to the very end, when youth and strength and beauty have long gone, and the 154 -ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER man's skill of hand is forgotten, and lie can only sit in the chimney-corner. There the two old folk should comfort each other; and, I think, they might then bless the Lord for the institution of marriage. I speak not against wedlock. I — though I am an old maid whom no man has ever wooed. What then? So much the worse for me — not so much the worse for wedlock. Shall I cry out that grapes are sour? Not so. ' Nay, and there are other girls — but these are rare — who look about them and consider the misfortunes of the world, the dreadful calamities which fall upon people : the wives made widows ; the mothers robbed of their children ; the husbands broken and bankrupt ; terrible diseases ; and rubs, jerks, flouts, and scorns of fortune. And these tilings they ponder over until they are unwilling to obey the voice of Nature and to take a husband. What? Arc we not to venture out because it may rain? These calamities do not happen to all, but only to some. The ships go forth to sea, and sonic get wrecked. Are the rest never to leave the port again? Why, most IN THE PRECINCT 155 of them go out and return again in safety, cargo and crew, all for the enrichment of the owners. We must take our chance. We cannot go into a nunnery and fly from fate. If it is the Lord's will that our children die, we are in the Lord's hands. Better to live and die like the rest of the world than to run away and hide. Besides, who would live at home when the rest are gone ? And what is the old maid — unless she is a Sister of the Hospital of St. Katherine — but a drudge, to mend the clothes and make the beds ? And what can a woman do better for herself than to make a man's life happy, and to bring up her children in the fear of the Lord ? ' ' I wish,' I said, ' that Sylvia had been here as well as myself to hear this excellent discourse.' ' Oh, I am no fool. Though I have never been married, I have looked on and listened. Many things happen in the Precinct. Human nature is much the same everywhere. Take off the duchess's satin petticoat and her frock, and she is much the same, to look at, as the milkmaid. What is done in Hangman's Gains 156 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER is done in St. James's. Even a princess may have her whims and fancies. I know a great deal more than yon think. ; Again, about Sylvia. What is in her head ? Mind yon, she does not hate George. No, she loves him still ; yet, for some secret reason, she will not marry him. She loves him still, I say. I can see it in her looks : she is crying herself to death for love of him. II a remedy be not found, she will die of love. She will die, Nevill, because she cannot endure the sight and the thought of her lover's misery. Yet she will not have him. Why ? ' ' Tli en, if she loves him still, why can- not ' ' Ta — ta — ta ! How you talk, you young men ! What do you know of a girl's heart ? 'Tis a most delicate piece of work, let me tell you, Master Nevill ; not like your great clumsy man's heart. It is more delicate than the spring <»f a watch. Let a little speck of dust get into the spring, and the whole watch stops. It will not go. So if some fancy gets info a girl's heart — that stops, too; or if it keeps on beating her affections are choked and IN THE PRECINCT 157 her brain stands still. How to find out what it is when she will tell no one ? Has some one been maligning George ? She says no. Does she suspect him of some secret vice, as gambling or playing? She says no. Does she think him over fond of strono- drink ? She says that she is not afraid of him in that respect. Has he offended her by word of month or by any incivility ? She says, again, no. Or has a secret enemy accused her of some fault — some lightness ? Many girls, yon know, are slandered by other girls. Smoke still follows the fairest. And when o-irls are jealous of girls, their tongues, for inventions, hints, and suggestions are always ready, like the old woman's tripe. But Sylvia knows of no such accusations. Well, boy, the end is that I know not what bee hath stuns the child, nor what fancies have seized her pretty head ; and as for asking her questions and expecting to get an answer, you might as well expect to talk the leg off an iron pot.' She stopped, not tired, but out of breath. ' Nevill,' she went on after a while, and now more earnestly, ' there is only one way 158 ST KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER to explain it. Oh ! I know very well ! We laugh at it when we are not in trouble. It is when the trouble is actually upon us that we feel it ; and I've seen a woman swum for it before now. I have, indeed, till she was more dead than alive. Nevill Us witchcraftl The girl's bewitched ! Old Margery was right. Don't tell me ! Nothing else will account for it. Why a girl should love a man and yet refuse him ; why she cannot take him though it costs her pains untold to say him nay, is only to be accounted for by witchcraft. We think there are no more witches ? I know better. There are witches as sure as there is a Devil going about seeking whom he may devour. It is witchcraft, pure witchcraft. Who is the witch ? I do not know. Where is the woman who would do an injury to Sylvia ? I do not know. Perhaps it is the injury done to George. A man can hardly be a ship's officer without making enemies. We've one witch in the Precinct — Margery Habbijam, I mean. But that good old soul would never do a mischief 1<> any one. And there's no other witch within our bound-. Therefore we must IN THE PRECINCT 159 look further afield, and how to search London through and through I know not. Yesterday, when I came home, thinking that it must be witchcraft, I broke an egg-shell for protection. I've got a horseshoe over my door and a hare's foot in my pocket. The poor girl is welcome to the hare's foot if it will do her any good. But, Lord ! when the mischief is done, you may just as well take a pig's pettitoe as a hare's foot for all the good it will do. And where is the witch ? Who is she? Why has she overlooked our girl ? How can we find out, as the saying is, the thief that gnawed the cheese ? Horseshoe and hare's foot, Good Friday bun and Christinas candle, broken egg-shell and salt water — the child may have all my charms if only we can find out but — when the boat capsizes, what good, says the sailor, is the caul in my pocket ? ' i6o ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER CHAPTER VII WAS SHE FAITHLESS? I AM bound by every tie of affection and of nature to become the advocate of my own sister. I am well aware that much blame lias been cast upon her, and that there are still many who speak of her with words of reproach, thinking her to be the guilty cause. by her wilful and whimsical ways, of all the trouble that followed. If I am the advocate of my sister, I am happy in having no more to do I h an to represent the fads of the case — the bare, plain, unvar- nished facts, withoul suppression ofanypoint, and without exaggeration. 1 ask fornothing but simple justice. Pity 1 am sure will be freely L r i\en to her, as unto one innocent and sorely tried. Wonder, also, thai >\w\\ things should be permitted ; but then we know not, even WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 161 the wisest of us, so ignorant are we, any sound and solid reasons by which we may vindicate the Wisdom which conducts the world. We were all three, as I have said, brought up together ; we were as two brothers and one sister ; George and I sat on the same bench at school, and were flogged for the CO same offences ; we played together in the gardens and in the Cloisters ; we sat in the church together, and gazed upon the monu- ments of antiquity ; we stood together in St. Katherine's Square, and marvelled at the language of the sailors and the watermen ; when we grew older we ventured out in a boat among the crowds of barges and lighters in the Pool. George was apprenticed at fourteen. Sylvia was then about ten. He went away proud and joyful to go to sea. When lie came home, three years later, he was a tail and handsome lad of seventeen ; Sylvia was still little better than a child. Again, three years later, he returned, twenty years of age, noAV already a man — much more manly than rnosl young City VOL. I. M ]62 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER beaux, at the same age. He brought home, I remember, many pretty presents for Sylvia, things picked up in foreign ports — I think he had spent all his money on gifts for Sylvia. This shows that his affection for her did never waver or cease. He was always her lover, from the beginning. This I acknowledge in reply to those who charge Sylvia with fickle- ness and inconstancy. Yet no puling lover, who thought of his mistress, when he should have been thinking of his work. She was always in his heart; he was filled with her idea ; she was dimidium animce, half his soul, and that always. But it was not until his last return, when she rejected and refused him, that he perceived this fact. While he was assured of her, he was calm and easy : when he thought that she was lost to him, he fell into fury ; he raged ; he became, as you have seen, little better than a madman. Now, since you have heard what was said and thoughl of this unhappy evenl by others, 80 thai you know how it appeared to all of \i<. I would now ask you read what my sister herself iold me. This, you will perceive, WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 163 throws a very different complexion upon the business. Most unfortunately, this confession or revelation was made to me the evening before the most disastrous day in my whole life, when I was deprived of all power to control what followed, even though my know- ledge of what had happened gave me such power. Had it not been for this disaster, I should have laid the whole business before the Prebendary in the first place. The school- master would have been cited before the Chapter House of the Foundation : the wise woman would have been made to confess what she knew : George would have been told the whole truth : and we should have seen then what would have happened next. I take it as unwise of me — though, Heaven knows, I acted for the best — to have delayed speaking to my sister for so long. I suffered a fortnight and more to pass by, hoping every day to see a change for the better. Finally, when there came no change, I resolved to appeal to her sisterly affection, and to pray her to tell me all that was in her mind. It was an evening late in the month of April M 2 164 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER when I found my opportunity. The evening was soft and calm, the air was warm, though the season was as yet but little advanced. There was a gentle breeze from the west, the sky was clear. Sylvia had been sitting all day long in her chair, inanimate and pallid ; there I found her, and proposed to her that she should come out with me to breathe for a little the freshness of the evening. Always docile, she rose and consented to go with me. So I wrapped her in her hood and led her forth, walking slowly, because she was now feeble. Outside she breathed with pleasure the fresh and fragrant air of the garden. ' Alas ! ' she sighed, ' what things have fallen upon me since last I stood here ! ' The moon was already up, and now shone in great splendour upon the east end of the church, lighting up the broad and lofty window, and showing the tracery of the great Catherine wheel, emblem of the saint and martyr, patron of this place, which stands in the upper part. The narrow windows below glowed like burnished silver; the two towers WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 165 of the north and south angles stood out against the clear sky in distinct outline ; the whole north side of the church was in black- ness. The Gothic pile, venerable always, but especially in the moonlight, fdled the soul with admiration and awe ; it has been a holy place from the days of King Stephen to our own time. For six hundred years and more the living have nocked hither for worship, and have brought their dead for burial ; here Queens have knelt to offer gifts, and Princes have been buried. What matter for Queens and Princes? All the dead of six hundred years lie around and within this sacred pile. Save the Cathedral churches of St. Peter's and St. Paul's, there is no more venerable or sacred spot than the ancient and beautiful church of St. Katherine's by the Tower. We were standing in the Master's orchard, beside the Master's house, and behind the burying-ground of the Precinct. 'Tis a pleasant place in summer, and at all times when one can walk abroad and enjoy the warmth of the sun in a fenced garden sheltered from the wind. There are old fruit-trees in the 1 66 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER orchard — everything is old — apples and pears, cherries and medlars, and mulberries ; peaches and vines are trained against the high wall at the back, which lias a southern aspect — it is said that before the Eeformation the Brothers made wine from their own grapes ; there is a bowling green on that side nearest the house. Here from the time of King Stephen downwards has that ancient game been played. There is a garden-house, with glass windows and a glass door, where one may sit snug even in winter ; and there are, also on the side near the house, beds filled in summer with most kinds of sweet flowers. On this night the trees were white with spring blossoms, and the air was fragrant with their delicate breath. It is in a garden — a garden of fruit-trees, as well as of vegetables and flowers — that we may most profitably meditate on the course of life and its meaning. This has been often set forth by wise men. Here, in spring, we see the earth awakening from its sleep, which is the type of death. A new year — a new life l- begun. Thus life ever follows death, and WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 167 after death life begins anew. It is as if there were but one man, and he every night lying down and every morning again uprising. He does his work — between the morning and the evening — and he dies. Then a new man — who is the same — is born again, with condi- tions of life all the better if the last man has done his work well. He, too, in his turn advances the work a little. And so on ; now falling back a little, now advancing a little, until in time to come man shall be so stronc, so long-lived, that he will look back with wonder even upon the polite age of George the Third, and ask himself how, being exposed to so many perils, he could ever have been happy even for one single moment. Can Heaven itself, by the Divine assistance, thus be reached? To this spot we were wont to repair by long use and custom. Naturally our feet turned towards the garden and the orchard. Here as children we could play, being both of an age, and here, when we grew older, Ave could walk and talk. It is one of those places in which, however great may be the noise 1 68 ST. CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER outside, it seems always quiet. The lanes and narrow alleys of the Precinct were full of people who sang and laughed, quarrelled and reviled each other, shouted and fought, and made all the noises that delight a rude folk. Yet the noise came not into any part of the Hospital. From the river there still arose from some belated ship a yo-hoing and bawl- ing, but we seemed to hear nothing — not even the firing of the ordnance from the Tower or the salutes of the ships which arrived at Deptford Yard or sailed away. A\\ i walked there hand-in-hand without speech, but each knew very well what was in the heart of the other. Presently Sylvia stopped at the little door which opened upon the burying-ground. 'Let us leave the garden,' she said. ' Let us go into the burying-ground— here is spring, and that means love and hope. I have nothing more to do with spring. There are graves — and they mean dust and death.' She lifted the latch and we stepped out into the crowded graveyard behind the WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 169 church. Here the stones, standing thick to- gether, grey by day, were now silvery white in the moonlight or black in shadow. The grass grows long in summer, but it was now still short, and underfoot it was soft and damp. Among the graves Sylvia told me for the first time the truth of what had happened to her. Sylvia sat down on one of the tombs and threw back her hood. The evening breeze played in her light brown curls, and the moon made her blue eyes shine large and ghostly. It might have been a ghost among the graves. I believe it is not lucky to sit on a grave, but nobody, surely, could be more unlucky than my sister at that period. 'Brother,' she said, holding my hand, 'I am, indeed, the most miserable creature in the whole world.' ' It will pass, my dear. Everybody is agreed that it will go away. You will awake some morning and find yourself in your right mind.' ' Never — my mind is not disordered. I i7o 57: KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER know very well what I am saying, and what has befallen me.' ' That,' I said, ' is what no one can under- stand.' 'Everybody blames me — I know that everybody calls out upon me for a wicked wretch thus to throw over the bravest lover ever woman had.' I could not say her nay. I blamed her myself. I thought that if she even now were to resist this devil, he would flee from her. 'My father looks upon me with reproach, though he says nothing. My mother rates me morning, noon, and night. These reproaches sink into my very soul, brother, yet I can do nothing to escape them. What have I to say, she asks me, against that poor fellow? Is he not my old companion — my old friend— -my old playfellow? Have I not known him all my life? Is it not certain that he loves me fondly ? Do I want a man sent down from heaven direct ? What ami to do, Nevill? What to say? Oh! What to do or to say ? ' 'Sylvia sat down on one of the tombs and threio back her hood.' WAS SHE FAITHLESS ? 171 ' If I were you, Sylvia, I would scud for George and say yes, without more ado. You would thus make him happy and yourself too; because, sure I am that you could not be happy unless he, too, shared in your joy-' ' I cannot — oil ! I cannot. For the very life of me, I cannot.' ' Why not ? What is to prevent you ? Why, sister, you were not wont to be so dainty and whimsical. You cannot expect a man to be made on purpose for you. Besides, you were always so fond of him.' At these words she fell to crying pitifully; but, for some time would say nothing to the purpose So I waited, only begging her to tell me all, if only to lighten her heart — ■ which this kind of confession sometimes does wonderfully. 'You call it a whim, Nevill. When did you know me to have whims at all ? ' No, nor any one else — no one ever knew her to have whims. A more honest girl never lived, nor a more candid soul. Sylvia was never whimsical. 172 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER ' I will try to tell you,' she said, ' what has befallen me. I will tell it as well as I can. You won't laugh at me, Nevill, because it is as true as death, and more dreadful to me than death itself. But I am afraid — I shall tell the story badly — you will not believe me ' ' I shall believe vou, sister. Be sure of that.' 'It beo;an a month a^o ' 'What began? ' because here she stopped short. ' Brother, I must tell you that every day I thought upon George. Never a day passed but he was in my mind. "Now," I said to myself, " he is eighteen, and a tall lad : now he is twenty, and almost a young man : and now he is twenty-two, and a strong and a proper man." I followed him in my thoughts, seeing him grow, and thinking where he might be — what he was doing — what he was thinking. You know — I can surely tell my own brother — I always loved him.' ' I know you did, my dear, which makes it the more wonderful ' WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 173 ' Wait. About a month ago my thoughts began to be disturbed — and that so strangely that I thought I must be dreaming. You know there are dreams, sometimes, which last after a person wakes up.' ' What kind of dream was this ? ' ' A dream about George. I thought that he had come home, strong and well — just such a handsome man as he is. I saw him open the door, and stand there for a moment; and then, just as he stepped forward with his eyes bright and his lips parted, and his hands outstretched ' ' Well ? ' For here she stopped again. ' It was a dream of the night, first of all,' she repeated, as if trying to explain the thing to her own mind ; ' only a dream at first — only a dream. I said to mj'self that it was nothing more ; but then it wouldn't go away. The dream grew bigger. I saw in my dream the ship sailing home, with all her sails set, with a fair wind. Oh ! and I saw George himself on the deck — handsome and strong. lie was laughing and talking with his ship- 174 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER mates as is his way ; I saw his face quite plain. Oh, quite plain ! His handsome, lovely face ! Oh, I loved it ! — I loved it ! ' ' Why, there, there, Sylvia ! ' I cried, interrupting her ; ' you see that you do love him still — you confess it ! ' 'Alas! I have always loved him, and yet . But you shall hear. I even seemed in my dream able to read his very heart, and it was full of love — oh, full of love!' — here her voice choked — ' of love of me ! And then, as the ship came nearer and nearer to the port, there grew up in my mind a horrible, a dreadful feeling — unnatural. It makes me shiver and shudder only to think of it, and yet I could not put it from me. That was at first in the night only. 13ut when I awoke in the morning, though I knelt and prayed that it might be taken out of my mind, in my heart it never was, it remained. It stayed and it grew — it grew, it grew — yes, day and night it grew more and more, until my whole mind was full of it! ' She shuddered and trembled, and caught my hand again. WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 175 ' But what feeling, Sylvia ? Tell me more.' ' I know not why, or for what cause — nay, there was no cause. God knows — Nevill — how will you believe me ? George became to me — what shall I say ? I came to tremble at the thought of him — to shudder and shiver — to think of him with a kind of sickness and disgust — why ? why ? ' ' To think of George — George — witli dis- gust ? ' ' Yes. There is no other word. He whom I have always loved became in my mind, and against my will — against my prayers — though I strove against it with all my heart — became an object of loathing to me, so that — I say again, solemnly — to think of his face made me shudder, and to think of his touch caused me such shame and disgust that I cannot express it in any words at all. My soul is filled with loathing when I think of him — and that is day and night.' You may believe that by this time I was amazed indeed. I knew not what to think, or what to say. At first I could only stare open- mouthed into the stars above us. 176 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER ' Oh ! But this,' I presently told her, ' is a case for a physician. It is a disorder of the nerves, Sylvia. It is some disease which has fallen upon you.' ' Perhaps — but you have called in to me physicians of the soul as well as of the body, and they have availed nothing. Did one ever hear of a girl who loved yet loathed her lover ? I know not who put this thing into my mind, nor why. I know not why it will not leave me for all my prayer-. 1 "Well, but seeing it was like an evil dream, it should have vanished when George came liuine.' She cried out as if I had struck her a violent blow. ' Oh ! you saw — you saw. All of you Baw. When he stood at the open door, it anus the very face which I had seen in my dream. — Oh ! the same honest face, bright with joy. And then, when I should have been moved to tears of joy, I was seized with a loathing worse — worse — far worse than I had ever felt before. My soul turned sick only to look at him, And when he would have WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 177 taken my hand — I — but 3*011 were there — you know/ ' You swooned, sister. You fell into a dead faint, not once, but twice.' This was her story, and a very strange story it is. For you are to believe, if you can, that a girl of calm temper, good judgment, balanced mind ; not a whimsical girl ; not given, as some girls, to hysterics, or to vain imaoinino's, or, as I have heard of some, to the invention of fables, lies, and false charges against innocent persons ; such a girl as Sylvia, quite suddenly, and without cause or motive, conceived in her mind a deadly loathing of a man whom she had previously loved — such a loathing as is not hatred, but a natural shrinking back from contact, as one shrinks back from a snake — so that for him to touch her hand fdled her with disgust unutterable, and had he kissed her she would have fallen sick. This is what you must believe. Why? For my own part, I am not a physician, and I pretend to no opinion at all except that I think there may be perhaps diseases of the mind which correspond to those of the body could VOL. I. K 178 .97: KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER one find them out. For instance, one falls suddenly into a fever, or boils and blains burst forth upon the flesh without apparent cause, or one falls into a fit -without knowing why. So correspondent disorders may fall upon the mind, and if one could discover the corre- spondent treatment they might be dealt with just as their cognates or similitudes in the body. But I know not unto what disease of the body I would liken Sylvia's case. That is for a physician to consider. You may understand that this confession was not made without many pangs and tears and sighs, that seemed to tear the poor child asunder. AY hen she had finished, and had somewhat recovered her composure, I told her she should sit no longer thus among the tombs, and I led her out of the burying-ground into the Sisters' (lose. Here a light in the window showed that the Lieutenant and Sister ECatherine were sitting together, doubtless talking over their trouble. I, for my own part, was too much astonished toattempl any judgment. Consider the strangeness of the case thus submitted to WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 179 a young man of no experience, and that this was also the case of his only sister. What we had mistaken at first for disorder of the brain caused by sudden joy — or even for a girlish whim, coquetry, or skittishness — was nothing less than a dreadful possession overmastering the poor child's soul. We stopped for a few moments in the Close to rest her limbs. Then I asked her whether she had perhaps suffered her mind to dwell upon something unworthy of George, Be- cause I had read of men being punished by their own evil thoughts becoming their masters. But, indeed, her pure soul was incapable of dwelling upon thoughts of wickedness. I asked her, further, if she had communicated this matter to any one — to her mother, for instance, or to her reverend godfather when he called upon her. She replied that she had not dared to speak of the thing to any one ; that she had not been able to speak of it ; that when she tried to tell Dr. Lorrymore she had been pre- vented by some means or other, so that she could only give him to understand that she N 'I i So 57: KATHARINE'S BY THE TOWER felt as one abandoned by God Himself, and therefore a lost, despairing soul ; but only this evening had she felt able to speak to me. ' My dear,' I said, ' this is a ease for one much wiser than I. Shall I lay the whole matter before your godfather ? Give me per- mission, and I will seek him to-morrow evening at his Rectory House, in Walbrook. I will tell him all, and ask his counsel. It may be that in a matter which belongs to the soul, a learned divine, when he knows the whole truth, may prove the better physician.' She said I might do as I pleased ; but that I was to tell no one else, for she feared greatly lest there should be idle gossip over her — and indeed there was already, as you have seen, plenty of talk, and everybody knew that George had come home full of love, and that his mistress scorned him. ' Come, my dear,' I said, ' you have now told me all. Let us go home, and you shall rest. You will be happier for having told somebody. Nay— this evening may prove the beginning of betterment.' ^he took my hand again, and we walked WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 181 round the west-end of the church, where the school is built against the wall. There is a place called the Queen's Close. It is a little court containing certain houses, where reside some of the inferior officers of the Precinct — among them the schoolmaster, Richard Archer. A light was in the window, and as we passed we heard him playing upon the violoncello. But, Heavens ! — what playing — what music was that ! Heard one ever such music? It was now like unto the cursing of a man in a rage ; now like the shrieking of one in torture ; now like the wailing and weeping of a woman in sorrow ; now it showed the desperate courage of one who leads a forlorn hope ; now the madness of fighting ; now the subdued whisper of one who plans revenge ; now repressed hatred. I know that this may seem incredible — but to us the violoncello spoke this way, as clearly as with a voice human. The music seemed to be lo me from unwilling strings, as if the instrument was compelled against its will. We stopped and listened. Xone had ever 1 82 57: KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER heard such music. Yet I remembered how once, seeing the church doors opened, I walked in and heard this same man playing upon the organ — he being at the time organist to the Hospital — music which seemed half-lamentation, half-wrath. The music revealed all the passions conflicting together. I knew the man, we were at school together, he was of my age, man and boy he was always the same in temper — morose, harsh, and gloomy. He lived in the house assigned to him with his mother ; he con- sorted with no one, he had no friends or associates. ' Why,' I said, ' it is the music of a man in a rage. Is the schoolmaster in a rage with all the world?' ' Come away,' cried Sylvia, dragging me. 'Come quick. Oh ! — that music drives me mad.' We stopped in the Brothers' Close to listen again. The Bound was softened by the distance, and now the music seemed as if children were sobbing and weeping. ' Let us stay here a moment,' said Sylvia. WAS SUE FAITHLESS ? 183 ' There is something else that I must tell you.' The Brothers' Close of St. Katherine's is a quadrangle running round three sides of a square. The Sisters' House is on the north side, an ancient timbered house with gables ; on either side are the Houses of the Brothers and the Commissary ; on the south side, separated by an open flagged court, stands the church ; and on the east side, adjoining the Brothers' Houses, is the Chapter House of the Society, where the Brothers and Sisters meet to conduct the business of the Hospital. A deep cloister, over which stand houses, runs round the three sides, and in the midst is a fair lawn. Here, but with other buildings, was the principal court when the place was a monastery, and the sisters were nuns, and the brothers monks, or at least clergy. The brothers have always wandered round and round these cloisters ; it is a place venerable alike for its age and for the memory of the pious and learned men whose footsteps have lingered day after day under its shelter and in its sunshine. On such 1 84 ST. KATHERIXE'S BY THE TOWER an evening as this, one may almost, methinks, hear their feet still softly treading the flags. When on this night the moonlight falls upon the place one may even see thin ghostly forms flitting about among the pillars and across the lawn. Such a place — so quiet, so ghostly, so retired — formed a fitting spot for what Sylvia had now to tell me. ' Brother,' she said, earnestly, ' what have I to do with that man?' ' You, Sylvia? Nothing.' 1 Have I ever associated with him ? Have I ever spoken to him ? ' ' You, Sylvia ? ' I repeated. ' How should you know such a man ? His mother was a laundress : afterwards she became a dress- maker. She lived at first in the cheapest and vilest lane of the Precinct. As for his father — the Lord knows who he is. And as for the character of his mother — but that bas been condoned by her good conduct. Se is no companion for yon, my dear. Why do you ask?' WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 185 ' It is strange. How can I understand it ? ' CD ' Tell me, Sylvia — what more has hap- pened ? ' ' This man — the schoolmaster — the man who now makes that music ' ' Well ? ' ' He can tell what is in people's minds.' ' Xonsense, Sylvia. You are dreaming.' ' Xo, I am not dreaming. He can read thoughts : he knows what I am thinking about.' ' But, child, he is the schoolmaster and the organist only. He is not even a learned man. How should he know anything but what he has learned in order to teach in school ? ' 'Listen, then, brother; and then doubt me if you can.' ' Are we all gone mad ? ' I replied. ' Sylvia, how should this man know anything about you at all ? ' ' Nevill,' she said, earnestly, 'that man knows what is in people's minds.' ' What man ? The schoolmaster ? ' 'Yes. He lias spoken to me; he knows what is in my mind. How does he know?' 1 86 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER ' Sister ! ' I repeated. ' Are we all mad ? What does this mean ? How should Archer know what nobody knows except yourself? ' ' That I cannot tell you. But this is the fact. When did George come home ? A fort- night ago. Well, it was on a Saturday even- ing. On the Sunday afternoon before that day this man spoke to me and read my thoughts.' 'What? The schoolmaster? The organist?' ' Yes — none other. He spoke to me then.' ' Go on, Sylvia,' I said, with increasing wonder. ' What did he say ? ' ' I was walking alone in the orchard after dinner. I was greatly disquieted, by reason of this dream, which never left me night or day, and because, though I must be continually thinking about George, it was with pain and suffering indescribable.' ' Well ? ' ' You know, Nevill, I never liked the man, though I have seldom spoken with him. Besides, you never liked him. That set me against him, perhaps. lie has a hard, morose face, and he looks revengeful.' WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 187 'He hates his father for the injury clone to his mother, and lie hates the world because of his own origin and his obscurity.' ' Promise me, Nevill, that you will not fall into a rage.' ' That, my dear, is as it may be.' ' Nay — promise — I have so much else to bear that I cannot endure to think of leading you into trouble.' ' Well, Sylvia, I will do my best. There are some things — but go on.' ' I was walking alone there, in the orchard. And suddenly I met him in the path before me. It was just as if he had dropped from the skies. He did not offer to get out of my way ; he stood in front of me as if resolved not to let me pass. Then a very strange thing happened. When I saw him standing before me in the path I felt for him the same — ex- actly the same — loathing as in my day and night dreams I felt for George. Why ? Fur I have never thought of him except as the organist and the schoolmaster. He has been nothing to me — why should I feel anything about him 1 88 57: KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER — either to be drawn towards him or to shrink back from him ? ' ' Indeed, Sylvia, I cannot say that I under- stand anything at all in this business.' ' He stood before me, I say, holding out his arms so that I could not pass. Then he smiled, and said, "A change has come upon your heart, and love has turned to hatred. Love will never come back when hatred lias once occupied the heart." "What do you mean, sir ?' ! I asked him. lie smiled again. " Since," lie said, " you can no longer endure to think upon him, be content to put him out of* your mind altogether. Then you will be happy again." I asked him once more what he meant. "Surely," he said, "you know what I mean. I know what is in your heart. It began about a week ago. It will grow and grow until it entirely occupies you." How should he know this. Xevill ?' w Nay, do not ask me. I am bewildered.' • Bui that was tiol all. lie went on. He said, "Sylvia, when loveis turned to loathing, all is done. The old love is dead. Time, then, to think of new love to be born in the ashes WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 189 of the old. I am as yet only the schoolmaster and the organist. Wait a little. Give me time. Give me a chance. A splendid future opens out before me. You would like to be a great lady? You shall. I have had my fortune told. You shall if you like." More he would have said, but I pushed him from me, and turned and ran back home.' ' We are indeed all mad together. Richard Archer to read your thoughts ? But how ? Richard Archer to dare make love to you ? Why, Sylvia, if George knew this he would cudgel the man to a bag of broken bones. Archer offer to make you a great lady ? ' ' Brother,' she replied, ' I am possessed — I am sure I must be — possessed of the Devil, and this man knows it. lie is perhaps in league with the Devil. For indeed what else can this mean but possession? For indeed, as you know, I still love George with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my strength, yet I loathe to think of him— -I can- not endure his presence — I would rather be pierced with a sword than feel his hand in mine. And just in the same manner — 190 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER exactly in the same manner — I loathe the schoolmaster. Oh ! brother — who will save me ? Who will help me ? ' I could neither help her nor save her, nor advise her, because I was wholly lost — I understood nothing. I could only promise that I would lay everything before her reverend godfather, and this promise I never performed on account of the trouble that befel myself the very day after. Sylvia wrung her hands and sobbed and cried. We wept together for the pity of it and our helplessness. When I thought of it afterwards, I concluded that she must have been mad and dreamed these things. The schoolmaster had not, in truth, met her or spoken with her. She must be mad. 'Let us go home, dear,' I said, presently. 'You shall sleep the better for lelling me this. It will prove,' I repeated, ' the beginning of your recovery.' Again we heard the music of the school- master's violoncello plainly, as if he had opened his window so thai we mighl hear WAS SHE FAITHLESS? 191 the more clearly. The music was like the agonised shriek of a soul in torture. ' Listen ! ' cried Sylvia. ' Thus I cry aloud night and day. Thus am I torn with pain — thus am I abandoned to the torments of devils. Oh, brother ! it is my very soul that cries out, and not music made by man !. ' IQ2 ST KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER CHAPTER VIII EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART Now you have heard all — even Sylvia's own confession, or narrative, of what happened to her. You have seen how this strange and mysterious event affected us all, from a re- verend Prebendary of St. Paul's to the simple inhabitants of the Precinct. It was a thing to strike the imagination of all alike, because there is no man or woman so humble or so rude but can understand such a story of love thus crossed. I have told you how their tongues wagged, inventing this and that reason ; how they recalled the fate of Captain Easterbrook of Deptford, about thirty years before, and compared it with the mishap that had just befallen George Bayssallance. The former had grievously injured and deceived a woman, who most solemnly imprecated EVIL EVE AND EVIL HEART 1 93 Divine wrath upon her false lover ; but it was never pretended that George had injured any woman, least of all the woman he loved constantly. Upon Captain Easterbrook there was laid a curse for his deed ; but upon George, as honest and Godfearing young man as could be found, there was never any curse. One tiling remains to be told. I have kept it to the last because I would not have my readers think that I attach too much importance to the fact. The things which followed, however, do seem strangely to fit in with the wise woman's words. At the same time, it was six years and more after the events that she unfolded to me the story which, according to her, explains and unravels the whole mystery. According to her, there was witchcraft, and that of a very strange kind, most uncommon in this country, where even if men or women possess such power diabolic they are ignorant of it, and therefore practice it only unconsciously. Margery Habbijam, that Solomon of her sex, was sitting alone one evening in her arm- VOL. I. 194 ST. CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER chair beside the fire, snug for the night, her pipe alight and between her lips, ready to receive any who might call. But this evening she expected no one, because the night was cold and wet, with a driving wind — a night when the most anxious inquirer into the future would willingly stay at home. Her greasy old pack of cards lay on the greasy table, stained with beer, rum, and I know not what. A box containing herbs also stood upon the table, and she had some herbs in her lap. The outer shutter was up, and across the win- dow within was nailed a blind which wanted washing. Truth to tell, the dame's room was none of the cleanest. The kettle was singing on the hob — but not for tea, I promise you. As some ladies love tea, so this good old lady loved another kind of infusion or mixture. The door was shut; but a string tied to the latchet was conducted round the room, and hung within reach of her hand. It was nearly nine o'clock: the court, was quiet: most of the people were gone to bed. Suddenly she stalled and sat upright, listening. She heard a step in the court — an EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 195 uncertain step, as of one who hesitated, or knew not the way — perhaps a stealthy step. The old woman knew this kind of step well : it was that of one who came to seek her counsel, or to learn the future, but was ashamed of his desire, and anxious that no one should see him coming thus to consult a vulgar oracle. Many such steps she heard outside her door. Now it would be a young girl, to ask about her lover, if he truly loved her, if he would be constant, and what she should do to fix his affections. Now it would be a young man, asking similar questions about himself and his girl. Now, again, it would be even a solid merchant, asking about the safety of his ship or the prospects of his new venture. Most of her inquirers came after dark, walking slowly, hesitating, ashamed. But they all stopped at last before her door. Margery reached out her hand and pulled the string. The latchet was lifted, and the wind blew open the door. 1 Come in,' said she. ' Come in quickly and shut the door.' At the door stood a man wrapped in a 2 190 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER cloak thrown over his shoulders : his throat was muffled up, and over one eye was a black patch. There is nothing unusual in wearing a cloak on a winter evening, nor in muffling up the throat when the wind is cold and the sleet is driving. And, in these days of fight- ing in the streets with fists and cudgels, it is certainly not uncommon to see a man with a patch over his eye. Yet all these things together suggest a desire for concealment. Dame Margery knew the signs. Those who came for the first time always endeavoured to disguise themselves. 'Come in,' she repeated. ' Shut the door and tell me what you want.' She glanced at him with seeming careless- ness ; then she took up her pipe again, and puffed the smoke of it in clouds. 'I came,' the man began; 'I came,' he repeated, and then stopped. 'Why don't you say what you want? There is no one here but me.' ' If you have the power which you pre- tend ' But he slopped again. ' Let me look at you again. Closer, closer. 1 At the door stood a man wrapped in a EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 197 Stoop clown.' She clutched the candle, pushed back the man's hat, which fell upon the table, looked into his one eye and into his face. ' I know,' she said, presently, ' why you have come here. T can tell you that, and I can tell you more.' ' If you can only tell me what I know already, I may as well go away.' ' Very well. If you think you will get nothing more you can go away.' The man hesitated. ' What were you going to tell me ? ' he asked. ' I was going to tell you that you hate a man — perhaps more than one man — and that you love a woman. You hate the man partly on account of the woman, partly for other reasons. You hate many men — you are angry with fortune — you are discontented.' ' How did you find that out ? ' he asked, not apparently displeased to hear these solid truths. ' I read these things in your eye and in your face.' 198 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER ' Well, suppose they are true ? ' ' You would do one man, at least, a mis- chief, and you would make that woman love you if you can.' 'That is right, Gammer; quite right. You have guessed truly,' he laughed, and rubbed his hands. ' I would do both these things. Give me the power. I am not rich, but I will scrape some money together. Come.' ' I don't sell these things,' she said, taking up her pipe, and leaning back in her chair. ' Come. You can sell them, if you please, and nobody will know. I live ' — he looked very cunning then — ' three miles away. Over there — Charing Cross way. No one will ever find out.' ' I will not sell you that power,' she said ; ' but give me five shillings and I will tell you something that you don't know. Oh ! if you are dissatisfied afterwards you shall have back your five shillings. Lay them on the table.' The fellow lugged oul his purse; there was not much in it, and found the money, which he laid on the table between them EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 199 ' Now,' said he, ' give me my crown's worth.' ' Why,' she said, ' I think you will confess that you have got more than your crown's worth. You come here for some charm or spell that will give you the power to do mis- chief to a certain man.' ' Yes ; and to get power over a woman.' ' Power, you shall have. As for love, I cannot say. Maids' hearts are fickle things. But as for power, that you shall have, and plenty.' ' How shall I have it ? Do you sell it ? Is it a charm, or a piece of paper, or a prayer read backwards? Do you want me to sell my soul ? ' ' No — no — it is none of these things. Man alive ! You have the power already, and you know it not.' ' How can I have it and not know it ? ' ' Did you never hear of the Evil Eye ? ' ' What is that ? ' ' I will tell you. Very few people in this country know about the Evil Eye — and it is rare to find it — though in foreign parts I have -oo ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER been told everybody knows of it, and it is common. The man who has the Evil Eye brings sorrow upon all he loves, disaster upon all his friends, misery upon all who trust him, and bad luck to all who deal with him. It is a terrible misfortune to have the Evil Eye. Sometimes it happens to good and pious men. Then, it is said, the sorrow that follows in his footsteps becomes repentance for sin, and so his Evil Eye is turned into a blessing. When Evil Eye joins with Evil Heart, as is com- monly the case, woe to the friends of such a man ! Woe to the woman who loves him ! ' ' This is old wives' talk — I cannot part with a crown so easily.' He laid his hand upon the money but he did not take it up. ' Very well, master ; but I have not done yet. Your crown's worth is coming.' ' Let it come, then.' 'Why, then, what do you say to this? You've (jot the Evil Eye yourself! ' He started, and changed colour. 'No — no,' he said. ' It is nonsense ; there is no such thing.' EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 201 ' I will prove it to you. Consider : you are two-and-twenty years of age. By that time every man lias been in love. What became of the girl who loved you a year ago ? ' He changed colour, and made no reply. ' What became of her ? ' the old woman repeated. ' She took small-pox,' he replied, un- willingly. ' The Evil Eye. Then you deserted her.' ' What if I did ? She had lost her looks.' 'The Evil Eye. That brought her this misery. She drowned herself.' ' What if she did ? ' ' The Evil Eye. It followed her. Again, you had a friend once — only once — because most people shrink from you by instinct. One friend you had — where is he now ? ' ' He is in prison for debt. Did I put him there ? ' ' The Evil Eye. You have a mother. What happened to her when you were born ? ' The man swore a deep oath for reply. 'The Evil Eye. Never doubt it, man. 202 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER Doubt what else you please, but never doubt that you have the Evil Eye.' The man was staggered ; he had received more than he expected. He came in the wicked hope of getting one of those charms which work mischief ; he did not get that, but he got more. He was staggered — he looked amazed. Then he tried to carry it off with a laugh. ' Evil Eye ! Evil Eye ! ' he said. ' What nonsense is this ? Why not the Evil Hand ? ' ' Why not ? ' the old woman repeated. ' Why not ? You have that as well if you like.' ' Come, Gammer ; we no more make our eyes than our legs. I can't afford five shillings for being told a cock-and-bull. Keep such tales for the women.' 'Nay,' she said, 'you know it is true ; you feel it. Well, master, that is all. A man who has the Evil Eye wants no witch. He is a wizard or warlock by birth. Why come to me then? You are more powerful than any poor old wise woman.' k How F ' he asked, restlessly. EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 203 ' What do you want, I say, with a witch ? I can do nothing for you. All you want you can have if you choose. The Evil Eye, with one other thing, which I am sure you have as well ' ' What is that ? ' he interrupted, eagerly. ' The Evil Heart, young man ; if you have the Evil Heart as well as the Evil Eye, you will go far.' The man opened his mouth and gasped. ' Poison berries kill because it is the nature of the plant. You can scatter mischief about because it is vour nature. Being such as you are, the power of doing mischief is in your hands — or in your Eye.' 'If I thought that — but you talk wild,' he said, irresolutely. ' I never talk wild.' ' Then tell me more — tell me more. If I have this power, how am I to use it ? ' He threw off his cloak, pulled the muffler from his neck, and tore the black patch from his eye, impatient of disguise or concealment. lie now presented the appearance <>l* a man still in early manhood. He had black hair, 204 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER tied behind, but not powdered. His face was in no way remarkable except that it was not at all the face of a common man, but might have been that of some great lord for the strange pride of it. He wore a plain brown coat, and waistcoat of drab cloth, sober and simple, without lace ; his stockings were of worsted and his buckles steel. His eyes — those eyes in which the old woman thought she read that terrible quality called Evil — were bright and piercing, they never rested for a moment, glancing about while the man stood, spoke, or listened. Never have I seen eyes stranger, more restless, or brighter. ' Tell me how I may use the power,' he repeated. 'Tell me — teach me — and I will pay you handsomely, as soon as I get any money. I will scrape and save. I want all the power — all the power I can get. I am famishing for power.' ' N a — na — how the man talks ! Should I sell you this secret? Why, you may go murdering with it, and never be discovered. EVIL EVE AND EVIL HEART 26$ Not so, master. It is sufficient for me to know it. Find out for yourself.' ' Tell — me,' lie said, ' I order you to tell me. If I truly have the Evil Eye and the Evil Heart — if I have this power — I will drag it from you.' The wise woman lifted her face, and met his eyes. But before them her own dropped. She bent her head. She was over- come. ' I will tell you,' she said, reluctantly. ' If you want evil to happen, order it to happen. Order it in your own mind. No need of words. No one should hear ; no one should suspect; no one should ever know. If you will it — the thing shall happen.' ' Yes — yes — if I will it — if I command it.' ' No man can have this power without a price.' 'What price? What price great enough for power ? Why, old woman, I was born for power, and it was snatched from me at the moment of my birth. Power? I have dreamed of power all my life. Give me 206 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER power. Why, I am a slave, because I am poor. Nn slave in the world more in slavery than myself. Give me power — give me power — at any price.' 'It is a terrible price to pay. It is this — whatsoever mischief you compass for another, that shall fall upon yourself, in equal measure. If it be murder, then shall you be murdered in your turn.' 'If I have along rope — what matters how I die ? ' ' If it is a gaol, then shall you, too, be clapped in prison. If it be loss of fortune, then shall you be ruined ; if it be loss of love, then shall you, too, lose love ; if it be disgrace, then you, too, shall be disgraced.' ' Oh ! Price — the price! What is all this stuff? Sufficient for me if I have the power. As for the men I hate, they shall feel it. As for the woman I love ' ' I said that you would do mischief.' 'It would be mischief enough, if you are right, to cause any woman to love me.' 'Yet you cannot compel love or any good thing at all. All that you can do by means EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 207 of your Evil Eye and your Evil Heart, is mischief. But remember, there is the price to pay. Always the price. Never forget the price.' ' Ho, ho ! The price \ As if I believed in the price ! ' Strange ! This man who was ready to believe in the Evil Eye and in the power of the Evil Heart and the Evil Eye would not believe in the certain retribution which was to follow. Thus wonderfully are men made ! Thus are they suffered to run into their destruction ! The old woman when she told me all this said, further, that she could not choose but tell the man when he commanded her. Such was the force of his will though he knew it not. She went on to maintain that this knowledge, and nothing else, was the cause of all that followed. For my own part, I think that the supposed knowledge had nothing to do with it, that the Evil Eye does not, and cannot exist, and that such powers have never been conferred upon any mortal, even with such a price attached to them as a condition. 2o8 ST. ^CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER When she had told him all she lifted her head and faced him again. ' I have nothing more to tell you,' she said. ' You made me speak. The man who has the Evil Eye and the Evil Heart as well should be taken away and hanged like a do^. He is a devil.' ' Oli ! It is good — it is sweet — to have power,' he said. ' To have power I must plan and think. You have got nothing else to tell me?' ' Nothing else.' ' Very well,' lie picked up his cloak ; ' you can keep the money. What you have told me is a good crown's worth.' She clutched the five shillings and placed them in her purse. ' You tell fortunes,' he said, pointing to the cards. ' Read me my fortune. Oho ! It will be the fortune of a great and powerful man, able to kill and maim all he hates, and to cripple every one who offends him. Eead me my fortune, I say.' He sat down again. The old woman took up her pack of cards. ' You are not afraid ? ' EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 209 she asked. ' After what you have heard, you are not afraid ? ' ' I afraid of Fortune ! Why, Fortune has done her worst. I defy her to do worse than she has done. I afraid of Fortune ! I am no more afraid of Fortune than I am afraid of you and your tricks.' The old woman nodded her head and shuffled her cards. Then — but everybody knows exactly how a fortune-teller handles her cards. Sometimes she deals by nines. Then every combination of nine yields part of the truth she is seeking. This learned, she makes other groups of nine. Then she makes com- binations of three cards, sometimes of seven cards, sometimes of the whole pack displayed in a certain order upon the table. For half-an-hour she played with the cards, noting in silence this and that, nodding her head, pointing, but always in silence, with her forefinger. At last she picked out certain cards, and reserved them in her hands, throwing the rest away. ' This is you,' she said, showing the King of Spades. ' That is your card. Now I vol. 1. p 210 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER will tell you what I have learned from the cards. ' You have been very unfortunate. Mis- fortune has pursued you from your birth. Your mother is married, yet not married : she has a husband, yet is a widow. The man who should keep her in luxury leaves her in poverty. You are very poor, who should be rich. You fill a mean station, who should be exalted. You are ambitious, but you can see no way of rising. You are ingenious, and have great parts, but you have neither the education nor the manners for a higher place. You rail at your fate daily, but you are powerless to raise yourself. As for the power which you do possess, it is the power of mis- chief, and cannot help you. And yet a day will come — the signs are clear — when you will posse-- wealth. It will come to you. There will be wealth and position ; and yet — yel a stranger fortune I never read.' Here she stopped. • Well? G«» .in. What did you see ? ' 'The signs are clear. They have never been clearer. But they may turn out wrong. EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 211 Man ! I have seen terrible things. A more terrible fortune I have never read. Best go away and hear no more, and forget what you have learned.' ' Eead on — I am not afraid.' She held up the five of spades. ' Do you see this card ? You must take it for a warn- ing, all the tilings that follow will be caused by neglecting this caution. Avoid evil designs and plots against the happiness of others, or dreadful things — which I have seen in the cards — shall happen to you.' ' Are you a preacher, or a fortune-teller ? Tell the fortune and leave the preaching to your betters.' ' Very well. I will tell you your fortune. What is this ? ' She held up the four of diamonds. ' It menus a faithless friend and a secret betrayed. You are the traitor and the faithless friend. And this?' It was the ace of spades. ' This means malice and mis- fortune — your malice and the misfortunes of others. /.nd this?' It was the tray of diamonds. ' Misery brought first upon others by you and next upon yourself, by yourself. p2 212 57: KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER And this ? ' It was the ten of clubs. 'This means crime, the prison, and the gibbet. And see — these two cards fall together — the ten of clubs and the ten of spades. The first I have told you. The second — it came with the first — interpret it as you please — the ten of spades with the ten of clubs — the second means wealth, sudden and unexpected. Interpret that as you please. Wealth with prison. Eiches with the gallows. Eemember — think of the five of spades. Avoid devilish wrongs and dark designs. ' She gathered up her cards and laid them aside. He got up and put on his cloak and muffler. 1 That Power,' he said. ' Will it get me money ? ' ' No. But money will come.' 'Will it get me love — station — authority?' ' No. But station will come ; it will get you nothing but mischief — revenge — and misery.' He put on his hat. ' Since,' he said, ' it will get the second I care not mucirabout the rest.' EVIL EVE AND EVIL HEART 213 He opened the door, stepped out into the court, and was gone. When lie was gone, the old woman got up hurriedly, and locked, bolted, and barred her door. ' He is a devil,' she said. ' He is a born devil. And he shall hang.' Then she went to the foot of the stair and called out, but not very loudly, 'Jack, it is half-past nine. You can come down now.' There slowly descended the narrow stair- case an old man. He was older than the woman by ten years or so, being as much past eighty as she was past seventy. His hair was all gone, and his bald pate was covered with an old thrum cap ; he had on a thick ilannel jacket such as sailors wear, and he had the loose leggings such as sailors wear ; his feet were bare. His face was quite white, as if — which was the case — he never went outside the house. His step was feeble ; he sat down before the fire and shivered, spreading out his hands before the bars for warmth. In his face, in his carriage, you could clearly read 214 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER the old sailor. It is a profession which can never be hidden. He looked like the ghost of a sailor — a ghost grown old on the other side of the Styx. ' It's late, Jack. But I've had a visitor. Not a profitable visitor, but such a visitor as doesn't often come. There's something about him you'd like to know, Jack.' ' Ay — ay ! Maybe — maybe,' he replied, feebly. 'First, you shall have some grog. The kettle is boiling.' She bustled about, got a bottle of rum out of her cupboard, a basin of sugar, and two glasses. Then she proceeded to brew, first for the old man and then for herself, two stiff glasses of hot rum and water. The old man drank off half the contents of the glass. Then he sat up in the chair and straightened his back. He drank half the remainder. Then he smacked his lips and nodded his head. 'Ay — ay,' he said. 'You were saying, Margery — what might you be saying, now?' His wife — it was his wife, and this was none other than the man who had escaped EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 215 the sallows twenty years before — took her chair, and began to drink her grog, but more slowly. ' The schoolmaster has been here — the man called Richard Archer. He thinks I don't know him ; he believes I never go outside the house. Ho ! — ho ! I knew him the moment he came in. I've looked at him before and had my suspicions ; but I never knew before the whole truth. He's a devil, Jack. It was a devil that sat here and went away five minutes ago.' ' A devil was it ? Don't bring devils here, Margery. We've had enough devils to last our lives — haven't we ? ' ' And whose son is he ? Aha, Jack, I haven't told you that. I know it, and I've never told you — why ? It would do no sood, and he knows nothing of what happened aboard the Shannon thirty years ago.' ' Whose son is lie ? What dy*e mean, Margery ? The Shannon ? ' He looked round here with apprehension. ' I thought they had forgotten it by this time. Are they looking 2i6 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER for me again? Don't let them find me, Margery — don't.' ' Not forgotten nor forgiven, Jack. But no harm will come so long as you keep snug. He's the son of the Captain — your captain — the Hon. Stephen Bullace, who's now my Lord Aldeburgh, the man you knocked down on his own quarter-deck.' ' I truly did,' said the old man. ' I knocked him down with a belaying pin ; I knocked the sense out of him ; and since I had to die for it, lam truly sorry that I didn't knock the life out of him. A man can be hanged but once, and if you want to murder a devil and be hanged for it, better murder him outright and be handed for it. Hanging at the yardarm is a nasty thing, mind you. Best do something worth the trouble. Not that it hurts so much as you think — but there's the dangling, and the feeling for the deck which you can't reach with your feet, and there's the rope about your neck getting tauter, and ' ' Finish your glass, Jack,' said the wife. ' You wasn't hanged after all.' EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 217 He obeyed. 'No more I was — no more I was,' he said cheerfully ; ' though some- times I think I really was turned off in the presence of the ship's crew. Well, and so this man's his son. How can the son of a noble lord be a schoolmaster ? ' ' Because, don't you see, you old fool you — his mother wasn't married. If his father was a devil, the son is a worse devil.' ' He was a cruel devil, a hard devil, a flogging devil, an unforgiving devil. He thought nothing of six dozen, nor twelve dozen either. He lashed and flogged all day long. I've always been sorry I didn't kill him. The pity of it !— the pity of it ! ' He shook his head and looked as if he was going to shed tears over the spoiling of a good cause. 1 If you and me live, Jack,' said his wife, ' you shall see his son swing at Newgate. If there is any truth in cards, he will die on the gallows. Evil Eye and Evil Heart. He will be hanged.' Both the old man and his wife are dead. Everybody knows the truth now, though for 2i8 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER thirty years no one suspected it. The old man was the sailor who should have been hanged ; and all the time he was a prisoner in his wife's house. This was the reason why he was so pale and white ; he never dared to leave the house even by night. This was the reason, too, why voices were sometimes heard in the cottage at night. And this was the reason why the old woman was so good a friend to butcher and baker. When he died his widow made no bones of confessing the whole. This, then, is exactly what passed between the schoolmaster and the wise woman. If you consider it carefully, you will remark — first, that the wise woman knew the man as soon as he appeared ; next, that she knew his history — which was, as you have seen, a par- ticularly unfortunate one. For there can be no greater misfortune than to be born of a noble parent, heir to a great name and estate, but debarred because there is a doubt as to your mother's marriage. She knew the rage which devoured his soul ; what she prophesied were the things that would happen should he EVIL EYE AND EVIL HEART 219 continue in his evil dispositions. I am well aware that many will think that this prophecy was that of a witch. For my own part, I think, as I said before, that the power of fore- telling these things came from knowledge, and not from any witchcraft, END OF PART I 220 57". /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER PART II CHAPTEE I THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS ' Citizens ' — one of the company, a young man of dark complexion and eager face, sprang to his feet — ' Citizens and Brother Snugs, we waste words in vain regrets. King Louis is dead. So may all tyrants die ! You think, that, because the country is struck with the magnitude of the blow, all our work is spoiled. Well, for a week or two we may have to lay by. Then the pent-up tide will How ao;ain with greater force and fulness. Think ! We have done too much — we have taught the people too much — for them now to stop, though all the Kings of Europe fall! What is the death of a King to the freedom of humanity? 'Consider,' lie went on, 'the strength of our position. Why, it is impregnable. Where THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 221 in the beginning was your aristocracy ? Where were your kings ? Where was pro- perty ? Men joined together for protection. It was for the general happiness alone that they united ; it is for no other reason that they live together still. If it were not for that we should separate once more. It was for the general happiness that Society was constituted ; it is for the general happiness that it exists and holds together. It is true that kings and priests have combined to take from the people the fruits of their industry, and to rob them of the right of governino-. But, once the people understand, the reign of king and priest is over ! Well, we have taught the people of England to understand. Our societies number thousands — in every great town wherever there are intelligent men our principles are spread abroad and have taken root, What ? Of our last address twelve thousand copies were issued and dis- tributed. If every copy is read or heard by a hundred men, there are over a million readers, and therefore a million converts. Think you that because a king has fallen all 222 57: KATHERINE S BY THE TOWER the teaching shall have been thrown away ? Never ! ' A king,' he went on, ' is but an ordinary man. Strip him — he is trunk, arms, and legs ; anatomise him — his muscles and his veins are the same as mine. His brain is no different. Why, then, this awe because a king has fallen ? ' It was the very day when the news reached London of the French King's execu- tion. Everybody knew that he was in prison ; he had been a prisoner for months. Everybody was certain that he would sooner or later be brought to his trial, and executed. The French — nay, rather the Parisians — had shown by this time that they were capable of every crime ; nay, they pointed to us with the death of King Charles the Martyr (for which the Church performs yearly a religious service of penitence and fasting, to remove from this generation the sins of our fore- fathers) — what Great Britain did, they said, France could do. So thai when he was finally brought before a tribunal no one was surprised ; but when the news came that he THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 223 had actually been taken out and beheaded a great awe fell upon everybody, even upon those who, like ourselves, held Eevolutionary opinions, and were avowed Republicans. Men whispered the news to each other with pale' faces ; they met in the street and held up hands of horror ; grave and substantial mer- chants asked each other what would happen next. The blow which struck off the Kino-'s head seemed to shake our own Throne, and to strike at the pillars of the Church. That was in seeming only, for it really strength- ened Throne and made the Church secure, in awakening throughout the length and breadth of the land a greater horror for the crimes of the Revolution than had been caused by even the massacres of September or the murder of the Swiss Guards. It was in the midst of the first awe caused by this event that our club was gathered together. If loyal folk felt that here was a blow at the Throne, the Eevolu- tionary party felt more strongly that here was a blow which could not fail t<> prove disastrous to their cause. What had before 224 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER been tolerated : freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the unmolested distribution of tracts, addresses, and pamphlets, would no longer be permitted. This, I say, we under- stood very well, and it was with apprehension and dismay that we were met together this evening. The doors were closed and locked — we had exchanged gloomy forebodings, we were now listening to the voice of one who sought to restore confidence. There is no creature, however, more timid than a conspirator ; and we were, in fact, all conspirators. True, we should not have allowed the charge. We were all for proceeding by constitutional proceed- ings. The people were to be fully represented in Parliament — the rest would follow. As in Paris the Third Estate constituted itself the National Assembly, so at Westminster the House of Commons, for the first time the true representatives of the people, would speedily put an end to King and Lords. So we thought. ' Kemember/ the speaker went on, ' we have taught the people to understand that all THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 225 men are born equal ; all men are heirs to equal rights ; all men are brothers. They will never forget this great lesson once learned. It has sunk into their hearts for ever. All men are equal.' The company murmured approval. This was still a phrase by which you could always command applause. You had only to ad- vance the proposition that all men are born equal. It was the first axiom with the Eevo- lutionary party — to dispute it was unworthy of a reasonable being. We have now ceased to believe this doctrine ; we are prepared to recognise the fact that of all living creatures none are created so unequal : in strength, size, courage, skill, in anything : as man. However, we were as yet only at the begin- ning of the year 1793, and the doctrine still flourished. ' Citizens and Brother Snugs,' the speaker continued, ' we have taught the people more than this. They have learned how Govern- ments began and laws were made. They have begun to ask themselves why things are as they are. To ask why is not only the vol. 1. Q 226 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER beginning of wisdom, it is also the beginning of revolution. Will these men be stopped when they have once begun to inquire, by any rule of a corrupt judge ? Not so. Why — we know, now — men parted with their power when they chose soldiers to fight for them, so that they could in peace work at their crafts and their tillage. That was the first folly : all the rest followed naturally. They thought to wax fat, and sit in indolence, while others fought for them. They forgot that he who has the sword has the power. Very soon the man with the sword came along — but now armed with a whip as well. He took from the weaver and the tiller the fruits of his labour, leaving him a mere pittance on which to starve. If the worker refused or remonstrated, he felt the whip about his shoulders : if he rebelled, lie was murdered. He who can kill can make his neighbour obey. That is how oppression began, and why it continues. Those who can kill can command. It is the case with us to this day, and with all the people in the world, excepl i lie Swiss and the Americans. They can keep us quiet because we are not armed : THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 227 they can ride us down and slaughter us if we venture to meet openly : they will not allow us to combine for the raising of wages, or for the protection of labour, or for any cause whatever. But what is society but a combin- ing together of men? They will not suffer the people to meet, so that they may speak with each other : they will not suffer them so much as to be taught to read and write ; and the few who can read and write they do not suffer to print for themselves what they please. Oh ! ' — (his voice rose, and he swept the air with a fine gesture) — ' that shall be all swept away, and before long. All swept away, I say, and destroyed. Give me a thousand men, armed and drilled — only a thousand men — and in a week I will have a million, and in a month I will have brought about a revolution more thorough even than that of France — a more complete clearance of rubbish even than our friends across the Channel have made as yet. Give me but a thousand men, armed and drilled.' 'Have a care, brother,' said the Chairman. Here we are all friends ; but walls have ears.' a 2 228 57: KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER ' Well, from the soldiers came the nobles : from the nobles came the King. Then, to keep the people down the more surely, and to terrify them into obedience, came the priests, and they made laws. To enforce the laws they made punishments, tortures, floggings, executions, prisoners, officers of the law, judges, magistrates, lawyers, gaolers. When all was in the hands of the people, they only met together in order to divide the fruits of their labours. They wanted no laws : there were none. Laws are for tyrants, not for the people. If one man dared to take more than his share of the public store, they killed him. No law but that : they all rose together and killed him. No judge was wanted : the people were the judges. If one man kept aught for himself, they killed him. If one man refused to work with the rest, they killed him, They killed him, I saw That was the first and only law. If a man sins against the people, let him die. There is no other law- wanted. Make that your only law, and you sweep away everything — those who call them- selves Kings and nobles by hereditary descent, THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 229 those who live by the superstitious terror of the people, those who live by the working of tyrannical and unjust laws, those who live by making others work for them, those poor devils who are kept in prison and hanged for helping themselves to their own — everything. All belongs to the people — everything that is found or that grows in the fields, the meadows, the orchards, the woods, the fish in the river, the cattle on the plains, the birds of the air — all — all belongs to the people. Why, gentle- men, in establishing the Eevolutionary Tribu- nal : in killing the nobles first and the Kino- next : what have our friends in France done, but go back to the First Principles of Society ? Let him, I say, who robs the people — die.' ' Have a care,' said the Chairman again. ' Have a care, brother. Walls have ears.' The speaker was certainly a born orator. He had a fine musical voice, capable of varied intonation ; his eyes were of piercing bright- ness ; his face regular and singularly hand- some ; such a face as we call aristocratic, also possessed of the greatest vivacity — some might say it was restless and excitable. The 230 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER cold sentences which I write down cannot in the least represent the fervour of his speech, or the vehemence of his tones. The words poured out like a torrent ; and he looked as if lie wished that like a torrent they might overwhelm, destroy, and sweep away whatever lay in their way. He spoke as one who is deeply in earnest — indeed, at that time he certainly was in earnest ; what he became afterwards you shall hear ; now it is only a man in earnest who can carry his hearers with him, .and while he spoke our hearts glowed within us. We thought no more of the crimes which had stained the cause in France ; we thought of the cause itself — holy and glorious ; the cause of humanity ; the cause of the oppressed ; we thought that Heaven itself was to be unfolded for the happiness of man even before his death, as soon as Kings and nobles were finally done away with and murdered or banished, or reduced to equality with the rest. He gasped as he spoke ; he seemed as if he longed to get rid of one statement before he began another, and a more fiery one ; he spoke as if he were addressing a vast multitude, or THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 231 the House of Commons at least, instead of a small club of a dozen or twenty men ; he banged the table with his fist ; he swept the air with outstretched hands ; his gestures cor- responded to his words ; they were natural and spontaneous, they showed the harmony of thought and action : others might be lukewarm in the cause ; there could be no doubt that this man was in earnest. In earnest do I say ? Why, he was, himself, a raging, roaring, fiery furnace. ' I have heard these very words,' said the Marquis, softly, ' in Paris herself. Our philo- sophers inquired into the reasons and the foundations of things. We continued the inquiry in our salons ; even in the great houses of London I have taken part in these inquiries — nothing has been left undisturbed. When one stirs up foundations, one is apt to raise a dust. I have since heard the same words in the open Courts of the Palais Koyal ; in the markets and the cross-roads ; in the cafes and at the clubs. The doctrines of the philo- sophers have been carried out by those practical gentlemen who represent the 232 ST /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER Sovereign People. It is well. I am here — and my wealth, and privileges, and power are — where ? ' He shrugged his shoulders and took a pinch of snuff. I have never been able to understand when the Marquis spoke in earnest and when he was mocking. His air was always perfectly grave and his manner composed ; he looked in the face of the person whom he was addressing with a countenance so serious as to disarm suspicion ; and he was so noble in his carriage and deportment, a man of such good breeding and address, that no one ven- tured to question his sincerity. Yet, consider. He was a Marquis in the French nobility ; lie was of very ancient and illustrious family ; he had lost everything by the Revolution ; he had every cause to loathe the cause of the People. Yet he came here ; he sat among us ; he was an honorary member of our club. What did such a man in such a company ? I have always thought that the French committed the greatest of all blunders when they executed the King and the Queen, and THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 233 the most fatal of all crimes when they suffered the little Prince to be tortured to death. Nothing certainly more strengthened the terror of mob rule than these crimes. Why, they were useless ; it could not seriously be pre- tended that the King, Queen, or Dauphin had committed any treason against the Eepublic. Further, they did not, by killing them, kill all the pretenders to the French Crown. There were still left the King's brothers, one of whom reigns at this moment. King Louis XVI. dead, King Louis XVII. succeeded in the eyes of Eoyalists. When that poor child fell a victim to the cruelties of his guardian, the cobbler, Louis XVIII. followed. Two courses were open to the French, either of which would have been dignified and worthy of a great nation. Had either of them been adopted, the Kevolu- tion in this country would, I am convinced, have followed. They might have made the King solemnly abdicate, and resign his sove- reignty into the hands of the People to whom it belonged. They might then have invited him to retire with his family to the frontier ; or better still, they might have assigned him a 234 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER residence, a guard for his personal safety, and a pension for life. Had they done this, the Eevo • lution might have resulted in a permanent Ee- public, and the highest ambition of Buonaparte would have been to command a Division. The speaker lowered his tone on the warn- ing of the President. ' But,' he continued, ' we are all comrades here, citizens of the British Eepublic which shall be pro- claimed before many weeks are out ; we are members of this great society which now covers the whole country. To speak in this club is more secret than to speak in a Free- masons' Lodge. Why, these clubs of ours are the only places where we can speak openly and freely and without fear. Outside they are slaves, with spies set over them to prevent them whispering to each other so much as the si tame of their slavery. Slaves all. Slaves to their laws, their King, their nobles, and their priests. Here alone and in such clubs as these, can we breathe the blessed air of freedom.' We were breathing the blessed air of THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 235 freedom after it had been itself confined in prison. No prison air could have been closer. To begin with, the room was low, and round the long table which occupied the middle were twenty or five-and-twenty men. It was a cold and wet night : the company had hung up their cloaks and capes on the pegs to dry : the reek of the damp cloth combined with the smell of flip, hot mulled or spiced ale, porter, punch, purl, grog, and every other kind of drink, and with the fumes, irritating and nauseous, of a dozen pipes of tobacco, and, lastly, with the snuffing of the six candles by which the room was lit, to make a most delectable atmosphere. Our members, how- ever, appeared not to mind it — even to sniff the fragrance with satisfaction. The place was the back parlour of the King's Head, Little Alie Street, Whitechapel : the windows, which were never opened, looked out upon a large tenter-ground. The furniture of the room consisted of nothing but the table aforesaid, and a number of chairs corresponding to the number of the company. The chair at the 236 ST. KATHERINE S BY THE TOWER head of the table was provided with arms, as is the fashion in clubs. There were at this time hundreds of clubs all over London. Says Timothy Twig : What a number of clubs doth this City contain ! We have one for each street, for each alley and lane : Bucks, Albions, Friars, of Masons some dozens, Lumber Troops, Dr. Butlers, and Clerical Cousins ; Cockneys, Codgers, Gormigans, around us are spread. But of clubs there is none that's so useful, or suiting My ideas, as those that exist by disputing: AVhere the parties all meet and agree for to jar, "Where 'prentices study for Senate and Bar : Harangue in the streets, on the wharves scarcely stop, And talk of Voltaire in the cheesemonger's shop. Ours was none other than the Sublime Society of Snugs. Originally intended for convivial purposes — the earlier Snugs were renowned for their rounds, catches, and glees : to be a Snug in their days was to be a cheer- ful, harmonious, harmless toper — the club had since been converted into a political association. A Snug seldom now lifted up his voice in song. The new brethren were all sober and earnest men. They locked their doors when they met. The club was a branch of the great Corresponding Society whose THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 237 members were numbered by thousands, and whose branches covered the whole country. This Society, and all its branches, warmly welcomed the beginning of the French Revolution, and ardently desired reform in this country of the same character, taking from the privileged classes all their power, and transferring it to a Parliament elected by the whole people. And there can be little doubt that, had the progress of the Revolution in France proved peaceful, it would have been followed and imitated in this country, though how far one cannot venture to say. The Society of Snugs, then, was one of these branches. We met every Saturday evening at this tavern, the landlord professing to know no- thing more about us than that we were a club which talked or sung, smoked tobacco, drank a cheerful glass, and obeyed certain by-laws, which were certainly innocent enough, and were hung up, framed, over the mantelshelf. We had our officers duly appointed. I was myself the secretary ; we kept minutes of our proceedings and resolutions. These, however, were locked up. We carried on 238 ST. CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER our business with closed doors. At every meeting those were invited to speak who had any suggestion to make, or any information to impart. As happens in all such clubs, the members were all eager to talk, anxious, I suppose, to see how their opinions sounded when they were uttered. Every man paid for his own drink. It was a sober club, and the members rarely got fuddled. One cere- mony was necessary before a new member could be admitted. He must be introduced by an old member, and must take an oath never to repeat, outside the club, sentiments, speeches, or opinions that lie might hear in the club itself. This was an important pre- caution, because, though I have read Tom Paine's ' Rights of Man ' and Joel Barlow's 'Address to the Privileged Orders,' I have never heard or read anywhere sentiments more revolutionary, or speeches more seditious. The members of the club very well repre- sented the class of persons who belonged to the Corresponding and other societies of a Bimilar character. That is to say, you would look in vain for any leading citizens of London THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 239 — no substantial merchant was among us ; none of the clergy of the City, not even a Dissent- ing minister ; no officers of the army or the navy were with us ; no lawyers ; no physicians ; no scholars ; few shopkeepers, because of all men in the world the man who keeps a shop most fears and abhors the thought of disorder ; it is only when the streets are quiet and undisturbed, when ladies can walk about, that he can hope to sell his wares. He must always be the friend of order, that is to say, of the constituted state of things. Our people were mostly of the mechanical class — that is to say, they were men who exercised a trade requiring skill and intelligence : thus in the Sublime Society of Snugs there were clock and watch-makers from Bunhill Eow ; there were weavers from Spitalfields ; printers ; cabinet-makers ; carvers in wood or ivory ; shoemakers (who are always of inquiring mind), and others following trades of various kinds. We were not without a sprinkling of the better sort. There was a young gentle- man from the Temple, not yet called, but studying for the Bar — he was very hot in the 240 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER cause ; there was another young gentleman, equally fiery, who wanted to set fire to the City and blow up the Tower — he had been expelled from Oxford, and was an Atheist and a poet. There was an author who professed himself ready to lend us the support of his pen, but his appearance failed to inspire confidence. If your pen is not strong enough to procure you a new pair of shoes, how shall it avail to subvert the Constitution ? There was also a red-nosed man, who was called Your Keverence ; but then there are people who will call an apothecary My Lord, and this man never wore the garb of Holy Orders. There were one or two clerks, but your clerk as a rule is too timid to trouble about Eevolu- tions : he fears to lose his place ; like the shopkeeper, his best chance of a living is in the piping times of peace. When the mer- chant, his master, grows rich, some crumbs will fall to him. In time of war and tumult, the man who can do nothing but wield a pen is apt to starve. Therefore, the Correspond- ing Societies numbered few clerks upon their lists. THE) SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 241 You have already seen the Marquis de Rosnay. You have seen him playing whist at St. Katherine's. I do not suppose that his presence here was known to the Brothers. He came seldom. I do not know how lie became a member. He never spoke except softly, and to the man who sat next to him ; but he was greatly interested when, as often happened, one of the more fiery members harangued in the manner of the time. It reminded him, he said, of Paris. As for the man who was speaking this evening, you have already seen him too. He was, in fact, none other than Richard Archer, schoolmaster and organist of the Hospital. Heavens ! — if that venerable Society had known, the Cloister of the Precinct would have had another occupant. That their schoolmaster, supposed to possess the meekness of his calling ; this sweet musician, supposed to be as gentle as his Church music ; should be a fiery revolutionary and a red-hot orator, would indeed have astonished their souls from the Master down to the Apparitor. vol. 1. R 242 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER Richard Archer was brought to the Precinct when he was a baby in arms. His mother, still young, was a widow. She had her marriage lines to prove her character. Her husband, she said, had been in the service of a shipowner ; she herself was daughter of a City tradesman. But her husband died, and she was left destitute with her child. People do not inquire too closely into the stories told by such people concerning themselves. This young widow first rented a two-roomed cottage in Cat's Hole, a de- lectable court leading from St. Katherine's Lane to Ditchside, inhabited only by the poorest and the rudest of our people. But, as she proved to be dexterous with her needle and a woman of sober behaviour, she became known among the better sort, and, obtaining work from them, was able to remove to a more respectable lodging. Her son meantime grew up, and was received al the school, where he proved himself a lad of quick parts and uncommon memory. As he grew older he also displayed a wonderful aptitude THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OE SNUGS 243 for music, and there seemed hardly any instru- ment which he could not quickly master as soon as he got an opportunity. In this he was encouraged by the Eev. Dr. Baxter, one of the Brothers, who always resided at the Hospital, and himself touched the violoncello with skilful hand. In the end, this youim- man was promoted to be schoolmaster's usher or assistant first, and schoolmaster a year or two afterwards, when this post became vacant. He was also made organist of the church, and a very fine organist he proved. Of his private character, I have only to record that as a boy he was quick- tempered, quarrelsome, always ready to fi^ht, but not one of those boys who will fight to the death rather than give in. If he was defeated he took his beating quietly, and then waited till he felt courage enough to try again. When he was about eighteen years of age he became morose ; he withdrew from all companions, and never afterwards sought to make friends. He became one of those K 'I 244 ST. KATHERLYE'S BY THE TOWER who hate the world : not as an eremite or a monk hates the world, but as a misan- thrope — one who has been injured by the world. What chiefly caused this change in him was certain information conveyed to him by his mother. She told him that the tale of her marriage was false ; she had been married, indeed, in a church, and after the banns were properly put up ; that she was never a lady's maid, nor was her husband a gentle- man's servant ; but that she belonged to a worthy and respectable family, her lather being a bookseller of repute in Paternoster Row ; that her husband, who had pretended to be nothing more than a master mariner, and lived with her for a while in that character, she presently discovered to be a nobleman of great rank and station, and that he was already married, so that she was no wife after all ; that, on receiving this news, she left him, her son being then unborn ; that she had long resolved not to attempt to punish her deceiver by bringing him before a court of justice, being determined to leave THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 245 him to his conscience ; and that she had supported herself without assistance from him ever since. This discovery would have been enough to enrage any man, but this hot-headed impatient youth it drove for a time nearly mad. What ? — he who now occupied the humble post of schoolmaster to St. Katherine's should have been the heir of a m*eat man and a noble estate. These should have been his — his by right. And this he continually repeated to himself. A pity that his mother ever told him. lie contrasted every day his present lot with what might have been. He even journeyed to the West End of London to gaze upon my lord's town house, and say to himself that it should have been his as well. The prospect and thought of this magnificence caused him to loathe his work and to despise his lot. He said to himself that he was only a simple schoolmaster, the servant of the Society, a drudge forced to spend his days in teaching boys the rudiments of learning ; humble before his betters, forced to doff hat and do reverence when he met one 246 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER of the Brothers ; with no hope of rising above this lowly position. Yet his father was a great man, and his mother was married by the forms of the Church. A man of cheerful and contented spirit would have made the best of tilings ; a philosopher would have laughed at the caprice of Fortune which makes one man a peer and another a school- master. We do great wrong ever to quarrel with that rank and station to which it hath pleased Almighty God to call us. A cheerful man, I say, would have reminded himself that he had received, thouirh father- less and the son of a humble seamstress in a poor part of the town, an excellent education at a £Ood school ; that lie had been taught to practise and improve his great talent of music; and that he now held two respectable, if not exalted, offices, those of schoolmaster and organist to the Hospital; the work not hard, the pay sufficient. Such a man would have argued that his lot, com- pared with thai of the people around him, was enviable, and he would have been tilled with gratitude accordingly. Richard Archer, THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 247 however, grew morose, and he became a solitary — he hated the world. The debate in the Sublime Society con- tinued. ' Citizens,' said the speaker, ' I have little more to add. Hereditary government became possible when the people began to pay soldiers to fight for them. Those who have the arms have the power. They will never lay down that power so long as they can keep it. Power is the last thing that men surrender ; therefore, from father to son they have handed it down. Some built strong castles, where they were in security, and became great lords and barons. Then came the priest, and they bribed him to declare the doctrine of Divine Right. Divine Eight ! It is by this Divine Bight that the people are swine, flocks, cattle, herds on whom their masters feed ! It is by Divine Right that a fool, an idiot, a madman — a woman may rule ! By Divine Eight Louis the Sixteenth sat upon the throne for twenty years! Had Divine Eight given him the brains of a 248 57: KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER Thames mudlark ? To be a tradesman one must have skill in craft, invention, and ingenuity. To be a king one wants nothing — nothing — nothing at all. Who would take a pair of boots to a cobbler until he had shown that he could make and mend ? Yet we must go down on our knees and bow when Divine Eight thrusts such an one as Louis on the throne ! Saw one ever the like ? Then the room applauded vigorously. This kind of discourse pleased us all mightily. The speaker w T as in force to-night. ' What, however,' he went on, ' is the new principle of the French Constitution? It declares that all civil and political authority — all, mind you — is derived from the people, not the Kings, not the nobles, not the clergy, but from the people. There is a doctrine for you ! From the people, look you. On what foundation is our own authority based ? Whence is it derived? Citizens, outside, men to-day speak of the national indignation against the execution of the French King. It is not national : the true nation rejoices in the execution of a tyrant. The courtiers, priests, THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 249 nobles, placemen, and pensioners, these tremble when a tyrant falls. Not the nation. No — no.' ' Almost,' said the Marquis softly, ' I could fancy myself in Paris.' ' The Revolution, brethren,' the orator continued, ' is now pressing its victorious course. Soon will all the nations of Europe rise, one after the other, against these tyrants. Already we see a great nation governed by the people. What? Do they ask whether Marat is the son of a lord, or whether Robespierre has the blood of princes in his veins ? Not so. Are their armies led by profligate nobles? Not so. Are the fruits of their labour torn from them an)- longer to support in luxury a fat and lazy Church ? Again, not so. Never ! Let us join freemen — in raising the flag of the Republic ! This bright and glorious example is before us. We were mistaken. Shall we neglect it ? Shall we suffer the Flemings and the Hollanders to be before us — we who once called our- selves a people of the Brotherhood of Humanity ? Let us advance, side by side, with 250 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER our brethren of France, against the enemies of freedom, and those who have sworn to trample upon the rights of man ! ' Brethren,' he raised his glass, ' let us drink to the immortal memor) r of the two greatest days of modern times : the Fourteenth Day of July, and the Twentieth Day of January ; the Fall of the Bastille — the Execu- tion of the King.' Up to this point he had carried us with him. Here he failed. The President pushed his glass from him, and shook his head. The company murmured. We were not prepared to applaud a step which everybody knew to be murder. No one, however, spoke in objection or in reply. The speaker looked round him. He raised his glass, and waited. 'Again,' lie said, ' let us drink to the Fall of King and Bastille.' The Marquis shook his head. ' They are doing that,' he said, ' at the Palais Eoyal to-night. Let us wait.' * Then,' said Richard Archer, ' I drink it by myself. To the immortal memory of two THE SUBLIME SOCIETY OF SNUGS 251 great days ! To the Fall of the Bastille and the Death of the Kino- \ ' He drank off his elass, and sat down. Then we rose in silence, and separated. 252 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER CHAPTER II EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY The young men of the present day — those who were children and infants or as yet unborn between the years 1789 and 1793 — cannot possibly understand the flaming ardour which was communicated to all generous hearts in Great Britain by the outbreak of the French Revolution. We believed that nothing short of Christ's kingdom here on earth was about to begin — nay, had already begun. We thought that the rising of the French nation would be followed by that of all the European nations, including our own, which had many things to amend, though little to destroy. Universal peace, brotherly love, the abolition of armies and navies, friendly rivalry in peaceful arts and sciences, the destruction of superstitions — all EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 253 would follow with the rule of the People by themselves. These dreams are now forgot- ten. Those who formerly entertained them have for the most part forgotten them, or become ashamed of them. Our young men have witnessed a war which raged for two- and-twenty years, the third of a man's life- time — a gigantic war — a war which covered the whole of Europe — all the Continent — which destroyed millions of men, overturned the proudest monarchies and the most solid institutions. It has been a war, the like of which has never before been seen in the his- tory of the world, and its consequences, I verily believe, will never end in the remain- ing history of the world. These young men have been taught to regard France as the Great ac^ressor, the murderer of these millions, the first disturber of peace, the destroyer of freedom ; the nation which, in its greed of glory and lust for conquest, has trampled on every treaty and violated every pledge. Our young men have seen a low-born Corsican mount the proud Throne of France, become the tyrant and master 254 ST. CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER of a whole Continent — and place his ignoble brothers upon the ancient thrones of Europe. They have also seen the tenacity and courage of the British race, steadily resisting his power, even alone ; encouraging the nations to new alliances after every overthrow ; until at last, with the help of these allies — which it could not have effected unaided — destroying the power of the enemy by land as well as by sea, hurling him from his usurped throne, and consigning him to a distant rock in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. I cannot find in any chapter of history, ancient or modern, events more stupendous than those which followed each other so rapidly from the year 1789 to the year 1815. But, in very truth, when the Revolution began, it seemed to many as if a new day had dawned upon mankind. The Republican idea which had prevailed in America was to pre- vail in Europe ; there it was professed by a scanty people, living for the most part on the seaboard of a great continent ; here it would be followed by the great nations of the world. The 'new Republic of France promised peace- EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 255 fully to step into the seat of authority ; the Ministers acquiesced ; the King, cowed, made no resistance. Then, I say, such dreams of universal peace and love came to some men as had never before been possible since the shepherds heard the message of the angels. The world was weary of war ; it seemed to those who looked into the causes of war that not the restlessness or injustice of peoples, but the ambitions of kings, brought the miseries of war upon mankind. There was no end to their ambitions or to the wars. History is nothing but an account of one war after another ; towns are destroyed and burned ; peaceful homesteads, smiling villages, populous countries are devastated ; men are nothing but warriors, women nothing but the mothers of soldiers. Now — now — all woidd be changed. The French Eevolution had begun ; the whole power was at last in the hands of the people. There was no more a King of France, but a King of the French People, who was nothing but a President - Speaker of the nation. War should cea.^e, and the reign of peace should begin, when 256 ST. CATHERINE'S IiY THE TOWER the spear should be turned into a spade and the sword to a ploughshare. With such illusions as these did many of us indulge our souls. As chain after chain fell from the limbs of the French, so, we felt, would fall the chains from us. We had — alas ! they still remain — many grievous burdens to bear. There was not then — there is not now — any true representation of the people ; the boasted House of Com- mons had sunk — it is still in that condition — ■ to a House of younger sons and nominees ; liberty of the Press, liberty of public meeting, liberty to combine — these were not then existent, and are not now. And we were dumb. You may look in vain through the whole of the last century for any voice from the people ; there was none ; you may see what they were like in the pictures of Hogarth ; but they speak not ; they have no voice ; all the laws seemed framed to keep them down ; to restrain thern from the exercise of any power. What else but slavery is that when the men who work have no voice as to their wages, none as to the EQUALITY AXD FRATERNITY 257 hours of their work, none as to the policy which restricts trade, proclaims wars, drives their sons to the battle like sheep to the shambles, keeps them ignorant, keeps them brutal ; and when their brutality or their ignorance drives them into crime, lashes them with savage cruelty, and hangs them up by dozens on the shameful gallows-tree? These things I noted and observed, living among a rough and rude population. The daily sight of their rudeness and brutality caused me to reflect, and made me ask why these things should be. I still ask that question ; but no longer in hope — because the answer is always the same. Consider, they say, the French Revolution and what followed. Before you trust the people with power, contemplate the havoc that was wrought by a people when it had that power. These dreams were, of a truth, soon to be rudely shaken ; these illusions were to be dis- pelled. Our faith in the Revolution was only strengthened when the National Assembly changed the King's title and called him King VOL. L S 258 ST. KATHERINES BY THE TO HER of the French ; we looked on unmoved when they confiscated the property of the Church — was it not a Papistical Church ? We remained steadfast in our faith when the nobles besjan to emigrate — had our own nobles done the same we should not have lamented. It was after the massacres of August and September that our faith bejxan to waver ; after the Eevolutionary Tribunal was set up ; when the Eeiirn of Terror filled the whole world with horror ; when the people who now wielded, or seemed to wield, absolute power, exulted in murder and grew drunk with blood, and, like Aholibah, gloried in their abominations. They murdered the King — it was a needless act, an act of blood and stupid revenge ; then they murdered the innocent, unfortunate Queen, after treatment too foul for the blacks of Dahomey, and after charges too terrible for the Spanish Inquisition. And then they con- signed the tender, innocent child, theDauphin, to a monster who slowly tortured the reason out of* his brain and the life out of his body. Alas !— alas ! where were then our dreamers? Who, in the face of such things as these, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 259 could lift up his shameful head and still demand the power for the people ? Yet some continued to hope. But when, after all the hue sentiments proclaimed at first, there was left of their national liberties nothing at all ; when a Tyrant sat upon the Throne, and Freedom, in whose cause all these crimes had been committed, fled shriek- ing from Gallia's shores ; when the whole of Europe was overrun by Buonaparte's ambi- tious armies, what was the advocate of the people left to say ? It is now over ; the cause of Freedom was betrayed and trampled upon ; the Empire has come and has gone ; the glory of victory remains, I suppose, and the tears still flow for the hundreds of thousands destroyed in pur- suit of glory. The Emperor is a captive in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, whence it is not likely that he will again escape ; the Bourbons are bark again with the exiled nobles ; everything has gone back again — to outward seeming. Yet not everything. The old privileg are passed away ; the devolution has left its s 2 35o ST. KATHE HIKE'S BY THE TOWER mark ; the people who for a brief time en- joyed liberty of speech will not be deprived of it again ; there are many who read the signs of the times, and prophesy that another Revo- lution will follow, and yet another, and that the Revolutionary Cause will advance by each •step and take a firmer hold of the nation. When France has shown that her people can ■govern themselves without corruption, with* out lust of ambition, with honour and dignity — when, in fact, the people show the posses- sion of the virtues attributed, rightly or -wrongly, to the aristocracy, then will the Republican Idea seize and possess all hearts. Who remembers now the preamble to the 'French Constitution of 179I? Is there an)' one who yet, after the roar and din of so many battlefields, cares to think of that peace- ful document, full of humanity, burning with the love of liberty and equal rights? Read it: * Considering that ignorance, forgetfulness, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole causes <>f public grievances and the corrup- tion of government, we hereby declare — EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 261 'First — That the great end of society is general happiness. ' Secondly — That no form of government is good any further than it secures that object. 1 Thirdly — That all civil and political authority is derived from the people, 'Fourthly — That equal active citizenship is the inalienable right of men — minors, criminals, and insane persons excepted.' These are brave sentences, and they are true. Alas ! the truth of these sentiments was only proved by the crimes which, in the minds of some, showed their falseness. Had the people been true to them, none of t he- crimes which disgrace the history of the Eevolution would have been committed : no handle would have been given to those who blaspheme the sacred name of liberty. Ther< should have been another clause, to wit : 'Fifthly, that it is the duty of every Government to provide education for the children, especially in the exercise 262 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER of those powers on which depend the welfare of the country and the general happiness of the people.' Sober people — those who value order above all things, and look upon liberty in personal action as a first thing to be secured, so that every man may, unmolested, carry on his business — have been scared, and driven even from the discussion of these things and the history of the past twenty-five years. If, they say, freedom leads to such massacres, such wars, such destruction of life, let us, for our part, be contented with such freedom as we have, and let our rulers continue to remain what they are, a few families, instead of the whole nation. Let us have no change, if change only brings more war, more massacres, more bankruptcy. Everybody knows that the spirit of inquiry and doubt was not confined to the South of the Channel : it had long extended into this country — there was no subject, not even the foundation of Faith, not even natural religion, which was not questioned and studied from its first beginnings by the philosophers of the EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 263 last century, whose chief glory it will perhaps be to have set free the brains of men. Yet, it may be asked, what philosophers conferred and disputed in the Precinct of St. Katherine's by the Tower ? Truly, none — nor did I learn the doctrines which I afterwards held from any who were found within the quarter. Nor did I get any encouragement from my father, who entertained so great a respect for rank and authority that he would not so much as suffer the subject to be discussed in his presence. Nor did I receive any encourage- ment from my good friend and patron the Prebendary, who was also a great stickler for authority as by Divine Grace constituted, and for obedience as by Divine Law enjoined upon mankind. Yet it was mainly through this scholar and divine that I was led into these ways of thought. There are some boys who take as naturally to books as others do to ships and the sea. Such a boy was I ; and because at home we had few books, for my father read but little, I was for ever prowling about to pick up, 2C 4 57-. {CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER bag, borrow, or buy (when I had any money) books — books — and always more books. It is strange how sometimes, in the very lowest huts or eottages of Ditchside in the Precinct, I would find a book lying forgotten, for you may be sure that our people read nothing, and for the most part were unable to read. But this coming to the cars of the Prebendary, he was so good as to admit me to his own library, where, among many tall folios of divinity and scholarship, he possessed a good collection of our noblest English writers. Here I made the acquaintance of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Spenser, and the great men of that time. Also, of a later time, Dryden, Addison, Swift, Pope, Johnson, and Gold- smith. Tin reading of poetry predisposes the heart to irenerous thoughts ; it teaches a young man what is noble in mankind; it opens his mind to the reception of great hopes and unselfish ambitions. Never again can a man feel that rapture of spirit which falls upon a boy when, in the dusty atmos- phere of a library, while the motes dance as the sun pours through the windows upon the EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 265 leather backs of the books, while, outside, the carts rumble up and down the street, he sits alone among the books, poring over a volume of poetry. Then the gates of Heaven lie open for him to gaze within ; nay, Heaven itself is close to him, within his reach, and ready for the whole world should they but choose to step within. This Library was in the Eectory of St. Ben'et, Walbrook — a large wainscotted room — but the walls were covered with books, so that they were hidden. Here I sat day after day, whenever I could get a few hours to myself. Other nourishment I found there besides poetry — namely, histories, essays, both of argument and reasoning. One day I found — surely the Hand of Providence guided me to the place — Milton's ' Essay on the Liberty of the Press.' Who, that has read and considered those most noble words, can fail to apply them to all kinds of liberty? What does lie say 'i 'Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple ; 266 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER whoever knew Truth put to scorn in a free and open encounter? ' And again, before this passage, remember that noble flight : ' Lords and Commons of England ! Consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the Governors ; a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit ; acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point that human capacity can soar to. . . . Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks.' And the rest of it. This great and mighty appeal fell upon my heart till I knew every word of it. And in all that followed I, too, seemed to see a noble and puissant nation rousing herself, and shaking her invincible locks. I, who had not the words of Milton, longed to be the meanest of those who lifted that nation to its tli rone. Then I took stronger meat still; and, with the approbation of the Hector, I read Locke's two 'Treatises on Government,' the EQUALITY AXD FRATERNITY 267 8 Leviathan ' of Hobbes, and the miscellaneous works of Bolingbroke, all of which gave me much food for reflection, and took a long time, because I am now speaking of the work of several years. And presently, but now with- out the advice or sanction of my guide, I read the ' Social Contract' of Eousseau, done into English; Voltaire's 'Letters on the English People,' also done into our own tongue ; Price on ' Civil Liberty ; ' Paine's ' Plights of Man ; ' and Joel Barlow's ' Address to the Privileged Classes ; ' and many others of a like character whose names I have now for- gotten. And I read, partly with shame, partly with admiration, how the American colonists achieved their independence. And by this time, as may be understood, I very well knew that our boasted English liberties, of which we talk so much, harbour and cover almost as many grievances as any of the Continental Governments, and that an Englishman of the lower class is treated with almost as much oppression, and is almost as much a slave, as Frenchman, or German, or Muscovite. 26S 57*. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER Such a young man reading such books, and thinking on such subjects secretly, quickly acquires certain doctrines or maxims. Such, for instance, as that one man without his clothes is as good as another in the same condition. This, to a young man, seems one of those pithy sayings which mean much more than they say, and suggest many things. 13ut the young man too often forgets that there are clothes of the soul as well as of the body. The soul puts on the raiment of education, manners, honour — in short, the whole armour of righteousness — a thing hardly to be attained by the ignorant kind. Again, if he lives, as I did, among a very rude and rough people, he notes their brutality daily, but he also notes certain virtues which are commonly found among that people, as charity, generosity, and courage. So he comes to believe thai they have other virtues : then he is filled with pity and indignation in their behalf : lie attributes their brutality to the condition in which they are forced to live : because; they have no liberty at all : no share EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 269 or voice in the Government : no education : no right or power to unite among themselves for their own interest and advancement : because they must work, obey, or be flogged. Therefore he thinks they must of necessity become brutal, drunken, and profligate. Give them a share in the Government, and they will at once assume all the virtues which at present they lack. And a young man, I say, falls easily into this belief: he is consumed with the ardent desire to set all wrongs right : to make all men equal : to make injustice im- possible. And, in his generous ardour, he fondly believes that all hearts will leap for joy at the prospect of equity and justice for all. Those who desire everything to be im- mediately and henceforth for ever administered on the principles of Divine justice and universal honesty (which is to desire the Kingdom of Heaven) forget always that there must be two parties to every transaction. It is not, in fact, enough for the philosopher to take the power from King and nobles because it is unreasonable for them to hold it and to 270 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER keep it ; he must also take care that the hands into which he commits that power should be wise in using it, strong in keeping it, just and merciful in administering it ; else might the old machinery, ordered with the wisdom of experience, prove far better, although contrary to reason. In other w r ords, I do now perceive that reason and argument are not everything, and that humanity may be ruled w r isely, even although unreasonably. It is cpiite certain that the French nation w T ere neither wise nor just nor merciful. They proved themselves wholly unfit to exercise the power absolute — they played with it as a schoolboy plays with a bag of gunpowder ; they destroyed themselves with it as the schoolboy blows himself up setting light to the powder ; they threw it away and lost it ; they behaved exactly as their great- grandfathers had done — they gave it into the hands of a soldier to keep for them. We know what use he made of it. Nothing can be more true than the principles laid down in the Constitution of 1701, but before they were EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 271 put in practice it ought to have been proved that the people were no longer schoolboys, incapable of being trusted with a bag of powder, but arrived already at manhood — instructed, responsible, ready to work together for the general good, fully possessed of con- science and the fear of God. In this manner, then, moved by their opinions, did I — the son of one who regarded the Eevolution from the outset with horror, who considered that the only hope for a nation was in that obedience of the people to authority — advance step by step till I had become secretary of a club, which existed for nothing in the world but to promote revolution. As for George, he knew nothino- of these things, lie was no revolutionary : he never came to the club but on one important night. I am not guilty of dragging him into the guilt of hio-h treason, because he came not with me, but with another. When I was seventeen years of age, it became necessary to consider my profession. First, there seemed no likelihood of obtaining one of the posts attached to the Hospital, of 272 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER which there are not many. Secondly, I had no calling to the sacred office of minister in the Church ; therefore it was useless to consider the Universities. And I had no such love of law or medicine as to make me wish to enter either of these professions. Truth to sav, I had in me little ambition. It seemed to me the happiest lot to sail my bark in smooth backwaters — out of the greater dangers, if not quite out of the way of temptation. The arena attracted me not : I neither cared to contemplate the fight of the gladiator nor to take part in it. Therefore it was with great joy that I received, through the influence and interest of the Master of the Hospital, the Hon. Colonel Digby, permission to purchase an appointment as clerk in the Admiralty, at Somerset House. The Rev. Dr. Lorrymore bought the post for me, giving three hundred pounds for it. Though the salary is small, the post offers many advantages. For the work is light : there is no dismissal at the caprice of a Jack- in office: and in some departments, where there are perquisites (sometimes called bribes), EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 273 it is reckoned that the post of senior clerk is as good as that of purser of a first-rate, without the disagreeable necessity of going to sea or into action. I had therefore to be at my desk in Somerset House every day. This circumstance also advanced me in the path which was leading me (and others with me) to destruction. In this way. On my return I fell into the custom of repairing to one of the numerous coffee-houses and taverns which abound in Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, Cheapside, and other places of resort, there to sit and listen, or perhaps join in the conversation, which was now universally directed to the important events daily reported from France. From the moment when the Third Estate constituted themselves a National Assembly there were two parties in every coffee-room — those who approved of the step and those who were against it. The events which followed (all in the same year of 1780), while it narrowed the former party, also deepened the difference of opinion, and caused the debates of rival vol. 1. t 274 ST. ^CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER politicians to rage more furiously. The friends of the British Constitution could not, for instance, look on without expressions of dissent while the property of the Church was confiscated, and while the nobles began to emigrate by thousands. Why, before the middle of the year 1792 there were 40,000 emigres in England, most of them in London. Many of these were the bishops and priests, most were nobles ; some were of lower class, who came over I know not why. They lived in great povertj T , even the greatest lords, who had been formerly so rich and magnificent. Some taught French, some dancing, some drawing. Some played the violin at the theatres, some became cooks, some barbers. All were so many witnesses of the popular fury; all called out aloud upon the crimes of a nation ruled by its common people. Religion, Order, Authority, Faith — . all alike, these exiles declared — were trodden under foot and despised. As for the events which followed immediately, they were such as to alienate from the cause all but those who believed devoutly that these things EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 275 were but deplorable accidents, and that the better sense of the people would prevail. In the coffee-houses I presently discovered that a man's occupation has a great deal more to do with his political opinions than his sense of justice ; I now believe that the sense of justice, which is a natural instinct in savage man, may be blunted, and even killed in a more polite age. I mean that where the restoration of justice would cause a diminution of wealth, there are few men who desire or would consent to it. This is a lesson which one learns by degrees. For example : at the 'Cock,' the ' Mitre,' and the ' liainbow,' houses of resort for the Tem- plars and the lawyers of Lincoln's Inn, I found everywhere great eagerness to discuss, and to dispute whatever subject was discussed. And on the principles of national freedom I found among the gentlemen of the robe readiness to acknowledge willingly whatever could be proved by argument and reason. As to the application of principles to actual practice, as by the restoration to the win people of an equal share in the Government, x -l 2/6 57: KATHERINES BY THE TOWER then, if you please, with one consent they drew back. What ? Cut the very ground from under their feet? Why, the people would have swift justice, open to all, with no delays, no chicanery, and at no expense. What would be the lawyers if the people had their way ? ' Sir,' said the lawyers, with one consent, 'we live by this existing state of things. Destroy that, and you destroy us. Doubtless you are quite right, but yet we w T ill have nothing to do with you.' Again, if you went into the taverns lower down the street, where the tradesmen mostly congregate, there was never observed the least tenderness towards one who professed the principles of the Revolution. Such an one was regarded as a dangerous traitor, a sub- verter, one who would destroy order and cripple trade. All believed firmly that the crimes of France would be repeated on Eng- lish soil. With them the rule of the people meant the lawlessness of the mob, and the merchants believed that the Gordon Riots, when the mob held the town for two days, EQUALITY AXD FRATERNITY 277 would be but a flea-bite compared with the condition of things should we imitate the French. In short, I now understand that those who favoured French principles, and would have put them into practice, consisted of a handful, though a noisy handful, of fanatical men, mostly young, together with a great body of the better class of working-men, who had begun to think before they had been provided with the elements of know- ledge. ' Selfishness,' said my friends, ' with the rich is more powerful than the sense of justice.' It certainly is ; yet we made the greatest of all mistakes when we fondly imagined that those virtues which are feeble, even altogether lacking, in men of substance, education, and urbanity, must necessarily be conspicuous in those of ignorance, rudeness, and poverty. While I was thus drifting, as it were, along a current leading me into the perilous waters of conspiracy, an accident occurred which greatly accelerated my progress. Among the thou- sands of emigres and exiles who crowded over during the first year was one named the 278 57: KATHERIXE'S BY THE TOWER Marquis de Rosnay, who came — why, I know not — to live in the Precinct. He was very poor, but his pride equalled his poverty. He was old — past seventy years of age — he had lived in England many years before the Revo- lution. I believe he had even been Ambas- sador at the Court of St. James's ; he spoke English clearly, if not fluently. As for his old friends, of whom he must have had many, for he spoke familiarly of the Court of George the Second, and of the ^reat men f that time, lie would not seek out any. He lived in this remote and obscure part of London in order to be concealed from their pity or their charity. One room in a small house belonging to the Hospital — 'twas in St. Katherine's Square — sufficed for him, and on what private resources lie lived I cannot say. He was a beautiful old gentleman to look at, not tall, but upright still, not as yet bowed by his weight of years. Ee looked always as if he had that moment left the hands of his valet and his perruquier ; his linen and his lace was of the whitest ; his coat and waistcoat the most spotless ; his face always calm, noble, EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 279 and dignified. One could never at any time, and whatever the conversation, observe in him the least impatience or anger at the reverse of fortune which had transferred him from a great palace in the country to a little house in St. Katherine's. He preserved the grand manner in this retreat, and conversed with me as if he were still the Ambassador and I a young gentleman in whom he took a kindly interest. Yet, although his appearance and bearing were such that no one could presume upon the least liberty, his voice and his speech were as gentle and as sweet as those of any girl. He found me out ; he made me talk to him ; he drew me on gently, little by little, until I spoke freely of myself, my reading, and my opinions ; he received my confidences with patience — never could I speak to any one freely as to the Marquis ; he encouraged me. To this day I have never been able to learn what opinions he really held. Once he said to me : ' Young man, it is fifty years and more since I first heard discussions on these 2 So ST. K'ATHERIXES BY THE TOWER subjects which now interest you — and the whole world — so deeply. I have sat at tables where Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert, even y or Bolingbroke, freely discussed the sove- reignty of the people. I have lived to see these ideas put in practice across the ocean. I have expected, a long time, to see it prevail in France, where there is more respect paid to reason and the art of logic than — perhaps — in Great Britain. It is interesting to have seen the ideas of one's youth actually carried out by my own people. If I was not so old that instruction comes too late it would be useful for me to observe the things which naturally follow when the people have assumed the sovereignity. As a natural result, I am here, and my estates — where are they ? ' He shrugged his shoulders and took a pinch of snuff. ' You do well, young man, to think of these things. If, as seems likely' — it was when Flanders was first overrun by the B - publican troops — 'these principles are to be forced upon the world at the point of the bayonet, you who have mastered the subject may rise to great distinction. The Revolution EQUALITY AXD FRATERXITY 281 has beo-im with the gambols of a child not vet able to restrain himself. It will settle down. To what? A Dictatorship? A Republic of the Roman kind ? A pure democracy ? I watch and wait. The people will have leaders. Talk what 3-011 please of equal governments : that of the people will be a government by their leaders and their idols of the moment. Is that, too, then, an illusion ? Perhaps : from one illusion to another, and then back aaain — as you English whip your criminals — so mankind are led. Learn to profit by the illu- sion of others. Lead, unless you wish to be driven. Under the most equal form of govern- ment, unless you wish to be governed, be yourself the King.' "With such language did the Marquis lead me on. How I came to join at last the club where you have already seen me matters not ; it was then a necessary step in the progress of a Revolutionary that he should join a club. What was my astonishment when, after I had taken the oath of secrecy and had my eyes unbound, I saw seated at the table with the company none other than the old Marquis 282 ST. CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER himself, the victim and natural enemy of Revolution, and our schoolmaster and organist, Richard Archer ! ' You are one of us now,' said the latter ; ' I have long waited for your coming. You have been watched. Ha ! Let us have a little patience, and then — then ' He set his teeth and caught his breath, hissing. Had what he hoped come to pass, I believe that there would have been no monster of Robes- pierre's party more bloodthirsty and more relentless than Richard Archer. ' We are organised ; we are thousands strong ; we shall rise over the whole country at once. Man alive ! there will be such things in London as these rich and greasy citizens have never so much as imagined, when Wapping and Shadwell and the Precinct pour their armies of emancipated slaves into Threadneedle Street and Cheapside.' ' It is pleasing,' said the Marquis, with great sweetness, ' to sit in the company of this Sublime Society of Snugs, of whom I am one — I have become a Snug ' — he looked round here with a smile — ' and to hear from their EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY 283 lips the doctrines which were formerly the secret possession of nobles and philosophers. There has been a general diffusion of prin- ciples : the world has become a creature who reasons. I recognise my masters, and watch them with interest. In Paris I was compelled to fly from them. This ardent youth ' — he laid his hand upon Archer's shoulder — ' pants to become a Danton, or a Marat, or a Robes- pierre. Perhaps he will : it is quite possible. When you sit in the church to-morrow, Nevill, you will hear behind the hymn-tune the air of " Ca ira." If you pass the school, you may fancy that the master is teaching the innocent children the ' Eights of Man.' You, yourself, my young friend, will never be a Marat. You may, however, aspire to become a Bailly or a Lafayette. Here, you see, I watch and study my masters.' The societies which then grew up like mushrooms in every town, whether they called themselves the Friends of the People, or the Corresponding Society, or the Con- stitutional Society, or the Association for Disseminating Political Knowledge, or any- 284 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER thing else, were neither more nor less than Revolutionary Societies. The addresses which were ordered and circulated everywhere by these societies, though they claimed no more than a reformed Parliament, were revolu- tionary, because the authors of the address knew well from the history of the National Assembly what would follow such a Reform. What but a Revolutionary spirit could have dictated the following passage contained in the address of the Constitutional Society to the Jacobin Club in Paris ? ' In contemplating the political condition of nations, we cannot conceive a more diabolical system of government than that which has been generally practised over the world to feed the avarice and to gratify the wickedness of ambition ; the fraternity of the human race has been destroyed, as if the several nations of the earth had been created by rival gods. As if one can now realise the objection, that there was never a time when there was any fraternity of the human race ! ' So widely spread were these sentiments, so numerous were these societies, so general EQUALITY AXD FRATERNITY 28 5 was the discontent of the people, that I am astonished when I think about this time that the uprising which we expected and looked for daily never took place, greatly to the dis- appointment of our French friends, who most confidently counted upon it. I know that the various societies in London, such as the Friends of the People, meeting at Freemasons' Tavern, the London Corresponding Society, of Exeter 'Change, and the Three Tims, Borough, were prepared for such a rising of the English people. That there was none was averted, I am convinced, by the national horror at the revolutionary Tribunal, the Eeia - n of Terror, and the trial and execution of the Queen. All sober men withdrew, reason and logic hid their heads, it was felt that such evils as we groaned under were far more tolerable than the reign of Eobespierre and his miscreant crew. -S6 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER CHAPTER IH THE CHURCH SERVICE You have now learned in what perilous waters we were all embarked. Sylvia, poor child, distraught and sick to death ; George lying also under the visitation of Heaven (unless the wise woman was right, and he was under the influence of Evil Eye and Evil Heart), and in that despairing frame of mind which lays a man open to any kind of danger ; I myself, my own parents being entirely ignorant of the tiling, an active member of a Revolutionary Club, of which the schoolmaster of St. Katherine's (the Society being ignorant of this) was the leading- spirit. In all thai followed afterwards, it may be fairly argued that all was brought upon me, if not upon George, by our own THE CHURCH SERVICE 287 headstrong folly. What had I to do with the upsetting of the British Constitution ? Yet, looking back, I perceive how I was little by little — first by reading, then by meditating, lastly by discourse and argument — carried into a current which, gentle at first and imperceptible, soon grew into a flowing tide irresistible for my frail bark. You who have read so far may look around and witness the gathering of the threatening force irresistible. As yet, how- ever, you have seen only the gathering or the threatening of the storm. In the horizon gleam the lightnings ; around us grumble the distant thunders ; black are the clouds which already hide the sun and roll up threatening from the edge of the waters ; it blows chill, the sea rises, the bark rocks and rolls, the masts creak and the cordage strains ; the sailors look about them with apprehensive eyes. Lord grant the ship prove tight, and give plenty of sea-room. Even now the storm is bursting upon us, and that witli such fury that I wonder how we lived through it. Yet we were spared. Buffeted and beaten by 288 .ST". KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER Wave and wind we were, truly, and in danger of our lives, yet we reached the port at last. It was Sunday morning, the Sunday after George made his unfortunate attempt to learn the truth from Sylvia's own lips — the truth, indeed, he got, but not the reasons. We were all in church, except that poor child herself. The pews in the nave — painted red, to imitate mahogany — were newly-constructed in the year 1778, when the church was also newly-paved. They are arranged on either side of a middle aisle. There is a cross aisle in which stands the pulpit. Service is held in the nave, but the carved wooden doors to the screen which separates the choir are always wide open, so that those who sit in them can see into that part of the building. As soon as I was big enough to see over the top of the pew, it had always been my delight and occupation during the service to gaze through these doors upon the monuments carved with hundreds of niches for statue-, coats-of-arms, cherubims, flowers, and all kinds of devices ; upon the stalls, lofty, carved THE CHURCH SERVICE 289 within and without ; upon the altar screen, also carved, the figures on the monuments, the tablets on the walls, and the great east window with its glorious Catherine wheel above, through which the sun would still be shining at the first part of morning service, falling upon the carved work, and making it look as if it was made of red gold. I can » never read certain parts of the Book of Kevelations without thinking of the choir of St. Katherine's with the sun shining into it in the morning. As for the stalls we used, as children, to number and name them. All had their seats curiously carved beneath ; and all were differ- ent. These carvings we associated with the occupant of the stall. This one, for instance, carved with a lion and a bird, was for the Master ; this, with boys and birds, for the Senior Brother ; this, with a hawk and dove, for the next Brother ; the pelicans denoted the Senior Sister's stall; the angel with a bagpipe we assigned to the Commissary ; that of the Devil with long ears carrying two heads, was for the High Bailiff: and so on. VOL. I. U 2 9 o 57*. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER It was always, I say, my delight as a boy on the Sunday morning, while the sermon, which I could not understand, rolled over my head, and echoed in the roof, to gaze through these doors upon the beautiful structure of the choir, with its lofty clustered pillars, its roof of open timbers, its splendid great east window, and the monuments, rich and noble, which stand against its walls. I have always pitied the unfortunate children who are taken to mean and ugly chapels or churches where there is nothing that can help the soul to rise out of its earthly tabernacle. Where high arches are reared to support a magnificent roof of timber work, where the windows are built with curious and beautiful tracery, where the walls are old and covered with monu- ments, where the organ rolls along the aisles and echoes in the roof, there the soul is surely attuned to higher flights, is surely open to the influences of prayer and praise. I am now well aware that this church, beautiful as it is, was formerly still more beautiful. The hand of man has done much to deface the work of an architect who was, THE CHURCH SERVICE 291 if we may so speak, inspired of Heaven. Surely men are inspired at different times in different ways. When the people had no learning, their teachers were inspired to build these noble churches, by which they were admonished of things greater and more wonderful than they could understand. At a later time, when men had begun to read, great poets were inspired — as Milton and Shakespeare. At another time, when men had begun to examine the wonders of Nature and the Creation, they were inspired to make great discoveries. Always, in every age. something to maintain man's faith. As for the choir, however, there were formerly side- windows, which are now bricked up. Some day, perhaps, we shall take out those bricks and restore the windows as they were. Then the choir will be full of light, as it should be. And formerly there was painted glass in every window, so that the light was of many colours. and the church was splendid with its blaze of colours. When thai day of restoration comes, they will also, 1 am sure, take away the presenl mean and unsightly pews which now cover 1 2 292 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER the nave, and replace them with others of more suitable material and better work. In many of the churches in the City a noble example has been set of precious carvings devoted to the sanctuary. They will also, at the same time, most certainly throw open again the great west window, now partly blocked up by brickwork to allow of the school being built outside, and partly hidden by the organ-loft and organ. But all these blemishes together cannot destroy the beauty of the venerable church. The monuments in the church I know by heart, with all the legends and epitaphs, of which there are so many. The most splendid is that to the memory of John Holland, Duke of Exeter, and of his two wives, Anne and Constance. The figures of all three are represented in marble. To describe the carved work of this tomb would take too long. Besides, St. Katherine's is not so very far removed from London for tho3e who wisli to see it. Suffice it to say that there is no tomb in the country more splendid than that of -lolni Holland. .Near it is a marble tablet THE CHURCH SERVICE 593 to the memory of the Hon. George Montagu, Master of the Hospital. Opposite to the tomb of the Duke is a nameless monument ; the . figures of a man and woman praying are left, but the legend and the escutcheon are defaced. On the south side of the altar is a singular monument in copper, representing a man and his wife kneeling on tasselled cushions at a double desk. They are William Cutting and his wife. Here dead in part, whose best part never dyetk, A benefactor — William Cutting lyeth; Not dead, if good deeds could keep men alive, Nor all dead, since good deeds do men revive. Gunville and Kaies his good deeds may record, And will (no doubt) him praise therefore can afford. Where were Gunville and Kaies, we used to wonder ? Saint Katrins eke near London, can it tell, Goldsmythes and Merchant Taylors knowe it well ; Two country fcownes his civil bounty blest, East Derham and Norton Fitzwarren west. More did he than this table can unfold The worlde his fame, the earth kis earth doth hold. Avery noble record. It was with disappoint- ment that I afterwards learned that the busy world has now well-nigh forgotten the faint' of William Cutting. The whole church is 294 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER full of monuments ; here are buried many brave and skilful captains both of the King's navy and the merchant-service, with their wives and children ; here are buried many Masters, Commissaries, Brothers, Sisters, and officers of the Hospital ; and here he a multi- tude of dead now forgotten, but in their day worthy and honoured residents of the Precinct. There is nowhere to be found a church so rich in poetic memorials of the dead ; to be sure there is nowhere in England a foundation so old as St. Katherine's. No college at Oxford or Cambridge is so old. This church stands where there has been a church since the thirteenth century. The ground on which our footsteps rest is all human dust. The Precinct is a poor place now, but great and illustrious people lie buried here — infant princes, noble ladies, great men — here, for in- stance, lies the grand-daughter of Sir Julius Cajsar, Joanne Rampayn : Dying, she did a .son bequeath, In -whom she lives in spite of death. Thus when tin- old phoenix sweetly dies The new doth from her ashes rise. Her huslmnd's love this monument rears, Her sister writes these words with tears. THE CHURCH SERVICE 295 Her sister was Lady Anna Poyntz. Husband, sister, son — where are they all now ? Or there was the monument to Eobert Beadle, who was a citizen of London, a Free- mason, and Master Gunner of the Tower : lie now rests quiet, in his grave secure, "Where still the noise of guns he can endure ; His martial soul is doubtless now at rest, Who in bis lifetime was so oft opprest "With cares and tears and strange cross acts of late, But now is happy and in glorious state. What ' strange cross acts ' were those which disturbed the peace of this worthy Master Gunner ? And there were the tomb and epitaph of Hannah Lorrymore — perhaps an ancestress of the Prebendary. She was seventy-nine years of age : March with his wind hath struck a cedar tall, And weeping April mourns the cedar's fall ; May now intends no beauteous flowers to tiring, Because he has lost the flower of the spring. We live in a polite age. It is indeed a mark of urbanity when the death of an old gentlewoman of seventy-nine is represented as the loss of the flowers of spring. There are 296 57: KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER many more monuments in this church ; it is enough to speak of these. ' The place, indeed,' said the Prebendary, 'is a veritable Carapo Santo. It is more ; it is to that part of London, as yet unbuilt, outside the City boundary on the east what Westmin- ster Abbey is to the part lying west of Temple Bar. It is an ancient and venerable Cathedral, with its College of Brothers and Sisters, its rich foundation, its schools and almshouses, waiting for the growth of that new London which at present lies along the river-bank. Yet a few years shall pass, then from Aklgate to Bow, from Wapping and Poplar to Hackney, wiiere now are scattered houses and rural hamlets, there may arise a great city, more populous than Westminster — as busy as the City itself. Then shall St. Katherine's become what, in the wisdom of the Lord, who inspired its foundation, it was intended to be — the cenl n • and fountain of spiritual blessing to the new city. For the present the Hospital sleeps. We are unprofitable save to the little Precinct itself; our brothers and sisters do not reside; we own but little duty ; we do but little work. THE CHURCH SERVICE 297 Let us possess our souls in patience ; we shall pass away, but the Hospital will remain. Soon or late the munificence of our two Queens shall blossom again in such a way, and with such profusion of fruit, as they little expected or hoped.' Our congregation is small ; out of the two thousand live hundred people, or thereabouts, who live in the Precinct, not more than a hundred come to church. The rest lead godless lives. For our people there is no excuse, because there has always been this church in their midst. Those who live lower down the river may plead that it is only of late years that churches have been erected for them; namely, in Ratcliffe Highway, at Shadwell, Limehouse, and Wapping. As yet only the better sort are found within the walls of these churches — those who own the ropewalks, those who are master-boatbuilders, mastmakers, sailmakers, and the like. The common people — the sailors, and the folk who live upon them — stay outside. Nay, who would expect within the walls of a church the keepers of the mughouses and the 298 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER taverns, the crimps of Wapping, the flaunting queans of Ratclifie, inside a church ? The service is not for them : it is for those who put on a clean shirt on Sunday, and have a best coat, and come with their beards shaven and their hair brushed — externally as clean as inwardly they pray to be. To this common sort Sunday is only a day on which they do no work — Sabbath-keepers are they, therefore, every one. They go to church but three times in their lives — when they are baptized, when they are married, and when they are buried. For the rest of their lives Sunday is a holiday, when they can lie in bed all the morning and drink for the rest of the day. After such a life, what can be the end? This is a question which one asks in fear and trembling. Nor can any man find an answer. On the north side of the church, near the middle, stands the noble pulpit given by Sir Julius Ca;sar when lie was Master, in the time of James I. It is the finest pulpit, I believe, in the country, made of wood, richly and finely carved with representations, as L always thought, of the Temple. Under the THE CHURCH SERVICE 299 panels is written : ' Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood which was made for the preaching. — Nell. viii. 4.' Our own pew, as I have said, was in the front, at the intersection of the cross, so that one could plainly look through the wide open doors of the screen into the choir. On the other side of the aisle was the Lieutenant's pew, and here, this day, lie sat with Sister Katherine and George. On Sunday he went about dressed in his uniform, the Kind's scarlet showing very line in the dark church. As for George, he had now put off the blue coat and brass buttons, which showed his profession and his rank in the merchant service, and had assumed the sober brown which suits the substantial owner of a Dock at Rotherhithe. But in his face there was no joy at Ids advancement. "With hanging head he stood up for the reading of the Psalms : his voice was silent when the hymn was sing- ing : he looked not about the church, as was his wont : he showed no sign of any attention at all to what was said or sung in prayer or in praise. Yet, in the bearing of soldier and 300 57: KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER sailor alike in church, there is something which marks their profession. When hands are piped for prayer they fall in, orderly and respectful. The Church Service is a part of discipline. To the end of his days the old sailor — unless he goes to live in Wapping or Shadwell, where he may easily fall into evil courses — continues to attend his church, and sits the service through with motionless face and rigid limbs. Your landsman, if he come to church at all — a thing not uncommon in our parts — will still be betraying, by his fidgeting his restless eyes, his frequent hem, an impatience for the conclusion, which on board ship might produce consequences of a disagreeable kind. The sermon was preached by Dr. Lor- ry more. He took for his text that verse of St. Luke's Gospel which asks whether those on whom the tower fell were sinners above their brethren. When he spoke of the innocent struck with the guilty, when he pointed out that the most God-fearing may be confounded with the mosl wicked in one common destruc- tion, when he showed how the innocent THE CHURCH SERVICE 301 cliildren perish with their guilty parents, how the pestilence strikes down with impartial hand the good as well as the bad ; how in battle the just man falls beside the unjust, the brave and the coward are both struck by the cannon-ball — it was clear that his mind was running upon the affliction of our house- hold, the strange and mysterious suffering of an innocent girl. lie pointed out, further, that the hope of the Christian is not for any- thing earthly — either for love, or for honour, or for place, or for bodily health, in all of which he takes his lot with the unrighteous — but for the things beyond : so that, though this is a hard saying, lie should ask for nothing in the world save such things as are helpful in spiritual progress. He owned that it is given to few indeed thus to abandon the world ; he said that if all together agreed so to dispose things temporal, society would fall to pieces; there would be no longer King, Lords, or Commons : there would be no trading, no wars, no manufactures, 110 wealth, no property ; none would be above another: nay. there would be no giving in marriage, and the 302 ST. KATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER human race in less than a hundred years would come to an untimely end before any of the great questions and problems of human society had been solved, and before the secrets of nature had been half explored. We must not expect or desire, he said, such extremities of faith ; but the contemplation of such things should console us in all times of affliction, especially when those who were nearest to us, and those who were the most innocent, were struck. He then instanced the case of Job, which he treated as a Divine allegory rather than as a true history. So he proceeded witli a discourse full of wisdom and consolation, and delivered most movingly as from the depths of his own heart, or as if he was reason- ing with himself as well as with us — a thing; which I have found in all speeches or sermons which greatly affect the hearer — and com- forting himself in the trouble which had fallen upon him as well as upon us. He concluded with the words from that same book — 'Touching the Almighty, we cannot find liim out : lie is excellent in power and in judgment, and in plenty of justice.' When THE CHURCH SERVICE 303 the sermon was over and the concluding prayers, the organ began to roll. Now, after such a discourse, one would have expected soft and gracious music, such as would fill the soul, already softened by a wise man's words, with consolation and trust. But no — Richard Archer began to play a loud and tumultu- ous strain ; the rolling of his thunder echoed in the lofty roof; the chords threatened ; they fell upon the ear, I say, like loud threats and prophecies. ' Woe ! Woe ! Woe ! ' they cried. ' More sorrow, much more trouble ! ' At the church-door George plucked me by the sleeve. The rest passed on, and we stood together under the porch after the congregation had dispersed. ' I feel,' he whispered, ' as if I was going mad. All through the service I had been longing to spring out of my seat and shout : W'hat the Devil is that man playing? It sets my brain on fire.' 'It is the music for some scene of wrath and retribution. Patience, George ! The music matters nothing.' 304 ST. CATHERINE'S BY THE TOWER ' No — no — it is not the music. As if music would drive a man mad ! JS T o — no — it is not the music. Yet — good Heavens ! ' — he started. ' What is that ? ' For the organist ceased suddenly with such a crash of thunder, such a wild, terrific roar and blare of the deep music, that it seemed as if the Seven Seals were opened. Then a sudden silence, such a sileuce as precedes some great thing. We heard him in the loft above, shutting the organ, and descending the stairs of the loft. He came out and saw us standing to- gether. For a moment he did not speak. Then he stepped forward with a smile upon his lip. So smiled Judas when ' It is surely George Baysallance,' he said. ' It is long since I saw you last.' I te held out his hand in friendliness, but, in his bright keen eyes there was more curiosity than kindness. Why did lie peer into George's face so keenly? Why did he hold his hand ? Of old there had been no shaking of hands between them, but rather banging of heads with lists. ' I had heard that you were returned in THE CHURCH SERVICE 305 safety. I offer my congratulations. And that you had inherited a noble property. Again ' ' Why,' said George, suddenly waking into a friendliness as astonishing as it was hearty. ' Why, it is Dick Archer, surely — old Dick — shake hands Dick, shake hands. I think I have never seen you since we used to fi^ht among the graves behind the church.' They shook hands heartily and laughed. But still Richard Archer kept his eyes on George's. ' Ay,' said George, exactly as if he were answering a question (but none had been put). ; It is so, Dick. It blows a gale, and I know not what course to steer.' The other man said nothings still looking him in the face. 'You are right, Dick,' George went on. ' You are right. 'Tis a love story, and a mighty bad one too.' 1 Come with me,' said Archer. George followed, without a word. TIu \ walked away together, leaving me alone in the porch. I watched them. They walked VOL. I. v 3 o6 ST. /CATHERINE'S BY THE TO WEE across the court to Archer's house, where they entered, and the door was shut behind them. They left me, I say, alone, and in a dream. Why should George shake hands with the man so much lower than himself in rank — the son of a woman who was first a washerwoman and next a seamstress ; whose father no one knew ; a man whom he had always hated and avoided, except when he had to fight him ? Why should he suddenly become friendly, and even confidential? I went home full of sad forebodings, yet I knew not why. My soul was disquieted within me. EXD OF THE FIRST VOLUME printed ry ji-ottis woods and co., new-stiucjct squabk LONDON '* W -i&6 •J IJJI